In a conversation recently, I discovered this site http://graphic.ly upon spending 10 minutes here – it’s now bookmarked and one of my favorite sites to spread the word about. I am a huge comic junkie and this site gives me the kicks! The touch interface makes a world of difference…

Install this application on either your PC/Mac or your mobile devices including your WinMo phone, iPad or even an android device…when you have a spare minute, check this out!

Prepared to be WOW’d!

Here are some of the featured comics…

Let me know what you think…

-Mithun Dhar

So you know the drill! We are coming to town this quarter and speaking about a lot of good stuff for developers and IT Pro’s. But first you need to register. Here’s more information:

And if you are else where in the country, head over to www.msdnevents.com and put in your zip code to find an event close to you…

If you are a developer and wondering why we don’t have any events in Bellevue, just know that good things come to those who wait We are planning a ton of awesome events in the greater Seattle area and they’ll be published as soon as things firm up. Most of these events will be centered around Windows Phone 7

This is one of the most creative ad’s I’ve seen in a long time!

It’s a cool, highly-personalized experience that integrates your Facebook information into a narrative that explores the evolution of Microsoft Office.

Check it out at leisure: Office 2010 video demo using Facebook Connect

Don’t forget to tweet and spread the word!

-Mithun Dhar

The biggest differentiating point between Windows Phone 7 and other Mobile platforms is the ability to have a multi-screen approach for your app! Your app/game can co-exist on the phone, on the xbox (game) or the PC or even to your Zune HD. This ‘Write Once’ deploy everywhere is very unique to Windows Phone 7 platform and that’s where the power of the platform comes into picture. Of course, there are a few changes you have to accommodate in your code to make this happen but still this is the most effective platform to have the 4 screen story…

As you all know, games are one of the most popular segments that people buy and download on the Phone platforms. And, if you are a .NET developer – you are in luck! You already are a game developer but you still need a few basics. That’s why we put together a list for you to get started on writing your first game for the Windows Phone 7 platform. This JumpStart pack (first of the series) from the Creator’s club (XNA Studio) includes:

• 2D Touch Game Lab (Catapult Wars)
• 2D Graphics Sample
• 2D Particles Sample
• Sound + Music Sample
• Landscape/Portrait Orientation Sample
• 2D Asset Types Article
• Gestures Article
• Intro to C# from Objective-C and Java Article

Please note that all samples are playable on the Windows Phone 7 Emulator included in the XNA Game Studio 4.0 Beta!

And, all this goodness doesn’t end here. We will keep the goodness rolling the next few months to get more details check out our Education Roadmap

Please note that you will also need other Windows Phone Developer tools. This you can get from http://developer.windowsphone.com

So without further adieu, Start Developing your First Windows Phone App…

Play on!

-Mithun Dhar

If you haven’t bought tickets yet, go soon before the event gets sold out! www.eastsidenetworkingevent.com

Microsoft GM’s for Windows Phone and Windows Azure will be there. Oh, if you want to get hired – talk to our HR folks/Recruiters who will also be at the event.

Say hello if you see me!

-Mithun Dhar

As you all know there’s a App Gold Rush happening right about now! The best place for you to get started is: http://developer.windowsphone.com and of course, http://www.reddit.com/r/wp7dev/

That said, we are planning on having a few WP7 events in the near short term. So keep an eye open on my blog and we’ll be sure to get that information posted ASAP.

And, make sure to read this article as well – To understand how critical Developers are to Microsoft’s Windows Phone’s success!

Before I sign off, here’s some eye-candy for you!

And this is not too far fetched at all, http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/05/samsungs-transparent-oled-laptop-could-hit-retail-icetouch-pmp/

Want one?

-Mithun Dhar

This past week Inter-Op at Microsoft hit a new milestone by announcing the Microsoft Drivers for PHP for SQL Server 2.0. The major highlight of this release is the addition of the PDO_SQLSRV driver, which adds support for PHP Data Objects (PDO) and simplifies multiple database support for PHP developers. Source code published on Codeplex under the Apache 2.0 license. Another big feature in addition to accessing SQL Server, both drivers (SQLSRV and PDO_SQLSRV) also enable PHP developers to easily connect to and use Microsoft's cloud database offering, SQL Azure, and enjoy the benefits of a reliable and scalable relational database in the cloud.

Our engagement with the PHP community has been among our best. Thanks to the feedback from our partners and PHP developers, we are very excited to achieve this high level of interoperability with Microsoft’s SQL Server.

Also a new tidbit is the way we architected this release to make sure PHP developers are free to select the driver of their choice, using SQLSRV API (SQLSRV driver) or the new PDO API (PDO_SQLSRV driver) for accessing SQL Server or SQL Azure.

New architecture

While the major focus of this release was the PDO_SQLSRV driver, we took this opportunity to re-architect our code create a core functional layer so that we can offer the same functionality and consistency in both drivers (SQLSRV and PDO_SQLSRV). This new architecture enables us to add new features easily to both drivers.

You can read more about this and get code snippets from the SQL PHP blog…

Inter-op is great!

-Mithun Dhar

With less than 12 weeks away…this year’s Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference is right around the corner.

First things first: If you haven’t already registered – do it right now! As you already know, this PDC will be a lot smaller and more intimate than the other ones. Microsoft for the first time will be having the Professional Developer Conference in the Seattle area. In fact, it will be on the Microsoft Campus. This will be your opportunity to come be a part of our uber nice campus, enjoy the geekdom and get a chance to network with the people behind the products and technologies that you love so much! Because we’re on campus this year, attendees will enjoy unprecedented access to campus facilities, Microsoft developers and product teams. 

Registration: https://www.ustechsregister.com/PDC10/RegistrationSelect.aspx 

Please note that there are limited hotels in and around Redmond, WA. Here are my top 3 suggestions for where to stay:

Marriott Redmond Town Center

The Heathman Hotel

Courtyard by Marriott

I know the Heathman and the Courtyard both have courtesy shuttles to Campus. As I said earlier, hotels are extremely limited in the area so make sure to book them asap.

Keynote: I have said this before, and I’ll say it again – If you haven’t watched SteveB talk in person – then you really haven’t see passion! Steve Ballmer is one of the most entertaining and passionate people to watch on stage. This PDC will have him keynote along with Bob Muglia. These people will help set the strategy for the company for the coming year. Rest assured, you will not won’t to miss this!

The high-level agenda is now live on the website. Basically, we’ll focus on three tracks - client/devices, Cloud Services and developer tools & technologies

As always, Get the latest PDC news on Twitter via @PDCEvent #PDC10 and follow the blog at: PDC10 Blog

And in case you can’t attend in person, fret not! We got you covered all the sessions and keynotes will be streamed online and guaranteed this will be the best experience you’ve seen!

If you have any questions about Microsoft PDC 2010 – feel free to tweet me about it! @mithund

Awesomeness comes to those who wait!

-Mithun Dhar

So if you are travelling on I-5 or I-90 or the 520, you must be wondering what these digital screens are and more importantly why they are blank. Well, if you are as curious as me, then you’d know that our Freeways are getting a facelift. In fact, it’s more than a facelift – they are becoming smarter! Starting in a couple of weeks these freeways will become Variable speed, dynamic lanes and make our commute more smarter.

Here are some of the signs that you should know about:

Lane closed
Lane open
Current speed limit

Merge left
Merge right
Merge left or right

Seems pretty obvious to me! Anyway, if you need more information: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/I5/ActiveTrafficManagement/

• Video: video simulation of how smarter highways work
• Photos: smarter highways electronic signs
• Blog: discuss about smarter highways

Hope this helps! Now, if only we had smart drivers…*wishful thinking*

-Mithun Dhar

Non Programmers of the world unite!

The greatest IDE just became a whole lot appealing to Non-Programmers. Visual Studio LightSwitch, which is a RAD tool is a stand alone product in the Visual Studio family was announced yesterday in the VS Live event that’s happening on campus. This tool has been in the works for quite some time now and most of you might know this by the code name Kittyhawk. The broad public beta will be available on August 23rd. You can learn more about LightSwitch here: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/lightswitch 

It’s a really simple tool that allows you to build those internal LOB applications.These can be local or browser based and it uses Silverlight. Another cool thing is these apps can run on premise or in the cloud. There’s a lot of talk about how similar this tool is to Microsoft Access. There is some truth to this and just like in access you can build a simple tool within minutes/hours and make it look really polished. One area where this is different though is, right from the get-go this application will be scalable and architected to take it easily to the cloud. So when you need to do ‘more’ than what the app is doing and want to extend it, you can start using Visual Studio/Expression suite of products and easily reuse the code. This approach makes this tool ideal for those initial starter projects.

Also, LightSwitch can easily consume external data in SharePoint or SQL (including SQL Azure in the cloud) or using RIA Services– it provides a data oriented application design paradigm right out of the box thus ensuring good coding practices for your app. If you’re building a standalone application, you can design your tables from scratch as well.

Resources:

a. Here’s a quick video that encapsulates what/why/how of LightSwitch: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Dan/Jay-Schmelzer-Introducing-Visual-Studio-LightSwitch/

b. Here’s a Jason Zander showing you step by step of how to build your first LightSwitch Application: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jasonz/archive/2010/08/03/introducing-microsoft-visual-studio-lightswitch.aspx

c. VS Live Keynote and Intro to LightSwitch Video: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/lightswitch 

Hope this helps!

-Mithun Dhar