Tanzim Saqib

Stay Connected to Microsoft Bangladesh

Tanzim-Saqib — Fri, 31 May 2013 05:21:59 GMT

We have introduced a lot of developer resources and features lately as we always do. We are trying to use this page as a central point of reaching out to Microsoft Bangladesh for professional developers, IT Pros and technical students. We have decommissioned a few resources alongside to keep it more relevant to the current time.

Follow the resources below in order to stay informed of what Microsoft Bangladesh is doing with you:

Microsoft Bangladesh on Facebook	Largest .NET Developer’s group

http://aka.ms/bddev	http://aka.ms/dotnetdevs

General

Tanzim Saqib’s & Microsoft Bangladesh’s blog	http://blogs.msdn.com/saqib
Tanzim Saqib’s Facebook (available for networking)	http://fb.com/zimsaqib
Technical Community	http://technicalcommunity.com
Link to this post	http://aka.ms/bd

Recommended Self-pace Training

Microsoft Virtual Academy	https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/
Microsoft Certified Community Connection	http://msl-events.cloudapp.net/

Students

Apply for Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) program	http://aka.ms/applymsp
Apply for Internship @ Microsoft Bangladesh	http://aka.ms/intern
Register for Imagine Cup	http://aka.ms/icreg

Windows Phone

SDK & App submission	http://dev.windowsphone.com
App submission guide for Bangladesh	http://codetv.net/464/wp-app-submission-guide/
Develop a game under 10 minutes	http://codetv.net/371/superheroes-wp/
AppCampus: World’s hottest developer program	http://codetv.net/425/appcampus/

Microsoft Communities

.NETTER	https://www.facebook.com/groups/netter/
SharePoint Experts	http://aka.ms/spexperts
SharePoint Architect Forum	https://www.facebook.com/groups/sharepointarchitectforum/
Microsoft Solutions Experts	http://aka.ms/mssepro
Tech Forum	https://www.facebook.com/groups/techforumbd/
Cloud Computing Tech Forum	https://www.facebook.com/groups/212295488871243/

See you in the community!

Thank you for participating in the Windows Server 2012 contest

Tanzim-Saqib — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 03:58:14 GMT

The contest is now closed. Congratulations to our contest winner who has won himself a brand new Nokia Lumia 710 Windows Phone!

Hasanuzzaman Shuvo (******829)

For more updates and upcoming events, please continue to visit TechNet or subscribe to the free TechNet Flash newsletter to get the latest updates and resources for IT Professionals. You can also learn more about Windows Server 2012 at MVA, a free online learning platform that lets you learn about Microsoft solutions at your own pace.

Windows Phone 8 App Development Power Booster

Tanzim-Saqib — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 05:11:27 GMT

I wrote a capsule size power booster that may help you to be an intermediate Windows Phone app developer from some knowledge of Visual Studio style solution development. After I have discovered a lot of demand, I decided to post it as an article instead of a pdf.

Assuming Reader’s Zero Idea About Windows Phone

Microsoft’s entrance to the smartphone market dates back to year 2000 with the debut of Pocket PC 2000, the original forefather of the Windows Mobile and great grandfather of Windows Phone. Unlike its forefathers, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market. Microsoft offers a new user interface with Windows Phone with its design language named Metro, integrates the operating system with third party and other Microsoft services, and controls the hardware it runs on. They also believe same software excellence can be delivered without selling a dedicated device, so Windows Phone is just a mobile operating system rather than a dedicated phone like iPhone.

Windows Phone 7 (now 8): A new kind of phone

Microsoft has come up with a brand new concept of phone. They have taken nothing from the predecessor or the competitors. When given the chance for a fresh start, the Windows Phone design team drew from many sources of inspiration to determine the guiding principles for the next generation phone interface. Sources included Swiss influenced print and packaging with its emphasis on simplicity, way-finding graphics found in transportation hubs and other Microsoft software such as Zune, Office Labs and games with a strong focus on motion and content over chrome.

This is a completely new start in terms of user interface and user experience. A specially-made version of Microsoft's Segoe font family, Segoe WP, is used as the main font family for all typographical elements. The Metro design language was designed specifically to consolidate groups of common tasks to speed up usage. This is accomplished by excluding superfluous graphics and instead relying on the actual content to also function as the main UI. The resulting interfaces favor larger hubs over smaller buttons and often feature laterally scrolling full bleed canvases. Page titles are usually large and consequently also take advantage of lateral scrolling.

Animation plays a large part, with transitions, and user interactions such as presses or swipes recommended to always be acknowledged by some form of natural animation or motion. This is intended to give the user the impression that the UI is "alive" and responsive, with "an added sense of depth." The same Metro language is being applied in Windows 8, XBOX and Windows Live as well.

Platform and Tools for App Development

Microsoft’s all development platforms and tools are based on .NET and Visual Studio respectively. Windows Phone’s are no exception. Windows Phone tooling gives all that you need, including new Visual Studio project types, integrated Phone emulator to run, test, set breakpoints and debug your apps. You can build apps and games using: Silverlight, suitable for regular apps, and XNA Framework, which is suitable for high performance graphics rendering such as games. We will focus on apps only in here, so expect no XNA coverage. Navigate to http://dev.windowsphone.com and grab the free tools. That’s all you need! Class library reference if you feel like start hacking now: http://bit.ly/dq0uqf!

First Project: Solution Structure

File -> New -> Project –> Windows Phone -> Windows Phone Application. After the solution has been prepared for you, first thing that should catch your eyes is the MainPage.xaml. This is equivalent of Default.aspx if you are from Web background, and Form1.cs if you are a Windows Forms guy or girl. So far so good. But, like Web form, it has a XML-like view (known as XAML) and a codebehind.

Let’s open the XAML file. XAML is an extensible version of XML format particularly designed for constructing WPF and Silverlight user interfaces. Learn XAML from here: http://bit.ly/sNzLza. Like regular XML schema references you will also find many in that XAML file. They are required for resources and controls are used in the page, much like control namespaces referenced in the WebForms. You will notice that there is a root element, like XML must have one, named Grid with x:Name=“LayoutRoot.” Yes, that’s how you name an element (call them controls if you will). Obviously, you do have the same Toolbox, Properties, Solution Explorer and similar design experiences as WebForms and Windows Forms. Scroll a bit, and you will see three elements, two of which make sense to us: Two TextBlocks having ApplicationTitle and PageTitle. TextBlocks are Labels, only more powerful! Last thing we see is another Grid named ContentPanel.

Hello World

Now drag and drop a Button element into that Grid, and see how the XAML changes accordingly. Double click the Button and as you expect it will open the

codebehind window for you to write an even handler for button click. We will start with a hello to the world:

MessageBox.Show("Hello World!");

Let’s go ahead and enhance this a bit. Give the ‘page title’ TextBlock a name, say “PageTitle.” Drop a TextBox, Button and WebBrowser control with name txtUrl, btnGo and browser respectively. Add some code:

private void btnGo_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 
{ 
    if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(txtUrl.Text)) 
    { 
        MessageBox.Show("Please type an URL first."); 
        return; 
    }

    PageTitle.Text = "Loading..."; 
    browser.Navigate(new Uri(txtUrl.Text)); 
    }

private void browser_LoadCompleted(object sender, NavigationEventArgs e) 
{ 
    PageTitle.Text = "Completed."; 
}

Congratulations! You have built your first app.

Do More Hacks

Show your own HTML instead of a webpage:

browser.NavigateToString("<html><body><h1>Good morning! 
Where's my PC?</h1></body></html>");

Call JavaScript method from within your app:

browser.InvokeScript("my_cool_method", "parameter1", 
     "parameter2", "parameterN");

Get notified by an event in the app, on a call from JavaScript code:
```
browser.ScriptNotify
```

Fun with Maps

Let us have some fun with Map element. First of all, we need to explicitly give the app permission to use map capabilities. In order to do that navigate to Solution Explorer, Properties, WMAppManifest.xml, Capabilities and then check on the “ID_CAP_MAP” option. Now look at the following code and follow the comments in line.

private void button1_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    // set map to a longitude and latitude at zoom 10
    map1.SetView(new GeoCoordinate(23.723, 90.4086), 10);
    
    
    // change to Road view
    map1.CartographicMode = MapCartographicMode.Road; 
    // to Ariel view
    map1.CartographicMode = MapCartographicMode.Aerial;

    ++map1.ZoomLevel;
}

private void map1_DoubleTap(object sender, GestureEventArgs e)
{
    var point = e.GetPosition(map1); // get position on the screen

    // translate screen position to geo location
    var location = map1.ConvertViewportPointToGeoCoordinate(point);

    MessageBox.Show(string.Format(
         "Double tapped Lat/Long: {0:0.000}/{1:0.000}", 
                location.Latitude, location.Longitude));
}

Accessing GPS

Now that we have learned how to use elements from codebehind, let us see how we can access Windows Phone sensors, among which Global Positioning System (GPS) data is particularly interesting. Again, to be able to use location capability, we will have to check on “ID_CAP_LOCATION.”

private readonly GeoCoordinateWatcher _GeoWatcher;
public MainPage()
{
    InitializeComponent();
    _GeoWatcher = new GeoCoordinateWatcher(GeoPositionAccuracy.Default);
    _GeoWatcher.Start();
}

private void button1_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    var position = _GeoWatcher.Position;
    MessageBox.Show(string.Format(
          "Current Lat/Long/Alt: {0:0.000}/{1:0.000}/{2:0.000}",
                position.Location.Latitude, 
                position.Location.Longitude, 
                position.Location.Altitude));
}

You need to use Additional tools available in the phone Emulator to enter some fake data and feed it to the app, so that you can simulate your app’s behavior in actual condition. We will take a stab at it in the Accelerometer section. A point to remember while programming with sensors is that they use device power and can drain it pretty quickly.

Accelerometer

Let us access 3D position data of the phone. We need a reference to Microsoft.Devices.Sensors:

Accelerometer accel;

private void button1_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    accel = new Accelerometer();
    accel.CurrentValueChanged += accel_CurrentValueChanged;

    accel.Start();
}

void accel_CurrentValueChanged(object sender, 
                    SensorReadingEventArgs<AccelerometerReading> e)
{
    var reading = e.SensorReading.Acceleration; 
    // access reading.X, reading.Y, 
    // reading.Z, e.SensorReading.Timestamp
}

Feeding Fake Data

You can use Additional tools to capture screenshot of the app, which is important for submitting your app to the marketplace. You can feed fake map as well as accelerometer data.

Calling Delegates without Blocking UI Thread

Every UIElement (basically all elements are derived from this type eventually) has a Dispatcher property, which lets you invoke a delegate without blocking the UI thread from which it is being invoked:

void cell_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() => MessageBox.Show(gameResult));
}

ApplicationBar

Application Bar gives you extra commands to execute on the current view try adding the following code inside <phone:PhoneApplicationPage /> of MainPage.xaml:

<phone:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar>
    <shell:ApplicationBar IsVisible="True" IsMenuEnabled="True">
        <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton 
              IconUri="/Images/appbar_button1.png" Text="Button 1"/>
        <shell:ApplicationBarIconButton 
              IconUri="/Images/appbar_button2.png" Text="Button 2"/>
        <shell:ApplicationBar.MenuItems>
            <shell:ApplicationBarMenuItem Text="Item 1"/>
            <shell:ApplicationBarMenuItem Text="Item 2"/>
        </shell:ApplicationBar.MenuItems>
    </shell:ApplicationBar>
</phone:PhoneApplicationPage.ApplicationBar>

The following is not the output of the above code, rather an example how a real app makes use of the feature:

Launchers and Choosers

There are classes that allow to prompt user for range of input types and use it in your app. Many of them also allow to use default phone tasks, such as SMS compose Photo chooser. The following example allows user to take photo which your app can directly use. In this case, we have rendered it in an Image element:

private CameraCaptureTask _CameraCaptureTask = new CameraCaptureTask();
public Page1()
{
    InitializeComponent();
    _CameraCaptureTask.Completed
         += _CameraCaptureTask_Completed;
}

private void ApplicationBarMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    _CameraCaptureTask.Show();
}

void _CameraCaptureTask_Completed(object sender, PhotoResult e)
{
    if (e.TaskResult == TaskResult.OK)
    {
        var bmp = new BitmapImage();
        bmp.SetSource(e.ChosenPhoto);
        image1.Source = bmp;
    }
}

Another example, which opens phone’s default SMS compose screen with pre-filled values:

new SmsComposeTask { Body = "Hello, SMS!", To = "+880101010101" }.Show();

NavigationService

Your app will not live in a single page. It will obviously need multiple pages, so navigating around them is a very necessary aspect to address. Pages on Windows Phone work much like browser. When you click on Back after you have visited a link in a browser, it will take you to the originating page. Both browser and Windows Phone’s navigation system keep track of the visited links in a stack, and in both cases Back and Forward work the same way. Let us take a look how you can navigate from one page to another along with parameters:

NavigationService.Navigate(new Uri("/Forecast.xaml?City=" + city.Text, 
     UriKind.Relative));

Now in the Forecast.xaml, see how it is being picked up:

protected override void OnNavigatedTo(NavigationEventArgs e)
{
    var city = this.NavigationContext.QueryString["City"];
}

Making a Web Request

You can use WebClient as well as WebRequest for this, but let us look at the latter, the more difficult one here:

private void MakeRequest()
{
    // initialize a new WebRequest
    var woeidRequest = (HttpWebRequest) WebRequest.Create(new Uri(url));

    // set up the state object for the async request
    var woeidState = new State {AsyncRequest = woeidRequest};

    // start the asynchronous request
    woeidRequest.BeginGetResponse(HandleWoeidResponse, woeidState);

    
    // .... more code to follow
}

private void HandleWoeidResponse(IAsyncResult asyncResult)
{
    // get the state information
    var woeidState = (State) asyncResult.AsyncState;

    var woeidRequest = woeidState.AsyncRequest;

    // end the async request
    woeidState.AsyncResponse = (HttpWebResponse) 
                                     woeidRequest.EndGetResponse(asyncResult);
    try
    {
        // get the stream containing the response from the async call
        var state = woeidState.AsyncResponse.GetResponseStream();
        var xmlState = XElement.Load(state);

        // .... more code to follow
    }
}

public class State
{
    public HttpWebRequest AsyncRequest { get; set; }
    public HttpWebResponse AsyncResponse { get; set; }
}

IsolatedStorage

You can save files for your app. You can even serialize your objects to files and retrieve and deserialize when necessary. Let us see this very useful helper class for such operations:

internal sealed class StorageHelper
{
    public static void DeleteFile(string fileName)
    {
        using (var appStorage = IsolatedStorageFile.GetUserStoreForApplication())
        {
            appStorage.DeleteFile(fileName);
        }
    }

    // Example: StorageHelper.Save("student.dat", student);
    public static void Save<T>(string fileName, T thing)
    {
        using (var appStorage = IsolatedStorageFile.GetUserStoreForApplication())
        {
            using (var file = appStorage.OpenFile(fileName, FileMode.Create))
            {
                using (var writer = new StreamWriter(file))
                {
                    var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
                    serializer.Serialize(writer, thing);
                    writer.Close();
                }
                file.Close();
            }
        }
    }

    // Example: var student = StorageHelper.Read<Student> ("student.dat");
    public static T Read<T>(string fileName) where T : new()
    {
        T thing;
        using (var appStorage = IsolatedStorageFile.GetUserStoreForApplication())
        {
            using (var stream = new IsolatedStorageFileStream(fileName, 
                                     FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Read, appStorage))
            {
                using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream))
                {
                    var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
                    thing = reader.EndOfStream ? 
                                 new T() : (T)serializer.Deserialize(reader);
                    reader.Close();
                    stream.Close();
                }
            }
        }

        return thing;
    }
}

HOW TO: Participate in Imagine Cup Bangladesh 2013

Tanzim-Saqib — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 16:02:11 GMT

We have been hosting bootcamps in a few selected university campuses in order to introduce Imagine Cup to the students. It is not possible to go and visit over 65 universities and inspire all the students in such a short period of time. Therefore, we are laying out the timeline of the deliverables that we are going to follow in Imagine Cup Bangladesh 2013. I would recommend that you read the following carefully.

Steps to Follow:

What	When
Get latest updates of the competition: Facebook page	All year round
1. Learn about rules and judging criteria	All year round
2. Find an idea and build the solution	All year round
3. Register your team here	by March 15, 2013
4. Submit App Summary to tanzims@microsoft.com. Download template.	by March 15, 2013
5. Submit 30-second video trailer to pitch and promote your solution by providing the link to tanzims@microsoft.com. Guidelines can be found here in the rules documents.	by March 15, 2013
6. Announce short-listed projects and invitation to visit Microsoft Bangladesh (MSBD)	by March 19, 2013
7. Showcase work in progress code to MSBD (be right on time)	March 21, 2013
8. Sign competition terms & conditions (for all members and mentors invited)	March 21, 2013
9. Publish list of local finalist teams after evaluating at Step 7	March 22, 2013
10. Attend grand finale (details to be shared later)	April 6, 2013

Few Important Notes

Your solution must be built on .NET Framework. Minor parts of the solution may use non-.NET components. If you are using such components make clear in the App Summary document and describe how you are using it. What is minor/major usage of non-.NET components are solely decided by Microsoft Bangladesh.
Usage of open source projects are allowed if the respective licenses permits. Major value delivery should be done by your code not by the open source projects.
Emphasize in your App Summary on how your project is making a difference.
30-second video trailer is a must. Use any video editing tool, but it has to be originally captured, recorded and edited by you.
Be always ready to open Visual Studio and show your code to us at any stage mentioned above.
Be mindful of the hardware-centric solution. Please refrain from planning to showcase your work to us using emulator except for Windows 8 & Windows Phone apps. If you solution has hardware interfacing, you have to demonstrate to us including the necessary hardware setup.
We will run the competition in one category only incorporating World Citizenship, Innovation and Games into it, but respective category’s rules and judging criteria applied.
Winning the local finals does not guaranty advancement to the world finals. There will be another round of competition online which will decide world finalists.
The competition is governed solely by Microsoft Bangladesh and we reserve the right to take necessary steps accordingly case by case basis which are not directly covered by rules documents.
Keep this blog post URL handy

Further Queries

Because we heavily use Facebook for our day to day communication, I would request you to reach out to our Facebook page or send me personal message instead of email. Emails are overrated – you know it. :)

6 Reasons to Work for the Community

Tanzim-Saqib — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 07:27:00 GMT

Many in the community ask me what the benefits are of working for the community. Most community activists, I believe, including myself, do not work for any tangible benefits, rather from sheer passion and love for the technology, although I do not find anything wrong if you intend to obtain something in return from your community involvement. Since you asked, here are some of the pragmatic outcomes that history has recorded being observed, and many of them are from my personal experience. If you consider getting a job at Microsoft is a success, you may want to take this blog post as a blueprint of that success from an Architect/Engineer community folk’s shoes.

Connections with Microsoft

Before I got a job offer from Microsoft, many already knew me. And it is one of the thousands of stories at Microsoft. The principle is very simple – you work on Microsoft technologies, you spread your work among the community online/offline, get recognition for your dedication, and then discover yourself popular inside and outside Microsoft. We cultivate this culture very strongly. When I was MVP (more on this later in this post) for years, I had easy access to Microsoft’s key strategists in DPE, and my input was always considered valuable for the improvement of the community. Essentially, in many ways, MVPs build up the community from ground up.

Connections with Industry Peers

Working in the community provides with ample opportunity to make new friends. They not only help you when needed be it Workflow troubleshooting, complex LINQ queries, Service deployment scenario, Script debugging, etc., but also will take your help as well when needed. Once you have made enough friends and names in the local industry, it often helps with finding new opportunities as well. Being out there and connecting with peers is a great way to excel in your professional career growth. Many of my friends ended up being a consultant and instructor besides their day jobs, after their years of sharing expertise among the community for free.

Ongoing Deep Technical Conversations

Software professionals usually like to be with likewise people. They prefer to chat, hangout, discuss usually with their peers, sometimes even more so than the opposite gender. What do they talk about anyway? Simplest answer is: Tech. When you sit down with bunch of people from various different kinds of work areas, interests and industries, you know already it is not the same as sitting with your coworkers who you work with 5 days a week solving the same/similar problems for the company. People from various roles and backgrounds, be it SQL DBA, Web Developer, Apps developers, Service developers, Architects, Designers, Testers, Managers, Decision Makers or IT Pros, you get different perspectives of software and services production and management. When you get to engage them online, it’s the same experience, so the community as vibrant as Microsoft’s is never a boring place.

If You Want to Learn Something, Write a Book About It

Before you can stand in front of the audience, or write an article, blog post, books, or open source projects, you really have to do your homework. Personal branding is something you cannot compromise with, because opportunities will come and go, but it will last forever, and there’s only one chance for making a mistake. Therefore, equipping yourself with the correct technical knowledge, right point of view, be able to answer audience questions, and what not is a good and systematic effort to learn even more on the technical side. Sometimes we learn more from delivering technical content than receiving. Apparently, Personal branding can help you to go a long way, which starts with recognition.

Recognition

Recognition is the by product of the consistent community contributions. If you continue to work on what you love the most about Microsoft technologies and start to share your expertise and experience with the community, you automatically gain respect and recognition as a result of your hard work. There are thousands of Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVP) awardee across the world since its inception who Microsoft awarded for sharing their world-class technical expertise among the community folks. By the way, MVPs such as myself are no longer eligible for the award while we work for Microsoft. Only a handful people Microsoft recognizes as MVP, but there are always many who are almost there. They have been identified by both Microsoft as well as the software producers of the industry who work on Microsoft technologies. Combined with the edge of internet, you always stand a good chance for new opportunities. In Bangladesh, local Microsoft community activists shine and thrive in the local software industry until they relocate to pursue foreign opportunities.

Opportunities

Every business requires technical expertise. If you are one of the recognized technical individuals, businesses are already knocking your doors because they need your help to sustain and grow their businesses. Many top community contributors that I know have to constantly refuse proposals of new jobs and business opportunities, because the demand is just too overwhelming for one person. Here’s an interesting fact of life: if you are already one of those top contributors, companies literally crave for you behind their closed doors, whereas you might be skeptical whether you yourself are qualified for such large/top class organizations or not. The truth is – sometimes they themselves become skeptical whether they could house a star expert like yourself for their companies at all.

I have been in the industry for quite some time. My last employer was British Telecom, where I served as a Technical Architect for 3.5 years, and my passion for the community was my after-work activities, but in the end I ended up being so much in love with sharing technical expertise, that I took it as the primary career in my life, starting my journey at Microsoft as Technical Evangelist (TE) for Bangladesh. What does a TE do anyway? A TE is responsible for planning and executing strategy for building capacity of a country’s developers and technical students. On behalf of Developer & Platform Evangelism of Microsoft, s/he helps out local technical community to succeed with Windows applications, services and experiences on cloud powered devices, built by our tools.

Sounds exciting, isn’t it? It, indeed, is! Do you want to be a prominent Microsoft community activist in Bangladesh? Shoot me an email: tanzims@microsoft.com

Build Apps. Win Windows Phone.

Tanzim-Saqib — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:20:10 GMT

We have received tremendous response from the Bangladeshi Windows Phone developer community. We have observed incredible enthusiasm in the Microsoft App-a-thon as well on November 3, 2012, where 80 selected participants built 100 apps in 1 day: 60 Windows Phone and 40 Windows 8 apps! These student folks developed so many apps that we were almost running out of awards. Therefore, we decided to launch this competition for Bangladeshi professionals and students only, “Build Apps. Win Windows Phone.” Publish as many apps as possible in the Windows Phone store by March 15, 2013 12am, and whoever tops all wins a Windows Phone. If we encounter a tie situation we will extend the competition by 1 week to allow you to get more apps published and win it. Prize will be given on the stage of Imagine Cup Bangladesh grand finale!

Sounds exciting? Here’s are the steps for you:

Build Windows Phone apps
Submit apps to Windows Phone Store
Prepare a list of app titles and URLs locating them to the Store
Send the list to tanzims@microsoft.com by March 15, 2013 12am
The winner will be invited to watch Imagine Cup Bangladesh Grand Finale and receive the prize from stage.

Terms and Conditions for the Build Apps. Win Windows Phone Contest

IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS (THE “TERMS AND CONDITIONS”) BEFORE ENTERING THE BUILD APPS. WIN WINDOWS PHONE CONTEST (“CONTEST”). THIS IS A LEGALLY BINDING AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOU AND MICROSOFT BANGLADESH LTD (“MICROSOFT”) ESTABLISHING THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH YOU ARE ENTITLED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CONTEST. BY ENTERING THIS CONTEST, YOU CONFIRM THAT YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTOOD, AND AGREE TO ABIDE BY, THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

1. This Contest is organized by Microsoft Bangladesh Ltd. (“Microsoft”). All residents of Bangladesh are eligible to participate in the Contest ("Participant"). If you are below the age of 18 years, you must obtain the appropriate permissions and releases from your parent or legal guardian in order to participate in the Contest.

2. The following are not eligible to participate in the Contest:

i. Employees of Microsoft and its related corporations and their immediate family members.

ii. Employees of any party which is directly involved in organizing, promoting or conducting the Contest.

iii. Employees of external auditors who are directly involved in the Contest.

3. The Contest shall be conducted from 11 December 2012 to 15 March 2013, both dates inclusive.

4. The Contest will work as follows:

i. Participant must submit apps to the Windows Phone store.

ii. The Participant is required to provide the list of published apps including URLs to tanzims@microsoft.com by 15 March 2013, 12am.

iii. The Participant with the most apps published as judged by Microsoft technical evangelists will win the grand prize.

iv. If two or more people have published same number of apps, another week will be extended to get more apps published to determine the final winner.

5. The Participant with the best answer in terms of accuracy, detail and being technically sound as selected by Microsoft (“Winner”) will be eligible for the grand prize of a Microsoft Windows Phone.

6. Results will be published on http://aka.ms/bd. The Winner will also be notified via email. The Winner will collect the prize from the Microsoft office at the following address:

Microsoft Bangladesh Limited

RM Center, 3rd Floor, 101 Gulshan Avenue,

Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

7. In the event prizes involve manufactured items, these shall be subject to the manufacturer's terms and conditions for warranty, service and maintenance, and Microsoft does not accept any responsibility for the same. In particular, prizes are provided by Microsoft "AS IS" without warranties of any kind, including warranties of merchantability, non-infringement of intellectual property, or fitness for any particular purpose.

8. Taxes and other levies imposed by any relevant applicable government or tax authority, as well as other costs including, insurance and incidental costs, that may be levied or incurred on the prizes shall be fully borne by the Participants.

9. You agree to have your name and details used for promotional purposes at Microsoft’s sole discretion. The prizewinner(s) in this Contest agree to have their names, answers and slogan announced should Microsoft choose to do so after the Contest period is over.

10. By entering the Contest, Participant expressly agree that your answer (“Submission”) does not contain any image or content that is unlawful, libelous, slanderous, defamatory or invasive of another person's right of privacy or right of publicity, or that Microsoft may reasonably deem harmful, vulgar, obscene, derogatory, pornographic, abusive, harassing, threatening, hateful, objectionable with respect to race, religion, creed, national origin or gender, or otherwise unfit for publication. Microsoft shall not be liable in any way for any Submission. Microsoft shall have no obligation to monitor Submissions provided by the Participants to Microsoft, but may do so at its discretion. Any Submission that, in the sole discretion of Microsoft, is considered inappropriate or unsuitable for publication will be deemed ineligible by Microsoft, and Microsoft may, in their sole discretion, remove a Submission from the Contest.

11. You represent and warrant to Microsoft that (i) you are the sole and exclusive owner of your Submission, or you have all right and authority to grant the rights in your Submission to Microsoft, its affiliates and/or its agents and contractors; (ii) if your Submission contains a photograph or a video, you have obtained any and all releases necessary from all persons depicted in the photograph or video, including, without limitation, releases in the context of rights of privacy and rights of publicity; and (iii) in the event a person depicted in the photograph or video is under the age of 21 years, you have obtained all appropriate permissions and releases from the parent or legal guardian of the person in question, to submit the Submission for the Contest.

12. Microsoft will not return any Submission submitted for the Contest. Except where prohibited, by entering the Contest, you consent to the use of your name, photo and/or likeness, biographical information, winning entry and statements attributed to you (if true) for advertising and promotional purposes without additional compensation or notice to the Participant.

13. By participating in the Contest, the Participant hereby grant to Microsoft and/or its affiliates a non-exclusive, fully transferable, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty free, fully paid up right and license to adapt, edit, modify, publish, promote, reproduce, distribute, publicly display your Submission and make derivative works based on the Participant ‘s submission in any and all media, including any compilation, as Microsoft and/or its affiliates see fit for any reason, to identify the Participant as the author of the Submission and to authorize others to do any of the above without any obligation to notify or further compensate the Participant.

14. Without limitation to the generality of the above provisions, Microsoft and/or any of its affiliates shall have an exclusive right to publish and use any winning Submissions in print and/or electronic form for advertising and promotion of Microsoft’s products, for exhibition, and for both commercial and non-commercial products and publications, including without limitation, using, downloading, adapting, reformatting, editing and/or resizing the winning Submissions as may be necessary and to authorize others to do any of the above without any obligation to notify or further compensate the prizewinner(s).

15. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Microsoft and its parent companies, affiliates, related corporations, subsidiaries, directors, commissioners, officers, employees and agents accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any damage, loss, death or personal injury that may occur as a consequence of an individual’s participation in this Contest. Participant undertake to indemnify and keep Microsoft and its parent companies, affiliates, related corporations, subsidiaries, directors, officers, commissioners, employees and agents harmless and indemnified against any loss, damage, claims, costs and expenses which may be incurred or suffered by any or each of them due to your breach of any of these terms and conditions by the Participants and, or arising from the participation of the Participant in this Contest.

16. In the event of any dispute arising from this Contest or relating to the interpretation of these terms and conditions, the decision of Microsoft on all matters pertaining to the Contest shall be final and binding on all parties.

17. The information submitted by a Participant during the registration process or when participating in this Contest may include the Participant’s email address, ID number and other personal information (“Personal Information”). The Personal Information will only be used by Microsoft in accordance with applicable data protection laws and regulations and Microsoft’s privacy policy referred to below, for the purposes of administering the Participant’s participation in the Contest. For more details on Microsoft's privacy policy, please see: http://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx.

18. Microsoft and any agents or contractors (if any) that it may use in the execution and management of this Contest do not warrant or represent (either directly or indirectly):

(a) that participation in and/or access to the whole or part(s) of the Contest, Contest materials, contents, information and/or functions contained therein will be provided uninterrupted, timely, secure and error-free; or

(b) that no computer viruses shall be transmitted or that no damage shall occur to Participant's computer system as a result of any online activity of the Contest, if any.

19. Any material downloaded or otherwise obtained through the Internet is done at the Participant's own discretion and risk and that the Participant will be solely responsible for any damage to the Participant's computer system or loss of data resulting from such download.

20. Microsoft does not warrant or make any representations regarding the use, validity, accuracy, or reliability of, or the results of the use of, or otherwise in respect of the materials on this site or any sites linked to this site.

21. The Participant declares and warrants to Microsoft that in participating in the Contest, the Participant shall not use any unauthorised or unlicensed software. Participants found doing so shall be disqualified from the Contest.

22. Nothing in the Contest shall affect any intellectual property rights of Microsoft in any product or service, which may be the subject matter of the Contest.

23. The Participant acknowledges and agrees that no form of cheating will be tolerated. Any persons found cheating, as determined in the sole and absolute discretion of the Microsoft, will immediately be disqualified from the Contest. Cheating includes, but is not limited to, using multiple identification numbers, tampering with, hacking of the Contest site, participating in the Contest without meeting the eligibility requirements, using any automated software or device to gain an advantage during the Contest, use of the Contest beyond the defined rules of the Contest, attempting to disable or overwhelm any of Microsoft's websites or the Contest Site, attempting to disrupt any portion of the Contest, including but not limited to, allowing somebody else to use the Personal Information, or tampering with the entry process. ANY ATTEMPT BY A PERSON TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE ANY OF MICROSOFT'S WEBSITES OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THE CONTEST MAY BE A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAWS; AND SHOULD SUCH AN ATTEMPT BE MADE, MICROSOFT RESERVES THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES FROM ANY SUCH PERSON TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.

24. Microsoft's failure to enforce any provision of these terms and conditions shall not constitute a waiver of that or of any other provision.

25. Microsoft is not responsible for printing or typographical errors in any Contest-related materials or for registrations that are lost or misdirected, fail to enter into the processing system, or are processed, reported, or transmitted late or incorrectly or are lost for any reason including electronic, computer, telephone, paper transfer, mail system, human or other error; including inability to access any website associated with the Contest. The Contest is void where prohibited or restricted by law, and is subject to all applicable laws.

26. By entering the Contest, the Participant agrees to be bound by these terms and conditions.

27. This Contest shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of Bangladesh. Microsoft Bangladesh

Try Windows Server 2012 and get rewarded!

Tanzim-Saqib — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 08:49:45 GMT

Windows Server 2012 is a cloud-optimized, highly dynamic and cost-effective server platform that offers businesses the ability to deliver cloud services and gain powerful new IT capabilities.

Get the full experience today at no cost. Download the free Windows Server 2012 trial to evaluate it for 180 days with no feature limits.

Stand a chance to win a Nokia Lumia Windows Phone!

Download the free trial and tell us what you like about Windows Server 2012 for a chance to win a Nokia Lumia 710! Just follow these steps to enter:

Step 1: Download the free Windows Server 2012 trial.

Step 2: Forward the confirmation email to msbd@outlook.com together with your answer to the following question:

“In 100 words or less, tell us which is your favorite feature in Windows Server 2012 and why?”

The best answer wins a Nokia Lumia 710 Windows Phone! Contest closes 25 December 2012.

Try it for free – download Windows Server 2012 trial today.

For Bangladesh residents only. Contest closes 25 December 2012. Results will be published on http://blogs.msdn.com/saqib and winner will be notified via email by 7 January 2013. Terms and Conditions apply. See below for detailed terms.

Terms and Conditions for the Try Windows Server 2012 and Get Rewarded Contest

IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS (THE “TERMS AND CONDITIONS”) BEFORE ENTERING THE TRY WINDOWS SERVER 2012 AND GET REWARDED CONTEST (“CONTEST”). THIS IS A LEGALLY BINDING AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOU AND MICROSOFT BANGLADESH LTD (“MICROSOFT”) ESTABLISHING THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH YOU ARE ENTITLED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CONTEST. BY ENTERING THIS CONTEST, YOU CONFIRM THAT YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTOOD, AND AGREE TO ABIDE BY, THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

2. The following are not eligible to participate in the Contest:

i. Employees of Microsoft and its related corporations and their immediate family members.

ii. Employees of any party which is directly involved in organizing, promoting or conducting the Contest.

iii. Employees of external auditors who are directly involved in the Contest.

3. The Contest shall be conducted from 4 December 2012 to 25 December 2012, both dates inclusive.

4. The Contest will work as follows:

i. Participant must download the free Windows Server 2012 trial. The Participant shall receive a confirmation email (“Confirmation Email”) for such download which shall be used for verification purposes.

ii. The Participant is required to provide the answer to the following question – “In 100 words or less, tell us which is your favorite feature in Windows Server 2012 and why? (“Contest Question”)

iii. The Participant must then forward their Confirmation Email and the answer to the Contest Question to the following address: msbd@outlook.com (account manned by DPE AHQ).

iv. Only one entry is allowed by each Participant.

v. The Participant with the best answer as judged by Microsoft technical evangelists will win the grand prize.

6. Results will be published on http://blogs.msdn.com/saqib. The Winner will also be notified via email. The Winner will collect the prize from the Microsoft office at the following address:

Microsoft Bangladesh Limited

RM Center, 3rd Floor, 101 Gulshan Avenue,

Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

18. Microsoft and any agents or contractors (if any) that it may use in the execution and management of this Contest do not warrant or represent (either directly or indirectly):

(b) that no computer viruses shall be transmitted or that no damage shall occur to Participant's computer system as a result of any online activity of the Contest, if any.

22. Nothing in the Contest shall affect any intellectual property rights of Microsoft in any product or service, which may be the subject matter of the Contest.

24. Microsoft's failure to enforce any provision of these terms and conditions shall not constitute a waiver of that or of any other provision.

26. By entering the Contest, the Participant agrees to be bound by these terms and conditions.

27. This Contest shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of Bangladesh. Microsoft Bangladesh

Tanzim Saqib

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Try Windows Server 2012 and get rewarded!

Try it for free – download Windows Server 2012 trial today.

Terms and Conditions for the Try Windows Server 2012 and Get Rewarded Contest