Faculty Connection is an online set of real-world resources and shared peer knowledge, the goal of the Faculty Connection site is to put relevant and applicable tools and information at the fingertips of technology educators.
The UK Academic Team is responsible for offering IT students and faculty members free access to software, for enhancing knowledge and skills by providing curriculum materials and other learning opportunities, for helping students achieve their dreams by organizing an international competition, and finally for assisting last year students through career resources and job opportunities at our customers and partners.
With this blog we want to inform you on our latest initiatives.
Enjoy reading and stay tuned!
If you want to change the look of your Windows Phone 8 emulator
You can now do this using the WP8 Emulator Skin Switcher to make it look like a Nokia Lumia 920, HTC 8X or Samsung Ativ S. Which is perfect for when you need to run demos and the emulators during a presentation.
Here are some of the awesome devices available
This key is a collection of resources for web developers looking to get started with Windows 8 application development using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
You can also download a free ebook by Kraig Brockschmidt for web developers creating Windows Store applications.
The links below will provide you with additional help in getting started
dev.windows.com should be your first stop for downloads, support, samples, design resources and more. The links on this page are some that I've pulled out that will be of use to web developers looking to start developing native apps for Windows 8 using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. This list is correct for the week of 15 Jan 2013 and is intended as a quick set-up guide for attendees of the 2013 New Adventures conference. Please make sure to check dev.windows.com for up to date links in future.
There's a new set of resources that have been produced with designers and User Experience professionals in mind. Again, keep checking back to the main design portal at design.windows.com for the most up to date information.
The Awesome team of
From Channel9.msdn.com have released FallFury open sourced C++/DX 2D Game for Windows 8
You are playing as a bear that falls down from the sky, collecting buttons, avoiding obstacles and fighting monsters.
This project demonstrates the capabilities of Windows Store hybrid applications, leveraging both the power of DirectX and XAML. It also supports an extensible level model, where developers can adjust the character behavior and the item sets by modifying specially designed XML files.
So if your interested in building a C++/DX game then here a 12 step tutorial of FallFury
Tips for updating existing Windows Phone 7 apps in the Windows Phone MarketPlace for Windows Phone 8 users.
As a developer you can update both your Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 apps in the Microsoft Dev Center and republish any amendments or changes. I have had a few questions about with path in Dev Center should I follow to ensure both my apps are updated accurately.
The Microsoft Dev Center supports multiple XAPs for any app.
Therefore as a developer you can choose to have a single XAP (typically targeting Windows Phone 7) or have two XAPs (one for Windows Phone 7 and one for Windows Phone 8) by doing this the app has a single GUID, and has a optimised experience for each platform.
What happens if I build a new version of my existing Windows Phone 7 app in the new Windows Phone 8 SDK?
If you have updated an existing XAP with a new Windows Phone 8 XAP, you potentially risk eliminating the Windows Phone 7 version.
To mitigate any issues take one of the following steps.
1. To Keep a single XAP which works on Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 7
Recompile the Windows Phone 7 app with the new Windows Phone 8 SDK and update the XAP file. NB. This is ideal scenario if your app doesn't require use of any of the Windows Phone APIs. However if your app takes advanatage of the Windows Phone 8 APIs please use option 2 below.
2. To enable two versions of your app. One for Windows Phone 8 and one for Windows Phone 7
You will need to create the new Windows Phone 8 version and utilise the new APIs and then add this new Phones 8 XAP to the Dev Center.
To Add your app to the Dev Center
1. Login to the Dev Center https://dev.windowsphone.com/en-us
2. Select ‘add new’
3. Upload your new Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 XAP (ensure version number is higher on the Windows Phone 8 XAP than your existing or new Windows Phone 7 XAP)
4. Add meta data (NB. Please ensure the country list and language support selected is identical on both XAPs, if these do not match your app will NOT Appear in search Windows Phone now has 191 new markets so developers need to ensure they cross submit to take advantage of these new markets and consumers.
5. Click Submit
6. Your new apps will then be tested and published if they pass all necessary checks.
Microsoft's US team are holding a challenge aimed at US based holders of a Windows Azure account (including a 90-day free trial) can win prizes is running again with three weeks still to go. However as this is US Challenge UK entries cannot win but I thought it may be of interest to some academics and students as its a nice little challenge as don't have to be in the US to play the game and as a challenge in AI or applied statistics it is probably interesting enough to attract entries from UK Academia however I must stress your imaginable for prizes if your in the UK academic or student.
As with earlier versions of the game, participants code a player ‘bot’ that that will compete in an online game of Rock, Paper, Scissors – with some additional embellishments. The bots are hosted on Windows Azure and take part in battles with every other competing bot.
A bot that wins a game scores 3 points on the leaderboard and a tie scores 1 point. The number of points you can receive depends on the number of players.
The game is both a sweepstake and a contest. Each Friday until the end of the contest on January 25th 5 bots will be selected as winners from the US – Therefore UK Enterants will not be permitted to win prizes.
As with its previous versions, the concept of this game is to build a bot that will compete in an online game of Rock, Paper, Scissors – with a few additional rules. participants code a player ‘bot’, host it on Windows Azure, and its take part in battles with other competitors.
So Get Botting!
Do be aware however that deploying the Bot Lab will incur charges if you're not using one of the free Azure account offers see http://www.windowsazure.com/education for specific offers. If you are using a trial offer, hosted time will consume "compute hours" from your free allotment. Therefore, be sure to 'turn off' your Bot Lab when you're finished.
Want to learn how to develop for Windows Phone 8?
Microsoft’s FREE Windows Phone 8 Jump Start training is now available, to help you get up to speed with the latest updates to the Windows Phone ecosystem. Jumpstart is a fast-paced and demo-packed learning ‘experience’ tailored to show developers how to build responsive, appealing, and effective applications quickly.
I have a few questions this week regarding thing like In App Purchase and Speech input for windows 8. There are 20 modules available online for your on-demand viewing which break the training down into bitesize chunks which include video, sample code and powerpoint presentations.
Here’s a full outline of the course that was delivered, with direct links to each module. For those of you who are new to the world of Windows Phone, this is a great way to start developing apps right away.
To get started using these Windows 8 Visual Studio 2012 TypeScript templates you will first need to install the TypeScript plug-in for Visual Studio 2012. Currently these templates have been tested under TypeScript 0.8.1.1 only and the generated .jsproj files have this path hard-coded in.
Chris has produced an excellent comprehensive blog at http://www.sellsbrothers.com/Posts/Details/12724
You can download the Windows 8 TypeScript samples from here, extract the three folders (blankts, blankfixedts and navts) into your VS2012 JavaScript project template folder.
e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\JavaScript\Windows Store\1033.
Once the files are there, shutdown all instances of Visual Studio 2012 and execute “devenv.exe /InstallVSTemplates” as admin. If you have multiple copies of Visual Studio installed, make sure you’re executing the one for VS2012.
Once you’ve completed those steps successfully, you should see three new TypeScript-based templates as shown in the very first figure of his blog post.
VM Depot is a community-driven catalogue of preconfigured operating systems, applications, and development stacks that can easily be deployed on Windows Azure. Find your favourite software and deploy it in minutes, or join the community, build a virtual machine image, and share it with others. Learn more.
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Lumia App Labs: Nokia Music Windows Phone API - Wednesday, January 16, 2013 8:00:00 AM GMT - 8:45:00 AM GMT
We suggest that you install the Microsoft Windows Phone SDK 8.0 in advance to get the most out of this training lab.
While you’ll learn a lot with or without the SDK, you’ll learn more if you have the SDK installed and can begin using the API as soon as you complete the training. It will also help to have a Lumia phone built on Windows Phone 8 available for testing.
Register Now
Lumia App Labs: Nokia Music Windows Phone API - Thursday, January 17, 2013 4:00:00 PM GMT - 4:45:00 PM GMT
Lumia App Labs: Games on Windows Phone 8 Wednesday, January 23, 2013 8:00:00 AM GMT - 8:45:00 AM GMT
Microsoft Windows Phone 8 offers native code support that enables development and porting of high-performance games. This training-lab webinar will give you an overview of Windows Phone 8 capabilities supporting complex games development. It also will introduce available tools and frameworks that increase developer productivity and will demonstrate a hands-on approach to games development with the Windows Phone SDK 8. By leveraging frameworks such as the Microsoft Direct3D API and support for popular physics and rendering engines, you can now create games with native performance as well as use your own or third-party engines and middleware for games development for Windows Phone 8 users. We suggest that you install the Microsoft Windows Phone SDK 8.0 in advance to get the most out of this training lab. While you’ll learn a lot with or without the SDK, you’ll learn more if you have the SDK installed and can begin using the API as soon as you complete the training. It will also help to have a Lumia phone built on Windows Phone 8 available for testing.
Lumia App Labs: Games on Windows Phone 8 Thursday, January 24, 2013 4:00:00 PM GMT - 4:45:00 PM GMT