Daryll McDade - The High School Guy

This is cool!  Not just because I am a big fan of Tom Skerritt but the rendering and interactivity is pretty sweet.

tags: [Vista]

From Dan Fernandez:

"We are incredibly excited to announce that effective April 19th, 2006, all Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions including Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual J#, Visual C++, and Visual Web Developer Express will be free permanently!"

This is very exciting for students and faculty--I'm just giddy! :)  I'm especially excited about the Lego Mindstorms stuff and the Teacher Starter Kit.  :)

Not sure what to make of this.

I'm caught somewhere between the ethics and creativity of it.

In any case, as a marketer this is fascinating.

What can teachers and students work on now that the AP exam is over? Hunt for the Wombat is a 4-6 week project designed to give AP Computer Science students the opportunity to apply their programming skills, gain broader awareness and understanding of the software development process and have fun along the way. By participating in a “real world” scenario where they build a computer game, students can gain experience with project teams, methodologies and core development phases: Discovery, Design, Development and Deployment.

Brian Goldfarb from the ASP.NET team just  posted about a new series of "How Do I..." videos.  I just watched the "Web parts and Personalization" and if it's any indication of the rest of the series, this is going to be EXCELLENT!

Enjoy!

I've been promising this for a while but it's FINALLY here!  Here’s the quick scoop;

Info for students:
You will compete, directly online, with students all over the US to see who has the best programming skills. brings together an imaginative background story, comic-style graphics and fun programming challenges. Student will devise strategies and write code for navigating a team of nanobots through life-saving missions and objectives through a map of the human body.  We'll provide the tools, you'll provide the smarts and your coding skills could win you an Xbox 360 console.  Students who want to self-start there are several tutorials You can register at the Project Hoshimi site and get started with the Quickstart Guide.  Be sure to check out the competition guidelines for info on how its structured and key dates.

Info for teachers:
We’ve posted a Project Hoshimi Programming Battle Teacher’s Guide on MainFunction.  This guide points to two sets of Teaching Objects we’ve created to support this—one is a set for teaching fundamentals and a set created specifically for the Project Hoshimi SDK.  Each Teaching Object includes;

-An in depth how-to article to familiarize you with the topic.
-PowerPoint slides to deliver the lesson to your students.
-Project files with sample code for you and your students to get started.
-Exercises to practice the skills and master the concepts.

You can check out this video to get a sense of what it's all about.

Good luck and GET GOING! :)

Huh?

Mint Source is a cool tool from the UK Developer team--built by an intern actually--that let's you play around with Express to build a system tray RSS aggregator.

Fresh... :)

Gosh, it seems like this took FOREVER!  Glad that the Visual Studio Express Editions are finally here and REALLY glad that they are available FREE! :)

From Dan Fernandez’s blog:

I am proud to announce that today, November 7th 2005, we officially released the downloadable versions of Visual Studio 2005 Express on MSDN and they are free to download for one year! Download Visual Studio Express You can download Visual Studio Express from the links below: Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Visual Basic 2005 Express Visual C# 2005 Express Visual C++ 2005 Express Visual J# 2005 Express SQL Server Express Express is free for one year.  Until November 7, 2006, we are promotionally discounting the downloadable versions of Express to free. This doesn’t mean that the product turns off after a year, but rather that as long as you download the product before November 7, 2006, you can get it for free and you can use it forever. Rewards for Registering The other big news announced at the Visual Studio launch is the availability of the Visual Studio Express DIY Kit, which is a set of benefits you get for registering Express and includes: 250 royalty-free stock photography images from Corbis Free Windows Icons from IconBuffet Free eBooks including: Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition: Build a Web Site Now, Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition: Build a Program Now!, and Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express Edition: Build a Program Now! 3rd party components from VSIP partners And we have more benefits coming soon Want More Information? Take a tour of the newly revamped Visual Studio Express Edition Web site, read the Frequently Asked Questions, and as always, please tell us what you think :)

 Looks like the feedback from the community is positive as well.  For those students and teachers that want to burn to image disc, instructions here.

Nice work by Brian Goldfarb and Carolyn from the University of Washington on their demo during Steve’s keynote speech at the launch kick off in San Francisco.  Give it up for Carolyn—student gets on stage with SteveB to ROCK THE LAUNCH!  :)  I was very impressed at how she handled herself during the demo—believe me, an on-stage demo with Steve is NOT a low pressure environment (<smile>at least that’s what I hear </smile>)!

My favorite line of course was, “Let’s build a fan site for The Windows—our favorite band since 1995”. :) :) :)

If you missed the kick off in San Fran there are a BUNCH of Launch events planned across the US.  Probably gonna hit Detroit, D.C. and Philly myself.

If you’re into application development, of course you know that today is a big day.  Especially exciting, IMO, if you’re into Web development.  Lots of things are updated;

-the Visual Web Developer Express (VWDX) page (I dig the purple—I may have to order this just to have the box!)
-the VWDX tutorial page (my personal favorite project—Windows Media Player collection)
-the ASP.NET Developer Center
-the ASP.NET 2.0 community site

Sheesh!  LOTS of updates and I’m sure I haven’t caught them all.

I  … am ... overloading …

Must … go … play …. now …