Daryll McDade - The High School Guy : Seen & Heard

See Windows Vista...

Daryll McDade — Wed, 31 May 2006 22:24:00 GMT

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

tags: [Vista]

Visual Studio 2005 Express Announcement--it's staying FREE!

Daryll McDade — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 21:44:00 GMT

"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. :)

Hmm...'Bumvertising'?

Daryll McDade — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 20:04:00 GMT

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.

The story behind untitlednet.com

Daryll McDade — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 03:22:00 GMT

If you are among those that don't have an Xbox 360 yet, there is a tool available at http://untitlednet.com that will check the inventory at Best Buy, Circuit City and FutureShop. It's cool because it's cool but it's *especially* cool because it was created using version 2.0 of the .NET Framework. Craig McMurtry has built a version that searches across the entire US and demonstrates the capabilities of WinFX. Nice.

KPL on Channel 9 again

Daryll McDade — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 03:36:00 GMT

In case you missed it check out 2/3 of the KPL team on Channel 9 (44 minutes). Lots of stuff on the next version--nice!

ASP.NET 2.0 "How Do I..." Video Series

Daryll McDade — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 02:08:00 GMT

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!

Best Bill Gates interview yet

Daryll McDade — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 01:36:00 GMT

If you haven't checked out the "Seventeen minutes with Bill Gates" interview on Channel 9, I *highly* recommend doing so. Very open, honest, relaxed interview--really enjoyed it. Don Dodge has a nice Cliff's Notes summary here.

An hour of my time well spent...

Daryll McDade — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 01:29:00 GMT

It would be a good use of an hour of YOUR time as well to check out this Behind the Code interview with Anders Hejlsberg. JEEZ...that guy has done a LOT of interesting stuff.

Microsoft Academic Geek cruise

Daryll McDade — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 21:30:00 GMT

A very cool effort by my team--a "geek cruise" to connect with professors on the topic of Gaming in curriculum. It is ALSO cool that this was picked up by Forbes (I guess there was a bit of an inside track!). Pat Phillips has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 good posts about her experience—lots of great nuggets.

Mint Source for Express

Daryll McDade — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 22:38:16 GMT

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... :)

Visual Studio Express Editions are here!

Daryll McDade — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 06:39:43 GMT

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.

UW Student ROCKS the launch

Daryll McDade — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 00:48:00 GMT

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.

Visual Studio 2005 for the Web Developer

Daryll McDade — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 22:50:24 GMT

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 …

Orange County Choppers - proud users of Microsoft technology

Daryll McDade — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 07:37:10 GMT

Maybe you’ve heard of Orange County Choppers, which is the featured bike builder on American Chopper which airs on Discovery Channel. OCC are proud users of Microsoft technologies. They are definitely at or near the top of the list of “cool” companies running their business on Microsoft technologies. All I have to say is, “Mikey for President!” :)

Why go to class? Just get the podcast!

Daryll McDade — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 20:24:00 GMT

Not sure how many other universities are doing this but University of Washington is offering lectures via podcast. Missed class? No worries—just download it to your iPod!

“Lectures in Kane have often been videotaped for student viewing, but that means the student must go to the library to check out the video and view it there. With podcasts the audio portion of the lecture can be downloaded to a personal listening device such as an iPod and listened to anywhere.”

I think that this is EXTREMELY cool. Now, I’m not advocating missing class but the fact is that some times it just can’t be avoided. It’s great that you can get a “replay” of the lecture. Actually, that could be useful even if you actually made it to class—might cut down on some note taking? I am guessing that more schools will pick this up soon.

Daryll