Ed Dunhill's Blog : DreamSpark

Free MCTS Certification Through DreamSpark

edunhill — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:08:28 GMT

For a limited time Microsoft is offering free vouchers to sit an MCTS exam through the DreamSpark programme. The MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist) stream is aimed at developers and IT professionals and is available in multiple flavours relevant to a raft of developer and infrastructure technologies. Full list of MCTS certs.

DreamSpark is available to all HE students through direct verification as well as schools through an onsite admin. If you are a school pupil and would like access please direct a member of staff at your school to the sign up page so they can register the school for free.

As well as free exams DreamSpark provides a range of Microsoft products for free:

Find out more about the free MCTS offer.

Technorati Tags: MCTS,MCP,Microsoft,Student,DreamSpark

Students to be able to develop apps for SkyMarket for free!

edunhill — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:21:20 GMT

Kudos to Paolo for getting to this one first.

Simply put when Windows Mobile 6.5 launches an accompanying app store dubbed Windows Marketplace for Mobile (codename SkyMarket) will also launch.

Developers will be able to build mobile applications and for $99 PA sell them through Marketplace receiving a 70% revenue split. What’s really neat is that for students this fee will be waived through DreamSpark.

This looks like it will be a great way to show off your C# skills and maybe earn some cash at the same time. Why not check out the Windows Mobile Developers Portal to brush up on WM development.

Technorati Tags: Windows Mobile,SkyMarket,Marketplace,Students,DreamSpark

IT Academy Student Pass - Free eLearning

edunhill — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:31:54 GMT

A little while back I posted about a great new programme we launched which gives students free access to official Microsoft eLearning courses.

To sign up you need a unique code which authenticates you as a student, the great news is these codes are now available (along with a bunch of free software) from DreamSpark. For more information about DreamSpark take a look at my posts here and here and to see exactly what's included in IT Academy Student Pass take a look at the official site.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft eLearning,DreamSpark,IT Academy,Certification,Student Pass

Robochamps Robotics League - Win Real Robots!

edunhill — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:35:34 GMT

Today saw the launch of a new website which allows users to compete in a series of challenges to program virtual robots using Microsoft Robotics Studio (a plugin for Visual Studio - C# Express and above).

Historically robotics has had many barriers to entry for the casual users wanting to get started such as the cost of hardware. The cool thing about Robochamps is it uses 3D simulation technology built into Robotics Studio to allow users to program virtual robots at no cost. Even cooler you can actually win real robots by competing!

It's really easy to get started; just set up the IDE (you can get a Visual Studio 2008 from DreamSpark if you're a student), pick a challenge and start coding, if you get stuck there's even a learning zone on the site.

Technorati Tags: Robotics,Visual Studio,Robochamps,Robots

Inspiration Tour Update

edunhill — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:26:00 GMT

We've been on the road since October, traveled over 15 thousand miles and spoken to nearly four thousand students about Silverlight, XNA and Windows Embedded amongst other technologies. As we've gone to each university we've taken photos which I've been uploading to Flickr with geotags. I've now built a nice little Popfly app which uses virtual earth to show you all the places we've been.

You can take a look at the live application here, if you haven't used Popfly yet, I'd really recommend you visit Popfly.com and have a play.

We've only got another 5 tour sessions to go:

9th April - The University of Plymouth
16th April - The University of Manchester
23rd April - University of Southampton
2nd May - City University
7th May - Nottingham Trent University

And then that's us done until next academic year, it's been great fun but it's nice to cut back on the traveling :)

If you haven't had a chance to see the presentation live we have also recorded all of our sessions and hosted them on Channel 8. Click here to watch them now!

While you're there it's also worth visiting DreamSpark and bagging yourself some free software. If you do have any problems verifying on DreamSpark take a look at my post here.

Technorati Tags: Inspiration Tour,Microsoft,Students,Popfly,Sivlelright,XNA,Windows Embedded,DreamSpark,Channel 8

Expression Blend and Silverlight

edunhill — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:09:26 GMT

Since the launch of DreamSpark I have had one or two queries about which version of Expression Blend you need to build Silverlight applications...

The only version of Expression Blend that has been fully released is v1 (available free to students through DreamSpark). However v1 does not support the creation of Silverlight applications (hence no Silverlight project type). In fact v1 is used to create WPF (3.0) applications only.

Expression Blend v2 is in beta and is (currently) available for free here. This version will allow you to build Silverlight 1.0 (JavaScript) and WPF (3.0/3.5) applications.

Finally Expression Blend 2.5 March 2008 Preview will allow you to build Silverlight 1.0 (JavaScript), Silverlight 2 (.NET) and WPF (3.0/3.5) applications and is also (currently) available free here. This is currently my weapon of choice.

There is a page on the Expression Web site that outlines Blend versioning but it is not all that easy to find.

Technorati Tags: Expression Blend,Silverlight,WPF,DreamSpark

Setting up IIS on Windows Server 2008

edunhill — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:13:00 GMT

Those of you who have been following my series on Microsoft Web development (see below) may be interested in a screencast put together by MSP Kris Athi showing how to install and configure IIS on Server 2008.

You can read Kris' article here or click the image below to launch the screencast.

Don't forget you can get your hands on Windows Server 2003 for free through DreamSpark and most of the setup is the same so Kris' video is a great guide to getting started.

For those of you who missed my previous articles here are the links:

And if you don't fancy hosting your own website then we also have free managed hosting for UK students available in partnership with Webfusion. Click here to find out more.

Technorati Tags: Server 2008,ASP.NET,Server 2003,Windows,Web Hosting,IIS,DreamSpark

XNA V3 Announced with Support for Xbox Live Publishing

edunhill — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:45:40 GMT

What a week it's been; on Tuesday we launched DreamSpark and gave all UK students access to our developer tools and today we announced the impending release of XNA Game Studio 3.0 and game publishing on Xbox Live Marketplace!

The key feature announced for Game Studio V3 is support for a new hardware platform... the Zune. Although the Zune is not currently available in the UK it is clear to see the huge potential this announcement has especially with support for multiplayer gaming over the Zunes wireless link and APIs for accessing content on the device thrown into the mix. You can find a FAQ on Zune game dev over on the XNA forums here and the original post announcing this feature on the XNA Team Blog.

The second big announcement for XNA is the ability to publish your games onto Xbox Live Marketplace making them available to anyone with a Live subscription. This is a feature that we have been asked for again and again and now its on its way (scheduled for launch in the summer). The really cool thing about this new publishing platform is that it will also provide mechanisms for you to generate revenue from your games. You can find out more on the XNA Team Blog and at the FAQ on the XNA forums.

To complement all these advances and allow for future developments the XNA Creators Club Web site is also going to have a full overhaul with a bunch of new features and content. Again there is an FAQ available here and you can find out more about all of today's exciting announcements at the 'What's New" section on the Creators Club site.

Have fun!

Technorati Tags: XNA,Game Studio 3.0,Xbox Live Marketplace,Creators Club,DreamSpark,Zune

DreamSpark Verification Update

edunhill — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:08:00 GMT

Just a quick post today with a couple of bits of useful info about DreamSpark...

I have had a few mails from people who can't find their university listed in the 'Select your school/organization' list on the DreamSpark site. If your uni isn't listed you should still be able to verify using either your Athens ID (provided by most universities) or ISIC (number on ISIC or NUS Extra cards) - see below.

If you have an NUS Extra card all you need to do is select ISIC and enter the last 12 digits from your NUS Extra card.

If your university isn't listed, you're not provided with Athens IDs and you don't have an ISIC or NUS Extra card then take a look at the FAQ. If you still can't get verified then click here to get in touch.

If you have downloaded software from DreamSpark but are wondering what to do with the iso file then there is an excellent guide on Channel8 written by UK MSP Kris Athi. Check it out here.

Technorati Tags: DreamSpark,Channel8.com,Free Software,Students,Microsoft