Ed Dunhill's Blog : Inspiration Tour

Inspiration Tour back on the Road

edunhill — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:12:00 GMT

Yesterday saw the first of this academic years Inspiration Tour events at Bradford University.

This year we're running two sessions; one focusing onrich application development using Silverlight/WPF and the other on XNA games development. The content is designed to introduce these technologies and give an insight into their commercial application (with lots of cool demos along the way).

We have a really busy schedule over the next couple of months, with the below dates already booked up. However if your university isn't on the list and you want us to come and see you then drop me a line and we'll try and squeeze you in.

Blackpool and the Fylde - 14/10/2008
Hertfordshire - 15/10/2008
Liverpool Hope University - 16/10/2008
UEL - 21/10/2008
Sunderland - 22/10/2008
De Montfort - 28/10/2008
Reading - 29/10/2008
Glyndŵr University - 04/11/2008
Aberystwyhth - 05/11/2008
Aston - 11/11/2008
Edge Hill - 12/11/2008
Canterbury - 13/11/2008
University of West Scotland - 17/11/2008
Glasgow Caladonian - 18/11/2008
Abertay - 19/11/2008
Edinburgh Napier - 20/11/2008
Robert Gordon University - 21/11/2008
Brighton - 25/11/2008
Staffs - 26/11/2008
Huddersfield - 03/12/2008
Greenwich - 09/12/2008
Teesside - 10/12/2008
Birmingham - 21/01/2009
Westminster - 21/01/2009

Technorati Tags: Inspiration Tour,Microsoft,University,Students,XNA,WPF,Silverlight

Inspiration Tour Wrap Up Video

edunhill — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:43:18 GMT

Regular readers of this blog will know that a huge amount of my time this year was dedicated to taking new technologies on the road and showing students how to get started with them.

In the end we travelled over 15,000 miles to speak to 4000 students at 60 UK universities!

We thought it would be cool to put together a video to summarise what the tour was all about and warm everyone up for next academic year.

You can see the video on Channel 8...

Technorati Tags: Inspiration Tour,Channel 8,Students,Microsoft,XNA,Silverlight,Windows Embedded

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

All Inspiration Tour Sessions Now Online

edunhill — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:34:48 GMT

To follow on from my previous post about the Inspiration Tour on Channel8 I just wanted to let everyone know that all of our sessions are now online:


Introduction	Silverlight

Windows Embedded	XNA

Technorati Tags: Inspiration Tour,Channel8,XNA,Silverlight,Windows Embedded

Inspiration Tour Now Online!

edunhill — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:20:00 GMT

As many of you already know this year we have been touring UK universities on the Inspiration Tour talking about Silverlight, XNA, Windows Embedded and how these technologies are relevant to the student audience.

We've had a lot of great feedback about the content and thought it would be cool to bring it online so that those of you who couldn't make it to one of our sessions could still see the presentation. To that end we booked out the studio at our UK office an got the sessions recorded.

We are releasing the sessions on Channel8 our international video blogging site for students.

To check out our first session take a look here and check back soon as the other sessions will be coming online over the next couple of days.

One of the guys over at Channel8 requested the desktop wallpaper we use for the tour so I have attached it to this post below.

Technorati Tags: Channel 8,Inspiration Tour,Microsoft,Students,Silverlight,XNA,Windows Embedded,Popfly,Microsoft Surface

Shift Happens Presentation

edunhill — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:14:58 GMT

Whenever we give a presentation on the Inspiration Tour we like to run a deck called 'Shift Happens' as the audience enters the room. This particular presentation has been doing the rounds online for quite some time and states some key facts which demonstrate the development of IT and the effect on the day to day world.

The version we use was adapted by Microsoft UK to make it relevant for the UK academic audience. The best thing about the presentation is that it's in the public domain and can be downloaded (in all its various incarnations) from here.

Technorati Tags: Inspiration Tour,Microsoft,Students,Shift Happens

Happy new year - now get to work ;)

edunhill — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 01:32:04 GMT

Hopefully like me you've all had a great Christmas but I'm guessing that also like me today was the last day of your holidays :(.

I thought that to kick off the new year I'd remind you about some upcoming deadlines (Aren't I kind!).

Round One of the Imagine Cup Software Design Competition ends on this coming Wednesday (9th Jan) so all of you who are putting together an entry or were planning to now is the time to get your nose to the grindstone and get it in to us ASAP. Click here to find out more and enter.

For those of you who are in your second year with an option to go on placement next year I really would compel you to consider spending some time with us here at Microsoft. A placement with us is a great opportunity to do a role that would normally only be available to those with considerable industry experience and get some great content for your CV. Having done a placement at MSN myself I know the value of the scheme and the doors it opens so please take some time out to click here and apply but be quick about it as the deadline is the 13th Jan.

Finally the deadline for applications for the Graduate scheme is approaching as it is also the 13th Jan. Again this is a great opportunity to land a great job with a company who consider their employees their most valuable asset. There are streams for technical, marketing and sales roles so there's something for nearly everyone. Click here to find out more.

The Inspiration Tour kicks back off with Blackpool a week tomorrow so for the next week myself and Ben will be focusing on adding some new content around XNA V2, Embedded and our student programmes. Also stay tuned for an announcement in the next week or so about an amazing web hosting offer for UK students.

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup,Recruitment,Placements,Inspiration Tour

UKStudentZine Article - Tech on Tour

edunhill — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:10:15 GMT

I recently wrote an article about the developments in technology since we have been running the Inspiration Tour with information about expected advancements in 2008. The UKStudentZine is a monthly newsletter for students published by Microsoft which includes articles about technology and our student programmes.

You can view my article here and sign up for the UKStudentZine here.

Technorati Tags: Student Newsletter,Inspiration Tour,Microsoft

XNA Game Studio 2 Released and Entry to Dream-Build-Play 2008 Opens!

edunhill — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:00:41 GMT

Yesterday the much anticipated XNA Game Studio 2.0 launched adding support for all versions of Visual Studio and online multiplayer gaming.

To learn how to get started, install Game Studio 2.0 visit and get some code samples visit http://creators.xna.com/Education/GettingStarted.aspx. All your existing v1 games will still work and any ongoing projects can easily be upgraded.

If you saw my previous post and installed GS 2.0 Beta you will need to uninstall it before installing the new release.

To mark the release of GS 2.0 entries have also opened for Dream-Build-Play 2008. For those of you who have been to an Inspiration Tour session you will of heard me talk about last years competition and show you some of the excellent games that were submitted.

This year the theme is Artificial Intelligence (AI) and you can submit your game from the 20/12/07 through to the deadline on the 27/01/07.

The prizes this year are amazing as always; Five finalist teams will each receive:

An invitation to show your entry at GDC 2008 in San Francisco, CA.
A $3,000 (USD) stipend per team.
A one-year subscription to the XNA Creators Club for each
team member.
An interview for an internship at Microsoft Research,
Lionhead Studios or Rare Ltd in the UK for each team member.

For more information and to register visit the Official Dream-Build-Play website.

Technorati Tags: XNA,Game Studio,Xbox 360,.NET,Dream Build Play,Multiplayer,Visual Studio,Creators Club

Inspiration Tour Update

edunhill — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:17:00 GMT

As we're nearing the Christmas break I thought I'd put together a post about the tour so far...

Since the third of October we've visited 20 universities all over the country, travelled in excess of 6000 miles and spoken to nearly 2000 students. The reaction has been great and we're in the process of adding some brand new demos for the new year.

This week is the last on tour before Christmas and we're visiting Edge Hill, Bournemouth and Salford. The tour kicks back off on the 15th Jan and like many of you we've got three weeks off for some R&R :)

Along the way many people have asked for a copy of the slides so I have attached the latest version to this post. Last Friday we spent the day in the studio committing our sessions to film, these will be available on Channel8.com shortly (I'll blog when they go live).

Technorati Tags: Inspiration Tour,Microsoft,Students,Channel8

XNA Game Studio V2 Beta Now Available

edunhill — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:05:53 GMT

XNA V2 beta is now available for free download here and the best thing is you don't even have to uninstall the current version of XNA Game Studio Express as the two will work fine side by side.

The beta only allows you to build games for Windows but does support multiplayer gaming over LAN and the Internet although you will need a special key which you can get by mailing xnacgp@microsoft.com with the subject “Beta Key Request”.

This is a great chance to get your hands on the new version before RTM and help contribute to its success by reporting any bugs here.

According to the XNA team blog; "Please keep in mind that the timeframe between this release and our final release will be very short" so you shouldn't have to wait to long for the full public release with support for the Xbox 360!

Technorati Tags: XNA Game Studio, XNA V2, Xbox 360, .NET, Visual Studio

XNA V2 Update...

edunhill — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:13:42 GMT

Yesterday the XNA team announced the impending release of XNA V2 beta to the public. They have confirmed the beta will be feature complete but as with all past XNA betas will only support building games for Windows (Xbox 360 support will come with the full release). To read their announcement click here.

You can also view the original V2 announcement with feature list here. With the beta announcement came the news that XNA in Windows Forms has slipped from the V2 release however if this is something you're interested in there is an excellent article here which will explain how you can implement this now.

Technorati Tags: XNA 2.0, XNA Game Studio, Xbox 360, .NET, C#

Win an Xbox 360 Elite by registering at The Imagine Cup website!

edunhill — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:15:12 GMT

This year we are running a prize draw for those who register at the Imagine Cup website. At the end of each month everyone who has registered during that month will be entered into a draw for an Xbox 360 Elite. To enter visit imaginecup.co.uk and take the quiz to see how you compare to your peers at other Universities.

If you're on Facebook we've also built out a cool application which will allow you to register and enter a weekly competition for Microsoft Points. To view and add the application click here.

As regular readers will know I have recently published guides to getting started in the Games Development and Project Hoshimi competitions. These guides were written for a printed guide for UK students. Some of you who have been at an Inspiration Tour event will already have a printed copy but for the rest of you I have attached the electronic version below. The guide includes information about all competitions with focused sections on Games dev, Hoshimi, Algorithm, Embedded and Software Design. If you're thinking about entering any of these competitions then it's well worth a read.

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup, Xbox 360 Elite, Facebook, Facebot, Student Competition

New XNA Content; Inspiration Tour - Hull University

edunhill — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 12:38:34 GMT

Yesterday we visited Hull University to deliver the latest Inspiration Tour session. The turn out was great and we were made to feel really welcome so a big thank you to everyone who attended.

While chatting to Rob Miles he mentioned that he is currently putting together a book aimed at getting users started with C# using XNA to teach the language. The book should prove an excellent resource for anyone who wants to learn programming on .NET or is just getting started with XNA. Rob has kindly published the draft chapters he's written so far on his blog here so go take a look.

Also keep an eye on our Inspiration Tour Popfly application as we will be updating it with new geotagged photos from the Tour as we go.

We are visiting Essex University today, then we are at GameCity in Nottingham on Thurs and Aberystwyth on Fri/Sat. So all in all a busy week; in fact after a quick tally I reckon I'll travel a total of 1130 miles this week!

Technorati Tags: Inspiration Tour, Microsoft, Students, Hull University, Popfly, Flickr

Popfly Now in Public Beta!

edunhill — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:46:33 GMT

For those of you who know what Popfly is the title says it all... as announced today at the Web 2.0 summit by Steve Ballmer you can now sign up for immediate access here.

For those of you not familiar with Popfly it is a new online tool (built in Silverlight) from Microsoft which allows you to easily create your own web applications through a simple graphical interface and publish them to any website.

The interface utilises 'blocks' to allow users to create applications. Blocks are a mechanism which allow users to pull data from other web sites/services, manipulate the data and output it in a new way all using a graphical interface and no code. This allows users to create brand new web applications in minutes without any technical experience or messing around with APIs.

What's more the block architecture is completely extensible so users can easily create new blocks to pull/manipulate/display their data in new and exciting ways and there's also a really strong community around the product allowing you to share both your blocks and finished apps.

So at this point you're thinking one of two things... 1) This sounds too good to be true, what's the catch? 2) Sounds interesting but what can it actually do?

To address both of these trains of thought I set myself a challenge... build a simple web app in Popfly in as little time as possible and do a screencap of the build to show the interface and functionality. So here it is:

Basically I decided to build an app that would pull geotagged photos from flickr.com based on a search string, pull map data from Virtual Earth and then display the photos on a map of the world depending on where they were taken. This would traditionally involve learning both the Flickr and Virtual Earth APIs, writing some code (for example ASP.NET) to combine the data, adding some JavaScript to make the page update without a refresh and then find somewhere to host it all. That's got to be a good days work not to mention the cost of hosting the app, it took me less than one minute because Popfly did the heavy lifting for me and provided free hosting for my application. If you don't believe me check out my video below:

As a side note, I did the screencap with a little known piece of free software from Microsoft called Windows Media Encoder. Thanks to Ben Coley for pointing me in the direction of this useful app.

Technorati Tags: Popfly, Web Applications, Mashups, Microsoft, Public Beta, Silverlight