Three Reasons for Developer Evangelists to Engage

I would like to talk about the reasons for a Developer Evangelist to engage an audience. We already understand the three ways we can engage: online, personal, and onstage.

As a reminder, online engagement has the greatest reach but the least impact, personal engagement has the greatest impact but the least reach, and onstage engagement is a combination of the two with varying results depending on skill, style, and approach.

But as you prepare your talk, ask yourself why. Why are you engaging in the first place? As you are driving to a conference or meetup, ask yourself again: why are you engaging? I would assert there are three reasons for Developer Evangelism engagement.

When it comes to persuasion or public speaking, there is only one reason for engagement. Developer Evangelism is a specialized engagement strategy that uses persuasion or public speaking as a vehicle. Where public speaking aims at changed behavior, Developer Evangelism is more nuanced.

YouthSpark: Challenge for Change

On Tuesday February 11th, Microsoft announced the launch of Microsoft YouthSpark Challenge for Change, a contest from Microsoft YouthSpark – in partnership with Windows, Office, Surface, Microsoft Stores, Brand Studios and Corporate Communications – that invites youth aged 18-25 around the world to share their ideas for a social good project that could spark change in their communities, college campuses, or the world. The contest is open for entry February 11 through March 5.

Free C# Training for Beginners and Forgetful Experts

Last year, I sat down with my colleague and friend Daren May for to create a Microsoft Virtual Academy training series that beginner developers could use to get a solid introduction to C#, called Programming in C#.

This course steams through the myriad of C# features and concepts, giving a comprehensive survey of the topic to would-be students. It was brilliant for me to have to remember all these things that made me love C# in the first place, and a chance to introduce new developers and remind seasoned ones.

I hope you like it.

Telerik will give you $30k for your Windows 8 app. Are you in?

We are looking for the next smashing Windows 8 app. If you are a startup and you have a brilliant, financially viable idea for a Windows 8 app, pitch it to us.

1. $30,000 OF FUNDING
   in exchange for a minority stake in your company

2. MENTOR-LED BOOT CAMP
   Two of the people on your team fly to Hong Kong for a week of mentor-led boot camp with Accelerator HK

3. ACCELERATION PROGRAM
   3 months virtual acceleration program via Paul Orlando, director of AcceleratorHK and TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 Hackathon winner

Walkthrough: Locking Asynchronous File Operations

When I started writing Windows 8 apps, one of my first productions was wrapping file operations in a helper class called StorageHelper. This class has successfully been leveraged by thousands of Windows 8 developers. I certainly use it every time I interact with a File or a Setting.

But the StorageHelper isn’t perfect in every scenario. For most mainstream applications it is perfect. But for some edge cases where file operations occur in parallel, an asynchronous read or write may not complete before another operation is attempted on the same file. This causes parallel locking. Hans Windhoff, a community developer in Colorado, took my StorageHelper and updated it with the solution – solving locks with some smarts and voodoo.

Here’s Hans’ experience:

Where is PhoneGap for Windows Phone 8? Right here!

Native applications on mobile devices deliver a great experience to users. Only native applications can deliver excellent fidelity and performance, and support a disconnected state. But if you don’t know the devices mobile technology development can be difficult.

Mobile web sites deliver a poor experience to users. Mobile web sites are simply web pages; they cannot access the device itself and necessitate an always-connected device. But because it’s just HTML, developers have an easier time supporting multiple devices.

A Real Option

Mixing native with web is PhoneGap – it executes local HTML and JavaScript in an embedded browser wrapper app. PhoneGap apps are not as awesome as native apps, but they are surely the next best thing – and are a viable option.  These types of apps don’t require developers to know much about a device – and can be deployed across the various mobile platforms with little investment. They also have access to the device itself (including sensors, battery and more); they support offline scenarios, too.

The Largest Hack-a-thon in the World is in Colorado!

Build your one-of-a-kind Windows app at the free Gen Appathon event on November 9th. Join thousands of developers just like you on November 9, 2012 for the world's largest code fest – Gen Appathon. Here's your chance to get down to business and start building your dream app, or polish up the last lines of code on that app you've already started.

This hackathon was renamed from WowZapp!

Light-styled XAML Controls in a Dark-themed Win8 Project

One of my favorite Colorado community leaders and XAML Jedi, Shawn Kendrot, wrote a great article helping XAML developers dynamically style controls with the standard light and dark layouts. In his article, Shawn uses the Settings charm to show how to do it.

One of the things I love about Windows Store apps is their ability to integrate with the system. One of these integration points is the Settings Charm. I’m not going to show you how to create a settings flyout. There are already lots of examples out there that do this. There are even some helpers like the SettingsFlyout available in Callisto and the helper created by Jerry Nixon. Recently Tim Heuer made a change to the SettingsFlyout to set the background to white. This change allows your app to follow the guidelines. He also added a property that allows you to change what you want the background to be if you are not a fan of white.

Learn Windows Phone in Denver

Windows Phone Unleashed is the premier developer event for Windows Phone. If you live in Denver, don’t miss your opportunity to get exposure to serious know-how, labs, peers, and prizes.

What: Windows Phone Developer Camp

Where: Microsoft Offices in Denver

When: Saturday, May 5, 2012 @ 8 – 6PM

Register here.

Imagine Cup | USA People’s Choice | Get out the vote!

Students from around the country compete to solve problems with technology. Indeed, here’s their mission:

Create real-world software applications using Microsoft technologies. Just remember, they must address the Imagine Cup 2012 theme: Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems.

Check out their creativity! Support the next generation!

Vote for your favorite today!

Check out last year!

Oh, no you didn’t! Office 365 at Home?

In an article by Richard Hay:

I recently transitioned our household to hosted email accounts with Office 365.  My wife and I are both Outlook users and like the benefits of working in that interface locally on our desktop and laptops.

The option we are now using, hosted Microsoft Exchange e-mail accounts under Office 365, gives us max flexibility and allows us to pick up our email on either machine without having to think about them being synched or copying the files back and forth.  It will work whether we are on the road visiting somewhere with our laptops or accessing the account using Outlook Web Access.  Everything stays perfectly in sync on all systems without any thought on our part and that is probably the nicest aspect of it all.

The accounts do cost $60 per year each but give us all these features:

• Cloud-based email using your own domain name
• Shared calendars
• Configurable anti-spam filtering
• Active Directory synchronization
• Live 24 x 7 IT customer phone support

Many will ask why not just do this with the Microsoft Office Outlook Hotmail Connector, a free Hotmail account and accessing our current POP3 accounts through Hotmail to consolidate everything…

Read the whole article here.

Why Google Docs Suck!

To get your point across, style matters. Making your point takes flair and sometimes some swagger, and you always need substance. So, your message needs to be complete and your document’s format needs to be what you intended. Of course, you want to have all of the pieces in your message, including your charts and your images. And you want to have the right look and feel. I like to call this the “fidelity” of the document.

Don’t lose your mojo by using Google Docs to share documents. Share your information and ideas with Office Web Apps.

I've shared Office documents with Google Docs, and here’s what can happen:

• Critical information in Excel spreadsheet cells disappear. My budget formulas display "ERROR!", and I look like I find second-grade math challenging.
• The newsletter I’m pulling together loses its charts, so I’m only updating people with half of the information that parents in the school district care about.
• Images are lost on  invitations, leaving friends feeling ‘flat’ about the party that we know will be the best Daytona 500 event we’ve ever had!
• Turning to my work at the office on a document, tracked changes disappear and the ‘Comments’ are not tied to the sources. The message doesn’t flow, to say the least. My focus and influence are questionable… Uggh.
• I’m updating my bio, getting ready to present at an event. Formatting including tabs, paragraph spacing and page margins move around and some drop off. I look ridiculously unprofessional, and I’ve lost the emphasis and style I’ve just labored over.
• Next, I finalize the presentation. My PowerPoint fonts are changed, and animations and transitions are missing. At the event, I lose the attention of customers in delivering it.

In short, the people you communicate with can get the wrong message, because Google Docs often doesn’t deliver your Office documents the way you created them on the desktop –They can get lost in translation, become incomplete, and certainly lack the sizzle.

Read the article here

Also: take a look at the differences between using Office Web Apps and Google Docs.

C++ for C# Developers

C++ is an uncontested tool for delivering innovation outside the box (augmented reality, natural user interfaces, compelling games, and more). But how to reconnect with C++ using our C# background as starting point?

This is a somewhat short guide to the important things to know if you are a C# programmer and find yourself needing or wanting to work in C++, for example to create Metro style games for Windows 8 using C++ and DirectX. In fact, this guide is written with that goal in mind so it's not necessarily a universal guide for all platforms and purposes.

This guide is also going to be fairly utilitarian and pithy, with code standing in place of elaborate commentary. I'm expecting that you know how to program already and have a good understanding of C# (or of some sort of imperative, object-oriented language at any rate).

Read the whole article here.

Lasers can be Magnetized: Faster Hard Drives

One of my local, community leaders, Dennis Martin, specialized in Storage technologies. In a recent article of his, he discusses the use of lasers in magnetic media to improve the performance of hard drives.

The disk industry has been experimenting with bit patterned media/shingled writes (see our post on Sequential Only Disk) and thermally or heat assisted magnetic recording (TAR or HAMR) heads for some time now. The TAR/HAMR heads use both magnetization and heat to quickly change magnetic moments in ferro-magnetic material (see our post on When will disks become extinct).

The new study seems to be able to do away with the magnetic recording mechanism and is able to change the magnetic value with a short focused laser burst alone. But what does this mean for the future of disk drives.

Read the whole article here.

Utah’s Code Camp Announced!

UTAH’S PREMIER
DEVELOPER EVENT

Neumont University
10701 S Jordan River Parkway | South, Jordan, Utah

Saturday, March 10, 2012 | 9:00AM – 5:00PM

FREE | Lunch Included

Registration: utahgeekevents.com

Meet your peers and learn about the latest technologies and best practices from some of Utah’s best developers. Utah Code Camp is a free event for developers.

Past Utah Code Camps have covered such topics as web development, version control, continuous integration, Android and iOS programming, Microsoft .Net development, Oracle, SQL Server, best practices, Agile, software craftsmanship, intellectual property law, professional development, Java, and more!

Proven Marketing Strategies to Promote your Windows Phone App

Creating a Windows Phone Application is straight-forward. The rich and robust Silverlight environment gives developers the tools a controls they need to create compelling user experiences.

But what do you do once you have your application? What draws people to discover your new creation? What pays you back for the investment of development? Telerik has created a guide to application owners to market their application. No strings attached.

The “Learn how to promote your WP7 app” paper offers practical tips and tricks from both the developer and marketing perspective for which you don’t need any marketing background and hopefully should not take too much of your time. The topics discussed are: presentation of your app and tracking your statistics, ideas about how to build your most loyal users’ core, how to increase downloads through in-app tricks, in-apps ads, external promotion and links to currently running Windows Phone competitions.

Read the White Paper here

Customize the WP Emulator’s Skin!

Yeah, I’ll say it. This is awesome.

On CodePlex, there’s a new project, the Windows Phone 7 Enulator Skin Switcher.

The Windows Phone 7 emulator skin switcher is an application that gives you multiple skins to use on your Windows Phone 7 emulator. Start the application, select one of the 25 available skins and you're done!

Who doesn’t want the pink Nokia? I mean seriously?!

Find the project site here.

Mango Tip: Awesome Marketplace Screenshots

Here’s a tool that makes your emulator’s start screen look less like an emulator and more like a phone.

If you look at screenshots in the Marketplace that show the Start Screen, you will notice something strange – they all look the same – usually an Internet Explorer tile and a tile for the app. There are 2 reasons devs don’t show more tiles:

1. Sometimes, you don’t want the start screen to be too “noisy”

2. It’s impossible with the default emulator provided by Microsoft.

Read the whole article.

PhoneGap fully supports Windows Phone

In addition to being able to leverage their HTML5 and Javascript skills to target Windows Phone, developers can now enjoy a selection of PhoneGap Plugins that support social networks and a solid integration into Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone.

Read the full article here.

OData T4 for C# Preview 1

My colleagues on the WCF Data Services Team have announced OData T4 for C#.

• If you are not already into OData – then you need to consider Odata your solution to simple exposing your data through a queriable service.
• If you are not already into T4 – then you need to consider T4 your code generation solution, completely built into Visual Studio.

I’m very excited to announce the release of OData T4 for C# Preview 1, for the October 2011 CTP of the next version of WCF Data Services libraries, with support for code generation of service operations. The goal of this T4 preview and subsequent ones will be to get community feedback on the templates before having “Add Service Reference” natively generate T4 templates out of the box in a future release.

Read the article here.