So you're all wondering who is moving up to round 2 of the Imagine Cup. Well, I now have the results for you.
In Game Design - Xbox segment, we have Zigers, Dr. Fishbowl, Digital Infinity, and Credit no Credit.
In Game Design - Windows Phone segment, we have Drexal Dragons, Wasabi Ninja,Panther Games Team Alpha, and Pigmaster.
In Software Design, we have Physically Kincted, The Miracle Workers, Flashfood, and KinectMath.
Tomorrow, each of these teams will go in front of judges once again to decide who wins. Until then, everyone here at the Imagine Cup will have the chance to relax and enjoy the evening.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Imagine Cup 2012: Scrutiny and Relaxation
Yesterday, the first round of the competition happened and each team was in the hands of the judges. Some of the teams had neat ideas for games. One team I saw, Wasabi Ninja, used the camera in the phone in conjunction with a face detection algorithm to hide enemies and show them only on the "infected faces". I haven't seen many games use the camera as part of the game, so this kind-of made them special.
Once that was done, we all went out to Seattle for the 50th anniversary of the world fair. There, each team got their picture taken and an "interview video" was recorded. After that we all met at the space needle for a tour on a duck. The funny thing about the duck is that it only moves at 38mph max.
Dinner that night was at Lucky Strikes in Lincoln Square, where we were treated to an evening of bowling, food, and fellowship. I left near the end of the time there since I had an interview with Microsoft the next today.
Today (Sunday), I woke up and went to Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. After that, I went back to Lincoln Square for my interview with Microsoft. Luckily for me, Microsoft had a session on Microsoft recruiting and what to look for. After that, anyone at Imagine Cup who wanted an interview for an internship or full-time job got one, and everyone was partitioned into time blocks. So many people fighting for so few positions makes it difficult to be sure you got the job.
Currently in the standings overall, we have Digital Infinity, ICsquared, and Team Minitrus at first, second, and third, with Team Minitrus leading the pack for Windows Phone. This can change at any time, and you can make it happen. Just go to the Imagine Cup page on Facebook, and vote for your favorite team. I will add that you must have a facebook account to vote. You only have a short amount of time to cast your vote, so do it now if you haven't already.
Later today, we will find out who passed and will be moving on to Round 2 of presentations.
Once that was done, we all went out to Seattle for the 50th anniversary of the world fair. There, each team got their picture taken and an "interview video" was recorded. After that we all met at the space needle for a tour on a duck. The funny thing about the duck is that it only moves at 38mph max.
Dinner that night was at Lucky Strikes in Lincoln Square, where we were treated to an evening of bowling, food, and fellowship. I left near the end of the time there since I had an interview with Microsoft the next today.
Today (Sunday), I woke up and went to Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. After that, I went back to Lincoln Square for my interview with Microsoft. Luckily for me, Microsoft had a session on Microsoft recruiting and what to look for. After that, anyone at Imagine Cup who wanted an interview for an internship or full-time job got one, and everyone was partitioned into time blocks. So many people fighting for so few positions makes it difficult to be sure you got the job.
Currently in the standings overall, we have Digital Infinity, ICsquared, and Team Minitrus at first, second, and third, with Team Minitrus leading the pack for Windows Phone. This can change at any time, and you can make it happen. Just go to the Imagine Cup page on Facebook, and vote for your favorite team. I will add that you must have a facebook account to vote. You only have a short amount of time to cast your vote, so do it now if you haven't already.
Later today, we will find out who passed and will be moving on to Round 2 of presentations.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
A Message for all Catholics at Imagine Cup
I would like for all Catholics at the Imagine Cup to know that the nearest Catholic church is Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Sunday Mass times are at 9:00 and 11:00. I will be attending the 9:00 Mass, so if you would like to join me I you are welcome to.
Imagine Cup 2012: It Begins
Well folks, it's that time of year again, the time to determine the finalists in the United States branch of the Imagine cup. Throughout the year, many people have been working on various projects for this year's competition. After 2 rounds of elimination, we have 22 team with a total of 76 people. Over the course of this year's competition, I will be covering windows phone game design. With that, let's meet the teams that I will be covering. To see the other teams, please visit https://apps.facebook.com/microsoftimaginecup/. (Please Note: you must have a facebook account if you want to access the link). Please also vote for you favorite team (use the same facebook link given above).
First, we have Pigmaster from University of California, Los Angeles with Word Hog. "Word Hog is a kid’s game about a group of pigs who need the player’s help to write a paper for a school project. The player controls a trampoline where pigs bounce toward bubbles to collect items such as letters. The second part of the game is a puzzle where the pigs can use those letters to create words, shift the letters around, or discard letters. "
Next, we have Panther Games Team Alpha from Santa Ana College and Chapman University with Children of War” (CoW). "The team created a game “Children of War” (CoW) that is based upon struggles in Africa between villages and rebel groups. The game puts the player into the shoes of a Ugandan child living in a village and the player must sneak past rebels and obstacles, rescue other children, and lead them all to safety in a race before dawn."
Then, we have Wasabi Ninja from University of Houston with Wasabi Ninja. "The team created an augmented reality based first person shooter game for Windows Phone 7. The player takes the role as Phagy, a nanomachine engineered specifically to destroy harmful materials in the water systems of developing countries."
Next, we have New Games Plus from University of California, Davis with RE-TREE. "RE-TREE focuses on the problems of deforestation. The player is a college student who decides to save the trees after an environmentally conscious professor teaches him about deforestation. The player uses weapons from the professor to defeat such enemies as loggers, scientists, lawyers, and a CEO, in the end coming to terms with the fact that the only way to cope with deforestation is to explore new and current technologies. "
Then, we have Team Mintrus from University of Louisville with Pandemic. "Pandemic is an AIDS-based tower defense game educating users about AIDS. The player plays as a specific character, and the unique setting – inside the human body. Each of the levels in this game resembles the story of an individual suffering from various methods of contraction."
Last, we have Drexel Dragons from Drexel University with Math Dash. "The team created the game “Math Dash”, a solution that helps students learn through game play. The game teaches students while engaging them in their normal activities and integrates learning with fun."
Last night started off with a keynote address from Major Nelson, a developer on the Xbox team. The point of his keynote address was that we are living in the golden age of software. Games are successful because they combine the elements of media with storytelling. It's the storytelling that really drives a game to be successful.
I am curious to see how these teams will present the experience of their games to the judges and what the reception will be like. Anyway, stay tuned for more, as things are just heating up. I will be posting periodica1 updates on my Twitter acccount (@rctechgeek), so feel free to follow me to stay posted. Don't forget to vote for your favorite Imagine Cup team.
If you have any questions or comments about Imagine Cup, feel free to comment below in the comment box or e-mail me at catholictechgeek@gmail.com.
(quotes taken from project descriptions on teams' section on Imagine Cup Facebook page)
First, we have Pigmaster from University of California, Los Angeles with Word Hog. "Word Hog is a kid’s game about a group of pigs who need the player’s help to write a paper for a school project. The player controls a trampoline where pigs bounce toward bubbles to collect items such as letters. The second part of the game is a puzzle where the pigs can use those letters to create words, shift the letters around, or discard letters. "
Next, we have Panther Games Team Alpha from Santa Ana College and Chapman University with Children of War” (CoW). "The team created a game “Children of War” (CoW) that is based upon struggles in Africa between villages and rebel groups. The game puts the player into the shoes of a Ugandan child living in a village and the player must sneak past rebels and obstacles, rescue other children, and lead them all to safety in a race before dawn."
Then, we have Wasabi Ninja from University of Houston with Wasabi Ninja. "The team created an augmented reality based first person shooter game for Windows Phone 7. The player takes the role as Phagy, a nanomachine engineered specifically to destroy harmful materials in the water systems of developing countries."
Next, we have New Games Plus from University of California, Davis with RE-TREE. "RE-TREE focuses on the problems of deforestation. The player is a college student who decides to save the trees after an environmentally conscious professor teaches him about deforestation. The player uses weapons from the professor to defeat such enemies as loggers, scientists, lawyers, and a CEO, in the end coming to terms with the fact that the only way to cope with deforestation is to explore new and current technologies. "
Then, we have Team Mintrus from University of Louisville with Pandemic. "Pandemic is an AIDS-based tower defense game educating users about AIDS. The player plays as a specific character, and the unique setting – inside the human body. Each of the levels in this game resembles the story of an individual suffering from various methods of contraction."
Last, we have Drexel Dragons from Drexel University with Math Dash. "The team created the game “Math Dash”, a solution that helps students learn through game play. The game teaches students while engaging them in their normal activities and integrates learning with fun."
Last night started off with a keynote address from Major Nelson, a developer on the Xbox team. The point of his keynote address was that we are living in the golden age of software. Games are successful because they combine the elements of media with storytelling. It's the storytelling that really drives a game to be successful.
I am curious to see how these teams will present the experience of their games to the judges and what the reception will be like. Anyway, stay tuned for more, as things are just heating up. I will be posting periodica1 updates on my Twitter acccount (@rctechgeek), so feel free to follow me to stay posted. Don't forget to vote for your favorite Imagine Cup team.
If you have any questions or comments about Imagine Cup, feel free to comment below in the comment box or e-mail me at catholictechgeek@gmail.com.
(quotes taken from project descriptions on teams' section on Imagine Cup Facebook page)
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Some Short Windows 8 Thoughts
Like it or not, the beloved start button we all know and love is gone in Windows 8. In its place, we have the new metro U. I. start screen. With this new start screen, you gain the ability to have live tiles, where the program icon can display bits of program information within opening the program. If you press the windows key on Windows 8, it takes you to the start screen.
However, this means that things can get somewhat cluttered, especially if you have a bunch of programs installed. To solve this, I propose that Windows 8 should allow us to have groups. Groups allow you to put like tiles together I saving screen space in the process. It would also allow people to hide tiles which are used infrequently. Being able to put shortcuts on the desktop mode from the metro ui would be nice as well.
As far as keyboard shortcuts go, alt-F4 and Ctrl-Alt-Del and Alt-Tab still work under Windows 8. I am not sure about other keyboard shortcuts.
Finally, windows 8 requires a windows live id to login. If you use Hotmail or Xbox Live, you are covered and just use the same email address and password for Hotmail or Xbox Live. If you don't have one, you can easily get one. There is the possibility to have local users on the system which are not connected to Windows live, but those users cannot sync settings with other windows 8 computers.
I would like to invite you to try Windows 8 right now. You can do so by going to http://bit.ly/H04H05. In the windows 8 setup program, there is an option to upgrade a Windows 7 installation to Windows 8. I would advise against this (at least until windows 8 is officially released to the general market). In my next post, I will detail how to install windows 8 toa separate part of your hard drive so your important data is untouched. For now, just download the windows 8 setup, but don't install it unless you know what you are doing.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to ask me via the comment box below or via e-mail at catholictechgeek@gmail.com. You can subscribe to my rss feed or follow me on Twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
However, this means that things can get somewhat cluttered, especially if you have a bunch of programs installed. To solve this, I propose that Windows 8 should allow us to have groups. Groups allow you to put like tiles together I saving screen space in the process. It would also allow people to hide tiles which are used infrequently. Being able to put shortcuts on the desktop mode from the metro ui would be nice as well.
As far as keyboard shortcuts go, alt-F4 and Ctrl-Alt-Del and Alt-Tab still work under Windows 8. I am not sure about other keyboard shortcuts.
Finally, windows 8 requires a windows live id to login. If you use Hotmail or Xbox Live, you are covered and just use the same email address and password for Hotmail or Xbox Live. If you don't have one, you can easily get one. There is the possibility to have local users on the system which are not connected to Windows live, but those users cannot sync settings with other windows 8 computers.
I would like to invite you to try Windows 8 right now. You can do so by going to http://bit.ly/H04H05. In the windows 8 setup program, there is an option to upgrade a Windows 7 installation to Windows 8. I would advise against this (at least until windows 8 is officially released to the general market). In my next post, I will detail how to install windows 8 toa separate part of your hard drive so your important data is untouched. For now, just download the windows 8 setup, but don't install it unless you know what you are doing.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to ask me via the comment box below or via e-mail at catholictechgeek@gmail.com. You can subscribe to my rss feed or follow me on Twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Frustrations of an Uninformed Developer
When a developer develops an app, he tries to design the app with what the target audience, not just himself, will want in that app in mind. When a developer puts a program out on an app marketplace, he (or she) hopes that the app will do well. However, when a developer tries to improve the app, there is only so much that he will recognize that needs to be improved. To help close this gap, this is where the end-user comes into play.
We all know that the developer is human and every person is different. When the end-user uses the app, the person might see something that needs to be changed or improved in the app that the developer didn't catch. It is VERY IMPORTANT that users notify the developer about changes or possible improvements to the app. If not, improvements to the program can't happen. It is very frustrating when a developer finds that he is getting a decent number of downloads of his app, but there is little to no feedback (whether it be positive or negative feedback) from users of the app.
I will mention that when users are giving feedback on changes and improvements of an app, users need to be as clear as humanly possible as to what they want changed or improved. Stuff like "this app crashes" is not very helpful. Restating that as "this app crashes when ... happens" or "this app crashes when I do..." is much more helpful to the developer. Ratings are also important as well. Ratings can give a developer a gauge of how well his app is doing.
Developers, you need to be accessible as to how your app's users can issue support requests to you. It is also important to reply as quickly as humanly possible to those support requests. Honesty is another big thing. If there is something that users are wanting that just isn't possible with the current environment, just be honest with the users about it. People always appreciate honesty.
Now you may be wondering what this has to do with me. On the windows phone marketplace, I have an app called Mobile Media Manager, which is a media player. I have been getting a good number of downloads but I have been getting Very Little feedback on the app. With little feedback, I don't have a strong idea of whether people enjoy my app or not. I can only assume that with a good number of downloads of that app, people enjoy using my app. If you have downloaded either the paid version or the free version, please rate and review the version you tried. If you have a support issue, please see http://catholictechgeek.blogspot.com/p/mobile-media-manager.html.
To find my Apps on the windows phone marketplace, just search for "Nowaksoft". You can also use the following links to get to it:
paid version: http://bit.ly/y3rf6V
free version: http://bit.ly/xGCsWE
I should have an update for both the free version and paid version of Mobile Media Manager out soon, depending on how fast the update passes certification. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me via the comment box below or via e-mail at catholictechgeek@gmail.com. You can subscribe to my rss feed or follow me on Twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
We all know that the developer is human and every person is different. When the end-user uses the app, the person might see something that needs to be changed or improved in the app that the developer didn't catch. It is VERY IMPORTANT that users notify the developer about changes or possible improvements to the app. If not, improvements to the program can't happen. It is very frustrating when a developer finds that he is getting a decent number of downloads of his app, but there is little to no feedback (whether it be positive or negative feedback) from users of the app.
I will mention that when users are giving feedback on changes and improvements of an app, users need to be as clear as humanly possible as to what they want changed or improved. Stuff like "this app crashes" is not very helpful. Restating that as "this app crashes when ... happens" or "this app crashes when I do..." is much more helpful to the developer. Ratings are also important as well. Ratings can give a developer a gauge of how well his app is doing.
Developers, you need to be accessible as to how your app's users can issue support requests to you. It is also important to reply as quickly as humanly possible to those support requests. Honesty is another big thing. If there is something that users are wanting that just isn't possible with the current environment, just be honest with the users about it. People always appreciate honesty.
Now you may be wondering what this has to do with me. On the windows phone marketplace, I have an app called Mobile Media Manager, which is a media player. I have been getting a good number of downloads but I have been getting Very Little feedback on the app. With little feedback, I don't have a strong idea of whether people enjoy my app or not. I can only assume that with a good number of downloads of that app, people enjoy using my app. If you have downloaded either the paid version or the free version, please rate and review the version you tried. If you have a support issue, please see http://catholictechgeek.blogspot.com/p/mobile-media-manager.html.
To find my Apps on the windows phone marketplace, just search for "Nowaksoft". You can also use the following links to get to it:
paid version: http://bit.ly/y3rf6V
free version: http://bit.ly/xGCsWE
I should have an update for both the free version and paid version of Mobile Media Manager out soon, depending on how fast the update passes certification. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me via the comment box below or via e-mail at catholictechgeek@gmail.com. You can subscribe to my rss feed or follow me on Twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Mobile Media Manager and a Progress Update for it
If you have been wondering where I've been this February since I haven't done much posting, I've been working on development of my media player app for Windows Phone, Mobile Media Manager. The goal of Mobile Media Manager is to make a media player that is better than the Zune player that comes with Windows Phone and fulfills as many needs/wants as (humanly) possible. To do this, I looked at the competition and did some observations based on user reviews and what I thought could be improved.
Here is a screenshot of the player screen:
This is the basic state of the player, simple, yet still usable. A big part of the interface is big playback buttons. There are a number of reasons why they are big. One reason is if you're in the car, driving, you don't really have (enough) time to look over at your phone to see the screen and change the song. Another reason is for men with big hands who might have a hard time with the small button size in the zune player (although, I will admit that the playback button size in mango is a big improvement over playback button size in nodo). Repeat and shuffle have been moved to the bottom as buttons in the application bar. To see the state of each, just open up the menu to see the descriptions of the application bar buttons. Where you see the message "No Album Art Found" is where album art would be displayed, or you will see the message if there is none to be displayed. In a future version, I will add the capability to fetch album art from the internet if it's not there, but I am not sure when that will actually be.
If you're curious, I have also built in gesture support (just swipe your finger) for moving forward or backward through the Now Playing list (but not for play/pause).
In progress updates, I have revamped the Now Playing screen and Playlist Editor screen. I am also working on implementing choosing a photo in your photo library as the background and being able to add songs from a url for streaming. As things are very busy for me at school right now, I am trying to do my best to find time to work on the program, but things can get rough at times.
It helps tremendously if I can get reviews in the marketplace. From there, I can get a feel for how my app is doing and also get suggestions to improve the app. I can't do much if I don't get input from the users in the marketplace. So if you have tried either the free version or bought the paid version, please write a review. So far, I have only received 1 review for the paid version (thank you if you are the one who gave me the 3 star review and some helpful tips to improve) and 2 for the free version, of which 1 just says "this app crashes". Something like that is not going to help me much, so if you are going to give suggestions in addition to a rating, please be more descriptive.
Download (for paid version): http://bit.ly/y3rf6V
Download (for free, ad-supported version): http://bit.ly/xGCsWE
If you like I can continue to explain the other screens of my program during my next post. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me via the comment box below or via e-mail at catholictechgeek@gmail.com. You can subscribe to my rss feed or follow me on Twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
Here is a screenshot of the player screen:
This is the basic state of the player, simple, yet still usable. A big part of the interface is big playback buttons. There are a number of reasons why they are big. One reason is if you're in the car, driving, you don't really have (enough) time to look over at your phone to see the screen and change the song. Another reason is for men with big hands who might have a hard time with the small button size in the zune player (although, I will admit that the playback button size in mango is a big improvement over playback button size in nodo). Repeat and shuffle have been moved to the bottom as buttons in the application bar. To see the state of each, just open up the menu to see the descriptions of the application bar buttons. Where you see the message "No Album Art Found" is where album art would be displayed, or you will see the message if there is none to be displayed. In a future version, I will add the capability to fetch album art from the internet if it's not there, but I am not sure when that will actually be.
If you're curious, I have also built in gesture support (just swipe your finger) for moving forward or backward through the Now Playing list (but not for play/pause).
In progress updates, I have revamped the Now Playing screen and Playlist Editor screen. I am also working on implementing choosing a photo in your photo library as the background and being able to add songs from a url for streaming. As things are very busy for me at school right now, I am trying to do my best to find time to work on the program, but things can get rough at times.
It helps tremendously if I can get reviews in the marketplace. From there, I can get a feel for how my app is doing and also get suggestions to improve the app. I can't do much if I don't get input from the users in the marketplace. So if you have tried either the free version or bought the paid version, please write a review. So far, I have only received 1 review for the paid version (thank you if you are the one who gave me the 3 star review and some helpful tips to improve) and 2 for the free version, of which 1 just says "this app crashes". Something like that is not going to help me much, so if you are going to give suggestions in addition to a rating, please be more descriptive.
Download (for paid version): http://bit.ly/y3rf6V
Download (for free, ad-supported version): http://bit.ly/xGCsWE
If you like I can continue to explain the other screens of my program during my next post. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me via the comment box below or via e-mail at catholictechgeek@gmail.com. You can subscribe to my rss feed or follow me on Twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Fun times here at the Global Game Jam at Carnegie-Mellon University: Part 2
Well, unfortunately, things did not go well for windows phone at the Global Game Jam at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburg. Many of the teams developed flash-based games, even though flash requires you to be a null nazi for much, if not most, of the time due to horrible garbage collection. Another issue I noticed that many of the teams decided to use the Unity engine for their games, and there is no port of Unity for Windows Phone.
Play testing for the teams went well. There was no one perfect game that any team there came up with. Some projects went more well than others. When I went to playtest on Sunday, some of the teams were not ready for testing, trying to work out some last minute details.
As I said before, things did not go well for windows phone here. Only one team made an xna game (for pc), with intent to make a windows phone version, but time ran out for the windows phone version. Another team used Microsoft's Kinect SDK to make a game incorporating kinect, but hopes for a windows phone version of the game died when the team found out that there is not any kinect programming support for Windows Phone yet. Another issue was lack of knowledge of C#, the (main) programming language behind windows phone. If you know Java or C++, C# is easy to learn, but I guess the teams felt stretched for time and didn't feel like they had time to learn this.
I will be uploading some pictures of the event I took later (and post the link here).
Play testing for the teams went well. There was no one perfect game that any team there came up with. Some projects went more well than others. When I went to playtest on Sunday, some of the teams were not ready for testing, trying to work out some last minute details.
As I said before, things did not go well for windows phone here. Only one team made an xna game (for pc), with intent to make a windows phone version, but time ran out for the windows phone version. Another team used Microsoft's Kinect SDK to make a game incorporating kinect, but hopes for a windows phone version of the game died when the team found out that there is not any kinect programming support for Windows Phone yet. Another issue was lack of knowledge of C#, the (main) programming language behind windows phone. If you know Java or C++, C# is easy to learn, but I guess the teams felt stretched for time and didn't feel like they had time to learn this.
I will be uploading some pictures of the event I took later (and post the link here).
Friday, January 27, 2012
Fun times here at the Global Game Jam at Carnegie-Mellon University: Part 1
This weekend in 48 countries throughout the world, people are coming together in teams to make a complete game from start to finish in less than 48 hours. Most will realize that this is no small feat. It usually takes months, even years for some, for games to be created and published for the enjoyment of all gaming sheeple everywhere. However, these participants will do it all in less than 48 hours. How do I fit into all of this? I am Microsoft's representative at the Carnegie-Mellon University site.
Now granted, these games, like all other games, are always able to be improved and refined. But who can say that they make a whole working game in 48 hours? Anyway, the teams are now in their brainstorming sessions, but I have been able to make some of the teams consider windows phone as the platform of choice. Right now, the teams seem to be in a "plan game first, program afterwards" mentality. Unfortunately, none of the teams have shown up at my windows phone workshop tonight (it was probably scheduled at a bad time). Let's hope all of the teams brainstorm some great ideas.
If you have any comments or questions about this, feel free to ask or tell via the comment box below, or e-mail them to me at catholictechgeek@gmail.com. Teams at the Carnegie-Mellon site, feel free to contact me with any questions you may have about windows phone or imagine cup via the comment box or e-mail (address given above) or by twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
I will be posting more tomorrow, with pictures to boot.
Now granted, these games, like all other games, are always able to be improved and refined. But who can say that they make a whole working game in 48 hours? Anyway, the teams are now in their brainstorming sessions, but I have been able to make some of the teams consider windows phone as the platform of choice. Right now, the teams seem to be in a "plan game first, program afterwards" mentality. Unfortunately, none of the teams have shown up at my windows phone workshop tonight (it was probably scheduled at a bad time). Let's hope all of the teams brainstorm some great ideas.
If you have any comments or questions about this, feel free to ask or tell via the comment box below, or e-mail them to me at catholictechgeek@gmail.com. Teams at the Carnegie-Mellon site, feel free to contact me with any questions you may have about windows phone or imagine cup via the comment box or e-mail (address given above) or by twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
I will be posting more tomorrow, with pictures to boot.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Do you think your phone can beat a Windows Phone?
At CES 2012, Ben the PC Guy has put out a challenge for anyone, especially Apple and Android fanboys (and fangirls too) who thinks that their phone can beat a Windows Phone: if your phone can beat a Windows phone, you get a free (genuine) $100 bill. If you loose, however, the only thing asked of you is that you look into the camera and admit that your phone is not better than a Windows phone, and then you can get a free windows phone. And in case you were wondering, it is geared towards non-windows phones only. Here is the youtube video of the announcement of his challenge:
I think this is a really gutsy move on Ben's and Microsoft's part. If many trials come back and say that Windows Phone is better than the other phones, this can only help boost the profile of Windows Phone among consumers (and will put many Apple and Android fanboys to shame as well). This is also a valuable learning moment for the Windows Phone dev team as well: if a non-windows phone performs better in a category than a Windows phone does, then the dev team can identify that concept and try to find ways to improve that concept.
I am looking forward to seeing the results of those challenges. If you want to check out the status of the contest on twitter, just check for #smokedbywindowsphone.
If you have any thoughts or comments on this, I invite you to share them via the comment box below.
I think this is a really gutsy move on Ben's and Microsoft's part. If many trials come back and say that Windows Phone is better than the other phones, this can only help boost the profile of Windows Phone among consumers (and will put many Apple and Android fanboys to shame as well). This is also a valuable learning moment for the Windows Phone dev team as well: if a non-windows phone performs better in a category than a Windows phone does, then the dev team can identify that concept and try to find ways to improve that concept.
I am looking forward to seeing the results of those challenges. If you want to check out the status of the contest on twitter, just check for #smokedbywindowsphone.
If you have any thoughts or comments on this, I invite you to share them via the comment box below.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Even More Windows Phone Contests
Well, I am finally back from Christmas break, so I have some more new contests to announce.
While we are waiting for the results of the Microsoft Apportunity contest, there is still the You've Got Game sweepstakes from Microsoft. In this contest you can win 1 of 3 Dell Alienware M18x Laptops. Also, each week on Tuesday around 4pm PT, twenty-five (25) people will be selected to receive one (1) Xbox Live Gold Card from among all eligible entries received during the previous week. You could also win 1 of 3 4 GB Xbox 360s with Kinect. The contest end at 4:00 PM PT February 29, 2012, so any game published between now and then works as an entry. Just like the Apportunity contest, if you use Azure in your app, you get an additional bonus entry.
You can enter on Facebook by visiting the website for the Sweepstakes at www.facebook.com/MicrosoftUserCommunity?sk=app_234264339961262 or www.facebook.com/MicrosoftTechStudent?sk=app_234264339961262 and completing all of the registration requirements, including completion of an online entry form. Once you get a confirmation screen, you will get an App URL. Once you have your unique URL, you will be prompted to share the promotion via your Facebook profile. If you choose to share this sweepstakes with your social network, you will receive an one (1) entry into the sharing sweepstakes for each person who clicks on the unique link that you sent and visits the Facebook Game Changer page.
Also, Microsoft has just announced that it is offering the first 500 AppHub developers to publish a Windows Phone app to the Marketplace a free Nokia Lumia 800 handset, to really set the ball rolling for 2012. However, you must meet the following requirements:
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me via the comment box below or via e-mail at catholictechgeek@gmail.com. You can subscribe to my rss feed or follow me on Twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
While we are waiting for the results of the Microsoft Apportunity contest, there is still the You've Got Game sweepstakes from Microsoft. In this contest you can win 1 of 3 Dell Alienware M18x Laptops. Also, each week on Tuesday around 4pm PT, twenty-five (25) people will be selected to receive one (1) Xbox Live Gold Card from among all eligible entries received during the previous week. You could also win 1 of 3 4 GB Xbox 360s with Kinect. The contest end at 4:00 PM PT February 29, 2012, so any game published between now and then works as an entry. Just like the Apportunity contest, if you use Azure in your app, you get an additional bonus entry.
You can enter on Facebook by visiting the website for the Sweepstakes at www.facebook.com/MicrosoftUserCommunity?sk=app_234264339961262 or www.facebook.com/MicrosoftTechStudent?sk=app_234264339961262 and completing all of the registration requirements, including completion of an online entry form. Once you get a confirmation screen, you will get an App URL. Once you have your unique URL, you will be prompted to share the promotion via your Facebook profile. If you choose to share this sweepstakes with your social network, you will receive an one (1) entry into the sharing sweepstakes for each person who clicks on the unique link that you sent and visits the Facebook Game Changer page.
Also, Microsoft has just announced that it is offering the first 500 AppHub developers to publish a Windows Phone app to the Marketplace a free Nokia Lumia 800 handset, to really set the ball rolling for 2012. However, you must meet the following requirements:
- Target Windows Phone 7.5
- Work as described
- Include Fast App Switching
- Conform to Metro guidelines
- Name (matches App Hub account):
- Mailing Address (where device will be shipped-not used by Microsoft for any other purpose):
- App Hub Publisher/ISV ID #:
- Application ID:
- Marketplace deep link:
- Application publication date:
- Uses Fast app switching (yes or no):
- Conforms to Metro guidelines (yes or no):
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me via the comment box below or via e-mail at catholictechgeek@gmail.com. You can subscribe to my rss feed or follow me on Twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
Monday, December 26, 2011
Merry Christmas and a happy St. Stephen's Day to All
I hope everyone had a blessed and merry Christmas day yesterday.
In the secular, commercial world, Christmas is over. Now is the time for all those after Christmas sales that the retailers have. It's time to clear out our Christmas stock and get ready for Valentine's Day, even though Valentine's Day is over a month and 7 weeks away.
No, Christmas is not just a day, but a (whole) season. During Advent, we have spent over 4 weeks preparing for Jesus to come into the world. When he came into the world, he humbled himself and took on our human nature, being born of a virgin, Mary, Mater Dei (the mother of God). He did this because he loves us, "For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting". [John 3:16] Now that he has come into the world, it is our duty to spread the Christmas message that today, a savior has been born for us.
And now on to the feast day of my patron saint, Saint Stephen. St. Stephen was a deacon who was active in the church during the first century. He was the first martyr, the first of those who suffered at the hands of pagan Rome for his belief in Christianity and in Jesus Christ. Now, granted, it takes guts to stand up for one's faith, even if it means martyrdom. As Christians, we are all called to profess our faith, even if it's unpopular. The early church martyrs understood this and were willing to stand up for the faith rather than give in to the commands of the oppressor, even though it meant death for all of them.
Now, I do realize that some of you out there think that all of this martyrdom stuff is old and done with. Well, at any time in history, there have been those, connected with the State, who persecute Christians for upholding the faith. It happened with the first Christians at the hands of pagan Rome. It happened in England when King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church to establish the Anglican Church. It happened in Soviet Russia to Orthodox Christians (and Eastern Catholics) at the hands of Stalin. It happened in Nazi Germany because the Catholics and other Christians stood up to Hitler. Today, it is happening in China, where those not loyal to the state Catholic Church have been forced underground. Here in America, we have the freedom to worship as we choose to, with no interference from the government. However, the idea of separation of Church and State has 2 ends. One ends says that the government cannot establish a religion and your choice of religion cannot disqualify you from activity in the public square. Then, we have the other end, which says that the government can't interfere with your religion and how you practice it. These days, we have too many people that, while they may not agree with Christian traditions and celebrations in public, are easily "offended" by the practice of the Christian faith in public and have gone to the courts to stop them, which have ordered that these Christians NOT carry out their traditions and religious practices in public. A good example is the ever popular Nativity scene. Various judges here in the US have said that those people cannot put up the Nativity scene because it might "offend" non-Christians. A more mature and charitable approach by those people that are "offended" is to simply ignore it, but don't rain in on someone else's parade just because you don't agree with it.
In today's gospel reading, Jesus says "Beware of men, for they will hand you over to courts
and scourge you in their synagogues, and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans." [Matthew 10:17-18] While Catholics and other Christians are not physically persecuted in America today, other methods of persecution are happening today such as failure of the government to uphold legal measures such as the Defense of Marriage Act and the conscience clause of the health care law. With the health care law, there is a religious exemption which says that a religious institution can be waived. However, this is only the case if the institution only serves a majority of people which hold the same beliefs as the institution. This is a problem for the Catholic Church (and other non-Catholic institutions like them) because the Catholic Church provides care no matter who or what you are. This law means that these institutions only serve Catholics or be penalized. With the conscience clause, a health care worker does not have to do a procedure if it violates his or her morals and religious beliefs. Failure to uphold this means that the health care worker has to take part in the procedure or risk losing their job. This cannot be tolerated.
As we go in our daily lives, let us bring the joy and the message of Christmas into everything we do. In today's gospel reading, Jesus also says that "You will be hated by all because of my name,
but whoever endures to the end will be saved." [Matthew 10:22] May God grant us the courage to be ready to profess and defend the faith, no matter what the circumstances are. May you all have a Merry and Blessed Christmas season this year.
If you have any comments or questions, feel free to post them in the comment box below, or you can send me an e-mail at catholictechgeek@gmail.com. I welcome any and all thoughts on the subject. You can also follow me on twitter as well (username is @rctechgeek).
In the secular, commercial world, Christmas is over. Now is the time for all those after Christmas sales that the retailers have. It's time to clear out our Christmas stock and get ready for Valentine's Day, even though Valentine's Day is over a month and 7 weeks away.
No, Christmas is not just a day, but a (whole) season. During Advent, we have spent over 4 weeks preparing for Jesus to come into the world. When he came into the world, he humbled himself and took on our human nature, being born of a virgin, Mary, Mater Dei (the mother of God). He did this because he loves us, "For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting". [John 3:16] Now that he has come into the world, it is our duty to spread the Christmas message that today, a savior has been born for us.
And now on to the feast day of my patron saint, Saint Stephen. St. Stephen was a deacon who was active in the church during the first century. He was the first martyr, the first of those who suffered at the hands of pagan Rome for his belief in Christianity and in Jesus Christ. Now, granted, it takes guts to stand up for one's faith, even if it means martyrdom. As Christians, we are all called to profess our faith, even if it's unpopular. The early church martyrs understood this and were willing to stand up for the faith rather than give in to the commands of the oppressor, even though it meant death for all of them.
Now, I do realize that some of you out there think that all of this martyrdom stuff is old and done with. Well, at any time in history, there have been those, connected with the State, who persecute Christians for upholding the faith. It happened with the first Christians at the hands of pagan Rome. It happened in England when King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church to establish the Anglican Church. It happened in Soviet Russia to Orthodox Christians (and Eastern Catholics) at the hands of Stalin. It happened in Nazi Germany because the Catholics and other Christians stood up to Hitler. Today, it is happening in China, where those not loyal to the state Catholic Church have been forced underground. Here in America, we have the freedom to worship as we choose to, with no interference from the government. However, the idea of separation of Church and State has 2 ends. One ends says that the government cannot establish a religion and your choice of religion cannot disqualify you from activity in the public square. Then, we have the other end, which says that the government can't interfere with your religion and how you practice it. These days, we have too many people that, while they may not agree with Christian traditions and celebrations in public, are easily "offended" by the practice of the Christian faith in public and have gone to the courts to stop them, which have ordered that these Christians NOT carry out their traditions and religious practices in public. A good example is the ever popular Nativity scene. Various judges here in the US have said that those people cannot put up the Nativity scene because it might "offend" non-Christians. A more mature and charitable approach by those people that are "offended" is to simply ignore it, but don't rain in on someone else's parade just because you don't agree with it.
In today's gospel reading, Jesus says "Beware of men, for they will hand you over to courts
and scourge you in their synagogues, and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake as a witness before them and the pagans." [Matthew 10:17-18] While Catholics and other Christians are not physically persecuted in America today, other methods of persecution are happening today such as failure of the government to uphold legal measures such as the Defense of Marriage Act and the conscience clause of the health care law. With the health care law, there is a religious exemption which says that a religious institution can be waived. However, this is only the case if the institution only serves a majority of people which hold the same beliefs as the institution. This is a problem for the Catholic Church (and other non-Catholic institutions like them) because the Catholic Church provides care no matter who or what you are. This law means that these institutions only serve Catholics or be penalized. With the conscience clause, a health care worker does not have to do a procedure if it violates his or her morals and religious beliefs. Failure to uphold this means that the health care worker has to take part in the procedure or risk losing their job. This cannot be tolerated.
As we go in our daily lives, let us bring the joy and the message of Christmas into everything we do. In today's gospel reading, Jesus also says that "You will be hated by all because of my name,
but whoever endures to the end will be saved." [Matthew 10:22] May God grant us the courage to be ready to profess and defend the faith, no matter what the circumstances are. May you all have a Merry and Blessed Christmas season this year.
If you have any comments or questions, feel free to post them in the comment box below, or you can send me an e-mail at catholictechgeek@gmail.com. I welcome any and all thoughts on the subject. You can also follow me on twitter as well (username is @rctechgeek).
Thursday, December 22, 2011
A Reminder about the Microsoft Apportunity Contest
I would just like to remind everyone that the deadline for the Microsoft Apportunity contest is steadily approaching, so get your entries into the contest in as soon as possible. Any app published between October 15 and December 31 will get you an entry (for each app you publish).
You have about 1 week left to submit all entries. Again, I would like to make it clear that this contest is open to anyone (age 18 or older), not just students.
To submit your program to the Windows Phone Marketplace, either click the picture above or go to :
http://bit.ly/MangoOffer
and enter the code:
E8YRA
I wish everyone well in this contest. If you don't have the SDK already, it's a little late (but not impossible), but you can download it at: http://bit.ly/GoMango. Students can get Visual Studio, needed for development, through Dreamspark.
On a side note, I hope everyone is doing well as we draw ever closer to Christmas.
To help you stay tuned for further announcements, you can subscribe to my rss feed or follow me on twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
Monday, December 12, 2011
Even More Contest Fun from Microsoft
Introducing, the Microsoft Big App on Campus Student Competition. If the Microsoft Apportunity contest wasn't enough incentive to develop apps for Windows Phone, Microsoft is partnering with the band The Gracious Few to create an amazing experience for ten (10) students in Austin, TX at SXSW: a private concert, backstage passes, a private dinner with the band, and being interviewed on national radio about their apps.
Now, I personally don't know much about this band, but I am sure there are those of you out there that do. Also, the fact that Microsoft secured an opportunity for you to be interviewed on national radio about your app is a pretty big feat, allowing for more people to know about your app and (hopefully) buy it or use it a lot (if it's free).
If you aren't too keen on the band part, I might mention that there are also $15,000 cash prizes (one for the top free app and another for the top paid app) for the two apps which will be named “Big App on Campus.” That's a lot of money and can enable you to pay off those pesky student loans you have faster.
BAOC is open to any US college and university student who builds apps for Windows Phone. Each application created from August 1st, 2011 until February 14th, 2012 can be entered and students can submit
multiple entries.
I would imagine it is also possible for a "double entry", that is, (if inside the same timeframe as the Apportunity contest) you can enter the same app in both the Apportunity contest and this contest as well.
Anyway, all entries have to be in by February 14, 2012. On February 15, 20 semi-finalists will be chosen from those entries. On February 23, there will be public voting to select 10 finalists from those 20. On March 1, 2012, there will be public voting to select the Big App on Campus.
For those who are wondering what Microsoft is looking for, here's the judging criteria :
- Innovation (40%): How innovative is the idea? Does it do something new or does it accomplish something in a new way?
- Experience (40%): Does it feel seamless and like a native experience on Windows Phone? Does the app have a polished feel?
- Potential (20%): Does the app have potential in the market (lots of users, making money, both) or not?
To enter, you must first be entered into Dreamspark and from there, get an App Hub membership (both are free of charge for students) at https://users.create.msdn.com/
I hope everyone has a good time with this contest. You can subscribe to my rss feed or follow me on twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Windows Phone camp in Pittsburgh: Part 1
So far, I am having fun at a Windows Phone camp in Pittsburgh, PA. After the introductions, everyone started out with a talk on monetizing your app. From this, I learned that sometimes, making your app free, but with ads in the app, might be a better option for more revenue intake for any apps that I publish than perhaps making my app paid.
After that, we started the programming with a look at Silverlight (for beginners). As a programmer for Windows Phone, I am already pretty familiar with most of the Silverlight basics (I only say most because I haven't had to use some of the more advanced silverlight concepts in my programs yet). We talked about the various controls and view models available in Windows Phone. However, we didn't learn how to create a custom control (but I already know how to do that).
After the silverlight part, we moved on to XNA. Here, those multi-variable calculus concepts which I (sort-of) despise came back to haunt me. As a programmer, I really haven't tried my hand at making games much (with any language or framework), so this part looked a little scary at first. We used a "Cheese Roller Game" as the XNA tutorial material. I think I came out of the XNA part unscathed. However, I think I really need some more practice with these concepts before I try my hand at making a game to sell in the marketplace.
Now, we are going to break for lunch, so I will be getting part 2 to you later on today. After lunch, we will have some time to play around with what we have learned, and later, we will have a contest to see who can make the best app. Stay tuned for more. I will have some photos available for your viewing pleasure later as well.
After that, we started the programming with a look at Silverlight (for beginners). As a programmer for Windows Phone, I am already pretty familiar with most of the Silverlight basics (I only say most because I haven't had to use some of the more advanced silverlight concepts in my programs yet). We talked about the various controls and view models available in Windows Phone. However, we didn't learn how to create a custom control (but I already know how to do that).
After the silverlight part, we moved on to XNA. Here, those multi-variable calculus concepts which I (sort-of) despise came back to haunt me. As a programmer, I really haven't tried my hand at making games much (with any language or framework), so this part looked a little scary at first. We used a "Cheese Roller Game" as the XNA tutorial material. I think I came out of the XNA part unscathed. However, I think I really need some more practice with these concepts before I try my hand at making a game to sell in the marketplace.
Now, we are going to break for lunch, so I will be getting part 2 to you later on today. After lunch, we will have some time to play around with what we have learned, and later, we will have a contest to see who can make the best app. Stay tuned for more. I will have some photos available for your viewing pleasure later as well.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone
I would first like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. For Catholics, this really isn't out of the ordinary at all. At Mass, we always have Thanksgiving Day. The word "Eucharist" comes from the Greek, εὐχαριστία, which means "thanksgiving". Granted, today is a day set aside to give thanks to God for all he has given us. This includes the gift of life. After all, we wouldn't exist if our parents hadn't given us life. For us in America, this also includes the freedom to worship as we wish without harassment by the government (although in the future, this freedom of religion could be challenged, but this is another issue altogether that I will leave for another day).
And now for a word on Black Friday and its encroachment onto Thanksgiving. Black Friday has been the Friday after Thanksgiving in which shopping for Christmas begins and many stores have really great deals on merchandise. This year, there are retail stores which have started black Friday specials as early as 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. on Thursday (for those of you which keep 24 hour time, this is 21:00 or 22:00 on Thursday). To me, this is really sad because Thanksgiving Day is a day to spend with family. If you have to leave your leave your family on Thanksgiving Day evening just to go buy stuff, you might want to rethink your priorities and leave the shopping for Friday. There will still be deals at the stores later, so why rush it? Family is much more important than shopping will ever be. You will always have the chance to shop, but you will only have your family for a time, so make the most of that time.
On a side note, the new Mass translations for the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite go into effect this weekend. I hope everything goes well with the execution of the new changes to the words. I am writing a Mass setting for the new translations which, unfortunately, is not completed yet. When it gets closer to completion, I will post a preview on this blog.
If you have any questions or comments on this, I would love to hear them. You may either send them via the comment box below or via e-mail at catholictechgeek@gmail.com, and I will answer any e-mail I get at the end of my next article. You can also subscribe to my rss feed or follow me on Twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
And now for a word on Black Friday and its encroachment onto Thanksgiving. Black Friday has been the Friday after Thanksgiving in which shopping for Christmas begins and many stores have really great deals on merchandise. This year, there are retail stores which have started black Friday specials as early as 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. on Thursday (for those of you which keep 24 hour time, this is 21:00 or 22:00 on Thursday). To me, this is really sad because Thanksgiving Day is a day to spend with family. If you have to leave your leave your family on Thanksgiving Day evening just to go buy stuff, you might want to rethink your priorities and leave the shopping for Friday. There will still be deals at the stores later, so why rush it? Family is much more important than shopping will ever be. You will always have the chance to shop, but you will only have your family for a time, so make the most of that time.
On a side note, the new Mass translations for the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite go into effect this weekend. I hope everything goes well with the execution of the new changes to the words. I am writing a Mass setting for the new translations which, unfortunately, is not completed yet. When it gets closer to completion, I will post a preview on this blog.
If you have any questions or comments on this, I would love to hear them. You may either send them via the comment box below or via e-mail at catholictechgeek@gmail.com, and I will answer any e-mail I get at the end of my next article. You can also subscribe to my rss feed or follow me on Twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
Monday, November 21, 2011
Update on Microsoft APPortunity Contest
Well, for everyone who has entered the Microsoft Apportunity contest, the folks at Microsoft have smiled upon you. I have a couple of contest updates that you will like. If you haven't read about the contest before, you can read up here.
The first update concerns those of you who use Azure in your programs. If you use Azure in the program that you publish in the Windows Phone marketplace, not only do you do you get your normal 1 entry, but you also get 1 EXTRA entry into the contest as well just for using Azure in your Windows Phone app.
The second update concerns students and Computer Science professors. If a student publishes 3 programs to the Windows Phone marketplace, he or she gets a FREE phone. If you are a student and you don't have a device yet, this is your chance to get a device for free. If you are a student and you already have a device, this gives you an extra device that you can use for testing your programs out.
Students: this is your chance to shine and make an impact on the mobile world. If you have a great idea, now is the time to really develop it and let the world know about it.
Computer Science Professors: this is a great way for your students to develop that great program idea they have and get some real world experience from it. You could even integrate this contest into your classes by making it a class assignment or for extra credit.
I would like to make it clear that this contest is open to anyone (age 18 or older), not just students.
An important reminder that this contest runs from now until the end of the year, December 31, 2011.
Again, to submit your program to the Windows Phone Marketplace, either click the picture above or go to :
http://bit.ly/MangoOffer
and enter the code:
E8YRA
I wish everyone well in this contest. If you don't have the SDK already, you can download it at: http://bit.ly/GoMango. Students can get Visual Studio, needed for development, through Dreamspark.
If you are participating in the contest and/or you would like to hang a contest poster at your work or school to promote the contest, you may download it below (clicking on the image opens the poster pdf in a new window):
To help you stay tuned for further announcements, you can subscribe to my rss feed or follow me on twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Wanted: New Developers for Windows Phone Mango
If you haven't noticed yet, Windows Phone 7.5, codenamed "Mango", has been out for a while. However, you might have noticed that compared to Android or iOS, Windows Phone hasn't been given much love when it comes to development for it. It's sad because Windows Phone is a platform that delivers. However, you can change that.
Windows Phone needs new developers and new programs to help it to grow and mature. If you have been thinking about developing for Windows Phone, but haven't done it yet, now is the time. If you are new programmer, this is a good time for you to get your program ideas out there and established in the world of technology. Windows Phone mainly uses Silverlight for graphical user interfaces. Silverlight is similar to html, so if you've done any html coding, you should have some idea of how some things works since the structure of XAML, which is the markup language that Silverlight uses, is similar to html. For the internal guts of the program, you use either C# or Visual Basic. If you've programmed in Java before, the concepts are mostly the same, with a few minor differences between java and C#. It is possible to use C# (or Visual Basic) for modifying the graphical user interface of your program in addition to Silverlight. This is useful for situations such as adding components to the user interface on the fly.
To give you an incentive to develop for Windows Phone, Microsoft has launched the APPortunity Contest. You could win one of five Samsung tablets. Each time you publish a program to the Windows Phone Marketplace (for Mango), you get an entry into the contest. If you publish 5 programs to the marketplace during the contest, you get FREE ADVERTISING for ANY program of YOUR CHOICE. The free advertising will run on the Windows Phone Application Network for around 60 days and includes 25,000 impressions.
This contest runs from Now to December 31, 2011.
Important: To submit your program to the Windows Phone Marketplace,either click on the picture above or go to :
http://bit.ly/MangoOffer
and enter the code:
E8YRA
I wish everyone well in this contest. If you don't have the SDK already, you can download it at: http://bit.ly/GoMango
There are more details in this contest to come. To help you stay tuned for further announcements, you can subscribe to my rss feed or follow me on twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
Update (1-14-2011): I have some important updates to the contest that you will like, especially with students. The link that was here is currently down, but I will have it up in an hour or so.
Update (1-21-2011): I have finally fixed the page with some contest updates that was messed up. You can see the update here.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Windows Phone Mango: How it Compares to NoDo
The much awaited Mango update for Windows Phone is out. With this new update, many new features have been added. However, is Mango really better than its predecessor? Since most of us have all had a chance to play with mango for a bit, let's see which is better.
The first part is probably the most important, the Phone. If this part is horrible, than what is the point of getting the "phone" anyway? Microsoft has added a search feature that lets you search your call history. The sad thing about this is that you can only search by contact name and not by phone number. Nothing else really needs to be added to this, except for fixing the search to include search for phone #.
The second part I will cover is the web browser, Internet Explorer. Microsoft has moved the url bar from the top to the bottom of the layout. At the same time, a consequence of this is that the features that were buttons at the bottom of the screen have been hidden under menu. In order to get to your tabs, you have to open up the menu and then choose the "tabs" menu item from the menu, but the good news is that you don't have to be in just portrait mode anymore to find the tabs option. The same treatment given to tabs has also been given to the "favorites" and "add to favorites" as well. On the plus side, Internet Explorer mobile now has hardware-accelerated browsing. Another thing where I think Microsoft went wrong was the elimination of the forward button for mango, so you can only go back in web navigation, not forward.
The third part is Contacts. A big feature added with Mango is the ability to create groups of your contacts so you can organize your contacts better. Search has also been added so you can search your contacts for someone.
The fourth part is e-mail. Not much has changed here. For the buttons at the bottom, the folders button has been taken away. Searching e-mail has also been more apparent for those with phones lacking a physical keyboard.
As far as the calendar goes, it really hasn't changed.
The marketplace has also changed. When you bring up an program in the marketplace, instead of having all of the information about the program, like the overall rating, program description, reviews, and screenshots, all on one page, everything is now in "tabs", meaning organization is better. Marketplace search has moved from pressing the search button, to a button in the menu bar. In mango, if you are in marketplace, and you press the search button, you will get the normal bing search screen.
Music and video has definitely received a change. The buttons that control playback are now larger. Repeat and shuffle buttons have been made more obvious by appearing to the side of the album art instead of having to tap the album art and then pressing the repeat and/or shuffle buttons. Now, you can create playlists from what's in your now playing list. However, there is a catch. You cannot move items in a playlist around to a different position. This can be a bother when you add a whole album or all of an artist's songs to a playlist, but you want to change the order that those songs are in. If you have the youtube plugin installed, the youtube site interface has changed for the better. However, youtube videos are no longer shown in the media player history. Fortunately, I intend to correct many of these ills when I release the media player program that I am working on right now, Mobile Media Manager (it's not in the marketplace yet, but there will be an announcement when it has been put on the marketplace).
For Microsoft Office, one of the biggest changes is the ability to (finally) edit documents, spreadsheets, and powerpoint presentations saved on your skydrive account. So if you want to work on a word document on your phone that is stored on your laptop's hard drive, all you have to do is upload your word document to your skydrive account. I might add that in order to edit a document from your skydrive, it must be in it's xml document format. In other words, either .docx, .xlsx, or .pptx, the default formats for Microsoft Office documents since Office 2007. If it's in Office 2003 or earlier format, like .doc, .xls, or .ppt, you can still open and view the file, but you have to save it as its xml document format before you can edit it on the phone.
In pictures, access to your photos taken with the phone's camera is right on the start screen when you access pictures, instead of going to your picture albums, and then selecting "camera roll".
In Xbox Live, there is now an option for you to get gold level access if you currently have silver level access (which is free). I do not know for sure, but I have a hunch that Microsoft will eventually build features into Xbox Live on windows phone that only gold level members can access.
In messaging, Microsoft has built Windows Live Messenger support into mango, so you can now chat with your windows live messenger buddies right from your windows phone.
In Maps, you now have landscape mode in addition to portrait mode. The maps program has a new feature that allows you to find nearby businesses (like restaurants) and nearby attractions. I can certainly see this as being handy while on the road or on vacation somewhere.
And last in my article is the settings. Things here are mostly the same. In the settings screen for the switch for your cellular data connection, if you're in airplane mode and you try to turn your cellular data connection on, you will be asked if you want to want to turn airplane mode off or not. The biggest new feature in settings is the Battery Saver. If this is enabled, it disables some services such as push e-mail and programs being able to run in the background. You have the option to enable battery saver to run now, or to run when the battery is low (and yes, you can disable battery saver mode if the phone currently has battery saver enabled). Another big feature is the ability for programs to run in the background (if the program supports it). For wi-fi, you can now see a list of all the routers your phone has connected to.
To close it off, Windows Phone finally gets multitasking. The way this works is if you are in a program, press the start menu button to go back to the start menu, and open up a second program from there, you can go back to the first program by holding the back button and then swiping left or right with your finger until you get back to the program you want.
So overall, I do think that mango is worth the update and is better than nodo. Microsoft did do a good job with it as far as updates and new additions go. However, it's still missing a few things like bluetooth keyboard support and bluetooth a2dp audio streaming support for videos as well as audio (a2dp audio streaming for video was available on windows media mobile in Windows Phone 6.5, so it is possible). As a programmer, I also wish that Microsoft would open up the SongCollection, Playlist, MediaQueue classes (and any other similar classes) so that those of us who are programmers (like myself) can make custom playlists in our programs.
If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear them. You can either use the comment box or send them to me via e-mail at catholictechgeek@gmail.com, and I will answer any e-mail I get at the end of my next article. You can also follow me on Twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
The first part is probably the most important, the Phone. If this part is horrible, than what is the point of getting the "phone" anyway? Microsoft has added a search feature that lets you search your call history. The sad thing about this is that you can only search by contact name and not by phone number. Nothing else really needs to be added to this, except for fixing the search to include search for phone #.
The second part I will cover is the web browser, Internet Explorer. Microsoft has moved the url bar from the top to the bottom of the layout. At the same time, a consequence of this is that the features that were buttons at the bottom of the screen have been hidden under menu. In order to get to your tabs, you have to open up the menu and then choose the "tabs" menu item from the menu, but the good news is that you don't have to be in just portrait mode anymore to find the tabs option. The same treatment given to tabs has also been given to the "favorites" and "add to favorites" as well. On the plus side, Internet Explorer mobile now has hardware-accelerated browsing. Another thing where I think Microsoft went wrong was the elimination of the forward button for mango, so you can only go back in web navigation, not forward.
The third part is Contacts. A big feature added with Mango is the ability to create groups of your contacts so you can organize your contacts better. Search has also been added so you can search your contacts for someone.
The fourth part is e-mail. Not much has changed here. For the buttons at the bottom, the folders button has been taken away. Searching e-mail has also been more apparent for those with phones lacking a physical keyboard.
As far as the calendar goes, it really hasn't changed.
The marketplace has also changed. When you bring up an program in the marketplace, instead of having all of the information about the program, like the overall rating, program description, reviews, and screenshots, all on one page, everything is now in "tabs", meaning organization is better. Marketplace search has moved from pressing the search button, to a button in the menu bar. In mango, if you are in marketplace, and you press the search button, you will get the normal bing search screen.
Music and video has definitely received a change. The buttons that control playback are now larger. Repeat and shuffle buttons have been made more obvious by appearing to the side of the album art instead of having to tap the album art and then pressing the repeat and/or shuffle buttons. Now, you can create playlists from what's in your now playing list. However, there is a catch. You cannot move items in a playlist around to a different position. This can be a bother when you add a whole album or all of an artist's songs to a playlist, but you want to change the order that those songs are in. If you have the youtube plugin installed, the youtube site interface has changed for the better. However, youtube videos are no longer shown in the media player history. Fortunately, I intend to correct many of these ills when I release the media player program that I am working on right now, Mobile Media Manager (it's not in the marketplace yet, but there will be an announcement when it has been put on the marketplace).
For Microsoft Office, one of the biggest changes is the ability to (finally) edit documents, spreadsheets, and powerpoint presentations saved on your skydrive account. So if you want to work on a word document on your phone that is stored on your laptop's hard drive, all you have to do is upload your word document to your skydrive account. I might add that in order to edit a document from your skydrive, it must be in it's xml document format. In other words, either .docx, .xlsx, or .pptx, the default formats for Microsoft Office documents since Office 2007. If it's in Office 2003 or earlier format, like .doc, .xls, or .ppt, you can still open and view the file, but you have to save it as its xml document format before you can edit it on the phone.
In pictures, access to your photos taken with the phone's camera is right on the start screen when you access pictures, instead of going to your picture albums, and then selecting "camera roll".
In Xbox Live, there is now an option for you to get gold level access if you currently have silver level access (which is free). I do not know for sure, but I have a hunch that Microsoft will eventually build features into Xbox Live on windows phone that only gold level members can access.
In messaging, Microsoft has built Windows Live Messenger support into mango, so you can now chat with your windows live messenger buddies right from your windows phone.
In Maps, you now have landscape mode in addition to portrait mode. The maps program has a new feature that allows you to find nearby businesses (like restaurants) and nearby attractions. I can certainly see this as being handy while on the road or on vacation somewhere.
And last in my article is the settings. Things here are mostly the same. In the settings screen for the switch for your cellular data connection, if you're in airplane mode and you try to turn your cellular data connection on, you will be asked if you want to want to turn airplane mode off or not. The biggest new feature in settings is the Battery Saver. If this is enabled, it disables some services such as push e-mail and programs being able to run in the background. You have the option to enable battery saver to run now, or to run when the battery is low (and yes, you can disable battery saver mode if the phone currently has battery saver enabled). Another big feature is the ability for programs to run in the background (if the program supports it). For wi-fi, you can now see a list of all the routers your phone has connected to.
To close it off, Windows Phone finally gets multitasking. The way this works is if you are in a program, press the start menu button to go back to the start menu, and open up a second program from there, you can go back to the first program by holding the back button and then swiping left or right with your finger until you get back to the program you want.
So overall, I do think that mango is worth the update and is better than nodo. Microsoft did do a good job with it as far as updates and new additions go. However, it's still missing a few things like bluetooth keyboard support and bluetooth a2dp audio streaming support for videos as well as audio (a2dp audio streaming for video was available on windows media mobile in Windows Phone 6.5, so it is possible). As a programmer, I also wish that Microsoft would open up the SongCollection, Playlist, MediaQueue classes (and any other similar classes) so that those of us who are programmers (like myself) can make custom playlists in our programs.
If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear them. You can either use the comment box or send them to me via e-mail at catholictechgeek@gmail.com, and I will answer any e-mail I get at the end of my next article. You can also follow me on Twitter (username is @rctechgeek).
Thursday, October 6, 2011
A Tribute to Steve Jobs
We all have recently been given the sad news that Steve Jobs, one of the co-creators of Apple Inc., has died. I have decided to take this article and make it a tribute to Steve Jobs by giving a summary of his legacy in the technology world.
Steve Jobs, along with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, created Apple Inc. in 1976. In 1984, the company put out its first personal pc and advertised it during the super bowl with its "1984" commercial. In May 1985, Steve was fired from Apple. Steve said that being fired (from Apple) was the best thing that could have happened to him.
From here, Steve founded NeXT Computer Inc. in 1985. The computers made here ran a version of Unix with the NeXT desktop environment.
While he was with NeXT, Jobs bought Pixar from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division. When Toy Story came out, it made Pixar very popular. After Toy Story, Pixar put out many popular and well-received movie. When the contract between Pixar and Disney was nearing it's end around early 2004, there was a failure in trying to negotiate a new partnership, forcing Jobs to look for a new partner with which to distribute Pixar's films. In 2005, Bob Iger replaced Michael Eisner and things were quickly back in order between Disney and Pixar again.In 2006, Disney bought Pixar and gave Jobs a seat on the Board of Directors.
Eventually, Apple bought NeXT in 1996. After Apple CEO Gil Amelio was ousted, Steve took over the post of CEO. Jobs also changed the licensing scheme for Mac OS, killing off any hope of legal "macintosh clones" and making Mac OS X run only on macintosh computers (made by Apple).
Jobs was the one who came up with the idea for the iPod, which first came out in 2001. At first, it was for Mac OS X systems only and Windows was not supported due to the fact that iTunes was only made for Mac OS X. Eventually, Apple decided to make a version of iTunes for Windows and this made the iPod available to more people.
In 2007, Apple came out with the first generation of the iPhone. This changed the idea that smartphones were for everyone and not only for their original target audience, mainly professionals and software developers/technology geeks. Unfortunately, this also started the phenomenon of people buying smartphones from cell phone carriers and later complaining that the smartphone is "too advanced for me".
Steve Jobs was also an advocate for recycling e-waste. He responded to poor e-waste recycling programs by saying that any Apple store would accept iPods for recycling for free. Later, in 2006, this was expanded to any customer who buys a mac as well.
In August 2011, Steve resigned from Apple due to health problems. He still kept a post on the Board of Directors for Apple, and his influence on the company was still well and alive. On October 5, 2011, Steve Jobs passed away at the age of 56.
Let me now close with some thoughts of mine: The company that Steve helped to found, Apple, is still alive and going strong and will probably be going strong for many years in the future. Even if you don't like Apple, you must admit that Steve was one of the ones that really impacted the landscape of the world of technology. I wish Steve's family well in this sad time in their lives.
Steve Jobs, rest in peace. Réquiem ætérnam dona eis Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat eis. Requiéscat in pace. Amen.
Edit: I found an obituary that Bloomberg (mistakenly) published (and quickly rescinded) about Steve Jobs back in 2008. Perhaps you will find it interesting. Here's the link: http://gaw.kr/qJ5wYd
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Subscribe To
Posts
All Comments