I just posted an article on how to simulate 3D buttons on a Windows Phone Silverlight application.

I posted an article on making a Panoramic Silverlight Application on the Windows Phone using Visual Studio 2010.   It's a simple example on how to build the app and navigate between screens using touch flicks.

I just posted an article on how to capture an image on the Windows Phone emulator using an Internet camera.  This was written using the Windows Phone Dev Tools April Refresh.  For all those developers who want to capture images on the Windows Phone but can't get access to the camera, this is a nice alternative so you can write apps that capture and manipulate images on the emulator.  Eventually Microsoft is sure to release an emulator that will access the camera hardware but until then try this out.

So my dad tells me he found the receipt for our first computer that he bought for us back in 1981 at Radio Shack.  Of course, I want to frame it and hang it on the wall.  I've always considered myself very lucky to have a father who was forward thinking and spent a good deal of money at the time to help me learn about computers.  It was this first computer that I started learning about writing software.  This was the beginnings of my career that I so very much enjoy.   The computer was a TRS-80 Color Computer.  A few years later I bought the TRS-80 Color Computer 3 myself.  Unfortunately I do not have the original Co Co 1 but I do still have the Co Co 3.  It was a very well built machine and I have very fond memories working on it.

Developer Smackdown

I just posted an article at Code Project for Multi-Touch Robot Control on Windows 7 using Visual Studio 2010 beta 2 and WPF 4.0.  All the source code is available for download.  First time I've posted to Code Project.  It was relatively easy to do.

I loaded a video up to YouTube so you can see the app running with the NXT robot.

I've got Windows 7 - 64 bit Ultimate running on my HP quad core laptop with 8GB of RAM and it's running great.  Here is a list of what is currently running, what I'm doing and a pict of the current task manager performance graph.  It's not even up to 50% capacity.  Sweet... 

• Internet Explorer 8.0 - Adding blog entry
• Outlook - checking email
• Windows Explorer - backing up files to my server, FTP'd to remote server and copying files
• Live Messenger - instant messaging friends
• Microsoft Online Services
• Windows Virtual PC - Windows XP vpc which is VPN'd into client network, running remote desktop connected to remote server, running SQL Server, Analysis services, and VS2008
• TextPad
• Paint.NET - editing photo
• Snipping Tool - screen capture
• Win Amp - playing my MP3s with visualizations rendering
• SQL Server Management Studio - connected to SQL Server 2008, running queries
• Visual Studio 2008 - working on SSIS project

If you have no game development experience, I found a nice, simple online resource from a class at the University of the West of England, Bristol from the Bristol Institute of Technology that uses C# and XNA Framework.  The professors, Bob Lang and Mark Palmer, provide slides in PDF, worksheets and lecture information for you to work through their lessons.  You're not going to create the next, great first person shooter with these lessons, but they will give you a nice foundation to build upon.  It is a good beginner's class on the fundamentals of game design.

Coding for Game Development from the Bristol Institute of Technology

Another year is coming to a close.  It's been an up and down year for myself and my family.  The best part of 2009 was the birth of our fourth child, Everett.  He's the best, youngest child anyone could ask for.  He is usually happy and ready to give you a great big smile.  My kids are definitely the best part of my life.  Now I'm ready for a new year and the challenges that await.  I thought I'd post my list of technologies that I will focus on in 2010.  There are so many interesting technologies and ideas out there to learn about and work on but there is only so much time in the day.  So I need to focus on the ones that interest me the most (right now).  I like the phrase "It's like drinking from a fire hose..." when it comes to learning about all the technologies that are out there.  So here's what I'm planning to work on in 2010.

Technologies I want to improve my skills in, develop with and write articles on during 2010

• Business Intelligence with Microsoft SQL Server 2008
• Multi-touch interfaces
• WPF
• XNA
• Windows CE
• .NET Micro Framework
• Robotics

I should probably try to narrow the list down even further but I really want to do at least one article and/or project in each of these technologies. Happy New Year to everyone and I hope all your New Year goals are achieved.

I've loaded up VS2010 beta 2 and TFS2010 beta 2 onto my server.  First impressions, what an easy install for both apps.  I mean really easy.  TFS2010 installed in about 30 minutes and is fully operational.  Already connected and creating projects.   That was very cool.  The more I use VS2010, the more I'm getting hooked.  However, the biggest issue for me with VS2010 b2 is that there is currently NO support for smart devices.  I was told by Angela from Microsoft that the Win Mobile team is about two months behind on plug-in for VS2010 so don't expect something until February or later.

I was told yesterday at a Microsoft event in Waukesha that March 22, 2010 is the launch date of the new tools.  I watched presentations from on the new testing tools coming from Microsoft.  Looks interesting, if you are working in an dev environment that has dedicated testers.  The down side is that the tools will NOT be included in MSDN subscription which means that they probably won't be adopted by many companies any time soon.