Windows Phone APPortunities – Go Mango!

Based on my latest Wikipedia wisdom, mango is the the most cultivated fruit of the tropical world. With a little ambitious creativity, the phrase “cultivated” can be interpreted in two ways: The fruit is grown and produced or mangos are sophisticated, refined and well-educated. Yet to support the latter, we need a few facts.

Mango, as a fruit, has long been a symbol of  summer, but this fall it embraced a new role to embody sophistication as the latest Windows Phone Update! Custom ringtones, new speech commands, visual voicemails, linked inboxes, groups, enhanced social network integration, multitasking, even better live tiles, improved search + maps features and the list goes on and on. If you check out the videos on the update feature list page, you will soon discover, that there is sufficient evidence to state, that this fall the term “cultivated” simply translates to “sophisticated/refined” for the mango we are talking about!

Certainly this attempt of literary explanation may sound like a far reach for some of you. So let’s shift our focus to the excitement Mango has in store for Windows Phone developers. As I shared in my previous blog entry, there are numerous Windows Phone Camps taking place allover the country.  Participants get a full day of free training plus a chance to win a Windows Phone 7. But this is just the beginning; the surprises don’t stop here!

Windows Phone – Go Mango App Contest

Just recently, a new US-based contest has been announced: Go Mango! The contest will run from October 15th and December 31st. The APPortunities for Windows Phone developers are two-fold:

• Every new Mango app you publish within the contest timeline will be entered to win 1 of 5 Samsung Series 7 slates.
• When you publish 5 new apps, you will earn 1 entry to win free advertising for one app of your choice.

The free advertising will run on the Windows Phone Application Network for about 60 days and include 25K impressions.

The more Windows Phone Mango apps you get into the marketplace until the end of 2011, the more chances you will get to win. You can find the detailed contest rules here.

Windows Phone Ad Campaign

Another great offering for Windows Phone developers is the Windows Phone Advertising Campaign – “Your app here” . The campaigns run from December 2011 to February 2012. The application submission deadline for the December campaign ended yesterday, October 25th; however there are still two more months, if you plan to submit your Windows Phone application.

Each month from December through February, up to seven apps will be selected and promoted in campaigns created and funded by Windows Phone. Selected apps will get an online banner and their ads will run across the MSN Network of sites. This campaign will deliver one million ad impressions for each app selected. To participate, your Windows Phone App

• must be submitted in the Windows Phone Marketplace
• must target Windows Phone
• include Fast App Switching (FAS)
• utilize live tiles with an innovative twist

Besides these participation terms, your app should certainly be user-friendly and engaging, stick to Metro design principles and provide integration of App Connect if relevant.

You can explore great Metro tutorials on the .toolbox site. You may also want to check out the User Experience Design Guidelines for Windows Phone on MSDN. The Mango Jump Start Series on Channel 9 by Rob Miles and Andy Wigley are also quite informative, if you need a fast-paced deep-dive into Windows Phone Mango.

Fast Track to the Mobile App – Design Contest

This is a Windows Phone Design Contest organized by Core77 and Microsoft. The contest challenges participants to rethink “work everywhere” capabilities of smartphones. Participants are expected to create designs with maximized usability, productivity and integration features by utilizing the benefits and features of the Windows Phone Platform. The contest does not require any coding; a contest entry can consist of a Sketchflow mockup, images of the sketches and an optional video and/or presentation. The contest ends November 18th.

One of the contest taglines summarizes the constantly connected, mobilized life-style of today: “We’re looking for design that understands, your computer is no longer on your desk, it’s in your pocket.“

Telerik Special Prize for Windows Phone Unleashed Apps

Though this may not be directly Mango news; it is still a great Windows Phone related activity. It may also motivate you to attend one of the Windows Phone Camps; there could always be new surprises for these latest round of developer events. Telerik has announced a Grand Prize for applications submitted by participants of the Windows Phone 7 Unleashed events. These events were organized by Microsoft and local developer communities. The Grand Prize winner will be announced Friday, October 28th. 

There will also be a special prize for a WP7  community app and you too can support fellow Windows Phone developers. Just click the tweet button placed under your favorite app until Thursday, October 27th; the tweet must include #telerikwp7prize in order to qualify.

Idea of the Week – Student Contest

Microsoft kicked off a new contest called “Idea of Week” for students on October 17th. The goal is to inspire students to come up with unique and original app ideas. You can find out more about the contest on the Windows Phone Developer blog; official rules are listed here. Submitted ideas can be tracked on twitter with the hashtag #wpappitup.

I Unlock Joy – Student Contest

A few months ago, Microsoft India launched the “I Unlock Joy” developer contest for students in India. The contest runs until December 18th.

Students, who get four of their submitted applications certified in AppHub, are eligibile to apply for a Windows Phone Developer Device. Detailed terms and conditions can be found here.

Icing on the Cake

What could top all these developer opportunities such as the free training at Windows Phone Camps, various contests to win cool prizes and free ad campaigns just for building Windows Phone apps, a Windows Phone design contest etc.? Probably a sign, that would provide further assurance, that developing for Windows Phone has a bright future?

Wait no longer; the Nokia Lumia Windows Phone has arrived. Just today, Nokia introduced Lumia, its first device build on the Windows Phone platform, at Nokia World 2011. They are launching an impressive marketing campaign, with the catchy tagline “The Amazing Everyday“.

My first phone was a Nokia, easy to use and sturdy as a brick. Over the years, I used various mobile phones, most of them Nokia devices. Aside my nostalgic bond, I believe, Lumia brings Nokia’s outstanding industrial design and Windows Phone’s elegant UI together. This is truly a stunning collaboration, which I wish to become highly successful. The attractive pricing strategy, prices ranging from 270 to 420 Euros, will also  play a key role in the adoption of Nokia’s first Windows Phone in the consumer market.

Nokia does not shy away from futuristic research, fast forward and your Windows Phone experience  may get you the flexible and twisted interface of the prototype Nokia Kinetic device:

This “fast forward” may have been too fast; but you get the idea. The future is exciting and bright. You can contribute to shape and enrich this future by building Windows Phone applications, which delight and fascinate the user.

Last minute bonus link: There is a contest to win a Nokia Lumia 800 on “the Amazing Everyday” Facebook page. Good luck!

Windows Phone Camps – Fall 2011

With the release of Mango, Windows Phone Camps are again in full swing. These free Windows Phone developer events take place all over major US cities throughout this fall and they may even be coming to a city near you!

 

 

A Windows Phone 7 Camp, is a 1 (sometimes 2) day event, which provides an extensive overview of what you need to know to develop a Windows Phone application. This also includes, how to submit your application to the Windows Phone Marketplace and how to monetize your app. You will also get the latest bits and pieces on Mango, which means that you will learn about the updated Windows Phone features and how your existing apps can be mangofied.

 

The Fall 2011 developer events started in September; yet there are still plenty of upcoming Windows Phone Camps. The following is a list of all events taking place within or after this week:

• 18-Oct-11 – Chevy Chase, MD, Microsoft Chevy Chase Office
• 19-Oct-11 – NYC, NY, Microsoft NYC Office
• 20-Oct-11 – Sunnyvale, CA, Nokia, 200 S. Mathilda Ave
• 21-Oct-11 – Sunnyvale, CA, Nokia, 200 S. Mathilda Ave
• 25-Oct-11 – Tampa, FL, Microsoft Tampa Office
• 27-Oct-11 – Burlington, VT, Champlain College
• 2-Nov-11 – Raleigh, NC, NC State University, The Jane S. McKimmon Conference & Training Ctr
• 3-Nov-11 – Phoenix, AZ, Desert Willow Conference Center
• 4-Nov-11 – Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Microsoft Ft. Lauderdale Office
• 5-Nov-11 – Denver, CO, Sheraton Denver Downtown
• 8-Nov-11 – Orlando, FL, University of Central Flordia
• 10-Nov-11 – New Paltz, NY, SUNY University the New Platz Campus
• 10-Nov-11 – Miami, FL, University of Miami
• 10-Nov-11 – Bloomington, MN, Microsoft Bloomington Office
• 10-Nov-11 – Santa Monica, CA, Annenberg Beach House
• 12-Nov-11 – San Diego, CA, Nokia, 16620 W Bernardo Dr
• 15-Nov-11 – Blacksburg, VA, Virginia Tech
• 17-Nov-11 – Washington, DC, Howard University
• 19-Nov-11 – San Francisco, CA, PariSoma, 169 11th St
• 29-Nov-11 – Pittsburgh, PA, Microsoft Pittsburgh Office
• 29-Nov-11 – Atlanta, GA, Georgia Tech
• 29-Nov-11 – Redmond, WA, Microsoft Campus, 16070 NE 36th Way, Bldg 33/Rainier
• 1-Dec-11 – Long Island, NY, Hofstra University
• 1-Dec-11 – Portland, OR, Hilton Portland & Executive Tower

 

If you would like to participate in any of the upcoming Windows Phone Camps, take a few minutes to register, as these events fill up rather quickly. You will need to bring your own laptop to follow along with the training material. You should also install the following beforehand:

• Windows Phone Developer Kit: Windows Phone SDK 7.1
• Training kit for hands-on labs

You can check out APP HUB to get developer tools, learn about application features, understand common task for Apps and register and load your APP.

 

At each event, there will also be  a Windows Phone 7 giveaway and many other prizes. As a Windows Phone Camp participant, you will get a fun-filled day with free training plus a chance to win a Windows Phone 7! How awesome is that?

 

Think Different

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.

The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward.

And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

You are one of them.

Thank you for your creative genius and vision. 

BUILD – Enable mobile web with ASP.NET MVC 4/ Session Notes

While rushing from one XAML session to another at BUILD, I also tried to attend a few HTML5/Javascript/CSS sessions. Today I also made it into the super-crowded “Progressively enable the mobile web with ASP.NET MVC 4, HTML5, and jQuery Mobile” session presented by Phil Haack. The presentation was very informative and I decided to share some of the links and details about the discussed topics.

The session mainly focused on the following topics in ASP.NET MVC 4:

• How to use the HTML5 viewport attribute and adaptive rendering to improve display on mobile devices
• How to create mobile-specific views
• How to create a view switcher that lets users toggle between a mobile view and a desktop view of the application

Useful Terms

ViewPort Meta Tag:

Mobile browsers define a virtual browser window width (the viewport), which can be larger than the actual width of the mobile device. The viewport <meta> tag in the ASP.NET MVC 4 layout file sets the viewport to the device width. This tag can be used in any web application and is not ASP.NET MVC 4 specific.

The following line shows the viewport <meta> tag in the ASP.NET MVC 4 layout file: <meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width”>

Mobile-specific views

ASP.NET MVC 4 provides a new feature with which you can override layout and partial views for mobile browsers as well as specific browsers. If you need a different view for the mobile browser, you simply copy a view file and add .Mobile to the file name. Then you need to create a mobile-specific view. I provided a link to a sample on ASP.NET/MVC , which outlines the entire process in detail.

MvcHaack.ViewMobilizer: 

This is a package for easily converting views to mobile, when creating mobile-specific views. This package should be available through the new Recipes feature for ASP.NET MVC 4, which can be installed using NuGet.

Jquery Mobile

This library provides a user interface framework that works on all the major mobile browsers; it applies progressive enhancement to mobile browsers that support CSS and JavaScript. With progressive enhancement, all browsers may display the basic content of a web page, however more powerful browsers and devices may display an enhanced version of the page with its actual rich feature-set. The jQuery Mobile’s Javascript and CSS files can style many elements especially for mobile browsers and without any further markup changes.

You can install JQuery.Mobile.MVC  for ASP.NET MVC 4 as a NuGet package.

View-Switcher:

This is a partial view, which provides a link at the top of each page to switch from desktop view to mobile view and vice versa. The desktop layout does not include a view switcher by default, so there is no link to browse to the mobile version of a view from the desktop layout.

Useful Links

Download link for ASP.NET MVC 4 Developer Preview:

http://www.asp.net/mvc/mvc4

Release Notes for ASP.NET MVC 4:

http://www.asp.net/learn/whitepapers/mvc4-release-notes

Link to ASP.NET MVC RoadMap:

http://aspnet.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=ASP.NET%20MVC%204%20RoadMap

Sample to follow along (sample files available for download):

http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/aspnet-mvc-4-mobile-features

Download link for Windows Phone SDK 7.1 (for the emulator):

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27153

Install NuGet for ASP.NET MVC4 recipes:

http://docs.nuget.org/docs/start-here/installing-nuget

On a side note:

I started off web development with HTML and in-house Javascript libraries, then moved to Java/JSP and even did some development with Grails. Grails delivers developer productivity by applying principles like Convention over Configuration and it is built based on the MVC paradigm. It provides view templates, scaffolding, dynamic tag libraries etc. I am not quite certain about the underlying factors, it may be Java and Grails, which make me feel so sympathetic towards ASP.NET MVC. It is surely different from my relation with ASP.NET Web forms; which ever so often gets the cold shoulder from me.

BUILD – Metro style apps that are touch-optimized/Session pictures

One of the sessions I thoroughly enjoyed was “Designing Metro style apps that are touch-optimized” by Jan-Kristian Markiewicz and Kay Hofmeester. You can browse to the session’s information/recording on Channel 9. But until then, feel free to check out some of the slides I captured during their session.

BUILD Day#2 Keynote in Pictures

The second day of BUILD had several news in store for developers. The buzzwords were “connected and continuous”, which topped the word charts with the very frequently used other pair: “fast and fluid”.

The following pictures show some of the highlights of the second keynote with limited commercial interruption:)

@kellabyte – seeing anything familiar here?

Visual Studio 11 – clone search enabled.  Let the clone wars begin!

even more announcements for developers!

DOM Inspector also available in ASP.NET MVC 4.

ScottGu shows how ASP.NET MVC 4 now even supports IPhone:)

Windows Azure Publish goodness.

They got their tablet; but crowd is still here!

TFS Preview in Azure.

TFS in the cloud.

Hello Windows Server 8; we have been expecting you.

Idenity detail: support for Claims based authentication.

Windows Server 8 – performance improvements.

Another opportunity for devs.

funky + cool naming: Windows.Security.Credentials.PasswordVault()

Steve Ballmer in the house; reading out comments on Windows 8 announcements.

Windows everywhere!

Windows Phone 7/7.5 love.

Hardware + software go hand in hand.

Clouds on the horizon.

Are you ready?

Developers, developers, developers!

Action Plan following BUILD Day#2

Check out BUILD’s Wednesday Keynote here. Opening keynote is available on this link.

Download Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview (MSDN subscribers only).

Download Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8.

Wait for Windows 8 Server preview to become available this week.

Download ASP.NET MVC 4. More info on Phil Haack’s blog.

Visit the Windows Dev Center.

Take a look at the Channel 9 – Build Videos; more content is added after each day of BUILD.

Let’s get ready for BUILD day#3.

BUILD Day#1 in Pictures

BUILD has finally arrived and all attendees survived the opening day; may it be due to the excitement of  Windows 8, metro style UX in full action or the Samsung tablet with the Windows Developer Preview. Actually, I doubt it has anything to do with the tablet:)

There are already numerous blog entries related to the announcements; which were published throughout today. Conclusively, I decided to share some of the moments I captured during the day with very few comments.

Tadaaaa! – XAML & C#/C++, HTML/CSS+Javascript.. all side by side; unified.

Templates to simplify the design process for Metro style apps.

Woaaah! – HTML/CSS support in Expression Blend.

Better overview of app certification process in App Store.

 App store built in in HTML5/CSS/Javascript.

Traditional web apps also have a place in the App Store.

 Search contract; requires only few lines of code.

lots of details to decipher.

be ready for continuous updates.

Keyword: opportunity

App store coming soon.

go Metro!

 Grid template is your best friend.

many controls for metro-style apps.

do you speak “touch”?

   

We are all ears.

  Metro is your future.

 Start today.

 Session suggestions by Jensen Harris

built-in metro style controls

Action Plan following BUILD Day#1

Check out the opening Keynote for BUILD here. The Wednesday keynote will be probably available from the same link.

Download Windows Developer Preview.

Check out Tim Heuer’s XAML session list. You can watch recorded sessions online.

Take a look at the Channel 9 – Build Videos.

Register for Telerik‘s BUILD Demystified: Telerik Senior Leadership Tell All live webinar chat in October.

Let’s get ready for BUILD day#2.

Less than 12 hours to BUILD

Due to some last-minute luck and when I least expected it, I got a free pass to BUILD. I have to emphasize the luck factor, as the conference tickets had sold out rather quickly, in spite of  the lack of public session and speaker lists as well as keynote topics.

I have to send a big THANK YOU to StartupWeekend  and Microsoft BizSpark, who teamed up with the Windows team to offer a limited number of free passes to BUILD. I had been following the BizSpark newsletter for some time and I was also checking out StartupWeekend news, as both provide news sources for and about aspiring entrepreneurs. I especially want to thank Maris McEdward, Community Manager at StartupWeekend, and James Senior, Senior Technical Product Manager in the Windows 8 team, who both have been very helpful with the registration process.

The following 140 character short yet very poetic (!) reasoning about my enthusiasm to attend BUILD made me a ticket winner: This geekgirl can’t wait to discover Windows8 + deep dive into HTML5. If you don’t want my dreams to be killed, let me win a ticket to BUILD. Well, for those, who thought poetry doesn’t get you anywhere, I may have thrown an unhandled exception just this very moment.

In the past weeks, I tried to steer away from any heated discussions and conspiracy theories. I am certainly curious to find out about the latest announcements and I may have a few predictions. As expected, the announcements will please a certain crowd, while starting off upset discussions among others.  As for me; I am ready to embrace mind-blowing news, ground-breaking  changes and the modern Web. The term “modern” is mentioned multiple times in a latest feature story about BUILD on the Microsoft News Center site and when there is such an emphasis on modern, who wants to stay outdated, right? Fun aside, in my opinion, two of the key details in the article: “the modern Web – a place of rich, immersive, and engaging user experiences that consumers interact with across a wide spectrum of devices” and “Web projects becoming more application-like”… I guess, we need to read between the lines.

With less than 12 hours to the first keynote, the BUILD countdown has officially begun. Numerous predictions already popped up in Twitter (#bldwin) and the blogosphere today, however the non-stop stream of news, tweets etc. will take place tomorrow. If you want to catch up with the latest BUILD updates, MicrosoftFeed has compiled a thorough list of links on how to follow BUILD Windows related news. You may also browse to the BUILD virtual pressroom tomorrow morning for the live streaming/video link of the keynote.

Until Microsoft unveils all the mysteries surrounding BUILD in a few hours, there is not much to do than “Abwarten und Tee trinken“.

LASLUG – May meeting tomorrow: Awesome prizes + live streaming!

The Los Angeles Silverlight Usergroup has begun its journey to become the biggest and best Silverlight User Group on the Planet. Last month the group had three sponsors and gave away roughly $2,500 in prizes not including Swag and Food. This month, and every month hereafter the UG plans to give away over $12,000 in prizes because of existing sponsors such as Apress, DevExpress, United Future/WongDoody and new sponsors like Telerik, Infragistics, ComponentOne, Red Gate, SilverlightShow, VIBlend, the Jeff Levy Show (the Digital Doctor), Safari Books Online, Syncfusion, Nowcom, The Windows Phone Dev Podcast, and more coming soon!

At the next meeting, Wednesday May 25th (7pm PST), that is tomorrow, they will be broadcasting the Meeting/Show LIVE online for the very first time! But they are not just pointing a camera and turning it on; they went out and purchased thousands of dollars in equipment and software and even brought a Director/Producer on board, Peter Genovese, to coordinate the whole thing. There will be multiple camera angles, special effects, cut away sponsor spots, live chat and the audience is encouraged to participate in chat, questions and are eligible to win their share of the $12k in PRIZES! This special online Meeting/Show is brought to the users in part by Infragistics and Red Gate software. If you don’t want to miss out on the fun tomorrow, go here, sign up for free. You may also watch the meeting online here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/la-slug

If you are going to be viewing online only and attempting to win prizes you must do two things:

• Live outside of a 100 mile radius of Los Angeles.
• Email LASLUGTicket@gmail.com to get a raffle ticket number (they are free)

International viewers may participate too. The only catch: If the prize is a physical one like a book, you will need to handle the shipping cost.

I will have cool SilverlightShow T-Shirts to raffle off; see you all tomorrow!

Imagine Cup – Final week to vote for your favorite US team!

The Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Finals will take place in New York City, USA from July 8-13, 2011. Before US finalists can make it to New York, these students must first succeed at the U.S. Finals, taking place from April 8 to April 11 on the Microsoft campus in Redmond. Until April 9th, that’s an entire week from today, you can vote every day for your favorite Imagine Cup U.S. finalist team on Facebook as part of the US People’s Choice Awards. Why not let your friends, family and social network join the voting action too and support the incredible talent out there at Imagine Cup?

 

 

Students participating in the Imagine Cup address some of the worlds’ toughest challenges and have created projects leveraging Windows Phone 7, Windows Azure, and the Microsoft stack to cure cancer, raise environmental awareness, and bring aid to those in need. The 2011 theme is “Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems“. You will see numerous competition entries, which reflect one of the following United Nations Millennium Development Goals:

 

 

 

This year, teams focused on ecological sustainability, medical monitoring and health care, environmental awareness, poverty, educational tools and even transit assistance and note taking tools for the visually impaired. My favorite project is named Procūr by the LifeCode team. Procūr is the intelligent humanitarian supply chain of the future. With advanced resource analytics, system-aided decisions and increased responsiveness, this system solution adapts to the changing landscape of resource inventory in disasters.

 

We all have witnessed in the last decade, how the frequency of natural disasters has increased. Even if aid/resources are offered, it is very difficult to locate where exactly who needs what once disaster struck. Procūr’s management/decision engine runs on Windows Azure and also has an accompanying Windows Phone 7 application and a Web Interface. It also has social network and Bing Maps integration. You can check out the team video and vote for them on Facebook or by SMS, just text ”LIFECODE” to 23000.

 

 

I am rooting for team LifeCode, yet you may check out all US finalists and vote for a different team. All finalist projects are a reflection of a genius idea; all teams deserve our support! Don’t forget; voting ends next week!

In addition to voting, you may also inspire students to participate in Imagine Cup in the upcoming years by pointing them to some informative resources:

 

Imagine Cup Learning Center: http://www.imaginecup.com/student-resources/learning-center

Imagine Cup Blog: http://www.imaginecup.com/community/blog

on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Imaginecup

on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/microsoftimaginecup

 

Software can change the world. We just need some creative minds to believe and act on it.