Labs

bit.ly/WinPhoneGamingLabs

Advanced Labs

bit.ly/WinPhoneGamingAdvancedLabs

Samples (demonstrated during the talks)

bit.ly/WinPhoneGamingSamples

If you came to hear my talk, thank you!!!

Please don’t forget about free support and getting your marketplace rebate though Microsoft Platform Ready. And feel free to download the deck and samples I presented today.

Training and supporting this many people is no easy task, but it’s something we’ve been doing for years through sites like MSDN and Channel 9. This year we’ve upped the ante though, and we’re doing more for our audience than we ever have before. This year we’re offering free developer support, consolidated training, help with testing and even marketing assistance for every developer using key Microsoft technologies. This year we’re launching Microsoft Platform Ready.

To take advantage of Microsoft Platform Ready, or MPR, we’ll start by going to the MPR website at www.microsoftplatformready.com.

Since we’re new to MPR, the first thing we need to do is sign up:

MPR does require a Live ID. If you don’t have one, you can create one by going to www.live.com and creating a new ID or by going to www.passport.com and connecting any existing email address. Let’s sign in now:

Next we need to provide the name and URL of your company. If you are an individual you can just use an alias and your own personal URL. I also highly recommend you check the box that says you want to promote your application in Microsoft catalogs. These catalogs include promotional sites like the Windows 7 Compatibility Center and may help potential customers find you online!

Now that we’re logged, we can see the list of technologies supported by MPR. We haven’t added any applications yet, so let’s add an application now.

We need to provide a few short details on the application itself:

Then we need to check the box for any MPR-supported technologies you plan to use in your application. Here’ I’m showing the information gathered for Windows Azure and Windows Phone:

When you’re done, click the Save button and you’ll be taken back to the ‘My MPR’ dashboard.

Now you can see the application you just created under the application manager:

And when you click on your application, the associated technologies light up on the right:

This area shows the stage we are at with each technology. It also shows us any actions we can take with each technology. In the screenshot above, we can verify our compatibility with both Windows Phone 7 and Windows Azure. With Windows Azure we simply need to check a box that says we’re compatible. For Windows Phone 7, we can link in verification from the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Once you’ve verified compatibility with a Microsoft technology, that’s when the free marketing resources light up. But from day one, MPR provides you with valuable resources for each supported technology.

For example, with Windows Phone 7 selected you get links to the developer tools and training across various Microsoft properties and the web.

You can also immediately start taking advantage of the technical benefits.

These include free developer support by e-mail and by phone.

So get started right away with the developer resources, and when you’re ready, don’t forget to take advantage of the Testing and Marketing resources available as well.

And don’t forget to check back often! Just like our recent addition of Windows Phone 7, we’re continually evolving MPR to ensure our developers can stay competitive. We’re also looking for your feedback, which you can share with us any time at mprsupport@microsoft.com.

Check it out!

https://channel9.msdn.com/posts/jbienz/Scaling-Web-Sites-with-Azure-and-Local-Cache/

Over this past last year I’ve had so many great discussions on SketchFlow, and what an amazing tool it can be for rapidly prototyping and developing ideas. Very recently a co-worker and friend of mine, Sara Summers, completed her book Dynamic Prototyping with SketchFlow in Expression Blend. Sara is a User Experience Evangelists and she is incredibly well versed in the tool. If you’re interested, you can grab the book here on Amazon.

Go Sara!!! ( Now get some sleep. :) )

Very little (if any) prep is required on your part, and you can sign up to work with these folks at the link below. Please let me know if you have any questions at all about leveraging this resource.

What: Windows 7 Remediation Lab

When: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 9:30 AM - Friday, September 18, 2009 12:30 PM Central Time (US & Canada)

Where:

Microsoft Corporation
7000 N. State Highway 161
Irving Texas 75039

How: Sign Up - Windows 7 Compatibility Assistance

Did you know computer manufacturers could begin shipping Windows 7 PCs as early as this month?

Many large IT departments have been saving their upgrade budgets for Windows 7, and we want to do everything we can to help ISVs confidently state their support for this exciting new OS.

Getting compatible with Windows 7 is probably easier than you think, and here are the five easy steps every ISV should know.

Step 1: Get Windows 7

There are several ways to get a copy of Windows 7 (see this post), and MSDN and TechNet customers can download the RTM bits today. If you don’t have MSDN or TechNet you can start with the Release Candidate and Windows 7 will be on store shelves in October.

Step 2: Test on Windows 7 in Your Next QA Pass

This part is easy. Windows 7 installs in less than 45 minutes and runs great in virtual environments. Just install your application, run your tests and uninstall your application the same as you would on Windows Vista. And if you want to increase your testing coverage, why not grab the free testing tool available in the Windows 7 Logo Toolkit? If your application passes these tests, you’ve already met most of the requirements for logo compatibility!

Step 3: Fix any Incompatibilities

Don’t worry! The vast majority of applications compatible with Windows Vista area already compatible with Windows 7. If you run on Vista, chances are your tests will pass with flying colors. And if not, we’re here to help. The Microsoft Front Runner program has engineers standing by to help resolve problems via phone and e-mail. We even have a field response team ready if the issue can’t be resolved remotely. Best of all, each of these resources are free to use!

Step 4: State Your Compatibility in Front Runner

Congratulations, you’re compatible! Now it’s time to share the good news with your customers and get some marketing benefits along the way. Just log into Front Runner and add or update your product information. When you mark your solution as compatible, your product will be added to the Compatibility Center and your marketing benefits will become available.

Step 5: Relax and Enjoy the Benefits

You’ve earned it! Put those marketing dollars to good use. And while you’re at it, why not show you’re an early adopter by displaying the Front Runner logo?

Finally, relax! We’ll be here to assist you long after you’ve stated your support. If anything happens in the wild, we’ll be standing by to help.

As our fiscal year comes to an end, and with Silverlight 3 and WPF 4 are rapidly approaching, I thought it’d be a great time to put together a few short videos on skinning and custom controls. I hope these two ~20 minute videos help demystify a topic that’s really not as elusive as it seems.

Skins for WPF and Silverlight (20:15)

Creating ‘Lookless’ Controls for WPF and Silverlight (14:26)

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One of the tasks common to prototyping and actual development is planning navigation between pages (or screens). Luckily, Blend make this as easy as right-clicking on any button and choosing Navigate To – <Screen Name>. When you do this, Blend builds links into the application flow so that the SketchFlow player and the live application understand how the user can get around. These links show up in blue and look something like this:

You’ll notice in the image above that both the Start page and Winary page can get to any other page in the application. That’s because both the Start page and the Winery page have a set of buttons that look like this:

In fact it’s very common to want some piece of navigation shared across all the pages in an application. For example a navigation bar on the left side of a page or across the top is very common on websites and in SharePoint. In Blend 3 we can support the same concept by converting a group of controls into a ‘Composition Screen’. That composition can then be shared across all pages, and the navigation it provides comes along as well. In the application flow, it ends up looking something like this:

But you might notice that things have become a bit messy and we have blue lines and green lines that seem to go to the same places. That’s because Blend is showing the new composition lines in green and the old manually defined navigation links still remain in blue. Luckily, with the composition in place the manual links are extraneous and can be removed. This is done by right-clicking the line and choosing Remove Connection. The Sketchflow player and navigation system are smart enough to realize the composition still provides navigation routes, even if the manual links are gone. So the player still works just like it did before:

With the extra links removed, here’s one possible cleaned up flow for this application:

Of course it doesn’t hurt to leave the original links defined, and it may even be desirable to have them there to clarify intent. For example, just because the user can navigate directly from login to an empty shopping cart doesn’t necessarily mean we expect them to do it often.

Finally, I’ll close with a cool new feature I noticed in one of the latest builds: It’s now possible to dim out navigation lines and / or composition lines for the screens you’re not currently viewing. Pretty cool.