DevFish.NET

Want to be a funded Kinect startup?

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:36:48 GMT

DEVELOPER? STARTUP?
GOT KINECT SDK IDEA?
WANT $20K AND OFFICE SPACE FOR 3 MONTHS?
KINECT ACCELERATOR IS FOR YOU

I love the way the Bizspark guys put it. Ten Startups. Three months. Unlimited Innovation..

Short run. Got a Kinect idea? Apply for the Kinect Accelerator. Ten companies will be accepted. You get $20k, Kinects, XBox dev kit, tech resources, tech training, mentorship from investors, and office space. You've got to Seattle, WA for the duration of the work. Nice.

What kind of apps or ideas can I submit? Any kinect enabled application on Windows or XBox that could be a commercial business. That pretty much covers it.

Application deadline is January 25th, 2012. Yeah, if you're from Florida I might lose you for 3 months, but you'll be bringing a startup back home!

More info and application links at http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/kinectaccelerator .

Bill Reiss' Third Annual XNA Game Camp and Hackath

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:00:02 GMT

Maybe you have always dreamed of writing games, or you're an aspiring game developer looking to meet up and share ideas and techniques, or you are currently writing games for iOS or Android and want to give Windows Phone and Xbox a shot. This event is for you!

Join Bill Reiss, Silverlight MVP and author of game frameworks and games for Windows Phone and Xbox for a fun day of learning and coding using XNA Game Studio and C#. We'll be focusing on Windows Phone, but the same techniques can help you get your game on Xbox Live Independent Games.

Bill and his talented guest presenters will present sessions on XNA game development throughout the day and evening, but the focus is really on jumping in and getting your game on and getting help along the way. Game templates for popular types of games will be provided to get you started.

We'll be providing food and caffeinated drinks throughout the day, and we'll have some great giveaways. Come with a game idea or we'll be happy to help you come up with one.

Even if you can't come early, come whever you can and join in on the fun! Brought to you in partnership with the Tampa Windows Phone Developer Group. Registration available here - http://tampaxna.eventbrite.com .

Your Windows Phone App has Crashed! Or has it?

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:57:21 GMT

Your Windows Phone App Has Crashed? Or has it? How do you really know? And what kind of clues can you get to why it crashed?

Crash Reporting was just added to the Windows Phone App Hub recently. With Crash Reporting you can see how many of your apps of crashed, when, and get the stack dump of the associated crash.

To see Crash Reports for my applications, you must first login to my account at http://create.msdn.com .
Navigate to the Windows Phone area via "My Dashboard -> Windows Phone".
At the Windows Phone homebase, you will see "App Highlights" with a Recent Crashes count indicator on the right hand side.

As you can see below, my "Sharp as a Marble Reader" has had a recent crash. (yes my downloads suck, no one must like @rachelappel)

To get more info on the crash, click on the counter for the Crash Report (in this case 1). You will be navigated to the Crash Count (Beta) detail screen. Note if you click on the app name you will get your application publishing details, instead of the crash info.

Here you can see a timeline of your crashes for one particular app, or all apps if you change your drop down. You may also change the date range of the crash report. See the screen below.

Detailed crash results can be informative. Click on the "stack traces" download button, and a spreadsheet will download containing all of the crash details for a particular application. Detail for a single line of crash data is contained below. You can see the App Name, App Id, App Version, Problem Function, and the stack dump around it. Hopefully the stack dump data will give you some ideas on where your app might be crashing. One line of the stack data (copied and paste/transposed) is shown below.

App Name
 SharpAsAMarble Reader
 
App Id
 9a8ad287-4770-e011-81d2-78e7d1fa76f8
 
App Version
 Mango
 
Problem Function
 System.Net.Browser.AsyncHelper.BeginOnUI
 
Stack Trace
 Frame    Image          Function                                                  Offset    
0        coredll.dll    xxx_RaiseException                                        19        
1                                                                                 0         
2                                                                                 0         
3                                                                                 0         
4                       TransitionStub                                            0         
5                       System.Net.Browser.AsyncHelper.BeginOnUI                  580       
6                       System.Net.Browser.ClientHttpWebRequest.EndGetResponse    196       
7                       PointAbout.Mashup.FeedModuleDataProvider.ReadCallback     412       
8                       .__c__DisplayClassa._InvokeGetResponseCallback_b__8       76        
9                       .WorkItem.doWork                                          260       
10                      System.Threading.Timer.ring                               296       
11                                                                                0         
12                                                                                0         
13                                                                                0         
14                                                                                0         
15                                                                                0         
16                                                                                0         
17       coredll.dll    ThreadBaseFunc                                            144

Getting the stack dump is nice, and eyeballing it can help you troubleshoot problems.

Anyone got really good resources on how to work with stackdumps? I've emailed out some of my PFE friends, if they respond back I'll let you know.

HHS DevFish PubCrawl Dec 26th - St Petersburg

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:42:56 GMT

What: DevFish 6th Annual HHS Geek PubCrawl
Who: More than 2, usually less than 20, show up if you like
When: December 26, 2011 (Monday), 630 PM
Where: Starting at The Independent, 29 3rd Street N, St Petersburg, FL 33702, http://independentbeer.comm
Hmm: Not sure they're actually open on Monday. If not, look for a 'devfish' note on the door telling where we went. Lots to do in downtown St Pete.
Keeping up: Watch @devfish on twitter. Note this is not a Microsoft event, and no one is buying anything for you. Eat before you get there.

Facebook link - http://www.facebook.com/events/237352629671994/?context=create

InputScope Changes in Windows Phone Mango

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:36:07 GMT

Recently I was working on my latest cut of dfRandomWinner and I noted that the behavior of InputScope="Digit" changed from Windows Phone 7.0 to Windows Phone "Mango". I couldn't actually find much documentation on the InputScope changes. Ok, now I'm curious. Which scopes had changed across all the possible InputScopeNameValue enumerations. Of course, I'm not saying the documentation of the changes isn't out there, I just couldn't find it easily.

I wanted to do a side by side of all InputScopeNameValue rendering from 7.0 to the 7.1 (mango) SDK. For the comparison I really needed to look at 7.0 and 7.1 at the same time. I pulled the InputScope sample out of my Windows Phone Mango Tacklebox and ported it down to a Windows Phone 7.0 project. I then ran WP7MangoTacklebox on another machine and took eyeballed each InputScope in the list. Scientific? No. But good enough for a blue collar coder like me.

My findings? Basically any pure numeric InputScope had changed to a new rendering that removed the alphanumeric keyboards and such. Much nicer. If I just want numbers, why did I have to look at all the letters anyway. InputScopeNameValue's I've verified have changed are Digits, CurrencyAmount ( but not CurrencyAmountAndSymbol ), DateDay, DateMonth, DateYear, NumericPassword, Time, TimeHour, and TimeMinorSec. All the InputScope's render as the Mango picture below.

Windows Phone 7.0

Windows Phone MANGO

Caveat: The InputScope limits the characters that can be typed in, but does not guarantee correctness. For example, you can use Digit, and still enter a number like "132.455.31223.1111". Be careful. There are 3rd party controls which can help you with better input control, or you can do you own validation on field exit to trap errors (exercise left to the reader).

More on InputScope, how to use it, and the possible enumerations can be found via the links in at http://dfwiki.devfish.net. Enjoy!

IDFLinkable 2012-01-06

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:29:16 GMT

FLADEV SCENE - PICK OF THE FISHFRY
NBA Pro '12 via Neuralnet of Orlando - http://wp7designcorner.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/nba-pro-12-has-arrived-to-the-wp7-marketplace/
Daily Calories Calculator by Tampa's Paul Beaton - http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/11110e5a-9d5b-4096-bff6-ddb5c638a7f5
Ton of sweet .NET Jobs with American Express in St Petersburg, FL - http://jobs.americanexpress.com/search?q=american+express+st+petersburg+fl+jobs&filter=true&locale=en_US&location=st+petersburg

ON THINGS MICROSOFT
WINDOWS PHONE
Glen Gordon with PhoneGap in Windows Phone Tips - #2:Script Interactions, #3:Sending SMS and Intro to Plugins, #4:The Application Bar
NeuralNet on Making Money with Windows Phone - http://wp7designcorner.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/making-money-with-windows-phone-7-apps-games/
jQuery Mobile on Windows Phone - http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2011/12/16/148061.aspx
Windows Phone Design Grids - http://ux.artu.tv/?p=165
Capturing Windows Phone Debugger Console Output without Interfering with it - http://peshir.blogspot.com/2011/10/capturing-console-output-without.html
How to Ask for a Windows Phone App Review - http://peshir.blogspot.com/2011/11/perfect-way-to-ask-for-wp7-app-review.html
31 days of Windows Phone Metro Design via @arturot - http://ux.artu.tv/?p=179 - #wpdev #wp7dev
Top Windows Phone Developer Tools from @windowsphonegeek - http://www.windowsphonegeek.com/devtools
$65k in a year on indie wp7 games from @mechaghost - http://wmpoweruser.com/independent-windows-phone-7-developer-made-61000-last-year/ , http://www.occasionalgamer.com/2012/01/02/2011-a-year-in-review-as-a-indie-developer/
Free Analytics for WP - http://www.mtiks.com/
Google Analytics with Windows Phone - http://mark.mymonster.nl/2011/10/21/statistics-for-your-windows-phone-application-google-analytics
Monetization Series via the AdDuplex guys - http://blog.adduplex.com/search/label/interview

WEB
Using the W3C Geolocation API to Create Location Aware Websites - http://rachelappel.com/use-the-w3c-geolocation-api-to-create-location-aware-web-sites
Conditional Loading for Responsive Web Design - http://24ways.org/2011/conditional-loading-for-responsive-designs - via @dandenney
Mobile First Web Design - http://www.netmagazine.com/features/mobile-first
Responsive Web - Liquid versus Fluid Design - http://www.zeldman.com/2011/12/29/state-of-the-web-of-apps-devices-and-breakpoints/
Top 25 Books on Web Design - http://www.netmagazine.com/features/top-25-books-web-designers-and-developers

MISCELLANEOUS
Mobile Web Dev Tools List from the Government - http://www.howto.gov/tech-solutions/web-development
NOAA Oceans Mobile Web Browser Site - good demo of why native apps are better than mobile web if feasible - http://m.oceans.noaa.gov

JUST CAUSE
How Not to Launch a Boat - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hJMRCRlK0k
Garden and Gun Magazine - Travel South Albumn - free music! - http://gardenandgun.com/tastes-and-tunes

Windows Phone Ad SDK Expands to Six New Countries

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:39:09 GMT

On September 27, 2011, we announced the expansion of the Advertising SDK to a number of new markets . Today we are happy to announce, effective immediately, the expansion of our markets to International expansion to Denmark, Hong Kong, Japan, India, Mexico, Sweden, Switzerland. Hopefully you'll find a way to make some money in the newly opened areas. Enjoy.

Some things to think about. What if you're still hitting countries with no Ad SDK support from Microsoft? Consider using a tool to roll in 'g' ads where you can't serve the pubcenter ads. Noted tools are wp7adrotator.codeplex.com and AdDuplex.com. Brian Kassay of Tampa's also done an excellent job with his blog post of Using Multiple Windows Phone 7 Ad Providers, breaking out various options for you. More goodies on the Ad SDK and Ad Toolkits can be found in the devfish wiki .

Also think about localizing your apps. Yep, no everyone is speaking the english. Why deny them the joy of running your app (and making you some coin)? Nice set of localization tips are here in the devfish wiki .

Enjoy. Hope you make some great $$$s in all the countries I want to visit one day. Well, I've actually been to Mexico, France, USA, Netherlands, and the UK already. That leaves only 13 countries to complete my Ad SDK life tour!

Orlando CodeCamp 2012 - March 31st

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:27:34 GMT

CALL FOR SPEAKERS // REGISTRATION OPEN

What - Orlando CodeCamp 2012
When - Saturday, March 31
Where - Seminole State College, 100 College Str, Sanford FL 32746
URL and Twitter contact points - web orlandocodecamp.com, tweet #orlandocc, follow @onetug
Why - sessions by pros and amateurs alike, with over 400 estimated attendees. Learn something, find a job, find a business partner. Just have a good time. Register now.

What is Code Camp? Code Camp is a FREE one day GEEK FEST for .NET coders. The event will have speakers from the local community and beyond. Speakers will be presenting some of the most requested topics like ASP.NET MVC, HTML5, Visual Studio, ALM, Azure/Cloud, SQL, Architecture, DNN, SharePoint, Windows 8/Metro, UI/UX, Windows Phone, General .NET and Agile . Orlando CodeCamp is a free, community driven event, organizedd by a dedicated volunteers and speakers.

Amazon Web Services Toolkit for Windows Phone Beta

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:39:54 GMT

Cats n dogs living together. Yes Virginia, we do make our stuff work with other platforms.

As a Windows Phone / Windows client type I've always cringed when esteemed Azure experts like Brian Hitney bring up the Azure SDKs for iOS and Android. Makes sense though. And often in the iOS and Android spaces, when I talk to folks about converting their apps to Windows Phone, they are using Amazon Web Services instead of Azure as a cloud based platform for their apps backends. So its with great interest I'd like to pass along to you our announcement of the beta of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) SDK for Windows Phone.

The AWS SDK makes the Amazon S3, SimpleDB, and SQS Cloud Services directly available to Windows Phone 7 Developers via C# APIs. The SDK is published as open source code under the Apache license. Using this API Windows Phone developers have the option to develop applications that connect and integrate with Amazon Cloud Services (S3, SimpleDB and SQS). Naturally I'd love for everyone to use Azure, but Microsoft wants folks to have choices when using its platforms.

Note this is a beta SDK. Please supply feedback about the kit and how it works. Some useful links below:

Beta SDK download - https://github.com/downloads/Microsoft-Interop/AWS-SDK-for-WP/AWSWP7Setup.msi
GitHub project - https://github.com/Microsoft-Interop/AWS-SDK-for-WP
MSDN Article - “Beta of Amazon Web Services SDK for Windows Phone Released” - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2012/01/20/beta-of-aws-sdk-for-windows-phone-released.aspx
Getting started guide - http://windowsphone.interoperabilitybridges.com/articles/getting-started-with-the-beta-of-amazon-web-services-sdk-for-windows-phone
Getting Started video - http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Interoperability/Getting-Started-with-the-AWS-SDK-for-Windows-Phone
Video Walkthrough S3 - http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Interoperability/AWS-SDK-for-Windows-Phone-S3-sample-walkthrough
Video Walkthrough SQS - http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Interoperability/AWS-SDK-for-Windows-Phone-SQS-sample-walkthrough
Video Walkthrough SimpleDB - http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Interoperability/AWS-SDK-for-Windows-Phone-SimpleDB-sample-walkthrough

Outsid of the formal feedback, let me know if ya'll use the toolkit and how it goes. Love to find out how your projects are progressing.

Submit Windows Phone Game Get Chance at Laptop

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:54:33 GMT

I love it when our Windows Phone Devs win contests. Here's a sweet sweepstakes from the Windows Phone teams. The rules are fairly simple:

Get a chance to win an Alienware M18x Gaming Laptop by having a game accepted into the Windows Phone marketplace
Bonus chance for using Windows Azure with the game
Enter as many games as you like

Three laptop winners will be chosen at random at the end of the sweepstakes. Twenty five weekly winners will get XBox LIVE Gold Cards ($24.99 type) as well. Contest ends February 29, 2012. Must be a USA resident.

Sweepstakes home and entry here - http://www.facebook.com/MicrosoftTechStudent?sk=app_234264339961262
Contest rules are here - http://www.youvegotgamesweepstakes.com/YGGsweepstakesrules.pdf