Friday, October 03, 2008
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According to Joe Brinkman from DNN Corp, the new version of DotNetNuke will incorporate jQuery. Microsoft has already announced that jQuery will be in the next version of Visual Studio.
The new version of DNN will include widgets which are JavaScript widgets.
This is new to the framework and won't be available right away according to Joe.
Technorati Tags:
DotNetNuke,
jQuery
Thursday, October 02, 2008
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Well now you do! I found the Microsoft Student Experience site and on it was HP, Lenovo, and Toshiba products. The prices are discounted for students as well.
In addition, you can find software, ZUNE, books, games, and storage devices. For some reason, someone didn't get the message about Frontpage being replaced by Expression Web because there's a link to it with training material being sold that is six years old.
ODUG Vice President Kurt Amstutz will be talking about the recently released Map Module at next Tuesday's Orlando DotNetNuke User Group meeting. I've been busy writing my chapters for the DotNetNuke 5 book and didn't make the last meeting. I'll be at this one. I recruited Kurt last spring to put this presentation on.
Here's some information on the module:
The DotNetNuke® Map Module project is an initiative crafted from very popular smash up DotNetNuke® Map Module, originally called GoMap. The module, using the Google Maps API, provides the ability to pump any custom data into the Google Map in a number of unique ways.
- Standard Mode - Display all the points for the designated Module, simultaneously.
- Playback Mode - Display all the points for the designated Module, in the order which they appear in your source data. This data can have associated times and dates that control the functionality of the playback. The most common example of this is the provided "Regions Online" map which plots the Users Online data - one point for each world Region, in the order which that region was first added to your user base. A very effective display, and fun to watch!
- Positional Mode - Displays the points in your data source by Longitude, Latitude within a target radius. Whenever the user clicks the map, the points are automatically fetched from the server (via ajax of course) and plotted on the map around the selected point.
- Directory Mode - Displays the points in your data source within a configurable directory structure. This directory, similar to most other map based directory components also uses the Positional Mode interaction, so you data is easily displayed regionally.
All of the interaction provided by the module uses AJAX functionality for fetching the points, meaning that the page performs at its peak, without loss.
Hope to see you there!
Yes, you can save this much if you pre-purchase the
by Shaun Walker (Author), Brian Scarbeau (Author), Darrell Hardy (Author), Stan Schultes (Author), Ryan Morgan (Author)
The book is in the pre-edit phase and we all are wrapping up our final chapter.
As you can see, Wrox already has the book up on Amazon's site ready to sell. It's worth waiting for.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
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I have been pursuing when high school students will be getting the free software that Microsoft promised with the DreamSpark announcement back in February. I finally have been communicating with the team that is in charge of this and I've been told not to announce the release date but only to tell you that it will be soon. Real soon!
The distribution will be different from what college students have been doing. The high school computer science teacher must register. The high school administrators/faculty will need to accept a EULA that they will provide codes only to their students and that the software will be used for academic or research purposes. Microsoft will then verify the institution is a valid high school and provide them with the number of access codes the administrators need. The codes provided can be used once and only once so if students access the site and then try to distribute code around the web it will not work.
This is worth waiting for and your students will benefit from working with the products they will be getting for FREE!
I'll be teaching XNA to my programming students again this year and I'm interested in the XNA creators club membership for them.
Thanks to Andy Dunn and Clint Ruckas for helping me find the contact person at Microsoft to get this information.
Friday, September 26, 2008
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Last February, Bill Gates announced a free software giveaway to college university students and high school students as well. Here is what was offered to them:
Microsoft developer tools. Visual Studio is the Swiss Army knife of computer programming. These professional-grade products provide a security-enhanced and reliable environment, enabling students to program everything from a cell phone to a robot or to create their own Web page. Students will also be able to invent compelling new gaming content and make their dream game a reality by porting their creations to their Xbox 360 console.
Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition
Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
XNA Game Studio 2.0
12-month free Academic membership in the XNA Creators Club
Microsoft designer tools. This ultra-versatile suite of tools will enable students to vividly bring their creative visions to life in vibrant new Web site designs and more effective digital content, including animation, imagery and photography.
Expression Studio, including
Expression Web
Expression Blend
Expression Design
Expression Media
Microsoft platform resources. The foundation for development and design platforms, these products deliver a security-enhanced, reliable and manageable environment for students to more quickly turn ideas into reality.
SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition
Windows Server, Standard Edition
To date, no high school students has received this because of the lack of planning Microsoft had to distribute this software to high school students. Last spring, when I went to the Microsoft MVP Summit, I tried asking as many softies as I could as to when this would be made available. No one knew.
This is a wonderful give away to students and I wish that high school students will be part of the give away as well. In a couple of months it will be a year for the announcement.
Can anyone help?
Monday, September 22, 2008
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Kudos for Microsoft to open up a Research facility amongst the brains that walk around Cambridge, MA. Microsoft’s other research laboratories are located in Redmond, Wash., California’s Silicon Valley, China, India and England.
What is interesting is that the purpose of this lab is not to come up with widgets and products. It's going to be a place to think.
No better location than in Cambridge.
Monday, September 15, 2008
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So back in August, I blogged about this site because of my excitement for XNA and Academics. I was hoping to use whatever came on the site with my programming students. I was hoping that by now Microsoft either put content on the site or take it off and stop teasing us educators. To date nothing!
Everyone is waiting patiently for content and I know one person who isn't waiting so patiently.....
What gives?
Friday, September 12, 2008
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Microsoft MVP, Rob Miles has emailed all who are interested in reviewing his new XNA curriculum. I had a chance to look at Part 1 today and it looks good to use for any high school programming course that wants to introduce XNA into the curriculum.
The curriculum will have a total of 8 parts:
Part 1: An Introduction to Programming
Part 2: Controlling Games
Part 3: Displaying Messages
Part 4: Pictures and Sounds
Part 5: A Complete Game
Part 6: Creating Gameplay
Part 7: Complex Games
Part 8: Multi Player Games
Rob wrote the XNA book Learn Programming Now with Microsoft XNA Game Studio 2.0. He's a professor at the University of Hull and his curriculum is geared to anyone who has a programming background who wants to learn how to program C# using the XNA framework.
His curriculum for Part 1 comes with over 200 slides with notes on most slides to help the instructor. (nice touch) Part 1 is very basic and covers the following topics:
Introduction to Programming Concepts
What Makes a Program
What Makes a Game
Coping with Colours
Building a Program
Making a MoodLight
All topics covered comes with sample code for instructors to demonstrate the concepts covered in the topic. 
You'll need to have an XBOX controller connected to your pc to run the code.
The first lab will walk you through how to create a program that changes the colors on the screen. Students get to use different data types like byte and bool in their code for this. They also get a chance to see how the XNA methods work in code.
All in all, I liked what I reviewed and look forward to seeing the other parts when they come available. Hopefully soon!
Thursday, September 04, 2008
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Microsoft MVP, Rob Miles is writing some XNA curriculum. YAAA! He write a good XNA book and he teaches at the University of Hull. His site called Very Silly Games made this announcement. Visit his site and send him an email to be put on a list.
Technorati Tags:
xna,
curriculum
Microsoft has been lowering the price of the XBOX 360 in different countries recently and North America is the latest where there are price drops happening.
You can get the low end version of the 360 for 199 bucks. That's an 80 dollar difference. The higher end sells for $399 and originally sold for $449.
One has to question if another model is coming out in the distant future!
Technorati Tags:
Microsoft,
XBOX
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
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Apparently Google sees the need to compete with highly popular Internet Explorer and Firefox according to this article. The product is called Chrome and it suppose to have a more sophisticated Web browser better suited for displaying the dynamic and interactive content blossoming on the Web.
Today was going to be the release of the product but there is no official news from Google as to when we can look at the new browser.
I'm not sure if we need another browser but like everyone else, I'll take a look at it when its released.
Technorati Tags:
Google,
Chrome
Thursday, August 28, 2008
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The Omaha Nebraska school system uses open source DotNetNuke for all of their school portals and for the district as well.
Their technology site lists who the staff is along with help on using DotNetNuke modules and they list outstanding websites that are used in the district as well.
I was quite impressed with how school were using DotNetNuke to create their web portals. I was equally impressed with the support these schools get with their Tech Department.
Way to go Omaha!
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
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Last month, an editor from Wrox book asked me if I was interested in writing a book on the new version of DotNetNuke which is still in beta. I really don't have the time to do a complete book (who does?) so I asked Darrell Hardy from Hardy Consulting, Tracy Wittenkeller from t-worx, and Microsoft MVP, Stan Schultes to help write some chapters.
We all have signed contracts, gone to the photographer for our cover picture, and are diving into the new version of DotNetNuke to write our chapters. Our first deadline was this week and we have three deadlines to go along with edits along the way before this book is complete. We have a core team member from DotNetNuke to answer any of our questions and it's been very challenging working with a beta copy.
I had an opportunity to work with all of the authors before. More recently, Darrell and Tracy spoke at the very successful DotNetNuke OpenForce event in Orlando, FL. Stan has much experience working with DotNetNuke and has a series of webcasts that he did along with Microsoft guru Russ Fustino. Tracy has his own DotNetNuke book out called DotNetNuke Websites Problem Design Solution (Programmer to Programmer).
All in all, I'm happy to be part of the team and look forward to a finished product in a couple of months.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
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Microsoft just released some cool software to mesh photos together. After taking several photos, the array of photos stitched together to recreate the scene.
in three dimensions. It's one of those deals where you have to see it to believe it. The product is called photosynth and you really need to think out of the box and be created to mesh your pictures together. The site has existing projects to view along with a blog.
This information is from the site:
You can share or relive a vacation destination or explore a distant museum or landmark. With a nothing more than digital camera and some inspiration, you can use Photosynth to transform regular digital photos into a three-dimensional, 360-degree experience. Anybody who sees your synth is put right in your shoes, sharing in your experience, with detail, clarity and scope impossible to achieve in conventional photos or videos.
Synths constitute an entirely new visual medium. Photosynth analyzes each photo for similarities to the others, and uses that data to build a model of where the photos were taken. It then re-creates the environment and uses that as a canvas on which to display the photos.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
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Not sure what's going to be on it because there's no content on it yet.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
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Too bad because you missed out on a great event. Here's the link to all the presentations including my presentation on using DotNetNuke with your students.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
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If you are concerned about your child's future employment, then check out this information:
Computer Jobs Hit Record High
CIO Insight (07/07/08) Chabrow, Eric
U.S. information technology employment is approaching an all-time high as nearly 4 million workers are now employed in IT-related jobs, according to a CIO Insight analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The IT unemployment rate increased one-tenth of a percentage point last quarter to reach 2.3 percent, but it is still near historic lows. In fact, at 4.7 percent, overall unemployment in the United States is more than double IT's jobless rate, writes Eric Chabrow. He says IT employment remains strong because IT performs a critical role in business productivity and the efficiencies IT creates are crucial for employers looking to cut costs. Even those looking to reduce payroll are employing IT professionals because better IT systems allow them to eliminate other positions. Furthermore, companies cannot operate without functioning IT systems, so certain business technology skills cannot be eliminated if a company wants to remain competitive. Over the past four quarters, the IT workforce has grown by 10.2 percent. Meanwhile, the number of workers employed by IT services firms, defined by the U.S. government as computer systems design and related services, rose by 56,100 over the past year, a 4.1 percent increase.
Why wouldn't you want your child to study computer science?
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
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Starting in mid July, Microsoft will be selling Office by subscription. Including Office will be a security software program called Live One Care. The costs will be $70 a year.
Even though Google has free web based programs that compete with Office, many students and teachers still prefer to use Office.
This announcement is a win win and you can purchase the product at Circuit City.