Here's the short, non-spoily version: It's fun popcorn movie, with lots of action. A little too much interpersonal touchy-feely crap for an Iron Man movie, and not enough "suit blowing shit up" time, imo, but still good. Oh... and if you're a fan of The Mandarin character from the comics, oh boy are you gonna be pissed.

There's some real silliness as he continues to find new ways to get the suit on as quickly as possible. (How many "high speed groin shot" sight gags do we need?) 

Go see it, enjoy it for what it is, and relish in the glorious trailers that precede it. It's a fun summer superhero flick, but it doesn't really break any new ground. It takes a lot of liberties with canon and leaves you wondering how it's going to dovetail into the next Avengers movie, which you know it does.

And FINALLY, yes, there's an easter egg at the end, but it's barely worth staying for. It's more of the "oh I get it, they're eating shwarma" variety, rather than "omg what does it mean?!?"

I've been messing around with RPG Maker VX Ace a bit ever since they put it on sale on Steam (and my parents just happened to give me Steam Points for my birthday.)  So far, I like it. ViNull made the comment that's it's easier if you aren't a developer, and I can totally see that. Overall though, if you're looking to make games, I recommend it. It comes in a few different flavors, invcluding one tailored to making "Indie" games, and there are numerous community created resources available as well.

I've also dabbled (not as much) with Construct2, which reminds me of the old TorqueX in some ways, though it spits out HTML5 instead of XNA. It's fairly easy to use and there are some good intro tutorials to get you started, but then not a lot that I could find after that. Still, it's a pretty solid offering.

My buddy Jason is a big fan of Unity, and swears he's doing some cool stuff in Unity2D (though we have yet to see any of it) thanks to some 3rd party plugins and whatnot. I installed it and immediately got a headache, so I haven't really spent much more time on it than that.

I still bang on HA! now and then (more "then" than "now") but that's all VB.NET. Not much new going on there, really.

I've been using jQuery a lot at work lately. Yeah, I know I'm late to the party, and there are newer flashier things out there, but it does the job and there are a ton of resources out there for it.

I downloaded the Xamarin Studio, never could get it working right. Spent a few days on it here and there and then gave up. Life's too short to get that pissed off over something I don't need.

As for games I'm playing, there's this great little card game called Resistance. If you're paranoid, you'll love it. If you're not, you will be after playing this game. It plays a lot faster than Battlestar Galactica, and is nowhere near as complex, but just as maddening.

I'm also thinking about spinning up a new RPG campaign. I've been eyeballing the Iron Kingdoms RPG and also Pathfinder. I like D&D 4e for what it is (which is basically D&D Tactics) but I've run enough of that to want to try something different. I could go back to 3.5, but if I'm going to do that, I might as well do Pathfinder since it's the same, only better.  I've also been thinking about going super old-school, with Traveller.

Many of you know I also own a retail brick & mortar game store called Big Robot Games (which you can find online easily enough.)  FYI: We are not the same guys that are making the excellent looking game "Sir, You Are Being Hunted!" over in the UK. Things are going well with the store. We do a lot of everything, from card games, and board games, to miniature wargames and rpgs. We don't do video games and we have a firm NO YU-GI-OH! policy, but that's a story for another day.

This weekend, in honor of May 4 (as in "May the 4th Be With You") we're showing the original trilogy of Star Wars: A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi at the store. Should be a good time.

I'm still doing occasional writing for RockRevolt Magazine, and recently interviewed Oderus Urungus of GWAR. He's a riot. That issue should be popping up pretty soon. I'll add a link when it does.

I hope everyone has a good weekend, and May The 4th Be With You!

A couple months ago, I announced I was leaving Magenic in order to take a break from consulting.

I figured I'd post an update as to what I'm doing now, since I haven't exactly been slacking off.

1) I accepted a position as a Lead Developer with RealPage. I work on a number of internal use applications for a subsidiary known as LevelOne. The majority of my work is in ASP.NET, a surprising amount of VB.NET, some C# and I'm picking up a few new tools for my belt... specifically Python, MongoDB and Perl.

2) I am still the owner of Big Robot Games, a retail game store / coffee shop in the South Carolina upstate region. I'm not as involved in the day to day activity as I was, but I'm there most nights and weekends, when I'm not off doing other things, like #3.

3) I am on the staff of Rock Revolt Magazine as a journalist, covering live performances as well as interviewing bands, providing album & video game reviews, fixing the website and the occasional prison ink. (Just kidding on that last one.)

4) In whatever time is leftover, I still manage to bang out a little code on Heroic Adventure! (aka HA!) and talk about Windows Phone, XNA and whatever else suits me, wherever they'll let me.

I guess that's about it.

After a mostly great 6 years and 3 months, I'm leaving Magenic. My last day is officially 9/14/12.

I'm going to be taking a much needed break from consulting, to focus on parts of my life that have been, well... rather unfocused lately.

Caught the midnight showing of the Avengers last night. I won't get spoily on you, because I hate them myself, but I will leave you a few tidbits:  

1) The Hulk totally steals every scene he's in. Mark Ruffalo totally nails it as Banner.
2) There are TWO easter eggs in the credits, not just one. Stay until the lights come on.
3) The movie rocked. People stood up and cheered a few times. (Ok, it was mostly me, but seriously... GREAT movie.)
4) Yes, there are some comic relief scenes, but they are (IMO) well timed and not overdone.

The one I saw was in 3D, and it was "Avatar style" (meaning they were going for depth of field, rather than cheesy in your face stuff.) Was it absolutely worth the extra money? Probably not, but the 3D trailers before it were pretty sweet. (Trailers: Prometheus, Spider-Man, Batman, other crap. YMMV)

Joss Whedon ala Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Uncanny X-Men (comic book), etc has produced an EPIC movie (and not in the geek slang way... but in the true sense of scale.) This is a story that would have potentially played out over a year or more in the comics, across multiple titles.

Go see it. Go with your friends. If you don't have any friends, sit near a group. The fan and audience reactions enhance the overall experience.

Trust me.

I occasionally get asked if we travel "a lot" at Magenic. Sometimes the question comes from job candidates. Other times it's clients, recruiters or friends.

To give a simple yes or no answer would be a disservice to the person asking the question. So here is my standard answer:

It depends.

(That was the short version.  Here's the long version...)

We do have some guys that are more "national" in focus, and they can travel a fair amount. They also receive a little extra in compensation for doing so. It's a balancing act, and not necessarily a one-size-fits-all situation. Not everyone is well suited to constant travel. Some folks enjoy it and some folks hate it.

With our local guys, our general policy is to TRY and keep them close to home whenever possible, but sometimes the needs of the client will dictate otherwise. (As Spock would say... the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.)

In most cases though, we really do try to avoid sending our guys on extended travel gigs (i.e. every week for 6 months) when a simple kickoff trip and occasional visit will do. This depends on the nature of the gig, of course. Some types of work lend themselves to this model better than others.

Additionally, this can and does vary by office. If one office is having trouble staffing a gig (not enough available bodies) and another office has a few too many folks on the bench, well... you can connect the dots. But again, we try to keep that to a minimum.

Lastly, we all have our own thresholds for what we consider "a lot" of travel. There are two parts to this threshold:

1. Half of it is whatever you're accustomed to already.
2. The other half is being honest with yourself about how much you [like/hate] dealing with airports, car rentals, taxis, hotels, disruptions to your workout schedule, time away from friends/family, etc.

Knowing a bit about yourself will definitely help you decide how much travel is too much for you.

Recently (as in, last night) I started playing with jQuery Mobile. My experiences with jQuery, while occasionally frustrating, have been overwhelmingly positive. So when a friend mentioned jQuery Mobile to me, I figured I'd give it a try.

A little Googling revealed some helpful tutorials and other resources, one of which was this handy basic page (which I got from here)

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Page Title</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.0a3/jquery.mobile-1.0a3.min.css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.5.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.0a3/jquery.mobile-1.0a3.min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<div data-role="page" id="home">
<div data-role="header">
  <h1>Header</h1>
</div>
<div data-role="content">
  <p>Content goes here</p>
</div>
<div data-role="footer">
  <h4>Footer</h4>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

A quick copy and paste later and I was off and running... sort of.  The page renders as expected in Chrome, Firefox and Opera but sadly IE9 seems unable to live up to expectations (on my Win 7 64bit machine with IE 9.0.8112.16421)

A quick trip to the list of supported browsers (here) tells me IE9 should be supported just fine. Since my principal concern isn't IE on Win7, but rather how jQuery Mobile looks on Windows Phone, I decided to throw it on my web server and hit it from my Samsung Focus.

Here's the URL if you want to try it out from your own Windows Phone: http://www.bigrobotgames.com/jqm/sample.htmhttp://www.bigrobotgames.com/jqm/sample.htm

As you can see, the page renders, but it seems IE on WP7 (and the WP7 emulator) doesn't really fare any better than IE on the desktop. The browser list does say that there are "minor CSS issues" so maybe this is just one of those.

I'll keep digging and in the next post, we'll see what other heavy lifting jQM can do with regards to Windows Phone.)

UPDATE: Sometimes, I make big stupid rookie mistakes. Today was one. Keep reading.

Turns out, I should have made sure my jQuery and jQuery Mobile references were totally up to date. They weren't.  I've uploaded a second file, aptly named sample2.htm that has the more up to date references, now that jQuery Mobile is no longer in alpha.

You can see it here:   http://www.bigrobotgames.com/jqm/sample2.htm

As you can see... IE9 actually works just fine, giving the expected results consistent with FireFox, Chrome and Opera.  IE on Windows Phone works as expected also. Clearly the lesson here is to ALWAYS check your references when working with 3rd party libraries, especially if something isn't working as expected.

With that (false alarm) concern out of the way, now we really get to have some fun!

This is what the file SHOULD look like:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Page Title</title>

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.0/jquery.mobile-1.0.min.css" />

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.6.4.min.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/mobile/1.0/jquery.mobile-1.0.min.js"></script>

</head>
<body>
<div data-role="page" id="home">
<div data-role="header">
<h1>Header</h1>
</div>
<div data-role="content">
<p>Content goes here</p>
</div>
<div data-role="footer">
<h4>Footer</h4>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html> 

The last few days at the shop have been reminiscent of a marathon of Pawn Stars. Quite a few people have come in wanting to trade for store credit. Most of them have left disappointed. We did pick up a few things here and there (which hopefully I can sell.)

The problem, in a nutshell, is that people get it in their head that a (YuGiOh) card is worth X amount because they looked it up 2-3 years a...go, or someone told them it was valuable... then they play it in their deck for a year without sleeves, and cram it in a binder covered in duct tape.

By the time they bring the cards in to me, new sets have come out which often de-value the tournament usefulness of the card from $20 to *maybe* 50 cents, in mint condition.

Which means I can offer them about 10-15 cents... only they are almost never in mint condition, which means I usually offer them nothing at all.

Most of the time, you can watch their smile fade as I start going through their cards. It's kinda sad, really, since I know they think they've spent the last two years walking around with the keys to their own personal gold mine.

I don't really enjoy seeing that look on a child's face. I like kids and I remember those moments when perception and reality crashed headlong into each other. It was seldom pretty. So, when I'm talking to a child, I try to take it easy on them and give them some suggestions on how to better preserve their cards.

Sometimes though, it's an adult. Depending on the situation, my response to them varies pretty broadly. Most of the time though, I still feel pretty bad when it doesn't go their way.

Two months ago, almost to the day, I opened Big Robot Games.

This is my 4th game store (the 3rd actual Brick & Mortar store, in the 4th physical location.)

I opened my first store in 1999. It was called Roanoke Hobbies and was located in Roanoke, VA. I partnered up with a buddy from the Navy to open it. It was a really small space, in a terrible location, but the rent was dirt cheap. Even then, we built up a pretty loyal group of regulars and friends. We carried all the traditional fare: Games Workshop, D&D, Magic, etc.

After about 6 months, we outgrew the first location and moved into a space about 4 times the size. Most of our customers followed us over, since we were only a couple miles up the road. The ones that didn't... well, we didn't really miss them much.

After a while, the demands of my career along with some pretty serious differences of opinion resulted in a split between myself and my business partner. I sold my half of the shop and moved away. The shop got a rebranding and a new location and lasted for a couple years before changing ownership again and eventually dying out. It's hard work, especially if you don't know what you're getting into.

In 2005, I opened my 2nd game store: Reality Check Games, also a brick and mortar store. This one was located in Greenville, SC. Some of you reading may actually remember this one. I loved this store. The location was less than optimal, and the rent was a little high, but it worked.

This store had quite the assortment of characters... some great regulars, and some not so great. Some of the friends I made here are among my best friends anywhere. This shop was a lot of hard work and late nights. I was traveling a lot for Magenic during part of the time I owned this store, so that made things tough. The first few months of any new business are rough, and this one was no exception, but within a year it was self-sustaining and growing.

This store was open for about a year and a half before the decision was made to relocate to Minnesota. That was a tough decision, and while I don't regret doing it, I do regret the effect it had on the shop.  After debating for a while on whether to liquidate, move it all or sell it, the decision was made to sell the shop.  Unfortunately, the family that bought it didn't really have a good appreciation for how much work it was... and it crashed and burned about 6 months after I left.

I was in Minnesota for 3 years. Part of the reason I agreed to move was that I intended to open a game store there as well. I did, sort of. Retail space in Minneapolis was insanely expensive... way more for a lot less. So I decided to do an online only store. Since we were in a different state than the old Reality Check, we decided to keep the name (they had already closed by this point anyway.) I set up a site, filled it with product and started marketing it via Froogle and Amazon and via the Tech Community. It did ok. The site was largely flop, but the Amazon store did quite well. I kept that up for as long as I was in Minnesota.

A little over a year ago, I moved back to Greenville, SC. The first question on everyone's lips was... "are you going to open another game store?" The second question was usually "When?"

After nearly a year of planning (and saving) we opened the doors on Big Robot Games. That brings us to the beginning of this blog post. In the last two months, efforts have been focused on building inventory, growing a cusomter base and marketing to get the word out there.

Up to this point, marketing has consisted of:

• Facebook Ads - I spend about $20 per week on highly targeted FB ads. I have a single campaign with multiple ads targeting different groups of interests. The ones with product logos consistently outperform those with the shop logo.
• Sponsorships - BRG sponsors a local roller derby team, and has also purchased ad space in local yearbooks and calendars.
• Word of Mouth - Good service and selection means people will tell their friends about us. That seems to be working very well.
• Good Signage - You get what you pay for. A sign with 3D channel letters will get attention. Having a pylon sign by the road helps too.
• Manufacturer Websites - get listed on every retail locator you can find. D&D, Magic, Warhammer, etc... all have tools to help customers find you.
• Social Media - in addition to Facebook Ads, maintaining a store twitter account, a Facebook page, registering with FourSquare, etc... all drive people to you.

It's not enough to have a store full of product anymore. A good game store also needs to run events. Whether it's card tournaments, board game demos, RPG sessions, or wargames leagues... you have to give people a reason to keep coming back to your store even when they don't plan to make a purchase that day.

Not every day is going to be your best day ever. In the early months especially, you're going to have a few days that make you want to give up, lock up and go home. Use those days to your advantage... to plan new events, go through inventory, work on marketing, etc. Before long, you'll be wishing for the occasional slow day to get caught up.

Incidentally, on those slow days... DON'T go home early. You never know when a new customer will walk in and rock your world. I've seen a slow Thursday night turned upside down with a single purchase. Also, if you aren't there when you say you will be, people will go elsewhere. That might be the only shot that new customer gives you. Stick to your posted hours unless its an emergency... and if it is, leave a note. Your customers will only be as loyal to you as you are to them.

So, as I said... it's been two months so far, but in some ways it feels like I've been at this for years. Things are going good. Game sales, as an industry, are up quarter after quarter. When compared to going to the movies or out to a bar, it's some of the best value for your entertainment dollar, with plenty of replay value.

I've got a bunch of technical books I'd like to get rid of.  Some are more current than others.

3D Programming For Windows
Introducing LINQ
VB.NET Class Design Handbook
ASP.NET MVC 1.0
ASP.NET MVC In Action
FBML Essentials
Test Driven Development in Microsoft .NET
The Rational Guide To Building Technical User Communities
Expression Web Step By Step
Applications = Code + Markup

I don't really feel like dealing with the hassle of ebay (or Amazon), and I'd hate to just throw them away.

Craigslist / Freecycle both involve having strangers coming to my house....

So I'm open to suggestions.

About a month ago, I decided to delete my Twitter account.

I didn't "rage quit" or make some tired farewell speech. I didn't even tell anyone I was going.

I simply realized that I hadn't tweeted in quite some time and I also hadn't read anyone else's tweets in an equally long time. In short, I was neither contributing nor receiving any value from Twitter. It was not bringing me joy.

That last sentence sounds a little silly, or maybe pretentious, but it stands. As my life and career continue to become more demanding and more complex, I have searched for ways to simplify. My philosophy is simple:

If I don't need it, and it does not bring me joy, I don't want it.

My job may not always bring me joy, but I need it... therefore I keep it.
I do not need my xbox 360, but I enjoy it... therefore I keep it.
Certain people I don't need, who do not make me happy... I discarded them.

Twitter does not fill the need requirement, or the joy requirement, so it's gone.

How many things in your life could you get rid of, based on these criteria? Would you be happier if you did?

Magenic Interviews at the 2011 //Build/ Conference

http://magenic.com/Portfolio/VideoBuildInterviews.aspx

Be sure to use this code when you submit:

Here are a bunch of links for BUILD material related to Game Dev.  Go Nuts, Be Awesome.

Downloads:

Windows 8 Developer Preview

Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview

MSDN:

Direct3D 11.1

DXGI 1.2

WDDM 1.2

Feature Level 11.1

DirectXMath

Channel9:

Direct3D

PLAT-751T 3D Graphics for Metro Style Apps and Games

PLAT-752T Tuning GPU usage for any form factor

HW-218T: Understanding the Windows 8 graphics driver model

TOOL-761T: A lap around DirectX game development tools

XINPUT

PLAT-754T: From touch to gamepads: Master player input in your Metro style game

XAUDIO

PLAT-755T: Compelling audio and video for Metro style games

Xbox LIVE

PLAT-756T: Building Xbox LIVE Games for Windows 8

Direct2D/DirectWrite

PLAT-769T Achieving high performance 2D graphics with Direct2D

PLAT-770T Create cool image effects using Direct2D

Metro style applications

PLAT-766T Introduction to DirectX for Metro style apps

PLAT-750T Build your first Metro style game

TOOL-690C Under the covers with C++ for Metro style apps

Forums

Build Metro style games with DirectX

Samples

Windows Metro style app samples

Windows Desktop samples

Texconv & DirectXTex (Desktop sample)

Looking for info on the differences between Windows Phone 7.0 and 7.1 (Mango), here ya go:

http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-windows-phone-7-and-vs-mango/

Hey everyone... I'm throwing a Windows Phone Garage event in conjunction with Jacksonville Code Camp!!

If you're looking to learn about Making Games for Windows Phone 7 with XNA, this is the place you want to be.

Here's the tentative schedule:
 

9am - 9:55am      Intro to WP7 - includes info about the platform and very basic Silverlight & XNA content.

10am - 10:55am  Getting familiar with XNA (covers differences in XNA programming model and what's in the framework)

11am - 12pm       Using Phone Features w/ XNA (this covers accelerometer, gestures, gps, camera, etc)

12pm - 1pm         Lunch

1pm - 1:55pm      Using Push Notifications in your game

2pm - 2:55pm      Making a Scrollable Tile Map for your game

3pm - 5pm           BUILD

This event is being hosted at the University of North Florida - 1 UNF Drive, Jacksonville FL 32246

The date is August 27, 2011

When I first started using Twitter, I had some basic rules for reducing the noise and increasing the value... following them made it a better experience for me.

After scanning through this mornings feed on G+, it seems like I need to bring back those rules (as applicable to G+.)

1) If I mute 3 of your posts in a single day, you're gone.
2) If you post about religion or politics more than anything else, you're gone.
3) If you post incessantly about the latest world crisis more than anything else, you're gone. (I have other sources for news.)
4) If the only things you post are marketing fluff, you're gone.
5) Adding me to a circle doesn't mean I'll add you, but I'll check out the incoming feed.
6) The more friends we have in common, the more likely I'll add you.

I've already enforced rules 1 & 3 today and it's barely 10am.

As part of my series of Windows Phone Developer Webinars (hosted by DevExpress) I decided to give away an HTC Surround to one randomly chosen listener, picked from everyone who left comments on this (http://blogusmaximus.net/archive/2011/06/12/windowsphonewebinars.aspx) blog post.

That winner has been chosen, and it's Nicolas St-Amour! Congratulations Nick!

Nick will also be receiving a free signed copy of Professional Windows Phone 7 Game Development!

I'm taking a short break now that the series is done, but I'll be back in a few weeks with more webinars on Windows Phone. If there are topics you would like to hear about, please let me know in the comments!

When I was at TechEd 2011 in Atlanta, I had the pleasure of meeting a bunch of the DevExpress folks and working out some of the details for a series of Windows Phone Development webinars. Here they are, for your viewing pleasure:

#1 Introduction to WP7 Development with Silverlight and XNA - http://tv.devexpress.com/#WP7Dev1Webinar

#2 Deeper Dive Into XNA on Windows Phone - http://tv.devexpress.com/#WP7Dev2Webinar
The source (in C# and VB.NET) for the demos in this talk can be found in my book, or downloaded here.

#3 Deeper Dive Into Silverlight on Windows Phone - http://tv.devexpress.com/#WP7Dev3Webinar

#4 Building a Scrolling Tile Engine with XNA on Windows Phone - http://tv.devexpress.com/#WP7Dev4Webinar 
The demo code is available here.

#5 Building a Pathfinding System Using Waypoints with XNA on Windows Phone - http://tv.devexpress.com/#WP7Dev5Webinar  
The demo code is available here.

#6 Using the Push Notifications Service in Your Apps or Games - http://tv.devexpress.com/#WP7PushNotifications
The source (in C# and VB.NET) for the demos in this talk can be found in my book, or downloaded here.

#7 Making Money From Free Apps with the Microsoft Ad SDK - http://tv.devexpress.com/#WP7Dev7Webinar

The feedback on this series has been really positive, with lots of really good questions posted during the webinars (and to my inbox.)

If there are any topics you would like to see that aren't covered by this list, let me know and I'll see about adding it to an upcoming talk or maybe adding additional webinars.

You can also find the complete list of this series here: http://www.devexpress.com/Support/Webinars/series-details.xml?series=WP7 Webinar Series

The randomly selected winner of the Windows Phone (HTC Surround) is Nicolas St-Amour!

Friday June 17th, 2011 there will be a Windows Phone Garage event. It will be held at Immedion at 78 Global Drive, Suite 100, Greenville, SC.

There are only 40 spots, so register now at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1792690987/

The idea behind the Windows Phone Garage is simple. Come out, install the tools, learn how to write a Windows Phone application, then build one.

Best of all, it's free, and everyone is invited!

The second half of the day is an open lab, and assistance will be available. It's a great way to get familiar with the platform and walk away with a completed application!

9 – 10 a.m. Introduction to Windows Phone Development
No experience with Windows Phone 7 development? No problem. During this optional session at the start of the day we will cover the fundamentals of Windows Phone Silverlight and XNA Development. We'll explore the various core components and tools available and leave you with some resources to take you to the next level.

10:15 – 10:45 a.m. What’s new for Windows Phone Developers
This session will highlight some of the new developer features coming for Windows Phone Developers. We’ll also take a look at AppMakr, a dynamic new tool that enables you to generate a simple Windows Phone application from one or more online data feeds.

11:00 – 12:00 p.m. Windows Phone Application Jumpstart
To give you a jumpstart on application development, we’ll walk through in detail building an app, styling it, and adding advanced capabilities. We’ll also cover submitting it to the marketplace and monetizing your app.

12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Lunch

1:00 – 5:00 p.m. Windows Phone Garage Open Lab
Bring your laptop fully loaded with Visual Studio 2010 and the latest version of the Windows Phone Tools. Get some help with an app you are working on or use the information from the Jumpstart to build an app around your favorite data feed. No ideas? No worries – we’ll have a few starter templates that you can build on!

If you still haven't registered yet, you should do so now before all of the spaces are filled. http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1792690987/

The GeeksWithBlogs Reader app for Windows Phone 7 is now available in the marketplace.

This is still very much a 1.0 product, but it's free and I'm continuing to tweak it and add stuff to it, so if you have a windows phone, please give it a download and let me know what you think.

http://social.zune.net/redirect?type=phoneApp&id=e5cb17cc-0c66-e011-81d2-78e7d1fa76f8

I'm running into some bizarre behavior with JavaScript in Mobile IE 6. 

I have an ASP.NET MVC 3 Web App, designed primarily for Mobile IE6 (WinMo 6.5 devices)

I have 2 Session variables. The first one simply contains a "0" or "1" and I can access it by doing something like this in JavaScript: 

var lbType = '<%= HttpContext.Current.Session["myVar"] %>'; 

I can use it, display it in an alert, whatever... that works, no problem. 

The other session variable is also a string, but is a bit longer (roughly 250 characters) and has some embedded \r\n (end of line characters). If I use basically the exact same code in JavaScript: 

var lbData = '<%= HttpContext.Current.Session["myData"] %>'; 

It kills the Javascript and the rest of the page renders without executing the JavaScript. I can't work with it or display it in an alert. 

Now, extra weirdness... I copied the string that I'm generating server side and sticking in the session, and pasted it into a local JavaScript variable, like so: 

var lbData = 'lots of data\r\nmore data\r\nmoredata\r\nmore data\r\n'; 

and it works fine. I can work with it, show it in an alert, whatever I need to do. 

The problem is, I can't hardcode the string. I need to generate it serverside and feed it to the javascript. 

Any thoughts? 

p.s. I have also successfully displayed the contents of the Session variable on the page by injecting it into the HTML (but that doesn't do me any good other than seeing it)

Overall, this year has been a pretty good TechEd. I’ve always thought ‘05 & ‘08 (both in Orlando) were the best I’ve attended and ‘10 was probably my least favorite (this was more due to the weather than anything.)

This one is right in the middle, maybe leaning towards good rather than bad. There’s a lot of really excellent content on Windows Phone and Azure, plenty of interesting side events (including the WP7 Hackathon – which overall was awesome.)

The facilities are nice and OMG huge. Until I found the super secret shortcut, it was taking me nearly a half hour EACH way to walk from the expo hall to the dining hall. Everything is clean, well stocked, well staffed. Serious no complaints there.

The weather has been magnificent, if not unseasonably cold for Atlanta in May (fine with me… I’m loving it.)

The only complaint, and it’s a big one, are the vendors. They seem way more aggressive this year. Not ALL of the vendors, most are fine, but some of them are completely obnoxious. Accosting people as they walk by, screaming incredibly loud during their presentations and giveaways and just generally being a nuisance. It’s gotten to the point where people are deliberately avoiding eye-contact when they walk past the booths because they don’t want to deal with the nuisance of explaining for the 50th time that they don’t want to take a survey so they can get a stupid blinky ball and they don’t want you to scan their badge so you can email them a million times just so they can get a 1 in 15000 chance of winning a Harley. It’s almost enough to keep me out of the expo hall. If I didn’t have friends and colleagues in there, it probably would.

It seems the hardware vendors and the azure vendors are the worst offenders, by far.

Aside from that, it’s been a good year.

If you’re at Tech Ed, be sure to stop by the GeeksWithBlogs Tech Ed Blogger Hub and say hi. Jeff & John have done a phenomenal job of setting up a great place to chill and do some blogging. I’ll be here most of the week when I’m not hitting Windows Phone dev sessions. If you don’t know how to find the Blogger Hub, it’s really quite easy. Enter the Expo Hall from any point, turn left and keep walking until you can’t go any farther. We’re right next to the big stage.