May 5, 2010 By 222 Comments

Get Your Kids Into Software Development

Kodu Game Lab

I’ve been looking around for a way to get my son interested in Software Development.  My wife asks me what I would do if he isn’t interested in programming, and I tell her I would be ok with it.  It doesn’t mean I can’t try and influence his interests!  I stumbled onto this really neat project by Microsoft FUSE Labs, Kodu.  Kodu gives children the ability to learn programming and basic Object Oriented Software Development principles, without even knowing they are learning how to develop games.  Kids are able to create games by visually designing worlds, interactive objects, and characters.  The best part is your children will be able to play their games on their XBOX 360 after they are done creating the game!

I thought maybe I wouldn’t let my son play video games for a while, but maybe I might modify the rule and tell him he can play games, as long as he made the game.

Check Out Kodu and the Microsoft FUSE Labs team.

Filed Under: Games, Microsoft Tagged With: ,
December 12, 2009 By 185 Comments

Tech Days 2009

Tech Days 2009 Things have been super busy at Anvil Digital so all I’ve had time for is twitter these days.  If you don’t follow me yet, make sure you add me http://www.twitter.com/miguelcarrasco as I will more than likely save blog posts for deep discussions and thoughts over the next year.

That said, if you are a Winnipeg Software Developer or IT Pro, make sure you sign up for Tech Days 2009.  Time is almost up to sign up for this insane show packed with real world deep dive content!  I will be presenting on Expression Blend 3.0, the world best user interface design application on the market.  Don’t believe me? come check it out! With forty 200+ level sessions, Tech Days is the learning conference on both current technologies and new products like Windows 7, Exchange 2010 and much more.

Expression Blend for Developers

Not a designer? Overwhelmed by Expression Blend? Not a problem! We’ll show you how to use Expression Blend to create advanced and polished user interfaces for business applications, consumer applications, multimedia projects, games or anything in between. We’ll cover features of Expression Blend from a developer’s perspective and show how it works in tandem with Visual Studio throughout the development process. You’ll learn how to create professional-looking user interfaces and visual elements – even if you don’t think of yourself as an interface designer.

Filed Under: Events, Microsoft, Microsoft Expression, Software Development, TechDays 2009, User Experience Tagged With: , ,
May 25, 2009 By 54 Comments

5 Tips to Becoming a Development Rock Star

So you want to become a software development Rock Star?  I had someone ask me the other day “How can I become a software development rock star?”.  The only true way of course is to practice, practice, practice.  But what about some easy to follow tips?  I had come up with a few in the last year that I wanted to share, so I decided I would put the tips all in one place for him to read.

The 10 Commandments of Great User Experience Design

Starting a new software development project in the next little while?  Praying and hoping that it goes well?  Are you worrying about all the little software development intricacies like: Making sure you have a proper source control, ensuring you have a continuous integration environment, making sure you have great developers and making sure they are happy?  If you are, you probably haven’t remembered to pay attention to the most important part of the software development process.  The User Interface and the User Experience.

Software Development Top 30 Mistakes

I have been developing software and web applications for nearly 11 years now.  Software development has come a long way since the days of Binary, Cobol, etc.  What still fascinates me about software development is the same mistakes made before, are still made today.  Below are the top 30 Mistakes that are made within the software development process.  It’s amazing to see that none of these have anything to do with the language itself.

How To Kill Your To Do List, Developer Style!

Are you one of those people that creates to do list’s, action plans, project plans, and seems to have millions of things to do?  There is actually a simple “Hack” you can use today to get your life back on track.  I just finished reading David Allen’s book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity: Books: David Allen, and have taken some great ideas from the book!  I highly recommend reading it. Follow along with me on this journey to getting more stuff done than you ever imagined, developer style!

What Makes Version 1.0 Software Hard

I’m always puzzled by how hard software can be to write the first version of any software product.  Software in itself is always hard, for more reasons than I can write in a blog entry. But what makes Version 1.0 so hard?  I’ll give you a hint, most of it has nothing to do with your developers. It has more to do with the process of innovation.

How To Finish A Big Software Project And Be The Hero

We’ve all been there! The huge beast software project that just won’t end/die. In fact Microsoft is constantly getting themselves into this trouble.  Vista, SQL Server, XP, all became these huge projects, that in the end, had to have massive features cut, and new leaders appointed to save the day and ship products!  At the end of the day, if you are constantly building and building, and never shipping, you’re sunk!  How do you get a big software project out of the water and become the software development hero?  I’ll tell you how…

Filed Under: Software Development Tagged With: