As part of that reflection, we have decided to merge MIX, our spring web conference for developers and designers, into our next major developer conference, which we will host sometime in the coming year. I know a number of folks were wondering about MIX, given the time of year, so we wanted to make sure there’s no ambiguity, and be very clear… there will be no MIX 2012.
Check out the just released Visual Studio Achievements Extension that have just been announced on Channel 9.
Why do you get rewarded for good gameplay on the Xbox, but not for your great coding? And besides being a lot of fun, this is the perfect way to Learn More About Visual Studio and its tons of features, many of which you may not even know about. Earning some of the badges may result in learning about features you didn’t even know existed!
Download it today from the Visual Studio Gallery
With the Visual Studio Achievements Extension, achievements are unlocked based on your activity. Your code is analyzed on a background thread each time you compile. In addition, the extension listens for certain events and actions that you may perform in Visual Studio, reporting progress on these events to the server.
When you unlock an achievement, Visual Studio lets you know visually with a pop-up:
In addition, your Channel 9 profile is updated with any achievements you earn, recalculating your position on the leaderboard:
Some examples of individual achievements include Regional Manager (have more than 10 regions in a single class), Close To The Metal (use 5 preprocessor directives), Stubby (generate method stubs 10 times) or Interrupting Cow (have 10 breakpoints in a file). All in all, there are 32 achievements awaiting to be unlocked, all of which are listed here.
Each time you earn a badge, a unique page is created with your profile picture, the badge and a description. So share them on the social network or your choice!:
The blog While True, whose blog post What If Visual Studio Had Achievements inspired us to go build this. That post spawned a reddit post that is the thread which started it all!
We're just getting started with Visual Studio Achievements and are hoping to release more in the future. If you have ideas for additional achievements, we'd love to hear about them. Please use the Q&A section of the achievements extension to make suggestions for future achievements. And if you have suggestions, concerns, issues or problems, again, use the Q&A section of the achievements gallery page. Give a read to the FAQ as well as your question may already be answered.
Unfortunately, by the time I got there, the device was already disassembled and packed up again… Well…
The app business is increasingly banking on the notion that virtual currency in a game could be worth real money--and a lot of it.
Freemium apps are the way to go if you want to make money.
(Credit: Screenshot by CNET)In-app purchases, which include virtual cash, weapons, levels, or extra features, are poised to dominate app revenue in the coming years, according to research firm IHS. In-app purchases already accounted for $970 million in sales last year, or 39 percent of the market. By 2015, that figure will grow to $5.6 billion, or 64 percent of the market.
Another interesting take on the freemium model.
Make sure to check out the full article at http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57360083-94/wanna-make-money-on-apps-give-th...
Microsoft Switzerland is looking for feedback from developers! Now is your chance to tell us what you think! ;)
You can participate anonymously or leave your email address at the end of the survey to enter the drawing of two Nokia Lumia 800 devices.
Survey Link: http://bit.ly/ch-dev-survey
THANK YOU for participating!
New documentary Ctrl+Alt+Compete peers into startup culture, taking an unflinching look at the trials, tribulations and triumphs of tech entrepreneurs, indie gamemakers and other serial risk-takers.
While the movie won’t hit theaters til later this year, production company Halo-8 is offering the world an early look at its film: You can watch Ctrl+Alt+Compete in full online this week. Halo-8 will announce the digital screening Wednesday night during Tweet House’s “It Won’t Stay in Vegas” party at the Consumer Electronics Show, and the film will screen online through Friday.
Ctrl+Alt+Compete follows five teams of developers and entrepreneurs as they submit to the soul-crunching competitions of DEMO, Game Developers Conference and SXSW Accelerator. Director Brian Gilberson’s feature-length documentary debut pries open the startup pressure cooker for everyone to see.
