Microsoft Visual Programming Language: Kodu

Kodu is a new visual programming language made specifically for creating games. It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone. The programming environment runs on the Xbox, allowing rapid design iteration using only a game controller for input. Download

Programming as a Creative Medium

The core of the Kodu project is the programming user interface. The language is simple and entirely icon-based. Programs are composed of pages, which are broken down into rules, which are further divided into conditions and actions. Conditions are evaluated simultaneously.

The Kodu language is designed specifically for game development and provides specialized primitives derived from gaming scenarios. Programs are expressed in physical terms, using concepts like vision, hearing, and time to control character behavior. While not as general-purpose as classical programming languages, Kodu can express advanced game design concepts in a simple, direct, and intuitive manner. mor
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Microsoft Research Labs: Joulemeter

Joulemeter is a software based mechanism to measure the energy usage of virtual machines (VMs), servers, desktops, laptops, and even individual softwares running on a computer.

Joulemeter estimates the energy usage of a VM, computer, or software by measuring the hardware resources (CPU, disk, memory, screen etc) being used and converting the resource usage to actual power usage based on automatically learned realistic power models.

Joulemeter can be used for gaining visibility into energy use and for making several power management and provisioning decisions in data centers, client computing, and software design.

The technology is especially helpful for IT leaders managing power management settings, PC users who wish to get fine grained visibility into their computing energy use, and enthusaist developers who wish to leverage power measurement for optimizing their software and hosted service design for power usage. The fundamental concepts behind how the technology works are available in this paper.

Download: A research preview, that allows advanced users to try out some of the features of the above technology is available for download. Please see the download page. This version supports only system energy metering (with break-downs for CPU, monitor, and disk), on Windows 7 machines.

A WattsUp power meter (WattsUp Pro with USB connection) is recommended for learning an accurate power model for your machine. The power meter can be shared among multiple machines and users as it is needed for only a few minutes per machine. The software will work without a power meter as well.

.NET Gadgeteer

Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer is a rapid prototyping platform for small electronic gadgets and embedded hardware devices. It combines the advantages of object-oriented programming, solderless assembly of electronics using a kit of hardware modules, and quick physical enclosure fabrication using computer-aided design.

Individual .NET Gadgeteer modules can be easily connected together to construct both simple and sophisticated devices. Each module adds some extra capabilities, such as the ability to display images, playback sounds, take pictures, sense the environment, communicate with other devices or enable user interaction.

The platform is built on the .NET Micro Framework, which allows small devices to be programmed in the C# language and make use of Visual Studio’s programming and debugging tools.

This powerful combination allows fully functional devices to be prototyped in a matter of hours rather than days or weeks. more

Project Gustav: Immersive Digital Painting

Project Gustav is a realistic painting-system prototype that enables artists to become immersed in the digital painting experience. It achieves interactivity and realism by leveraging the computing power of modern GPUs, taking full advantage of multitouch and tablet input technology and our novel natural media-modeling and brush-simulation algorithms. Project Gustav is a great example of how Microsoft's research efforts are leading to exciting new technologies to support creativity.

About

Typically the experience of painting on a computer is nothing like painting in the real world. Real painting is actually a very complex phenomenon – a 3D brush consisting of thousands of individually deforming bristles, interacting with viscous fluid paint and a rough-surfaced canvas to create rich, complex strokes. Until fairly recently, the amount of computing power available on a typical home computer simply hasn't been sufficient to attempt simulating such a real-world painting experience in any detail. Project Gustav aims to leverage the increasing power of the PC and ever faster graphics processors and combine that with a natural user interface, to bring a rich painting experience to a wide audience including hobbyists and professionals alike. The result is a prototype system that contains some of the world’s most advanced algorithms for natural painting. more

Spyware and viruses: What's the difference?

Spyware and viruses are both malicious software, but they're different.Learn how, and how Microsoft Security Essentials can help protect you from both. Then find answers to these common questions about Microsoft Security Essentials: Do I still need Windows Defender? Do I need another antivirus program, too? Suspect you have a virus? Get help fast at our newVirus and Security Solution Center, and learnsteps that you can take to help remove it.

Microsoft Research Labs: Pex for fun

Pex for fun brings programming in C#, Visual Basic, and F# to your web browser. I found this today on Microsoft research Lab website and its very interesting. You should try this.

If you have never visited Pex for fun before, we suggest you follow the tutorial.

Is it just for fun? The full version of Pex integrates into Visual Studio, and can be launched from the command line as well. (Download, Documentation) Pex can explore an entire project at once and can automatically generate a comprehensive test suite of traditional unit tests.

What is a puzzle? Each puzzle is either a small program with a statement that is tricky to reach, or it is a Coding Duel, which is an interactive programming challenge. You can use Code Contracts and even write Parameterized Unit Tests.

What puzzles are there? Can I write my own? Pex for fun already has many puzzles; you can write your own puzzle starting from a puzzle template, and even turn it into a new Coding Duel (tutorial).

How does Pex work? Pex finds interesting input values by analyzing the behavior of the code, combining dynamic and static analysis, and using a constraint solver.

Can I use Pex for fun for teaching? Yes! Please follow our teaching tutorial.

Who created Pex for fun? Pex for fun was brought to you by the Pex Team, part of the Research in Software Engineering (RiSE) group at Microsoft Research.

I have more questions. You can discuss Pex for fun on our MSDN Forums for Pex, where you can also post your Permalinks to share them with other people.

I want to provide feedback. If you have found a bug, you can send a bug report directly to the Pex developers at pexbug@microsoft.com. You can also get in touch with the Pex developers for any other reason at pexdata@microsoft.com.

Get a Free Cyber-Security Book from MicrosofT

Parents and teens now have access to a free downloadable e-book from Microsoft called “Own Your Space,” which aims to instruct teens and other new internet users how to stay safe while online. Specifically, the book addresses common security threats like phishing scams as well as modern-day social issues like cyber-bullying and cyber-stalking.

LifeHacker recently reviewed the book and found it worth recommending, saying “it's difficult to write books for teenagers that don't fall into the ‘trying too hard to be cool’ trap, but Microsoft has done an admirable job.” Glowing praise indeed!

You can grab a free copy for yourself from here.

Channel 9 App for Windows Phone 7

For all Channel 9 fans out there, here is an APP for Windows Mobile 7.
An independent Windows Phone developer, Sigurd Snørteland, has created an application for accessing news from Channel 9 on your Windows Phone 7 device. The app, “myChannel9,” will display news and videos from the site and will offers features like the ability to favorite a show, browse by tags or search by keyword. You’ll also be able to use the app to watch videos right on your device, whether in portrait or landscape mode. Screenshots and demo videos of the app are available now on Snørteland’s personal blog. He has also created an app called Wall Street, which, as the name implies, will focus on delivering stock-related information.

C# FAQs Series: How To Detect All Drives Connected?

àIn C# FAQs Series: We discuss most frequent questions asked on C# forums.

If you want to know about how many drives are connected to your computer. It’s very easy to detect using C#. Following is simple code…

Source Code:

using System;

using System.IO;

class MyProgram

{

public static void Main()

{

DriveInfo[] allDrives = DriveInfo.GetDrives();

foreach (DriveInfo d in allDrives)

{

Console.WriteLine("Drive {0}", d.Name);

Console.WriteLine(" File type: {0}", d.DriveType);

if (d.IsReady == true)

{

Console.WriteLine(" Volume label: {0}", d.VolumeLabel);

Console.WriteLine(" File system: {0}", d.DriveFormat);

Console.WriteLine(

" Available space to current user:{0, 15} bytes",

d.AvailableFreeSpace);

Console.WriteLine(

" Total available space: {0, 15} bytes",

d.TotalFreeSpace);

Console.WriteLine(

" Total size of drive: {0, 15} bytes ",

d.TotalSize);

}

}

}

}

Out-Put:

/*

This code produces output similar to the following:

Drive A:\

File type: Removable

Drive C:\

File type: Fixed

Volume label:

File system: FAT32

Available space to current user: 4770430976 bytes

Total available space: 4770430976 bytes

Total size of drive: 10731683840 bytes

Drive D:\

File type: Fixed

Volume label:

File system: NTFS

Available space to current user: 15114977280 bytes

Total available space: 15114977280 bytes

Total size of drive: 25958948864 bytes

Drive E:\

File type: CDRom

The actual output of this code will vary based on machine and the permissions

granted to the user executing it.

*/

Learn SCRUM in 10 Minutes!

You may all know about SCRUM, its is an iterative, incremental framework for project management and agile software development.

Although SCRUM was intended for management of software development projects, it can be used to run software maintenance teams, or as a general project/program management approach.

Following is very good 10 minutes introduction of SCRUM..