Campfire - Two days of cutting edge learning and inspiration

Campfire proudly presents two days of cutting edge learning and inspiration from April 13 - 14, 2012. Join us for an action-packed conference designed especially for developers, designers, UX experts and entrepreneurs in the web technology space. We’re flying in great speakers from across the globe specially to talk to you about trending topics like HTML5, The Kinect effect and so much more. If you’re looking to learn about the latest web development opportunities, then you’ve come to the right place. ...

March 29, 2012 · 1 min ·  Spiffy

Live Blogging from Build for Windows 8!

Build for Windows 8 is the first dev camp we are running here in Singapore and we’re really excited to share with you the opportunities that Windows 8 brings to you as a developer! We’re really happy to have around 200 developers join us in this session. If you couldn’t attend today, don’t worry, we’ll be live blogging and sharing with you resources from the dev camp! Slides will also be made available here so remember to check this page out. Tweet us @gospiffy and use the hashtag #BuildforWin8SG 930AM - We started the day with an introduction with Alex introducing the upcoming events for Windows 8, including Campfire. We’re flying in speakers who are experts in HTML 5 and other interesting subjects in the web tech space to talk to you from 13th - 14th April! Register here: campfire.weshipcode.com 945AM - Our awesome director, Ziriad Saibi talking about the opportunity for developers. Windows 7 numbers are at 500M. That’s not even including other Windows powered devices. 10.00AM - Hammad, architect evangelist, talking about the Metro UI and demonstrating the investments that went into Windows 8 to create a beautiful user experience for everyone (yes, even developers). 1030AM - Search is an interesting factor for developers, when a user is searching on Windows and if your app is relevant, it pops up immediately on the results screen without having to go into a browser! 1045AM - Are you a HTML5 / Javascript / .Net/ C++developer? Then you’re already equipped to be a Windows 8 developer. 11.00AM - Short break! Time for some tea. In meantime, meet Kim, our presenter for Metro UI later on! 1115AM - We are demoing a camera capture class. Its really easy to set up! Hammad just made the audience scream ‘Metro’ and we now have videographic evidence of your presence here - uploading to Facebook. (Just Kidding, you guys are great!) 1120AM - Tiles are a great mechanism for drawing users’ attention to your application! Make sure you take some time to customize it. 1130AM - Content before chrome. Interesting research shows that browser users are hardwired into thinking that our browser chromes are the main part of experience and not the content itself. The Metro UI allows content to come first. Immerse your users in the thing s they love instead of wasting space with the chrome. Let layout flow from edge to edge, pan only on a single axis to create a sense of stability. - more on that later during the UX session. 1140AM - Life is made a lot simpler when you use the templates from Visual Studio to create your first Metro style app. 1150AM - Introducing the App Bar: Most apps will have the app bar at the bottom that allow the user use common commands. 1157AM - Try Semantic Zooms to show richer, meta information on your groups. 1203PM - Design for touch first! Most people use the sides to navigate through the apps.. don’t expect them to use too many fingers at once! (Unless you want them to spill their Starbucks coffee all over their tablet.) 1215PM - Lunch! Did you guys enjoy it? 1.20PM - Full and ready to learn more about Windows 8 development! Kim is sharing about resources for developing on the Metro UI. He’s also giving great tips about the commanding surfaces that allows users to have greater interaction with the touch device. R. emember to check out our tutorial about Visual Blend, that will help you prototype UIs quickly. 1.35PM - Need design assests? Download them here. 1.45PM - Remembering to scale your graphics properly is important! Run it on the emulator to try how it looks like. 1.50PM - We love animations that make your app feel more alive. Built in controls are provided for free. You can also look for more in the Windows 8 Animation Library. Very useful. 2.00PM - 5 T-Shirts given to our awesome attendees! Great questions on the APIs, porting of apps. Keep the questions coming in! 2.05PM - Darren Sim, talking about integrating applications with web services. 2.13PM - Again, search is universally accessible and contextual. Darren is demo-ing it right now! 2.40PM - A really funny presentation from Darren who is sharing about how to call certain features using javascript. The tutorial is found on MSDN. 3.00PM - So many questions! And the IE T-shirts seem to be really popular. 3.15PM - Breaktime! We took some videos of the attendees, thanks for the feedback. Great to see Android and iOS developers here as well. Seem like the market share is an interesting factor when it come to deciding which platform to develop for. 3. 30PM - Hammad, our Win 8 champ, is on again. We’re learning about extension methods that bridge the gap between the new Windows Runtime and managed code. When you use Runtime, your apps are going to be super fast. 4.00PM - Ed Quek from Microsoft APAC is sharing about the Windows Store right now. 4.05PM - demoing the Windows Store, did you know that 70% of apps get buried in the app store? Windows is going to help you overcome that! Check out how to sell your apps and the descriptions you’ll need here. 4.30PM - As a developer you get 70% of whatever you sell on the store. If you get over US$25,000 you get 80%! It’s a tiered model. 4.38PM - Trials matter. You get a 70% better chance of converting users into paying ones by offering trials! Keep that in mind when you’re deciding the price and sales model. 4.40PM - Singapore is one of the countries with that will have the Windows Store supported. Go little red dot! 4.45PM - The cost to register for a Windows Store developer account in the United States is 49 USD for an individual and 99 USD for a company. For the price in your local currency, see Developer countries and regions.

Blend for Visual Studio 11 Beta: All You Need To Know

We have compiled a great resource of Visual Studio 11 Beta in our previous post, now it’s time to know all about its sibling: Blend for Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Beta. It is a WYSIWYG design tool that helps you create Metro style apps using both HTML-CSS-JavaScript or classic XAML. Blend is designed to work seamlessly with Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Express Beta. Metro style app projects can move seamlessly back and forth between Blend and Visual Studio, making it possible for designers and developers to work on the same application in their preferred development environment. Before you start developing apps using Blend for VS 11 Beta, first thing you need to know: you must run Blend on Windows 8 Consumer Preview to develop Metro style apps. If you are running Blend on Windows 7, using current Beta release, you can’t develop Metro style apps. ...

March 27, 2012 · 5 min ·  Alex Goh

Attention Developers: Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 Update Has Landed

Hurray! More integration with Windows 8 powered devices! The Windows Phone team announced on their blog today that the release of the Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 Update is now available for immediate download on the Microsoft Download Center. The two highlights of this update are: Develop apps that work well on the new 256 MB devices Use the WPSDK 7.1 to develop on machines running Windows 8 This update goes a long way to making it easier for folks to build apps that target both Windows Phone and Windows 8; the WPSDK 7.1.1 runs quite well side-by-side with Visual Studio ‘11’. Particularly with the Consumer Preview out, the ability to run the IDEs side-by-side has been a major request from our developer community. For Windows Phone developers, this is a great opportunity to explore the Windows 8 marketplace as another channel for your applications. Find out more about developing on Windows 8 in our ‘Build for Windows 8’ workshop this Friday as well.

Build for Windows 8 Comes to Singapore

Apps are going to be at the center of the new Windows 8 experience. As a developer, you will be given unprecedented access to millions of Windows users worldwide. Microsoft is proud to bring Build for Windows 8 to Singapore, a free, fun, no-fluff event for developers, by developers. This full day event will let you experience developing on the new Windows 8 platform. You will learn from experts in a low-key, interactive way and then you’ll get to apply what you’ve learned. Spaces are limited, register at bit.ly/buildforwin8 now! Time and Date - 9am to 5pm, 30th March 2012 Location - Level 22, Microsoft Singapore,1 Marina Boulevard, One Marina Boulevard, Singapore 018989 ...

March 22, 2012 · 4 min ·  Spiffy

Visual Studio 11 Beta: All You Need To Know

Along with the new release of Windows 8 Consumer Preview, Microsoft also launched complete set of development tools that contains Visual Studio 11 Express Beta and Blend for Visual Studio. These are the tool to build Metro style apps for Windows 8. It includes the Windows 8 SDK, templates and enables access to Windows 8 APIs. Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Beta has a new, simpler, refreshed UI, and it includes fully featured code editor, a powerful debugger, a focused profiler, and rich language support that you can use to build apps that written in HTML5, JavaScript, C++, C# or Visual Basic. Visual Studio 11 Express Beta for Windows 8 also includes a device simulator that you can use to test Metro style apps on multiple form factors. Below, we have compiled thorough list of what you need to know to get started on VS 11 Beta. Don’t forget to check out our easy step by step guide on how to develop apps for Windows 8 Consumer Preview. ...

March 20, 2012 · 5 min ·  Alex Goh

Thank You And A Preview Of Apps From #WhereIsMyLumia Campaign

The Lumia series represents a significant milestone of Microsoft & Nokia’s partnership in bringing a new experience to Windows Phone users. Developers play a big role in shaping this experience with us. To allow more developers in Singapore the experience of developing on the Windows Phone platform, we announced the #WhereIsMyLumia campaign a little over two months ago. So far we have been overwhelmed by the response, with more than 100 developers applying with their wonderful app ideas. Although we couldn’t give everyone theirs this time, we are still committed to supporting you with the resources needed in the development process. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION AND SUPPORT! Look out for our upcoming campaigns and training sessions for the Windows Phone and Windows 8 platforms as well! We sincerely thank you for you support and feel free to drop us an email, a tweet or facebook message if we could help you with anything else. In meantime, here’s a sneak peak of the first few apps developed from #WhereIsMyLumia: 1. SG Promotions by Steve Teo - sg.promotions is a locator that allows bargain-hunters to find promotions in Singapore For the lite version. 2. Gradulator by Tan Jianhao Steve - Gradulator is a one-of-a-kind application that allows users to aim for the grades that they want, by calculating how much they need for their final exam! (Definitely a handy app for all students out there.) 3. Pics on Geo by Lim Hong Wei Kelvin - Pics on Geo automatically geo tags the users photos when taken. At the same time, users can see photos geo-tagged and recommended by other friends. 4. SP Render by Tan Eik Chor Christopher - This app is particularly useful for those thinking of taking a course in Digital Media. It showcases the best works by the graduating cohort of 2012, School of Digital Media and Infocomm Technology (DMIT), Singapore Polytechnic (SP), with award-winning spectra of projects. Congratulations again to all the developers who took part in #WhereIsMyLumia and got their Lumia 800! We’re looking forward to your apps and hope you have a fun time developing them. Look out for our upcoming campaigns for Windows 8 and Windows Phones as well!

March 20, 2012 · 2 min ·  Spiffy

Best Practice: Design an User Interface for Windows Phone 7 Applications?

Learn how to develop a Windows Phone 7 application with various user interface design aspects in less than 10mins.This sample demonstrates a simple application to work with panorama control, apply themes in Windows Phone 7 application and develop custom application bar. Watch now!

How to Develop Apps for Windows 8 Consumer Preview in 5 Easy Steps

Welcome to developing for Windows 8 Consumer Preview! You’ve witnessed the brand new Windows 8 experience from the Consumer Preview. Why not start developing for it now? This start-up kit will help you create exciting new experiences for Windows users globally. Let’s get started! Step 1. Check for recommended system requirements to ensure optimal development performance. If you’re all revved up to start developing apps for Windows 8, check for the list of recommended system requirements. ...

Windows 8 Consumer Preview is Here

 Yesterday 29 February 2012 at Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona, Microsoft Corp. announced the availability of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview — the next milestone of the Windows operating system. This latest preview will be made available for download starting today at http://preview.windows.com. The Windows 8 Consumer Preview offers a more robust experience for testing the world’s most popular operating system and is available to the widest range of people yet following the initial release of the Windows 8 Developer Preview late last year. With Windows 8, the whole experience of Windows has been reimagined. It’s designed to work on a wide range of devices , from touch-enabled tablets, to laptops, to desktops and all-in-ones. Read full press release here, and the official blog announcement here. More images see the complete Windows 8 image gallery. Also, watch the video demo. We have compiled for you all the resources available at the moment regarding Windows 8 for both developers and IT Pros. Take a look at below and get your hands on Windows 8 Consumer Preview right now! For Developers, start building apps now : ...

February 29, 2012 · 2 min ·  Alex Goh