Laura and Paul hijack the channel 9 studio once again to bring you episode 63 of Ping.
Here is their list of water cooler topics this week:
A sweet Deal From MS (TechNet Licensing FAQ)
Burger King and Xbox
IE9 Preview
IE9 Test Drives
Zune marketplace now taking credit cards
They seemed a little giddy this week…maybe a little too much candy from the Easter Bunny 
At any rate, here are the top stories making their way around Microsoft this week:
Plug in that vehicle!
Windows Phone 7 desktop theme
Your Zune is how big???
Start developing NOW for WP7
I wrap up GDC 2010 with an interview with Shawn Hargreaves about XNA Game Studio 4.0. I think Microsoft picked a perfect event to show off XNA Game Studio 4.0. With XNA 3.1 developers were able build games that ran on the Zune, Xbox 360 and Windows PC’s, but 4.0 is going to include the Windows Phone 7 series. Here is some info below on some of our other GDC 2010 content. Don’t forget to watch Channel 9 during MIX10 to get all of your Windows Phone 7 information.
Power Gig: Rise of the Six String
Alpha Protocol, Mass Effect 2, Lego Harry Potter
Microsoft Phone 7 with Xbox Live
It’s official, today we’ve got a Twitter app for Zune that is hitting the marketplace. To commemorate the event the Zune team is having a sweepstakes where they will give out prizes like a free Zune Pass. To enter, simply tweet from your Zune. More details here. The Twitter app can be downloaded directly to your Zune HD or you can get it through the Zune software on PC.
Paul drank his funny juice this week and spewed it all over this weeks episode. Here’s what people were chatting about:
Halloween! Bugs! Killers!
Take a blade to your Zune
Family Guy not the right fit
Voice is the new touch
Bill & Melinda Gates: Impatient optimists
This week on Channel 9, Brian and Dan cover the week’s top developer news including:
- Office Engineering blog - Office 2010 Starter Edition – Reduced functionality version of Office that would ship with OEM versions of Windows (Works replacement)
- Windows Phone launches, new developer portal up
- Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode on MSDN
- CodeProject – How to build a Zune HD “level” app using the built-in accelerometer
- Office 2010 Engineering Blog – From sketch to finished product
- Scott Hanselman – New MSDN skin/features
- Coding4Fun – Mark Heath - .NET Voice Recorder
- Brian Harry - Team Foundation Server “Basic” – easy way to install TFS and no server requirement
- Rico Mariani - History of Visual Studio posts to complement the Visual Studio documentary
Picks of the week
- Brian’s pick: “Go Live” license for Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 2
- Dan’s pick: Five mice prototypes in five minutes (video clip at the end)
Even with Labor Day weekend ahead of us the ‘Softies were still hyped about these stories:
Interface of the future
Free Windows
Zune
I’m bringing Vista back
Gaming lives!
For entertainment purposes only we decided to invited our friend, established comedian Kirk Fox into the Ping lair…here’s how it all went down:
Jonathon Mann wins a BINGLE
Secret Service SQL Server
PhotoSynth and Facebook
What does Zune HD mean for you?
Do viral videos work?
And more…let us know your thoughts!
This week on C9, Brian and Habib “Runtime” Heydarian review the week’s top developer stories including:
Windows 7 API Code Pack for .NET Framework hits v1.0
Yahoo! API’s starting to shut down
Spec# and Boogie comes to Codeplex
Expression 3 Starter Kits from UX Connection
Silverlight 3 adoption curve by VBandi
Charles Petzold on Fluttering 3D Photo Effects with Silverlight 3
LINQ to SQL cheat sheet via Greg Duncan
Gunnar Peipman’s tips for documenting source code
Habib Heydarian, debugging exceptions with the VSTS2010 Historical Debugger:
“An Introduction to UI Automation” by Sam Jack
Visual Studio 2010 Themes (1 from Rob Conery and 2 from Jimmy Bogard)
Using WPF in Office Clients by Beth Massi
Open Source Licenses demystified by Zack Rusin
Just for fun: Musical Sorting Algorithms (1 and 2)
Habib’s pick of the week: Getting started with robotics at
Brian’s pick of the week: Pre-order your Zune HD
With just a slight delay it is finally here. Find out what the ‘Softies are talking about…right here: