My first Windows Phone 8 app is in the app store: Speedo++

Actually, I cannot take full credit (even most credit). The app is a brand new Windows 8 Phone release of an existing Windows Phone 7 app by Long Zheng titled “Speedo Plus“. So, Speedo++ is Speedo Plus, plus a bit more

Long developed Speedo Plus to provide an aesthetic speedometer app for driving, bicycling, even walking I guess … anything that involves motion over distance. The app provides info on current speed, plus average and maximum speed (in this trip), along with a graph of speed over time.

Now, the trouble with Speedo Plus is it didn’t cater for new high-res Windows Phone 8 handsets and displays, but Long’s developer account had lapsed. He made the app available to the public for someone else to take on the app, which I gladly did.

This first build of Speedo++ is fundamentally Speedo Plus with little modification apart from support for higher-def 720p displays. However, I have future plans which include modernising it to use newer GPS/navigation APIs and the addition of new features.

iTWire: Previously I’ve mooted an obstacle preventing Linux adoption is the need for more big game titles, rather than productivity apps. This week, in the wake of its Humble Indie Bundle debut, Tim Schafer explains what porting Psychonauts to Linux was like.

Hi Coders,

The December meeting – 1st December 2010 – is imminent. I’m pleased to announce that it will mark the 5th anniversary of the Newcastle Coders Group. We are running a special competition from now until then.

Paul Stovell (a favorite at the Newcastle Coders Group) has given us a 12-Month MSDN subscription to give away. This is an amazing prize, worth a great deal of money and gives the winner development access to licenses to the full range of Microsoft applications, servers and developer tools.

Rather than just holding a raffle on the night, we decided it would be a good idea to give it away to the project that will most benefit the Hunter Region. In order to be considered you will need to do the following:

1. Send in your application with a 50 word (max) explanation of your project and how it will benefit the community.
2. Attend the December meeting.
3. Be prepared to answer questions from the judges on your intended project on the night.

The judges will be selected from the organising committee of the Newcastle Coders Group. The projects will be scored on the criteria of worthiness, value to the local community and likelihood of the project getting off the ground. The judges decision will be final.

The projects we’re looking for might be: startup business plans, open source projects or could even be related to a charity or educational institution. The project could even be underway already – you just need to explain how the license will support your project.

So, get cracking. We have many talented people in the Hunter and I can’t wait to see what they come up with!

I have been looking into cloud-based application engines for the purpose of hosting a social media web app which can be infinitely scalable (now here’s hoping I can attract the traffic!)

For those with a Microsoft Visual Studio .NET background, Azure is actually quite compelling.

For the most part, you largely construct an ASP.NET web app as normal but when you publish it, you’re actually publishing to Microsoft’s cloud.

This cloud can be configured to have multiple instances which can be housed in specific geographic locations if so desired.

The own downside when compared to Google’s App Engine is your instances come in specific configurations of CPU power and RAM and you need to resize to larger (and more) instances if and when needed, while AppEngine does all this sort of scaling magic behind the scenes for you.

Of course, it does mean you can control costs because you have specific fees for each size instance.

The other thing I really like about Azure is you can debug locally on your own PC via regular Visual Studio debugging tools before ultimately publishing online.

iTWire: Even the most Microsoft-ardent developer will know web hosts favour Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP over Windows, IIS, ASP.NET and SQL Server. Thanks to virtualisation the days of dual booting are over. Here is how to set up a streamlined LAMP development environment on any Windows PC.

It’s on, and I’m here. Microsoft Tech-Ed Australia is running from today until Friday 11th September on the sunny Gold Coast of Australia. An incredible 2000+ attendees are roaming about with HP Mini netbooks. Demonstrations have already begun of Exchange 2010, Office 2010 and Visual Studio 2010.

I’ve been trying to get into Microsoft LINQ and came across this excellent Microsoft Press book, “Programming Microsoft LINQ.”

It covers just what LINQ is and how to use it, beginning with in-memory objects before moving onto relational databases and XML and then covering some advanced topics like parallelisation.

Here’s my full review.

My good friend and Microsoft Developer Evangelist Andrew Coates recently, and kindly, offered some exam vouchers to help people make a positive start to the new year. Happily, I was one of the 15 who got in first.

My big decision now is which exam to take? Anyone have any suggestions? You can check out my Microsoft transcript online, with transcript ID 750702 and password ‘davidmwilliams’

I’m thinking of exam 70-551, upgrade MCAD to MCPD web developer.

iTWire: So, what’s this Azure, then? Let me tell you Microsoft’s vision for the next stage in the evolution of software right from the mouth of none other than Steve Ballmer, live from Sydney today. Here’s what Azure is, what cloud computing is, and how the two shall meet.

Sadly, the Microsoft DevSta competition submissions page suffered some malice from ill-intentioned people.

I wrote about it on iTWire, including screenshots for posterity. Microsoft Australia have now removed the vandalism.

This story made it to the front page of SlashDot.