Imagine Cup Gallery Opening Party in Second Life!

Join it live from 20:00 Central European Time (CET) on June 28 2007 for the Imagine Cup Gallery launch party taking place in Second Life, the popular internet-based virtual world.

You’ll be able to check out some of the winning applications from the recent Software Design national finals in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and be able to hang out and chat online with the teams and students in Second Life.

And in addition they have a whole host of great bands, DJs and artists to entertain you including Natalie Moody, the most celebrated singer currently performing in Second Life.

You can teleport directly to the Microsoft Island in Second Life from 20:00 CET June 28 2007 to join the hottest party in Second Life

Understanding LINQ (C#) - An article describing the new language features of LINQ

Note:
You can read this article on CodePoject on http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/understandinglinq.asp

Contents

• Introduction
• New Language Features
• Automatic Properties
• Local Variable Type Inference
• Object Initializers & Collection Initializers
• Anonymous Types
• Lambda Expressions
• Extension Methods
• Query Syntax
• Final Notes
• References & Resources

Jordev Community Night on June 16th

Topic: Building Desktop Applications using Microsoft Expression Blend
Date: Saturday, June 16, 2007
Location: STIC (Queen Rania Technology Center, Rabiah)
Time: 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Speaker: Ayman Farouk

Also they have free Donuts and Coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts for everyone!

Safari for Windows

Well believe or not, I’m running Safari on Windows [v3 Public Beta]. You can download it from here:
http://www.apple.com/safari/download/
Apple claims that Safari is “the fastest, easiest-to-use web browser in the world” and that it loads pages two times faster than Internet Explorer.

I noticed that this version is not very stable, so you it may crash (it is a beta version after all), but the most important thing is that web developers can test their sites in Safari without buying a Mac.. Overall I’m not switching away from Firefox2.

One last thing, it appears that Silverlight doesn’t work on Safari for Windows although it seems to recognize the plug-in, I guess Microsoft will fix this in the next release of Silverlight (or may be not!!).

Microsoft codename “Acropolis” CTP 1 released

The Microsoft code name “Acropolis” Community Technology Preview 1 is a set of components and tools that make it easier for developers to build and manage modular, business focused, client .NET applications. Acropolis is part of the “.NET Client Futures” wave of releases, our preview of upcoming technologies for Windows client development.Acropolis builds on the rich capabilities of Microsoft Windows and the .NET Framework, including Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), by providing tools and pre-built components that help developers quickly assemble applications from loosely-coupled parts and services. With Acropolis you will be able to:

• Quickly create WPF enabled user experiences for your client applications.
• Build client applications from reusable, connectable, modules that allow you to easily create complex, business-focused applications in less time.
• Integrate and host your modules in applications such as Microsoft Office, or quickly build stand-alone client interfaces.
• Change the look and feel of your application quickly using built-in themes, or custom designs using XAML.
• Add features such as workflow navigation and user-specific views with minimal coding.
• Manage, update, and deploy your application modules quickly and easily.

Check it out on http://windowsclient.net/Acropolis/
Download Acropolis CTP & Documentation
Also check out this Introducing Acropolis Video

Apple iPhone

Finally, iPhone. The official date is June 29, and here the official first three TV ads.

iPhone combines three amazing products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching — into one small and lightweight handheld device. iPhone also introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting you control everything with just your fingers. So it ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, completely redefining what you can do on a mobile phone.

Microsoft Surface

A few days ago, Microsoft announced a new
product called “Microsoft Surface”.  If you haven’t checked out the
online videos of it yet, I highly recommend watching them here.  It is one of those products that looks and feels like it comes from a science fiction movie - but it is actually real.
Popular Mechanics also has a good article (including their own video) of how it works that you can read and watch online here.

Microsoft Popfly

Popfly is the fun, easy way to build and share mashups, gadgets, Web pages, and applications. Popfly consists of two parts:

1) Popfly Creator is a set of online visual tools for building Web pages and mashups.
2) Popfly Space is an online community of creators where you can host, share, rate, comment and even remix creations from other Popfly users.

To keep it short and simple, Popfly makes it easy for non-devs to create web sites, mashups, and more.
Drag, drag, click - you’ve got a Flikr + Virtual Earth mashup.
You can even point and click your way to a Vista Gadget.

I’ve got my own page at http://www.popfly.ms/users/amroamroamro but i’m still testing…

Start on http://www.popfly.com/ (You will need an invitation)

Google Gears released…

Google has announced some big news for Ajax developers at Google Developer Day. The announcement is Google Gears, an open source runtime to allow you to build Offline Web applications.

Google Gears (BETA) is an open source browser extension that enables web applications to provide offline functionality using following JavaScript APIs:

• LocalServer: Store and serve application resources locally
• Database: Store data locally in a fully-searchable relational database
• WorkerPool: Run asynchronous Javascript to improve application responsiveness