Nice! Microsoft has decided to make Windows Home Server available to subscribers of MSDN and TechNet. This means hundreds of thousands of Windows developers with access to these subscription programs can now potentially build their own WHS boxes. I’ve been thinking about building my own WHS box for some time (I already have an HP MediaSmart Server EX470 at home which happens to be maxed out right now) – now I’ve got one more reason to do so!

Kudos to Microsoft for changing their minds about making WHS available via MSDN/TechNet.

[Check it out via The Digital Lifestyle]

Read this in Chinese Simplified and in French

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Windows Home Server, MSDN, TechNet

Here’s another story I missed earlier this week. Remember the Windows Marketplace for Mobile that Microsoft announced back at the Mobile World Congress? (yes, their equivalent to the Apple App Store for the iPhone/iPod touch) Microsoft announced additional details on Wednesday regarding how developers will sell and make money off of apps distributed via the Marketplace. Here’s the basic low down:

On the revenue side, Microsoft follows Apple’s direction by providing developers 70 percent of the revenue from sales of their respective applications on the Marketplace. Developers can set their own price for their respective market and applications can also be distributed on the Marketplace for free.

Developers can submit up to five applications to Windows Marketplace for Mobile for an introductory annual registration fee of $99 dollars. Each additional submission within the annual period will cost $99 dollars. If you’re a student developer enrolled in the Microsoft DreamSpark program then the fee is waived altogether.

The Windows Marketplace for Mobile will be available in 29 countries which means you’ll be able to tap into a large multi-national customer base with your applications. Just like Apple, Microsoft will run a certification and testing process before the applications hit the Marketplace.

Developers will be able to see detailed feedback during and after the certification process of their application on the Marketplace for Mobile developer portal.

Registration will begin this summer and developers will be able to submit applications later this summer.

Hmm.. I think it’s time for me to revisit Visual Studio again! Been spending a bit too much time with Java and Ruby in recent months!

[Check it out]

[Check it out on the Windows Mobile Team Blog]

Technorati Tags: Windows Marketplace for Mobile, Developer guidelines, Microsoft, Windows Mobile

What do you do when you gather security experts from around the world together? You create a top 25 list of the most dangerous programming errors around of course! That’s what the SANS Institute has over on their website here. According to the press release:

“Shockingly, most of these errors are not well understood by programmers; their avoidance is not widely taught by computer science programs; and their presence is frequently not tested by organizations developing software for sale.”

IMHO, it’s really not all that shocking. The classroom environment teaches kids the foundations to becoming developers/programmers. That environment teaches them to solve problems methodically and using tried and tested ways.. it teaches them the fundamentals of data structures and the fundamentals of algorithm design. One could argue security is another important class that needs to be taught but this can’t really be integrated in my opinion until later on in the course load. Students need other fundamental lessons taught first.

So with that said, this list is a good read – no matter where you’re at in your software developer career. There just might be things you didn’t quite realize.

[Check it out via News.com]

Technorati Tags: Top 25 most dangerous programming errors

Drobo’s looking to foster a rich developer platform as they’ve released a beta SDK to the Drobo Developer Community (DDC) allowing programmers the ability to create applications for both the Drobo Robot as well as the DroboShare device.

For the DroboShare, developers will be able to develop applications such as:

• UPnP/DLNA (available now!)
• iTunes Music Server
• Rsync
• FTP
• Web
• AFP
• Squeeze Center support
• Eye-Fi support

For the Drobo, some application examples include:

• A Linux version of Drobo Dashboard (available now!)
• A utility to modify the usage of LEDs on Drobo
• A utility that allows Windows to show Drobo as its actual size (available now!)

[Check it out via Crave]

Technorati Tags: Drobo, Drobo Developer Community, SDK

Want to know more about Windows Media Center programming? You might be interested in checking out Steven Harding’s new book that he’s working on called “Programming with Media Center.”  The book isn’t finished yet so you can download the PDF and check it out in  your leisure. Of course, if you find it useful or if it helps you in your MCE development projects, do consider providing a donation. It’s great to see books come out for Windows Media Center – especially on the development side. The more developers, the richer the content we’ll see for this wonderful platform.

[Check it out via Ian Dixon's Blog]

Technorati Tags: Programming with Media Center, Windows Media Center, Steven Harding

It looks like Nokia is getting serious about software development. The company has announced that they’re entering into an agreement to make a public voluntary tender offer to acquire Trolltech – popular developer of the cross-platform Qt development framework. Software developers using Qt can easily write code that compiles on multiple operating systems including Mac, Windows, and Linux. With Trolltech in hand, Nokia can accelerate their own software strategy which includes mobile development, desktop application development, and its Internet services business.

Trolltech allows Nokia and third party developers to develop applications that will work on the Internet from across Nokia’s “device portfolio” as well as on the PC platform.

Are you worried that Qt will disappear from the open source movement? Have no fear.. for now. Nokia plans to continue to license Trolltech technology using both commercial and open source licenses. The company will also continue development of Trolltech’s products and will continue to support new and existing customers.

Let’s think about this deal for a second folks. Nokia is clearly beefing up its software capabilities by purchasing Trolltech but why? When you look back at 2007, there were several important changes to the handset industry. First, Apple entered the field with the Apple iPhone. What’s important about the iPhone you might ask besides a cool user interface and hardware design? The iPhone is a complete software and hardware platform from a single company. Apple controls it all (aside from outsourcing manufacturing of the phone to some Taiwanese companies of course). Apple will also be releasing an SDK for third party developers to write programs for the iPhone which will undoubtedly make the phone even more popular.

Secondly, Google entered into the mobile phone OS and platform development arena with Android. While not quite proven as of yet, Google is a force to be reckon with in the handset world. Even if Google stays with software development, the mere presence of Android means developers will be interested in writing applications on top of Android as well as leveraging Google web services APIs in their applications.

Thus in order to stay on par with the competition, Nokia needs to make sure application developers stay interested in Nokia products. Yet – who will want to write applications that only run on Nokia devices? That’s where the purchase of Trolltech makes business sense. Think about it for a second. A developer writes an application using Trolltech frameworks which are now usable on Nokia products AND across multiple other platforms including Windows and Linux AND the Mac – of course some a recompilation is necessary but that’s relatively minor!

Compare that to developing an application for Android or the iPhone. Write an app for those OS’s and you won’t be able to easily recompile the app for another platform – UNLESS of course, Trolltech’s frameworks also get ported to the iPhone and Android.

It’ll be interesting to see what fruit this purchase will bear for Nokia over the next year or so.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Nokia, Trolltech, Qt

Open, open API’s are all the rage these days. Most every major web 2.0 player offers some sort of open API platform that let’s others tap into their technology. Just look at Facebook alone. Ever since the company opened up it’s social networking website to application developers out there, Facebook users have been deluged with thousands of applications. How many times has someone given you a SuperPoke, or a Vampire Bite of some sort? Heck – how many of you are playing Scrabble online? Creating a website is merely the beginning for many of these online companies. It’s about creating the plumbing for future applications that others have yet to consider developing. Case in point? Look at Google has they’ve announced a new API initiative called OpenSocial. The concept is fairly simple. Write web applications that use the OpenSocial API and any website that utilizes OpenSocial will be able to use your application. “Write once and run anywhere”.

OpenSocial is designed specifically for application developers who want to target the social networking scene popularized by the likes of Friendster, LinkedIn, hi5 etc. As of now, Facebook and MySpace have not joined the initiative. You can check out more about OpenSocial at http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Google, OpenSocial, Social Networks