Entries for Miguel

Find the coolest and most suitable icons for your apps!! [Find the coolest and most suitable icons for your apps!!]

Miguel — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:37:00 GMT

How many times have you been developing an application and needed an icon? Then you start searching through lots of websites and it can take hours to find the one that fits in your user interface design...

Now you can directly search icons in these websites: IconFinder and IconLet. You can search by keywords, browse by topics, icon sizes... Moreover, you can download the IconFinder Vista sidebar gadget and directly search from your Desktop!!

I think both websites definitely deserve a CTRL + D !!

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Do you want to Meet The Money? [Do you want to Meet The Money?]

Miguel — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:56:00 GMT

Last week, Channel 8 attended the Microsoft's 4th European SME Day and the European Investor Summit.

This event was also a great opportunity for students and young entrepreneurs to share their ideas with venture capitalists from all around Europe. There was also a cool session called "Meet The Money", where 5 young entrepreneurs teams including 3 former Imagine Cup worldwide finalists presented their projects during 10 minutes to investors and one of the teams meets the money!! Coming soon, we will publish an interview with the winning team. :-)

In this interview, we have the opportunity to talk with Sherry Coutu, Clemens von Bergmann and Paul Vickery. They are venture capitalists, and judges of the Meet The Money session. We talked with them about the software business and also interesting tips for those students wishing to become entrepreneurs.

Check it out!

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Would you like to build software for Microsoft? [Would you like to build software for Microsoft?]

Miguel — Tue, 27 May 2008 01:02:00 GMT

Student? Recent graduate? Experienced professional? Have you ever heard about Microsoft Development Centers? Would you like to learn about working and development methods there?

During this week I am hosting some Live Meeting events where I will talk to you about all these things and explain which opportunities do you have to apply for development positions both in USA and Europe.

This is the agenda:

Would you like to be a Microsoft developer? (English event), Thursday May 29th, 10:30 AM (Pacific Time, US & Canada). Register here
¿Quieres desarrollar en Microsoft? (Spanish event), Miércoles 28 de Mayo, 7:30PM (GMT+1, Madrid & Paris Time). Regístrate aquí

I hope you will enjoy these events and find them valuable for your future... and also I will be willing to answer all your questions about how is it like to work @ Microsoft and opportunities for students in the Q&A (at the end of sessions).

Now it's your time: Go for it!

UPDATE:

Thank you so much for your interest and nice feedback and questions for this event. :-)

I have uploaded the powerpoint resources to my blog. You can find it here and also make more questions.

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Expression Studio: How to deal with...? [Expression Studio: How to deal with...?]

Miguel — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:30:19 GMT

Hi folks!!

Have you ever worked with Expression Studio? Now it is available through DreamSpark!

Whatever you are, designer, developer or student (just like me :-D) we can now play with this cool suite of products.

Months ago, we had a nice conversation with Arturo Toledo here in Ch8 about the whole Expression suite. Check it out: http://channel8.msdn.com/Posts/Microsoft-Expression-products-how-to-create-a-more-sexy-site/

I would like to hear your opinion about Expression, since it is probably my favourite product being launched in DS.

Cheers :-D

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Welcome to Campus Party Brazil! [Welcome to Campus Party Brazil!]

Miguel — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:23:00 GMT

Hi everybody,

After the deadline ends, here I am again to tell you more adventures from Sao Paulo. You were right, Trix, I am in Campus Party Brazil.

What is Campus Party? It is a one-week long event involving thousands of people interested in internet and technology.

We have lots of different areas: Gaming, Robotics, Blogging, Music, Modding, Astronomy, Development...

So, my challenge is: YOU, 8ers, are going to be my boss until the end of the week. Tell me what would you like to see during these days, related with the areas I mentioned (can see some highlights in the video) and I will do it for you :-)

Check it out in the video!

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Where Am I? [Where Am I?]

Miguel — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:03:00 GMT

Hey dudes,

There is relatively a long time ago since my last Maths puzzle contest, right?

I want to propose you another puzzle, but this is not about Maths. Probably it is more about investigation through the internet, using Live Search, of course :-)

During this week I am in a different country, far away from Spain, and I am doing a very cool thing that all of you will like.

I want you to watch this video that I have made and then try to figure out on your own which is that cool thing.

I will give you a deadline of 24 hours, so you will see more stuff about this tomorrow.

Hope you like it ;-)

in reply to Where Am I?

Ask your SQL Server 2008 where can you grab some coffee! [Ask your SQL Server 2008 where can you grab some coffee!]

Miguel — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:34:00 GMT

We talked in TechEd with François Ajenstat, from the SQL Server team in Redmond. He showed us some cool features from the newest SQL Server version: SQL Server 2008.

One of the coolest features is Live Maps integration, that allows you to query your database asking for directions and services (cafeterias, restaurants, cinemas…) in your area.

Now you can decide your Saturday evening plan with a SQL statement!

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Free Resource: What is new in SQL Server 2008? [Free Resource: What is new in SQL Server 2008?]

Miguel — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:16:00 GMT

Hi everybody,

Microsoft has published a new and interesting resource about the newest SQL Server version: SQL Server 2008.

The resource is a course in which you can find three different eBooks:

What's New in SQL Server 2008 for Enterprise Data Platform?
What's New in SQL Server 2008 for Business Intelligence?
What's New in SQL Server 2008 for Database Development ?

You can find this course in this link, signing in with your Live ID.

Hope you find it valuable!

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Puzzle series: Addition of Four Primes

Miguel — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 15:28:00 GMT

Ok, after a vacation week I am back, this is my first post of 2008 and also my first post with the new look&feel of the website. I wish all of you a Happy New Year and also hope you like the new website design...

Let's continue on our series about Algorithms and Math puzzles. I want to propose you to take a look at prime numbers.

There are some conjectures that state properties of these numbers. One of those conjectures is the Waring's prime number conjecture, it states that every odd integer is either prime or the sum of three primes.

Probably, the most famous conjecture about prime numbers is the Goldbach's Conjecture, and claims that every even integer is the sum of two primes.

Both problems have been studied for over 200 years...

In this problem, you have a little different task: You have to find a way to express a given integer as the sum of four primes (exactly four).

Consider an input of an integer (n<10000000), you should return a list with the four prime numbers. If it is impossible to represent that, you can give as output any illogical result (i.e: -1 -1 -1 -1)

Example:

Input: 24
Output: 3 11 3 7

As you can see, you can repeat prime numbers as factors for a given input, and it does not matter if the list of factors is ordered or not.

What kind of algorithm would you implement? Is it efficient? Remember: Most powerful weapons of human's mind are Mathematics and Logic ;-)

Enjoy and comment, good luck folks! :-)

The Monty Hall Problem [The Monty Hall Problem]

Miguel — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 00:47:00 GMT

After our first puzzle, showing some of the properties of "perfect square root numbers", I think that we can stop at a Maths probability riddle...

The following problem is taken from a quiz show on TV that really existed (or still exists). It is an interesting topic to discuss in almost any group of people because even the most intelligent often get into trouble, and is (in other languages) referred to as the Goat Problem.

This is the scenario:

The quiz show candidate has mastered all the questions. Now it's all or nothing for one last time: He is lead to a room with three doors. Behind one of them there's an expensive sports car; behind the other two there's a goat. (Don't ask me why it's a goat. That's just the way it is!!)

The candidate chooses one of the doors. But it is not opened; the host (who knows the location of the sports car) opens one of the other doors instead and shows a goat. The rules of the game, which are known to all participants, require the host to do this irrespective of the candidate's initial choice.

The candidate is now asked if he wants to stick with the door he chose originally or if he prefers to switch to the other remaining closed door. His goal is the sports car, of course!

The question for you is:

Is the candidate better off if he sticks with his original choice,
are his chances better if he switches, or
does it not matter whether he switches or not?

Enjoy the riddle, I want to hear your comments and choices :-)

in reply to The Monty Hall Problem

Switching our Christmas tree bulbs

Miguel — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:55:00 GMT

Hi there,

I want to propose you a kind of algorithm/mathematics problem, mixed with some fun related with this Christmas period... :-)

Imagine that you have a big Christmas tree with 365 light bulbs, each one with a switch, tagged with correlative numbers from 1 to 365. During December 25th on 2006, you looked at the tree and saw all lights OFF, so you decided to switch them but in a particular way.

Each day of the year (assuming 365 days) you would change the state of each switch just one time, according to a certain rule. The rule is that during the day “n” I will only switch those bulbs tagged with a number multiple of this “n” value.

Giving you an example to clarify this criteria:

1^st day: All bulbs multiple of 1. So, all bulbs. (the tree was beautiful that night, completely lightened)

2^nd day: All bulbs multiple of 2. So… #2, #4, #6, #8… (notice that this day all bulbs multiple of 2 were switched off)

3^rd day: All bulbs multiple of 3. So… #3, #6, #9…

Last day: All bulbs multiple of 365. So… only the #365.

Assuming that anything strange happens and nobody except you touches the switchs, which bulbs will be ON today? How would you determine it?

Merry Christmas from the whole Channel 8 Team :-)

HowTo Videos: Robotics and .Net fundamentals [HowTo Videos: Robotics and .Net fundamentals]

Miguel — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 06:21:00 GMT

Dan Waters released via his blog (click here to see his blog and original link) a series of introductory HowTo Videos for students and enthusiasts who want to learn how to program with Robotics Studio.

Here is a brief index of the content:

Introduction
Getting Started
- Setting up the Create
- Serial port communication in VC# Express
- Teaching the robot to sing

More on serial port stuff
- Setting up and utilizing Bluetooth
- Driving the robot in a square

Intro to VPL and MS Robotics Studio
- Learning how to drive the robot via a dialog box
- See how you can use VPL to create a program without writing any code whatsoever

Introducing Autonomous Behavior
- Using the iRobot Create's sensors and a flow diagram to back up when an obstacle is encountered
- Conclusion to the series

Enjoy and comment!

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Bart de Smet, Tech Ed Speaker Idol in 2006 is back [Bart de Smet, Tech Ed Speaker Idol in 2006 is back]

Miguel — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 13:51:00 GMT

During Tech Ed, we had the opportunity to talk with Bart De Smet. Bart was a Visual C# MVP, now he works at Microsoft on the WPF dev team as Software Developer Engineer. Prior to this new challenge, Bart was active in the Belgian community on many Microsoft technologies, most of the time focusing on CLR, languages innovation and frameworks. In his role, he's been speaking at various events and attended several international conferences including TechEd Europe, IT Forum and the PDC.

In this interview, he gives us some tricks about how to become a great speaker, how is the Tech Ed experience, life and work in Redmond and his experiences with students & professionals communities.

Enjoy!

in reply to Bart de Smet, Tech Ed Speaker Idol in 2006 is back

Live the Tech Ed experience in Channel 8! [Live the Tech Ed experience in Channel 8!]

Miguel — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:32:00 GMT

Hey folks,

During this week is taking place in Barcelona the Tech Ed Europe 2007 for Developers. In this event, more than 4.000 people will attend over 300 technical sessions guided by 250 of the best international speakers in Microsoft Technologies, Microsoft employees, Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals and Microsoft Student Partners...

And of course, Channel 8 is covering the event, recording cool interviews and working hard to take Tech Ed's content directly to you!

Have fun!

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Microsoft Expression products: how to create a more sexy site! [Microsoft Expression products: how to create a more sexy site!]

Miguel — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:59:00 GMT

We had a very interesting conversation with Arturo Toledo. Arturo is Product Manager of the Microsoft Expression Tools team in Redmond.

He showed us the huge capabilities of this suite of cool products:

Microsoft Expression Blend
Microsoft Expression Design
Microsoft Expression Media
Microsoft Expression Web

More info about these tools: www.microsoft.com/expression

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Silverlight vs Flash [Silverlight vs Flash]

Miguel — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 13:01:00 GMT

Silverlight (codename WPF/E) es la nueva tecnología de Microsoft para el desarrollo web. Basado en los principios de Windows Presentation Foundation, Silverlight permitirá llevar la experiencia de usuario en la web a limites aun no alcanzados, gracias a su enorme potencial para la generación de interfaces de usuario ricas, y sus capacidades para el manejo de elementos multimedia y 3D.

No obstante, lo que se adivina como una inmediata revolución del concepto de la web debe superar una serie de dificultades. Al tratarse de una tecnología totalmente nueva, debe hacerse un sitio en el mercado. Mercado que actualmente ocupa en gran parte Flash/ActionScript.

Tanto Silverlight como Flash tienen sus fortalezas y debilidades, entre las que podríamos citar las siguientes:

Silverlight:

Ventajas:

Lenguaje más potente, basado en WPF y .Net fx 3.0
Herramientas de desarrollo más completas: Visual Studio y Expression Suite
Aceleración por hardware mediante el uso de DirectX.

Desventajas:

No soportado en todos los navegadores. Soporte para Internet Explorer, Safari y Firefox.

Flash:

Ventajas:

Multiplataforma (soportado prácticamente por todos los navegadores disponibles)
Presencia en el mercado durante muchos años.

Desventajas:

ActionScript es un lenguaje un tanto desorganizado y complejo de manejar.
Bajo rendimiento.

Teniendo en cuenta este tipo de comparativas, tanto Adobe con Flash como Microsoft con Silverlight están poniendo todo su esfuerzo en mejorar sus respectivos productos, tratando de conseguir que sean lo más competitivos posible y así poder ganar esta “guerra” por las aplicaciones “ricas” en internet.

Adobe ha lanzado la versión 9 de Flash, que utiliza ActionScript 3.0 y utiliza un compilador JIT (just-in-time) , que genera código máquina específico, con lo que una de sus debilidades como es el rendimiento se ve mejorada.

Por su parte, Microsoft utiliza DirectX como tecnología para conseguir aceleración por hardware y obtener un rendimiento espectacular en Silverlight. También disponemos desde hace poco de las últimas versiones de la familia Expression para diseñadores: Blend, Design y Media Encoder. Estas versiones disponen de una mejor integración con el IDE para desarrolladores: Visual Studio. Especialmente desde el lanzamiento de Visual Studio 2008 (codename Orcas).

Con todo esto, nos encontramos ante una gran lucha en el mercado de las aplicaciones web que también nos afecta a nosotros los estudiantes en muchos sentidos, ya que probablemente del desenlace de la misma dependerá qué tecnologías deberemos utilizar cuando demos el salto al mundo profesional.

Y vosotros, ¿sois de Silverlight o de Flash?

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