Windows Developer News for the Week of Oct 15th
This week, we launched the next chapter of Hilo helping developers learn how to write Windows applications. On Wednesday, the online version of the 2010 GPU Technology conference launched. The IE9 beta launch continues to gain steam and momentum with IE developers in unlike any version of IE before it. I discovered some cool resources for Silverlight developers such as Silverlight Accessibility. In the cloud computing space a new version of the Azure training kit launched, and significant changes were made across the Azure developer center presence.
Hilo Updates
Hilo Chapter 14: Adding Support for Windows 7 Jump Lists & Taskbar Tabs is live! This chapter, one of the final chapters we’ll be releasing for the series, takes a deep dive into shell features that differentiate Windows 7. What’s really cool about the Hilo application and samples is that the team is producing tons of real-world C++ code that you could potentially reuse in your own applications. If you’re new to developing applications with C++ for Windows or are new to developing using Windows 7 features, Hilo: Developing C++ Applications for Windows 7 is a great resource.
Resources from the 2010 GPU Technology conference
This year from Sept 20th-23rd, the GPU technology conference took place in San Jose. A highlight of the conference was high performance computing (HPC) using General Purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU). This emerging technology is exciting because developers are offloading computationally expensive problems from the CPU to the GPU and are seeing amazing performance. Last week, loads of learning resources were brought live on Nvidia’s conference site and this is a great learning resource for developers looking to dive deep into the technology. You can watch summit sessions and keynotes on the GTC 2010 Archives page.
If you are interested in learning about how you can develop applications using Microsoft’s GPGPU technology, DirectCompute, you should check out the DirectCompute lecture series that starts with the DirectCompute Expert Roundtable Discussion with Robert Hess.
Internet Explorer 9 News
I just want to regurgitate a few numbers from the IE 9 launch last month and from recent metrics and tests:
· 2,000,000 downloads in 2 days
· 9,000,000 visits to Beauty of the Web
· 26,000,000 page views to https://beautyoftheweb.com
· 70 new partner experiences reaching over 800,000,000 active internet users
· IE9 passes 97.7% of the CSS 2.1 tests
First, what these numbers really mean is that Microsoft launched IE9 with tons of support and will be standing by it through its final release. Microsoft has been listening to developers and customers and has given them what they’ve been asking for: a browser that is driven by standards. The big push from Microsoft and our push to standards compliance has resonated with developers, it does what you guys want and it makes development easier for you. Learn more about how you can support IE 9 and learn more about compatibility tools in the IE 6 to IE8 Compatibility section of the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Application Quality Cookbook.
Developer Centers Roundup
I recently was pointed to the Azure and Silverlight developer centers which cover tons of interesting materials for developers. The Silverlight Developer Center covers topics spanning from Get Started with Silverlight to Silverlight for Windows Phone. The brand new Windows Azure Developer Center has been really focused to getting people started with Microsoft’s newest cloud solution. The best way to do this is to Download Windows Azure and see what it’s all about.
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