Microsoft Really Wants Your Feedback

I’m writing this blog post from a hotel room in Seattle. I’m attending the Microsoft MVP Summit. To attend this summit, you have to be a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP).

I was fortunate enough to receive this award from Microsoft back in 2009 and every year since then.
Originally, I received this award for DirectX/XNA. I’ve written a few books and two of them were on game programming using XNA. XNA was the game programming framework created by Microsoft that powered the vast majority of Indie games available on the Xbox 360.

Folks who have a large XNA library code should take a good look at MonoGame.
For those who don’t, should look at another game engine like Unreal or Unity.

If you want to do HoloLens development, I’d highly suggest you get going with the Unity engine.

One of the big benefits of being a Microsoft MVP is that you get to meet the product teams at Microsoft and provide feedback.

Here’s a secret…

If you are into web development at all …

If you want to know what it’s like to be a MVP, then watch the weekly stand-ups of the ASP.NET team. The work is done in public and everything is open source. Your feedback can be heard. You don’t need to be a MVP to talk to the product team.

User Voice is another great way to get in front of the product teams.

The Forums is another great way to get in front of the product teams.

If you have a suggestion for Microsoft, you can make it heard all of those ways. You don’t have to be an MVP to get your voice heard.

Microsoft is very big on feedback. They want to make products that you want. So if you see something that should be done better, let them know!

It’s a great privilege to be able to come out to Seattle every year and meet with the product teams. I’m hoping I’ll be fortunate enough to be able to attend next year.

I’ve heard over and over again so far this week from Microsoft that they want feedback. And it is true, they take the feedback and they make products and/or product changes because of the feedback.

It is a great time to be a software developer. HoloLens and augmented reality is really exciting. I’m grateful that a great community is building in the Learn HoloLens site.

If you are interested in HoloLens development, make sure to check out the Learn HoloLens site and sign up for the notification list.

If you are wondering if you should get into software development in general, then go check out code.org and try it out. You just might like it… and being able to tell the computer what to do is a pretty satisfying feeling!

I made a companion video to this blog post, which you can see below:

2016-11-092016-11-09Chad Carter 1 Comment

Holographic Remoting Player app (and HoloLens Edition Xbox One Controller)

I’m showing off the HoloLens Edition Xbox One controller as well as the brand new Holographic Remoting Player app.

That app, along with the latest beta version of Unity (5.5.0B4), will allow you to click play in the Unity Editor and see the scene on the HoloLens. It is pretty powerful. It is actually using the computer’s GPU and streaming the data to the HoloLens. So in a sense, this is a tethered experience (via WiFi and not actual wires). But the cool thing is that this tethering isn’t required and while certain apps can benefit from the extra horsepower others won’t need it.

I created a quick demo in Unity to use a car model and hooked it up to use the Xbox One controller’s input. Besides playing it through the Holographic Remoting Player, I deployed the app to the HoloLens as well.

Oh and in the video I start out talking about a contest where I’m giving away the HoloLens Edition Xbox One controller I designed. If you want to win one head over to http://LearnHoloLens.com/controller.

Enjoy the video!

2016-09-212016-09-21Chad Carter 1 Comment

How to Create a Global Leaderboard for Unity 3D Using Azure Mobile Services

If you missed the sessions presented by Microsoft MVPs at the 2015 Microsoft MVP Virtual Conference, you should check them out on Channel 9.

I was given the opportunity to speak here and decided to give a talk on creating a global leaderboard in Azure, using Azure Mobile Apps (or Azure Mobile Services). The client that was using the leaderboard information was Unity 3D. I also used Postman REST Client quite extensively during the presentation.

If you are interested, you can check out the talk here:

https://channel9.msdn.com/events/MVP-Virtual-Conference/MVP-Virtual-Conference-Americas-2015/Dev2-How-To-Create-GL-Unity-3D-Azure-Mobile-Services

If game development interests you, make sure to check out another webinar I did where I created a 3D game in 90 minutes using Unity 3D!

2015-06-042015-06-22Chad Carter 2 Comments

Microsoft MVP Virtual Conference

The Power of Community

May 14 & 15, 11AM to 9PM (EST) / 8AM to 6PM (PST)

Microsoft has put together an online virtual conference, called the Microsoft MVP Virtual Conference, that will have their MVP as speakers. I’ve been fortunate enough to be a Microsoft MVP since 2009. For the first several years, I was a XNA/DirectX MVP. For the last two years, I’ve been awarded the ASP.NET/IIS MVP award.

I’ll be bringing both worlds together in a talk I’ll be giving on Friday at 5PM EST called “How To Create A Global Leaderboard For Unity 3D Using Azure Mobile Services”. This will be a fast paced talk that goes through setting up an Azure Mobile App (a backend Azure service) that will allow me to store high score information. I’ll be going through how the REST API works and how to test it and to create a backend data store to hold the data. To use the data, I’ll be using a Unity 3D demo that shows setting and retrieving high scores from the cloud.

So that is my talk, but there are a total of 5 tracks that will be running over the course of two days! Here are a list of all of the sessions. And here is where you can find a breakdown of each track and each talk’s timeslot within that track.

So if you are into IT, software development, or just someone who wants to know more about Microsoft products (via the consumer track) you should definitely check out some of the sessions in the Microsoft MVP Virtual Conference. There are even tracks for Spanish and Portuguese! So make sure to register today so you can pop in on the sessions you care about. Don’t miss this very unique community event.

As of last week, there are over 5,000 people that have signed for this virtual conference. There are some great presentations that will definitely be a benefit to you if you take the time to attend.

When attending the sessions, I’d also suggest utilize the hashtag #MVPvConf for the event.

Start Time shown in the table below is PT (Pacific Time). You may use the Time Zone Converter to find out the time based on your location.

Day 1 – May 14th, 2015

Time	IT Pro Track	Developer Track	Consumer Track	LATAM (Spanish) Track	Brazil (Portuguese) Track
8:00 AM (PT)	Keynote Address: Steven Guggenheimer	Keynote Address: Steven Guggenheimer	Keynote Address: Steven Guggenheimer	Keynote Address: Steven Guggenheimer	Keynote Address: Steven Guggenheimer
9:00 AM (PT)	BYOD with Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS)	Microsoft Band: Project Online Task Updates from your Wrist.	How to present with your audience’s needs in mind, all within PowerPoint!	Implementing End-to-End High-Availability: Hyper-V, Network, Storage, and Cloud Architecture	Interfaces com Xamarin – O que eu preciso saber?
10:00 AM (PT)	Microsoft Surface in the Enterprise	Fireside: Cooking with Open Source	Create Custom Icons in PowerPoint	Herramientas SQL-Server Best Practices Analyzer y Microsoft MAP para apoyo en la administración de Bases de Datos	Visual Studio 2015 – Novidades e Produtividade!
11:00 AM (PT)	What is new in Skype for Business	Detecting Facial Expressions with Azure Machine Learning and Kinect for Windows	It’s Not A Windows Phone, It’s MY Windows Phone	Windows 10: productivo en cualquier tamaño	Introdução ao C#6
12:00 PM (PT)	Power BI as a Self-Service BI Platform: Architecture, Use Cases, Strengths, and Shortcomings	Supercharge your Development with Azure Websites	Xbox music, the cloud and your Beiber collection	Extendiendo tu Infraestructura Local con Cómputo + Redes de Microsoft Azure: una Implementación en el Mundo Real	Primeiros Passos no ASP.NET 5
1:00 PM (PT)	Azure Test Labs: From Zero to Hero	DevOps: What Is This Puppet You Speak Of?	Using Office Mix from Boardroom to Classroom	Introducción a Azure Machine Learning	Executando ASP.NET MVC 6 no Mac OS X e no Linux
2:00 PM (PT)	Azure Remote App for your Line of Business Applications	Mongo Baseball.NET	Windows 10: Making School Life easier with Windows 10 and Cortana	Desarrollando para Office 365	Introdução ao HDInsight Hadoop Tools for Visual Studio
3:00 PM (PT)	Securing Your Azure Data Center	Node.js for .NET Developers	Migrating from an iOS mobile device to a Windows mobile device and how to keep your Outlook data, emails, and contacts intact	10 Características que todo desarrollador debería utilizar con su sistema de control de versiones. Parte 1	Usando os dados de Mail, Calendário e Contatos do Office 365 em suas aplicações C#
4:00 PM (PT)	Deploying Highly Available SQL Server in Microsoft Azure IaaS	Introduction to AngularJS in an Office 365 context	Ransomware – Key tools for prevention and recovery	Implementación de Recuperación de Desastre/ Respaldo de Datos con Azure	Project Online – gerenciando projetos e portfólio
5:00 PM (PT)	Dynamics CRM MVP Ask the Experts	Native iOS Apps using Swift for Office365	Understanding Windows updating	SQL Server 2014 + Azure = Bases de datos hibridas	ALM para Apps for SharePoint

Day 2 – May 15th, 2015

Time	IT Pro Track	Developer Track	Consumer Track	LATAM (Spanish) Track	Brazil (Portuguese) Track
8:00 AM (PT)	Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Automation with PowerShell	Surviving in an Async-First Development World	I’m an uber chic hipster that runs my business on only Apple products; Why would I want Office365?	Implementando Exchange 2013 con las mejores prácticas em cada rol, evitando del principio problemas futuros	Otimizando o gerenciamento de máquinas virtuais no Microsoft Azure
9:00 AM (PT)	Modern IT: DevOps to ITIL	Roslyn for Normal Developers: It’s Not Just for Compiler Geeks!	Using Access and SharePoint for Travel Expenses and Pulling up Maps	Generando Comunidades Corporativas con SharePoint	Automating Azure Management using PowerShell
10:00 AM (PT)	Just Enough Explanation of JEA, Windows’ New “Just Enough Administration” (JEA) Tool	10 New Things for Developers on Windows 10	Pivot Table Data Crunching	Power BI 2.0 – la revolucion en inteligencia de negocios en la nube	Designing and Building a Hybrid Cloud, co-starring Microsoft Azure and Your Datacenter
11:00 AM (PT)	Automating Service Delivery with System Center 2012 R2	Windows 10 and Spartan	Use your Windows Phone to tap into the Contacts, Calendar (and shared Calendars) and OneDrive	Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) – Cómo manejar dispositivos móviles en la empresa con System Center R2 Configuration Manager 2012 + Intune	Migrating Active Directory to Windows Server 2012 R2
12:00 PM (PT)	Best Practices for Virtualizing and Managing SharePoint 2013 with System Center Windows Server 2012	A Lap around ASP.NET vNext!	Delve and the Office Graph – A crash course	Adoptando Marcos Ágiles con Visual Studio Online	Segurança em ambientes virtualizados com Hyper-V e Vmware
1:00 PM (PT)	Troubleshooting Hyper-V Performance Issues – Black Belt Notes from the field	A Brief History of OWIN	Windows 10: New Features and New Directions	Administración y configuración de Microsoft Deployment Toolkit – MDT 2013 – para el despliegue de Windows 10	Prepare seu datacenter para a Nuvem
2:00 PM (PT)	Migrating from VMware to Hyper-V for VMware Professionals	How To Create A Global Leaderboard For Unity 3D Using Azure Mobile Services	Windows Phone 8.1: “Hey Cortana” you make my life easier	Cardinality Estimator en SQL Server 2014. ¿Qué es? Y cómo nos beneficia	Deployment ágil com Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2013
3:00 PM (PT)	Healthy SQL III	One XAML UI to Rule them All with Universal Apps and Xamarin.Forms!	These Are a Few of My Favorite Things – The OneNote Edition	Accesando Office 365 desde un App Android / Windows Phone	Controlando cargas de trabalho com Resource Governor no SQL Server 2014
4:00 PM (PT)	PowerShell Desired State Configuration – Custom Resource Development	Cross-Platform Localization for Mobile Apps Using .NET	Windows 10: Productivity Tips	10 Características que todo desarrollador debería utilizar con su sistema de control de versiones. Parte 2	Why is my index still fragmented after REBUILD on SQL Server?
5:00 PM (PT)	A pain-free migration to Office 365	Resolving Conflicts in Collaborative Occasionally Connected Mobile Apps	Virtual Tour of Microsoft’s Security Response Center	Identidad y Acceso en la nube	Construindo ambientes com o Quórum dinâmico