Jul 12, 2011 Posted by Bruce

Silverlight Certification Test – Passed

Microsoft released it’s long awaited (very long awaited) Silverlight Certification (MCTS 70-506) earlier this year.  It was reportedly held up several times as Silverlight transitioned from version 2->3->4.  There was enough new in Silverlight 4 that the wait was worth it and now the test is out. Having been working on Silverlight projects for years, there has really been no certification... read more

Jul 6, 2011 Posted by Bruce

TalkTimer app for WP7

I have been part of the Toastmasters for Techies  group in Grand Rapids since starting with the group about a year ago.  In fact I am Vice President in charge of Public Relations, so let me mention now that everyone should attend if they communicate or present ideas in their current job (which is everyone by the way). One of the tasks at Toastmasters is the Timer – this person typically has a stop... read more

Feb 1, 2010 Posted by Bruce

Silverlight Kata: IFS Fractals with TransformGroup and MessageBus

At the CodeMash conference this year many things stuck with me, and two have been bugging me enough to do something about them this last weekend.  One was the idea that programmers need to practice and refine their skills, which was probably best described in the ideas of “Code Katas” ala Dave Thomas in the Pragmatic Programmer.  The other was my recent concentration on all-things-Silverlight,... read more

Aug 4, 2009 Posted by Bruce

Programming for Today’s Kids

Programming for Today’s Kids: Why NXT-G, Kodu, Scratch, Alice, Small Basic, KPL / Phrogram and others can reignite the imagination and understanding of technology for today’s kids. As Kids growing up in the 70s and 80s, we did not have all the technical resources available to us as they do today.  Computers were rare, under-powered, and very difficult to use. Hand-held calculators weren’t even... read more

Jul 19, 2009 Posted by Bruce

Kodu Review and First Impressions

One of the other fortunate things we were able to spend some time on last week was Kodu for the XBox 360.  Kodu is one of those things that is difficult to describe in words or even screen shots, and really needs to be experienced to understand.  In a nutshell it is a programming environment and visual programming language that lets kids create fully functional games using just the XBox 360... read more