If you're writing (or plan to write) a Windows Store app, check out our Windows Store App snippets project!  In partnership with the Visual Studio team, we have created a collection of around 60 IntelliSense Code Snippets for common Windows Store app programming tasks. The snippets are available for Visual Basic, C#, C++, and JavaScript developers.

For more details, please see:

• Installation
• List of Snippets

With the Windows Store now open for submissions, use these snippets to get a jump start on your project.

After installing, just right-click and select Insert Snippet, and select the snippet from the list. Then press Tab to jump between fields.  Here's an example:

Give them a try and let us know what you think!

At long last I have accepted a full-time position at Microsoft, working on the Channel 9 team, mainly doing Coding4Fun stuffs.  I'll be telecommuting from NY as I have been these past 8 years.  It's hard for me to believe that I've been doing Coding4Fun articles and projects for the team since 2006, but I'm excited that I now get to do it full-time.

Also joining the team is master UX-man Rick Barraza.  He brings a pile of amazing talent and skill that will really allow us to create some fantastic projects.  And, of course, we're joining the existing team of Dan Fernandez and Clint Rutkas, with Greg Duncan heading up the Coding4Fun blog and Kinect Project blog.

Also note that Coding4Fun is looking for a junior developer/program manager.  So, if you want to join the team, now's your chance!

Anyway, I'm very excited to be joining Microsoft, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what we can crank out as a team…

It's almost time for another MIX conference! Once again I'll be there with the Coding4Fun crew showing off some spiffy new projects for attendees to play around with, along with a few other surprises. I'll also be taking part in John Papa's Open Source Fest on Monday evening, demonstrating WiimoteLib and my MJPEG Decoder.

Anyone else heading to the conference? If you are, be sure to stop by the Coding4Fun area in the Connect Lounge and say hello, and stop by the Open Source Fest on Monday night to take a look at over 50 great open source projects and vote for your favorites. I'd say I'd trade drinks for votes, but those are free, too.

And finally, if anyone attending is working on a fun or interesting project and would like to do an interview for my Coding4Fun Show on Channel 9, please let me know.  Almost anything goes, so I'd love to see what everyone out there is working on.

Hope to see you there!

The fifth episode of my Coding4Fun Show, is now up on Channel 9.  In this episode of the Coding4Fun Show, I chat with Josh Blake about Natural User Interfaces and Multitouch programming with .NET.  Josh has written a multitouch PowerPoint replacement called NaturalShow, which was demonstrated during his NUI session at MIX10. Watch and learn a bit about how this application was created as well as how you can write multitouch applications with WPF.  And for even more multitouch programming goodness and more on NaturalShow, Josh is currently working on a book titled Multitouch on Windows, which can be purchased and read while he's writing it!

You should see the video below if you have Silverlight installed, otherwise head over to the episode on Channel 9 to watch and download in a variety of formats for offline viewing.

A big thanks to Josh for the interview!

I will be at MIX10 showing off MindBlaster once again.  More on that shortly…

But, more importantly, are you going to MIX10?  Do you have a fun or interesting project you’d like to talk about?  Let me know!  I’m looking for people to interview for the Coding4Fun Show.  I’m always interested in talking to people who want to chat about what they’re working on, even if it’s just a hobby or something that’s incomplete.  That’s what Coding4Fun is all about!  So please, if you’ll be at the MIX, have a few minutes to chat, and want to be the envy of your friends, contact me!

It looks like all of the Coding4Fun videos pertaining to PDC09 have been posted along with most (all?) of the Channel 9 Live videos.  For those interested in the Coding4Fun recap vids, have a look…

Channel 9 Live at PDC09: Coding4Fun
Clint Rutkas, Brian Peek and Tim Higgins with Scott Hanselman
Recorded Live, November 19th 2009 at 11:00AM (PST)

Coding4Fun at PDC 2009
With our lab coats in hand, we brought Drinktendr, Mind Blaster, Laser graffiti, Wi-Fi Warthogs and finally Goblin XNA (augmented reality)!

I know it’s short notice, but is there anyone in or around Orlando, FL working on a cool or interesting project that would like to have it shown off on Channel9 and Coding4Fun?  I’ll be in town Thursday and Friday this week (12/10/09 and 12/11/09) and would love to interview you for an episode of the Coding4Fun Show.  Contact me and let me know!

Another PDC is over and I’m happily relaxing before work starts again on Monday.  Lots of announcements, free laptops for attendees (not me, sadly), and plenty of time spent in our Coding4Fun area with my project.  We even had the opportunity to take part in a live broadcast on Channel 9!  The recording for that show should be available shortly.

We had 5 fantastic projects in the Coding4Fun area this year:

Drinktendr by Clint Rutkas	Laser Graffiti by Jeremiah Morrill
Goblin XNA by Ohan Oda	Wi-Fi Warthogs by Tim Higgins

And what was my big project this year?  A fun little game titled Mind Blaster, a space shoot ‘em up game played entirely with your head!

How does one do that? Well…

This past July I found a brain-wave sensing headset from Neurosky called the MindSet.  They are now shipping headsets at $200 each and provide a free …

PDC 2009, starting November 17th, is almost upon us and I’ll be heading out to the conference once again with my Coding4Fun/Channel 9 playmates.  Anyone else heading out to the big show?

We won’t be doing a Coding4Fun session like we did last year, but I will have another fun project for people to check out in the Coding4Fun area.  I can’t give out details until after the show begins, but you can probably guess there is a Wiimote in the mix somewhere.  And some spiffy new hardware.  And maybe some XNA.  Look for the details here after the show, and an article with full source code shortly thereafter.

We also have 4 or 5 other developers with their latest and greatest projects, all of which are nothing short of incredible and put mine to shame.  I will likely be doing a compendium Coding4Fun Show with all of this year’s project authors so those not in attendance can see their incredible work.

I will also be hosting a table during lunch on Monday, …

The fourth episode of my Coding4Fun Show, the second show live from Las Vegas, is now up on Channel 9.  In this episode I interview interview Jeremiah Morrill who has written WPF MediaKit, an amazing library to quickly build DirectShow and MediaFoundation media player controls in WPF.  It's amazingly powerful and, as a developer, can be used with just a few lines of XAML.  In fact, you can create a full-blown DVD player or webcam capture control in your application each with a single XAML tag!  Learn all about this great project, how it was written, and how to use it in your own creations.

You should see the video below if you have Silverlight installed, otherwise head over to the episode on Channel 9 to watch and download in a variety of formats for offline viewing.

The Coding4Fun Show: WPF MediaKit with Jeremiah Morrill

A big thanks to Jeremiah for the interview!

The third episode of my Coding4Fun Show, live from Las Vegas, is now up on Channel 9.  In this episode I interview Rick Barraza of Cynergy Systems, who has put together several very unique applications and accompanying tutorials demonstrating advanced rendering techniques using Silverlight 3.  During the show, we discuss Silverlight 3, UX design, and the three demos he has created showing off advanced rendering techniques.  For more on how these amazing demos were made, check out his (currently) three part series at his blog:

• Fluid Dynamics in Silverlight
• Advanced Render Techniques with WriteableBitmaps
• Rendering Vector Fields in Silverlight

You should see the video below if you have Silverlight installed, otherwise head over to the episode on Channel 9 to watch and download in a variety of formats for offline viewing.

A big thanks to Rick for taking a few minutes out of his vacation …

Is there anyone in or around the Las Vegas area between September 7th and September 12th that would like to be my guest for an episode of the Coding4Fun Show?  I’ll be in the area for the week and would love to do an in-person show with anyone doing a cool project with Microsoft technologies.  If you’re interested, please contact me so we can set something up.  Maybe you’ll even get a free lunch out of it.  :)  Thanks!