Microsoft's Coding4Fun - Exclusive Development Center for Hobbyists

What is Cooding4Fun ?!

As a deviation from the usual time talking about professional software development at MSDN, Codin4Fun is a developer center for people who love to code and build cool applications to say - analyze their Halo 2 scores, or display a cool screen saver, or show off their family photo album. They might write applications to help them with other hobbies, from gardening and genealogy to tricking out their cars and helping them remodel their house.

Who are these people? Let’s call them hobbyists. ,a person who has a hobby, especially a person who devotes a great deal of time to one .

Sure, hobbyists could buy or download off-the-shelf software to do pretty much anything nowadays – but what’s the fun and challenge in that? Hobbyists love doing it themselves. Hobbyist developers love solving problems, writing code to do cool things, and learning how other software and hardware works. Hobbyist developers take pride in writing code that meets their vision, and many even spend hours making their code not just functional, but elegant. And thats where COding4Fun comes in.

The Coding4Fun Developer Center was built by a few hobbyists at Microsoft and have signed up several awesome bloggers and writers who will be contributing regular articles to the Coding4Fun columns apart from links to some of the coolest projects and hobbyist news happening in the community.

Here are a brief introduction to the various sections:

*In the Box

*Some Assembly Required

*Web Coder

*Game Development

*Cool Applications

*Weekend Warriors

*XML for Fun

*DIY Tech with Tony Northrup

*Half-Life 2 Mod Spot

*Weekly Updates

Check them all out at Microsofts Coding4Fun Zone

In the Box

  • Creating an Alarm Clock in the System Tray
  • Redirecting Outlook Reminders
  • Giving Computers a Voice
  • Outlook from the Managed World
  • Setting Wallpaper
  • Poor Man's Power Monitor
  • Researching made easier with ResearchHelp
  • Building Network Utilities
  • etc


Some Assembly Required

  • Look at Me! Windows Image Acquisition
  • Is That You? Writing Better Software for Cool USB Hardware
  • Where the Heck Am I? Connecting .NET 2.0 to a GPS
  • It's Hot in Here: Getting the Weather
  • Interfacing Your Media with an External LCD Panel
  • etc

*Web Coder

  • Building a Web Site with ASP.NET 2.0 to Navigate Your Music Library
  • Introduction to the Personal Web Site Starter Kit
  • Extending the Personal Web Site Starter Kit
  • etc

*Game Development

  • Beginning Game Development: Adding Units
  • Ask The ZMan: Applying Textures, Part 3
  • Beginning Game Development: DirectInput
  • Beginning Game Development: DirectX II
  • Ask The ZMan: Applying Textures, Part 2
  • Register for Game Development 101 Webcast Series.
  • Beginning Game Development: Introduction to DirectX
  • Ask the ZMan: Applying Textures, Part 1
  • Beginning Game Development
  • etc

*Cool Applications

  • Kid's Programming Language
  • Creating URLBuddy
  • Creating a System Monitor
  • etc

*Weekend Warriors

  • Extending the Screen Saver Starter Kit with Microsoft Visual C# Express

    etc

*XML for Fun

  • Aggregating Syndicated Content
  • A Simple RSS Feed
  • <iTunes>Give Me My Media Library XML!</iTunes>
  • Building a Family History Client
  • Building a Family History Web Service
  • Using the Google Web Service
  • Using the Amazon Web Services
  • etc

*DIY Tech with Tony Northrup

  • Using X10 Hardware
  • etc

*Half-Life 2 Mod Spothttp://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/half-life/default.aspx



Coding4Fun and Valve makes a Software Developer Kit (or SDK) for their amazing game engine (called “Source”) available for FREE to Half-Life 2 customers! The Source SDK gives us access to a TON of game assets (maps, models, sounds, objects, etc.) and virtually all of the game engine’s C++ source code! By using Visual C++, we can create everything from minor tweaks (called ‘mods’) to completely new games (known as ‘total conversions’). In fact, popular games like Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat are two such ‘total conversions’ which were originally based on the first Half-Life game engine and have been subsequently revved to take advantage of the new Source engine.

...and more on getting started
 
Some cool projects like Game Developement, but, not suprisingly, you need to know Microsoft Technologies to paticipate
 
hi all , thnx 4 news. i have a query, i'm using blodshed dev c++ s/w 4 prog . c++.but everytime i code ,then build it simply compiles. it doesn't execute it on console mode . using ver.4 . also i dwnld code::bloks studio 4 vc++IDE . but it shows compiler path not given i recently dwnld migw32 gcc compiler ver.3.8 so i'm clueless as is gel with appl. sugest also i want some thread on C++ & VC++ prog as i'm new 2 it but wanna learn it fast & thoroughly can i post here or u can suggest a another thread!!
 
scarezebra said:
MS is smart...It always has a selfish motive...

Just MS? Each and every Enterprise out there is selfish. Nevertheless, its this greed that drives innovation and technology forward. Name one org thats not greedy or has a selfish motive.
 
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