Curing Your Developer Movement Summertime Blues

Hey, it’s July! Hope you’ve been enjoying your summer thus far. The team here is just getting into it as we’ve been a bit busy behind the scenes working on different ways to engage with you all for the next little while. Look for various interesting and fun things this coming your way shortly!

In the meantime…

Developer Movement Thanks You

For those of you who participated in the Developer Movement this year, you already know that this year’s Developer Movement is now closed. Thousands of developers across Canada published apps for Windows 8 and Windows Phone, with a good chunk of them, backed by Windows Azure. Thank you to all of you. You showed us that you’re a force to be reckoned with!

If you didn’t have a chance to check Developer Movement this year, the Developer Movement is a rewards program in which you earn points by publishing Windows 8 and/or Windows Phone apps. You can then use those points to redeem various rewards. The Developer Movement will be back soon, so make sure that you have it on your radar and take part in it!

Curing the Blues

Summer time is no time to be blue. It’s a time to be energized. It’s a time to have fun. So to help you beat the blues, get energized for the upcoming Developer Movement, all while having some fun, Developer Movement challenges you with this -

You Think You Can App Challenge

Windows 8 and Windows Phone apps are all about creating pleasant user experiences. To give you some ideas of how you can take advantage of various Windows 8 and/or Windows Phone features – inspiration for apps that you’ll build for Developer Movement:

 
  • Every Tuesday from July 16 to September 10, the Microsoft Developer Facebook page will post a trivia question.
  • Each question will have you look at how 3 apps take advantage of various Windows 8 and/or Windows Phone features (all of which will be developed by fellow Canadian developers, of course).
  • Your job – check out the apps, find the answer, and reply to the trivia question by sending an email to developermovement@microsoft.com before the next trivia question is posted.
  • For each weekly trivia question that you answer, you’ll be entered to win 1 of 3 $25 Best Buy gift cards that we’ll be giving away each week.

Getting Ready to Play

The beauty is that you don’t have to do much to get ready for this one… remember, it’s supposed to be fun!

  • Make sure that you’ve already installed Windows 8 on your machine (if you’re really keen, you can go ahead and download the Windows 8.1 Preview and install that, though that’s not required), and/or have a Windows Phone device.
  • Head over to the Microsoft Developer page on Facebook, and if you haven’t done so already, ‘LIKE’ the page.
  • Then stay tuned on July 17 for the first challenge!

That’s it!

Get Ahead of the Game

I’ve already mentioned that the Developer Movement will be coming back, so other than the You Think You Can App Challenges, how can you get ready to rock this year’s Developer Movement – Microsoft Virtual Academy, free comprehensive courses directly from some of the best folks in the business.

I haven't yet explored developing for Windows 8:

I know Windows 8 development and wish to go deeper:

I haven’t yet explored developing for Windows Phone 8:

I’d like to build for both Windows and Windows Phone (which counts as two apps for Developer Movement, by the way):

 

Happy summer and more importantly, happy app-ing!

Rules and regulations for the You Think You Can App Challenges can be found here.

Photo credit: Lars Plougmann