July HERO Newsletter for Developers and IT Professionals

Article
07/01/2012

Issue 6

Welcome to another edition of the Hero Newsletter. Through this, we hope to bring you anything and everything IT-related happening around the region. This time’s newsletter is not only about IT Pro news on all the latest in Microsoft products and services but also about ideas, innovations, excellence, cool new tools, releases, announcements, exciting sessions and much more. Prepare yourself for a deep dive into this exciting and rewarding world of information. Enjoy! The Hero Team

NOW! All you need to know about Windows® 8 Release Preview

	Windows 8 Release Preview – It's Windows reimagined and reinvented. Visual Studio Ultimate 2012 RC for Windows 8 – Tool to build Metro style apps for Windows 8.
200 Win8 Sample App Pack - This package contains over 200 win8 RC samples from Microsoft. Metro Style Design Assets - These .psd assets include templates, common controls, and common components.

	Player Framework – An open source component of the Microsoft Media Platform. Smooth Streaming Client SDK Beta 1 – Consume On-Demand and Live Smooth Streaming content with PlayReady.
Live SDK - The Live SDK provides a set of controls and APIs that enable applications to integrate Single Sign On. Multilingual App Toolkit for Visual Studio 11 Beta - Localize your Metro style app with translation support Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows 8 - Choose whichever ad platform you prefer in your app.

	Breaking Changes from CP to RP – Breaking changes documentation, from consumer preview to release preview Get started with Metro style Apps – Start building exciting apps that are alive with activity.
Get started with Visual Studio 2012 RC - Development documentation for Visual Studio 2012 RC. Get started with Blend for Visual Studio 2012 RC - design UI/UX tool for your Metro Apps. Design UX for Metro style apps - Design principles, UX Design patterns, detailed UX guidelines. Windows and Dev Center Home - Links to Metro style apps, Desktop apps, Hardware, and IE development.

	Learn to build Metro style apps – This guide walks you through the essentials for writing your first app. Developer forums – Developer forums for Metro style apps covering designing, developing, and selling apps.
Selling apps in the Windows Store - Windows Store markets, developer agreements and checklists to prepare. Building Windows 8 blog (B8) - An inside look at how, what, and why different features of Windows 8 are being built. Windows 8 app developer blog (D8) - Explores best practices for coding and designing Metro style apps. www.buildwindows.com Windows 8 Keynote and session videos

TOOLS FOR DEVELOPERS & I.T. PROS

•	Web App Gallery -Create websites the easiest way
•	Windows Phone SDK link – All you need to write world class mobile apps
•	Azure SDK - Get the tools and learn how to develop Cloud apps

RESOURCES FOR DEVELOPERS AND I.T. PROS

•	Microsoft virtual academy – Free e-courses on Virtualization and Management
•	TechNet Portal – The essential portal for IT Professionals
•	TechNet Wiki – Collective knowledge from Microsoft experts and your peers
•	TechNet Downloads – Download free trials and betas of the latest Microsoft software
•	IT Skills for the cloud – All you need to set the sky as the limit for your career in a cloud IT environment
•	MSDN link – The key portal to knowledge base and free tools
•	MSDN Virtual Labs – It's like a big full scale data-center but for your experiments and creativity only
•	MSDN News Flash – Subscribe for key news and special offers

Microsoft Press

Books designed for different ways to learn, across the range of Microsoft technologies. Welcome! Hello! To help celebrate the Windows 8 Release Preview and the Visual Studio 2012 Release Candidate, we’re happy to release a preview edition of Programming Windows 8 Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, by Kraig Brockschmidt (who, some of you might remember, many years ago worked with us on a couple editions of Inside OLE). Download a PDF of the ebook here (4.34 MB) Download the ebook’s sample code here (27.5 MB)

Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate

IT Pros are excited about Windows Server 2012. We’ve experienced tremendous momentum thus far, realizing over 240 download registrations of the beta since its release and over 10 million visits to the Server and Cloud Platform website, this year alone! We will continue to drive broad scale momentum through the RC period, into GA, and beyond by delivering world class online opportunities for IT Pros, to experience what Windows Server 2012 can do for them. Try out the release candidate of the next version of Windows Server.

From touch to type, office to the living room, from your screen to the big screen, you can see more, share more, and do more with Surface. Create, collaborate, and get stuff done with Office. Explore your world with fast, fluid Windows 8 apps. Discover new music, movies, and games in the Windows Store.

First Community Storyboard Shapes of Icons and Web Tools for Visual Studio 2012 by Mohamed Radwan Now you can download the ‘Font Awesome Icons’ library for free. The Font Awesome is one of the best development styles in Web 2.0, it contains about 220 Icons. You can also download the ‘Web Tools’ library that includes some Web components, like loader, annotation bars, etc.

Try the new Metro Icons generator and develop your customized metro style application!

BE READY On the 27th of June, Microsoft Office 365 will be available for businesses of all sizes, across MEA.

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July HERO Newsletter for Developers and IT Professionals

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