Community report: How to be authentically digital with Shane Morris

At the last Melbourne XDDN meeting, Shane Morris (@ShaneMo) did a great session on “How to be authentically digital”. In it he covered off what the Microsoft Metro design language is and what the principals of it are. He gave a great insight into how the Metro design language pulled in influences from a number of design styes, such as Bauhouse and motion design.

Shane talks about how using the content itself to provide form and structure to the content can be combined with typography hierarchy. He gives examples using his own applications and shows that not all Metro designed applications need to look the same. There is a lot of room for personalisation as long as you keep the core principals in mind.

I highly recommend watching his session if you have the time.

https://vimeo.com/47223423

By David Burela

I’ve got the #FirstWorldProblemBlues

Some of you may have previously heard of a subgenre of music classified as “Nerdcore”. For those of you unfamiliar with it, here is the description from Wikipedia

Nerdcore hip hop, is a sub-genre of hip hop music characterized by themes and subject matter considered to be of general interest to nerds, though it can appeal to others as well… Though nerdcore rappers rhyme about anything from politics to science fiction, there are some perennial favorites in nerdcore subject matter, including Star Wars, Internet pornography, role-playing games, science, fantasy and computers.

A search for Nerdcore on YouTube returns some interesting results. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nerdcore

One of the first Nerdcore artists “Mc Frontalot” sums up the rationale behind Nerdcore succinctly: “Nerdcore hip-hop is the spinning of geek shame into bravo through rapping”. Geeks taking what they love and spinning it into an art form to share with others.

Nerdcore is fine for those that like repetitive beats, however today on twitter there may be the sparks of a new subgenre of music known as the “First World Problem Blues”. Taking the melancholy and sadness inherent in blues music, but using it to lament on the problems we suffer daily in the first world (examples of this meme can be found here http://www.quickmeme.com/First-World-Problems/).

It started off innocently enough with a well known geek specialising in “Visual Studio Team Foundation”, asked an innocent question on twitter:

Random question – anyone know a good blues guitar teacher?

— Steve Godbold (@SteveGodbold) August 22, 2012

It quickly spiralled out of control as other nerds twisted it into a new shortly lived meme

@SteveGodbold Run out of other ways to express "I've got those TFS blues…"

— Chris Gilbert (@chriswithpants) August 22, 2012

@SteveGodbold @jtango18 @JakCharlton @chriswithpants I ain't got nothin but the #firstworldproblem blues!

— Damian Maclennan (@DamianM) August 22, 2012

@SteveGodbold @jtango18 @JakCharlton @chriswithpants "Well my old lady done tore down my kanban board"

— Damian Maclennan (@DamianM) August 22, 2012

Right all, trolling done? Seriously though – blues guitar teacher, in Sydney. Anyone?

— Steve Godbold (@SteveGodbold) August 22, 2012

@SteveGodbold @JakCharlton @jtango18 @chriswithpants "my google can't find no guitar teachers, I got the #firstworldproblem blues"

— Damian Maclennan (@DamianM) August 22, 2012

@davetchepak @damianm @stevegodbold @jtango18 @chriswithpants "My branch dun merged, but its all outta whack" #firstworldproblemblues

— Jak Charlton (@JakCharlton) August 22, 2012

@SteveGodbold @JakCharlton @jtango18 @chriswithpants Standin down the crossroads, tryin to get team build to work #firstworldproblemblues

— Damian Maclennan (@DamianM) August 22, 2012

By David Burela

Windows 8 app fest at TechEd Australia

If you are heading to TechEd Australia this year, and you are interested in developing Windows 8 applications, then this might be of interest to you.

There is a special event starting on the Monday before TechEd where you can work on your Windows 8 application with a number experts on hand to assist.

From the website: http://www.lalaninja.com.au/2012/07/05/windows-8-app-fest-2012/

Before TechEd kicks off, get hands-on coding time in the ultimate 24-hour hackathon for building Windows 8 apps. Join us on the Gold Coast a day earlier to get into the guts of app building with our Windows 8 Dev speakers and other industry experts.

You can get skilled up in Windows 8 apps, brainstorm ideas and code like there’s no tomorrow. Our expert mentors will work with you as you build your own Windows 8 app intended for the Store, rather than playing with sample applications.

There are also a few extra details on the TechEd FAQ page: https://australia.msteched.com/faqs/#app-fest

I will be at the event as a mentor, helping everyone I can to build brilliant Windows 8 Metro applications.

By David Burela

I’m speaking at TechEd Australia! Windows 8 development

I speak at a lot of user groups and developer conferences. I was even able to speak at Microsoft ReMix one year which was amazing. But one goal I’d set myself 8 years ago and had never hit was “Get a speaking slot at TechEd”. I’m really excited to announce that I can finally cross it off the list as I will be speaking at TechEd Australia this year!

My presentation will be on Windows 8 development. I will discuss a few basics of data binding, move onto the MVVM pattern, and show how we can construct all the pieces we need by hand.

I hope to see you all in my talk, and Infragistics will have a booth in the expo hall, so please come say hello.

By David Burela