Category Archives: Windows

Celebrating 3 Years at Microsoft!

By Shahed C on April 1, 2017

It’s been three years since I joined Microsoft… how did I get here? Before you begin, check out my new Facebook page for developers: Shahed Codes! And then connect with me on LinkedIn!

mslogo Wake Up And Code!

With a background in ASP .NET web application development for enterprise customers, I recently published my first book, “ASP .NET Core Essentials”, via Packt Publishing. You can check it out at the following URL: https://www.packtpub.com/web-development/aspnet-core-essentials

But first, a little history…

Back in 2011, I published a couple of silly little indie games for Xbox 360, using XNA and C# in Visual Studio. While working at my day job, I had gotten a little bored with business applications and decided to teach myself game programming. I made a little profit with my games, including Angry Zombie Ninja Cats.

Ninja Cat Sprite Sheet

Ninja Cat Sprite Sheet

With mixed reviews, the ratings bounced back and forth between 3 stars and 4 stars, and finally settled on approximately 3.5 stars. The game even got a brutally honest review from Indie Gamer Chick, who later invited me to write a couple of dev articles for her website:

The latter article even got republished on Gamasutra:

By 2012, I branched out into make free dev tools for XBLIG indie devs, such as the XNA Sales Data Analyzer and XBLIG Basic Starter Kit. The Sales Data Analyzer tool was received well by the indie media (including my now-colleague Dave Voyles), and was used by XNA developers across the US and around the world! 🙂

statsUS analyticsMap

The first time I ever spoke at a public event was at NoVA Code Camp in 2013, while I was working at Excella Consulting. I joined my colleagues Sahil Talwar and Doguhan Uluca in delivering a 3-part presentation on a complete end-to-end lean web application architecture. Specifically, I talked about Entity Framework Code First Migrations.

Source: https://twitter.com/shahedC/status/326068261336788992

Combining my background in enterprise business applications and indie game development, I decided to start speaking on various topics ranging from ASP .NET to Xbox game development. By 2014, I achieved a triple-achievement with the following:

  1. mentioned in Official Xbox Magazine
  2. selected to received MVP Award
  3. received job offer from Microsoft
Source: Official Xbox Magazine, March 2014, Page 65

Source: Official Xbox Magazine, March 2014, Page 65

The MVP Award for Microsoft is only for members of the community who are not employees of Microsoft, so I gave up the award when I accepted a job offer from Microsoft in March 2014. Since then, I’ve had the chance to work with all sorts of development tools, technology and platforms, including:

All of the above allowed me to start working on customer projects ranging from Xamarin and Azure to ASP .NET Core and IoT. Upcoming projects will include Bot Framework, Cognitive Services and HoloLens! I also got a chance to build an internal Kinect v2 application called Speech Bubbles, which tracks passers-by and displays cartoon bubbles above their heads to follow them around as they continue walking.

I had the opportunity to record 3 courses for Microsoft Virtual Academy with my then-colleague James Quick. The primary topic was Game Development with Construct 2, including the use of Xbox One controllers and the publishing process of getting your game into the Windows Store and the Xbox Store.

mva

Over the years, I’ve had the chance to speak at various community events around the DC/MD/VA region, along the East Coast and even across the US. When Unity Technologies came to town, I hosted their official Unity Roadshow events with Carl Callewaert, Unity’s Global Director of Evangelism. I even took some time off to fly to Barcelona (Spain!) to teach a game dev workshop to a team of King employees. In case you haven’t heard of King, they’re the developers of a popular mobile game called Candy Crush.

carl-unity king

In addition to community events, I’ve delivered talks and mentored students at various hackathons, including: American University, Georgetown University, Gallaudet University, Howard University, University of Maryland @ College Park, University of Maryland @ Baltimore County, James Madison University, Johns Hopkins University, George Mason University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia (UVA), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

universities

One of these hackathons was HackMIT, where I had the opportunity to join my colleague Gavin Bauman in training a group of HackMIT attendees at the beginning of the hackathon. We also mentored the students throughout the event.

Fast-forward to 2017, I’ve been facilitating the NoVA Code Camp event at the Microsoft office in Reston VA (now twice a year). This community-led event owes its existence to volunteers from the community, including current organizers Ed Snider and Stan Reeser. Past organizers include Tasha Scott and Greg Hurlman.

The following Twitter Moment consolidates the tweets that mention our sponsors and speakers at NoVA Code Camp 2017.1 for Spring 2017:

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I’ve continued to administer and moderate multiple developer groups on Facebook (and a real-life Meetup group):

Hope you found some inspiration in my journey. If you’ve made it this far… check out my previous anniversary blog post from 2016!

 

 

Azure: PaaS vs IaaS @ IT Pro Camp 2016

By Shahed C on October 14, 2016

I presented Azure: PaaS vs IaaS at IT Pro Camp 2016. Here is the presentation material with the slides, links and my contact information. The live talk was similar to my past Azure talks for developers, but presented in different context with IT Pros in mind.

Microsoft Azure Resources

Download PPTX or view slideshow below

SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/shahedC3000/azure-paas-or-iaas

Learn more about Azure, Microsoft’s enterprise cloud platform and how you can use PaaS or IaaS features to bring your organization to the cloud!

 

 

AthleTECH Summer 2016

By Shahed C on June 30, 2016

Over the past couple of years, I was fortunate enough to teach a group of talented students for Microsoft’s AthleTECH program, thanks to founder Anthony Egbuniwe, a Technical Account Manager at Microsoft. We covered visual game development with Construct 2 and Unity.

Now in Summer 2016, AthelTECH is back at Microsoft’s Chevy Chase MD office and we’re getting back to Construct 2 once again.

athletech

The students used the following tools:

We  followed by my Construct 2 beginner tutorials to recreate Scirra’s Ghost Shooter and Flapping Bird samples.

You can follow IDEA Games and AthleTECH on Facebook and Twitter:

https://twitter.com/athle_tech

https://www.facebook.com/Athletech

Web http://www.athle.technology

Xamarin, Xbox One Dev Mode, Bot Framework and HoloLens @ Reston meetup

By Shahed C on June 17, 2016

I presented Xamarin, Xbox One Dev Mode, Bot Framework and HoloLens at my Reston meetup group, DC-MS-Devs. Here is all the presentation material with the slides, links and my contact information. Each segment covered an overview + demo with input from guest speakers.

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1 of 4: Intro to Xamarin

Download PPTX or view slideshow below for Intro to Xamarin

SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/shahedC3000/intro-to-xamarin-63161570

Xamarin is now a part of Microsoft and is included at no extra charge with any version of Visual Studio, even the free Community Edition! Build mobile apps for iOS, Android and Windows all from Visual Studio using C#!

2 of 4: Xbox One Dev Mode

Download PPTX or view slideshow below for Xbox One Dev Mode

SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/shahedC3000/xbox-one-dev-mode-63161595

In addition to Xbox One dev kits for approved developers, anyone can now use a retail Xbox One to develop apps or games for Xbox One! Learn how you can get started today!

3 of 4: Intro to Bot Framework

Download PPTX or view slideshow below for Bot Framework

SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/shahedC3000/intro-to-bot-framework

Microsoft’s new Bot Framework allows devs to create intelligent bots to interact with users in a natural way. The possibilities of these new types of technologies get tremendously larger when coupled with Azure Services.

4 of 4: Intro to HoloLens

Download PPTX or view slideshow below for HoloLens

SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/shahedC3000/intro-to-hololens

HoloLens dev kits have started shipping! Learn how you can apply for one and get started with the HoloLens Simulator on Windows 10!

 

 

Build 2016 – Xbox One Dev Mode & ID@Xbox Guide

By Shahed C on April 15, 2016

Do you dream about publishing your own games on a major game console?

windows-xbox

Get caught up with the latest Xbox news from Build 2016 and hear about the different ways you can publish your very own game on Windows 10 and Xbox One. Use your own Xbox One console for development or apply for a dev kit via ID@Xbox. Harness the power of DirectX 12 and use a variety of tools to build your own games! 

AS SEEN ON: Facebook and Twitter:

xbox-fb xbox-tw

Social Links for Sharing and Retweeting

Video on MSDN Channel 9

Slides and Visuals

 

Useful Links:

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