Brandon Foy, an aspiring graphic artist created this great WP7 video.. If 200,000 people view it, MS will turn it into an ad. What a way to boost your resume.
Daniel Egan
Category Archives: Cool Technology
Podcasting Setup–My new microphone.
So since I have been recording more and more videos, I decided to spend some money on better equipment. First listen to the difference between videos (short clip below) and then you can read on if you want to know what I purchased.
Now, I must confess, although I am a geek, I am not a sound geek so this is and was all new to me 
I did some research on the internet and talked to many of my fellow devs/bloggers to find out what they were using. I got many different answers during my quest and received some great advice. I selected the items below instead of a USB microphone was because I wanted to be able to expand in the future if I wanted to. If the mic was a USB mic then I could never really use it in any other environment ( Speaker events, code camp, etc…)
Microphone :
I selected this microphone for a number of reasons. First, AKG is know for quality microphones, and although there are more expensive mics out there, this fit the bill for my needs. It is a condenser microphone which means it works on phantom power (USB) and has a Cardioid Pickup Pattern, which means that it will pick up “mostly” sounds that are right in front of it. This means that police cars, lawnmowers, etc… should not be picked up while I am recording my videos. It has many 
other features as seen here, but those two things were important to me. In addition, it also came with a spider shock mount and case for $179.00 total. The shock mount helps to reduce noise from hitting the desk that it is sitting on.
Audio Input :
Since I needed something to plug the microphone into (remember, I did not want the USB mic), I purchased the M-Audio Fast Track pro. I opted for the pro because it allowed me to expand to two microphones if I want to in the future. All I needed to do was install the drive, plug in the microphone and I was all set. It also comes with some sound mixing software called Live light which I have not yet started to play with. It was an easy set up and the sound quality was great.
Besides these two things, I also picked up a microphone cord (of course) and a pop screen to go in the front so that it does not pick up the “P” and “T” sounds when speaking close to the microphone. And finally to round it all out, I bought a desktop swing arm microphone stand to hold it all. I know I have plenty more to learn about the equipment but at least this should give me a good start (and better videos).
Here is the final product (minus the M-Audio, which is behind my screen).
It should be fun working with it.
Daniel Egan – The Sociable Geek
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WP7 Minute–Episode VII–Cool Diagnostics
The Windows Phone 7 Minute is a show to discuss the features of the Windows Phone 7. In the show we will talk about things that are important to both Consumers and Developers. From Live Tiles, to Push Notifications, to cut-and paste, we will talk about the things that are important to you. If you want a particular subject covered, please drop us a line.
Episode 7 – Cool Diagnostics
In this episode, we look at the cool ## diagnostics menu. A cool hidden menu for the WP7 Samsung
Enjoy – Daniel Egan – The Sociable Geek
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WP7 Minute Episode IV–Search
The Windows Phone 7 Minute is a show to discuss the features of the Windows Phone 7. In the show we will talk about things that are important to both Consumers and Developers. From Live Tiles, to Push Notifications, to cut-and paste, we will talk about the things that are important to you. If you want a particular subject covered, please drop us a line.
Episode IV – Search
In this episode we show you the cool things search can do on the WP7 phone. Looking for a flight, movie, or just some pizza… check it out.
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WP7 Minute Episode I : Hubs and Panorama
The Windows Phone 7 Minute is a show to discuss the features of the Windows Phone 7. In the show we will talk about things that are important to both Consumers and Developers. From Live Tiles, to Push Notifications, to cut-and paste, we will talk about the things that are important to you. If you want a particular subject covered, please drop us a line.
Episode I : Hubs and Panoramas
In this episode, we discuss the difference between a hub and a panorama and what the benefits are of each.
Enjoy
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What the heck are Live Tiles??
There has been a lot noise on twitter in the #wp7 and #wp7dev tags about the push notification app limit (Live Tiles) . If you want to read up on this limitation you can head over to Jamie Rodriguez’s blog here : http://bit.ly/hsl4EF
In talking to people, I realized that those that did not have the phone yet, had no idea what Live Tiles were or why they should care. So I created a short video to demonstrate what some of the developers are doing to create unique experiences for their applications on Windows Phone 7.
Enjoy 
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Looking for some code??
If you are like me and are always on the lookout for good code samples then you will like this site. The Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework is a free, centralized code sample library provided by the Microsoft Community team. Their goal is to provide typical code samples for all Microsoft development technologies.
They listens to developers’ pains in MSDN forums, social media and various developer communities, then write code samples based on developers’ frequently asked programming tasks, and allow developers to download them with a short code sample publishing cycle. Additionally, they offer an innovated free code sample request service. There is already lots of code out there to use… Go Check it out. http://bit.ly/fOq27C Happy Coding Daniel Egan
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WP7 vs Blackberry OS 6
Are you still deciding if WP7 is going to hit big? I know I am quite obviously bias but it has been great to see the way in which people are embracing the phone even though it is not yet finished. In this Engaget Show, check out the comparison between Blackberry OS6 (first half of video) vs WP7. Its been a while since people have said ANYTHING good about a windows phone.
Tell me what you think. And if you are in my area, come to my next event and I will show you in person.
Happy Coding — Daniel Egan (DotNetDoc)
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The Newly Designed MSN.com??
A funny thing happened on the way to my home page…. They changed it! Well, kind of-sort of. When I open up MSN.com on my development PC, this is what I see. It’s much brighter than its predecessor and easier to navigate. In addition, it has added some cool social media integration into the lower right hand corner.
Not only will it show my Windows Live, Facebook, and Twitter feeds, but it will also let me post from here
as well. I know this is not terribly new, but I did not expect it from MSN.com. It was a welcome surprise.
Here is the funny part, not every user gets to see the new site. As a matter of fact, I get the old MSN page on every other computer in my house. In addition, when I do a Bing Search 
, I cant find anyone talking about it’s “New Design”.
Finally, after searching every place I could think of, I found this one reference to it on its Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/msn.com , at the bottom of the page is this one line :
“On November 5 2009, Microsoft released a preview of their homepage and new logo. It’s expected to be widely available to over 100 million U.S. customers early next 2010.[21][22]”
So, if unlike me, you don’t get the preview and want to see what it looks like, head over to http://www.msn.com/preview.aspx
Let me know what you think.
Daniel
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Getting a Sense of Paris
I have finally reached Paris. After 2 planes 15 hours, 3 naps, and a chicken dinner, we landed in Paris in the oui hours of the morning (6am to be exact). We area staying in the 6th district near Notre Dame and on the way to our apartment, one of the funny things I noticed was how small the cars were, not an SUV in sight. This made a lot more sense once I saw the size of the street were were saying on
When we finally reached our destination, we started getting settled in and when I popped open my laptop, I discovered that the Sensor and Location platform, or more specifically my IP location provider was able to determine I was in Paris and automatically changed my weather gadget to show me the local weather. The sensor and location platform is one of the cool new things developers can use as part of Windows 7. Although it is very useful for gadgets, it can be used for any type of application that wants to be aware of its surroundings. Go check it out, you will like it.