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February 2008 - Posts

Friday, February 29, 2008 5:10 AM

It's Leap Day - Does Your Software Know That?

Well today is February 29th 2008. A February 29th only comes around once every four years. Or does it? Actually some years that one might think are leap years are actually not. So in honor of today being leap year (and me not being especially creative)
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Thursday, February 28, 2008 4:44 AM

Join The Conversation - Girls On The Web and Other Topics

I'm away on a gaming in computer science conference and while I really wanted to have a lot of great blog posts for you all to enjoy and learn from it's been tough getting all the things done that I needed to get done. But I did want to make sure some
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 5:18 AM

When Cods Collide - an XNA Game in 2D

Well I'm on the road again. Today I am flying to Miami for the Game Development in Computer Science conference . The conference takes place on a cruise ship so there is no Internet or cell phone coverage - at least not as a reasonable price. So I'm posting
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Tuesday, February 26, 2008 4:54 AM

How To Study For A Computer Science Exam

Many years ago I came up with a personal philosophy about studying, especially cramming, for test taking. I looked at my peers and realized that a lot of them worked very hard to cram a lot of information into their heads in a short period of time to
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 7 Comments
Monday, February 25, 2008 5:09 AM

Time To Take Out The Garbage - The Interview

Channel 9 is one of my favorite tech websites. It's designed and targeted for professional developers but I find that a lot of the videos have educational value for anyone seriously interested in computer science and technology. Many of the videos are
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Friday, February 22, 2008 9:23 AM

Reality Check: Teaching Students About Intellectual Property Rights

More and more computer science programs are including units on ethical and legal issues. Perhaps one of the most controversial issues involving computer technology these days is that of intellectual property (IP). One of the problems is that young people
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 4 Comments
Thursday, February 21, 2008 9:35 AM

XNA - Games for the Zune

Well there are always questions about an handheld game device from Microsoft. Well this isn't it. But what the XNA team did announce today is that XNA Game Studio 3.0 will support creating games for the Zune. And yes there will be multi-player games using
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
Wednesday, February 20, 2008 11:22 AM

Programming as the New Literacy

Regular readers know that I have been pushing this idea of programming and computer science as being a liberal art - something that everyone should learn some thing about. Recently I came across an article by Marc Prensky that says pretty much the same
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 11 Comments
Wednesday, February 20, 2008 9:50 AM

DreamSpark - Microsoft Gives Software to Students for Academic Use

OK so it is already all over the blogosphere that Bill Gates announced a new program called DreamSpark to give software to students. (The official press release is here BTW) So I'm kind of late to the party already. Channel 8 is going to be a key source
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 2 Comments
Tuesday, February 19, 2008 5:32 AM

Science and Engineering Links

Did you know that this is National Engineering Week ? Well it is. So in honor of that a few links. Check out the Try Science web site - Sponsored by IBM. There you will find a list of science competitions by a wide range of sponsors and for a number of
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Monday, February 18, 2008 5:02 AM

Summer Workshops for Teachers

I received a pair of announcements about summer workshops for teachers at Carnegie Mellon this summer. having attended a number of workshops at CMU over the years I have come to respect them as about the best learning opportunity a teacher can have. They
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Friday, February 15, 2008 11:35 AM

An Operating System You Can Play With in C#

The contributors over at Channel 8, the web community for students interested in computer technology, are really turning us some interesting things. Recently there was a student interview with Bill Gates and then the other day I read about Cosmos . Cosmos
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 2 Comments
Thursday, February 14, 2008 5:09 PM

British Library - Turning Pages On Old Books

I saw a great demo the other day. The application involved is for the British Library. The British Library has a huge collection with some amazing old books in their "treasure room." These books are too old, too valuable and to fragile to let just anyone
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 2 Comments
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 5:17 AM

Build, Craft, Hack, Play, Make!

It looks like Maker Faire is starting to ramp up for this coming May. I'm trying to see if I can justify a trip out to California for it this year. Last year a couple of my friends worked the event showing off some really cool stuff and had a great time.
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
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Tuesday, February 12, 2008 4:58 PM

Expression Web Project For Students

[Updated with new project page link .] When I was a student a lot of projects we used to do were poster projects. From what I see in my wife's classroom poster projects are still very common. They are a fun way for students to organize and present the
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 2 Comments
Tuesday, February 12, 2008 11:48 AM

How Rare (Game Dev Company) Recruits Graduates

Rare is one of the top game development companies in the world and is based in the UK. As you might expect there are a lot of people who want to create video games who want to work for Rare and for companies like Rare around the world. There are a bunch
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
Monday, February 11, 2008 4:15 PM

Alfred On Channel 8

Just in case you wondered what I looked and sounded like, I am in a brief video at Channel 8 right now. This was shot at a wrap up party for members of Microsoft's worldwide academic team so the background noise is a little different from the normal interview
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
Monday, February 11, 2008 4:01 AM

Microsoft Math Demo - Making Your Math Homework Easier

Microsoft Math is an interesting and easy to use tool for doing mathematical calculations. It is sort of a computerized super graphing calculator designed for students. Diane Curtis has created a demo of some of the features of Microsoft Math and posted
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 1 Comments
Friday, February 08, 2008 5:27 AM

Developing CS1/2 Programming Assignments on the XBOX 360

I just found out that there is a special FREE pre-conference workshop on developing assignments for CS1/CS2 courses that use the Xbox 360 and XNA. If you are planning on attending SIGCSE (I'll be there!) and looking for a pre-conference workshop this
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Wednesday, February 06, 2008 9:58 AM

After you win - now what?

What happens after a team wins a software design/development competition? Well it looks good on a resume of course and you can talk about it on interviews but could there be more? Apparently there can be more. For a number of years Microsoft has been
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Tuesday, February 05, 2008 2:41 PM

XNA, a Guitar Hero Guitar and a Game of Your Own

Dan Waters is at it again. He's created a game and video taped the whole process in a series of 12 videos. Complete course code is available. Oh yeah, the game he created is call GuitarMatey and uses a Guitar Hero Guitar to play a game on your Xbox 360
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
Tuesday, February 05, 2008 5:26 AM

Secure The World

I just found a new web site that collects a lot of existing security information and adds some new stuff in a pretty interesting and dare I say fun format. The HelloSecureWorld web site is new and " brings non traditional ways to provide security awareness
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 0 Comments
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Monday, February 04, 2008 7:45 AM

Fun or Serious Learning - Why not both?

The SIGCSE mailing list recently had a long discussion about plagiarism in the context of philosophy of teaching statements being submitted with applications for professorial jobs. While the discussion on plagiarism was interesting what got me thinking
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 4 Comments
Friday, February 01, 2008 4:29 AM

Visual Studio Learning Opportunities

I received some information about some new offerings from Microsoft learning last week and thought they would be worth sharing with others. If you are looking to upgrade to Visual Studio 2008 now or in the near future these resources may help you jump
Posted by Alfred Thompson | 3 Comments
 
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