A few professors from Stanford University are performing an experiment in distributed education by offering three computer science classes for free. There are many educational materials out there if you want to learn, but this is a good way to push yourself and be graded on your work. If you want to check it out without committing, the basic level version is like the advanced but without the test taking.

My goal in doing this is to learn about subjects with which I have little familiarity. Therefore, I am skipping out on the Introduction to Databases class. I will be participating in the Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence classes. I find these subjects fascinating but have not studied them in depth. To aid in my efforts, I will be using the two reddits focused on these subjects: r/mlclass and r/aiclass. The great thing about having over 50,000 people taking part in a class is the extremely large study groups you get from it.

I signed up for the advanced versions of the classes, but I may have to switch to basic if it’s too much to handle on the road. DevReach is coming soon, and I will be flying to Bulgaria to take part in the fun.

Some of the code for the AI class has been ported to C#. I’ll be translating the original Java and using C# language features as I go, so I may be adding to the library of stuff that already exists.

If you’re joining these classes and want to do a hangout with others in the class, add on me Google+.

Want to learn just what you can do with Windows Phone 7, SharePoint 2010, and Windows Azure? Microsoft has provided a training kit that teaches you how to develop applications for Windows Phone 7, then how to integrate them with data from SharePoint and Azure.

This kit has 10 presentations and 25 labs, and it groups them into topical units.

• Introduction to Windows Phone 7 Development
• Presentation
• Lab: Windows Phone Hello World Application
• Setting Up A SharePoint and Windows Phone 7 Development Environment
• Presentation
• Lab: Setting Up A Windows Phone 7 / SharePoint Developer Machine
• SharePoint 2010 Mobile Web Development
• Presentation
• Lab: Enable SharePoint for Windows Phone 7 Mobile Access
• Lab: Creating a Mobile Web Part
• Lab: Create a Mobile Aware Field Control
• Integrating SharePoint Data in Windows Phone 7 Applications
• Presentation
• Lab: Integrating SharePoint and Windows Phone 7 using Web Services
• Lab: Integrating SharePoint and Windows Phone 7 using Rest APIs
• Lab: Integrating SharePoint and Windows Phone 7 using Syndication Feeds
• Lab: Integrating SharePoint Social Web Services and Windows Phone 7
• Advanced SharePoint Data Access in Windows Phone 7 Applications
• Presentation
• Lab: Paging SharePoint List Data using Web Services and Windows Phone 7
• Lab: Integrating Images Stored in SharePoint with Windows Phone 7 using Web Services
• Lab: Uploading Images to SharePoint using Windows Phone 7
• Security With SharePoint And Windows Phone 7 Applications
• Presentation
• Lab: Integrating SharePoint and Windows Phone 7 using Forms Based Authentication
• Lab: Integrating SharePoint and Windows Phone 7 using Unified Access Gateway (UAG)
• Integrating Push Notifications with SharePoint Data in Windows Phone 7 Applications
• Presentation
• Lab: Integrating SharePoint and Windows Phone 7 Notifications
• Lab: Integrating SharePoint and Windows Phone 7 Tile Notifications
• Integrating SharePoint 2010 and Windows Azure
• Presentation
• Lab: Integrating SharePoint and Cloud Services in Windows Phone 7 Applications
• Lab: Integrating SharePoint and Cloud Data in Windows Phone 7 Applications
• Lab: Integrating SharePoint with Cloud Services and Data in Windows Phone 7 Applications
• Deploying Windows Phone 7 Applications
• Presentation
• Lab: Creating Private Windows Phone 7 Applications
• Lab: Creating Private Windows Phone 7 Applications That Use Service Based Security
• SharePoint and Windows Phone 7 Tips and Best Practices
• Presentation
• Lab: Integrating SharePoint and Windows Phone 7 in Offline Mode
• Lab: Integrating Windows Phone 7 Applications with SharePoint People Data
• Lab: Querying the List Schema for Choice Fields
• Lab: Adding Launchers to E-Mail and Phone Numbers

There’s a lot of material to go through here. I think this is a great start to pursuing three different MCPDs: Windows Phone, Windows Azure, and SharePoint. There are training kits available for each of those as well, so here are the links to each: Windows Phone, Windows Azure, SharePoint, and SharePoint and Windows Azure. The Windows Phone 7 and SharePoint 2010 training kit brings it all together so you can create private Windows Phone apps for your company, or cloud-enabled apps for the masses.

I know how some people feel about certifications, but preparing for one teaches you a lot. I already have the Windows and Web Microsoft Certified Professional Developer certifications, but there are three more MCPDs available. One that I will be going for soon is the Windows Azure MCPD.

Microsoft recently updated the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit. Anyone wishing to learn Azure can train themselves using this kit. It contains many presentations and labs to get you programming Azure applications in no time.

Here’s a list of the hands-on labs:

• Introduction to Windows Azure
• Building ASP.NET Applications with Windows Azure
• Exploring Windows Azure Storage
• Deploying Applications in Windows Azure
• Windows Azure CDN (Content Distribution Network)
• Worker Role Communication
• Debugging Applications in Windows Azure
• Federated Authentication in a Windows Azure Web Role Application
• Web Services and Identity in Windows Azure
• Windows Azure Native Code
• Advanced Web and Worker Roles
• Connecting Apps with Windows Azure Connect
• Virtual Machine Role
• Windows Phone 7 And The Cloud
• Windows Azure Traffic Manager
• Introduction to SQL Azure
• Migrating Databases to SQL Azure
• SQL Azure Tips and Tricks
• Build Your First Report with SQL Azure Reporting
• Introduction to Windows Azure Marketplace for Applications
• Introduction to Windows Azure Marketplace DataMarket
• Introduction to the AppFabric Service Bus
• Service Remoting With AppFabric Service Bus
• Eventing On The AppFabric Service Bus
• Introduction to the AppFabric Access Control Service 2.0
• Use Access Control Service to Federate with Multiple Business Identity Providers
• Authenticating Users in a Windows Phone 7 App
• Building Windows Azure Applications with the Caching Service

That’s a total of 28 labs, and the kit contains a multitude to demos, samples, presentations, and links to Channel 9 videos on Azure. There are even more videos than provided in the kit, so if you want to obtain even broader knowledge through video, visit this Channel 9 link.

To get started, install the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio 2010 through the Web Platform Installer. If you would prefer more control over the installation, you can download the Azure tools here.

The free ebook, Programming Windows Phone 7 by Charlie Petzold, is now available from Microsoft Downloads. This thing is huge: over a thousand pages of WP7 goodness. Despite this, I searched the text on MVVM and ViewModel and I came up empty handed, so there’s likely a lot more you can discover beyond this book. I’d read this one as a starter book, then move on to more advanced Silverlight techniques if you’re writing the type of application that could benefit from them.

If you’re already familiar with WPF/Silverlight, much of the material can be skimmed over. There are likely WP7 specific goodies hidden in the text, but you’ll likely benefit from the chapters dedicated to WP7 specific topics such as Chapter 5: Sensors and Services.

The XNA section is a good overview as well, but if you want a deeper dive check out Professional Windows Phone 7 Game Development by Chris G. Williams and George W. Clingerman.

While searching for that book on Amazon, I found that there is a slew of books coming out in the next few months (even a For Dummies, what?!). Be prepared! I already have my first app written, do you?

I found tutorials for Microsoft Math 3.0 on Microsoft Downloads and felt compelled to view one. What I discovered was one of the coolest graphing programs I’ve ever witnessed.

You just enter an equation into it, and it will graph it for you. Back on the worksheet tab, it not only solves equations, it will tell you how to solve them step by step!

This makes me tempted to go dig up my calculus books for problems that were tough to solve, and see how Microsoft Math handles it.

This thing has so many features to it, check out the demos! Best of all, it’s only 20 bucks (and sadly it’s not available in my MSDN subscription).

Time for criticism: what is the deal with the funky cell phone looking thing? Was that really necessary? The inner window of it already looks like an outlook ribbon… why not take it all the way there? The 3-d graph could work better too: rotation and zoom is clunky.

Microsoft Math runs on .NET 2.0. It would have been really nice if it ran on 4 and used MEF so I could write plug-ins. Please Microsoft Math team, open this up for extensibility.

If you’re in school, taking night classes, or just a geek like me, this is a pretty handy program to have. It sure beats Windows Calculator. The price is right, and there’s a 30-day trial if you just want to play around with it.

Microsoft has a video series to help developers get started with Windows Phone 7. Here’s the first by Nancy Strickland.

This video gets you set up with the developer tools and shows you how to build your first application. If you’re familiar with Visual Studio, it’s amazingly simple to build and debug WP7. If you haven’t seen it yet, the coolest thing in my opinion is the windows phone emulation. As explained in the video, the grab handles are slightly larger than the visuals because it represents the touch sensitive area. If you have a touch sensitive monitor, you can even touch touch your “windows phone” application as you’re debugging!

WP7 will be coming out soon, and it’s a good time to start making applications a brand new market. This video series will help you get started. After that, be sure to download the training kit and follow up with the windows phone blogs and forums.

To celebrate the release of Visual Studio LightSwitch on MSDN, I am posting the resources of which I am aware. This is a list for you lucky few with an MSDN subscription who can download LightSwitch Beta 1 today. More resources and information will be released on Monday, August 23rd, along with the public beta.

LightSwitch Developer Center
LightSwitch Beta 1 Documentation on MSDN
Vision Clinic Application Walkthrough and Sample
LightSwitch Forum

I’m sure everyone will start posting basic LightSwitch articles soon. Instead of adding to the echo chamber, I intend on finding interesting tidbits within LightSwitch. I’m sure there’s more to be gleaned from this than merely scaling applications quickly. I am curious how to build addins for it, and what kind of problems the LigthSwitch team solved. A LightSwitch application looks pretty slick, and if I think there are things to learn from its internal infrastructure.

Microsoft Press has announced that Charles Petzold’s Programming Windows Phone 7 will be released in time for PDC10 as a free download! I find this crazy, as this is easily a book I would pay good money for. How do I know? I’ve been browsing the 11 chapters they released as a download for VSLive! You can download the PDF, the XPS, and the source code.

Released Chapter List

Part I   The Basics

Chapter 1   Hello, Windows Phone 7

Chapter 2   Getting Oriented

Chapter 3   An Introduction to Touch

Chapter 4   Bitmaps, Also Known as Textures

Chapter 5   Sensors and Services

Chapter 6   Issues in Application Architecture

Part II   Silverlight

Chapter 7   XAML Power and Limitations

Chapter 8   Elements and Properties

Part III   XNA

Chapter 20   Principles of Movement

Chapter 21   Textures and Sprites

Chapter 22   Touch and Play

The official releases of the Office 2010 training kit and SharePoint 2010 training kit are here! Each kit is split into units containing presentations, links to Channel 9 videos, labs, and demos. There is too much information for me to cover in one post, so I’m posting the units for each kit so you can decide if it’s worth downloading. Note that the asterisked items in the Office 2010 training kit contain information pertaining to SharePoint.

Office 2010

Office 2010 Developer Roadmap*
Office UI Customization
Office Client Workflow
Security and Deployment*
Business Connectivity Services*
Developing BI Applications*
Open XML
Office 2010 Services*
InfoPath 2010 and Forms Services*
Application Compatibility
Access 2010*
Core Office Development

SharePoint 2010

Getting Started with SharePoint 2010
SharePoint 2010 Developer Roadmap
Visual Studio 2010 Tools for SharePoint 2010
UI Enhancements
Lists and Schemas
LINQ to SharePoint
Client Object Model
Workflow
Services Architecture
Accessing External Data
Enterprise Content Management
Extending Search
Business Intelligence
Sandboxed Solutions
Sharepoint 2010 Claims Based Security
Sharepoint 2010 Best Practices
Sharepoint 2010 Security
Upgrading Custom Solutions
Upgrading VSeWss Solutions to Sharepoint 2010

These units contain several videos each. It will take a considerable amount of time to fully consume the entire kits, but it could well be worth it if you’re developing Office or SharePoint applications.

It’s rare that I find myself attending a conference where I am not speaking. However, when I saw the session list at ReMIX Atlanta, I realized that I had to attend. So much material was outside of my knowledge domain that it was well worth the $25 dollar early bird fee. You would have had to spend thousands of dollars to get the same material from MIX 10.

If you want to learn about programming Windows Phone 7, Silverlight 4, or general User Experience, and you can make it to the Atlanta area on May 8th, this conference is for you!

Check out the session list:

An Introduction to Windows Phone 7 Series
XNA Game Development on Windows Phone
Silverlight Application Development on Windows Phone
Learning the Secrets of Windows Phone 7
Monetizing your Window Phone App in the App Store
What Designers and Developers Don’t Understand about Each Other
Game Changing Silverlight 4 Features
Why Blend 4 has become Indispensible: Dynamic Layout and Transitions
ASP.NET MVC 2: Making your web applications lightening fast
Microsoft Silverlight and Cloud Computing: A Match Made for the Web
Securing Microsoft Silverlight Applications
Thinking About UX: Why it is essential
Beyond Silverlight: Sketchflow for Web Prototyping
Effective User Experience Workflow

Besides the great session lineup, the .NET Rocks Road Trip show, hosted by Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell, will be in town. The live recording will begin Friday evening, May 7th. This part is free, so you can always show up on Friday and join the fun.

Registration is limited to 400 people, so hurry and sign up if you want in. Based on past trends, I expect this to be sold out in a couple of weeks.