Silverlight exposure at the evil empire
Thanks to some great folks I get to know in my Facebook module (yes NUS actually has a cool Facebook development module in case you are wondering), I got a chance to attend a week of workshops at Microsoft office. It was a nice break from the boring internship and an opportunity to infiltrate the "evil empire" to see what badness they are up to...
Indeed they are up to no good. Through the workshop I got exposed to a harmful radiation known as Silverlight and got mutated and learn how to do cool things that look like this Hard Rock Cafe site. In fact with prolong exposure to Silverlight, knowing how to create this wickedly awesome video site could be a reality!
Our trainer Apurva is really amazing. Can really sense his dedication in sharing his love of technology with us. Not only did he guide us, he took the time to bring in other folks to share with us some really amazing stuff that they are doing. If you are willing to taste the poison from the evil empire, here are some of the cool evil stuffs that I like to share with you.
DreamSpark: For those who love open source software just because it is free, you will be glad to know that the evil empire has free software too! If you are still studying in any of tertiary institute, you can download all the cool development software at absolutely no cost at the DreamSpark site. You are not looking at some half fuck release that cripple after 30 days usage or some crappy lite version that does not do anything useful. Instead what you are getting is a complete version of the software.
BizSpark: If you are aspiring to build next multimillion dollar Internet startup like Youtube or Facebook and need some development software, BizSpark is your poision. Drink it and you get all licensed software you need to create your startup for free. Of course that is not applicable once you are already making more than 1 million US$ in revenue. But if you are making that money, don't tell me you can't afford to pay for the tools that brought you the fortune?
With all the infrastructure in place for you at no cost, the only thing left is whether you have a great idea and the courage to pursue it. Do also check out the following links to get an idea on what other wicked stuffs they are working on.
Azure
Live Services
DeepZoom
Silverlight
Imagine Cup
Interop
It had been a hell lot of fun for the past week. It was really great exploring all these new exciting technologies and talking to folks who are so passionate about the things that they do. If all this is consider evil, hell, I would love to be on the dark side.
