Microsoft announced the expansion of the DreamSpark program to include high school students worldwide.  DreamSpark was originally available only to University students.  Microsoft DreamSpark is a program that provides no-cost access to Microsoft designer and development tools and training for verified high school and university students around the world, to support and advance their learning and skills through technical design, technology, math, science and engineering activities. This program equips tomorrow’s developers with the professional tools to inspire and create today.

https://www.dreamspark.com

Interested students should see Mr. H

Well, my wife and I  thought we bought a Prius at the end of June….. $500 deposit and signed purchase agreement MSRP on a Package 2 2008 Prius. We were told that there was a 4-6 week wait, middle of August at the latest, OK, no problem. August came and went, batteries not available, I get it, OK, no problem. Our car would be here between Sept. 9 and Sept. 15! Since the dealer gets deliveries mid-week, I called today. Our car is not there, but is due on Sept. 22. Huh? That’s because they are not 2008 anymore, they are 2009. No changes in the car except: New model year and $600 more. Will Toyota honor the price they gave me? No. The dealer claimed that their price went up $400. Ok, what if I pay $400 more than the 2008? No. Besides being just plain wrong; is this legal? At best, it is terrible PR.
I thought I bought a Prius in June. In September, I’m not so sure.

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses.php

This is the page for Berkeley webcasts. They’re video webcasts for a lot of Berkeley courses. There are four that you can watch for spring 08, one of which I was in (CS61C – machine structures). For your students, I highly recommend CS61A and CS61B – the former uses the Scheme language and teaches lots of high-level ideas (using the Purple Book – The Structure and Function Of Computer Programs – as a textbook), while the second uses Java and teaches about data structures and algorithms. CS61C is probably beyond the scope of a lot of your students, as it deals with C, assembly and hardware design. If you look at past semesters (which is accessible at the top-right), there are sometimes other classes available, but again, they may be beyond the scope of your students, as most are upper-division and one is even graduate-level.

One of the most persistent problems faced by all developers is how to transfer knowledge between team members. For example, how does an architect indicate intent in code for subsequent developers to build on?

It gives me great pleasure to invite you to a special upcoming Application Factory live webinar series by Ravi Kumar, CodeGear JBuilder’s Principal Architect.

The webinar will take place, twice each day, on May 27 and June 5.  Ravi will be live online from Scotts Valley presenting and demoing during each webinar.  Ravi will also take your questions during the webinar.

The dates, times, and registration links are:

5/27, 8am PT (15:00 GMT) – http://borland.interwise.com/borland/iSeminar/MH8516/
5/27, 4pm PT (23:00 GMT) – http://borland.interwise.com/borland/iSeminar/VB5866/
6/5, 8am PT (15:00 GMT) – http://borland.interwise.com/borland/iSeminar/VV7464/
6/5, 4pm PT (23:00 GMT)  – http://borland.interwise.com/borland/iSeminar/CN9482/

If you can’t make any of the webinars, we also have Application Factories screencasts available on the CDN site at
http://dn.codegear.com/article/37808

Sincerely,

David Intersimone “David I”
Vice President of Developer Relations and Chief Evangelist CodeGear davidi@codegear.com

Application Factories: An Application-driven Development Model
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Description:

To get a perspective, let’s step back and look at software development today. Over the last few decades a ton of applications has been written and thanks to open source, a large part of it is in the public domain. The capability as well as the complexity of applications has continued to grow exponentially. Most applications are developed in teams, often geographically distributed. Most applications have evolved over a number of years with many nuances, patterns and best practices very specific to each application, and a tremendous flux of personnel leave their fingerprints through the evolution of the application. The major challenge in application development today is to factor in aapplication-specific information.

One of the most persistent problems faced by all developers is how to transfer knowledge between team members. For example, how does an architect indicate intent in code for subsequent developers to build on?

Join Ravi Kumar, CodeGear JBuilder’s Principal Architect, in this live webinar introduces Application Factories with real world examples of this powerful development paradigm and how to effectively build reusable software assets effectively.

At this Webinar you will learn how to:
Consuming Application Factory modules
Working with Tags and Diagrams
Producing Application Factory modules
Automation within an Application Factory using Scripting

May 27, 8am PT (15:00 GMT) – http://borland.interwise.com/borland/iSeminar/MH8516/
May 27, 4pm PT (23:00 GMT) – http://borland.interwise.com/borland/iSeminar/VB5866/
June 5, 8am PT (15:00 GMT) – http://borland.interwise.com/borland/iSeminar/VV7464/
June 5, 4pm PT (23:00 GMT)  – http://borland.interwise.com/borland/iSeminar/CN9482/

Check these out this summer!

Additional Upcoming CodeGear JBuilder and Java online webinars
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Americas – http://www.codegear.com/webinars

Applications open one day only: April 9, 2008

For those in the U.S., Microsoft is cutting prices only on the higher-end versions of Vista, and only for the upgrade version used to move from XP or another copy of Vista. The suggested price for Vista Ultimate drops to $219 from $299, while Home Premium falls to $129, from $159.

 More at http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9882510-56.html