MICROSOFT ACTIVE PROFESSIONAL 2010

Yesterday I received, on behalf of MSFT Technet & MSDN Team for Argentina and Uruguay, the distinction of “Microsoft Active Professional 2010”.

The award is granted to those professionals who are considered to be among the top 5% of most active contributors in the community.

Thanks a lot to Microsoft for honoring me with this award, again!

Cheers!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

XNA/DIRECTX MVP ONCE AGAIN

The new year 2010 has started with great news for me: Microsoft has granted me the XNA/DirectX MVP award once again!

It’s truly an honor to be an MVP. Thanks MSFT!

Cheers!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

OUT OF OFFICE

Hey guys, I will be "out of office" from today for a week or so.

For those of you who usually read this blog thanks a lot for you time and comments.

Don’t forget to check the new “Developer Talk Series” –by members of the XNA Game Studio Product Team, starting on January 2010!!

See you next year ;)

Happy holidays and cheers!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

MICROSOFT ACTIVE PROFESSIONAL 2009

A couple of days ago I received, on behalf of MSFT Technet & MSDN Team for Argentina and Uruguay, the distinction of “Microsoft Active Professional”.

The award is granted to those professionals who are considered to be among the top 5% of most active contributors in the community.

Thanks a lot to Microsoft for honoring me with this award!

Cheers!
~Pete

> Link to Spanish version.

YES! I'M BACK

Well, after almost two weeks I've finally returned to Montevideo (Uruguay).

I've spent the last few days catching up to get back on track a.s.a.p. So I guess next Monday will be the new beginning of normal working days.

My first MVP Summit was really something and visiting Vancouver is always great. Thus, I hope to repeat the experience next year.

Cheers!
~Pete

-> Link to Spanish version.

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE

I'm really excited: I'm going to the MVP Summit for the first time. It's great to meet with both, other MVPs plus the members of the XNA Team.

Again, as I did last year after the Gamefest, I'll be visiting my sister and brother-in-law in Vancouver for a few days after the Summit. So, don't expect technical articles until I return :)

Best,
~Pete

-> Link to Spanish version.

TASK COMPLETED!

I have finished with the task of translating a selection of articles from the archive to Spanish.

Thus, from now on, everything goes back to normal here, so you may guess that new articles are coming shortly.

Stay tuned!
~Pete

-> Link to Spanish version.

NEW MIRROR BLOG

Well, like it or not, I'm back from my holidays.

This year the summer in Uruguay has been great so far for those of us who enjoy outdoor activities, so it's really tempting to take a few more days off ;)

Following a smart recommendation of my MVP Lead, I'm opening a new "mirror" blog in spanish, so from now on, every article will be published in both, English and Spanish (duh!).

Thus, at the end of each article a cross-reference link to the same article (in the remaining language) will be available. In the following days, I will be publishing in the new blog a selection of articles from the archive translated to spanish.

I will also be modifying a little bit the design of this blog, specially the links section, so stay tune.

~Pete

Article in Spanish (this is an example).

OUT OF OFFICE

I will be "out of office" from DateTime.Now() until the end of the first week of January '09.

For those of you who usually read this blog thanks a lot for you time, comments and private messages.

As you may know, the results from Ziggyware's lastest article compo have been recently published so congrats to the winners (many thanks to all of you who submitted an article to the competition).

Before I leave, I must tell you: don't foget to check out the games been published on the community games channel on the XBox Live! There are great games being released as we speak which are quite fun to play ... my favorite so far is ... well, I'll tell you after the break.

Happy holidays and cheers!
~Pete

BLOGGING AGAIN!

Wow! It's been a while since my last post here. The reason: getting my life back to normal after my visit to Seattle/Vancouver.

A lot has happened since my last post. I'm still creating my own engine with XNA 3.0 (the latter is now out in beta), I submitted my demo game for the DBP compo, and we witnessed how a "ninja cat" approaches.

About my entry, well, it was created in 10 days ... the last 10 days before the submission deadline! I'm proud of the result but not proud at all about the code ... that implementation goes against of all my believes and practices in software design. But, it had to be done on time no matter what if I wanted to enter the compo. Why did I start so late? Well, that's a loooong story (maybe I'll blog about it some other time).

Man! There's a lot of great entries this year that really show off the power of XNA. If you want to take a look at them just go to http://video.msn.com/ and search for videos tagged, say, DBP? ... or "Dream Build Play", thanks Lawrence ;)

My favorites are ... well, I'll let you know after the results are in :-D

Ok, I think that's it for now but stay tuned since more is comming next!

BACK HOME

Yeap, after two weeks abroad, my wife and I got finally back home.

Visiting Vancouver for the first time has been a great experience for us. The city is great and people seem not to know the word "stress". The only minus, at least for us: everything is expensive there. But, what the heck, we were on vacation ...

Seattle's gamefest: as I said in my previous post, a great experience. The talks were very instructive. Sometimes it was hard to pick the ones to attend, but I'm not omnipresent, right? In this sense, I hardly walked around the city, but at least "I've been in the Space Needle".

Overall, some quality time. I hope to repeat it next year.

Cheers!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Hi,

I think I'll be busy tomorrow so I'll post it today: I whish you all a Merry Christmas!

~Pete

[Btw, thanks to all who've voted so far ... until yesterday 25 votes and a score of 4.89 out of 5, today up to 26 votes and down to 4.68 ... sigh!]

GOT IT!

I've finally downloaded and properly installed XNA GS 2.0. Yeah!

Having done that, I've decided to redesign my XNA-based engine from scratch, and in turn, my "never-ending" entry for the first DBP contest.

Meaning? Things are going to change a lot around here.

Thus, from this year-end and on I'll be posting comments regarding the development of my engine and games, showing pictures and so on (of course, eventually, I'll be also commenting on news -published by other sources- as well as doing some off-topic posts ... not on a regular basis but as exceptions).

My goal: to finish an entry for the main DBP compo.

Therefore, for news regarding XNA, pay a visit -as usual- to Ziggyware (you know it: an excellent site to get news, articles, tutorials, code snippets, watch videos and such).

Well, guys, I'll be blogging again soon.

Cheers!
Pete

[Now, if only I could find my old code ... ;) ]

HELLO WORLD!

After many weeks of being unplugged I have "almost" returned to the XNA community. As you can imagine from my previous post, I have been very busy lately.

Having moved to my new home now -which has been and still is experiencing an extreme make over (I mean it, all over)- getting my new DSL connection from the local ISP (finally) and fighting with my main desktop computer -meaning, my 64bit processor has passed away, sigh!-, I have managed to get online once again and join you guys in the excitement of knowing in the following weeks who will be chosen for the final round to win the DBP contest.

By now, I'm using my wife's computer to check the news, so don't expect too many posts until I get a new processor.

Anyway, so much to read, new content, v2 coming out these holidays, so let's start.

BTW, thanks to all of you who congratulated me for getting married either by posting a comment on this blog a/o sending me a private message to my email address ... ;)

Now, back to my ultracave ... Pete's out ...

I'M GETTING MARRIED IN THE MORNING ...

... as the song goes ... well, actually, not tomorrow but this Friday 25th.

Yeap! After many years of being the last man standing, the ultraplayer, the ultrabachelor, ... or at least in my dreams ... my fiancee Andrea and I have decided to say "yes, I do". The big step ...

Thus, as you may suppose I -in fact we both- have been (and still are) dealing with all the details of the wedding day, party, honey moon these days -plus a "extreme make over" of my near future home- so that's why I may have seemed a bit "distant" to the self-proclaimed task of reporting XNA-related news. Sorry about that, but you know, I've been really busy ... real life ... responsibilities ...

So what does this mean for my blog? Only that I'll be out for the next 4 or 5 weeks, so in the meantime, until I come back, don't worry 'cause you can count on Mykres and Ziggy.

Thanks guys for supporting this site and see you all when I get back. I need some vacation ...

BTW, I cannot go without giving some breaking news: we're all aware of the already released (Benny's) and 3 upcoming books on XNA (check Ziggy's site), but there are two new books to add to that latter list:

• Microsoft XNA Unleashed (Hardcover), and
• Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Xna Game Studio Express in 24 Hours: Complete Starter Kit.

Ok, guys, see ya.

Pete's out!

SOME PROBLEMS WITH MY DESKTOP

Yes, my desktop went no-no last weekend, ... again. Since I have no yet found a restoring system that works well on a WinXP Pro x64 OS -I mean a complete one, not the application that comes packed with the OS, I'm manually reinstalling almost everything, or at least the things that I need most.

Well, other than that, sorry for being late with the news post.

One good note: along with other books, I've receive Benny's. So I will start reading it as soon as I can and maybe post a full review (why not?).

Cheers!

THAT'S ALL FOLKS!

This is pretty much it for today!

I think I have posted a great bunch of news, some from this last weekend, some from today, but still news.

I gotta rest now, and watch for my daily activities (I need to "live", you know? I mean, out from the XNA ring).

Hope you have found the news' posts useful.

'till tomorrow.

CATCHIN' UP

Happy Easter, everyone!

After a short week-end off with my family the pimping nightmare is back ... sorry, folks ... :)

I'll be mainly catching up with all the news related to XNA today so please be patient while I publish all the posts since you know I like to publish one post per news item what takes a lot of time (and Mykres Space does a great job with the summary-styled news report).

So, enough talk and let's get started!

I'LL BE OUT FOR THE EASTER'S WEEKEND

Hi guys! I know I've been a bit hidden in my ultracave these days but as you may have guessed I just taking this week-end off to enjoy Easter with my family.

Still, I'm aware that there have been some great news lately so next Monday check out this blog for the cascade of news I'm going to publish.

In the meantime, I leave you with 2 great links:

• John's list of links to XNA resources (thanks for " ... My favorite XNA News Blog ...").
• Abi's easter bunny ... ;)

Cheers!

[Also check the new design of my blog: on top part of the page you will find a dynamic news banner and on the left side you will see some random links to YouTube's videos related to game design, XNA GSE, xBOX360 and so on ...]

THANKS TO THE BLOGGER SUPPORT TEAM

I'd like to thank the Blogger Support Team for resolving the bug that had been recently affecting the "Blog Archive Widget" (at least, in my case).

If you'd tried to browse my post from the "Blog Archive" panel located at the right side of this page, you should have noticed that the labels were mixed up a little bit.

Well, everything is fine now, so I believe I must express my gratitude to the Team: "Thanks guys!" ...

;)