Wakey wakey! It’s ime to shine, and yank open those curtains to your penthouse…. wait! did I say penthouse?!

That’s right kids, a new competition hosted by Microsoft is giving you and 5 mates a chance to win a penthouse of your choice (whichever city) FREE for 7 MONTHS! (Rent up to $1500 per week) And in the spirit of all geeks, loaded with Dell notebooks, Xbox game packs, and HTC Windows Phones!

All you have do is:

1. Be a university student
2. Get Facebook, if you miraculously don’t have it  O.O
3. Become a fan of The Student House: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/TheStudentHouse?v=app_4949752878&ref=mf
4. Go to the “Win A Share House” tab and sign up
5. Run around your uni and show people how much you luuuuuvvvv Windows 7!

It’s that simple!

And one more thing, just make sure that if you DO win that penthouse, don’t forget to leave a space there for me!  XD

Albert moovin out! =]

Registration is open from 10:30 to 11am, but trains take ~2hrs to get there, so be sure you know what train you need.

Let me know if you are going to the camp!

-Michael

It’s been a while since I made my last post, so it’s about time I got back up to date with UTSMSP.

Microsoft is holding career presentations to broadcast their Internship and Full Time positions in Microsoft for students in Business (for marketing, sales and services), and Engineering/IT (software). 

These presentations will be held in UNSW (as if not hold it at UTS!  D=) on two separate occassions for the two different areas:

• For Business students:

Wednesday 26th August, 2009

1:00-2:00PM

The Roundhouse, UNSW

• For FEIT students:

Tuesday, 25th August, 2009

6:00-7:00PM

UNSW, K17 Seminar Room

Don’t forget to bring your CV with you for your chance to win tons of great prizes!

There will be free food provided at the event.

If you have any questions, contact Lisa Harris at Lisabar@microsoft.com

The idea is simple, think up an idea for a Windows Mobile app, make a prototype, and submit it!

You could win one of two developer mentorships, and a share in over $10,000 in prizes.

The really cool prizes include a full pass to AU TechEd 2009 (on the Gold Coast ). Yes the one that includes the HP Mini Notebook free. You also get one-on-one time with a MVP mentor at TechEd, and everything is paid for. Flights, accommodation for 3 nights, all covered.

It’s easy enough to enter, just send your entry to codemgld@microsoft.com and include the following information:

• Full name, contact email and phone number
• The name of your application
• The genre that your app fits into (List is on the website)
• A 300 word (or less) description of the app

In your description be sure to include how it operates, what type of device it would target (touch etc), if it would be free or paid, and why you think someone would want to download/buy your application.

Be sure to also attach your Visual Studio project, including the code for your application prototype, and a video or slideshow that demonstrates your application running in the Windows Mobile 6.5 emulator. (or on a real device if you have one)

If your video is greater than 8MB in size, just send the information and the code, and the competition organisers will contact you to setup a Skydrive location through which you can submit the video.

Be sure to check out the rules and category listing at the Official Competition Website.

Good Luck!

The ODSTs will be dropping into Cockatoo Island, Sydney next Thursday (6/8/09) and they will be bringing the famous WETA Warthog, as well as a bungie staffer along with them to show off the game to a select group of people.

Microsoft Australia is offering students an extra chance to attend, by providing two VIP tickets to the event.

To enter, simply send 65 words (max) that explain why you think Halo is the best First Person Shooter ever released.

Send your entries to i-karoes@microsoft.com by Tuesday 4th August, 5:00pm AEST, and be sure to include your student number, and the name of the institution you are enrolled in.

The best 2 entries will win the tickets, and will be notified via email on the 5th of August.

For further information, and contest rules, visit http://blogs.msdn.com/msozacademic/archive/2009/07/31/win-a-vip-ticket-to-the-halo-3-odst-bungie-event-cockatoo-island-in-sydney.aspx

Get your entries in, and good luck!

The theme this year is the same as last year, the UN Millennium goals. So you can either continue the project that you started last year, or choose from one of the many problems that need to be solved.

Simply head over to http://imaginecup.com and read all about the competition, previous winners, the theme, and then register for IC 2010.

You can find out more about the UN goals here, and decide whether you want to sign up for the Software Design, Game Design or Digital Media category. (Other categories open in August 2009)

Recently students gathered in Cairo, Egypt to compete for the 2009 trophy, and this also marked the first year that the Millennium goals were used as the theme for the competition. You can find the winners here, and some interesting information about this years competition:

Worldwide Competitors:

• 300,000 registered
• 59,000 students competed from 142 countries
• 148 finalist teams

Comparing these numbers to previous years, the number of registrations and finalist teams have increased dramatically, so lets work to make 2010 even better!

Let me know if you register, and good luck!

To get started, head to the website and read through the instructions. Follow tengrand_IE8 on Twitter for clues, and start searching. Clues will begin appearing on Friday, at random times throughout the day. Find the treasure, and you get $10,000, simple!

We’ve seen the US laptop hunter ads, and now the Windows team have brought them to Australia, and made them even better. If you listen to Nova 969 (or for our Melbourne readers, Nova 100) in the mornings from 8:30am, you will get clues to find the “Laptop Hunter” in the city. (more clues on the website)

Find the Laptop Hunter, tell them that “I can buy a great laptop for under $1300” and you will be taken on a shopping trip to find that laptop, which you then get to keep, for free!

So there are a couple more chances, this lasts until Friday 12th June, but if you are lucky, you could pick yourself up a laptop for $0.

If you live in Brisbane, then wait until next week when you can take advantage of this same promotion through Nova 1069. (16th-20th June)

As I announced recently, the annual Dream Build Play XNA game development competition is running again this year, with up to $75,000 in cash prizes to grab. As of writing the competition has been open to registrations for a little over a week, so I hope everyone has gone and registered, and started developing their winning game using the free trial of XNA Creators Club provided by MS upon registration.

This year they will be enabling team registration, allowing you to identify team members and better handle any goodies that are given out upon submission. Last year they gave a free premium subscription to whoever submitted the game, which meant teams only got 1 subscription. This will be opened later in April, so keep an eye on the website.

This year the prizes consist of the following:

1. $40,000
2. $20,000
3. $10,000
4. $5,000

Along with the cash, all four winners will get the potential opportunity to receive an Xbox Live Arcade publishing contract, and sell their game to the millions of registered Xbox Live users.

DBP is a competition where individuals or teams compete against each other to create the best game they possibly can for the Xbox 360 using XNA Game Studio. This year the competition will open registration on the 6th of April, and the submission period will start in June, with the final deadline in August.

Prizes for the 2009 edition of DBP have not been announced yet (check back on the 6th), however based off previous years, they will most likely be hefty cash prizes for the top 3, including some nice PCs, numerous Creators Club memberships for the team or whoever you want, as well as Xbox 360 Elites, and to top it all off, the best game will most likely get a full Xbox Live Arcade offer, to finish the game (with achievements!) and sell it on XBLA.

Plus, just to help you out (although students don’t need it), every registration will get a free 12 month Creators Club trial membership, so the game can be tested on an Xbox 360. (Requires Xbox Live Gold to test multiplayer)

Remember that Imagine Cup also has a Game Design category, so if you can think of an idea that satisfies the entry requirements for Imagine Cup 2010, you can enter your game into both competitions, so watch out for more information about entries for Imagine Cup 2010 on this blog if you are interested.

So start forming your teams, think of an innovative idea, and get development rolling. (You can start before the registration date)