Job Compass for Windows Phone 7

Need an app to help you make that next career decision?  Look no further than Job Compass, a decision-making app to aid you in your next career move.

Job Compass is powered by extensive data from CareerBuilder, Zillow©, and the U.S. Department of Labor, and is currently only available on *Mango* phones.

Here’s what Job Compass does for you:

• Allows you to search for jobs provided by CareerBuilder (Quick and Advanced options)
• Multiple search criteria including location, company name, pay, industry, employment type, etc.
• Easy browsing for large result sets
• List & Map views of jobs
• Sort and filter your search results
• Save search criteria for future viewing

• Job details
• Includes infsuch as job title, description, requirements, company contact info, etc.
• Save jobs as favorites for offline viewing
• Map of job location with turn-by-turn directions (where available)
• Neighborhood infbased on job location (Homes for sale, etc.). Powered by Zillow©
• Visualized career stats in job-related fields (Yearly/Hourly wages & Employment #’s)
• Share via Email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
• Apply for job via Careerbuilder website
• Live Tiles (Pin job tiles tyour phone)

• Explore Job/Career Trends
• Occupations with highest employment
• Top wage earning occupations (Yearly/Hourly)
• Visual charts texplore trends

• Explore recent Job/Career stats
• Yearly/Hourly Wage Percentile breakdowns
• Visualized career stats

And of course, can’t forget some screenshots and video.

So go grab your copy of Job Compass.

P.S. Job Compass is participating in the Occupational Employment Stats Challenge.  This is a development competition hosted by the Department of Labor.  I would love if you could show your support by casting a vote for my app.  Thank you so much.  Please see the link below.

Amber Central wins Microsoft State/Local Govt App contest

In December,  Microsoft launched the Windows Phone Government Apps Contest for state and local government partners to create and submit apps to be deployed into immediate production.

With the recent launch of the new Windows Phone, this contest provided an excellent opportunity for partners, developers, and hobbyists to showcase their skills by creating a Windows Phone application that meets real world needs of citizens or government customers.

Through this effort, a good mix of apps came about, that facilitates citizen engagement, increase transparency and improve access to government services—all while improving the customer experience for citizens and productivity for government employees.

The final deliberations have been made, and at the 2011 US Public Sector CIO Summit the contest judges announced the winning entries.  50 app entries were accepted, and only 10 were chosen.   And yours truly was on that favored list.

Thanks to Microsoft for hosting this competition, and if you are interested in developing for the Windows Phone 7 platform, Microsoft has launched another apps contest for Health and Life Sciences.  Click here for more info.

SvFx for Windows Phone 7 (Beta)

Are you currently developing for the Windows Phone Platform?  If you are like me, creating sleek UI animations and controls isn’t your greatest gift.  So, enter SvFx controls for the Windows Phone 7.

According to their website:

SvFx for Windows Phone includes all SvFx controls ported to Windows Phone platform. You can use Carousel, TransitionControl, SlideShow and TextAnimation controls to build applications for Windows Phone mobile devices.
About 500 ready animation patterns included.

There are several notes about this release:

• Currently there is no toolbox items registered inside VisualStudio.
• It is not possible to use single “cellbi” XAML namespace prefix.
• This release does not include samples.
• There is no documentation included.

Their development team would like to get your feedback.
Let’s help make SvFx controls better.

See some of the controls in action here.  And if you are a fellow blogger, check out on of their special offers.

SvFx for Windows Phone Beta is now available for free. Please request your free download via support@cellbi.com

Amber Central for the Windows Phone 7

Amber Central for the Windows Phone 7 (a free app) is designed to help in the search for, and safe recovery of missing children.

It includes:

• A real-time feed of active AMBER Alerts from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® (NCMEC) including some information about the victim, when and where they were reported missing, and the type of alert.
• A listing of missing children from NCMEC organized by the states from where they are missing.
• A listing of missing children from NCMEC reported missing in proximity to your current location.
• The ability to share the active AMBER Alerts via Twitter, Facebook, Email, and SMS messages.

If a user has information about a case or has seen one of the missing children, they can press a button and automatically call NCMEC’s toll-free 24-hour hotline 1-800-THE-LOST (800-843-5678), or contact the local authority in charge of the missing child case.
Although this application includes a listing of all active AMBER Alerts, it does not currently actively notify the user when a new AMBER Alert is issued (Live Tile feature coming soon). For active notification, NCMEC encourages all wireless subscribers to register to receive Wireless AMBER Alerts™. Through that initiative, they can sign up at www.wirelessamberalerts.org to receive text message notices about AMBER Alerts that have been issued in their area.
Please consider downloading the Amber Central Application and signing up for Wireless AMBER Alerts. You might be able to help an abducted or missing child come home safely. For other ways that you can get involved, please visit NCMEC’s website here.

Check out the video walk-through of Amber Central below.

I had some great resources that made Amber Central possible.  Many thanks to:

Ramesh - My colleague at work.  For great input and advice.  Extremely great guy to be working with.  He has also successfully published his apps (discountCalc & Health Caddy).

Telerik - For their “Rad” Windows Phone controls.

Laurent Bugnion, Microsoft MVP (Silverlight) creator of MVVMLight, a Model-View-View-Model framework for WPF, Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 applications. Always enjoy working with MVVMLight, AND

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® (NCMEC) – For the great Amber Alert Feeds

Easy Diary for Windows Phone 7

I have always wanted to get into the mobile space.  Particularly with developing apps.  So when the Windows Phone 7 was announced, as a newbie Silverlight developer (a year ago), I thought this would be a great chance to do so.  And so, I dove in.

The Win Phone 7, a Silverlight & XNA developer platform makes it fairly easy for current Silverlight/XNA developers to transition into the mobile space.  And I have to say, it’s been very exciting.

Easy Diary, a diary/journal application, was my first (of many apps to come) for the Windows Phone 7.  It gives potential users a quick and easy way to record moments throughout their day.  They can also connect with popular social sites like Twitter & Facebook, and display their online activity as part of their diary.  The app took about two weeks of total work, and was released to the Windows Marketplace a few months ago prior to the release of the phone. 

I will soon be posting more info on my current and future apps on my site here.  In the meantime, you can click here to view my app in the marketplace (Zune software required).  There was also a small article posted about my app here.

While I would like to say I figured everything out on my own while developing my app, that just won’t be right.  So I have to give credit where credit is due.  See below for credit(s), resources, and screenshots of the app.

Credit(s)

Laurent Bugnion created a very light, flexible and versatile MVVM framework for the Windows Phone 7 (dubbed MVVM Light), Silverlight, and WPF.  It made my life very easy while developing this app and it will come in very handy in the many apps to come.

Resources

There are many valuable resources pertaining to developing apps for the Windows Phone.  Ranging from beginner to expert levels.  Here are just a few of them:

• Channel 9 Win Phone 7 series for absolute beginners
• Windows Phone 7 Training Course
• Windows Phone 7 Jump Start (Channel 9)



Screenshots

There are currently over 3,000 apps in the windows marketplace, and it’s going to be very exciting to see many talented developers come up brilliant ideas and even more great apps in times to come.

Good move Microsoft…good move.

Windows Phone 7 Launch Event

Scott Hanselman announced a contest where you can win a free Windows Phone 7.  Not having had the chance to use a developer phone, it would be an added bonus if I actually won one.  Being that I have never won anything in such “contests”, I figured what do I have to lose besides a few minutes.  So here goes.

P.S. Get all your info here for Windows Phone 7 (wp7) launch events.