Going to be anywhere near London on May 22? Come to Cloudstock and hack for recognition and great prizes in the Mini Hack challenge!

We tried out this new format at Cloudstock San Francisco, and it was a hit. We’re defining concise challenges that introduce you to different aspects of our platform’s technology. We have a few giveaways for completion of challenges such as gift cards and Jawbone Jamboxes, as well as schwag such as hoodies.

To participate, all you have to do is two easy steps:

1. Register for Cloudstock London
2. Show up on May

It’s that time of year where we recognize the super stars in our community who advance knowledge and build communities. These are the heros who go the extra mile to share their expertise, stump for features and access, build killer apps, and guide the direction of the community. In short, they are the leaders who shape the Force.com Developer community.

About a year ago was the inception of the program, which has remained exclusive with 18 people currently being called MVPs. As you might know, MVP terms are for one year, so those whose MVP terms are up will… Continue reading

Come to London and join in all the excitement the second time around! That’s right, we’re recreating the magic to bring to London in May, with the same hands-on technical breakout sessions, jump-starts and code reviews with technical experts, prizes to win in the Mini Hacks challenge, and more! If you’re going to be in the neighborhood, sign up now!

We realize not all of you who missed San Francisco can make it to London (I wonder what city will be next?) See what you missed in the event wrap up page. It includes session recordings and resources made available… Continue reading

Last week on Thursday at Cloudstock, for the first time ever we had “Mini Hacks” – offering four small, short hacks involving different technologies. The objective was to get people familiar with using new technology. Sponsors Amazon and Twilio also offered up their own Mini Hack challenges and prizes. Additionally, we raffled a 15″ MacBook Pro among participants who completed two or more Challenges.

Promptly at 6pm we finished hacking and then ran the raffle against the ten participants who completed at least two Mini Hacks. Drumroll please…
Elizabeth Mezias was the raffle winner for the MacBook… Continue reading

Are you registered for Cloudstock yet? If not, and you’re local to Northern California (or will just be in the neighborhood) on March 15th then you should be. Here’s the link, we’ll wait for a moment while you go register.

<tapping foot, whistling>

Okay, all set? Great.

Instead of the usual all-day or multi-day Hackathon, we’re changing up the format a bit and offering a collection of “Mini Hacks” instead. There will be six challenges, each with a different technology focus and skill levels, that should take approximately 30 minutes if you’re working at your… Continue reading

The Streaming API has transitioned from Developer preview to Generally Available! What this means is that any org with API access also has Streaming Access enabled now. To get started, take a look at the following documentation and examples:

• Force.com Streaming API Developer Guide
• Visual Force Example
• Java Example
• Authentication Example

If you have questions or comments, you can post them in the Streaming API discussion board.

Lastly, if you’re local to Northern California or will just be in the neighborhood on March 15, don’t forget to sign up for Cloudstock 2012 at… Continue reading

Ready to take your software development to the next level? All of us are well aware that knowing how to write code is not the same as engineering software. With Agile methodologies dominant in the start-up and emergent technology world today, understanding the process and becoming a practitioner is an essential skill set.

Professors Armando Fox and David Patterson of UC Berkeley (go Bears!) will be leading a FREE, ONLINE five week class teaching Software Engineering As A Service. They will cover Agile methodologies and best-in-class tools, including how to deploy on Heroku, and using tools such as Pivotal… Continue reading

Here it is, folks, the post you’ve been waiting for! Before I reveal the elite few who will be joining the Force.com MVP group, let me preface the announcement by saying that this iteration was particularly tough. We got a very large number of nominations on some really great community members, and spent a lot of time doing research, gathering feedback, and considering the candidates.

As a refresher: There isn’t any formula to guarantee entry to MVP territory, but the qualities that characterize MVP-dom typically include: Technical prowess, standing in the community, leadership, and stewardship. Put another way, MVPs are people who… Continue reading