.NET on the Net May 1-7: Popfly gets some new tools

Microsoft has been quite busy trying to figure out what to do with the Yahoo situation, so there has been little in the way of news from Redmond. So, I’m taking this opportunity to point out some other recent Microsoft developments that might help you all out.

It seems that every developer I know, myself included, has some idea for the next great web application. Fortunately a few new things from the world of Microsoft development might be able to help. Popfly has added a game creator, which might help you budding game developers get a breakthrough. John Montgomery has some information about the new game creator.

If you’re not really sure what you want to make, then Cayra might be able to help out. It’s a mind mapping application; a tool to help facilitate brainstorming, concept mapping and other critical tasks for developing your brilliant software idea. While Cayra isn’t new, it has been generating a buzz recently and a nice example of .NET 3.0 in action.

Finally, Microsoft has been making some nice additions to their Startup Center. The site provides some good resources for writing a business plan and planning the various aspects of a startup.

Before you build that next great web app, you’re going to need some skills, so here are this week’s code examples and tutorials. If you’re looking for an easy way to pull Flickr images into your app, a new version of the LINQ.Flickr library was released on codeplex. Brad Abrams wrote a solid tutorial on leveraging several ASP.NET providers with SilverLight. Finally, 13 videos from MIX 2008 were posted over on asp.net.

That’s all for now; stay tuned next week for more.