Are you a student who is sitting around this summer bored out of your mind? Why don’t you take all that free time and apply it to a great skills building opportunity?

The Windows Phone team has set aside 50 phones running the latest Mango bits for students who are eager to take on a fun summer project. To get your hands on one of these phones, here’s what you do:

1.) Register for the DreamSpark program, if you haven’t already. The DreamSpark program puts Microsoft software in your hands – for free!. Register now!

2.) Download and install Expression Studio Ultimate and the new Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta 2 Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2 (available free as a member of DreamSpark)

3.) Get the free Sketchflow Template for Windows Phone and create a SketchFlow mock-up of your app idea.

4.) Post the SketchFlow mock-up somewhere online and tweet out the link using the hash tag #WPAppItUp.

The Windows Phone team will review the submissions and will contact the developers with the best ones and send them their very own Mango developer phone!

That’s it!

If you’re new to SketchFlow, there are some great training videos on the Expression Community site.

Since we announced the upcoming Windows Phone “Mango” update last Spring, developers and users alike were clamoring to get their hands on the bits. I’m happy to announce that wish becomes a reality with an early access opportunity for registered developers starting today! What this means is that you, as a registered developer, can download the Beta bits of Windows Phone “Mango” on your *retail* device!

As a registered developer in AppHub, you will soon (if not already) receive an invitation to the Microsoft Connect site. Once you accept the invitation, you will have access to the tools to get you to Windows Phone “Mango”.

As Brandon Watson states in his blog post:

We’re still working out some final kinks in the distribution and support infrastructure for delivering Mango to all of our registered developers around the world, but are inviting the most eager developers to come get Mango today, for their retail devices, as part of our early access program! We expect the full distribution infrastructure to be fully operational in the next couple of weeks. For now, consider yourself a beta tester for the distribution process.

We’ve run this tool internally for a few weeks now and hopefully we were able to work out most of the kinks. That doesn’t mean we worked out all of them. There is a risk that you could encounter “issues”. Do yourself a favor and read the instructions before updating!

To test your apps targeted for Mango, you will need to install the updated Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta 2 Windows Phone SDK 7.1 Beta 2 (also released today). Now you have the opportunity to test your Mango development on your own device!

Enjoy!

For the past year, I have been working with a large number of developers to help get their apps into the Windows Phone Marketplace. I never had the time to try out some of my own ideas. With our recent Windows Phone Accelerator Labs, I had an opportunity to run some ideas by a few people along with some time to throw the code down and see what popped out.

I’m happy to announce that AcrossTheRoom has been released today in the Windows Phone Marketplace.

AcrossTheRoom is a simple app that allows you to share what’s on your mind with friends “Across the Room”. You type in a simple message and customize it through selection of colors, font size, speed and animation type. In V1, the animations that are supported include: Scrolling (right to left), Flash and Slide Down. Over time, I will add more animations.

I’m trying a little experiment in how I offer up this app. The app is currently available for purchase at $.99. However, there is a trial available. When you download the trial app, you will have full access to all of the features of the app. The only difference is that the app will be ad-supported during the trial period. You’re welcome to continually run forever in trial mode (with ads) or pay $.99 to remove the ads. This is an experiment and I’ll have more to say about this later.

For now, feel free to download AcrossTheRoom and share your feedback. I set up a UserVoice site that I will soon incorporate into the app to make it easier for users to share feedback and submit feature requests.

I recently recorded a Screen Cast series for Channel9 with fellow colleague, George Huey, on utilizing the SQL Azure Migration Wizard to help you push your SQL Server database in the SQL Azure cloud. George is the developer and brains behind the SQL Azure Migration Wizard. In this Screen Cast series, George walks us through use cases of where you might want to push your databases to the cloud and how you get there with the SQL Azure Migration Wizard.

SQL Azure Migration Wizard (Part 1): SQL Azure – What is it?

SQL Azure Migration Wizard (Part 2): Using the SQL Azure Migration Wizard

Update: the webcast is available for on-demand viewing. You do need to sign up as part of the AT&T Developer program to view the webcast, however. The good news is that it’s free!

Tomorrow afternoon, in partnership with the AT&T Developer Program, I will be giving an overview of the new Windows Phone “Mango” features for developers. In this talk I will discuss at a high-level the new features in the next major release of the Windows Phone OS. Also, one lucky participant will walk away with a brand new Windows Phone!

What: An Overview of Windows Phone “Mango” for Developers
When: Thursday, May 26th, 2011 @ 12PM CST/10AM PST

You can register at http://developer.att.com.