…or just love some swag! Here’s your chance to win a lot of Microsoft product merchandise – some useful, some fun – and meanwhile spread the word about the giveaway, and the blog. Pretty please?

Avlade has published a useful eBook – Designing for Windows Phone 7 – which includes great content weather you are learning Windows Phone 7 development or training/speaking on the same. Avlade is a content creation and sales enablement partner for technology companies.

The Application Bar, the quick and easy toolbar for your application, is displayed as a row of between one and four icon buttons along the bottom of the phone’s screen. The icon buttons are used to provide users with quick access to an application’s most common tasks.

Mind Dots Software Systems recently conducted a survey on Mobile App Usage Pattern in India. Mind Dots is a two year old startup technology company focused on Web and mobile application development.

Finnish independent game developer Ludibrium Ltd has launched their first Windows Phone 7 game – Manhattan 2020. The game is available world wide for free on the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace.

If you are an iPhone application developer, you could leverage your existing skills, and successfully design and build applications for the Window Phone.

The Windows Phone photos experience supports extensibility points for applications. Developers can build custom applications that look and feel like part of the built-in camera and photos experience.

UIstencils has released Windows Phone 7 stencil kit and sketch pad. Both the products work precisely with each other and have been co-developed with the Windows Phone internal design team at Microsoft.

Fun Infused Games has released a fun, retro gaming tour de force Hypership Out of Control for Windows Phone 7. Hypership is now available on the WP7 Marketplace for free. Sample it for some super retro graphic emulation!

The Zune software works only on Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. However, some tinkering around, and you’ll be able to install the Zune software on Windows Server 2008 R2.