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This Week’s Coffee and Codes / Deployment Clinics

Coffee and Code: espresso cup sitting among coffee beansCreative Commons photo by “Demion”.

Join us as we make ourselves available to you so you can try out a real live Windows Phone 7 device and see how your apps work on the real thing. We’ve got a couple of Coffee and Codes and one deployment clinic this week:

Wednesday, September 29 in Montreal (Coffee and Code)

Coffee and Code is all about us spending the day working out of a cafe so that you can find us, join us, talk, ask questions and get to know us better. These days, it’s also about Windows Phone 7, but we’re happy to talk and answer questions about anything. Please drop by, whether it’s for five minutes or five hours!

Join “les bons gars”, Developer Advisor Christian Beauclair and Regional Director Guy Barrette, who’ll be holding a Coffee and Code at Le Café de la Cité on 75 Queen. They put on a professional appearance, but we all know qu’ils vont ecrire des «fart apps»! They’ll be doing it in both official languages: Silverlight and XNA!

Thursday, September 30 in Montreal (Deployment Clinic)

Deployment clinics are a little more formal than Coffee and Codes. You can book an exclusive timeslot to deploy and test apps to a Windows Phone 7 device, and there’s one taking place all day at Microsoft’s Montreal office (2000 Avenue McGill College, 4th floor) on the 30th. Email Christian Beauclair to reserve a time slot.

Thursday, September 30 in Toronto (Coffee and Code)

I’ll be at the Starbucks at King and Yonge (4 King Street West) this Thursday from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with a Windows Phone 7 for you to play with and deploy your apps to. I’ll be at or near the big table in the back — come on down!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Microsoft’s Developer Guidance Maps

Developer Guidance Maps: photo of a paper city map

When I took this developer evangelism job and returned to the Microsoft platform almost two years ago (after an eight-year hiatus) one of the first things I had to deal with was the sheer size of it. Even people who’ve been working in a certain area of the platform get lost when they venture out to other parts (say, when a desktop developer decides to give web development a try).

If you’re thinking about exploring unfamiliar parts of the Microsoft platform and don’t know where to start, try using one of the Developer Guidance Maps. Like city maps, they give you an at-a-glance view of the “lay of the land” and make certain useful “landmarks” – different types of documentation, key topics on developing for a specific technology and notes on features you need to know about – easy to find.

Built by the people at Microsoft’s Connect Innovation Center, they’re using the Developer Guidance Maps as a way to model, prototype and test ways to find, organize and share guidance for developers in a meaningful way. I find them pretty useful, both for myself as well as places to point developers with questions.

The Developer Guidance Maps break down the platform into a number of subject hubs:

You can also choose to cruise the Developer Guidance Maps by technology:

And you can also go through them via resource type:

Give the Developer Guidance Maps a look!

For more information, see:

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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If Art Galleries Ran Like the Internet

Painting that reads "This painting is not available in your country"Found via Certified Bullshit Technician.

The painting is titled This Painting is Not Available in Your Country and was created by Paul Mutant (2010, acrylic on canvas, 12” by 10”). You can see more in Paul Mutant’s Flickr photostream.

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

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“Azure in Action” eBook for $15

Cover of "Azure in Action"

For today only (September 26, 2010): Manning is selling the ebook version of Azure in Action for a mere US$15, which converts to CAD$15.36 as of this writing. The ebook is a MEAP book – that’s Manning Early Access Program – which means that it’s an in-progress book. Purchasers of MEAP books get updates and the final version as part of the deal.

To get the deal on Azure in Action, use the discount code dotd0926 in the Promotional Code box when checking out.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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TWC9: VB for WP7, ASP.NET Vulnerability, WCF Services, String Formatting Cheat Sheet and More!

Get Microsoft Silverlight

Don’t have Silverlight? Download it here or download the video in High Quality WMV, Medium Quality WMV, MP4 or MP3 formats.

thisweekonchannel9Featured on the latest edition of This Week on Channel 9, the summary of the most interesting videos and news on Microsoft’s Channel 9 site:

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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DemoCamp Toronto 27: Wednesday, October 6th

Number 27 already?

DemoCamp is “show and tell” for the bright lights of the local tech and startup scene, where they get to talk about their current projects in front of a group of their peers. Although its format has undergone many changes through the years, the spirit remains the same:

  • An emphasis on demos rather than marketing pitches
  • A preference for showing working projects in action over slides
  • The idea that it’s important to build a sense of community among local techies and entrepreneurs

fred wilson

Special Guest: Not Just a VC, but “A VC”

There’s a big-name guest coming to this DemoCamp: New York City-based venture capitalist Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures. You might have read his blog, A VC. (In light of the recent tech media kerfuffle called AngelGate, this should make for a very interesting Q&A session.)

Here are the details of DemoCamp 27:

  • The Date: Wednesday, October 6
  • The Time: 11:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. Eastern
  • The Location: To be determined
  • The Price: $15

The idea behind DemoCamp has always been to make it as inexpensive as possible and to charge only enough money to be able to recoup costs such as paying for the venue. $15 is a steal.

For more information and to register for the event, see this entry in the DemoCamp blog.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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So That’s What We Do

From a textbook on learning Spanish:

Excerpt from a Spanish textbookFound via Reddit. Click the picture to see it at full size.

The text:

To ask what people do for a living

¿A qué se dedica el señor Machado?

What does Mr. Machado do?

To respond

Es programador. Sabe diseñar páginas Web mejor que nadie.

He is a programmer. He knows how to design web pages better than anyone.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.