Creative Commons photo by Angela MacIsaac. Click to see the original.
Seven cities down, one to go. This year has been our biggest TechDays tour, spanning the cities of Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Halifax, Ottawa, Montreal, Winnipeg and this week, Calgary. Among other things, it’s the city that Developer Evangelist John Bristowe calls home.
All of us are looking forward to seeing everyone there, especially Damir!
Most of the DPE team (including boss-man John Oxley) are in Winnipeg this week to run TechDays. In between my responsibilities as the guy in charge of the developer sessions, I’ve been running around snapping photos and thought I’d share some with you. Here are my pics of the presenters in both developer tracks, "Developing for Three Screens and the Cloud” and “Optimizing the Development Process”, with some extra shots of the hallways between sessions.
We had Mike Diehl presenting Real-World Patterns for Cloud Computing:
Meanwhile, in the “Local Flavours” track, D’Arcy Lussier talked about Windows Phone 7 development:
And over in the “Three Screens” room, Kelly Cassidy showed his audience how to Jump into Silverlight and Become Immediately Productive.
For the second session of the day, Mark Arteaga shared his Windows Phone 7 knowledge in the first of a two-part series of sessions on Windows Phone.
And in the back were these troublemakers:
Out in the hallway, Rick Claus and Damir Bersinic chatted with Jason Miller:
Over in the “Optimizing” track, we had Aaron Kowall dropping TFS science on his audience:
Rick and I walked the lunch audience through Windows Phone 7’s features:
After lunch, Miguel Carrasco showed people how to Build Web Sites Fast Using Visual Studio 2010:
Should “Tron Guy” ever retire, I nominate David Wesst to take his place:
Here’s Dylan Smith, talking about Branching and Merging Practices:
Dylan was followed by Bruce Johnson, who covered Getting Your Return on Investment with Microsoft .NET Framework 4
David, who was still wearing the PowerGlove, talking about Windows Azure:
Amir Barylko covered the Top Ten Mistakes in Unit Testing:
And at the same time, my coworker John Bristowe presented Visual Studio 2010 Tips and Tricks:
We Microsoft Canada evangelist types love a good cause, and we can’t think of a better cause than feeding people, especially during the holiday season. That’s why we’ve had food drop-off boxes at all TechDays events, including TechDays Winnipeg, which takes place tomorrow and Wednesday. Bring a non-perishable food item to TechDays, and we’ll collect it and give it to Winnipeg Harvest, the local food bank.
Better still, we’ll sweeten the deal: if you drop food off at our donation box, we’ll give you the much-in-demand “I Have Standards” IE9 t-shirt! Do some good, and get some swag – that’s a pretty nice deal, isn’t it?
Wikimedia Commons photo courtesy of "Wpg Guy". Click to see the original.
This week, the gang and I will be in Winnipeg for TechDays (Tuesday, December 7th and Wednesday December 8th) to bring the knowledge from TechEd North America 2010, MIX10 and PDC and to catch up with our developer, IT Pro and manager friends.
If you’ve been meaning to meet the “field specialists” on Microsoft Canada’s Developer and Platform Evangelism team, TechDays Winnipeg is the perfect time and place to do so, because all the evangelists will be there:
We’re also holding a Coffee and Code on Thursday, December 9th at the Second Cup at 100 Osborne Street from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.. Come on down, meet up with me, talk Windows Phone 7 or anything else that comes to mind!
We’re looking forward to seeing you there!
We’re in Halifax this week for TechDays! Here’s what we’re up to this week:
Watch this blog for updates and goings-on!
TechDays, Microsoft Canada’s cross-country technical conference for developers and IT pros, heads to Halifax next week! So far, we’ve been to Vancouver, Edmonton and Toronto, and now it’s time to head out east.
TechDays Halifax will take place on Tuesday, November 2 and Wednesday, November 3 at the World Trade Centre (1800 Argyle Street). As with TechDays in every other city, there’s a lot going on:
See you next week!
It’s going to be a busy week for Yours Truly…
On Monday, I’ll be helping out at the Windows Phone Deployment Clinic at Microsoft Canada HQ in Mississauga (1950 Meadowvale Boulevard, off Mississauga Road, north of Highway 401), where you can book some time to test your apps on a real Windows Phone 7 device. If you’ve got an app and you’re going to be in the area, drop me a line and book an appointment!
(By the bye, that thing I’m standing beside in the photo above is a promo device known colloquially as the “Big-Ass Phone”.)
On Tuesday, I’ll be spending some time at the AndroidTO conference, a gathering of Android developers, where I’ll be minding the Windows Phone 7 booth. Yes, that’s right, Microsoft is a gold sponsor at an Android conference. Why? Because:
AndroidTO takes place at the Polish Combatants Hall (206 Beverley Street, just south of College), is free-as-in-beer, and is alas, completely booked solid.
I’ll also be doing some setup for TechDays Toronto, which takes place on Wednesday and Thursday.
Wednesday brings with it TechDays, Microsoft Canada’s cross-country tech conference: two days of great sessions for developers and IT pros who are building stuff with the Microsoft stack. I’m the guy who picked the content for both developer tracks, “Developing for Three Screens and the Cloud” and “Optimizing the Development Process”. I strove for the best mix of both technology-specific stuff like Mark Arteaga’s Windows Phone 7 sessions and Kate Gregory’s Windows API Code Pack presentation as well as practice-of-programming sessions such as “Top 10 Mistakes in Unit Testing” and “Branching and Merging Strategies”. TechDays will occupy me from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m..
From 7 p.m. on, it’ll be Go DEVMental, the student event where we’ll show university and college students what’s possible with Microsoft’s web and mobile platforms. I’ll be doing a presentation on getting starting with game development for Windows Phone with an amusing little live-coded game called “BieberSmash”, starring the bubblegum pop idol of the moment. Go DEVMental is free and open to post-secondary students – just bring your student ID! You’ll get all sorts of goodies, including a DreamSpark token and Visual Studio 2010 Pro.
Both TechDays and GoDEVMental take place at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre’s South Building (222 Bremner Boulevard, right beside the CN Tower).
Thursday means another full day of the TechDays conference, to be followed by some very strong whiskey-based drinks.
I’ll be running a Windows Phone 7 Coffee and Code this Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Timothy’s at 225 Front Street West (in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre building). I’ll be hanging out at the cafe, working on Windows Phone 7 code on both the emulator and real Windows Phone devices. Want to learn more about Windows Phone 7, see a real-live phone, play some games or test your code? Come on down!
University of Toronto computer science prof Steve Engels invited me to speak in front of a group of high school teachers at the ACSE (Association for Computer Studies Educators) Conference taking place on Saturday. I’m going to be showing them programming for high school students on Windows Phone as well as with the Kodu game development environment.
Well, it won’t be all sleep. I’ll have to pack for my Monday flight to TechDays Halifax!