October, 2010

As you know, the team is rolling along across Canada – hitting the Eastern destinations now with Halifax taking place on the 2nd and 3rd of November. Something that we’ve been trying to organize prior to departure, but only came to fruition now - has been an opportunity for TechDays Attendees to G ive Back to each community we visit. In Halifax – we’ve got the Folks from Feed Nova Scotia dropping a...

What is Random Hacks of Kindness? Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) is a community of developers, geeks and tech-savvy do-gooders around the world, working to develop software solutions that respond to the challenges facing humanity today. RHoK is all about using technology to make the world a better place by building a community of innovation. RHoK brings software engineers together with disaster relief...

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...

AndroidTO Today is the day of Toronto’s conference for Android developers, AndroidTO . I’ll be in attendance, learning about Android development, seeing what Android developers are into and manning Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 booth. That’s right, there’s going to be a Windows Phone 7 booth at an Android conference. Why? Because we’re gold sponsors . I have to give kudos to Yorkville Media Centre ,...

Last night, while picking up a Windows Phone that I’d loaned to a developer for the weekend so he could give his app a proper test on a real device instead of the emulator, I decided to fill up the gas tank on the Deathmobile , named after the car in the movie that inspired my academic career – Animal House . (Yeah, it’s 12 years old, but with only 110,000 km on it – living in the city, doing lots...

Perhaps you missed the sale earlier this month, but Manning’s holding one again! Today (Monday, October 25th), Manning Publications is holding a half-off sale on their MEAP -- “Manning Early Access Program” – books. MEAP is their way for you to get an advance look at their in-progress books, and yes, once the book is complete, you also get the final version of the book in ebook form. Want in on this...

It’s going to be a busy week for Yours Truly… Monday: Windows Phone Deployment Clinic 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...

It’s not too late to register for CloudCamp Toronto , the latest in a series of free cross-Canada unconferences for early adopters of cloud computing . It doesn’t matter whether your preferred cloud computing system is Microsoft’s , Amazon’s , Rackspace’s or anyone else’s – this gathering for anyone with an interest in the cloud, regardless of technology stack or vendor. From the event description...

Creative Commons photo by Abeeeer On Tuesday, October 26th , CloudCamp will be visiting the fine city of Toronto ! You can register NOW and I would strongly encourage you to do so: Location Metro Toronto Convention Centre North Building 255 Front Street West Toronto, Ontario M5V 2W6 Schedule 5:30pm Registration & Refreshments 6:00pm Welcome 6:15pm Lightning Talks (Barnaby Jeans from...

Ah, technical presentations. For some, an opportunity to share. For others, nature’s cruelest mistake. 1 And much like a total eclipse, technical presentations that are both well-prepared and well-executed are, sadly, a rare sight to behold. But, fear not! For those finding yourself in the latter camp, it doesn’t have to be this way. By applying some of these simple tricks, you can feel confident as...

Windows Phone 7 hits the shelves of Bell, Rogers and Telus on November 8th , and we want to make sure that there’s a strong showing of apps written by Canadian developers in Marketplace when that happens. If you’re a developer based in Canada with an app that’s ready or near-ready, please contact me (Joey deVilla) via email as soon as possible! There are some things that I can do to help speed up the...

Keep an eye on Jeff Blankenburg’s blog for the rest of the month! Every day in October, he’s posting an article on Windows Phone 7 development in a series called 31 Days of Windows Phone 7 . As of this writing, he’s posted these articles: Day #1: Project Template Day #2: Page Navigation Day #3: The Back Button Paradigm Day #4: Device Orientation Day #5: System Theming Day #6: Application Bar Day #7...

I may have to take a course at ObjectSharp / New Horizons Toronto just to get close to the toys! After the Windows Phone 7 Coffee and Code on Thursday, Barry Gervin and Steve Syfuhs (who just got started working at ObjectSharp, an indirect result of my stunt where I wore assless chaps at CodeCamp a little while back ) took me on a tour of their new office. It’s gorgeous, with a nice large social area...

Creative Commons photo by Free Flower In March, we announced that the Local Flavours Track would be featured in all eight cities and ever since our general call for presentation abstracts , the response we’ve received from technical professionals across Canada has been absolutely amazing. In fact, as the guy responsible for helping to organize these across Canada, the volume of abstracts that I’ve...

On Thursday, December 2nd , come join developers from around the world for a one-day, live-streamed event focused on lighting up your skills on Silverlight . The Silverlight Firestarter is a FREE online event that brings together some of the top minds on Silverlight to share their insights on Silverlight, answer your questions and deepen your knowledge and understanding of this powerful development...

Drupal Camp Toronto 2010 is happening in Toronto today and tomorrow! It’s a gathering to discuss all things Drupal , featuring keynote speakers such as ones: Dries Buytaert , Jeff Eaton , and Mark Brown . It’s at a nice, central, easy-to-get-to location, the Toronto Reference Library (a few steps north of the corner of Yonge and Bloor). And here’s something you might not expect – Microsoft Canada is...

Our friends at Imaginet are hosting two-hour events in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary where they’ll show Visual Studio developers how to get up to speed with all the goodies that have packed into Visual Studio 2010 . Here’s what they’ll cover: What’s new in Team Foundation Server 2010 Learn about important updates and enhancements to Team Foundation Server in the 2010 release.  Understand key...

Introducing the Windows Phone App Challenge “I’d love to write an app for launch,” a number of people have told me, “but I can’t think of an app to write. Got any ideas?” Sure. I have lots of ideas. A few of them are even good (and won’t get anyone put in a compromising position, thrown in jail, or both)! My plan is to take those good ideas and present them to you, the potential Windows Phone 7 developer...

Last night, DemoCamp Calgary 18 hosted over 100 people from in and around the Calgary area at SeVen RestoLounge for an evening of networking, beers and demos: If you haven’t heard of DemoCamp before, it’s a pretty awesome event. The best way to describe it is a lightweight gathering of folks in the startup/tech community to network and see demos. Of course, it’s a little more than this. If there’s...

You might be familiar with the Ignite Your Coding LinkedIn group , a great place to keep up with all sorts of development news (and not just for the Microsoft’s platforms, but for all of them). But did you know that there’s also a Mobile Development LinkedIn group that’s a subgroup of Ignite Your Coding? Join it, keep up with mobile development news, share your knowledge, join the discussions and get...

Who Poked the Sleeping Dragon? asks The Next Web in response to the changes in Microsoft and its offerings as of late, from Windows 7 to Internet Explorer 9 to Windows Phone 7. Frederic Lardinois of ReadWriteWeb posts on his personal tech blog, NewsGrange , that The Microsoft Tanker Has Turned and You Ignore It at Your Peril . TechCrunch’s resident Apple fanboy (he says so himself) MG Siegler titled...

Ottawa-based developer Peter Henry (you might have seen him speak at TechDays Ottawa last year, and he’s also presenting this year) wrote a simple Windows Phone 7 app called miFlashlight , submitted it to Marketplace and documented the experience for the benefit of his fellow programmers. When it comes time for you to submit an app to Marketplace, be sure to have Peter’s article, Anatomy of a WP7 Application...

Smiles is a matching-puzzle game developed by London, Ontario-based Mike Kasprzak that you’ll probably see in Windows Phone Marketplace. It’s got the gameplay, graphics, animation, sound and music that you’d expect from a puzzle game, and unlike most puzzle games with falling objects, rotating the phone changes the direction in which the pieces fall (this can get you out of a tight spot). This video...

Last month, we held a little party where we invited Toronto-area tech press and bloggers to meet some local Windows Phone 7 developers and see what they were working on. This video was shot at the party and features Yours Truly and the developers: The developers featured in this video are: Mark Arteaga : Owner/developer at Redbit Development . He’s been building Microsoft-based phone applications since...

Are you a Canadian developer working on a Windows Phone 7 app that’s done or nearly done? We want to help you get a head start on everyone else. Contact me – Joey deVilla – by Monday, October 18th (and sooner is better) and let’s see what we can do to make your app one of the first in Windows Phone Marketplace! This article also appears in Global Nerdy .