The first Belgian Windows 8 developer event did not go by unnoticed: a full day of sessions and a first code night with the Windows 8 Hackathon generating the first apps. But now is the time to get further: more technical sessions, hands-on labs and support from the local team to help you go from idea to app in the Store.
I’m summarizing the main activities you can already register for, as we are moving to get even more content online. A good overview can already be found on our Metro Map, showing you the way in the coming months.
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A Microsoft Innovation Center Call for Projects is a streamlined process to call for ideas, give you training and support going from technical to Metro Design guidelines and UX. In addition, by participating in a Call for Projects you have a privileged access to App Clinics (testing on devices, discussion of the app) which leads to a selection of apps to go through App Excellence Labs later in June. The Excellence Labs are currently the only ticket for getting Windows Store tokens.
While the first info session has already been done end of March, there is still an opportunity to register. Make sure you register for each of the sessions separately in order to secure your full project call attendance.
But wait, there’s more! You’ll find some Summer Hackathons and more sessions on our online Metro Map. See you soon at one of our events or App Clinics.
Don’t miss on the developer opportunity. Combining the broad reach of Windows, best-in-class developer tools, a reimagined user experience, support for new chipsets, and a built-in Store with industry-leading business terms — Windows 8 is the largest developer opportunity, ever.
Last Friday 23rd of March we kicked off a series of Windows 8 Metro developer events in Belgium with the Windows 8 Developer Day. My personal write up is coming. In the meantime, some people were asking for other events so here’s a quick post with some events coming very soon.
The Microsoft Innovation Centers in Brussels and Mons are organizing a Project Call for Windows 8 Metro Style applications. This includes a half day Info Session, to which you are welcome to register.
The project calls include hands-on developer training in April (2 days), UX coaching on a 1:1 basis and developer Q&A as well as nomination to go through an App Review process and possible access to Windows Store tokens.
More is coming! To get a glimpse, a full Metro Map with learning path, developer and other activities can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/belux/msdn/win8devday/metro.html
You’ll find the registration links for these activities coming soon in the next weeks as we open up events for registration.
In the meantime, if you are working on your first apps please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me!
[Update 13 March: added the Smooth Streaming Client SDK info]
The Microsoft Media Platform team has released the beta version of a Player Framework for Windows 8 Metro Style Applications. If you are building media applications for Windows 8 this is for you.
What is the Player Framework? The Player Framework is an open source video player available for Silverlight, HTML5, Windows Phone, Xbox, and now, Windows 8 Metro-style applications.
Update: in addition to the Player Framework you can now also download the Smooth Streaming Client SDK Beta from Visual Studio Gallery, allowing you to build Windows 8 Metro Style applications that consume On-Demand and Live Smooth Streaming content with PlayReady protection.
More on the Player Framework:
“This framework allows you to add advanced video playback features to your Metro style application using either the HTML/JavaScript or XAML/C# app models. The beta release focuses on core playback scenarios and baseline functionality. In our next release we will add more advanced features including SMPTE-TT/TTML/WebVTT closed captioning support, Advertising support via MAST, VAST, VPAID, and Microsoft's Universal Ad Client, and a number of other advanced features.”
“This framework allows you to add advanced video playback features to your Metro style application using either the HTML/JavaScript or XAML/C# app models.
The beta release focuses on core playback scenarios and baseline functionality. In our next release we will add more advanced features including SMPTE-TT/TTML/WebVTT closed captioning support, Advertising support via MAST, VAST, VPAID, and Microsoft's Universal Ad Client, and a number of other advanced features.”
>> Download Player Framework for Windows 8 Metro (BETA) Download Smooth Streaming Client SDK Beta Documentation: Getting started with an HTML/JS Player / XAML Player
>> Download Player Framework for Windows 8 Metro (BETA)
Download Smooth Streaming Client SDK Beta Documentation: Getting started with an HTML/JS Player / XAML Player
More resources for Windows 8:
If you missed TechDays 2012 in Belgium (Braine l’Alleud), there is no way to bring you back the whole 10th anniversary experience. That’s the bad news, the good news however is that we go a long way and bring you a recorded video of each of the sessions so you can learn from the best. From now on, you can browse all the sessions, view them online or download to your favorite media player and download the slides.
We welcomed many top speakers like Scott Guthrie, Brian Keller, Jeff Prosise, Rob Miles, Steven Sanderson, Alex Turner, … in the developer track and Ward Ralston, Corey Heynes, John Craddock, … in the IT Pro track.
Happy learning and feel free to share your thoughts about TechDays 2012 via #techdaysbe! PS. The Microsoft Extended Experts Team (MEET) made this awesome video, interviewing attendees and sharing their thoughts about TechDays 2012.
Join us for the day-track to immerse and/or the night-track to start building! Windows 8 Consumer Preview is out and we have an exciting event for all kinds of developers.
Be part of the first Windows 8 Developer Day in Belgium, a full day conference with technical sessions that dive into the platform for building Windows 8 Metro Style apps.
You will learn first-hand how to use the new features in Windows 8 Metro apps to your advantage, the developer platform with C#, C++, XAML , HTML and JavaScript and how to monetize and distribute your app.
Your keynote speaker is Giorgio Sardo, HTML5 and Windows 8 Senior Technical Evangelist at Microsoft.
Next to Giorgio you’ll also find Gill Cleeren and Lieven Iliano unveiling the details of the platform for Metro Style apps.
When the sun sets, we dive into the night with the very first Nacht van Windows 8 / La nuit de Windows 8, an app-a-thon like you’ve never seen, with pizza’s and prizes :-) This is your opportunity to kick-start your first app either by yourself of in a group. All you need is to come packed with app ideas, a computer and we’ll foresee the energy drinks.
Totally Windows 8. Totally free.
Developer Resources: in the meantime you can get acquainted with Metro style apps
Join the conversation using #win8devbe and see you then!
With the release of Windows 8 Consumer Preview last week the path is open for developers and designers to start building Windows 8 Metro style apps. Partly for myself but hopefully useful for you too: I gathered a list of official (technical and developer) blogs to add to your RSS reader.
Engineering Windows 8 Blog (B8): http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/ (RSS) An inside look from the Windows engineering team
Windows 8 app developer blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsappdev/ (RSS) Insights on building Metro style apps for Windows 8, by the Windows 8 engineering team
Windows Store for developers: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsstore/ (RSS)
For developing Metro style apps the following are also recommended blogs:
BlendInsider: http://blendinsider.com/ The Microsoft Expression Blend team blog The Visual Studio Team Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/ IE Team Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/ The Internet Explorer blog, insightful and in-depth articles on IE internals, and HTML5, JavaScript…
BlendInsider: http://blendinsider.com/ The Microsoft Expression Blend team blog
The Visual Studio Team Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/
IE Team Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/ The Internet Explorer blog, insightful and in-depth articles on IE internals, and HTML5, JavaScript…
During TechDays Belgium 2012 two weeks ago, Scott Guthrie announced the Beta release of ASP.NE MVC 4 slated for that same week. Since February 16th you can now download ASP.NET MVC4 Beta. Interesting to note is the availability of a Go-Live license with this release. In other words, if you feel like using these bits on production you now can!
A few important updates and features are part of the Beta:
Today, S. Somasegar and Jason Zander gave a sneak preview of Visual Studio 11 and .NET Framework 4.5 Beta, officially announcing Beta availability for February 29th 2012.
More details on the announcement, TFS Express and the new UI.
Looking for content? There were several sessions covering Visual Studio 11 (Developer Preview) features at TechDays Belgium 2012. All sessions are posted live on Channel9 and soon at www.techdays.be.
The patterns&practices team at Microsoft has just released an update to last year’s Windows Phone Developer Guide. With release of Windows Phone 7.5, and the Windows Phone 7.1 SDK, the team has updated the guide to “A Case Study for Building Advanced Windows Phone Applications: Connecting with Cloud Services".
This guidance is built for developers looking to developer high-quality software. It might be overkill if you are looking to develop a really simple Windows Phone application.
In addition to the “Case Study for Building Advanced Windows Phone Applications: Connecting with Cloud Services”, the team has also spent time on guidance around “Building Testable Windows Phone Applications” as well as a piece of guidance on the MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel): “Developing a Windows Phone Application using the MVVM Pattern”. There is full detailed documentation as well as sample code and libraries.
>> Go to Patterns & Practices: Windows Phone Guidance Home on MSDN >> On Codeplex: http://wp7guide.codeplex.com
Join us for the 12 hours of SQL Server 2012, the next release of the Microsoft Cloud-Ready Information Platform that is scheduled to be released in the first half of 2012. During the 12 hours of SQL Server 2012 we'll offer you 12 webcasts over 12 hours starting 12:12 CET on February 24th (too bad February 12th is a Sunday).
Together with our 12 speakers, both local and international, we'll walk you through the all new innovations we're bringing to the platform, or as we call them "The Fantastic 12 of SQL Server 2012". Our speakers will dive into all the new things around Business Intelligence, Tier-1 Performance & Reliability, the Manageability enhancements and of course the Cloud readiness and integration of SQL Server 2012 and SQL Azure.
Make sure to Register Today and explore the next release of SQL Server 2012 together with us.
Agenda:
Need some extra developer content on Windows Phone 7? My colleague David Hernie has setup a set of training sessions from deep dives to Blend training to take your skills to the next level.
Leveraging David’s post below:
Windows Phone 7.5 brings dozens of new platform features to Windows Phone. When you have previously built an application for Windows Phone, you might ask yourself, "How do I take advantage of all these cool new features in my existing Windows Phone application?" Well, there are 2 ways to get your question answered:
19- 20 March– Windows Phone 7.5 Deep Dive in the Platform –English – 2 days
You are an experienced developer in Windows Phone or Silverlight. You want to go deeper and develop complex applications. This is the right place for you. No introduction, we suppose you are comfortable with the tools and technology. That means, no “Hello World”. That means no XAML introduction. But instead, we’ll dive in the features offered by the Windows Phone 7.5 platform. You’ll get your hands dirty while doing some hands-on labs, where you get the chance to apply your newly gathered knowledge.
Speaker : Gill Cleeren http://www.snowball.be/
Registration : http://micbru.fikket.com/event/windows-phone-75-deep-dive-in-the-plateform
Place : MIC Brussels http://www.mic-brussels.com
3- 4 April – Windows Phone 7.5 – Design – All about Microsoft Blend – English – 2 days
This training of 2 days will focus only on Blend Design almost not on writing C#
With Expression Blend for Windows Phone, it has never been easier to create the user interface of your application; simply drag UI elements to the design surface where they can be quickly customized and styled, import assets from tools such as Adobe Photoshop and turn them into data driven UI elements before finalizing your UI with transitions and animation that bring your application to life users navigate from screen to screen.
Speaker : Fons Sonnemans from Reflexion IT
Topics detail : http://micbru.fikket.com/event/windows-phone-75-microsoft-expression-blend-training
16-17 April – Windows Phone 7.5 Project call - Français -2 Days
You are an individual, student or a company, your goal is to acquire a new competence This is for you - No marketing blabla - 2 days to learn how to develop, publish and market your Windows Phone 7 Apps. One day to go deeper in Windows Phone features like Second tiles or notification. You will receive a token, coaching, even a phone if you publish some applications
Speaker Christophe Peerens http://www.neomytic.be
registration : http://events.mic-belgique.be/event/appel-a-projets-windows-phone-75
Place : MIC Mons http://www.mic-belgique.be
4-5 June – Windows Phone 7.5 Project call - Francais -2 Days
You are a student individual or a company, your goal is to acquire new competencies This is for you - No marketing blala - 2 days to learn how to develop, publish and market your Windows Phone 7 Apps. One day to go deeper in Windows Phone features like Second tiles or notification. You will receive atoken & coaching
registration : http://events.mic-belgique.be/event/appel-a-projets-windows-phone-75--2
You need more …. like Dev tokens, phone to develop & test, advise, visibility .. Just ask me dhernie@microsoft.com or just be curious – Follow David on twitter
Less than one month to go! As we approach TechDays 2012 be sure to secure your spot before we sell out! The full agenda is now available: we invite you to have a closer look and pick your favorite sessions. Note: keep in mind minor changes to the agenda are still possible. Make sure to check online for the latest version. As you can imagine, we’re very happy to announce that for our 10th anniversary edition we got a special gift ... Scott Guthrie (aka The Gu) will deliver the Opening Session for developers on February 14! That’s not all, you can enjoy two extra breakouts by Scott as well: a session on ASP.NET MVC 4 as well as “ScottGu Unplugged”. Come prepared with your questions!
Top Speakers Join a mix of international third-party and Microsoft speakers paired with some of our local heroes. Some names are:
TechDays Full Agenda Now Available This year promises to bring a lot of new content from Microsoft. Looking at the next versions of tooling, languages, OS and management you know this is not a standard TechDays event. Our content is split into current and upcoming technology. You can take advantage of filtering options on the website in order to build your custom agenda by adding sessions to your calendar through the export icon. By choosing a filter on the main themes you can have your Chinese sessions menu.
Deep Dives (February 16)
Peter Himschoot and Jurgen Postelmans (U2U) will be delivering a full day deep dive covering all the latest and greatest in .NET 4.5, focusing on Web Development with ASP.NET (both WebForms and MVC), HTML5 and WCF. Come spend a full day with us to dive into next-generation web development. Rhonda Layfield will be delivering a full day deep dive covering all the different tools and techniques to deploy Windows 7, she will also cover the upcoming Windows OS deployment tools. Mike Resseler & Tom Shinder will deliver a full day covering private cloud topics, including Management and Operations of your private cloud infrastructure. Please note that 1 day tickets for the Deep Dives Day are SOLD OUT. Other packages are still available: register here. Entrepreneur Track (February 15) New at TechDays 2012 is the Entrepreneur Track: a full day to learn from best practices in the industry, meet the owners of successful startups and learn from their experiences as an IT entrepreneur.
This track is organized in close collaboration with the Microsoft Innovation Centers – the MICs are supporting entrepreneurs and startups to boost their IT projects into a successful business enterprises.
It is possible to register separately for this track. MIC members should contact the MIC directly as there is an offering from the MIC.
Dynamics Sessions (February 14) In an effort to broaden the topics of the conference there will also be 3 sessions about Microsoft Dynamics on the TechDays agenda. All 3 of them are scheduled on February 14: 10:45 – 12:00 Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 – Better Together Wim Coorevits 13:00 – 14:15 Integrating on premise Line Of Business applications with CRM Online Sam Vanhoutte 14:30 – 15:45 Extending the reach of your Microsoft Dynamics AX Application with the next-gen tools Jeroen Doens
About TechDays 2012
Join our 10th anniversary edition in a new location (Kinepolis Imagibraine - Braine l'Alleud) and learn about:
Questions? Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook or simply via e-mail.
If you are a student or a teacher, this is something you should make sure to read. My colleague Lieve Goedhuys has the full post on the Academic Belux blog.
Leveraging the information below:
There are different categories, with focus on different technologies. You will certainly find the category that fits best your core skills/interest.
Have a look at the different categories, presented in a nutshell.
You can still register, but act now : select carefully your category and topic to work !
Category
Short description
Rules
DEADLINE for registration and 1st round
Software design
In this ultimate category, participants will develop innovative, dynamic and powerful software applications. It is the ideal competition to demonstrate your ideas and technical ingenuity.
info
March 13, 2012
Windows Phone Challenge
Develop a Phone App (Imagine Cup theme). Ensure it is a practical application with a strong content and an appealing look and feel.
Azure challenge
Use the Azure Cloud computing platform in an innovative way to develop a powerful web application that answers one of the challenges of the millennium targets.
Game design: Xbox/Windows
Create a “fun game” that illustrates the Imagine Cup themes. Above all, the game should be fun to play and illustrate how technology can impact positively the world in which we live.
February 14, 2012
Game design phone competition
Develop a creative and technically unique phone game in line with the Imagine Cup themes. Do not forget a high fun factor !
For all categories, except Software design, the will be a first and second round, managed completely by Microsoft Corp. Please read carefully through the info on each category to find out:
Good luck.. and hope to see you and your teammates in Sydney !
My colleague David blogged about support for Windows Phone 7 in PhoneGap released last month. Please find more information and resource below or head off to David’s blog.
Back in September, Microsoft joined Nitobi to announce a Beta of PhoneGap support for Windows Phone Mango, and at the same time committed to continue working with the PhoneGap Open Source project community to help bring full support.
PhoneGap by Nitobi is an open source mobile framework that enables developers to build applications targeting multiple platforms, by using standard web technologies (HTML5, CSS and JavaScript). This release extends the cross-platform capabilities of PhoneGap, giving more choices to developers in need of a programming environment allowing them to easily deliver the same mobile experience to their users across the various existing and prominent mobile operating systems.
In addition to being able to leverage their HTML5 and JavaScript skills to target Windows Phone, developers can now enjoy a selection of PhoneGap Plugins that support social networks and a solid integration into Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone. The plugins are:
This release includes many new features, and you can find more details here
Resources
Other resources:
My second post of the day is another one about User Groups and communities. You’d think we only work with Microsoft-technology focused user groups? You’d be wrong
One of the user groups I’ve been working with in the past few years is the PHPBenelux. Since there are enough interesting touch-points around interoperability, MS’s increased support for PHP on Windows and of course support on Windows Azure platform there is no reason why we would not collaborate.
Some of the folks in the PHP community have been great to work with, and it’s a great pleasure to be sponsoring the PHPBenelux Conference again this year (27-28 January 2012). What’s new: with the help of Michelangelo van Dam (@dragonbe) and Maarten Balliauw (@maartenballiauw) we’ll be hosting a free half day Azure/PHP Hackathon on January 27th 2012.
When getting your ticket for the conference be sure to add the free hackathon and come hack away on PHP & Azure.
My thanks to the whole PHPBenelux community. We look forward to another successful PHPBenelux Conference.
Some references: