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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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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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This Week’s Coffee and Codes

coffee and code

This week, we’re having Coffee and Codes in Ottawa and Toronto! Coffee and Code is where we work out of a cafe so that we’re easy to find. Come and talk to us, ask us questions about Microsoft tools and technologies, the industry, career, whatever! We’re also here to help you deploy apps to Windows Phone 7: we’ll have a real live Windows Phone 7 device that you can deploy apps to.

Wednesday, September 22 in Ottawa

Colin Melia and Rick “Claus” Claus from Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Evangelism team will be at Bridgehead Cafe (224 Dalhousie Street) from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. to host a Coffee and Code there. Drop in, say hi, have a coffee, ask questions and if you’ve got an app, try deploying it to a real live Windows Phone 7 device!

Thursday, September 23 in Toronto

Join Kate Gregory and me as we host a Coffee and Code at the Starbucks at King and Yonge (4 King Street West) from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., where we’ll merge with the Coffee and iOS group who are coming in at 4:00 p.m.. Want to find out more about WP7 or iOS development? This is the time and place!

See Kate’s blog entry about this Coffee and Code

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Upcoming Windows Phone 7 Coffee and Codes / Deployment Clinics

coffee and code

Update (Sept. 21 @ 6:15 p.m. EDT): Made some corrections to the schedule.

We’re out there, and we want to help you with your Windows Phone 7 development by giving you a chance to deploy your apps to an advance-release Windows Phone 7 device for testing! We’ll be in the following cities on the following dates:

Wednesday, September 22 in Ottawa (Coffee and Code)

Colin Melia and Rick “Claus” Claus from Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Evangelism team will be at Bridgehead Cafe (224 Dalhousie Street) from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. to host a Coffee and Code there. Drop in, say hi, have a coffee, ask questions and if you’ve got an app, try deploying it to a real live Windows Phone 7 device!

Thursday, September 23 in Toronto (Coffee and Code)

Join Kate Gregory and me as we host a Coffee and Code at the Starbucks at King and Yonge (4 King Street West) from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., where we’ll merge with the Coffee and iOS group who are coming in at 4:00 p.m.. Want to find out more about WP7 or iOS development? This is the time and place!

See Kate’s blog entry about this Coffee and Code.

Wednesday, September 29 in Montreal (Coffee and Code)

Join “les bons gars”, Christian Beauclair and 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.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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This Week: TechDays Vancouver and Mobile Innovation Week Toronto

"What's Up This Week": Map of Canada showing TechDays Vancouver and Mobile Innovation Week Toronto

There’s some interesting stuff going on in the Canadian tech world this week, on nearly opposite ends of the country. I’ll be at both, starting in Vancouver from Monday to Thursday, and ending the back back home in Toronto.

TechDays 2010, Vancouver (Tuesday and Wednesday)

Vancouver Convention Centre (West Building) at night

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Microsoft Canada will be hosting the TechDays conference in the new West Building of the Vancouver Convention Centre. TechDays features content from Microsoft’s biggest (and most expensive) conferences, updated and delivered by local developers and IT pros, all at an incredibly reasonable price – a few hundred dollars, as opposed to a few thousand.

TechDays is your best chance to learn how to make the most of Microsoft’s platforms tools and technologies. It’s also a great way to get to meet your Canadian Microsoft team as well as your fellow techies.

If you’re attending TechDays, come say hi! I’m the guy with the accordion, and I’ll be demoing and working on Windows Phone 7 applications in the Collaboration Lounge.

We’ll be devoting a lot of bandwidth to TechDays this week, and I thought I’d point out something else happing at the same time, a continent away…

Mobile Innovation Week, Toronto (All Week)

Logos of Mobile Innovation Week events

If only I could be in two places at the same time! Alas, the complicated business of booking large conferences like TechDays requires us to find venues a year in advance, and certainly well before the dates of this year’s Mobile Innovation Week in Toronto, which takes place all week.

As you’re going to hear me say quite often for the next little while: Canada has always punched above its weight class in tech, and especially when it comes to the phone. After all, this is the home of Alexander Graham Bell, and he has a strong claim to state, as the Windows 7 commercials put it, that the phone was his idea. Since his time, Canada’s been making significant contributions to the telephone, and it’s getting highlighted in Mobile Innovation Week.

Mobile Innovation Week brings together and showcases the leaders in mobile tech, from idea people to developers to designers to institutions, all coming together exchange ideas about the future of mobile. It’s made up of many events, including:

Windows Phone 7 at FITC on Friday and Saturday

FITC logoI’m cutting my Vancouver trip short to be at FITC on Friday and Saturday, where I, along with some other Microsoft developers and evangelists, will be minding the Windows Phone 7 booth. We’ll have Windows Phone 7 devices and developer tools for you to try out, and we’d be more than happy to answer your questions!

We’ll also have a presenter there: Mark Arteaga will be doing two presentations on Windows Phone 7 development. If you wanted to learn how to code for this exciting new platform and you’ll be at FITC, don’t miss his sessions.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Early Bird Prices for TechDays Toronto Disappear Soon!

hourglasses

Time is running out: If you’re thinking about attending TechDays Toronto, you’d better register soon! The CAD$349.99 “early bird” price is in effect, but only until Thursday, September 16th. After that, you have to pay full price to attend, which is nearly double the “early bird” price.

Don’t miss the boat on this deal – register now!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Test Your App on a Real Windows Phone in Toronto, Calgary and Montreal

coffee plus windows phonePre-manufacturing Windows Phone 7 devices are incredibly hard to come by, but we’re working on ways for you to test your WP7 apps on the real thing. One way we’re doing this is by holding “Deployment Clinics” all over Canada.

Today (Thursday, Sept 2): Toronto

  • If you’re in downtown Toronto, I’ll be holding a Windows Phone 7 Coffee and Code from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. today at the Starbucks at King and Yonge (northwest corner, right above King subway station). We’ll be at the big table in the back. Bring your Windows Phone 7 app and see how it runs on a real phone!

Friday, September 3: Calgary and Toronto

Next Week: Montreal

It doesn’t matter if you’re a Francophone, Anglophone or allophone: we want you to come see and deploy to Windows Phone!

Thursday, September 9th

A Microsoft Canada event: Windows Phone 7 Night in Montreal (featuring a developer device!)
5:30 – 8:30 p.m. at the Microsoft Montreal office (2000 Ave McGill College, Suite 450, Montreal)

Join Christian Beauclair from Microsoft Canada, along with Colin Melia from DreamDigital, for an evening about Windows Phone 7 in the flesh.  That’s right, they’ll be there in person, oh and so will a real developer device!

In October, Microsoft will start accepting application submissions on the mobile marketplace for Windows Phone 7 applications, with devices being available at retail shortly thereafter.

Will you be one of the first developers selling a cool application? Are you an IT Pro that wants to figure out how these devices fit into your organization?  To get to grips with this new mobile platform and build on your existing .NET and infrastructure knowledge, you’ll need to know the features of the new phone platform.

Visual Studio 2010 together with the WP7 tools make building applications a delightful experience. During this evening event, you’ll have the opportunity to see the phone in action, learn about the tools and understand how the phone integrates into your enterprise.

You absolutely must be registered to attend.

Register for this event

Friday, September 10th

Deployment clinic at the Microsoft Montreal office (2000 Ave McGill College, Suite 450, Montreal)

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.