I’m very pleased to announce a new set of Windows Phone Acceleration Labs to be held in Dallas, Columbus, Chicago and Minneapolis.  Acceleration Labs are a week-long event where developer get a chance to break away from the office and minimize the distractions of email, the telephone and other work-related fire-drills to spend 3-5 quality days writing code and building applications. We ran a pair of these last year in Dallas and Chicago to great success, so now we’re doing them again in even more places! 

Here’s a listing of the cities, dates, times and locations for our upcoming Acceleration Labs.  Please register using the links provided to claim your seat. Space is limited, so register early.

A few additional pieces of information about these labs:

• These labs are NOT training sessions – we expect that you have experience with XAML and C# or VB.NET before coming to the lab.
• Experts will be on-hand and via phone / Live Meeting to help you work through problems with the applications you are in the middle of developing, or help you work through the ideas you’ve already developed to help get you started.
• Please ensure that all development tools and SDKs are installed prior to arrival. If you don’t already have the tools installed, you can get them from http://aka.ms/PhoneCK.
• You don’t have to attend all day every single day – if your schedule only allows for you to participate part-time, please let us know.  If your plans change, however, and you’re not able to attend at least most of the days, please let us know so that we can free up your seat for the next person on the waiting list.

If you have any questions about the labs, or building Windows Phone applications in general, please feel free to reach out to me through this blog, or directly via chris.koenig@microsoft.com.

Thanks to everyone who attended yesterdays Windows Phone Camp in Dallas, TX!  As promised, here is a download to the slides and demos from the event. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at chris.koenig@microsoft.com or via our new email alias msnextde@microsoft.com.

Direct Link (experimental)

A Windows Phone Camp is a free, full-day or two-day event chock-full of everything you need to know to develop a Windows Phone application. Whether you’re a student, a seasoned veteran or just getting started with .NET development this full-day event is for you. Interested in profit? We’ll also lead discussions on how to monetize your applications and generate profits with your apps.

Don’t miss the new Windows Phone 7.5 (codename “Mango”) features as well – with detailed sessions in the afternoon around Fast Application Switching, Multitasking, Live Tiles, Push Notifications, and more.

The day will be capped with an open lab hands-on session and prizes for apps completed. This is the perfect opportunity to begin work on your dream application, or finish that app you’ve already started, with Windows Phone experts there to guide you every step of the way. Bring your own laptop to join in the fun and show off your killer app!

Don’t miss a chance to win your very own Windows Phone (ARV $500) – plus many other cool prizes. No purchase necessary, but you must be present to win.

Get more details & Register at the following links

Starting today – the 4th Annual Dallas TechFest has opened it’s call for speakers!  If you’re interested in speaking, please visit the web site at http://dallastechfest.com and register as a speaker.  

To register all you have to do is:

• open http://dallastechfest.com
• click on the [Log In] link at the top
• On the signin page, click the "register" link
• fill out your profile information,
• click the link to create a speaker profile.

It's a bit of a pathway through the app to get there, but once you're in it's actually a really nice way to manage your speaker bio and session submissions.  There's going to be a pretty high bar again this year for speakers, so make sure you polish up your session abstracts!

Two Locations – Houston & Dallas

• Dallas:   Tuesday, May 24, 2011  1:30 – 4:30 PM
  Microsoft Dallas Office -  7000 SR-161 (George Bush Turnpike), Irving, TX 75039
• Houston: Thursday, May 26, 2011  1:30 – 4:30 PM
  Microsoft Houston Office – 2000 W Sam Houston Parkway S, Houston, TX 77042

Brought to you by Microsoft, CODE Training & EPS Software, this free afternoon event presents an unbiased look at the current and future development with .NET. Join Microsoft Regional Director and MVP Markus Egger, for an afternoon of free and independent information about current Microsoft development technologies! What is the state of .NET today? Which of the many .NET technologies have gained traction? Which ones can you ignore for now? What other Microsoft technologies should you include in your development efforts? This event is completely free of charge and is designed for developers as well as IT decision makers. Specific prior knowledge is not required. Attendees of this event will come away with a clear understanding of which technologies to use for various technical challenges.

Topics will include:

• Cloud (Azure & others)
• The State of Services
• IE9
• HTML 5
• Windows Phone 7 and other devices
• ASP.NET MVC, Razor and jQuery
• Visual Studio Async
• Productivity Power Tools
• Various .NET Framework Topics
• Visual Studio LightSwitch
• and more!

Dallas Signup Link- Tuesday, May 24, 2011  1:30 – 4:30
Houston Signup Link- Thursday, May 26, 2011  1:30 – 4:30

Do you have the next million dollar idea that you just can’t find the time to finish? Do you already have an app for Android and iPhone that you want to expand into new markets?

Then I would like to encourage you to participate with a select group of developers for a Windows® Phone Accelerator Lab designed to help you accelerate your Windows Phone App into the Windows Phone Marketplace.

It’s time to turn your napkin sketches and leverage your hard work into real, sellable apps for Windows Phone in ONE WEEK! Join us for a special Windows Phone event you don’t want to miss – Windows Phone Accelerator!

In this week long developer retreat, we will have experts on hand to help you build, test, pitch, and deploy your app into the Windows Phone Marketplace. You will have your own workspace, hands on technical assistance, Marketplace subscriptions, and developer phones for testing.

The event is a no-fee event (plan your own travel expenses) and all developers are eligible, whether or not you have a mobile application built today. The only requirement is that you’re planning to develop a new application for Windows Phone.

This lab is for serious Windows Phone developers only – this is NOT your typical Microsoft training event. Seating is very limited and registration is not guaranteed. Priority registration will be based on several factors, including:

• Apps that already exist, have been started, or a really strong idea
• Participation in the event to write and prove out code using Windows Phone SDK
• Application will be submitted into Marketplace place by May 31^st.

Microsoft is back in the US for another Springboard Series Tour!

www.springboardseriestour.com

May 2 – Toronto | May 4 – Detroit | May 6 – Chicago | May 9 – Indianapolis | May 11 – Dallas | May 13 – Columbus

The Springboard Series Tour is back! This 6 city tour brings the top product teams from Microsoft to you. We understand the questions and issues that IT pros deal with every day. How do I manage end users bringing consumer devices into the office? Should we look to the cloud for key solutions? Should I virtualize? What are the best tools to manage application compatibility and deployment? The Springboard Series Tour brings the experts and the answers.

Join us for a full day’s deep dive into the tools, solutions and options to help you do more with less. We will cover managing the flexible workspace, a first look at Windows Intune and Office 365. We’ll also show you some of the new Windows Slates and give you details around Microsoft’s strategy for Slate devices. We will preview the new tools in the MDOP 2011 suite, a deep dive into managing and deploying Office 2010 and great tips and tricks to help you deploy Windows 7 and move your users from Windows XP with speed and ease.

REGISTER NOW and save your seat for this free day of technical demos, Q&A sessions, and real-world guidance from Microsoft experts. We’ll see you on the road!

If you are a developer, you’ve probably heard plenty about the cloud. But if you’re and IT professional, what have you heard about it? How does it intersect with the datacenter? How does it make your job easier – or harder? Is it something that your organization is looking at? Is the cloud something your organization _should_ be looking at but hasn’t really dug into it yet?

Whether we like it or not, the cloud – in all its varied forms – is coming. It’s best for us to be prepared, whether we are developers (see: Windows Azure Boot Camp) or whether we are IT professionals (see: this very post). Because the cloud is coming. We need to get ready for it and how we plan to address it or incorporate it… Or we could be left behind.

To help IT professionals understand what the cloud means to then, starting in March 2011 we launch our new series of TechNet Events, this series focusing on how IT is being transformed into a dynamic, service-based resource for your business. Think not just about things like Virtualization, but consider taking advantage of cloud-like solutions, whether in your own datacenter or hosted elsewhere. After all, choosing the right solution for the right scenario is always critically important.

The Events
Our events will cover three topics. First is cloud computing essentials for IT professionals. Second delves into the public cloud, covering the what, why and how you leverage the public cloud as part of your overall computing and infrastructure strategy. Last we cover the private cloud, again digging into the what, why and how you employ pooled computing resources, automated management, scalability, and on-demand provisioning via on premise resources as opposed to public cloud off premise assets.

The Schedule
Here is our full, 23-city schedule. We launch the series in just a month and run through mid-May 2011. If you live in or near one of these cities, please join us. If you won’t have the opportunity to join us in person, please follow the blogs of our resident cloud computing expert, Kevin Remde, and his peers (Matt Hester, Brian Lewis, and John Weston) to see alternative online options to learn more about cloud computing on premise and off.

• Grand Rapids, MI – Tuesday, March 15, 2011
• Detroit, MI – Thursday, March 17, 2011
• Cleveland, OH – Tuesday, March 22, 2011
• Bloomington, MN – Wednesday, March 23, 2011
• Milwaukee, WI – Wednesday, March 23, 2011
• Columbus, OH – Thursday, March 24, 2011
• St. Louis, MO – Monday, March 28, 2011
• Madison, WI – Tuesday, March 29, 2011
• Overland Park, KS – Tuesday, March 29, 2011
• Omaha, NE – Wednesday, March 30, 2011
• Nashville, TN – Friday, April 1, 2011
• Baton Rouge, LA – Tuesday, April 5, 2011
• Cincinnati, OH – Wednesday, April 6, 2011
• Dallas, TX   – Thursday, April 7, 2011
• Houston, TX – Tuesday, April 12, 2011
• Louisville, KY – Wednesday, April 13, 2011
• Indianapolis, IN – Thursday, April 14, 2011
• Austin, TX – Thursday, April 14, 2011
• Chicago, IL – Thursday, April 21, 2011
• Des Moines, IA – Friday, April 22, 2011
• Tulsa, OK – Tuesday, April 26, 2011
• Downers Grove, IL – Tuesday, May 10, 2011
• Cedar Rapids, IA – Thursday, May 12, 2011

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What do WPF, Silverlight 4, and Internet Explorer 9 have in common? No, that’s not a riddle. Really, it’s not a riddle. They are all FTW. What I mean by that is they all offer developers unique ways to exploit the power of Windows 7, such as integrating with the taskbar, leveraging jump lists, or offering the ability to exploit multi-touch or hardware sensors.

FTW?
And why am I even talking about this? Well closely following on the heels of our Windows Azure Boot Camp announcement, we are gearing up another boot camp series: For the Win: Window 7 Development Boot Camp. This new series of events will include evangelist-led presentations by none other than the purely awesome Jennifer Marsman as well as hands-on labs to help you really dig into developing client-centric applications using WPF and XAML, Silverlight, and Internet Explorer 9 (yes, client-centric integrations from your web site with just a touch of HTML5).

What’s Covered?
Jennifer will cover application compatibility and transitioning your application to Windows 7, leveraging the Windows taskbar and jump lists, exploiting the taskbar and jump lists from your web site using IE9, taking advantage of new sensor, location and multi-touch functionality, and creating Silverlight 4 out of browser applications. Each boot camp will last a full day, starting off right at 8am local time, include lunch, several sessions and a couple of hands-on labs to help you really get a feel for how to take advantage of Windows 7 capabilities in your applications.

So, yes, this is a BYOL (bring your own laptop) event. Windows 7 is required, as is several other pieces of software: Visual Studio 2008 or 2010, Windows API Code Pack, Windows 7 Training Kit for Developers, IE9, and Silverlight 4.

What Cities?

• Waukesha, WI on 1/17/2011 at 8:00 AM
• Downers Grove, IL on 1/18/2011 at 8:00 AM
• Indianapolis, IN on 1/19/2011 at 8:00 AM
• Independence, OH on 1/24/2011 at 8:00 AM
• Columbus, OH on 1/25/2011 at 8:00 AM
• Mason, OK on 1/27/2011 at 8:00 AM
• Franklin, TN on 2/3/2011 at 8:00 AM
• Southfield, MI on 2/7/2011 at 8:00 AM
• Bloomington, MN on 2/14/2011 at 8:00 AM
• St. Louis, MO on 2/15/2011 at 8:00 AM
• Overland Park, KS on 2/16/2011 at 8:00 AM
• Des Moines, IA on 2/17/2011 at 8:00 AM
• Houston, TX on 2/21/2011 at 8:00 AM
• Irving, TX on 2/22/2011 at 8:00 AM
• Austin, TX on 2/24/2011 at 8:00 AM

Starting in March 2011, we’re rolling out a series of 12 Web Camps in the Central US. Microsoft’s Web Camps are events designed to teach you all about building websites using ASP.NET MVC, WebMatrix, OData and more. We’ve held Web Camps all around the world over the past few years, but we’re taking them to the next level this year with more of one- and two-day events in Central Region, and one just might be near you.

If you’re near Austin, TX or Chicago, IL, you’ll want to join us for a special two-day Web Camp. We’ll cover ASP.NET MVC in-depth on day one and help you get hands-on on day two, facilitating smaller groups through labs, live-coding exercises, or even collaborating on your apps! If you can’t make a two-day event, never fear! We have a series of one-day camps in March, April, May and June throughout the region.

Join Clark Sell and Brandon Satrom for a special WebMatrix and ASP.NET MVC Web Camp you don’t want to miss. No matter your expertise in web development, these Web Camps are the perfect opportunity to get hands-on experience and ‘unleash your coding genius’.

Our interactive sessions will:

• Introduce ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Web Pages and WebMatrix; discuss possible uses of these
• Explore new features of ASP.NET MVC 3
• Take a dive deep into jQuery
• Facilitate an in-depth discussion on when to migrate ASP.NET WebPages applications to ASP.NET MVC
• Discuss configuration and deployment of web applications.

This event is a unique opportunity, partnering classroom learning with hands-on-labs, and leveraging experts to help you build new and exciting websites.

1-Day Event Agenda:

Two-Day Event Agenda

Locations (Space is limited, so sign up now):

All of the above registration links can be found in this link bundle as well: http://bit.ly/bundles/csell/5.  Of course balloons on a map are cool too:

Space is limited so sign up now.