Thanks to everyone that joined us last week for the Windows Phone Camp in Minneapolis. It was great seeing so many Windows Phone developers come together to talk about building cool applications. I was very excited at how many people attending had already spent some time with the tools, and especially how many had already built and deployed applications to the marketplace! No other city I’ve been to has had *that* many developers with that level of experience – rock on MSP!

As promised, here is my deck and demos from my sessions.

http://chriskoenig.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/MSPPhoneCamp.zip

The app we built together – the EZ Grade application – is hosted on GitHub at the following address:

http://github.com/chriskoenig/ezgrade

As always, if you have any questions about this content or developing applications for Windows Phone, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

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.

I just heard off the grapevine that there is a new Windows Phone user group starting up in Baton Rouge! For those of you in the area, I *highly* recommend you attend. I absolutely LOVE the format – a little time to chat and eat, a little time for a presentation, then a good 90 minutes for hacking away at building applications. This is the format that I think all user groups should look to adopt – it’s great to hear new information about relevant technologies, but there is nothing like getting your hands dirty actually trying to build applications with that technology.

Here’s the agenda and registration information for those that are interested in attending. I wish I could go myself, but I only just learned of it today and can’t get out to BR that quickly I will make every effort to attend one in the coming months – hope to see you there!

When: Wednesday, October 19, starting at 5:45
Where: Sparkhound, Inc., 1st Floor Conference Room

Sponsored: Sparkhound, Inc!

Topic: New development features in Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango)
Speaker: Paul Johnson, Sparkhound

Windows Phone Mango release has finally gone RTM and is making its way to handsets across the universe! This meeting will be to spotlight some of the major improvements as well as exploring some code examples that enable us to pull them off.

About Paul Johnson:
Paul is a Senior Development Consultant with Sparkhound, Inc. Though not in an official capacity, Paul is evangelizing the Windows Phone platform whenever and wherever he can.

As with all meetings of the BRWPUG, all time after the presentation is available for discussion of WP app development in an open forum.

Agenda:
5:45-6:15 – Meet, Greet, and Eat
6:15-7:15 – Presentation by Paul Johnson
7:15-8:30 – Phone Garage

RSVP Via EventBrite.com @ brwpug1019.eventbrite.com

If you are interested in getting more involved with Windows Phone development in Baton Rouge, or want to find out about future meetings of the BRWPUG, please visit their online dissusion group or contact their organizer at pjohnsonjr@live.com and @pjguitarist.

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)

Here are the slides and source code from my talk this morning at Tulsa TechFest on using databases on Windows Phone. I will be writing up a longer technical post to go along with these resources, but since so many people asked for them today, I’m publishing them for your convenience.

Slides (via SlideShare)

Code (via GitHub)

https://ChrisKoenig@github.com/ChrisKoenig/DatabaseForMango.git
https://ChrisKoenig@github.com/ChrisKoenig/ReferenceDatabase.git

My teammate Jeff Blankenburg will be hosting a Windows Phone Development Lab at Tulsa TechFest on Saturday, Oct 8th from 8am-5pm at OSU Tulsa.

The Windows Phone lab is a combination Instructor-Led and Self-Directed lab environment that is designed to help you learn about Windows Phone by building applications instead of just listening to sessions. This hands-on approach has been very successful in building technical chops for those that attend and we’re excited about bringing this lab to Tulsa TechFest. Also on hand will be several Windows Phone experts to help you navigate the labs as well as discuss any ideas for applications you might have, or consult with you on ways to get past any roadblocks you’ve encountered in your own Windows Phone development.

The agenda for the day for the day looks like this:

8:00 am – Check-In

8:45 am – Welcome/Announcements

9:00 am – Instructor-led Lab: Walkthrough building a simple WP7 application

10:00 am – WP7 Hands-on Labs (part 1)

12:00 pm – Lunch

1:00 pm – Glenn Block! Special Keynote!

2:30 pm – WP7 Hands-on Labs (part 2)

5:00 pm – Closing

For more information about the lab, visit the registration site at http://techfests.com/Tulsa/2011/WP7_Accelerator_Lab/default.aspx

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

My good friend Jay Smith announced on his blog this week that he’ll be hosting another one of his amazing Community Leadership Town Hall events at the upcoming Tulsa TechFest.

What is a Community Leadership Town Hall, you ask? Here’s some bits from Jay’s blog:

In many towns and cities across the country the town hall is the center of the community.  The town hall is where the local governments keep offices, serves as the main base for the Mayor, and is where citizens of the community come to work with the official representatives to share issues, ideas, and solutions that can make their community better. 

The Community Leadership Town Hall brings this concept to community leaders in your area.  The evening will be filled with discussions about issues, ideas, and solutions regarding creating, maintaining, and growing user groups and technical communities.   This will be a highly interactive night where everyone will have a chance to suggest a topic and voice their opinion.

For those who haven’t added it to your calendar yet, Tulsa TechFest is scheduled for Friday, October 7th, so the CLTH will be held the night before on October 6th, 2011 from 6 – 10 PM at the OSU Room NH150. I hope to see you there!

GiveCamp is a weekend-long event where technology professionals from designers, developers, and database administrators to marketers and web strategists donate their time to provide solutions for non-profit organizations. Since its inception in 2007, the GiveCamp program has provided benefits to over 150 charities, with a value of developer and designer time exceeding $100,000 in services. If you have already been involved in a GiveCamp, you also know what a rich, rewarding experience this is personally and for the community. For more information, visit givecamp.org and http://givecampstartersite.codeplex.com/.

In 2011, the weekend of October 21-23, has been designated National GiveCamp weekend. If you currently have a GiveCamp scheduled, you do not need to move it. However, if you can move it, Microsoft is putting together several partnerships to help ease some of the logistics for the National GiveCamp weekend so organizers and participants can focus on supporting non-profit organizations:

• Free Venue: We are putting in national partnerships to provide venue space. Space is limited and available on a first come, first served basis – so sign up early! Send your request to usgcamp@microsoft.com.
• Food & Beverage sponsors: We are enlisting national sponsors to have food and beverage service delivered to participating GiveCamp volunteers throughout the weekend of 10/21 – 10/23.
• Promotion: We will provide you email templates and resources for your use in promoting to non-profits, as well as soliciting potential volunteers. We will also put resources behind amplifying the impact of your GiveCamp to your community by helping create buzz around your GiveCamp event to help draw volunteers and increase community awareness for the non-profits benefiting from GiveCamp.

GiveCamp is a great opportunity for people to work together, develop new friendships, and do something important for their community! It is our dream to see over 50 Give Camps held over the National GiveCamp weekend of 10/21 – 10/23.

Will you join us?

Next Steps:

1. If you are interested in organizing a GiveCamp: by Monday, 8/1 reply to usgcamp@microsoft.com with the information below

2. Set-up your GiveCamp site with the starter site kit here: http://givecampstartersite.codeplex.com/.

3. For more information, visit givecamp.org.

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!