Prairie Dev Con Winnipeg Features TechDays Sessions

Looking for TechDays content before it gets to TechDays Online? Prairie Dev Con is a perfect place to get it! Join myself, Jonathan Rozenblit, fellow developer evangelist Thomas Lewis, and TechDays speakers Tyler Doerksen (@tyler_gd) and Miguel Carrasco (@miguelcarrasco) on November 21st and 22nd, 2011 in Winnipeg, MB for Prairie Dev Con Winnipeg.

If you haven’t already registered for Prairie Dev Con Winnipeg, here are 5 reasons (amongst many others) why you should. We’ll be presenting the following TechDays sessions, so make sure that you register today.

Windows Phone 7.5: An Overview and Architecture Deep Dive
Miguel Carrasco

Windows Phone is a different kind of phone, architected to put the focus on end users while enabling developers to build compelling, connected experiences that enhance the phone. Peer under the covers to see how the architecture evolved to deliver powerful functionality for users and developers: enabling rapid seamless transitions between applications; delivering continuous user experiences in the background; combined Silverlight/XNA in a unified UI; sharing data between phone and applications; sensor fusion for integration of the physical and virtual worlds; and many more. Along the way, we will demonstrate how Microsoft brought together these features to deliver experiences that are responsive and battery efficient.

Getting Started in the Cloud with Windows Azure – Part 1
Tyler Doerksen

It is said that Cloud Computing is the biggest change to hit our industry in many years, but what does that mean for a developer? In this first of two sessions, you’ll discover just that. By the end of the session, you’ll will understand the foundations of the Cloud and what each of the components of the Windows Azure platform do. You’ll see how you can leverage your existing knowledge of .NET, Java, PHP, Ruby, or Python to work with Windows Azure and what tools and toolkits are available to you to make it easy.

Getting Started in the Cloud with Windows Azure – Part 2
Jonathan Rozenblit

Now that you have the basics of Windows Azure - what can you build with it? In this second of two sessions, you’ll not only discover when and how you can use Windows Azure to build your next application, you’ll have an understanding of patterns, practices, and architectures that will help you take full advantage of the platform as you build it.

WebMatrix: See What the Matrix Can Do For You!!
Thomas Lewis

WebMatrix is a free offering that provides everything you need to build Web sites using Windows. It streamlines Web site development and makes it easy to start Web sites from popular ASP.NET and PHP open-source apps. It includes IIS Express (a development Web server), ASP.NET Web Pages (a scripting friendly Web framework), and SQL Server Compact (an embedded database). Come to the session to learn about this awesome new tool.

Responsive Web Design: The View of the World Depends on the Glasses I Wear
Thomas Lewis

There is no mobile Web, there is no desktop Web, and there is no tablet Web. We view the same Web just in different ways. So how do we do it? By getting rid of our fixed-width, device-specific approaches and use Responsive Web Design techniques. This session will focus on what is Responsive Web Design and how you can use its 3-pronged approach on your current apps today which will also adapt for new devices in the future.

As an additional bonus to the amazing content at Prairie Dev Con Winnipeg, make sure to save the date, Wednesday, November 23, for a special post-Prairie Dev Con HTML5 and Windows Azure hands-on workshop. You’ll spend the day with user experience expert David Wesst (@davidwesst), Windows Azure expert Tyler Doerksen (@tyler_gd), and myself learning about HTML5, Windows Azure, and how you can put the two together to develop great looking immersive front-end applications backed by a scalable, geographically distributed, on-demand backend hosted in Windows Azure. Stay tuned for more detailed information, but you definitely do not want to miss this hands-on, write some code and deploy an application, post-conference workshop.

Looking forward to seeing you there and saying hello!