Windows Phone App Garage in Birmingham–April 26

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If you are in the Birmingham area and want to get in on the excitement that is Windows Phone 7 development, have we got an event for you!

Members of the local community along with Microsoft are holding an App Garage event next Tuesday, April 26. In this full day event, get up to speed quickly on Windows Phone development, and then spend the bulk of your time building that next great app. There will be several Windows Phones given away at the event too!

For those who are not experienced .NET developers, we’ll be offering several templates and other ways to create apps easily. Bring your friends and collaborate! We’ll even have devices there you can test your applications on.

If you’re a seasoned Windows Phone developer or even a designer, come help out the community build and submit apps.

Register now at https://www.eventbrite.com/event/820497129 and get the word out – the more attendees and the more apps submitted, the greater the chances of winning a Windows Phone.

This event is graciously being hosted by Innovation Depot, a premier technology startup incubator in Birmingham.

Following the event will be a meeting of Birmingham’s All About XAML meetup, so plan to continue the conversations about Windows Phone development there.

In preparation for this event:

Be sure to join App Hub if you have not already, since it takes a few days to get approved. Remember that there is a special rebate promotion going on – if you publish 2 apps before June 30, you’ll get the $99 back! Also, make sure you have Visual Studio and the Windows Phone tools installed on your laptop. Other ways to join include the BizSpark program (for startups) and DreamSpark (for students).

If you have a Mac, you’ll need to use Boot Camp to run Windows 7.  The Windows Phone emulator will not work properly with virtualization software, so you need to do a native boot. I’ve heard the VMware fusion works, but haven’t confirmed this. Note that BizSpark partners get licenses for Windows so if you have a startup there’s a great incentive to join.