Chris Bowen's Blog

Metro Developer Opportunities This Week in New England

Chris Bowen — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 17:49:28 GMT

This week offers several excellent opportunities for Windows 8 and Windows Phone developers here in New England.

Metro Accelerator Labs – Waltham, June 6-8

As mentioned earlier, the Metro Accelerator Labs are coming to our Waltham offices on Wednesday through Friday (June 6-8). It is a 3-day event focused on helping you create Windows 8 and Windows Phone apps with experts on hand to help you, whether you’re just starting or adding the finishing touches.

We’ll have a brief dev/design session each morning (agenda here), but the focus is squarely on your apps and coding. Bring your PCs, apps or app ideas, and get ready to develop!

You can join us for as little or as much of the 3-day event as you wish. Register here

Ready.Set(){Code} Challenge – Waltham, June 7

On Thursday (June 7th), the special Ready.Set(){Code} Challenge by Nokia Developer will also be running in the Waltham office. Part of a 13-city tour, this is a great opportunity to create Windows Phone apps by yourself or by forming a team.

At the end of the day, you’ll have a chance to show your app and the best (in a number of categories) will be awarded prizes!

Separate registration is required. Note we’ll have two rooms this day, so both the Metro Accelerator Lab and Ready.Set(){Code} Challenge will be running concurrently. Join in either as you wish!

-Chris

Windows 8 Release Preview, Visual Studio 2012 RC, and More!

Chris Bowen — Thu, 31 May 2012 21:30:55 GMT

It’s a big day for releases as a number of new Release Previews and Release Candidates have just been made available:

Windows 8 Release Preview

Windows 8 Release Preview Home
“Delivering the Windows 8 Release Preview” – Building Windows 8 blog
“Windows Store for Release Preview” – Windows Store for Developers blog
“What’s Changed for App Developers Since the Consumer Preview” – Windows 8 App Developer blog

Visual Studio 2012 Release Candidate

Visual Studio 2012 RC Downloads
“Announcing the Release Candidate (RC) of Visual Studio 2012 and .NET Framework” – Jason Zander’s blog
“Visual Studio 2012 RC is Released – The Big Web Rollup” – Scott Hanselman’s Blog

.NET Framework 4.5 Release Candidate

.NET Framework 4.5 RC Download
“Introducing the .NET Framework 4.5 RC” – .NET Blog
“What’s New in the .NET Framework 4.5 RC” – MSDN

Team Foundation Server 2012 Release Candidate

Team Foundation Server Downloads
“Visual Studio/TFS 2012 Release Candidate Available Today” – Brian Harry’s blog
Team Foundation Server 2012 RC Readme

Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate

Enjoy downloading and exploring!

-Chris

Additional Windows 8 Developer Camps!

Chris Bowen — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:23:17 GMT

I previously mentioned the series of Windows Developer Camps - free, full-day events to help you learn about building Metro-style apps for Windows 8. They feature a mix of developer sessions plus a series of hands-on labs to help reinforce what you’ve learned.

Well, it turns out they’re popular. So popular, in fact, that all of the Camps I listed earlier are full.

However, more are on the way! Coming soon to these cities:

Date	Location	Link
May 22	Irving, TX	Register
May 23	Bellevue, WA	Register
May 24	Waltham, MA	Register
May 24	Chevy Chase, MD	Register
May 29	Minneapolis, MN	Register
June 1	New York, NY	Register
June 5	Downers Grove, IL	Register

More Windows 8 Opportunities

The Windows Developer Camps are a great first step toward developing for Windows 8, but whether you’re just starting or are well on your way with your own app, check out the Metro Accelerator Labs.

While the Windows Developer Camps focus on education via sessions and hands-on labs, the Metro Accelerator Labs are focused on your apps, featuring an environment to let you code with experts on hand to help you with any questions (and plenty of food, too.)

Then, as you ready your app for prime time, look toward the Application Excellence Labs. These are your chance have your app reviewed and potentially earn a token to allow you to submit it early to the Windows Store – an opportunity you really shouldn’t miss!

Happy Windows 8 coding!

-Chris

Windows 8 MSDN Webcast Series – Building Metro Style Apps

Chris Bowen — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:34:09 GMT

Some colleagues and I have just started a new series of one-hour MSDN webcasts focused on many aspects of developing Metro style apps for Windows 8.

The series launched yesterday, but all sessions will be made available as on-demand recordings. (I’ll update this post as they are.) Thanks to Jaime Rodriguez for the original post.

Click on the session titles to register for each. You can also download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Visual Studio 11 Express Beta ahead of time to help follow along.

Enjoy the series!

-Chris

[Last Update: 5/31/2012]

Monday, May 14th, 2012
Introduction to the Windows 8 platform and the Windows Store
[Recording – WMV | WMA]
Jennifer Marsman
Windows 8 is Windows re-imagined! Join this session to learn about the new platform for building Metro-style applications. Get an understanding of the platform design tenets, the programming language choices, and the integration points with the operating system and across Metro-style apps. We will also discuss the enormous opportunity for developers to make crazy money with the Windows Store. You will walk away with the resources to begin writing Metro applications for Windows 8.

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 8:30 AM PDT
Designing apps with Metro style principles and the Windows personality
[Recording – WMV | WMA]
Chris Bernard
Metro style design has a set of five guiding principles to help you make the best choices when designing your app. These principles are the foundation for building great Metro style apps. Consider these principles as you plan your app, and always ensure your design and development choices live up to these principles.

Monday, May 21, 2012 8:30 AM PDT
Building Metro style apps with XAML: What .NET developers need to know
[Recording – WMV | WMA]
John Wiese
If you are experienced with .NET or Silverlight and are already familiar with XAML, this session will teach you everything you need to know to create a Metro style app for Windows 8. This session will cover updates to familiar features and explore concepts that are new for Windows 8. We’ll talk about building reusable Windows Runtime Components in C#, Async programming in Windows 8 and both the Visual Studio and Expression designers. This session will show you how to turn your XAML skills into money-making Metro style apps.

Wednesday May 23, 2012 8:30 AM PDT
What HTML developers need to know about coding Windows 8 Metro style apps
[Recording – WMV | WMA]
Michael Palermo
This session is perfect for any web developer wanting to leverage his/her skillset to develop Windows 8 Metro style apps. The session begins by proving how much web developers already know about building apps for Windows 8. The focus then turns to how to write JavaScript code with WinJS. Key points for Metro style app development will be highlighted by implementing popular feature requests using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.

Thursday, May 31, 2012 8:30 AM PDT
Win as One: How Contracts in Windows 8 Help You Build a Killer Metro App
G. Andrew Duthie
Contracts are agreements between Windows and your Metro style app that allow you to integrate Windows 8 features into your app. For example, Windows 8 lets users share content from one application to another by using the Share contract. In this session, you'll learn how contracts work and how to implement the built-in contracts such as Search, Share, Settings, and More. With Contracts, you can help users get more out of your app, and in a way that is consistent and intuitive, and they will reward you by coming back to your app again and again.

Monday, June 4th, 2012 8:30 AM PDT
Bring Your Windows 8 Metro Style Apps to Life with Tiles and Notifications
Chris Bowen
Tiles and Notifications are important ways to draw attention to your app and improve your users' experiences. Tiles can draw users back into your app when your tile comes to life on Start screen. They can also let users personalize their Start screen by creating deep links to specific places within your app. Notifications, delivered through the Windows Push Notification Service, can inform and draw your users back into your app even when it's not running. In this session, you will learn how to effectively implement Tiles and Notifications to help your apps shine.

Wednesday, June 6th, 2012 8:30 AM PDT
Building Windows 8 Metro style casual games using HTML 5
David Isbitski
The intent of this session is to help HTML5/JavaScript developers with writing their first Metro Style App in a fun, immersive way. We will cover the basics of HTML5 Canvas gaming and how we can easily bring it to Windows 8. We will then add additional game functionality as we introduce HTML5 Audio, CSS3 styling and web fonts, implementing a game loop with JavaScript, 3rd party frameworks, touch, camera, accelerometer, and WinJS controls.

Metro Accelerator Labs – Speeding Your App Development

Chris Bowen — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:46:07 GMT

Do you have a Windows 8 or Windows Phone app idea? Maybe you’re already working on an app and would like some guidance for getting it across the finish line? Then come to one of the upcoming Metro Accelerator Labs!

These are three-day opportunities to develop your app with experts on hand to help you with any questions:

Please join us for a special event that you simply don't want to miss – the Metro Accelerator Lab. This is your chance to dig deeper into Windows 8 and Windows Phone and gain all the knowledge you need to immediately start (or finish) building beautiful, fluid and immersive Metro style Windows and Windows Phone applications.

In this FREE, three-day developer event, you’ll get expert help building, testing and deploying your Metro style apps. Experience step-by-step advice from Microsoft and community experts and one-on-one technical assistance. Come for an hour, or all three days. Bring that app you've been tinkering with, or a new idea that you're eager to build and we’ll help you get well on your way to releasing that killer app to the world.

We'll also help you understand the steps needed to get your Windows 8 Metro style app into the Windows Store.

We’ll have Windows Slate and Windows Phone devices available on site so you can see exactly how your app will run. And of course, there’s always a chance we’ll have a few to give away during the course of the event.

Agenda (subject to change)

Day 1

8:30 – Arrival & Breakfast

9:00 – Kickoff & Logistics

9:15 – Session: “Designing Metro style: principles and personality”

10:00 – Hackathon, expert one-on-one guidance, lightning talks on demand, and plenty of sustenance, snacks & caffeine

5:00 – Wrap Up

Day 2

8:30 – Arrival & Breakfast

9:00 – Kickoff & Logistics

9:15 – Session: “Effective Metro Style Applications: User Experience (UX)” – To help you focus on making your Metro style apps great, we’ll review the essential features, design, and behavior of effective Metro style apps

10:00 – Hackathon, expert one-on-one guidance, lightning talks on demand, and plenty of sustenance, snacks & caffeine

5:00 – Wrap Up

Day 3

8:30 – Arrival & Breakfast

9:00 – Kickoff & Logistics

9:15 – Session: “Effective Metro Style Applications: UX (continued), Store, Performance” – Part two of our dive into the essential features, design, and behavior of effective Metro style apps

10:00 – Hackathon, expert one-on-one guidance, lightning talks on demand, and plenty of sustenance, snacks & caffeine

3:00 – “appX” – Your chance to show off your app and win prizes!

4:30 – Wrap Up & Giveaways

Seating is limited and registration is not guaranteed. Secure your spot today!

Prerequisites

You must bring a laptop/notebook computer. To develop Windows 8 Metro style apps, please install the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows 8. To develop for Windows Phone, install the Windows Phone SDK.

The focus is on your app, and while this isn’t a day of training (like our Windows Developer Camps), we will have a brief session every morning to give you ideas that you can turn into reality as you code.

Here in the eastern US, there are four Metro Accelerator Labs on the way:

Date	Location
May 30 – June 1	Tampa, FL	Register
June 5-7	Alpharetta, GA	Register
June 6-8	Waltham, MA	Register
June 11 & 12	Orlando, FL (at TechEd)	Open to all TechEd Attendees – just drop in!

So register today, bring your PCs and apps/ideas, and get ready to accelerate!

-Chris

Tech & Developer Events in the Northeast – May 2012 Edition

Chris Bowen — Wed, 02 May 2012 01:23:00 GMT

Here’s the latest roundup of tech- and developer-focused events here in the northeast. Most are free, but the exceptions are noted with [$].

As always, if you know of other free or nearly free developer-focused events, please let me know.

-Chris

[Last updated 5/4/2012]

Connecticut

May 1
Agile Connecticut - Farmington, CT

May 3
Fairfield/Westchester .NET User Group – Stamford, CT
“MoCloud: Useful Cloud Patterns for Mobile Developers” – Dani Diaz

May 8
Connecticut .NET Developers Group – Farmington, CT
“Windows 8 Development” – Chris Bowen

May 9
Connecticut Access Users Group – Farmington, CT

May 14
Hartford Area Build Guild – Farmington, CT
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

May 23
Windows 8 Developer Camp – Farmington, CT
A free, full day for developers to learn about Windows 8, including sessions and hands-on labs
Chris Bowen & Rachel Appel

June 7
Hartford Tech Meetup – Hartford, CT

June 23
Fifth Annual Hartford Code Camp – Farmington, CT

Schedule TBA
Connecticut DotNetNuke User Group - Bethany, CT
Connecticut SharePoint User Group – Farmington, CT
Connecticut Web Innovators – Hartford, CT
Fairfield County SharePoint User Group – Fairfield, CT
Fairfield/Westchester SQL Server UG - Stamford, CT

Maine

May 10
Maine Bytes User Group - Portland, ME
“Advanced JavaScript Techniques” – Fritz Onion

May 22
Bangor Area .Net Developers (BAND) - Bangor, ME

June 26
Bangor Area .Net Developers (BAND) - Bangor, ME

Schedule TBA
Agile User Group – Portland, ME
Maine Developer Network - Augusta, ME
SharePoint Maine User Group – Portland, ME
Usability / User Experience User Group – Portland, ME
Web Designers User Group – Portland, ME

Massachusetts

May 1
Boston Business Intelligence – Waltham, MA
“Introduction to BI Semantic Model” – Slava Kokaev

May 1
Boston Predictive Analytics – Cambridge, MA

May 2
Code Mastery – Waltham, MA
A free, full-day tech event by Magenic. Features two tracks: “Future of Development” and “Developing a BI System Using SQL Server 2012”.

May 2
The Road to Windows 8! – Waltham, MA
“A free, unbiased look at the current and future development with Windows 8 and .NET.” - Markus Egger

May 2
Boston Tech Meetup - Cambridge, MA
“Did WordPress Do That?” – Jon Bishop

May 2
Boston PHP Meetup – Cambridge, MA
“Show ‘n Tell Night”

May 3
New England Visual Basic Professionals - Waltham, MA
“An Introduction to Windows 8” – Chris Bowen

May 3 (first of 4 classes)
[$] Web Start Women Boston – Cambridge, MA
”Wrangling HTML/CSS”

May 4-6
New England GiveCamp – Cambridge, MA
A weekend for tech professionals to donate time and talent to support local charities and non-profit organizations.

May 5
Boston Innovation Challenge – Allston, MA

May 7
New England F# User Group – Cambridge, MA
TBD – Keith Battocchi

May 7
New England Artificial Intelligence – TBD
“AI, Pizza, & Beer”

May 8
DotNetNuke Boston Meetup – Cambridge, MA

May 8
Build Guild – Salem and Cape Cod
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

May 9
Drinks on Tap – Allston, MA
”Demos, drinks and discussions about mobile development'”

May 9
Emerging Business Tech – Cambridge, MA
“NoSQL in the Real World”

May 9
Breakfast at Telerik: Agile – Waltham, MA

May 9
HTML5 Game Development Meetup – Boston, MA

May 9 (first of 2 classes)
[$] Web Start Women Boston – Cambridge, MA
”Photoshop: Designing for the Web”

May 10
Microsoft Web Camp – Waltham, MA
A free, full-day event focused on web development topics including HTML5, ASP.NET 4.5, WebMatrix, jQuery, Internet Explorer 9 & 10, and more.

May 10
Microsoft DevBoston – Cambridge, MA
“Developing Software for Windows 8” – Chris Bowen

May 10
Worcester Web Technology – Worcester, MA
“Agile Testing”

May 10
Boston Software Engineering Meetup – Boston, MA
“Nanotechnology | Small Scale Software Engineering”

May 10
New England SQL Server User Group - Waltham, MA
“How Not to Be a Cranky DBA” – Mike Hillwig

May 14
Boston Software Craftsmanship – Cambridge, MA
Lightning Talks

May 14
[$] Tech Cocktail Sessions Boston – Cambridge, MA
”Startup Inspiration: Turning Ideas Into Action”

May 14
Boston WordPress – Cambridge, MA

May 15
Hacks / Hackers Boston – Boston, MA
”Using mapping to inform the world”

May 16
Boston New Technology Meetup – Cambridge, MA
Tech products and startup community

May 16
Boston Accessibility Roundtable – Cambridge, MA

May 16
Boston .NET Architecture Study Group - Waltham, MA

May 17
Refresh Boston – Cambridge, MA
“Taking the Plunge” – Mike Kivikoski

May 19
SQL Saturday Boston – Waltham, MA
A free full day of sessions for anyone looking to learn more about SQL Server.

May 22
Windows 8 Developer Camp – Waltham, MA
A free, full day for developers to learn about Windows 8, including sessions and hands-on labs
Chris Bowen & Rachel Appel

May 23
Boston Orchard CMS User Group – Cambridge, MA
“Orchard CMS Boston Feature Development for v1.4”

May 23
jQuery Boston Meetup – Boston, MA
“Five minute lightning talks!”

May 23
Boston XNA Developers Group - Waltham, MA

May 23
Agile Boston User Group - Waltham, MA

May 24
Western Mass Microsoft Technology Users Group - Agawam, MA
“Windows 8” – Chris Bowen

May 24
Lean Startup Circle Meetup – Cambridge, MA

May 29
Boston Software Engineering Meetup – Cambridge, MA
“Robotics | AI | Big Data”

May 30
Boston Azure Cloud User Group – Cambridge, MA
“Hands-On with the Windows Azure SDK (Bring Your Own Laptop!)” – Jason Haley

May 30
Boston Tech Meetup - Cambridge, MA
“Jobspring and Workbridge Career Fair” & ”Start-up Panel Discussion”

May 30
HPC & GPU Supercomputing Group of Boston – Cambridge, MA

June 4
Cloudy Mondays – Cambridge, MA
“Control in the Cloud”

June 6
Boston Accessibility Roundtable – Cambridge, MA

June 7
Microsoft DevBoston – Cambridge, MA

June 7
New England Visual Basic Professionals - Waltham, MA
“RavenDB” – Igor Moochnick

June 7
Boston Web Performance Group – Boston, MA

June 11
Boston Software Craftsmanship – Cambridge, MA

June 14
New England SQL Server User Group - Waltham, MA
“Reducing Data Integration TCO – Best Practices for SQL Server 2012” – Larry Barnes

June 14
Boston Software Engineering Meetup – TBD
“3D Printing Hackday and Party”

June 18
New England F# User Group – Cambridge, MA
”Bumblebee” - Mathias Brandewinder

June 20
Boston Orchard CMS User Group – Cambridge, MA
“Orchard CMS Themes Styling and Design Walk Through” – Rebecca Pleshaw

June 20
HTML5 Game Development Meetup – Boston, MA

June 20
Boston .NET Architecture Study Group - Waltham, MA

June 21
Western Mass Microsoft Technology Users Group - Agawam, MA
“Infragistics Presentation”

June 21
[$] Tech Cocktail Sessions Boston – Cambridge, MA

June 22-23
Boston Azure Cloud User Group – Cambridge, MA
“Boston Azure Bootcamp (hands-on)”

June 25
Boston WordPress – Cambridge, MA

June 27
HPC & GPU Supercomputing Group of Boston – Cambridge, MA

June 27
Boston XNA Developers Group - Waltham, MA

June 28
Boston Azure Cloud User Group – Cambridge, MA
TBD – Michael S. Collier

July 5
New England Visual Basic Professionals - Waltham, MA
“The Other Stack: HTML5 and CSS” – Doug Domeny

July 10
Boston Accessibility Roundtable – Cambridge, MA

July 17
[$] Tech Cocktail Sessions Boston – Cambridge, MA

July 18
Boston Orchard CMS User Group – Cambridge, MA
“Deploying Orchard to Windows Azure”

July 26
Worcester Web Technology – Worcester, MA
“Build a Python/Django/jQuery web app within an hour” – Marc Hughes

July 26
Lean Startup Circle Meetup – Cambridge, MA

Schedule TBA

Beantown ALT.NET Group – Cambridge, MA
Boston Arduino Users Group – Cambridge, MA
Boston Area SharePoint Users Group – Cambridge, MA
Boston Artists + Coders – Boston, MA
Boston BizSpark Meetup – Cambridge, MA
Boston Cloud Services – Waltham, MA
Boston Front End Developers – Cambridge, MA
Boston JavaScript Meetup – Boston, MA
Boston Node.js Meetup – Boston, MA
Boston Web Design Meetup – Cambridge, MA
Boston WebsiteSpark Group – Cambridge, MA
HTML5 Boston – Boston, MA
Kinect Boston Users Group – Cambridge, MA
Mobile Monday Boston – Boston, MA
New England Mobile .NET Developers’ Group – Cambridge, MA
New England Windows Phone User and Developer Group - Waltham, MA
North Shore .NET User Group - Ipswich, MA
North Shore Web Geeks – Newburyport, MA
OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) – Waltham, MA
UX Book Club, Boston – Cambridge, MA
Western Mass Developers’ Group – Hadley, MA

New Hampshire

May 3
eBrew – Portsmouth, NH

May 8
NH Database Meetup – Manchester, NH
First meeting. Topic: MongoDB

May 9
Portsmouth Startup Meetup – Portsmouth, NH
Jeffrey Vocell

May 10
Granite State SharePoint User Group – Nashua, NH
Derek Cash-Peterson

May 10
Joomla NH User Group – Durham, NH

May 11
[$] eCoast Cloud Summit – Portsmouth, NH

May 17
Digital Portsmouth – Portsmouth, NH
“The Art of Code”

May 17
Seacoast SQL Server Users Group – Portsmouth, NH
“Hadoop, Big Data & SQL – TripAdvisor’s Story” – Don O’Neill

June 14
Granite State SharePoint User Group – Nashua, NH
Glenn Gnabasik

July 12
Granite State SharePoint User Group – Nashua, NH
“SharePoint Maturity” - Sadalit Van Buren

Schedule TBA
Nashua Scrum Club – Nashua, NH
NH .NET User Group, Concord – Concord, NH
NH .NET User Group, Nashua – Nashua, NH
NH .NET User Group, Seacoast – Portsmouth, NH
Systems Engineering and Administration Technical User Group – Portsmouth, NH
Web Dev Meetup – Portsmouth, NH

New York (Upstate)

May 1
AppRochester – Rochester, NY

May 2
Rochester JavaScript Meetup (Coworking Rochester) – Rochester, NY

May 3
OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) – Rochester, NY

May 8
Tech Valley .NET Users Group – Albany, NY
Open Q&A Session

May 12
SQL Saturday Rochester – Rochester, NY
A free full day of sessions for anyone looking to learn more about SQL Server.

May 15
Upstate NY PowerShell Users Group – Rochester, NY
“PowerShell Basics: Pipeline Tactics”

May 21
Capital Area SQL Server Users Group – Albany, NY
”Star and Snowflake Schema, SSAS and Multidimensional Tables”

May 29
Microsoft Developers of Western NY – Buffalo, NY
”Windows Phone Development” – Dani Diaz

May 30
AppRochester – Rochester, NY
“Windows Phone” - Dani Diaz

May 31
Central New York .NET Developer Group - East Syracuse, NY
“Windows Phone” – Dani Diaz

June 6
Rochester JavaScript Meetup (Coworking Rochester) – Rochester, NY

July 11
Rochester JavaScript Meetup (Coworking Rochester) – Rochester, NY

Schedule TBA
Build Guild – Troy, NY
Microsoft Developers of Western NY – Buffalo, NY
Refresh Rochester – Rochester, NY
Rochester SharePoint User Group – Rochester, NY
VDUNY - Visual Developers of Upstate NY - Rochester, NY
Western New York Back Office Technology User Group – Blasdell, NY
Western NY SQL Server PASS – Amherst, NY

Rhode Island

May 9
Southern New England SQL Server Users Group – East Greenwich, RI
“On beyond Zebra AdventureWorks OR where did I go wrong?” – Steve Simon

May 10
Providence Web Development Lunch Hour – Providence, RI

June 14
Providence Web Development Lunch Hour – Providence, RI

July 12
Providence Web Development Lunch Hour – Providence, RI

August 1
Rhode Island SharePoint User Group – Providence, RI
”Inaugural Meeting!”

Schedule TBA
MoDevRI (Mobile Developers & Entrepreneurs) – Providence, RI
Providence Geeks – Providence, RI
Rhode Island .NET User Group - Bristol, RI
WordPress Providence Meetup – Providence, RI

Vermont

May 2
Vermont SQL Server User Group - Burlington, VT
”What’s New in SSIS Denali” – Christian Cote

May 14
Vermont .NET User Group – S. Burlington, VT
Chris Fradenberg

June 11
Vermont .NET User Group – S. Burlington, VT

July 16
Vermont .NET User Group – S. Burlington, VT
Ward Bell

Schedule TBA
Burlington PHP Users Group – Burlington, VT
Northern Vermont SharePoint Users Group – Essex Junction, VT

Windows 8 Developer Events – Updated

Chris Bowen — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:36:18 GMT

There’s certainly a lot of interest in Windows 8 and the developer opportunity around it, so here’s an update and summary of various events that can help you learn more.

Windows Developer Camps

The series of Windows 8 Developer Camps on the east coast that I mentioned in an earlier post are now underway and very popular (those that aren’t full yet are very nearly so).

Here are the events we’re running in in the east:

March 27, 2012	Reston, VA	Done
March 29, 2012	Chevy Chase, MD	Done
April 11, 2012	Orlando, FL	Today!
April 17, 2012	Tampa, FL	Details & Registration
April 19, 2012	Ft. Lauderdale, FL	Details & Registration
May 1, 2012	Charlotte, NC	Details & Registration
May 22, 2012	Waltham, MA	Details & Registration
May 23, 2012	Atlanta, GA	Details & Registration
May 23, 2012	Farmington, CT	Details & Registration
May 24, 2012	Malvern, PA	Details & Registration

The great news is this list is only a small part of the large number of events being run around the world, so head over to the Microsoft DevCamps site to see them all.

Windows Developer Event – NYC, April 19

Along with those Developer Camps, there is also a special Windows Developer Event coming to New York City next week (and filling up quickly as well):

Windows reimagined.

Learn everything you need to start building Metro-style apps for Windows today at our free, full-day Windows Developer Event.

We'll show you how to use Visual Studio to code fast, fluid, immersive and beautiful Metro-style applications in HTML5/JavaScript, XAML/C# and C/C++. Your investments in these languages carry forward, making Windows a no-compromise platform for developers.

Whatever language you choose, your app gets deep integration with the Windows shell, including notifications, live tiles, deep links, and contracts with other apps. And now you can build once and support all Windows customers, no matter what type of PC they have—from tablets to laptops to convertibles to desktops.

Seating is limited and registration is not guaranteed. Secure your spot today!

Registration

The event runs from 9 AM to 5 PM on April 19th at Center 548 in New York City.

More Windows 8 in the Northeast

For those of you in the northeastern U.S., here are some other (free) ways to hear about Windows 8: (Yes, I’ll be on the road a bit...)

April 12 - Portland, ME – Maine Bytes User Group – Chris Bowen
May 2 – Cambridge, MA – “The Road to Windows 8” – Markus Egger
May 3 – Waltham, MA – New England Visual Basic Professionals – Chris Bowen
May 8 – Farmington, CT - CT .NET Developers Group – Chris Bowen
May 10 – Cambridge, MA – Microsoft DevBoston – Chris Bowen
May 24 – Agawam, MA – Western Mass MS Technology UG – Chris Bowen
June 23 – Hartford, CT – Code Camp Hartford 5 – Community-driven schedule, but a good chance there will be Windows 8 related topics

I hope you’re able to join in one of these events! To get ready, you can download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and developer tools.

-Chris

Tech & Developer Events in the Northeast – March 2012 Edition

Chris Bowen — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 03:50:44 GMT

As time continues to march quickly onward, here’s the latest roundup of tech- and developer-focused events here in the northeast. Most are free, but the exceptions are noted with [$]. Based on the length of these event posts lately, the tech community here in the northeast is doing extremely well!

As always, if you know of other (free or nearly free) developer-focused events, please let me know.

-Chris

[Last updated 3/16/2012]

Connecticut

April 9
Hartford Area Build Guild – Farmington, CT
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

April 10
Connecticut .NET Developers Group – Farmington, CT
“ASP.NET MVC 4 and the ASP.NET Web API” – Nate Dudek

May 8
Connecticut .NET Developers Group – Farmington, CT
“Windows 8 Development” – Chris Bowen

May 23
Windows 8 Developer Camp – Farmington, CT
A free, full day for developers to learn about Windows 8, including sessions and hands-on labs
Chris Bowen & Rachel Appel

June 23
Fifth Annual Hartford Code Camp – Farmington, CT

Schedule TBA
Agile Connecticut - Farmington, CT
Connecticut Access Users Group – Farmington, CT
Connecticut DotNetNuke User Group - Bethany, CT
Connecticut SharePoint User Group – Farmington, CT
Connecticut Web Innovators – Hartford, CT
Fairfield County SharePoint User Group – Fairfield, CT
Fairfield/Westchester .NET User Group – Stamford, CT
Fairfield/Westchester SQL Server UG - Stamford, CT

Maine

March 27
Bangor Area .Net Developers (BAND) - Bangor, ME
“Getting Started with Node.js” – Greg Howe

April 12
Maine Bytes User Group - Portland, ME
“Windows 8 for Developers” – Chris Bowen

Massachusetts

March 15
Microsoft DevBoston – Cambridge, MA
”Service Design Patterns & Solutions” – Robert Daigneau

March 15
Boston Web Performance Group – Boston, MA
“Apache Web Performance” – Devon Hillard

March 17
[$] Geek Girl Cape Cod Conference 2012 – Barnstable, MA

March 19
Music 2.0 – Cambridge, MA
”Tools + Tech for Musicians, Marketers + Managers: The 2012 Edition”

March 19
Boston Software Engineering Meetup – Boston, MA
“Boston Tech Job Fair”

March 20
Boston New Technology Meetup – Cambridge, MA
Tech products and startup community

March 21
HTML5 Game Development Meetup – Boston, MA

March 21
Boston PHP Meetup – Cambridge, MA
“Learn Git and GitHub” – Ajay Reddy

March 21
New England Windows Phone User and Developer Group - Waltham, MA

March 21
Boston .NET Architecture Study Group - Waltham, MA

March 22
Western Mass Microsoft Technology Users Group - Agawam, MA
Ian Drake

March 22
Worcester Web Technology – Worcester, MA
“Build a Web Application in 5 Minutes with Spring Roo” – Chris Pinto

March 24
Hacks / Hackers Boston – Dorchester, MA
”Boston Baseball Hack Day”

March 26
Drinks on Tap – Cambridge, MA
”Demos, drinks and discussions about mobile development'”

March 26
HTML5 Boston – Boston, MA
”How to Properly Structure an HTML5 Web Page”

March 26
Boston WordPress – Cambridge, MA
“What Would Core Do? Extending Consistency & Classiness” – Jake Goldman
“Design, UX, Content Strategy and SEO” – Annie Smidt

March 27
Beantown ALT.NET Group – Cambridge, MA
“Introduction to NoSQL with Couchbase Server” – Raghavan Srinivas

March 27
Boston Tech Meetup - Cambridge, MA
“Learn About NoSQL!” – John Zablocki

March 28
Boston XNA Developers Group - Waltham, MA

March 28
Boston Node.js Meetup – Boston, MA
“Intro to Node” – Le Zhang
“Network Programming for Games” - Geoff Pitsch

March 28
Agile Boston User Group - Waltham, MA
Jeremy Kriegel on Agile Requirements and Personas

March 29
Ignite Boston 9 – Cambridge, MA
5-minute presentations on a variety of interesting topics!

March 29
Boston Azure Cloud User Group – Cambridge, MA
“Introduction to the Windows Azure SDK” – Jason Haley

March 29
Boston JavaScript Meetup – Boston, MA
“Choosing CoffeeScript” – Adam Buggia

March 29
Lean Startup Circle Meetup – Cambridge, MA
“Lean UX” – Josh Seiden

March 31
New England Code Camp 17 – Waltham, MA
The Code Camp that started them all convenes one last time in Waltham before moving to Cambridge in the fall. Join hundreds of fellow developers for a free day of great stuff by the developer community, for the developer community.

April 2
New England F# User Group – Cambridge, MA

April 3
Refresh Boston – Cambridge, MA
“What’s Next for Responsive Web Design?” – Mat Marquis

April 4
Boston PHP Meetup – Cambridge, MA
“Lean UX: Getting Out of the Deliverables Business” – Jeff Gothelf

April 7 & 8
BarCamp Boston 7 – Cambridge, MA
Free and open two-day geek unconference (schedule determined and organized by attendees at the event!)

April 10
Build Guild – Salem and Cape Cod
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

April 11
Boston Area SharePoint Users Group – Cambridge, MA

April 11
Boston Accessibility Roundtable – Cambridge, MA

April 11
OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) – Waltham, MA
“Gray, the New Black: Gray-Box Vulnerability Testing” – David Eoff

April 12
Kinect Boston Users Group – Cambridge, MA
“Kinect Boston Demos and PAX Debrief”

April 12
New England Mobile .NET Developers’ Group – Cambridge, MA
“Monetize Your Windows Phone App!” – Lance McCarthy

April 12
New England SQL Server User Group - Waltham, MA
“Common Backup Problems and How to Deal with Them” – Grant Fritchey

April 18
HTML5 Game Development Meetup – Boston, MA

April 18
Boston .NET Architecture Study Group - Waltham, MA

April 19
Western Mass Microsoft Technology Users Group - Agawam, MA
“LINQ” – Jeff Roy

April 19
Worcester Web Technology – Worcester, MA
“Git/Github in an Agile/Collaborative Environment”

April 21-22
Rethink Music: Hacker’s Weekend – Cambridge, MA
“This will be a weekend for developers, designers, programers, industry insiders and musicians to come together to create new and unique applications across many different platforms.”

April 23
Mobile Monday Boston – Boston, MA
The Mobile Pitch Challenge

April 24
Boston Azure Cloud User Group – Cambridge, MA
“Building Games with Windows Azure Services” – Michael Cummings

April 25
Boston XNA Developers Group - Waltham, MA

April 26
Lean Startup Circle Meetup – Cambridge, MA

April 28
SharePoint Saturday Boston 5 – Waltham, MA

April 30
HTML5 Boston – Boston, MA
”How to Properly Structure an HTML5 Web Page”

April 30
Boston WordPress – Cambridge, MA

May 2
The Road to Windows 8! – Waltham, MA
“A free, unbiased look at the current and future development with Windows 8 and .NET.” - Markus Egger

May 4-6
New England GiveCamp – Cambridge, MA
A weekend for tech professionals to donate time and talent to support local charities and non-profit organizations.

May 8
DotNetNuke Boston Meetup – Cambridge, MA

May 10
Microsoft DevBoston – Cambridge, MA
“Developing Software for Windows 8” – Chris Bowen

May 10
Worcester Web Technology – Worcester, MA
“Agile Testing”

May 14
Boston Software Craftsmanship – Cambridge, MA
Lightning Talks

May 16
HTML5 Game Development Meetup – Boston, MA

May 16
Boston Accessibility Roundtable – Cambridge, MA

May 22
Windows 8 Developer Camp – Waltham, MA
A free, full day for developers to learn about Windows 8, including sessions and hands-on labs
Chris Bowen & Rachel Appel

May 23
Boston Orchard CMS User Group – Cambridge, MA
“Orchard CMS Boston Feature Development for v1.4”

May 24
Western Mass Microsoft Technology Users Group - Agawam, MA
“Windows 8” – Chris Bowen

May 30
Boston Azure Cloud User Group – Cambridge, MA
“Hands-On with the Windows Azure SDK (Bring Your Own Laptop!)” – Jason Haley

Schedule TBA
Boston Arduino Users Group – Cambridge, MA
Boston Artists + Coders – Boston, MA
Boston BizSpark Meetup – Cambridge, MA
Boston Business Intelligence – Waltham, MA
Boston Cloud Services – Waltham, MA
Boston Front End Developers – Cambridge, MA
Boston Predictive Analytics – Cambridge, MA
Boston Web Design Meetup – Cambridge, MA
Boston WebsiteSpark Group – Cambridge, MA
Cape Cod .NET User Group – Plymouth, MA
Cloudy Mondays – Cambridge, MA
Emerging Business Tech – Newton Center, MA
HPC & GPU Supercomputing Group of Boston – Cambridge, MA
jQuery Boston Meetup – Boston, MA
New England Visual Basic Professionals - Waltham, MA
New England Artificial Intelligence – TBD
North Shore .NET User Group - Ipswich, MA
North Shore Web Geeks – Newburyport, MA
UX Book Club, Boston – Cambridge, MA
Western Mass Developers’ Group – Hadley, MA

New Hampshire

March 21
NH .NET User Group, Nashua – Nashua, NH
“Extreme Performance” – Lance Farquhar

March 21
NH .NET User Group, Seacoast – Portsmouth, NH
”A View from the Summit” – Pat Tormey & Ed Bouras

March 21
Systems Engineering and Administration Technical User Group – Portsmouth, NH
”Implementing and Managing a BYOD Policy in Your Organization”

March 22
Digital Portsmouth – Portsmouth, NH
NH TweetUp & The Music Hall

March 28
Web Dev Meetup – Portsmouth, NH
Tim Armstrong on Security for web and mobile development

April 5
eBrew – Portsmouth, NH

April 12
Granite State SharePoint User Group – Nashua, NH
Gail Shlansky

May 3
eBrew – Portsmouth, NH

May 10
Granite State SharePoint User Group – Nashua, NH
Derek Cash-Peterson

May 11
[$] eCoast Cloud Summit – Portsmouth, NH

Schedule TBA
Joomla NH User Group – Durham, NH
Nashua Scrum Club – Nashua, NH
NH .NET User Group, Concord – Concord, NH
Portsmouth Startup Meetup – Portsmouth, NH
Seacoast SQL Server Users Group – Portsmouth, NH

New York (Upstate)

March 15
VDUNY - Visual Developers of Upstate NY - Rochester, NY
“Continuous Integration with Subversion and CruiseControl.NET” – David Stevenson

March 19
Upstate NY PowerShell Users Group – Rochester, NY
International PowerShell User Group Day

March 19
Capital Area SQL Server Users Group – Albany, NY

March 21
Build Guild – Troy, NY
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

March 24
CloudCamp Rochester – Rochester, NY

April 3
Microsoft Developers of Western NY – Buffalo, NY
“Playing Games in the Cloud” – Jim O’Neil

April 3
AppRochester – Rochester, NY

April 4
VDUNY - Visual Developers of Upstate NY - Rochester, NY
“Playing Games in the Cloud” – Jim O’Neil

April 5
Central New York .NET Developer Group - East Syracuse, NY
“Playing Games in the Cloud” – Jim O’Neil

April 4
Rochester JavaScript Meetup (Coworking Rochester) – Rochester, NY

April 10
Tech Valley .NET Users Group – Albany, NY
“Playing Games in the Cloud” – Jim O’Neil

April 16
Capital Area SQL Server Users Group – Albany, NY

April 27-29
[$] Startup Weekend Rochester – Rochester, NY

May 1
AppRochester – Rochester, NY

May 2
Rochester JavaScript Meetup (Coworking Rochester) – Rochester, NY

May 12
SQL Saturday Rochester – Rochester, NY

Schedule TBA
OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) – Rochester, NY
Refresh Rochester – Rochester, NY
Rochester SharePoint User Group – Rochester, NY
Western New York Back Office Technology User Group – Blasdell, NY
Western NY SQL Server PASS – Amherst, NY

Rhode Island

March 21
MoDevRI (Mobile Developers & Entrepreneurs) – Providence, RI
“Prototyping Your Next Mobile App” + Networking

April 11
Southern New England SQL Server Users Group – East Greenwich, RI

April 12
Providence Web Development Lunch Hour – Providence, RI

April 18
Providence Geeks – Providence, RI

May 10
Providence Web Development Lunch Hour – Providence, RI

Schedule TBA
Rhode Island .NET User Group - Bristol, RI
WordPress Providence Meetup – Providence, RI

Vermont

March 19
Northern Vermont SharePoint Users Group – Essex Junction, VT
SharePoint with Suzanne Shushereba and Amy Coutu

April 9
Vermont .NET User Group – S. Burlington, VT
Kathleen Dollard

May 14
Vermont .NET User Group – S. Burlington, VT
Chris Fradenberg

Schedule TBA
Burlington PHP Users Group – Burlington, VT
Vermont SQL Server User Group - Burlington, VT

Windows 8 Developer Camps – Coming Soon!

Chris Bowen — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:42:41 GMT

Ready to dive in and learn more about Windows 8 and the developer opportunity it represents? Then get ready for the upcoming series of Windows Developer Camps! These are free, full-day, developer-focused events featuring a combination of sessions and hands-on labs, and we’ll have 10 of them right here in the east:

Windows 8 changes everything.

Combining the broad reach of Windows, best-in-class developer tools, a reimagined user experience, support for new chipsets, and a built-in Store with industry-leading business terms — Windows 8 is the largest developer opportunity, ever.

Join us for this free, full-day event designed to share all the knowledge you need to start building Metro-style applications for Windows 8 – today. We’ll begin by showing you how to use Visual Studio to code fast, fluid, immersive and beautiful Metro-style applications in HTML5/JavaScript, XAML/C# and C/C++. Your existing investments in these languages carry forward, making Windows a no-compromise platform for developers.

Whatever language you choose, your app gets deep integration with the Windows shell, including notifications, live tiles, deep links, and contracts with other apps. And now you can build once and support all Windows customers, no matter what type of PC they have – from tablets to laptops to convertibles to desktops.

We’ll cap the day off with an open, hands-on lab session. It’s the perfect opportunity to get your dream application underway, or finish that app you’ve already started – with Windows 8 experts available to guide you through every step. Bring your laptop to join in the fun and show off your killer app.

Get started now!

The Schedule

Join us in one of these cities:

Windows Developer Camps
Date	City	More
March 27, 2012	Reston, VA	Details & Registration
March 29, 2012	Chevy Chase, MD	Details & Registration
April 11, 2012	Orlando, FL	Details & Registration
April 17, 2012	Tampa, FL	Details & Registration
April 19, 2012	Ft. Lauderdale, FL	Details & Registration
May 1, 2012	Charlotte, NC	Details & Registration
May 22, 2012	Waltham, MA	Details & Registration
May 23, 2012	Atlanta, GA	Details & Registration
May 23, 2012	Farmington, CT	Details & Registration
May 24, 2012	Malvern, PA	Details & Registration

-Chris

Announcing New England Code Camp 17!

Chris Bowen — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:07:22 GMT

New England Code Camp, the major community-driven day for developers, returns for its 17th event in Waltham, MA on March 31st!

Registration (it’s free) is already open! Also open are the Calls for Speakers and Contributors (details below).

   New England Code Camp 17:
   “Where it all began…”
     Saturday, March 31, 2012
     8:30 AM – 6:40 PM + post-event gathering
     Microsoft, 201 Jones Road, Waltham, MA
     http://necodecamp17.eventbrite.com

Code Camps have spread worldwide and are free events, held outside of regular work hours, organized by and for the developer community, offering a chance to learn, share, and network.

What kind of stuff might you see? Anything for tech pros and developers is fair game, and specific topics vary camp to camp, but take a look at the previous camp’s schedule to get an idea of how things work.

Fond Farewell for Mr. Jones (Road)

It’s hard to believe, but after hosting the first Code Camp in 2004, and all New England Code Camps since then, this will be the last one held at the Jones Road Microsoft offices in Waltham. Look for this fall’s CC18 to be at the Microsoft New England Research & Development (aka NERD) Center in Cambridge, MA.

Thanks to Thom Robbins for bringing the idea to life and to everyone who has been part of the Camps at Jones Road over the years. Be part of the fun and join hundreds of fellow developers at CC17 to bid bon voyage on its eastward journey toward Boston!

Call for Speakers

From first-time presenters to veterans of national conferences, Code Camps are made great because we hear from many perspectives – including yours. Have something to share? The community wants to hear from you!

How? Just register as a speaker first, then (with the same email address), use the session proposal form to submit as many session abstracts as you like. Proposals can be for any technology topic and sessions will likely be 75 minutes long.

The Call for Speakers will close on March 24th.

Call for Contributors

Contributors are a critical part of each Code Camp, relied upon to provide the essentials for the Code Camp experience, such as:

Morning coffee (no doughnut has ever been turned away, either)
Lunch
Giveaways & SWAG

You’ll have a highly-targeted audience thanking your company for its support of the developer community, so send me a note and I’ll put you in touch with the Contributor Coordinator to help make CC17 a success!

Call for Thanks!

Thanks to Patrick Hynds, Robert Goodearl, John Zablocki, and Chris Pels for the care and feeding of this event, to the contributing companies, and of course to the many speakers who volunteer their time and expertise!

Special thanks to Bryan Phillips for again creating an awesome logo (the one at the top of this post) for New England Code Camp!

See you all at New England Code Camp 17!

-Chris

Developer Events in the Northeast – February, 2012

Chris Bowen — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:43:26 GMT

Welcome to February. It’s time for a new roundup of developer-focused events that you may find interesting. Most are free, but the exceptions are noted with [$].

Interested in other local user groups? Boston User Groups lists New England area tech groups of all kinds.

As always, if you know of other (free or nearly free) developer-focused events, please let me know.

-Chris

[Last updated 2/22/12]

Connecticut

February 2
Fairfield/Westchester .NET User Group – Stamford, CT
“Azure, Azure, Azure: Windows Azure Update” – Peter Laudati

February 8
Connecticut Access Users Group – Farmington, CT

February 9
[$] Agile Connecticut - Farmington, CT

February 13
Hartford Area Build Guild – Farmington, CT
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

February 14
Connecticut SharePoint User Group – Farmington, CT
“Building Custom Workflows in SharePoint 2010 Using Visual Studio 2010” – Reddy Kadasani

Schedule TBA
Connecticut .NET Developers Group – Farmington, CT
Connecticut DotNetNuke User Group - Bethany, CT
Connecticut Web Innovators – Hartford, CT
Fairfield County SharePoint User Group – Fairfield, CT
Fairfield/Westchester SQL Server UG - Stamford, CT
Hartford SQL Server Users Group – Farmington, CT

Maine

February 16
Maine Bytes User Group - Portland, ME
“Get Kinected” – Angelo Castigliola

February 28
Bangor Area .Net Developers (BAND) - Bangor, ME
“WebSockets & WebWorkers – Getting plugged in, powered up and getting things done” – Corey Gray

February 28
SharePoint Maine User Group – Portland, ME
“SharePoint Governance with Axceler ControlPoint”

Schedule TBA
Agile User Group – Portland, ME
Maine Developer Network - Augusta, ME
Usability / User Experience User Group – Portland, ME
Web Designers User Group – Portland, ME

Massachusetts

February 2
New England Visual Basic Professionals - Waltham, MA
“Async Programming in .NET 4.5” – John Bowen

February 2
Refresh Boston – Cambridge, MA
Patrick Haney

February 2
Boston Software Engineering Meetup – Boston, MA
#WeAreTech Icebreaker Networking Event

February 2
HPC & GPU Supercomputing Group of Boston – Cambridge, MA

February 2
Boston Accessibility Roundtable – Cambridge, MA

February 3
New England Database Summit 2012 – Cambridge, MA

February 3
Kinect Boston Users Group – Cambridge, MA
”Kinect Accelerator Info Session!”

February 6
HTML5 Boston – Boston, MA
”Mobile Website Development” – Tunde Ashafa & Jeff Boulay

February 6
Drinks on Tap – Boston, MA
”Demos, drinks and discussions about mobile development'”

February 7
Microsoft DevBoston & Boston Azure Cloud User Group Joint Meeting – Cambridge, MA
“Architecting for Failure: Why Cloud Architecture is Different” – Michael Stiefel

February 9
New England Mobile .NET Developers’ Group – Cambridge, MA
“Windows 8” – Chris Bowen

February 9
New England SQL Server User Group - Waltham, MA
“Big Data with Hadoop and SQL Server”

February 10-12
[$] Startup Scramble – Cambridge, MA

February 13
Boston Area SharePoint Users Group – Cambridge, MA
Rob Windsor on Visual Studio LightSwitch applications (using data from SharePoint 2010)

February 13
Kinect Boston Users Group – Cambridge, MA
”Demos and Kinect for Windows!”

February 15
HTML5 Game Development Meetup – Boston, MA

February 15
Boston Web Performance Group – Boston, MA
“An Expert’s Guide to Making a Website Slow! Anti-Patterns” – Bob Buffone

February 15
Boston PHP Meetup – Cambridge, MA
“Security-Centered Design: Exploring the Impact of Human Behavior”

February 16
Boston Orchard CMS User Group – Cambridge, MA
“Website Development”

February 21
Tech Tuesday – Cambridge, MA
”Developers Wanted”

February 21
Hacks / Hackers Boston – Dorchester, MA
”The Boston Globe’s digital strategy: A peek behind the (pay) wall” – Jeff Moriarty

February 21
Boston Predictive Analytics – Cambridge, MA
”How far away from me is Kevin Bacon? (Social Media & Network Analysis)”

February 22
Boston XNA Developers Group - Waltham, MA

February 22
Boston Tech Meetup - Cambridge, MA
“SharePoint Performance: Best Practices from the Field” – Jason Himmelstein

February 22
Western Mass Microsoft Technology Users Group - Agawam, MA
“Telerik Product Presentation”

February 22
Agile Boston User Group - Waltham, MA
“A Culture of Agility” – Pete Behrens

February 23
Boston Azure Cloud User Group – Cambridge, MA
”Solving Access Control in the Cloud – from WIF to ACS” – Brock Allen

February 23
Worcester Web Technology – Worcester, MA
“Practicing Agile/Scrum”

February 23
Boston New Technology Meetup – Boston, MA
Multiple presentations on what’s new in the startup scene

February 23
Boston JavaScript Meetup – Boston, MA
“The Promises Pattern in JavaScript” – Eric Strathmeyer

February 23
Lean Startup Circle Meetup – Cambridge, MA

February 27
Boston WordPress – Cambridge, MA

February 28
New England Artificial Intelligence – TBD
”AI, Pizza, and Beer”

February 29
Emerging Business Tech – Newton Center, MA
”Native and HTML5-based mobile: Strategies for mobile app development”

February 29
Boston Front End Developers – Cambridge, MA

March 1
HPC & GPU Supercomputing Group of Boston – Cambridge, MA

March 5
Joint meeting:
Beantown ALT.NET Group & New England F# User Group – Cambridge, MA
“Introduction to F#” – Talbott Crowell & Scott Theleman

March 5
Web Innovators Group 33 – Cambridge, MA

March 5
Cloudy Mondays – Cambridge, MA
”Battle of the Public Clouds”

March 8
New England SQL Server User Group - Waltham, MA
“T-SQL Bad Habits to Kick” – Aaron Bertrand

March 10
Boston Predictive Analytics – Cambridge, MA
“Big Data Workshop: Session 1”

March 12
New England Mobile .NET Developers’ Group – Cambridge, MA
“Push Notification Services on Windows Phone” – Michael Cummings

March 13
Build Guild – Salem and Cape Cod
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

March 13
DotNetNuke Boston Meetup – Cambridge, MA

March 14
[$] Xconomy Forum: Mobile Madness 2012 – Total Mobility – Cambridge, MA

March 15
Microsoft DevBoston – Cambridge, MA
”Service Design Patterns & Solutions” – Robert Daigneau

March 21
New England Windows Phone User and Developer Group - Waltham, MA

March 21
HTML5 Game Development Meetup – Boston, MA

March 22
Worcester Web Technology – Worcester, MA
“SpringRoo”

March 22
Western Mass Microsoft Technology Users Group - Agawam, MA
TBD – Ian Drake

March 26
Boston WordPress – Cambridge, MA

March 26
Drinks on Tap – Boston, MA
”Demos, drinks and discussions about mobile development'”

March 29
Boston Azure Cloud User Group – Cambridge, MA
”Introduction to Windows Azure SDK” – Jason Haley

March 29
Lean Startup Circle Meetup – Cambridge, MA

Schedule TBA
Boston .NET Architecture Study Group - Waltham, MA
Boston Arduino Users Group – Cambridge, MA
Boston Artists + Coders – Boston, MA
Boston BizSpark Meetup – Cambridge, MA
Boston Business Intelligence – Waltham, MA
Boston Cloud Services – Waltham, MA
Boston Node.js Meetup – Boston, MA
Boston Web Design Meetup – Cambridge, MA
Boston WebsiteSpark Group – Cambridge, MA
Cape Cod .NET User Group – Plymouth, MA
jQuery Boston Meetup – Boston, MA
Mobile Monday Boston – Boston, MA
New England ASP.NET Professionals – Waltham, MA
North Shore .NET User Group - Ipswich, MA
North Shore Web Geeks – Newburyport, MA
OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) – Cambridge, MA
UX Book Club, Boston – Cambridge, MA
Western Mass Developers’ Group – Hadley, MA

New Hampshire

February 2
eBrew – Portsmouth, NH

February 8
Joomla NH User Group – Durham, NH

February 15
NH .NET User Group, Seacoast – Portsmouth, NH
“Windows 8” – Chris Bowen

February 15
Web Dev Meetup – Portsmouth, NH

February 28
Systems Engineering and Administration Technical User Group – Portsmouth, NH
”Big Data: What it is and What it’s Good For” – Geoff Noel

Schedule TBA
Granite State SharePoint User Group – Nashua, NH
Nashua Scrum Club – Nashua, NH
NH .NET User Group, Concord – Concord, NH
NH .NET User Group, Nashua – Nashua, NH
Seacoast SQL Server Users Group – Portsmouth, NH

New York (Upstate)

February 1
Central New York .NET Developer Group - East Syracuse, NY
“Design and Usability” – Gary Davis

February 1
Rochester JavaScript Meetup (Coworking Rochester) – Rochester, NY

February 8
Western NY SQL Server PASS – Amherst, NY
”What’s New in SQL Server 2012” – Erik Harman

February 15
Tech Valley .NET Users Group - Latham, NY
“ASP.NET MVC 3” – Joseph Payette, Jr.

February 15
Build Guild – Troy, NY
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

February 20
Capital Area SQL Server Users Group – Albany, NY

February 21
Upstate NY PowerShell Users Group – Rochester, NY

February 29
Microsoft Developers of Western NY – Buffalo, NY
”Introduction to Dynamics CRM” – Michael Reynolds

March 8
Rochester SharePoint User Group – Rochester, NY
“Driving SharePoint Adoption” - Chris Bortlik

Schedule TBA
AppRochester – Rochester, NY
OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) – Rochester, NY
Refresh Rochester – Rochester, NY
VDUNY - Visual Developers of Upstate NY - Rochester, NY
Western New York Back Office Technology User Group – Blasdell, NY

Rhode Island

February 8
Southern New England SQL Server Users Group – East Greenwich, RI
”Policy based management with SQL Server 2008 R2” – Scott Abrants

February 9
Providence Web Development Lunch Hour – Providence, RI

February 15
Providence Geeks – Providence, RI

March 8
Providence Web Development Lunch Hour – Providence, RI

Schedule TBA
MoDevRI (Mobile Developers & Entrepreneurs) – Providence, RI
Rhode Island .NET User Group - Bristol, RI
WordPress Providence Meetup – Providence, RI

Vermont

February 13
Vermont .NET User Group – S. Burlington, VT
10th Anniversary Celebration!

March 12
Vermont .NET User Group – S. Burlington, VT
Jon Hoguet

March 19
Northern Vermont SharePoint Users Group – Essex Junction, VT
SharePoint with Suzanne Shushereba and Amy Coutu

Schedule TBA
Burlington PHP Users Group – Burlington, VT
Vermont SQL Server User Group - Burlington, VT

HTML5 Game Development Resources

Chris Bowen — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:27:00 GMT

The first series of HTML5 Game Camps concluded yesterday, helping attendees to learn HTML5 by diving in and writing games. Here’s a summary of links and resources for anyone who would like to get started.

The events featured introductions to the underlying technologies (HTML5, JavaScript, graphics) then a look at engines that can make game development easier. The second half was hacking time followed by a chance for everyone to demo their creations. It was great to see what could be made in just a few hours!

Thanks to everyone who participated, and let me know if you’ve continued working on your creations after the events!

Session 1 – A Tour Around HTML5

This session focuses on a brief introduction to HTML5, CSS3, standards, and browser support.

Learning HTML5

List of HTML5 Presentation Resources – Earlier post with many links for this session
HTML5 at W3C – Specifications and learning materials
HTML5: Edition for Web Authors – Focused subset of the specification for web devs
HTML5 on the Internet Explorer Learning Site – Videos, tutorials, articles
HTML5 Demos from Giorgio Sardo – HTML5, CSS, JS, etc.
HTML5 Doctor – HTML5 articles, Element Index, and resources

Implementing HTML5

CanIUse.com – Details support by browser for HTML5, CSS3, and other technologies
Modernizr – HTML5 & CSS3 feature detection made easy
HTML5 Cross Browser Polyfills – Helpful for implementing features while supporting a range of browsers

Internet Explorer & HTML5

Internet Explorer Test Drive - IE9 & IE10 resources
IE Blog – Windows Internet Explorer Engineering Blog
Beauty of the Web – Shows IE and HTML5 in action

Session 2 – Adding the Fun(ctionality) with JavaScript and Tools

The focus is on a few resources for learning JavaScript, libraries to make things easier, and support in developer tools.

General JavaScript

JavaScript Fundamentals – MSDN reference
Eloquent JavaScript – Introduction to JavaScript programming (published online under an open license)
W3Schools JavaScript Introduction
JSLint and JSHint – Tools to help identify problems in your JavaScript
jsFiddle – Tool for testing snippets of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS

JavaScript Frameworks & Tools

jQuery – JavaScript library to help with common functionality with cross-browser support
jQueryUI – Effects, widgets, and themes with cross-browser support
The Big List of JavaScript, CSS, and HTML Development Tools, Libraries, Projects, and Books – A helpful list from scriptjunkie

Internet Explorer Developer Tools (built in to IE 8+) – See also Firebug for Firefox and the Chrome Dev Tools

WebMatrix 2 Beta

WebMatrix 2 Beta - Free, lightweight, and supports HTML5/CSS3, ASP.NET, and PHP development

Visual Studio 2010 Extensions

Visual Studio Web Standards Update – Adds HTML5 & CSS3 support to VS2010
Web Essentials Extension – Many new CSS, HTML and JavaScript IDE extensions for VS2010
CSSCop Extension – Uses CSS Lint to help detect issues in your CSS

Expression Web 4 HTML5 Support

HTML5, CSS3, and More with Expression Web 4 SP1 – Post describing CSS3 & HTML5 support added in SP1 (now on SP2)

Session 3 – HTML5 Graphics

Focused on 2D graphics with SVG and Canvas and choosing between them.

SVG

“Modernizing Your Website: SVG Meets HTML5” – Mix11 session by Jennifer Yu
UN Systems Org Chart – Shows the effects of zooming with SVG
SVG-Oids – Simple SVG game example
Inkscape – Open Source SVG editor

Canvas

Canvas Pad – Great way to see/learn canvas capabilities
“Deep Dive into HTML5 <canvas>” – Mix11 session by Jatinder Mann
How to Use Canvas to Create a Space Game – MSDN resource
Paper.js – Open source framework for vectors on canvas

SVG & Canvas

How to Choose Between Canvas and SVG to Create Web Graphics – MSDN resource
HTML5 Blizzard – Demo featuring Canvas, SVG, Audio, WOFF, and CSS
“HTML5 Blizzard: Full Hardware Acceleration in Action” – Describes the creation of the HTML5 Blizzard demo
Programming Simple Games Using Canvas or SVG – Very basic MSDN sample game

Session 4 – Creating an HTML5 Game

At this point, the survey of the moving parts (HTML5, JavaScript, graphics, etc.) is done, so it’s time to pull it all together and make games! So many choices, but to keep things simple the focus was on leveraging game engine libraries already out there.

JavaScript Game Engines

List of Game Engines – Before you start, take a look at this list to see what’s already out there
EaselJS – Canvas-based JS library by gskinner.com. Used in some of the demos during the session.
Akihabara Tutorials – A nice tutorial series by Boston locals Darren Torpey and Darius Kazemi

Audio

Getting Started with the HTML5 Audio Element – MSDN resource
SoundJS – Helps make it easier to work with HTML5 audio

3D in 2D

ThreeJS – A way to add 3D to your 2D games
Galactic Demo – Built using ThreeJS
“Galactic: Building a 3D Solar System with HTML5” - Describes how ThreeJS was used in Galactic

Game Dev Resources

IGDA – Find a chapter near you and network with game developers
Game Development Podcasts
Game Development on MSDN – Targets XNA & Silverlight, but the Education Catalog has some interesting tutorials and starter games that could inspire your HTML5 work

The Slides

Much of the time was spent in code and demos, but the slides we did use are up in a presentations folder on SkyDrive. The relevant files are:

HTML5 – Practical First Look
HTML5 Camps – Scripting
HTML5 Game Camp – Graphics
HTML5 Game Camp – Games

Webcasts

Missed the in person events? Fortunately, it isn’t game over! The content is being brought to you online via these webcasts:

Enjoy creating those games!

-Chris

Windows Azure Developer Opportunities

Chris Bowen — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:31:10 GMT

As the Learn Windows Azure event rolls along today (keep an eye on the site for recordings of the content if you missed it), here are some other great ways to dive into cloud computing. Update: the session recordings are now available.

The Rock Paper Azure Challenge

Entertain your competitive side, improve your cloud development skills, and have a chance to win prizes! Enter your bot in the Rock Paper Azure Challenge by this Friday evening (12/16, 6PM EST), battle the competition, and see if you emerge victorious:

Play Rock, Paper Scissors in the cloud for your chance to win a trip to Cancun, an Acer Aspire S3 Laptop, a Windows Phone, or an XBOX 360/Kinect bundle! Entering is simple – create a player bot (sample code provided) and enter it before December 16th. Winners will be chosen at random from all bots submitted.

Want to test your strategic coding skills as well? Build a killer bot to crush the competition and see how you stack up against other players on the Leaderboard. Each Friday the top 5 players will receive a $50.00 Best Buy Gift Card.

Think you don’t have the time to ramp up and create a winning bot? You’ll be surprised at how quickly you can take the starter code and turn it into a fierce competitor!

Windows Azure Dev Camps

For a great way to get some in-person instruction on Windows Azure, check out the Windows Azure Dev Camps series, now touring all over the place.

Don’t see one in your area? The Windows Azure Training Kit has the content and labs, and recordings are available for some of the past events.

(While you’re visiting, take a look at the Windows Phone Camps and Web Camps!)

Windows Azure Resources

Looking for more? Here are some resources to help you to the cloud:

Windows Azure Home
Windows Azure Developer Center - Support for developing with .NET, node.js, Java, PHP and more.
Windows Azure Downloads – Get the tools to develop with Windows Azure
Windows Azure Training Course – Hands-on labs and videos
Channel 9 Windows Azure Content – Videos, screencasts, and show episodes
Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games – Build a casual/social game using Windows Azure

-Chris

Learn Windows Azure Event – Online, December 13th

Chris Bowen — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:05:59 GMT

Scott Guthrie has announced a Learn Windows Azure event on December 13th (12 – 8PM EST). It’s free and will be streamed live via Channel 9, featuring sessions with Mark Russinovich, Dave Campbell, Scott Guthrie, and others:

Getting Started with Windows Azure
Cloud Data & Storage
Channel9 Cloud Cover Show Live
Developing Windows Azure Applications with Visual Studio
Building Scalable Cloud Applications
Expert Panel Q&A

Register for the online event, or, because there’s an real event with real people on the other end of the connection, you can attend in person if you’re in the Redmond area.

If you’d like to have the tools to work with as they’re mentioned during the event, you can head to the Windows Azure site to learn more, download the SDK, and get a head start with some code samples and tutorials.

-Chris

List of Game Development Podcasts

Chris Bowen — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:30:00 GMT

As you might know from my list of podcasts for .NET devs, I’m a big fan of podcasts to help make travel time less… [annoying | mind-numbing | wasteful].

As my recent work has focused more on game development, I’ve been keeping an eye out for relevant podcasts. Here are the ones I know of that focus primarily on game development and the gaming industry.

Game Development Podcasts

Another Castle
Charles J. Pratt
Interviews with game developers, especially with a focus on game development in New York.
gamedesignadvance.com/?page_id=1616

The Brainy Gamer Podcast
Michael Abbott
Interviews with game developers and a focus on the video game community.
www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/podcast/

Experimental Game Dev Podcast
About independent (indie) games and development.
www.indiegamepod.com

The Game Developer’s Radio
Joseph Burchett & Devin Becker
Focused on game development and design.
www.gamedevradio.net

The Game Engine Podcast
Andrew Bittman, Paul Sztajer, Saul Alexander, and Dan Graf
Focused on game developers and topics around game development.
www.gameenginepodcast.com

IndieGames.com Podcast
Interviews with indie game developers.
indiegames.com (and indiegames.buzzsprout.com)

Irrational Interviews
Ken Levine & Shawn Elliott
Irrational’s Ken Levine and Shawn Elliott conduct interviews around the industry.
irrationalgames.com/insider/irrational-interviews

LostCast
Geoff Blair & Matt Hackett
A brand new HTML5 game development podcast by Lost Decade Games (creators of the HTML5 “Onslaught!” game).
www.lostdecadegames.com

One of Swords
Dan Amrich
Activision’s Dan Amrich hosts industry interviews and provides insights into what’s happening at Activision.
OneOfSwords.com

Each of these podcasts has had activity in the past few months. If you know of any other active ones, please comment below (and thank you!)

-Chris

Developer Events in the Northeast – November & December, 2011

Chris Bowen — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:28:17 GMT

It’s pretty amazing that this list already has events that bring us to the end of the year. Every year does seem to go more quickly than the last! Anyhow, here’s the latest list of developer-focused events you may find interesting as the remaining weeks of 2011 breeze by.

Most are free, and the exceptions are noted with [$].

As always, if you know of other (free or nearly free) developer-focused events, please let me know.

-Chris

Connecticut

November 14
Hartford Area Build Guild – Farmington, CT
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

December 7
Windows Azure DevCamp – Farmington, CT
Free afternoon to evening event to help you learn about Windows Azure. Sessions in the afternoon, and hands-on hackathon in the evening.

December 14
Fairfield County SharePoint User Group – Fairfield, CT

December 14
Connecticut Access Users Group – Farmington, CT

Schedule TBA
Agile Connecticut - Farmington, CT
Connecticut .NET Developers Group – Farmington, CT
Connecticut DotNetNuke User Group - Bethany, CT
Connecticut SharePoint User Group – Farmington, CT
Fairfield/Westchester .NET User Group – Stamford, CT
Fairfield/Westchester SQL Server UG - Stamford, CT
Hartford SQL Server Users Group – Farmington, CT
New England Silverlight Guild – Hartford, CT

Maine

November 15
Bangor Area .Net Developers (BAND) - Bangor, ME
Windows Azure (w/RockPaperAzure) - Jim O’Neil

November 16
Maine Developer Network - Augusta, ME
Windows Azure (w/RockPaperAzure) - Jim O’Neil

Schedule TBA
Agile User Group – Portland, ME
Maine Bytes User Group - Portland, ME
Usability / User Experience User Group – Portland, ME
Web Designers User Group – Portland, ME (on Summer break)

Massachusetts

November 14
Windows Phone Inner Circle – Cambridge, MA
“Enjoy free appetizers and cocktails, be one of the first people to get your hands on incredible new Windows Phones, and meet the team that brought them to life.”

November 15
Boston New Technology Meetup – Boston, MA
6 presentations on what’s new in the startup scene

November 15
Harvard Tech Meetup – Boston, MA

November 15
Boston Predictive Analytics – Cambridge, MA
”Big Data” .. Applications from Enterprises to Individuals

November 16
HTML5 Game Development Meetup – Boston, MA
“Enchant.js” - Ubiquitous Entertainment
“Internet Explorer 9 & 10 and HTML5” – Chris Bowen

November 16
New England Windows Phone User and Developer Group - Waltham, MA
“Developing Microsoft Push Notification Service (MPNS) Applications”

November 16
Boston .NET Architecture Study Group - Waltham, MA

November 17
HTML5 Game Camp – Cambridge, MA
Free event w/ morning sessions on HTML5 & game dev, then the afternoon is a hands-on game dev hackathon!

November 17
Boston Azure User Group – Cambridge, MA
“Back to the Basics: What is Cloud, What is Azure, and Intro to Windows Azure”

November 17
Boston JavaScript Meetup – Boston, MA
“JavaScript Style, Code Conventions & Quality” – Joe Morgan

November 17
Lean Startup Circle Meetup – Cambridge, MA

November 17
North Shore Web Geeks – Newburyport, MA

November 17
Worcester Web Technology – Worcester, MA
“Rackspace Tutorial” – Chris Johnson

November 17
Western Mass Developers’ Group – Hadley, MA

November 17
[$] EFactor Presents: Mobile App Accelerant – Boston, MA

November 18
Social Mobile Cloud Event – Boston, MA

November 19
AT&T Mobile App Hackathon – Boston, MA

November 19-20
Fall 2011 Boston Game Jam – Cambridge, MA

November 22
Cape Cod .NET User Group – Plymouth, MA
“HTML5 – A Practical First Look” – Chris Bowen

November 22
New England Mobile .NET Developers’ Group – Cambridge, MA
Microsoft’s Jesse Liberty

November 22
Agile Boston User Group - Waltham, MA
[$] “Give Thanks for SCRUM” – Honoring Jeff Sutherland & Ken Schwaber

November 23
Boston XNA Developers Group - Waltham, MA

November 28
Boston WordPress – Cambridge, MA
“WordPress, HTML5 Adoption, and Internet Explorer 9 & 10” – Chris Bowen
“Caching, Scaling, and What I’ve Learned Programming for WordPress.com VIP” – Erick Hitter

November 28
Beantown ALT.NET Group – Cambridge, MA
“Exploring Domain Driven Design Implementation Patterns in .NET” – Steve Bohlen

November 29
Web Innovators Group (webinno) – Cambridge, MA

November 29
Tech Tuesday: Meet the Rockstar Developers of Massachusetts – Cambridge, MA

November 30
Boston Front End Developers – Cambridge, MA
“Implementing the New BostonGlobe.com” – Adam Salsman

December 1
Microsoft DevBoston (formerly Boston .NET & Beantown .NET) - Cambridge, MA
“How to be a C# Ninja in 10 Easy Steps” – Ben Day

December 1
New England Visual Basic Professionals - Waltham, MA
“XBox/Kinect Using the .NET Framework” – Phil Denoncourt

December 1
HPC & GPU Supercomputing Group of Boston – Cambridge, MA

December 1
Boston Tech Meetup - Cambridge, MA

December 3-4
Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) – Cambridge, MA

December 5
New England F# User Group – Cambridge, MA

December 6
Boston Web Performance Group – Boston, MA
“Testing in the Cloud” – Dan Bartow

December 7
Boston Artists + Coders – Boston, MA
“Playing with Music” – Echno Nest co-founder Tristan Jehan

December 8
New England SQL Server User Group - Waltham, MA
“Enterprise Information Management” – Chad Gronbach

December 12
Boston Area SharePoint Users Group – Cambridge, MA

December 13
Boston Azure User Group – Cambridge, MA

December 13
Build Guild – Salem, MA
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

December 13
Build Guild in Cape Cod – Sandwich, MA
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

December 14
Microsoft DevBoston (formerly Boston .NET & Beantown .NET) - Cambridge, MA
“Using Windows Azure to Build Cloud Enabled Windows Phone Apps” – John Garland

December 14
Boston Area SharePoint Users Group – Cambridge, MA

December 14
North Shore .NET User Group - Ipswich, MA
“Cloud Architecture Patterns” – Bill Wilder

December 14
Boston PHP Meetup – Cambridge, MA
“Paper Prototyping: Sketching and Evaluating Your Design Concepts” – Christine Perfetti

New Group!
December 15
Boston Orchard CMS Group – Cambridge, MA
Kickoff Meeting

December 20
New England Mobile .NET Developers’ Group – Cambridge, MA

December 21
Boston .NET Architecture Study Group - Waltham, MA

December 27
Beantown ALT.NET Group – Cambridge, MA
“Introduction to MonoTouch” – Michael Bluestein

Schedule TBA
Boston Arduino Users Group – Cambridge, MA
Boston BizSpark Meetup – Cambridge, MA
Boston Business Intelligence – Waltham, MA
Boston Cloud Services – Waltham, MA
Boston Node.js Meetup – Boston, MA
Boston Web Design Meetup – Cambridge, MA
Boston WebsiteSpark Group – Cambridge, MA
DotNetNuke Boston Meetup – Cambridge, MA
jQuery Boston Meetup – Boston, MA
Mobile Monday Boston – Boston, MA
New England ASP.NET Professionals – Waltham, MA
New England Silverlight Guild – Cambridge, MA
OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) – Cambridge, MA
Refresh Boston – Cambridge, MA
UX Book Club, Boston – Cambridge, MA
Western Mass Microsoft Technology Users Group - Agawam, MA

New Hampshire

November 16
NH .NET User Group, Nashua – Nashua, NH
“Developing Cloud-Enabled Windows Phone Applications with Windows Azure” – John Garland

November 16
NH .NET User Group, Concord – Concord, NH
“XBOX / Kinect Using .NET Framework SDK” – Phil Denoncourt III

November 16
NH .NET User Group, Seacoast – Portsmouth, NH
“Real Projects with Entity Framework 4.1”

December 8
Granite State SharePoint User Group – Nashua, NH
“SharePoint Loggins & Debugging: The Troubleshooter’s Best Friend” – Cornelius J. van Dyk & Jason Himmelstein

Schedule TBA
Nashua Scrum Club – Nashua, NH
Seacoast SQL Server Users Group – Portsmouth, NH

New York (Upstate)

November 15
Upstate NY PowerShell Users Group (Rochester chapter) – Rochester, NY

November 15
Windows Phone Camp – Univ. of Rochester, Rochester, NY
Free and open to all. Afternoon w/ dev sessions followed by evening hands-on hackathon.

November 16
MS Dev WNY– Hamburg, NY
“Introduction to HTML5 Development” – Patrick Lupiani

November 16
Build Guild – Troy, NY
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

November 17
VDUNY - Visual Developers of Upstate NY - Rochester, NY
“Windows 8 Metro Development” – Steve Maier

November 21
Capital Area SQL Server Users Group – Albany, NY

December 2-4
RIT Game Camp – Rochester, NY
Special free weekend, combining four events! A weekend-long Game Jam, along with “XNA in a Day”, HTML5 Camp, and Windows Phone Game/App Camps on Saturday.

December 6
AppRochester – Rochester, NY

December 7
Rochester JavaScript Meetup (Coworking Rochester) – Rochester, NY

December 20
Upstate NY PowerShell Users Group (Rochester chapter) – Rochester, NY

Schedule TBA
Central New York .NET Developer Group - East Syracuse, NY
OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) – Rochester, NY
Refresh Rochester – Rochester, NY
Rochester SharePoint User Group – Rochester, NY
Tech Valley .NET Users Group - Latham, NY
Upstate NY PowerShell Users Group (Syracuse chapter) – Syracuse, NY
Western New York Back Office Technology User Group – Blasdell, NY
Western NY SQL Server PASS – Amherst, NY

Rhode Island

November 16
Providence Geeks – Providence, RI

December 8
Providence Web Development Lunch Hour – Providence, RI

December 13
Tech Club Rhode Island – Providence, RI
End of Year Celebration

Schedule TBA
Rhode Island .NET User Group - Bristol, RI

Vermont

November 17
Burlington PHP Users Group – Burlington, VT
”Building Faster Websites”

December 5
Vermont .NET User Group – S. Burlington, VT
“WCF RIA Services” – Kathleen MacMahon

Schedule TBA
Vermont SQL Server User Group - Burlington, VT

Schedule Posted for Code Camp 16

Chris Bowen — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 23:55:19 GMT

The schedule has just been posted for this Saturday’s Code Camp 16 (in Waltham, MA):

    New England / Boston Code Camp 16
    Saturday, October 29th
    8:30 AM to 6:40 PM (Doors at 8 AM)
    Microsoft, 201 Jones Road (6th Floor)
    Waltham, MA

Schedule and registration at http://codecampboston.eventbrite.com

About 40 sessions spanning many topics - HTML5, cloud computing, Kinect, mobile, JavaScript, Netduino, XNA, SharePoint, SQL/NoSQL, ASP.NET MVC, and more. All by the community, for the community, and free.

Thank you to the speakers, contributing companies, and especially Patrick Hynds, Robert Goodearl, and Chris Pels for organizing the event!

This is going to be a good one, and I hope to see you there!
-Chris

P.S. The tag for the event is #boscc

HTML5 Game Camp Series Coming Soon

Chris Bowen — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 18:41:13 GMT

Update: Slides and links from the events are now available.

Ready to learn HTML5? Enjoy games, too?

Join in the HTML5 Game Camps, free events offering a chance to learn about the next wave of web standards including HTML5, CSS3, Canvas, SVG, and more. And while you gain practical knowledge about HTML5 and JavaScript techniques, it’s all joined together by the fun of creating games!

These are part of the Microsoft Web Camps series and feature a half day of sessions followed by hands-on game creation time. Get up to speed with HTML5 and game dev concepts in the sessions, then turn your ideas into reality as we leave the slides behind. Design and develop creations of your own, with plenty of guidance and help for your questions.

The Schedule

Here’s where the HTML5 Game Camps are heading, with links to details and registration:

Atlanta, GA – November 10 – Georgia Tech – Registration
Cambridge, MA – November 17 – Microsoft NERD – Registration
New York, NY – December 9 – Columbia University – Registration
University Park, PA – December 14 – Penn State – Registration

(Note some of these events are morning through afternoon, and others are afternoon to evening.)

Don’t forget to read the prep steps at the bottom of the event pages. To get ready for coding, consider installing WebMatrix (it’s free) and other tools via the Web Platform Installer. Also, consider attending with a friend and tackling the game creation as a team!

Bonus Points for Rochester, NY

For those of you in the Rochester, NY area, there’s a special RIT Game Camp the weekend of December 2nd-4th. It’s all about game development, and features multiple ways to learn about and create games:

HTML5 Camp (Saturday, 12/3)
Game Jam (all weekend)
XNA in a Day (Saturday)
Windows Phone Camp (Saturday)

It’s free, hosted on the campus of RIT, and open to everyone. So, choose what you’d like to participate in, and enjoy!

-Chris

Developer Events in the Northeast – October & November, 2011

Chris Bowen — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 03:08:49 GMT

Fall is upon us, and with it comes an uptick in the tempo of developer events in our area. Here’s the latest (and long!) list of developer-focused events you may find interesting. Most are free, and the exceptions are noted with [$].

As always, if you know of other (free or nearly free) developer-focused events, please let me know.

-Chris

Connecticut

October 6
Fairfield/Westchester .NET User Group – Stamford, CT
“jQuery 101 – Making JavaScript Fun” – Mark Freedman

October 10
Hartford Area Build Guild – Farmington, CT
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

October 11
Connecticut .NET Developers Group – Farmington, CT
“Introduction to Metro UI Application Development in Windows 8 Developer Preview” – Michael Gerety

October 12
Connecticut Access Users Group – Farmington, CT

October 13
Fairfield/Westchester SQL Server UG - Stamford, CT
Business Intelligence – Andrew Brust

November 9
Fairfield County SharePoint User Group – Fairfield, CT

November 10
Fairfield/Westchester SQL Server UG - Stamford, CT
Zoho Creator – Herb Wexler

Novermber 11-13
[$] Startup Weekend New Haven – New Haven, CT

Schedule TBA
Agile Connecticut - Farmington, CT
Connecticut DotNetNuke User Group - Bethany, CT
Connecticut SharePoint User Group – Farmington, CT
Hartford SQL Server Users Group – Farmington, CT
New England Silverlight Guild – Hartford, CT

Maine

October 13
Maine Bytes User Group - Portland, ME
“BUILD Conference Debrief” – Fritz Onion

October 25
Bangor Area .Net Developers (BAND) - Bangor, ME
“SketchFlow – It’s Like a Big Pile of Napkins” – Charlie Villard

Schedule TBA
Maine Developer Network - Augusta, ME
Agile User Group – Portland, ME
Usability / User Experience User Group – Portland, ME
Web Designers User Group – Portland, ME (on Summer break)

Massachusetts

October 6
Microsoft DevBoston (formerly Beantown .NET) - Cambridge, MA
“HTML5 Development” – Chris Bowen

October 6
New England Visual Basic Professionals - Waltham, MA
“Interactive Dashboards with PerformancePoint 2010” – Sunil Kadimdiwan

October 6
HPC & GPU Supercomputing Group of Boston – Cambridge, MA
”C++ AMP” – Ken Domino

October 8
OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) – Cambridge, MA
2011 Boston Application Security Conference (BASC)

October 11
Build Guild – Salem, MA
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

October 11
Build Guild in Cape Cod – Sandwich, MA
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

October 11
DotNetNuke Boston Meetup – Cambridge, MA
“Introducing DotNetNuke 6!”

October 12 & 13
MSDN Event: Windows Phone Camp – Cambridge, MA
Two free days of the tech to help you develop Windows Phone apps, practical guidance (interested in making money?), and the latest on Windows Phone 7.5 (codename “Mango”).

October 12
Boston Artists + Coders – Boston, MA
”Super Data Vis Skills (Intro to D3.js)” – Pascal Rettig

October 12
Worcester Web Technology – Worcester, MA
“Ruby on Rails” – Chris Johnson

October 12
Boston Area SharePoint Users Group – Cambridge, MA
“Heavy Metal PowerPivot” – Jason Himmelstein & Cornelius J. van Dyk

October 12
Boston PHP Meetup – Cambridge, MA
“Introduction to FirePHP 1.0” – Christoph Dorn
”Proof You do not Need SQL Anymore…” – Chhean Saur

October 13
New England SQL Server User Group - Waltham, MA
“Enterprise Information Management” – Chad Gronbach

October 13
Boston Node.js Meetup – Boston, MA
”Node.js and Using nowjs” – Eric Zhang

October 14
Boston JavaScript Meetup – Cambridge, MA
“Using CommonJS with PINF JavaScript Loader” – Christoph Dorn

October 14-16
[$] Boston Startup Weekend – Boston, MA

October 15
New England Business Intelligence Code Camp 2 – Waltham, MA
Community event for developers and IT professionals, with a focus on building real-world business intelligence solutions.

October 17
Mobile Monday Boston – Boston, MA
”Building Successful Mobile Web and Native Apps in the Enterprise”

October 18
Boston New Technology Meetup – Cambridge, MA

October 19
New England Windows Phone User and Developer Group - Waltham, MA
”It’s a (Third) Party!: Tools Beyond Just Visual Studio and Blend for Windows Phone 7 Development”

October 19
Boston .NET Architecture Study Group - Waltham, MA

October 19
HTML5 Game Development Meetup – Boston, MA

October 20
Western Mass Microsoft Technology Users Group - Agawam, MA
“Using PowerShell to Run SharePoint 2010, and Fill it Full of Data”

October 24
Boston Tech Meetup - Cambridge, MA
”What Can Cloud Do for You?” – Jim O’Neil

New Group!
October 26
New England Mobile .NET Developers’ Group – Cambridge, MA

New Group!
October 26
North Shore .NET User Group - Ipswich, MA

October 26
Boston XNA Developers Group - Waltham, MA

October 26
Agile Boston User Group - Waltham, MA
“Teams and Leadership” – Christopher Avery

October 27
Boston Azure User Group – Cambridge, MA
“Azure Architecture or Other Topics”

October 27
Lean Startup Circle Meetup – Cambridge, MA

October 29
New England Code Camp 16! – Waltham, MA
A free, full day of technical content, by the community, for the community.

October 29-30
[$] WhereCampBoston – Cambridge, MA
An unconference focused on geography and technology.

November 2
jQuery Boston Meetup – Boston, MA
“Why Wait for Harmony? Use Asynchronous Modules with jQuery Now!” – John Hann

November 3
Microsoft DevBoston (formerly Beantown .NET) - Cambridge, MA
“Geo-Aware Applications for Windows Phone 7” – John Zablocki

November 3
New England Visual Basic Professionals - Waltham, MA
“Scrum Project Management with Team Foundation Server 2010” – Steve Resnick

November 7
New England F# User Group – Cambridge, MA

November 9
Boston PHP Meetup – Cambridge, MA
“Google Analytics for Developers” – Justin Cutroni

November 10
Boston Business Intelligence – Waltham, MA
“Dimensional Modeling Fundamentals for the SQL Server Platform” – Warren Thornthwaite

November 10
New England SQL Server User Group - Waltham, MA
“Denali HA/DR” – Allen Hirt

November 10
World Usability Day – Cambridge, MA

November 16
Boston .NET Architecture Study Group - Waltham, MA

November 19
AT&T Mobile App Hackathon – Boston, MA

November 22
New England Mobile .NET Developers’ Group – Cambridge, MA

Schedule TBA
Boston .NET User Group - Waltham, MA
Boston Arduino Users Group – Cambridge, MA
Boston BizSpark Meetup – Cambridge, MA
Boston Cloud Services – Waltham, MA
Boston Front End Developers – Cambridge, MA
Boston Web Design Meetup – Cambridge, MA
Boston Web Performance Group – Boston, MA
Boston WebsiteSpark Group – Cambridge, MA
Cape Cod .NET User Group – Plymouth, MA
New England ASP.NET Professionals – Waltham, MA
New England Silverlight Guild – Cambridge, MA
North Shore Web Geeks – Newburyport, MA
Refresh Boston – Cambridge, MA
UX Book Club, Boston – Cambridge, MA
Western Mass Developers’ Group – Hadley, MA

New Hampshire

October 13
Granite State SharePoint User Group – Nashua, NH
“Planning and Configuring Extranets in SharePoint 2010” – Geoff Varosky

October 19
NH .NET User Group, Seacoast – Portsmouth, NH
“HTML5 Practices and Adoption” – Chris Bowen

November 10
Granite State SharePoint User Group – Nashua, NH
“Developing in SharePoint’s Middle Tier” – Marc D. Anderson

November 16
NH .NET User Group, Concord – Concord, NH
“XBOX / Kinect Using .NET Framework SDK” – Phil Denoncourt III

Schedule TBA
Nashua Scrum Club – Nashua, NH
NH .NET User Group, Nashua – Nashua, NH
Seacoast SQL Server Users Group – Portsmouth, NH

New York (Upstate)

October 5
Central New York .NET Developer Group - East Syracuse, NY
“Windows Phone 7 Ad-Network Manager Development with XNA” – Dan Colasanti

October 12
Western New York Back Office Technology User Group – Blasdell, NY
”Introduction to PowerShell” – Joel Bennett

New Group!
October 17
Capital Area SQL Server Users Group – Albany, NY
”SQL Server Reporting Services Tips & Tricks” – Daniel Bowlin

October 18
Rochester Web Startups Meeting – Rochester, NY
”Legal Entities” – Jennifer Lunsford

October 19
Build Guild – Troy, NY
“Web People + Adult Beverages + High Fives”

October 27
VDUNY - Visual Developers of Upstate NY - Rochester, NY
“The Model View ViewModel (MVVM)” – Larry O’Heron

October 29
BarCamp Rochester – RIT, Henrietta, NY

November 2
Rochester JavaScript Meetup – Rochester, NY

November 4-6
[$] Startup Weekend Syracuse – Syracuse, NY

Schedule TBA
AppRochester – Rochester, NY
OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) – Rochester, NY
Refresh Rochester – Rochester, NY
Rochester SharePoint User Group – Rochester, NY
Tech Valley .NET Users Group - Latham, NY
Upstate NY PowerShell Users Group – Rochester, NY
Upstate NY PowerShell Users Group – Syracuse, NY
Western New York .NET Users Group - Amherst, NY
Western NY SQL Server PASS – Amherst, NY

Rhode Island

October 11
Tech Club Rhode Island – Providence, RI
”The Art of the Schmoze” – Robbie Samuels

October 13
Providence Web Development Lunch Hour – Providence, RI

October 19
Providence Geeks – Providence, RI

November 8
Tech Club Rhode Island – Providence, RI
”Video for Nonprofit Websites”

November 10
Providence Web Development Lunch Hour – Providence, RI

November 16
Providence Geeks – Providence, RI

Schedule TBA
Rhode Island .NET User Group - Bristol, RI
Southern New England SQL Server User Group, Warwick, RI

Vermont

October 10
Vermont .NET User Group – S. Burlington, VT
“Making Sense of the Microsoft .NET MicroFramework” – Eric Hall

October 27
MSDN Event: “Windows Phone Camp” – Champlain College, Burlington, VT
A free, full day of the tech to help you develop Windows Phone apps, practical guidance (interested in making money?), and the latest on Windows Phone 7.5 (codename “Mango”).

November 7
Vermont .NET User Group – S. Burlington, VT
”Developing Metro-Style Applications in Windows 8” – John McConnell

Schedule TBD
Vermont SQL Server User Group - Burlington, VT

New England Code Camp 16 – Registration and More

Chris Bowen — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 19:09:41 GMT

New England Code Camp 16, a major community event for developers, is coming to Waltham, MA on October 29th!

Registration (free!) is now open, as are the Calls for Speakers, Volunteers, and Contributors (details below).

    New England Code Camp 16
    Saturday, October 29, 2011
    8:30 AM – 6 PM + post-event Geek Gathering
    Microsoft, 201 Jones Road, Waltham, MA
    http://codecampboston.eventbrite.com
    #necc16

Code Camps are free events, held outside of regular work hours, organized by and for the developer community, and offer a chance to learn, share, and network. What kind of stuff might you see? It varies significantly camp to camp, but take a look at the previous camp’s schedule to get an idea.

Call for Speakers

From first-time presenters to veterans of national conferences, Code Camps are made great because we hear from many perspectives – including yours. Have something to share, the community wants to hear from you.

How? Just see the registration page for details (speakers only need to register as a speaker, not as an attendee.) Proposals can be for any technology topic and sessions will be 75 minutes long.

The Call for Speakers will close at the end of Friday, October 21st.

Have a question about speaking? Send a note to codecampspeaker@bostondotnet.org.

Call for Contributors

Contributors are a critical part of each Code Camp, relied upon to provide the essentials for the Code Camp experience, like:

Morning coffee (& doughnuts when possible)
Lunch
Giveaways – items to be given out by speakers in sessions
SWAG - items like pens, pads, and bags – branded or unbranded – it’s all welcome!

You’ll have a highly-targeted audience thanking your company for its support of the developer community, so please send a note to codecamp@bostondotnet.org if your company can help make Code Camp 16 a success!

Call for Volunteers

Want to help before or at the event? Great, and thank you! Just drop a line to codecamp@bostondotnet.org.

Call for Thanks!

Special thanks to Patrick Hynds, Chris Pels, and Robert Goodearl for the care and feeding of this event, to the contributing companies, and of course to the many speakers who volunteer their time and expertise!

See you at New England Code Camp 16!

-Chris

Windows Phone Camps in the East Have Begun!

Chris Bowen — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 21:58:15 GMT

A series of Windows Phone Camps has just kicked off, bringing free, full days of the tech to help you develop Windows Phone apps, practical guidance (interested in making money?), and the latest on Windows Phone 7.5 (codename “Mango”):

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!

Those of us in New England will have two chances to join in, with a visit to Burlington, VT and a special two-day event in Cambridge, MA.

Series Schedule

9/22	Atlanta, GA	Registration
9/27	Malvern, PA	Registration
9/29	Reston, VA	Registration
10/12 10/13	Cambridge, MA	Day 1 Registration Day 2 Registration
10/18	Chevy Chase, MD	Registration
10/19	New York City, NY	Registration
10/25	Tampa, FL	Registration
10/27	Champlain College, Burlington, VT	Registration
11/2	NCSU, Raleigh, NC	Registration
11/4	Fort Lauderdale, FL	Registration
11/8	UCF, Orlando, FL	Registration
11/10	Univ. of Miami, Coral Gables, FL	Registration
11/10	SUNY (New Paltz), NY	Registration
11/15	Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA	Registration
11/17	Howard University, Washington, DC	Registration
11/29	Pittsburg, PA	Registration
11/29	Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA	Registration
12/1	Hofstra, Long Island, NY	Registration

Event Agenda

Most of the events are featuring the following agenda, including a mix of presentations and hands-on labs:

9:00 AM	Welcome Campers
9:15 AM	How to make money with your Windows Phone app
10:00 AM	Frameworks for fun and profit > Silverlight and XNA
Noonish	Canteen
1:00 PM	Hands-on lab
3:00 PM	Cool stuff your app can do
4:00 PM	To the Cloud
4:45 PM	Be What's Next > People's Choice Awards

Cambridge, MA Special Event

In Cambridge, MA, the event packs an extra punch, spanning two days, October 12th & 13th:

Day 1 will feature inside advice from Windows Phone experts and local MVPs, plus technical sessions on Windows Phone app development. Day 2 goes hands-on with the opportunity to roll up your sleeves and code.

Whether you're a student just starting out or a seasoned developer for Windows Phone, Android, Symbian, Web OS or iOS, we'll be sharing tips and tricks and valuable app development know-how throughout the sessions. Check out the agenda and select the day that best fits your needs — or join us for the full event. The choice is yours.

You can attend either or both days, but there’s separate registration for each day (day 1, day 2).

Day 1 Agenda: October 12th

8:00 AM	Arrival and Registration
9:00 AM	Windows Phone Overview
9:45 AM	How to get started building Windows Phone Apps with Visual Studio
10:45 AM	Break
11:00 AM	Frameworks for fun and profit (part 1) – Building apps with Silverlight
12:00 PM	Lunch
1:00 PM	Frameworks for fun and profit (part 2) – Building games with XNA
2:00 PM	Live Tiles and Push Notifications
3:15 PM	Break
3:30 PM	Windows Phone 7.5 Fast Application Switching, Tombstoning and Multitasking
4:30 PM	How to make money with your Windows Phone App
5:00 PM	What's Next/Resources
5:00 PM	Event Ends

Day 2 Agenda: October 13th

8:00 AM	Arrival and Registration
9:00 AM	Open Lab Hands-on Sessions
9:15 AM	Event Ends

I’ll be at the Cambridge event and hope to see many of you there!

-Chris

New Boston Developer Group! Beantown ALT.NET

Chris Bowen — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 23:21:07 GMT

On the heels of the launch of the New England Mobile .NET group, there’s another Boston-area developer group – Beantown ALT.NET! The group is organized by John Zablocki and starts in September.

First of all, what’s “ALT.NET”? The concept has been around quite a while, and there are groups in many other cities. In fact, click through to NY ALT.NET or DC ALT.NET for a good description. John also has a post describing “Why Beantown ALT.NET?”

First meeting’s details:

    Beantown ALT.NET
    September 28th, 6:30 PM
    Microsoft NERD
    1 Memorial Dr., Cambridge, MA
    Topic: “HTML5 Practices and Adoption”
    Speaker: Well, me…

John kindly invited me to speak for this meeting. We’ll go beyond the “What is HTML5?” introduction to focus on practical strategies, tools, libraries, etc. for adopting HTML5 technologies today, while accommodating browsers that don’t natively support those features.

On October 26th, John will be covering “.NET and NoSQL: Relaxing with CouchDB”.

I hope to see you there!

-Chris

New England Code Camp 16 – October 29th – Save the Date!

Chris Bowen — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 00:57:38 GMT

I’m happy to pass along word that the date is set and venue reserved for the 16th New England Code Camp, a free, full day of knowledge sharing and networking, driven by developer community volunteers.

New England Code Camp 16
Saturday, October 29th, 2011
Microsoft
201 Jones Road, 6th floor
Waltham, MA

Never been to a Code Camp? To get an idea of what to expect, take a look at the schedule for Code Camp 15, held earlier this year.

Registration and the Calls for Speakers and Sponsors will be coming later, but in the meantime, mark your calendar and get ready to join hundreds of your fellow developers for this great community event!

-Chris

New Boston User Group – New England Mobile .NET Developers

Chris Bowen — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 14:29:41 GMT

There’s a new developer group forming in the Boston area, focusing on cross-platform development for mobile devices. Topics will include mobile devices (iPhone, Windows Phone 7, Android, etc.) and development, .NET, Mono, and frameworks like MonoTouch and beyond.

First meeting:

    New England Mobile .NET Developers’ Group
    August 24th, 6PM
    Microsoft NERD
    Cambridge, MA

The group is organized by Mike Bluestein, who has spoken at area events like Code Camps and is author of Learning MonoTouch.

See you there!

-Chris

P.S. Focusing on Windows Phone development, there’s also the Boston / New England Windows Phone User and Developer Group, meeting monthly in Waltham, hosted by Don Sorcinelli and Steve Hughes. (Next meeting, August 17th.)

List of HTML5 Presentation Resources

Chris Bowen — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:54:25 GMT

I’ve been running sessions on HTML5, Internet Explorer 9/10, CSS3 and more at recent Web Camps, Code Camps, and user group meetings. Many resources are shown or mentioned in those sessions, so I’ve compiled a list of them for you here.

I hope you find these useful!

HTML5

HTML5 at W3C – Specifications and learning materials
HTML5 W3C Logo – HTML5 and related logos
HTML5 Labs – Prototypes of early web specifications (e.g. IndexedDB, FileAPI, etc.)
ScriptJunkie.com – Articles and information on web development
CanIUse.com – Details support by browser for HTML5, CSS3, and other technologies
Modernizr – HTML5 & CSS3 feature detection made easy
HTML5 Cross Browser Polyfills – Shims, polyfills helpful for implementing features while supporting a range of browsers
HTML5 Boilerplate – An HTML5 template. Useful also as a reference.
Initializr – HTML5 template builder
Yepnope.js – Conditional resource loader that utilizes asynchronous calls

HTML5 Sample Applications/Sites

Never Mind the Bullets – HTML5 canvas, audio, etc. parallax example
Tron Legacy – Another great HTML5 canvas, audio, etc. example
Pirates Love Daisies – HTML5 canvas tower defense game
World’s Biggest PAC-MAN – Also try the Windows 7 pinning integration
Microsoft OneNote 2010 product page – Interesting example of applied HTML5

Internet Explorer

IE Test Drive – Samples, documentation, and IE 10 Platform Preview downloads
Beauty of the Web – Showcase of the latest web technologies in action
IE Developer Center – MSDN
IE Testing Center – web standards test cases
Internet Explorer Home
BuildMyPinnedSite.com – Quickly add features to improve retention of & experience for Windows 7 users

CSS

CSS3 Media Queries – Shows Media Queries and Listeners
Lost World’s Fairs – Demonstrations of WOFF support and CSS techniques
MediaQueri.es – Showcase of sites using CSS3 Media Queries to optimize content/layout
CSS3 Click Chart – Shows the source and effect of various CSS3 styles
Font Squirrel – Resource for @font-face kits and generator

Canvas & SVG

Canvas Pad – Great way to see/learn canvas capabilities
Easel.js – A library to help create HTML5 Canvas graphics
UN Systems Org Chart – SVG example showing effects of zooming
SVG-Oids – SVG game example (Fire up the F12 dev tools with this one)
Raphael – A library to help create vector graphics - SVG/VML

Microsoft Web Platform

Web Platform Installer – Easiest way to install what you need
WebMatrix – Free platform & tools for building websites
ASP.NET MVC – The Tools Update release uses HTML5, Modernizr and more
ASP.NET Web Forms
- Damian Edwards on ASP.NET Web Forms Futures – Mix11 session

Tools

Visual Studio Web Standards Update – HTML5 & CSS3 support in VS2010
- Mads Kristensen’s Post
- Scott Hanselman’s Post
Expression Web 4 (and Expression Web 4 SP2)
- My post on HTML5 and CSS3 support in Expression Web 4
Expression Web SuperPreview – Strong support for cross-browser testing

Presentation Slides

And finally, here are slides I’ve used at some point for various presentations.

SkyDrive folder share. Contains:
- HTML5 and Friends
- HTML5 Web Camp – Graphics and UI with CSS3, SVG, and Canvas
- HTML5 Web Camp – Practices and Adoption Techniques

My teammate Rachel Appel has posted materials from her HTML5 Web Camp sessions as well.

-Chris