Events - The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group: Building Custom Controls in WP7
The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group
Building Custom Controls in WP7
In the mobile environment experience is everything. Hitting the proper control balance is crucial to making usable applications, and that means as developers we need to understand our platform intimately to provide the best experience. The Windows Phone 7 toolkit provides many additional controls which can be used to improve the experience, but its not all encompassing. This talk will focus on analyzing these controls and describing how we can build our own controls using templates, primitives, and simple inheritance.
About Jason
Jason Farrell is a consultant with Centare Group based in Chicago. I recently moved to Chicago from Grand Rapids, MI where I was working in the IT space for Meijer Inc and leading the West Michigan .NET User Group. I have a deep love for the community and thoroughly enjoy sharing my passion for technology through speaking. In my free time, I enjoy working out and running, mostly as training for my hiking excursions. I also love Japan and have visited there many times over the past few years, including my most recent trip in August which took me to the top of Mt. Fuji. In addition, I also love Halo and other first person shooters.
Chicago, IL 60606 - USA
Thursday, May 3 at 5:30 PM
Attending: 17
Details: http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Windows-Phone-Developers/events/62656272/
Events - The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group: Using the Windows Phone Local Database
The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group
Windows Phone Mango brought many new features for developers, including Local Database, a compact private database. This powerful new feature allows developers to store relational data in isolated storage using LINQ to SQL.
George Roberts from Purity Networks will give an overview of the Local Database features and will demonstrate building a simple database-driven app. A basic understanding of Windows Phone application development and database concepts will allow attendees to get the most of this session.
Telerik Ultimate Collection
At this meeting we will be raffling a Telerik Ultimate Collection valued at $1,999! Be sure to attend for your chance to win this great suite of controls, components, and developer tools!
About George
George Roberts is the President and CEO of Purity Networks, a Chicago-area internet security and software development consultancy. George has been a software developer and technologist for more than 20 years and is the developer of the Network Dashboard app for Windows Phone.
Chicago, IL 60606 - USA
Monday, April 16 at 5:30 PM
Attending: 29
Details: http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Windows-Phone-Developers/events/59060612/
Events - The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group: Windows Phone Design and User Experience
The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group
** IMPORTANT LOCATION CHANGE **
Our normal meeting place at TechNexus is unavailable for our March meetup so for this upcoming meeting we are going to use Clarity's training room at the following address:
1 N Franklin
Suite 3400
Chicago, IL 60606
__________________
Austin Andrews from Maven Wave Partners has put together a talk on design and user experience aimed at developers on the Windows Phone platform. The talk will guide developers into things they should be thinking about along with how to implement a recognizable brand for their application.
The outline includes:
- Layout
- Spacing
- Controls
- Basic Color Theory as it relates to Metro
- Typography and using custom fonts in Expression Blend.
- Designing a Windows Phone icon in Expression Design
This talk requires no knowledge on the Windows Phone platform only an interest. Expression Design is recommended if you want to follow along with designing an icon.
Chicago, IL 60606 - USA
Thursday, March 8 at 5:30 PM
Attending: 24
Details: http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Windows-Phone-Developers/events/54686042/
Events - The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group: RealWorldWPDev: Discussing various real-world techniques for creating apps
The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group
Matt Hidinger from Clarity Consulting is going to dive into a blog series titled RealWorldWPDev, which currently consists of 6 in-depth parts. The series walks through building a functioning, polished app (with full source code available), which will eventually be submitted to the marketplace.
The Series Introduction and Outline can be seen here:
Each of the parts will be discussed during the presentation, including topics ranging from:
- Solution Structure
- MVVM with Caliburn.Micro
- Creating a great panorama experience
- Creating and consuming web services
- Page navigation and passing complex state
Since this is probably a 200-300 level talk, you may need a basic understanding of MVVM and Silverlight (or basic windows phone development experience) to get the most out of the content.
Chicago, IL 60606 - USA
Thursday, February 2 at 5:30 PM
Attending: 33
Details: http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Windows-Phone-Developers/events/49563322/
Events - The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group: Windows Phone App Dev with an ASP.NET MVC Service Layer
The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group
Add security to your application by using ASP.NET to handle external storage of data without worrying about security violations on your phone. Add performance to your application by allowing ASP.NET to handle 3rd party web service calls that require large amounts of data to be consumed or that require multiple calls to get retrieve your data. David Arlin of Triton-Tek will be discussing Windows Phone development with an ASP.NET MVC Service Layer, which will allow you do do all this and more! Conversation and snacks starting at 5:30, with the main presentation to begin at 6:00.
Chicago, IL 60606 - USA
Thursday, December 1 at 5:30 PM
Attending: 14
Details: http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Windows-Phone-Developers/events/40477122/
Events - The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group: Using Expression Blend in Windows Phone development
The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group
Anthony Handley, a Senior Consultant and User Experience Practice Lead at Magenic, will be presenting using Exprtession Blend in Windows Phone development.
Chicago, IL 60606 - USA
Tuesday, November 8 at 5:30 PM
Attending: 19
Details: http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Windows-Phone-Developers/events/39650962/
Events - The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group: Mobile Architecture Best Practices, Mango, $1999 Giveaway
The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group
We will raffle off a Telerik Ultimate Collection for .NET (worth $1999).
Mobile Architecture Best Prctices (starts at 6pm)
presented by John Sprunger
When developing mobile applications, there are a number of key challenges where architecture and design are fundamentally different from that of a typical enterprise application. We’ll review and discuss the key architectural issues in mobile application development, including performance, usability, data access, security, and connectivity.
John Sprunger is an Architect in the Integration Practice at West Monroe Partners, a business and technology consulting firm. John has over 6 years of experience in performance optimization, systems integration, and building web-based, cloud, and mobile applications.
Mango Roundtable
A discussions about the Mango release will follow John's presentation.
Chicago, IL 60606 - USA
Thursday, October 6 at 5:30 PM
Attending: 31
Details: http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Windows-Phone-Developers/events/28730021/
Events - The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group: Mobile + Cloud: Using the Azure Toolkit with Windows Phone
The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group
Sorry for the last minute topic-change everyone! Our original speaker had to cancel. But fear not, if you've never seen Eric Boyd present, you're in for a good time. This is also our first Azure-based topic so I'm certain he won't let us down!
---
Most consumers expect cloud services without ever thinking about “The Cloud”. As consumers, we use services like Gmail, Dropbox, twitter andeven Xbox Live and we expect our information to be available from any locationand on all of our devices. When creating quality, mobile apps, we should provide a similar experience because our customers expect it. The Cloud enables startups and mobile developers to provide the same user experience as large enterprises and Fortune 500 companies. It levels the playing field and eliminates the upfront investment previously required for servers and datacenters.
Eric D. Boyd will present the common scenarios for incorporating Cloud services into your mobile apps. Eric will take us through Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Windows Azure and get us equipped with the necessary tools to build cloud services for our mobile apps using Windows Azure. Eric will also demonstrate how to create Windows Phone apps with Windows Azure services and point us to some tools that will help with Windows Phone development.
Eric D. Boyd is a Director for Centare ( www.centare.com) and is responsible for their Chicago business and Cloud Computing Practice. Eric began his technology career by starting a web development firm in the 90’s and has served in multiple roles since including developer, consultant, business owner and technology executive. Today, he primarily helps Fortune 500 companies with software development practices and cloud computing in the Chicago-Milwaukee area. You can find him blogging at http://www.ericdboyd.... and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Er....
---
We will be meeting at 5:30pm with our speaker starting at 6pm.
Chicago, IL 60606 - USA
Thursday, September 1 at 6:00 PM
Attending: 17
Details: http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Windows-Phone-Developers/events/27292731/
Events - The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group: A Gentle Introduction to Game Programming w/ XNA
The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group
Jeff Meyers will be presenting A Gentle Introduction to Game Programming with XNA. We'll look at the basic XNA game structure, and look at basic game components and services.
Jeff's been teaching c# and .net at over 10 years at both Columbia College and Illinois Institute of Technology. He teachers everything from Object Oriented Programming to Advances Web Applications to XNA Programming. He's also the Operations Manager of the Interactive Arts and Media Program and Columbia College. He also been interested in game programming for over 30 years.
We will be meeting at 5:30pm with our speaker starting at 6pm.
Chicago, IL 60606 - USA
Thursday, August 4 at 5:30 PM
Attending: 16
Details: http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Windows-Phone-Developers/events/21737571/
Events - The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group: Windows Phone Unleashed at TechWeek
The Chicago Windows Phone Developer Group
NOTE: YOU MUST RSVP AT: http://windowsphonete...
Don’t miss this opportunity to get hands on with Windows Phone and the new features coming in Windows Phone “Mango”. Get help developing apps from the Windows Phone experts! This is a “hands-on” Hackathon where you will learn how to build, scale and publish your Windows Phone apps from the Windows Phone and Windows Azure experts. If you are a beginner or even an expert Windows Phone developer, you should not miss this event.
We will have short sessions on how to get started creating apps for the Windows Phone. And sessions on how to make serious $$$ building Windows Phone apps. Bring your laptop and we will provide all of the necessary tools needed to build your apps. This evening event will bring together experts and developers with the purpose of developing WP7 apps.
Bring your ideas! Present them to your peers and WIN! Top app ideas will be voted on with an opportunity to WIN FREE Marketplace registration and more! We will also show participants who manage to create a Windows Phone app how they can be entered to win a new Windows Phone!
If you are a student, this is an event you can’t afford to miss! We will show you multiple ways to get FREE Unlocked Samsung Focus Windows Phones, FREE Xbox 360 games, FREE Visual Studio 2010 Professional, FREE Windows Phone Marketplace accounts and FREE Gift Cards.
Space is limited, so RSVP soon!
Food, beverages and refreshments will be provided.
Sessions
Getting Started Developing for Windows Phone
Windows Phone is Microsoft’s next-generation smartphone platform. Windows Phone applications are created by using familiar tools like Visual Studio 2010, Silverlight, and XNA, thereby allowing developers to create rich smartphone applications using their existing skills. In this session, we will take a high-level look at the platform and tools that enable developers to create Windows Phone applications.
Making $$$ with Windows Phone
The release of Windows Phone has created a rare opportunity for app developers to get in on the ground floor of a new and fast-growth mobile app marketplace. In this session, we will explore the ins and outs of the Marketplace and how to get started building and monetizing apps for the Windows Phone.
Speakers and On-Site Experts
Dave Bost
Dave is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft and co-host of the Thirsty Developer Podcast. Dave has been a Software Developer and Solution Architect for over 15-years. Prior to joining Microsoft, Dave cut his technical teeth working with many Fortune-500 companies as a technical mentor and consultant.
Dave started his technical passion back in the days of the Commodore-64 when he wrote his first assembly-language program that produced a hot-air balloon to sail across his Commodore 1701 Video Monitor. From there, he was hooked. This led to a Computer Science degree at Northern Illinois University, where he soon started his professional career in the Unix/C world and a short time later, starting his Microsoft developer career. For the past decade, Dave has spent most of his time building web-based applications for the Microsoft platform. As a technologist, Dave doesn't spend all his time in the Microsoft world as he likes to spend his time dabbling with the latest technologies, tools and movements coming out of the software industry.
Outside of his professional life, Dave enjoys discovering new music with his Zune Pass, defending the universe against 13-year olds on Xbox Live, and playing golf (whenever his wife lets him). You can read Dave's blog or listen to the Thirsty Developer Podcast.
Eric D. Boyd
Eric D. Boyd is a Director for Centare ( www.centare.com) and is responsible for their Chicago business and Cloud Computing Practice. Eric began his technology career by starting a web development firm in the 90’s and has served in multiple roles since including developer, consultant, business owner and technology executive. Today, he primarily helps Fortune 500 companies with software development practices and cloud computing in the Chicago-Milwaukee area. You can find him blogging at http://www.ericdboyd.... and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Er....
Matt Hidinger
Matt Hidinger is a software developer and enthusiast out of Chicago. He is currently working as a consultant at Triton-Tek focusing on ASP.NET MVC, Silverlight, and Windows Phone. In his free time he has built and published two apps to the Windows Phone marketplace: CTA Watch and Transit Directions. Matt can be found on twitter @MattHidinger, blogging at http://matthidinger.c..., working on various open source projects, and actively participating in the local community.
Chicago, IL 60617 - USA
Wednesday, July 27 at 5:30 PM
Attending: 9
Details: http://www.meetup.com/Chicago-Windows-Phone-Developers/events/26694881/