Thank you so much for those people who came to my talks in Johannesburg & Cape Town – from all accounts we broke some size records for the event which is very awesome. Not just for my ego, but also it shows Microsoft that while we are excited about the new awesome stuff – we NEED to hear about the more normal things, you know cause we get paid to work with that and all.

With that said on to the usual post event blog post where I share my slides. In addition my demo script (those masses of paper I used to remind myself what to type) is up, and finally are completed builds of the demo apps for you to look through. About the demos, two things need to be remembered:

• These are demos – they are not meant to best practise. They are as close to that as I can get in 5min, so disclaimer on using them.
• These demos are not the same as on stage, and have no help – so if you did not attend the session the script maybe a better starting point.

btw download the slide deck, there is hidden slides with more info!!

Completed Demos

Large (file size) demos

Small (file size) demos - below

Yesterday Rudi Grobler & I had awesome fun with a full room of amazing people who took time off work to attend a full day of free Windows 8 training. The audience was amazing, breaking a lot of my expectations of how audiences react at free events, which really honoured Rudi & I to have most people stay to the very end of the day.

For those people who attended the training, or those who didn’t but want the content too:

• You can get the slides: http://bit.ly/win8-slides 
• You can get videos from Build on the topics we discussed: http://bit.ly/win8-videos
• The demo’s I built are available to download from below.

This past weekend was the ever fantastic JavaScript in South Africa (JSinSA) conference. This year focus was on HTML 5, JavaScript & CSS 3 – easily some of the MOST important topics for developers regardless of platform to know about.

It was it’s second year and while I was very lucky to go to it as an attendee in the first year, this year I was even more lucky to be a presenter at the conference. I was also very lucky to present on a topic I am passionate about: Windows 8.

The talk provided an introduction to Windows 8 & how development works, and in the 45mins I was done, we built an application which could take a photo from a web cam and send it to Twitter (the actual photo is to the right).

You can get the slides and bits from the talk below.

Last week (14th March 2012, to be exact) I had a great opportunity to travel to Cape Town and present the first ever Windows 8 Bootcamp there! (I missed the first in South Africa by two days, that was presented in Jo’burg by Rudi Grobler).

It was a small event, but it was a great day of learning and sharing and what a lovely place it was to present, as you can see from the photos below!

One of the requests from those who attended the event was the demos & slides – however there is a snag, Microsoft owns the slides and they are not ready for them to be publically shared   That said the demo bits are below, so hopefully that will keep you sorted until the slides arrive.

Update: This application has been retired - it was for TechEd 2011 and used the website a lot, the moment the site changes the app will break. It's goal & use are done, so I am happy to retire it.

I’m very happy to announce the 1.1 version of the Tech·Ed Africa app for Windows Phone 7 is now out with a TON of new features:

First up is dedicated in app pages for speakers. This means no more browsing to the website for speaker info. There is also options to view their Twitter, website etc… and since we not on Mango it supports saving the contact details to the device.

Second  is similar, dedicated pages for the sessions too!

Third improvement is on the sessions list page – a lot of cleanup and bug fixing there plus lots of options for the grouping (level, audience etc..). This should help finding session info very easily.

The MVP page got a BIG facelift too, with buttons for contact details for each MVP, and a cleaner more bold experience. Of the whole application I am most happy with the UI on this page. I also added a community tweets page that has tweets searched by hash tags!

The welcome page got a cleanup with more focus on the news tweets and the removal of the refresh option, since it refreshes in a lot of ways manual isn’t really needed. It also allows you to launch the BIG new feature…

Session planner! You can now browse and book sessions on your phone! And your phone will give you reminders to attend the sessions!

There is also a lot of UI tweaks – first the background was swopped to the latest UI from Tech·Ed and made a lot darker, so the contrast to the white stands out more the readability is WAY better. I also spent a lot of time with Rudi Grobler getting some of the smaller UI things right, so a big thanks to him! It even has a new and MUCH nicer icon So what are you waiting for, go update NOW!

Next weekend (15th Oct) Cape Town is hosting the SharePoint Saturday conference and myself and fellow BBDer Rudi Grobler will be there and will be and we are running a very special event in conjunction with the main event: Lab Rooms!

There will be two special rooms available and in one Rudi will presenting and training on Windows Phone 7 and in the other I will be presenting and training on the Windows Azure Platform!

The cost for this? FREE! It is being sponsored by BBD & the SharePoint Saturday event

Space in both rooms is VERY VERY limited, so you need to register NOW!

Windows Phone Registration: http://wp7camp.eventbrite.com/

Windows Azure Registration: http://windowsazurecpt.eventbrite.com/

Last year I posted a Tech·Ed Africa related post titled: How to find the gems in the sessions?,  which included a slide deck of a presentation I did at BBD for the staff attending Tech·Ed to help them prepare for the event. It was a VERY popular slide deck and this year I am doing the same thing. Below is the 2011 survival guide for Tech·Ed Africa!

If you find it useful please let me know on @rmaclean 

if you looking for more info on the slides, then please download the slide deck and check the notes. There is also a Easter egg slide with interesting information for those who download the slide deck

Update: Check out the info on the 1.1 version

Update: This application has been retired - it was for TechEd 2011 and used the website a lot, the moment the site changes the app will break. It's goal & use are done, so I am happy to retire it.

I am passionate about Microsoft Tech·Ed Africa, not because I’m a speaker there (and have been many times in the past) but because it is an awesome event. Now in this mobile world every awesome event needs an equally awesome mobile app. Since Microsoft isn’t releasing one for Tech·Ed, I decided to put my skills to use and build a Windows Phone 7 app for the event

This app is a little different from my other apps as I didn’t have the data, and it is a constantly moving target so I am doing some very smart (and maybe a little sneaky) things to get the content from the www.teched.co.za website!

Version 1 allows you to browse sessions, speakers, get pro tips, see who the awesome MVP’s are, and get official news!

I am working on version 1.1 which include community tweets, proper speaker & session pages and will update with more info as it is released so keep an eye on those updates!

Tech·Ed Africa 2010 introduced a new feature, DevIdols, which was one of the TOP highlights of Tech·Ed, and I am VERY PROUD to announce that it is back this year again!

DevIdols is a special competition only open to attendees (no speakers or staff) where you get to present on stage for a few minutes to an audience and panel of judges!

The prize? a chance to be a speaker at Tech·Ed 2012!

Now I know for most people the thought of public speaking is scary but this event is different, you have so little time most of it is just a blur and everyone there is in a very friendly mood (normally audience and speakers get a beer or two) so even if you tank no one takes it too seriously and we all have a good laugh.

If you are not a speaker, and I cannot convince you to speak, then let me convince you to come along and watch. You see a bunch of topics, presented in a variety of ways and I promise you that you will have a GREAT time. Keep an eye out on the DPE Blog for more details.

This past Saturday myself & Rudi Grobler presented a full day workshop on Windows Phone 7 development and we were BLOWN away with the event!

We had a great turn out, easily over hundred people were there and they  were one of the most amazing audiences I’ve ever had the honour to present to – they were insanely engaged in the discussion and really brought up all the tough issues that we love to discuss

In addition to that Microsoft, Nokia & BBD were awesome sponsors, but I have to single out Nokia who put up the most amazing prizes:

• 3 x Microsoft Xbox 360 for the first people to get 100 downloads for their WP7 app!
• 10 x Nokia Windows Phone 7 (when available) for the first people to get 1 000 downloads for their WP7 app!

JUST WOW!

As we stated on the day you need to email both Dave Russell ([email protected]) & Derrick Kotze (

([email protected]) now to register and let them know when you reach your 100 or 1 000!

My big disappointment was the lab room, which never really got any traction, but with awesome presentations all day can you blame it

If you are looking for the slides, we have shared them using BitBucket so you can grab them at: https://bitbucket.org/rudigrobler/windows-phone-weekend-workshop-v2