Nokia DVLUP Day

Registration has ended!

UPDATE Registration is closed, the hard deadline for stragglers was 12:00 PM 11-16-2013.  Thank you for making this one of the highest registered events I’ve ever held at 90% of max building capacity!

IMPORTANT: Make sure you are present at the welcome presentation at 10 AM on the 4th floor. You will learn the answer to a secret question that proves you attended.

Event Description

Learn to make amazing Windows Phone apps at Boston Nokia DVLUP Day and win big prizes just for participating. Nokia Ambassadors, Lance McCarthy and Nick Landry, will provide hands-on Windows Phone development training. Whether you’re a seasoned dev or don’t know a line of code, you will walk away with the ability to write an app.

With full example source code and step by step instructions, you will learn how to make an app from scratch. There are three individual tracks for you depending on what you want to build and your programming skill level, there is something for everyone; games or apps.

As an attendee you get the following:

• A Windows Phone 8. Every attendee who updates or publishes an app within 2 weeks of the event will get a new Nokia Lumia 620 Windows Phone 8 device
• A heavy-duty swag backpack. The swag bag is chock full of goodies, even the backpack itself is worth $89 (it’s a Wenger, Swiss Gear TSA friendly laptop bag).
• A Nokia Developer Offers token. This contains the following:
  • Microsoft Windows Phone DevCenter account (this is your portal to publish apps to the Windows Phone Store and also unlocks physical devices for building apps)
  • Telerik RadControls for Windows Phone license
  • Infragistics NetAdvantage for Windows Phone
  • BugSense Performance Monitoring solution for Windows Phone (3 months)
• $50 AdDuplex credit (approx. 20k ad impressions). When your app is live, you’ll be entered to win:
  • 1st place- 1,000,000 ad impressions
  • 2nd place- 500,000 ad impressions
  • 3rd place- 250,000 ad impressions
• PreApps.com app placement credit. PreApps.com is giving every attendee credit towards app placement on the PreApps website!
• Mac Clinic- If you are a developer who uses a mac and doesn’t have access to a Windows 8 machine, be sure to read the end of this post. you’ll need to reach out to me to reserve a mac dev kit.

There will be 2 random drawings for all attendees to win a Nokia Lumia “Hero” device of their choice (Lumia 1020, 928, 925, 920). The first drawing will be held at 5 PM after the day of training for all attendees. The second drawing will be held at the end of the mini-hackathon for the attendees who stayed to code and get hands-on help.

There will also be random giveaways throughout the day for swag, Telerik licenses, gadgets and more.

Breakfast, snacks, lunch and dinner will be provided.

Schedule:

• 8 AM MacBook clinic
• 9 AM Registration, breakfast and networking
• 10 AM Introductions then sessions start (tracks 1, 2 and 3)
• 12 PM Lunch
• 12:30 Sessions resume
• 2:00 PM Track 1, 2 and 3 end
• 2:15 Combined track begins
• 4:30 Combined track ends, giveaways
• 5:00 PM Sessions end, dinner is served, mini-hackathon begins
• 8:30 PM Mini-Hackathon ends, final prizes awarded
• 9:00 PM End of event, 2 week hackathon begins!

Track One: Native development (10AM – 2PM): Learn how to write Windows Phone apps with XAML/C# and explore the amazing APIs available to you. From the built-in task classes to advanced Bluetooth/NFC/Camera approaches, Lance McCarthy, Nokia Ambassador for the Northeast US, will show you how easy it is to write great apps with ease. This track comes with full source code and slides.

Track Two: App Studio development (10AM-2PM): Learn how to generate a store-ready Windows Phone app in under an hour using Microsoft’s App Studio. Nick Landry, Nokia Ambassador for the Mid-Atlantic US, will show you how to get started with App Studio and also take you through how to download the source code for the finished app to customize it even further.

Track Three: Game Development (10 AM-2PM): Learn how to make fun games for Windows Phone and Windows 8 using Unity3D and Construct2. Michael Cummings, Microsoft DPE, will show you how to code casual 2D games for Windows 8 and Windows Phone using a variety of technologies such as Unity, GameMaker, Construct 2, HTML5 and/or MonoGame. (If you had originally signed up on Microsoft’s event page, that event listing has been cancelled. Simply go to the Eventbrite link at the top of this page and register there instead)

Combined track (2:15-5PM): A combination of app demos from the event hosts that highlight their favorite approaches to Windows Phone development (for example, Lance will demonstrate some Windows Phone Bluetooth and Netduino fun). Each presenter will spend 30 minutes to show you the app and dissect it for you to see how to do it yourself. This session is to spark your imagination.

Developer Environment (MacBook WPDev Kit)

To write native Windows Phone 8 apps, you will need to be using Windows 8 Pro. If you do not have windows 8 Pro, you can do track 2 and make a Windows Phone App Studio app.

Developers with a Macbook: If you are a developer with a MAC, you can show up early (8:00 AM) for the MAC Clinic and you’ll be provided with a MAC DEV KIT. This contains a copy of Parallels and a copy of Windows 8 Pro. They will help you setup your mac so that you can develop Windows Phone apps. Email Lance McCarthy as soon as possible to set up your MAC DEV KIT, otherwise it will be first-come, first serve (email: BostonDvlupDay@outlook.com ).

If you have questions about your environment, please email BostonDvlupDay@outlook.com

General Windows Phone 8 developer environment minimum (if you’re doing track 1 or 3)

1.  Mac users only: Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop, VirtualBox or VMWare Fusion

2.  Windows 8 (or 8.1) Professional (a 90-day evaluation version available here)

3.  The Windows Phone SDK is available here, I will also have it available on a USB drive that you can install there.

Summary

This is going to be an awesome day, I look forward to seeing you all there. Just for showing up and learning, you get hooked up. Just for updating or publishing an app, you get hooked up. Mark off that Saturday and come join us.

Directions to the Venue

Directions to #1 CAMBRIDGE CENTER  Directions from Bing

(Note: there is some construction being performed on the Longfellow bridge and it is currently closed to Cambridge-bound traffic )

ARRIVING BY PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

MBTA (“The T”)

Cambridge Center is accessible via the MBTA Red Line at the Kendall Square/MIT stop (between the Charles Street and Central Square stops). The Red Line links up with other lines providing access to virtually the entire Greater Boston region, including Logan Airport.  Please follow the Microsoft signs to our main entrance in the front of our building.