Tek-Pub, Agile Workshop Added, and TechDays Content!

Free 10-Day TekPub Subscription for First 100 Registrants

Our friends at TekPub have provided us with 10-Day subscriptions for the first 100 registrants to the conference! If you’re not familiar with TekPub, it’s an online learning portal with fantastic screen-casts put together by leading technical experts like Rob Conery, Roy Osherove, Ayende Rahien, and others, and covering .NET, Ruby, Mobile, and other topics! Make sure to register today to claim your subscription!

For more information on TekPub, visit:

www.tekpub.com

We also blogged about this, so check out the post here for more info:

http://prairiedevcon.blogspot.com/2011/12/first-100-registrations-get-free-10-day.html

New Workshop Added – Planning and Initiating an Agile Project with Steve Rogalsky

We’re thrilled to add a third pre-conference workshop, and that Agile expert Steve Rogalsky will be on hand to deliver it! Steve has been speaking and leading similar workshops on Agile, and has emerged as one of the go-to experts on Agile software development in Canada. If you’re interested in Agile and want a greater understanding of running Agile projects, this is a must-attend workshop! You can check out the abstract on our workshop page on the conference site:

http://www.prairiedevcon.com/Workshops

We also blogged about this, so check out the post here for more info:

http://prairiedevcon.blogspot.com/2011/12/workshop-added-planning-and-initiating.html

TechDays Content and Community Events

You may have noticed that Microsoft’s TechDays is now featured as our diamond sponsor on the website! Not only are we appreciative of the support from Microsoft, but TechDays will also be bringing 30 IT Pro and Developer sessions from the recent TechDays events to Prairie Dev Con West! We’re also finalizing details for Community IT Pro, Azure, and Dev Camps to occur around the conference, so stay tuned for more announcements in early January!

We also blogged about this, so check out the post here for more info:

http://prairiedevcon.blogspot.com/2011/12/microsoft-techdays-our-diamond-sponsor.html

Early Bird Pricing Ends in Less Than 3 Weeks!

Just a reminder that our $499.99 early bird pricing ends December 31st! Also, groups of 3 or more get an additional $50 off each registration! Register today!

http://www.prairiedevcon.com

First 100 Registrations Get a Free 10 Day TekPub Subscription

Thanks to our generous friends at TekPub, the first 100 registrants to the Prairie Developer Conference West will receive a complimentary 10 day subscription to TekPub’s content!

TekPub is the creation of Rob Conery and James Avery. They offer web-based learning videos covering a wide variety of topics that span Microsoft, Ruby, Open Source, Linux, Best Practices, and more…it’s a treasure trove of technology learning riches available through their site at very affordable costs!

So check out TekPub today, and make sure to register for Prairie Developer Conference West early to take advantage of the 10 day subscription offer and our early bird pricing!

Microsoft TechDays our Diamond Sponsor, Bringing 30 Sessions and Community Events!

The Prairie Developer Conference West is thrilled to have Microsoft TechDays be our Diamond sponsor! Microsoft has been a huge supporter of the conference since its inception, and they’re bringing a TechDays flair to the conference in some great ways:

• 30 TechDays sessions covering IT Pro and Developer topics!
• Pre-conference events such as an IT Pro Camp and an Azure Camp!
• Dev Camp evening event!

Watch for the TechDays sessions and information on the community camp events to be posted in early January, but register today to take advantage of our early bird pricing and be one of the first 100 registrants and receive a *FREE* TekPub 10 day subscription!

And thanks again to Microsoft and TechDays for their continued support!

Workshop Added - Planning and Initiating an Agile Project with Steve Rogalsky

We've added another workshop to the list of pre-conference workshops, and its a great one! Emerging as a leader in the Canadian agile community, Steve Rogalsky will be doing a full day on planning and initiating an Agile project!

Steve has years of practical experience leading Agile teams and is a regular speaker at conferences and user groups. Steve ran a similar workshop at Prairie Dev Con Regina that received great reviews, so if you're looking to get a jump start on how to use Agile technologies on your projects this is the workshop for you!

Check out the workshop section of the site for the full description of what's covered!

Prairie Dev Con West–Sessions Announced, Registration Open!

I’m thrilled to announce that we’ve posted sessions and speakers on our site, and opened registration for Prairie Developer Conference West!

http://www.prairiedevcon.com

Three Days of Fantastic Sessions!

Prairie Dev Con West happens March 13 – 15, and will be three days of software development, IT Pro, and Agile sessions delivered by world class speakers and experts in the technical industry! We’ve currently posted 45 of the 72 sessions we’ll be providing, so check out what’s on the site and check back over the next few weeks as we fill out the session list!

http://www.prairiedevcon.com/sessions

http://www.prairiedevcon.com/speakers

Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell’s .NET Rocks Show LIVE at Prairie Dev Con!

We’re excited to have Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell attend the conference! They’ll be presenting sessions, but also doing an episode of their .NET Rocks internet show live from the conference! For more info, visit:

http://www.dotnetrocks.com/

Pre Conference Workshops!

We have two pre-conference workshops happening on Monday, March 12^th! Dylan Smith will be doing a full day on “Creating Powerful Build and Deploy Processes with TFS Build” and Bil Simser will be doing “Windows Phone 7 Developer Workshop”! Both of these guys are respected experts in their field and we’re very proud to be able to offer these workshops.

Attending either workshop is $399.99, but you can get 50% off if you bundle a workshop with a conference registration!

http://www.prairiedevcon.com/Workshops

Early Bird Pricing!

Registration is now open! For the month of December you can register at our early bird price of $499.99, which is $300 off the regular price! Also, groups of 3 or more get an additional $50 off each registration!

You can register online or request an invoice. For more information, visit our registration page:

http://www.prairiedevcon.com/Registration

Hotel and Venue!

The conference will be held at the TELUS Convention Centre, and the official conference hotel is the Calgary Marriott right next door! We have a limited number of hotel rooms at a conference rate of $209.00 a night, so book your hotel accommodations early! Call 1-800-896-6878 and mention Prairie Developer Conference when booking. More venue information can be found here:

http://www.prairiedevcon.com/About

Keep In Touch!

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! There’s many ways to connect with the conference and receive announcements/updates:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/prairiedevcon (We’re also using #PrDCWest as the conference hashtag)

Blog: http://prairiedevcon.blogspot.com/

Email: darcy@prairiedevcon.com

Join us!

Prairie Dev Con West will be *the* technology event to attend in Alberta in 2012! In addition to the three days of fantastic sessions by amazing speakers, there are a number of community events being planned the week of the conference! You’ll definitely want to be in Calgary this March to be part of it!

Thanks,

D’Arcy Lussier

Prairie Developer Conference

Microsoft HTML 5/Windows Azure Workshop

Microsoft will be putting on a full day HTML 5/Windows Azure workshop on Wednesday, November 23rd!

This will be a hands-on workshop where you bring your laptop and get led through examples on how to use these technologies.

This event is free for conference attendees, but if you’d like to attend and aren’t coming to the conference you can still register for $25! Just visit the workshop’s registration page here:

http://www.regonline.ca/microsofthtml5azureworkshop

Any questions, let me know!

Thanks,

D’Arcy

Confirmed–.NET Rocks Show from Prairie Dev Con West!

Many of you have heard of Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell, who host the very popular .NET Rocks internet talkshow. Both are accomplished technologists with decades of industry experience and knowledge.

I’m thrilled to announce that we’ve got both of them coming to Prairie Dev Con West and they’re going to record a show at the conference! Richard will also be presenting on Scaling Habits of ASP.NET Applications!

If you want to receive more information about the conference, including updates on sessions, pricing, and registration, please get on our mailing list at www.prairiedevcon.com/west.

Extending PrDC West Speaker Submission!

There were a number of events happening over the last few weeks, including European and Canadian conferences. To ensure those speakers who may have missed the cut off for submitting talks due to other conference involvement don’t miss out, we’re extending the cut-off for PrDC West session submissions to November 11th!

That means there’s still two weeks to get your sessions in, but don’t wait until the last minute! Submit them today to help us start sorting through and planning for this fantastic conference!

You can get the speaker request form from the Prairie Dev Con West site at www.prairiedevcon.com/west (its a link towards the bottom).

Thanks,

D’Arcy

Prairie Dev Con West–We Want to Hear From IT Pros!

Prairie Dev Con West will, for the first time, include IT Pro sessions! We’re very excited about this, and want to ensure that we meet the needs of the IT Pro communities in Alberta!

We’ve got a very short survey set up to capture some information that will help us ensure the IT Pro component of the conference is top notch! You can access the survey at this link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HK9KPV5

One clarification on the first question – we’re trying to decide how to best schedule the various sessions between IT Pro and Software Development. There are three options we’re looking at:

1) We make the Tuesday “IT Pro” day of the conference, with all IT Pro sessions scheduled on that day.

2) We make Tuesday an “IT Pro” day, with Wednesday being split between IT Pro and Software Dev sessions, and Thursday being just Software Development.

3) We integrate the IT Pro and Software Development sessions throughout all three days of the conference.

The thought for options 1 and 2 is that we want to be sensitive about people’s time, and we realize that a three day conference might be a lot to commit to (compared to one or two days).

Please let us know if you have any other comments or feedback!

Thanks,

D’Arcy

Announcing Prairie Dev Con West in Calgary March 2012!

I’m very excited to announce that we’ll be bringing the Prairie Developer Conference to Alberta in early 2012!

I started Prairie Developer Conference in Regina in 2010 as an option to high cost remote conferences, and its become a huge success! With the announcement that Microsoft TechDays won’t be returning to Alberta this year, I think Prairie Dev Con can definitely fill that gap and provide Albertans with a fantastic professional development opportunity!

Here are the details:

When: March 13 – 15 2012 (3 days!)
Where: Telus Convention Centre, Calgary AB

One new aspect to this conference from others we’ve done is that we’ll be including IT Pro focussed sessions in addition to the great software development ones the conference is known for!

There’s a few call to actions:

Get on Our Mailing List for Conference Updates

Head on over to http://www.prairiedevcon.com/west and submit your email to stay informed of all the news and announcements around Prairie Dev Con West!

Interested in Speaking? Fill Out The Presenter Request Form!

If you’d like to submit sessions for the conference, please download and fill out our presenter request form, which you can get here. Session submissions are due October 28th.

Interested in Sponsoring? Contact Us!

Sponsoring the Prairie Dev Con West is about more than just getting your name up on the website. We offer ways to leverage sponsorship to connect with attendees whether it be through vendor sessions at the conference, a booth to showcase your product or service, and special offers to pass on to clients and colleagues. If you’d like to receive more information about becoming a sponsor, please drop us an email at sponsors@prairiedevcon.com!

Sessions and pricing information will be released in early November, so get ready Alberta for an amazing three days of technical sessions you can’t get anywhere else!

Thanks,

D’Arcy Lussier
Prairie Developer Conference Organizer

Early Bird Price Extended Another Month!

We started talking about Prairie Dev Con back in August, which is a horrible month to market anything with so many Manitobans away on vacation. Then in September we started leveraging the user groups in Winnipeg, but the combination of late-scheduled meetings and issues with mailing lists meant the word about Prairie Dev Con got out late or not at all.

So, in light of all that, we’re going to extend the early bird price of $349.99 until the end of October! We’re still an amazing value, with two days and over 40 sessions worth of technical content presented by world-class presenters!

We’re still offering our two other incentives as well:
- Groups of 3+ get an additional $50 off each registration
- Groups of 15+ get an additional $75 off each registration

You can check out our full list of sessions and speakers on our website: www.prairiedevcon.com

Register to reserve your seat today!

Announcing Large Group Pricing

We’ve had a few people express interest in having larger groups attend the conference, and inquire on whether we give any extra discount for the volume.

So today I’m thrilled to announce that we’re introducing a large group discount! If you register 15 or more people, you can get $75 off each registration!

That means for our early bird pricing of $349.99 in September, you actually only pay $274.99! For the price of sending 1 or 2 people to an out of town conference, you can send 15 people to a fantastic local 2 day conference with amazing speakers and fantastic technical sessions!

For more information on how to register your large group for the conference, contact us at info@prairiedevcon.com

Thanks,

D’Arcy

Our $349.99 Early Bird Price Extended Thru September!

Being a Manitoban myself, I understand our love for Summer: getting away to the lake, enjoying vacation time with family, travelling, going camping, etc.

Of course, that means that promoting a technology conference in August means that there are those who have been away and may just be coming back now and hearing about Prairie Dev Con.

So in light of that, we’re extending our $349.99 early bird pricing thru September!!!

That’s right, you can register to attend a fantastic 2 days of technical content (41 sessions) with outstanding speakers for $349.99, and groups of 3+ still get an extra $50 off each registration!

For more information on the conference, including speakers, sessions, and how to register, visit our website (we’re updating the site now, so while it may not reflect the discount be assured our registration service will):

www.prairiedevcon.com

Thanks,

D’Arcy

Our Second Keynote–Chad Jones on the Future of Mobile!

We announced a while back that Miguel Carrasco would be our first conference keynote, talking about “The Evolution of User Interfaces”. We’re thrilled to announce that Chad Jones will deliver our second keynote on The Future of Mobile!

Chad is a former Apple Engineer who worked at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California. While there Chad was involved in integral development of Apple's Mac OS X operating system. Upon his return to Canada, Chad taught Canada's first university accredited course on iPhone programming at the University of Saskatchewan. Chad was also an integral part of the team responsible for developing iUsask, Canada's first iPhone application for university students.

After the success of iUsask, Chad received requests from educational institutions across Canada, US, Europe, and Australia prompting him to found CollegeMobile in 2009. The company was established to fulfill the growing opportunities for mobile application development within both education and business markets.

He continues to instruct the mobile development course at the University of Saskatchewan and is currently developing a text book on the subject. More recently Chad’s team created FaceMobile, a FaceBook client for iPad that was featured in Apple’s New & Noteworthy section on the App Store.

If you`re wondering what the future of mobile is, come to Prairie Dev Con and find out from one of the leading Canadian mobile experts!

www.prairiedevcon.com

Prairie Dev Con…Calgary?

I’ve had some people ask me that since I’m putting on Prairie Developer Conference in Winnipeg, whether I’d be interested in putting one on in Calgary as well.

If you’re not familiar with Prairie Dev Con, I started it in Regina in 2010 and have run it there the last two Junes. I wanted to put on a technology conference that had fantastic content, great atmosphere, and an affordable price. The conference is two days with an extra day for optional post-conference workshops, and presenters have come from all over North America in various technical disciplines. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and we’ve doubled our attendance over the two Regina events. There will be another Prairie Dev Con in Regina this June.

But Calgary, like Winnipeg, is short an event now that TechDays is putting live events on only in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. Prairie Dev Con is proving to be a great replacement event here in Winnipeg, and I believe it could be in Calgary as well. What I need to know is whether people in Alberta feel the same way!

I’ve created a very quick online survey that I’m inviting people to fill out. This will help in making the decision to put on a Calgary event early next year, as well as where it will be held and the types of sessions you’d like to see.

There’s a spot on the survey to enter your name and email address, although its not mandatory. For those that do, I’ll draw a free registration to either the Calgary event if we do it, or for the Regina event – so either way you can win a free registration to a fantastic technology conference next year!

You can access the survey at the link below, and if you have any questions either leave a comment here or email me at info@prairiedevcon.com.

Click here to take survey

Thanks!

D’Arcy

www.prairiedevcon.com

New Sessions Posted!

We’ve posted some new sessions to the lineup! Check out all our fantastic sessions on our website here!

A Dash of Kanban Anyone?
Joel Semeniuk

Can you pinpoint bottlenecks on your team? Can you predict when features will be complete? Do sprints feel too rigid for your team? Kanban means Visual Board and comes from the world of Lean Thinking. Kanban has started to influence software development teams, simplifying many aspects of software process management. Why does Kanban matter and how does it work? In this session we'll explore these questions and find out how you can start with Kanban and Lean Thinking.

Want Better Estimates? Stop Estimating!
Joel Semeniuk

Estimation is hard. Some say impossible to get right. There are lots of estimation techniques, some of them easy and some of them really complex. Most of the time these techniques don't make you better at estimation. Is there a way to stop estimating and still run a team that produces predictably and reliably? Come to this talk.. and you'll find out.

Building SharePoint 2010 Workflows with Visual Studio
Frode Aarebrot

Transform your business processes using SharePoint workflow. SharePoint can automate tasks, reduce workload, save time, increase production, bring consistency and help meet audit and compliance requirements. In this session we’ll unravel the mystery of creating custom workflows with task forms including proper packaging and deployment.

PrDC Winnipeg–Powerhouse Mobile Track!

We’ve lined up some fantastic speakers to present on Mobile technology! Whether its iPhone, Android, Blackberry, or WP7 you’re looking for, we have it all at Prairie Dev Con Winnipeg!

For more information about our speakers, check out their full bios and contact info (website, twitter, email, blog) here.

Chad Jones
Chad is a former Apple Engineer who worked at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California. While there Chad was involved in integral development of Apple's Mac OS X operating system. Upon his return to Canada, Chad taught Canada's first university accredited course on iPhone programming at the University of Saskatchewan. Chad was also an integral part of the team responsible for developing iUsask, Canada's first iPhone application for university students.

Chad will be sharing his experience and insight on developing applications for various mobile platforms.

Paul Thorsteinson
Paul co-founded Big Nerds In Disguise (BNID) as well as his own company App Empire Inc. Currently the CTO at Robots and Pencils Inc, Paul spends the majority of his time pushing apps from idea to App Store.
In 2011 Paul’s first app with BNID crossed the 10,000 user mark and won a Microsoft award for best design. Through his work at Robots and Pencils, Paul has touched over ten apps that are now in the app store including an app that hit #4 top grossing (World Explorer for MineCraft). More recently Paul brokered a deal to bring one of Warner Brothers most popular games to the mobile space.

Paul will be sharing his experience developing the “Own This World” application for iPhone, Android, and WP7 platforms.

George Chen
George is a consultant with Online Business Systems in Winnipeg and has been an avid Android developer! George wrote the Android application that will be available for Prairie Dev Con Winnipeg, and will be sharing his knowledge of Sencha Touch for creating cross-platform mobile applications.

Simon Timms
Simon Timms is a founder of Wopsle and currently works as a developer for GeoTrac International. GeoTrac is a leader in GPS fleet management focusing on the oil sector in Western Canada. Simon’s background is in release management, source control and .net development but he now spends his days working on distributed systems and applying the most useful of modern programming techniques and technologies to his products.

Simon will be showing how to hack mobile devices using common development tools and frameworks – this is a must-see session!

TBD – Windows Phone 7
We’ll be featuring 5 sessions from the TechDays live events, and you can bet that at least one of those will be showcasing how to develop for Windows Phone 7! Keep watching the sessions list for updates!

Mobile Panel Discussion
The above speakers and others will be part of a mobile panel discussion where attendees can ask questions about the mobile development experience and get a better understanding of how mobile can help their organization.

Registration is Open!

Registration for Prairie Dev Con Winnipeg is now open! We’re still filling the last few session slots, but we have over 80% of the sessions posted!

Until August 31st you can take advantage of our early bird pricing of $349.99! Register a group of 3 or more and get an extra $50 off each registration!

As always, Prairie Dev Con provides the following:

- A hot breakfast and lunch on both days of the conference
- Free wi-fi available
- Free parking (ok, we didn’t have this in Regina, but we do in Winnipeg!)

We’ll also have some fun and surprises over the two days of the conference, so register early to take advantage of our fantastic early bird pricing! Click here to visit our website’s registration page!

(Note: After August, the conference price goes up to $399.99 for September, $499.99 for October, and $599.99 in November)

Announcing our First Keynote: Digital Marketing and Technology Visionary, Miguel Carrasco!

We have our first keynote address scheduled for the conference, and its going to be fantastic! Digital Marketing and Technology visionary Miguel Carrasco (Director of Imaginet Interactive and a Microsoft MVP) will open the inaugural Winnipeg Prairie Developer Conference! Here’s his keynote abstract:

The world is changing. Forget traditional desktop, laptops, or even the iPad. The way we interact with computers is about to change in a radical way. In order to appreciate and understand the future, we first need to understand the past.  Miguel will take attendees on a ride through "The Evolution of User Interfaces" and provide insight on where we were, where we are today, and what the future holds.  Learn what the experts are describing as "the most dramatic shift our industry has ever seen".  The future is only limited by what we can imagine in our minds.

About Miguel:

Miguel is a passionate speaker and brings a unique perspective and incredible ideas to everything he does.  Miguel is unique in our field because he combines deep technical understanding, real world experience, and an incredible marketing and creative awareness. When Microsoft needed to explain the importance of user experience design to companies around the world, they brought in Miguel to present at Internet Week in New York. In 2008 Miguel was named a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional.

Miguel speaks frequently across Canada and North America from topics ranging from User Experience Design, Social Media, and Technology. A community leader, Miguel is passionate about creating a world-renowned marketing and technology community in central Canada.

Miguel has always pushed the envelope and challenged traditional thinking in the technology industry, and his message will resonate with attendees at Winnipeg’s first Prairie Developer Conference!

D’Arcy

Announcing Rob Windsor’s Developer Guide to SharePoint 2010 Workshop!

I’m thrilled to announce our first Prairie Dev Con Winnipeg workshop!
Rob Windsor – Microsoft MVP, Conference Speaker, Trainer, Consultant, and Developer Evangelist for Sharepoint at Allin Consulting – will be doing a full day SharePoint 2010 workshop on Wednesday November 23rd! Here’s the abstract:

Developer's Guide to SharePoint 2010

This session is a day-long overview of development on the SharePoint 2010 platform. It is designed for those new to SharePoint, but will prove interesting to seasoned SharePoint developers looking to find out about the new features in 2010. We will begin with a look at foundational topics like Feature and Solutions Packages and then see how we can use the developer tooling in Visual Studio 2010 to quickly and effectively build customizations contained in these artifacts. Over the course of the day we will explore the SharePoint developer APIs, how to build custom web parts, working with SharePoint lists and libraries, and options to access data stored in SharePoint.

As always, Prairie Dev Con is about good value to attendees, so you can add this workshop to your Prairie Dev Con registration for only $200, or register just for the workshop for $300. We will be providing breakfast, lunch, and snacks for workshop attendees!

Keep watching this blog, our website (www.prairiedevcon.com), and our twitter account (@prairiedevcon) for more announcements in the coming weeks!

D’Arcy

Microsoft TechDays is the Prairie Dev Con Diamond Sponsor!

We’re thrilled to have Microsoft’s TechDays as our Diamond sponsor for Prairie Dev Con Winnipeg!

Microsoft has been a great supporter of the developer community across Canada. Although TechDays has a reduced city tour, they still want to support local developer community events like Prairie Dev Con and are stepping up in a huge way!

TechDays will be providing us Microsoft technology experts presenting content from the live TechDays events, so you’ll still see great technical sessions from Microsoft themselves at the conference!

We’ll also be posting other sessions to the website over the next few weeks as we confirm speakers, so watch this blog and our Twitter account for updates!

You can also drop us an email at info@prairiedevcon.com to get news and updates on the conference as we make it available.

D’Arcy

PrDC Winnipeg Pricing,Call For Speakers,Call For Sponsors, Stay In The Loop!

Prairie Developer Conference is coming to Winnipeg this November 21st and 22nd! This two day technical conference will feature 2 keynotes, 40 sessions, post-conference workshops, fantastic food, a great venue, and fun surprises!

Pricing for the Winnipeg Event is Posted!
Register before August 30th to take advantage of our early bird price of $349.99! If you register a group of 3 or more, you get an additional $50 off each registration!

We’ll be opening up registration in early August, but check out the full pricing guide on our website here.

Call for Speakers is Open!
We’re looking for great technical speakers to present at the November conference! Local speakers are asked to present one session, while out of town speakers are asked to present two. All technologies and subjects can be submitted, and we’ll post the accepted sessions in early August. You can get our speaker submission form which contains all the information you need by clicking here.

Looking for Sponsors!
We have fantastic sponsorship packages available for organizations that want to get exposure to Winnipeg’s technology community! We offer different levels and various price points. If you’re interested in sponsoring, please check out our sponsor guide by clicking here.

Want to Stay in the Loop?
Would you like to get alerts about the conference? Just drop an email to info@prairiedevcon.com and we’ll make sure to email you as announcements are made!

Thanks,

D’Arcy

Announcing Prairie Dev Con Winnipeg this November!

Microsoft recently announced that TechDays would only be held in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver this year, leaving Winnipeg without a November/December event. However I'm thrilled to announce that we'll be holding a Prairie Developer Conference two-day event November 21st and 22nd!

This will be two days of fantastic technical sessions, with two industry keynotes, amazing food, and some great surprises and prizes, all with the value and quality you've come to expect from Prairie Developer Conference!

If you're interested in speaking, interested in attending, or interested in sponsoring, please fire me an email at info@prairiedevcon.com.

Watch for updates on our website in the coming weeks, and follow us on Twitter (@prairiedevcon) and watch this blog for more updates!

Thanks,

D'Arcy

Big Announcement Monday!

Be watching our blog and our twitter account for a huge announcement Monday morning!

D’Arcy

Conference Survey Now Online!

Hello Attendees!

I wanted to personally thank you for making the Prairie Developer Conference 2011 a huge success! The comments and feedback we’ve received so far have been very positive and are helping us make next year’s event even better!

Conference Survey Now Online

I’d like to invite you to fill out our online survey about the conference. It’s a short survey of 9 questions and will help us immensely with planning next year’s conference. The survey will be up until July 1st, and we’ll draw three submissions to win an e-book courtesy of Manning! Click the link below to access the survey.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3DLKDKQ

Thanks again, and as always feel free to send me any questions or comments that you have.

D’Arcy Lussier

Prairie Developer Conference

Announcing the Imaginet Pre-Conference Party!

Imaginet will host a welcoming mixer for all Prairie Dev Con attendees!

When: 6pm to 9 pm on Sunday June 12th

Where: Roof Top Patio and Grill, 1845 Victoria Avenue

Imaginet will provide complimentary appetizers and beverages. 

Come join the Imaginet team as we kick off PDC 2011. 

To attend please register at the following link: Register

Tuesday Night Attendee Party Sponsored by iQmetrix!

We’re thrilled to announce that iQmetrix will be sponsoring an attendee party the Tuesday night of the conference!

Once you’re done your sessions on the Tuesday, come down to the Novara ballroom from 4pm to 8pm for free drinks, appetizers, fun and games, and to hang out with the presenters and fellow attendees!

A huge thanks to iQmetrix for offering this event to the conference attendees!

Code Retreat the Sunday Before the Conference!

A Code what?! A Code Retreat! Think of it as a free day of “Programmers gathering, practicing their craft, learning, discussing, rinse & repeating”.

Or look up the longer official description here.

Amir Barylko and David Alpert, two speakers at this year’s Prairie Developer Conference, will be hosting the event which will be held Sunday June 12th at the Delta Regina in the Campania A room.

You can get more information and register at

http://coderetreat.ning.com/events/regina-coderetreat

While the event is free, there is limited seating so reserve your spot today!

Announcing Our Conference API!

Thanks to conference speakers Amir Barylko and David Alpert, and Winnipeg developer George Chen, we’ve got a RESTful API set up to expose conference data!

Amir, myself, and George are intending to use the API to develop mobile applications for attendees to use, but if anyone is interested in writing their own applications feel free to access it!

For documentation on the API, see our developer page at:

http://prairiedevcon.com/developers

D’Arcy

Microsoft’s Channel 9 Leadership to Keynote…and There’s a Prairie Connection!

The Prairie Developer Conference is thrilled to announce that Jeff Sandquist, Duncan Mackenzie, and Dan Fernandez from Microsoft’s Channel 9 team will be delivering a keynote at this year’s conference! What’s fantastic about having these gents come up is that in addition to their technical knowledge, they bring something unique with them: a Canadian prairie connection!

Jeff is the Senior Director of Developer Relations at Microsoft. He helped create the Channel 9 developer community, and still leads that team to drive Channel 9 and the Mix communities in addition to connecting top applications and their developers with Microsoft.
And…he’s from Estevan, SK!

Duncan Mackenzie is the lead developer for the Channel 9 team, and formerly worked on MSDN. He’s written numerous articles and books around programming and as developer lead oversaw the Channel 8, TechNet Edge, and VisitMix websites in addition to the Oxite website engine. And…he’s from Winnipeg, MB!

Dan Fernandez is a developer and platform evangelist working on the Channel 9 team. If you’ve seen any of the TWC9 videos (This Week on Channel 9) then you’ve seen Dan talk about everything and anything to do with Microsoft development. And…well, he’s from the US, but he’s a very nice guy!

Whether you develop in the Microsoft space or not, hearing about how two Canadian prairie boys found themselves leading Microsoft’s flagship online developer community is a great story that all prairie developers can appreciate.

Watch for more keynote details in the coming weeks!

D’Arcy

First 100 Registrations Get a Free 1 Month Subscription to TekPub!

Thanks to our generous friends at TekPub, the first 100 registrants to the Prairie Developer Conference will receive a complimentary 1 month subscription to TekPub’s content! We’ll also be giving away 2 year long subscriptions at the conference as well!

TekPub is the creation of Rob Conery and James Avery. They offer web-based learning videos covering a wide variety of topics that span Microsoft, Ruby, Open Source, Linux, Best Practices, and more…there’s literally an embarrassment of technology learning riches available through their site at very affordable costs!

So check out TekPub today, and make sure to register for Prairie Developer Conference early to take advantage of the 1-month subscription offer!

Announcing a Second Post-Con Workshop–TDD & CQRS!

I’m thrilled to announce a second post-conference workshop available at Prairie Developer Conference this year! We already have Steve Rogalsky doing Agile In a Day, and now we also have Amir Barylko and Dylan Smith doing a TDD/CQRS workshop!

In the morning, Amir will deliver Getting Started with TDD. If you’ve ever wondering what TDD is or how you implement it within your development environment, then this is definitely for you!

In the afternoon Dylan takes over with In-Depth Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS), which is a distributed architecture pattern that solves many common software development problems. If you’re in the Regina area tomorrow, Dylan will actually be presenting a basic intro to CQRS at the Regina Technical Community event Tuesday night!. Click here for more details!

For more information on all our post-conference workshops, visit our post-con area of our website here!

Prairie Dev Con 2011 Registration is OPEN!

It’s with great pleasure that I can announce registration for Prairie Developer Conference 2011 is now open!

This year we’ve expanded the conference to include more sessions, more speakers, and more technologies! Presenters are coming from across Canada and the US, and we have an amazing group of sponsors supporting the conference!

One of those sponsors is Urban Turtle, a company that makes a Scrum add on for TFS. Each attendee will receive 5 FREE licenses for the product (a $450 value)!

We also have some great surprises in store for the conference, so follow us on Twitter and keep an eye on our blog for more details!

Prairie Developer Conference strives to be a quality professional development opportunity at a reasonable cost. We’re starting off with an early bird price for February that is 50% off the full conference price (that’s $300 in savings)! As with last year, you can add the post-conference event at almost 50% off (a $149.99 value!) to any registration. We also still have our additional $50 off per registration for groups of 3 or more. Register today to maximize your savings!

This year’s Prairie Developer Conference will be *the* technology event on the Canadian Prairies! Don’t miss it!

D’Arcy

Did I say “5” Rooms? I meant 6!

Yesterday we blogged about the conference session list, and touted how we’d have 5 rooms going this year! Some of you that were there last year might be scratching your head going “But didn’t we have 5 rooms last year?”

Yes, yes we did.

What I meant to say was that we’ll have 6 rooms going this year, and instead of 55 sessions we’ll have an additional 6 to bring it up to 61!

Tom Opgenorth will be presenting two talks on Android development, Steve Syfuhs will be doing two security-related talks, and James Kovacs will be presenting two dev foundation sessions!

Keep an eye on the site this weekend for all the official session announcements and registration details!

Prairie Dev Con 2011 – Session List Sneak Peak

Hi all, D’Arcy here…

I’ll have the sessions and speaker information up by this weekend including the registration page and details on pricing!

For those that are wondering what the session and speaker list looks like, I wanted to give a sneak peak. We have a fantastic set of sessions by world class technologists! We’re covering .NET, Java, Ruby, SQL Server, Agile, User Experience, Mobile, Security, Azure, Office, SharePoint, and others. In fact, this year I’ve added an extra room so we’ll have 5 rooms going and a total of 55 sessions! have 6 rooms and 61 sessions! (Note: I just added three more speakers, check out the conference blog post detailing the additions here).

Also, Steve Rogalsky will be doing a full day Agile post-conference workshop that shouldn’t be missed!

So for now, here’s the session/speaker list. Watch www.prairiedevcon.com this weekend for session abstracts and detailed speaker info!

Aaronn Kowall	Managing Agile Projects with TFS
Aaronn Kowall	What's New in Entity Framework 4
Amir Barylko	Common TDD mistakes & pitfalls
Amir Barylko	Jruby and IronRuby: Using ruby with native Java and .NET code
Brent Watson	“What’s Really Going On?” – Using javap to disassemble Java class files.
Brent Watson	“Choices, choices, choices” – comparing Java Web Frameworks
Charles & Andrew Nurse	The Nurse2 Razor Show Part 1
Charles & Andrew Nurse	The Nurse2 Razor Show Part 2
Chris Dagenais	By the Powershell of Grayskull, I have the Power to Automate Everything!
Chris Dagenais	Self Organizing teams
D'Arcy Lussier	WP7 Development Foundation
David Alpert	Designing for Success 101: Why UX Matters For Your App
David Alpert	Designing for Success 102: 7 Ways to Make your App Learnable, Usable, & Enjoyable
David Wesst	HTML 5: Using the Web of the Future with the Browsers of the Past
David Wesst	HTML 5 for .NET Pros
David Woods	Intro to Cryptography and Best Practices
David Woods	WCF Security
Donald Belcham	Mocking (Session TBA)
Donald Belcham	System Health Monitoring
Dylan Smith	Evolve Your Code: Fundamental Design Principles
Dylan Smith	Database Change Management
Edwin Sarmiento	Developers, Know Thy SQL Server Indexes
Edwin Sarmiento	SQL Server Execution Plans for Developers
Eric Legault	The Microsoft Office Landscape: Developing Solutions for the Desktop and the Cloud
Gus Emery	What’s new in MVC v3.0!
Gus Emery	ASP.Net MVC PowerUP!
James Townley	Using Scala to be a better lazy developer
James Townley	Scala – The time saver (Dojo)
Joel Semeniuk	A Dash of Kanban Anyone?
Joel Semeniuk	Want Better Estimates? Stop Estimating
John Bristowe	Web Standards: A Panel Discussion
John Bristowe	An Overview of Internet Explorer 9 for Web Developers
Kelly Cassidy	Android Development with MonoDroid and VS2010
Kelly Cassidy	Web Development for Mobile
Mike DeFehr	Deadlocks: What to do about the dreaded 1205
Mike DeFehr	Backups and Recoverability
Mike Deihl	Designing a Star Schema Database to Simplify Read Views
Mike Deihl	P&P for Developing SQL Server 2008 Integration Packages to Populate Data Warehouses
Philippe Beaudoin	GWT and the Model-View-Presenter architecture (Dojo)
Philippe Beaudoin	Google AppEngine PaaS
Rob Windsor	SharePoint for ASP.NET Developers
Rob Windsor	What's New in SharePoint 2010 for Developers
Robert Reppel	Limits of TDD: How to Test Code Never Meant To Be
Robert Reppel	NserviceBus: From Batch Processing to Asynchronous Messaging, by Example
Rod Paddock	Intro to Ruby on Rails
Rod Paddock	jQuery 101
Scott J Peterson	Bringing Down Goliath: A Windows Phone Paradigm Shift
Scott J Peterson	Light Up Your Internet: Silverlight and SharePoint, Arm in Arm
Simon Timms	Custom Validation in ASP.net MVC
Simon Timms	Templates, templates, templates (VS, T4, Javascript)
Steve Rogalsky	User Story Mapping - Rounding Out Your Backlog
Steve Rogalsky	Moving Towards Zero Defects with Specification by Example
Tyler Doerkson	Building a basic Active Record application in the cloud with Azure web roles and SQL-Azure
Tyler Doerkson	Taking your WP7 application to the next level with Tombstoning
Various	Agile Fishbowl Panel Discussion