Microsoft Mobile Development Training Camp | MoDevCamp

Microsoft evangelists are getting more involved with the mobile developer community by organizing the first Windows Mobile Developer Camp event. It’s scheduled for August 19 in Redmond, Washington at the Microsoft Campus. WinMoDevCamp is a series of upcoming free, not-for-profit gatherings to develop applications for the upcoming release of the Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 O/S. The event is currently being planned in seven cities around the world.

This event is not directly associated with Microsoft, however, the organizers say they are getting support from them in this effort, and it is being hosted at the Microsoft campus. WinMoDevCamp is driven by private individuals that are simply interested in developing applications on and growing the community around the new Microsoft Windows 6.5 platform. Giovanni Gallucci and Jennifer Conley are the organizers of WinMoDevCamp.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time at one of the Microsoft regional offices learning about product launches and other training. If they are sending trainers, trust me, you’ll want to be there. Hey, Giovanni and Jennifer — consider this my request for an invitation to a San Diego MoDevCamp if that city is chosen (it hasn’t been yet), which is home to Qualcomm and a substantial Nokia facility.

According to organizer Giovanni Gallucci, Microsoft is

“sending members from the Windows Mobile Developer Team to each event. Telligent has stepped up to provide the social platform that we will use to host our new community and, FireHost is providing hosting on the site that we are currently building. We already have over 7 cities confirmed for the event with the expectation of having several cities participating in the event itself via live streaming from their physical locations. We will host separate events in Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Austin, London, Singapore, and Toronto. The first event will be in Seattle on August 19, 2009. With three weeks until the event, we are almost “sold out” for the first event.

The soon-to-be-released MoDevCamp website will have facilities for local events to organize as well.

MoDevCamp Dates

• Seattle on 8/19
  Venue: Microsoft Campus in Redmond, Washington in the Cascade Auditorium
• Dates will soon be
  announced for the following additional locations: Austin, London, New York, San
  Francisco, Toronto, and Singapore.
• Microsoft’s MoDevCamp organizers encourage mobile developers to host their own events on the same dates.

Register for Microsoft MoDevCamp

Registration: Eventbright will be utilized so that registrations are broken down by
city. Contact the MoDevCamp coordinators (giovanni [at] gallucci.net) to set up your city for an event so they can provide you with the necessary registration pages and subdomain on the (not-yet-live) website.

The events are inspired by BarCamp, SuperHappyDevHouse, and MacHack, and the original
iPhoneDevCamp to develop applications (local and web based) for mobile devices that
run the Windows Mobile 6.5 Operating System.

According to Microsoft, attendees will include mobile developers, web developers, .Net Developers, UI designers, and testers, all working together. Development projects will include both
solo and team efforts. While some attendees will wish to work solo during the event, the MoDevCamp coordinators encourage attendees to team up, based on expertise, to work in ad-hoc project development teams. All attendees should be prepared to work on a development project during the event.

Microsoft MoDevCamp Attendees will:

• Create new applications for the Windows Mobile Platform.
• Meet and work side-by-side with team members from the Microsoft Mobile
  Developer Experience team.
• Migrate existing mobile applications from the iPhone, Blackberry and Palm Pre
  to the Windows Mobile Platform.
• Create applications to support Windows Enterprise Applications.
• Test and optimize applications for Windows Mobile 6.5.

This blog entry is part of Carnival of the Mobilists (computer link), a weekly roundup of mobile blog posts.

Alcatraz mobi | San Francisco Tourist Attraction

Alcatraz, the infamous prison (now empty), is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Northern California. Now you can see it for yourself, on your phone no less, at Alcatraz.mobi. The mobile site presents a brief history of Alcatraz, photos and biographies of notorious prisoners like Al Capone and The Birdman of Alcatraz, photos, and tourist information including tour companies and local weather.

If you plan to visit San Francisco, make sure to visit Alcatraz, and Alcatraz.mobi, too.