Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Win a Conference Registration with Microsoft Virtual Academy and Developer Movement!


We’re running a contest until February 28th where you can win a free pass to Prairie Dev Con Winnipeg! Entering is super easy – check out the steps below:

Step 1 – Register for The Developer Movement

The Developer Movement is a program put on by Microsoft where developers can earn great prizes for…well…developing!

Registering for The Developer Movement is your first step towards winning a conference pass! Simply visit the Developer Movement website here and sign up to receive the latest updates!

Step 2 – Watch Two Microsoft Virtual Academy Course Modules

Once you’ve registered with The Developer Movement, head on over to the Microsoft Virtual Academy! MVA is an ever-growing collection of online training sessions in various Microsoft technologies – and its entirely free!

So your second step is to register for the Microsoft Virtual Academy
(make sure to use the same email address you used to register for The Developer Movement) and watch two modules of any of the following courses:

Step 3 – Email Prairie Dev Con That You Completed Steps 1 & 2!

Once you’ve registered for The Developer Movement and you’ve watched your two modules, you’re ready for the last step!

Send an email to info@prairiedevcon.com and tell us your name and what email you used to register for The Developer Movement and Microsoft Virtual Academy, as well as the titles of the two modules that you watched.

We’ll validate your details with Microsoft and enter your name into the draw for the free conference registration, which we’ll announce on Saturday March 1st!

Its that simple!

This contest will close at 11:59 PM on Friday, February 28th and is only open to Canadian residents.

This ends on the same day as the Early Bird registration pricing – what if I win but I’ve already registered?

No problem! If you win but have already registered with the conference, we’ll just refund your registration.

Any questions, comments, or clarifications, please let me know!

Thanks,

D’Arcy
Prairie Dev Con

Friday, January 17, 2014

Prairie Dev Con 2014 in Winnipeg–Details Announced!

 

Prairie Dev Con will be returning to Winnipeg April 7 & 8 2014, and will be held at the Canad Inns Polo Park hotel and conference centre!

We've got an amazing four days of technical awesomeness coming your way in April!

Free Community Code Retreat Event Sunday, April 6th

On the Sunday before the conference, Prairie Dev Con and its sponsors will be hosting a FREE Code Retreat event! This is an excellent opportunity to come and sharpen your development skills as you work cooperatively with other developers to solve a shared problem.

For more information visit our CodeRetreat page!

Prairie Dev Con 2014

We've brought in some fantastic speakers to present over 40 sessions over the conference's two days! Taking your feedback, we've focussed the content on web, mobile, ALM, and development patterns & practices (with sessions on other topics as well).

We've arranged for some awesome out-of-town speakers to attend, including:

  • K. Scott Allen - Pluralsight author and blogger at OdeToCode.com
  • Dave Methvin - President of the jQuery Foundation and lead developer of the jQuery Core library
  • Howard Dierking - Program Manager on the Windows Azure Frameworks and Tools team
  • Donald Belcham - Author and speaker on development patterns & practices

I could go on but then I’d just be listing all of our amazing speakers, so head over to our speaker page and check out our line-up for April!

Post Conference Workshops

We're offering post conference workshops on Domain Driven Design (Donald Belcham) and Kanban & TFS ALM (Dylan Smith)!

Check out our workshop page for more details!

Amazing Professional Development Value!

Attending Prairie Dev Con is still one of the most affordable professional development experiences you can get as a software developer. Our Early Bird price (available until February 28th) is $499.99 and groups of 3 or more still get an extra $50 off each registration!

Get all the information on how to register on our Registration page!

Connect With Us!

If you'd like to receive email updates for our Winnipeg conference, please join our mailing list by clicking here!

You can also connect with us via Facebook, Twitter, the conference blog, or email us at info@prairiedevcon.com!

Thanks, and I hope to see you in April!

D'Arcy Lussier
Prairie Dev Con

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Prairie Dev Con is Coming Back to Winnipeg!

Prairie Dev Con will be returning to Winnipeg April 7 & 8 2014, and will be held at the Canad Inns Destination Centre Polo Park hotel and conference centre!

This year we're challenging our attendees to expand your horizons, dive deep, and get hands on!

Expand Your Horizons

Technology is changing rapidly, and we'll have a number of sessions that will keep you up to date on the latest software development trends and releases!

Dive Deep

This year we'll have deep technical sessions aimed at those who are already well versed in software development. We'll talk about solving specific problems, implementing certain features or patterns, and how to get the most out of your chosen development platform.

Get Hands On

Bring your laptop to the conference and take part in one of our hands-on sessions which will walk you through using a technology with a knowledgeable facilitator!

Tell Us What You Want to See

We have a short online survey where you can tell us what content you’d like to see! Click here to access our online survey!

Call for Sessions is Open

Our call for sessions is currently open, please visit the Speakers area of our site here.

Connect With Us

If you'd like to receive email updates for our Winnipeg conference, please join our mailing list by clicking here!

You can also connect with us via Facebook, Twitter, the conference blog, or by email!

Thanks, and I hope to see you in April!

D'Arcy Lussier
Prairie Dev Con

Friday, November 8, 2013

Prairie Dev Con MVA Challenge!

Just because Prairie Dev Con is done doesn’t mean the learning ends! We’re running a Microsoft Virtual Academy Challenge through the month of November that you can take advantage of to learn Microsoft technologies as well as earn bonus MVA points!

Here’s how it works:

Between November 12th and November 30th Prairie Dev Con will tweet a MVA course a day (to follow us on Twitter, go to www.twitter.com/prairiedevcon).

Once you complete the course, send a copy of your completion certificate to me at darcy@prairiedevcon.com. You’ll receive 100 MVA points!

Next, challenge a colleague! Tweet “I challenge my followers to complete this course for 100 MVA points @prairiedevcon” (or something like that…be creative, but ensure you include the @prairiedevcon in the tweet).

Once your colleague has completed it and tweeted as per above, we’ll record an extra 50 MVA points for yourself as a referral bonus! Remember, you must include @prairiedevcon in the tweets for us to track this.

So get out there, get learning, and have fun!

Prairie Dev Con Saskatoon–Session Resources

I’ll be posting links to session resources (slides, demos, etc.) as I get them in. Check back here often for updates! If there’s a particular session you’d like to see that isn’t posted let me know and I’ll ping the presenter.

Thanks!

D’Arcy

SignalR – James Chambers

http://jameschambers.com/2013/11/signalr-resources/

“Web Performance & You” and “Websites for Everyone,Not Just Us” – Devon Rathie-Wright

https://t.co/fbzLQ7JCad

Agile Teams and Rich UI with Knockout.js and Coffeescript – Amir Barylko

http://orthocoders.com/presentations.html

More to come!

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Attendee Update Email–Oct 30th

Hello Attendees!

With only a few days left before the conference, I wanted to touch base again and highlight a few important items!


Conference Schedule

The conference schedule is posted! You can view it at:

http://www.prairiedevcon.com/schedule

We’ll have copies of the schedule available at the conference for you.


Attendee Survey

Please take a quick second to answer our attendee survey, especially if you have any food preferences/allergies that we need to know about!

You can get to the survey by clicking here!


Venue and Parking

The conference will be at the lower level of the Park Town Hotel, with registration outside the Oak room.

Note that the venue charges for parking on their lot.


Session Specific Information – Android Workshop and Usability Testing

For those attending the “Getting Started with Android Development” hands on lab, please be advised that you must bring your own laptop to develop on. Also, please install Android Studio (its free) before the session. You can get it from:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html

For those attending the “Instant Gratification Usability Testing” clinic, we’re looking for some volunteers to offer up their own websites for review! Please send an email if you’re interested to darcy@prairiedevcon.com.


Attendee Contest  - Win a $100 Best Buy Gift Card

We're running a contest with our friends at Microsoft for attendees only! Entering the contest is easy, click here to head over to our blog to read all the details!

Thanks!


Thank you for being part of our first Prairie Dev Con in Saskatoon! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me at darcy@prairiedevcon.com.

Thanks,

D'Arcy Lussier
Prairie Dev Con

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

PrDC Saskatoon Attendee Contest

We’re running a contest for attendees of Prairie Dev Con Saskatoon with a $100 Best Buy Gift Card as the prize! Entering the contest is super easy, here’s how!

Step 1 – Register for The Developer Movement

The Developer Movement is a program put on by Microsoft where developers can earn great prizes for…well…developing!

Registering for The Developer Movement is your first step towards winning a conference pass! Simply visit https://www.developermovement.ca/ and sign up to receive the latest updates!

Step 2 – Watch Two Microsoft Virtual Academy Courses

Once you’ve registered with The Developer Movement, head on over to the Microsoft Virtual Academy - http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com! MVA is an ever-growing collection of online training sessions in various Microsoft technologies – and its entirely free!

So your second step is to register for the Microsoft Virtual Academy (make sure to use the same email address you used to register for The Developer Movement) and watch two of the following courses:

Fundamentals
C# Fundamentals: Development for Absolute Beginners
Programming in C# Jump Start

Windows 8
Windows 8 UX Design Jump Start
Essentials of Developing Windows Store Apps using C# Jump Start
Advanced Windows Store App Development using C# Jump Start
XAML Deep Dive for Windows & Windows Phone Apps Jump Start
Developing Windows Store Apps with HTML5 Jump Start
Advanced Windows Store App Development with HTML5 Jump Start
Building Windows Store Apps for iOS Developers Jump Start

Windows Phone
Windows Phone 8 Development for Absolute Beginners
Building Apps for Windows Phone 8 Jump Start
Build Apps for Both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 Jump Start

Visual Studio/ALM
Applying ALM with Visual Studio 2012 Jump Start
Administering Visual Studio TFS 2012 Jump Start
Software Testing with Visual Studio 2012 Jump Start

Web
HTML5 & CSS3 Fundamentals: Development for Absolute Beginners
Developing in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 Jump Start
Building Web Apps with ASP.NET Jump Start

Lightswitch
Building Business Apps with Visual Studio Lightswitch

Step 3 – Email Prairie Dev Con That You Completed Steps 1 & 2!

Once you’ve registered for The Developer Movement and you’ve watched your two videos, you’re ready for the last step!

Send an email to info@prairiedevcon.com and tell us your name and what email you used to register for The Developer Movement and Microsoft Virtual Academy, as well as the titles of the two videos that you watched. We’ll validate your details with Microsoft and enter your name into the draw for the gift card!

Its that simple!

This contest will close at 5:00 PM on Tuesday, November 5th. We’ll announce the winner on Friday, November 8th.

Remember, this is only open to registered attendees of the conference!

Don’t Delay!

Register for The Developer Movement and Microsoft Virtual Academy today! Watch your two videos, then email Prairie Dev Con with your details and you’re in the draw!

Any questions, comments, or clarifications, please let me know!

Thanks,

D’Arcy
Prairie Dev Con