PDC10 starts in just two days. This year, PDC is being held at the Microsoft campus here in Redmond, and everyone here is very excited about it. While it sold out weeks ago, you shouldn’t feel bad if you aren’t able to attend the event in person. This year ALL sessions are streamed live and will be available on demand as well. That’s right—you will be able to see any session you choose to as well as use the special player the team built to ask questions. So make sure you block out some time to view these great Windows Phone sessions.
Streamed Sessions
Things I Wish I Knew Three Months Ago about Building Windows Phone 7 Applications
Jaime Rodriguez Thursday, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM (GMT-7) (Add to your calendar)
The Windows Phone clients for Twitter and Facebook are two new, native-looking Windows Phone applications. Come hear about all the lessons learned while developing these applications. Gain insights about the UX as well as development/architecture patterns for building great, well-behaved, native-looking Windows Phone 7 apps.
Optimizing Performance for Silverlight Windows Phone 7 Applications
Oren Nachman Thursday, 3:15 P.M. – 4:15 P.M. (GMT-7) (Add to your calendar)
Hear about the key tips, tricks, and common mistakes that we uncovered by analyzing several real world applications. See demos of how real apps are debugged. Also learn how to write world class applications with animations running at 60fps.
Things You Need to Know Before Building XNA Games for Windows Phone 7
Shawn Hargreaves Friday, 11:30 A.M. – 12:30 P.M. (GMT-7) (Add to your calendar)
So you have a cool idea for a game. This session covers some of the less obvious things you will need to know to turn your idea into reality when using XNA Game Studio for Windows Phone. Topics include how to choose the best orientation and resolution, how game content differs from typical productivity or web applications, how to deal with tombstoning, how to speed up load times, and how to proceed if you are interested in getting access to Xbox LIVE on the phone.
Real-World Analysis and Optimization of XNA Framework Games on Windows Phone 7
Jeff Petkau Friday, 2:00 P.M. – 3:00 P.M. (GMT-7) (Add to your calendar)
Good code design, performance tips, and a solid understanding of the platform are all essential to game development. Learn how to use the Microsoft Advanced Technology Group’s (ATG) battle-tested techniques to find and fix performance-killing issues in Windows Phone 7 XNA Framework game code. Also, hear about real-world analysis and optimization of XNA Framework games on Windows Phone 7.
3-Screen Coding: Sharing Code between Windows Phone, Silverlight, and .NET
Shawn Burke Thursday, 4:30 P.M. – 5:30 P.M. (GMT-7) (Add to your calendar)
Get a preview of upcoming Visual Studio features that will allow you to share code between Microsoft .NET platforms. You’ll learn how to structure applications to maximize the amount of shared code, how to write an app that’s used across Silverlight Desktop and Windows Phone, and how to build business logic and helper functions that work across all 3 screen types plus the cloud.
Building Windows Phone 7 applications with the Windows Azure Platform
Steve Marx Thursday, 11:30 A.M. – 12:30 P.M. (GMT-7) (Add to your calendar)
Learn how to build Windows Phone 7 applications that are backed by scalable cloud components hosted in Windows Azure. This demo-heavy session will cover best practices relating to communication, authentication, and data synchronization between phone applications and cloud components.
On Demand Sessions
The Rich Mobile Web – Today and Tomorrow
Joe Marini (On demand recording)
Learn how to plan and design for today’s – and tomorrow’s – Rich Mobile Web, whether you have an existing site that you want to get mobilized or are starting from scratch.
Making Money with the Windows Phone Marketplace
Karen Luk (On Demand recording)
In Windows Phone 7, Microsoft provides a central mechanism for distributing your application or game to all Windows Phone users: the Windows Phone Marketplace. In this session, we’ll review the high level workings of the Marketplace, but more importantly, we’ll drill deep into the functional criteria your application must meet, and the practices you should use in order to meet them.
If you cannot attend PDC, but were thinking about heading to DevConnections next week in Las Vegas, you should be sure to attend the Windows Phone 7 Workshop and Track. The event kicks off Nov 1st and runs through Nov 4th. Mobile Communications Business Vice President Joe Belfiore will be kicking off the Workshop, which has content intended to get you up to speed on designing and building amazing apps for Windows Phone 7. The Workshop is being hosted by Shawn Wildermuth of AgiliTrain. There will also be a full slate of sessions delivered by Microsoft engineers for the Track.