The Northeast MSDN Roadshow – “Mashed APIs” Tour

Get ready to learn and code, because the Northeast MSDN Roadshow team is loading up content, code, and demos that might even work, to return to the roads for a special limited engagement in June!

These are free workshops, great for students, hobbyists, and professional developers who want to learn the basics of Windows 8 app development and publish their first app to the Windows Store.  Fans of previous daytime Roadshows will notice that we have sneakily adapted these as evening, hands-on events, hosted by local user groups.

Enter the API…

There’s a world of amazing things out there, just an API call away. These workshops will show you how to tap into a sampling of the tens of thousands of them, mercilessly mashing APIs to create your own Windows Store app. Your app could inform, entertain, or even change the world!

We’ll be conquering the miles, fueled by coffee and visions of your awesome apps, to help you learn to create Windows 8 apps using well-known web service APIs such as Twitter, Meetup, Yelp, ESPN, EchoNest, World Health Organization, and others. 

First, we’ll take a bit of time to teach you the essentials for creating your Windows Store app, including APIs, data, and UIs.  The rest of the time will be hands-on – so bring those laptops (see below) - using a set of API Starter Kits our team developed to get you mashing quickly.  The Starter Kits are Visual Studio 2012 projects, each already wired to one or more APIs.  They take care of the API plumbing so you can focus on providing the creativity!

The Schedule (updated! )

Thanks to these amazing user groups hosting our visits, we’ll be stopping in these cities:

• June 11, 6:30 PM – Albany, NY with the Tech Valley .NET User Group
  • New Horizons, 10 Airline Drive, Suite 101, Albany, NY
• June 12, 6:00 PM – Syracuse, NY with the Central NY .NET User Group
  • New Horizons, 6711 Towpath Rd., East Syracuse, NY
• *NEW* June 13, 6:00 PM – Rochester, NY at RIT with AppRochester & VDUNY
  • RIT, Building 70 (Golisano), Room 1435, Rochester, NY
• June 17, 6:00 PM – Burlington, VT with the VT .NET User Group
  • MyWebGrocer, 20 Winooski Falls Way, 5th Floor, Winooski, VT
• June 20, 5:30 PM – Portland, ME with MaineBytes
  • UNUM, Building 3, 2211 Congress St., Portland, ME

Registration - These are user group events, so see the hosting user groups’ website for details and RSVPs (if any).  Thanks to the groups and the organizations who host their meetings for making this possible!

Note that these are in addition to the Saturday workshops on API and game development we’re running in the Hartford and Boston areas:

• June 1 – Farmington, CT – Game Development for Beginners
• June 1 – Cambridge, MA – Windows 8 App Mashup Series
• June 8 – Farmington, CT – Windows 8 App Mashup Series
• June 8 – Cambridge, MA – Game Development for Beginners
• June 15 – Farmington, CT – Game Development for Beginners
• June 15 – Cambridge, MA – Windows 8 App Mashup Series
• June 22 – Farmington, CT – Windows 8 App Mashup Series
• June 22 – Cambridge, MA – Game Development for Beginners
• June 29 – Farmington, CT – Game Development for Beginners

Just click the links to register via MSDN Events.

Getting Ready

As these workshops are hands-on, to get the most out of the event, bring a laptop configured with the following:

• Mac users only: Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop, VirtualBox, or VMWare Fusion
• Windows 8 (90-day evaluation version available here)
• Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows 8 (free), or higher version of Visual Studio 2012

Apps you develop could qualify you for $100 via the “Keep the Cash” program (running through June 30^th).  Also, for continued learning and access to other developer programs, we highly recommend signing up for the free App Builder program.

See you on the road!

-Chris