Southwest Florida .NET Code Camp Recap

This past weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to attend and speak at the Southwest Florida .NET Code Camp 2012 in sunny Naples, FL. It was a great event with over 80 attendees. I was there as both a speaker and a sponsor and I also brought my father and brother to the event. I’d like to thank John Dunagan again for putting on a fantastic event. I presented 3 sessions at the code camp and I wanted to take some time to provide some additional resources for those that attended the sessions.

HTML5 and jQuery Fundamentals

Originally, my boss Jason Beres was supposed to be attending this event but he needed to attend TechEd Australia instead. Since he was planning on presenting a session on HTML5 and jQuery I figured I would take that session slot and give it a try. I’m still learning HTML5 and jQuery so I’m certainly not an expert. However, I took Jason’s content and made some slides of my own and gave it a shot as a high-level overview. I thought the session went well and the attendees seemed engaged and appreciative. I promised I’d share my slides and Jason’s original material (including some content I didn’t get to talk about). Here are the links:

My slides: HTML5 & jQuery Slides.ppt
Jason’s material: Fundamentals-Webinar-Download.zip

Windows 8 Design Fundamentals

The material in this session hasn’t changed since previous events I’ve given the talk at. You can find more details on those here and here. However, one thing that is new is that I’m writing a book on the subject. Please pre-order Designing for Windows 8 today and you’ll get it when it’s done in December!

Create iOS apps using C# with Monotouch

I added this session for a bit of fun after I noticed that there weren’t any sessions at the code camp dealing with MonoTouch or Mono for Android. I think these are very important technologies and I didn’t want to let them go unrepresented. The session was at the end of the day so I kept it lighthearted with no slides and a few “Hello World”-style demos. I discussed the origins of MonoTouch and Xamarin and a little bit of the turmoil those have been through in the past. Thankfully, those things are in the past and we can safely use MonoTouch to build iOS apps without worrying about Apple interjection. I showed how to use MonoDevelop in tandem with Xcode to create a very basic application. I then showed how to build the same application using just Xcode with Objective-C.

I didn’t have slides for this session but I do have one follow-up piece of information from the session. I mentioned a service that allows you to run MonoTouch in the cloud in case you don’t feel like buying a Mac. That service is called MacInCloud and it might be a good option for you.

Summary

I had a great time at this event. I would highly recommend it to anyone next year. The location is fantastic, the facilities were very accommodating, and the people were very friendly. If you’re looking for an excuse to take a trip to Florida, this would be a good one.