Tag Archives: windows phone

app studio, Fustino Brothers, Jethro Tull, tull app, Windows 8 App, Windows Phone App

Russ Fustino shows Jethro Tull app to Ian Anderson

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It’s live!  One of the most incredible moments of my life! See a great video produced by Microsoft about Fustino Brothers’  endorsed app, Jethro Tull. Most importantly,  see footage of your truly, Russ Fustino,  showing the app to rock legend, Grammy award winner, Ian Anderson in person!

BLOG: http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2014/12/07/jethro-tull-superfan-builds-app-with-windows-app-studio/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/wpdev/posts/10153303992242923

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/wpdev/status/542071103225491456

It’s about a three minute clip and in the first minute you will see background and some cool 3 brother fan shots. In the middle, I go into how I used App Studio to build the app and it ends with the best part of showing Ian Anderson the app. It was filmed in Lynn Mass on Nov 1, 2014 at a concert where he performed the Best of Jethro Tull and his new CD Homo Erraticus . Check out his comment about Jimmy Page! Also, check out the surface pro in the closing credits, firing up the Jethro Tull app. So cool! The video team that Microsoft hired did an incredible job. Enjoy!

The Jethro Tull is endorsed and published to Windows Store and Windows Phone Store.

Here is the link to the channel9 video itself:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Windows-Phone/Jethro-Tull-fan-app-made-with-Windows-App-Studio

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Happy Holidays!

Android, Azure, iOS, Visual Studio, Windows Phone App, Xamarin, Xamarin Forms, Xamarin Studio

Great SD Times Article on Xamarin and Azure

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I had the great pleasure of chatting with Microsoft RD Patrick Hynds and I contributed a few quotes to his latest article in SD Times Magazine on Azure.  We talked  about how Xamarin fits nicely into this scenario. Xamarin has an Azure Mobile Services Component in the Xamarin Component Store.

Enjoy a good read at:
http://sdtimes.com/follow-azure-road-cloud/

Xamarin is specifically mentioned on page 9:
http://sdtimes.com/follow-azure-road-cloud/9/

Also, announcing Monthly payments for Indie!

Xamarin Student

Xamarin Forms session by Russ Fustino, Xamarin Developer Evangelist
Android, iOS, Tampa Dev, Windows Phone App, Xamarin, Xamarin Forms

Xamarin at Successful Tampa Code Camp! Recap

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I had the great pleasure presenting Xamarin Forms at the recent Tampa Code Camp. This event was resurrected from a one year hiatus and a welcome site to the Tampa Developer Community. Many are looking forward to a bigger and better code camp as part of a very engaged developer community here in Tampa next year.

Personally, this was a huge moment in the next chapter of my career as well. I delivered my first Xamarin Session, concluding with three weeks of intense training and setup. It was a culture shock, of sorts, for me to present on a Mac and I joked about it that it was more of a challenge for me to learn a Mac than learn Xamarin! The Mac is a better presenting machine in that there are fewer moving parts to demonstrate iOS development. I still use my Windows machine to develop on. Anyway, it all turned out good as about 60 in my session learned about the Xamarin Platform and Xamarin Forms.  For most of the audience, it was their first exposure to Xamarin.

Here are is PowerPoint for the session: http://1drv.ms/1AbKxPp

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First photo of Russ as a Xamarin Developer Evangelist in Action! (Thanks Scott Dorman!)

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It was a packed house! Greg Leonardo was working on my AV here.   It is funny, I once did that for him a few years back at one of his sessions. Full circle, huh?

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First Demo, Xamarin Forms Hello World in iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. This got a big warm round of applause!

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Russ with Greg Leonardo, Head organizer of Tampa Code Camp.

Fox News has a great piece on the code camp: http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/story/26016891/code-camp-brings-developers-together

Download Xamarin today at www.xamarin.com

Follow my new Twitter @RussFustino

and follow @XamarinHQ

Android, iOS, Windows 8 App, Windows Phone App, Xamarin

Russ Fustino, Xamarin Developer Evangelist!

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Hello all! I am happy to announce I am the new Developer Evangelist for Xamarin! I am so excited about this next chapter in my career. I am looking forward to learning and teaching one of the hottest set of software products on this planet, which will help the lives of many fellow geeks! It is a very rewarding position indeed and I am on cloud 9. Everyone I have met at Xamarin is awesome and I look forward getting to know the entire team.

For those that unfamiliar on what Xamarin does… we produce software for programmers which facilitates creating the same mobile app, natively, on multiple platforms such as Windows Phone,  Android and iOS. It is a ‘must have’ tool in the industry with some incredible recent announcements on the new version Xamarin 3.

xamarin

Xamarin

I will be traveling up to the Boston Xamarin office on occasion and I look forward to seeing all the “Shed Heads” back home. So, New England crew, get those lobsters ready!

And of course, I will be hitting up all the conferences for speaking engagements in and around Florida and all over the country. Drop me an email if you are interested in having me speak at your user group or conference. My new email at Xamarin is russell.fustino@xamarin.com .

I also setup a new twitter @RussFustino with my actual name (about time huh?). Please follow! I will have more details on my Xamarin blog once it gets set up. Stay tuned and follow me on twitter. Thanks!

 

Android, Fustino Brothers, iOS, Jethro Tull, Windows 8 App, Xamarin

Xamarin 3 Rocks! Tampa Xamarin Meetup Recap

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I had the great pleasure of attending the Xamarin user group in Tampa the other night.  Xamarin 3 was recently announced on May 28, 2014.  James Montemango, Developer Evangelist for Xamarin, delivered a killer online session for the Tampa Xamarin User Group. The folks at the meeting were very appreciative of the fact that James took the time to present to us.  We had a packed house at the AgileThought office to see all the new features of Xamarin 3. Wow. Everyone was blown away. I overheard one attendee saying on the very next day, he would pitch  to his boss to get Xamarin licenses for entire staff at his company. So, I guess it was a successful meeting! Special thanks go to Michael Stark for heading up the new group and organizing this meeting with James.

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James Montemagno delivered a session to Tampa from Seattle on Wednesday night at the Tampa Xamarin User Group.

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MVPs Kevin Wolf and yours truly, Russ Fustino were in the house.

James gave a quick overview of Xamarin and  covered the Xamarin Designer for iOS as well as Xamarin Studio & Visual Studio Enhancements.

Local developer,  Imaya Kumar, then showed off the new Xamarin Forms!

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Imaya Kumar, Solution Architect Convene Technologies
Ex MSFT

Here are my notes from the meeting:

  • C# on 2.6 Billion devices! Yes, billion not million!
  • Xamarin 3 is the best release yet!
  • Xamarin Mission Statement: Make it fast, easy and fun to create apps.
  • The third year of the company was celebrated with a Birthday cake! Happy Birthday Xamarin!

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Birthday Cake and Pizza were provided by Xamarin!

  • Xamarin is seeing explosive growth with strong recognition from the Gartner Magic Quadrant as a Visionary :

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  • Xamarin has a test cloud for all of the different Android devices. Wow! So, now you don’t have to buy all sorts of Android devices to test with.

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  • Users prefer to use Native apps that are fast, smooth and deliver a great experience. Hybrid apps typically don’t get good reviews. For example,  Facebook switched to a native interface and the downloads doubled.

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  • F# and C# are supported.
  • New meaning to “write once and run anywhere”.  Shared C# backend  code is typically  %75 of the code, but  now the UI code can be sharable too, raising that number even higher!
  • All native API’s are supported and are made available to C# Developers.

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  • Xamarin University is the quickest way to become a Mobile Developer? Numerous classes in all time zones are available 6 days a week with live training.

Major elements in Xamarin 3

  • Xamarin Designer for iOS
  • Xamarin Studio & Visual Studio Enhancements
  • Easy code sharing
  • Xamarin.Forms

Xamarin Designer

  • iOS provides and intuitive interface for developing iOS apps. For example, when you double click on an item in the designer it opens a code windows for the default event handler, etc.
  • Comprehensive editor, auto layout, etc.
  • iOS6 and iOS7 are both supported
  • Works on Windows and Mac

Xamarin Studio

  • Handy for those that don’t’ have Visual Studio and the interface has been improved. NuGet Package manager along with integration with Xamarin Component Store provides ease of access to many libraries.
  • Easy assess to solution
  • Main panel has new information from Xamarin, blogs, etc.

Visual Studio and Xamarin Studio

Easy code sharing

  • Shared project support
  • Editing can be in the context of the editing container. For example,  Android code is grayed out when in the iOS context.

Miscellaneous

  • Same project can be opened in both VS and XS
  • Build Story Boards to provide app functionality
  • iOS has native calls for face detection and sepia color editing, since 100 percent of the calls are available in Xamarin, this is no problem.
  • Custom Controls can be built as well
  • Screen shots of sample custom control, to crop and apply sepia filter

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Auto Crop (uses automatic face detection in iOS): provides real time update in designer.

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Sepia filter:

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Xamarin Forms:

Besides the Xamarin Birthday cake, Xamarin Forms was the topic I was the most excited about! Can you imagine using shared code for multiple platforms. Wow!

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  • Build native UI’s for iOS, Android and Windows Phone from a single shared C# codebase
  • uses XAML like code for the Xamarin compiler

With Xamarin Forms you can…

  • build the entire app with Xamarin Forms…
  • or use this to prototype, leaving the door open to incorporate  further platform specific features…
  • or take an existing project and add a new page, build you don’t want to do that three times

Pages, Layouts and Controls oh my!

  • Controllers are provided for pages using Master Detail , navigation, tabbed pages and more
  • Layouts are provided for stack, Absolute, relative, grid and more
  • Controls, controls and more controls. Being a former developer evangelist for control vendor, this is huge!

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I am about to update my Tull Tribute Windows Phone app (to be renamed Jethro Tull, which is endorsed with Tull assets). There is no doubt in my mind when porting to iOS and Android, I will be using Xamarin to to this.

If you missed the meeting, don’t worry… here are links to the deck and a recording of the announcement of Xamarin 3. The video features Xamarin’s Nat Friedman, CEO and Co-Founder, Miguel de Icaza, CTO and Co-Founder and James Montemagno, DE.

 

See more details of the Xamarin 3 Announcement:

http://blog.xamarin.com/announcing-xamarin-3/
Download Xamarin:
http://xamarin.com/
Webinar recording:
https://xamarin.wistia.com/medias/dnm9rouaer
Webinar slides:
http://www.slideshare.net/Xamarin/say-hello-to-xamarin-3

Fustino Brothers, Windows Phone App, wpug tampa

Windows Phone User Group Tampa May 20, 2014

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May 20, 2014 5:30PM – Resolving the last 10 percent.

Nick Randolf – MVP

Kevin Wolf – MVP

Kelvin McDaniel – AgileThought

Register at: http://wpugtampa20140520.eventbrite.com

Kevin’s goal for 2014 is to figure out how to reduce/eliminate the “last-mile” syndrome when building a mobile apps…basically you get to the 90% mark and think you are ready to publish, but then spend 90% of the time churning on the last 10%. See a presentation on tips/tricks for reducing the churn… These two are really tied together.

SPECIAL THANKS to KForce for providing the food!

Build it Beta is now public for Windows Phone app developers, but what is Build it Beta? Well it’s all about Windows Phone Application Testing. There are a number of existing mechanisms available to Windows Phone application developers but none of them offer the simplicity and ease of deployment as say TestFlight. Build it Beta
fills that gap, providing a mechanism to allow any Windows Phone application to be deployed for testing to any Windows Phone 8 device*.

Firstly, why the name?

Well it’s a bit of a play on words – we’re always looking to build better apps and of course during development we often release “beta” versions of the app. Hence the origin of “Build it Better Beta”.

Next, how does it work?

Windows Phone 8 included the ability to deploy applications within the enterprise without going through the Windows Phone Store. This is referred to as enterprise deployment and involves signing an application (ie the packaged application file .xap) with a signing certificate. The same certificate needs to be distributed to the devices that the application is to be tested on. Then the signed xap can be installed on the devices either via code or by distributing the application to the device via email or via a url link. Build it Beta uses this mechanism to deliver a testing tool which eliminates the complexity for both developers and testers.

Attend this session and learn how to get started! A simple set of setup instructions that will be reviewed and get you up and running in no time at all. Download Build it Beta from the Windows Phone Store.

Once you’ve completed the setup, all you need to do is to start sending your .xap files to upload @ builditbeta.com.

Bio’s:

Nick Randolph – (@BTRoam) Microsoft MVP – Windows Phone Development

Nick currently runs Built to Roam which focuses on building rich mobile applications. Nick has been identified as a Microsoft MVP in recognition of his work and expertise with the Microsoft mobile platforms. He is still an active contributor in the device application development space via his blog at http://nicksnettravels.builttoroam.com and Visual Studio Magazine (http://visualstudiomagazine.com/Articles/List/Mobile-Corner.aspx). Nick has been invited to present at a variety of events including Tech Ed Australia & NZ, MEDC and Code camp. He has also authored multiple books with the latest being Professional Visual Studio 2010 and Professional Development for Windows Phone, and helped judge multiple world finals for the Imagine Cup. Since the release of Windows Phone Nick has worked on numerous Windows Phone applications and has helped hundreds of developers build their own Windows Phone applications. Nick has been involved with Windows Phone applications for well-known brands such as Domain.com.au, ninemsn, AFL, NRL, Qantas, JB Hi-Fi and NAB.

Kevin Wolf – (aka @ByteMaster) Microsoft MVP – Windows Phone Development

Kevin Wolf is an independent software consultant and a Microsoft MVP with the expertise in Windows Phone Development from Tampa, FL. Kevin’s primary focus is delivering software on mobile devices. Kevin is active in the development user community where he speaks at user groups and hosts hacker rooms at Florida code camps. Kevin also holds an annual developer conference in Key West called SMUG Dev that attracts alpha geeks and technology leaders from all over the United States. With a background in Electrical Engineering Kevin has been pulled in to the latest Quadcopter craze and has built a custom flight controller board that runs the .NET Microframeworks. Kevin brews his own beer where he monitors his fermentation and kegerator temperatures on his Windows Phone. When he is not busy working on his computer or doting on his wife, Kevin enjoys going for runs, smoking cigars and taking his boat out.

Kelvin McDaniel @azarc3

McDaniel is a Senior Developer at AgileThought. He graduated with an MBA from Florida A&M University in 2000 and has experienced a range of fields, including insurance and finance. He had a love for the various mobile flavors of Windows since the early CE days. He acquired his first Windows-based PDA (a Philips Nino) in 1998 while working in New York City. Connect with Kelvin McDaniel on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Time: 5:30-8:00PM

Location: AgileThought Office (Tampa)

2502 N Rocky Point Dr Ste 900

Tampa, FL 33607

Fustino Brothers, Jethro Tull, Windows 8 App, Windows Phone App

Jethro Tull Endorses Apps Built by Fustino Brothers, Inc.

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Caption: May 2014 – Fustino Brother’s (Gary left, Russ right) shown supporting plaque from the September 2012 Ian Anderson’s Jethro Tull tour at Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater FL with Rich (holding passes) celebrating apps endorsement. The three Fustino Brothers indicated- “It was an honor to be back stage for the meet ‘n’ greet (Anderson holding cup), and that was the spark.”

 

Jethro Tull Endorses Apps Built by Fustino Brothers, Inc.
Release Date: 5/5/2014

TAMPA, FL – May 5, 2014 – Fustino Brothers, Inc, (FBI) a new startup App Building company, today announced their first “rock star legend” business agreement. FBI has gained endorsement status on Windows Phone Jethro Tull App and future cross-platform Jethro Tull Apps with permission to utilize Tull assets. Jethro Tull was one of the top 5 touring acts of the 1970′s and the favorite band of the Fustino Brothers. Continued next page…

 

…Fustino Brothers- Tull Apps Press Release Continued.

The Brothers have a deep passion and appreciation for Ian Anderson’s music, performances and genius. This includes the Jethro Tull band music and especially Ian Anderson’s solo works with approximately 50 CDs published spanning 6 decades. Also, Ian Anderson released a brand new CD in April 2014, Homo Erraticus. Ian’s band has just started a two year tour performing the new CD and the best of Jethro Tull. Get the free FBI App, to see the tour dates near you along with videos, photos and music information at your fingertips. Go to: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/tull-tribute/4b28de49-ca75-4b8f-9a95-403c9db5bad6

Russ Fustino (Russ’ Toolshed Network – New Port Richey FL) FBI’s President and CEO, a Microsoft MVP in client development, says, “We would love nothing more than to have Jethro Tull, in the pocket of fans worldwide, young and old. Tull has provided much entertainment in our family and this is our way of saying Thank You.”

Rich Fustino, FBI’s Chief Audio Engineer, founder of Steele Productions, teacher of 47+ years at Matt’s Music (Tonawanda NY) and Crossroads Music Center (Williamsville NY) says, “I was turned on to Tull listening to their 3rd album Benefit. I could not stop playing it, and then turned my brothers on to it. We all attended the Aqualung Tour as our first concert together. I am so happy to help ‘benefit’ Tull fans worldwide.”

Gary Fustino, FBI’s VP, an ambassador for both the Tampa Bay’s St. Pete Chamber and Midstate Chamber of Connecticut, eServices Director for Bluffs Business Association, dba: Design For Communication and founder of InBusinessLinks Network – says “The key to our success is to generate apps in the shortest period of time while yielding high quality standards. Tull’s fabulous album art and music have been a creative inspiration.”

In making this agreement happen, the Fustino Brothers were assisted by the outstanding efforts of their family lawyer Houston Putnam Lowry, F.C.I. ARB of Brown & Welsh. P.C. in CT. Houston was successful in guiding them through international legalize necessary to bridge the pond between America and Great Britian.

Fustino Brothers, Inc is an app generation company. FBI apps are entertaining educational apps for the Windows Phone Marketplace and Windows 8 Store. Additional platforms include Android and Apple iOS. FBI has a unique app engine architecture, creating data driven apps. FBI utilizes this engine by pulling in designer fonts, graphics, music, and video as well as instrumentation and globalization. FBI is only just starting to plan an experience of a lifetime!

Follow @FustinoBrothers on Twitter to stay ‘in tune’ with FBI announcements regarding Tull and please like FBI Facebook Page,
www.facebook.com/fustinobrothers

Jethro Tull and Ian Anderson names, logos, likeness, and music are registered and copyrighted by Ian Anderson Group of Companies, LTD.

END

Fustino Brothers, Windows 8 App, Windows Phone App

WPUG Tampa MAY 2014 meetings

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See details at the new site www.wp8ug.com

May 1, 2014 6:30PM, See Russ Fustino deliver a session on building an app with Unity. This is a special joint meeting with Tampa Bay Area Games For Windows Developers Guild and the Windows Phone User Group.

Register here

Location: Microsoft Building TAMPA-5426
5426 Bay Center Dr Ste 700, Tampa, FL (map)

Topic: Building a Match Game Using Unity2D [Russ Fustino]

Russ Fustino, MVP Client Dev, will cover building an Unity application from scratch, as well as a little about Unity and how this software is not just for games anymore. See Russ show several resources for building Unity Apps, including: certain tutorials, Unity Asset Store, the Unity Editor, migrating an Asset store template to an app, tips and tricks,  audio, adding properties that are arrays, debugging with Unity VS (a third party tool), and Building for Windows Phone and Windows Store 8 as well as other platforms.

 

Bio: Highly experienced software developer evangelist and Windows 8 and Phone 8 app developer. Passion for software development and tools thru conveying technology via live seminars, webcasts, blogs, photos and internet video productions. Russ is a Microsoft MVP in Client Dev. Russ is CEO of Fustino Brothers, Inc.

 

Enjoy this video on a backstage visit with Jethro Tull when they came to Clearwater on the last tour.

May 20, 2014 5:30PM -  Resolving the last 10 percent.

Nick Randolf – MVP

Kevin Wolf – MVP

Kelvin McDaniel – AgileThought

Kevin’s goal for 2014 is to figure out how to reduce/eliminate the “last-mile” syndrome when building a mobile apps…basically you get to the 90% mark and think you are ready to publish, but then spend 90% of the time churning on the last 10%.  See a presentation on tips/tricks for reducing the churn… These two are really tied together.

Build it Beta is now public for Windows Phone app developers, but what is Build it Beta? Well it’s all about Windows Phone Application Testing. There are a number of existing mechanisms available to Windows Phone application developers but none of them offer the simplicity and ease of deployment as say TestFlight. Build it Beta fills that gap, providing a mechanism to allow any Windows Phone application to be deployed for testing to any Windows Phone 8 device*.

Build it Beta

Firstly, why the name?

Well it’s a bit of a play on words – we’re always looking to build better apps and of course during development we often release “beta” versions of the app. Hence the origin of “Build it Better Beta”.

Next, how does it work?

Windows Phone 8 included the ability to deploy applications within the enterprise without going through the Windows Phone Store. This is referred to as enterprise deployment and involves signing an application (ie the packaged application file .xap) with a signing certificate. The same certificate needs to be distributed to the devices that the application is to be tested on. Then the signed xap can be installed on the devices either via code or by distributing the application to the device via email or via a url link. Build it Beta uses this mechanism to deliver a testing tool which eliminates the complexity for both developers and testers.

Attend this session and learn how to get started! A simple set of setup instructions that will be reviewed and get you up and running in no time at all. Download Build it Beta from the Windows Phone Store.

http://betabuild.cloudapp.net/Images/QRCode.jpg

Once you’ve completed the setup, all you need to do is to start sending your .xap files to upload @ builditbeta.com.

Bio’s:

Nick Randolph – (@BTRoam) Microsoft MVP – Windows Phone Development

Nick currently runs Built to Roam which focuses on building rich mobile applications. Nick has been identified as a Microsoft MVP in recognition of his work and expertise with the Microsoft mobile platforms. He is still an active contributor in the device application development space via his blog at http://nicksnettravels.builttoroam.com and Visual Studio Magazine (http://visualstudiomagazine.com/Articles/List/Mobile-Corner.aspx). Nick has been invited to present at a variety of events including Tech Ed Australia & NZ, MEDC and Code camp. He has also authored multiple books with the latest being Professional Visual Studio 2010 and Professional Development for Windows Phone, and helped judge multiple world finals for the Imagine Cup. Since the release of Windows Phone Nick has worked on numerous Windows Phone applications and has helped hundreds of developers build their own Windows Phone applications. Nick has been involved with Windows Phone applications for well-known brands such as Domain.com.au, ninemsn, AFL, NRL, Qantas, JB Hi-Fi and NAB.

Kevin Wolf – (aka @ByteMaster) Microsoft MVP – Windows Phone Development

Kevin Wolf is an independent software consultant and a Microsoft MVP with the expertise in Windows Phone Development from Tampa, FL. Kevin’s primary focus is delivering software on mobile devices. Kevin is active in the development user community where he speaks at user groups and hosts hacker rooms at Florida code camps. Kevin also holds an annual developer conference in Key West called SMUG Dev that attracts alpha geeks and technology leaders from all over the United States. With a background in Electrical Engineering Kevin has been pulled in to the latest Quadcopter craze and has built a custom flight controller board that runs the .NET Microframeworks. Kevin brews his own beer where he monitors his fermentation and kegerator temperatures on his Windows Phone. When he is not busy working on his computer or doting on his wife, Kevin enjoys going for runs, smoking cigars and taking his boat out.

Kelvin McDaniel @azarc3

McDaniel is a Senior Developer at AgileThought. He graduated with an MBA from Florida A&M University in 2000 and has experienced a range of fields, including insurance and finance. He had a love for the various mobile flavors of Windows since the early CE days. He acquired his first Windows-based PDA (a Philips Nino) in 1998 while working in New York City. Connect with Kelvin McDaniel on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Time: 5:30-8:00PM

Location: AgileThought Office (Tampa)

2502 N Rocky Point Dr Ste 900
Tampa, FL 33607

registration TBD