Even with the bounty of online forums, webcasts, blog posts and articles, in person events are still a critical part of keeping up to date with the latest in technology as well as gaining valuable relationships with others in the industry. TechDays is a great way to make sure your IT team have the knowledge they need to make the best decisions on technology solutions.

Below my colleague Paul outlines one of the tracks available at TechDays 2011 – the Windows client and phone track. You’ll also find this post on the Canadian Mobile Developer blog.

signature2 (100x78)

P.S. One update from Paul’s post below – the early bird pricing for Toronto has been extended until October 11.

By now, you may have seen that TechDays 2011 is now open for registration.  TechDays is Microsoft Canada’s premier, in-person training event that is reaching 3 cities (Toronto – October 25-26, 2011, Vancouver – November 15-16, 2011 and Montreal – November 29-30, 2011) with 2 full days of training in 8 different tracks (in alphabetical order:  Cloud Computing and Online Services; Communication and Collaboration; Developer Tools, Frameworks and Languages; Development Practices and Architecture; Security, Identity and Management; SQL Server and Data Platform; Virtualization; Windows Client and Windows Phone).

Over the next week, you will see and hear more about many of these tracks on our Connection blogs but in this post I will outline the Windows Client and Windows Phone track.

As Track Owner of the Windows Client and Windows Phone track at TechDays 2011, I am honoured and excited to introduce the many sessions that you will see talking about Windows Phone and Windows Client.  It’s a jam-packed track that will appeal to both developers and IT Pro’s alike, with lots of content that will both enable to use these technologies today and to inspire you to build the next great thing tomorrow.

To give you some background as to why the sessions you see below are found in the Windows Client and Windows Phone track, I want to explain the rationale behind the decision process.  First, I wanted to provide Client and Phone content that would be beneficial to everyone using or thinking of using our platform technologies, regardless of whether your job entailed development, management or operations in IT.  Second, I wanted to give sessions that attendees would find both exciting and relevant to their day-to-day jobs.  Finally, I wanted these sessions to inspire you.  IT is only a tool, a means to an end.  It’s your creativity and passion that make software wildly successful.  It is my hope that through these sessions you will see and hear something that will kindle an amazing idea that will change the world!

Below is a video that introduces the Windows Client and Windows Phone track:

 

So on with the sessions in the Windows Client and Windows Phone Track:

WIN301:  Windows Phone 7.5: An Overview and Architecture Deep Dive

Windows Phone is a different kind of phone, architected to put the focus on end users while enabling developers to build compelling, connected experiences that enhance the phone. Peer under the covers to see how the architecture evolved to deliver powerful functionality for users and developers: enabling rapid seamless transitions between applications; delivering continuous user experiences in the background; combined Silverlight/XNA in a unified UI; sharing data between phone and applications; sensor fusion for integration of the physical and virtual worlds; and many more. Along the way, we will demonstrate how Microsoft brought together these features to deliver experiences that are responsive and battery efficient.

WIN302:  Adding the Awesomesauce Flavour with Internet Explorer 9 Pinned Sites

By now, you've heard about pinned sites in Internet Explorer 9. And, you've probably even used them yourself. But, did you know that this feature can help increase site visits and engagements? In this session, you'll hear stories of Pinned Site implementations by some of the most popular websites on the web today. You'll also discover how to support pinned sites with a few lines of markup. Finally, you'll learn best practices that will help you deliver an awesome experience to your visitors.

WIN303:  Windows Intune: PC Management with Cloud Services and Windows 7

 Windows Intune, Microsoft's cloud-based offering for PC management, simplifies and helps businesses manage and help secure PCs using Windows cloud services and Windows 7. As an integrated Microsoft offering, Windows Intune brings together cloud services for PC management and protection with a Windows upgrade subscription – all without the need to set up enterprise deployment infrastructure. In this session, see how simple it is to get started with Windows Intune to deliver the essentials of management – updates, malware protection, and asset inventory – to unmanaged PCs. Learn how Microsoft cloud services help deliver the reliability and security you expect for your business.

WIN304:  Building Windows Phone 7 Applications with the Windows Azure Platform

 In this session you will learn how to build Windows Phone 7 applications that are backed by scalable cloud components hosted in Windows Azure. This demo-focused session will cover the end-to-end experience and address how to tackle issues such as authentication, storage, and notification using the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7.
WIN305:  Application Design for Windows Phone In the past year, we’ve worked with hundreds of developers and designers interpreting the "Metro" design system for their own purposes. We’ve seen great interpretations, and others that aren’t so great. In this session, we’ll share with you the foundations of great Metro application design for Windows Phone, and how to use them to build outstanding applications that will stand out and get noticed… for good reasons.  We will also be providing some general best practices for building great mobile experiences.
WIN312:  Digging into an HTML5 Line of Business Starter Kit (Local Content Submitted for Toronto)

No doubt you’ve heard a lot about HTML5 as a web developer. Now it’s time to look at what that means. In this session we’ll take a look at the construction of an HTML5 line-of-business application. It will show you what you need to consider targeting the desktop, phone and tableting web experiences while taking advantage of the tools that HTML5 delivers to you.

WIN371:  Complete Windows 7 Deployment Using Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 (MDT 2012)

If you are still spending money on your desktop deployment solutions, be prepared to be impressed! The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 (MDT 2012) can do it all. And it’s free. In this session Rhonda will show you how to set up a MDT server, create a complete image including Office 2010 and deploy that image using the new Deployment Wizard.  But wait that’s not all MDT 2012 can also migrate your XP machines to Windows 7 while maintaining users data and settings as well. See it all in this demo driven session.
WIN372:  Windows Deployment Service (WDS) vs Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2012 (MDT) Choose The Right Tool Stop wasting money on your deployment tools, you can do it all with Microsoft’s free tools. But which one does what you need? Rhonda will show you the differences between WDS and MDT so you can spend your time wisely setting up the right tool from the beginning. WDS can create and deploy images but only a certain type of image. MDT can create, manage and deploy your images. While they sound similar in functionality the feature set could not be more different. This session will show you all the features of WDS and compare those to all the features of MDT. Learn which tool can link your branch deployment shares (DS) to the Corporate DS allowing branch office machines to be deployed locally. Find out also how to deploy an entire image from a USB Flash Drive that requires no network connection to the DS. And last but not least discover how to set up automatic imaging and re-imaging for troubleshooting both desktop and server OSs.
WIN373:  Consumerization of IT: Windows Devices in the Workplace Apps have sparked a lot of market interest and buzz – for businesses. Windows Phone also brings together a captivating experience for work and play. In this session we’ll take a deep dive into key business scenarios that Windows Phone enables today.  Come to this session to learn why Microsoft has a competitive advantage over other OS platforms.  Learn how Windows Phone and Microsoft collaboration solutions like Exchange, SharePoint & Lync offer the best integration for the enterprise and offer the best connectivity experience for end users.

If you are interested in attending, don’t delay in registering as the conference is filling up with registrations right now.  We are also providing early bird pricing for the conference (CAD $399.99 instead of the regular fee of $799.99, which is a 50% discount).  For Toronto, this early bird pricing ends on October 4, 2011 (Vancouver early bird pricing ends October 25, 2011 and Montreal early bird pricing ends November 8, 2011), so time is running short on getting a great discount on premier training and networking!