Okay, as I always say, context comes first and chrome comes second, let’s get to the point first. I was very lucky to be present on last Saturday’s (14th September, 2013) Microsoft Developer Conference, 2013 arranged by Microsoft jointly with Ministry of ICT and MCC ltd. And as amazing as it is I was one of the speakers on the stage too.

So, if you want my experience of the very event, then what I have to say is, I learned more than I shared. The day started very early for me, I mean it started practically at 7 o’clock. I was kind of exhausted and fever doomed due to my last couple of weeks’ runnings. So, as usual I along with Aninda and Tanzim vai came to the event site pretty early. The event place was already crowded at the entry gate with a pretty formidable line. My nervousness did take it to its top. I don’t remember the time we entered but it was pretty early and as it was a rainy morning I thought I would see less people. It was a weekend day too , so with the rain factor I really did expect a less presence of people. But what do you know? The exact opposite happened!

The day started with Jubair and Windows Phone App studio. I heard of it before and looked it up too. Still didn’t go through all the features it had. Jubair had a complete presentation to go through and I liked that people can even make apps without a line of code. Handy, isn’t it? I can make a rss reader in minutes now! 😛

The first shine of the morning was  tanzim saqib vai and his brand new shining surface RT. His demonstration was all about the new features of Windows 8.1 and yes it was amzing! Me likey! I liked the new tile sizes, the new window snipping features and proximity works they put together. The new search was pretty neat too!

We had a brief one from Zaki Hyder. He shared his personal experience on app dev and MCC.

Things got pretty serious when Foyzul Karim vai walked in. This guy is a veteran, has all the weapons he needs in his arsenal and no wonder he started blazing. Wisdom in his eye, he dazzled me how javascripts can dance around an Windows 8 modern app. I walked around mostly on C# and XAML so I did have some curiosity on how javascripts work behind a Windows 8 Modern App. Let’s just say my tummy was empty by the noon but my head was full. This guy definitely knows the art of standing and delivering. Amazing presentation, he hooked up audience like a fish in a stick. Although he did shared some of his sleight of hands in the end of the day to me (lucky me!). The amazing part of his showdown was Search contract. Loved it!

Well, lunch time came and me had to serve my tummy. So, we gathered up and got food. Food was from Boomers 😛 . Who misses it anyway?

Well, my time came just after the lunch. Standing on the stage I felt my nerves are cracking as so many eyes goggled up on me. 😦 But had to find some courage inside and start talking. My session was on “Art of Building Beautiful Windows Phone Apps”. As I had a huge context for an one hour session, I started kinda slow. I went through basic UI deals and tricks like better control handling, Windows Phone toolkit, Motions, Layouts etc. The amazing part was the crowd, probably the best one I had in my life. In the end I kinda took 1 hour and a half and ended with a little note on MVVM. The surprise of my day was Omar Faruk, a 12 year old boy who asked me a question in the Q&A. I happened to have a good number of questions and loved standing up in the end

After my number, it was Rahat Yasir Aninda’s time. This guy is amazing, truly amazing. He just came from lund, sweeden in Nokia Hackathon and he was sharing his knowledge base on image processing for Windows Phones. The interesting part on Rahat’s presentation was he started on basics on image processing, how lumia 1020 actually works and how to capitalize on it. He has gone through pretty much all the basics of image processing people needed to know and had an amazing response from people. 🙂

So, the day eneded with Tanzim Saqib vai, he already told us before that he had some tricks up his sleeve on UX and he did show that. He practically made a gruesome windows 8 app to a shiny windows 8 app. He has gone through a bit on services and what we should use in that very context when thinking of an app. The very interesting coincidence was I met him 3 years before on the same venue at Visual Studio 2010 Community Launch. He was delivering a speech on C# 4.0. And that was the very last time I stepped foot in IDB Bhaban Auditorium. 🙂

And, no I didn’t forget that Mohsina was an amazing host. I got chance to meet Mj Ferdous, Senior Technical Specialist in Microsoft and I did took photo with a lot of people, saw lumia phones being displayed in a nokia display pod. I had a fan-freaking-tastic time and yes we had a tummy fair on Nandos afterwards. 😉

So, what ya know, it was a geek’s dream day! Hope these comes very often. By the way, if you need stuffs and slides from the day, kindly look up in this post.

ciao!