About Me
Posted on January 1, 1970 • 6 minutes • 1260 words
Table of contents
- Meet Lance McCarthy, Manager, Technical Support at Progress
- Microsoft MVP - Windows Development | Mixed Reality
- Microsoft Certified Professional
- My LinkedIn Profile
- Twitter @l_anceM
Bio by peers
Lance McCarthy , Microsoft MVP, is an exceptional community leader with an acute expertise for all things .NET and C# (especially on the XAML stack) as well as HoloLens/Mixed Reality applications. Lance is very helpful online, guiding and answering questions from Microsoft developers on Twitter as @l_anceM . He organizes & hosts events in the Boston area such as user group nights, mini-code camps and full hackathons (like this successful one in Boston).
As a Developer Ambassador at Microsoft and Nokia, Lance sought out and engaged developers through outreach programs and provides them with technical support and resources to make them successful on the various Microsoft platforms and stores.
During the day, Lance is the Manager of US Technical Support at Progress Software, covering the Telerik and Kendo DevTools. Previously he spent 9 years there as a engineer himself, specializing in .NET tooling. Lance and his team supports developers and teams from Fortune 500 companies with their enterprise and consumer applications using Telerik and Kendo UI components.
Lance was also an Assistant Professor at Harvard University, where he helped students build, market and publish successful Windows & Windows Phone applications. He also spent a few years as a quest lecturer at Boston University for the cloud computing students.
He has also appeared on podcasts such as the Windows Developer Show (here , here and here ), has been a technical editor for publications and books , has won several app building contests and hackathons (including first place the Microsoft Build 2013 hackathon), and is a published developer with over a dozen apps in the Microsoft App Stores.
On Behalf of Microsoft
For about 7-8 years, I did a lot of behind-the-scenes work for Microsoft; as a ghost blog writer, video producer and handling the official social media accounts (Sprinklr is awesome). It was a great experience that I dont want to lose these resume fillers and wanted to compile the top items here.
You’ll probably recognize many of these items and had no idea that I was behind the camera/pen. Enjoy the nostalgia!
Official Videos
I was the off-camera interviewer and script writer for the following content
- Microsoft Build 2017 // Project Rome – YouTube
- Microsoft Build 2017 // Inking & Surface Dial – YouTube
- Microsoft Build 2017 // Bash – YouTube
- Microsoft Build 2017 // UWP Gaming – YouTube
- Microsoft Build 2017 // Windows Store Improvements – YouTube
- Microsoft Build 2017 // Fluent Design System – YouTube
- Microsoft Build 2017 // .NET Standard 2.0 & XAML Standard 1.0 – YouTube
- Microsoft Build 2017 // Windows Template Studio – YouTube
Some Fun Interview Material
Official Microsoft Blog Posts
For a couple years, I was the main content creator behind the Windows Developer blog content. I published under the “Windows App Team” pen name, with a few exceptions (like a Michael Crump series). The following links are my posts from those years (that I was able to find/remember).
- Internet of Things on the Xbox (App Dev on Xbox series) – Windows Developer Blog
- UWP Hosted Web App on Xbox One (App Dev on Xbox series) – Windows Developer Blog
- Windows Ink 1: Introduction to Ink and Pen – Windows Developer Blog
- Windows Ink 2: Digging Deeper with Ink and Pen – Windows Developer Blog
- Windows Ink 3: Beyond Doodling – Windows Developer Blog
- New Year, New Devs: Sharpen your C# Skills – Windows Developer Blog
- New Year, New Dev: Developing your idea into a UWP app – Windows Developer Blog
- New Year, New Dev – Windows IoT Core – Windows Developer Blog
- New Year, New Dev: Video Capture and Media Editing — Part 1 | Windows Developer | Medium
- New Year, New Dev: Video Capture and Media Editing — Part 2 | Windows Developer | Medium
- Cognitive Service API – Search – Windows Developer Blog
- Master the Master-Detail Pattern – Windows Developer Blog
- Introducing XAML Standard and .NET Standard 2.0 – Windows Developer Blog
- Toolkits, Toolkits, Toolkits! – Windows Developer Blog
- Smooth Interaction and Motion with the Visual Layer in Windows 10 Creators Update – Windows Developer Blog
- Smooth as Butter Animations in the Visual Layer with the Windows 10 Creators Update – Windows Developer Blog
- Working with Brushes and Content – XAML and Visual Layer Interop, Part One – Windows Developer Blog
- New Lights and PropertySet Interop – XAML and Visual Layer Interop, Part Two – Windows Developer Blog
- Creating Materials and Lights in the Visual Layer – Windows Developer Blog
Unfortunately, there are several more that I can’t find links to and are lost to time. However, I built many great friendships while I was there that can attest to my participation in both the blog content, but also the live event content (particularly Microsoft Build).
Code && Coffee conversations with developers
As I mentioned above, some of that content involved social media, here are some interviews I had fun producing and performing form behind the Sprinker curtain (Sprinkler is how we’d tweet from many official Microsoft social media accounts).
- Atley Hunter Windows Developer on Twitter: “Welcome to #CodeAndCoffee – our new series where we interview standout devs in the community! Today we’re talking to @AtleyHunter, MVP and dev extraordinaire.
- Ben Fox Windows Developer on Twitter: “In today’s #CodeAndCoffee, we’re talking with Ben Fox (@ductionist) from @User_Camp
- Lucas Rizzotto Windows Developer on Twitter: “Happy Monday devs! In our latest installment of #CodeAndCoffee, we’re tweeting with @_LucasRizzotto
- Ginny Caughey Windows Developer on Twitter: “Welcome to another edition of #CodeAndCoffee! This week we’re talking to #BuildMC Ginny Caughey
- Michael West Windows Developer on Twitter: “Hey devs, welcome back to another round of #CodeAndCoffee! Today we’re chatting with Michael West
Code Review interviews I had with developers:
- Tom Verhoeff Windows Developer on Twitter: “Welcome to #CodeReview – our new series where devs discuss the inspiration behind their code! Today we’re talking to @tomverhoeff, founder of @Methylium and #Windows10 expert, about his BuildCast app.
- Neils Windows Developer on Twitter: “Welcome to another #CodeReview! Today we’re talking to #WindowsDevAwards finalist @Niels9001 about Fluent Design System and his app, Huetro!
- Stephen Hodgson Windows Developer on Twitter: “Good morning devs! For today’s #CodeReview we’re chatting with @StephenHodgson_, a moderator for the MixedRealityToolkit on @GitHub.
GitHub Code
Although much of the code I’ve written has been merged into official demos at some point, there are still some items that are outside that curtain. Here are the items I could find:
Hackathons
As a hackathon veteran, I’ve hosted and judged dozens of hackathons; from MIT and Harvard, to many brand-sponsored events. I have also participated in many hackathons as a contestant, never lost an event. Usually 1st or 2nd place, couple 3rd place. Here are some of my favorite wins:
- iSmack at Microsoft Build 2013 Conference (my favorite!)
- Readicle at AT&T Hackathon. I won 2nd place overall and 1st place for Windows Phone. (Apple ended up monetizing this idea)
- Latte Locator at AT&T MIT Hackathon – published in the Microsoft Store here and see the winners blog here.
- Video Diary at Microsoft Hackathon in 2011 – published in the Microsoft Store here (nearly 1 million users). Thanks to Bob Familiar for saving photos in a Flickr photo album for this event! Here are some shots I am in:
- Fund Runner at PayPal BattleHack 2014
- DJ Upvote at AT&T Boston 2015