Can't make it to Mix in Vegas? Never mind, do the next best thing. Monique just sent me this exciting news:

Remix Experience Australia at - the World of Entertainment - Crown Promenade – MELBOURNE

25-26^th June 2007

Remix Australia will be the first of its kind from Microsoft bringing together Web Developers & Designers with our key sponsors.  It’s a jam packed two day experience – 48 hour conversation.

The event will cost $140 per person to register.

All delegates will leave with: 

1. Microsoft Expression Web product;
2. New networking friendships;
3. A choice of 20 sessions to check out from expert leaders & case studies
4. Hear from Australian Industry & OS experts
5. Time out at the Sandbox
6. Action packed evening at Galactic Circus on Monday
7. Participate in Meeting Point – pick the conversations you want to hear and be part of
8. Meet with Microsoft Partners to understand how they can facilitate web 2.0.
9. Discover:  Internet Alley; the entertainment lounge & web jams.

Remix Experience Australia will consist of:  300 Web Developers, Business Decision Makers & Designers paying $140 to attend the two day experience.   This will be the first time Microsoft speaks about its product stack and new development tools for this audience.  It will be the launch of our very own Expression web product stack.  We anticipate that 50/50 enterprise/mid market attendees. 

Registrations opening soon!

Many of you have seen me present on the new Office Open XML formats and have heard me talking about how important it is that they're both open and a standard (even Dave's been getting into the act). They're currently an ECMA standard and have been submitted to ISO for consideration as an ISO standard as well. Doug Mahugh has just posted about that process moving to its next stage. Read Doug's post for all the details, but I've cross-posted the important bit here.

Let your voice be heard

If you're a developer working with Open XML and you'd like to see it become an ISO standard, there's something you can do to make a positive difference: contact your country's ISO representatives and let them know how Open XML is proividing unique benefits to your organization and your customers. The standards process is driven by local participation in each country, so make sure your country's representatives know what's at stake.

You can find email addresses and other local contact info for your country on ISO's list of member bodies. Let them know in your own words how standardization of Open XML will benefit your local software economy or provide unique benefits to local citizens. if you think things like custom XML schema support, content controls, SmartArt, documentation of formulas and digital signatures, and other unique areas of Open XML functionality are important, now is the time to speak up.

Like Doug says, now is the time to speak up.

The Australia and New Zealand mobile and Embedded Developers Conference (MEDC) is on in Sydney on May 15th.

The MEDC ANZ Site is now live and there is an early bird special on to save $49 if you register before April 27th.

This year we have a new track – Mobile devices in the enterprise.

This one-day event will feature three separate conference tracks, focused on

•  Windows Mobile Developer
•  Windows Embedded Developer
•  Windows Mobile Devices in today’s Enterprise

This highly-targeted event will feature high-profile local and international speakers and is being run as part of the global series of Microsoft® MEDC conferences.

www.medc2007.com/anz

One of my colleagues pinged me yesterday asking how someone could prove to their employer that they were an MCP (or, conversely, how the employer could check such a claim). I pointed him to the MCP Transcript Sharing Tool. The MCP can provide the employer with a MCP Transcript Sharing Code, for example, mine is available from:

https://mcp.microsoft.com/authenticate/validatemcp.aspx

Transcript ID 735419 and access code AndrewCoates.

To enable this, the MCP needs to logon to the MCP members site and associate their MCP ID with their Live ID (nee Passport)

Start at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/mcpmembersite.mspx

I'm sitting in Joseph Cooney's (excellent) session on WPF at CodeCampOz, and it seems to me that the canonical demo of WPF is an animated button bouncing around a form. Of course, this is something VFP has been able to do for ever:

**************************************************
*-- Form:         form1 
*-- ParentClass:  form
*-- BaseClass:    form
*-- Time Stamp:   04/01/07 02:18:00 PM
*
DEFINE CLASS form1 AS form


    DoCreate = .T.
    Caption = "Form1"
    llanimating = .F.
    ndirection = 0
    nspeed = 0
    Name = "Form1"


    ADD OBJECT command1 AS commandbutton WITH ;
        Top = 60, ;
        Left = 108, ;
        Height = 109, ;
        Width = 157, ;
        Caption = "Command1", ;
        Name = "Command1"


    ADD OBJECT timer1 AS timer WITH ;
        Top = 216, ;
        Left = 336, ;
        Height = 23, ;
        Width = 23, ;
        Interval = 50, ;
        Name = "Timer1"


    PROCEDURE llanimating_assign
        LPARAMETERS vNewVal
        *To do: Modify this routine for the Assign method
        THIS.llAnimating = m.vNewVal
        this.Timer1.Enabled = this.llanimating
        IF ! this.llAnimating
            this.ResetButton
        ELSE
            this.nDirection = RAND() * 2 * PI()
            this.nSpeed = INT(RAND() * 10) + 1
            this.Command1.BackColor = RAND() * 0xFFFFFF
        endif
    ENDPROC


    PROCEDURE resetbutton
        * Reset the button to default values

        this.Command1.Top = INT(this.Height/2 - this.Command1.Height/2)
        this.Command1.Left = INT(this.Width/2 - this.Command1.Width/2)

        this.Command1.ResetToDefault("BackColor")
    ENDPROC


    PROCEDURE movebutton
        WITH this.Command1

            * move the button by (nSpeed) in the (nDirection) direction
            .top = .top + (.Parent.nSpeed * COS(.Parent.nDirection))
            .Left = .Left + (.Parent.nSpeed * SIN(.Parent.nDirection))

            * check to see whether we've hit a wall
            IF .Left < 0
                .Parent.nDirection = 2* PI() - .Parent.nDirection
                .BackColor = RAND() * 0xFFFFFF
            ENDIF

            IF .Top < 0
                .Parent.nDirection = PI() - .Parent.nDirection
                .BackColor = RAND() * 0xFFFFFF
            ENDIF

            IF .Left + .Width > .Parent.Width
                .Parent.nDirection = 2* PI() - .Parent.nDirection
                .BackColor = RAND() * 0xFFFFFF
            ENDIF

            IF .top + .height > .Parent.Height
                .Parent.nDirection = PI() - .Parent.nDirection
                .BackColor = RAND() * 0xFFFFFF
            ENDIF


        endwith
    ENDPROC


    PROCEDURE command1.Click
        thisform.llAnimating = !thisform.llanimating
    ENDPROC


    PROCEDURE timer1.Timer
        thisform.movebutton()
    ENDPROC


ENDDEFINE
*
*-- EndDefine: form1
**************************************************

Enjoy!