March, 2008

Found this out via Silverlight Surfer.  Why not start off the work week with a good laugh?  I may have to go to one of these sessions myself.

"Dan, have you ever been addicted to a UI framework before?" - priceless.

Check it out on Channel 10 here.

Then come on down to Atlantic City, NJ for the annual Health and Life Sciences Developers Conference April 22-24th!

Registration is free, but space is limited.  Based on feedback from last year, the conference is actually broken up into two half days and one full day.  So you can come on down and play some poker before hitting the sessions later in the day. 

Not only that, the conference is connected right to the AC Convention center.  This means you can take a train from any of the major cities or airports directly into the conference. 

There is a great agenda lined up for you.  Check it out here.

Some of the sessions I'm looking forward to...

OBA Reference Toolkit for the Enterprise
Karthik Ravindran, Principal Architect, Microsoft
Office Business Applications (OBA) are applications built to bridge the results gap
between personal and business productivity. These apps combine the familiarity of
Microsoft Office clients with the power of Microsoft Office SharePoint platform to
create roles based, collaborative solutions that extends the line of business and
backend systems. The OBA Composition Reference Toolkit brings to surface the
underlying composition capabilities of the 2007 Microsoft Office system. It integrates
seamlessly with the Microsoft Office 2007 System to enable a prescriptive application
composition experience for Information Workers to build and deploy Office Business
Applications (OBAs) using semantically related OBA Components like Workflows,
SharePoint document libraries and lists, SharePoint Pages, Web Parts, VSTO Office
Client Add-ins, BI Reports, BI Dashboards etc. The toolkit comprises an OBA
Composition Server and an OBA Composer.

An Introduction to Programming Silverlight 2.0
Jesse Liberty “Silverlight Geek,” Senior Program Manager, Microsoft
This talk will cover the fundamentals of building Rich Internet Applications with
Silverlight 2.0 and Visual Studio 2008. Topics covered will include a fast introduction
to Silverlight, an overview of what you need to develop Silverlight applications and
how Silverlight applications are deployed and used, and then a focus on creating
Silverlight applications from the perspective of the software developer. Topics
covered will include: XAML and Code behind, Controls and event handlers, Creating
objects in XAML and in C#, Layout management, Transforms and basic Animation.

WPF and Silverlight for Information and Data Visualization in Life Science
Sam Batterman, Industry Solution Specialist, Microsoft
Come see examples of how to use the new Windows Presentation Foundation and
Silverlight to build compelling and spectacular User Experiences (UX) in Life Science.
We will be premiering the InfoMesa application which fuses together concepts of
Electronic Notebooks, Literature Search, and Mechanism of
Action, while integrating SharePoint, and Unified Communication

Biomedical Visualization using the Xbox360
Krishna Kumar, Microsoft
The Xbox360, as the most popular gaming console to date has achieved ubiquity not
only in homes, but increasingly, also in the hospital setting as an entertainment hub
for patients by providing a positive diversion, allowing them to listen to music, play
video games and watch movies or live TV. Efforts such as ‘Cerner MyStation’ are a
testament to this fact.

I will be there doing a session as well so be sure to stop by and say hello!

Creating amazing user experiences with Silverlight 2 and Expression Studio
David Isbitski, Developer Evangelist, Microsoft
Web applications with sound, animations, and video have become the rule and not
the exception these days. But as a developer how do I get started in an area that
previously meant learning entirely new tools and technologies? This session will
get you up to speed on how to use the latest web technologies from Microsoft
including Silverlight DeepZoom, Expression Blend, Expression Encoder and
Silverlight Streaming that leverage your existing .NET Skills and integrate seamlessly
with ASP.NET. You’ll be amazed at how easily you can start adding great user
experiences to both your new and existing applications today!

What are you waiting for?  Come join your peers and have some fun down in AC!

When you get a chance check out this article by Jon Galloway over at Vertigo. 

Jon covers the new technology behind Deep Zoom and also goes into details comparing it with the Google Maps API and Flash Zoomify. Very cool!

You have to check out the latest version of Opera Mini! 

Yes, I am a Microsoft guy recommending a Java app.  This is hands down, the best browsing experience I have seen on my Blackjack 2.   Providing desktop like layout rendering and it is lightning fast.  They even added in some neat features like you can scroll super quick with the number keys and a keyboard shortcut that switches between portrait and landscape mode on the fly. 

I checked out some of my favorite sites - Digg (loaded the whole page up in less than 10 secs), WoWWiki, Facebook and they all looked great.  Even my blog came up perfect.  Yes, there are some ui quirks like you get prompted by the Java VM each time you want to hit a new site but it works and it looks amazing.  Did I mention it is free?

What are you waiting for - if you have a Windows Mobile 5/6 device you owe it to yourself to check it out.  You can even have it sent to your mobile phone via SMS message or just use your current mobile browser and go to http://www.operamini.com. 

Looks like they will be incorporating the technology into the next version of the full Opera Mobile browser as well.  Check out this video for a hands on.