I'm on a roll posting videos today, but I just can't help myself, there's a lot of great content to share. And when I saw this one, I knew I had to post just one more.
The hilarious crowd at on10.net (creators of the fantastic "What's it Really Like to Work at Microsoft" video) put together a clip of their top secret Silverlight Rehab meetings. It's okay. You can share. We're all in this together...
Silverlight Rehab - You're not alone
One of the questions I get asked frequently about Silverlight is what is its accessibility story. It has changed quite a bit from Silverlight 1.0 to Silverlight 2. Mark Rideout is the Silverlight accessibility Program Manager, and in this interview from the Mix08 conference , he talks about some of the changes they made and shows some demos of how the new functionality can be used today in Silverlight 2 Beta 1.
Accessibility in Silverlight 2
With apologies for getting this up so late and for the camera work (in retrospect, this was probably the worst place I could have put the camera for this talk), below is Fergus Burns' keynote address for the opening night of the Irish Web Technology Conference 2008:
If you haven't heard yet, for the third year in a row, Dublin is hosting the Irish Microsoft Technology Conference, or IMTC next week!
For those of you who haven't been to an IMTC before, you can expect tons of high-quality sessions showcasing the latest technology for Microsoft developers. We have sessions for software developers, IT Pros, web developers and designers, students, business owners, IT management, and everyone in between.
The conference kicks off on Wednesday, April 2nd at 7pm, and is followed by two full days of great talks. You'll not only get a chance to see and learn about cutting-edge technology, but also to talk to experts in the field who are already using it in their day-to-day jobs.
IMTC is a bargain at 189 euros for the two days of sessions - similar high quality conferences around Europe like TechEd often cost close to 1000 euros just for the ticket.
The problem I often have with great conferences is that it's hard deciding which sessions to attend, especially when they are industry experts and well-known superstars in the tech world. However, with IMTC I don't have to worry - the first 300 registrants will be receiving a DVD with all 40 sessions recorded, as well as speaker interviews & keynotes! This is something new for the IxTC conferences and I'm thrilled that attendees will get access to all that technical content!
To see the list of sessions and speakers, click here for the agenda. To register now (and reserve your IMTC 2008 DVD), click here.
I'm really liking this neat little teaser for the upcoming Irish Microsoft Technology Conference that I found on the Galway MTUG site! I think it came from one of the NxtGenUG (Next Generation User Group) speakers coming over from the UK... Check it out! :)
Check out http://maps.live.com to see the new bird's eye view of some of Ireland's cities and towns. Places currently covered are Galway, Cork, Limerick, Navan and Wexford. Check out Eyre Square below!
I had to clear my cache to get it to work - but now, when you zoom in on cities like Cork, the 'bird's eye' button becomes active. Just click to get the images.
Where's Dublin, I hear you ask? Well, it turns out that the imagery for capital cities is always a little more difficult to capture because of air traffic control restrictions etc. so we'll have a little longer to wait for that.
Word is from the nice people over in the Live Development Group that Dublin is work in progress - we'll be keeping you updated!!
Many of you know Martin Woodward, VSTS MVP and recent presenter at the Launch 2008 showcase in the Tripod here in Dublin. Well, Martin and the folks in Teamprise just released Teamprise 3.0 at EclipseCon 2008 earlier this week. Teamprise has a Team Foundation Server plugin for Eclipse so that if you can use Team Foundation Server for both .NET and Java projects. Well worth a look if you work in a mixed development environment!
Martin will also be speaking at the upcoming IMTC and DDD events - check out a snippet of his talk at TechEd 07 in Barcelona to get a feel for what's in store!
If you missed the Dublin launch of Visual Studio 2008 in Tripod on March 11th, or if you just want a recap of my talk, check out the below screencast. It has an audio track so break out the headphones. Double click to go full screen and you should get a very clear view of the code.
If you've any comments or queries I'd like to hear them so please feel free to contact me. (I had to ramp up the quality when encoding so I'd be interested in any comments as to whether you find it clear enough).
Last week at our Microsoft Ireland Launch event, I was handing out some fantastic DVDs to attendees. They are brilliantly generic-looking, so there's no way to tell that the content included is actually brilliant.
The DVDs include training for Expression Web, Expression Design, Expression Blend, Expression Encoder, and Silverlight Essentials. Each category has around 10-15 different learning modules, so the DVD can really take you from "My first Silverlight application" to "Creating Programmatic Animations" and other, more complex scenarios. There are even modules for using 3D and WPF controls.
The videos are high quality and provided by the excellent Lynda.com. I've gone through a lot of the modules so far and have been really impressed.
Why am I telling you this?
If you were at the event and wondering what's in this slightly-generic-looking DVD case, now you know.
If you were *not* at the event, you may be in luck! I have 20 extra copies of the training DVD that did not find homes last week. If you would like one of these DVDs and if you are a web developer or designer living in Ireland, please e-mail me at martharo [at] microsoft.com. The first 20 respondents will get the training materials at no cost to you.
Craig Murphy, Dave McMahon, Gary Short, Oliver Sturm and Martin Woodward are just some of the fabulous line-up of speakers coming over to visit Dublin and Galway for the Irish Microsoft Technology Conference and/or the Developer Developer Developer event in April and May.
If you want to have a look at some great little video snippets that some of the speakers have prepared for the Irish audience in advance of their visit - check out the latest posts on the Galway MTUG blog! No better way to get a taste of what's in store for us over the coming months!
As Dave McMahon so succintly puts it (in between telling us all about his planned XSLT talk) - "better than a slap in the teeth with a shillelagh!" :)
One of the most popular new features to come out of the 2008 launch wave of products is LINQ. If you are interested in the topic - you'll definintely be interested in the day-long workshop coming up on 27th May. Well-known author Dino Esposito will be visiting Dublin to give a course entitled 'Managing Data in Web Enterprise Applications - a pattern-oriented look at LINQ and LINQ-to-SQL from within Web and Silverlight applications.'
There are some details below - but you should check out the new-look developers.ie site for the full course details.
Managing Data in Web Enterprise Applications
A pattern-oriented look at LINQ and LINQ-to-SQL from within Web and Silverlight applications1 day course - 27th May - Alexander Hotel - Dublin 2
The workshop will be run by Dino Esposito. Dino is the author of Programming ASP.NET 3.5 Core Reference (Microsoft Press, 2008) and other best-selling books such as Introducing ASP.NET AJAX (Microsoft Press, 2007) and Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Applications-Advanced Topics (Microsoft Press, 2006).He's also the author of the "Cutting Edge" column on MSDN Magazine and a frequent speaker at industry events worldwide, including Microsoft TechEd, DevConnections and in Europe, DevWeek and Basta.
If you're looking at creating Microsoft Virtual Earth mashups and applications then you should definitely check out this project on CodePlex, where a group of developers have produced a JavaScript library that generates Intellisense for the Microsoft Virtual Earth 6.0 AJAX control.
It comes complete with a sample project to host it so you can take it for a spin yourself. Very neat :-)
At MIX last week Microsoft introduced Microsoft ®SQL Server™ Data Services (SSDS), a Web-facing utility-based services designed for businesses and developers that need scalable, highly available, secure and easily programmable on-demand data storage with robust database query capabilities.
o SSDS offers virtually limitless, on-demand scalability. Customers pay only for the resources actually consumed.
o Customers use the service with minimal up-front infrastructure and operational cost. Businesses can minimize their initial investment in hardware and software and the on-going cost for storage administration, scale maintenance.
o SSDS supports simple web-programming interfaces like SOAP and REST for quick provisioning of web applications. Primary wire format is XML for data interchange.These easy to use, standards-based interfaces enable developers to focus on innovating with data quickly.
You can find out more information at the SSDA homepage http://www.microsoft.com/sql/dataservices and the Data Platform Insider. Also you can register for the beta program from the SSDA homepage.
If you work for an ISV in Ireland / Northern Ireland then you definitely should check out http://www.innovateon.com/, the latest version of our portal which provides you with a central resource to help you build, test and market your solution based on Microsoft technologies.
Centralized Resources for Solution Development We’ve compiled the resources you need to build, test, and market your solution within one central resource, the Innovate On Web site. Resources include links to testing tools, developer SDKs, technical forums, online training, and much more.
Access to Market Research These reports, compiled by leading market research firms, are available at no charge to members of the Microsoft Partner Program. This is valuable information you can use to identify specific needs of your current clients or prospects.
Certified Logo Program When your application passes independent testing, you receive a distinctive logo that offers proof of technical excellence to your customers.
Sales and Marketing Support Receive prominent placement in Microsoft directories, discounts on search advertising, inclusion in product launch activities, and more.
If you've any questions about the benefits of the program feel free to contact me.
Just a link post really, but check out http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/cc303301.aspx for details of source code and guidance for how to use Silverlight and Sharepoint together.
Six application component samples are included in the kit to get you started:
I'm sitting in the "Silverlight Showcase Zone", my home base for the rest of the day here at the Tripod. It's pretty swank, actually. I have six laptops all fully loaded with Silverlight 2 Beta 1 and plenty of sample apps for people to check out as they wander around the venue.
Speaking of venue, it's not just my room that is swank. The Tripod is completely redone and decorated like I've never seen. Some days I am still amazed at the differences between working in corp and working in a subsidiary.
The Tripod is divided into several rooms for all of the different features and product discussions. There's a room for Windows Server 2008, one for Visual Studio 2008 and of course a room for SQL Server 2008. In the rooms are 25 minute sessions fully packed with demos and tips for using the new pieces of software, as well as some testimonies from some of our early adopters.
Anyway, as we were watching the Mix08 Keynotes at our Odessa party last night, I thought it might be cool to rip out the small section of the Scott Guthrie keynote where he shows the video showcase of newly launched Silverlight applications.
Expression Encoder 2 February 2008 Beta has a lovely new video template which is called "QuickSilver" - if you've seen the QuikSilver surfing app that was launched last summer, this template might look familiar. I clipped the video and reencoded it with the new template. It looks like the image below. As soon as I have a free minute, I'll upload the application to Silverlight Streaming so you can see some of the highlighted Silverlight 2 applications. It's been a bit crazy in here though, so it will probably be tomorrow.
If you came to the event, I'm interested in hearing your feedback! Please drop me an e-mail or leave a comment and let me know what you think.
Thanks to everyone who came along to Odessa tonight. They did a superb job setting up a cool venue for us to watch the videos. I definitely enjoyed watching the Silverlight demos again as well as Guy Kawasaki grill Steve Ballmer.
For those who couldn't make it, I promised I'd post links so here you go. All the links I am posting will take you to a page where you can either download the video (several formats available) or stream over any of three connection speeds.
Ray Ozzie / Scott Guthrie Keynote: http://visitmix.com/blogs/Joshua/Day-1-Keynote/
- Highlights include top 8 new features of IE 8 Beta 1, Silverlight 2 Beta 1, & WPF performance improvements
Steve Ballmer / Guy Kawasaki Interview: http://visitmix.com/blogs/News/Watch-Steve-Ballmer-and-Guy-Kawasaki-Live/
- Highlights include Guy asking Steve why Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo!, Steve shouting about "Web Developers" and Guy asking other interesting questions about "The G Word" and Apple.
Application - specific demo videos:
TextGlow, a Silverlight viewer for Word documents using Open XML: http://visitmix.com/blogs/News/Intergen/ Weatherbug Mobile App (Silverlight on Nokia): http://visitmix.com/blogs/Joshua/WeatherBug/ Aston Martin Customize Silverlight App: http://visitmix.com/blogs/Joshua/Aston-Martin/ Stimulant Silverlight on Windows Mobile (bonus: your phone as a breathalyzer): http://visitmix.com/blogs/News/Stimulant/ NBC Olympics Application: http://visitmix.com/blogs/News/NBC/ Hard Rock Memorabilia: http://visitmix.com/blogs/Joshua/Hard-Rock-Cafe/ IE 8 Activities & WebSlices: http://visitmix.com/blogs/Joshua/IE8-Activities-With-Jane-Kim/
If you haven't yet had the opportunity to take a look at the Mix08 keynote yet, and you are around Dublin this evening, perhaps you'd like to join us for an informal Silverlight User Group meet-up to take a look? We'll be meeting from 7pm for drinks and snacks while we have a look at the keynote speech (it's always more fun with friends! :). For those of you who haven't seen it, it's well worth a look - lots of great examples of Silverlight 2 websites and some interesting news re. IE8.
If you are interested in joining us this evening, drop me a line at clare.dillon at microsoft.com and I will send you on the details of the meet-up... hopefully, see you later! :)
Paschal from Developers.ie, who also happens to work on the very popular Irish portal for education - www.scoilnet.ie, just put me on to this story.
An Irish teacher Kate O'Connell, Scoil Mhuire Kilvemnon, Mullinahone Co Tipperary won First place at the Microsoft Innovative Teacher Forum held in Zagreb last week. There were 62 projects entered from about 28 countries and Kate won the Award in the Innovation in Community category. Her project was entitled, "Flying High- Exploring Aviation". You can see some more information regarding the project on the school's website http://www.kilvemnon.net/background.html.
Kate is an NCTE tutor in Kilkenny Education Centre and a SME for Scoilnet. Her school is an Empowering Minds school and a Digital school as well as being a FIS award recipient.
Congratulations, Kate! It's great to see technology being put to use in innovative ways in education.
I'm just finishing up my notes from watching some of the Mix 08 keynotes and sessions which was held last week in Las Vegas.
In honour of all the enormous announcements and releases from last week, Clare Dillon and I are hosting a Mix watching party tonight at Odessa! If you didn't get a chance to see the keynotes or if you wanted to ask some questions about Silverlight 2, IE 8 Beta, Expression or any other web technologies, or if you just want to watch some cool demos and enjoy some drinks and snacks with fun people, please come along!
We will be watching some of the Scott Guthrie/Ray Ozzie keynotes, and demos (including Scott auditioning for Cirque du Soleil!), as well as showcasing the new Internet Explorer 8 Beta and Expression Studio 2 Beta. You can also see Steve Ballmer talking with Guy Kawasaki and raving about web developers!
We'll kick off around 7pm at Odessa (the club upstairs, not the restaurant). If you're interested in coming along or have any questions, please drop me an e-mail at martharo [at] microsoft.com.
Odessa is located at 14 Dame Court, and if you get lost or need directions, their number is +353 (0)1 6707634.
See you tonight!
There are two great community events coming up in April and May - both have an amazing speaker line-up and are well-worth attending! Click on the links below to get more details.
The Irish Microsoft Technology Conference 2008 (April 3rd,4th - Dublin) - Now in its third year, the two-day, multi-track IMTC 2008 is planning to have over 40 technolgy-packed sessions for developers and IT Pros. Come along to hear a host of technical experts including speakers from Microsoft developer groups, MVPs and certified partners.
Developer Developer Developer Ireland (May 3rd - Galway) - for the first time, the UK's popular day-long DDD event is coming to Ireland. DDD is focused on .NET development, with many TechEd and DevWeek regulars included in the speaker line-up. This is your chance to get hands-on with the technologies in Galway!
Mix08 in LasVegas is opening tonight at 5:30pm GMT (assuming I got my timezone calculations right with daylight savings) - and you can view the keynote live on the site. If that clashes with your commute home, or you're not reading this post immediately - never fear! All the sessions should be available on the Mix site round about 24 hours afterwards.
Apart from the sure-to-be-interesting content on Silverlight 2 (check out the Scott Guthrie .Net Rocks interview on what's happening with the Beijing Olympics, it's about 4 mins in), I know many of you will be interested to hear the news about Internet Explorer 8. Dean Hackamovitch, who runs the IE team will be part of the keynote and giving a sneal peek at some of the new features of IE8.
If you have a Windows Live ID with an Irish address, you can now register at www.officelive.com/workspace then use the service to store, edit and share Office documents and other information “in the cloud” and access them from virtually any web browser (including Firefox and Safari as well as IE).
You can also download a small add-on to Office (for 2007, 2003 and XP) after registration which allows you to open and save documents to your Office Live Workspace from within Office applications. Below are some screengrabs of the new service and a snapshot of the Office menu with the new Office Live options installed.
It took me a few days to recover from the first ever Ireland Girl Geek Dinner. What a great night!
As I mentioned in my last GGD post, I was fully expecting a turnout of around 20 women, and I waited to launch the event until I knew I had a group of dedicated and driven individuals attending, but apparently I didn't need to worry so much!
46 amazing women and men showed up at Odessa on Wednesday night for a delicious dinner (thanks to Odessa! And Microsoft for sponsoring!) and an energetic discussion about what they are missing in their community and what they'd like to see.
Some stats: 46 attendees (7 of them male). 43 bottles of wine. 5 hours at Odessa.
I owe quite a lot of credit to Tech Journalist Marie Boran, who wrote an excellent article in the Silicon Republic last week and piqued interest from all over Dublin. Thanks to the stellar Philip Bromwell from RTÉ for his amazing videography and editing. Thanks to Fergal Breen and Barry Alistair for helping with promotions, logistics and everything else. And thank you to Odessa for fantastic food and service & for letting us stay around until very, very late and for not killing me when I made people switch seats before dessert. Last but not least thanks to all the attendees who made the event such a success with their energy and participation!
I filmed the discussion and so I'll be editing that and posting next weekend.
Speaking of filming, we were on RTÉ TV & Radio last week. Here's a link to Philip's coverage on Six One News: http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0226/6news_av.html?2342244,null,230 (I know, I know, it's not in Silverlight...yet...Philip is sending me the media so I can convert it - don't worry!!).
The link to the clip on Morning Ireland is here: http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0226/morningireland_av.html?2341841,null,209
The rest of the dirt on GGD will be on our website: http://www.irelandgirlgeekdinners.com. I'll continue to keep that coverage there, and here I will just keep logistics and planning info.
Next dinner: End of April in Cork. We're looking for sponsorship, so let me know if you are interested. As I don't live in Cork, please contact me at martharo [at] microsoft.com if you're interested in helping plan.
Thanks!
If you haven’t had a look yet, you should check out the TED talk on Microsoft’s new Worldwide Telescope (WWT) due to be released this spring and made available as a free download. It combines feeds from telescopes on earth and in space and weaves them together to produce a view of the universe. The video showed in the talk looks amazing.
It made Robert Scoble cry, but in the best possible way! :) I love how he has described it: “It’s not often that I see software that really changes my world. It’s even rarer that I see software that I know will change the world my sons live in.”!
The presenter Roy Gould describes it as a “magic carpet to allow you to navigate throughout the universe”, something that allows you to travel to where you want to go to with astronomers as your guides. You’ll even be able to create your own tours of the universe to share with your friends.
The WWT is a collaboration between Microsoft's Next Media Research Team (Principal Researcher and group manager Curtis Wong, Principal Research Software Design Engineer Jonathan Fay and Jina Suh Research Intern), Alex Szalay at Johns Hopkins University, Alyssa Goodman at Harvard’s Center for Astrophysics, and Frank Summers at Space Telescope Science Institute.
By the way, if you haven't yet visited the TED site - you should definitely check it out generally - it's a site dedicated to showcasing ideas worth spreading "from the world's greatest thinkers and doers". There are over 200 up there at the moment, and they publish a new one every week. Everything I have seen there ranges from incredibly interesting to truly inspirational and they are all great ideas to be shared!