You can now go download Expression Blend Beta 2 as well as Expression Design Beta 1 . Both applications have received significant work since their last incarnation with tons of bugs fixed. Go give 'em a whirl.

I just posted a screencast showing how to wire up UI elements using Blend. The general premise is that databinding in WPF is about more than just data; it also allows you to connect UI properties, like wiring a slider up to a progress bar. Blend exposes...

Check out Doninoken , an amazing WPF piece that is part of the Japanese Vista launch, done by the design agency Bascule . The aesthetic is amazing. I love how they use WPF 3D, mapping images on planes and animating the planes. (Watch for the small camera...

I'm back to Seattle from CES, still reeling from the one-two punch of CES plus Las Vegas. I’ve been to plenty of developer shows in my time, but never to CES. It is a different beast entirely than a PDC, TechEd or MIX. A few highlights from my time there...

I've written about XBAPs and full trust in the past, but never as thoroughly as Karen Corby just did in her post on XBAP trust levels . She spent a lot of time getting this post correct, reviewing with various folks within Microsoft and providing very...

I'm here at CES, where Yahoo and Microsoft showed off a preview of the new Yahoo Messenger for Vista, built entirely on WPF. Yahoo has a great landing page with screenshots, a screencast of the app and a sign up sheet for when they release a beta. I held...

I guess I didn't call it an obsession without reason, as I can't seem to keep away from those hyponotizing gradient animations. I modified the tool I posted last month so that it would output the XAML, such that a designer could actually use the tool...

It was at PDC 2005 when The North Face showed a prototype of a WPF kiosk they were building. Well, with Vista and WPF having RTM'd, the real kiosk has been deployed, which you can read about from lead engineer Darren David at Fluid's blog . (Fluid is...