Mike Swanson's Blog

Moving Along

2011-09-27T17:31:06Z

After 11½ years at one of the greatest companies in the world, I’ve decided to leave Microsoft and rejuvenate my entrepreneurial spirit. My last day in the office is Friday, September 30, 2011.

Thank you for subscribing to, reading, commenting, and e-mailing me about what I’ve written over the past 8 years. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed “talking” to all of you, albeit in virtual form. It’s kept me grounded and in-touch, and your feedback has helped shape a lot of decisions at the company, especially those related to our PDC and MIX conferences.

Over the past 8 years, I’ve written 392 posts. You’ve left 3,227 public comments (I didn’t track the number of private e-mails, but it’s a lot). And according to our blogging platform, you’ve contributed to 10,273,373 total views. Wow!

I’ve setup a new personal blog at http://blog.mikeswanson.com, if you’d like to follow along. Or, you can see what I’m up to as @Anyware on Twitter. Either way, I hope that you keep in touch.

Take care, remember to take big, bold bets, and whatever you do, improve the world!

Ai->Canvas FAQ

2010-10-15T17:45:00Z

Since the launch of the Ai->Canvas plug-in for Adobe Illustrator a few days ago, I’ve collected a bunch of questions via e-mail, Twitter, blog post comments, and forums. This list should eventually make its way to the official Ai->Canvas project page on MIX Online, but in the meantime, I’ve included a first version of the FAQ in this post. If you have other questions that you’d like addressed on this list, please leave a comment or drop us an e-mail. And thank you for all of the encouragement, blog posts, and tweets!

Q. Why would I ever want to export vector graphics to a HTML5 canvas element when I can just use Illustrator to export to SVG?
A. Excellent question! If you’re building a HTML5 application that can do everything with SVG, there’s no reason to use Ai->Canvas (and in that case, you should check out the Adobe Illustrator CS5 HTML5 Pack). However, if you’re building a canvas-based application or game that requires lower-level access and you need to draw more than simple bitmaps, Ai->Canvas makes the job much easier. Without a tool like Ai->Canvas, designers and developers are forced to manually write hundreds of lines of code like: context.bezierCurveTo(5.4, -1.5, 2.7, -1.5, 1.5, -0.5);. No fun at all.

Q. Am I required to keep the Mike Swanson and MIX Online comments in my HTML/JavaScript code?
A. No. We expect most people to copy and paste just the code that they need for their own projects. If you feel like giving us credit, though, we won’t complain!

Q. Can I use Ai->Canvas to convert .ai files without installing Adobe Illustrator?
A. No. Ai->Canvas is not a file conversion tool. It runs within Illustrator so that it has direct access to the internal representation of your artwork. This enables very high-fidelity output and also simplifies the workflow. If you don’t have Adobe Illustrator and you’d like to try Ai->Canvas, you can download a free 30-day trial

Q. When using Internet Explorer 9 Beta 1, how do I prevent the “blocked content” alert when loading the exported HTML file?
A. Choose Internet Options from the Tools menu (or press Alt + X), then click the Advanced tab. Scroll down to the Security section and make sure that “Allow active content to run in files on My Computer*” is checked. After you enable the setting and click OK, restart Internet Explorer for the changes to take effect.

Q. Which versions of Windows does Ai->Canvas work with?
A. The PC version of Ai->Canvas works with Windows Vista and Windows 7. Due to some OS-specific function calls, it will not work with Windows XP.

Q. Does Ai->Canvas work with the trial version of Adobe Illustrator?
A. Yes. If you’d like to try Ai->Canvas and you don’t have Adobe Illustrator, you can download a free 30-day trial.

Q. In the tutorial videos, the right-click “View source” menu in Internet Explorer 9 Beta 1 brings up Visual Studio 2010. How can I configure the same behavior?
A. Press F12 to bring up the developer tools window. Choose File/Customize Internet Explorer view source/Other… Then browse to your Visual Studio folder (usually something like C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE). Select the devenv.exe file and click Open.

Q. Are there plans to release the Ai->Canvas source code?
A. We had hoped to provide the source code for the plug-in, but the Adobe Illustrator CS3 SDK License Agreement (EULA) in section 2 appears to prohibit the release of source code. It sounds like it allows object code, but that wouldn’t help anyone who wanted to understand/modify/extend the plug-in.

Q. Why are my international characters lost during export?
A. While all text is handled as Unicode within the Ai->Canvas plug-in, it is converted to basic ASCII characters in the output stage. This is a known issue that is on the list to be addressed in a future version.

Q. Why is the performance slow when I export a complex animation and run it on a [fill in device name here]?
A. It’s hard to say, because each device, OS, browser, and application combination has unique performance characteristics. That’s why it’s important to test, test, test. Also, Ai->Canvas exports HTML and JavaScript code that is intended to be copied and pasted into your own project where performance is managed according to your project’s requirements. In general, though, the more elements that are animated and drawn for each frame, the slower the overall performance. For applications that don’t need to clear the canvas and re-draw the entire scene, there are many easy optimizations that can drastically improve performance.

Q. How can I include complex animation properties when Illustrator CS3/CS4 has a 100-character layer name limit?
A. Each property has an equivalent short name that uses fewer characters. For example, the rotate-timing-function property can be shortened to r-t-f, saving 17 characters. Some values also have short versions. For example, origin: center can be shortened to o:c. See the Ai->Canvas Extended Documentation for details.

Q. Is there a way to visualize the timing (easing) functions that are included in the Ai2CanvasAnimation.js file?
A. Yes. This HTML file draws a line graph for each of the built-in timing functions. The x-axis represents the input value (from 0.0 – 1.0), and the y-axis represents the output value (from 0.0 – 1.0).

Q. Are there plans to create a version of Ai->Canvas for Inkscape, Fireworks, [fill in app name here]?
A. Not at this time. Because the Ai->Canvas plug-in is written using the Adobe Illustrator SDK (software development kit), it is very specific to the internal workings of Illustrator. While the concepts could certainly be re-purposed for other drawing applications, it’s likely that very little of the actual code could be re-used.

Adobe Illustrator to HTML5 Canvas Plug-in Released!

2010-10-12T19:10:00Z

I am happy to announce that after nearly four months of work, the secret MIX Online project is no longer a secret! Today, we launched Ai->Canvas, a free plug-in for Adobe Illustrator CS3, CS4, and CS5 that works with OS X, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. The plug-in makes it easy to export artwork and animation (yes, you heard that right) directly from within Illustrator to HTML/JavaScript that you can use in your own applications.

For a quick one-and-a-half minute introduction, watch this brief overview video. Then, download the version for Windows or OS X, extract it to your Illustrator plug-ins folder, and spend some time on the documentation page, where you’ll find 10 tutorial videos that total around 25 minutes in length. Thomas Lewis wrote a nice article titled Introducing the Ai to Canvas Plug-In that provides even more background and context.

If you’ve read my blog over the years, you’ve probably heard me talk about the Adobe Illustrator to XAML export plug-in I wrote back in 2005. Well, about four months ago, Thomas and I were chatting at lunch, and he was evangelizing to me about the new canvas element in HTML5. As we talked, it became clear that canvas was an element that could benefit from some tooling. So after lunch, I did a search, and most of the tutorials and information I found used very simplistic smiley faces or basic shapes to demonstrate the canvas features. The light bulb went off, and I wondered if a version of my XAML plug-in could be re-tooled to work with canvas.

Fast-forward four months, and the plug-in has been completely re-architected and re-written from the ground up. What started out as a classic C project that had reached its extensibility limits is now an object-oriented C++ project with room to grow (around 23K lines of cross-platform code for the geeks out there). Along the way, I basically memorized the entire HTML5 canvas spec, encountered some small implementation issues in each browser, read a bunch of HTML5 books (HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith is my favorite introduction to the topic), read and then re-read the ECMA-262 (JavaScript) spec, and consumed a few JavaScript books for good measure.

If you’re interested in the low-level details about how Ai->Canvas is built, you might enjoy Charles Torre’s interview with me on Channel 9. In the interview, I talk about fun topics like arc-length parameterization that are sure to be a hit at parties. Well…at least the kind of parties I attend. :-) Strike that…I don’t really attend parties…

While we’re on the topic of HTML5, you should also check out the Adobe Illustrator CS5 HTML5 Pack (from Adobe Labs). Their release extends the fantastic SVG support that’s been in Illustrator for years, and it’s great to see a tool like this from Adobe themselves. I can’t wait to see where they take it.

Over the months, I’ve built-up a bunch of test files for the plug-in (over 100). Most of them illustrate very simple features, and they’re not much to look at. Here are a few that might be interesting to folks:

Yellowstone Map – this is a great acid test for the plug-in, and it’s one of the sample files that ships with Illustrator. If you don’t have the fonts installed on your machine, the output won’t look correct. This complex file exports in a couple seconds on my machine. I can’t imagine the practical use of this much canvas HTML/JavaScript, but it’s fun!
Pencil Writing (and the original Illustrator file) – this example shows animation along a complex path and includes some dampened rotation animation too.
Clock (and the original Illustrator file) – a simple clock with a few lines added to the init() function to set the clock.
Newton’s Cradle (and the original Illustrator file) – an example of Newton’s Cradle that uses triggers to start one animation when the other animation ends.
Closed Path Animation (and the original Illustrator file) – shows how to set the “follow orientation” of a drawing so that it follows the direction of the curve.

The only file that’s been edited is the Clock example, since it’s no fun looking at a clock that has the wrong time. :-) Otherwise, all of these are directly out of the Ai->Canvas plug-in.

Thank you to everyone who helped test early versions of the plug-in, including many of the companies who created the HTML5-based sites for Beauty of the Web. Your insights absolutely helped to refine the feature-set.

I’d love to hear your feedback about the plug-in so that the next version is even better. Also, if you create any fun projects…even if you’re only using it to export artwork, add a comment along with a URL.

Enjoy!

HTML5 Demo Sites

2010-09-30T06:30:00Z

In addition to my work on PDC10 and Tech·Ed Europe 2010 (stop me and say “hi” if you attend one of these events), I’ve been spending quite a bit of my spare time on an upcoming project for the purveyors of standards-based web development over at the finely crafted MIX Online. As part of that work, I often find myself looking for good HTML5 samples, demos, and sites that take advantage of technologies like Canvas, SVG, CSS3, DOM L2 and L3, and ECMAScript5/JavaScript.

There are a lot of fantastic sites that are included on the IE9 Beauty of the Web Experience page, but I’ve personally found it difficult to browse the list. So, I took the time to assemble a simple text-based version for your own browsing pleasure. Some of these focus on IE9-specific features like Pinning and Jump Lists, but many of them take advantage of HTML5 features.

I hate to pick favorites, but when I started this blog years ago, I made a promise that my posts would try to “add value” beyond just a simple copy and paste of the daily news. The value here is that these are my personal favorites (for whatever reason). Some of them may even redefine what you expect from a web “site.”

While they didn’t quite make my favorites list, here are the other sites (in no particular order):

You can find even more demos at the Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive site, and while it doesn’t look like it’s been updated in awhile, www.canvasdemos.com is another fun place to browse. Oh…have fun with these Asteroids demos too.

I know I’m a Microsoft guy (and I’m biased), but if you haven’t tried the Internet Explorer 9 beta with these demos, it’s worth your time. I think you’ll be surprised.

Have fun!

PDC10 is Sold Out! Really?

2010-08-23T20:19:00Z

As you may have heard, PDC10 is sold out! This year, we decided to hold the event at the Microsoft Conference Center (otherwise known as the MSCC or building 33) on our corporate campus in Redmond, Washington. There are many good reasons behind this decision, and one of them is to provide a more intimate and engaging experience for our in-person attendees. You see, this is the first time in PDC history that we’ve held the event on our own campus.

Holding the event on campus enables us to do a lot of things that we could never do in a remote location, but it also has its limitations. For example, the Microsoft Conference Center is nowhere near the size of a Los Angeles Convention Center (not even close). That means that we have physical limitations including how many people we can safely accommodate.

You’ve probably noticed signs at restaurants and other public places that state maximum occupancies/capacities, and perhaps you’ve even wondered where these limits come from. Well, they come directly from the fire marshal. There are many factors that go into determining the maximum capacity of a public space, including the size of the space, the height of the ceiling, placement of permanent columns, furniture, built-in cabinets, etc. All of these factors are considered to ensure that getting out of the room in an emergency situation is as fast and as safe as possible. Egress is the word they like to use.

Here’s a diagram of the keynote room for PDC10. The front of the room is at the top, where you’ll notice a representative keynote stage and two large projection screens. The blue areas are for attendees. As you can see, there is no physical space remaining to add more seats. That is, unless you want to sit on the keynote stage or in the aisles. :-) We’re actually required to submit our floor plans to the fire marshal’s office, and it has to be approved before we can hold the event.

This is what we mean when we say “sold out.”

You’d be surprised how many e-mails we receive—both internally and externally—stating that company X or person Y absolutely must be physically present at PDC10. While we understand the frustration of our response, unfortunately, this is a limitation of physical space.

But all is not lost.

This year more than ever, we’re amplifying what we provide online. PDC, MIX, and Tech·Ed attendees have become accustomed to full-screen, high-definition broadcasts of our keynotes and 24-hour-or-less, free downloads of all session content. Yes, we’ll do the same for PDC10 (with some new enhancements), but we’ll also stream all of our sessions live…for free…for anyone. Including your mom. This is how you get back at her for making you watch all of those Hallmark Hall of Fame originals. :-)

We’re also partnering with our global Microsoft offices, academic institutions, and some third parties who want to hold local PDC10-related events. While the list of events is currently being assembled, I highly encourage you to sign-up for the PDC10 mailing list. This, our @PDCEvent Twitter account, and the official PDC10 web site are the best ways to keep up-to-date on the latest developments.

Last, but certainly not least, you can always sit comfortably at home or in your office and watch all of the content streamed to you online.

IE9’s Stunning Text Rendering Quality

2010-07-27T04:30:00Z

If you follow my blog, you may know that I’m deeply involved in the planning and execution of our PDC, MIX, and Tech·Ed events (including Tech·Ed Europe). My team works on keynotes and content (sessions, hands-on labs, workshops, etc.), among many other things. As a matter of fact, I have an open position on my team for someone who can plan, build, and maintain the public and internal web tools for our big tier-1 events. Apply, if you’re interested. But I digress…

During the lead-up to our MIX10 event this spring, I knew that one of the features that Steven Sinofsky and Dean Hachamovitch would show in our day 2 keynote (demo starts at 19:00) was the hardware-accelerated text quality in IE9. The feature takes advantage of DirectWrite, ClearType, and sub-pixel positioning to improve font quality and readability. This additional precision allows glyphs to start “within” a pixel and not just at their boundaries resulting in more precise and consistent glyph spacing and proportions. This article on ClearType does a good job explaining some of the magic, even though it’s focused on WPF.

If you’re like me, when you hear “sub-pixel positioning” and glyphs that start “within” a pixel, you probably think, “yeah…right!” The MIX10 keynote demo certainly shows an improvement, but Steven and Dean had to zoom pretty far into the text to illustrate the difference. Fast forward to this past weekend.

Recently, I’ve been spending time on an upcoming project for my good friends at MIX Online (just down the hall from me in building 24). The project involves working with the HTML5 canvas element, and I’ve been performing most of my tests with IE9 Platform Preview 3. This weekend, I decided to run some of my test files (HTML and JavaScript) with the latest versions of Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. Honestly, I didn’t expect to find many differences. So imagine my surprise when I saw these results (in alphabetical order):

Update: Some users were reporting that IE8 was automatically resizing these images because of their width. So, I've cropped the images to avoid this behavior. If the images still look "squashed," you can click to view them directly.

What a difference! Look at the rendering quality, readability, and positioning of the text. These are unmodified screenshots from the latest versions of the browsers running on Windows 7 with ClearType enabled. All of the text is rendered with the canvas .fillText command and there are no bitmap images…everything is either text or drawn to the canvas with vectors. I encourage you to try similar tests with your own content. I think you’ll be surprised!

If want to learn more about the technology behind all of this, take a moment to read about the hardware accelerated canvas support in IE9 on the ieblog.

And, of course, I love it when people take the time to send me a quick email. What do you think?

MIX10 Wrap Up

2010-03-19T22:30:00Z

Wow! What a week. The MIX10 event is over, and I hope that everyone made it home safely. It was great to meet everyone in-person, and I love that we referred to each other by our Twitter handles (I heard “Hi, Anyware” many times this week). I thought I’d provide some early data on the event that you might find interesting.

The all-you-can-eat buffet of keynote and session video recordings were online for awhile, but the download demand was so high that our global CDN couldn’t cache the files. Unfortunately, we had to shut off the downloads to give the almost 70GB (!) of content time to make it to the edge of the network. When we re-enable downloads later today, the download experience should be much, much better. Sessions are provided as a high-quality WMV, a regular quality WMV, and as a MP4 file for mobile devices. For most of the sessions, the PowerPoint slides are also available.

Here’s a graph that shows the spike in connections right up until we turned off the downloads. Realize that each of these connections was trying to grab 100s of megabytes of video data.
There are many (I’m not kidding) download options for the keynote and session videos:
- Right-click each link on the videos page and Save As. A bit tedious, but you can be selective.
- Use any of the available download managers like Free Download Manager.
- Use an RSS reader that supports the download of enclosures like Juice, and point it at our sessions RSS feed.
- Use the updated cURL scripts from Sascha Sertel. The original cURL scripts are available at the top of the videos page. If you can’t find the right cURL download, try this Win32 version.
- Use Frank La Vigne’s MIX10 Session Downloader tool.
- Use Bizcoder's HttpClient and OData sample code (added on 3/20/2010).
- Use Jason Richard Taylor's MIX10 Video Downloader (added on 3/21/2010).
- Download everything via iTunes.
- Download everything from the Zune Marketplace.
- Write your own download client using the OData API we’ve exposed for MIX10. :-)
We’re frequently asked, “why not just use BitTorrent?” Aside from the fact that it’s against corporate policy (or at least it has been), BitTorrent is throttled/filtered by many ISPs, flat-out blocked in many corporations, and prone to man-in-the-middle attacks. And, when our CDN has the files cached globally, the CDN is often faster than BitTorrent anyway. We will continue to reevaluate BitTorrent, but it’s not currently a solution that provides enough benefit.
Browse more than 400 MIX10 photos on Flickr.
Did you notice the paper evaluation forms that were sitting on the chairs in each session? You might wonder why we don’t just do everything online (and we’re often asked that question). It turns out that the response rate for paper evaluation forms far exceeds the response rate of online evaluations. It takes quite a bit longer to tabulate the responses, but the quality of the data is worth it.

That said, here are the top 20 sessions ranked by “overall satisfaction” for MIX10:
1. Advanced Web Debugging with Fiddler (Eric Lawrence)
2. The Tale of JavaScript. I Mean ECMAScript. (Douglas Crockford)
3. Reactive Extensions for JavaScript (Erik Meijer)
4. Web Deployment Made Awesome: If You're Using XCopy, You're Doing It Wrong (Scott Hanselman)
5. Search Engine Optimization for Microsoft Silverlight (Brad Abrams)
6. Introducing the Silverlight Rough Cut Editor (Jason Suess)
7. Accessing Data in a Microsoft .NET-Connected Web Application (Shyam Pather)
8. The Laws of User Experience (Anthony Franco)
9. Dynamic Layout and Transitions for Microsoft Silverlight 4 with Microsoft Expression Blend (Kenny Young)
10. Microsoft Silverlight and Windows Azure: A Match Made for the Web (Matt Kerner)
11. Implementing OData: How to Create a Feed for That (Mike Flasko)
12. Modern Web Form Design (Luke Wroblewski)
13. Designing and Delivering Scalable and Resilient Web Services (Ron Jacobs)
14. Improving Software Quality for the Modern Web (Euan Garden)
15. An Hour With Bill Buxton (Bill Buxton)
16. The Elephant in the Room (Nishant Kothary)
17. Do You Speak My Language? Microsoft Translator and the Power of Collaboration (Vikram Dendi and Neil Roodyn)
18. Beyond File | New Company: From Cheesy Sample to Social Platform (Scott Hanselman)
19. OData: There's a Feed for That (Pablo Castro)
20. Microsost Silverlight 4 Business Applications (Scott Morrison)
Did you know that we held on-site focus groups with some of our MIX10 attendees? We worked with ConStat to organize and run the focus groups to ensure that the process was fair and balanced, and we’ll use the data to improve our future events. For MIX10, we had six one-hour focus groups that involved 39 people. We take your feedback very seriously!
During the day 1 keynotes, MIX10, Windows Phone 7, and Silverlight were all on Twitter’s top 10 trending topics list. To-date, we’ve tracked over 29,000 tweets related to MIX10.

The top 5 tweeters were ReadyDesigns, smartyp, MojaveMedia, brian_henderson, and RicCastelhano.

The top 5 topics/words mentioned were Phone, Windows, Microsoft, Silverlight, and WP7.

Here’s a visual of the MIX10-related tweets (courtesy of The Archivist by MIX Online). The peak is during the day 1 keynotes.
Last, here are some fun statistics about the event…

Over 46,000 viewers of the live day 1 keynote stream and 42,000 on day 2
3.762 miles of network cable (the Las Vegas strip is approximately 3.8 miles long)
3,300 feet of extension cords (over 9 football fields)
1,770 gallons of coffee (this does not include Starbucks)
96 liters of hand sanitizer
159 attendees completed the “My name is and I’m at MIX to” cards on the bulletin boards
Most external speakers of any MIX (43%)
Around 4,000 unique users on wireless
Top three wireless users downloaded 5.0GB, 3.04GB, and 2.71GB
1,000 loaves of regular bread
7,200 rolls
3,000 Artisan loaves of bread
9,120 bottles of juice
5,000 Red Bulls
5 cases of foam melon soap

Thank you for attending MIX10, even if your “attendance” is online. Enjoy the keynote and session recordings, leave some feedback, or drop me an e-mail.

Until next time!

MIX10 Surprise Room Upgrades

2010-03-09T22:53:00Z

When we host a big event, the destination city usually rolls out the proverbial red carpet because of the additional business we bring to the area. This red carpet treatment often extends to the visitors bureau, the convention center, and the nearby hotels. The deal almost always involves committing to a certain number of hotel rooms that we expect to fill. This is called our “room block,” and for MIX10, we sold out our room block awhile ago. As a thank you for our business, the hotel provides us with some nice room upgrades.

In past years, we’ve given the upgrades to members of the team who put in countless hours to ensure that we deliver the best event possible. We never told them in advance, and they were always surprised when they checked-in to their room. It was a fun way to show appreciation for a job well done.

As someone who’s been upgraded (to rooms that have more square footage than my house…and no, I’m not kidding), it’s absolutely exciting to open the door to discover such a palatial spread. The problem is, most of us are so busy running the actual event that we never spend any time in the hotel room. And other than sleeping, I don’t spend much time in the room at all.

What a waste.

So, starting last year, we decided to randomly give the room upgrades to our attendees. Many attendees travel to Las Vegas with their significant others, and what better surprise than to land after a long flight and check-in to a huge and luxurious room. Plus, it’s just plain fun!

For MIX10, we’ve randomly selected 22 attendees who will each receive a complimentary upgrade. That means that their room rate won’t change, and these lucky people will get to enjoy the spoils of an amazing space!

Here are some specifications and photos of the upgraded rooms:

1 x Media Suite – this suite is 2,170 square feet (bigger than some houses), includes 1 1/2 baths, a separate parlor, a 65” plasma HDTV (+ a few others), imported stone floors, and more. If you’re the lucky person who gets this upgrade, it’s almost mandatory that you throw a party. :-)
1 x Vista Suite – this suite is 1,705 square feet, has a 180-degree view of the strip and mountains, includes a separate parlor, living room, dining room, and bar area, has 1 1/2 baths, a 50” LCD High Definition TV, imported stone floors, and more. Be sure to right-click on the door and select “Run as Administrator” for UAC-free living during your stay.
5 x X2 Suite – still huge at 1,450 square feet, with 2 bedrooms, separate parlor and living areas, a view of the strip/beach/pool/mountains, 2 bathrooms, a 42” High Definition Plasma TV, a separate parlor, and more.
5 x Spa Suite - 610 square feet, with views of the beach/pool/mountains, a 42” High Definition Plasma TV, and more.
10 x Great Room Suite - 765 square feet, with views of strip/mountains, a “unique playpen couch” (sounds very Vegas to me), and more.

We’ve already selected the lucky attendees, and they’ll be informed via e-mail within the next few days. If you end up in one of these suites, please take some photos and share them on Flickr or Twitter. We’ll all be jealous.

Good luck, and I’ll see you in Vegas!

All About MIX10

2010-02-23T18:02:00Z

Here we are, only three short weeks away from our MIX10 event in Las Vegas. It’s been over 5 months (!) since my last update…the longest dry spell in my 5+ year blogging history. My front page still has old PDC2008 information on it! Anyway, I’m long overdue for a MIX10-related post, and I have a lot to cover, so I’m going to do this in bullet-point form and in no particular order.

Windows Phone 7 Series – Honestly, it was tough to keep this one under wraps, especially with something this exciting. If you haven’t watched the Mobile World Congress keynote with Steve Ballmer, Joe Belfiore, and Andy Lees yet, go do that first. It’s a great introduction.

We have 12 Windows Phone sessions, and while we haven’t revealed the real titles and descriptions yet, know that MIX10 is the best place to learn how to build applications and games for Windows Phone 7 Series. You’ll be introduced to the development platform and we’ll show you how to use the tools. Best of all, attendees will receive exclusive free developer support.

To stay in-the-loop on Windows Phone 7 Series-related information, be sure to follow @ckindel on Twitter.
Keynoters – Back by popular demand is Bill Buxton, recently honored as one of BusinessWeek’s World’s Most Influential Designers. Bill was a favorite at MIX09, and we received a lot of positive attendee feedback about how accessible Bill was in the hallways between sessions. Well, Bill loved it just as much, and he’s excited to be back again this year.

MIX veteran, Scott Guthrie, returns to the stage as one of our highest-rated keynote speakers. I’ve been working with Scott and his team on keynotes and demos for the past few months, and I have to say that I’m excited about what he has to show this year. Well, I’m excited every year, but MIX10 feels special. Be sure to watch Bill and Scott in the MIX09 day 1 keynote.

The astute among you may remember MIX10 keynoter, Joe Belfiore, and his Beyond the Browser general session from MIX06 (the first year of the conference). He’s back this year, and as the Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Program Management, you can probably guess what he’s going to talk about.

Last, but certainly not least, is Dean Hachamovitch, another MIX veteran and General Manager of Internet Explorer. You can watch Dean in last year’s MIX09 day 2 keynote. To get a sense of what his team has been up to, watch the PDC09 day 2 keynote with Steven Sinofsky, and jump to 39:34.
Twitter – Have you tried Twitter yet? If you haven’t, MIX10 is a good time to start. It won’t cost you a thing, and I think you’ll find that you learn a lot more about what’s going on at the event. We’re still three weeks out, and I count 106 tweets just today (it’s easy to search for MIX10-related tweets). It’s like a separate and parallel conversation full of tidbits and useful nuggets of information, especially during the event.

Here’s a chart showing the number of unique tweets (not including re-tweets) per day around last year’s MIX09 event. Pre-conference workshops happened on March 17th, and the main event ran from March 18th through March 20th. As you can see, there is a lot of Twitter activity!

After you’ve signed up, be sure to follow @MIXEvent for all of our official conference communications. If you’d like to hang out with fellow tweeps (and get some free drinks…at least until the tab runs out), RSVP for the MIX10 Tweetup on Sunday, March 14th at 9:00pm.

If you decide to tweet about the event, include the #MIX10 hashtag so we can all hear you. And if you’re really bored (is this even possible in Las Vegas?), follow me at @Anyware.
Channel 9 Live – Similar to PDC09, Nic Fillingham (@nicfill) and crew are planning to broadcast live content during most of MIX10. Watch the 10-minute Countdown to MIX10: Let’s do it Live for the details and follow @ch9live on Twitter.
Attendee directory – Share your contact information in the directory that becomes available around one week before the conference. It’s a great way to contact other attendees who have decided to share their information. It’s completely optional, and only registered attendees will be able to see it.

First, use your Windows Live ID to login to the registration page. Then, scroll down to the Attendee Directory section where you can edit your details (First Name, Last Name, Company, Role, E-mail Address, Blog/Podcast URL, and Twitter Username). Share as much or as little as you’d like.
Session times – While we haven’t officially announced it anywhere yet, we’re hoping to publish session dates, times, and rooms around March 1st. So, if you’re trying to put together a session attack plan, keep checking the session list.
My Sessions – Help us schedule the most popular sessions in the biggest rooms by adding your favorite sessions to your own personal My Sessions list. Note that your list isn’t a “reservation” or commitment to attend a session…it’s just a convenient way for us to monitor interest and for you to manage your schedule. As an attendee, you can show up for any session you’d like at any time.

To manage your list, first login to the MIX10 site with your Windows Live ID, then click “Add this to my schedule” for any session that interests you. Click “My Sessions” on the right-hand side to list your selected sessions. Click “printer friendly” to print your sessions. After we’ve published session dates, times, and rooms (around March 1st), you’ll also be able to add the sessions to Outlook (or any calendar application that understands ICS files).

While it’s not a completely fair list, here are the current top 10 sessions based on how many people have added them to their My Sessions list. Why do I say it’s not fair? Well, some of these have been published and available longer than others, so they’ve had more time for people to add them.
Countdown to MIX10 – Jennifer Ritzinger and I record a weekly 10-minute show where we discuss the MIX10 conference. To-date, we’ve recorded 9 MIX10 shows that you can find here:
Who attends – During registration, we ask a few simple survey questions of our attendees. Here are some of the interesting data points.
- 1/3 of MIX10 attendees have attended a MIX event in the past.
- The three most popular tools that our attendees use are ASP.NET, SQL Server, and Silverlight (in that order).
- The top three goals for attending MIX10 are “to learn about new products and technologies,” “to see Microsoft’s roadmap and vision,” and “to learn best practices.”
- When asked to position a slider between “designer” and “developer” (where designer = 1 and developer = 9), the average response is 4.52 – right down the middle. 12% of attendees report that they’re neither a designer nor a developer. WHAT ARE YOU, MAN!?!?
- The most popular MIX10 attendee first name is Michael. What can I say?
- Most of our attendees (52%) “build or develop web sites for others.”
- MIX10 attendees come from 56 countries. After the U.S., most attendees come from Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, France, and Japan.
RSS/OData – Did you know that MIX10 session data is available via RSS? Soon, we’ll also be exposing session data using the Open Data Protocol (as an aside, we have a couple of sessions on OData at the event). For anyone who wants to build their own session tool or simply wants to convert the data to other formats, this is the way to do it. Yes, both formats will include session dates, times, and rooms when that information is made available.
Live Streaming and Session Recordings – As always, we’ll stream the day 1 and day 2 keynotes live from the home page. And like PDC09, we’ll be using Smooth Streaming for the highest quality experience.

Also, like prior events, all sessions will be recorded and published within 24 hours of their completion. Secondary formats (like lower bitrate and MP4 files) will appear as they are encoded; this usually takes a little bit longer.

If you can’t afford to attend MIX10, or if you just can’t get out of the office, at least you’ll be able to view the keynotes and sessions online. Note that we don’t record the pre-conference workshops, and those will not be available for online viewing or download.
MIX10 Internal Gadget – I mentioned this internal Windows 7 gadget in one of our Countdown to MIX10 shows, and ever since, people have asked to see what it looks like. Well, here it is. Note that I’ve replaced the numbers and changed the bars and tick marks, but this should still give you an idea of what it displays.

While we can always login to our registration site and dig through all of the registration details, I wrote the first version of this gadget many events ago so that we could monitor registrations at-a-glance. It connects to a backend database and polls for new data every 15 minutes (or longer…it’s a configuration option). If there are any new registrations, it makes a sound; it’s fun to hear the sound during a meeting.

”General” reports the number of general attendees (i.e. not staff, Microsoft employees, etc.). The gray bar below the number shows progress as a percentage, and the tick mark indicates where we hope to be by the end of the current week. As mentioned, I’ve removed the numbers and changed the bar and tick marks for this example.

”Prior attendee” is as it sounds…it’s the percentage of attendees who have been at a prior MIX event. The green “up arrows” next to MIX08 and MIX09 mean that—as a percentage—we’re ahead of registrations for the same T-minus week for those prior events.

”BIS” indicates how many physical people we have to accommodate at the event. We don’t have projections for this number, so there is no tick mark on the bar graph.

”Wrkshops” reports how many attendees have signed-up for pre-conference workshops.

”Reg Site” is a link directly to our backend registration site, and “Event Site” takes us to the public event site.
Ask the Experts – Do you have a tough/niggling (yes, it’s a real word) question that’s been driving you crazy? Or do you have feedback to share about a product or technology? Show up Monday night from 5:00pm – 6:30pm for Ask the Experts, where Microsoft employees and third-party experts will be on-hand. Even if you don’t have anything specific to ask, it’s fun to lurk and listen.
Event Tips – Thomas Lewis (@TommyLee), purveyor of the fabulous and award-winning MIX Online, has published The Devil’s Field Guide to MIX09, and it’s just as valid for MIX10. Read it.
Infrastructure – I asked our infrastructure expert to give me some geeky stats about the on-site network that we configure (no, it doesn’t come with the facility rental). Here are a few tidbits.
- As before, free wireless will be available in the keynote room, the session rooms, and most of the public areas. If you get a wireless signal in the restrooms, consider yourself lucky…I guess. :-)
- MIX10 will have 354Mbps of total network bandwidth. About 200Mbps is allocated to the wireless network, 100Mbps is used for the show, and 45Mbps is reserved for keynote backup (though we add it to the overall pool when the keynotes are over).
- The wireless network supports 802.11A, B, and G. Depending on bandwidth consumption, we have the ability to rate-limit A and G. You’d be surprised how many people like to stream or download session videos back into the event center.
- We use Xirrus XN16 Arrays, each containing 16 radio units.
Get Lamp – Completely unrelated to MIX10 (seriously)…if you’re a fan of the old Infocom text adventures, I expect this soon-to-be-released documentary called Get Lamp to be awesome. Jason’s BBS: The Documentary was fantastic. Xyzzy.

I hope to see you at MIX10!

Evolving the PDC09 Event Site

2009-09-11T00:25:24Z

Did you know that the PDC is assembled and run by the same group that does MIX? At this year’s MIX09 in Las Vegas, we hired a company to facilitate seven on-site focus groups, each comprised of around 10 attendees. While the questions covered a broad range of event topics, many related to our “online experience.” Here is a small sample of verbatim comments:

“this year's site is difficult to navigate: hard to find info about sessions and content”
“more pre-data should be given: concentrate on schedule and speakers”
“Integrate identity of MIX09.com website with passport or open ID”
“tag the sessions so it is easier to choose a theme and follow it”

For PDC09, we decided to invest in a single online platform that addresses this feedback and allows us to reuse and evolve it for both MIX and PDC. The platform is being developed by the same group that built Channel 9 and MIX Online, and it uses Oxite as its foundation.

Here are some of the things we’re doing:

To simplify the site, we’ve reduced the number of pages and navigation elements, and we’ve made the most important information more prominent. We went through a complete process to identify the right information architecture, and Tim Aidlin’s post, Designing the PDC09 Experience, gives additional context and insight.
Because we’ve heard that session management is important, we’ve tried to make it easier to find, filter, plan, and share the sessions that interest you.

A list of “Featured Sessions” is prominently displayed on the home page of the site. We try to publish new sessions around the first of each month, and this hand-picked list is usually from the most recent batch.
All workshops and sessions are tagged with their primary technologies, related topics, and general themes. Click the “show tags” link on our Sessions page to expose and filter using the tag list.
Each workshop and session has a details page with comments. This is a great way to provide feedback to the presenter ahead of the event or to ask questions after-the-fact.
In the coming weeks, we’ll enable new functionality that makes it easy to pick your favorite sessions and add them to a personal agenda. Behind the scenes, we’ll use this data to gauge the popularity of each session so we can schedule them in appropriately-sized rooms. So, the more you use the tool, the better we can make the in-person experience. Then, when we assign rooms and time slots closer to the event, you’ll be able to modify your schedule and coordinate an overall conference attack plan.

Our Speakers page shows an alphabetical and searchable list of everyone who is speaking at the event, including a short bio and an optional photo. When a speaker’s name is clicked, you’ll see the list of sessions they’re presenting.
We’ve integrated with Live ID so you don’t have to create a new identify or profile just to interact with the site. Plus, logging-in with your Live ID makes it possible for you to save the list of your favorite sessions.
Like MIX09, we’ll stream the keynotes live and display #pdc09-related tweets. The team is investigating ways to filter out spurious tweets, spam, retweets, bots, etc. so the feed isn’t cluttered with useless information. Our events have proven to be trending topics on Twitter, and as a result, they draw a lot of attention…some of it unwanted.
We’ll also be releasing a mobile optimized version of the site that makes it easier to navigate the physical conference. It’ll show an abbreviated version of the sessions that have been added to your agenda, a list of all sessions, important news, and logistical information like maps.
Last, we’ll make it easy to download keynote and session content after the event. We’ve learned that many of you like the “all you can eat” plan, so we’ll do our best to make this a simple scenario.

At the end of the day, our goal is to provide both in-person and online attendees with an experience that makes it easy to plan, organize, navigate, consume, and share the content that matters most. Hopefully, we’ve struck the right balance.

As always, we’d love your feedback. Did we miss anything? What would you prioritize?

PDC09

2009-06-20T02:16:46Z

Are you ready for our 14th Professional Developers Conference!? We’re back at the Los Angeles Convention Center this November, and as always, it’s going to be fun event! We have one day of workshops (formerly referred to as pre-cons) on Monday, November 16th, and the main conference runs from Tuesday, November 17th through Thursday, November 19th.

Our event site at www.microsoftpdc.com opens for registration in early August. In the meantime, here are a few ways to plug-in to the news and announcements…

First, add yourself to the PDC09 mailing list so we can send you information about the conference (like registration details, discounts, speakers, sessions, etc.). We don’t send a lot of mail, so you don’t have to worry about your inbox filling up.
Follow @PDC09 on Twitter, and if you tweet anything about the conference, be sure to include the #pdc09 hashtag so we can hear what you have to say (yes, we listen). If you’ve been resisting Twitter, I have to tell you that it’s a fantastic way to keep up with everything that’s going on. If you don’t want to follow on your mobile device, search the #pdc09 hashtag on occasion for the latest updates.
RSVP for the PDC09 Facebook event for yet another way to stay plugged-in to the event.
If you’re a company that would like to sponsor or exhibit at PDC09, we’ve recently opened the submission process. There are limited sponsorships and exhibitor booths available in the convention center, so my recommendation is to submit early. But you knew I’d say that, didn’t you? :-)
Bookmark the www.microsoftpdc.com event site. That’s the central location for everything related to the conference.

In addition to being on our PDC09 Core Team (which means that I’m somehow involved with just about everything related to the event), I own our keynotes this year. I’m also part of the team that is working to elevate our online experience; we heard a lot of feedback at PDC2008 and MIX09, and we’re doing our best to address that feedback for PDC09.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to add a comment to this post or contact me directly. And watch this space for future posts about PDC09 as we get closer to the event.

MIX09 Keynote and Session Videos

2009-03-26T23:01:00Z

Whew…what a show! Thanks to everyone who joined us in Las Vegas last week for our fourth MIX conference, MIX09. It was great to meet many of you in person and to associate Twitter aliases with real names. It’s awesome that someone can walk up and say, “Hi, I’m WoogyChuck,” and I actually know what that means!

As we’ve done in prior years at both PDC and MIX, all keynotes and sessions were recorded and published within 24 hours by the talented Brian Keller. The first video format we publish is WMV, and the other formats show up as they’re encoded. By now, almost all of the videos in all of the formats have been published. The few that remain will be added over the coming days.

Special thanks to Greg Duncan for taking our session data and publishing a simple list of links within days of MIX09. Based on Greg’s work, feedback from the #MIX09 tweets, direct e-mail, and many blog comments, our online team quickly implemented a dynamic list of all MIX09 session and keynote recordings. We’ve learned that you like this straightforward format, and we’ll make sure we add this to our list of features for PDC09 and MIX10. If you prefer to browse the videos by image, check out the thumbnail view.

To download videos for offline viewing, you have a few options:

Visit the list of all MIX09 sessions, and download them individually.
Use your favorite RSS tool to download all of the videos in your format of choice (All, WMV, WMV High, MP4). Note that there are also many non-session videos and audio recordings that are available in WMA and MP3 format.
If you’re like me and prefer a command-line tool, download a recent build of cURL (1.2MB), and extract it to your folder-of-choice. Then, download MIX09Downloader.zip (1.27KB) and extract the MIX09Downloader.bat file to the same folder. From a command prompt, start MIX09Downloader by passing it one of the following parameters: WMV-HQ, WMV, MP4, Zune, PPTX. Then wait. :-) For files that aren’t available, cURL will download a file that is around 220 bytes in size (if you change the extension to .htm and open it, you’ll see that the file is simply an HTML “not found” error page).

Here’s how much disk space you need to plan for (~45.5GB in total):

WMV-HQ
= ~22GB
MP4
= ~7GB
PPTX
= ~530MB

WMV
= ~10GB
Zune
= ~6GB

If you'd like to rename your downloaded files, I've created a MIX09 Renamer batch file (4.19KB) that will do it for you. Extract the MIX09Renamer.bat file to the folder that contains your downloaded files, and from a command prompt, type MIX09Renamer WMV to rename all of the .WMV files to the full session title. By changing the parameter, you can also rename your PPTX and MP4 files. For example:

B01M.wmv is renamed to B01M - Scaling a Rich Client to Half a Billion Users.wmv

Last, but not least, we did record some of the workshop sessions. However, because we don’t always record them for publishing (often for contractual reasons), we’re working to determine which ones can be posted. Also, we’ve noticed some audio/video quality issues with some of them that we’re trying to fix. It’ll likely be a few days to a week before we know more, and I’d encourage you to keep your eyes on the MIX09 session list.

Is there anything else that we’ve missed? I’d love to hear your feedback!

Getting Ready for MIX09

2009-03-10T07:27:33Z

Our MIX09 conference in Las Vegas is only one week away, and things are heating up! We’ve finalized the keynote content, published all of our session titles and abstracts (well, except for a handful we’ll announce at the event), locked-down the on-stage customers and demos, and handed off the bits for replication. It’s a flurry of activity, and we’re all very excited!

I thought I’d take a moment to highlight a few things that should help you plan for MIX09, even if you can’t join us in-person:

The session browser was upgraded today, and you can now create your own personal schedule. First, look for the [SIGN IN] link just below the session grid. Login with the same username and password that you used to register for MIX09, then click the green “plus” symbol next to each session that you’d like to add to your schedule. You can quickly filter sessions by clicking a tag in the left column (like Azure, ASP.NET, or Expression). The grid will display your selected sessions in green, and you can use the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday links to change your view. Note that at MIX09, you can attend any session you’d like, and by adding sessions to your own personal schedule, you are not “reserving” a seat. Don’t miss the .ics or Printable Schedule links…they’re pretty handy too.
If you’re a Twitter user, be sure to follow MIX09 for little bits of information before, during, and after the event (and Anyware, if you dare listen to me). If you want to participate in the conversation, add the #mix09 hashtag to anything you tweet. To see what people are tweeting, you can search on the #mix09 hashtag, or download any number of Twitter applications. There are a lot of apps out there, but since I live in Outlook all day, I personally use OutTwit. Oh…I almost forgot…there’s a MIX09 Tweetup event on Facebook too.
As we’ve done for MIX06, MIX07, MIX08 and PDC2008, all MIX09 presentations will be recorded and published on the internet for free, for anyone within 24 hours after the session is complete. This makes it much easier to pick from two conflicting sessions that share the same time slot, knowing that you can download and watch the missed presentation at your convenience. We’ll also post the slide decks and any sample code that the speaker provides, though these don’t always show up within 24 hours. Watch the MIX09 site for details.
The MIX09 event site is your best friend. During the show, all keynotes will be streamed live on the home page. So, if you can’t join us in Vegas, carve out some time, sit back, and tune-in. And if the Twitter feed isn’t providing enough information, subscribe to our MIX09 headlines RSS feed for even more news. Bring a snorkel.
Friend, colleague, compatriot, Mastodon-worshipper, and MIX Online curator, Thomas Lewis, has written The Devil’s Field Guide to MIX09. Read this if you want to be “in the know.” Plus, he mentions me…isn’t that enough? :-)
After you’ve scheduled your favorite sessions, don’t forget to add these must-attend events to your calendar:

The Wednesday night attendee party at TAO. Let’s hope for warm weather for TAO Beach!
The very special screening of Gary Hustwit’s new film, Objectified, on Thursday night…just days after its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival. By the way, Gary will be on-hand for Q&A after the screening.
Immediately following the Objectified screening, stick around for Show Off, and see what cool stuff your peers have been working on. Check out the MIX08 Show Off winners, and when you’re done, go buy Crayon Physics Deluxe, last year’s winner. It’s addictive.

Last, but not least, if you want to be a true MIX09 geek, watch the most recent Countdown to MIX09 episodes with Jennifer and me. They’re 10-minutes in length, so you don’t have to endure us for too long. :-)

For those of you who are attending MIX09, if you see me wandering the halls, stop me and say “hi.” I love meeting my blog readers!

Have a safe trip, and I’ll see you in Vegas!

Native Text and Symbol Support Added to My Illustrator to XAML Plug-In

2009-02-24T11:42:16Z

Wow! I can hardly believe that this is the third post on my Illustrator to XAML plug-in in the past month. After not touching the code for well over two years, it’s been fun digging back into the project. Adding Mac OS X support has been a brand new challenge for me, and I’ve enjoyed every minute. The response to the test version of the Mac plug-in has been fantastic. It’s clear to me that there are a lot of Illustrator users on the Mac who want to work with Silverlight and WPF! The good news is that the PC and Mac codebases for the plug-in are essentially in-sync, and any improvements that I make in the future should apply to both versions.

One of the more common requests I’ve received is for native text support. As a matter of fact, native text support was one of the first features I started to build way back in 2005. At the time, though, when I dug-in to the Adobe Text Engine (otherwise known as ATE), it seemed like I had teleported into another dimension. The text engine provides a lot of typographic flexibility, and the API is newer than many of the more traditional APIs in Illustrator. I was already in unfamiliar territory building a plug-in, let alone learning about yet another deep and complex API. So, I disabled my early text code, and it’s been dormant ever since. The workaround has always been “convert your text to outlines before you export.” Of course, this method offers very little flexibility when you want to dynamically change text at runtime, and the text outlines significantly bloat the XAML.

The new version of the plug-in exports native point text. However, it does not export text that has been fitted to a path (for an example of this limitation, check out the Yellowstone Map illustration on my updated Eye Candy page). Fortunately, most text in Illustrator is point text, so this shouldn’t present a problem for common cases. Illustrator also supports many advanced text features that are not currently exported, so you may notice differences in the way text is rendered. One of the text features that is not handled is the relative spacing between letters and words, otherwise known as tracking. Here’s an example of some Illustrator text with increased tracking (top) and how the exported XAML is rendered with WPF (bottom):

I added the red lines to show that the anchor point of each TextBlock element is correctly aligned. However, because the tracking value is not accommodated in the XAML, each text run falls out of alignment. By the way, the Illustrator API returns three individual glyph runs for this single word, which is why there are three TextBlock elements. Since all of the other attributes of this text run are identical (color, baseline, font size, font family), a future enhancement to the plug-in should combine all three of these glyph runs into one. For now, the manual solution would be to simply delete all but the first TextBlock.

While I was digging through the code, I also uncommented some early work I had begun on symbols. In Illustrator, a symbol is an art object that can be reused multiple times within a single document. So, after a symbol is created, instances of that symbol can be added to the document many times without having to create multiple copies of complex artwork. A great example of symbol use can be seen in the aforementioned Yellowstone Map on the Eye Candy page. I’ve included a small section of the map to the right showing square black symbols used to mark picnic areas, food, lodging, etc. Ideally, symbols would be exported to a ResourceDictionary and referenced in the exported XAML, though this is not the case in the current version.

The last tweak I made was to improve the behavior of the shift keys in the PC version. The keyboard detection logic I was using seemed unreliable, and often times, the XAML editor would launch even though the left shift key was not being held down. I’ve received a handful of e-mail inquiries about this behavior, and I’m happy to say that I was able to fix it in this version. Why shift keys instead of dialog box choices, you ask? Well, it’s mostly because I didn’t want to spend the time to learn how to use the Adobe Dialog Manager (ADM)…yet another complex API. Plus, I’ve grown to like the simplicity and ease of the shift key approach.

I updated the Adobe Illustrator to XAML Export Plug-In site to bring it a bit more up-to-date. Nothing radical, though I did use Robby Ingebretsen’s fantastic Kaxaml editor to create some new visuals (thanks, Robby!). There’s also installation instructions for both PC and Mac along with download links to the most recent version.

If you’re planning to attend MIX09 and want to chat about the plug-in (or anything, really), send me a tweet when you’re in Vegas, and I’m happy to hook-up. Otherwise, feel free to leave comments, feedback, and suggestions to this post or drop me a line directly.

Most of all, have fun! :-)

Test Version of My Illustrator to XAML Plug-In for the Mac

2009-02-09T07:15:00Z

One of the most frequent questions I get related to my Adobe Illustrator to XAML Export Plug-In is: “does it run on a Mac?” Unfortunately, the answer has always been “no,” because I’ve never owned a Mac, and I’ve never done any Mac development…ever. If you can believe it, the last Apple computer I wrote code for was the Apple IIe. Those were the days!

Last week, I asked around the office, and between Tim Sneath and Thomas Lewis, I was able to borrow a Mac Mini to play around with (thanks, guys!). I installed OS X Tiger and Xcode 2.5, because I wanted to target the Illustrator CS3 SDK (which recommends that OS/tool combination). I would have gone back a bit further, but the CS and CS2 SDKs are both based on CodeWarrior, and I didn’t want to make my situation any more difficult by using even older versions of the OS and tools. Because of this choice, the plug-in should work fine with Illustrator CS3 and CS4, though I’ve only been able to test it on CS4 myself.

Fortunately, when I wrote the original plug-in for the PC version of Illustrator, I mostly stuck to the platform agnostic functionality and types that are exposed by the SDK. This made it much easier to port the code to the Mac. Here are the three biggest challenges I encountered:

General unfamiliarity with the Mac – since I haven’t used a Mac since the Mac Classic (before it was even called “Classic”), just finding my way around the system felt like I was exploring an alien planet. Where did my Illustrator window go!?!?
Xcode – being unfamiliar with the Mac didn’t make it any easier to understand the project system or the Xcode developer tools. And Carbon? What’s that? :-)
Platform-specific code – if you’ve used the PC version of the plug-in, you know that you can hold down the left shift key during export to pop-up your default XAML viewer; if you hold down the right shift key, your WPF export uses DrawingBrush syntax. The Mac API that I found doesn’t allow me to distinguish between the left and right shift keys, so the Mac version exports DrawingBrush syntax regardless of which Shift key is held down.

If you’d like to help test, ~~download Mac version 0.18~~ (see update below) and copy the XAMLExport.aip file to your Illustrator plug-in folder. Like the most recent PC version, you’ll find "XAML for Silverlight (*.XAML)" and "XAML for WPF (*.XAML)" as new formats under File/Export. I’ve run many files from my test suite through the plug-in and have so far been able to add all of them successfully to Expression Blend 2 on my PC.

It may help to read through the Features list on my plug-in page to see what works and what doesn’t. Also, I’d love it if someone could test it with Illustrator CS, CS2, and CS3 and report their results…I only have CS4 on the Mac.

Thanks in advance for your help and feedback!

Update: A newer version of the plug-in is now available, including version 0.19 for both the PC and the Mac.

My Windows 7 Beta 1 Experience

2009-02-04T05:02:09Z

As mentioned in a recent post about My Windows 7 Theme Pack, I’ve been running Beta 1 (build 7000) for awhile now, and I love it!

Windows 7 feels nimble, it doesn’t get in my way, and it lets me access and organize my work using some very natural conventions. In earlier versions, I’ve always known that I can right-click on the taskbar and select Tile Vertically to arrange my applications. But guess what? I very rarely did it. However, in Windows 7, a simple drag of the window to the right or left edge of the screen performs this task much more naturally. And once I learned that I can use Windows + Right/Left Arrow as a keyboard shortcut, well…I find myself using this all the time.

Most of the improvements—for me—are along the same lines. It’s as if Windows 7 gets out of my way while at the same time exposing the tasks that I need to perform in fresh and friendly ways. I right-clicked an ISO file the other day to see if I had my DVD burning software installed only to find that Windows 7 has a “Burn disc image” option built-in. How cool is that?

I’ve also found myself using the taskbar full-screen preview feature to “glance” at other windows without actually switching to them. How often are you in an application like Microsoft Word when you need to refer to some data on a web page or in an Excel spreadsheet? Normally, I’d have to switch to the application, look at the data, then switch back. In Windows 7, I simply hover over the thumbnail on the taskbar, see a full-screen preview of the window, and when I move the mouse away from the thumbnail, I’m back in Word. Effortless.

It’s all of these little flourishes that make the overall experience so much better. For a more comprehensive review of Windows 7, check out Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite.

I’m running Windows 7 on my desktop machine at home, my desktop at work, and my primary laptop. Across all three of these machines, I’ve had a chance to install and use lot of software. While I haven’t exhaustively tested all of the applications, I have been using them with no significant issues. I thought I’d pass along the list for those who are curious (I linked to the lesser-known applications for reference):

Adobe Illustrator CS3 & CS4 (32- and 64-bit)
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.2
Adobe Photoshop CS3 & CS4
Adobe Reader 8 & 9
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
Call of Duty: World at War
Crayon Physics Deluxe
CuteFTP Home 8
DxO Optics Pro 5.3.2

Expression Blend 2
Expression Web 2
Far Cry 2
Focus Magic 3.02
HP Photosmart Pro B9180
Microsoft LifeCam VX-6000
Nero 8 (I mostly use Nero Burning ROM and Nero Vision)
Nikon Scan 4.0.2
Noise Ninja 2.3.2

Office 2007 SP1
Portrait Professional
PureText 2.0
QuickTime 7 Pro
SilverFast Ai 6.6
Tableau Desktop 4.1.3
TiVo Desktop 2.7
Visual Studio 2008 SP1
Windows Home Server Connector
Zune

The only real issues I’ve had relate to the two scanners at home:

Nikon SUPER COOLSCAN 5000 ED – A great negative and slide scanner, but this older product doesn’t have a 64-bit driver. This is the only reason I’m not currently running 64-bit Windows 7 at home. Fortunately, the 32-bit driver works perfectly.
Epson Perfection V700 Photo – The scanner works fine when using a USB 2.0 connection, but it will not work when using IEEE 1394 (FireWire). The IEEE 1394 connection works fine with Windows Vista, and this is the only thing I’ve found that is compatible with Vista but not with Windows 7. I’ve notified the Windows team so they can investigate.

Overall, Windows 7 is a joy to use. If you want to give it a spin, you have until Feburary 10th to download the beta.

Enjoy!

Updated Adobe Illustrator to XAML Plug-In

2009-01-31T23:29:00Z

It's been five months since I posted an Update on My Illustrator Plug-In and Flash to XAML Conversion Tool. When I wrote that post, I was in deep preparation for our 2008 Professional Developers Conference, and I didn't have any time to focus on the plug-in. On top of that, I have to admit that I wasn't very motivated to dive back into a C++ project; while I used to write C/C++ all day long, that was many, many years ago. I've since been spoiled by managed code. But I digress...

I found my project files, converted them to Visual Studio 2008 (yes, it's been that long), and spent some time fixing two issues that I've received a lot of e-mail about:

The first issue was related to PathGeometry changes in Silverlight 2. Chris Idzerda of Vertigo Software explains the problem in a recent post. This plug-in bug made it more difficult to use the exported XAML with Expression Blend. The good news is that the problem has been addressed in this update, and you should be able to add the exported XAML files directly to your Blend projects without issue.
The second issue was related to the insane numeric precision in the exported XAML. I was using the default floating point format (%f) which outputs 6 digits after the decimal point. Not only was this precision excessive and unnecessary, but it resulted in large exports. I've modified the format to output 3 digits after the decimal point (%.3f) which should still be more than enough precision, even for close-up work. Here's an example of output from versions 0.17 and 0.18 for comparison:

0.17: <Path Data="F1 M 71.924805,320.608887 L 44.380859,179.062500 L 120.126465,175.236816 L 117.831055,269.345703 L 138.489258,267.815430...
0.18: <Path Data="F1 M 71.925,320.609 L 44.381,179.063 L 120.126,175.237 L 117.831,269.346 L 138.489,267.815...

On one of my larger test files, version 0.17 exports a 3,457KB XAML file, and version 0.18 output the same file at 2,987KB, a 14% savings.

The last small tweak I made was to rename the Silverlight and WPF formats so that they're next to each other in the "Save as type" drop-down list in the Export dialog. You'll now see "XAML for Silverlight (*.XAML)" and "XAML for WPF (*.XAML)". I hope this makes it easier to locate the formats in the list.

I've also verified that the plug-in works properly with Adobe Illustrator CS4.

Download version 0.18 from the Adobe Illustrator to XAML Export Plug-In page.

MIX09: Objectified Screening, Scott Guthrie Interview, and More

2009-01-29T10:08:53Z

First, we've coordinated a special screening of Gary Hustwit's new documentary film, Objectified, at MIX09 in Las Vegas! We'll be showing it only days after its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, and Gary will be on-hand for some Q&A after the film. I'm a huge fan of Helvetica, and I'm looking forward to his new documentary about industrial design and the creative process. Watch the trailer for a sneak peak, and be sure to subscribe to the Objectified newsletter for the latest news. And yes, I love the T-shirt!

Next, you'll want to spend 18 minutes watching Charles Torre's latest interview with Scott Guthrie where he talks about some of the announcements you can expect in his MIX09 keynote. He doesn't reveal all of the juicy bits (of course), but he does mention Silverlight 3, H.264 video, 3D support, and hardware acceleration. Oh...don't miss Scott's recent post about the ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Release Candidate. There's definitely a lot of exciting stuff to talk about this year.

Also, Robert Hess, the former host of The .NET Show, has started up a new video series called The Knowledge Chamber. His first-ever episode has been posted on Channel 9, and I encourage you to spend 9 minutes checking it out: Steve Guttman - Microsoft Expression Web: No Platform Left Behind. I can't wait to hear more of Robert's interviews.

Finally, our MIX09 Content Owner, Michael Suesserman (the guy who is ultimately responsible for all of the sessions that are presented at MIX09) joins Jennifer and I for the latest episode of our Countdown to MIX09 show.

My Windows 7 Theme Pack

2009-01-26T02:10:00Z

I've been running the Windows 7 beta for awhile now, and I'm in love! If you're relatively technical and want to take the new OS for a spin, the good news is that we've extended the beta download period until February 10, 2009. Once you have it installed, it's worth reading Tim Sneath's fantastic list of 30 Windows 7 secrets. I'm running Windows 7 on my Dell XPS desktop machine at home and on my Dell laptop at work. Even with the beta version, everything runs very smoothly and I feel a lot more productive. Plus, it's just a joy to use.

Windows 7 introduces theme packs, which are .cab files that contain all of the necessary assets to implement a theme, including sound files and images. You can find a bunch of theme packs on the Windows 7 site, and Paul Thurrott covers the basics and includes his own theme packs in his article, Windows 7 Feature Focus: Styles and Desktop Slide Shows.

As an experiment, I've created a theme pack based on my wallpaper images. It contains 20 hand-picked, nature-themed macro photos that I've taken over the years. The desktop images are configured to shuffle randomly every 30 minutes. Otherwise, the theme uses the default Windows 7 color and sound schemes.

Download: Mike Swanson Macros Theme Pack for Windows 7 (8.59MB)

As always, comments and feedback are welcome. Drop me a note if you decide to create your own.

Update on 2/24/2010: If you (or your browser) renames the file during download, it may not be recognized by Windows 7. Simply rename the downloaded file so that it ends with ".themepack", then double-click to install.

MIX09

2009-01-23T20:25:00Z

Yes, I’m still alive, and no, the rumors about the PDC Hard Hat Challenges melting my brain are false (it was only a minor contusion). The good news is that I’ve fully recovered, and I’m now focused on our upcoming MIX09 event in Las Vegas! This time around, I play the role of MIX09 Keynote Owner. That basically means that I’m responsible for driving the process that we use to determine what our story is this year, who we’d like on stage, which customers and partners we want to feature, how we organize and tell our story, and the practical matters and logistics around making it happen. It’s a group effort, and I depend on a brilliant and passionate keynote team to get the job done.

But enough about me.

MIX09 is going to be an amazing event, and it’s our job to deliver a return on your investment to attend. We understand that the economy is forcing everyone to re-evaluate the benefits of taking time away from the office, let alone the travel and expense to fly to Las Vegas in the first place. Based on my years of experience working side-by-side with customers and partners in the field, I know that you may only be able to attend one event (period) each year. And for many of you, attending any event at all is often a benefit or perk. Not only is it in your best interest to attend the “correct” event given your role, but it’s also in our best interest to ensure that we attract an audience that aligns with the content we produce. To help you make the best decision, it may help to watch this 4-minute video where I quickly explain the benefits of the conference. To hear the benefits from one of our partners, watch this interview with Scott Stanfield, the CEO of Vertigo Software. Finally, if you register by February 13th, save $400 by using the “MIX09offer“ RSVP code.

There are a lot of exciting things going on at MIX09, and I’d like to list a few of my favorites here:

Scott Guthrie, a MIX veteran, is going to keynote again this year. Scott is a fantastic speaker, and he always receives amazing attendee feedback. Check out his keynote from MIX08, then use your spider-sense to extrapolate what he might announce or reveal this year. I’m not telling. At least not yet.
Bill Buxton was just announced as our second keynote speaker. I could try to summarize Bill in a sentence or two, but I can guarantee that it wouldn’t come close to doing him justice. Go grab a fresh cup of coffee, close the door to your office, and watch some of the videos on Bill’s site. He is a champion for user experience (among many other things) and is the author of the highly-regarded book, Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design.
The sessions. Not all of the sessions have been posted yet (we’ll end up with over 100), but a few that interest me are: What's New in Microsoft Silverlight 3 by Joe Stegman, The Future of Microsoft Expression Blend by Douglas Olson, Integrating Microsoft Expression Blend with Adobe Creative Suite by Joanna Mason (I’m an Adobe user too), and C# for Designers by Jennifer Smith and Fred Gerantabee. Honestly, there are too many great sessions to choose from. But I guess you’d expect me to say that, wouldn’t you? :-)
MIX 10K Smart Coding Challenge. I should have blogged this one earlier, since the entry deadline is January 30th, 2009. The grand prize winner receives a pass to MIX09, 3 nights at The Venetian Hotel and a $1,500 USD Visa gift card. Sweet. Even if you don’t enter, it’s fun looking through the gallery of submissions. Make sure you vote for your favorites and leave a comment or two. Since Genetic Algorithms hold a special place in my heart, I’m a big fan of Rick Barraza’s submission.

Also, by popular request, Jennifer Ritzinger and I are back with our weekly (or so) video series, Countdown to MIX09. I don’t have a single link to all of the episodes, but I’ll list a few of them here. They’re all around 10 minutes in length, and if you subscribe to the MIX news feed, you’ll hear about them when they’re published.

If you have suggestions for topics that you’d like to hear us address on future episodes, send some e-mail to mix09 (at) microsoft.com. I promise that we’ll read everything you send, and we always try to reply.

Thanks for taking the time to read this long overdue post, and I hope to see you at the event!

PDC2008 Keynote and Session Video Links

2008-11-03T23:10:01Z

I've posted a PDC2008 Sessions page that contains a simple list of all keynotes and sessions by title with links to each corresponding page on Channel 9. I've also made it easy to download the PowerPoint presentations and to grab any sample code the speaker has elected to provide. I hope you find it useful.

PDC2008 Session and Keynote Recordings Are Now Published

2008-11-01T10:14:00Z

Recordings of the PDC2008 sessions and keynotes are now available online for free, for anyone (no login required). Each session has its own page that includes a Silverlight viewer to watch streaming video and a Download link for iPod (MP4), WMV, WMV (High), and Zune. A few of the sessions and formats may not be available yet, but they will be very soon, so keep checking back as we continue to publish content. It's my hope that you find the PDC2008 content to be compelling, inspirational, and useful.

You can also download the PowerPoint presentation for each session, and for some talks, a zip file containing sample code that was shown during the session. There are links to related sessions and other Channel 9 content, and a discussion thread for each talk. The discussion thread is a great way to ask questions of the speaker or to share ideas with other "virtual attendees."

Unlike PDC05, when we hosted the sessions for less than a year (with a third-party hoster), we've created a home for our PDC2008 sessions on our very own Channel 9. The obvious benefit is that we can host the content indefinitely...or at least until it becomes so stale that it's no longer useful. So, there's no need to rush to download everything, since the content will be available for a long time.

I've been asked if PDC2008 session recordings will be available on physical DVDs like they were for PDC05. We received a lot of feedback after PDC05 that attendees would rather have all of the content made available for download at no cost. As a result, this is what we've done for MIX06, MIX07, MIX08, and now, PDC2008.

Thanks to everyone for catching me during the event to say "hello" and for providing feedback. We take your feedback very seriously, and it will be used to improve MIX09, the recently-announced PDC2009 (November 17-20, 2009), and any of our future conferences.

Enjoy!

Update: I just added a PDC2008 Sessions page that lists every keynote and session with links to videos, PowerPoint decks, and sample code.

PDC2008 Downloadable Master Session List

2008-10-24T07:48:00Z

Only three more days before PDC2008 kicks off in Los Angeles. It's hard to believe that the big event is almost here! If you won't be able to join us at the conference, be sure to bookmark www.microsoftpdc.com and watch the first two keynotes streamed live. Keep checking back for news, announcements, and video recordings of each session.

Many of you have already used the new timeline view to add sessions to your own personal agenda. As an aside, did you notice that you can click on a time to "zoom in" to the content? It definitely makes the longer session names easier to read. For those who prefer to download an electronic version for offline viewing, I put together a 14-page PDC2008 Master Session List (link removed, see update below). Apologies in advance for the font size I had to use for the abstracts, but without the smaller font, the document was already over 23 pages long.

While I have your attention, also be sure to pick up printed session change lists that we'll make available at registration starting on Monday. We try to minimize changes to the schedule, but they inevitably happen (new sessions are revealed, repeats get scheduled, speakers get sick, etc.). The online version will always be up-to-date, so if you're ever unsure, browse to the timeline view from your laptop or one of the many machines we'll have scattered around the convention center.

Last, if you're mobile, you might prefer to use the mobile version of the site. See you soon!

Update: Because the downloadable session list was becoming more and more incorrect as the days went on (due to cancellations, reschedules, new sessions, etc.), we've removed it to reduce confusion.

Send Me Your PDC Video

2008-10-13T04:59:58Z

In a little over a week, we'll be holding an all-hands meeting for Microsoft employees who are attending PDC2008. It'll be a huge meeting with many hundreds of people, including the core team, virtual team, content team, speakers, staff, and anyone else who plans to be at the event. I've been asked to lead the meeting, and I'd like to help my fellow employees appreciate the amazing passion, excitement, intelligence, and creativity of our PDC attendees. That's where you come in.

I plan to show some of our registration data, but I'd really like to show your faces and hear your words. I figured that a short video would be the best format. That way, I can include a few of them to represent the diversity of our audience and get everyone excited. Who knows? If we get enough, perhaps we'll even play a few while people are filing in to the keynotes at the main event in Los Angeles. :-)

If you're up for it, here's what I'd like:

A very short video (so I can show a few of them). Ideally, 15-25 seconds in length.
Talk into the camera and be as creative as you'd like with the background (perhaps a landmark from where you're from or something fun in your office).
Here's the beginning of your script: "My name is [your name] from [location]." The rest of the script is completely up to you.
Tell us something inspiring, interesting, fascinating, historical, or whatever related to you and the PDC. It can be past PDCs or PDC2008. You pick.
It doesn't matter if you've never attended the conference. If you still have a story about PDC, like why you wish you could attend, what you're excited to hear about, or perhaps why you can't attend, I'd love to hear it.
Encode it to a WMV or AVI file, and host it somewhere I can get at it.
Send me an e-mail telling me where/how to download your file, along with your full name and mailing address.

I'll let you know if I use your video at the meeting. Thank you in advance for your help!

PDC2008: A Day in the Life #7

2008-10-12T04:24:45Z

The first full week of PDC2008 dry-runs is complete! If you're not familiar with our dry-run process, take a look at PDC2008: A Day in the Life #6. The on-campus dry-runs continue through this Thursday. After that, we have a little over a week to make final edits before the big event in Los Angeles. The photo to the right is one of the sessions we ran yesterday morning.

I was sitting in a dry-run of Larry Osterman's session, Windows 7: Building Great Audio Communications Applications, and it hit me. I've been so heads-down focused on producing content for the event, that I had completely forgotten that this is the %&@# PDC, man! There I was...sitting in a session...listening to Larry Osterman, a guy who's been at Microsoft for a long time. At prior PDCs when I was an attendee, I probably would have run up to the stage after Larry's talk to gape in amazement at his knowledge and expertise. How fortunate am I to actually work on the content for such an amazing event!? Wow. Sometimes, you just have to slow down, step back, and appreciate your situation. Thank you, world!

On another topic, I've mentioned session recordings in a few prior posts, but I've never really explained what we do with them. The amazingly talented Brian Keller, one of my Developer & Platform Evangelism (DPE) colleagues, is responsible for recording every single session at PDC2008 (except for the pre-conference sessions) and publishing them for your viewing pleasure. Watch the recent This Week on Channel 9 episode (or is it?) for the details in under 10 minutes.

So you can view the content as quickly as possible, we publish each session within 24 hours of its completion. The recording includes the PowerPoint presentation, any demos that were shown, audio, and video of the speaker. I grabbed a screen shot from our MIX08 recordings to give you an idea of what they look like.

This year, each recording will be hosted on Channel 9 along with a bunch of related links and a discussion thread. You can use the thread to suggest topics or questions that the speaker may incorporate into their talk or discuss the session after the video is published. Oh yeah...the recordings are completely free to anyone and available in a variety of formats. No login required.

Next, we made a decision earlier in the week that I hope you'll notice at the conference. At the Los Angeles Convention Center (affectionately known as the LACC), we have 15 primary session rooms that are available during 18 time slots (15 "normal" time slots + 3 over lunch). When we plan the master agenda (which was locked-down just yesterday), we traditionally try to predict expected attendance for each session and match it to an appropriately sized room.

Below is a diagram that shows the 15 rooms (whose relative sizing is correct) across three representative time slots. You'll notice that for time slot 1, only 9 of the 15 rooms have been scheduled. Time slot 2 has 11 sessions, and time slot 3 has 10. Notice, though, that there are rooms that remain empty.

The challenge is that it's very difficult to accurately predict attendance. This year, we're using the My Sessions data that over 55% of you have provided, and that helps a lot (thank you!). Still, there are products and technologies that won't be announced until the keynotes, and there's no way to confidently gauge interest in them until we see people filling up the rooms. By then, it can be too late.

At the event, when we get close to filling a room, we route the audio and video of the presentation to one of six dedicated overflow rooms. The overflow rooms are even smaller than the 15 primary rooms, but they allow us to quickly "add more seats" so that you don't miss the session. Overflow situations are never ideal, and if the overflow room fills up, we then have to decide if we want to repeat the session later in the week.

Attendee surveys tell us that sitting in an overflow room is never as ideal as sitting in the primary room (there's still something about being in the same room as the presenter). We also get feedback that packed rooms are less comfortable to sit in. From my experience, I prefer to have an open chair next to me for my backpack or laptop, and frankly, sometimes you just need a little more personal space. You know what I mean. :-)

This year, we're going to try an experiment. Instead of leaving rooms empty and risking more overflows and repeats, we decided to "slide everything to the left" so that we use all of our biggest rooms.

This configuration should help us accommodate as many people as possible in each session while minimizing overflows and repeats. I sincerely hope that this improves your overall PDC2008 experience.

The downside is that some of the sessions that would normally be in smaller rooms will be in bigger rooms. In some cases, the larger room may cause the session to appear relatively empty...even with hundreds of people present. I know this can affect speakers, and I'm sure that many of them will be worried about filling-up their session (my apologies). Fortunately, to my knowledge, we've never received negative feedback that "the room was too big, and I didn't have enough space to stretch out."

So, if you attend PDC2008 and don't like the larger rooms, please let us know. We always listen to your feedback and are willing to adjust for our next event (which is MIX09, by the way).

Only 15 more days!

WMV-HQ	= ~22GB		MP4	= ~7GB		PPTX	= ~530MB
WMV	= ~10GB		Zune	= ~6GB