March, 2010

This week the MSDN Flash is a wrap up of everything MIX.

We all know the old adage "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas"; yet with live broadcasts, blogs and tweets that is no longer the case. I have just returned from MIX10 with a group of ten kiwis and I'll say that this year's event had some Te Awesome moments.

1. We unveiled the developer story for Windows Phone 7 Series and announced that New Zealand will be among 30 countries where developers get paid at launch.
   
   I blogged about the Windows Phone 7 development story calling out the free development and design tools needed to build applications for the phone. You can go deep and check out the more than 18 hours of video training from MIX.
   
   Keith from Marker in Auckland was up at MIX and gave Windows Phone 7 Series an 8/10.
   
   The user interface of Windows Phone 7 is inspired by a new design language codenamed "Metro". Check out http://j.mp/theMetroBook and the UI Design Guide to learn more.
   
   
2. On day two we unveiled our progress with Internet Explorer Nine. We introduced hardware accelerated HTML5 and made a preview of IE9 available to developers.
   
   Alongside the IE9 piece we also announced that we will contribute to the development of new features and enhancements in jQuery and share the release of new SDKs for the Open Data Protocol. OData makes it easier to access data from the cloud to create more compelling cross-platform Web applications.
   
   From the framework side we released ASP.NET MVC 2 and introduced the Orchard Project to grow the ASP.NET open source community.
   
   
3. There were many smaller announcements that were also truly inspiring. We introduced .toolbox, the Silverlight Pivot Control, Project Gustav - Immersive Digital Painting, the Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework and the Silverlight Rough Cut Editor.

MIX10 was once again held together by the presence of Scott Guthrie and as a tribute on the way home I literally turned "the Gu" to the poster child for the event.

If you'd like to see a summary of the MIX10 material and pick up a DVD with the MIX sessions get along to your local .NET community user group. Ryan is visiting ten cities over the next three weeks.