It's not a state secret that we're in the early stages of development for the next version of Windows (given the internal name of Windows '7'). The specifics of what comes next are always the subject of fevered and sometimes inaccurate speculation, but you can be sure that we're not resting on our laurels. Windows is one of the most complex and sophisticated pieces of software in existence, and since it's about the most widely-used piece of software on the planet, it's a pretty exciting project to be working on.

I've got a once-in-a-lifetime open position on my team that I'm currently trying to fill - a Technical Evangelist for the next Windows client release. In fact, the Technical Evangelist at this point in time. This is an extremely challenging, high-profile senior role, with tremendous reach and influence across the organization. Not only will you be the first to see what's coming down the pipeline, but you'll actually have an influence in setting the agenda for Windows development. This isn't just any software gig - it's one of those career-defining roles that puts you at the heart of the software revolution. In years to come, you'll be able to look back with pride and say, "I was part of that".

There's of course a high bar to entry: not many people have the breadth or depth of skills needed to be successful in this role. We're looking for someone who is an all-rounder; someone with personality and charisma, someone who is deeply technical, but also able to see the bigger picture and articulate the strategic value of a technology; someone who can play the roles of diplomat, ambassador, analyst, writer, developer, public speaker and visionary all at the same time; someone who displays a blend of curiosity, creativity, passion, optimism and persistence.

For obvious reasons, I'm not able to write anything about what's coming in Windows '7', but you'll hit the ground running from day one. This isn't a 9 to 5 job: it's more of a vocation - you'll work hard not because you've got someone breathing down your neck but because you're passionate about making a difference and you see the impact of your work.

If you're still struggling to grok what an evangelist actually does, I wrote up a few thoughts when I was advertising a previous opening. Although this was written as we were hiring a WPF/Silverlight evangelist, the generalities still apply.

If you're interested in finding out more about the Windows '7' role, check out the formal job description on the Microsoft Careers web site. You can submit a resume online, and/or reach me via the "email" link at the top of my blog.

Update: for the sake of clarity, I should highlight that solid Win32 and .NET development experience is required. You'll be focusing on Windows as a developer platform, which means understanding the APIs as well as the high-level functionality.

Just wanted to remind folk to register for MIX08! Registrations are coming in thick and fast, and last year we sold out unexpectedly quickly, leaving a whole bunch of folk battering down the doors to try and figure out ways to get an exception granted. The fire marshals impose strict limits on attendance (the importance of which was brought home by the recent Monte Carlo Hotel fire).

Scott Guthrie has just trailed some of the announcements from MIX08 in the second part of a Channel 9 interview, but there's a huge quantity and depth of content that we're holding back for the conference. Of course, you'll be able to download all the software we release after the event even if you're not physically there, but you'll miss all the ancillary activities and depth content that makes an event like this worthwhile.

Hope to see some of you there!

I'm delighted to see that Infragistics have just released their NetAdvantage control set for WPF. It's a huge download: over 100MB, so either the controls are very big, the documentation is extremely verbose, or there are lots of samples included! This control set nicely fills the gaps in the capabilities currently provided by WPF, including a data grid, charting controls and an Office ribbon implementation that looks pixel-perfect to me.

Complex controls like an Office ribbon clearly benefit hugely from XAML. The ability to declaratively create nested collections really makes what would otherwise be a painstaking and error-prone task really easy. In the case of Infragistics' ribbon, you just declare a XamRibbon element that contains a RibbonTabItem that contains a ButtonGroup that contains the constituent buttons. It's almost self-documenting, because it so closely parallels the actual visual structure of the ribbon. Adjusting the visual theme of the ribbon is as easy as any other WPF project - just merge in a new resource dictionary containing the changes you want to make. We've recently released a ribbon ourselves as part of an MFC feature pack for C++ developers, but the difference in complexity ably demonstrates why WPF is such a powerful platform for building heavy-duty UI.

In the interest of fairness, I should also highlight some of the other great controls out there: Xceed have a great (free) data grid, ComponentOne also have a data grid and chart control, along with a bunch of calendaring components, DevComponents also have a very impressive Office ribbon and a Visual Studio-esque docking control, IdentityMine have a 3D carousel as part of their Blendables toolkit, and Actipro have yet another Office ribbon along with a wizard control.

Shamelessly stolen from the Infragistics product manager's blog, here's a screenshot that shows off the kind of application you can build very quickly with this control set:

Have you seen Flotzam? It's a fun mash-up that Karsten and Tim put together that aggregates a bunch of different data sources: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, YouTube and indeed any general RSS feed. You can install it either as an application or a screen saver, and it's a nice way to see what's going on out there on the "tubes". Karsten has coined the term panopticon to describe it (from the Greek, meaning all seeing); to me, this feels like it has the potential to form the first step of a project to build the ultimate, pluggable, modular social networking client.

Being a WPF application, Flotzam can be easily restyled. From the enter/exit transitions for new items to the overall visual look and feel of the Flotzam interface, you can do almost anything you want just by tweaking the XAML mark-up. And with MIX08 selling out quickly (hope you've registered), the team thought it would be fun to put together a little contest that gives you the chance to experiment with WPF by creating your own custom themes. We'll use the best entries at MIX, both on the keynote screens and on all the PCs around the show; Karsten hopes that walking around the show will be like visiting some kind of art installation with all these different skins appearing.

Entering the contest is easy: everything you need to know can be found on the visitmix site. We've even got screencasts available to show you exactly how to use Blend to do the customization. Let your inner artist out - show us what you're capable of!

If you're really astute, you may notice that we released a very minor update to the Silverlight 1.0 plug-in this week. There's no changes to the core itself, apart from a fix to improve logging of Windows Media audio-only streams; as a result, machines won't auto-update unless the site they visit explicitly requests the new version. (The new version is build 1.0.30109.0, incidentally.)

The main reason why this release is interesting is that we've made a few changes to the installation process to enable systems administrators to deploy Silverlight into enterprise environments more easily. Starting from today, Silverlight is available as an optional update for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 via the Windows Server Update Services tool (and, inevitably, Microsoft Update, since WSUS relies on Microsoft Update as its source for updates).

Many customers have requested help with deploying Silverlight internally, and this change will hopefully be welcomed by enterprises who want to distribute Silverlight within their organizations using their established management tools. By adding it as an optional update, enterprises can control the roll-out of Silverlight within their organizations and schedule its installation as a background task so that the perceptible impact is minimal, and ensure that end-users can view Silverlight content without requiring administrative rights to install the plug-in.

I'm really glad this is now available: the need for administrator rights to install a web plug-in is not unique to Silverlight, of course, but it's been raised a number of times as a potential blocker to enterprise adoption. Having this available will solve that problem and make it far easier for enterprise administrators to control deployment of Silverlight to their users.