Hello faithful readers!

What would you like to read more about on the Expression Web team blog?  Tutorials? Team profiles? Weather predictions? If you want more tutorial 'how to' content, what would you like to know more about? Let us know what you want to read more about by leaving a comment on this blog post or by sending us an email.

If we blog about something that you requested here, we'll send you some priceless swag...could be Expression Web-branded, Silverlight-branded, Zune-branded, or some other brand from Microsoft. (Just be sure to enter your email address when you post your comment or email so we can follow up with you!)

Anna

Lynda.com has released two new training modules for Expression Web 2, delivered by Brian Wood, including CSS Workflow and Migrating from FrontPage to Expression Web.

For a limited time, customers in the United States can shop the Microsoft Online Store for Microsoft Expression Web, Expression Blend, and Expression Studio and get 50% off.

• Expression Web Upgrade $49.95
  Create modern, standards-based web sites and applications using CSS + XHTML, ASP.NET, PHP
• Expression Blend Upgrade $49.95
  Create rich interactive and web applications for WPF and Silverlight
• Expression Studio Upgrade $174.95
  Get Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Media, Expression Encoder, and Expression Design in one package

Chances are good that you qualify for the Upgrade pricing if you have any existing web design or creative software, or Microsoft Office software, including any ONE of the following:

• A licensed copy of an earlier version of Expression Web
• Adobe Creative Suite (any version)
• Adobe/Macromedia Flash or Director (any version)
• Adobe/Macromedia Dreamweaver (any version)
• Adobe GoLive (any version)
• Microsoft Office (any version)
• Microsoft FrontPage (any version)
• Quark QuarkXPress (any version)

[Note: Pricing and specials are set on a locale-by-locale basis.  This deal applies only to US customers of the Microsoft Online Store and is valid only for a limited time.]

The RIA Development Center website (sponsored by Microsoft) just published a detailed review of the PHP features in version 2 of Expression Web, including the built-in development server for previewing your PHP pages in any browser, previewing PHP includes in the design surface of Expression Web, byte order mark preferences, PHP IntelliSense (auto complete features in Code view), PHP snippets, PHP code coloring and preferences, and more. Here’s a direct link to the article:

http://www.devx.com/RIA/Article/39138/0/page/1

And if you haven’t already read it, our own Tyler Simpson (Development and Test Manager) co-authored an article earlier this year for the Expression newsletter to introduce readers to the PHP features in Expression Web 2. Check it out:

http://www.microsoft.com/expression/news-press/newsletter/2008-04/Article01.aspx

The Expression Web team is seeking individuals with web design experience for a usability study focusing on Expression Web SuperPreview.

In particular, we are looking for individuals with experience designing web pages (writing and diagnosing markup, CSS)  for compatibility in multiple browsers.

Participant Criteria:

• Participants do not need to have experience with Expression Web SuperPreview.We are looking for new users and experienced users.
• Participants will need to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
• Participants must be in the Redmond or Seattle area.
• Study will take approximately 1-hour to complete.

The usability studies will be conducted between March 26 and April 3.

If you or somebody that you know meet the participation criteria and would like to participate, please contact justin.harrison@microsoft.com.

Thanks!

Justin Harrison

Program Manager – Expression Web

As Steven posted earlier, if you try to display a password-protected page in SuperPreview, the program instead displays the page that appears when a site visitor tries to access the page without supplying login credentials.

I wanted to follow up Steve’s post to briefly clarify that SuperPreview does support NTLM authentication, which is commonly used by websites on corporate intranets. Pages on networks that use NTLM authentication don’t require the user to login to view the pages, instead, they rely on the site visitor’s Windows login credentials. So if your computer is on the same network as the page that relies on NTLM authentication, you should have no problems opening the page in SuperPreview. (For in depth information about NTLM, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa378749(VS.85).aspx.)

Anna

Apple has released an update (version 3.0.4) for the Safari web browser for Windows, which fixes the problem we blogged about in the post Previewing Your Web Pages in Safari.

If you have version 3.0.4 or later of Safari for Windows, you can preview your web pages from Expression Web in Safari without pointing to the batch file provided in that earlier blog post. To add Safari to your list of browsers in Expression Web, do the following:

1. On the File menu, point to Preview in Browser and click Edit Browser List.
   
   
   
   
2. In the Edit Browser List dialog, click Add.
   
   
   
   
3. In the Add Browser dialog box, enter a name for the browser, and click Browse.
   
   
   
   
4. In the Add Browser dialog box, navigate to the Safari program folder, select the Safari.exe application file, and click Open.
   
   
   
   
5. Click OK in the remaining dialog boxes.
   
6. To preview a page in Safari, click the arrow to the right of the  Preview in Browser button in the toolbar, and select Safari from the list of web browsers.
   
   

We know that great user experience is good business…the more engaging a web site, application, or device is, the more likely we want to spend time with it, buy it, and tell everyone we know about it.

With this is mind, Microsoft is sponsoring a user experience conference, UxWeek, put on by Adaptive Path, August 12 -15 in San Francisco.

In addition, we'll be presenting two sessions:

• "The Challenge of Emotional Innovation," presented by Dennis Wixon of Microsoft Surface Computing, who will talk about how Surface introduces an exciting innovation in user experience. You can find out more about Microsoft Surface here.
  
• "The Story of the Ribbon" in Microsoft Office 2007, presented by Jensen Harris, who led the effort to redefine the user experience of millions of Office customers worldwide. You can find out more about Jensen and his work on his blog here.

You can find out more information about UxWeek here.

Hope to see you there!

Ed Meadows, Product Manager
Microsoft Expression Web

Steve Guttman, Product Unit Manager for Expression Web, contributed the following article on SuperPreview to the Expression Community website:

http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/dd565874.aspx

Microsoft has released a free BETA version of the Web Platform Installer which corrals together all the free components you need for developing web applications on Windows Vista. To download the installer, go here: http://www.microsoft.com/web/channel/products/WebPlatformInstaller.aspx .

The first screen of the BETA installer lets you select Complete, ASP.NET Developer, or Your Choice:

If you select Your Choice and click Next, you can select just the options you want. You can also select a profile in the Recommendations list on the Web Server tab to distill the options down to the profile that fits your development the best, including ASP.NET Developer, PHP Developer, or Classic ASP Developer:

Anna

If you’ll be at MIX 2009 this week, be on the lookout for the following folks from the Expression Web team:

Steven Guttman (Product Unit Manager):

Tyler Simpson (Development Manager):

Erik Saltwell (Group Program Manager):

and Steven Schermerhorn (Software Developer Engineer):

Erik is doing a demo of Expression Web 3 as part of Wednesday’s Keynote from 9 – 11am. Steve Guttman and Tyler are presenting the following session:

Microsoft Expression Web: No Platform Left Behind MIX09-C03F

Thursday March 19 |2:30 PM-3:45 PM | Delfino 4105

By: Steve Guttman, Tyler Simpson Tags: Expression

Come learn how to use Expression Web to build resilient standards-based sites for use across a wide range of browsers and platforms. Hear about the current version of Expression Web and also some sneak peeks at future work that will make creating great sites even easier for designers. With a focus on workflow, you will also see how well Expression Web integrates with ASP.NET and PHP.

The Expression family of products has new and greatly improved discussion forums:

http://forums.expression.microsoft.com

The new forums have many new features including a tag cloud, user avatars, richer ux, and official forum moderators from each product team.

The previous discussion forums (http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.expression.webdesigner&cat=&lang=en&cr=US) will remain open and available while its threads are ported over to the new forums. But please use the NEW forums instead.

 Join us!

The latest version of the Expression newsletter was emailed to subscribers today and includes the following two articles:

• “Understanding and unleashing the power of CSS layouts”, written by our newest Expression Web MVP, Morten Rand-Hendriksen, Creative Director of Pink & Yellow Media. Read it online here:
  http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/dd434643.aspx
• The other article is “Introduction to ASP.NET Master Pages in Microsoft Expression Web” by Dustin Drees: http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/dd433175.aspx

We released important news today about the Expression family of products.  Please visit the Expression Community site for details.

Register now for MIX 09 which presents a slew of sessions on working with Expression programs, including:

Microsoft Expression Web: No Platform Left Behind

Steve Guttman, Expression Web PRINCIPAL PRODUCT UNIT MANAGER

Come learn how to use Expression Web to build resilient standards-based sites for use across a wide range of browsers and platforms. Hear about the current version of Expression Web and also some sneak peeks at future work that will make creating great sites even easier for designers. With a focus on workflow, you will also see how well Expression Web integrates with ASP.NET and PHP.

Web Form Design

Come hear key considerations and best practices for Web form design based on international usability testing, eye-tracking studies, and over ten years of designing Web applications. Learn how the interaction and visual design of Web forms can make the difference between acquiring a customer and completing a transaction or not.

From Concept to Production: Design Workflow with Microsoft Expression Studio - Christian Schormann

Learn successful workflow models between designers and developers using Microsoft Expression Web, Blend, Design and Encoder. This session specifically focuses on creating rich Internet applications with Silverlight, and shows how the next generation of the Expression suite will make the design workflow faster, easier and richer. Explore how developers and designers can integrate and divide production tasks in a meaningful and harmonious way.

Go Deep with Microsoft Silverlight Controls

Learn how to encapsulate structure, animation, and logic inside custom controls that handle theming, layout, validation, and data binding. Using Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft Expression Blend, explore advanced design, coding, debugging, and testing techniques for building components that work interchangeably in Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

Improving UX through Application Lifecycle Management - Chris Bernard

Learn how you can leverage Microsoft Expression and Microsoft Visual Studio Team System to improve your overall application lifecycle, decrease your time to market, and ultimately raise the quality of your applications.

Integrating Microsoft Expression Blend with Adobe Creative Suite -Joanna Mason

Explore how Expression Blend integrates with the design tools from Adobe's Creative Suite. Learn how to use content from Photoshop and Illustrator to efficiently create Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Microsoft Silverlight-based applications, and see a range of useful tips and tricks from one of the core Expression Blend team members.

Optimizing Performance for Microsoft Expression Encoder  - James Clarke

See demonstrations of how to fine tune your media for best encoding and Microsoft Silverlight playback performance. Learn encoding best practices to make sure your video playback is as fast and smooth as possible.

The Future of Microsoft Expression Blend  - Douglas Olson

Hear about the future plans for Expression Blend. See how Expression Blend improves the productivity of visual designers, providing better access to data and enhanced tools for interactivity. Learn how designers can be deeply engaged and remain in control of the creative decisions while enjoying improved collaboration with developers throughout the project lifecycle.

Visual Design with Microsoft Expression Blend  - Celso Gomes

Come learn how to use the XAML graphics features of Expression Blend to create impactful visual content. See how amazing, functional user interfaces can be created without code using a range of powerful features in Expression Blend.

What's New in Microsoft Silverlight 3

Joe Stegman

Hear about some of the new experience-oriented Silverlight 3 features, and see how to build applications for Silverlight 3 using Microsoft Expression Blend and Microsoft Visual Studio.

And much much more.

All  Sessions:

http://2009.visitmix.com/Agenda/Sessions.aspx

All Speakers:

http://2009.visitmix.com/Agenda/Speakers.aspx

All Workshops:

http://2009.visitmix.com/Agenda/Workshops.aspx

The Expression team has launched a new Community website where you can learn, share, and be inspired.

 Join us!

http://expression.microsoft.com

The April 2008 edition of the Expression newsletter was published today and contains no less than four articles directly related to Expression Web, including an interview with Eric Meyer who talks about CSS:

https://www.microsoft.com/expression/news-press/newsletter/2008-04/Default.aspx

The newsletter also contains articles on Deep Zoom and Silverlight 2.

To subscribe to the newsletter and receive it in email (approximately every 2 months), click here.

Anna

Erik Saltwell, Group Program Manager for Expression Web, used Expression Web 2 to build a Google gadget that displays the “Ted spread”:

 http://www.google.com/ig/directory?q=TED+spread&hl=en&root=%2Fig&dpos=top

The money blog on the NPR website has blogged about it: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2008/10/your_own_ted_spread_reader.html

What’s the Ted spread? Erik explained it to me this morning but you’re really better off reading about it here:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2008/10/ted_spread_below_4.html 

and here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TED_spread

Anna

If you subscribe to this blog or are reading this post, chances are very good that you make a living creating websites or contributing to them in some way. If you consider yourself any of these:  “designers, developers, information architects, project managers, writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites”, then go represent and fill out the 2nd annual survey of web publishing professionals at A List Apart: The survey closes Tuesday, August 26 so you better scurry!

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/survey2008