Chris Bowen's Blog : Mix

Summary of MIX '08 Highlights

cbowen — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:37:33 GMT

It's been a busy week (getting ready for the 2008 Launch event in Boston next week), but I have a moment to share details from my trip to MIX '08 last week.

It was my first MIX, and incredibly, my first visit to Las Vegas! Not a lot of free time to absorb the city, but it was great.

Didn't get to go (or went but somehow couldn't be everywhere at once)? All content was recorded and is freely available at:

http://sessions.visitmix.com/

First, the featured products and tools:

Silverlight 2 Beta 1 is now available, with a non-commercial Go-Live license
Deep Zoom Composer CTP (used to create applications like Hard Rock's Memorabilia site)
Expression Studio 2 Beta - Requires and supports .NET 3.5
Expression Blend 2.5 March 2008 Preview - supports Silverlight 1.0, 2, and WPF
Expression Professional Subscription
- For pro designers, it complements the existing MSDN developer subscription
Silverlight 1.0 for Mobile
Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008 with support for Silverlight 2 Beta 1
IIS 7 Media Pack - enhancements for optimizing media and data streaming
Internet Explorer 8 Beta is now available
- Cool new features include WebSlices and Activities
- IE 8 Virtual Machines are available to help with SxS testing
MVC Preview 2 is now available
Updated ASP.NET Extensions Preview

And the Demos:

This video of the keynote captures all of the demos
This post captures the play-by-play essence of the keynote
Companies:

Aston Martin
Cirque du Soleil
Hard Rock Memorabilia - An amazing demo of the Memorabilia site that uses Silverlight 2's native Deep Zoom feature
NBC Olympics
Weatherbug Mobile Weather using Silverlight (example for Boston)
DoubleClick
Nokia
AOL Silverlight-based Mail Client

And finally, to describe the pictures on the right:

The top one is a picture of a Surface machine to which a picture of our group was sent from a wireless camera and enlarged right on the table. (Left to right - Me, Brian Hitney, Glen Gordon, Joe Stagner, Zain Naboulsi, Rob Bagby.) Very cool.
My colleague in the southeast, Doug Turnure, gazes longingly at the Surface machine being demoed. Surface, you had us at hello.
Really, I have no idea who these guys playing Rock Band are, but they were having a great time. There was a pretty impressive setup - wonder if I can replicate it in my basement?
Finally, though I did eat here and had a nice meal, I'm only including this picture of the David Burke restaurant at the Venetian in honor of the incomparable Vermont-based Dave Burke. Who knew you had a restaurant, Dave?

Hoping I get to go next year!

-Chris

MIX08 Registration Open and Site Updated

cbowen — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 17:50:34 GMT

Thanks to a heads-up from Brad, I took a look at the newly updated MIX08 website. I like the site design - simple and easy to navigate, but with some nice effects.

MIX08 will be at The Venetian in Las Vegas on March 5-7 and registration is now open. Keynotes from Ballmer and Guthrie, solid sessions, party at Tao, and of course Vegas itself == good conference.

It's usually a pretty tough event for Microsoft staff to attend, but I'll keep my fingers crossed...

-Chris

Technorati tags: MIX, Events

MIX University Expands with a Free WPF Bootcamp Course

cbowen — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 08:45:57 GMT

Tim Sneath posted about a great new addition to the already strong lineup of training available at MIX University.

Now you can access a full three-day WPF training course (over 20 hours) for the low cost of free. From Tim:

"You'll hear a keynote from Ian Ellison-Taylor, the general manager responsible for WPF, Silverlight and client platform tools; introductory sessions on core WPF topics from external luminaries like Ian Griffiths; depth training by talented and knowledgeable speakers from the product group such as Beatriz Costa and Kevin Moore; and lastly, five sessions on real-world experiences from early adopters who built applications ranging from The North Face kiosk application to the new Yahoo Messenger client."

MIX University now has free videos, demos, quickstarts, and labs for the following technologies:

Silverlight
WPF
ASP.NET AJAX
Sidebar & Live Gadgets
Expression
Internet Explorer Extensions
Media Center
RSS
Virtual Earth
Windows CardSpace

Definitely worth a click to take a look.

-Chris

Technorati tags: WPF, Training, MIX, Education

ReMix '07 Conference in Boston, October 8-9

cbowen — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:16:15 GMT

Here's one more reason it's good to be in New England. Based on the concept of Mix '07 in Las Vegas, ReMix '07 Boston will be on October 8th and 9th at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge. The conference, for web developers and designers, will have a keynote from Brad Abrams and will have multiple tracks of sessions on topics like AJAX, Virtual Earth, .Net 3.0/3.5, Expression and Visual Studio.

The northeast is well-represented in the sessions, with Fritz Onion, Richard Hale Shaw, Julie Lerman and Andy Beaulieu scheduled to give talks. I'm joining in the fun and giving a session on Monday about VS2008 and ASP.NET AJAX development.

ReMix already has a pretty low price ($299), but if you can make it to one of our Bob & Chris' MSDN Roadshow events from September 10-20, we'll give you a pass to attend for free!

Even if you can't attend the Roadshow, I have a code I can pass along to you, my blog-reading audience, that will take $100 off the price. Go to www.remix07boston.com and register with the code "RM07INTB" for $199.

Look me up if you're there!
-Chris

Technorati tags: Boston, Cambridge, Events, Massachusetts, Mix, Roadshow

Mix07 Session Recordings Available

cbowen — Wed, 02 May 2007 17:37:55 GMT

If, like me, you couldn't swing out to Las Vegas for Mix07 this time around, you can now access and download recordings of the keynotes, sessions, and panels. (Actually, even if you did attend Mix you'll want these since you can't attend every session while you're there!)

Head to http://sessions.visitmix.com.

Not all of the content has been processed and posted yet, so you can subscribe to an RSS notification feed to see when new sessions are made available.

Tons of Silverlight News

cbowen — Tue, 01 May 2007 00:01:58 GMT

The curtain has been raised on a whole slew of news related to Silverlight, formerly codenamed "WPF/E". Today at Mix '07 (no, unfortunately I'm not attending) and via blogs, several announcements have been made:

.NET Programming and Tool Support for Silverlight

From Soma's Mix07 post:

"We have made available the Microsoft Silverlight 1.1 CTP, offering broader tools and language support for the future of Silverlight. The CTP focuses on Visual Studio-based support for Web standards development, including ASP.NET AJAX with full IntelliSense editing for client and server code, powerful cross-platform debugging, and rich language support for JavaScript, C#, VB, Ruby, Python, and more."

(Actually, take a moment to read Soma's post now. There's a ton of other announcements in it and I don't want to copy full his post... IronRuby, DLR, Dynamic Languages shared source, and more!)

This is very cool news. .NET, Silverlight, PC & Mac... Mike Harsh has posted on the .NET support in Silverlight and the new Silverlight.net community site. He also points out there are quickstarts and samples based on v1.0 and v1.1, including v1.1 managed code samples in C#, VB.NET, IronPython and more.

Silverlight 1.0 Beta Available (with Go Live License)

Released today, sites can now use the Silverlight 1.0 Beta to deploy production Silverlight applications. Here's a list of changes with the 1.0 Beta.

Silverlight Streaming

From the Silverlight streaming homepage:

"Silverlight Streaming is a companion service for Silverlight that makes it easier for developers and designers to deliver and scale rich media as part of their Silverlight applications. The service offers web designers and developers a free and convenient solution for hosting and streaming cross-platform, cross-browser media experiences and rich interactive applications that run on Windows™ and Mac. Combined with the ability to create content with Microsoft® Expression Studio and other 3rd party tools, Web designers and content publishers wishing to integrate Silverlight applications into their online properties can enjoy complete control of the end user experience.

As of today, you can get hosted space for 4GB Silverlight streaming media and videos of up to 10 minutes in length at http://silverlight.live.com! Tim Sneath (who posted a zillion entries today) has an introductory post.

Silverlight "How To" Screencasts

Several dozen "how to" screencasts have now been made available by the Silverlight team. [Via Tim Sneath's Blog.]

Scott Guthrie Interview

If you're more of a "listen" than "read" person, there's an interview of Scott Guthrie on Channel 9 where Scott discusses the announcements made today.

Some game-changing announcements. Take some time to digest them and, if you're in the Northeast, catch our next Bob & Chris' MSDN Roadshow where one of the day's four sessions will be on Silverlight.

-Chris