David Boschmans Weblog : Mix06

MIX06: All 52 sessions are online

David Boschmans — Thu, 04 May 2006 10:07:00 GMT

Michael Swanson points to the online availability of all the MIX06 sessions. The 52 sessions are available not only for the attendees but for everyone. Watch the presentations to get an idea what happened at MIX06.
Check also out the user experience for accessing the sessions. After having chosen the session type, the track and the session you can pick one of the three presentation media:

.wmv for streaming the audio
.ppt for downloading the slide decks
.zip for downloading both

More info can be found on the MIX06 blog. Enjoy!

Tag: MIX06

Localized webcast: Powerful Website Skinning with CSS and ASP.NET 2.0

David Boschmans — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 01:02:00 GMT

This week the MSDN Belux team organizes two localized MSDN webcasts. Topic to be covered in both webcasts is:

“Powerful Website Skinning with CSS and ASP.NET 2.0”.
Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 provides functionality to enable a variety of customized appearances for your Web sites. You can combine the ASP.NET 2.0 functionalities with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) - that give you more control over the appearance and presentation of your Web pages. This webcast is dedicated to the subject of creating compelling, standards-compliant Web pages with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and ASP.NET 2.0.

Both webcasts will be delivered by our Regional Directors:

The French version of the webcast will be delivered by Grégory Renard on March 29th. All info can be found here. Register.
The Dutch version of the webcast will be delivered by Peter Himschoot on March 30th. All info can be found here. Register.

MSDN Application Server Web Site

David Boschmans — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 14:32:00 GMT

The teams of Application Platform and MSDN have recently launched a new portal highlighting Windows Server 2003 as a full-featured application server and a central pillar of our overall application platform.

The Windows Server 2003 application platform provides a complete solution for quickly building connected applications. Integrated services, such as the .NET Framework, Microsoft Message Queuing, COM+, and more boost productivity throughout the application life cycle, from design and development through deployment and operations.

Following topics are covered on the application server page:

Building Scalable Applications
Deploying and Managing Applications
Integrating Applications
Securing Applications
Migrating Applications
Learn More

To strengthen the message of the Microsoft application platform it’s worth checking out this post by Scott Guthrie and the partner demos of Mix06.

Architecting and using ASP.NET "Atlas"

David Boschmans — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 21:56:00 GMT

Looking back at the Atlas coverage at Mix06 I very much enjoyed the the second day on which I attended two sessions on "Atlas".

In the first session - "Lessons from the trenches - Engineering great AJAX experiences" - Scott Isaacs, architect on the Windows Live Frameworks, started from the AJAX development pattern and highlighted how such a simple pattern is a good solution for improving form interactions and for building rich experiences. As an example for pointing out the difference of User Experience when requesting a change in the page Scott used the Google homepage and Windows Live. Where Google does a full page reload, Windows Live only refreshes the part requested to reload. The typical flow starts with an asynchronously request data from the server, process the result and update the page.

However it's clear that we need more than just a good pattern to extend the reach of your web application. You can extend the reach of the app by integrating it with the rest of the web. This can be achieved by using mash-ups. Mash-ups are web applications that consumes ("remixes") content and experience from different sources and aggregates them to create a new application. This is basically the starting point for rethinking the web: building a application that only consists of mash-ups. In this case a mash-up has become an architectural pattern, leveraging the current investments and - additionally - providing default and customizable experiences.

All of the above describes exactly the approach when architecting Windows Live. So are the Windows Live menu, the search box, Live mail, etc. all different gadgets based on the AJAX pattern. At the core all components are gadgets. This also means that in the future third-party developers can extend other web experiences (Eg: MSN Spaces), host Windows Live Gadgets on their own site and even extend Windows with Gadgets via the Sidebar in Windows Vista.

In the second part of the presentation Scott went through a number of lessons the Windows Live team learned. He discussed:

building very rich interactive applications
how do we evolve the AJAX pattern to enable integrated, consistent experiences? In this section Scott described how the Windows Live Framework enables:
- Client-Side Page Composition
- Modern Development Patterns
- Component Model
- Network Management
- Resource Deployment
- Proxying, Cachinh and Scalability
- Themeing and consistent Experience
- Cross-Browser equalizer
- Security
how do we work around the limitations of our host environment (the browser)?

So for building web applications using AJAX-style technologies it all starts with putting "Engineering" into your client, flesh out the intended scenarios and application flow, and avoid (or minimize) breaking the Web Model. More of this architectural guidance and development experiences coming from Microsoft and more particular the Windows Live architects can be expected in the coming months. All the lessons they learned will also be gathered in the documentation of Atlas.

The latest Atlas CTP can be downloaded at http://atlas.asp.net.

The second session on Atlas discussed how to design a better User Experience With AJAX And ATLAS. Starting from UX design guidelines like:

Instant Feedback
Predict User Actions
Preserve User State
Share User State
Create Controls And APIs
Separate Presentation and Implementation

Rick Spencer explained and showed how all of the above requirements were taken into account when building Windows Live. Brad Abrams - Mr. Framework Design Guidelines - implemented all of these principles in a simple web site (demo). For developing the web site he used Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition and the March CTP of Atlas. I appreciated this session a lot because it very well showed the power and productivity one can achieve using ASP.NET 2.0 and Atlas for developing AJAX-style applications.

As you can see all sessions touched on the fact that the user experience is one of the key requirements for developing a successful application. The overall UX of the end-user has become the critical factor for measuring the success of an application, no matter you're talking about windows or web-based apps. Joe Stegman did a good job explaining why and how a great UX can be achieved on a web browser platform by using Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere ("WPF/E"). WPF/E is a cross-platform subset of WPF and is all focused around interactive content. With WPF/E it is possible to mix UI, text and media using the XAML declarative programming model. Additionally WPF/E will run on the following web platforms:

Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Vista
Mac OS X 10
Considering Win9X, Linux and Solaris

and in the browsers:

Internet Explorer 5.5+
Mozilla 1+,Firefox 1+
Opera 7+
Safari 1+

When talking about this subset of WPF to designers and developers most of them were pretty excited about this technology that lets you combine XAML, C#/VB.NET and javascript for creating a compelling UI. Behind the scenes "WPF/E" hosts an x-platform .NET runtime. Code (C#/VB.NET) is compiled into an intermediate language (IL) which is run in a secure and “managed” environment. "WPF/E" is also capable to load external packages containing IL and XAML. A customer preview of "WPF/E" will be available in Q3 2006 and Web release in the first half of 2007.

tag: Mix06

The Windows Live Platform @Mix06

David Boschmans — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 03:26:00 GMT

There are quite a lot of people I talked to the last couple of weeks who wanted to attend Mix06, but for a variety of reasons weren't able to. This morning before attending the day 1 Mix06 keynotes I was chatting with a couple of people not attending Mix06 over Windows Live Messenger. Now for those people I just saw a great new feature: the Mix06 Information Bot. What's a bot?

Bots are automated contacts in Messenger:

Simple and more personal way for users to interact with your business
They range from simple text based interactions to rich conversation & Activity application
Available 24x7 for users to interact with your business

You can add a bot to your messenger list, just as any other contact. The Mix Bot is Mix06info@hotmail.com and once you started the conversation you can find information about the MIX06 conference and Las Vegas by typing in commands:

Type 'schedule' to access the conference agenda
Type 'speakers' to access speaker information
Type 'activities' to access information outside the conference
Type ‘menu’ to get started or 'help' for instructions.

When the bot provides you with an instant answer it will open a messenger activity. An activity is a rich application shared between users within Messenger. It's a natural extension of the IM conversation that incorporates information from a rich application shared by the users. The great thing of activities are that they can drive deeper user engagement with services, brands and content. It also enables new scenarios to display content and drive traffic to your assets. Think about new commerce scenarios... For developers all of this can be made available from any web site through the SDK available on MSDN.

Check out the today announced Windows Developer Live Center on MSDN for more information on Windows Live, platform and services for web mashups.

Another interesting on the Live Services is "Windows Live ID", a single sign-in for all of Windows Live.

If you're willing to learn more on the Live Services, make sure to check out the Windows LiveSide blog.

Oh ... and during the keynotes Scott Guthrie announced a new release of Atlas and a Go-Live license so you can take applications into production. The March CTP of Atlas now supports the UpdatePanel, building gadgets, etc.

Next is attending the Spark @Mix session with Mike Platt, Anne Thomas Manes and Dion Hinchcliffe. In this session they will provide us with the outcome of their Spark discussions on Web 2.0, SOA and SaaS.

tag: Mix06

So I'm at Mix06 ...

David Boschmans — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 19:19:00 GMT

After a long journey from Brussels over Atlanta to Las Vegas, and on the day that Team Foundation Server RTM'd, we (Gerd, Hans & I) finally arrived in The Venetian in Las Vegas. The good thing on traveling for almost 24 hours is that I managed to clean up my Inbox. It's been a long time that I managed to get through all my mails. Still have some tasks scheduled in my 2007 Office system To-Do Bar. But I will take care of those on the return flights.

So last night I arrived at the Venetian for Mix06, a new event focused on the web for developers, designers and business decision makers of leading consumer web sites.

At MIX the attendees will learn how the next versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Windows Vista, due later this year, are going to dramatically improve your customers' experience. Microsoft is delivering a wide range of web development technologies that will help you to unlock new revenue opportunities and lower development costs.

Be the first to get the latest preview build of IE7
Work with the members of the Internet Explorer team in the Compatibility Lab to get your site ready for IE7
Test drive "Atlas," Microsoft's powerful new framework for building cross–browser, cross–platform AJAX applications
Explore Windows Live! , Microsoft's new consumer services strategy
Learn how to deliver revolutionary, media–rich Web content with the new Windows Presentation Foundation. Find out how to extend your content, media and services into the living room with "Windows Media Center and Xbox 360™
More than 50 separate sessions and discussions for Web developers, designers and business professionals

Attendees can also explore Labs and product tours in “The Sandbox”, which include topics such as “Atlas”, Gadgets, Messenger, 2007 Office System, WinFX, an IE7 Compatibility Lab, as well as tours of Vista, MCE, Windows Mobile, and Ultra-Mobile PCs. In addition, MIX has been closely working on this with MSN.

Talking about MSN: earlier this week I had an interesting chat with Kris Hoet, Consumer Marketing Manager at Microsoft Belux. Kris, soon taking up a new challenge as Consumer Marketing Manager for the EMEA region, who's really diving in the consumer platform opportunities told me some interesting facts on how Windows Live sees evolving the gadgets, those mini-apps that engage with customers; where they will run and why they are valuable. Furthermore he also touched briefly on MSN Search, MSN Alerts, Windows Desktop Search Extensibility for Partners, the MSN Messenger Activity API, Virtual Earth/Windows Live Local and MSN Spaces. Interesting stuff which also affects a lot of developers. But more on that later!

See you at Mix.

tag: Mix06