Nigel Parker's Outside Line : Expression

Silverlight 3 + Expression 3 Launch

nparker — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:49:00 GMT

I previously blogged about the release of Silverlight 3. Today I want to expand on this and talk about the Release To Manufacturing of Expression Studio 3 and DeepZoom Composer.

Having used these products and technologies for a little while now I racked my brain to figure out the best way to communicate the capabilities of each of these technologies to you.

All too often with the nature of blogging, tweeting and instant feedback the best projects/ ideas and implementations get referenced but lost as quickly as they are found. IMO it is important to step back, take a breath and look at what is still impressing you days or weeks later. By grouping these things together into a single cohesive piece of work you can then tell a story that marks a moment in time and is compelling to a broader group of people.

So that is what I did… I chose to use the latest version of the tools and platforms to showcase what I think is the most awesome work that is being done here in New Zealand and around the world. I apologise now if I missed your project out but feel free to drop a link in the comments so others can experience it.

The experience that I built leverages IIS Smooth Streaming and I have removed all the standard video player UI that I hope is not required to watch this showcase (buffer UI, scrub bar, timer, volume control etc). That said the video chunks are coming from a US media server (unfortunately) so I have found that they do tend to play out below their maximum quality to most people in New Zealand. For this reason I have added a download option for those wanting to download and experience the video in full HD.

If you like what you see remember to click the Twitter icon and feed the social media juggernaut!

Silverlight 3 Released

nparker — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:16:00 GMT

Silverlight 3 was released to the web today along with it a new release candidate build of Expression Blend 3 that includes SketchFlow.

Check out the new C9 Video – with Scott Guthrie & Christian Schormann

Also there are new landing pages for

There are a couple of great Silverlight 3 Out of Browser Examples:

thirsteen23 – Silverlight 3 TED Video Player
sobees – social desktop aggregator (right click to go out of browser)

Also I recommend that you check out What’s new in Expression Encoder 3 in the way of OOB support.

In Encoder 3, if you choose to enable offline support when you publish a Silverlight video, the user will have the option of downloading and installing not only the media player code but also the video and audio files.
This feature also works in conjunction with IIS Smooth Streaming so you get the benefit of adaptive streaming when online and a downloaded, high quality version to watch when away from a network.

Check out the Top Silverlight Features especially the new extensible media format support with RAW AV rocks!

Tim Heuer has a great post on what is new and what has changed.

To install all the new bits take a trip over to http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/

For Deep Zoom there is a new version of Deep Zoom Composer which brings back source code and an updated version of RiaServices at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/RiaServices - Business Apps Example for Silverlight 3 RTM and .NET RIA Services July Update: Part 2: Rich Data Query

Christian has posted SketchFlow Concepts: An Overview and there is are new Blend 3 and Web 3 overview videos available.

Check out http://seethelight.com which is the official launch site that has recently gone live.

Stay tuned to the Silverlight and Expression Studio Virtual Press Room and Twitter for more updates!

Expression For Art’s Sake – 3 1/2 Day Silverlight 3 Camp – Wellington, NZ

nparker — Tue, 19 May 2009 05:29:00 GMT

There’s no better way to try a new technology than getting people together to learn, share and build on top of it. So, that’s what we’ve been doing with Silverlight and Expression Studio for the last couple of years: Inviting a board array of developers and designers (you) to come spend time with us.

The Aussies held their event last December, so now it was New Zealand’s turn!

Tim has already written about Expression For Art’s Sake that took place in Wellington from the 20th to 23rd of April last month and now it is my turn to provide some more detail.

At the highest level I organised this event to get developers and designers of all different experience levels working together to get hands on with Blend 3 and Silverlight 3.

For those of you with short attention spans I have created a “super fast” overview video highlighting the 30 hours of workshop in just seven minutes!

For every one else here is a one hour summary video of the first two and a half days (download).

The Group Dynamics

3 Master Trainers

Tim Heuer, Arturo Toledo, Zef

The Teams (17 companies, 33 people)

Click Suite – Cam, Pieter
Datacom – Ben, David, Ronald
Datacraft – Dom, Mark
Gen-i – Craig, Tim
ICE Interactive –Nigel, Melissa
Intergen – Raymond, Andrew
Marker Studio – Darren, Keith
NV Interactive – Brent, Nadia
Phosphor Essence – Aaron, Toby
Provoke – Callum, Isha
Pure Direction – Grant, Darko, Dave
Signify/MSO Design – Charles, Stacey
TePapa – Tim
Y&R/ Microsoft – Vikki, Aditia, Samuel, Kris
Xero - Jeff, Kirk

Challenge #1 – Build a “Hello World” in Silverlight and deploy it to a production web server.

This was a fun activity as introduced an element of “chaos” in securing the domain name for each team. I wanted to introduce teams to the WebPI and present a task that they may not carry out in their own organisations.

The servers that were “claimed”:

Click Suite – http://leacha.bility.co.nz
Datacom – http://ina.bility.co.nz
Datacraft – http://no.bility.co.nz
Gen-i – http://separa.bility.co.nz
ICE Interactive – http://dura.bility.co.nz
Intergen – http://opposa.bility.co.nz
Marker Studio – http://a.bility.co.nz
NV Interactive – http://surviva.bility.co.nz
Phosphor Essence – http://mova.bility.co.nz
Provoke – http://naviga.bility.co.nz
Pure Direction – http://capa.bility.co.nz
Signify/MSO Design – http://lika.bility.co.nz
TePapa – http://staina.bility.co.nz
Y&R/ Microsoft – http://via.bility.co.nz
Xero - http://lia.bility.co.nz

Getting To Know Each Other – WEREWOLF!

What is a few lynched villagers amongst friends?

Challenge #2 – Developing a Mobile Phone for a Kiwi

The challenge here was to start to think about the design process and work together under pressure to present a brief.

Here is a sample of the designs that the teams came up with:

Challenge #3 – Develop a Calculator with a User Control

What were the “New Features” of Silverlight 3 that the teams used most in the Projects?

Designers:

Developers

From here we moved onto projects that would lead to teams Final Presentations.

Some of the teams put their solutions online for you to try.

Silverlight 2 Projects available to try online:

Click Suite – http://leacha.bility.co.nz

There is no “go live” for Silverlight 3 yet so what I’m going to do next is for “informational/ testing purposes only”. If you are a developer and happen to have either the Silverlight 3 Beta - Windows Developer Runtime or the Silverlight 3 Beta - Mac Developer Runtime installed you can try the Silverlight 3 projects online as well.

Gen-i – http://separa.bility.co.nz
ICE Interactive – http://dura.bility.co.nz/#Recipes
Intergen – http://opposa.bility.co.nz
Marker Studio – http://a.bility.co.nz
Pure Direction – http://capa.bility.co.nz (Login test/ password)
TePapa – http://possi.bility.co.nz/timtate/
Y&R/ Microsoft – http://via.bility.co.nz/Bliss/
Xero - http://lia.bility.co.nz/MapTest1TestPage.aspx

Also available is the y&soft blingulator.

Final Presentations:

I have made a video that highlights the final presentations (download). All in all the teams did an awesome job going from zero to hero and surviving this very intense, compact training environment.

I have also combined both videos using Smooth Streaming as well.

Online Feedback from the attendees:

Tim wrote:

Before this week I had hardly touched Silverlight and now I don’t think I can live without it. Even though Silverlight is very different from Flash, I think having that Flash background let me pick it up fairly quickly.

Darko wrote:

All in all I think it was a very successful week. Everyone learned a lot and the mentoring from Tim and Arturo helped heaps. If I could improve anything, it would be to make it a day longer just so that there is a proper wind down. I’m really looking forward to working with Silverlight more.

GREAT WORK everybody!

Artist in Residence Melbourne Dec 1-5

nparker — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 06:43:39 GMT

Michael Kordahi and Shane Morris are holding an Artist in Resident (AiR) in Melbourne from Dec 1-5.

Michael wrote:

For those unfamiliar: AiR is a program whereby a developer and designer pair get together and build something in Silverlight from scratch.

It goes for 5 days where you start with some training (day 1), conceive an idea (day 2) and build (days 3 - 5) under the guidance of a qualified trainer.

It is a great way to get going on that Silverlight project that you’ve always wanted to do.

If you work as part of a dev/designer pair, have a project that you’re commencing (or want to commence) then AiR might be for you.

If you meet the criteria and are interested in crossing the ditch contact Michael or Shane to request a spot!

For NZ based designers wanting to get started with Expression there is a growing pool of resources that you can tap.

It Took Me Four Months But Here It Is - Thirty One Demos in Thirty Nine Minutes.

nparker — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:41:00 GMT

Four months ago I started a little project making a video out of a bunch of demos that I had been giving to different audiences over the second half of last year.

I finally finished the video over the holiday break and have today got it uploaded and live online.

I have updated my previous presentation link post...

Check out the facebook trailer (super fast)

Or watch the full video below:

1. Microsoft Research Group Shot
2. Sea Dragon (TED Video)
3. Photosynth
4. Microsoft Research HD View (Auckland, Wellington)
5. Virtual Earth (Live Labs on the Map)
6. Bill Buxton's Presentation from Expression around the Clock
7. Microsoft Surface
8. Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Surface Demonstration (Video Support)
9. French Silverlight 1.0 Application (Script#)
10. Tablet Features in WPF - Inking Over Video Sample, Ink Support Silverlight 1.0, Silverlight Ink SDK Sample
11. Silverlight 1.0 Inking Search Sample
12. Live Image Search (filters)
13. Tafiti Search Visualization
14. GPS location based interactive community (Where is Frank?)
15. Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Invaders - Code
16. Contoso Bicycle Club - Windows Live Quick Applications
17. Live Messenger Integration Demo - Details
18. http://backgroundmotion.com - Code/ Source Code
19. Microsoft Popfly
20. Windows Live Photo Gallery
21. Windows Home Server
22. LCI Intégrale
23. Livestation
24. WebGuide
25. hsn.tv
26. thirteen23 :: denounce
27. How About It?
28. the-hub.tv
29. Glenn Conner Interview - Amazon Demo Silverlight 1.1 Alpha
30. Building a 3D WPF Gesture Application - Code
31. Building a Video Player in 8 mins with Silverlight 1.0

As promised to many here are my links from recent presentations

nparker — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 02:17:00 GMT

UPDATE: I have finally had a chance to finish the video I have been making to showcase all this stuff so here it is...

31 demos in 39 minutes!

Links from my recent Mashup the Web presentations...

All Blacks Silverlight Gadget

Silverlight Space Invaders

Image Search (filter:face)

Tafiti

BackgroundMotion

Popfly

Silverlight Streaming

Demo Applications...

Evermore Reflection Video - Silverlight 1.0

News Feeds...

Shane - Wireframing in Blend - Starter Project

Aussie Remix videos

Expression Encoder...

Clarkezone

Custom Templates

Community...

If you are lucky enough to live in Wellington Nas has set up a user group for designers called http://zamdes.com. The Expression team at Microsoft is also kicking off a global design event in Auckland on the 4^th of October called “Expression around the Clock”. Places are limited but please spread the word and register at http://www.microsoft.co.nz/expression for the free half day Auckland event otherwise follow along on the global website http://expressionevent.com.

If you haven’t already please subscribe to the Microsoft Designer UX newsletter that we will start sending out once a month. You can subscribe by visiting http://expressionnewsletter.com.

Expression Encoder now available for trial and purchase

nparker — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 23:51:00 GMT

The Expression Encoder was released this morning and is available for trial and purchase here. Since the previous beta Live Production has been added... also I have been testing the Silverlight Streaming Plug-in Preview that is almost ready for prime time and will be made available shortly.

Check out Ben's videos.

Also I have noticed that the Around The Clock event is being promoted on the Expression front page (above the Silverlight on Linux news no less!!)

Check out the global Expression around the Clock site featuring rock stars like Bill Buxton and make sure that if you are in Auckland on the 4th of October that you register for the New Zealand leg of the journey... we are close to half full already!

Microsoft Expression Landed Today

nparker — Wed, 30 May 2007 04:33:00 GMT

I can hardly believe that it has been more that a year and a half since I first started talking about sparkle (expression blend) on this blog.

As of today the full family of Microsoft Expression products are available for purchase in New Zealand!

Web, Blend, Media (includes license for Expression Media Encoder when it ships) or the whole Studio (which includes includes the other 3 + Design).

For developers Web and Blend are included in MSDN Premium subscriptions. The whole Expression Studio is available to those with the Visual Studio Team Suite subscription.

To purchase any of the Microsoft Expression products today contact your Microsoft Reseller (they can give you NZ pricing etc).

The boxed products in stores are coming but that is a bit further away.

P.S. If you are having been using the trial versions of Microsoft Expression over the last year please share your projects with me. I'm always interested in showcasing local work.

Enjoy!

Silverlight Community Site - MIX Keynote

nparker — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:05:00 GMT

Please join me in watching the Mix keynote live now.

The new Silverlight community site is now live! There is a lot of news and preview downloads on this site check out the http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/ page to learn more.

The preview of Cross Platform .NET became available this morning with the Silverlight 1.1 Alpha. Combine this with Silverlight Streaming in the cloud... Yeah Baby!

And the other piece of big news WE RELEASED THE VERSION 1 EXPRESSION STUDIO!

Update- Richard MacManus has more coverage of the start of the keynote here

Tags: MIX07

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

How You Can Get Yourselves Ready for Mix Next Week

nparker — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:22:00 GMT

As I sit here at the airport waiting to borad my flight to Vegas I was thinking how you can prepare yourselves for the Microsoft MIX conference next week.

1. Watch the Webcasts from the 2007 Expression Launch in the US (new).

2. Check out Tims post introducing Expression Media Encoder.

3. Take a look at http://www.silverlight.net

4. Take a look at http://www.livestation.com

5. Take a look at BizTalk Services

6. Late this week http://visitmix.com will be transformed into a live portal for you to "virtually" attend the Mix event.

Enjoy!

Tags: MIX07

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Technical Briefing Wrap and HOLIDAY!

nparker — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 12:38:00 GMT

First of all what does it look like to talk to nearly 2000 people?

Well here is a picture I found on flickr of 900 people... yup I'm in there #9 top row.

Think double this and we will be just about there!

It was all of you that made this event so successfull, THANKS!

Darryl did a great job of MC'ing the keynote at the events and holding it all together! The mindscape guys have done a great job bringing my backgroundmotion idea to life!

Presentation: Web Standards Compliance

Presentation: Extending Application Reach

Presentation: Building Composite Applications

In fact all the pptx decks are now online.

My presentation Building applications users love is there but without the link to the video that I promised.

Click the picture below to watch the Video!

I leave tomorrow for a trip around Europe with my wife and daughter followed by Mix in Las Vagas. The best part is that I'm not taking my laptop! See you again on the 7th of May if not a little sooner!

Just saw this .NET 3 training

nparker — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 22:20:00 GMT

"The .NET Framework 3.0 training kit for WF, WCF, and CardSpace includes a set of hands-on-labs, demos, and presentations. The content was originally designed as part of the Windows Server Ascend training and has been used several times for training classes. Consequently, the content is organized into a four day agenda. You can also browse this content by technology."

Get it here

Also if you are an interactive designer and are looking for a good tutorial on using Expression Blend take a look at this one that Lee from Frog design has put together.

"It is called Expression Blend Beta Preview and it covers all of the basics of using Blend to create WPF applications. At the end you put what you’ve learned to the test by creating a Flickr photo viewer"

Alternatively check out these introduction Blend videos for a Microsoft Services guy in the UK.

Expand Your Portfolio... it's a wrap!

nparker — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 15:09:00 GMT

Hey there,

Two weeks ago we met and presented to over 200 people from more than 85 companies across New Zealand!

We got some great feedback and had heaps of fun doing it!

I have got great feedback via email and I have had truck loads of people wanting to show their friends... learn more and try things out themselves!

What sites did we update/release?

http://www.microsoft.com/expression

http://www.microsoft.com/design

http://www.microsoft.com/wpfe

What did I showcase last week...

WPF

firstlook.nytimes.com

Blend (Beta 1)

thirteen23.com, harmony (itunes/Amazon desktop mashup), denounce (next gen rss/podcast reader)

Tools

SWF2XAML (v1), demo, video

AItoXAML

Expression Web (Available Now)

personifydesign.com

ASP.NET AJAX (Release Candidate)

sample sites, from NZ - http://ecobob.com

Vista Media Center

mobilewares, Media Center Extender Video

Sidebar

Building a WPF Vista Sidebar Gadget, Gadgets

WPF/E (Community Preview)

Playground, Flash/ WPF/E coexist

Windows Live

Fresh Logic Studio GPS Mashup

Queenstown 3D video, Virtual Earth 3D

Photosynth

Where are my custom demos?

Demonstrating Designer & Developer Workflow using a 3D Kiwi, code

NZ Vector Animation in XAML (requires .NET 3.0 Runtime Installed)

"experience is the product" video presentation (rough cut, includes preview of Right Hemispheres upcoming version of Deep Publish)

Rapid prototyping using XAML and Blend (requires .NET 3.0 Runtime Installed)

Where can you go to learn?

Back in June I blogged about learning WPF, after Tech.Ed I also posted a bunch of my videos (including the Tablet Montage) showcasing WPF.

The community site for Windows Presentation Foundation - http://wpf.netfx3.com

Videos for the release candidate of ASP.NET AJAX

Training for the Expresion tools

What has been released since?

Microsoft Robotics Studio Version 1

XNA Game Studio Express Version 1, Sharky (local XNA game developer)

3D Tools for the Windows Presentation Foundation - Example

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1

Show me the video of what people are using WPF for.

5 minute overview video

Where is this conversation going next?

To Vegas Baby... April 30th - May 2nd.

Who do you recognise from "Mix and Mash"?

The person next to BillG looks like someone that I met at WebStock in March... what do you think?

Take some time over Christmas to pass that Suck Threshold.

Merry Christmas

New Expression Site & WPF/E CTP.

nparker — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 22:14:00 GMT

If you are able to join us on our UX tour of NZ this week I'd love to see you, http://gobeyond.net.nz

I promised we were following some major new announcements well you can keep track of them here.

The summary,

We have a couple of site refreshes, http://www.microsoft.com/expression - http://www.microsoft.com/design

We have released Expression Web, and new Ctps of Expression Blend and Expression Design. Also if you are a professional photographer an know of iView Media Pro it is now Microsoft Expression Media.

Also for those of you that have been waiting for your first early look at WPF/E (Cross platform/ browser WPF subset) it has now made it's first Customer Technology Preview.

Enjoy and come join us this week for a demo.