The Silverlight object model exposes events that can be used to build a very friendly end user experience for installing Silverlight.

When it comes to using a Web site that requires a plug-in to render content, the user is generally faced with a choice. Is it worth spending the time and effort to install the plug in to get to the content that I want? Is it clear to me what I am installing? Do I want to install it?

Through research with popular web sites such as March Madness On-Demand the NBC Olympics and the Democratic National Conference and also a myriad of Microsoft owned sites, Microsoft have found a number of key learnings that make this decision easier for the user, manage them through the process of installation, and make it more likely, ultimately, for more people to choose the plug-in to interact with your content.

This post outlines the possible scenarios that an end user will encounter when they are installing Silverlight, and the code that you can write to overcome any issues that may arise in these scenarios. There are more of these than you may expect. Sometimes the user will not have Silverlight to begin with, sometimes they’ll have an older version, sometimes they’ll be in a state where they need to restart the browser and yet others they only need to refresh.

Programming the Install UX

Any Silverlight project that is build using Visual Studio Tools for Silverlight will give a default installation experience (called the Silverlight ‘Badge’) for end users that do not have the Silverlight runtime already installed. It’s a very simple experience that is designed to be a ‘lowest common denominator’ approach.

It’s important to note that this experience is generic in nature, and as such is not tailored towards any particular application. Thus, when the end user sees the install badge they may become confused.

Consider this with a scenario where the user visits a site that provides casual games. They select to play a game, but instead of the game, they get a blank screen with the Silverlight badge at the top left corner. Is it a banner ad? Did they click the wrong place? There’s a high probability that they’d not click it, not get Silverlight and not play the game.

Additionally, if they do click the banner, then what happens? Clicking alone doesn’t install the application, it triggers the download of an executable that has to be acted upon by the user in order to install. After installation, there’s no guarantee that the content will work straight away. Sometimes a refresh is enough. Sometimes a browser restart is necessary. To give the best possible experience to your end user, it is necessary to manage all of these scenarios effectively and coherently.

To do this, there are two main artifacts that you need to understand. The first is the technology and the code that can be used to provide the best install UX. The second is the solicitation and the correct language and prompts to use to ensure that the end user fully understands and is properly guided through the installation experience.

Before getting your hands dirty with the code, it’s a good idea to understand all the installation cases that you are likely to face.

Once the installation experience has been designed, a web author should generate several variants of that experience to account for special states that a user may be in when visiting the Silverlight-enabled application. These variations are different only in text, but will greatly improve the user's confidence in the application and the platform.

A user can be viewing the Silverlight installation experience on your website in one of six states. The message they are presented with, if any, should be a variant of the installation experience which is semantically equivalent to the following recommendations:

These states are represented visually here:

These states can be managed and users expectations managed by following these steps in your code.

Task 1. Integrate Silverlight.js and use the OBJECT Tag

Step 1. Integrate Silverlight.js

Silverlight.js must be included using a <script> tag within the page’s <head> element. This JavaScript file defines the required APIs and includes the code required to check if Silverlight is installed to begin with.

   1:  <head> 

   2:  <script src="Silverlight.js" type="text/javascript" ></script> 

   3:  </head>

Step 2. Use an <Object> tag for Silverlight

As we saw earlier, the web page embeds Silverlight on the page using an HTML <object> tag. This must include the data and type attributes. You will notice that the default state for Silverilght projects is to use “application/x-silverlight-2” as the MIME type for these attributes.

Note that in order to detect the installation state for Silverlight 1.0 users, you should use the Silverlight 1.0 MIME type for both the data and type attributes.

By doing this, you force the user to upgrade the control with minimal impact on the Web site author.

Thus, these attributes should be defined like this:

type="application/x-silverlight"

and

data="data:application/x-silverlight,"

Step 3. Use the minRuntimeVersion parameter

This parameter is part of the <object> tag that is used to ensure that the user has the proper version of Silverlight installed. If not, the control will not download the XAP, and will instead ask the user to upgrade the control. Additionally this state will trigger the OnError event with the args.ErrorCode set to 8001 [Upgrade Required] or 8002 [Restart Required]

Do note that as Silverlight 1.0 did not support this parameter, checking the error state is not enough to see if an action is required on the part of the end user. Only by following the steps in this document, and by using Silverlight.js can this be achieved.

The correct value for the minRuntimeVersion parameter is “2.0.31005” for the RTM of Silverlight 2.

Step 4. Use the autoUpgrade parameter

When autoUpgrade is ‘true’, the default Silverlight experience for upgrading will take place. If you want to control this with your own UX, you should set it to ‘false’.

Note that you can test this experience by creating a Silverlight object on a page with data and type properties, as well as minRuntime and autoUpgrade properties set like this:

<object data="data:application/x-silverlight," type="application/x-silverlight">

     <param name="minRuntimeVersion" value="9.9.99999" />

     <param name="autoUpgrade" value="true" /> 

</object>

Step 5. Turn on Error handling

The <Object> tag must use the onError parameter and its definition function must call Silverlight.IsVersionAvailableOnerror(sender,args)

If this function returns ‘true’ then the right version of Silverlight is already installed and loaded so normal error handling code should be executed.

So if the parameter on the <Object> tag looks like this:

<param name="onError" value="onSilverlightError" />

You would have a handler that looks like this:

function onSilverlightError(sender, args) 

{ 

     if ( Silverlight.IsVersionAvailableOnError(sender, args) ) { 

     //run error handling code 

     }

}

Step 6. Capture the onLoad event.

The onLoad parameter of the object tag must defined a handler function and this must call Silverlight.IsVersionAvailableOnLoad(sender) . Calling this function allows you to identify earlier versions of Silverlight (beta builds etc.) and trigger an upgrade or restart in order to handle them.

So, if the parameter on the <Object> tag looks like this:

<param name="onLoad" value="onSilverlightLoad" />

You would have a handler that looks like this:

function onSilverlightLoad (sender) 

{ 

     Silverlight. IsVersionAvailableOnLoad (sender);

}

Step 7. Address incompatible configuration .

While the Silverlight control is available for installation by a majority of the Internet's users, there are some platforms which are not currently supported. When a user on an unsupported platform clicks on the Silverlight installation URL they will be redirected to a Web page on www.microsoft.com/silverlight which informs them that they are not supported. This experience is fine for most pages, but some Web sites will want to be able to identify these users without redirecting to www.microsoft.com. There are several available methods for accomplishing this goal:

· Identify the user as being unsupported server-side based on the HTTP request

· Identify the user as being unsupported client-side based on navigator.userAgent

A default implementation of client-side supported user detection is available in Silverlight.supportedUserAgent.js (http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/SLsupportedUA).

One way that this could be used is as follows:

First, add a reference to the script file to your page.

<script type="text/javascript" src="Silverlight.supportedUserAgent.js"></script>

Then, create a Prompt HTML for the Not Supported Scenario and load it into a JavaScript var.

var PromptNotSupported = "<div><p>This browser doesn't support Silverlight, sorry!</p></div>";

Finally, create a JavaScript function that uses the supportedUserAgent API to determine if the current browser is supported. Note that for this to work, the Silverlight object must be contained within a <div> called ‘silverlightControlHost’.

<script type="text/javascript">

    function CheckSupported() {

        var tst = Silverlight.supportedUserAgent();

        if (tst) {

        // Do nothing

        }

        else{

            document.getElementById("silverlightControlHost").innerHTML = PromptNotSupported;

        }

    }

</script>

To use this, you will then just have to call this script when the page loads.

<body onload="CheckSupported()">

It is very important to note that as Web Browsers and the Silverlight platform evolve, the supported user agent detection code will also change. Therefore, the Web developer should be sure to check the Silverlight.supportedUserAgent Web page often to ensure that they have the latest version.

Task 2. Render the UI prompts at the appropriate time.

In this figure you can see the potential install states and from it you can derive that there are 5 main prompts that need to be given to the user.

Reading from left to right, the first path is the simple state – the correct version of Silverlight is installed and present, so just show the content.

The next is followed when the user does not have Silverlight installed. In this case, they are first prompted with a ‘Click to Install’ and once installation is done they are requested to refresh their browser.

The next is followed when the user has Silverlight, but it is an older version. In this case they are prompted with a ‘Click to Upgrade’ and once installation is done, they are requested to restart their browser.

The next is followed when the correct version of Silverlight is detected, but it hasn’t been loaded. In this case the user needs to restart their browser.

The last is followed when an incompatible configuration is detected.

Note that the substates on the paths were Silverlight needs to either be installed or updated are not automatically detected. You will have to generate these prompts in response to the user selecting the ‘Click to Install’ or ‘Click to Upgrade’ options. You will see how to do this later.

So, to summarize, there are 6 ways that the user needs to be prompted, and they are for these states:

· Silverlight is not installed, click to install.

· You are now installing Silverlight, refresh when done.

· An older version of Silverlight is installed, click to upgrade.

· You are not upgrading Silverlight, restart when done.

· Please restart your browser.

· Incompatible configuration HTML

Step 1. Define the HTML for Silverlight not being installed

The <Object> tag definition allows you to render HTML that shows when the object can not be created. This will fire if Silverlight is not installed. This is very straightforward to do – just add a <div> after the parameter installs that renders the HTML.

Note that somewhere in this HTML you should capture a click and use it to run a JavaScript function. This JavaScript is necessary to render the ‘installing’ message.

Here’s an example of a fully formed object tag containing this HTML.

<object data="data:application/x-silverlight," type="application/x-silverlight" 

    width="100%" height="100%">

  <param name="source" value="bin/debug/Memory.xap"/>

  <param name="background" value="white" />

  <param name="minRuntimeVersion" value="2.0.31005.0" />

  <param name="autoUpgrade" value="false" />

  <param name="onerror" value="onSilverlightError" />

  <param name="onload" value="onSilverlightLoad" />

  <div id="SLInstallFallback" class="silverlightInstall" >

  <img src="images/install.PNG" onclick='InstallClicked();' class="silverlightInstallImage" 

       alt='Click to Install' style='cursor:pointer;'/>

</div>

</object>

This defines an image (images/install.PNG) to show when Silverlight isn’t installed. You can replace this HTML with any of your own, depending on your situation. Do be sure to have an onclick handler though. You’ll explore that in Step 3.

Step 2. Define UI for other Prompt States.

The other 4 prompt states can be defined as JavaScript variables.

Here are the example variables that are used for the states in this example:

· var PromptFinishInstall for ‘You are now installing Silverlight, refresh when done.’

· var PromptUpgrade for ‘An older version of Silverlight is installed, click to upgrade.’

· var PromptFinishUpgrade for ‘You are not upgrading Silverlight, restart when done.’

· var PromptRestart for ‘Please restart your browser.’

· Var PromptIncompatible for ‘Your browser is incompatible with this experience’

These should simply be HTML div’s that will be used to replace the innerHTML of a portion of your page when you need to issue that prompt to the user.

Do note that the PromptUpgrade should (similar to the prompt in step 1) should have a call to a JavaScript function when an area within it is clicked. This JavaScript function will change the onscreen prompt to the ‘You are now upgrading Silverlight, restart when done’ state. You’ll see this in Step 3.

Here’s an example of what that should look like. Note the definition of the onclick event handler:

var PromptUpgrade =

  "<div id='SLInstallFallback' class='silverlightInstall' >" +

  " <img src='images/upgrade.PNG' onclick='UpgradeClicked();'  class='silverlightInstallImage'" +

  " alt='Click to Upgrade' style='cursor:pointer;'/>" +

  "</div>";

Step 3. JavaScript functions to handle user actions for Install and Upgrade.

In Step 1 you defined the prompt to solicit the user to click an area on your page to install Silverlight. The response to this should be to trigger the download of the installer, and to update the screen to inform the user that they are not in the installation state.

The JavaScript to achieve this will look like this:

function InstallClicked()

{

  window.location = "http://go2.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=124807";

  document.getElementById("silverlightControlHost").innerHTML =

  PromptFinishInstall;

}

Note that it changers the innerHTML of the <Object> tag to the value of PromptFinishInstall as defined in Step 2.

In Step 2, when defining the upgrade prompt you specified an onClick event handler called ‘UpgradeClicked’. This is similar to the InstallClicked event handler in that it downloads the software and changes the prompt, this time to the one to finish the Upgrade.

function UpgradeClicked()

{

  window.location = "http://go2.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=124807";

  document.getElementById("silverlightControlHost").innerHTML = 

  PromptFinishUpgrade;

}

Task 3. Capture the Callbacks from Silverlight.js

Silverlight.js has some helper functions that trap the different states and allows you to update the UI accordingly.

These functions are:

· Silverlight.onRequiredVersionAvailable

The right version of Silverlight is installed and available. You can use this to let the user know that they are good to go, or just ignore it and render the content.

· Silverlight.onRestartRequired

You need to restart the browser. In this case you will change the prompt area HTML to the contents of your PromptRestart var.

· Silverlight.onUpgradeRequired

You need to upgrade from an older version of Silverlight. In this case you will change the prompt area HTML to the contents of your PromptUpgrade var.

· Silverlight.onInstallrequired

Silverlight isn’t installed but needs to be. You don’t need to take any action here as you are capturing this state in the <Object> tag.

Here’s the code:

function onSilverlightLoad(sender)

{

  Silverlight.IsVersionAvailableOnLoad(sender);

}

Silverlight.onRequiredVersionAvailable = function()

{

};

Silverlight.onRestartRequired = function()

{

  document.getElementById("silverlightControlHost").innerHTML = PromptRestart;

};

Silverlight.onUpgradeRequired = function()

{

  document.getElementById("silverlightControlHost").innerHTML = PromptUpgrade;

};

Silverlight.onInstallRequired = function()

{

};

Task 4. Work around known Issues

There is a known issue that affects Firefox users that are upgrading from Silverlight 1 or a beta of Silverlight 2 to the release of Silverlight 2. It has been fixed for future versions of Silverlight, but will need to be worked around for Silverlight 2.

FireFox users will see the <Object> tag’s fallback experience after an upgrade to Silverlight 2 unless they restart their browser.

This is fixed by using the following script after the <Object> definition.

<script type="text/javascript">

try

{

  if (navigator.plugins["Silverlight Plug-In"].description)

  {

    document.getElementById("SLInstallFallback").innerHTML = PromptRestart;

  }

}

catch (e)

{

}

</script>

Another issue is that Mac Firefox users will be misidentified as being in the ‘upgrade required’ state when they are actually in the ‘restart required’ state. There is no known workaround at this time, but the cases that lead to this are complex, and in most cases this state will not be encountered.

Exploring the finished page with Install UX

Visual Studio creates a default HTML page to host your Silverlight content. It’s pretty easy to follow the above steps to upgrade this page from the default UX to one that manages the installation states as shown above.

Here’s the complete listing:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >

<head>

<title>SilverlightApplication1</title>

<style type="text/css">

  html, body {

  height: 100%;

  overflow: auto;

  }

  body {

  padding: 0;

  margin: 0;

  }

  #silverlightControlHost {

    height: 100%;

  }

</style>

<script type="text/javascript" src="Silverlight.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="Silverlight.supportedUserAgent.js"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">

  var PromptFinishInstall = "<div><p>You are now installing Silverlight, refresh your browser when       

      done.</p></div>";

  var PromptUpgrade = "<div><p onclick='UpgradeClicked'>This application needs you to upgrade the       

      Silverlight plugin that runs it. An older version is installed. Click here to upgrade it.</p></div>";

  var PromptFinishUpgrade = "<div><p>You are now upgrading Silverlight. When this is done, please restart your 

      browser.</p></div>";

  var PromptRestart = "<div><p>Please restart your browser.</p></div>";

  var PromptNotSupported = "<div><p>This browser doesn't support Silverlight, sorry!</p></div>";

function onSilverlightError(sender, args) {

  if (Silverlight.IsVersionAvailableOnerror(sender, args)) {

    var appSource = "";

  if (sender != null && sender != 0) {

    appSource = sender.getHost().Source;

  }

  var errorType = args.ErrorType;

  var iErrorCode = args.ErrorCode;

  var errMsg = "Unhandled Error in Silverlight 2 Application " + appSource + "\n";

  errMsg += "Code: " + iErrorCode + " \n";

  errMsg += "Category: " + errorType + " \n";

  errMsg += "Message: " + args.ErrorMessage + " \n";

  if (errorType == "ParserError") {

    errMsg += "File: " + args.xamlFile + " \n";

    errMsg += "Line: " + args.lineNumber + " \n";

    errMsg += "Position: " + args.charPosition + " \n";

  }

  else if (errorType == "RuntimeError") {

    if (args.lineNumber != 0) {

      errMsg += "Line: " + args.lineNumber + " \n";

      errMsg += "Position: " + args.charPosition + " \n";

    }

  errMsg += "MethodName: " + args.methodName + " \n";

  }

  throw new Error(errMsg);

  }

}

  function onSilverlightLoad(sender) {

    Silverlight.IsVersionAvailableOnLoad(sender);

  }

  Silverlight.onRequiredVersionAvailable = function() {

  };

  Silverlight.onRestartRequired = function() {

    document.getElementById("silverlightControlHost").innerHTML = PromptRestart;

  };

  Silverlight.onUpgradeRequired = function() {

    document.getElementById("silverlightControlHost").innerHTML = PromptUpgrade;

  };

  Silverlight.onInstallRequired = function() {

  };

  function UpgradeClicked() {

    window.location = "http://go2.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=124807";

    document.getElementById("silverlightControlHost").innerHTML = PromptFinishUpgrade;

  }

  function InstallClicked() {

    window.location = "http://go2.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=124807";

    document.getElementById("silverlightControlHost").innerHTML = PromptFinishInstall;

  }

<script type="text/javascript">

  function CheckSupported() {

    var tst = Silverlight.supportedUserAgent();

    if (tst) {

      // Do nothing

    }

    else{

      document.getElementById("silverlightControlHost").innerHTML = PromptNotSupported;

    }

  }

  </script>

</script>

</head>

<body onload="CheckSupported()">

<!-- Runtime errors from Silverlight will be displayed here. This will contain debugging information and 

should be removed or hidden when debugging is completed -->

<div id='errorLocation' style="font-size: small;color: Gray;"></div>

<div id="silverlightControlHost" style="height:100%;">

<object data="data:application/x-silverlight," type="application/x-silverlight" width="100%" height="100%">

  <param name="source" value="ClientBin/SilverlightApplication1.xap"/>

  <param name="background" value="white" />

  <param name="minRuntimeVersion" value="2.0.31005.0" />

  <param name="autoUpgrade" value="false" />

  <param name="onerror" value="onSilverlightError" />

  <param name="onload" value="onSilverlightLoad" />

  <div id="SLInstallFallback"><div><p onclick='UpgradeClicked'>This application needs you to use the 
Silverlight plugin to use it. Click here to install it.</p></div></div>

</object>

<iframe style='visibility:hidden;height:0;width:0;border:0px'></iframe>

</div>

<div id="silverlightExperienceHost" style="visibility:hidden;">

</div>

<script type="text/javascript">

  try {

    if (navigator.plugins["Silverlight Plug-In"].description) {

      document.getElementById("SLInstallFallback").innerHTML = PromptRestart;

  }

}

catch (e) {

}

</script>

</body>

</html>

In this scenario, you’ve built the code, but not the installation solicitation. It’s recommended that you build the solicitation carefully for your application, and focus on your application content, and not Silverlight. So, for example if you are building a site to show off a foo-bar widget, you should have big friendly text with the value proposition of the foo-bar widget, with a short and smaller indication that in order to access it they need to install a plugin, which is quick, easy and secure. Take a look at some existing sites to see what works and what doesn’t. A good example of an install solicitation can be found on http://movies.msn.com/pretty-in-ink/. You can see the solicitation here:

By following a well designed install solicitation along with a well managed set of install states, you should expect less ‘drop off’ of users and more access to your new, rich, Silverlight content.

For those of you who were not able to attend MIX (and it wasn’t just the best MIX ever, but IMHO the best conference I’ve ever been to), and were not able to get their hands on a copy of my Silverlight 3 preview book, it’s now available to download from MS Press.

You can find it here.

The print copy contained three chapters, introducing Silverlight 3, touring through XAML and a summary of some of the new SL3 features. The downloadable copy, to save size, just has the new SL3 features. THe other chapters are pretty much the same is in my Silverlight 2 book that you can find here.

Just a quick update from MIX.

If you’re a sports fan, I’m sure you’re familiar with March Madness :)

Well it kicks off today, and it’s all available, free and in HD on http://mmod.ncaa.com

Go, now, look, it’s great! Streamed with Silverlight in a number of bitrates, so you always get a smooth experience.

It’s got full brackets, the works. :)

Check this out:

We even have a Boss Button, so if you see the pointed haired one walking past, press it and you’ll get this:

So, if you haven’t gotten into MIX already, or if your employer is pulling back on budgets because of the economy, here’s a chance to score a free pass (just a pass mind you, and not airfare, hotel etc.).

[Note if you’ve won already, please don’t enter, and MS folks, you’re welcome to see if you can solve the riddle, but email it to me instead of posting it :) ]

Follow the steps below using Live Search, and first person to answer correctly wins a MIX pass…

Step 1:

What is the name of this place?

Step 2:

There’s a town nearby. The ‘unofficial’ website of this town (and of the location in Step 1) is sponsored by a Coffee Shop.

Step 3:

The website for this coffee shop has a page of pictures, with 2 pictures being very similar in their subject matter, and involving younger girls. What is the subject matter?

Step 4:

Search for a book on this subject matter. There’s one written by someone called ‘Monty’. What is the name of the girl in the book that he wrote?

Step 5:

Her surname is the name of a home construction company in a US city. What’s the name of their baseball team?

Step 6:

One of the catchers on this team was born exactly 5 years after a TV actor. Who is the actor?

Step 7:

He played an alien in a Sci-Fi TV show. What was the Alien’s name?

Step 8:

There’s a famous pop star that shares this name. What’s his surname?

Step 9:

Search for a town with that name on Live Maps. Just south of the Live Maps pin is a street with a name that is familiar with another major historic event.

Step 10:

This historic event is associated with a ship whose name is associated with a location. What’s the location?

Step 11:

Search for this location on live maps, and the pin will be placed about 20miles east of an interstate. Follow the interstate north.

Step 12:

This interstate will end at another which runs east-west. Follow this one west. After a while it turns sharply south. At the same place, another long straight road (not an Interstate) runs NorthWest. Follow it until you reach a very famous landmark.

Step 13:

This landmark is very famous for 2 of its feats, but they were surpassed only 10 years later. By what?

Step 14:

The ‘what’ is beside a lake. What’s the connection between its name and the name of the landmark in 12?

Step 15:

These names form a sequence. What name would be next in the sequence?

The Patterns and Practices team @ Microsoft have been busy working on helping answer the question – how do I maximize my skills in XAML and .NET development to build for both Silverlight and WPF.

The result: Prism 2.0 has just been released to the wild. You can find it on CodePlex here.

The focus is on Line-of-Business or Enterprise applications, and these types of applications typically feature multiple screens, rich, flexible user interaction and data visualization, and role-determined behavior. They are built to last and built for change. This means that the application's expected lifetime is measured in years and that it will change in response to new, unforeseen requirements. This application may start small and over time evolve into a composite client—composite applications use loosely coupled, independently evolvable pieces that work together in the overall application.

The release includes the Composite Application Library; a Reference Implementation application based on a Stock Trading scenario, built in both WPF and Silverlight; some Quick Start and How-To Applications as well as full documentation on everything you need to know about UI patterns and client architectures, but were afraid to ask.

So, if you’re building the next greatest thing in Silverlight and/or WPF you could do a lot worse than checking this out!

I’m glad you all enjoyed the last riddle, the answer to which was ‘Area 51’. I told the story in the comments section.

Due to its popularity, I’ve scored another pass, and want to try out your search engine skills to do a sort-of global scavenger hunt. Are you up to it?

So, below are a number of steps, if you follow these you’ll end up with an answer. First to post the correct answer in the comments get's a free pass to MIX. Just a pass, no airfare, hotel, dinner or anything like that, ok :)

Oh, and Microsoft guys, feel free to enter, but the prize will go to a non MS-er…sorry!

1. 'Area 51' is also the fan zone for a famous sports player in Seattle because that's the number he wears on his Jersey. Who is he? [Hint, he’s one of the best in the world at this game, and there’s an upcoming ‘world cup’ for his sport]

2. Take the second to last letter in his name, and change it from 'r' to 'j'.

3. This is the name of an anime character in a TV show. She is a fishing maniac, and together with her friend Karen flies Mecha from a military base in Japan. The base is in a town that sounds like the name of a VERY famous person. Who is this person?

4. This person (from 3) has an extended family member who is heavily involved in college sports. The family member is the uncle to this person's children. Find the college and look at it’s website to see the team that he’s involved with. Co-incidentally he shares a surname with another very famous person who has similar historic significance to the famous person from point 3.

5. One player on this person's sports team has the same first name as a book in the Bible. What's his home city?

6. Note the state that this city is in.

7. Take a look (using Live Maps) at this person's home city. About 30 miles north of this home city is the intersection of two interstate highways. Follow the one that runs east for a long way and you'll end up at a well-known midsize city. What is the name of this city?

8. The state from #6 and the city from #7 are connected to a very, very famous day in history. What is this day, and what is the connection?

Simple, right? I checked it out with Live Search, so with a bit of reading between the lines and delving into the pages that come up, you should complete this pretty quickly :)

As you may know, MIX is coming up very soon – March 18-20 at the Venetian in Las Vegas. You can find the full details on the conference at http://www.visitmix.com. It’s an unmissable conference, now more than ever, and if you haven’t had the chance (or the budget) to sign up, I have a free pass to the conference to give away. Note that it’s just a conference pass, and that hotel, airfare etc. are not included. Still it’s close to a $1400 value, so why not? :)

Still interested? Good!

Take a look at the Deep Zoom image below. If you can’t see the IFrame, you can also link to the image directly here.

I was close to somewhere pretty famous when I took this picture. It’s a place I’d always wanted to visit, and I was doing some research on the general area for a book that I was working on. This big guy snuck up on me, scared the life out of me, and I got into my car and drove off. I figured nobody would believe my story so I took a quick snap of him. Sorry it’s blurred! I was wearing a bright red jacket (just like this one!) too. There’s an implicit clue in this story, as well as some joke-clues in the picture itself.

So, leave a comment with your guess for where you think I was when I took this picture. If you guess right, you’ve earned yourself a pass for MIX. Please remember that it’s only a conference pass and not airfare, hotel, meals or anything else. If you can’t attend the conference, but want to guess anyway, go ahead!

I just got this in my email from Denis Dollfus, and had to share it.

It’s an extremely odd, and strangely hypnotic app. Would make a great screensaver :)

Ok, so we turn on the news and we see economic crisis everywhere, we hear of layoffs and cost cutting and rumors of depression.

Well, I’m a rose-tinted-glasses kind of guy, and I firmly believe that it is at times like this that the smarter investor sows so that he can reap later, and there is nothing better to sow right now than an understanding in where the web is going, and how the new internet economy of the 21st century is growing.

That’s what MIX is all about. It’s not an expensive boondoggle in Las Vegas. It’s not a few days of parties and fun, even though there are plenty of parties and fun :)

It’s an opportunity to grow to be better equipped not just to weather the storm but to thrive when we see on the other side.

We’ve announced some new sessions, with plenty more on the way – take a look at some of them here.

I’ll certainly be at Building Microsoft Silverlight Applications with Eclipse being delivered by the always-eloquent Shawn Wildermuth, and I promise not to try to steal credit for coming up with the idea for this session ;)

Think about that for a minute. Eclipse.

Then, take a breath and then say. Silverlight.

Usually this type of thing is followed by a ‘Yeah right, when heck freezes over’

That’s why MIX is special, and this year I’m arguing that it will be more special than ever.

To add more value to your hard-earned buck, there’ll also be some pre-conference workshops containing moutwatering content!

So if you haven’t done so already, drop by the site and sign up today!

A few new Silverlight Apps from our friends in the Netherlands are definitely worth checking out.

First up is Monteverdi.tv, a portal for classical music events, built in PHP, but which delivers Silverlight:

http://live.monteverdi.tv/rco/view.php

It allows for both a full screen 'player' as well as a full screen 'video' mode as well as different levels of video quality. Have a play with the settings, trying out the different video and see how smoothly it runs. I’m running it at the moment from my office on a shared internet connection at the highest quality setting, and it looks great!

In sports, comes Volleybal.tv, which is a dutch Volleyball site that covers Men ('Heren'), Women ('Dames') and Beach Volleyball.

http://www.volleybal.tv/

I really like how you can hover over the categories on the left and have a menu with thumbnails of the video appear over your current player. It helps make the experience very immersive.

It also appears to be hosted on Silverlight Streaming showing that you can build and host stuff on this scalable infrastructure!

Finally is a Microsoft Hardware website, a marketing site that shows some of the new hardware available from Microsoft. That new sidewinder mouse looks wicked cool :)

www.microsoft.nl/hardware

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m an Otaku and I’m happy that I work in a job that allows me to visit Otaku heaven (Akihabara) once or twice a year. Anyway, it was only a matter of time before someone used Silverlight to build a site for Otaku like me :)

Anyway, the site is from Korea and it is at http://dalong.net. To access the cool DeepZoom-based views of some of the mecha, click MG at the top of the screen to view the models. Not all of them have a Deep Zoom collection associated with them (yet), so here’s a direct link to one: http://www.webhardservice.com/xWebDisk/deepzoom/wizPhotoZoomAlbum.html?ServerType=1&MediaID=ZGFsb25nXzIwMDgxMTA0MDQ1MDM2MjFAdmlld0AxOTIuMTY4LjEuMjEyMDA4MTEwNDA0NTEyMA__

Ganbarre!

For those of you who have been asking about Silverlight and Windows Live, I’m now pleased to announce that Windows Live downloads will include Silverlight in the installation.

If you haven’t already tried the Windows Live applications, I thoroughly recommend them. Windows Live Writer is the best blogging client I have ever used! And if you have kids, the Windows Live ‘Family Safety’ application rocks.

As you can see here, if Silverlight is not installed on your system, you can choose to install it (or not) as part of the Windows Live Suite. To access this, visit http://download.live.com, and click the ‘Download’ button for your language.

In its early days, Silverlight concentrated on being Web friendly with its text, meaning that the number of fonts were constrained to those that would be available on most computers. On this blog I listed a number of workarounds for languages such as Korean, Japanese and Chinese. Since then, Silverlight has expanded, and Silverlight 2 supported lots of new character sets and fonts, allowing these to be supported natively.

However, Hebrew and Arabic are more of a challenge as they are bidirectional – the text reads right-to-left while numbers read left-to-right.

It’s a great demonstration of the extensibility model of Silverlight 2, that add-ons can easily be written, and here’s one such that came out on CodePlex last night – an update that improves bidirectional support (bidi) on Silverlight.

http://www.codeplex.com/SilverlightRTL/

You can find more details here: http://khason.net/dev/new-version-of-hebrew-and-arabic-support-for-silverlight-was-released/

Great stuff! :)

Mimi Chau of the Asian media center and Asia-Pacific news agency has just published a book on what it takes to build and develop the design parameters for a digital media center.

She uses the huge showcase of the Beijing Olympic Games 2008 as the basis for the book.

What’s nice about this is that it isn’t focussed as much on the technology as it is on the process of building a digital media center, navigating the questions that those in the management pipeline will have around using digital media, and giving real-world based guidance.

It’s a short and interesting read, and it provides one perspective on doing this kind of thing, but it’s nice that it’s well researched and documented. Not surprising considering it is from an award-winning journalist! :)

Please note that this is not a walkthrough of the Silverlight-based NBC Olympics site, but of one that was built by the Asian Media Centre in Australia.

First of all I’d like to say a big Happy New Year to everybody reading, and in particular to my friends in Russia who have made my ‘Introducing Silverlight 2’ book a big success over there.

С Новым годом!

If you can read Russian, or if you’re just curious, the Russian version of the book, in its entirety can now be downloaded from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/rus/expression/resources/

Enjoy!