MIX07 Keynote – Information Overload

BTW – long post! Too many announcements!

I’m just out of the MIX07 keynote featuring Ray Ozzie and Scott Guthrie (Yes I find it a lot of fun that the top guys at Microsoft on the technology side blog about what they are doing). I’m still trying to get my head around what I just heard. They have far exceeded my wildest expectations.

First – the client demos were sweet!

Neil Hunt of Netflix got on stage with some guys from Razorfish and demoed the great rich media and interactive video support in Silverlight. One of the cool things is that it was completely integrated into the back-end Netflix site for ratings, ordering and so on, has a chat app inside, collaborative movie watching where two people can watch the same movie from different parts of the world and it will keep them in sync and let them IM during the movie. That was cool and Netflix is a fantastic backer as they are very demanding on their systems and need the highest quality experience for their clients.

CBS got up and showed how they are integrating pro media with community contributed media tied to that pro media so that they can all of the sudden get content and points of view from an amazing number of sources instead of just their one camera guy.

Top Banana – I was already blown away when this section of the keynote came up. It’s one of the first managed applications with Silverlight and written with XAML and C# in Expression Studio, VS.NET and more. It’s a full blown video editor written in Silverlight. Wait – video editing in the browser? This is really blurring the line between desktop and web application. It’s only 50 kilobytes worth of payload to do all of the video editing. Yes – that’s 50k worth of code that’s downloaded. It does film stripping, frame by frame stepping, cutting, mixing, merging and everything that I could do with video. The did all of this in a month.

MLB.com are doing a ton with Silverlight as well. It has integrated overlays so you can watch the full screen video with overlays of your fantasy teams, pitch counts and more. It even ran on a phone! It’s a great experience and I’d love to talk more about it but I’m numb at this point with all the cool stuff.

Second – the Silverlight Beta (the cross-platform plug-in formerly known as WPF/e) is going to have much richer support for JavaScript and AJAX. That we expected and needed.

Third – there had been a lot of rumors and speculation about the next bit of business and that is that the Silverlight 1.1 Alpha is going to have the same exact CLR as the desktop version that allows you to leverage your existing .NET skills in VB.NET or C# to build RIA (Rich Internet Applications). Read that again slowly though. You will be able to write .NET to run in the browser on the client side of one of these RIA’s. In other words – you’ll be able to run .NET on a Mac in a Safari browser! That includes LINQ and the whole ball of wax! That just put Silverlight RIA’s in reach of any dev shops that are currently doing WPF with C# of VB.NET. And we are going to have support for Silverlight in VS.NET Orcas with a free download called the Silverlight Tools Alpha so we have proper tooling for the developers.

Fourth – The tooling is amazing. Expression Blend can export to XAML directly for Silverlight. That means that I’m not nearly as constricted by the limited number of controls and such that are available for Silverlight compared to WPF. It also manages and writes out all of your timelines, media integration, graphics work and so on. Expression Media does a great job of managing and encoding all of your videos. Expression Web has an AJAX Silverlight drop-in bit that can just drop in an RIA inside an existing application through drag and drop. As mentioned, VS.NET Orcas has support for development.

* Big point here * – Cross-Platform Debugging so you can do live debugging across the network to actually debug on the code that’s running on the Mac. You have access to the memory, objects, single stepping code and the whole nine yards! That’s amazing and it truly enables cross platform development!

* Another big point * – all of the tools from a SOAP perspective

Fifth – the Silverlight Streaming,  a companion service for Silverlight makes it easier for developers and designers to deliver and scale rich media as part of their Silverlight applications. Silverlight Streaming is a storage and video delivery service that will enable developers and designers to upload their application to Silverlight Streaming and then deliver this application to any website globally. Silverlight Streaming will provide 4GB of free storage as well as unlimited outbound streaming at 700 Kbps. For the first year, the service will be free. As the service moves out of beta it will be offered as part of the overall WL Platform offer, with continued 4GB free storage and free streaming up to 1 million minutes of streaming per site per month. Once a website goes over the 1 million minutes of streaming threshold, the site will have the option to take ads and revenue share or pay a small fee to help cover MSFT costs. Check out silverlight.live.com for more on this!

Fifth – and this one came out of the blue for me. The CLR will have full support for the DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime) including Iron Ruby, Iron Python and Managed JScript! Yes, you read that right – I had to ask for clarification when I heard about this too. You will be able to write your applications in C# or Vb.NET or Ruby or Python or Managed JScript! Sweet! That just put WPF and Silverlight (since it’s running the exact same CLR) in reach of any shop who knows XML so that they can write XAML and does programming. 🙂 I’m not saying that there won’t be a learning curve, but HOLY COW you can write Ruby to run in the browser on the client side of your application! For those of you who haven’t looked at Ruby and Python, you really need to take some time to delve into those languages and figure out some of the power and flexibility that dynamic languages bring to the table.

Sixth – Silverlight for Mobile!

Windows Presentation Foundation in Real World Development by Eric Burke

I’m out at MIX and got to met Eric Burke. Eric Burke is the lead developer on the WPF version of the Yahoo Messenger. It was fantastic! I was wearing a Visual Studio sweatshirt when I was getting on the plane in Detroit headed out out to Las Vegas. Eric spotted that and asked if I was going to MIX. We ended up hanging out a good part of the day. It turns out that he works remotely from Michigan for his team in Sunnyvale, CA. They have been working on a WPF version of the Yahoo Messenger for about 9 months now and have been knee deep in .NET 3.0. It’s been fun listening to the evolution of the application and the workflow with the design firm. He talked about how it’s been a fun and interesting ride.

I’m looking forward to seeing his presentations tomorrow and Wednesday. One’s called Windows Presentation Foundation in Real World Development. I did a small podcast recording with him that I’ll post in the next couple of days. He’s got a blogroll of a ton of blogs that he watches for .NET and WPF (Eric’s Blogroll) but you’ll have to listen to the podcast to get his pick of the top 3… 🙂

 

One other quick and interesting note – all of the sessions, including Eric’s, will be up on the web site for the general public in raw form 24 hours fter the session.

 

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Day of .Net in Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids in 2007

Day of .Net May 5, 2007 - I'll be there!WM Day of .Net May 19, 2007 - I'll be there!

 Were you at Day of .NET last year? Couldn’t get enough? This year there will be two Day of .NET events in Michigan! That’s right, you read it right – two Day of .NET events in Michigan! The first will be in Ann Arbor at the Washtinaw Community College on May 5th and the second will be in Grand Rapids at Davenport University on May 19th. These are two distinct events with different speakers and agendas. I’m fortunate enough to have been chosen to speak at both.

I’m talking about Architecting the User Experience and a joint session on Mobility with Dan Hibbitts in Ann Arbor. I’m repeating part of the ArcReady content on What do Architects Do Anyway and Architecture Assets – an Introduction to Patterns and Practices Group.

You should plan on coming to at least one of these events if not both!

Registration for the Ann Arbor Day of .NET

Registration for the Grand Rapids Day of .NET

Longhorn – Windows Server Virtualization and Server Core

I’m really excited about virtualization – as a lot of people are. I just ran across this video on a TechNet Blog by Kevin Remde and thought I’d share out.

In the demo you will see:

  • Windows Server Virtualization running on Server Core managed from another Windows Server Longhorn box
  • 64-bit hosts and 32-bit hosts and a Linux running on the same server core box
  • An 8-core virtual machine
  • System Center Virtual Machine Manager
  • System Center Operations Manager
  • Monitoring the VMs on the Server Core box 
  • Fire off a PowerShell script to hot-add another NIC to a SQL VHD Image

Link to Full of I.T. : Longhorn – Windows Server Virtualization and Server Core

Wanna Extend VS.NET? Let DonXML tell you how…

VS>NET is a great set of tools – however, sometimes it’s not all that you need. In those cases – VS.NET is a great platform to build tools on top of and you can extend it to do a ton of different things.

There’s a great webcast coming up on May 3rd presented by my good buddy DonXML… Don Demsak, AKA DonXML, is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for XML and a Microsoft .NET solutions architect who specializes in architecting and programming multi-tier applications using the Microsoft .NET Framework. He is also a technology evangelist known for advocating the benefits of XML, Contract-First Web Services, and the .NET Framework through blogging and various Web discussion groups. Don is a cofounder of the Mvp.Xml open-source project (www.mvpxml.org) that enhances XML capabilities in the .NET Framework. The Mvp.Xml project includes XPathmania, which adds XPath testing support to the XML Editor in Visual Studio 2005.

http://shrinkster.com/o5a

VS.NET DataDude Presentation at GANG (Southfield, MI) on Wed. 4/18

Chris Kotsis, one of the long time supporters and current Marketing Chair of GANG (Great Lakes Area .NET Users Group – the L and the U are silent… 🙂 ), is giving a talk on the VS.NET 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals (AKA DataDude). He’s worked with Randy Pagel to put together the content and such. If you have not seen DataDude, you should definitly come check it out. Even if you have seen it, I know that Chris will bring his own unique perspective to the table and show you things that you probably haven’t seen before.

Overview of Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals

Link to Great Lakes Area .NET User Group (GANG) > Meetings ( DNN 2.1.2 )

Architecture meets User Experience at upcoming ArcReady events

Larry Clarin (one of my fellow Architect Evangelists) has a great write-up of the ArcReady tour and a bit about the new one coming.


Larry Clarkin on the upcoming ArcReady events


From the ArcReady site:


Architecting the next generation of software. The why, the what and the how.


Microsoft’s journey towards creating new technology strategies, platforms, tools and practices is to drive the next generation of software for consumers and the enterprise. It’s not without irony that one of the most neglected and challenging components of the software design process is understanding how to identify, design and implement the ‘experience’ that an individual will have with an interface. Learn how Microsoft is elevating ‘user experience’ to a first-class citizen in the software design and development process. Understand why ‘user experience’ may be one of the most important parts of an Architect’s job in creating new software that will matter.

Our next ArcReady program is called “Architecting for the User Experience.” Our guest speaker will be Chris Bernard, UX Evangelist for Microsoft. Together with the Central Region Architect Evangelists, we’ll discuss the role of the ‘user experience’ in architectural design and provide hands-on, practical guidance for getting better results in your own projects. We’ll discuss WPF, WPF/e, XAML and the new Expressions suite of products that allow designers, architects and developers to build great ‘user experiences’ using the same base technologies. More importantly, we will discuss how architects can work with software design professionals in new and innovative ways to create the next generation of ‘experiences’ and products that will be demanded by consumers and the enterprise.

Session 1: “Why the User Experience Matters in Architecture”

Session 2: “Architecting for the User Experience”

Join Us for This Free Event.

Show Cities and Dates


The ones with the + are where Chris and I will be speaking together and the ones with the * are were I will be speaking by myself or with a partner such as Jeff Blankenburg.


Link to Larry Clarkin – Architecture meets User Experience at upcoming ArcReady events


Registration for the next round of ArcReady events – http://www.arcready.com

Mobility Touchdown Resources

These were interesting links that we put together at the end of the Mobility Touchdown

Windows Mobile Developer Wiki
http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Mobile

Developer HomePage MSDN Windows Mobile
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsmobile/default.aspx

MSDN Windows Embedded (CE)
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/embedded/default.aspx

Loke Uei’s blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/lokeuei/

Josh’s Moblog
http://foreme.spaces.live.com/

Ann Arbor .Net Developers Group
http://www.aadnd.org/

Great Lakes .Net Developers Group (Southfield)
http://www.migang.org/

West Michigan .Net Developers Group (Western Michigan)
http://www.grdotnet.org/

Enterprise Library 3.0 Released!

In case you haven’t seen it – Enterprise Library 3.0 has been released.


There are a ton of new features. Most of these are additive.



  • Validation Application Block – this allows you to centralize your validation rules and validate data from anywhere in your application. This means that through config – you can use the exact same validation in your smart client, ASP.NET, server side and so on.
  • Policy Injection Application Block – Provides a powerful approach for separating cross-cutting concerns from business logic using declarative policies that are attached at runtime to methods on your objects.
  • Application Block Software Factory – Dramatically simplifies the process of building application blocks and providers through the magic of guidance automation.
  • Visual Studio-integrated Configuration Editor – great improvements on the config editor and VS.NET integration.
  • Environmental Overrides – Use the configuration tool to specify configuration settings that are common or different across multiple environments, and merge this information into configuration files to be deployed with your applications.
  • WCF Integration – This is a bigger deal that it seams as we are now able to config the services layer o the Enterprise Libraries to talk to almost anything through Windows Communication Foundation. This has implications on the Logging, Exception Handling and Validation Application Blocks.
  • Pre-compiled, strong-named binaries. No need to compile and strong name the code unless you want to manage and evolve the code yourself.

Check out Tom Hollander’s blog for a more compete write-up.


Link to patterns & practices – Enterprise Library

Day of .Net in Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids in 2007

Day of .Net May 5, 2007 - I'll be there!WM Day of .Net May 19, 2007 - I'll be there!


 Were you at Day of .NET last year? Couldn’t get enough? This year there will be two Day of .NET events in Michigan! That’s right, you read it right – two Day of .NET events in Michigan! The first will be in Ann Arbor at the Washtinaw Community College on May 5th and the second will be in Grand Rapids at Davenport University on May 19th. These are two distinct events with different speakers and agendas. I’m fortunate enough to have been chosen to speak at both.



I’m talking about Architecting the User Experience and a joint session on Mobility with Dan Hibbitts in Ann Arbor. I’m repeating part of the ArcReady content on What do Architects Do Anyway and Architecture Assets – an Introduction to Patterns and Practices Group.


You should plan on coming to at least one of these events if not both!


Registration for the Ann Arbor Day of .NET


Registration for the Grand Rapids Day of .NET