Before I talk about Tuesday, I should finish up Monday since I blogged before the Mashup Event. I blogged early as I figured I'd stick it out until 2am, but being on Central Time, that's 4am, and I just couldn't make it, especially considering the mix of Corona and sugar was putting me in a coma. Anyway it was very cool as they had some comedians there making light of everyone's ideas. The idea behind the night was to come up with mashups and build a quick solution, and the winner got an XBox.
So on to Tuesday, I made it up bright and early for the 8:30 session (10:30 my time <smile/>) on a session on Silverlight and .NET. The first 15 minutes was good as they dug into the technical information, but after that it was pure coding and I can't really sit through sessions like that, so I bolted and headed to the Sandbox for yet another copy of Vista Ultimate and Expression (cool). The couple neat thing I learned about the .NET install for Silverlight is that it's only 4MB, the apps still run in the sandbox with no way out, and you don't get any annyoing elevation prompts. By the way you can start playing with this today, and if you do you should downolad:
- Silverlight 1.1 Alpha
- Visual Studio "Oraca" Beta 1
- Silverlight Tools Alpha for "Orcas" Beta 1
- Expression Blend 2 May Preview
- ASP.NET Futures (don't know exactly what they meant by this)
Afterwards I headed to a session on the future of design to mix (funny eh) things up a little. Never quite understanding how designer think, I learned some really cool things about user experience in this session, but in the end it's simple. Hit the value proposition, save the user clicks, save the user time, but ignore all of these if it takes something else to create a positive emotional experience.
Next thing on my plate was the Office Live session. I had seen the demos before, but went mainly to get a chance to talk to the presenters, as we are actively doing some R&D work around Office Live. If you don't know anything about Office Live, be sure and go sign up for a free account at http://officelive.microsoft.com and start playing. In a nutshell it is subscription based access to SharePoint, Email, Calendar and anything else collaborative. There is a complete API that allows you to build your own applications on top of it, plus the ability to use most of the normal SharePoint APIs.
Last session for the day was another Keynote, which frankly bored me. I didn't really have a rhythm to it and there was very little new information to be gained. I left early, nothing else to say. Of course after that was the party, that no Microsoft event should be without. We got to hang out at Pure in Caesars Palace for several hours and drink on the stock holders. Pussycat Dolls perform every night, but that room was way to crowded with testosterone, so I spent my time on rooftop patio, which is what I'd recommend if you even get a chance to check this place out. It's probably one of the coolest bars I've ever been in. And with that note I'll end with a couple bad pictures from the evening.
