Adam Kinney, Continuum Explorer

An introduction to Windows 7 Libraries for .NET development

Adam Kinney — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:49:00 GMT

Windows 7 includes new features that you can use in your applications to add functionality and improve system integration. The APIs are written in native code, but are accessible to .NET developers via the Windows 7 .NET Interop Sample Libraries.

To see the Libraries in action check out the following interviews with Yochay Kiraity:

	Sensor and Location .NET Library for Windows 7 Provides access to work with light, motion and GPS devices
	Taskbar and Libraries .NET Library for Windows 7 Provides access to TaskBar integration and JumpLists along with customizing Libraries, which in Windows 7 act as a group of folders.
	Multi-touch .NET Library for Windows 7 Provides access to Multi-touch gestures and analysis, demos incldue both WPF and Windows forms applications.

To start using the Libraries in your own apps, you can download the Windows API Code Pack and the Windows Touch Developer Resources.

To learn more about Windows 7 possibilities for developers check out Yochay’s Windows 7 for Developers blog.

Writing IE8 Accelerators once to save me from typing again and again

Adam Kinney — Mon, 11 May 2009 18:08:00 GMT

This is too easy to pass up. I’ve started hunting down Accelerators for sites I frequently use that are query string friendly. And if there is no existing Accelerator, I open my original Friendfeed Accelerator, change a few values and I have the Accelerator I want. You can learn how to write your own Accelerators via the OpenService Accelerators Developer Guide.

Using Accelerators is very simple, check out the action-packed two pane comic below:

There you have it. Select text, a link or just right-click on the page. Choose your Accelerator of choice and you land on your site of choice with the relevant context.

Here’s the Accelerators I’m using right now (click to install)

Find more Accelerators at the IE Add-ons Gallery.

Microsoft’s Silverlight-based Local Impact Map

Adam Kinney — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:40:00 GMT

This is an interesting new web application form Microsoft for a few reasons. First, the reason for its existence:

The Local Impact Map presents over 500 stories about the positive impact of local programs supported by Microsoft around the world.

Exploring the world via this application allows you to discover just how many programs are in effect. A few of the stories include photos and videos providing a more visual feel for the activity.

The experience overall, designed and developed by Stimulant, is interesting and easy to use. I particularly like their use of Deep Zoom for the Map. This is not your typical free mouse-wheelin’ usage where you can zoom all the way into the Pacific Ocean and get lost. Instead they’re taking advantage of Deep Zoom’s large image loading functionality along with the zoom for controlled transitions. They’re also providing custom overlays for data visualization the scale smoothly with the map image.

Its also worth noting their complete bookmark and history support. The Back button is functional when navigating through the app and very state is bookmarkable, exemplified by the custom “snapshots” functionality at the bottom.

Visiting BayArea for pixelSessions and show interviews

Adam Kinney — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:45:00 GMT

The second full week of May I will be visiting the San Francisco Bay area to attend pixelSessions as well as shoot a few video interviews for The Continuum Show.

From the pixelSessions site:

On Tuesday May 12th, our premier pixelSessions event will follow a theme of Inspiration. Inspiration has a heavy meaning, and it is the foundation of our daily lives as creative professionals. How do you stay inspired? What fuels your creativity? What gets you out of bed in the morning (or keeps you up late at night)? Where do you find the energy to tackle a myriad of design problems in innovative ways? Our speakers will discuss what inspires them and how they keep their work fresh and new.

pixelSessions 1.0 will be hosted at MIGHTY in SOMA, (Google Map: 119 Utah St., San Francisco).

Tuesday, May 12th, 6:00pm-10:30pm

6:00pm - Registration, Hosted Bar, and Snacks

7:00pm - Speakers and Q&A (bar closed)

8:30pm - Hosted bar, and networking

Tickets are $25

Taking full advantage of the location I will be setting up a interviews for the Show with a few of the local WPF and Silverlight shops with a focus on design process, Blend and Silverlight 3. If you are or know of a group doing great work I should interview:

Gone on Holiday

Adam Kinney — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 07:09:00 GMT

Thank you for thinking of me and adding me to a thread, messaging me, reading my blog, twittering me or even trying to email me directly.

I have gone on a much needed holiday and will be slow to respond. Its a true holiday at that. The laptop has been left on the desk. So as mentioned responses will not be likely until I return on April 13th.

While I’m away I have a few Continuum Show videos primed to publish themselves. So if you miss me, or want to learn about Microsoft Client technologies, check there.

Although my phone is a SmartTouchEnabled3GPhone, I do not plan to check email or use it for any of my usual Twitterage. I do plan to do a little creative publishing while I’m gone though, but it will be a new medium. If you’re really interested, you’ll have to dig a little to find it.

No, this is not a late April Fool’s joke.

Yes, today is my birthday. After two hours of labor, I was born at 12:08 am on April 2nd. Came into the world playing a joke on everyone, peed on the doctor, and have been doing it ever since.

Farewell, internet citizens, while I vacation.

Silverlight Advertising Creation Kit is now available

Adam Kinney — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:10:00 GMT

The Silverlight Advertising Creation Kit discusses several aspects of creating ads using Silverlight 2. Step-by-step instructions are provided throughout so no previous knowledge of Visual Studio, Blend or Silverlight is required. Sample projects are also included for each of the sections. The following topics are addressed:

Creating Polite Ads
Tracking Actions (Event Handling)
Ad synchronization
clickTAG Support
Expanding Ads
Optimization Techniques

Additionally, this document supplements the previously published Silverlight Ad Publishing and Serving Guide, which specifies how to serve ads to a client page.

I know a few have been waiting for this for a little now. Enjoy!

A few favorite photos from MIX09

Adam Kinney — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 23:29:00 GMT

A lot has happened since MIX09 last week, and while I’m still catching up with all of the goodness (news, sessions, blog posts, etc.) I thought I would share a few of my favorite pictures from the event. Consider this a mood setter if you weren’t there and a pleasant reminder if you were.

Live Services explained by James Senior Esq.

Adam Kinney — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:06:00 GMT

Live Services Explained (8:58)

Mr. James Senior was kind enough to drop by the studio and explain the story behind Live Services, Live Framework and how to take advantage of what’s available today. One of the interesting facts highlighted in our discussion is the fact that the Services can be used by all types of developers, not just Microsoft-focused ones. The REST-based Services work just fine with PHP.

For more detailed developer information on the APIs and documentation check out dev.live.com.

To keep up to date with new Continuum Show episodes, follow Twitter @ContinuumShow. Just episode links, no chatter. Chatter stays on my personal @adkinn channel.

Xbox Friends Watch Gamercard now on Channel 9 profile page

Adam Kinney — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:41:00 GMT

Wow, I just noticed today that the Xbox Friends Watch Gamercard has found its way on the Channel 9 profile page! Thanks EvNet Dev team :)

Running on Channel 9 was one of the main reasons I started on the custom theme feature and its nice to see it being used as designed. Plus it looks like its proliferated through the Network running on the Channel 8 profile page and Technet Edge profile page, too.

Maybe I should create a few more custom themes to match other sites? Hmm, perhaps after I’m done with preparations for MIX09…

Silverlight-based Gaming is about to explode

Adam Kinney — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 02:12:00 GMT

First Edition

When Silverlight 1.0 came out the focus was on media, graphics and animation. The media capabilities of Silverlight have continued to advance and large scale projects have continued to impress. Well-known Silverlight media projects include the Olympics, Democratic National Convention, and Presidential Inauguration. Some of the newer projects include NetFlix Instant Watch, RAI.tv and CBS choosing Silverlight for March Madness.

Silverlight media features are continuing to improve with the release of the Smooth Streaming Beta along with upcoming H.264 support.

To find out what’s coming out next for Silverlight Media, attend or watch the What’s New in Microsoft Silverlight 3 session at MIX09.

The Sequel

Now Silverlight 2 (important notice the lack of “.0”, its just a 2) came on the scene and brought along the subset of the .NET Framework and WPF Features. Controls, Layout, Styles, Skins, Databinding, Services, oh my!

Full applications are now being written in Silverlight and a few of the recent ones I’ve enjoyed checking out include Colaab, BestFreeCharts and the Design Guidance and Controls from MSCUI

Now that Silverlight 2 has been released for a few months, architectural guidance is a hot topic. Prism v2, which is Composite Application Guidance was recently released from the Patterns and Practice group along with many articles about Silverlight MVVM.

If you haven’t already, check out Jamie Cool’s talk on Building Business Focused Applications at PDC08.

At MIX09, keep on eye on the following sessions:

The Triple Play

Now we’ve reached the topic of this post. Media is getting sharper, Applications are compiling, Silverlight is Fizzing and somewhat by its own accord Silverlight Gaming is shooting up.

There have been a few Silverlight 3 features hinted already by ScottGu that are significant, namely 3D Support and GPU Hardware Acceleration.

For more information on these features at MIX, go to:

Why do I think Silverlight-based Games are going to explode?

I’ve been watching the trends.

First off, every designer or developer dreams of writing a game, right? At least most of them dream of fun ways to use their talents of creation. Imagine all of the .NET programmers given access to a simple framework that allows you to build casual games. Yeah, that’s right that already happened. Now imagine you’re used to writing games with other technologies and you’re starting to see the power and opportunity of the .NET Framework. That’s happening too.

Second, check out some of the recent movement; all of the Silverlight-based games listed on sites like Mashooo, Blue Rose Games and Farseer Games; the announcement of a new ad-based gaming site SilverArcade from Bill Reiss, and a third of the MIX09 10k contest entries.

Its also interesting to take a look at some of the more advanced game like Manic Miner, Shidonni and Shock. These are not just your basic BreakOut game that was running on your Atari in the 80s.

Its going to explode, I tell ya. In a good way of course.

How you can get started

So now you want a piece of the action? Looking to fulfill that dream of creating a game? You’re in luck because a lot of these people already doing it are sharing their knowledge.

Follow blogs like Bill Reiss, Steve Fulton, Andy Beaulieu, Jeff Weber and for animation Jeff Paries
Enter the Server Quest Contest to win the $5k or at least get in the gallery
Read Nikola Mihaylov’s white paper on the Anatomy of a Silverlight Game

Below is an interview with Nikola which demos the Shock game along with an explanation of the whitepaper:

You have the power.

The official unofficial MIX09 Tweetup

Adam Kinney — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:25:00 GMT

We’ve started to see the rumblings like this one popup a few times now:

John’s tweet garnered some excitement and conversation and as a fan of Twitter and MIX, we thought we should help make this happen.

So here’s our plan.

The MIX09 Attendee Party is Wednesday night the 18th from 6pm – 10pm. This will be tons of fun, but you’ll be in Vegas, where the party keeps moving. At 9:09pm, the location of the Tweetup will be tweeted by @MIX09.

It will be up to you to then find the location and be one of the first ones to arrive. Early birds will enjoy free drinks and 140 character-based conversation. Late birds buy their own drinks, but can still spout 140 characters at a time.

Appropriate links for this event:

MIX09 – the reason most of us will be in Vegas at the time
@MIX09 – the location giver
Upcoming Event page – rsvp/reminder purposes
Facebook Event page – rsvp/reminder purposes for f’bookians
@adkinn – myself, who you can send location suggestions to
@amyrc – be nice to her, she’ll be the one with the credit card

This will be the first day of the conference and with the keynotes that day there should be plenty to talk about. And if we get bored we can always complain about Twitter clients or joke about fail whales.

Just published TCSWeekly episodes 4, 5 and 6

Adam Kinney — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:22:00 GMT

What is TCSWeekly?

A weekly video podcast where I feature the top news, tutorials and demos in the Microsoft Client World. Audio only would be easier but given the nature of Client technologies consisting of the frameworks that stand between you and raw data, the visual aspect helps.

Why were three episodes published all together?

There was a drain. The drain hadn’t been cleaned out for 3 years and a bunch of hair and soap had accumulated and… Well, no, actually I got behind and wanted to fall under the “better late then never” principle.

Weekly shows can be difficult, but I’ve figured out a better workflow and am enjoying producing each episode more and more. There are just a ton of feature worthy Client-focused items out there that worth broadcasting to the Netizens.

(Did Netizen ever make it as a term? Seems concise but maybe its not trendy enough.)

Here are the last three shows posted:

	TCSWeekly 006 - Silverlight is fizzing along with Moonlight and Contests
	TCSWeekly 005 - a UX Pattern Explorer and more Designer-ready content
	TCSWeekly 004 - amazing visuals and one monster MVVM article

Now to work on Episode 7, no need to get behind again :)

MIX09 10k Contest Winners

Adam Kinney — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:13:00 GMT

The question was simple - "What can you build with Silverlight or WPF in 10k?"

Many attempted to dazzle the judges and the community, but only few could win and only one would be granted a trip to MIX09.

To spoil the video and read who won, check out the official Announcement.
To see all of the entries check out the 10k Gallery.

This contest was a lot of fun to be involved with because of the creativity of the submissions and the excitement of the participants. For a few people this was their first attempt at using Silverlight including the Community Choice winner!

The race between the judges favorites were close because there were so many good choices. No entry was voted in the top 5 more than twice. Turtle# garnered the most point by ranking highest among the judges lists by those who picked them.

The Community Choice winner went above and beyond to campaign for his entry including:

emailed everyone he knew, even writing bilingual emails in French to pals in France in Switzerland.
printed out leaflets and passed them out to parents at his daughter's school and their church.
wrote a freeware native OS X version and put it on macupdate.com
went door to door in his neighborhood passing out leaflets
printed out a bunch of leaflets and took a train to Chicago to stand in front of the Sears Tower to hand out to people

Its an impressive story with a great ending, he’s donating his winnings to charity.

People are already asking about when 10k contest part 2 will be, which is a good feeling :)

Would you like to see 10k contest remain a MIX event contest only or would you want to see it run for both PDC and MIX?

Prism v2 now supports WPF and Silverlight

Adam Kinney — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:26:00 GMT

Composite Application Guidance, affectionately known as Prism, version 2 has been released. Prism provides guidance and code that can help you build modular applications that can adapt to constant changing requirements. In this video, Blaine Wastell provides a quick overview and demonstrates a Silverlight and WPF application using shared code.

One of the questions that’s often asked is how to develop Silverlight and WPF applications that share the same code. Prism v2 provides a tool called ProjectLinker that manages some of the bookkeeping Blaine mentions in the video. You simply create a class file in one project, link it to the other and the tool will keep them synchronized as you edit.

Prism is also available on CodePlex, where you can download the code and discuss the guidance in the forums.

Tell a Fairy tale in Silverlight or WPF and win a FREE PASS TO MIX

Adam Kinney — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 06:30:00 GMT

Following along in Giorgio’s footsteps, here’s my free pass to MIX giveaway…

I have had the opportunity to attend and be involved with MIX since the beginning and it has quickly become my favorite conference to attend. If you live and work in the Microsoft world anywhere from 100% to 10% of the time and have some involvement with the Web, User Experience Design or Creativity this is the place to be.

Now, as hinted by the title of this post, I have the opportunity to help you attend. I will be giving away 1 Free Pass to MIX09 (includes the conference ticket, meals, party, but not the flight and hotel).

All you have to do is tell the best story possible using either Silverlight or WPF. The story can portray any message, anecdote or story but it must be done in the format of a fairy tale. The more traditional fairy tale elements that appear the better. If fairy tales aren’t your thing, then you can choose the alternate theme of Aesop’s Fables. Stories will most likely be told using graphics, movement and colors, but I’ll leave that part up to you.

The following rules apply:

You create the story-telling application using Silverlight or WPF.
You find somewhere to host the application to be viewed by the public.
The application must be original.
Post a comment on this post that points to your entry and some way to contact you.
Submission deadline: February 23rd, 23:00 pm PST

On February 24th, I will review the entries and choose the best one. My criteria will be:

Originality – How creative was your message
Skills displayed – This covers both technical merit as well as graphic and animation design
Appropriate - How well did you fit into the fairy tale or Aesop’s fable theme

If you are looking for inspiration on what can be accomplished with Silverlight and WPF, check out the 10k gallery.

Have fun!