Adam Kinney posts tagged with 'conferences'

PDC2008 site and registration is live

Adam Kinney — Wed, 28 May 2008 08:11:00 GMT

I'll be there.

SilverlightDevCampSeattle merges with BarCamp Seattle

Adam Kinney — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:08:00 GMT

The just recently announced SilverlightDevCamp Seattle has been merged with the upcoming BarCamp Seattle. They were both on the same weekend and there are only so many geeks in Seattle that like to camp indoors on the weekend, so why not setup one campsite.

The advantage of this is a larger more diverse crowd. The disadvantage is following the BarCamp style of session scheduling there is no room for giving a special preference to a certain technology.

At this point, I'm just going to refer to it as "BarCamp Seattle with a possibility of Silverlight content". BCSwaPoSC still sounds like a good time and I plan on camping there for the weekend.

SilverlightDevCamp Seattle - June 13-14th 2008

Adam Kinney — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:17:00 GMT

Two of my favorite events I attended last year were the SilverlightDevCamps in San Francisco and Chicago. The DevCamp event is run in a community-driven barcamp style where conversation is open and free and results in intriguing dialogue and sessions. (my SF Recap, video from SF, photos from SF, photos from Chicago)

The time has come for a SilverlightDevCamp in Seattle and this one should be very interesting. Its the first DevCamp since the release of the Silverlight 2 beta at MIX and the amount of features and functionality has about tripled in size since Silverlight 1.0.

Looking forward to an awesome event!

Oh and they are holding a contest for a SilverlightDevCamp Seattle logo. Prizes include untold riches from the sponsors and recognition at the event of your design skills. If only Seattle had some iconic totem or building to use as a starting point...

PDX Webfoot and then Olympia

Adam Kinney — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:12:00 GMT

This Saturday I will be attending and speaking at the PDX Webfoot event.

Webfoot is a web-focused event for all creatures, techie and non-techie alike. Bring the whole family for a day of education, entertainment, and fun!

If you take a look at the schedule, you'll see that we'll be talking about topics like Safe Internet Browsing, IE8, Flex and Silverlight. We should have a pretty interesting crowd as the different groups involved include the CodeTrip crew, PADNUG, PDXUX and Ryan Miller form the Portland Adobe Developer User Group.

After the event in Portland I will be riding the CodeTrip bus to help out with the Olympia event, which is the final stop before the tour ends at the MVP Summit back in Seattle and near much closer to where my car will be.

(And for those of you from the PDXUX group, I'll make sure I am well -fed and well-rested before Saturday.)

Interviewed at MIX, audio now available

Adam Kinney — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:21:00 GMT

In case you haven't heard, we meaning Microsoft threw a little party in Vegas this month called MIX. You should really come visit MIX sometime maybe next year, say around March 18-20th in 2009?

We like to have 72 hour conversations and talk about all the things we have going on for the web. This year we announced Silverlight 2 Beta 1.

Man I was excited, and maybe after listening to these two interviews a bit overly excited. On Wednesday I received two emails within 20 minutes of each other notifying me that my interviews had been posted.

First, I was interviewed by Erik Mork from the Sparkling Client podcast. Sparkling Client is podcast they have recently started, but judging by the production quality and the content, I feel they are off to a good start. My interview is available as Show 6: interview with Adam Kinney of Microsoft.

Erik and Monica do nice job leading into the content and my favorite interviewee-caught-in-the-headlights quote is when I say "algorithms to be figured out". Other than algorithms we discuss Silverlight 2 and the direction that we are headed with it.

The goal of Sparkling Client is to be concise 15-minute podcast that entertains as well as informs their audience about Silverlight and the rich web to come. You can find more shows on their site SparklingClient.com.

The Thirsty Developer is another podcast that I interviewed for at MIX. Dave Bost and Larry Clarkin two Microsoft evangelists from the Midwest produce this show which has a nice "hanging out in Chicago" feel.

Dave interviewed me about Silverlight 2 and we cover what it is and what some of the great new features are.

I listened to this one and found a few errors that I should clear up.

Templates - when discussing styling and skinning, I meant to discuss templates but ended up discussing the ContentPresenter and its ability to composite arbitrary controls. This is not changing the template of the control but rather changing the content. Jose Fajardo has an interesting post covering skinning and styling which is a bit more accurate.
Installation - I just wanted to strengthen the point that the installation process is still as customizable as before in 1.0. Hard Rock has a nice custom screen and FaceOut does too and they include a timer to start the application as soon as Silverlight is installed. Kudos for the timer!

It was a very fun process to be a part of and I thank both parties for their kind words.

Presenting Silverlight 2 at the PDXUX meeting next week

Adam Kinney — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 22:33:00 GMT

Next week I will be presenting an overview of Silverlight 2 at the March PDXUX meeting in Hillsboro, OR, US.

The PDXUX defines itself as:

This is a group for both developers and designers, something unique in Portland as all other groups target either one or the other. The "UX" in the name stands for "User Experience", something which both designers and developers must care about and work on together in order to succeed. The primary goals of this group include: unity, design, platform, reality.

I've always wanted to attend a Special interest Group like this, so why not start by speaking at one. There is certainly plenty to talk about with the recent release of the Silverlight 2 Beta. I've been holding in Silverlight 2 goodness, I'll probably just jumble my words together in excitement.

To make up for the possible overly-excited state, I will be bringing copies of the First Look at Microsoft Silverlight 2 book that was included with the MIX08 Swag Bag. Hopefully enough for everyone, so if you plan to come make sure you let Kelly know.

Catching up with Silverlight 2

Adam Kinney — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:24:00 GMT

Starting last week on March 5th after Silverlight 2 Beta 1 was announced, a lot has been said about Silverlight 2. Presentations have been given, demos have been shown, bits have been released, tutorials have been posted and many conversations have been had. As an attempt to catalog some of the more interesting and useful content, I'm posting my list of highlights since SL2B1 day.

Overview

In the unlikely event you haven't found where yet, you can grab the runtime and tools for Silverlight 2 Beta 1 on Silverlight.net.

Other links to help you get started include:

Building Rich Internet Applications using Silverlight 2 - MIX session presented by Joe Stegmen and Mike Harsh, Part 1, Part 2
A Whirlwind Tour - Jesse Liberty's introduction to Silverlight 2
Fundamentals Lab - This lab explores the fundamental tools and features that underpin any Silverlight application.
Breaking Changes in Silverlight 2 - This topic discusses the changes made to the Silverlight runtime and Silverlight tools between the Microsoft Silverlight 1.1 Alpha September Refresh and the MIX 2008 release.
Packaging and Application Startup - Pete Brown explores the new application model, read Part 1 and Part 2
Dynamic Animation Lab - This is a simple lawn mowing simulation that exposes different techniques of leveraging the managed Animation API in Silverlight 2.

Demos

Hard Rock Memorabilia - One of the most talked about demos at MIX08, welcome Deep Zoom!
Pulse at SXSW - mashes up twitter, del.icio.us, Technorati and flickr in a very visual and useful way
AOL email client - a full email client written in Silverlight 2
NBC Olympics - can be seen in the first keynote at MIX08 around 1:17:00, an interview with Perkins Miller is also available
TextGlow - read Word 2007 documents online with Silverlight 2
Silverlight.net Community Gallery - controls demo, RSS reader, SOAP Weather Widget and more
Tunnel Trouble - a new Silverlight-based game from Terralever
WeatherBug - designed for Silverlight Mobile, you can test the app running on the web.

Controls

Control Demo Page - see the controls in action
Source code and Unit Tests for controls - download the code
Creating Rich Dynamic User interfaces with Silverlight 2 - MIX session presented by Karen Corby
Controls Tutorial - Another Jesse Liberty tutorial
ListBox and ScrollViewer FAQs - all you ever wanted to know about them and more
File Upload Component - Wilco Bauwer builds a File upload and control and shares the source
User Controls Lab - Building Reusable Controls in Silverlight 2
Using the Silverlight 2 Canvas - a screencast by Jesse Liberty
Using Silverlight 2 Grids and Stack Panels - another great screencast by Jesse Liberty
Styling Controls - another tutorial by Jesse Liberty (he's been very busy)

Deep Zoom

Applications = Designers + Developers - MIX session presented by Celso Gomes and Kirupa Chinnathambi , Deep Zoom heatured in the second part
Hard Rock: Behind the Music with Deep Zoom - MIX Session presented by Scott Stanfield
First Attempt with MultiScaleImage - Mike Taulty shows how to implement control over Deep Zoom, followed by an update
Deep Zoom Demo - Mike Ormond shares Deep Zoom code and then adds mouse wheel support in part 2
Deep Zoom Composer Preview
Deep Zoom Composer Preview - User Guide

Mobile

Mobile Devices and Microsoft Silverlight - MIX session presented by Amit Chopra and David Kline
Using Microsoft Silverlight for Creating Rich Mobile User Experiences - MIX session presented by Giorgio Sardo
Brad Becker interview - about the recent announcement about Silverlight Mobile.
WeatherBug demo
MIXr demo
Silverlight for Mobile primer session at MIX08 - my notes from the first mobile session at MIX

Dynamic Language Runtime

Microsoft Silverlight and Dynamic Languages - MIX session presented by John Lam and Jimmy Schementi
Hello World! demo - demo from MIX session
Managed JScript and flickr -demo from MIX session
Integrating Silverlight and ASP.NET MVC - demo from MIX session
Iron Python - Jimmy Schementi's MSDN article
Iron Python and the DLR - Bill Chiles's MSDN Article
John Lam on Ruby, Ruby, Ruby - Open Space session at MIX08

Moonlight

Exploring Moonlight : Novell's Implementation of Silverlight on Linux - MIX session presented by Miguel de Icaza
Pre-Mix 08: Moonlight Updates
Channel9 works with Moonlight!

Physics

Farseer Physics Engine - an open source physics engine for Silverlight 2
Polygon Demo - Andy Beaulieu's recent demo using Farseer
Heads Will Roll demo - Chris Cavanagh updates his sample, click "move platforms" to make the wheels/heads go flying

Networking and Data

Networking and Data Lab - In this hands-on lab, you will look at using a variety of remote data sources and communication techniques to retrieve data for a Silverlight application.
Working with Data and Web Services in Microsoft Silverlight 2 - MIX Session presented by Eugene Osovetsky
Sockets Sample
Data Binding Tutorial - A Jesse Liberty tutorial

Browser Integration

Browser Integration Lab - In this hands-on lab, you will look at the places where DHTML and Silverlight meet.
Calling JavaScript functions - Tim Heuer tutorial

Tools

Silverlight Blueprint for Sharepoint - This is the answer to "how do you use Silverlight in Sharepoint?", Micheal Lehman has an interview live on Ch9
PhotoZoom - Want a Deep Zoom Album of your own? try this site. Look for the "processing" notification when attempting to view your albums, the site is rather busy right now
BlogEngine.NET Silverlight Extension - I would expect to see more of these start cropping up
Programmer Utilities - Jesse Liberty's suggested "other" tools
Telerik Controls - There are lot of cool examples under the Online demos section. Very cool to see the Animations framework in there.
ImageGear for Silverlight

Fountains of Information

Scott Guthrie - great tutorials and source of breaking news
Tim Sneath - next best place for breaking news and clarity of information
Jesse Liberty - The Silverlight Developers best friend
John Lam - Dynamic Language Runtime
Jose Fajardo - User Experience and Design
Andy Beaulieu - games and physics
Sparkling Client - a podcast about Silverlight and other RIA technologies.
Code Trip - driving around the west coast, check to see if they're coming to your neighborhood

Silverlight User Groups

Adam Kinney — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:41:00 GMT

I just noticed Dave Campbell's post announcing the 3rd meeting of the Phoenix Silverlight User's Group Meeting tomorrow night. Being one of the first dedicated Silverlight groups I've heard of, I feel compelled to send some Silverlight swag. I bet we still have some of those Silverlight hats from MIX07 lying around...

I've heard of a few other groups focusing on Silverlight or a combination of WPF/Silverlight/UX including:

ZamDes in New Zealand
PDXUX in Portland, OR, US (I'm thinking about driving down for their next meeting on March 18th)
Silverlighters (which doesn't appear to have made it past the site creation step...)

I am guessing some existing groups may morph like the Denver RIA Developer Group, which appears to have been an Adobe Flex User Group that has now opened its doors to Silverlight and AJAX developers, too.

Anyone know of other WPF/Silverlight/UX special interest groups that have formed?

SLEvents persisting on Upcoming

Adam Kinney — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 05:35:00 GMT

Recently I've been talking about Silverlight News on Twitter and how you can add it to your blog and that's all up and running fine and dandy.

During this time, I've also been continuing to post to the Silverlight Events Twitter account. This works out great as I continue to find new events while I read my search feeds. I have a simple format to the post and it takes very little time.

What did take more time though was the reference page that stored all of the events by date order. I was using a page on the Ch9 wiki, but it was pain ful, in some part due to the formatting of the wiki script and the styling of the page, but mainly because this is live data that is constantly changing. In order to keep it fresh, I'd have to jump back to the wiki page and remove stale events.

Extra work, no good.

If only there was a site that specialized in events. And what if that site was already used by other people? Perhaps they could enter the even be already entering the events there?

Well there is such a site and it is called Upcoming.

Its not a new site, and its not even a new site to me, I joined in 2006.

But it all finally clicked for me. Why not just store the events on Upcoming and take full advantage of their advanced event handling functionality?

"Brilliant!"

(no I'm not quoting those commercials, I'm quoting Boston Legal, for those in the know. I know FrankArr knows. He's always twittering about that show. Denny Crane.)

Tags:silverlight - Upcoming

Jan 26th is the day to start learning Silverlight

Adam Kinney — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:27:00 GMT

Of course any day is fine day but while tracking events covering Silverlight, I've noticed that January 26th is an especially good day to learn about Silverlight. There are three events this coming Saturday that include a lot of Silverlight goodness:

Silverlight 1.0 Fire Starter in New York - Even though the quality of the logo has degraded over time (I should send them an original), I don't believe the content has. This is a free one day event covering all the aspects of Silverlight 1.0: XAML, Graphics, Animation, Media, Developer Tools and Expression Tools.

Seattle Code Camp - This two day event is covering a wide variety of topics, including a few sessions on Silverlight. Sessions that have been scheduled include Uses for Silverlight 1.0 and Dynamic User Interfaces with Silverlight 2.0. There a few others waiting for a time slot including a session I proposed around the development of a Silverlight-based SideBar gadget. My plan is to center that talk around a new release of the XboxFriendsWatch gadget, I just need to finish it first :)

Second Life .NET User Group meeting - If you can't make it to New York or Seattle by Saturday you can login to Second Life and listen to Todd Anglin's presentation on Visual Studio Island. I had fun last time I was there and brought back a few screenshots.

Silverlight 1.0 Fire Starter Videos - And if you can't make it to New York or Seattle or wake up by 12:00 PM SLT to make it Todd's session, then you can still take your sleepy self to the Fire Starter video site. Heck you can go there anytime or even you do make it to one of the presentations above. Those videos are just waiting to be streamed to you.

Silverlight 1.0 Fire Starter video site is now live

Adam Kinney — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:53:00 GMT

On November 29th 2007, a group of people gathered together to study Silverlight. "What is it, really?", "What can I do with it today?" and "There really is more than just a Media?" were all questions answered that day. Video and audio of the event has been captured on the Silverlight 1.0 Fire Starter video site, a newly inducted member of the MIX University.

You can stream the videos directly within the site or you can download the sessions in video and audio format.

The session titles are as follows:

An Introduction to Silverlight - Mithun Dhar
Getting Started Programming Silverlight - Jesse Liberty
Workflow of Silverlight with Expression and Visual Studio - Arturo Toledo
Silverlight XAML - Laurence Moroney
A Development Story - Adam Kinney
Media, Markers and More - Ernie Booth
Popfly and Silverlight - Adam Nathan
Silverlight in the Future - Ernie Booth

As an added bonus, if you like the design or interactivity of the site feel free to grab the source code. The code is not been specially prepared for review, but the code managing the HTML and Silverlight integration may be particularly interesting.

Enjoy the content and thanks to all of the attendees who showed up and really made the event a fun time!

Silverlight 1.0 Fire Starter today

Adam Kinney — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:52:00 GMT

In building 33 on campus today we have a large number of people who have come to learn more about Silverlight. Luckily we, we being Mithan Dhar, Laurence Moroney, Arturo Toledo, Ernie Booth, Adam Nathan and myself, have prepared for this day. We have a nice line up of sessions on the agenda and we have even planned an after sessions get together for those who just can't get enough.

This post has a dual-purpose of reminding those of you who couldn't make it that you are most likely missing a good time, but also to be used as a visual during my session. So if you would like to make a small appearance at the event in an ASCII form, leave a comment and say "Hello".

And luckily there is no need to worry if you couldn't make it. We are video taping the sessions and we'll post them as soon as they are ready.

Not sure if any of the attendees are twittering the event yet, we didn't put together a conference account, but I will be twittering later about the event if you wish to follow along. I'm guessing Tim Heuer will be twittering, too. He's pretty good at that. I always know when he's flying between airports.

Oh and the Facebook event page is still live, but I'm not expecting much action there. Event pages seem to be good at getting the word out and organizing attendees, but they are not active during or after the event. Must be the form factor. Keep It Simple with Twitter.

If you did make it to the event, congratulations. I'm happy for you and I hope you learn a lot and have a good time.

MIX08 - Registration is now open!

Adam Kinney — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 18:49:00 GMT

Based on the fact that you are reading my blog, I'm guessing you have an interest in Silverlight. If only there was some sort of grand conference where you could hope to learn more about Silverlight and its future. Although content, news, plans and other details are still in process, Microsoft MIX08 is most likely the conference that will fill your need for more knowledge.

MIX08 is a two-and-a-half day conference aimed at professionals in the consumer Web space – Web developers, designers and advertising professionals -- to come together to explore new ways to build next generation Web experiences with Microsoft’s platform and continue to explore how to build more interactive and responsive experiences that take full advantage of the capabilities of the web.
I've had the opportunity to attend both previous conferences, MIX 06 and MIX07, and MIX has taken the place as my new favorite conference series. The vibe is very loose and creative and the blend of attendees leaves industry insight oozing in the hallways.

I'm really looking forward to MIX08 and I hope to see you there. You can register today on the conference registration page.

Silverlight Events on Twitter

Adam Kinney — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:53:00 GMT

I subscribe to the internet in general whenever the word "silverlight" is mentioned using a variety of search feeds such as Technorati and Bloglines. This results in a lot of posts, many times duplicate posts, but I also get the chance to find blog entries I would normally miss.

A grouping of those posts that I find interesting include event announcements. In this early stage of Silverlight when there are few experts and many who are just beginning, I think local events where someone is speaking to you directly can be very useful. Documentation is great, but an "in person" chat can be the easiest way to get the zen of a technology.

I started keeping track of these events on the Silverlight wiki on Channel 9. This works fine for storage but is not very discoverable. The rss for the wiki is only updated when a new page is added not when a page is edited.

To aid in discovery, I've decided to create a new twitter account called slevents, where I will post the stream of events as they come in. I will continue to post the events to the wiki page in an ordered by date format. This way we can enjoy the best of both worlds, a stream of new data along with a base reference page. Plus being a twitter account, its more that just an feed its an accessible object via the well-designed Twitter API.

If you want to learn about Silverlight events happening in your area, follow slevents on twitter, subscribe to the feed or add the events page to your bookmarks.

If you want to have your event added to the feed, send a direct message or reply to @slevents on twitter.

Upcoming SilverlightDevCamps

Adam Kinney — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:45:00 GMT

Frank La Vigne has organized a Silverlight DevCamp in Washington, D.C. this Saturday November 3rd. He has the full details on his blog and has been twittering speakers and their session descriptions. "51 Attendees and Growing!"

On November 10th there will also be a Silverlight DevCamp taking place in Dallas.

Join us on Saturday, Nov 10th for an all-day coding fest on Microsoft Silverlight. We’ll have experienced Silverlight developers showcasing the power of the technology, getting you ready to develop your own Silverlight applications. Then there will be ample time to spend with them developing your own Silverlight applications. At the end of the event, you'll have the chance to show off your Silverlight application -- with prizes for the coolest and most creative efforts. So bring you laptop and your coding hat and come hang with a bunch of your fellow code monkeys!

Unfortunately, I won't be attending either DevCamp. I do have a heads up on some of the content you can expect, though. Tal McMahon showed a great demo in Chicago which he will be presenting in Dallas. And I believe Rob Zelt will be speaking at the DC camp, comparing Flash to Silverlight.

Tyler Ballance is on Ch9 talking about Silverlight

Adam Kinney — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 05:49:00 GMT

I had the opportunity to interview one of the interesting people I met at the SilverlightDevCamp in San Francisco this weekend (full DevCamp recap here).

Tyler Ballance works for Slide.com, the group behind popular Facebook Apps like FunWall and Top Friends. He knows a lot about Mono, Python and IronPython where acts as a contributor to said technology. I'm sure he knows many more technologies and interesting ways to get around in San Francisco, but this weekend he was able to spend sometime learning Silverlight. The video captures his impression of the DevCamp and his experience in recreating one of their existing Flash apps.

SilverlightDevCamp SF Recap

Adam Kinney — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:51:00 GMT

I had a great time this weekend at the SilverlightDevCamp in San Francisco. I had never before been to a DevCamp, BarCamp or any other type of camp that happens indoors. The casual yet academic atmosphere was well set and provided for by our hosts Kurt Brockett, Kevin Marshall and Anand Iyer. Nicely done guys, as well as thanks to the sponsors.

The camp started Friday night with a greeting, logistics and a bit of beer and pizza. During the greeting we had come up with a few session ideas and some common questions. Once I was introduced I took the opportunity to jump into Silverlight and answer a few of the burning questions with easy answers. What I quickly learned is that I should have polled the crowd about on their knowledge of Silverlight. I spend most of my days deep in Silverlight and most of the attendees had just started their journey. In my excitement to share my knowledge, I had jumped to step 200 but should have started from the beginning. I was able to answer questions for those who could not come on Saturday, so I think that was a plus. Definitely something to remember for future DevCamps.

We continued to plan sessions and happily socialize the night away.

Saturday morning came and the full day of sessions began. It was interesting to see the session schedule organized and driven by the attendees. Some held forums to lead a discussion around a topic they themselves wanted to learn more about. Others had prepared their sessions ahead of time and it showed.

I was happy to participate and contribute in almost every session. Silverlight is such a new technology and we've launched many products around the technology and WPF, that it is still very fresh. We have some misinformation out there we need to correct as well as our continued improvement on the ability to explain Silverlight.

I also received some great feedback on how we can improve upon the initial step in learning Silverlight . Currently I recommend using the Get Started page on Silverlight.net and the QuickStarts, but it sounds like a scenario-based getting started doc would be useful (e.g. if you are an SVG developer...).

Here are my highlights from the sessions I attended (full sessions page):

Silverlight 101
Brian Ellis from Vertigo did a respectable job of starting the day with an introduction to Silverlight. Not too deep but a good amount to get started with the code and the tools.

Expression Blend 101
Unfortunately Cal Schrotenboer's talk was cut short by technical difficulties, but I did get the chance to talk with him and learn about the classes he is teaching. He has a list here, but I don't believe I've seen that many WPF classes at a college before. I would expect to see a Silverlight class soon.

iPhone and Top Banana
Beau Amber of Metalliq and Top Banana fame, walked us though the iPhone simulation he had created for MIX:UK 07. He did a great job replicating the iPhone in XAML using Blend as his main tool, actually I think it was the only tool he used. He also demoed Top Banana and as usual the crowd loved it. Its such a cool app and hearing the story about how it came together was inspiring. And good news, the source is almost available, apparently there is just a little more clean-up to do. I did record the whole session and am working on publishing the video.

Silverlight and Flash (and JavaFX)
After lunch (more pizza) it was finally time for the most anticipated session comparing Silverlight and Flash. Randy Fong had started gathering questions since the night before and the session had awakened Ryan Stewart and drawn in John Dowdell. (Ryan had actually attended almost the whole thing and John had asked some good questions during Beau's talk)

We had an interesting start with Abdel Remani adding JavaFX into the comparison as well. I say interesting because nobody had mentioned JavaFX before and it didn't seem as though it was completely comparable in all aspects. Either way I learned about JavaFX and Flex in this session and Ryan, John and Anand did an admirable job trying to keep the comparison clear and accurate, while not turning it into a grudge match.

Regarding comparing technologies, I found the whole DevCamp very useful in learning more about technologies in the RIA space. Special thanks to Rob Rusher who spent some time going through Flex with me.

Moonlight
The Moonlight session was interesting because none of us had actually gotten Moonlight to run yet, but we were all interested. Anand and Tyler Ballance had the most to share and we made a bit of pact to continue to work together to futrther our Moonlight knowledge. Next step, host a VPC or VMWare with it running.

Extending Silverlight 1.0
Jeff Atwood of Vertigo and Coding Horror walked us through the construction of the Chess Viewer Sample. This seemed to resonate well with the attendees and acted as real practical application of the code we had been talking about. Nice job Jeff and thanks for the lesson in chess notation.

IronPython
Tyler Ballance of Slide.com introduced us to IronPython and all of its Python goodness. He was actually a contributor to the Mac port so he had a fair bit of experience to draw upon. The session morphed into a "dynamic languages are fun? check yes or no" session. Which was fine because looking at Python code it looks fun and carefree. I should spend some time trying to build with it and see how I feel afterwards.

Media Services
We had a short Media session where we covered codecs and playback but most of the time was covering features we are planning for the future including server-side playlists and DRM.

After the last session, I interviewed Tyler about his DevCamp experience and the sample he had built while there. I think the video came out pretty well and I should be publishing it shortly.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the DevCamp and look forward to attending future Camps. If you take a look at the SilverlightDevCamp page, you'll see that there are currently two more planned. One in Washington DC in November and the other at the end of this month in Chicago the weekend before Adobe MAX.

I few last notes: there are more photos available on Flickr, it was very nice to finally meet John Dowdell in person and I was told that my voice sounds like Seth Rogen.

SilverlightDevCamp in Chicago this September

Adam Kinney — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 23:08:00 GMT

I mentioned earlier I would be attending the SilverlightDevCamp in San Francisco (which starts tomorrow, I'm coming to see you Jeff Atwood! Ok not just you but I felt like pointing).

Well in two weeks, there will be another SilverlightDevCamp held in Chicago (9/28 - 9/29). I'm not sure if I will be there, but you are most welcome to attend.

Dave Bost has a fair bit of information on his blog and the event exists on the barcamp wiki as well as on facebook.

So far the schedule is showing Silverlight and Facebook, Silverlight and Twitter and an MVC approach to Silverlight.

Prizes are starting to show up too, including a ticket to MIX08. That's worth the price of admission right there (which is free...plus the calories and gas it takes to get you there).

Making plans for SilverlightDevCamp SF

Adam Kinney — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:49:00 GMT

I just signed my name on the attendee list for SilverlightDevCamp San Francisco:

SilverlightDevCampSF is an upcoming gathering, inspired by BarCamp, to build Silverlight applications, It's organized by volunteers & Silverlight enthusiasts, with attendance free to all.
While similar to iPhoneDevCamp this event is focused on a singular technology, we'd like offer some diverse sessions like using PHP to generate Silverlight content, IronRuby/IronPython & the DLR or Moonlight on Linux.
Attendees will include web designers, developers, testers, all working together over the weekend to build Silverlight applications, share experiences, and push the limits of web application design. It's also a great chance to network with other developers in the bay area who are interested in Silverlight.
In the barcamp spirit, this is a community event driven by developers around the area. If you have ideas for topics or you want to show off some Silverlight applications you've built, please add it to SilverlightDevCampSFSessions

I'm looking forward to talking to more people about Silverlight, especially those who are getting involved this early in the game. And I love how they've propagated this event all over:

SilverlightDevCampSF - wiki page on barcamp.org
event page on upcoming
facebook event page
twitter feed
flickr feed

Nice work Kevin and Kurt.

Silverlight guy jumps off the edge

Adam Kinney — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 20:19:00 GMT

Silverlight and many of its cousins appeared in a funny keynote animation during the Web on the Piste conference. The animation was created very skillfully by the Nectarine group out of Australia. Taking a look at their portfolio certainly is inspiring. Animation will definitely be a topic of my upcoming presentations.

Two upcoming Silverlight events in Second Life

Adam Kinney — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 21:47:00 GMT

Brad Abrams posted last month about events taking place in Second Life on Visual Studio Island. After hearing about these, I added them to the Upcoming Events page on the Silverlight wiki. Then it got it a little weird.

Looking to spread the word about these unique events a little further, I jumped on to the Silverlight Group page on Facebook and added Related Events to let Silverlight Facebookers know about events going on in a different virtual world.

I guess its not completely odd. Its a bit like posting an announcement in one building to advertise a party going on in another building. It was just all so virtual.

Anyways, if you're interested the upcoming events are as follows:

Visual Studio Island presents: Silverlight and VB.NET
Amanda Silver
Tuesday, July 31, 2007 4:30-5:30 PM
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Microsoft/147/213/27/

Visual Studio Island presents: Silverlight and ASP.NET AJAX
Brad Abrams
Thursday, August 30th, 2007 3:00 - 4:00 PM
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Microsoft/147/213/27/

Furries welcome.

My new job

Adam Kinney — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 22:30:00 GMT

Two years ago on this very date of June 20th, I started my first day here at Microsoft. It was an exciting day, it was just new employee orientation, but it was my first job in a technical company with more than 20 employees. I was hired on to become the newest web developer on the coolest Microsoft site known as Channel 9. My manager was Jeff Sandquist and my teammates were Charles Torre and Robert Scoble.

A lot has happened since then.

In 2005:

Aug 25th - Ch9 welcomed a new design
Sep 13th - PDC2005 - debut of the inflatable 9 guy
Sep 13th - MicrosoftGadgets launches as a blog
Oct 13th - Clipster was launched on Ch9
Oct 26th - Erik Porter joins the Ch9 team
Nov 1st - MicrosoftGadgets gains forums and a gallery
Dec 2nd - Shows are added to Ch9
Dec 22nd - MicrosoftGadgets gains user tagging and Ajax interface

In 2006

Jan 18th - Duncan Mackenzie joins the team
Mar 13th - Channel 10 goes live
Mar 21st - MIX06 happens
Apr 20th - Channel 10 party in Second Life
May 4th - Channel 10 is redesigned and adds new features
Jun 1st - Starbucks Interactive Cup Brewer appears in the break room
Jun 10th - Scoble announces he's leaving Microsoft
Jun 19th - Sampy joins the team
July 19th - Channel 10 gets a major update
Sep 21st - Ch10 update and we prep the code for multiple site usage
Sep 25th - Rory joins Ch9
Nov 6th - VisitMIX goes live
Nov 13th - The great Flat vs threaded debate on Ch9 culminates
Dec 4th - 9 Guy first appears in Silverlight

In 2007

Jan 3rd - VisitMIX update
Feb - I drew a lot on the whiteboard
Mar 9th - REMIX contest goes live
Mar 19th - SCRUM happens
Apr 23rd - David Shadle joins the team
Apr 30th - MIX07 happens
Jun 7th - Ch9 v4 beta goes live
Jun 20th - I announce my job

Now that we've gone through that short highlight reel, let me continue with the news. First off, no I am not leaving Microsoft. I am actually not even going that far. Same building and most likely same office for awhile.

I will be joining the Client Platform Evangelism Team led by Tim Sneath and my focus will be Silverlight and WPF. If you know anything about me, you know that I will be in heaven spending my days engrossed in these two technologies.

I would like to thank Jeff, Tim, Steve and Ray for their help in making this move smooth and possible.

Woo hoo!

Back in the Saddle

Adam Kinney — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 04:15:00 GMT

MIX07 was awesome. I was involved in supporting the VisitMIX site, posting an array of Silverlight screencasts on Channel 9 and a few other community events. I was lucky enough to go a few sessions, including the WPF Comics session which impressed me enough that I had to blog about it right away. I have notes on a few of the other sessions I'd like to share, but those notes would be about month late so who knows how useful they would be.

After MIX07, I pretty much dropped off the Internet. No blogging, no Ch9 forums, no IM, no email. After the conference I flew from Vegas to Indiana to visit my ailing father. After I was able to spend 6 days with him, he passed away. I was very grateful for the chance to be there with him and my family for the last couple of days and there with my mother during the last few minutes.

This is the beginning of my third week back at work after being "offline" for almost two and a half weeks. I feel like I've caught back up now, took a little to get back up to speed which was not surprising (out of the office three weeks including the conference trip). I wanted to start this week out right and one of the things I've been wanting to do is write more. I have so much queued up to write about and a large amount of art and experiments to share and I just haven't taken the time. Or I think I have to get everything perfect before doing it. But I can tell you that with the mind set I am now, no need to wait or hold yourself back. Live life now, because now is the only time you can be sure you have.

MIX07 has sold out

Adam Kinney — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 22:34:00 GMT

...which reminds me, that I need to get my plane ticket.

I'm very happy to hear that MIX will have as full of an attendance as possible, providing the opportunity to get the most out of the conference. Although sessions and keynotes are the driving factor for conferences, the in-the-hall sessions can be just as fun and valuable.

A few of the MIX sessions I'm looking forward to (unfortunately, no permalinks available) include:

"ZAP!, WHAM!, KAPOW!": WPF and the Next Generation of Online Comic Book Reading
Deep Dive into Integrating Media with "WPF/E", Media Server and IIS7
Designing with AJAX: Yahoo! Pattern Library ( Bill Scott is the man )
Futures in Design
Ink for Designers and Developers
PANEL DISCUSSION: Getting Unstuck: Enhancing Designer & Developer collaboration for mutual success

Plenty of others but those stand out amongst the rest right now.

If you did not get the chance to register, you still have a few more days to submit an entry to the REMIX contest to win a ticket. The contest has definitely been heating up, though, here's two recent kick ass entries:

QuadriColor Mix

Horror Flick 2

MIX07 site goes live

Adam Kinney — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:34:00 GMT

We've released dates, prices and an rss feed for updates. And if you take a quick look you'll notice the site domain name is http://visitmix.com. So as you can now see, Haacked, we won't have to end MIX in 09 :)

Edit: This image is a reminder that I need to reskin my blog soon...

Summer Web Conferences

Adam Kinney — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 05:58:00 GMT

I've lined up two conferences this summer to attend this summer. Both conferences align with my interests and work in web design, ux and community-focused sites. I'm looking forward to the diverse crowds as well. I plan on snatching one of the cameras from 10 or Channel 9, and taking it along to document the trip.

The Ajax Experience, May 10th-12th
Its not just a conference, but an experience I am looking forward to. An impressive list of speakers presenting 90-minute sessions following a focused theme. We started the code base for 10 with Ajax in mind, it will be interesting to compare notes with others who have done the same.

WebVisions 2006, July 20th-21st
Before MIX06 this year, I had not been to a conference that addressed designers since FlashForward a few years ago (2003|4?) and man it really re-awakened a hunger. Tracks labeled Design, UX, Trends and killer speakers...should be fun.