Blankenthoughts

Have you heard about Code To Live? WHAT??? You haven't?

Code to Live is a series of webcasts by Josh Holmes and Steve Loethen (two of my colleagues) that is digging deep into what makes passionate coders tick. It's for those of us that would be writing applications even if our job didn't call for it.

It's for the guy that works as a SQL Architect, but is building a website for his son's little league team. Or those of us that build websites, applications, and games just because it peaks our interests.

I highly recommend checking out their video series on Channel 9.

Also, they'd like to meet you! They're looking for short video clips from passionate coders like yourself. Grab your camera, head out to the recognizable landmark near you, and tell them why you Live To Code!

Labels: code to live

So it's been a busy, but amazingly fun week. Monday night was Detroit's Halo 3 pre-launch party. We had over 130 people in attendance, and I got to run a 40 person tournament. It came down to an amazing finale, and the winner took home a Limited Edition copy of Halo 3.

Tuesday and Wednesday, we had similar, but smaller events in Columbus and Cincinnati. Both great events with some great competition.

Tonight, I'm attending the Columbus .NET Developer's Group. Watching an interesting presentation on WPF. Man, I love XAML. Could it be any easier?

Tomorrow, I get to breathe. I get to catch up on a week's worth of email. I get to do some of the mandatory training that I meant to finish a month ago. I get to go pick apples with my family. Looking forward to some deep breaths of fresh air.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

In case you're terribly interested in where I'll be over the next month, here's the short list (I'm sure this will be added to).

September 24 - Halo 3 Pre-Launch Party in Detroit, MI
September 25 - Halo 3 Launch Party in Columbus, OH
September 26 - Halo 3 Launch Party in Cincinnati, OH
September 27 - Columbus .NET Developer's Group Meeting
October 8 - ReMix07 Boston
October 9 - ReMix07 Boston
October 11 - Nashville .NET User's Group
October 12 - DevLink
October 13 - DevLink
October 15 - The Night of AJAX in Cleveland, OH (at the Microsoft office)
October 20 - Day of .NET in Ann Arbor, MI

26 days, 7 cities. Not bad. Where should I go next? Anyone have some great events coming up that I'm not aware of?

Also, in case you're curious, the Night of AJAX is a public event in Cleveland. We are going to be welcoming Jay Kimble of Codebetter.com fame and AJAX guru from Florida. It is planned to be a two hour event in which Jay will present an Intro to AJAX followed up with AJAX best practices and a discussion of Javascript Alternatives (eg. Script#/Silverlight). Please plan to check it out. Be sure to check back for more information as it becomes available. Please leave a comment or email me if you'd like more information. Special thanks to Dave Balzer for getting this great idea put together.

Labels: AJAX, devlink, halo 3, microsoft, Mix07, night of AJAX

So, this past week, I've been to Cleveland, Detroit (Ann Arbor), Columbus, and Cincinnati. In my driving, I finally used my phone to it's fullest potential.

The backstory: I rented a Jeep Liberty for my travels, it just made more sense. In renting a car, I made an assumption. The radio would actually work. As it turns out, it didn't. So now I've got 5 trips over 2 hours in length with nothing to listen to.

I've got a Palm Treo 700wx. It's running Windows Mobile 5.0, and I've also picked up the TomTom software and GPS device for it as well. With no music, and no real idea where I'm going (other than an address), my phone came to my rescue.

Within a 5 minute period, here's the 8 ways I used my phone:
1) I made a phone call. This one should be obvious.
2) I got turn-by turn directions to my destination.
3) I listened to MP3s using Windows Media Player and the built-in speaker.
4) I sent a text message to accept a friend request on Facebook.
5) I checked my work and personal email accounts (seperately).
6) I surfed to my RSS aggregator to see if
7) Using my RSS aggregator, I used Voice Command to read me some blog posts while I drove. It did surprisingly well turning text into speech.
8) I got notification that I had a conference call scheduled for 3:30.

Man! My phone is still pretty cool. Do that, iPhone.

Labels: iphone, microsoft, treo 700wx

So, from time to time, I have been known to use the phrase "This Guy" while pointing at myself with my thumbs. Sure, it's tired. Sure, it's obnoxious. But it conveys my point effectively, and I use it only in the most appropriate instances:

"Who has two thumbs and loves him some Silverlight?"

--> THIS GUY <--

And that's the point of this post. I think this saying is worn out because people haven't had an effective way to communicate this electronically. Now you do. Go out into the world and use it, with discretion.

BTW, I cannot take credit for this syntax. The credit belongs to another brilliant blog.

Who loves reading Kiss Me Suzy?

--> This guy <--

Labels: Silverlight, this guy

While I was at Mix 07 as a guest of Microsoft, I had an opportunity to witness some amazing products that were coming in the near future. The one I found the most impressive was a technology called Silverlight. The "canned" answer to what Silverlight is, is: Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.

For the three of you that I haven't told about it yet, here's some cool examples to see what's capable:

Tafiti - Silverlight Search Engine based on Live Search

Halo 3 Trailers

Major League Baseball Video Streaming

Anyways, the point of this post is to announce that Silverlight 1.0 has been released! You can go to http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/ now to download the final release of the runtime and development tools.

In addition, Microsoft has also announced a partnership with Novell, which will be building a 100% compatible Silverlight runtime implementation called "Moonlight".

Moonlight will run on all Linux distributions, and support FireFox, Konqueror, and Opera browsers. Moonlight will support both the JavaScript programming model available in Silverlight 1.0, as well as the full .NET programming model we will enable in Silverlight 1.1.

UPDATE: Here's plenty more information on Moonlight.

This is an exciting day for user experience. If you want help getting started on your first project, or just want to tell me about the cool way you're using Silverlight, drop me a line!

For all the nitty gritty details about this release, I don't think I can say it as well as Scott Guthrie, so check out his blog post on this as well.

Labels: linux, microsoft, moonlight, Silverlight