Blankenthoughts

I know I've talked about this podcast series before...but it's growing. And it's got a new home. http://www.juxtaposeblog.com



JUXtapose stands for Jeff on User Experience, and the podcast series is about exactly that. My thoughts on UX, and the tips and tricks you can use in your applications to make them more effective for your users.

I'm starting a whole set of videos on creating Silverlight 2.0 applications. These will center around creating a NCAA-tournament style site, with user management, a slick interface, and plenty of data and web services to make everything happen. I hope you'll check it out.

You can subscribe to my RSS feed here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/juxtaposeblog/KnIR

Labels: jeff blankenburg, JUXtapose, Silverlight, user experience

So, I've got em. They're busted. Google has knowingly done evil.

Those of you that have been reading my blog for a little while have seen my video series, JUXtapose. I've been uploading it to Soapbox (MSN Video), where it gets rendered and served from, saving me the bandwidth issues. And since I've been doing this, I've noticed that the videos don't seem to come through in Google Reader.

So, I'm new to this, I must be doing something wrong. I uploaded it to YouTube...just to see what the differences were. I even used the YouTube video once as the embedded video file in my blog post. And magically, it came through. It was shown (and played) inline in my aggregator. So now I'm convinced I did something wrong with the Soapbox video. I've tried 3 or 4 different methods to use the Soapbox videos (they seem to retain the quality better), and none of them get that video to show up in Google Reader.

So on my dedicated server, I am running SmarterMail, a free, web-based mail server. As part of the interface, I can subscribe to RSS feeds as well (not unlike EVERY mail client anymore). So I subscribed to my blog, to see how it worked. The Soapbox videos came through with NO issue. They look and function perfectly.

So Google, it's your turn. Certainly your spiders will find this message. I want an explanation. Am I doing something wrong, or have you just created an RSS Aggravator for me? I think I know the answer, and you're guilty.

Labels: google reader, jeff blankenburg, JUXtapose, RSS

JUXtapose - Episode 3: Popfly - Creating Your First Mashup

Labels: jeff blankenburg, JUXtapose, microsoft, popfly, Silverlight

Several of you have had an opportunity to catch the first couple of episodes of my video series that I am calling JUXtapose. I'm working on the next few videos here, and was thinking that I'd like to make some of you famous.

If you've done something cool, something innovative, something that when you built it, you thought, "Man, that's awesome!," then I'd like to get you on camera talking about it.

I want to capture your passion on film. I want to help you tell the world about your ideas. If it has a user interface, let's talk about it. If you found a way to take an action in your application from 32 to 2 clicks, perhaps you've been hiding in the shadows too long.

Call me, email me, comment on this blog. Whatever. Just remember, if nobody raises their hand, I'm going to start calling on people.

JUXtapose Episode Guide
11/02/2007 - Episode 1: Simple Animation Using Expression Blend
11/05/2007 - Episode 2: ComponentOne Sapphire Interviews
Coming Soon - Episode 3: HTML Controls As Silverlight Tools
Coming Soon - Episode 4: Getting Web Service Data Into Your Silverlight App
Coming Soon - Episode 5: Expression Studio Overview (Design, Blend, Web)

Labels: jeff blankenburg, JUXtapose, Silverlight, user experience, user interface

JUXtapose - Episode 2: ComponentOne Sapphire Interviews

Oh, and the timing is perfect...they just released the Alpha version of Sapphire today. Just register on their site, and download the installer!

http://labs.componentone.com/Sapphire/

Labels: componentone, jeff blankenburg, JUXtapose, microsoft, sapphire, Silverlight

Labels: animation, expression blend, JUXtapose, microsoft

So I'm sure I'll be posting these everywhere, but I want my blog to at least be the starting place.

JUXtapose is the name of my new webcast series, and it will be primarily focused on the technologies I am most passionate about. This includes user interface technologies like Silverlight and WPF, as well as more general stuff like Javascript and CSS. It will also feature interviews from notable (and soon to be notable) developers in the field that have an opinion to lend on user experience.

The name JUXtapose comes from the subtitle: Jeff on User Experience.

Please leave comments, I'd love your initial thoughts on this, as well as recommendations and volunteerism for future shows.

Labels: expression blend, jeff blankenburg, JUXtapose, microsoft, Silverlight