Software Development in the Real World

Software Development Tools Free From Microsoft

Microsoft has launched a new initiative called DreamSpark with one simple goal, giving students professional software development and design tools at no cost.  It's a great initiative as it will enable students at any level to start developing with some of the best software development tools available.  For the amount of jobs out there for .net developers, and lack of qualified candidates, this should really help students get introduced to the .net technologies early!  It's not just Microsoft that has a vested interest in students learning to work with the latest and greatest technologies, its everyone.

Technology continues to drive our economy, governments, and our future.  It's nice to see Microsoft taking some initiative and offering up some ways to save money to students that are already broke enough.  I still remember working tech support till 2 am in 96 to try and save enough money to buy Visual Basic.

If you are a student, simply go to the DreamSpark site, and sign up.  Within minutes you will be able to download any of the following products absolutely free:

 

Who knows, if you are a student and are able to come up with some cool applications, you could be on your way to France for the Imagine Cup! The Imagine Cup is another way Microsoft is encouraging students to apply their imagination, their passion and their creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference in the world.  This years theme is the environment.

Technical Transformational Leadership

What kind of leadership do you follow with your team? How do you present yourself within your organization?

Technical Transformation Leadership is kind of the word I've coined for myself which explains the type of leadership I try and follow on a daily basis.  It’s merger of two styles of leadership that I have found work extremely well within a software development and technical organization. It creates a really collaborative fun environment were everyone clearly understands the goals and objectives of the long term vision, and work extremely hard to achieve it.

Figure 1 - Technical Transformational Leadership involves taking your vision and cause to every level within the organization, making others successful, and your vision a reality.

Technical leadership is not taught in business schools, and you will not learn the skills to be a technical leader in an MBA program.  Transformational leadership is one of those things that you either follow very well naturally, or try and force and do a bad job executing it.

It takes a great deal of practice to be a Technical Transformation Leader.  On the one hand, you need to have experienced the software development lifecycle from end to end in order to convey your vision all the way down to very details.  On the other hand, you need to be able to disengage yourself enough to allow your stars to shine.  I akin this to Martial Arts, where you would learn how to "fight", and hopefully, never have to fight.

As a leader, your goal should be to set the stage for people around you to be empowered to shine, and show off their skills. As a leader, you want to find the best people, and let them perform amazingly!

Spend Time with Technology

Being a Technical Transformation Leader means spending 4 to 6 hours a day, every day, after work hours, keeping up to speed with the latest blogs, learning the latest technologies, trying out the latest API's, downloading the latest frameworks and samples.  It’s a ton of fun if that is what you enjoy! The worst part, at the end of the week, you still feel like you are missing a huge piece of the pie, which you are because as a leader, you hardly get the time to apply your knowledge directly.

I am lucky in that I love technology and everything surrounding it. In fact, I am pretty much obsessed with it. I have over 600 RSS Feeds I try and keep up with, all sorted into various categories. I try and keep my pulse on what’s going on with the web, and try and focus on technology when possible that makes the web possible. Whenever I read something on a blog, or find a cool new web 2.0 application, I always try and categorize it in my mind. What business value does it bring? How many people will want to use this? Does it use a new technology or concept? Does it scale? How does it work? Can it be done better?

I also download any new piece of code I can get my hands on, watch all the latest recorded events I can possibly cram, and create some pretty cool sample applications mashing as many cool technologies I possibly can together.

Spend time with technology, as much as you possibly can! The key is it has to be something you do naturally, and that you enjoy obsessively. Although my wife tries to keep me in balance as much as possible. I am lucky in that regard she is extremely supportive and attended my last .net User Group presentation on Silverlight!

Communication is Vital at all Levels

Everyone will tell you that communication is vital in leadership and they are not mistaken, mind you communication can mean different things depending on the job you do.  In the software development world, it means being able to communicate with varying degrees of detail depending on the audience, but at the same time, carry the same message all the way through.  This means you are able to easily convey the details of the project upwards, and at the same time convey the message downwards with more detail.

A great technical transformational leader can easily explain a status report to an executive team and get them motivated and become part of the cause! At the same time, the leader must be able to take business requirements, challenges, new product ideas, and convey them down to the software developers and architects.  The same individual that presents status updates, sits in executive meetings, is the same person that can white board out a database design and create an architecture for a multi-tiered web application.

Being a Transformational Leader

This is where the transformational leadership kicks in.  The same individual that can create an amazing database design isn’t necessarily doing it.  He might jump in and lead by example when needed, but the technical transformational leader must be able to set the stage to allow his chosen database designers to shine and create something magical. It really is an art form, especially since if you are truly solid on the technically, your first instinct when something goes wrong, or something technically challenging comes up, is to solve the problem quickly, and instantly if possible.

Transformational leadership is a key ingredient in managing teams of technically talented people. Instead of micromanaging and leading with transaction based leadership, you are leading by elevating and mobilizing your team. Your goal is to inspire members on your team and “evangelizing” to them. It all sounds crazy to some, but in the end, you will have a team that is performing at their potential, and achieving 10 times more than a team that is micromanaged.

Be the Best Motivator, Live With Passion

Lastly in order to be a great Technical Transformational Leader, you have to be a great motivator.  But being a great motivator isn’t just about having one or two rally meetings to pump up the troops, it’s about living and breathing motivation on a daily basis.  Pick the developer that seems the least engaged, and take them out for coffee; ask them what's going on.  You'll be surprised by the answer.  Motivate them, paint a picture of the future for them, and remove the road blocks they might have told you about.  During the SCRUM meetings, you can motivate by solving technical problems, or leading people in the right direction for a solution.  There is no better motivator to a team of highly intelligent people than to have their leader solve a difficult problem, and allow them to keep working and meet timelines.

And of course, you do have to have passion in everything you do.  Have you heard the advice of "Smile when you talk to someone on the phone.  Your smile can be heard".  Well, passion simply cannot be faked.  If you have passion for your job, what you are doing, it will shine through.

 

Technorati Tags: Transformational Leadership

The Complete List of XAML Tools

XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language) is one of the most exciting innovations to come out of Microsoft in years.  It finally enables you to easily bridge the gap between designers and developers.  XAML promises to save companies a lot of time, money, and frustration.  XAML is used in WPF, Windows Presentation Foundation, and WPF/E, now named Silverlight.  WPF applications run native on Windows Vista, and Silverlight applications run anywhere, after installing an insanely small browser plugin.

Below is a complete listing of XAML Tools you can use today to build interactive user interfaces and applications that run on WPF and Silverlight.

Free XAML Tools

Visio Export to XAML
An Add-in to Visio 2007 to create XAML directly.

XAML Tune - Convert SVG# to XAML
A free tool that allows you to convert SVG files to XAML files.  It automates XAML transformations in order to improve design and code integration.

Adobe Illustrator Export to XAML
A freely available plug-in that enables Adobe Illustrator to export WPF and Silverlight compatible XAML

Adobe Illustrator to XAML Export C# Script
A script for exporting Adobe Illustrator artwork in the WPF/XAML format. The script is written in C#/.Net 2.0 using the Illustrator CS2 COM Type Library. Although it is treated as a script in Illustrator, it is also a stand-alone application.

Adobe Fireworks Export to XAML
The Infragistics Fireworks to XAML Exporter is a Fireworks Extension that allows you to easily convert artwork created in Adobe Fireworks to the new XAML format introduced with Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). For those of you with libraries of artwork created in Fireworks (like the Infragistics Visual Design Group), this should be welcome news! You can now reuse prior artwork, fills, and layouts in your new WPF applications.

Adobe Photoshop Export to XAML
Simple, free, open-source tool for converting Photoshop .PSD files to XAML. Also supports limited SWF conversion to XAML.

Adobe Flash Export to XAML
A free tool that converts Adobe/Macromedia Flash files to XAML

SVG Export to XAML
Another free tool that allows you to convert SVG files to XAML files.

Clipboard and Metafile's Export to XAML
Paste2Xaml is a WPF application that can read Windows metafile's (wmf), Enhanced Metafile's (emf) or get matafile objects from clipboard and can convert it into XAML. It can also export embedded images that can be used in exported XAML.

Blender Export to XAML
The XAML export script for Blender allows the popular free 3D modeller to be used to create content for WPF applications. 3D scenes created in Blender are exported to .XAML files which can be dynamically loaded or compiled into your WPF applications.

Online 3D Studio Max Export to XAML
Online 3ds to xaml converter can only convert smaller and simpler 3ds files.

3D Studio Max Export to XAML
Reader3ds is a class library than can be used to read 3D models from a 3ds file and to use them in a WPF (.Net 3.0) application. This way you can define 3D models in 3D modeling application and simply use the models in you application.

XAML PAD
XamlPad (xamlpad.exe) is a basic visual editor for Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML). XAMLPad is installed with the SDK and can be found from the start menu at All Programs/Microsoft Windows SDK/Tools/XAMLPad

XAML Tools for Purchase

Expression Blend
A user interface design tool for creating rich graphical interfaces for web and desktop applications that blend the features of these two types of applications. Expression Blend is itself written using the .NET Framework 3.0 and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

Expression Design
Microsoft's commercial professional illustration vector and raster graphic design tool based on Creature House Expression, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2003. It is part of the Microsoft Expression Studio suite and is written using Windows Presentation Foundation.

Visual Studio 2008
Visual Studio is the main Integrated Development Environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It can be used to develop console and GUI applications along with Windows Forms applications, web sites, web applications, and web services in both native code as well as managed code for all platforms supported by Microsoft Windows, Windows Mobile, .NET Framework, .NET Compact Framework and Microsoft Silverlight.

Electric Rain ZAM 3D Version
Zam 3D is a 3D XAML Tool for XAML Application Development.  It provides developers and designers with a quick and easy solution for creating 3D interface elements for Microsoft Windows Vista based applications. It also acts as a 3ds to XAML and DXF to XAML converter.

Electric Rain Swift 3D
The premier 3D tool for rich media designers. It's the only 3D software to directly integrate with Adobe Flash and Silverlight through the Swift 3D File Importer and SmartLayer Technology, and produces unrivalled vector rendering quality and output style options. Swift 3D's toolset and interface allow anyone to quickly create 3D content, while providing a full set of advanced tools to grow into. And with new Papervision3D export, Swift 3D introduces a whole new realm of true 3D possibilities in Flash and Silverlight.

Aurora XAML Designer
Aurora is a XAML design product for developing user interfaces and graphics for Windows desktop and web applications. In addition to being a XAML designer, Aurora also serves as a customizable and embeddable graphics design platform with an Object Model and Plug-in architecture.

Maya Export to XAML
This plug-in allows designers to create compelling 3D user interfaces in Maya and export to XAML, the next generation application GUI markup language for windows and the web. Objects created in Maya can be used as hit targets, windows forms controls, and more. Because the objects are kept as vector data in the interface, the user can scale the entire application and keep the same look and feel.

Lightwave Export to XAML
Export your LightWave objects and scenes to XAML for use in Microsoft Expression Blend.

40+ 3D Format Import and Export to XAML
Publish to more than 40 different 2D and 3D graphic formats. Automatically
publish into 3D interactive PDF documents, XAML, Silverlight, WPF,
Adobe or HTML.

Adobe Flash Export to XAML (Converts Animations)
This program converts Flash animations to the Xaml format. It accepts files up to Flash version 8. It handles animation, sound and fonts. You drag files in, it generates the results. You can use the command line for automation. There is also a new interface that allows viewing files and all their definitions as WPF or Silverlight.

 

Technorati Tags: XAML,Silverlight,WPF

Scott Hanselman Shows Off His Home

Ever wondered what the home of ultra software developer extraordinaireScott Hanselman looks like?  Wonder no further as he takes you on a tour of his home.  He is accompanied by fellow .net rock star Chris Sells.  Nearing the end of the video, you get to witness a "Geek Fight" with Scott and Chris arguing the virtues of Mono Sound with 1 Simple Wire, and Stereo Sound with a ton of things to hook up.  I favour on the side of Scott Hanselman, however I must admit, I still don't understand why with all our technology these days, we can't just get rid of all these freaking wires!  I might consider shooting a similar video of my home and putting it online.  Would be a great way to finally get everything on film for claims purposes should something bad happen!

 

Technorati Tags: Technology,Software Development

Life at Microsoft - The Truth Revealed

Just doing what I normally do on a Friday night.  Checking out the software development blogs, the Web 2.0 blogs, and I stumbled on a video that had fellow ex Winnipeger Duncan Mackenzie in it.  It's a funny parody video on life at Microsoft.  The best part is at the end when Duncan and the crew can't remember how to get to a new lunch place, so someone decides they will "Just Google It".  Out come the nerf balls.  Enjoy!

 

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Software Development

Mark February 27th, 2008 on your Calendars

The rumour mill is flying again this week, as Microsoft is set to announce something big on February 27th, 2008.

Nobody really knows what is going to happen, but the blogs are a buzzing. 

Will Silverlight 2.0 be introduced and go live?  Whatever it is, it makes for interesting stories for people to read, and write about.  That's what's fun about the Internet these days.  You go to bed, and you miss all the good stuff!

What we know right now:

1. Robert Scobble saw the demo, and he started to cry
2. Googlers have seen it, and trembled in their pants
3. It's getting a lot of press on nearly every major blog, including TechCrunch
4. Coincides with TED, and .NET Heroes Happen Here Event Launch in LA Keynoted by Steve Ballmer
5. MIX 08 kicks off exactly one week later, an event focused around the future of web applications.

Check out http://www.opensourcehero.com/. 

Nobody knows for sure what it is however.  Some of the ideas floating around:

1. Silverlight 2.0
2. New Project that takes advantage of PhotoSynth Technology
3. Some new Surface technology
4. Silverlight Space that puts Google Maps to shame

Is it the perfect storm for Silverlight and Microsoft?  It seems like everything is being setup for it.  What will launch for sure on the 27th of course is Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008!  Although the additional Microsoft "secret" might not be a specific Silverlight announcement, my guess is whatever it is, it will run on Silverlight.  If you look at the top left of www.opensourcehero.com you will notice the "Click Here to Install Silverlight".

One thing is for sure, February 27th, 2008 will be an exciting day for technology.  It will either be a day where the Internet is left in awe that Microsoft pulled off a huge technological advancement, or another flop in time.

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,Microsoft,Software Development

Software Development Week in Review

This will be a new feature article written at the end of the week that reflects on the week from a software development standpoint. 

Today is XML's Birthday, so let's all wish XML a happy 10th!  10 years ago today, XML 1.0 became a W3C Recommendation!

This week Microsoft released a hot-fix for some really annoying Visual Studio 2008 issues.  It mainly focuses on fixing many performance issues when working with larger web sites.  Our main corporate web site is over 6 GB of rich streaming video, training modules and html pages, all wrapped up in a search engine, so you can imagine how awesome this hot-fix is.  They also released Visual Studio 2008 Web Deployment projects, which had previously only been available as Community Technology Preview.

Microsoft also shipped Vista Service Pack 1 this week, which should usher in a lot more Vista adoption.  Although most out there have been slamming vista's sales, the reality is most corporate IT policies basically ban any new operating systems from the network until a service pack is released.  I have been running SP1 for a few months now, and am extremely thrilled at the performance gains.

Eclipse 3.4 M5 is now available for download.  Some new visual components have been added, as well as some better search and replace capabilities.  Some breadcrumb navigation has been added as well, which seems like a nice feature.

Microsoft released the .NET Reference Source Code a few weeks ago now, but this week saw the introduction of the .NET Mass Downloader.  This sweet application lets you download the entire .NET Reference Source Code for offline usage.

Internet Explorer 8 will be shown at Mix 08!  For those that don't know, Microsoft has been hard at work making IE8 the most standards compliant browser you will ever see.  It will put FireFox, Safari, and others to shame with its Standards Only mode, which recently passed the ACID 2 test.  Expect an IE8 beta midyear.

Silverlight 2.0 is nearly hear as well, various blogger's out there have already mentioned in round about ways that it WILL ship within a month (probably for MIX 08), and will include: extensible control framework, layout manager support, two-way data binding support, control template and skinning, StackPanel, Grid, TabControl, Slider, ScrollViewer, DataGrid, Isolated Storage, generics, threading, textbox, checkbox, radio buttons, etc.

Can't end the week without talking about the Microsoft Yahoo! possibility.  While most say it's a done deal, it's far from done.  Tomorrow you will hear the news that Yahoo! has turned down the deal, as Yahoo! feels it greatly undervalues the company.  The deal does make a lot of sense really for these companies.  The server farms and data centres these companies keep will be able to consolidate, saving the companies millions of dollars, and allowing Yahoo! to benefit by running much leaner.  From a developer point of view, having developer.yahoo.com and dev.live.com under one umbrella would be pretty sweet.

If I was a Yahoo! shareholder, I would freak out of they turn down the deal on Monday.  Yahoo! has failed to re-invent itself since launching, something Microsoft has been able to do at least 5 times since the 80's.  These two companies would give shareholders a lot of things to be excited about, as well as the Web.

Lastly, Saleforce.com seems to be looking for a buy from Oracle for around 9 billion dollars. Sounds like an Austin Powers movie, and sounds like a smart move if Larry Ellison and ex Oracle Marc Benioff come to agreement.  A few other sites are reporting that Marc Benioff might be Larry Ellison's successor. Is that the last of the rumours?  Nope.  Google is apparently buying a large share in Cnet!Gota love rumours.  Should be an interesting 2008.

Have a great week!

Bug Tracking Software Showdown

I've gotten a few emails over the last few months about which Bug Tracking software we use, and which I would recommend.  The one we currently use is awesome and gets the job done for us.  We couldn't do without it!  However, Before posting my thoughts and what we use, I am curious what you use within your organizations, and why?

 

The Silverlight Strategy, this will be a great movie

Have you seen Pirates of Silicon Valley?  I love this movie.  It's basically a docudrama that was made to show the rivalry that existed between Apple and Microsoft (Micro-Soft at the time).  During the movie you get a glimpse into what transpired in the 80's and 90's, that brought us the rise of the personal computer, and created the software development machine that is Microsoft.  It's a cool movie, although my wife would not agree.

Looking at the landscape today, you see a world that has 98% (90% to 98%, depending on what you read, point being, domination) of the machines that access the Internet Windows (Microsoft) based. 

How did this happen?  Was Microsoft first?  Did they have the best platform?  Nay Nay to both.

This all happened before in the land before the web

This story is a story about Silverlight, and how what you are about to see with Silverlight, happened already.

I remember back in the day when Bill Gates and crew were busy working on MS-DOS, and Steve Jobs shows up with his Apple.  Bill Gates was furious that nobody wanted to talk about the PC, and everyone wanted the Apple.  So easy to use, such a nice graphical user interface.  Heck I would have been all over Apple myself! 

Picture a Pontiac Sunfire showing up to a party, only to realize its surrounded by beautiful, hand crafted Aston Martins.  Apple looked unbeatable.  Their passion for beautiful operating systems and beautiful machines was unmatched.  How on earth could Microsoft get attention back on them?

Without going to much into history, Bill Gates became obsessed with creating a better graphical user interface.  The significant difference was Bill Gates and crew did not focus on creating just a beautiful experience, they focused on creating an operating system that would allow developers to easily create applications for their platform.  This is a key point.  This mindset literally changed our lives today!

Microsoft loved what Apple did, and tried to copy it.  They did an ok job, but Vista is no OSX, Bill Gates would even agree.  Apple and Jobs would rant and scream, probably to this day that Microsoft has "No Sense of Style!" (akin to Flash and Adobe posts everywhere slamming Expression Studio and Silverlight), but Microsoft didn't care because that wasn't their game.  Heck, they were probably happy at all the attention Apple put on making things beautiful, all the while completely ignoring the bigger issues of software development lifecycles, deployment, architecture, and scalability.

What Microsoft did very well, way better than Apple, was form partnerships with developers, ISV's, and made it easy for companies to develop software for their operating system through fantastic software development tools.

Developers by the Masses

They made genius innovations like the DLL.  The DLL allowed developers to create tools that could configure themselves dynamically.  They were later extremely smart in looking into the work of Alan Cooper, who would later help Microsoft create Visual Basic, the first GUI form designer and editing tool ever created for Microsoft Windows.  They even allowed, and heavily promoted third party applications to be built to develop Microsoft applications.

Before Visual Basic, it was very hard to create graphical user interface applications.  Some could do it, but it was a very difficult and intense process. You would have to be an expert in a large amount of technologies and programming languages to get things to work just right.

By creating tools for creating windows applications, and creating these tools to work extremely well, Microsoft started drawing large numbers of developers flocking to their development tools.  Why would any developer want to spend time doing things, that with Visual Basic, you could do in a matter of seconds.

Web 2.0 Today

The web has been around forever in tech terms.  But nothing really revolutionary has gone on, besides marketing getting a hold of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and calling it AJAX.  HTML, CSS, the DOM has been around since forever as far as we web is concerned.  Where is the real revolutionary leap?  I mean, sure, you have a ton of Web 2.0 companies coming online, everyone and their dogs are doing start-ups these days, but it’s hard to get everything to work together.  Things are coined "AJAX" and "Web 2.0", but really, all these technologies are old!

Nobody has really stepped up to the plate and taken a total dominating stance on the web.  Google is pushing applications to the web to "compete" with Microsoft, but has anyone really tried to compete with them?  Is everyone missing the boat completely?

Why hasn't Google created development tools to develop "Google" applications?  Why hasn't Facebook?  Why haven't any of the so called visionary companies out there created a real viable platform for building web applications?  Some of you are thinking they have.  Nay Nay they definitely have not.  They have all created API's and very simple Wiki documentation surrounding their API’s. Sure the concept of Mashups, XML standards, Web Services is becoming mainstream, but has anyone really taken the time to BUILD the development tools that are needed to build Web 2.0 applications?  Has anyone taken the time, or the ridiculous amounts of money they have, to build a platform on which future web applications can be built?

Microsoft missed the boat on Web 2.0, and the Web in general, and are currently way behind on the advertising side of things, but they have a plan, believe me, and it’s deeper than people think.  What kills me (and almost makes me laugh), is that they have done it before, and nobody seems to see it coming!

Why Microsoft Will Win, and Dominate the Web

You can bash Microsoft all you want, I personally hate the Zune (But the new version is pretty awesome, so I might have to retract that statement soon), but Visual Studio is by far the most impressive development platform end to end, ever created.

Building a "Web 2.0" application today involves having great designers, php script kiddies, JavaScript guru's, and mysql database designers and admins working for you.  Everyone is working in different toolset's, and it’s very hard to get everything to work just right.  Sure you have AJAX, but it’s really just a packaging of scripting technologies, that work fairly slow and clunky in comparison to standard windows applications.

Enter Microsoft.  With the introduction of Silverlight, they are bringing over 20 years of experience building visual, interactive business and shrink wrapped applications, to the web.  That is amazingly powerful.  You simply can’t discount this. It's so powerful in fact that speaking with Flex developers recently, they even drooled at the things they could conceivably do with a .net/Flash interactive package.  I mean, have you tried building really rich data driven, interactive, cross domain, scalable applications in Flash/Flex?  It’s horrid, if not next to impossible.

Is Silverlight a Flash killer?  No.  Is it intended to be?  Nope.  It's much more than that.  Will you still see flash animations on sites? Absolutely.  But, will you see real applications on the web, built in "AJAX"/Flash?  Nope, they will be built using Silverlight.  Dare I say, you might someday see Flash running on top of Silverlight!  Why not?

It's like Chess really...

And now, maybe you start to get it.  Roy Ozzie gets it, Steve Ballmer gets it, and Bill Gates is retiring and not even worried about it.  He's onto bigger more important things. Like in chess, the other side played its game, which I would equate to repetitive wins using Scholars Mate. Everyone else looked at how easy it was to execute the scholars mate, and just copied it.  Microsoft has a deep playbook, and they are ready to launch their attack, and its not just a one or two piece play, it’s the entire board. Trust me when I say with conviction that Microsoft has an army of .net developers ready to execute one of the most awesome plays you have ever seen, and it ends with developers everywhere winning.  As a consequence, Microsoft wins.  The problem with playing a scholars mate, is you are left in such a bad situation, that the end game is not just a win by the other side (Microsoft), but a clear destruction of the opponent, to the tone of 98% market share...

The bottom line is simple. 

If you want to win in software, make it easy for people to build applications for your product by:

a) providing a platform on which fantastic applications can be built.

b) provide the best development toolset's you can for your platform.

This is what Microsoft did with Visual Basic for the windows platform, and are now about to do with the Web.

And nobody is going to see it coming. 

People within Microsoft, like Scott Guthrie and John Bristowe see it coming, but mostly everyone else is in denial.  I'm looking forward to renting Pirates of Silicon Valley 2.0 - Silverlight.

 

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,WPF,Software Development

Silverlight will be smaller than...

Is Silverlight's best kept secret still to come?  I think so.  Scott Guthrie is the man behind the Silverlight project (and other wicked Microsoft Dev Project), and in a recent interview on Channel 9, he explained how he holds people's feet to the fire to keep the runtime small, and keeping the code tight!

"Not in a minute, not in thirty seconds, but much faster!"

Scott Guthrie: What's Coming for Mix, Part 1: IIS7 for Developers

This is exciting, because as cool as Silverlight is, if it's not installed on every machine, or if it's too hard to install on people's machines, then it's not going to take off.  If its small, dare I say smaller than flash, and simple to install, then you are going to see MASSIVE adoption of Silverlight.  If you can throw the CLR in there, and keep it small, INSANE

Cross Domain Network Access! Speed!  Awesome beautiful web sites... Silverlight rocks!

 

Technorati Tags: Silverlight

Heroes Happen Here

It's going to be a big year for Microsoft and the whole .net army of developers that Redmond has created!  This is the year of Microsoft, love them or hate them, you are going to see some things you never thought possible start coming from this software development giant!  There are three Microsoft Developer and IT events this year, PDC, MIX, and Tech Ed!  Today, Microsoft announced their plans to buy Yahoo!  Silverlight will be powering one of the most Media rich sites EVER created for the Olympics, Big year indeed!

Make sure you check out Heroes Happen Here in whatever city you are in!

Also, there is a pretty cool comic strip from Heroes Happen Here, pretty well put together software development comic!

http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/comicviewer/default.html

I will be attending the Heroes Happen Here event in Winnipeg.  Hope to see fellow IT and Developers there!  Make sure you register for your respective city! Even if you are on a Microsoft developer, make sure you come out and see what Microsoft has been up to, you might actually be impressed!

Canadian Heroes Happen Here:
http://www.microsoft.com/canada/heroeshappenhere/default.mspx

United States Heroes Happen Here:
http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/default.mspx

Just for attending you will get free copies of Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008.