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July 11, 2007

Desert Code Camp - September 15, 2007

DCC has happened twice and it always seems like I’m one of the only Adobe-minded presenters there. It would be great to see more presenters, especially ColdFusion, come out.

http://www.desertcodecamp.com/

DCC is open so suggest a track and/or session. If you want to present the session, register and click “I want to teach this” and you’re good to go.

Let’s bring CF and the Flash Platform to DCC and showcase some sweet stuff. .NET, etc is always covered, well, by the .NET community. Even Ruby has a good turn out. I want to see more CF/Flash Platform in the mix.

Here are my sessions:

http://www.desertcodecamp.com/signUp.aspx?session=202
http://www.desertcodecamp.com/signUp.aspx?session=207
http://www.desertcodecamp.com/signUp.aspx?session=200
http://www.desertcodecamp.com/signUp.aspx?session=201
http://www.desertcodecamp.com/signUp.aspx?session=219

That’s a tall order but I’m comfortable speaking on all of them so it won’t be a big problem. I wanted to speak on CF8 but I didn’t suggest that track until after adding the above. :-( Oh well, I hope someone steps up and showcases CF8.

Join us at DCC and let’s make this another successful conference!

Posted by John C. Bland II at 11:06 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 17, 2007

Mix '07 Review

Ok…I’ve been promising this since I came back and certain people have made sure I didn’t forget my promise. ;-) So, here we go…my Mix ‘07 Review (namely regarding Silverlight).

Continue reading "Mix '07 Review" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 11:52 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 3, 2007

Mix '07 Recap...Coming Soon

So, I’m back from Mix and have a lot to say. You’ve heard quite a bit of it in a few posts. Silverlight is a rockstar, yes. Will it kill Flash, nope. (thought I’d get that outta the way real quick)

Anyways, I’ll cover all points from previous posts, things I left unsaid/maybe unclear, and expound upon my thoughts regarding where Silverlight fits into the RIA market; all from my perspective, of course. There are also some Ajax things to discuss, etc, etc, etc.

I’m off to bed. L8rs all.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 1:07 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 1, 2007

Mix '07 Free Stuff

Microsoft has done a great job at Mix (last year and this year). They always do a great job of giving away stuff. Maybe it is the exceptionally deep pockets but whatever the reason…they sure aren’t stingy with their software. :-)

Here’s what we got, for free, this year (just a couple highlights):
* Visual Studio 2005 Standard (nothing big here since I already have 2005 Pro but if I didn’t…sweet).
* Expression Suite (including a CD for Visual Studio Orcas Beta 1) which includes Expression Blend, Design, Media, and Web (4 separate products).
* Windows Vista Ultimate (already have it so Sarge will get this copy)

(note, these are full verions…not trials or previews [except for products still in development])

I love getting free stuff and this year my #1 free thing is the Expression Suite. I’m now enabled to toy with Silverlight a bit more as well as some of the sweet JS features available. There were other free things but nothing that amounts to the free software.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:06 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

April 30, 2007

Visual Studio + JS = Pure Sweetness

I’ve raved about VS since I started using it. Nothing has changed. ;-)

I just left a session where the presenter talked about all of the upcoming VS changes. I’ll run a couple down real quick.

Continue reading "Visual Studio + JS = Pure Sweetness" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 4:34 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Why Silverlight will (!!) succeed

Controls. I think that is one of the main reasons. I thought about naming this post “What Microsoft does well” but figured I’d strike a cord with the Adobe world by speaking on Silverlight succeeding. :-)

Anyways. For those that don’t know, a control is equivalent to a component in Flash/Flex. Microsoft, IMO, is the king of controls. Look at ASP.NET. The controls in there are SUPER easy to use and there are a ton of them. ColdFusion, no one uses cfgrid, etc. Microsoft owns Adobe in this arena, at this current stage.

Microsoft has taken their controls approach to Silverlight. Flash has button, textfield, etc. Anything beyond the basics, you’re on your own. Silverlight is bringing multiple controls that go way above and beyond (see the Map control when you get a chance) out of the box. There are businesses built around building ASP.NET and now WPF/Silverlight controls.

What does all of this mean? IMO, Silverlight development may become easier than Flash Platform development. Mind you, I’m not turning my back on Flash/Flex rather, as always, keeping an open mind about new technologies.

Big Flash Companies using Silverlight:
* Avenue A | Razorfish (top agency that does a ton of work with Flash) is using, and excited about, Silverlight.
* Metalliq, who is responsible for the Flash CS3 Components, is using Silverlight (and built a VERY nice app) and loving it as well. Top Banana is sweet app built by Metalliq (they just demo’d it). A full-fledge video editing swf that banks out at 50k. Whoa…that was a shocker but quite amazing (for what I just saw).

As I’ve said before, don’t sleep on Silverlight. There is a lot you can do with it, very fast, and if it fits your situation…USE IT!

Posted by John C. Bland II at 11:24 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Silverlight Streaming Alpha / Silverlight Release

Silverlight Streaming is equivalent to Flash Media Server BUT…Microsoft is playing as their own Akamai and providing you a place to upload your videos and stream from their srever. I don’t know if it is true streaming, progressive, or both. Costs? I’m not sure. The site is down right now :( so there isn’t a way for me to look at more info. Try it yourself here and see if it works for you.

Silverlight is releasing this summer. I’m interested in seeing where it is this summer.

Update
Silverlight Streaming IS FREE! Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! My belief all along is that Silverlight will definitely grab some of the video market against Flash. This is a HUGE push in terms of Silverlight grabbing that market share by the horns, literally.

You can see more about Silverlight Stream here.

Site Excerpt:
SilverlightTM Streaming by Windows LiveTM offers a free streaming and application hosting solution for delivering high-quality, cross-platform, cross-browser, media-enabled rich interactive applications (RIAs). With the ability to author content in Microsoft Expression Media Encoder and other third-party editing environments, Web designers maintain complete control of the user experience.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:51 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm late(!) but I saw something sweet!

I missed the first part of the keynote. :-( I was up quite early but forced myself back to sleep since I didn’t have to be here until 9:30. I woke up right around 8 and remembered I needed to shave/cut my hair and iron my clothes. Time was short.

I was 30 minutes late and have no idea what I missed but I do know what I saw. :-)

Netflix hired Avenue A | Razorfish to build a new media player. Wait…side bar: Expression Media Encoder just crashed. lol. Nice recovery by the speaker Wayne Smith though. :-D Back to Netflix.

Continue reading "I'm late(!) but I saw something sweet!" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:31 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 29, 2007

I've Arrived! (@ Mix '07)

Wow, I can’t believe I’m here again. After some back and forths on the decision to come…we are here in the Venezia Tower about to go register (once the luggage comes up).

I’ve been looking at mix07.com and getting more and more excited. I don’t have big expectations for the conference because I haven’t looked over the agenda and I only know about Silverlight being a big topic. BUT…like last year…I’m sure I’ll be THOROUGHLY impressed and excited when I leave. :-)

So..keep an eye out. I’ll be blogging all the while I’m here.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 6:14 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 24, 2006

Max 2006: Keynote

Can you say “Blue Man Group”? Everyone…at the same time…BLUE MAN GROUP! How sweet is it when BMG opens up the conference keynote? I’ll answer this one. It is SHAAWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET! :-) Greg Rewis forewarned me Monday “be sure to be there @ 8:30” and I’m glad we took his advice. Of course, we have to go watch a whole show now. They were on for a good 20 to 30 minutes but it was 100% great!

Continue reading "Max 2006: Keynote" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 4:29 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 18, 2006

DCC: Register Now!

Desert Code Camp is ready for registration. The schedule has been set and the sessions are “finalized” (to the best of my knowledge).

My session is in room 201 at 9:15 AM (Beginning Flex 2.0). I wish I had more time to do more sessions but I just don’t.

Come join us and have a little fun geeking out. ;-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:22 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 1, 2006

Refresh Phoenix Unconference

Come in December, Phoenix will host the Refresh Unconference. Pretty much anyone can speak that is approved. Here is some text from the homepage of the wiki.

“The concept of this conference is to loosely structure things. The general topic is something to do with the internet or technology, most likely web related, but from there it’s open. If there’s something you’d like to present simply add it to the list, if there’s something that you’d like to learn more about add it to the list of suggestions and maybe someone else will pick it up. Basically the idea here is just to collect a bunch of smart people together and allow them to talk about what ever is interesting to them. If you’re an expert on something it might make a good topic, as would a simple demo of something cool that you’ve made.”
- refreshphoenix.org

I have suggested the topic “Flex’ing Rails (Adobe Flex powered by Rails) - John C. Bland II (and Rails guru)” but I need a solid Rails guru to present with or to build a solid Rails backend. Anyone interesting just hit me up offlist.

I assume they will update the Wiki with the conference dates, etc.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:41 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

September 27, 2006

Jason Gilmore Writes...

Jason Gilmore, Open Source Editor for Apress, was at the Web Dev Summit in Microsoft. He has since published a couple articles regarding particular sessions.

You can read the articles here:
* Open source vet looks inside Microsoft’s SourceForge knockoff
* Microsoft’s IIS 7 will aid PHP developers’ Linux deployments

Besides writing some good articles, Jason is an all around cool dude. ;-)

Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:31 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

September 21, 2006

ScottGu, LINQ, ASP.NET, IIS 7, and Atlas rock

Ok…this is turning out to be a pretty nice summit. We’re a little more than half through the first of two days and these guys are definitely supplementing my geek needs. lol. I’ll be brief because I’m in a session right now and it is interesting.

Continue reading "ScottGu, LINQ, ASP.NET, IIS 7, and Atlas rock" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 2:01 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

September 2, 2006

Heading to Microsoft

I’ve been invited to Microsoft for the “WEB DEVELOPER SUMMIT” they are putting together. It is def’ exciting! I mean, how many folks get to really go into the belly of the beast? :-) This will be a very fun trip and I will be taking lots of pictures.

The summit will cover:
* Roadmap for ASP.NET
* Several ASP.NET topics (web parts, Ajax, etc)
* LINQ (which I’m highly interested in)
* IIS 7
* Expression family
* WCF & WWF
* etc…

We also get to visit the Microsoft store. :-) From this short amount of time that I’ve been diggin’ MSFT I have received more free software than I am used to (other than being an Adobe User Group manager; lol). So, I’m curious as to what they might give away this trip. For Max it was Vista Feb CTP and Visual Studio, along with about 5 other disks. It won’t matter to me one way or another but I’m still curious.

Well, bottom line…thanks MSFT and those who helped put all of this together (Tim and Sanjoy; along with anyone else behind the scenes)! See you guys in Washington!

Posted by John C. Bland II at 7:41 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)