UX Confidential

Microsoft MVP Award x2

I was thrilled to discover last night that I have received my second Microsoft MVP Award for Expression Blend. This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. 

I spend a lot of time speaking and evangelizing Expression Blend, Silverlight and WPF with the design and technical communities and it's amazing for Microsoft to recognize these efforts. The way that Microsoft has opened itself up to designers is incredible. That they have provided game-changing tools for desingers to collaborate more effectively with developers is nothing short of amazing.

I feel very fortunate to be a part of such a great community.

Talking about SketchFlow at the LCNUG

See The Light With Silverlight 3!

Today marks the launch of Microsoft Silverlight 3 and Expression 3! 

I am probably most excited about the release of the Expression Blend 3 + SketchFlow RC. SketchFlow is a visual tool that provides designers and developers a quick and powerful way to sketch and prototype rich, desktop and web applications with Expression Blend. I'll be talking about SketchFlow a LOT in the coming weeks!

Don't miss all the exciting announcements over at: http://www.seethelight.com

Also, here are some links to get started with Silverlight 3 and Blend 3 right now:

Silverlight 3 RTW

Expression Blend 3 + SketchFlow RC

Microsoft® Silverlight™ 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1

Silverlight Toolkit

Microsoft .NET RIA Services July 2009 Preview

Update: Tim Heuer just posted a link to some cool Silverlight Themes to help you get started: 

Sharepoint Saturday is Coming!

Join me and other Chicago SharePoint professionals for SharePoint Saturday, on Saturday, June 13th, 2009 at the Tribune Tower on N Michigan Ave in Chicago, IL.The event promises to be an educational & informative day filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of SharePoint-orientated topics. SharePoint Saturday is FREE, open to the public and is your local chance to immerse yourself in SharePoint!

My session will cover the fundamentals of customizing and branding a SharePoint site. I'll be discussing tips, tricks and best practices when working with masterpages and CSS in SharePoint Designer.

Registration is open at: https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=138439

What happens at MIX goes everywhere...

There were a lot of important announcements at this year's MIX09 conference in Las Vegas and I was fortunate enough to attend. The event featured major announcements including Internet Explorer 8, ASP.NET MVC 1.0, Silverlight 3, Expression Blend 3, WebPI, Azure, SuperPreview and .NET RIA Services.

For those unable to attend... fear not! We're bringing the goodness of MIX to you! Local Microsoft evangelists Larry Clarkin & Dave Bost have rounded up a group of WEB & RIA geeks to help spread the MIX love at local user groups, code camps and other tech events.

I'm proud to announce the MIXITUP! Tour. Corey Miller, Josh Heyse, Damon Payne and myself will be making our way through the midwest over the next several weeks to offer a roundup of the major announcements from this year's MIX09 conference.

The dates for the MIXITUP! Tour are below. If you have any questions or need further information, drop me a line. I hope to see you there!

4/1 CD2UG (Corey / Anthony)
4/9 Indianapolis, IN (Damon)
4/15 CNUG (Corey / Anthony / Josh)
4/30 Lake County (Anthony)
5/6 Madison, WI (Damon)
5/8 RIAPalooza (Anthony)
5/9 Fox Valley Day of .NET (Damon / Larry)
5/12 Milwaukee (Damon)
5/12 Ft Wayne, IN (Corey)
5/16 Indy Code Camp (Josh)
5/19 South Bend, IN (Corey)
5/26 Rockford, IL (Josh)
5/30 Chicago Code Camp (Josh – others?)

Investing in User Experience

With the economic downturn nipping at our heels, it is more important then ever for UX professionals to demonstrate the value of good user experience design in application development, both with internal sales teams and clients. An investment in UX now, can set the stage for several benefits down the road.

This Thursday, December 11th, I will be talking about the importance of “Investing in User Experience” at the Technology Executives Club’s IT Trends Forecast and Holiday Reception.

In addition, my colleague Corey Miller will be discussing why Rich Platforms like Silverlight and Flash are going to continue to play an important part in application development in the months and years to come.

Click here form more information about the event.

Not At PDC

For those of us unable to attend PDC this year, http://notatpdc.com/ is helping to fill the void with virtual presentations and sessions. Check it out and get involved!

What is NinjaCamp?

Watch this space for more info...

Silverlight 2 Officially Released Tomorrow!

Microsoft has announced that the Silverlight 2 runtime plugin will be available for download on Tuesday, Oct. 14, at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight. If you are already using a previous version of Silverlight, you will be automatically upgraded to Silverlight 2.

In addition to Windows development tools, the company has outlined plans for supporting Mac and Linux tools for developing Silverlight applications.

Click here to read the entire press release.

The Thirsty Developer Podcast

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to sit down with Larry Clarkin and Dave Bost from The Thirsty Developer podcast for a conversation about my some of my experiences as a designer living in a developer world as well as some of the tools and technologies that are helping to make designer/developer collaboration a better experience for us all.

You can subscribe to the podcast in the usual ways: The Thirsty Developer, Feedburner, iTunes and Zune.