UX Confidential

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?)

Silverlight 2 Developer Poster

Don Burnett points out that the Silverlight 2 Developer Reference poster they passed out at MIX08 can also be downloaded via Brad Abram's blog here. Also, don't forget to check out the cool DeepZoom version here. Thanks Don!

2 Flavors of Expression Blend

I had the chance to chat briefly with Pete Blois from the Microsoft Expression team about this week's announcements regarding Blend. He pointed out that there are 2 new versions of Blend now available: Blend 2 Beta and Blend 2.5 March 2008 Preview. He recommended only using the 2.5 Preview when working with Silverlight 2 projects and sticking with the Blend 2 Beta when working with WPF. I will be installing both versions and have a comparison review of in the coming days.

A First Look at Silverlight 2!

In anticipation of MIX08 in March, Scott Guthrie has posted his First Look at Silverlight 2.

MIX08 Sold Out...

If you haven't registered in time, you are too late. MIX08 is now sold out. Luckily all the sessions will be recorded and posted to www.visitmix.com following the conference.

MIX08, Here I Come!

Don't miss MIX08, March 5 - 7, 2008 at The Venetian
Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Now in its third year, MIX is an opportunity for cutting-edge technical, creative and business strategists to engage Microsoft in a conversation about the future of the web. Click here to register.

ReMIX Boston Screencast Sessions

In case you missed it, Microsoft has posted the screencast sessions from Boston Remix 07 on Channel 9. The links to the presentation that I gave with Rocky Lhotka are below:

Real World Experiences Buildings Applications Using WPF and Silverlight
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4