MIX11 Day Two Keynote, Live Notes

Like yesterday, I am settled-in here at MIX11 to partake in the Day Two keynote. Unfortunately, my live note taking got cut short yesterday when my laptop decided to quit, but today I think we've got the battery to make the distance.

Yesterday was all HTML5, IE9, and re-cap of ASP.NET MVC stuff. Today, we expect Windows Phone and Silverlight. Let's see what happens…

Keynote Notes

Windows Phone

• Joe B from the MSFT WP7 team is on stage to talk Windows Phone
• Rough way to start. He's spending the first 10 minutes running through the excuses for why MSFT is having trouble updating WP7. We get it, you hit problems.
  
• Excuses and stories finally done. Joe is now talking "Windows Phone Opportunities." Microsoft is giddy over the Gartner and IDC forecasts that pin Windows Phone as #2 in the future.
• Now we've got the poor Head of Developer Experience from Nokia on stage to cheerlead Nokia's love of WP7. "We're totally excited about our partnerships" could not sound less sincere.
• Back to Joe and overview of next update (codenamed Mango). "Today you can submit apps from 30 countries. This fall, there will be 36 countries." Yay…?
• The app list on the next WP update is getting new features to help users find apps when many are installed. So…it's kinda like the Spotlight feature on iPhone…but only for your app list.
• Adding something called "Search Extras" - essentially quick links to apps directly from search results.
• More HTML5, now Day 2, and still no Silverlight talk. Going to show-off IE9 for Phone, which Joe claims uses the same browser engine as desktop IE9.
• More impressive showcasing of IE9's focus on using hardware acceleration. IE9 on Phone definitely continues the theme of using hardware to give HTML5 more power. Side-by-side with today's iPhone and Android makes the benefit clear. BUT this browser is still 6 months from shipping…
• Other cool features coming: Ring Tones, Deep Linking Live Tiles, Motion Sensor API, Multi-tasking
• Angry Birds coming to Windows Phone on May 25. Biggest news of the day so far.
• Introducing something called Live Agents to try to solve the problem of balancing the desire for running background code with keeping the phone fast for the user. The phone will handle scheduling of the live agent code execution to minimize impact on phone perf.
• Tools that were demoed today (i.e. Mango) will be available next month to developers.

Joe is wrapping-up. Impressions so far: Virtually no Silverlight. No Windows Phone 8.

Development Tools for Windows Phone

• ScottGu is on stage to talk about development tools for WP7 and experiences like games
• Mango tools adding a new accelerometer support to the WP7 emulator. You get a 3D model of the phone you can "move" to simulate the accelerometer movement. Pretty cool.
  
• Adding GPS emulation, too! The emulator can now automatically use fake GPS data with convenient tooling for specifying that data.
• Adding Windows Phone Performance Analysis tools to Visual Studio. A tool that will essentially try to analyze your Phone apps and look for hotspot performance problems. Provides a large number of charts with captured data summaries (like framerate). Even goes as far as providing guidance for common problems. Seem like very useful tools for optimizing Phone apps.
• Improving the Silverlight runtime in a few ways to make native perf better. Example: all user touch input now on a background thread so UI is always instantly responsive. Memory optimizations reduce memory footprints by about 30%.
• Mango includes 1500+ new APIs and the full Silverlight 4 API feature set
• Mango will ship with SQL CE for local database storage and LinqToSql (apparently) as an out-of-the-box ORM. The EF vs L2S debate rages forward…
• Kik demo is painful. Sorry.
• Mango will let you compose/combine Silverlight and XNA in the same app. No longer either or decision.
• Best comedy moment of keynote: ScottGu's accidental super zoom on the crotch of his 3D student double. Big laughs.

Silverlight

• FINALLY…ScotGu is transitioning to talk about Silverlight for the browser (cheers from the crowd for some Silverlight news). (10:26 AM for the on-demand video index.)
• Just going over the Silverlight 5 features previously revealed at Firestarter
• The new Blue Angels demo is not helping the Silverlight story. It's further pushing Silverlight in to the "plug-in" graphics niche and promoting HTML5 for the core experience. Cool site, though.
• All Silverlight shown today is 3D, advanced video, media APIs - nothing LOB or "app" focused.
• Bottom line, not a very exciting Silverlight segment. Major news will be the immediate availability of Silverlight 5 Beta.

So, no Windows Phone 8. Not much new for Silverlight 5. What did you think of today's keynote?

MIX11 Day One Keynote, Live Notes

When a conference streams its keynotes, and makes most sessions available online, there is little point in "live blogging." So for MIX, I'm giving you some "live notes." My real-time thoughts about what's standing-out as things rolled-out here in Vegas.

Keynote Notes

Internet Explorer

• First-up is Dean H from the IE Team to talk IE. Most interesting things he's saying:
  • He keeps stressing that HTML5 is the only native experience for the web (and people prefer native experiences - citing mobile apps)
  • Dean is wearing at IE 10 shirt, so you can bet that's where this IE9 show-off is headed
  • Dean is showing-off a number if HTML5 apps in IE9 (things really designed to show-off IE9s hardware acceleration - so lots of video, SVG, heavy animation)
  • Microsoft is really trying to make the case about it's slower, more deliberate approach to HTML5 implementation - living on the "native" implementation message. Going so far as to openly mock the aggressive implementation of features like web sockets by browsers like Chrome and Firefox.
  • And now…Microsoft is addressing cadence. Basically, Microsoft is arguing against Chrome and Firefox's (planned) fast release cycles. Microsoft says it will actually slow down its preview cadence with IE10. Argues that Chrome and Firefox create more churn with their fast, sometimes incomplete implementations.
  • Doing a good job cherry picking some CSS3 features Chrome doesn't render perfectly. It's interesting that Microsoft is picking-on Chrome and not Firefox.
  • Sinofsky is helping show-off IE10 and plugging PDC 2011 in September in Anaheim California - claiming lots of excitement about HTML5…Windows 8 and HTLM5? (Disneyland).
  • IE10 news: What you'd expect. More focus on native hardware perf for HTML5 + more implementation of CSS3 features (like transitions, gradients, etc.) Oh! And the first IE10 platform preview is available today (ietestdrive.com)

Developer Platform and Tools Update

• ScottGu is out to share dev tools updates
  • Running through what's been done in the last year (VS 2010, jQuery support, etc.)
  • Announcing refresh of ASP.NET MVC 3 today, that includes jQuery 1.5 + Modernizr + new VS tools and templates
  • Announcing that EF 4.1 is shipping today. Added by default to all new MVC 3 projects.
  • Scott Hanselman is on stage to do a code build-up of two websites using MVC and WebMatrix - I 'm sure the designers at MIX are hating this section (especially after the designer-heavy content of the last few years)
  • Looooong technical demo. Not bad. But surprised it's in the keynote. Most of the tech you've seen before. It's WebMatrix, NuGet, SQL Compact, MVC3, jQuery, IE9, and so on.
  • Orchard is now on stage to show-off Microsoft's open source CMS. Another tech demo. Finally wrapping-up @ 10:23 (for video playback index).
  • Now it's time for Azure. Surprised this is the first time we're hearing about Azure today. Umbraco is on stage to talk about their Azure support.

Catastrophic laptop failure!

LIVE from MIX10 (update)

Welcome Telerik Watch readers to another LIVE update from a major Microsoft event! I’m settling in to my seat at the MIX10 opening-day keynote, where there are lots of exciting announcements expected. In the past, I’ve typed feverishly to bring you play-by-play updates from keynotes like this, but now that MIX is streaming the keynote live, that seems a bit redundant. So, instead, I’ll be “live blogging” the highlights. All the big news that’s worth remembering post-keynote.

To get things started, this year’s keynote “warm-up act” is a 16-year old Seattle-native Yo-Yo Champion (Sterling Quinn). If you thought (like me) that being able to “walk the dog” with a Yo-Yo was skill, you don’t want to watch this kid.

More big news as it happens…

9:11 AM: Things are getting started with some Killers playing after a quick Bing Maps show-off video. Room is pretty much packed now. Not sure how many people…I’d guess somewhere between 2,000 to 3,000. ScottGu taking the stage…

Scott is jumping right-in to content. Very different from last year’s long “abstract” design talk by Bill Buxton. Scott said he is going to focus on Silverlight today- on the RIA, media, and phone.

Highlights:

• Silverlight now on 60% of PCs worldwide (according to ScottGu)
• Microsoft is “open sourcing” the Vancouver Olympics media player + rough cut editor
• SL4 will support full-screen in a single monitor (“first web technology to enable that”)
• Adding new “Pivot” feature to Silverlight (very tepid response from audience – light clapping)

9:20 AM: ScottGu seems a bit off of his game. Lots of “uhs.” Almost as if he’s a little uncomfortable or unprepared.

• Blend 4 will be a free upgrade for Blend 3 (audience much happier about this than Pivot)

9:26 AM: eBay demoing their new Quick Listing tool that is built on SL4. Cool app. Takes advantage of SL4 custom out-of-browser chrome. App built by Cynergy. Audience energy is low right now. Very quiet. I think people must be waiting for a big “surprise” to wake up…

• Silverlight 4 RC now available (with VS 2010 tools, Blend 4, etc)
• Silverlight 4 RTW available next month

9:35 AM: Scott came out and just shut-down the SL4 talk. Casually announced the SL4 news and pushed us in to the Windows Phone 7 part of the keynote. Audience picked-up. This is clearly what everyone is here to see. Demos now by Joe B.

10:00 AM: Joe is done with demos. Rest of keynote will be dedicated to talking about how you build apps for Windows Phone 7. ScottGu is back on.

• Silverlight on Windows Phone 7 is same Silverlight as PC (“One Silverlight”)
• VS2010 has integrated WinPho7 templates + WYSIWYG designer + built-in emulator
• Phone emulator is full VM with full integration with VS debugger

10:10 AM: ScottGu built and deployed a simple Twitter app for WinPhone. Biggest applause of the day. Not “thunderous,” but definitely best of the day so far. Scott is back in his element.

• VS2010 & Blend will be FREE for phone development

10:26 AM: Scott Stanfield showing-off Netflix Instant Watch on WinPhone. For me, my battery is near dead (forgot to charge last night). More details and highlights soon…

…And I’m back online with battery. Fortunately, there wasn’t much (any?) news after my battery death in the Day One keynote. Just a lot of demos showing apps running on WinPhone 7. Most important news in the keynote (highlighted in red above) came early. And sadly, no surprise dev unit Win7 phones for the MIX crowd…which I guess makes sense since the current unit has yet to pass through the FCC.

One to Day Two.

LIVE from TechEd 2009 Keynote [update]

Welcome to TechEd 2009 coverage on Telerik Watch! This is your place to watch the TechEd 2009 Keynote unfold. I'm here in beautiful LA (ehem...) and ready to bring you the most complete live keynote coverage available on your RSS Reader dial. With so many Microsoft technologies in beta (or soon to be beta), there are bound to be some interesting announcements during the Day One keynote. And if you're tuned-in here, you'll get the announcement details as soon as they're made. All the action starts tomorrow morning, so bookmark this post and tune-in at 10:00 AM Pacific Time for the fun! 9:33 AM: Almost time for things to get started. I've grabbed a TechEd MountainDew, settled-in to my seat, and am enjoying the Microsoft electronic music in the morning. Room is probably 1/4 to 1/3 filled now, but people are streaming-in.

Click here to continue reading live keynote coverage

9:53 AM: Just got the Five Minute Warning. Looks like things will be starting right on time.

10:02 AM: Lights-dim, video starts- time to get started (a little late because everyone was still trying to find seats). “X Lives Here” is the slogan for this year (such as “Innovation Lives Here,” “Potential Lives Here,” etc.).

10:03 AM: Bill Veghte, Senior VP Windows Business, is taking the stage. Just basic “welcome” speech and some TechEd facts and figures. Claims about 7000 at this year’s TechEd. Rolling another video- interviews that look like they were shot at MIX with developers asking “What keeps you up at night?” “What are your pain points?”

10:08 AM: Tepid response from crowd to video (“courtesy” claps). Bill’s energy is a little low, too. Lots of pausing- not sure if he’s trying to create drama or if it’s just “his style.”

10:10 AM: Bill says Microsoft intends to support the community in these turbulent times by “inventing in you, driving value, and innovating together.” Says MSFT will grow R&D this year, despite other cut backs. “Pedal down” behavior, as he puts it.

10:12 AM: Talking about “Dynamic IT.” Just remarking about how far we’ve come since 2003.

10:14 AM: Wants to call attention to 3 things (or “key themes”) MSFT is doing to watch for this week: 1) Virtualization (and how much MSFT is doing across products and platforms to support virtualization), 2) End-user access, Greater support for end-user mobility, 3)…

10:17 AM: Announcing a SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP will ship in H2 2009. No response from crowd, Also showing on screen a July 2009 tech preview of Office 2010.

10:19 AM: Just added that Office 2010 preview will be private- invite only. First dibs go to TechEd attendees. Again, no crowd excitement for this announcement.

10:21 AM: Running another video, this time talking to Windows 7 engineers. Making the case that Windows 7 is really listening to people and trying to build the best OS possible. Trying to provide some transparency for the Windows development approach.

10:23 AM: Flashed a website at end of video: talkingaboutwindows.com. Encourage you to “join the conversation.”

10:24 AM: Bill is now talking about the “Making of Windows 7.” Key points: Microsoft listened & learned before building Win7, Quality & Fundamentals are key, MSFT wants to “enable you,” and finally MSFT wants to “excite” end-users.

10:27 AM: Now talking Win7 and the Ecosystem. Talking about how MSFT is working hard to ensure ecosystem is better prepared for Win7 than they were for Vista. Slide is saying some “Intel Announcement” is coming.

10:29 AM: Two “announcements” regarding Intel: MSFT and Intel worked together to deliver better power management in Win7 and better OS support for hyper threading. Yeah, no crowd reaction…

10:31 AM: Bill is moving on to talk about new features in Windows7 release wave- specifically, features that help address the balance between “Control” and “Flexibility.” Examples: branch cache, direct connect (i.e. VPN-client-less VPN), etc.

10:33 AM: Bill is encouraging audience to compare Win7 RC performance to Vista to see proof that new release is already better performing than previous releases- even in RC.

10:35 AM: Demo time! I think the audience is relieved- Bill’s part was getting a little long. Bill is doing first demo- made the big “name mistake” and called Win7, “Windows Vista.” Finally got some audience laughter!

10:36 AM: Bill is demoing the “basic” UX improvements in Win7 (jump lists, reordering apps on task bar, etc.)- stuff you’ve probably seen before.

10:38 AM: More interesting than Bill’s Win7 demo is the fact that he’s got Office 2010 running on his demo machine! The UX is changing in office- no more big “Office Button” globe.

10:39 AM: Moving on to show-off Direct Connect. Requires WinServer 2008R2. And now we’re on to look at Branch Caching, and integrated Open Search (in Windows Search), and so on. Lots of quick little demos of Win7 features.

10:44 AM: Bill says he’s doing last demo- showing BitLocker ToGo. Don’t think people really got this last demo.

10:46 AM: Mark Russinovich, Tech Fellow at MSFT, is taking the stage to do Win7 demos for the IT Pros.

10:49 AM: Showing-off AppLocker- essentially a new “whitelist” for apps that an user is allowed to install that also enables you to filter at different levels of specificity (i.e. you can approve a publisher, a specific app, a specific app version, etc.)

10:51 AM: Demo snag. Mark was trying to show AppLocker group policy change in action, but something broke. First time I’ve seen a TechEd keynote demo stall for that long. Fortunately, the “magic behind the curtain” (i.e. the guys in back frantically trying to fix the problem) fixed the issue and Mark recovered.

10:53 AM: Big recovery! Mark just got the biggest crowd reaction so far showing-off the feature in Win7 that enables users to record the steps they took to hit a problem (complete with step-by-step) screen caps. People applauded this feature more than anything else so far.

10:56 AM: Moving-on to talk about PowerShell v2. Talking about using PowerShell to manage group policy settings.

10:57 AM: ASIDE: Mark suggested that one of the cool new features in IE8 is InPrivate Mode- for “personal reasons.” I see…

11:00 AM: Now on to MEDV (pronounced “Med-Vee”)- Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization, the set of tools MSFT is shipping that enables admins to easily manage end-user VMs.

11:03 AM: And now “AppV” (pronounced “App-Vee”), Microsoft’s application virtualization solution. Mark says this feature will help support the idea of the “replaceable PC,” or a scenario where all user settings (including apps) can quickly be re-initialized on a new box if their first PC dies.

11:07 AM: Last thing for Mark- demoing the new VHD support in Win7 (ability to managed VHDs from Disk Manager and even boot directly from a VHD).

11:11 AM: Bill’s back. Mark’s gone. No developer love so far in this year’s keynote (last year you may remember that there was a fair amount more for devs).

11:13 AM: Bill wants to talk about “two elephants in the room:” App Compat and Ship Date. Bill also seems to be much more amped-up on his return to the stage. Must have had some caffeine back stage…

11:13 AM: First App Compat. Essentially, MSFT is doing a lot to make sure all apps run: App Compat Kit, Guidance, Virtualization Tech, XP Mode, App Compat Factory, and ISV Engagement.

11:15 AM: Second, Ship Date. Bill is ready to announce something. Announcing that Windows 7 will ship for this holiday season. No reaction from crowd- think that shocked Bill.

11:16 AM: Telling people who don’t have Vista installed yet to start testing with Win7 RC instead.

11:17 AM: Time for another demo. Ian McDonald, General Manager of Windows Server Group, taking stage to do some Windows Server 2008 R2 demos.

11:21 AM: Talking about the focus of the Server Group: Consistent Delivery, Accelerating Technology Adoption, and Commitment to Value.

11:25 AM: Ian is now addressing how Windows Server focuses on four areas: Web, Management, Virtualization, and “Foundation for Business.” After that, he says there’ll be some demos. Looks like the keynote may run long…

11:29 AM: Keynote is definitely dragging. Ian is high energy, but I think people realize that this is going to run in to lunch and we’re not going to get any more interesting announcements as things go along. Just review of the RCs and Betas we’ve already seen. Ian is still talking to his key points slide.

11:30 AM: Take it back. There are some new announcements: 1) HyperV will now support up to 64 virtual processors (no reaction – Ian had to beg for applause), 2) [Something nobody understood], 3) New “Compat Mode” coming to HyperV to enable running on older hardware. Yeah…that did little to get the crowd back in this one…

11:33 AM: Another new thing: File Classification Structure. [OBSERVATION: People are really streaming-out of the keynote now. It started with a trickle and it’s turning in to a stream.]

11:35 AM: Ian is now starting his demos. They better be impressive to save this keynote. But they are “just” server admin demos, so…unless you’re a domain admin…this info isn’t likely to interest you.

11:37 AM: Ian got some demo applause! Apparently Windows Server now has some OCR features built-in. That’s cool, I suppose.

11:40 AM: Ian is now rambling on about Exchange 2010. Stream of people leaving is about to become a river.

11:43 AM: Ian is now demoing Outlook 2010 (another sneak peak of the Office14 UX). Showing some type of integration with something- demo problems. Demo failed. Apparently the demo was to make some joke about Mary Jo’s “MSFT Code Name” list.

11:48 AM: “And finally I’m going to get on to the headline artist of the night: virtualization in Windows Server,” says Ian as people continue their march out of the keynote. Apparently there’ll be one more demo today showing virtualization.

11:53 AM: Ian is still demoing some Windows Server 2008 R2 features. Actually, now he’s wrapping-up his time. [River is no turning in to flood of people leaving.]

11:54 AM: Bill is re-taking stage to wrap-up the keynote. I think people cut him short. Quick thanks for Bill and that’s it!

I know they practiced this keynote, but it’s not clear if any amount of practice have saved it. With the Windows 7 RC already released, the keynote just lacked any good announcements. It’s almost like MSFT forgot to save anything-up for this big keynote. Good thing Bill Gate’s last TechEd keynote is already in the books.

Either way, hope you enjoyed the extended coverage. Stay tuned for more from LA as TechEd continues!

LIVE from MIX09 kick-off keynote

It's that time again. Time for another fun MIX live blog! Like last year, the music is already blaring- not Johnny Cash, though...this year we're going all hip with a DJ mixing-up the tracks- the lights are spinning, and people are streaming-in and taking their seats. I'm already locked and loaded, ready to bring you as much coverage as I can. So grab some coffee, get comfortable in your cube, and then get ready to give your F5 key a workout. We'll get things started soon! 8:41 AM: DJ tunes still going. DJ welcomed the audience and forgot what time and day it is today- clearly not a morning person. All tweets with #mix09 are streaming across one of the huge screens, too. Here's your chance to be part of the fun...8:54 AM: Music, music, music...people are still pouring-in, but room is definitely getting full. Things should get started in about 5 minutes. In the meantime, bookmark http://visitmix.com/2009 to find all videos from MIX. 9:01 AM: No action yet. Looks like things will be starting a little late this morning.

9:03 AM: Here we go! Lights down. Bill Buxton, MSFT Research, taking the stage.

Continue reading LIVE coverage of MIX keynote

9:04 AM: Talking about how now is a good time to be focused on “experience [design].” Trying to make the case that it’s still a good time to invest in design in a down economy. I think you don’t have to do much to convince this audience, dude…

9:07 AM: Bill is giving us a history lesson now. Showing us great designers through history (such as Walter Teague from Kodak in 1926). Showing us guys that started companies around the time of the Great Depression. His key “one liner” is: Return on Experience.

9:09 AM: Interesting way to start MIX. All talk is about industrial design. Definitely showing more love to designers this year than last year. Looks like developers will need to wait a bit for the interesting news…

9:12 AM: Bill just claimed that at least half of this MIX audience is from the design background and that less than half are developers. Guess that’s why we’re still talking industrial design…

9:15 AM: “Our job is not to answer questions. Our job is to ask the right question to get to the right question to ask the questions that deliver the answer.” I see…

9:19 AM: “What do Canada and transitions have in common? They’re both dominated by the states!” If you didn’t guess from Bill’s joke, we’re talking about diagramming state transitions now.

9:22 AM: Ah! Finally some Microsoft news. Bill is finally going to share some details about how MSFT is addressing this idea of supporting UX design.

9:24 AM: Bill just threw in the towel for the Zune. “It’s not about the device. It’s about the software.” Clearly MSFT is shifting back to the idea of the “platform” vs. the device. No “official” news, though, just a clear directional statement from Bill.

9:28 AM: Bill has really spent 30 minutes talking nothing about MSFT. Leaving the stage now. A quick video and then ScottGu takes the stage. Very funny video! Hopefully this will be online soon.

9:31 AM: Scott is on stage and it’s finally time to talk tools! He’s going to cover three categories: Standards-based web, RIA, and something else. First-up, talk about standards-based web tools and tech.

9:32 AM: Expression Web 3. Exciting new feature is called “SuperPreview.” Supposed to help you design CSS that works cross-browser. Erik Saltwell, GPM from MSFT, on stage to demo the new feature.

9:33 AM: Erik is using Expression Web. SuperPreview makes it possible to basically use any browser rendering engine in Web (even side-by-side and overlay modes). Enables you to quickly compare a page in different browsers to look for visual discrepancies. SuperPreview can use cloud services to provide browser renderings even if you don’t have the browser installed on your PC! That includes previews from Safari on a Mac on your PC.

9:37 AM: Very cool demo. You can now actually test IE6/7/8 on the same machine without VMs. They’re going to make a standalone version of SuperPreview available for FREE today. Download the beta and check it out!

9:38 AM: Back to Scott. Now talking ASP.NET MVC.

9:39 AM: As expected, just announced ASP.NET MVC is shipping in v1 today. Now on to talking ASPNET v4 and VS2010.

9:40 AM: First ASPNET. Talking about what’s coming new in ASPNET 4 timeline. More control over ViewState, an update release for MVC, new AJAX features (client-side templates), and distributed caching (a.k.a. Velocity).

9:41 AM: Now VS2010. Code improvements, improved JavaScript support, SharePoint editing support, support for multiple web.config files (Test, Staging, Prod, etc.). No news here. Now on to talking IIS7.

9:43 AM: Shipping 8 new extensions for IIS7 this week, including tools for publishing to IIS from VS, new secure FTP tool, new WebDAV tools, etc. No details, though. Scott’s already moving on to talk about the MSFT Web Platform Installer (the unified installer for MSFT products). Version 2 ships today. Available at Microsoft.com/Web.

9:44 AM: Launching Web App Gallery. Will feature free .NET and PHP apps that you can run on Windows Server. Demo time…

9:46 AM: Somebody (sorry no name on screen) is on stage demoing the Web PI (Platform Installer). Yeah…demoing an installer…

9:48 AM: Cool thing is that the installer does allow you to directly install apps- “An App Store for the Web Server.” Install things like DNN or WordPress. Web PI will handle installing all dependencies- including PHP if necessary.

9:50 AM: Anybody can get their app listed in the App Gallery (and thus the Web PI). Criteria online. You host the code- Gallery just points to it. You tell Gallery the dependencies, though, and it handles providing those.

9:51 AM: Announcing Commerce Server 2009. And that’s it. One slide. Now on to Azure.

9:52 AM: Azure Announcements:Supporting PHP/FastCGI, Support .NET Full Trust, Supporting relational databases (via SQL Data Services), New .NET services you can use in Azure apps. Commercial release later this year.

9:53 AM: Scott’s now moved-on to talk about BizSpark (the free software program for start-ups launched last year). I think his time is running-out ‘cuz he’s moving quickly. Wrapping-up by brining on-stage Jeff Attword and Joel Spolsky to talk about Stackoverflow.com.

9:56 AM: Jeff and Joel are just giving an overview of SO, the process for building it, the current traffic they’re serving (it’s all running on 2 servers), etc. Sorta a plug for MVC, too. Just a site overview. Annnd, now the plug for BizSpark.

10:01 AM: Jeff and Joel are wrapping-up the infomercial and Gu is back on stage to talk Silverlight.

10:02 AM: Silverlight 3. Today MSFT is releasing new versions of World Wide Telescope and a new Virtual Earth SDK. Highlighting the “10,000s” of apps world wide built using Silverlight. Inviting Kevin McEntee, VP Web Engineering, from Netflix on stage to talk about Netflix’s success with Silverlight.

10:05 AM: Talking about why Netflix picked Silverlight. Wanted to support Macs. Wanted to support FireFox. Wanted to remove installer experience. Wanted a single player for all users. Highlighting SL features Netflix uses: adaptive streaming support, built-in DRM, etc.

10:09 AM: Kevin says Netflix is “shipping” a new version of their Silverlight video player every 2 weeks since no installer is required. Interesting…

10:10 AM: Netflix is eager to use new GPU support for scaling and stretching video in Silverlight 3. “Netflix loves Silverlight.” Quick demo of the player and now Scott is back.

10:13 AM: Silverlight 3 media Announcements: GPU hardware acceleration, Codec support for H.264, AAC, and MPEG-4, Raw bitstream Audio/Video API (build your own codecs), and improved logging support for media analytics. New product: IIS Media Services. Free. Designed to help you deliver the highest possible quality video at lowest TCO.

10:16 AM: Scott is now demoing the new IIS Media Services and Expression Encoder. Very cool production workflow for video. Smooth streaming and adaptive bit-rates are very impressive. Support for live video now also includes “Tivo-like” abilities to pause, seek back, etc.

10:21 AM: Scott is now inviting Perkins Miller, Sr. VP Digital Media at NBC Sports, on stage to talk about the NBC experience using Silverlight to broadcast the Olympics. Announcing renewal of Silverlight platform for 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics- will be broadcast in full HD (720p) with Tivo-like features.

10:27 AM: Scott’s back. Done with media. Now time to talk RIAs.

10:28 AM: Silverlight 3 RIA Announcements; GPU acceleration, perspective 3D, bitmap & pixel API, Pixel shader effects, Deep Zoom improvements. Time for demos. Scott is showing “gratuitous” effects demo with Silverlight.

10:30 AM: App Dev with SL3: Deep linking, navigation, SEO will be addressed (support all major search engines), Improved text quality (ClearType), multi-touch support, 100+ controls available, library caching support (supposedly for any DLL).

10:33 AM: Demo time. David Anthony, Co-Founder Bondi, and Scott Stanfield, CEO Vertigo, on stage to demo some Silverlight 3 features in a new app built for Bondi (who is in the business of making back issues of magazines available).

10:37 AM: This demo is the new “Hard Rock” demo for Silverlight. It’s a more functional Deep Zoom powered Silverlight demo. Not sure if it will be publically available. Definitely cool for showing-off more media/SL3 capabilities. Looks like covertocover.com will be the spot to find this.

10:40 AM: Oh man- playboyarchive.com launches tonight with 40 free back issues of the magazine running (I assume) on a platform similar to what was demoed today. Have fun with that…

10:41 AM: Blend 3 Announcements: SketchFlow, Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator import, Behaviors, Designing with data, Source code control, XAML,C#, and VB code intellisense (finally!).

10:43 AM: Jon Harris from MSFT is on stage to demo new features in Blend 3. Starting with SketchFlow. Enables you to build “flow of an application” in Blend. Enables you to add “Wiggly Controls” to page (very prototype looking).

10:47 AM: A SketchFlow player enables you to share your prototypes with clients. Free player- doesn’t require Blend. Makes it easy to build a prototype in Blend and then share (with animated transitions). Easy feedback, too. Users can directly annotate on screens and then send feedback to Blend user who can load and view feedback.

10:50 AM: People LOVE the new ability in Blend to export a SketchFlow to Word Document (for quick documentation of application design). Loudest applause so far.

10:51 AM: Showing Behaviors in Blend 3. Enables you to add action to controls without writing any code. Next, showing direct support for importing Photoshop and Illustrator files. Enables you to import specific layers, merge layers, etc. Layers remain editable in Blend. Showing live data binding abilities in Blend 3 designer.

10:58 AM: Wrapping-up the SketchFlow/Expression Blend 3 demo. His one-liner: “Expression Blend 3: From concept to completion.” Scott is back on stage.

10:59 AM: Data Improvements in SL3: Data-binding improvements, validation error templates, server data push improvements, binary XML networking support, Multi-Tier REST data support (aka RIA Services aka Alexandria). Demo time.

11:01 AM: Scott is demoing data features in SL3. Using Entity Framework for DAL. Creating DomainServices class in server project (auto-syncs with SL project). Running demo- BUILD ERROR! :) Quick recovery though and everybody a good laugh. Showing grouping in new default SL DataGrid, Binding via proxy object, etc. See older Alexandria demos to understand what’s being demoed today.

11:06 AM: Demo’s done. New announcement: SAP NetWeaver Silverlight support coming this year.

11:07 AM: Silverlight running outside the browser! SL3 includes native Fit Client support. Can run SL3 apps out of browser on Windows and Mac. Safe, secure, sandboxed environment. Built-in auto update support. Build offline-aware apps (detect if network is available). Integrate with underlying OS (hardware acceleration, multi-touch, etc.).

11:10 AM: Demo of SL3 out of browser. Tom Mara from KEXP (90.3 FM Seattle) is on stage to talk about how KEXP used SL3 to build a KEXP player. The SL3 out of browser install has a single install prompt- allows user to tell installer to add Desktop and/or Start Menu short cuts.

11:15 AM: SL3 runs in a standard Windows window shell (or Mac window shell on OSX). Apps look the same on Win and Mac. Apps fire event when network connectivity lost so you can handle changes to connectivity. Runs completely out of browser process, but does operate in browser security sandbox.

11:18 AM: Demo is done. Scott’s back to wrap-up SL3 talk. Going to tell us how all of the new features in SL3 impact its download size. New SL3 download size: 40KB smaller than SL2!

11:20 AM: SL3 schedule. SL3 beta available today. Expression Blend 3, SL3 tools for VS 20008, IIS Media Services all available today, too.

11:21 AM: And that’s it! Scott has left the stage and it’s now on to the breakout sessions. Hope you enjoyed the live coverage. Watch for more as the week goes on.

Reminder: Telerik Silverlight webinar today!

Don't forget! There is a free, live webinar today (actually, in about 30 minutes) that will be covering the RadControls for Silverlight. This is a "getting started" webinar, so anybody that is looking to get a better grasp on how to work with 3rd party components in Silverlight should definitely attend. We won't spend much time on Silverlight basics, though, so make sure you have at least a basic understanding of Silverlight before attending today's session. And if you haven't registered yet, there's still time (now 25 minutes): https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/188665451 If you can't make our live event, I will be publishing the recording of this event on Telerik TV. I'll do my best to process the hour long video right after the webinar ends and get in on TTV by the weekend. I'll post the link the follow-up post. See you in a few minutes!

LIVE from Vegas DevConnections GuNote

That's right, it's time for another live blog of a Guthrie keynote. I'm all settled in at the Vegas South Pacific ballroom, I've got a full charge on my MacBook Air, and I'm ready to bring the updates as they happen. I don't expect anything new during this keynote (especially since PDC was last week), but who knows? Get ready with your F5 keys and we'll get started here in a few minutes! Click on to read live blog of GuNote 7:59: John Mayer is playing over the PA. Interesting choice for a developer audience... 8:02: Scott is on stage getting ready, but Mayer is still blasting. Looks like we're going to get a bit of a late start. 8:07: Music is down and it's time to start! Scott is getting things kicked-off with an overview of the next hour. Says he's going to focus today on products that are going to be shipping over the next couple of months and things that are coming next year (ASP.NET 4, VS 2010). Says we'll also see brand new "never before seen" demos of VS 2010 web development features. 8:08: Listing products shipped this year: IIS 7, Win Server 2k8, .NET 3.5, VS 2008, Silverlight 2. Not a bad list, especially considering that .NET 3.5 was more like a major version of .NET. 8:12: Time for the first demo. Scott's going to show ASP.NET Dynamic Data. He polled the audience (of at least 1,000 devs) and asked how many people have played around with Dynamic Data- one (!) person raised their hand. 8:14: Building a LinqToSQL data context for his Dynamic Data demo. I'm surprised he's still demoing LinqToSQL given the recent news that it's more or less a dead-end product in Microsoft right now. Demos like this aren't going to help people make the transition to EF... 8:16: He's now showing the Dynamic Data site running. Reaction from audience is weak (no applause or "ooohs", actually). Not sure if that's because people still don't understand Dynamic Data (even after seeing it) or they just don't want it. 8:20: Done with Dynamic Data. Now talking about the new charting controls Microsoft is shipping for ASP.NET. Free for both ASP.NET and WinForms. Supports both 2D and 3D charts. Looks just like Dundas charts...oh wait. Guthrie is now going to show-off the process for building a chart in ASP.NET. People got excited about seeing these demos. 8:23: Ah! It happened. People clapped for the charting demos. Really, with MS shipping these charts for free now, I think they're about to kill much of the 3rd party market for ASPNET charts. 8:24: Moving on. Scott's now talking ASP.NET MVC. He's still stressing that MVC is not a replacement for WebForms (anybody who thinks MVC is replacing WebForms is wrong). Another audience poll, too. How many people have played with ASP.NET MVC- about 20 hands went up. 8:26: No MVC demos today. Seems he recognizes that it doesn't appeal to the broad audience. Moving on to talk about ASP.NET AJAX and jQuery. 8:28: Just reviewing recent changes to ASPNET AJAX (back/forward button support, script combining, Astoria, etc.). Also talking about the jQuery choice and why MS partnered with that project. Showing jQuery IntelliSense screenshots (no live demos). Yet another audience poll. How many people are already using jQuery- at least 150 to 200 hands. 8:32: Demo time! Showing a ASP.NET MVC application that is pulling photos from Flickr based on a supplied tag. Using jQuery AJAX and JavaScript to power much of the UI binding. Very simple demo that shows some of the power of jQuery for client-side programming. 8:36: Shifting gears now. Done talking about what's shipping today, now going to talk about the future. First-up in the future, ASP.NET 4. 8:37: Reviewing details that were discussed at PDC. ASPNET 4 is going to give developers control over ClientIDs, is going to give better control over ViewState (turn-off at page level, then enable individual controls), is going to include URL routing (a la MVC), and is going to enhance features in Dynamic Data (such as enabling Dynamic Data off of business objects), and a new distributed caching model (i.e. Velocity). Guess the news here is that Velocity will ship as part of .NET 4. 8:40: Moving to talk VS 2010 improvements. VS 10 is going to ship a number of "code improvements" (such as new WPF-based source code editor, better snippets support, better code analysis). Also a number of improvements for web dev, including better AJAX Intellisense, better design-time rendering, and better SharePoint dev support. 8:42: Scott just showed the new web.config model that is going to make it easy to manage settings per dev environment. You can now easily have "Web.Debug.config," "Web.Release.config," and "Web.Staging.config" (or whatever) and your VS will automatically consume or package the correct web.config depending your environment. 8:44: VS 2010 demo time! Jeff (last name?) from the VS 10 team is on stage to do the demo. Is starting by showing us code completing of IntelliSense (type two characters, hit tab, VS completes entire tag with runat="server" tag already done for you!). Another example, add a control validator, VS will automatically fill-in all required properties and try to auto fill the ControlToValidate property. Also showed new "Surround With" feature- highlight some code, right-click, select "Surround With," choose what you want to wrap the code with. 8:49: Time for a demo of how many keystrokes new VS features save. They're cranking-up some music. Jeff's now trying to complete page using IntelliSense of VS 2008. He's got 60 seconds on the clock. And he's off! Time ran out, he didn't complete the page, and 232 keystrokes when time ran out. Now time for VS 2010. Eye of the Tiger music starts. And he beats the clock! With 132 keystrokes he finishes the page. Very cool demo and proof of how much time the new code features of VS 2010 could save. 8:53: Jeff is now showing a TDD approach to developing a MVC site with VS2010. VS 10 will make it easy to refactor classes out of your unit tests (or anywhere in VS, for that matter). Type a class name (even if it doesn't exist), VS will auto-add to IntelliSense and give you quick action for generating a new class. Basically, VS will be building-in support for some of what tools like ReSharper do today. 9:00: Jeff is still doing his TDD demo. He's written a test, used it to create his MVC controller (via the VS 10 refactoring features), and now he's going to create a UI. Showing new "Add View" command in VS 10 that will automatically create new MVC ViewPage for a controller. Cool feature, but no reaction from crowd because (remember) no one is using MVC. 9:04: And Jeff is finally done with the TDD demo. Overall though, a cool look at what's coming in VS 10. Definitely going to be a worthwhile upgrade for web developers! Now back to Scott to wrap things up (I think). 9:06: Scott is talking about the VS 10 shell and how it is going to be built in WPF. Promoting the benefit of this transition, such as multi-monitor support, higher performing UI, and, of course, deep customization support. He's now going to show the WPF Editor Comment Extension he demoed at PDC (i.e. using MEF, he's going to build a class that re-visualizes comments in the source code editor). 9:11: Continuing to talk, now about the ".NET Continum." In other words, time to talk Silverlight. Overviewing Silverlight 2's features and some of it's "selling points." Listing all of the big examples of "real" Silverlight use (such as the Olympics, Netflix, etc.) 9:16: Now talking about the UI control story for Silverlight. Talking about MS' goal to ship hundreds of rich UI controls "out of the box" with Silverlight. Not showing any new UI controls, though, or demos. VS 10 will have drag-and-drop support for Silverlight, design-time data binding support, and all the other goodies devs need to be productive developing for Silverlight. 9:18: Scott's now going to wrap-up with some Silverlight demos (guess I spoke too soon a second ago). First Silverlight demo, the Hard Rock Memorabilia Deep Zoom demo (first shown at Mix in March). Scott did just say the Hard Rock Deep Zoom app is "dynamic" and powered by SQL Server. I find that interesting since I wasn't aware you could dynamically build Deep Zoom tiles outside of the Deep Zoom Composer. Fact check needed... 9:21: Now showing the popular Silverlight Patient Journey Demonstrator demo app. Google it and you can play with the demo, too. 9:22: Final wrap-up slide. MS is aiming to improve web development by providing greater productivity, flexibility, and power. Think their offerings today are great; think the future "gets even better!" 9:23: That's it! Music is up and Scott is done. Thanks for tuning-in. Hope you enjoyed the coverage. Stay tuned for more updates from DevConnections this week.

LIVE from PDC 2008 Keynote 2 (Sinofsky, Guthrie, Treadwell)

Welcome back for another live blow-by-blow account of a PDC 2008 keynote. Today's keynote promises to be much more interesting and developer friendly than yesterday's as ScottGu, Steven Sinofsky, Ray Ozzie, and David Treadwell take the stage. We're in our seats and things should get started soon, so settle-in and get ready for the updates. 8:29: Things are about to get started. They're making the announcement and dimming the lights. 8:32: Here we go. Exciting .NET and Windows video is playing. Much higher energy than yesterday already! Video is showing-off a lot of MS partner apps built using .NET, WPF, WF, etc. 8:35: Video's over, Ozzie is taking the stage. Already promising some "surprises" today. Also reviewing what was introduced yesterday and reminding us of yesterday's announcements. Calling yesterday a look at MS "backend" innovations, today will be a look at "frontend" innovations. 8:37: Ozzie is reflecting on how important "personal PCs" have become to everyday life and business. Starting to build the case for how WIndows has always been able to flex and adapt to the times. Saying Windows is ready to adapt to the Internet focused era. 8:40: "It's our objective to make the connection of the PC, Phone, and Web more valuable than the sum of their parts." Ozzie is now describing the advantages of PCs for delivering applications. Says real value has been delivered b/c PCs enable people to combine their apps for increased functionality. "The advantage of the PC will always be it's ability to enable consumers to richly create and consume information." 8:42: Now moving on to describe the advantages of the web for delivering applications. "The web's unique value is it's ability to assemble the world's people...and enable people to connect and share." 8:43: Finally, the advantage of the phone. "The phone is always with you and ready for your spontaneous actions." "The phone's most unique value is it's ability to handle your spontaneity." 8:45: Ozzie is saying the next gen MS services and platforms will tie all three platforms together to deliver a better unified experience. "We're investing to make Windows the best way to build applications for PC, Phone, and Web." Talking about Windows taking on a more "appliance like behavior" for downloading and handling applications. 8:47: Saying we're going to see today how MS is going to make web apps "installable" and enable devs to take web apps offline. That should be cool. "We're proud of where our Windows platform is going." Ozzie is wrapping-up his intro and getting ready to hand-off to the other keynote speakers. 8:50: First up, Windows 7! Steven Sinofsky is now on stage. Showing us the outline for his segment. Includes path to RTM at the end. Stay tuned! "We're going to show you how Win 7 brings you a personalized experience, how it's enables you to find and organize data, and then how it enables you to connect to devices." 8:51: Julie Larson-Green is now on stage with Steven to do the first demo of Windows 7. Everybody just perked-up! 8:53: Julie is showing us the new Windows taskbar and new way Windows manages windows. Similar to VS toolbar docking but for actual application windows on the desktop. You finally have the ability to re-order applications on the taskbar! Finally. 8:55: Now showing the new Windows Explorer. Content is now organized in "Libraries." Libraries can span USB drives, external drives, other computers, internal storage, etc. Explorer more tightly integrates search (looks a lot like Firefox inline search). 8:57: New networking tech called "Home Group." Enables all Win 7 and printers in your house to automatically connect. Just connect to your network and you'll be automatically connected to all devices on the network. Sounds a bit like Bonjour from Apple. 8:58: One observation: searching for files is happening lightening fast. Not the same search and wait experience of Vista. Wonder if that will be the case with "real" non-demo files. 9:00: Julie is now showing us some integration between a Motorola phone and Win 7 using the new "Device Stage." It's like the Vista "Welcome to Vista" window customized/tailored for specific devices. Explorer now shows unique icons for each device type (like showing an actual Motorola ROKR icon in the explorer). 9:02: Showing new theming mechanism for Win 7. Just an enhanced version of what exists in Vista. Also adds support to save and export themes to share with others. 9:04: Next, System Tray. Win 7 gives you complete control over System Tray. Only icons you put in Sys Tray will be displayed. You can rearrange, remove, etc. Pop-up alerts now all routed to Windows Action Center. You control which alerts you want to allow to be displayed in System Tray. 9:05: Now showing Windows 7 touch support. Using an HP Touchsmart PC. Win 7 automatically translates touch in to mouse features for programs that don't understand touch commands. Programs that are programmed to recognize gestures can do more with touch commands. IE 8 supports touch "flicks" for navigation, for example. The new Windows 7 Paint (the one with the RibbonBar) also supports touch for "finger painting." 9:10: Showing the globe multi-touch app (seen before on Surface). Looked very jumpy. Not sure if that's the HP fault or if Win 7 is still struggling to accurately process multi-touch. Guess we'll find out soon. 9:11: Julie is done. Back to Steven. Introducing the new Windows Live Services concept. Guess we'll hear more later from David. 9:14: Sinofsky is starting to talk about the transition from Vista to 7. "We got a lot of feedback at the RTM of Vista. A few blogs. Some news. Oh yeah, and some commercials." That got a light chuckle from the audience. 9:15: Still defending that MS was pleased with progress of VIsta, but acknowledging they've learned some key lessons: Ecosystem readiness (didn't give 3rd party enough time to prep for Vista)- not a problem in 7 b/c it's compat with Vista Standards- Talking about work MS has done to embrace standards in IE8, WordPad (OpenXML), etc. Compatibility- Talking about UAC. Says MS went too far (at least as far as developers are concerned). Says even though transition was hard, it moved the ecosystem forward. Scenarios- Trying harder in Windows 7 to make "key scenarios" better (like home networking) 9:20: Listing new features in Win 7 for developers: Ribbon UI, Jump Lists (right-click menus in new taskbar area), Libraries, Multi-touch/Ink/Speech, DirectX (what Sinofsky calls MS' modern view of GDI) 9:24: Time for a video! Showing Autodesk case study and how they've used multi-touch to enhance their software. Pretty short. Pretty bland. Just showing reverse-pinch zoom and multi-touch rotation. 9:27: Windows 7 is focusing on "fundamentals." Decrease memory footprint, disk I/O, and power consumption. Increase speed, responsiveness (especially in Start menu, Taskbar), and scale (ability to use up to 256 processors). Steven is now going to do his own demo. Starting by showing us he can run Win 7 on a net tablet (note: demos are not running on the PC he showed). 9:31: Can now use BitLocker protection on removable memory sticks. Showing that you can create VHDs natively from within Windows Disk Manager (that got a big applause from the audience). Can even mount and boot from VHDs (again natively) with Win 7. 9:33: Improved support for managing multiple monitors and high-DPI screens. Very tepid audience applause. You can now use shortcut to zoom Windows (similar to ZoomIt utility). Improved support for connecting to projectors (via WindowsKey + P shortcut). Support for multi-monitor Remote Desktop (huge applause for this feature). 9:37: Time for path to RTM talk! First, pre-beta for everyone in audience today. Pre-beta is "M3" build. Path from M3 is M4, Beta, RC, RTM. Beta is going to ship early next year (2009). Will be broadly distributed. Will be looking for lots of feedback (via Feedback tool). 9:41: Sinofsky is not committing to -any- new info about when Win 7 will ship. Just repeating "3 years after Vista GA." That's a bummer. Wrapping-up the Win7 talk now. Leaving us with the "Window's 7 Seven Calls to Action." 9:45: That's all for Sinofsky. He's handing things of to The Gu who is now taking the stage. 9:46: Starting with interop talk. Saying that they're making it easy to blend managed .NET code and native C++ code. Releasing an update for MFC in Win 7 and better support for large code bases and parallel processor programming in VS 2010 (now the official name). 9:48: Reviewing the .NET 3.5 SP1 and what that shipped. Saying .NET 3.5 SP1 will be built-in to Windows 7. Not .NET 4? 9:50: Scott is now doing a demo. It's a photo viewer application (a la Picasa). He's going to add more functionality to it taking advantage of Windows 7 features. Starting by adding a ribbon (this is a WPF app, by the way). MS is shipping a new WPF RibbonBar control this week, too. Not sure how this is Win 7 specific. Really just looks like a WPF demo, so should work in Vista or even XP. 9:53: Okay, here's some Win 7 specific functionality. Adding "Jump List" support. Simply requires defining tasks in your App.xaml file. The tasks show-up when you right-click your program in the Windows Taskbar. Seem very easy to implement. Just as some contextual short-cuts for your app. 9:54: Now showing some WIndows multi-touch. Again, multi-touch looks very jumpy. Starting to look like multi-touch (at least on the HP) is not nearly as smooth as on the iPhone or on Surface. Just showed multi-touch support working in photo app. Didn't show any code for how you handle custom gestures. Simple gestures (like finger clicks) work for free. 9:57: Shipping new WPF toolkit today. Includes a WPF data grid (finally!). RibbonBar shipping this week will be CTP. Will work on XP, Vista, and Win 7. 9:59: Starting to talk .NET 4. Going to ship Deep Zoom support for WPF (didn't see that coming). Going to enable you to run multiple versions of CLR code at the same time. More talk about strong interop support in .NET 4. A nod to MEF (the Managed Extensibility Framework). Finally, much improved tooling in VS 2010. And for those that haven't yet heard, VS 2010 will be built in WPF and support multi-monitor setups. 10:02: Scott is going to do a VS 2010 demo now. All PDC attendees are getting a VS 2010 CTP this week. Demo is showing how you can leverage new VS 2010 WPF rendering to create a richer visual experience in the code editor. By simply creating a class, he can extend VS with WPF to make the formatting of code comments much richer. Pretty good audience reaction to the comment formatter (or "ScottGu Mode" as he's now dubbed it). People are loving this new customizability of VS. 10:05: The extensibility framework that makes the extensibility of VS 2010 possible will be part of .NET 4 (MEF). Can be used in your own apps. 10:07: Time for a partner demo. Nick Lansley from Tesco (a large global grocery company) is going to show a "Next Generation Grocery Shopping" experience. Demo is running on HP Touchsmart PC again. All touch interaction. 10:09: It's really not (just) a grocery shopping app. It's being described as a "family hub" application. Share calendars, notes, -and- build grocery lists. Showed how you can use the web cam to scan a product bar code and find products. While it looked a little demo slight of hand, people loved the idea and gave it huge applause. 10:13: ScottGu is back on stage. Talking about improvements coming in IE8 and ASP.NET. Most of this you've already seen or heard about (like Dynamic Data, MVC, jQuery, and REST support). He's spending a little time now talking about jQuery. Announcing the official release of the jQuery Visual Studio IntelliSense support. Download it today. 10:15: Talking next version of ASP.NET. Most of this was covered in yesterday's ASP.NET 4 break-out session, and most of this content is not new. You've seen a lot of this online before (like the new ability to control ControlID, improved ViewState handling, better CSS support, etc.). Says the Velocity distributed caching support will be provided in .NET 4, too.

10:18: On to Silverlight. Announced this morning a new IIS feature called IIS Smooth Streaming (a video feature). Netflix launched today their new Instant View feature running on Silverlight that works on both Mac and PCs (good news for all you Netflix users out their on Macs). Shipping Silverlight Toolkit this week, too (includes Chart, Treeview, and about 10 more basic controls).

10:21: WYSIWYG Silverlight editing coming to VS in VS 2010. Scott also just dropped the bomb that they're about to show (later today) how you can run Silverlight outside of the browser (start the Adobe Air comparisons).

10:23: And with that, Scott is done. David Treadwell is now on the stage to talk about Windows Live Services (which I think will really focus on Live Mesh). He's starting with an overview of what Live Services are and the different Live Service types (like Identity, Directory, Search, etc.).

10:27: David's content is dragging a bit (especially after the excitement of Steven and Scott's presentations). People are starting to stream out of the keynote. Plus, it looks like the keynote is going to run long (supposed to be over in 2 minutes). We'll stick through it all to bring you full coverage.

10:32: Finally we get to Live Mesh. Says this week MS will start talking a lot about how devs can use Mesh Services to enhance their own applications (basically providing sync support). Today they're also announcing the "Live Framework," the way you'll access all Live Services (including Mesh). David's inviting Ori Amiga from Live Services team at MS to show us a demo of enhancing a Windows app (same photo app from the GuNote) with Live Services.

10:35: Ori is showing some C# code for using Live Services. Seems straight forward enough. Even showing some LinqToLiveServices. The root is a reference to an instance of the "LiveOperatingEnvironment" class. People are mildly impressed with the demo.

10:37: Showing how syncing automatically syncs data between two PCs (in this case, changing some meta data on a photo object) and from his phone to the PC (in near real time). Pretty cool- audience was pretty impressed. Ori definitely saved this segment of the keynote.

10:39: Next up, Anthony Rose, Head of BBC Online Media is taking the stage to show us how to "Live Enable" a web application. Showing the BBC iPlayer and a new proof of concept version that uses Silverlight and Mesh to deliver media content to all your devices automatically.

10:42: iPlayer using integration with Live to get Live Messenger friend list and Mesh infrastructure to deliver content, share preferences, notify friends of new content you're watching. Basically, Mesh enables BBC to focus on the content experience and leaves the complicated networking tasks of distributing content and notifications to MS and the Mesh layer. Mesh will even remember how much of a video you've watch on your phone and sync the video on your PC to that point so you can resume watching. People liked that idea.

10:45: BBC is done. David is back. Keynote is now running 15 minutes late. David is quickly wrapping up. Download the Live Framework CTP later today at http://azure.com. Mac version of Mesh client launching today, too.

10:47: Another (!) demo. This time a guy from the MS Office team. Going to show us how Office 14 is using Live Services to enhance the Office experience.  Announcing today that MS will be shipping Office Web apps with Office 14. Will be lighweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoin, and OneNote.

10:49: Office Web Apps will make it easy to view and collaborate on Office docs online. Changes made in Office (proper) automatically sync (again in near real time) to the Office Web version.

10:52: It's not clear if Office Webs will enable you to create new content. Also not clear what they're using to build Office Web Apps (Silverlight? ASPNET AJAX?). Office Live Workspace look a lot like Google Docs dashboard (and SharePoint). And some clarification arrives- they -are- using Silverlight and they are enabling (at the very least) document editing online.

10:55: The Office Web Apps really do look a lot like the desktop counterparts. Pretty impressive.

10:58: Office Web App demo is done. Ray Ozzie is back to wrap things up and end this fun (but long) keynote.

I think that's most of what's going to be covered today. I hope you enjoyed the coverage!

LIVE from PDC 2008 Keynote

It's finally here! After being cancelled last year, Microsoft has put together a PDC show that promises to make-up for lost time. With some people calling the new technology that Microsoft is introducing this week as big as .NET was back in 2000, there is no question that the developer excitement at this event is high. So sit back and get ready for a week's worth of live PDC coverage, starting with today's keynote. We're settled-in with the 6500 other PDC attendees and they're getting ready to start the show. Enjoy the coverage and stay tuned for more updates as the week goes on!

8:33 AM: People are still streaming-in. They've announced that we're about start. Some very bland electronic music playing- no Guerillas here.

8:37: Here we go! Ray Ozzie is on stage to get things kicked-off. Talking about how transformational the tech Microsoft is introducing is going to be. And now thanking us for being here, blah, blah...

8:39: Ray is trying to relate with the audience. Talking about how he used to be "one of us." Making the case for choosing Microsoft. Essentially, an elegant way of saying "no one ever got fired for picking Microsoft." Covering all of the things MS has done over the years in response to new tech/platforms (i.e. devices, mobile, etc.) and building the case for how MS is going to do it again for the era of services. Very clear the key message for PDC is going to be Software + Services (with heavy emphasis on services).

8:44: Ray is painting the picture for how the web has become central to business (foundation for buying in to services and the cloud). Trying to suggest that in today's global, connected environment, it's just too expensive (for many companies) to build the infrastructure they need. Main point: the cloud is a significantly new approach to infrastructure and is not some trendy term being assigned to the way things are already being done today.

8:50: Now saying MS has accumulated lots of experience and expertise in building and managing services in supporting their own global business. Point is to suggest even though MS is new to providing "external IT" services to devs, they're not new to managing them.

8:53: Wow! A keynote mention and nod to Jeff Bezos and Amazon for their cloud services. Ozzie says MS and others will be standing on Amazon's shoulders as they move in to cloud services.

8:54: And the first "announcement"! Windows Azure. A new cloud OS, i.e. Windows in the cloud. Tepid reaction from the crowd. I think people didn't know how to react.

8:55: Azure will be like Windows in the sense that MS will treat it like a platform and embrace 3rd party development on top of it. Ray just suggested the groundwork being laid for cloud computing today is going to set the stage for the "next 50 years" of software development.

8:57: You do not run Azure on your own PC/servers. Runs in MS datacenters (it's a service). Being released today as a CTP. Looking for feedback to buildout service features going forward. Ozzie says Azure will be the "highest availability" and most "globally friendly" version of Windows.

9:00: The Azure Services Platform is made-up of Live, .NET, SQL, SharePoint, and Dynamics CRM Services, all built on top of Azure. New .NET logo, by the way! Looks like a blue wave or spiral, or something abstract like that.

9:02: Demo time. Amistad (something incredibly hard to say and spell) from MS is now on stage to go in to more details about how Azure works. People are cracking-up at his bright red shoes.

9:07: Amistad (sp?) is still covering Azure detail. Too much detail for a keynote if you ask me. He's also just reading his cue cards- not very well prepared to be a keynote speaker (at least that's the what it sounds like).

9:08: So, while Amistad is still covering the ins and outs of how MS has built a network capable of delivering the Azure service, let me make a programming note and mention that I'm low on laptop batt (forgot to charge last night after the PDC parties). So if live updates stop, fear not. I'll keep writing and post the updates as soon as we get back to the booth. Now back to listening to Azure details...

9:11: Okay, now a demo! Stephen (something) from MS is on the stage and is showing us a "Hello World" app for the cloud. It's an ASP.NET app that he's going to run on the cloud.

9:13: There will be a "offline" replication of the cloud that can run locally on your dev boxes for testing/debugging (with all services available in the cloud). Enables familiar VS debug experience. When ready to publish, you "Publish" in VS (creates some meta data and a code package) and then deploy via a "Development Portal" MS website. http://hellocloud.cloudapp.net for a live demo.

9:16: Jonathan Greensted is now on stage to how off a new app his company has built running on Windows Azure: bluehoo.com. It's a Silverlight app that enables you to track people via bluetooth (I think). It's not clear yet how they're using Azure.

9:19: Okay- a web service layer is running on Azure that all Bluehoo clients communicate with. Showing us how easy it is to scale service. Just "upgraded" Bluehoo from 2 instances to 20 via a simple configuration file change. Says that's all they need to do to handle the PDC load that's about hit (we'll see)! You can download Bluehoo later today.

9:22: Amistad (I know that's not his name) is now back on stage. Summarizing Azure and wrapping up his segment.

9:24: Bob Muglia (from MS) has taken the stage to talk about the Services stack on top of Azure. Starting with another history lesson of computing...

9:28: Okay folks- hit the battery wall. Check back soon for more updates. I promise I'll get a full charge for the next keynote!

12:05 PM: Recharged, so let me fill you in on the last portion of the keynote (you really didn't miss much):

• Shawn Davison, VP at Red Prairie, demoed a new Contoso app that was running on Azure and consuming Microsoft Workflow Services. The demo was okay, but not particularly impressive for a keynote.
• Microsoft made it clear they're EYODF (Eat Your Own Dog Food) with their new services offering. Showed a demo of a new version of System Center (codenamed "Atlanta") using some of the MS services. You can see a live demo at http://atlanta.cloudapp.net
• More MS guys going on and on- Oslo was only mentioned in passing. Someone compared the significance of the launch of Azure to the launch of Windows NT in 1992.
• Key theme of Software + Services is "Power of Choice"

Really, it wasn't a great keynote. Many of the MS speakers were reading directly off of the teleprompters (literally waiting for their next line before talking) and overall there wasn't much energy in the keynote presentations. A bit of a slow way to start the big PDC week. Tomorrow's keynote should be better, though, with ScottGu and Steven Sinofsky taking the stage to (presumably) talk .NET 4 and Windows 7 (among other topics). Keep it tuned here for the live coverage.

LIVE from DevConnections 2008 Expo Floor

Now that you've vicariously attended the big Scott Guthrie ASP.NET Connections keynote, it's time to visit the spring DevConnections 2008 Expo floor! The expo space at DevConnections is not huge- especially by TechEd standards- but it is packed with a lot of good companies showing their wares. And Telerik is on the expo floor this year in a big way- a big, big way. We unveiled for the first time our brand new, 20' x 20', custom-built booth!

The booth (pictured above and in a new gallery) features a ton of hands-on demo space and it has a couple of big screen HDTVs for large audience viewing. When you visit us at a conference now, it will be easier than ever for us to show you all of our great product demos and even let you take the controls and try the demos for yourself. We've also got a swank audio system pumping out the tunes from our demo videos, giving our booth a nice laid-back, modern vibe. I think we have more than a "booth" now; now we have "Club Telerik."

We've already had some great conversations on the floor with people interested in our controls. Our dedicated fans customers have also shown-up to say 'hi', meet some of the guys from the product teams (there are 5 of them here), and tell us how they're using our tools. That's always the best part of these shows.

Finally, we also unvield a great new t-shirt at this conference. If you've been to any of the big conferences Telerik attended in the past, you may know that we've established a reputation for always giving away some of the "best" .NET t-shirts you can find. Among our big "hits" from the past are the ".NET Superstar" shirt and the female-oriented "Geekette" shirt. This year, we're proud to introduce the very cool ".NET Ninja" t-shirt!

I'll soon post details (and a picture) on how you can win one of these shirts for yourself, so keep your feed readers tuned-in for continuing "live" coverage of Connections 2008.

LIVE from ASP.NET Connections ScottGu Keynote

Note: Due to connection problems, this coverage was previously recorded.

8:00 AM - Okay, we're here, settled in to our seats, trying to get the Sprint wireless Internet to work. Hopefully things will work soon. Scott's on stage finishing some Starbucks and waiting for people to finish streaming-in.

8:03 AM - Here we go. Scott's welcoming us to the show and commenting on his past trips to speak at DevConnections. He's also running through the crazy list of teams he manages. This guy is a machine.

8:05 AM - Talking about VS 2008 and .NET 3.5. Just running down the basic list of features and benefits of these new releases. Nothing new if you've been following .NET and Visual Studio actively.

8:08 AM - Shreeeeeek! His wireless mic just had some major feedback that really woke-up this sleepy-eyed crowd. Now everybody's paying attention.

8:09 AM - Still talking Visual Studio features. Talking now about support for debugging in to the .NET framework. He polled the audience to ask how many people have used the feature before. No many people here have.

8:10 AM - Demo time! Scott's showing-off the ability to browse and debug the core ASP.NET code in Visual Studio 2008. The feature downloads the .NET source on-demand from Microsoft's servers so you can view it in the VS debugger. Pretty cool learning tool, if nothing else.

8:13 AM - Back to the slides and now time to talk about IIS7 and ASP.NET. Again with the basic feature coverage.

8:17 AM - Time for another demo. This time we're going to look at some IIS features and how they integrate tightly with ASP.NET. Scott reminded us that the IIS7 Manager communicates over HTTP, which means you can easily use the IIS7 Manager to manage servers through firewalls wherever they're hosted. Pretty cool. He's also showing us how you can use the IIS7 Manager to directly manage your ASP.NET Membership users and roles. You no longer have to build your own custom page or UI to manage your .NET Membership users- just use IIS7.

8:20 AM - Slides again. We're now talking IIS7 support for web farms. Mentions that Dell.com and some other huge commerce site are already running on .NET 3.5 and IIS7. Point: IIS7 can scale very well.

8:22 AM - Time to shift gear and talk about what's coming (vs. what we already have). Finally.

8:23 AM - First-up is talk about the extensions being added to ASP.NET this year, like Dynamic Data, history support in ASP.NET AJAX, and MVC. He said we can also expect additional improvements in VS 2008 that deliver better JS formatting and that make it easier to support other Ajax libraries (like JQuery).

8:25 AM - Demo. He's now showing us how Data Dynamics works and how you go about creating a Dynamics site in VS 2008. Just a minute before he polled the audience to ask how many people build SQL driven websites and again got crickets. This audience is -really- dead and just not than excited this morning. Scott made a joke that he thought he may be at the wrong conference speaking to an audience that's never heard of .NET that was received to chuckles.

8:33 AM - Still showing a Dynamic Data demo and how the scaffolding automatically builds a CRUD interface. He's also talking LinqToSQL/LinqToEntities and how those technologies play a central row to Dynamic Data's features. Actually, he's going to show us how to use LinqToSQL to do business rule validation when data is updated. With this dead crowd, though, nobody is "oohing" or "awing" when he shows a what is supposed to be a cool feature. Poor Scott. It's like talking to an oil painting. Finished the demo by saying Dynamic Data stuff would be officially released later this summer.

8:38 AM - Back to the slides and now on to ASP.NET MVC. Scott started talking about MVC as a "new way" to do ASP.NET programming then quickly caught himself when he switched slides and revised his language to "new option." It's clear they're -really- trying make sure people understand MVC is not going to replace WebForms. Case in point: the first bullet on his MVC slide called it a "new option," the last bullet said "it's not for everyone." Get the theme?

8:42 AM - Just talking about how MVC works. Nothing new or shocking here, but definitely look for Scott's slides later if you're interested in his diagrams.

8:44 AM - Now for the demo. Scott's going to show us how to build a MVC site in Visual Studio. It's just another MVC catalog demo (showing Product, Category, Detail views), which seem to be about as common as carousel demos for WPF. I understand that this is a very clear and easy concept to demo MVC's functionality, but 'common. Let's see some more creativity with MVC! Scott's also showing us how to write unit tests for MVC, which is actually a good way to demo MVC and get people familiar with seeing TDD.

8:55 AM - ...writing code for MVC demo...

8:58 AM - We're finally done with MVC and now we're back to the slides. Scott's talking ".NET Continuum"- essentially, the story of Silverlight. "We're coming-up with a plug-in called Silverlight." Really?! Shocking. Honestly, who is forking over $1800 to attend this conference without knowing about Silverlight?

9:01 AM - Scott's covering Silverlight's basic feature list (multi-language support, WPF UI framework, LINQ support, etc.). Says Silverlight is about 1000 times faster than JavaScript running in the browser in terms of processing time!

9:04 AM - Scott says Silverlight currently has 35 UI controls. Really? Last time I counted there were no more than 29. Maybe there are some new controls that haven't been revealed he's counting. He also says there will be over 100 controls provided in Silverlight in a years time! That's news (finally).

9:08 AM - Silverlight demo time. Scott's getting things started by showing us the Hard Rock Memorabilia site (that premiered at MIX) that showcases Deep Zoom. More evidence that Deep Zoom is a cool demo technology, but hard to demo for practical uses. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Memorabilia app has generated the most crowd excitement and interest so far. Let me rephrase, the most impractical technology shown by Scott today is the only one that got people stirring. Go figure.

9:15 AM - Scott's now moved past the Hard Rock site and is showing us how to build a simple Silverlight site in Visual Studio. Says 99% of the time a Silverlight content will be running in the content of an ASP.NET website. Thinks of it more as rich content enhancements you can add to your ASP.NET site. Interesting perspective.

9:21 AM - ...still building his basic Silverlight demo. Using Blend to show-off design-time features. Showing workflow integration between Visual Studio and Blend. He's now building the simple IM application in Silverlight that he's built a number of blog posts around. If you're interested, refer to his blog posts.

9:27 AM - Demo is still going. Looks like Scott is going to run a little past his 9:30 cut-off.

9:31 AM - "In the future, you may see an ASP.NET server control that uses Silverlight for rich UI presentation but keeps data processing on the server." Interesting! Microsoft is thinking about making Silverlight a core front-end option for ASP.NET.

9:33 AM - Scott's wrapping things-up now. Reviewing what we "learned" today. Still saying Silverlight is due "later this year"- no willingness to get more specific on the time frame.

9:35 AM - And that's it! Hope you enjoyed the coverage (even if there wasn't anything particularly "exciting" in this keynote). Clearly, a keynote at MIX and a keynote at DevConnections mean very different things.

With the keynote coverage wrapped, stay tuned for some live booth blogging from the expo floor soon.