msftguy

coming right back from some relaxation i jumped right into our central region dpe (developer & platform evangelism) off-site in my new hometown of chicago. i think it was good for me to come into the off-site with some relaxation under my belt since the three days were jam packed and i felt exhausted after each one.

the one thing i do enjoy out of these off-sites is the ability to talk to incredibly smart people that i normally do not get a chance to talk to very often because we are all spread across 18 states within the central region of the us. these off-sites are mostly about figuring out how we can be more successful in achieving our commitments. the emphasis this time really seemed like cross-teaming which i love (there was also the extremely fun team ride on segways).

all-in-all the off-site was a success and i feel slightly drained sitting here in the loop office, but i know there is work to be done and a community to serve. so, back to business for me.

i spent the past couple days with good friend and colleague, larry clarkin, going through some final thoughts on our community plan for this year (msft fiscal started beginning of july). these are the times that are most challenging since we really have to be precise on what we think we can work with the community to do throughout the year. i find myself saying "this is stupid" and "i am gonna punch this spreadsheet in the face" quite a bit during this time.

what is not stupid is the end result that comes from putting all this hard work into a plan. it is about ensuring we are putting the right resources in the right places to better serve the community of developers we so love. that same community provides to us feedback throughout this process so that we are not making decisions without their best interest in mind. that is the part i love.

what i hate are spreadsheets. i am a developer and i love to code so unless i am building some sweet ass obas, then keep me out of excel. it is the necessary evil that keeps us on track and not all over the place throughout the year, so i can't complain too much (although i am).

the beginning of the fiscal year is always stressful. being at microsoft for over 3 years now, you would think i would be used to it, but i am not. so that is why i go dark around this time of year with my family on a beach in the outer banks with limited access to just about anything but sand and ocean. however, someday i will learn to leave the laptop at home and let the email build. but until that day comes, gorbett is still open for business.

while i was filling my brain with technical goodness at techready, our internal training event, i had a brief opportunity to sit down with scott guthrie (i was seriously debating on whether to link back to his profile cuz' if you don't know who scott guthrie is, shame on you :)) before he rushed off back to his family.

i was actually taping a podcast for thirsty developer so the audio on the video is not great (since i did not want to mess around with mixing the recorded audio with the video). actually the video is not great either since i did not bring a tripod and had my camera sitting on a pillow on an ottoman and it clearly sunk (remind me to yell at my boss for not getting me some good video gear).

even with the poor equipment setup, the video was still worthwhile to post alongside the thirsty developer podcast (which also contains another chat i had at techready, but i will save that for a different post). it really is amazing that a corporate vice president at msft can be so down to earth and understand the community that he serves. it also helps that he is wicked smart too!

it has been a little while since i posted to this bloody blog, but it has been running on graffiti since the move a few weeks ago and running great. i have to give it to telligent for really thinking through installing graffiti and, most importantly, migrating from another blog engine.

right now i am going through learning how to theme in graffiti (they really made it easy with chalk) and exploring widget development. keep up the good work telligent and i would love to see more documentation for developers and designers. the development site is a good start, but i would love more content.

well, i think i finally have enough info to migrate my blog to graffiti. i found out that both blogengine.net (my current blog engine) and graffiti both support blogml. this is a good thing and i have been wondering how i am going to accomplish the move without busting my posts.

so today i am hoping to be back up running on graffiti... i am keeping my fingers crossed.

while i am sure you have caught the silverlight news at teched, today soma somasegar and bill gates announced that silverlight 2 beta 2 will be publicly available later this week. there is no specific time, so keep your eyes on the silverlight site.

here are some of the exciting features:

• UI Framework: Beta 2 includes improvements in animation support, error handling and reporting, automation and accessibility support, keyboard input support, and general performance.  This release also provides more compatibility between Silverlight and WPF.
   
• Rich Controls: Beta 2 includes a new templating model called Visual State Manager that allows for easier templating for controls. Other features include the introduction of TabControl, text wrapping and scrollbars for TextBox, and for DataGrid additions include Autosize, Reorder, Sort, performance increases and more.  Most controls are now in the runtime instead of packaged with the application.
   
• Networking Support: Beta 2 includes improved Cross Domain support and security enhancements, upload support for WebClient, and duplex communications (“push” from server to Silverlight client).
   
• Rich Base Class Library: Beta 2 includes improved threading abilities, LINQ-to-JSON, ADO.NET Data Services support, better support for SOAP, and various other improvements to make networking and data handling easier.
   
• Deep Zoom: Beta 2 introduces a new XML-based file format for Deep Zoom image tiles, as well as a new MultiScaleTileSource that enables existing tile databases to utilize Deep Zoom. Better, event driven notification for zoom/pan state is another improvement in Silverlight 2 Beta 2.
   

there is nothing cooler than seeing a bunch of local students completely awed by the technology that is microsoft surface. i was participating in the american competiveness summit here in chicago and the best part was watching these totally amazed kids react to surface. click the video above for part 1 and i will be encoding and uploading part 2 in a few.

i know this is not the best title to start a blog post, but i just finished up a great brainstorming session for our team's fy09 strategy (msft's fiscal year ends at the end of june) and we discussed how important it is to have an online connection with the community. I agree whole heartedly, but i just don't want to do it with a blog.

not that i don't think that there are some fantastic blogs out there. i have my blog reader filled with great feeds from both my colleagues at microsoft as well as some great ones from the community. however, it is just not where my passion is. i much prefer to be out talking to folks and interacting. however, that becomes challenging when we start talking about scaling to reach such a large audience. there are all kinds of social communities that i participate in and i find the short "status" reach is what i prefer.

so does that mean that i abandon my blog? not hardly. but it does mean that my focus will be on other methods of reach (if you have ideas, drop me some comments) instead of only my blog. let me know what you think.

david chappell is principal of chappell & associates (www.davidchappell.com) in san francisco, california. david has been the keynote speaker for dozens of conferences and events in the u.s., europe, asia, latin america, and australia. his popular seminars have been attended by tens of thousands of developers, architects, and decision makers in forty countries. david’s books have been translated into ten languages and used regularly in courses at MIT, ETH zurich, and many other universities. in his consulting practice, he has helped clients such as hewlett-packard, ibm, microsoft, stanford university, and target corporation adopt new technologies, market new products, train their sales staffs, and create business plans.

who should attend?
anyone responsible for application architecture, software design,  setting technology direction or those responsible for testing and implementing SaaS systems.

where and when?
may 20, 2008  1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
microsoft corporation
3025 highland pkwy., suite 300
downers grove, il 60515

go and register now before it is sold out!