For those of you who attended the event in Louvain La Neuve, and also for those who weren’t there or couldn’t make it, all the sessions have been recorded and put online on the ChopSticks pages. Tune in for the breakout sessions you missed or to see those ones again you attended. All there, all free - All you need is a Windows Live ID. To start off the goodness, here’s the closing keynote of SteveB (you’ll need Silverlight to see the clips):
Thanks, Katrien
Ah! A joyful day it was. Steve Ballmer came to Belgium. I got up around 7 this morning and hopped in my car with my camera and flaptops. Drove aaaaall the way to the other side of the language border in my country and joined the local DPE team in helping to deliver a pretty sweet combo of events, hosted by Microsoft. I invited a bunch of bloggers and put them on the list of the Press so they could attend a press conference with SteveB and ask him some questions in a Q&A. As soon as I arrived, I helped out on the Silverlight demo a little by taking pictures and uploading them to Flickr so they could be pulled in live within the demo. I had 15 minutes to take pictures, upload them to Flickr and tag them so the API could fetch them. Sucked some bandwith uploading the 30 pictures (I added more later on), and saw the demo work juuust fine.
A little bit through the demo, I got the message that the press conference was about to start. I pulled some sleeves with the bloggers I saw in the keynote room, and we went to the press mezzanine. During the announcements, one of the bloggers asked Steve about social networks, and that ended up in coverage on valleywag! Talk about the power of blogging :) I bet if Steve would have burped, we’d get coverage on CollegeHumor and trillions of hits on YouTube. But let’s not drift away. Here’s the clip, courtesy of another blogger who recorded it:
In the mean time, another blogger was streaming the entire event, because as promised, there was wi-fi, and so the press conference has been broadcasted and recorded in full at the same time. Live streaming from the press conference of Ballmer, some Belgian politicians and the general manager of MSFT Belux. The news couldn’t have been hotter on a blog. Other bloggers in the room (they move in flocks) sat back and watched the scene.
The rest of the day, everyone could enjoy some sessions from the Remix event, the Beyond Hypertext or Digital Marketing track. Hundreds of attendees ate chunks of code, enjoyed exploring the tracks or sat aside in the lobby to network and discuss. Some even found their way to the sunny outdoors at the border of the lake. I loved it.
Quote SteveB: “Whooosh, and there it is.
Ballmer closed the day with a pretty interesting keynote, followed by a funny Q&A. I’m currently converting and compressing the session, and it’ll be online tomorrow. Then I drove home, got changed and was right on time for my Tai Chi lessons. I’m happy. High-Five ! Yeah!
Quote SteveB: “Bam!”
My impressions of the day: here on Flickr
Picture above: copyright by Bart Claeys
Pictures 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
I’m helping out a little bit on the Mix Essentials event at the Louvain La Neuve campus on the 24th of April. What’s going to be presented isn’t anything new if you are up to speed with what’s been announced at Mix08 in Vegas, but if you weren’t able to make it to Vegas and still want to get a hands-on experience, this event is your place to be.
There are two tracks to follow: Interactive Web Developers technical track and the Web Designers & Business strategists track. Each have their own breakout sessions with presentations and deep dives into the latest releases of our products.
Steve Ballmer is going to be present for the closing keynote, and I’ve managed to get a Q&A slot for the key bloggers who’ve attended our previous events or joined influencer programs in the past year.
Sign up for Mix Essentials on the dedicated site, and mark the date :)
We already knew that Ice Cube is one hell of a cool guy. I’ve been listening to his rhymes from way back when I was still skating around and ‘chillin wit teh homies’. Ice Cube was starting a very cool Silverlight based website back in November. And apparently that worked out super fine for him. He liked it that much that he’s actually going to give a live concert, which will be streamed in Silverlight on his very own TV Network: UVNTV.
From the announcement:
On March 15th, 6 PM PST, 9PM EST, Ice Cube will do a free live concert at South by Southwest (SxSW) and that concert will be streamed live to the UVNTV.com site (Ice Cube and DJ Pooh’s new site for TV-on-the-Web) and presented via Silverlight.
Here’s the old interview with Ice Cube where he had his team working on the creation of the website:
Video: Ice Cube's UVNTV.com goes live with Microsoft Silverlight
Windows Live Quick Applications provide customizable out-of-the box solutions for specific Web scenarios. Each Quick App is built on Windows Live services and is offered as a source code download for you to use today. The 6.0 version of the Windows Live Platform Quick Applications was just released, with 178 work items done there is 1 new Quick Application and 2 major enhancements and 1 localization achievement (into Chinese).
Tafiti Search visualization has had a major addition. U sing the Windows Live Messenger Library and Script# we turned Tafiti from being a killer search slick UI to being a social search application. You can now perform searches, save your results and share that experience with your Windows Live Messenger friends. Research has never been so fun – try it | watch it | get it
Visit Planner (new Quick App) which is fictitious hotel providing a differentiated experience for their customers. Contoso Hotel guests can use this online concierge to plan their trip to multiple cities. The application consists of a Silverlight 1.1 canvas which integrates with Microsoft Virtual Earth, Windows Live Messenger, Live Search and the Windows Live Contacts control - try it | watch it | get it
Adventure Works Resorts has also had some renovations done – the Windows Live Photo API CTP is being used to provide its members with the ability to import photos from Windows Live Spaces and two-way sync . We use LiveNet for the development and in the near future we will integrate the Photo API CTP refresh.
The Windows Live Contacts API allows people to use their Windows Live contact information (including Hotmail, Messenger, and Mobile contacts) with third party websites —while keeping complete control of their data.
The Windows Live™ Contacts API is an HTTP-based service that enables developers to programmatically submit queries to, and retrieve results from, the Windows Live Contacts Address Book database service.
In addition to a full CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete) interface for a Windows Live user’s address book, the Windows Live Contacts API provides a view to a subset of the Contact data for the purposes of sending Invitations.
Each view and set of abilities is controlled by the owner of the data, namely the Windows Live user who maintains the address book through products and applications in Windows Live, such as Windows Live Hotmail® and Windows Live Messenger.
Value Propositions:
End User:
Website owner:
Links:
You can code against the Windows Live Contacts API with any language and platform that supports the HTTP/1.1 protocol.
Download the Windows Live Quick Applications at http://dev.live.com/quickapps. The Quick Applications provide customizable out-of-the box solutions for specific Web scenarios. Each Quick App is built on Windows Live services and is offered as a source code download for you to use today.
The Windows Live Messenger network is the premier service from Windows Live. 300million+ people keep in touch with their friends and family using our client on Windows/Mac (and some use rogue web based clients).
The Windows Live Messenger Library allows third parties to securely provide web based instant messaging to their users. The WLML is a JavaScript client library, thirdparty.com has full control over the user experience. The library exposes the core text-based messaging functionality, contact list and presence management. WLML works cross browser and cross platform on Windows and Macs.
What Messenger features does the Windows Live Messenger Library provide?
The Windows Live Messenger Library is licensed under the common Windows Live Platform terms of use. For more information see http://dev.live.com/terms/.
Links:
Windows Live Messenger Library SDK
Messenger Programmability home page
Tafiti Search Visualization sample application (try it | demo video | get the code)
iBloks VideoMessenger
This is the first of quite a few posts about the new release wave of Live products. Stay tuned for more!
At MIX07 they announced a delegation framework in Alpha, that was called Windows Live Data (aka Cumulus). Over the past year the Live ID team (Identity Services) have developed a new cross-Windows Live delegated authentication which today is being released as a 1.0 final (watch this space).
Windows Live ID Delegated Authentication provides a platform-neutral way for Web applications to access customers’ information from Windows Live services while the customers remain in firm control of their own data. This is a big step in delivering real, user-centric data portability—giving Windows Live customers explicit control over sharing their information from Windows Live services. Windows Live ID Delegated Authentication is an end to end solution for offer provisioning, token exchange, token format and token renewal. Consumers are able to grant and revoke permission via a web interface.
Technical breakdown after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
I went to Mix07 in Las Vegas and took quite a lot of pictures. I didn’t had time to put them all online at once, but today I uploaded the last batch, setting the counter to 170. I had a great time in Vegas. It’s everything everyone has ever said it would be. Juuuust like in the movies. I’d love to go back once. Or twice. It really is a world on its own. Below are some impressions:
Mix07 is coming closer. I’ll be leaving on the 28th in the early morning to arrive around 4.30 PM in Vegas after a small stop in Chicago. It’s going to be an awesome adventure with lots of great sessions, keynotes and panel discussions. From Europe, around 150 influentials will be sent over to the event, and I kind of have to help out to welcome all those people and create digital memories (movies, pictures) around the entire experience.
In the light of that event, I’ve been busy all day today creating a mobile site with some handy content for during the event. More info about that can only be revealed at the event itself, but I’ve put the microsite online here, so you can have a look. It’s nothing awesome, just tried to create a nice design around it.
MIX is Microsoft’s conference for Web designers, developers and decision-makers who make their living at the forefront of the consumer Web. Join the conversation with Microsoft and others on how to harness the latest technologies, unlock new revenue opportunities, reduce development costs and improve customer experience. MIX is for cutting-edge Web professionals designing and building next-generation experiences.
Mix is THE networking event… it’s like ‘information gallore’. Plus, I finally get to meet Tom Raftery, and if he doesn’t punch me in the face in the first 5 seconds, I’ll buy him a beer.
Things I want to attend, if possible (the list is very extended):
I’ll probably have to cut in the sessions and workshops, but at this time, these really seem to be the best ones for me, apart from the keynotes.
Obviously I’ll also be going to the Mix Party at the Pure Nightclub, the mythical club that hosted hundreds of famous parties already… Yeah, it’s going to be a great Mix. Find me there from April 28th til May 3rd!
