Stuff Chris Auld Saw @ MIX07

Chris JT Auld
Director – Strategy and Innovation
Intergen

Stuff I Saw @ MIX07 – A 72 Hour Conversation

http://www.visitmix.com/

What is MIX?

• Annual Microsoft Conference for Web/Design types
• Held in Las Vegas
• About 1500 attendees
• Very MIXed crowd
  • Lots of stuff targeted at business decision makers
  • Lots of design oriented stuff – plenty of Mac users
  • Good showing from other platforms – PHP, ruby, etc.
• IMHO: My favourite Ms conference

What about this session?

• A whistle stop tour
• A bit on each session
• SilverLight
• Live Services
• Decision Maker Stuff

SilverLight

• Re-badge WPF/E
• Flash killer
• A few things
  • WPF for the Browser
  • Cross Platform Runtime
  • A Great Video Platform
  • 1.0 in Go Live Beta
  • 1.1 in Alpha (has .Net support etc)

WPF for the browser?

• Originally WPF/E
• XML based vector mark-up language
• Subset of WPF for the desktop
• Lightweight Plug-in <2MB download
• Full CLR (not Compact Framework)
• Chopped down Framework libraries
• Runs in IE, Firefox, Safari
• Supported Languages (at 1.1 launch) = C#, Dynamic VB, IronRuby, IronPython, JavaScript
• Cross Browser Debugging… Cross Platform Too!

Better Than JavaScript?

• From 1.1 Use Managed Code with DHTML DOM
• Can consume JSON web services – no SOAP yet L
  • Custom slwsdl.exe proxy generator
• Isolated Storage
  • Up to 1MB of storage on client side (1 per XAML file)
  • Shared between browsers
  • Similar to .Net Isolated Storage classes
• DLR
  • Currently IronPython + JavaScript
  • Ruby and Dynamic VB Coming

A Great Video Platform?

• Self-contained media playback
• Customizable transport controls
• Non-rectangular, semi-transparent video with overlays
• Windows Media Services support
  • Live and on demand streaming
• Media markers / script commands
• ASX Playlist support
• Closed captioning support with Expression Media Encoder
• Bandwidth throttling with IIS 7.0
• Local file playback (Coming)
• Content protection (Coming)
• Alpha video (Coming)

SilverLight Media Formats

• The following file formats are accepted by the MediaElement (regardless of the file extension):
  • Video: WMV v7, v8, v9, VC-1
  • Audio: WMA v7, 8, 9 (standard)

Demos

• SilverLight Chess
• SilverLight Airlines
• SilverLight Fox

Windows Live Web Services @ MIX

• Add contacts, video, photos, maps and search to your site
• Service APIs
  • (REST) SilverLight Streaming
  • (WebDAV) Spaces Photo
  • (REST) Live contacts
  • (SOAP) Virtual Earth
  • (SOAP) Live Search
  • (HTTP/SOAP) Authentication

Windows Live Contacts

• Shared Contact Store
• 500 Million address books
• 263 Million Messenger Users
• Possible Scenarios
  • Friend Locator
  • Buying
  • Calendar
  • Trust
  • Burrowing

Windows Live Contacts REST API

• Code Sample and Response
• Method Call example – GET
  • /livecontacts/Contacts/contact(x)/emails/Email(y)/Address
• Response
  • <Address>some@where.com</Address>

Other Good Sessions

• PAN01 great User Experiences for Ad-Supported Content
• PAN11 Services on the Web: build or Buy
• PAN05 – Open Source Applications using the .Net Platform
• DEV12 – The Megasite: Infrastructure for Internet Sites
• http://silverlight.metaliq.com/topbanana/