Welcome to the Kitchen

Art & Connection

sgerety — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:02:00 GMT

Art, whether it's music, visual or another of our senses, art creates a connection to the experience.

Why do we disregard it in our software so often?

Here's something for you to enjoy.

Solar, with lyrics. from flight404 on Vimeo.

Surface Has Been busy since Mix08

sgerety — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:36:28 GMT

It looks like the Surface group has been really busy since Mix08. Found by way of Long Zheng, are refined and polished versions of existing apps and a bunch of new applications.

Check our Long's post.

At Mix 08

sgerety — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:37:00 GMT

I haven't really had a chance to blog to much while I've been here at Mix 08. There's just to much to see. From Surface to Elvis there is just to many cool things here and even more great people to meet. I've been twittering most everything because I can do it from the session. You can follow those at www.twitter.com/ideakitchn

I've run into a lot of folks here from chatting with Miguel de Icaza about running MoonLight on a the ASUS EeePC to Karsten and the need to add an architect role to "The New Iteration", which actually became a quick conversation about different workflows for different organizations (Enterprise, Startup, etc)

I'll post more later on, with pics and also add more about what's going on with my new job.

Sean

Off to MIX 08

sgerety — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:27:00 GMT

I'm getting ready to head out the door for MIX 08. Looks like the weather here in Atlanta may be a little nasty. I'll be twittering along the way. I'm looking forward to hitting the tables at MIX, once the Sandbox is open. I had started a Flotzam restyle, but only did a little on the Digg template.

I was just having some fun creating the "Venetian Pantry". I was going to do "Digg Beer", "Flickr Cheese", and "Twitter Soda". If you want to XAML for it, meet me at MIX08, contact me or wait till I get back to put it online. See you there.

Sean

Tufte in Atlanta

sgerety — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:51:00 GMT

Edward Tufte, master presenter, author and information design visionary will be in Atlanta on March 24th and 25th. If you haven't seen him, register here. You also get all four of his books included in the price. I'll be here and if I can go, possibly we could have a meetup with Professor Tufte after.

Sean

(edited on 26 Feb 2008 for date corrections)

Photosynth usage idea

sgerety — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:13:00 GMT

Here's an idea for Photosynth that I'd like to see happen, that I had about a year ago.

Premise: Visual hyperlinking that uses Photosynth style photo mapping for search matches.

Usage: You're out looking for a place to eat and you snap a pic with your camera phone of a café, the send the image to the Photosynth query engine and you get back a tagged result set with items. Places to eat, businesses, history, events, and ratings to name a few. You could then click through a couple of results and get impressions of other people that have eaten there.

With the increase in geotagging of photos (2.2 million this month), online public photos galleries (ala Flickr) and hyperlinking to blog posts the information is already there. All we need now is the Photosynth query service.

I'll be at Mix if you want to chat about it.

Sean

Wayne Gretzky "gets" new technology

sgerety — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:46:00 GMT

Whenever the discussion comes to new technology and why would an organization risk using new technology, I think that Wayne Gretzky, yes the hockey player, got it right with this quote.

I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.

Wayne Gretzky

Just swap "puck" with "technology" and "skate" with "code" (or "architect" or "move") you get...

I code to where the technology is going to be, not to where it has been.

Hockey and new technology, I guess being in Canada for a day or two is influencing me. :)

Sean

I'm now Twittering

sgerety — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:20:00 GMT

I've now got a twitter account. Follow my twitter updates at http://twitter.com/IdeaKitchn or if you'd like here's a RSS feed.

Sean

Predictions for MIX08

sgerety — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:13:00 GMT

I thought I'd put together a list of predictions for MIX 08. Some could happen, some will happen and some could not happen, you decide!

Steve Ballmer gives Keynote in black turtleneck and jeans.
IE 8 demo
IE 8 uses the "Office Ribbon" toolbar.
Popfly version 2.0, now with DLR
SilverLight 2.0
Expression Design running on a Mac
ASP.NET MVC
Surface SDK
Six foot wall mounted version of Surface
IIS 7
IIS 7 speed race with Apache for PHP
Great sessions by the good people at Identity Mine
Actual WPF line of business applications
The new default "charcoal grey" color scheme for Visual Studio
Expression Blend storyboard mode
New UX ROI koolaid for business owners and project managers
Steve Ballmer says "Designers" twenty seven times in a row in the keynote.
SilverLight on the iPhone.
(added 25 Feb 2008) Apple to release iPhone SDK at MIX08.

If you've got some to add, leave them in the comments (You'll need a profile if you've got something to say) or send it to me on my "contact me" page.

See you at MIX.

Sean

RIA is about to get richer

sgerety — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:33:00 GMT

Over at the ISV Developer Evangelism blog, jpelak posted about a couple of preview SilverLight control toolsets, that are now available. They're from ComponentOne (the Sapphire toolkit) and InterSoft (the WebAqua toolkit). Both are beautiful and usable, (remember that UX is not just about looks) and would be at home on either a LOB (Line of Business Application) or on a Windows Media Center.

Sapphire has six different demos and you should check them out. They are:

Editable DataGrid
Stock Portfolio
Encyclopedia (shown above using Astoria, which is now ADO.NET Data Services)
Amazon Store
Video Library
ComponentOne "Sapphire" Control Explorer

WebAqua brings the Mac interface to the web, with controls like WebFishEye and WebCoverFlow.

With MIX08 coming up less than 31 days away, I can't wait to see what else is in the works, especially when controls like these are available now.

Sean

Surface Possibilities

sgerety — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 02:16:00 GMT

I think that surface and gesture computing is going to explode over the next five years. We're going to see it in many areas of our life. We already are with devices like the iPhone and the HTC Touch, however Surface will bring more opportunities with it.

Surface brings a larger space to interact with, and more options. Here's some scenarios that I've dreamed up for it and would like to see.

Resort and Hotels - When you check in at a hotel or resort (say Walt Disney World), you receive a Eye-Fi 2 gig wifi card to use during your stay with your digital camera. When you come back to the hotel after your day of running around the park snapping photos of your kids. While you are waiting to sit down to dinner you can put you camera on Surface which would already be paired with the Eye-Fi card. (From what I remember, Surface does not automatically see all wifi and you wouldn't want that, considering security.) You could then shuffle through the photos, and email them to family or create a photo book to be printed in a store and then picked up after your meal.
Education - At a Montessori school a child interacts with real objects to learn. Surface would be great as a lead in, because of the direct interaction between the device and the child. And when you add "Contacts", you get real world with virtual world.
Library - Surface would be perfect for a rare book library that you could search, interact with and even turn the pages. And the application is already done!
Hotel Concierge - Asking for directions to a restaurant or buying tickets for a show would be much better when you're sitting around Surface.
Medical - Reviewing XRay or MRI results with a doctor could be much more enlightening. And Surface could also be used for a collaborative session between doctors. (Possibly a remote linked (think RDP remote controlled session) dual Surface devices sharing one desktop for collaboration).
Music Engineering - A multi touch mixing board.
TV - Telecasting, Weather and Sports could all make use of Surface with Video playback and drawing on the device. (Think Madden doing a review of a play).
Science - Data Visualization, Mapping and Chemical and/or gene combinations.

There's just a couple. More will come and soon. Hopefully there will be a Surface lab at MIX08.

Sean

Geek Dinner this Thursday (24 Jan 2008)

sgerety — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 02:09:00 GMT

Join all of us and our host, Shawn Wildermuth, for discussions from the Oracle SOA suite (it's not limited to just Microsoft technologies) to SilverLight (Shawn) to LINQ (Jim). Join us for food, brew and conversation. RSVP here! http://www.geekdinners.com/geekdinners/DinnerInstance.aspx?id=3

See you Thursday at 6:30.

Sean

Bill Gates Last Day - (Video Spoof)

sgerety — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:46:00 GMT

Check out the video spoof of Bill Gates last day at work from the CES keynote over at Long Zheng's blog.

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080107/bill-gates-last-day-microsoft-video/

I've always loved the fact that Bill Gates is able to have fun with these videos. And the cast is pretty impressive.

Show off your mad WPF skills

sgerety — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:57:00 GMT

And win...

The good people over at Lab49 (New York's finest WPF consultancy) have a contest focused on using WPF in finance. I've long felt that WPF is a perfect match for the financial market, due to the rich visualization needs and the shear amount of data. So here's your chance to take their data and build something wonderful. Here's the link: http://wpfcontest.lab49.com/index.aspx

And if you win, you'll be a WPF rock star, win a truckload of prizes and you'll be so happy that you'll have to have plastic surgery just to get the smile off your face.

Good Luck!

Strategic Architect Forum 2007 Now Online

sgerety — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 03:16:00 GMT

The Strategic Architecture Group has put the SAF content online. What is the SAF you ask? It is the Strategic Architect Forum made up of three days of discussions and sessions about everything from UX, to Composite Applications to SAAS. Check out the content here. The video links actually pull down the video and embedded PowerPoints in a web page viewer format. If you want just the videos you'll have to mine them from the extracted file, usually in a couple of parts. Thanks to Simon's group for this content.

Sean

MIX is not about the web

sgerety — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:21:00 GMT

In the new MIX08 podcast found at "The Signal", during episode 2 or 3, it's stated that MIX is all about the Web (not the exact quote). I disagree. MIX is about UX. It's about the tools and technologies from Microsoft to build those experiences. Its about getting designers, developers, architects and business owners together.

To me MIX is there to help all of us (and Microsoft) to learn to work with each other (designers & developers) and for line-of-business owners to learn the value of design work. It's there for the cross pollination of ideas. It's there to move app's into a new realm of great software (not just great looking software).

Microsoft has UX. And MIX should be about this page.

Notice that Surface is on that page. I bet we see Surface in person at MIX. It's a perfect fit since Surface uses WPF. And the experience behind Surface is tied so closely to the device. How about a hands on WPF lab for Surface"?

But back to the Signal. While I disagree with the statement that MIX is about the Web, I will say that from listening to the Signal podcast it sounds like there's going to be some great things over the Vegas sky during MIX08.

See you there.

Sean

I, Master Chief

sgerety — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:18:00 GMT

Tonight was the Visual Studio 2008 InstallFest at the Atlanta Microsoft office. I was lucky enough to be the guy that got to wear "the Master Chief Armour". Putting it on took some help, but once it was on you felt like you just wanted to smack some Covenant butt. Here's the process of putting on the MJOLNIR Armour.

First the parts. There's a bunch!

First the chest piece after the under suit. (sorry for the wacky angle on this pic.)

Then the back and shoulders.

Then the belt, thigh and forearms.

Then shin guards. (Hey where does this piece go? I think they're for the feet.)

Then the helmet. (You have to hum the Halo theme when you put this on.)

Chad Brooks here helping turn on the helmet lights.

Doug Turnure, Chad Brooks and Master Chief

And Master Chief playing what else? Halo 3.

I've got more photos and one video that I'll post tomorrow. Thanks to Doug for putting on the event.

Sean

Atlanta VS .NET 2008 InstallFest and Fragfest

sgerety — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 11:41:00 GMT

Tonight at the Microsoft office here in Atlanta there going to be nothing but fun at the monthly .NET group meeting. Doug Turnure, (our local Microsoft Dev Evangelist) will be giving free copies of Visual Studio 2008 (pro) to the 150 people in the door. So bring your laptop, desktop or tablet PC to load up Visual Studio. If you've got Visual Studio 2008 beta installed be sure to check out Scott Gu's post on how to remove the beta bits. And after the InstallFest comes...

The FragFest.

Doug's got nine sweet Xbox 360 rigs and plasma TV's ready to go for everything from Guitar Hero (which I suck at) to HALO 3. I here even the Master Chief in full armour could be there for the some fun. So bring a camera and your best game. There will be plenty of tech talk and trash talk going on tonight.

So hit the register link to let Doug know you are coming and be ready to "Lock and Load", wait that's "Load and Lock". (Yes, that was cheesy.)

Sean

Enter the Architecture Journal Reader

sgerety — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:51:00 GMT

For those of you that read "The Architecture Journal", here's another option for you that actually is better (if you're with computer). Simon Guest is introducing the Architecture Journal Reader, a WPF based reader that delivers. Here's a quick feature list.

Online syncing and delivery of content.
Offline reading. (This is more important to me now that I've had to endure reading on a mobile device over the edge network)
Highly searchable (and discoverable)
Annotation - both ink and text.
Multiple language support - (English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese) There a nice touch with the language selection. You just pick the one you want and that's it. No "make English my default language setting or menu option".
You can save local copies.
Print (The print version is actually quite luxurious to read. Great font choice)
You can email articles with a nice summary.
Keyboard (via arrows) or mouse navigation
Quick access to all editions of the Architecture Journal on the left hand side.
Reading list for your "read this next" list.
Find in article. (It's not a menu option, just hit "ctrl + F" and it will show up as an overlay on the bottom left corner of the article.) Hit the "escape" key to close it.

Here's a pic of the first run of the ARC reader, notice the green progress bar syncing content in the top left hand side.

Here's a shot of the front page. All articles are listed on the front page.

And the search results for "SOA". The search is lightning quick.

Features that I'd like to see are:

Different color schemes
"What others are reading" page
"What others are reading and where they're located map"
Marked as read indicator

Get the beta here.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=dd466bbb-1b7d-438e-9f9a-954ce2058f15&displaylang=en

Remember that this is the beta, which means it will only get better with your feedback. Thanks to the SAG team for putting this together.

I think we'll see the "Reader" platform start to evolve, in the next couple of years. (I'm thinking an aggregated content delivery model for different magazines.)

Sean

Note:The ARC Reader requires the uses port 8080 to pull the content so if your place of work is using a proxy server (and it blocks that port) it's not going to be able pull the initial content.

Moleskine and Friction Tape Spine Fix - Hack

sgerety — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 05:21:00 GMT

I've got an ailing Moleskine that is suffering from the fraying of the spine. It's not that old, however it is a "new" Moleskine. Check out the top and bottom views before the fix. Not good at all. The black Moleskine cover is separating from the spine binding.

I was looking around for a fix for the spine that would work. Something the same color that would blend and flex as needed. I was looking for a black cloth tape like a medical tape, however the closest I could find was 3M Brand friction tape. It's a good strong fabric, not plastic, tape that flexes and bends. You can find it at your local Home Depot.

Now for the fix!

Step 1 - Lay the tape along the bottom. Half for the spine and half on the back cover.

Here's an alternate view. Note - I probably should have trimmed off the loose material from the Moleskine.

Step 2 - Cut the tape to the length of the Moleskine and press down hard. Make sure it's smooth.

Here's a side view.

Step 3 - A little glue work for the top. I'll let you know how well this worked. I used SuperGlue. I'm not sure if there is a better glue for this. You can also see in this shot the separation.

Step 4 - Tape again on the top using the same "half on the spine, half off the spine" technique.

Step 5 - Trim it up.

Step 6 - Fold it over and be sure to keep this smooth.

Step 7 - Lay a piece directly across the back of the spine to cover the overlay and be sure to smooth it down.

A couple of views of the finished fix.

Here's a close-up of the fix.

Here you can see how the last piece of tape matches the edge of the Moleskine.

A couple of notes.

The tape is sticky on both sides, however its not as sticky on the outside. But keep this in mind if you use this fix.
The tape isn't as polished as the Moleskine cover itself, however it looks much better than an open spine.
It took about five minutes to do.

If anyone knows of another type of tape that is cloth and would work I'd be interested in knowing about it. I'll also post about the longevity of the fix in a month or two.

Sean

Surface Opening up

sgerety — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 22:12:00 GMT

Over at the Surface blog they're talking about what goes into creating an application for Surface. Two points are covered, in the first of a two part blog post. Of course (here's where I put on my Captain Obvious costume) they forgot to mention that you need a Surface Computer. How do I get a dev kit?

But on a curious note, when do they use XNA versus WPF for creating apps? I'm thinking apps like the "water ripple" are XNA where the photo app is WPF. And in the eventing model for WPF how do multiple contacts (aka mouse pointers) work in Surface. Put that in the second article please.

Sean

Two Platforms that I'd love to play with.

sgerety — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 02:31:00 GMT

After watching this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FJHYqE0RDg on the Android Demo, I have to say that the touch portion of the demo is nice. Who knows, maybe I could create a "copy and paste" program for the touch device and win some of that 10 million dollar prize money.

But what I'd really like is to work (actually I think it would be more play than work) with the Surface device. Check out this video where Robert Levy shows off some of the hot SDK action of the ScatterView control.

So I thought that gesture and surface / touch based computing was going to take about 5 to 10 years to hit. It's coming and it's going to be all around us. Phones, Kiosks, Surface, Blueboards, everywhere.

So with all that coming, I wonder if anyone is working on a gesture dictionary for actions. And how people will deal with the device clash between small form factor (phones) and large form factors?

Sean

MIX 08 is open for business

sgerety — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 02:57:00 GMT

VisitMix for 08 is now open on the web. Register here. Get your blog bling here. They've got posters, wallpaper (not yet), blog bling and contests! But if you look at the keynote speakers, you'll see that Steve Ballmer and Scott Guthrie are the line-up. I can't wait to hear Ballmer's keynote "Designers, Designers, Designers, Designers, Designers, Designers, Designers, Designers, Designers, Designers, Designers, Designers, Designers, Designers, ... Yes!"

When? 05-07 Mar 2008

Where? The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas

See you there!

p.s. Does the "Register Today" SilverLight control remind you of Katamari Damacy? And I bet we get to see "Surface".

Hey Surface Team - Do it right

sgerety — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 02:54:00 GMT

So there's a couple of posts on the net (Engadget, Gizmodo, c|net and even the Surface Blog) about the delay of Surface until next spring. So what! I say do it right and take your time. When Surface hits the public for prime time it needs to be ready. If it doesn't perform then people will just bash Microsoft again. However if it hits the mark it will be a win for both the hardware platform of surface and a win for WPF. So I say tell them you've got the same motto as Quake 3, "When it's done".

Sean

What's ESOMM got to do with UX?

sgerety — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 02:48:00 GMT

A lot. Here's a digital version of a index card that I created a while back after reading this article on ESOMM.

What is ESOMM? It's the Enterprise Service Orientation Maturity Model. I won't rehash the article but if you don't have some ESOMM and you've got web services, life is going to suck for you when it comes to things like service visioning, and migration. Take a look at the following matrix from the article above. Actually, here's the link to "Enabling the Service-Oriented Enterprise" if you don't want to scroll up. This matrix covers all the elements needed for an enterprise. Are your services Usable, Repeatable, Supportable and Extensible? Do you have Implementation, Consumption and Administration strategies?

If you overlaid the index card on top of the graphic (see below), you'll notice that you can use web services, however when you start implementing things on an enterprise level. Things are going to get confusing and painful quick. ("Wait, what version of web service X is customer Y using currently and when do they migrate to web service X version 2.0 with the breaking changes?") Confusing and painful experiences like that are going to ruin the UX (User Experience) for not only the consumers of those services, but also for the enterprise. And remember UX is not just UI, it's architecture.

Sean