Sean's Idea Kitchen : cool stuff

visitmix, now in a retro 8-bit love format

sgerety — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:42:00 GMT

Our favorite web, UI and UX conference site has grown up. It's no longer just a site about the best conference out there, MIX. It's now a site for discussion, learning, ideas, projects and yes MIX still gets some love. MIX has a new URL which is more inline with the conference. It's http://2009.visitmix.com/ And here's a peak at the landing page.

Let's look around a bit. First I like the way the site is laid out logically with Home, Articles, Lab, Opinions and About sections nicely categorizing content.

On the home page we've got a nice jambalya of content.

We've got the latest articles, opinions and labs, along with links to MIX related sites, and events. It's also got a great retro "8 bit love" format to the site. Great colors, layout and no Flash or SilverLight that I can see (bonus).

I really like the new format, with labs being the playground for code. And from the look of it it looks like they will be updated with fresh content. They've started off with Oomph, a lab that teaches you about Microformats and gives you code to play with as well. The code is on codeplex and is open source under the Microsoft Public License. I downloaded it last night and actually would love to see this as part of IE8. Even more, I'd love to have this on my iPhone. Next month, is Descry, Exploring Data and Information Visualization. Looks tasty, can't wait and I'm curious to see what is created.

The articles section has articles that are clean, easy to read (which is important with the amount of info we're hit with today and tomorrow), and they're from folks like John Allsopp. So we are hearing voices from different parts of the web.

Opinions looks to be the blog and discussion section of the site. Check out Thomas Lewis's post which lays out the vision and direction of the new site.

And over in About there's a lavender frog. Huh? I don't know either. But, there is an important statement in the about section.

Offer insightful articles that are relevant to the scenarios you want to design and develop for the web.
Provide freely downloadable, open source, and immediately useable prototypes with no strings attached.
Encourage user contribution and ongoing dialog.
Believe in sharing ideas.
Think about scenarios and users first, technology second.

The last point is probably the most relevant. When I have a business issue at work. It's not a C-Level person coming to me saying "Oh, we need be on technology X right away", and if they do you should question why. They come to you with a business objective or scenario. And that's how we work in everyday life.

Hat's off to the visitmix team. You've done a fantastic job. It's nice to see a different approach.

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.

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

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

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!

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

Flare - An Interesting Visualization Toolkit

sgerety — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 14:22:00 GMT

Found via UX magazine...

Flare, "ActionScript 3 (Flash) libraries for interactive visualizations on the web". Here's a cool toolset for interactive visualizations using Flash, check out the demo reel for some cool stuff. I like the "Star Burst" view, I have a similar WPF control called "Sunburst" in the works for WPF.

It would be nice to see the same controls in WPF and SilverLight. Kudos to the Flare team.

Sean