Expression Blend Beta 2 is Out

I know I have been out for a while. Sometimes things don't go as you might expect in your day to day life, but then you have to recover and keep going... so here I am.

I have a few posts waiting in the baking room, though wanted to bring this one early since I just realized that Microsoft has silently released Expression Blend Beta 2.

For those of you out of the picture Expression Blend is the professional design tool to create engaging web-connected experiences for Windows; meaning that this is the WPF oriented application for Interactive Designers to go wild with their ideas and designs and come out with the next generation of inmersive applications for both Windows XP and Vista.

So go ahead, the following are some resources you might find interesting:

Expression Blend @ Microsoft Expression

Download Expression Blend Beta 2 @ Microsoft Downloads

Beta Overview @ Eric Lam's Blog

How to be Creative

1. Ignore Everybody
2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.
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5. You are responsible for your own experience.
6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
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13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.
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17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't.
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22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
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26. Write from the heart.
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27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.
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30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.
31. Remain frugal.

What is this? - Thy might ask, this is a list put together by Hugh MacLeod @ gapingvoid; an amazing blog I found around a couple of weeks a go and from where I took that cartoonlet u see in the right of the blog (the main page one).

This article gives tips inspired on this guy's experience in terms of what u need to do and be, in order to be creative... it is funny 'cause I've been reading books and articles regarding selfuse and selfwhatever in terms of getting your ideas out that obscure whole called head and putting them into practice; and from them all I find post really refreshing and true.

I might not have too much experience in creativity or I might have... the only thing I can acknowledge is that I never will stop create and when putted as kindergarten lads or even before that... we create everyday, the even same fact of playing along with pens and papers... drawing on the sand @ the beach... dreaming... thinking... writing... even walking we are creating new ways of doing things even when we don't acknowledge the fact that we are just been us, ignoring the surroundings (sometimes) and just being frugal to our nature of thoughtful beings...

Ok I think I am getting lost here, anyway please go ahead and read it... you don't know what can this do your way of thinking, act or even to the way you see life... it can even just don't do nothing for you, but it might so don't be afraid and try to change your world and our world, for good!

Our one truly mission is all about that, creating new and better ways for people to interact with things, stuff... cosas! So be creative and get accountability for your means of expression.

Yahoo! is going WPF

As we approach the lunch date for Windows Vista (Jan 30th, 2007) products based on Microsoft's new technology will start surfacing the earth showing us how great the big M's investment behaves as the new generation platform for software development; specially for those really nice looking applications...

Anyway, with the sarcasm aside, Yahoo! just went public with their new Yahoo Messenger for Vista. This new app is developed using .NET 3.0 technologies and probably the first thing you will notice is the fresh slick UI that was accomplished by using WPF.

As a developer and end user, I'm looking forward for this new wave of applications that will start hitting the market with remarkable looking user experiences and how the customer will start pushing the bar higher and higher from what we have been used to, 'til now...

Go check it it looks really nice!

WPF on Windows XP / 2K3 vs Vista

A question that should have gone around people's head already (it has for me and my team for a while) is how different the application performance between WPF-based applications running under Windows XP / 2K3 from those running in Windows Vista, is.

So for those such a people (me) Tim Sneath just posted a brief on this and given the fact that there is no data support from benchmarked tests, it at least gives a some-how-clear explanation on what to expect from the point of view of what Vista implements that is missing from Windows XP; even though it is the same code base for both OS's, Vista features a set of support enhancements to some of that technology (i.e. vector based rendering vs bitmap rendering across accessibility and remoting tools and of course the DWM and WDDM-class display drivers for a smooth experience in 2D and 3D) .

So go for it and give it a try, at least it will guide your test a bit more than going with no information at all...

Managing IIS from the command prompt

I found myself today googling about how to interact with IIS thru a batch script so that I can start, stop, create, delete... u know to be able of performing most of the tasks you can do by using the IIS Management Shell.

I found this article over TechNet and got quite impress about this shell application called iisweb that comes with Windows Server 2003; that enables you to do this and some other tricky actions over an IIS instance in the machine where it runs or even access remote servers and work on them.

Go check it and save it in your pandora box, you never know when you will needed...

North Face In-Store Explorer in a store near you!

Ok, so Vista hasn't gone live to the main stream public yet and the first retail application has shipped to the public (hands).

As some of you know - people that have been tracking Vista and the WinFx over the last months (and years); the North Face Explorer has been one of the most coolest applications being marketed along side with this technologies.

Developed by the people @ Fluid, a Digital Production company based in San Francisco, this guys have gone live with the application we all saw demoed during the PDC '05 conference.

Darren David, tech lead for this project has blog about it here, so for you guys out in the US soil, go to the nearest NF store and check it out... for those like me, that only go to the states once or twice a year or that live abroad, here is cool excerpt from the guys over Channel9 who have the snipped from the PDC demo for a re-run.

Talking about technology Microsoft published a white paper last year that talks about NF proof of concept and even has some demo code that comes in handy when talking 3D, image management: you know WPF in general.

Ok, so I'll let u guys to go explore and keep enjoying life in this new 2007! Happy coding everyone!