I'll be Speaking at MSDN Tour Costa Rica this week

Tomorrow Tuesday 23nd and Wednesday September 24th, I will be speaking at the MSDN Tour in Costa Rica as part of a series of events going on across Latin America this week.

I will be covering a little bit of the future of the new Services Platform that Microsoft is empowering as well as their S+S plans based on Mesh and the Live Platform.

I will also be doing a couple of demos of the new Internet Explorer browser and showing how you can take advantage of aggiorno to facilitate the transition of your web sites to more standard grounds.

To register to any of this two events check out the following links.

When	September 23rd
Where	Microsoft Offices
What time	2pm - 5pm
Address	Oficentro Plazaa Roble Edificio El Patio 2do Piso Escazú, San José
RSVP	Here

and

When	September 24rd
Where	Artisoft Free Zone
What time	6pm - 9pm
Address	Torre La Sabana, Piso 11 300 metros Oeste del Edificio del ICE, Sabana Norte
RSVP	Here

See you guys there and keep on rocking!

Accelerators coming to Windows 7

I expend most of the past week in NYC with the Internet Explorer team showcasing IE8 and aggiorno to most of the attendees of the Web 2.0 Expo; and got to say that some of the most acclaimed features from IE8 in the booth where both their new Accelerators and Webslices features.

Accelerators are services made accessible from within the users reach and can be activated by just selecting a piece of text in a page and getting results through a mashup of services without having to leave the page the user is in; while Webslices are pieces of Web pages that can be sliced and placed in the bookmarks toolbar for ease of reach and updated as per users request.

Accelerators such as the Define by Encarta and the Map with Live Earth, where among the ones that created the most wow effects from the hundreds of people that approach one of the 3 displays slated for demos, excelling the user experience of the user at hand.

Now to my surprise I found through the leaked photos of Windows 7 that were published yesterday, that such features seems like are also coming to the next generation of the Softies Desktop OS. Check the first menu item under Accessories in the the image below:

I can only imagine been able to mash up services right from within my Desktop experience, having the myriad of web services available at the reach of a right click and contextual to my task at hand.

I guess the view of an ubiquity experience between the desktop and the Web is becoming more and more a unifying paradigm, and with the advent of platforms such as Live Mesh powered by cloud services and the access to all of my services will enable an truly interconnected world of universal access.

Let's keep setting our expectations open, that Microsoft's PDC is just around the corner and you never know what could be that next big shift in the world of a semantic living.

Cheers and enjoy the future!

Google Chrome updated to run Silverlight

Following up on my technology status for RIA under Google's Chrome, I got the scoop earlier today about Google's latest build of Chrome, 1251, updated to address most Silverlight's initial problems, and got to say that its improvements are more than welcome by interactive dev community.

Chrome latest build was released under the Developer chain, an alternative release cycle which let you update to interim builds of Google's Internet Browser, for testing purposes.

Getting yourself ready for the switch

Google's latest turn of events lead them to enable the Dev chain, giving the community access to upcoming features, features in development, and the latest bug fixes in a per weekly basis.

In order to enable this feature on your box, you will need to run the Channel Switcher, which you can get from here, and set the switch from Beta to Dev and then fetch the latest update from the About menu.

As per Google's own words

We need Dev users, and we'll give your feedback and issues higher priority.

Which if you are like some of us and you are used to get your hands into messy set of bits every week in order to get your magic going, I'd recommend to make the switch and keep up testing your applications under these builds at least for expectation purposes.

Getting it to perform: It just works!

Giving that I am out in NYC for the week attending the Web 2.0 Expo and with probably the worst connection to Internet in all the Manhattan island; it took me some time to get the setup done and get it to test with some internal builds of a couple of Silverlight applications I'm working on, yet I am happy to report that it works!

I can also say that from the public beta version to this interim one, an important set of improvements can be perceived in the overall stability of the browser, having fewer crashes and getting both Flash and Silverlight to execute as close to Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3 as it can get.

I'd guess that the Chrome team is really spinning up on getting things in the right track, enabling the ever growing world of RIA's to keep on living as 1st class citizen of the web.

Now, for a sneak at some of the flagship Silverlight applications check out Jonas Folleso's post on this update and take a look at his screen test; and, for more up to date news on Chrome, make sure to follow GetGoogleChrome, who are making a great work on keeping up with the news from all around the world.

Cheers and happy switching!

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Technorati Tags: Chrome,Google Chrome,Microsoft,Silverlight,Flash,Development,RIA,RIE,HTWWO

Procrastination

Let's be honest here... I am one of this!

Enjoy!

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Technorati Tags: Procastination,HTWWO,Ideas,Learning,Ubiquity

Project Rosetta = Where Designers & Developers Come To Play

Today Microsoft went public with Project Rosetta, a web site with a focus on helping developers and designers get up to speed developing Silverlight and WPF applications by taking advantages of the skills they already own.

Right now there are 2 articles available on line, one from Cinergy's genius Rick Barraza with a 10 lesson series for designers to make things work in Silverlight; and, Jaime Rodriguez and Karsten Januszewski's The New Iteration booklet, which focus on the Devigner role within the new wave of development.

Coming forward the team, lead by Adam Kinney, will be looking for real histories on how early adopters have made the leap forward to these new grounds, so expect it to grow constantly.

What's in your Agenda?

I've talk to you about my concerns before, about the lack of resources widely available to guide developers and designers in the art of building Rich Interactive Applications collaboratively, and I think I still am.

Whether you are a hardcore designer, an experienced Flash guy or a kick ass developer, when it comes to facing some of the new technologies out there on the Rich space for the first time, everyone comes to a halt; and efforts like this makes me think of hope in the near future and expect to keep growing.

In my mind both Microsoft and Adobe should had come with a stronger agenda in the terms to uniting the designer/developer process and exposing a workflow  that could set people into a pleasant experience and hence improving the overall quality of the applications been developed.

Put your money where your skills are

As my friend Jonathan Ramirez wrote on the topic in June's edition of the Microsoft Expression Newsletter:

There's a group of creatives very comfortable with the tools and technologies they have used for the past 5 or 10 years and it's hard for them to incorporate new tools into their work, and some of these guys have great talent that could be used for Silverlight projects.

So, instead of changing the tools they use on a daily basis, we should put more effort into translating what they do into XAML. A good Devigner should be able to convert any design into optimized markup, no matter what program the designer used. I like to take screen shots of my XAML and put them next to the comps to review every small detail until I see the exact same picture-Expression can give me all the tools to make that happen.

Creatives talk about feelings, developers talk about logic. There should be always be somebody in between translating those languages using the right tools.

... this might not be the case to everyone out there, and probably is a model that cannot be supported in all shops, but the middle man will always got to exist, either been played by the designer or the developer; and getting the right resources to empower them and take them there is key for its success.

New lights are born

New winds approach now and with tools like Adobe Thermo and an improved Expression Blend experience in Beta now, we see more and more breaking grounds been trenched for a collaboration of approaches to live in harmony.

I am sure we will be seeing more and more efforts like this light up in the weeks to come, and with both MAX and PDC around the corner my expectations are going nowhere but high.

Congrats to Adam et team and keep up the good word ;-)

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Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Silverlight,Developer,Designer,Project Rosetta,Devigner,RIA,RIE,HTWWO

NFL coming to a browser near you thanks to Flash

It seems sports are keeping on pushing the delivery of Rich Video Experiences in the Web, and this time NBC is set to try the arena again but now it's thru a different technology, Adobe Flash.

Following a similar approach as the one followed by NBC with its successful Summer Olympics experience powered by Silverlight; today Adobe announced the partnership with NBC to deliver Sunday Night Football live thru the Web using 5 live feeds on a spaced experience, enabling viewers across the states access to the latest happenings of the games.

As Ryan Stewart notes, the lack of a full screen feature is one of the draw backs of the experience, and as with the Olympics events, one ends up thinking that having the availability to displays ads around the chrome comes first to the overall commodity of the video watching experience - oh well... at the end it's sponsors who get to pay for the content to be available in such delivery islands for us to enjoy.

On and all, I think it is great the Adobe was able to pull this out as it will definitely serve as a comparison point between Flash and Silverlight in the war of Video delivery platforms.

Moving forward I'd love to see a more branded experience that could enable the experience to move forward to ubiquitous grounds, enabling interactive ads in top of the video experience could be a choice, similar to what was introduced in Media Center earlier last year, providing the communion of both worlds and enhancing the user's overall media consumption; but I'd guess the time to production of such assets will take time before becoming part of the process.

It also will be interesting - more of a wish - to see an evolution on the user experience in the weeks ahead, as I think the information available per game could set the foundations for rich live data visualization experiments, raising the bar for Web-driven sport coverage and providing support for social features around the topic, that already is the most important in the game arena in the US.

So what are you waiting for, go get the beers, the snacks and lets go enjoy the game!

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Technorati Tags: Adobe,Flash,RIA,RIE,Ubiquity,UX,Video

Silverlight and Flash running on Google Chrome

Google Chrome is out in the wild as of a few minutes ago and I just finished installing it on my parallels Windows XP "box", and got to say it performs cool enough and its flashing speed is quite welcomed.

My first impressions, lets say after my 5 minute walk I did around it, is that the browser executes really fast and stable under normal use, a couple of times got unresponsive while switching tabs, but nothing you painful enough.

From download to launch it took me around 45 seconds, and the way it configures the browser at start couldn't been better: it recognizes my default settings from the computer and add them to the browser's options.

There is still a lot to cover with this browser, but given that a lot of people will be talking about it generally elsewhere in the days to come, let's cut the chase and let's start talking Rich Internet Applications on Chrome.

Here are some of my first experiences...

The status on RIA

Now, first thing I do as RIA fanatic that I am? I want to give Google Chrome a test run around the 3 main technologies for Rich App's out there, Flash, Silverlight and Ajax.

Flash

Since, along the Webcast they showcased YouTube working happily in Chrome, I knew what to expect, although I also found out that there has been people not that lucky.

For me? I didn't have to install nothing and the site just worked, out of what I had already installed.

Here is the proof (click to enlarge)

Silverlight

After a successful run with Adobe's tech, I went towards Silverlight.net to try one or 2 of the applications been showcased there and see the results, and they where various:

• Depending on the way developers created their pages hosting the Silverlight application,
  1. if the developers followed Microsoft's UX Best Practices for Silverlight, the site will tell you that your browser is not compatible, but...
  2. if the check is not done then browser will try to instantiate the plug-in and run it.

Now here is the catch,

• Depending on the complexity of the application, the execution is going to be painfully slow (wishing that the developer had followed Microsoft's recommendations) and will eventually drain your experience with the browser until you will have to kill it manually... so much for that talking of the multi process execution.

On and all, Silverlight should run flawlessly just a Flash did given that the rendering engine is the same as in Safari - Google is using Webkit as its rendering platform. Although I will the point of the doubt to Microsoft as there could be something in the way Chrome manages the plug-ins for which they didn't account, and yes! Silverlight is still in Beta.

Anyhow, here is how Silverlight looks on Google Chrome (click to enlarge)

AJAX

Now this is probably the instant winner of them all, as the browser itself was tuned to make AJAX-based applications lightning fast when executing.

I tested Chrome of several Google, Microsoft and some other essential Web 2.0 applications that I used, and they all executed flawlessly.

What's to come

I'm sure we are all welcoming Google's approach to the Web, this, as Sergey told the press, is for sure not an OS killer for the Web as many has dared to write, but a good platform to developers to run Web applications in top of.

They see this not as a war on browsers, even though it is indeed, but as a way to raise the bar for the industry as a whole, and as such they invite others to take what they did and get what they feel might be worth and change what is up for improvement... at the end this is a community effort.

In the words of my friend Ryan Stewart

This is a big day for RIA developers because Google started from scratch. They’re building a train that will actually be able to run on the high speed tracks of the Internet. We’ve been pushing and pushing and pushing for a long time, but the browsers just haven’t been able to keep up with demands. Google Chrome should be a big leap forward.

This past 3 weeks will go on into history as the 3 weeks that defined the future of Web 3.0, Mozilla, Microsoft and now Google are teaming up on their own to proof their own version of the future, and as I wrote yesterday, it's is a exiting one and is shapes as the foundation of the commodity of the Web and the renascence of the collaboration of services and a always-on presence of our memories, information and stories... the digital draw of ourselves

Happy testing everyone!

Update: Google just released a new build (1251) updated to improve interoperability with Silverlight and Flash. Check out the info here.

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Technorati Tags: Google,Google Chrome,Silverlight,Flash,RIA,RIE,HTWWO,AJAX,Web,Web 2.0

Ubiquity of the Web and the Browser's new role

Photo by Alberto+Cerriteño

With the release of Mozilla's newest boy Ubiquity, Microsoft's Beta 2 incarnation of Internet Explorer 8 last week, and today's announcement of Google Chrome; a lot of talks will sparkle in the cloud wondering what will be the role of the web in the years to come, how standards will play a role in it and what strategy, if any, will the browsers have along these lines... here is my view:

Clean, Simple, Efficient...

These are the three tenets that Google Chrome is going after with the design of their own User Experience. They are not reinventing the browser, they are empowering and fine tuning it for the most demanding usage that we, as of today, give the browser at hand.

Google is going for the ubiquitous Webkit as their rendering engine - the same one that powers Apple's Safari, the iPhone and the upcoming, Android's Web Browser - and for Java Script their own V8 - a home grown open source JavaScript Virtual Machine that is tuned for applications, not just Web sites.

And even though Microsoft is late at joining the party of Standards, they for sure are welcomed at providing the world with their initiative of embracing standards once and for all, on IE8.

This change of focus should provide the development teams with the opportunity to focus their energies elsewhere... like creating content, enabling rich visualizations... embracing the continuum experience of what they are building... and most important, making their services accessible to everyone, thru everything and everywhere.

It's all about the semantics

We should be building once, making the information semantically available for anyone to access it, and then letting the world focus on creating new ways for interacting with our services. Be the king of your domains and let others in for expanding.

This sure might not be the scenario for every shop out there, but it is true for both Internet and intranets service and data providers.

Today the web is about enabling connected experiences, today we developers expect every service to come with a companion API, so we can either extend our own services with theirs, or extend theirs with something else from our toolkit. We want that interoperability build in from day 1.

We are enabling the semantics of the Web with our services, and here is where features like IE8 Accelerators and Web Slices, and the latest Mozilla's Ubiquity are setting the basics for such a reality to be ubiquitous to us.

The future... our history

After all there is one true on all this, the Web is turning to where it should have been years ago: it's turning towards Standards, or better said, the lowest common denominator is been raised towards more common fields; and as a direct result the web is becoming more of a commodity - like gas and electricity - and is disconnecting from proprietary pipes that minimize its growth.

The Web will be a basic foundation where we all can come and play regardless of our origins and destinations, Browsers will now move along providing contextual functionality to the cloud, extending and building around web services, shortening the gap between today's reality and a future of semantic mash-ups build upon our digital necessities.

The future... our history, will be remembered by the renascence of the collaboration of services and a always-on presence of our memories, information, stories... the digital draw of ourselves.

Welcome Web 3.0!

P.S. have you checked out Adaptive Path / Mozilla's view of the future of Web?

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Technorati Tags: IE8,Mozilla,Google,Chrome,Web Slices,Accelerators,Web,Future,UX,RIE,RIA