Mike Swanson's Blog https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/mswanson/feed.xml Wed, 17 Apr 2019 03:25:35 GMT en-US hourly 1 Moving Along https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/mswanson/moving-along Tue, 27 Sep 2011 10:31:06 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mswanson/2011/09/27/moving-along/ After 11½ years at one of the greatest companies in the world, I’ve decided to leave Microsoft and rejuvenate my entrepreneurial spirit. My last day in the office is Friday, September 30, 2011.

Thank you for subscribing to, reading, commenting, and e-mailing me about what I’ve written over the past 8 years. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed “talking” to all of you, albeit in virtual form. It’s kept me grounded and in-touch, and your feedback has helped shape a lot of decisions at the company, especially those related to our PDC and MIX conferences.

Over the past 8 years, I’ve written 392 posts. You’ve left 3,227 public comments (I didn’t track the number of private e-mails, but it’s a lot). And according to our blogging platform, you’ve contributed to 10,273,373 total views. Wow!

I’ve setup a new personal blog at http://blog.mikeswanson.com, if you’d like to follow along. Or, you can see what I’m up to as @Anyware on Twitter. Either way, I hope that you keep in touch.

Take care, remember to take big, bold bets, and whatever you do, improve the world!

]]> Ai->Canvas FAQ https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/mswanson/ai-canvas-faq Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:45:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mswanson/2010/10/15/ai-canvas-faq/ Since the launch of the Ai->Canvas plug-in for Adobe Illustrator a few days ago, I’ve collected a bunch of questions via e-mail, Twitter, blog post comments, and forums. This list should eventually make its way to the official Ai->Canvas project page on MIX Online, but in the meantime, I’ve included a first version of the FAQ in this post. If you have other questions that you’d like addressed on this list, please leave a comment or drop us an e-mail. And thank you for all of the encouragement, blog posts, and tweets!

Q. Why would I ever want to export vector graphics to a HTML5 canvas element when I can just use Illustrator to export to SVG?
A. Excellent question! If you’re building a HTML5 application that can do everything with SVG, there’s no reason to use Ai->Canvas (and in that case, you should check out the Adobe Illustrator CS5 HTML5 Pack). However, if you’re building a canvas-based application or game that requires lower-level access and you need to draw more than simple bitmaps, Ai->Canvas makes the job much easier. Without a tool like Ai->Canvas, designers and developers are forced to manually write hundreds of lines of code like: context.bezierCurveTo(5.4, -1.5, 2.7, -1.5, 1.5, -0.5);. No fun at all.

Q. Am I required to keep the Mike Swanson and MIX Online comments in my HTML/JavaScript code?
A. No. We expect most people to copy and paste just the code that they need for their own projects. If you feel like giving us credit, though, we won’t complain!

Q. Can I use Ai->Canvas to convert .ai files without installing Adobe Illustrator?
A. No. Ai->Canvas is not a file conversion tool. It runs within Illustrator so that it has direct access to the internal representation of your artwork. This enables very high-fidelity output and also simplifies the workflow. If you don’t have Adobe Illustrator and you’d like to try Ai->Canvas, you can download a free 30-day trial

Q. When using Internet Explorer 9 Beta 1, how do I prevent the “blocked content” alert when loading the exported HTML file?
A. Choose Internet Options from the Tools menu (or press Alt + X), then click the Advanced tab. Scroll down to the Security section and make sure that “Allow active content to run in files on My Computer*” is checked. After you enable the setting and click OK, restart Internet Explorer for the changes to take effect.

Q. Which versions of Windows does Ai->Canvas work with?
A. The PC version of Ai->Canvas works with Windows Vista and Windows 7. Due to some OS-specific function calls, it will not work with Windows XP.

Q. Does Ai->Canvas work with the trial version of Adobe Illustrator?
A. Yes. If you’d like to try Ai->Canvas and you don’t have Adobe Illustrator, you can download a free 30-day trial.

Q. In the tutorial videos, the right-click “View source” menu in Internet Explorer 9 Beta 1 brings up Visual Studio 2010. How can I configure the same behavior?
A. Press F12 to bring up the developer tools window. Choose File/Customize Internet Explorer view source/Other… Then browse to your Visual Studio folder (usually something like C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE). Select the devenv.exe file and click Open.

Q. Are there plans to release the Ai->Canvas source code?
A. We had hoped to provide the source code for the plug-in, but the Adobe Illustrator CS3 SDK License Agreement (EULA) in section 2 appears to prohibit the release of source code. It sounds like it allows object code, but that wouldn’t help anyone who wanted to understand/modify/extend the plug-in.

Q. Why are my international characters lost during export?
A. While all text is handled as Unicode within the Ai->Canvas plug-in, it is converted to basic ASCII characters in the output stage. This is a known issue that is on the list to be addressed in a future version.

Q. Why is the performance slow when I export a complex animation and run it on a [fill in device name here]?
A. It’s hard to say, because each device, OS, browser, and application combination has unique performance characteristics. That’s why it’s important to test, test, test. Also, Ai->Canvas exports HTML and JavaScript code that is intended to be copied and pasted into your own project where performance is managed according to your project’s requirements. In general, though, the more elements that are animated and drawn for each frame, the slower the overall performance. For applications that don’t need to clear the canvas and re-draw the entire scene, there are many easy optimizations that can drastically improve performance.

Q. How can I include complex animation properties when Illustrator CS3/CS4 has a 100-character layer name limit?
A. Each property has an equivalent short name that uses fewer characters. For example, the rotate-timing-function property can be shortened to r-t-f, saving 17 characters. Some values also have short versions. For example, origin: center can be shortened to o:c. See the Ai->Canvas Extended Documentation for details.

Q. Is there a way to visualize the timing (easing) functions that are included in the Ai2CanvasAnimation.js file?
A. Yes. This HTML file draws a line graph for each of the built-in timing functions. The x-axis represents the input value (from 0.0 – 1.0), and the y-axis represents the output value (from 0.0 – 1.0).

Q. Are there plans to create a version of Ai->Canvas for Inkscape, Fireworks, [fill in app name here]?
A. Not at this time. Because the Ai->Canvas plug-in is written using the Adobe Illustrator SDK (software development kit), it is very specific to the internal workings of Illustrator. While the concepts could certainly be re-purposed for other drawing applications, it’s likely that very little of the actual code could be re-used.

]]> Adobe Illustrator to HTML5 Canvas Plug-in Released! https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/mswanson/adobe-illustrator-to-html5-canvas-plug-in-released Tue, 12 Oct 2010 12:10:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mswanson/2010/10/12/adobe-illustrator-to-html5-canvas-plug-in-released/ I am happy to announce that after nearly four months of work, the secret MIX Online project is no longer a secret! Today, we launched Ai->Canvas, a free plug-in for Adobe Illustrator CS3, CS4, and CS5 that works with OS X, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. The plug-in makes it easy to export artwork and animation (yes, you heard that right) directly from within Illustrator to HTML/JavaScript that you can use in your own applications.

For a quick one-and-a-half minute introduction, watch this brief overview video. Then, download the version for Windows or OS X, extract it to your Illustrator plug-ins folder, and spend some time on the documentation page, where you’ll find 10 tutorial videos that total around 25 minutes in length. Thomas Lewis wrote a nice article titled Introducing the Ai to Canvas Plug-In that provides even more background and context.

If you’ve read my blog over the years, you’ve probably heard me talk about the Adobe Illustrator to XAML export plug-in I wrote back in 2005. Well, about four months ago, Thomas and I were chatting at lunch, and he was evangelizing to me about the new canvas element in HTML5. As we talked, it became clear that canvas was an element that could benefit from some tooling. So after lunch, I did a search, and most of the tutorials and information I found used very simplistic smiley faces or basic shapes to demonstrate the canvas features. The light bulb went off, and I wondered if a version of my XAML plug-in could be re-tooled to work with canvas.

Fast-forward four months, and the plug-in has been completely re-architected and re-written from the ground up. What started out as a classic C project that had reached its extensibility limits is now an object-oriented C++ project with room to grow (around 23K lines of cross-platform code for the geeks out there). Along the way, I basically memorized the entire HTML5 canvas spec, encountered some small implementation issues in each browser, read a bunch of HTML5 books (HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith is my favorite introduction to the topic), read and then re-read the ECMA-262 (JavaScript) spec, and consumed a few JavaScript books for good measure.

If you’re interested in the low-level details about how Ai->Canvas is built, you might enjoy Charles Torre’s interview with me on Channel 9. In the interview, I talk about fun topics like arc-length parameterization that are sure to be a hit at parties. Well…at least the kind of parties I attend. :-) Strike that…I don’t really attend parties…

While we’re on the topic of HTML5, you should also check out the Adobe Illustrator CS5 HTML5 Pack (from Adobe Labs). Their release extends the fantastic SVG support that’s been in Illustrator for years, and it’s great to see a tool like this from Adobe themselves. I can’t wait to see where they take it.

Over the months, I’ve built-up a bunch of test files for the plug-in (over 100). Most of them illustrate very simple features, and they’re not much to look at. Here are a few that might be interesting to folks:

  • Yellowstone Map – this is a great acid test for the plug-in, and it’s one of the sample files that ships with Illustrator. If you don’t have the fonts installed on your machine, the output won’t look correct. This complex file exports in a couple seconds on my machine. I can’t imagine the practical use of this much canvas HTML/JavaScript, but it’s fun!
  • Pencil Writing (and the original Illustrator file) – this example shows animation along a complex path and includes some dampened rotation animation too.
  • Clock (and the original Illustrator file) – a simple clock with a few lines added to the init() function to set the clock.
  • Newton’s Cradle (and the original Illustrator file) – an example of Newton’s Cradle that uses triggers to start one animation when the other animation ends.
  • Closed Path Animation (and the original Illustrator file) – shows how to set the “follow orientation” of a drawing so that it follows the direction of the curve.

The only file that’s been edited is the Clock example, since it’s no fun looking at a clock that has the wrong time. :-) Otherwise, all of these are directly out of the Ai->Canvas plug-in.

Thank you to everyone who helped test early versions of the plug-in, including many of the companies who created the HTML5-based sites for Beauty of the Web. Your insights absolutely helped to refine the feature-set.

I’d love to hear your feedback about the plug-in so that the next version is even better. Also, if you create any fun projects…even if you’re only using it to export artwork, add a comment along with a URL.

Enjoy!

]]> HTML5 Demo Sites https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/mswanson/html5-demo-sites Wed, 29 Sep 2010 23:30:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mswanson/2010/09/29/html5-demo-sites/ In addition to my work on PDC10 and Tech·Ed Europe 2010 (stop me and say “hi” if you attend one of these events), I’ve been spending quite a bit of my spare time on an upcoming project for the purveyors of standards-based web development over at the finely crafted MIX Online. As part of that work, I often find myself looking for good HTML5 samples, demos, and sites that take advantage of technologies like Canvas, SVG, CSS3, DOM L2 and L3, and ECMAScript5/JavaScript.

There are a lot of fantastic sites that are included on the IE9 Beauty of the Web Experience page, but I’ve personally found it difficult to browse the list. So, I took the time to assemble a simple text-based version for your own browsing pleasure. Some of these focus on IE9-specific features like Pinning and Jump Lists, but many of them take advantage of HTML5 features.

I hate to pick favorites, but when I started this blog years ago, I made a promise that my posts would try to “add value” beyond just a simple copy and paste of the daily news. The value here is that these are my personal favorites (for whatever reason). Some of them may even redefine what you expect from a web “site.”

While they didn’t quite make my favorites list, here are the other sites (in no particular order):

You can find even more demos at the Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive site, and while it doesn’t look like it’s been updated in awhile, www.canvasdemos.com is another fun place to browse. Oh…have fun with these Asteroids demos too.

I know I’m a Microsoft guy (and I’m biased), but if you haven’t tried the Internet Explorer 9 beta with these demos, it’s worth your time. I think you’ll be surprised.

Have fun!

]]> PDC10 is Sold Out! Really? https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/mswanson/pdc10-is-sold-out-really Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:19:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mswanson/2010/08/23/pdc10-is-sold-out-really/ As you may have heard, PDC10 is sold out! This year, we decided to hold the event at the Microsoft Conference Center (otherwise known as the MSCC or building 33) on our corporate campus in Redmond, Washington. There are many good reasons behind this decision, and one of them is to provide a more intimate and engaging experience for our in-person attendees. You see, this is the first time in PDC history that we’ve held the event on our own campus.

Holding the event on campus enables us to do a lot of things that we could never do in a remote location, but it also has its limitations. For example, the Microsoft Conference Center is nowhere near the size of a Los Angeles Convention Center (not even close). That means that we have physical limitations including how many people we can safely accommodate.

You’ve probably noticed signs at restaurants and other public places that state maximum occupancies/capacities, and perhaps you’ve even wondered where these limits come from. Well, they come directly from the fire marshal. There are many factors that go into determining the maximum capacity of a public space, including the size of the space, the height of the ceiling, placement of permanent columns, furniture, built-in cabinets, etc. All of these factors are considered to ensure that getting out of the room in an emergency situation is as fast and as safe as possible. Egress is the word they like to use.

Here’s a diagram of the keynote room for PDC10. The front of the room is at the top, where you’ll notice a representative keynote stage and two large projection screens. The blue areas are for attendees. As you can see, there is no physical space remaining to add more seats. That is, unless you want to sit on the keynote stage or in the aisles. :-) We’re actually required to submit our floor plans to the fire marshal’s office, and it has to be approved before we can hold the event.

This is what we mean when we say “sold out.”

You’d be surprised how many e-mails we receive—both internally and externally—stating that company X or person Y absolutely must be physically present at PDC10. While we understand the frustration of our response, unfortunately, this is a limitation of physical space.

But all is not lost.

This year more than ever, we’re amplifying what we provide online. PDC, MIX, and Tech·Ed attendees have become accustomed to full-screen, high-definition broadcasts of our keynotes and 24-hour-or-less, free downloads of all session content. Yes, we’ll do the same for PDC10 (with some new enhancements), but we’ll also stream all of our sessions live…for free…for anyone. Including your mom. This is how you get back at her for making you watch all of those Hallmark Hall of Fame originals. :-)

We’re also partnering with our global Microsoft offices, academic institutions, and some third parties who want to hold local PDC10-related events. While the list of events is currently being assembled, I highly encourage you to sign-up for the PDC10 mailing list. This, our @PDCEvent Twitter account, and the official PDC10 web site are the best ways to keep up-to-date on the latest developments.

Last, but certainly not least, you can always sit comfortably at home or in your office and watch all of the content streamed to you online.

]]> IE9’s Stunning Text Rendering Quality https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/mswanson/ie9s-stunning-text-rendering-quality Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:30:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mswanson/2010/07/26/ie9s-stunning-text-rendering-quality/ If you follow my blog, you may know that I’m deeply involved in the planning and execution of our PDC, MIX, and Tech·Ed events (including Tech·Ed Europe). My team works on keynotes and content (sessions, hands-on labs, workshops, etc.), among many other things. As a matter of fact, I have an open position on my team for someone who can plan, build, and maintain the public and internal web tools for our big tier-1 events. Apply, if you’re interested. But I digress…

During the lead-up to our MIX10 event this spring, I knew that one of the features that Steven Sinofsky and Dean Hachamovitch would show in our day 2 keynote (demo starts at 19:00) was the hardware-accelerated text quality in IE9. The feature takes advantage of DirectWrite, ClearType, and sub-pixel positioning to improve font quality and readability. This additional precision allows glyphs to start “within” a pixel and not just at their boundaries resulting in more precise and consistent glyph spacing and proportions. This article on ClearType does a good job explaining some of the magic, even though it’s focused on WPF.

If you’re like me, when you hear “sub-pixel positioning” and glyphs that start “within” a pixel, you probably think, “yeah…right!” The MIX10 keynote demo certainly shows an improvement, but Steven and Dean had to zoom pretty far into the text to illustrate the difference. Fast forward to this past weekend.

Recently, I’ve been spending time on an upcoming project for my good friends at MIX Online (just down the hall from me in building 24). The project involves working with the HTML5 canvas element, and I’ve been performing most of my tests with IE9 Platform Preview 3. This weekend, I decided to run some of my test files (HTML and JavaScript) with the latest versions of Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. Honestly, I didn’t expect to find many differences. So imagine my surprise when I saw these results (in alphabetical order):

Update: Some users were reporting that IE8 was automatically resizing these images because of their width. So, I've cropped the images to avoid this behavior. If the images still look "squashed," you can click to view them directly.

Chrome

Firefox

IE9

Safari

What a difference! Look at the rendering quality, readability, and positioning of the text. These are unmodified screenshots from the latest versions of the browsers running on Windows 7 with ClearType enabled. All of the text is rendered with the canvas .fillText command and there are no bitmap images…everything is either text or drawn to the canvas with vectors. I encourage you to try similar tests with your own content. I think you’ll be surprised!

If want to learn more about the technology behind all of this, take a moment to read about the hardware accelerated canvas support in IE9 on the ieblog.

And, of course, I love it when people take the time to send me a quick email. What do you think?

]]> MIX10 Wrap Up https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/mswanson/mix10-wrap-up Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:30:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mswanson/2010/03/19/mix10-wrap-up/ Wow! What a week. The MIX10 event is over, and I hope that everyone made it home safely. It was great to meet everyone in-person, and I love that we referred to each other by our Twitter handles (I heard “Hi, Anyware” many times this week). I thought I’d provide some early data on the event that you might find interesting.

Thank you for attending MIX10, even if your “attendance” is online. Enjoy the keynote and session recordings, leave some feedback, or drop me an e-mail.

Until next time!

]]> MIX10 Surprise Room Upgrades https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/mswanson/mix10-surprise-room-upgrades Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:53:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mswanson/2010/03/09/mix10-surprise-room-upgrades/ When we host a big event, the destination city usually rolls out the proverbial red carpet because of the additional business we bring to the area. This red carpet treatment often extends to the visitors bureau, the convention center, and the nearby hotels. The deal almost always involves committing to a certain number of hotel rooms that we expect to fill. This is called our “room block,” and for MIX10, we sold out our room block awhile ago. As a thank you for our business, the hotel provides us with some nice room upgrades.

In past years, we’ve given the upgrades to members of the team who put in countless hours to ensure that we deliver the best event possible. We never told them in advance, and they were always surprised when they checked-in to their room. It was a fun way to show appreciation for a job well done.

As someone who’s been upgraded (to rooms that have more square footage than my house…and no, I’m not kidding), it’s absolutely exciting to open the door to discover such a palatial spread. The problem is, most of us are so busy running the actual event that we never spend any time in the hotel room. And other than sleeping, I don’t spend much time in the room at all.

What a waste.

So, starting last year, we decided to randomly give the room upgrades to our attendees. Many attendees travel to Las Vegas with their significant others, and what better surprise than to land after a long flight and check-in to a huge and luxurious room. Plus, it’s just plain fun!

For MIX10, we’ve randomly selected 22 attendees who will each receive a complimentary upgrade. That means that their room rate won’t change, and these lucky people will get to enjoy the spoils of an amazing space!

Here are some specifications and photos of the upgraded rooms:

  • 1 x Media Suite – this suite is 2,170 square feet (bigger than some houses), includes 1 1/2 baths, a separate parlor, a 65” plasma HDTV (+ a few others), imported stone floors, and more. If you’re the lucky person who gets this upgrade, it’s almost mandatory that you throw a party. :-)
    Media Suite
  • 1 x Vista Suite – this suite is 1,705 square feet, has a 180-degree view of the strip and mountains, includes a separate parlor, living room, dining room, and bar area, has 1 1/2 baths, a 50” LCD High Definition TV, imported stone floors, and more. Be sure to right-click on the door and select “Run as Administrator” for UAC-free living during your stay.
    Vista Suite
  • 5 x X2 Suite – still huge at 1,450 square feet, with 2 bedrooms, separate parlor and living areas, a view of the strip/beach/pool/mountains, 2 bathrooms, a 42” High Definition Plasma TV, a separate parlor, and more.
     
  • 5 x Spa Suite - 610 square feet, with views of the beach/pool/mountains, a 42” High Definition Plasma TV, and more.
     
  • 10 x Great Room Suite - 765 square feet, with views of strip/mountains, a “unique playpen couch” (sounds very Vegas to me), and more.

We’ve already selected the lucky attendees, and they’ll be informed via e-mail within the next few days. If you end up in one of these suites, please take some photos and share them on Flickr or Twitter. We’ll all be jealous.

Good luck, and I’ll see you in Vegas!

]]> All About MIX10 https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/mswanson/all-about-mix10 Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:02:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mswanson/2010/02/23/all-about-mix10/ MIX10 Logo Here we are, only three short weeks away from our MIX10 event in Las Vegas. It’s been over 5 months (!) since my last update…the longest dry spell in my 5+ year blogging history. My front page still has old PDC2008 information on it! Anyway, I’m long overdue for a MIX10-related post, and I have a lot to cover, so I’m going to do this in bullet-point form and in no particular order.

  • Windows Phone 7 Series – Honestly, it was tough to keep this one under wraps, especially with something this exciting. If you haven’t watched the Mobile World Congress keynote with Steve Ballmer, Joe Belfiore, and Andy Lees yet, go do that first. It’s a great introduction.

    We have 12 Windows Phone sessions, and while we haven’t revealed the real titles and descriptions yet, know that MIX10 is the best place to learn how to build applications and games for Windows Phone 7 Series. You’ll be introduced to the development platform and we’ll show you how to use the tools. Best of all, attendees will receive exclusive free developer support.

    To stay in-the-loop on Windows Phone 7 Series-related information, be sure to follow @ckindel on Twitter.
     
  • Keynoters – Back by popular demand is Bill Buxton, recently honored as one of BusinessWeek’s World’s Most Influential Designers. Bill was a favorite at MIX09, and we received a lot of positive attendee feedback about how accessible Bill was in the hallways between sessions. Well, Bill loved it just as much, and he’s excited to be back again this year.

    MIX veteran, Scott Guthrie, returns to the stage as one of our highest-rated keynote speakers. I’ve been working with Scott and his team on keynotes and demos for the past few months, and I have to say that I’m excited about what he has to show this year. Well, I’m excited every year, but MIX10 feels special. Be sure to watch Bill and Scott in the MIX09 day 1 keynote.

    The astute among you may remember MIX10 keynoter, Joe Belfiore, and his Beyond the Browser general session from MIX06 (the first year of the conference). He’s back this year, and as the Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Program Management, you can probably guess what he’s going to talk about.

    Last, but certainly not least, is Dean Hachamovitch, another MIX veteran and General Manager of Internet Explorer. You can watch Dean in last year’s MIX09 day 2 keynote. To get a sense of what his team has been up to, watch the PDC09 day 2 keynote with Steven Sinofsky, and jump to 39:34.
     
  • Twitter – Have you tried Twitter yet? If you haven’t, MIX10 is a good time to start. It won’t cost you a thing, and I think you’ll find that you learn a lot more about what’s going on at the event. We’re still three weeks out, and I count 106 tweets just today (it’s easy to search for MIX10-related tweets). It’s like a separate and parallel conversation full of tidbits and useful nuggets of information, especially during the event.

    Here’s a chart showing the number of unique tweets (not including re-tweets) per day around last year’s MIX09 event. Pre-conference workshops happened on March 17th, and the main event ran from March 18th through March 20th. As you can see, there is a lot of Twitter activity!

    MIX09 Tweets

    After you’ve signed up, be sure to follow @MIXEvent for all of our official conference communications. If you’d like to hang out with fellow tweeps (and get some free drinks…at least until the tab runs out), RSVP for the MIX10 Tweetup on Sunday, March 14th at 9:00pm.

    If you decide to tweet about the event, include the #MIX10 hashtag so we can all hear you. And if you’re really bored (is this even possible in Las Vegas?), follow me at @Anyware.
     
  • Channel 9 Live – Similar to PDC09, Nic Fillingham (@nicfill) and crew are planning to broadcast live content during most of MIX10. Watch the 10-minute Countdown to MIX10: Let’s do it Live for the details and follow @ch9live on Twitter.
     
  • Attendee directory – Share your contact information in the directory that becomes available around one week before the conference. It’s a great way to contact other attendees who have decided to share their information. It’s completely optional, and only registered attendees will be able to see it.

    First, use your Windows Live ID to login to the registration page. Then, scroll down to the Attendee Directory section where you can edit your details (First Name, Last Name, Company, Role, E-mail Address, Blog/Podcast URL, and Twitter Username). Share as much or as little as you’d like.
     
  • Session times – While we haven’t officially announced it anywhere yet, we’re hoping to publish session dates, times, and rooms around March 1st. So, if you’re trying to put together a session attack plan, keep checking the session list.
     
  • My Sessions – Help us schedule the most popular sessions in the biggest rooms by adding your favorite sessions to your own personal My Sessions list. Note that your list isn’t a “reservation” or commitment to attend a session…it’s just a convenient way for us to monitor interest and for you to manage your schedule. As an attendee, you can show up for any session you’d like at any time.

    To manage your list, first login to the MIX10 site with your Windows Live ID, then click “Add this to my schedule” for any session that interests you. Click “My Sessions” on the right-hand side to list your selected sessions. Click “printer friendly” to print your sessions. After we’ve published session dates, times, and rooms (around March 1st), you’ll also be able to add the sessions to Outlook (or any calendar application that understands ICS files).

    While it’s not a completely fair list, here are the current top 10 sessions based on how many people have added them to their My Sessions list. Why do I say it’s not fair? Well, some of these have been published and available longer than others, so they’ve had more time for people to add them.
     
  • Countdown to MIX10 – Jennifer Ritzinger and I record a weekly 10-minute show where we discuss the MIX10 conference. To-date, we’ve recorded 9 MIX10 shows that you can find here:

  • Who attends – During registration, we ask a few simple survey questions of our attendees. Here are some of the interesting data points.

    • 1/3 of MIX10 attendees have attended a MIX event in the past.
    • The three most popular tools that our attendees use are ASP.NET, SQL Server, and Silverlight (in that order).
    • The top three goals for attending MIX10 are “to learn about new products and technologies,” “to see Microsoft’s roadmap and vision,” and “to learn best practices.”
    • When asked to position a slider between “designer” and “developer” (where designer = 1 and developer = 9), the average response is 4.52 – right down the middle. 12% of attendees report that they’re neither a designer nor a developer. WHAT ARE YOU, MAN!?!?
    • The most popular MIX10 attendee first name is Michael. What can I say?
    • Most of our attendees (52%) “build or develop web sites for others.”
    • MIX10 attendees come from 56 countries. After the U.S., most attendees come from Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, France, and Japan.
       
  • RSS/OData – Did you know that MIX10 session data is available via RSS? Soon, we’ll also be exposing session data using the Open Data Protocol (as an aside, we have a couple of sessions on OData at the event). For anyone who wants to build their own session tool or simply wants to convert the data to other formats, this is the way to do it. Yes, both formats will include session dates, times, and rooms when that information is made available.
     
  • Live Streaming and Session Recordings – As always, we’ll stream the day 1 and day 2 keynotes live from the home page. And like PDC09, we’ll be using Smooth Streaming for the highest quality experience.

    Also, like prior events, all sessions will be recorded and published within 24 hours of their completion. Secondary formats (like lower bitrate and MP4 files) will appear as they are encoded; this usually takes a little bit longer.

    If you can’t afford to attend MIX10, or if you just can’t get out of the office, at least you’ll be able to view the keynotes and sessions online. Note that we don’t record the pre-conference workshops, and those will not be available for online viewing or download.
     
  • MIX10 GadgetMIX10 Internal Gadget – I mentioned this internal Windows 7 gadget in one of our Countdown to MIX10 shows, and ever since, people have asked to see what it looks like. Well, here it is. Note that I’ve replaced the numbers and changed the bars and tick marks, but this should still give you an idea of what it displays.

    While we can always login to our registration site and dig through all of the registration details, I wrote the first version of this gadget many events ago so that we could monitor registrations at-a-glance. It connects to a backend database and polls for new data every 15 minutes (or longer…it’s a configuration option). If there are any new registrations, it makes a sound; it’s fun to hear the sound during a meeting.

    ”General” reports the number of general attendees (i.e. not staff, Microsoft employees, etc.). The gray bar below the number shows progress as a percentage, and the tick mark indicates where we hope to be by the end of the current week. As mentioned, I’ve removed the numbers and changed the bar and tick marks for this example.

    ”Prior attendee” is as it sounds…it’s the percentage of attendees who have been at a prior MIX event. The green “up arrows” next to MIX08 and MIX09 mean that—as a percentage—we’re ahead of registrations for the same T-minus week for those prior events.

    ”BIS” indicates how many physical people we have to accommodate at the event. We don’t have projections for this number, so there is no tick mark on the bar graph.

    ”Wrkshops” reports how many attendees have signed-up for pre-conference workshops.

    ”Reg Site” is a link directly to our backend registration site, and “Event Site” takes us to the public event site.
     
  • Ask the Experts – Do you have a tough/niggling (yes, it’s a real word) question that’s been driving you crazy? Or do you have feedback to share about a product or technology? Show up Monday night from 5:00pm – 6:30pm for Ask the Experts, where Microsoft employees and third-party experts will be on-hand. Even if you don’t have anything specific to ask, it’s fun to lurk and listen.
     
  • Event Tips – Thomas Lewis (@TommyLee), purveyor of the fabulous and award-winning MIX Online, has published The Devil’s Field Guide to MIX09, and it’s just as valid for MIX10. Read it.
     
  • Infrastructure – I asked our infrastructure expert to give me some geeky stats about the on-site network that we configure (no, it doesn’t come with the facility rental). Here are a few tidbits.

    • As before, free wireless will be available in the keynote room, the session rooms, and most of the public areas. If you get a wireless signal in the restrooms, consider yourself lucky…I guess. :-)
    • MIX10 will have 354Mbps of total network bandwidth. About 200Mbps is allocated to the wireless network, 100Mbps is used for the show, and 45Mbps is reserved for keynote backup (though we add it to the overall pool when the keynotes are over).
    • The wireless network supports 802.11A, B, and G. Depending on bandwidth consumption, we have the ability to rate-limit A and G. You’d be surprised how many people like to stream or download session videos back into the event center.
    • We use Xirrus XN16 Arrays, each containing 16 radio units.
       
  • Get Lamp – Completely unrelated to MIX10 (seriously)…if you’re a fan of the old Infocom text adventures, I expect this soon-to-be-released documentary called Get Lamp to be awesome. Jason’s BBS: The Documentary was fantastic. Xyzzy.

I hope to see you at MIX10!

]]> Evolving the PDC09 Event Site https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/mswanson/evolving-the-pdc09-event-site Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:25:24 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mswanson/2009/09/10/evolving-the-pdc09-event-site/ Did you know that the PDC is assembled and run by the same group that does MIX? At this year’s MIX09 in Las Vegas, we hired a company to facilitate seven on-site focus groups, each comprised of around 10 attendees. While the questions covered a broad range of event topics, many related to our “online experience.” Here is a small sample of verbatim comments:

  • “this year's site is difficult to navigate: hard to find info about sessions and content”
  • “more pre-data should be given: concentrate on schedule and speakers”
  • “Integrate identity of MIX09.com website with passport or open ID”
  • “tag the sessions so it is easier to choose a theme and follow it”

For PDC09, we decided to invest in a single online platform that addresses this feedback and allows us to reuse and evolve it for both MIX and PDC. The platform is being developed by the same group that built Channel 9 and MIX Online, and it uses Oxite as its foundation.

Here are some of the things we’re doing:

  • To simplify the site, we’ve reduced the number of pages and navigation elements, and we’ve made the most important information more prominent. We went through a complete process to identify the right information architecture, and Tim Aidlin’s post, Designing the PDC09 Experience, gives additional context and insight.
  • Because we’ve heard that session management is important, we’ve tried to make it easier to find, filter, plan, and share the sessions that interest you.
    • A list of “Featured Sessions” is prominently displayed on the home page of the site. We try to publish new sessions around the first of each month, and this hand-picked list is usually from the most recent batch.
    • All workshops and sessions are tagged with their primary technologies, related topics, and general themes. Click the “show tags” link on our Sessions page to expose and filter using the tag list.
    • Each workshop and session has a details page with comments. This is a great way to provide feedback to the presenter ahead of the event or to ask questions after-the-fact.
    • In the coming weeks, we’ll enable new functionality that makes it easy to pick your favorite sessions and add them to a personal agenda. Behind the scenes, we’ll use this data to gauge the popularity of each session so we can schedule them in appropriately-sized rooms. So, the more you use the tool, the better we can make the in-person experience. Then, when we assign rooms and time slots closer to the event, you’ll be able to modify your schedule and coordinate an overall conference attack plan.
  • Our Speakers page shows an alphabetical and searchable list of everyone who is speaking at the event, including a short bio and an optional photo. When a speaker’s name is clicked, you’ll see the list of sessions they’re presenting.
  • We’ve integrated with Live ID so you don’t have to create a new identify or profile just to interact with the site. Plus, logging-in with your Live ID makes it possible for you to save the list of your favorite sessions.
  • Like MIX09, we’ll stream the keynotes live and display #pdc09-related tweets. The team is investigating ways to filter out spurious tweets, spam, retweets, bots, etc. so the feed isn’t cluttered with useless information. Our events have proven to be trending topics on Twitter, and as a result, they draw a lot of attention…some of it unwanted.
  • We’ll also be releasing a mobile optimized version of the site that makes it easier to navigate the physical conference. It’ll show an abbreviated version of the sessions that have been added to your agenda, a list of all sessions, important news, and logistical information like maps.
  • Last, we’ll make it easy to download keynote and session content after the event. We’ve learned that many of you like the “all you can eat” plan, so we’ll do our best to make this a simple scenario.

At the end of the day, our goal is to provide both in-person and online attendees with an experience that makes it easy to plan, organize, navigate, consume, and share the content that matters most. Hopefully, we’ve struck the right balance.

As always, we’d love your feedback. Did we miss anything? What would you prioritize?

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