MIX10 is over and it has been a great pleasure for me to be there. I will provide you with some short recap of the “What’s new”s and “Must see”s.

Facts

Windows Phone

MIX10 was so all about Windows Phone that I guess everyone out there must have heard of it. But anyways I will provide some facts about it.

• Development for Windows Phone can be done with either Silverlight or XNA.
• The tools for development are totally free and can be downloaded at http://www.silverlight.net/getstarted/devices/windows-phone/. You find some getting started information there as well.
• There is a special (free) version of Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone, but you can of course use you normal Visual Studio 2010 version, when it’s released.
• There is a full featured emulator you can use for testing your applications.
• At the moment it seems, that if you write your programs in Silverlight, you can use only one touch point on the Windows Phone. Hopefully this is because everything is still under heavy development.
• Tim Heuer posted a nice “Getting started” article at http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2010/03/15/get-started-with-silverlight-for-windows-phone.aspx.
• Grab the free Windows Phone Developer Training Kit here: http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/wpdev/archive/2010/03/15/go-get-it-the-windows-phone-developer-training-kit.aspx

Silverlight 4

Silverlight didn’t shine nearly a much as last year. It stood cleary in the shadow of the Windows Phone. I kind of do not understand this, since there are so many exciting new features especially for business applications.

At MIX10 the RC of Silverlight 4 has been released and the final version will come out in April. I guess Microsoft will sync it with the release of Visual Studio 2010. The tools and such can be grabbed at http://www.silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight-4/

The differences in Silverlight 4 compared to previous versions:

• The Silverlight definitive diff lists: http://firstfloorsoftware.com/blog/the-silverlight-definitive-diff-lists/
• Ensuring That Your Silverlight Applications Work with Silverlight 4: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645049%28VS.96%29.aspx
• A guide to what has changed in the Silverlight 4 RC: http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2010/03/15/whats-new-in-silverlight-4-rc-mix10.aspx
• New in the Silverlight 4 RC: XAML Features: http://www.davidpoll.com/2010/03/15/new-in-the-silverlight-4-rc-xaml-features/

Microsoft also released a first version of the Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework, which provides an API as well as many 3rd party providers (like GoogleAnalytics, ATInternetAnalytics, etc.) for analyzing your website traffic.

Channel 9 published a list of Silverlight 4 Training Courses at http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Silverlight4/

A new version of the Silverlight Toolkit will be available soon at http://silverlight.codeplex.com/

HTML 5

HTML 5 (supported by IE9) is kind of strange for me: On one side it’s great, because of its possibilities, hardware acceleration, etc., but on the other hand there is Silverlight. I really hope Microsoft will push them both, since in my opinion Silverlight has the biggest potential. HTML 5 will kind of transport us back to the stone age concerning the development platform.

OData

From a session description: “The Open Data Protocol (OData) applies web technologies such as HTTP, AtomPub and JSON to enable a wide range of data sources to be exposed on the web in a simple, secure and interoperable way. Whether you have a simple collection of reference data, are building a Rich Internet Application using WCF RIA Services or are building the data platform for a high-end website, this code-heavy session walks through the key technologies and practices available to expose your data and its associated logic as an OData feed.”

Well that sure sounds great, but would you really implement a web service breaking all your clients when changing a thing in the schema? “Well just use versioning”, you might say. Well there isn’t any versioning in OData…

Sessions

There have been great sessions at MIX10 and I will provide you with my personal favorites. Be aware that the listed sessions are mostly in the non-tech/UX area, but those are the ones I attended. In order of appearance:

1. Keynotes
   Really not great this year, but give you a nice round-up.
   1. Day 1: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/KEY01
   2. Day 2: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/KEY02
2. The Art, Technology and Science of Reading: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/DS07
3. 10 Ways to Attack a Design Problem and Come Out Winning: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/EX06
4. Touch in Public: Multi-touch Interaction Design for Kiosks and Architectural Experiences: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/DS06
5. Designing Bing: Heart and Science: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/CL06
6. The Elephant in the Room: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/DS13
7. An Hour With Bill Buxton: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/DS16
8. Design the Ordinary, Like the Fixie: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/EX25
9. Developing Natural User Interfaces with Microsoft Silverlight and WPF 4 Touch: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/EX18
10. Treat Your Content Right: http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/DS02

Ressources

Some links and other stuff which won’t fit in the other categories can be found here.

• The Spectrum of User Experience: http://informationarchitects.jp/the-spectrum-of-user-experience-1/
• Jason Santa Maria (a great site about graphic design): http://jasonsantamaria.com/
• Typography.com (all about font design): http://www.typography.com/home/index.php?affiliateID=
• Dynamic Layout and Transitions in Expression Blend 4: http://blogs.msdn.com/expression/archive/2010/03/16/dynamic-layout-and-transitions-in-expression-blend-4.aspx
• Very nice (fun) video: Star Wars vs. Saul Bass on YouTube as recommended by Robby Ingebretsen
• MIX10 sessions on
  • iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/sessions-microsoft-mix10/id362365921
  • MIX site itself: http://live.visitmix.com/videos
• Microsoft Design .toolbox – A free online training site for Silverlight and Expression Studio
  Andy wrote a nice overview of what’s inside: http://www.andybeaulieu.com/Home/tabid/67/EntryID/191/Default.aspx
• Robby Ingebretsens (very) short list of must read books for aspiring designers #mix10
• Robby Ingebretsens list of speaks: http://speaking.nerdplusart.com/
• Official Fotostream of MIX10 on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mixevent
• MIX10 Tools, Samples and Downloads: http://live.visitmix.com/resources

Update:

• Awesome install checklist from Adam Kinney: http://adamkinney.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/install-checklist-for-silverlight-4-rc-blend-4-beta-and-windows-phone-developer-tools-from-mix10/

Only 13 days till MIX10 and counting! I am so excited to be there, learning tons of new stuff and meeting old and new friends. My plane will be leaving in about one week, since I will be hiking Zion Canyon a few days before MIX10 itself.

If you’re going to MIX10, you really should attend the Tweetup on Sunday (http://twtvite.com/5i84zm). It’s a great way to meet nice designer/developer people and prepare for the days to come. (Psst: Some say, that even Bill Buxton himself will be there!)

Also: Be sure to check out the Session Planner in Silverlight with offline functionality. (Read more about it at http://blogs.msdn.com/sync/archive/2010/03/01/organize-yourself-at-mix10-using-mix10-session-planner-beta.aspx)

If you just can’t go to MIX10, you can use this website to express your pain: http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/ ;)

Update 2010-03-05: Albert just told me about an iPhone session planner for MIX10: http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/mix10/id357234402?mt=8. I just tried it and it really rocks. The only thing I would wish for is synchronization with the Windows Live account used at the standard MIX10 site.

[German post concerning a user group driven conference in cologne]

Die Community-Konferenz dotnet Cologne 2010, zum Launch von Visual Studio 2010 und .NET Framework 4, findet am 28. Mai 2010 im Holiday Inn am Stadtwald statt.

Neben Visual Studio 2010 und .NET 4.0 werden innerhalb der 18 Sessions natürlich auch noch weitere Themen angeboten.

Eine Anmeldung ist ab dem 3. März 2010 um 10:20 Uhr möglich!

Ab diesem Zeitpunkt besteht die Möglichkeit eines der 150 begehrten Super Early Bird Tickets zu bekommen. Zum Super Early Bird kosten die Tickets nur 25 €! Danach werden sich die Preise auf 40 € bzw. 55 € erhöhen.

Am Abend veranstaltet dass dotnet-forum.de ihre Community Grill-Fete. Dort können sowohl die Konferenz Teilnehmer als auch Mitglieder des dotnet-forum.de (auch ohne Konferenz) teilnehmen. Bei schönem Wetter findet sie draußen am See statt!

Aktuell werden noch Sprecher gesucht. Wer also möchte kann sich mit Vorschlägen an das Orga Team wenden. Neben Ruhm & Ehre gibt es für Sprecher auch freien Eintritt. Details dazu finden sich auf der Call for Papers Seite.

[German post concerning a raffle of an Xbox 360 by listing my favorite developer tools.]

Die Möglichkeit eine Xbox 360 Elite durch Auflistung meiner Top Entwicklertools zu gewinnen, lasse ich mir natürlich nicht entgehen:

• JetBrains ReSharper
  Nach jahrelangen, hassähnlichen Gefühlen gegenüber ReSharper, hat die 4.5er Version endlich mein Herz gewonnen und ich möchte sie in der täglichen Arbeit nicht mehr missen.
• .NET Reflector
  Ohne ihn geht es einfach nicht ;)
• GhostDoc
  Ich nutze ihn zwar inzischen deutlich seltener, aber er unterstützt mich immer noch prima bei der Dokumentation öffentlicher APIs.

P.S: Eigentlich auch noch SonicFileFinder (Wenn ich ihn nicht nutzen würde, hätte ich ihn nicht entwickelt), aber ich darf ja nur drei Tools nennen ;)

Since a few days ago, I am proud owner of an Acer Aspire H340 easyStore Home Server. It came preconfigured with a few Add-Ins, for example the Firefly Media Server Add-In and the Lights-Out Add-In.

The Firefly Media Server Add-In got some nice features. One is the automatic creation of an iTunes Shared Library based on all music located in the Home Server “Music”-folder.

The Problem

So, I tried that feature, but it didn’t work: My iTunes installation on the desktop didn’t see the Shared Library.

The problem was, that the H340 comes with an old version of “Bonjour” installed, which doesn’t work with the current iTunes version (8.1.1). “Bonjour” is the service providing the Shared Library functionality.

The Solution

So, if you encounter this problem, just download the current Bonjour version from http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/windows/bonjourforwindows.html, log into your Home Server using Remote Desktop (Account is “Administrator” and the Home Server Console password) and upgrade Bonjour. Done!

In the dawn of Windows 7 RC on MSDN and “for the masses” in two days there comes a new logon screen:

Birds? Are they kidding me? Tough guys need tough logon screens, like flying pink elephants or something.

Good news is, that you can easily customize the logon screen without any resource hacking, etc.

Preparing your installation for logon customization

The functionality was originally designed for OEMs, so the first thing to do is to check, whether this feature is already enabled.

Start regedit.exe (requires admin rights), navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background and look for a DWORD called OEMBackground.

Create it, if it doesn’t exist and set its value to 1 to enable it, or 0 to disable.

Exchange logon wallpapers with your own ones

The “OEM wallpapers” are stored in %windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds where you may find the following list:

• backgroundDefault.jpg
• background768×1280.jpg
• background900×1440.jpg
• background960×1280.jpg
• background1024×1280.jpg
• background1280×1024.jpg
• background1024×768.jpg
• background1280×960.jpg
• background1600×1200.jpg
• background1440×900.jpg
• background1920×1200.jpg
• background1280×768.jpg
• background1360×768.jpg

It may be that the neither the files nor the directory exist. If so, simply create them.

Just replace the file matching the resolution of your primary monitor. If Windows can’t find a file matching your resolution, it uses the backgroundDefault.jpg in “stretched-to-fit” mode. So, if you’re too lazy to create all the files for different resolutions, just delete all files but the default one.

Be aware, that you can only use files with less than 256kb in size.

For those of you being depressed, because UltraMon 3.0.x Beta isn’t running under Windows 7 Beta, I say: “Don’t be! There’s help!”

After asking the Realtime Soft team about Windows 7 support, I received the following answer:

Disabling the window buttons in the registry will allow you to use UltraMon, to do this run regedit.exe, go to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Realtime Soft\UltraMon\<version>\Window Buttons', then change the value of 'Maximize to Desktop Button' and 'Move Window Button' from one to zero.

Big thanks to Christian Studer for this great tip!

The year 2008 is almost gone (at least in my timezone) and I would like to thank all the great people, who visited this website. Especially those ones giving me so much positive feedback for SonicFileFinder and even more the ones sending presents from my wishlists.

It’s been great to see, that SonicFileFinder picked up some speed in this year. It almost cracked the 10000-Downloads-in-one-year barrier!

I am so much looking forward to 2009, since there are great opportunities at work (Comma-Soft AG) in building new (web) frontends. A new private project is going to start. There is a good chance, that I will attend the Mix 2009 and so much more.

Furthermore, I am hoping for more time to blog about interesting stuff, since besides the SonicFileFinder releases it has been quite silent in 2008.

Anyways, I wish you folks all the best for 2009! Stay save, be delighted, do some sports, enjoy, have a great time with friends and family, live, watch good movies, eat good food … well, you know the rest.

Kind regards

Jens

P.S: Let’s also not forget the SPAMers providing me with so many hilarious E-Mail as well as so much annoying stuff. Thank you!

Everybody owning an iPhone has encountered the small Sleep/Wake button button located at the top right. Normally it puts the iPhone to sleep or wakes it up, when it’s light asleep.

But it can do more!

After pressing it for about 3 seconds a “slide to power off” message appears. After confirming it, the iPhone will be shut down completely. To wake it again from its deep slumber, just press the Sleep/Wait button for 1 second and the phone boots up.

I guess you already knew that, right?

Well, it can do even more! (Now comes the good part ;)

When receiving a call in sleep mode (the screen is off), the phone wakes up, shows information about the caller and displays the “slide to answer” message, but there seems to be no way to ignore or kick out the caller. This is where the Sleep/Wait button comes in:

• Press Sleep/Wait one time to shut off vibration and ringtone
• Press Sleep/Wait rapidly two times to kick out the caller and send him/her directly to your VoiceMail box

How cool is that?

P.S: @Uwe: Yes, I am working on the 2.0 release of SonicFileFinder ;)

Since the Windows Live Writer Backup Utility won't work under Vista x64 at the moment, I'd like to describe how you can do this manually.

The complete settings consist of four parts:

• Blog Templates
• Blog Posts (drafts and recently posted)
• Plugins
• Registry Settings

Blog Templates

The blog templates reside at C:\Users\<your user name>\appdata\Roaming\Windows Live Writer\blogtemplates or when using C# you should use Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData followed by \Windows Live Writer\blogtemplates to get the path.

Blog Posts

Your blog posts are located in the "Documents" folder inside a sub folder called "My Weblog Posts". C# knows the "Documents" folder as Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal.

Plugins

If you installed any plugins for Windows Live Writer, you will find them inside your "Program Files" folder underneath "Windows Live\Writer\Plugins"

Registry Settings

Last not least, you have to open regedit.exe and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Live\Writer. To backup, simply right click, click "export" and write the settings to a .reg file. Double click this file to import the settings again.

When using Windows Live Writer for blogging with Drupal you have to consider a few things, when setting up your account as explained here for example.

But even then, you cannot download any categories from Drupal for use in Windows Live Writer. There is a small bug in the blogapi.module (located under /modules/blogapi/ in your Drupal installation).

Inside this file there is a function at the end of it named _blogapi_get_node_types().

function _blogapi_get_node_types() {
$available_types = array_keys(array_filter(variable_get('blogapi_node_types', array('blog' => 1))));
$types = array();
foreach (node_get_types() as $type => $name) {
if (node_access('create', $type) && in_array($type, $available_types)) {
$types[] = $type;
}
}

You simply have to delete the red marked parts and everything will work as expected.

So, after my first and kind of overwhelming FedCon XVI last year, I tried out FedCon XVII two weeks ago. Well, maybe I was a bit more down-to-earth, maybe I didn't see the thing through rose-colored glasses, but this FedCon wasn't nearly like my first. It may also have been the fact, that "Jägermeister" - the big sponsor this year - was everywhere! (Well not inside the restrooms. At least I haven't seen them there.) Even Marc B. Lee called it the "JägerCon". There were other things I very much disliked, but I spare you the details. As you may have experienced yourself: The good things stay in memory and the bad things (were there any?) will pass away.

"Stop whining and bring up some of the good stuff!" you say. Well, here it comes...

Mary McDonnell alias Laura Roslin from Battlestar Galactica was very much a pleasant surprise. She was moved to tears at the closing ceremony and she didn't play her role there. Throughout the panels, she formed one of the running gags at FedCon. Wanting to say a few words in German, she said: "Es ist so geil hier zu sein!" She thought that "geil" means awesome, but in German it's more "horny" than "awesome" ;) Another quote when answering a question: "I ordered someone out of an airlock. I don't know whom, there were so many."
	I still don't know, where that question came from, but another running gag was: "Have you ever seen Jamie Bamber naked?" Even people from the audience, even Marc B. Lee himself inside the audience asked the different actors/actresses on stage this question more than once.
Brent Spiner alias Data in TNG - he would make a great stand-up comedian - was hilarious on stage. He came up with the theory, that you tell a bad joke, no matter how bad, and repeat it 10 times, the audience will die of laughter. So he told us: "How proud he was playing on Battlestar Galactica.". You may know, or may have guessed, Brent never played on BSG. But after the 10th time telling this in the strangest situations, the audience was rolling on the floor laughing.
	Did you know, that Rene Auberjonois alias Odo in DS9 actually played with the great Audrey Hepburn on Broadway? And that he and his wife are calling their house in LA "the house that Star Trek built"?
Bruce Boxleitner (left) alias John Sheridan in Babylon 5 had a panel together with Peter Jurasic alias Londo Mollari in Babylon 5. Those two also did Tron together by the way. This panel was clearly the highlight of the whole weekend! You really had to see those guys to believe it. Some quotes: Bruce: (responding to a question about the making-of of a movie) "I don't know, if they put it on tape". Peter: "It's called DVDs now!" Bruce: (responding to a question concerning what happened to the planet next to Babylon 5 after its destruction) [serious facial expression] "Well, I guess it's still there."
	LeVar Burton (Geordy La Forge), Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi) and Brent Spiner were great together. Shame on LeVar and Brent, leaving the panel after 20min, to catch their plane. But afterwards Marina told us much funstuff from the set at TNG. Her standard quote as the ship's counsellor was "Captain, he's hiding something". One day after that quote saying it to Patrick Steward (alias Jean-Luc Picard), he answered (in a funny way): "Yeah, I know that you stupid cow! You waste of space!"
This year's costume contest was great as always, but the about 3 meters high an 4-5 meters long At-At was amazing!
	You are dooooomed!!
What a nice couple!
	Even Stormtroopers have to go shopping from time to time.
Last, but definitely not least Giles Aston in his fabulous Nemesis costume taking a picture with me at the end of FedCon.

I'd like to close now with words from Londo Mollari: "That wasn't so bad after all, yes?"

Like last year, you will find a selection of the photos I took in the gallery. (Don't use the internal gallery located at http://www.jens-schaller.de/gallery, because the Drupal integration is somewhat slow.)

I just went live with my new website based on the Drupal CMS system. It's not perfect and some stuff is missing, but the basic stuff should work.

Links to content of the old typo3 based site should be completely redirected to the new site. Although I expect there will be a few links I forgot, so the next days could be a bumpy ride. I'll check the log for dead links, but please tell me, if something doesn't work as expected.

Regards
Jens

This great tip is masterminded by a colleague of mine, Prakash Punnoor, who fell in love with the Penguin OS.

He says that

...would be the right thing to do with Vista.

Well, as you may have guessed, I don't share his opinion ;)

No really, I like Vista. It's not perfect, but it's on the right way. SP1 won't fix all problems and the Media Center still has a long way to go, but it never really let me down since I first installed it using the Beta 2. And since this is the last tip in the Vista Tips Galore, I thank you all for reading and for your feedback.

When watching TV or other videos, the video decoder integrated into the Vista Media Center isn't really that great. The PowerDVD video decoder is much better and faster, which for example eliminates the sometimes stuttering video when using the standard video decoder.

After installing another video decoder, you have to tell Vista which one to use. You can either do this performing some artistics in the Vista registry, or simply by downloading a very small tool from Garry Whittaker called VMCD.exe.

After starting it, you see the following dialog allowing you to choose a video as well as an audio decoder for use with Vista Media Center.

I would recommend leaving the audio decoder as is and setting the video decoder to PowerDVD as shown in the picture.

The somewhat unimpressive input field in the Vista start menu yields great power, but it can be extended even more. A small program called Start++ from Brandon Paddock extends the start menu with powerful, customizable extensions called Startlets.

You can:

• Perform a web search
• Look-up something Wikipedia or Dictionary.com
• Play all music matching certain keywords, or by a particular artist
• Send an e-mail to a specific contact
• "sudo" - Run a command as an Administrator
• etc.

Start++ is expandable through Startlets in the form of Commands or Gadgets. Yes, you get it for free, but since it's CareWare, you might consider a donation.

By default Vista fills the initial view of the start menu with often used applications. The order of those applications may change based on how frequent an application is started. One can make sure, that an application stays permanently in the start menu.

Just Right click on an application in the start menu and select Pin to Start Menu.

This even works for any .EXE file in the Windows Explorer! Right clicking and selecting Unpin from Start Menu detaches an application from the start menu.

Microsoft seems to think that never ever anyone shuts down their Vista computers.

When pressing the red shut down button in the start menu, Vista goes to sleep instead of really shutting down. This behavior can be changed in the depths of the system:

• Press Start
• Enter power (which searches for something containing the word power)
• Select Power Options
• Click on Change plan settings underneath the active power plan
• Click on Change advanced power settings
• Expand Power buttons and lid -> Start menu power button
• Select Shut down in the drop down list

This is something I stumbled upon, which isn't really obvious. You can actually grab the bluish status bar in Windows Explorer and drag it upwards to display more meta data of the selected file.

You can even edit the meta data in this view!

The meta data of files sometimes contains sensible information, which should be removed before e-mailing the file for example.

Vista now has the built-in functionality to remove this meta data. Just open the context menu of a file and go to the Details tab. To remove the meta data, click on the Remove Properties and Personal Information link at the bottom.

It's possible to show a file content preview in Windows Explorer:

This option is hidden behind Organize -> Layout -> Preview Pane. The preview not only works for image files, but for all files with a preview handler installed, e.g. for Office 2007 files.

Vista offers the feature of choosing between different file views, which can be changed using the context menu or the slider behind the Views button in Windows Explorer or the Desktop.

You can change those views more quickly using the mouse wheel: Just hold CTRL and turn the mouse wheel.