Before I talk about Tuesday, I should finish up Monday since I blogged before the Mashup Event.  I blogged early as I figured I'd stick it out until 2am, but being on Central Time, that's 4am, and I just couldn't make it, especially considering the mix of Corona and sugar was putting me in a coma.  Anyway it was very cool as they had some comedians there making light of everyone's ideas.  The idea behind the night was to come up with mashups and build a quick solution, and the winner got an XBox.

So on to Tuesday, I made it up bright and early for the 8:30 session (10:30 my time <smile/>) on a session on Silverlight and .NET.  The first 15 minutes was good as they dug into the technical information, but after that it was pure coding and I can't really sit through sessions like that, so I bolted and headed to the Sandbox for yet another copy of Vista Ultimate and Expression (cool).  The couple neat thing I learned about the .NET install for Silverlight is that it's only 4MB, the apps still run in the sandbox with no way out, and you don't get any annyoing elevation prompts.  By the way you can start playing with this today, and if you do you should downolad:

• Silverlight 1.1 Alpha
• Visual Studio "Oraca" Beta 1
• Silverlight Tools Alpha for "Orcas" Beta 1
• Expression Blend 2 May Preview
• ASP.NET Futures (don't know exactly what they meant by this)

Afterwards I headed to a session on the future of design to mix (funny eh) things up a little.  Never quite understanding how designer think, I learned some really cool things about user experience in this session, but in the end it's simple.  Hit the value proposition, save the user clicks, save the user time, but ignore all of these if it takes something else to create a positive emotional experience.

Next thing on my plate was the Office Live session.  I had seen the demos before, but went mainly to get a chance to talk to the presenters, as we are actively doing some R&D work around Office Live.  If you don't know anything about Office Live, be sure and go sign up for a free account at http://officelive.microsoft.com and start playing.  In a nutshell it is subscription based access to SharePoint, Email, Calendar and anything else collaborative.  There is a complete API that allows you to build your own applications on top of it, plus the ability to use most of the normal SharePoint APIs.

Last session for the day was another Keynote, which frankly bored me.  I didn't really have a rhythm to it and there was very little new information to be gained.  I left early, nothing else to say.  Of course after that was the party, that no Microsoft event should be without.  We got to hang out at Pure in Caesars Palace for several hours and drink on the stock holders.  Pussycat Dolls perform every night, but that room was way to crowded with testosterone, so I spent my time on rooftop patio, which is what I'd recommend if you even get a chance to check this place out.  It's probably one of the coolest bars I've ever been in.  And with that note I'll end with a couple bad pictures from the evening.

I discovered a new product last night during the Mashup event called Live Writer.  It's a free Beta product downloadable from http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com.  This product was built for blogging to Live Spaces, but allows you to blog to most other weblogs also.  If you've read my entries in the past you'll know that I was really jazzed about blogging from Word in 2007 as I was pushing entries to both Live Space and Blogspot.  With Live Writer the interface for adding new account is much simpler than Word, and it seems to support more weblogs, including Wordpress, which I'll be publishing to again as well starting with this post.

What makes Live Writer much better than Word, or any other blogging application I've seen is that when you change between accounts your interface takes on the look of that weblog.  It shows you the exact font and other UI elements that will be used.  See LiveSpaces, Wordpress and Blogspot below:

Which brings up another great feature is the ability to publish pictures to each blog, as the above pictures were added automatically and even resized when necessary.

The editing interface allows you to view entries as they will be seen, or in normal or even HTML view.  Entries can be saved locally as drafts or published as drafts if the weblog allows that feature.  A spell checker is available, although obviously that one won't work as good as Word.  Most other needed editing feature are available also.

Another really cool feature is "Insert Map" which allows you to add maps from Windows Live Local very easily.  I know this can be done manually from any editor that allow hyperlinks, but Live Writer builds it right in.

I need to get running, lunch and then more sessions here a MIX are coming up.  But if you enjoy blogging then you need to check this tool out and let me know what you think.

Chris