Robs Usability Development : Silverlight, ASP.NET, Ajax, Agile, MVC & Volta

I’m a regular reader of www.CodingHoror.com/blog. I could go as far to say that I’m kind of a fan. One of his lasts posts made me laugh so much that I had to share it with you. The images below are available as bumper stickers and t-shirts:

As a developer you should be laughing right now, because if you are not: find another job

If your not a developer: ask one, and see him struggling to explain

Robertjan Tuit

Yes, you read it correctly, I am a very very stupid man. Let me explain.

About 7 months ago I purchased one of those on-line backup accounts. My intention was to put all my important data there, all my documents, photos etc. I had seen some hard disk crashes and stolen laptops and had decided that that was not the situation I wanted to get into.

And I really meant it at the time, but I was too busy, not making time for it and kept putting it off.

And guess what? my hard drive crashed! And it crashed big time, windows sees it sometimes, sometimes not, sometimes I see something that resembles a directory structure and again sometimes it shows nothing. But the data is inaccessible.

I have tried a wide variety of tools and boot cd’s including PCInspector, Ultimate BootCD and Rescue Disk. And have tried to access it internally and trough a USB casing and even in Linux and Dos. I’m kind of out of options. It doesn’t sound very broken but the computer doesn’t really now what to do with it.

Now I have moved to the Data Recovery companies, yes it is expensive, but that is what the data is worth to me. There are a couple, but I wanted a Dutch speaking one, I have singled out an international (Spanish) company that has a Dutch office: Aigon.

I have spoken with them and they seem OK, but I was kind of wondering if anyone had any experience with them or with other companies doing this work. Like to hear from you and your experiences.

This is not something you can try a few times :).

So if you have any ideas, all the input is very much welcome.

Robertjan "Very Stupid" Tuit

Upcoming Friday the 28th of March is a day that should have a big cross in your  agenda. Because then were having another Software Developer Event. And you will be getting 2 for the price of one because it will be combined with with the Community Launch of Visual Studio, SQL Server and Windows Server 2008 what is organized in cooperation with VBcentral, St. DotNed and PASS Nederland.

There is the usual interesting mix of sessions and demonstrations for C# , VB, Information Work, Delphi and FoxPro. You can check out the schedule right here : http://www.sdn.nl/Default.aspx?tabid=280 and plan up front which sessions you will be attending. Hopefully next time with a little bit more User Experience and RIA

If you are an SDN Member you can get in for free: click here

Entrance for non SDN Members is fifty euro’s: click here

See you Friday at De Reehorst!

Robertjan Tuit

I promised myself to not do this mopup too frequently, but is has been long enough I guess. There are lot’s of cool new Silverlight 2 samples and projects out there, a small selection:

• Deep Zoom Collection
  We have seen many deep zoom samples of one large image, but what if you want control over the placement of the images after the deep zoom composer has exported it’s data. A great sample from the Expression Team.

• DataGrid Sample from Mix08
  One of the most interesting sessions at mix, was the sessions done by Joe Stegman and Mike Harsh. They published al their material almost directly, but left out the DataGrid sample. They got lot’s of requests for it and have put it up on for download.

• Improving everyone’s access to Silverlight 2’s generic.xaml resources
  Dave and his team have been doing so me great work the last couple of weeks, with great samples and controls. His last project is a tool than helps you easily access the controls default XAML styles and layout. A must have tool if you are creating controls. There is also a clickonce version.

• More on Routing and Bubbling
  Because the routing and bubbling is different from WPF, it left a lot of people confused. Jessie tries to clarify it al, and even tries to explain some of the decisions made.

• Breaking Changes in Silverlight 2
  Great post if you are converting your 1.1 alpha applications.

• A Start at Test Driven Development with Silverlight 2
  Brad Abrams explains some of the Test Driven Development done in Silverlight

• Dark side of Silverlight 2 Beta 1
  A pretty negative and dark but very insightful post about the differences between WPF and Silverlight.

• Creating a Game Loop Part 2
  Part 2 of a series on building a game in Silverlight

More to come, stay in the light!

Robertjan Tuit

Hearing and viewing a recording of yourself is not a thing I enjoy very much.

But now en then I also use this blog just for entertainment purposes and sometimes, like in this case, just to punish myself.

So I could and will not keep the following video from you:

- Silverlight 2.0 Video Interview with Robertjan Tuit at TechDays Portugal

Robertjan Tuit

Currently at the Lisbon airport waiting for my flight. Was here way to early so got a lot of time on my hands.

I did the TechDays presentation yesterday, and I think it went ok, but I’d rather wait for the verdict from the audience, it is still out :). I did get some great feedback at the end of the session. I just hope I have made some people download and develop Silverlight   after my session.

To all the people who sent an e-mail or contacted me trough the contact form, thank you for your feedback, there were some questions I was not able to answer but I will try and get them for you in the following weeks.

I added some pictures of the TechDays to the pictures page. But I forgot to take them with my own camera, so I’m "borrowing" them from other sites.

Also check out the bookmarks page, which has a lot of new cool Silverlight stuff.

It’s about 24 degrees here, pretty sunny, although the clouds are coming in now. And I’m going back to Amsterdam where it is 5 degrees and raining. I love coming home, but they should do something about the weather. Does anyone know someone who can do something about that ?

Well back to converting the poker room to Silverlight 2.0, damn I like the new 2.0 release :).

Stay in the light!

Update: Lot’s of time on my hands now, just got a 2 hour delay

Robertjan Tuit

Back from Mix, glad to be home again, but missing the sun :).

It was a great ride, with too much stuff happening, and too many new people to meet . But it was definitely worth going. For everyone who did not go this year, place a big X in your agenda for next year on the 18th to 20th of March.

Even if your not into the sessions, which can all be viewed on the net within 24 hours of every session at http://sessions.visitmix.com, you have to be there to meet and hear interesting professionals from around the world. What a great networking and learning opportunity! maybe just for the Mix09 Limited Edition Zune?

On to the next event, TechDays in Lisbon for which I had the honor of being asked to be one of the speakers on the main stage. So for all the Portuguese readers: see you there!. The presentation will be a summary of all the Silverlight 2.0 stuff that was presented at Mix. Almost too much to put in the 2 75 minute sessions.

Well, back to creating the last slides and demo’s.

Robertjan Tuit

p.s. Check out the latest Vegas pictures on the pictures page.

So finally it has begin, the Mix conference for 2008. I already added some pictures of the pre conference together@mix and will add some more later. Check out the pictures page.

I had planned on talking about the keynote, about Silverlight 2.0, of which you can download the beta now!. And ofcourse about Internet Explorer 8, with a bunch of very nice new fetures I had not expected.

But as always someone else has already done the hard work. Tim sneath has almost written a live transcript of the keynote, so I’m definetly not gonna repeat his hard work.

And last but not least: they have Surface tables here. I´ll probably have to make some extra room in my suitcase

• MIX08 Keynote Live Blog
• Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1
• Expression Studio 2 Beta
• Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 SDK
• Blend 2.5 March Preview

Keep you posted.

Robertjan Tuit

I was just reading trough all the sessions, and I realy can’t wait to go.

I do have to find a way to clone myself by the way. There are an average of 4 interesting sessions at the same time.

Luckily for me every session will be recorded and put on the end of every day put on the Mix site. So even the when you are not going you don’t have to miss anything, well exept Vegas ofcourse ;-).

If you have not yet heard about what is going to happen at vegas read the following great blog posts from ScottGu:

• First Look at Using Expression Blend with Silverlight 2
• First Look at Silverlight 2

Keep you posted. Especially keep an eye on the new pictures page!.

Robertjan Tuit