Conference Overview

I've attended every MIX starting with the first one in 2006. Every year, this has been the event I most look forward to. Not only do I love the topics, but I know more folks here than just about any conference. This is the conference that defines the xaml-dev community.

While the conference is evolving (size, content, community contribution), I think it still retains a strong UX focus and appeals to a different core audience than PDC and Tech Ed.

If you're a web developer, or work with Silverlight, this is the conference you want to attend.

The big announcements at MIX this year were:

• Silverlight 4 RC (and WCF RIA Services RC)
• Windows Phone development with Silverlight and XNA
• IE9 Developer Preview
• Microsoft upping the commitment to jQuery.
• OData

My Pre-MIX Videos

In preparation for MIX, I put out a few videos I had previously recorded.

• Henry Sowizral on using C++ and WPF in Expression Design
• Pete Blois on Windows Phone in Expression Blend, and Rooler
• Jeff Handley on Validation in WCF RIA Services

If you haven't checked them out yet, please do. The videos are all roughly 15 minutes or less.

MIX10 Trivia Application

Success! My MIX10 Silverlight-based trivia application was shown before most of the sessions, and even made it into some of the video recordings (check out Bill Buxton's talk for one example). I even heard of folks in the audience groaning when the answer was cut off to start the talk :)

Feedback on twitter was encouraging:

The last one let me know I need to extend the timeline for reading answers :)

Thanks to all the folks inside and outside of Microsoft who helped me out by submitting trivia questions and answers, and thanks to Scott Hanselman for suggesting this as a first project when I joined.

Interview Videos

While at MIX, I recorded a whole pile of interview videos with some really great folks. I'll have them all up on Channel 9 over the coming weeks. Here's the full list:

• The Umbraco core team (at MIX) on Umbraco (ASP.NET)
• Cory Plotts on Snoop (WPF)
• Richard Costall on Manic Miner (Silverlight and Windows Phone)
• Alex Norcliffe and Pete Miller on MimeCloud and Umbraco (WPF, Silverlight, ASP.NET)
• Josh Blake on his great Multi-touch / NUI demo from his MIX10 talk (WPF)
• Dave Campbell on what it takes to put out Silverlight Cream just about every day of the week (Silverlight)
• Robert Kihm on Aptify on Windows and with Silverlight (Windows Forms, Silverlight)
• Barak Cohen and Josh St. Angelo on the Bing Toolbar running on Silverlight on the Nokia phone (Silverlight)
• Alex Stoychev on a very cool website done entirely in Silverlight (Silverlight)
• David Kelley on a neat Silverlight + WPF Retail prototype (Silverlight, WPF)

I also talked with a number of people off-camera, discussing their upcoming products and projects. 2010 is going to be a great time to be working in xaml-based UI :)

XamlCast Podcast

Kelps Leite interviewed me for a short video podcast for XamlCast. XamlCast is a popular Silverlight/WPF/Phone etc. podcast in Brazil. I can't wait to see it :)

"Favorite Thing at MIX" Videos

On the last day of MIX, I wandered around the Commons and randomly put about 25 attendees on the spot with the rapid-fire question: "Favorite thing at MIX?". I'll have those all edited together and put up on Channel 9 soon. Thanks everyone for being such a good sport :)

Fun After-Events

I went to a few fun evening events while up at MIX this year. First, there was an invitation-only event run by a good friend. The entertainment was excellent, featuring the Blues Brothers. Nice to see old friends and meet new ones there.

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of being in the Umbraco dinner. Excellent food, and finally got to meet some of the folks behind Umbraco CMS.

After the umbraco dinner, I met up with folks from the RIA Services team, as well as some Silverlight/RIA insiders, up at the enormous suite that an attendee was able to randomly upgrade to, for zero additional cost.

I'm pretty sure that's the first time the huge TV in the media room had PowerPoint and Visual Studio up on it. :)

Favorite Sessions

It's always hard to pick favorite sessions, especially when you haven't yet watched the full set, but here are a few of mine:

• Authoring for Windows Phone, Silverlight 4, and WPF 4 with Expression Blend (Christian Schormann, Pete Blois)
• Building Windows Phone Applications with Silverlight, Part 1 (Mike Harsh) (Part 2)
• Silverlight Performance on Windows Phone (Seema Ramchandani)
• An Hour with Bill Buxton (Bill Buxton)
• The Mono Project (Miguel de Icaza) (I liked this just to see Miguel's reaction when he beaned people with the monkey <g>)
• Beyond File | New Company: From Cheesy Sample to Social Platform (Scott Hanselman) (this was the only session I attended in-person)

There are TONS of other good ones that I haven't yet watched. I'll hit a few a week over the next weeks. From talking with attendees, the client futures panel was interesting as was the OData talk.

Let me know in the comments what your favorites were, and what it was you liked about them

Attire

I love retro/geek t-shirts. My MIX attire this year? This year I wore two custom and one stock. The first is a response to my frustration with DIVs one weekend. The second is a C64-basic code-correct shirt for this site, the third (stock) is just for my friends who used to spend all their time playing M.U.L.E.

You can find the first two for sale in my zazzle store. I make an incredible $1.50 or so on sales of shirts, so my get-rich-quick scheme is probably going to need some modifications ;)

And yes, they're usually C64-related. After all, that's why they hired me ;)

MIX this year was as great a conference as ever. It was awesome to see everyone and watch how our new phone development platform really energized the audience. Seeing the Windows Phone 7 emulator running on most laptops in the commons tells me it won't be long before the marketplace is full of great Silverlight and XNA for Windows Phone applications.

See you next year!