If you’re wondering how much work goes into setting up the keynote room for an event like MIX well – here is the whole 6 days in 6 and a half minutes :)

Sit back and enjoy all the hard work (and don’t forget to check out the keynotes at a slower pace on the official site)

After a few years of blogging (it doesn’t seem that long but it’s been a while now!) I don’t really look at the stats to obsessively – it’s an outlet and if it sometimes helps folks find an answer to something I’m flattered.

I recently moved hosting providers and wondered if the changeover had made any different to the traffic so started digging into the analytics I’ve had running but never really paid much attention to…

Three posts show up as driving almost a 25% of my traffic … which is a little sad considering the number of posts I have. I wonder if they’re not discoverable enough, or if I’m not doing a good enough job of promoting my brand.

So, what are the posts that drive folks in…

• Maxlength on Textarea. This was something I put together to deal with a specific problem I was having on a form validation and wanted to try and make an elegant solution. Browsers may have moved on since then, but it seems like it’s still a valid problem. Wonder if HTML5 will finally fix this ;)
• Upload and Resize. This was some code I needed to use on Big Brother and MyTalk projects. It allowed a simple integration of an image upload and thumbnail generator with some validation into either a Classic ASP or mixed Classic/.Net site. Far from perfect, but still popular.
• Performance tuning SQL applications for the Web. Like many developers my SQL skills were learnt at 4am trying to debug queries that were taking minutes rather than milliseconds. After spending a lot of time fixing some mistakes I made I posted the things I have learned and it seems that folks have been referring to them a fair bit over the years since. As long as it stops someone else making the same mistakes!

I’m probably not going to change what I write about – as it tends to be what interests me at that moment – but if there’s something you like, or hate, about what you find here don’t hesitate to let me know…

The Day 1 keynote from MIX09 is well worth spending time watching, but as it’s all about me I wanted to highlight the partners I’d worked with this year.

So complete with short-cuts to their moment in the the spotlight here is the MIX09 Day 1 Keynote video (don’t forget to go full screen to really enjoy the experience)

• StackOverflow (Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky)
• Netflix (Kevin McEntee)
• Bondi and Vertigo (David Anthony and Scott Stanfield)
• KEXP (Tom Mara and Aaron Starkey)

• Netflix is making more money with Silverlight
• Bondi's Digital Archive of past Rolling Stone and Playboy (NSFW) magazine issues.
• Radio Station KEXP created a hot new seamless online/offline experience for video and music.

While I hate being on the pointy end of a camera it was great to catch up with the Delicate Genius from down-under at MIX09, and he even managed to get a good shot of my wrist on film.

Luckily I much prefer being behind the scenes rather than hogging the limelight so you won’t have to put up with too much of me talking ;)

Oh, and I’m no better posing for photographs – though it was late and the launch for PlayboyArchive (depending on where you work, probably NSFW) came at the end of a very long day and thanks to Bondi and Vertigo I’d been reading a lot of articles over the previous few days!

There’s a lot of hype at the moment about Splashtop, Hyperspace, Presto and other “instant on” Linux desktops that are supposed to give you access to everything you possibly need without having to wait for Windows to start.

As I was planning to reformat my laptop soon I thought I’d try them out and see if the dream was actually real for either me or my family. Sure, I work for Microsoft but before joining here I used OSX and various Linux client configurations so I’m open minded. I have also been using Win7 for quite a while so I set that as the bar.

Splashtop

First up was Splashtop. Sadly there’s no end user configuration for that. You have to have hardware with it installed on. If anyone wants to lend me a netbook with this on to have a play with I’d love to see how it stacks up, but I suspect it’ll face the same problems I encountered with the other two.

Hyperspace

Hyperspace was the first one I could actually install and play with. Installation is pretty simple for the end user considering that it re-partitions your hard drive and makes itself the default OS. I’d really have liked it to give me the choice what I wanted as default and you should be aware that re-partitioning on the fly can be pretty dangerous (and the uninstaller did not remove the redundant partition automatically which was a real pain)

The desktop in Hyperspace is heavily locked down. There is a fixed toolbar that includes some apps I would never use and links to sites I’d never visit. If the product was free and made money based off the click-thoughts I could accept it but as this actually expects me to part with money I don’t think that’s okay.

Installing other apps seemed to be pretty limited so if you want a different Instant Messenger client or browser you’re probably out of luck. There doesn’t seem to be a native mail client so if you’re not online and able to do everything in the cloud you’ve got a fast booting paperweight.

Oh, and USB mice are not supported so you’d better like your trackpad!

Ease of installation was great, but on the whole the downsides were too much given that startup wasn’t that much less than the fully functional Win7 build on the same machine.

The limitations are such that I didn’t even want to put this in front of the family as an option. While I’m sure Rhiannon would have been able to play games there’s no integrated iPod experience.

Presto

Xandros Presto was a lot more pleasant an experience overall. The installation was, like Hyperspace, pretty straight-forward though it has the advantage of not creating its own partition, it installs into the existing Windows NTFS file system. It doesn’t make itself the default OS so you have a few seconds after a reboot to choose it otherwise your normal Windows desktop starts up.

Uninstall was equally clean (though I have since re-installed it!)

Similar to Hyperspace again this isn’t free, though there is a trial period so you can kick the tires. Xandros have been in business for quite some time with a user friendly Linux distribution with an integrated applications catalog that makes it easy to find, try and buy applications. They’ve followed the same model here but it’s more flexible than the other options.

There is a default toolbar docked with some apps already loaded but their forums show you how to get to the underlying OS to change, reconfigure and generally do what you need to do – always assuming there isn’t a GUI app that you can download from the catalog to solve the problem.

The biggest issue I have with Presto is that the app catalog offers older versions of some of the apps I wanted to use. Evolution Mail and the Exchange Connector for instance were not current enough to connect to our Exchange server (though the IMAP/Gmail connector worked fine) and there’s no link to Chrome as an alternative browser. I was however able to install the Moonlight Linux port of Silverlight without any problems and the pre-installed Flash version was okay for casual games.

Because Presto runs from the same disk partition as Windows I was able to access files from the main operating system which was a bonus.

… but is it worth 30 seconds?

Both Presto and Hyperspace start up about 30 seconds quicker but seem to have significant functionality issues that mean unless what you want to do is web based, and you have a connection, there’s not much advantage.

The Linux desktops are getting better but still lag behind OSX and Windows in usability (especially the later Win7 builds) and while Presto does let the user under the covers to tweak you’re really heading down the rabbit hole into another world if you’re just looking for a simple solution.

Because they’re stripped back they are fast – performance was great, but as most real operations are going to be web bound that’s not really a huge selling point.

I didn’t notice significantly better battery life with either of the solutions. Maybe if they were installed on a Flash drive and the hard drive spun down totally we’d see some benefit. Hardware issues like the lack of a USB mouse, wired ethernet not working properly and lack of support for the full screen resolution on my laptop makes me think that they’re not quite there yet…

With Win7 having much better support for low end hardware I think the choice for an operating system for low end machines (or quick startup) is going to become much more hotly contested in the future than it is today where the competition is Vista.

This was my third MIX (I joined Microsoft a few months after the first) and once again I spent most of the time behind the scenes.

At MIX07 I worked with one Keynote partner, at MIX08 I had partners with demos and presentations in both keynotes and for MIX09 I was the designated “Partner Wrangler” working with the non-Microsoft partners who had demos on-stage. I have to thank Mike (our Keynote owner) for the opportunity this year.

MIX this year was about the “Return on Experience” and was where we announced the final release of ASP.NET MVC as well as the developer beta of Silverlight3 so most of my focus was in those areas.

Once again I was lucky enough to be working with some really great partners who had great stories for us to bring to the event to show off the technologies – so all I really have to do is make sure they get the support they need to finish their applications in time for rehearsals that night before the keynote!

So, who was I wrangling?

The first partner demo in the MIX Keynote was StackOverflow – a great community site for developers to help each other, built on ASP.NET MVC (with standards compliant HTML) and optimized for Search Engine Optimization. Jeff and Joel have a great story and deliver it – like StackOverflow – simply.

The second partner I worked with was Netflix. Kevin McEntee talked about how Netflix has been using Silverlight both to improve the user experience on both PC and Mac, but also driving the quality of their roll-out to hardware such as the Roku or XBox360 platforms. Kevin and Steve Swasey from Netflix sat down with Tim Harris to give a bit more background on the story.

Much to my amusement I was called on to join Kevin on stage for a few moments at the end of his talk to drive a demo of the Adaptive Streaming technology in the Netflix Instant Watch player. What was really cool about working with Netflix this year was that they were the first partner I worked with back at MIX07 ;)

My third partner were Bondi Digital Publishing and Vertigo Software. They have worked together to create an amazing on-line magazine archive viewing platform that takes microfiche content, scans and uses OCR to grab the text, massage the meta data to add some intelligence (linking the contents to the articles, flagging adverts vs content etc) and then display them on the web. At MIX David Anthony from Bondi and Scott Stanfield from Vertigo demonstrated their “next generation” Silverlight3 based platform with Rolling Stone content but after the keynote they launched PlayboyArchive (NSFW!) using Silverlight2.

Tim also sat down with David and Murat Aktar from Bondi and Scott from Vertigo to discuss how they are changing the magazine industry.

My last (but certainly not least) partner was KEXP. As one of the most successful internet radio stations (and the most successful not-for-profit internet station) they have a never-ending challenge to improve their connection with their audience by delivering high quality content wherever their users are. Taking advantage of the forthcoming Silverlight3 features such as Out of Browser and Offline support combined with cloud services KEXP are looking to the future to make sure they stay at the leading edge. Tom Mara and Aaron Starkey talked about the business benefits as well as demonstrated a prototype of their work. They also provided more background in a video interview shot at their studios.

If you want to see how my partners fit into the overall keynote you can view the on-demand video, or check out Tim Sneath’s live blog of the keynote and of course don’t forget to mark your calendar because MIX10 is coming at Mandalay Bay 15-17 March 2010.

Not a notebook or a netbook or a UMPC (or any of the other variants). I’ve come to realize over the years that the current classifications and niche computing devices are missing out on one form factor and the current attempts to fill it are pretty horrible.

Current devices like the iPhone or the Touch Pro are limited – they are too small to be “computer” replacements yet they don’t work really well as phones either. They are a compromise and perhaps the solution is to pair a more basic featurephone with a very portable device that’s actually useful.

What I want is something the size of an A5 notepad with a touch screen covering the whole of the front of the device – no need for a keyboard or extraneous buttons (they would be flush in the bevel or on the edges along with any ports) that I can interface with using a pen (similar to my UMPC) but with enough battery power to easily last a full day and enough processing power to deal with handwriting recognition and speech recognition.

This device would need WiFi and Bluetooth to enable it to pair seamlessly with my Cellphone and a headset. The headset would ideally be able to connect to both the notepad and the phone – so I can dictate to the device, break off and answer a call and the continue to control the notepad while listening to music from it, all seamlessly.

The connection to the phone would be ideally be more synergistic than just being available as a modem. Ideally transition from WiFi to the phones 3G data would be seamless (let me set preferences but it should be smart enough to take the optimal data path) so I can always stay connected. Beyond that the phone and the notepad should be aware of each others status so when the phone rings my music pauses, caller ID information is displayed on the device and I can hit and answer button on the screen or the phone and route the call to my headset, the phone or speakerphone on the notepad, and text/MMS messages could be composed and read on either. The notepad should be able to access the phones camera to record images or video (as well as having a built in one) and via a standard USB connection they should be able to share power as needed.

There’s no reason the phone shouldn’t have limited internet capabilities (web browsing, email, a social networking client, GPS mapping) and, of course, some games so it’s a useful device in it’s own right but it’s primarily a phone. At the weekend for instance people might not want to take both devices but a smart-enough phone to keep them in contact would be the right balance.

Using software that has learnt lessons from the iPhone UI and Microsoft’s Origami Project and InkSeine the device would need to work with pen (both for tapping as well as handwriting recognition), finger (gesture control) and spoken input. Applications like Outlook and OneNote would need optimizing for maximum usability on a screen this size and layout with these input methods but simpler cut down versions would help performance and battery life.

Accelerometer, light sensor and on-board GPS would open up other possibilities for control, and of course being able to use a dedicated Bluetooth keyboard (or the phone keypad or an on-screen keypad) to extend the ways you can interact with the device.

Not only would this device offer a more practical replacement to the iPhone and N80x type devices it would also be a platform for Amazon to extend the eBook capabilities to – much like they have extended the Kindle Reader to the iPhone.

Coupling a device like this with a service like Mesh and Exchange Active Sync to ensure your data is always available (and offload processing of things like search indexing to the cloud) and live updates (weather, stocks, traffic for mapping etc) and you have an ideal personal companion device.

In fact, with a standardized mount / connector architecture you could check your schedule on it over breakfast, slot it into you car and use the GPS to route you to your appointment (with live traffic updates) and via the connector have it monitor ODB-II information to remind you you’re running low on fuel and suggest the cheapest gas station or remind you that you’re due a service soon (maybe add a task to your to-do- list!)

In William Gibson’s Virtual Light Yamazaki takes his notebook for granted. I just want one now ;) Maybe it’ll need a kinetic charger to keep going as long as I want, but the rest shouldn’t be too hard…

Computers are great for storing and sharing information but sometimes the easiest way to get the point across is the old physical medium of pen and paper.

The problem with taking notes that way makes it hard to share with a group, and if you write on a whiteboard it can be a challenge to get an accurate copy of those notes saved. Also with the whiteboard if you need to mark up an existing document it can be tough to see.

Papershow has an answer to the problem. It combines the flexibility and ease of use of pen and paper with your computer to let you utilize a natural input medium, mark up documents but share them with other users and even project the changes live in a meeting.

The technology in the pen is however not quite the same as a disposable sharpie!

Similar to how the Pulse pen works the supplied paper contains a nearly invisible pattern of dots which allows the infra-red camera in the pen body to identify where you are on the page and transmit that information back to the the PC.

The connection back to the PC is wire-free. The kit comes complete with a USB Key that doubles as both as a Bluetooth dongle and storage for the application (it runs right off the key, no need for an installation so you can use it on any Windows XP or Vista computer).

The dot pattern on the paper is unique so it knows when you switch to a new page, and because the pen positioning is very precise they are able to print a small menu on each page that allows you to select what color the pen "writes" in on-screen, how thick the line should be and even assist you draw perfect circles or rectangles or arrows to annotate your drawings.

You can even print on the paper so you can see the actual document you're marking up while you project it on-screen.

The pen is amazingly responsive and works in very varied lighting conditions. Though it's sold as a business tool to liven up meetings I've had a couple of artists say great things about it.

Once you've finished a session you can export it as a PDF or Powerpoint. There doesn't seem to be an option to export as GIF/PNG/JPG or automatically upload to a sharing site though these seem like things that would come with a simple software release.

One feature I'd love to see if the ability to pair multiple pens with a single machine so you can record who writes what in a session, and also have a shared whiteboard version of the app so people in different locations can see the notes and annotations as they are drawn (and know who wrote them) and also contribute remotely.

With any first release you expect some rough edges but this is pretty solid. Although it works fine with WinXP and Vista I did have some issues getting it to work on Win7 Beta - the trick is to set it to run as Administrator and in Vista SP2 Compatibility mode (in the applications settings).

There is no OSX version yet, though Mac users shouldn't despair as they say that there's a version coming.

The other hiccup I found was that you have to use the Bluetooth dongle. If you already have a laptop with built-in Bluetooth you need to be able to disable it (if all else fails Device Manager in Control Panel will let you disable the driver for your Bluetooth) - I hope they work out a solution to coexist automatically to save fiddling around.

I've been using the Lightscribe Pulse pen for a while now and while it's great for disconnected use when I'm away from the PC the lack of live capabilities has bugged me so I can see a real use for the Papershow system. The Papershow pen also seems to work better in uneven lighting conditions.

In an ideal world I'd love a system that combines both - offline note taking and storage with a cradle to re-charge and sync and an online mode where the pen connects via Bluetooth and can be used to drive a meeting (and use the same paper in both modes of course).

For now - the Pulse pen will live in my bag, and my Papershow pen will come with me to meetings where I know there will be a PC to project from.

Oh, and you can buy from www.shoppapershow.com or online from Staples A complete kit (pen, printer and flipchart paper, USB key, software, ring binder and pencil case) costs $199