Update: The creator of this plug-in just added a quick start video… go check it out!

So, your 404 page can go from this… 

(boring WordPress Default 404)

To this…

(better Bing404 page)

and, with a little bit of PHP hacking on my part, to this…

(new and improved pimped out 404 page…)

Go see for your self (missing page) then go check out…

Carnegie Mellon University Professor, Jesse Schell, dives into a world of game development which will emerge from the popular “Facebook Games” era.

- Enjoy!

Old                                                              New

If you are watching my RSS feed then you might not have noticed the change. Ultimately I’m planning on merging my Health Blog and Developing UX into a single space. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to organize my content by categories. Development, Health, Family, Religion, Politics, Entrepreneurism are the categories that I’m thinking about, of course I’d still like UX, Silverlight, Speaking, CommunityCast, SixFlags, Microsoft in there… so I’ve still got some thinking to think about.

Of course, not everyone likes the change…

randypeterman @CalebJenkins if UX is your priority DO NOT do white/grey text on dark colors. 'cept when showing people what not to do.

Well… I didn’t say that I was done yet.  What are your suggestions?

5. UX Skillzes

Sorry for the haxx0r lingo… but I’ve been liking it a lot lately. So, what are UX Skills? In short, this has nothing to do with Silverlight. Silverlight (or Flash, or WPF) are technologies that make it easier to create a better User Experience. At the end of the day though, it is the developer / designer that has the responsibility of creating the experience. the platform just makes it easier to realize that designers vision. No tool can completely make up for a lack of skill.

User Experience (UX) is made up of multiple areas and disciplines. Including concepts like Information Architecture (IA), Interaction Design (ID), Visual Design, Human-Computer Interaction studies, Human Interaction Psychology, etc…

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfaceappeal/3085503904/

Some of the resources that I use to hone UX principles and concepts:

• Jared Spool’s UIE Podcasts
• Silverlight Team Blog
• Microsoft Expression Community
• Chris Bernard’s Design Thinking Blog
• Mix Design Articles
• Stephen P. Anderson’s Poet Painter blog and Slideshare Presentations
• My Delicious UX Bookmarks

4. .NET Voodoo

My favorite feature of Silverlight 2 and beyond is that it has the .NET CLR built in to it. That means that .NET developers are able to leverage their existing skills while creating amazing applications in Silverlight. This has also opened up the door to a number of .NET libraries and resources being ported to Silverlight. Some of my favorites, Ninject, Rhino Mocks, Dynamic Proxy, SL Unity from Microsoft, WPF Pixel Shaders. To become a Silverlight Expert, be prepared to flex some .NET muscle.

3. The Way of the Web

While Silverlight is more like WPF and WinForm development than ASP.NET development it’s still important to realize that you are building for the Web. That means that learning technologies like REST (ADO.NET Data Services), JavaScript, the browser’s document object model (DOM), browser sandboxing and using tools like Fiddler are going to be important to you.

2. Blend / Visual Studio Combo

Aside from .NET being in Silverlight, the other awesome feature of Silverlight is that the UI is built with XAML, the same UI platform that WPF uses. That means that Microsoft’s design tool, Expression Blend, is what you use to design UI in Silverlight. This provides the most amazing workflow between designers and developers. Blend 3 is amazing. While Blend 2 is great for mocking a single screen, Blend 3 is awesome at quickly creating mocks for an entire applications. Including features like SketchFlow, mock application data and many more incredible features.

1. Get Started with Silverlight -

So there you go… my last step is to go get started! I find that many people avoid the first step of working with Silverlight because they are intimidated by the newness of it all. I also find that once people do get started, they are usually surprised by how familiar development in Silverlight actually is. Enjoy!

• Silverlight.net – the official Microsoft site for developers and Silverlight designers. Specifically, make sure to check out the getting started section and the how to videos!
• SilverZine – Silverlight designer / developer, Alex Knight, started this great collection of links and tutorials for Silverlight designers. I found out about the site through a Silverlight insiders email list that I’m on, and I’m glad I did! There are some great insights and resources here!
• http://twitter.com/silverlightshow – this actually is a great collection of links and pointers to some really nice Silverlight content.

OK, so those are my top 5 steps. What are yours? Did I miss anything important? Add yours to the comments.

In June I’ll be the local Silverlight expert, leading a technology track on Rich Internet Applications (RIA) at a Microsoft’s BizSpark event, SparkStart.

From the official announcement:

SparkStart is a full day of business and technology discussion (open format) and learning event for startups (“startup bootcamp”). This event will also be a networking opportunity for those startups who are new to the BizSpark program and not yet enrolled in the program and would like to mingle and learn from key business and technology influencers. It will also be an event for those startups who are recently enrolled and need to keep the momentum going by learning key strategies for success, both in business, and in technology.

I’m looking forward to checking out Microsoft’s new Technology Center in Las Colinas, TX – It’s an amazing building!

It’s going to be an incredible event for startups and entrepreneurs to learn, network and get to know some of the incredible technologies that are now available. I’m especially looking forward to hanging out with some of the other people that will be presenting at the event. (too name a few)

• Local start up expert, Alex Muse
• Social Media Expert, Giovanni Gallucci
• Blake Burris of Facebook development and CoHabitat fame
• Angel investment and venture consulting mastermind Marc Nathan
• Microsoft User Experience Architect Christian Thilmany
• Microsoft Architect Brian Gorbett

Check out SparkStart on twitter and read some of Christian’s other related posts. Be sure to register. It’s going to be an amazing day!

I’ll be speaking at the Big Design Conference in Dallas. From the website:

The Big Design Conference is an intense day of learning within the scope of Strategy, Social Media, User Experience, and Code Development. Experts from across the country will gather to present theories, research, experiences, and best practices to students, professionals, and executives looking to stay on the bleeding edge.

My 1pm topic is “Bring Back the Sexy: What’s New in Silverlight 3 and Why Everyone Should Care”. Basically I’m going to be walking through some of the awesome goodness that’s been added to Silverlight 3 like 3D Support, hardware acceleration, custom shaders and behaviors, offline/out of browser integration, Blend 3, plus the new line of business features like data forms and WCF integrations. You know, all the awesome Silverlight sexy that I can get in to my allotted hour. it’s gonna be awesome.

Be sure to register today (tickets are selling fast!) – See you there!

• Big (D)esign Conference
• Big (D)esign After Party
• (Free) Style & Travelocity Design Challenge

Last month Microsoft released the Release Canidate1 of Windows 7. For what it’s worth I will say that I like it, more importantly, my wife likes it too. Just like Vista has nicer features than XP (no seriously, I actually like Vista!), there are features in Win7 that I really like over Vista. That being said, after spending two months on a Mac, here are the things that I wish Microsoft would “barrow” from Apple before Windows 7 RTMs.

Apple’s “Show Desktop” Implementation

 I like Win7’s Desktop Peak. But let’s be real. When I want to look at my desktop, it’s probably because I want to do something on my desktop. If I click on the “Show Desktop” button, then everything get minimized and I loose my place when I’m done with the desktop (I have to go restore all of my Windows manually). Macs have this great feature that let’s me, in a single motion, push everything to the side, lets me see and work with my desktop, then with a single click anywhere on the edge of the screen and I’m back to where I was before. Awesome. Dear Microsoft, I know what they’ll say, you stole it. Mac had it first. it doesn’t matter. Go ahead, take it. It’s a better implementation. thx.

Apples “Widget” View

I like Widgets, I like Gadgets. I’m not talking about Apple’s widget “zoom in” and “zoom out” views (although those are nice!), nor am I talking about how Windows 7’s Gadgets can go anywhere on the desktop and are always on your desktop (although I like that too!) I am specifically talking about the scenarios when you have a bunch of windows open and your in the middle of working and you need to take a quick look at your widgets/gadgets. On a mac you set your Expose’s hot spots to bring up your “dashboard”, in Windows 7 you either “peak” at your desktop, or you press the Win+G keys.Here’s the thing, on a mac when you do that, they do a dark overlay on the rest of your desktop. It makes it really easy to to focus in on your widgets and see them quickly. it sounds like a small thing, but you already know how busy your screen can get when you’re working on various projects and then you try to see your gadgets and they just don’t stand out very well.Dear Microsoft, please fade out the background when I push Win+G. kthx.

Apple’s Colors.

Not all of their colors. I like some of the rich look of Vista and Windows 7, but here’s something that I noticed while working on the mac. The “system tray” (or whatever you call it) is boring. Everything is the same color. Compare that to the spectrum of color that the average Windows user is used to. It’s not that color is bad… but I’m starting to think that business is. Business and clutter compete for your attention, and let’s face it… the reason that it’s in the system tray is because it’s important.. it’s just not that important. I know that I’m focusing on the system tray, but really I’m talking an over all effort to make the things that I want to focus on, visually focusable (is that a word?). Reduce noise, increase signal.

So what does Windows 7 have going for it?

A lot. But here’s the thing that it soooo much better on Win7. The Taskbar – so much better than the dock or expose for moving between applications – especially tabbed windows. On one hand, I really like the pop and slide of exposes, and I really like the fish eye affect in the mac dock… but here’s the deal, the dock is great for launching applications, but it’s lousy for moving between open applications. The new Win 7 dock does an amazing job of organizing all of your open tabs regardless of which window their in. It really creates a nice, unified way to move between the things that you are working on and to close the things that you don’t care about. I know that it sounds trivial, but think about where you spend your time – it makes a difference.

What about you? What are you love / hates with Windows 7 or teh mac?

BTW – Travis promised to teach me some mac foo… I’ll have to post again after that!

Social Media Has Changed The Landscape Forever

Social media has turned advertising, marketing and public relations upside down. Giovanni Gallucci is one of the most well-respected and well-known social media experts in the industry. He’s delivered social marketing solutions to some of the world’s best known brands and garnered media exposure for clients that would make any marketing & communications professional envious.

Extreme Social Media Marketing Workshop

In Dallas on March 10, 2009 you’ll be able to learn his techniques, developed over ten years as an online community developer, search engine programmer and online marketing consultant to help utilize these tools and platforms for yourself.
This one day social media training workshop will train you to utilize the new media marketing tools of twitter, blogs, videos, photos, social networks and other social media related websites in your online marketing efforts.

What Others Are Saying

@michaelpearsun: @giovanni Saw you at the SMC last night in Austin. Great presentation! Now watching your vids on gallucci.net. You are a ninja!
@shawngurn: Giovanni rocks! Let’s carry him out on our shoulders
@evoigt: @shawngurn – heck yeah! @giovanni is the ultimate social media ninja
@mbrinkerhoff: is getting schooled on all things social media by the Pai Mei of online reputation management, @giovanni.
Miranda Sevcik: Thanks Giovanni- I thought your talk was really great- so informative and somehow managed to be entertaining! How do you do it?
Gimme more testimonials!

Sign ups for the March 10, 2009 social media marketing training class in Dallas are live now. Register by February 24th, 2009 for $50 off early bird pricing!

Know someone who might want to come to this workshop?
Refer anyone to this class and receive $50 for every person you refer that attends! Unlimited! Click this link to get started.
For information about scheduling a corporate class or suggesting cities to add to our schedule, contact sales@extremesocialmarketing.com.
This event is co-sponsored by
Improving Enterprises and Blue Sky Factory.

See you there!

Microsoft has put on several of these events all over the US. If you missed the Microsoft PDC Conference then the Dallas event on Monday is the best local place to get a lot of the same information on what’s new with .NET and the future roadmap of the Microsoft Platform. (Rich UX, RIA’s, Cloud Computing , Visual Studio 2010, etc…)

From the official site:

Missed the PDC? Catch the content LIVE at the MSDN Developer Conference. Register Today!

We’re bringing the PDC to you!

I’ll be there speaking about Developing Data-Centric Applications Using the WPF DataGrid and the new WPF Ribbon Controls with Visual Studio 2010. (I know… that’s a mouthful!) 

I’m looking forward to it and hope to see you there!

Download my demo code from SkyDrive.

Enjoy!