You would probably only know this if you had installed the Syndicated Client Experiences starter kit or recently downloaded the latest version of the Seattle PI Reader but now the two are integrated.

Now that there is more than just the MSDN Reader in the list you can start to really see the value of this experience. I just finished rebooting after installing SP1 and noticed the little orange icon in the task tray updating. When i clicked on it to open the Subscription Center I saw that the PI had been updated and I was able to browse the most recent stories without having to commit to opening up the whole app. Clicking a title reveals a bit more information and double clicking launches the reader.

If you haven’t used the PI reader, its a great app and there are some really notable new features. For instance now you can drag articles into a “reading list” and then you can twitch navigate through that reading list… Its a very cool scenario. Spend a few minutes browsing the section fronts and add articles to the reading list (hint: you can flick them into the reading list very cool metaphor that has very low dexterity required). After you have built your reading list grab a cup of coffee and kick back and really read… I mean really read. We don’t do that very much anymore.

I do love hearing things like that… Especially in the context of what’s on the roadmap for WPF in the future.

DataGrid, HW accelerated DropShadow and Blur, better Media and Video support, WriteableBitmap and more.

Wow.. Great website using Silverlight… Cant wait to see the movie too…
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/trailers/jumper.html

I especially like how easy and fast I was watching the trailer in full screen. Just one thing… Why in the heck do we always implement the “Hit Esc to exit fullscreen”. Doesn’t anybody use this stuff? Its totally aggravating when I have to wait a few seconds with an ugly message overlaying my video that I am trying to watch. How about positioning it in an lower third of the screen. Or start up at center and immediately to the bottom of the screen..

Schweeetnesh!

http://blogs.msdn.com/windowssdk/archive/2008/02/07/windows-sdk-rtms.aspx

It looks like its official… Robby and I will be doing a session at Mix 08 this year…

https://content.visitmix.com/public/sessions.aspx

Nerd + Art: Ten Code Snippets to Empower Your Inner Artist
Speaker(s): Nathan Dunlap, Robby Ingebretsen (Identity Mine)
Audience(s): Business, Creative
Session Type: Breakout
Learn how to increase what a designer can do with Windows Presentation Foundation and Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 using our designer’s code “toolbox”-10 simple concepts that will give you an edge when making your best ideas a reality. We share the code, teach you how to use it and introduce the concepts behind it.

Check out Jossef’s post here http://blogs.msdn.com/jgoldb/archive/2008/01/23/vista-layered-windows-performance-hotfix-now-available-on-microsoft-download-center.aspx 

This is great news as you used to have to jump through some hoops to get access to this hotfix… But now its just a couple clicks away…

We have used this in some of our projects that need non rectangular window support. The animation speed with and without this patch is a night and day difference.

Wow its out… Check out scotts post! http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/01/16/net-framework-library-source-code-now-available.aspx

http://windowsclient.net/wpf/starter-kits/sce.aspx

Pretty exciting news! Congrats to all involved..

In a nut shell it helps you develop rich web deployed, occasionally connected content experiences that leverage the Microsoft Sync platform.

Watch Samantha’s video intro video here…Its a great start.

Walkthrough- Syndicated Client Experiences Starter Kit

This is my dream of what Windows apps are supposed to be like… the words that come to my head are “fluid”, “tight”, “responsive”, and “appropriate”.

http://www.kaxaml.com

If there is one thing that gets on my nerves is when a platform that is intended to create rich experiences ships a simple app that look like it was hit with the ugly stick. How am I supposed to create beauty when its framed in something less than ideal.

No offense XAMLPad you are an awesome app and I use you all the time… But there is no excuse for you to ship to countless dev boxes via the Windows SDK with poor UI design… Practice what you preach…Beautiful rich experiences… (hope this doesn’t come across to harsh…its mostly meant to praise KAXAML.)

What is it that I like about KAXAML?

Maybe its the tight visuals on all the custom designed controls like button, slider, textbox, checkbox. Hmmm… somebody knows how to use SnapsToDevicePixels and avoid blurry 1pixel lines…

Maybe its super fluid animations in the custom expander/accordion control… These animations are smooth and provide an aesthetically pleasing feedback animation that proves that simple animations can amp the experience in priceless ways.

Maybe its the usefulness of the app.. XAML Scrubber…umm hello… Let the angels sing.

Maybe its the snippet library… With a built in snippet editor. Hey Robby, how about exposing these snippets in a sidebar gadget ? So I can create in KAXAML and have access to them for VS and Blend even when KAXAML isnt running.

Mostly I think its the proof of the power of what one man who is totally on his game can do to create beautiful, useful, deep, extensible yet simple experiences.

If one guy can create this…

Imagine what a team of people properly harnessed can create.

Windows experiences can be great and this proves that its not out of reach.

http://www.granthinkson.com/2007/11/08/announcing-pistachio-wpf-resource-visualizer/ 

I know I have blogged on this before… But im using this app right now and its saving me a load of work.

Let’s say you get a project handed to you that has a mess of unused resources… You arent familiar with the resources that are being used much less the ones that arent being used and you are absolutely confident that there is no code that will consume the resources at runtime…

Pistachio let’s you open a csproj file and it iterates through and tells you which resources are being used and which ones are not.

Even better… it tells you where the resources are being used when you click the twirly arrow next to it.

Screenshot determining IsUsed

Screenshot of resource usage