Xperimentality

For anyone who knows me, you know that I am considered the freak at my company because I have a strong level of experience with backend code, but I also love the graphic design side of the house.  Most folks do one or the other, but I love the creativity of UI.  So it was natural for a lot of the work I do to focus around web applications.  When WPF came out, I loved it.  It allowed for some really great UI experiences with a smaller amount of code.  So I made the decision to have WPF be the focus of my "new technology" effort.  I looked briefly at WPF/e, but had to focus!

Well since Microsoft formally announced Silverlight, the official name of WPF/e, I took another look at it.  I am hooked again!  This is really great!  I can use what I have been learning about WPF and put it on the web.  I can't help but just dive in!  So I imagine you will be hearing more about it soon.  I plan on adding a lot more entries here about my experiences with learning (and getting caught up) on Silverlight.  Hopefully my experiences will help others getting started!

Well I am sitting here in the speaker's room with a bunch of great guys:
Bruce Thomas, Jeff Barnes, Wally McClure, Jeremy Chance, Joe Healy, Brian Hitney, and Keith Elder.  I think these guys have been at all 4 code camps in Alabama.  I thought I would post an update.  So far things are going really good for Code Camp 4. 

The speaker's dinner last night was at Felix's FishCamp.  I had not ever eaten at a Felix's...great food!  Anyway, this code camp introduced a really nice speaker shirt.  I had worked with Doug Greene on putting together a version of the logo for the shirts but did not know what he had planned.  They turned out really nice.  He and Matthew have done a great job on the code camp!

Today it looks like we may have some bad weather coming in.  Hopefully it won't be too bad.  Looks like we have a good turnout today so it should be some good fun.  I am happy to say that for the first time at any code camp, I had my presentation and code done the night before!

One of the things that always happens when you get a group like this together is you wind up with at least a couple good new catch phrases.  For now, I will leave you with my favorite so far: "You can't fix stupid".  How true!

This is really late coming!  The next Alabama Code Camp is schedule for this Saturday in Mobile Alabama.  This one is being hosted by the Lower Alabama .NET User Group.  They are the newest addition to the Alabama User Groups and have been doing really well.  We are all real excited to see their success.  There is a great line-up and some terrific speakers.  Check it out if you have not yet.  And if you can make it, go and register!

I will be giving a presentation at the code camp on WPF.  At this point, I am pretty sure I am changing my original idea to a presentation on some of the new key concepts in .NET 3.0 for WPF.

Well it has been another while since I posted.  Things have been crazy both at work and at home.  But I still have a lot of topics I have been wanting to post about so hopefully soon, I will begin to get them out of my notebook and into some posts.

Registration is now open for Mix07.  If you weren't able to make it to Mix06, you don't want to miss it this year.  I attended Mix06 and walked away with some good information and a lot of things to look forward to.  Since then, I have been working heavily with WPF and exploring where it fits in to some of my current projects and near future projects.

I mentioned after Christmas that I had a lot of good stuff to move out into posts and a personal announcement to make.  Well I guess I can make the announcement now: My wife is expecting our 2nd child!  Over the last year or so, she has had a couple of miscarriages.  It has been hard on everyone.  So when we found out she was pregnant, we decided to just keep it under wraps until after the first trimester.  Well, we have made it this far and everything seems to be going ok.  Hopefully everything will continue as planned and middle of June will bring a healthy new family member.  Our daughter, who is 4, is already making big plans for baby brother or sister.  So if you read this post, keep your fingers crossed for us!

Well everyone has them, and some stick to them.  Hopefully I will be successful in sticking with my resolutions this year.  One of them is to more regularly post relevant blog entries on WPF and DotNetNuke (and maybe both together).  It is really funny.  I spend a tremendous amount of time working with these two technologies.  Whenever I think about blogging about something I find, I tend to decide to play a little more so that I have more info to post.  By the time I am ready to post, I have to go do something else.  It seems it is an endless cycle of "hey, I need to put this into a post...I'll do that right after I finish this".  Needless to say there is always a "finish this" and rarely a post!  I am going to dedicate some time each week to posting here and in forums.  It seems that is the only way to make it happen consistently.  There is always something at work requiring my time.  So I have relegated myself to the fact that if I put things off till I have time, they will never get done!  I have a lot of plans for this year both professionally and personally.

One of my personal goals is to spend less time at home in front of the computer and more time with my wife and daughter.  A very close friend of mine's wife was recently diagnosed with cancer.  She is just my age and, believe me, it makes you stop and think about what is important!  Technology, software, the web....they are not just my job but my hobby and sincere love.  So I am always working on the laptop.  I don't want to neglect my other loves!

I have been asked to present on WPF at the .NET University being hosted in Huntsville, Alabama by the Huntsville New Technology User Group (HUNTUG).  They will be having a .NET University there on January 8th and February 13th.  I enjoy going up to Huntsville and HUNTUG has a wonderful meeting facility.  It is always a pleasure to present there!

Well another Christmas has come and gone.  I just thought I would post a note to say a Merry Christmas to everyone.  And for those of you that might read my blog that don't practice Christmas, I hope you had a nice relaxing and enjoyable day yesterday doing all the things you enjoy!
I have a number of posts that I have been wanting to get out for a while that I hope to get out this week.  So hopefully we will have some good new items out here soon...as well as a personal announcement. 

There had been some hints floating around that the WPF team would be making an announcement this afternoon...and it would be BIG.  Well, I think they delivered!  Over at the WPF3D Team Blog, they just announced that in version 1 of WPF, we will have the capability to interact with 2D content on 3D geometry elements.

Now this might not seem like a huge deal to someone who does not do a lot of 3D work.  But rest assured, the capabilities this will give 3D developers is awesome.  Think about it in an extremely simplified way: imagine a cube floating in a 3D space.  Now imagine that you were able to create some elements on each face of that cube.  Now it is cool to be able to see those elements rotate around on that cube and it is even more cool to be able to manipulate those elements through code as they rotate around on that cube.  But think about the possibilities of the user being able to interact with the elements on the faces of the cube!  Any other 3D guys reading this will probably agree with me that this might be a bad example, but I think the description gets the creative juices flowing for anyone not used to doing 3D work.

Bottom line, this is a really (big really) nice feature to get with version 1.  It is kinda like an early Christmas present from the WPF 3D team.  I feel bad ... I didn't get them anything!