Mike Downey @ Microsoft

MIX Online: The Anatomy of Web Design

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:44:51 +0000

One of my colleagues (and former Flash developer) Nishant Kothary has written a great article for MIX Online focused on the process that he and his team went through while re-designing MIX Online. This is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the process of designing and developing a professional website. Great discussion of user experience, information architecture, and the importance of understanding content before focusing on design.

Silverlight TV – I was a guest on episode 2

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 22:51:18 +0000

I forgot to post about this earlier. I wanted to mention that I was a guest on the second episode of Silverlight TV where I talked a bit about my background working on Flash at Adobe and how I thought Silverlight and .NET compared.

Check it out here.

Windows Phone 7 Series announced at Mobile World Congress

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:29:06 +0000

Microsoft announced it’s new mobile operating system at Mobile World Congress today. I’ve been anticipating this announcement since I first heard about the WP7 plans internally. Now that we’ve shown off the user experience for the new OS the next question is: how do we build apps for it? Well, that part of the story will be told at Microsoft MIX ‘10 in mid-March. It is an awesome developer story and I can’t wait to be able to talk about it publicly!

In the mean time, here are some helpful links for learning more about today’s announcements (via The Official Microsoft Blog):

Windows Phone on the Microsoft News Center
Press Release
An interview with Andy Lees, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business
A video that goes behind the scenes of the Windows Phone 7 Series design
The Windows Phone 7 Series web site
Windows Phone on Twitter
Windows Phone on Facebook
Windows Phone channel on You Tube
A blog post showing some of the screenshots and demos of Windows Phone 7 Series
Channel 9 video interview with Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president of Windows Phone Program Management

Also…

Engadget: Windows Phone 7 Series: everything you ever wanted to know
Gizmodo: Windows Phone 7 Series: Everything Is Different Now

Sign up for MIX here if you want to learn more about developing for Windows Phone 7 Series – as well as all of the other topics at MIX, like Silverlight 4, of course!

Silverlight Media Framework now available

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:00:01 +0000

If you’re developing Silverlight applications that play video and want to leverage advanced capabilities like IIS Smooth Streaming, DVR controls, logging, etc – you’ll want to take a look at the new Silverlight Media Framework (SMF) on CodePlex. Figuring it makes more sense to start with code that’s already deployed in a high-end, high-traffic application and work back from there, my team worked with Vertigo to take the player source code from the Sunday Night Football and Vancouver Olympics applications and turn it into a flexible media framework that any developer can leverage in their own Silverlight application. The source is currently available under a limited license but our goal is to make it fully open source under Ms-PL once our legal team has completed their code reviews.

From the site:

Microsoft’s Silverlight Media Framework (SMF) enables developers to quickly deploy a robust, scalable, customizable media player for IIS Smooth Streaming delivery. The SMF builds on the core functionality of the Smooth Streaming Player Development Kit.

SMF is built on a proven code base with dozens of leading Smooth Streaming deployments, including Wimbledon, Sunday Night Football on NBCSports, the UEFA Super Cup on Canal+, Roland Garros and the Tour de France on France Télévisions and many others and by providing developers with source code they can more easily build these experiences for their deployments. Key features in the framework include DVR, rewind, alternate language tracks, in-stream data feeds and analytics tracking. The SMF is designed for future third-party extensibility and component modularity, as well as support for other media delivery scenarios beyond Smooth Streaming.

This is just the first release of a framework that we intend to grow and evolve over time. It currently only officially supports live and on-demand Smooth Streaming implementations but we intend to release updates that will support progressive download and streaming as well.

Here are a few examples of the things that we intend to build into the framework in the future:

A more modular codebase so it is easier for developers to choose what functionality they want compiled into their application without taking on unwanted file size.
An extensive plug-in API so partners can develop plugins for SMF that provide analytics, advertising, publishing, and delivery features.
Support for more delivery methods
Accessibility support similar to what is made available in the Accessible Media Project – http://amp.codeplex.com
Advanced captioning support including compliance with the W3C Timed Text spec
A more robust UI framework including support for global styling
Support for MEF, a new Silverlight 4 feature
Support for VAST & MAST for advertising
A JavaScript API

Please check it out and let me know if you have any questions or feedback. The best place to do this is on the CodePlex site in the Discussions section. The whole team is monitoring this daily.