I am new to Seattle from the "I live here" perspective.  I have travelled here and visited more than a few times.  The last week or so I have been wandering a bit and checking out various groups such as Web Analytics Wednesday and possibly will check out the Startup Drinks Group in Ballard this Friday.  All in all I'm happier with my move from Portland to Seattle than I originally thought I'd be (because Portland is seriously awesome too).  Seattle is surprising me in a few ways that I actually didn't expect, one of them is the tech scene presence is a little bit better than I originally thought it was (good job tech scene pplz).

There are a few points I am still curious about.  Maybe some readers could help me out with the following:

1. Where and when do the people interested in Saas, Cloud Computing, and similar topics get together, hang out, have drinks, or otherwise?  I haven't found too much going on around these topics.
2. Ok, I have found a number of awesome coffee shops to hang out at on those days were I don't go into the office.  So does anyone else have any suggestions for cool places to pull out the laptop and crank on some code and such?
3. I really dig hearing about all the awesome startups in Seattle, which Seattle 2.0 is pretty awesome in relating, but is there anything else I should check out?

That's my burning curiosities at the moment, so if any of your dear readers have any thoughts on these things, or know of anything please do leave a comment or three.  : )

I moderate, so if they don't show up immediately it will eventually.  Thanks!

Recently Amazon jumped into the relational database cloud competition with Microsoft.  Up until the 6th of this month, Microsoft had the only cloud with a real dedicated relational database offering in SQL Azure.  Now Amazon has their Relational Database Service heating up the competition.

In other news, Google finally joined the storage party with their recent launch announcement at the I/O Conference.  So now we have Amazon, Microsoft, and Google as the big companies on the block throwing down on the storage offerings.  Stay tuned for more!

In other news I have been working through the katas setup for TDD practice.  They're actually a lot of fun and would suggest anyone out there interested in TDD or just unit testing to just go out and give one a test drive.  : )

• http://osherove.com/tdd-kata-1/
• http://www.iamnotmyself.com/2009/10/23/TDDKataCalculatorDemonstration.aspx
• http://rickardnilsson.net/post/2009/10/27/Code-Kata-Cast.aspx
• http://www.21apps.com/agile/tdd-kata-by-example-video/
• http://charlesmaxwood.com/8-lessons-from-corey-haines-performance-kata/
• http://vimeo.com/7014098
• http://5whys.com/blog/how-to-measure-programmer-productivity-using-tdd-katas.html
• http://osherove.com/videos/2009/8/25/tdd-understanding-mock-objects.html
• http://www.markhneedham.com/blog/2010/01/10/roy-osheroves-tdd-kata-an-f-attempt/
• http://vimeo.com/8206748

Currently I am working on a code kata putting together ideas from Roy Osherove's The Art of Unit Testing and what one needs to know for testing in enterprise environments, abstracting the appropriate code to take into account web services, files, I/O, architectural issues, and other elements of coding.

Just a few of the key points brought up during the #altnet meeting on Saturday this weekend.  There were a number of other topics, but these stuck in my mind as something I am more interested in.

• katas | How to transition the learning from katas into the more elaborate testing realm of fakes, mocks, stubs, and such.
• Smells |  ViewModels, testing WPF and Silverlight.  How to test for latency,
• Upfront versus down the road costs.  How to decide when something should be learned at a macro level.
• UI Testing | What is a good method or practice to use to keep the testing time to a minimum.

These four points bring me to my current story list of code to write.

• Knock out a kata or two, and elaborate on the katas so that they have a more real world use for Enterprise (and other) Developers that have lots of abstracted layers and other parts to move through.
• I really need to get back to my Silverlight and WPF skills.  Somehow I need to bring these skills into my daily Azure Cloud work, which should be relatively easy, I just have to do it.
• Not sure I will have time, but I would like to write up some cost analysis (not just $,  but in time, effort, and other costs) associated with certain up front design and up front testing versus testing or design after the fact.  Of course this entire discussion point is very relative, but I am sure I can dig up some information somewhere.
• UI Testing.  It was an interesting topic at ALT.NET, but doubtful I will touch on it much until I get more dedicated WPF/Silverlight/Web UI Work.  Right now there just isn't enough value it it for me (kind of based on the aforementioned topic).

Started a new Sketchflow Prototype in Expression Blend recently and documented each of the steps.  This blog entry covers some of those steps, which are the basic elements of any prototype.  I will have more information regarding design, prototype creation, and the process of the initial phases for development in the future.  For now, I hope you enjoy this short walk through.  Also, be sure to check out my last quick entry on Sketchflow.

I started off with a Sketchflow Project, just like I did in my previous entry (more specifics in that entry about how to manipulate and build out the Sketchflow Map).

Once I created the project I setup the following Sketchflow Map.

The CoreNavigation is a ComponentScreen setup solely for the page navigation at the top of the screen.  The XAML markup in case you want to create a Component Screen with the same design is included below.

<UserControl

    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"

    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"

    xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"

    xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"

    mc:Ignorable="d"

    xmlns:i="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Interactivity;assembly=System.Windows.Interactivity" xmlns:pb="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Expression.Prototyping.Behavior;assembly=Microsoft.Expression.Prototyping.Interactivity"

    x:Class="RapidPrototypeSketchScreens.CoreNavigation"

    d:DesignWidth="624" d:DesignHeight="49" Height="49" Width="624">

    <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot">

        <TextBlock HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Margin="307,3,0,0" Style="{StaticResource TitleCenter-Sketch}" Text="A?t?chart Scorecards" TextWrapping="Wrap">

            <i:Interaction.Triggers>

                <i:EventTrigger EventName="MouseLeftButtonDown">

                    <pb:NavigateToScreenAction TargetScreen="RapidPrototypeSketchScreens.Screen_1"/>

                </i:EventTrigger>

            </i:Interaction.Triggers>

        </TextBlock>

        <Button HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="164,8,0,11" Style="{StaticResource Button-Sketch}" Width="144" Content="Scorecard">

            <i:Interaction.Triggers>

                <i:EventTrigger EventName="Click">

                    <pb:NavigateToScreenAction TargetScreen="RapidPrototypeSketchScreens.Screen_1_2"/>

                </i:EventTrigger>

            </i:Interaction.Triggers>

        </Button>

        <Button HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="8,8,0,11" Style="{StaticResource Button-Sketch}" Width="152" Content="Standard Reports">

            <i:Interaction.Triggers>

                <i:EventTrigger EventName="Click">

                    <pb:NavigateToScreenAction TargetScreen="RapidPrototypeSketchScreens.Screen_1_1"/>

                </i:EventTrigger>

            </i:Interaction.Triggers>

        </Button>

    </Grid>

</UserControl>

Now that the CoreNavigation Component Screen is done I built out each of the others.  In each of those screens I included the CoreNavigation Screen (all those little green lines in the image) as the top navigation.  In order to do that, as I created each of the pages I would hover over the CoreNavigation Object in the Sketchflow Map.  When the utilities drawer (the small menu that pops down under a node when you hover over it) shows click on the third little icon and drag it onto the page node you want a navigation screen on.

Once I created all the screens I setup the navigation by opening up each screen and right clicking on the objects that needed to point to somewhere else in the prototype.

Once I was done with the main page, my Home Navigation Page, it looked something like this in the Expression Blend Designer.

I fleshed out each of the additional screens.  Once I was done I wanted to try out the deployment package.  The way to deploy a Sketchflow Prototype is to merely click on File ?> Package SketchFlow Project and a prompt will appear.  In the prompt enter what you want the package to be called.

I like to see the files generated afterwards too, so I checked the box to see that.  When Expression Blend is done generating everything you?ll have a directory like the one shown below, with all the needed files for deployment.

Now these files can be copied or moved to any location for viewing.  One can even copy them (such as via FTP) to a server location to share with others.  Once they are deployed and you run the "TestPage.html" the other features of the Sketchflow Package are available.

In the image below I have tagged a few sections to show the Sketchflow Player Features.  To the top left is the navigation, which provides a clearly defined area of movement in a list.  To the center right is the actual prototype application.  I have placed lists of things and made edits.  On the left hand side is the highlight feature, which is available in the Feedback section of the lower left.  On the right hand list I underlined the Autochart with an orange marker, and marked out two list items with a red marker.

In the lower left hand side in the Feedback section is also an area to type in your feedback.  This can be useful for time based feedback, when you post this somewhere and want people to provide subsequent follow up feedback.

Overall lots of great features, that enable some fairly rapid prototyping with customers.  Once one is familiar with the steps and parts of this Sketchflow Prototype Capabilities it is easy to step through an application without even stopping.  It really is that easy.  So get hold of Expression Blend 3 and get ramped up on Sketchflow, it will pay off in the design phases to do so!

I rolled over to the Mandalay for breakfast.  There I met a couple guys that were really excited about the new Windows 7 Phone.  They, as I, are also hopeful that the phone really gets a big push and some penetration into the market.  Not because we don?t like any other of the phones, but because this phone is so much better in many ways.  From a developer's perspective creating applications in Windows 7 Mobile will be vastly superior in ease, capabilities, and other aspects.  The architectural, existing code base, examples, and provisions to create things on the 7 Mobile Device are already existing as of RIGHT NOW.  There is no reason, except for fickle market conditions, for this phone to not just explode onto the market.  But alas, I won't hold my breath.

Day three keynote had a whole new slew of things provided.  It also seemed that things got a lot more technical on this second keynote.  The oData was one of the very technical bits, yet it included almost no code.  Starting with a Netflix example and all the way to the Codename "Dallas" effort the oData Services provide some expansive possibilities.

A mash up going 4 ways was then shown for finding a movie, finding local places to have a viewing, and information about the movie and were to prospectively find and buy additional movie bits.  The display was of course, in a Windows 7 Mobile device with literally a click to view each set of data.  The backend and the front end of this was beautifully smooth.

The Dallas Project has a lot of potential for analytics in dashboard and scorecard creation also.  If there is a need or reason to provide data to a vast and wide range of clients, Dallas is a prime example of how to do that.

Azure Clouds

After the main keynote I checked out (while developing a working WPF & Silverlight Application for work) the session on deploying ASP.NET Applications, services, etc, into the cloud.  The session was pretty good, but I'll admit I got a little unfocused from it a few times.  It is after all hard to do two things at one time.

I did take note that the cloud still is a multiple step process for deploying to.  This is a good thing and a bad thing.  There needs to be more checks and verifications when deploying something into the cloud just for technical reasons.  However, I feel that there should be some streamlining to the process.  Going back and forth between web and Visual Studio as the interface also seems kind of clunky.  Deployment should be able to be completed from within Visual Studio in my perspective.  Overall, the cloud is getting more and more impressive in function as well as theory.

I went to the session on Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework (MSAF) today while here at MIX 2010.  It was a great walk through the features, ideas, and what the end goal is.  Michael Scherotter did a great job of lining up the ideas, intentions, and the functional ideas behind the framework.

The framework is built around the Silverlight Behaviors.  If you aren't sure what behaviors are, check out these entries from Nikhilk.net Silverlight Behaviors, Silverlight 3 Drag Behavior, An Introduction to Behaviors, Triggers, and Actions, and of course the MSDN Documentation on the matter.

Some of the key features of the framework is to support out-of-browser scenarios, which works perfectly with out Webtrends DX Web Services.  Offline scenarios, which again, we have worked toward supporting at Webtrends DC Web Services via caching and other criteria as needed.  Another feature that I was really stoked about is the Microsoft Expression Blend integration that removes the need for coding, thus simplifying the addition of analytics components based on events or other actions within a Silverlight Application.  This framework also easily supports A/B Testing (again, something we do quit a bit of at Webtrends with Webtrends Optimize.

The last thing I really wanted to point out was the control support that this framework has support in already from Telerik RadControls, Smooth Streaming Media Element, and Microsoft Silverlight Media Framework Player 1.0.  These are implemented with behaviors and handlers exposed via MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework).

All in all, great second day, great analytics framework for Silverlight, and great presentation.  Until tomorrow, adieu.

Left the Circus Circus and headed to the geek circus at Mandalay Bay.  Got in, got some breakfast, met a few more people and headed to the keynote.

Upon arriving the crew I was hanging with at the event; Erik Mork, Beth Murray, and Brian Henderson and I were entertained with several other thousand geeks by the wicked yo-yoing.

The first video demo of something was of Bing Maps and various aspects of Microsoft Research integrated together.  Namely the pictures, put in place, on real 3d element maps of various environments.

Silverlight

Scott Guthrie, as one would guess, kicked off the keynote.  His first point was that user experience has become a priority at Microsoft.  This can be seen by any observant soul with the release and push of Expression, Silverlight, and the other tools.  This is even more apparent when one takes note of Microsoft bringing in people that can actually do good design and putting them at the forefront.

The next thing Scott brought up was a few key points about Silverlight.  Currently Silverlight is a little over 2 years old and has achieved a pretty solid 60% penetration.  Silverlight has all sorts of capabilities that have been developed and are now provided as open source including;  ad injection, smoothing, playback editing, and more.  Another thing he showed, which really struck me as awesome being in the analytics space, was the Olympics and a quick glimpse of the ad statistics, viewer experience, video playback performance, audience trends, and overall viewer participation.  All of it rendered in Silverlight in beautiful detail.

The key piece of Scott's various points were all punctuated with the fact that all of this code is available as open source.  Not only is Microsoft really delving into this design element of things, they're getting involved in the right ways.

One of the last points I'll bring up about Silverlight 4 is the ability to have HD video on a monitor, and an entirely different activity being done on the other monitor, effectively making Silverlight the only RIA framework that supports multi-monitor support.  Overall, Silverlight is continuing to impress ? providing superior capabilities tit-for-tat with the competition.

Windows 7 Phone

The Windows 7 Phone has 3 primary buttons (yes, more than the iPhone, don't let your mind explode!!).  Start, Search, and Back control all of the needed functionality of the phone.  At the same time, of course, there is the multi-touch, touch, and other interactive abilities of the interface.  The intent, once start is pressed is to have all the information that a phone owner wants displayed immediately.  Avoiding the scrolling through pages of apps or rolling a ball to get through multitudes of other non-interactive phone interfaces.  The Windows 7 Phone simply has the data right in front of you, basically a phone dashboard.  From there it is easy to dive into the interactive areas of the phone.

Each area of the interface of the phone is broken into hubs.  These hubs include applications, data, and other things based on a relative basis.  This basis being determined by the user.  These applications interact on many other levels, and form a kind of relationship between each other adding more and more meta-data to the phone user, their interactions between the applications, and of course the social element of their interactions on the phone.  This makes this phone a practical must have for a marketer involved in social media.  The level of wired together interaction is massive, and of course, if you've seen Office Outlook 2010 you know that the power that is pulled into the phone by being tied to Outlook is massive.

Joe Belfiore also showed several UI & specifically UX elements of the phone interface that allows paging to be instinctual by simple clipped items, flipping page to page, and other excellent user experience advances for phone devices.  Belfiore's also showed how his people hub had a massive list of people, with pictures, all from various different social networks and other associated relations.  The rendering, speed, and viewing of these people's, their pictures, their social network information, and other characteristics was smooth and in some situations unbelievably rendered.  This demo showed some of the great power of the beta phone, which isn't even as powerful as the planned end device.

Joe finished up by jumping into the music, videos, and other media with the Zune Component of the Windows 7 Mobile Phone.  This was all good stuff, but I'll get to what really sold me on the media element in a moment.

When Joe was done, Scott Guthrie stepped back up to walk through building a Windows 7 Mobile Phone.  This is were I have to give serious props.  He built this application, in Visual Studio 2010, in front of 2000+ people.  That was cool, but what really was amazing that he build the application in about 2 minutes.  The IDE, side by side design that is standard in Visual Studio is light years ahead of x-Code or any of the iPhone IDEs.  The Windows 7 Mobile System, if it can get market penetration, poses a technologically superior development and phone platform over anything on the market right now.  The biggest problem with the phone, is it just isn't available yet.  I personally can't wait for a chance to build some apps for the new Windows Phone.

Netflix, I May Start Up an Account Again!

When I get my Windows 7 Phone device, I am absolutely getting a Netflix account again.  The Vertigo crew, as I wrote on Twitter "#MIX10 Props @seesharp on @netflix demo", displayed an application on the phone for Netflix that actually ran HD Video of Rescue Me (with Dennis Leary).  The video played back smooth as it would on a dedicated computer, I was instantly sold.  So this didn't actually sell me on the phone, because I'm already sold, but it did sell me whole heartedly on the media capabilities of the pending phone.

Anyway, I try not to do this but I may double post today.  Lunch is over and I'm off to another session very near and dear to the heart of my occupation, Analytics Tracking.  Stay tuned and I should have that post up by the end of the day.

IE6/Windows XP

Microsoft wants users to give up IE6 & Windows XP.  I want users to give up IE6 & XP.  Please, please, please give those things up.  IE6 of course more than XP.  With what Windows 7 is though, go ahead, get on the bandwagon.  Win XP is moving the way of Win98/95 finally so let's keep that movement going.

Free SEO Toolkit from ole' Microsoft

So this looks interesting.  The thing is, as stated above, one has to kick the Windows XP Habit!  So drop it and check this out.  I am keen to see what anybody is coming up with as for these platforms these days.  Especially companies like Microsoft who have vast resources to put toward it.

Adbrite Switches to Webtrends

I see this regularly these days, as we are gaining tons of switchers, since our analytics generally rocks.  But this one really brings it home for me since I have worked with the Adbrite Team on the Implementation.  Great team at Adbrite, excellent implementation if I might say so myself.  If you are looking for a company to do advertisements on the web with, this is definitely a company to take a look at.

Excited!

That is me right now.  I am stoked about the upcoming Engage 2010 for a few reasons.

1. The main reason is because the analytics industry & this field of technology is really interesting to me.  I dig crunching the numbers, working with our clients, and getting the results and analysis into useful, actionable numbers.  Being able to see & know our clients are able to act on those numbers is awesome.  Attending a conference like this provides an opportunity to talk with clients regarding their use of the technology.
2. Ideas grow at a rapid rate when this many smart people, with a common interest & goal are in one place.  Just talking with conference goers, thought leaders in the industry, and being able to talk on a one to one basis gives me, them, and everyone involved new ideas.  One never knows what may come out of a conference like this.  Whatever does, it is always exciting to think of the opportunities.
3. Ignite New Orleans.  If you have ever been to a Portland Ignite, these are really cool events.  Local, human, entertaining, and personal all come to mind to describe how these Ignite Events are.  To have one in New Orleans - or Nawlins' - will be a blast!  :)
4. I will be there speaking & working a workshop.  This will be the first time I have ever presented or done anything like this in New Orleans.  That adds all the more excitement to it.  I hope to see some familiar faces and many new ones.
5. I grew up just down the ole' Interstate, so New Orleans or as we often say Nawlins, is kind of a second home to me.  I enjoyed so much driving into this city from the east, over Lake Pontchartrain's Twin Span 5+ mile bridge or the 23+ mile Lake Pontchartrain's Causeway.  Better yet I really enjoyed rolling into the city on the Amtrak Crescent via the Norfolk Southern Lake Pontchartrain Bridge (See the awesome map).

This is shaping up to be a truly awesome event.  If you are going and would like to meetup, discuss some analytics, or just enjoy some music on Bourbon, St Charles, or Decatur just hit me up on Twitter @webtrendsadron.

I have been digging around on the web lately to see what I can find that provides a solid, seamless charting ability to WPF and Silverlight.  There are a ton of choices out there.  After spending a good couple hours last night and some time today I have decided that I am going to go with Visifire.  These charts are pretty solid and ridiculously easy to implement.  Check out this video for some of the samples they have.

Visifire 2.x Gallery from visifire team on Vimeo.

I hope to have some write up how to entries in the near future.  I have just completed a few work related projects and I know there are some good samples in all that which are publishable.  : )