My blog entry test
via Ping.fm
Monday, March 29, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Welcome to my networked blog
This is a test entry of my network blog to test if I can post to all of my blogs at one time. Let me know if you received it..
via Ping.fm
Welcome to my networked blog
This is a test entry of my network blog to test if I can post to all of my blogs at one time. Let me know if you received it..
via Ping.fm
Welcome to my networked blog
This is a test entry of my network blog to test if I can post to all of my blogs at one time. Let me know if you received it..
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Welcome to the new UXMagic Blog..
I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the new UXMagic Blog. It is all about user experience design, and social media technologies. It is a great time to be in this industry. I hope this new blog will give you some insight into new happenings and trends that will grow the industry.
Welcome and don't forget to join our conversation here..
Monday, May 5, 2008
Blog Has Moved
This Blog has moved, you should be automatically redirected to http://blog.donburnett.com or http://www.donburnett.com/NewBlog
Friday, May 2, 2008
Expression Studio 2 Ships and How to do SEO with Silverlight Pages
by Don Burnett
Well it's been a bit since I posted I had been working really hard and somehow I ended up getting pneumonia. So I have been taking a break, but several exciting things happened that I figure I should tell you about. Expression Studio Version 2 has shipped. If you are interested in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) I recommend you check out Michael S. Scherotter's blog where he has two great articles on doing SEO in Silverlight with ASP.NET as a server..
http://blogs.msdn.com/synergist/archive/2007/10/03/simple-silverlight-seo-with-asp-net-and-xslt.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/synergist/archive/2007/10/03/other-silverlight-seo-techniques.aspx
Expression Studio Version 2 has shipped
Some folks have suggested that "Expression Studio was released about a year and a half ago as a partial answer to Adobe’s Creative Suite". I wouldn't characterize this quite this way, I think that's basically calling it a ME too product. I don't see it that way, Expression Studio is squarely framed at supporting Microsoft's web based initiatives. It reinvents much of the designer developer work flow that frankly the "Creative Suite" hasn't addressed for developers centered on Microsoft developer solutions.
If you are are an ASP.NET designer or developer a product like Dream Weaver never really totally addressed ASP.NET version 2.0, when it came to things like data binding they used a few of their own custom ASP.NET controls, a couple used the same name as the Microsoft versions, but were not completely compatible. It only supported ASP.NET 1.0 correctly. Expression Web 1.0 and now 2.0 goes way beyond that, not to mention Visual Studio and Visual Web Developer Express. When Visual Web Developer shipped a few years ago it was the end of my love affair with DreamWeaver as a tool.
When I started moving from bitmap to vector art, Illustrator and Photoshop never totally provided the complete integrated solution because each supported different markets and capabilities. We needed a tool that did both. One third party tool did both, that was Fractal Design Painter and later Creature House Expression 3. Microsoft updated and transformed this into Expression Design. Considering that bitmaps are really only used in photography today, but most people need their vector/structured graphics today, that are nicely up-sizable to different resolutions, aspect, and color modes, that are used by most GUI systems today. Photoshop doesn't really do that. The XAML integration with Expression Blend and other Expression Studio products and Visual Studio make great end-to-end work possible, whether you are making a Desktop, Web, or Mobile application.
Expression Media is great if you have to catalog multimedia assets for your project or handle version control with that as well..
I have heard Adobe's been working on something called "Thermo" which I hear tries to do this with Photoshop type files. If it is indeed working with bitmaps I will be kind of disappointed, because bitmaps aren't really a mainstay of UI graphics under Windows (even if supplies them). Expression Design doesn't try to be a professional photograph tool. It leaves cataloging and fixing up photos and bitmaps to Expression Media. Both products are focused on what they do best..Photoshop is a tool used by many more markets, and has to try to be all things to all people. For this reason saying it's a "partial answer" doesn't work for me because there are many different market differentiations between "the Suite " and "The Studio". You can't get one to do the work of the other. I believe that makes room for both of them and they are less competition for each other than you might expect.
All of the Expression Studio products were very much winners in their own markets before Microsoft put them together as Expression Studio. To me it's like coming home to an old friend who just got a new lease on life..
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Finally Some More Proof on Vista Speed..
by Don Burnett
Over at Adrian-Kingsley Hughes' ZDNET blog, he's been benchmarking some OS speeds, which again shows some folks still running XP and some SYSADMINs have the wrong idea about Vista..
Check out this graph over on Adrian's ZDNET BLOG..
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/images/xpsp3_vs_vistasp1.jpg
I don't believe in benchmarks always, but this does underscore some of the purported information being incorrect about Vista performance. I'd love to see him include benchmarks that use WCF and WPF on both systems..
Also from the great articles on how to do section..
Webcam's to WPF...
Thursday, April 17, 2008
More Cable Industry Alleged Collusion- (Keeping the content under their control)
by Don Burnett
Note this is an opinion piece, but be ready to be totally pissed off when you read it..
According to an article on Gizmodo, and Gary Merson (The HD Guru), Cable customers who use the current CableCard to access protected HD content, that's Windows Media Center and TiVo to you and me, will soon start losing HD channels. Why you ask? Well, cable carriers are moving from a direct stream of video to "switched digital video," which use two-way digital cable boxes to see what customers need then send it to them. CableCards are only one-way devices. Supposedly CableLabs has a USB "dongle" device that enabled 2-way connections via the CableCard.
Time-Warner cable has already started eliminating channels from the one way only cable card service (the tier known as VOOM HD- which is about 15 channels if memory serves me correctly). So CableCard customers are losing channels there, and no dongle in-sight for those folks yet. The big problem with the dongle is that some devices including TVs that use CableCard don't have USB ports and never will.
I think this is totally lame and just more attempts to control content, over the reality of going to new hardware that will conserve bandwidth, which is the excuse being used. This further adds to the Media Center issues with HD content. I think we should be lobbying the cable industry to support existing products like one-way cable cards and being more consumer focused. To me this is an internal save money decision that was made to go to a "switched" system, that is in the interest of the cable company but not the consumers.
Breaking changes are never good for any industry, and it just shows the power of the cable companies to make an arbitrary change of service like this. The FCC needs to step in and do something about this kind of thing, as it's not consumer friendly..
Cable Labs responded to these allegations on Gizmodo. quoting their excerpts:
"Content available on cable networks is changing all the time. New services are added, some are redesigned and others are removed."
• "SDV technology is designed to expand the range of services offered by cable operators, not reduce them."
• "Many CE companies chose to implement receivers that lack the necessary circuitry to provide a full two-way cable experience with the CableCard."
• "No product was ever originally designed to work with this new Tuning Adaptor including the existing Tivo UDPC products...Since consumer products don't use Microsoft Windows, they don't have plug-in drivers. Instead a new firmware update is needed to include the necessary driver controls to interact with this new external device. Makers of any existing UDCPs that already have a USB port (there are many) are just as able to provide new firmware as Tivo, if they chose to do so."
• "Consumers should look for products identified as tru2way to ensure they will be able to get all the new and advanced services their digital cable systems can deliver."
The last item doesn't exist right now as far as I know.. Either way,I believe this is yet another anti-consumer arbitrary decision to EOL (End-of-Life) One way CableCard technology, before many of us ever get to see or use it (my humble opinion), but the word needs to get out.. Please write the FCC and Congress and lets get some examination of this issue going.
All Hands on Deck! Surface, Surface! at the AT&T Store
by Don Burnett
Over at Gizmodo, they have information on Microsoft's Surface (Table PC) which is now reportedly available at five AT&T stores (more locations coming soon..). They have some great video over on Gizmodo of the Surface device.. Looks like things are happening with this technology earlier than expected. If you don't know about surface check out the Microsoft original demos..
Check out the video and more information over at the Gizmodo site..
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Several Things of Note..
By Don Burnett
Mono on the iPhone, compiling C# can Moonlight 1.0 or 2.0 be that far behind or even Silverlight for that matter (no Microsoft hasn't announced anything).. This is speculation.. But this rocks, .NET apps on the iPhone..
courtesy of Miguel De Icaza's Blog and Luke Howard from PADL Software Ltd
Videos on YouTube of this..
More.
This is cool, I really hope Microsoft enters the iPhone game with this too.. My battle cry, ".NET EVERYWHERE"... WHOOO!
...and this one falls into the category MORE SPECULATION
Quoting JD's Blog:
"Realworld HD H.264 support
Realworld HD H.264 support: In March, 4500 consumers were tested for viewing different types of media files. 2780 of them had already installed Adobe Flash Player 9.0.115. That's 62% of today's computers, supporting no-hassle high definition playback of H.264 video. Considering this browser plugin was released in December, and the audit was conducted in March, then it's an easy choice for realworld use today..."
I guess I am one of those people, but when I tried to watch "Brothers and Sisters" on ABC.com and it was far from no hassle in high def and my machine is a supported configuration.. It didn't work properly on their high def content, and I have great connectivity.
INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW
My other question to JD is: How can 62% of 4500 people actually a representative sample.. Personally I am just a little (well OKAY A LOT) confused about what he's saying here.. Care to clarify for us? Am I reading this wrong? More than one person I know read this and is asking the same question.. You said this is "Realworld" so I am asking. JD by the way has a great blog and normally publishes great information..
I know JD reads my blog, so maybe he'll get more specific and reply here..
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Microsoft Announces New Content Deals
by Don Burnett
Here's the Announcement as a whole:
"For Release 6 a.m. PDT
Microsoft Announces New Support for Silverlight by Content Companies Worldwide
New content protection capabilities unveiled, coming in Silverlight 2.
LAS VEGAS — April 14, 2008 — Today at the NAB Show 2008, Microsoft Corp. announced significant momentum for Microsoft Silverlight resulting from new customers adopting Silverlight to deliver richer, more interactive media experiences on the Web. Building on recent support from major content providers such as AOL and NBC Olympics.com on MSN, Microsoft announced new adoption of Silverlight by media and content companies worldwide, including Madison Square Garden (MSG) Interactive, Tencent, Abertis Telecom, Terra Networks Operations, SBSi, MNet and Yahoo! JAPAN.
“It’s exciting to see broad industry recognition and rapid adoption of Silverlight across the world,” said Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Division at Microsoft. “Silverlight offers customers and partners the highest quality creation and delivery of media, protected content, advertising and rich Internet applications, and we are committed to making it easy for partners to integrate and extend Silverlight capabilities.”
Media Companies Worldwide Choose Silverlight to Power Connected Rich Internet and Media Web Experiences
With an average of 1.5 million daily downloads of the Silverlight plug-in, and growing, adoption of Silverlight around the world continues to accelerate momentum for compelling online media experiences for consumers. Media companies in particular — with an increasing emphasis on utilizing the Internet as a channel for content and new revenue streams — are taking the lead in delivering innovative new Web experiences. Among those media companies announcing Silverlight-based projects are the following:
· MSG Interactive is using Silverlight as a platform to deliver live on-demand digital content to its huge community of sports and entertainment fans.
· Tencent, China’s largest Internet portal, with more than 300 million unique viewers, today announced it is developing a series of Silverlight-based next-generation Internet services and media experiences.
· Abertis Telecom will use Silverlight as the platform for a new video content delivery channel going live this spring, which will provide end users with convenient access to dozens of channels of Spanish-language TV content within a single Web-based application.
· Terra Networks is using Silverlight as the platform for the new HD channel on Terra TV, its online video and TV platform with service in 18 countries in Latin America and United States reaching millions of subscribers around the world.
· Announced last week, Yahoo! JAPAN, the most trafficked Web site in Japan, plans to roll out video distribution and Internet services that use Silverlight as the application platform.
“Our implementation of content services enabled by Microsoft Silverlight has significance for both Yahoo! JAPAN and Microsoft,” said Masahiro Inoue, CEO of Yahoo! JAPAN. “We strive to respond promptly and appropriately to the constantly evolving Internet environment and customer needs, and I have high expectations that our use of Silverlight will enable us to provide better services to our customers.”
Recently, at MIX08, Microsoft outlined new capabilities of its end-to-end media platform — including Silverlight 2, Expression Studio 2 and Windows Server 2008 — which offers
industry-leading streaming and progressive download capability with Windows Server 2008. In addition, Microsoft presented support for new Silverlight advertising scenarios, and companies such as Microsoft Atlas, DoubleClick Inc., Eyeblaster Inc. and Panache were already showing how Silverlight enables next-generation in-stream advertising to better monetize the assets of content owners. At MIX08, Microsoft also announced a strategic alliance with Move Networks, a leading provider of advanced video delivery services. At NAB 2008, Move Networks Inc. is demonstrating a technology preview of Silverlight-based unique branding and navigation elements within, around and on top of Move Networks’ video technology.
New Microsoft Content Protection Support in Silverlight Increases Opportunities for Vibrant Content Marketplace
Silverlight-based content delivery can be protected using a variety of techniques, including Web and streaming playlists, authentication, authorization, stream encryption and digital rights management (DRM). Today Microsoft unveiled details of Silverlight DRM, Powered by PlayReady, the content protection support coming later this year in Silverlight. Silverlight DRM builds on Microsoft’s extensive expertise and experience in content protection and support for hundreds of millions of media players and devices worldwide.
In addition to being compatible with the broadly deployed base of Windows Media DRM 10 content, Silverlight DRM will support live streaming, on-demand streaming and progressive downloads for connected experiences. With the extensibility and openness of Silverlight, third-party solution providers will also be able to build and offer content owners additional choices for their media protection needs.
A number of content owners, aggregators and service providers including BUYDRM, Daum Communications Corp., iMBC Co. Ltd., Limelight Networks, M-Net Media, Netflix Inc., Paramount Pictures, SK Communications, SBSI, a subsidiary of SBS Media Group, and Technicolor have announced their support for the content protection solution to be provided in Silverlight, due to the technology’s proven foundation and support.
“As the dynamics of content distribution continue to accelerate toward the Internet, we need a flexible technology platform that allows us to explore a broad scope of business models and rich user experiences for digital distribution of Paramount Pictures’ wide array of content,” said Dr. Alan Bell, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Paramount Pictures. “With Silverlight DRM, Powered by PlayReady, Microsoft is bringing nearly a decade of heritage in DRM and content access to the table to deliver a solution with a strong technology foundation — allowing us to provide legal alternatives to our audiences enabling them to consume our content in whatever browser or platform they prefer.”
Microsoft will be demonstrating a technology preview of Silverlight DRM at the NAB Show in booth SL5520, and has introduced a preview program for customers to learn more about Silverlight DRM. Additional information, including licensing terms for Silverlight DRM, is available at http://microsoft.com/silverlight.
Many content owners, aggregators and solution providers have announced their support and interest in Silverlight DRM including the following:
“The deployment of Silverlight DRM via the KeyOS Pay Media Platform will offer customers a flexible, robust business-centered rights management solution that will broaden the consumer marketplace for pay media,” said Christopher Levy, CEO of BuyDRM and Microsoft MVP for Digital Media. “We have been working closely with Microsoft to develop one of the industry’s first Silverlight DRM-enabled services offering that is flexible, easy to deploy and provides powerful rights management solutions for a variety of industries.”
“Limelight Networks is a long-time content delivery partner of Microsoft, and was one of the first to support the initial Silverlight experience. We’re pleased today to announce our support for Silverlight DRM, Powered by PlayReady, so that content producers leveraging our high-performance CDN can enable highly secure, profitable streaming experiences through Silverlight 2 technologies,” said Adam Wray, vice president, strategic alliances, Limelight Networks Inc.
“Netflix has used Windows Media DRM 10 to protect the 7,000 choices of movies and TV episodes that our 7.5 million members can watch instantly on the PC,” said Neil Hunt, chief product officer for Netflix. “We look forward to expanding platform coverage using Silverlight with PlayReady, which is expected to satisfy industry requirements for content protection and simplify and improve the end-user experience.”
“The announcement of Microsoft PlayReady and its availability on our platforms will reinforce the position of S60 on Symbian OS as the leading mobile platform for Internet innovation,” said Lee Williams, senior vice president, Nokia Devices Software. “In March we announced that we would bring Silverlight to S60, as well as our Series 40 and maemo platforms. We have also been working with Microsoft for some time on digital rights management. The combination of Silverlight and PlayReady further extends business and monetization opportunities for the industry and raises the bar for rich, interactive consumer experiences.”
“DRM is an integral part of the Technicolor Electronic Distribution Services offer, with Windows Media DRM playing a key role in our technology,” said Mark Langford, vice president, marketing & product management, Thomson Technicolor Electronic Distribution Services. “More recently we’ve expanded our proficiency to include Silverlight, a tool that is exceptionally designed to offer a very compelling user interface for media on the Web. The new support for PlayReady will help us complete the offering of our next generation Live Streaming platform that is based on Silverlight and targeted at tier-one media and entertainment companies.”
“Telstra BigPond, as Australia’s leading provider of audio and video, has been using Windows Media DRM for years and with Silverlight’s support for PlayReady — the latest generation of Microsoft’s media DRM,” said Craig Middleton, group manager, Corporate Relations, Telstra BigPond. “BigPond is looking forward to working with these latest technologies to further enhance its innovative and world-class video and audio content offering to the Australian market place.”
More information on Microsoft’s presence at the NAB Show 2008 can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/media/nab2008.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
#########
For more information, press only:
Rose Tucker, Weber Shandwick, (425) 452-5463, rtucker@webershandwick.com"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
