I realized this morning that MIX is just a few weeks away and by a few I mean less than four. I can’t wait. MIX might be my favorite week of year (sorry Holiday Season) and this looks like it’s going to be a great year. Even Joshua Topolsky (Mr. Engadget) thinks so, or did at 4:05PM the other day anyway.

I’m Speaking! Woohoo!

In addition to attending, I get to speak again this year. Twice, in fact. First off is a workshop. This will be an encore (and updated) performance of the workshop I did last year about the fundamentals of design. Microsoft specifically asked me to present the same workshop this year because we had a really great response to it last last year and this seems to still be a very hot topic. That’s awesome: technical folks want to know more about design.

I’ve refined some things for this go around, but the basics of the content will be the same: the fundamental principles of design presented for non-designers. New stuff is: new content about typography, some updated thoughts about realism in UI, icons and imagery as well as some better organization and refinement overall. I’ve also tried to update a bunch of the examples we look at.

It’s Not Too Late to Register for the Workshops (Even if You Already Registered for MIX)

Some things about workshops: first, it was a fluke that it was recorded last year and I don’t think we’ll be so lucky this year. Second, even if you’ve already registered for the conference (and I’ve heard that space is running out), you can go back and add the workshops to you’re registration if you’ve had a change of heart. And you should. The workshops look really cool this year.

My Session: Hands on With Design

In addition to the workshop, Microsoft is also letting me present a session. This session is mostly made up of content that didn’t quite fit into the workshop. Where the workshop is a lot about “what is” design, the session is more hands on and “how to” design. It may be a little random (it’s the scraps after the workshop after all) but hopefully really fun and useful. I’ll cover everything from process kinds of stuff to some tactical XAML kinds of things.

This Year’s Kaxaml Swag

Finally, a little about Kaxaml swag this year. So, it just didn’t feel right to order new swag this year since 1) I have about 450 stickers left and 2) Kaxaml hasn’t really changed at all since last year. So this year we’re going sticker crazy! The goal is to “place” all 450 stickers in good homes so that next year when we have a fresh version of the app we can also have fresh swag to celebrate. Therefore, if you are at the conference and have a need for a sticker, do not hesitate get one (or two or up to 450). They are quickly become collectors items, by the way. Time is running out.

Well, that’s it for now. See you at MIX!

Kaxaml Update

I had a great conversation with Rob Relyea (Mr. XAML) yesterday about the future of Kaxaml and he shared a lot of very useful pointers about how to use some upcoming .NET 4.0 features to make Kaxaml super awesome. Looks like he’s already written much of the code for us!

So here’s the plan. No updates until the week after MIX, but I’ve reserved a few days that week to dig in. At that point, I’ll also update the code on codeplex and if anyone would like to lend a hand, I would warmly welcome it. I haven’t done a good job getting community support in the code so far. Part of the next update will be (hopefully) making community participation a little easier. If you’re interested in lending a hand that week, let me know. It will be fun. Maybe we can make t-shirts or something.

Some of the features I’d like to add (time permitting):

• Support for external assemblies
• x:Class / Event stripping
• Basic .csproj support / App.xaml support
• “Real” intellisense (right now I just parse a big .XSD)
• Better Silveright support (some tough problems here still)
• ResourceDictionary preview
• Better MVVM (when I wrote this, MVVM was really new and the current implementation feels very broken now)

Downloads

I noticed this morning that I’ve had 88,000 downloads of Kaxaml so far. That sort of blew my mind. I realize that as developers we reinstall our machines a lot. At least a dozen of those downloads are from me, but it’s still a much bigger number than I expected. I’ve had a pretty good number of inquiries over that time from people who want make donations. I’ve never accepted anything but the gesture has always been really appreciated.

The Request

Well, I have a request. If you use Kaxaml, here’s a way to help: this morning I got an email from a colleague in Romania (Niamtu Dragos). He’s the man behind xamltemplates.net. Dragos is currently donating any sales of the content on his site to Daniel Raduta.

I don’t know Daniel, but he’s got leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant that he can’t afford. He’s a developer like us and he has a family. He’s expecting his first child next month. I find it tragic that right now his life depends mostly on financing! The knowledge and technology to beat this exist, he just needs to pay for it. Seems like that should be a technicality or an afterthought but right now it’s the thing that’s keeping him from getting the help he needs. That’s heartbreaking!

So, here’s the request: If you’ve thought about donating to Kaxaml in the past then use those funds to support Daniel. Theoretically, there are thousands of us. If we each donated just a few dollars we would save this guys life! To donate, you can buy something from xamltemplates.net or donate directly to Daniel by clicking below. If you do and you want to let me know it was for Kaxaml, drop me a line (or feel to keep it anonymous too).

I found out today that my MIX09 worskhop is now officially online. I won’t lie, it’s kind of long. The session is three hours of what I wish I had learned about design when I jumped on the design wagon train.  You’ll either want to do this one an hour at a time or else prepare some snacks.

By the way, thanks to the Microsoft guys (Jaime and other folks) who made sure this recording got online. Initially, since it’s a workshop, it was not going to be posted. Normally workshops and precons don’t get recorded or posted. Microsoft really went out of their way, though, to get this one out there (after we found out it had been recorded by accident). Maybe they realized that this is a tough year to be budgeting for addons (like workshops) at conferences and there are probably people who would have liked to have attended.

I guess we also want to thank the attendees who asked to get it online. I think that enough people clamored to get it up there. So, thanks guys!

1. Stickers
For those of you who have submitted haikus, it’s finally sticker time. I’ll be mailing them out in about a week. Between now and then, please send me a physical address where I can send the sticker. Also, let me know how many you want. No reasonable request will be refused (where reasonable maxes out at about 8 or 9) You can use the email address robby@kaxaml.com. For those of you who didn’t submit a haiku, well, it’s not too late. By the way, I gave away about half of the stickers away at MIX. Wow, that’s 500 stickers (but looks like approximately 1 wheelbarrow full) so I was pretty happy.

2. Video from the workshop
The good news is that the workshop was recorded. It must have been meant to be, because not all of the workshops were recorded, but (mostly by a stroke of luck) mine happened to be one of the lucky few to end up on tape. The bad news is that the first pass at encoding the video produced pretty poor audio. The good news (last one, I promise) is that it is being re-encoded and should probably be live sometime next week. Sweet!

3. Kaxaml and Silverlight 3
The latest beta of Kaxaml works with Silverlight 3 with you doing anything. That said, I’m looking to expand the support and finally bump SL support out of beta. Unfortunately, Kaxaml takes a back seat to paying gigs these days so the best way to get a new release of Kaxaml is to not hire me.  Wait a minute…I mean, if you hire me then I’ll hurry and get you a new release of Kaxaml. I’ll even customize the colors for you.

Realistically, I’m hoping to get a new version out the door in the next few weeks. If you have features or bug fixes that you really care about, now is a good time to let me know. You can send feedback to bugs@kaxaml.com

4. Great conference, see you at others
Well, once again, great conference Microsoft. Looking back, I think it’s my favorite MIX yet and I’ve been to all four! It even beat MIX06 (which has a special place in my heart since it was, well, the first one). I have budget for one or two more conferences this year. One will probably be the PDC. Does anybody have suggestions on the other? I’m currently debating between FITC (Toronto) and Web 2.0 Expo (New York). Hope to see you there!

I just picked up the stickers and they turned out great and they also turned out in abundance. Who knew that 1,000 stickers is really about 5,000 stickers! So please take them from me. Track me down at MIX or submit your haiku!

UPDATE: just wanted to make sure that everyone knows this intended to be funny.  These are actually BAD tips. I only mention this because a couple of the comments seemed to indicate that people didn’t know that. On the other hand, maybe they just beat me at my own game and made serious sounding comments that were actually jokes so the joke is on me. Hmm.

It’s that time of year again when many of us are dusting off that old wireless mouse w/ built-in PowerPoint clicker and gearing up for some public speaking. For those of you giving talks, I thought I’d share some of my top tips for a successful presentation. Let’s get those speaking scores up, folks!

1. Remember that you’re the expert

For starters, it can be intimidating to stand in front of a room full of people waiting to hear what you have to say. One thing that helps me is to remember who’s the boss in that room. It’s me (unless you’re the one speaking, then it’s you). Intimidate me? I’ll intimidate you. That’s what I say. Don’t be afraid to use words that you know people won’t understand or to say things in a way that makes you sound smarter than they are.

2. Dress up

They don’t call it a power tie for nothing, and it goes perfectly with PowerPoint. Want to sound smart? Start by looking smart. Want to be in good form? Why not some formalwear? It’s much better to be overdressed than underdressed. And men, don’t be afraid of a little aftershave!

3. Structure = bullets

Look, if bullets didn’t work, people would have stopped using them a long time ago. A combination of words and bullets is much more effective than words alone. Think of your talk as a highly structured conversation. Without bullets, where’s the structure?

4. Memorize, memorize, memorize

Can I paint a picture for you? Imagine a great talk that you’ve seen recently. Got it? Now re-imagine that talk except the speaker is reading the talk from a stack of papers. Not as good, right? It’s that simple: GREAT PRESENTERS DON’T READ, THEY MEMORIZE!

5. Talk faster, use jargon

One metric that I find useful is to estimate the cost per minute of my talk. Let’s say 400 people, each paid $1000 to be there. That’s over $6000/minute to hear me talk! Don’t waste that time. Two easy ways to maximize your minutes: talk faster and use “insider” words as shortcuts for complex concepts.

6. Use similes instead of metaphors

It’s a subtle difference, but a simile includes words like “like” or “as” where metaphors skip those helper words altogether. Without those words, the meaning of what you’re trying to say can get lost. Here’s an example: “XAML is like HTML” versus “XAML is HTML.” Which one makes more sense? I’ll let you decide.

7. “I feel a song coming on…”

I won’t lie, it’s not easy to sing in front of strangers but I’ve found that if you have a song in your heart, the audience will appreciate your candor and honesty when you actually sing it out loud. Don’t be afraid to get emotional. That’s the kind of connection that separates the good sessions from the great.

Alright, let’s keep it to seven for now—an easy number for memorization (see #4).  Best of luck to presenters and here’s to a great conference season!

Well, first of all, you’ll be happy to know that the sticker order has been placed.  Now we just need to cross our fingers that they get printed and delivered in time.  A month seems like plenty of time, right?  That’s what I think and so I chose to ignore the whole “delivery may take 2-3 weeks after printing” thing.

Second, thanks to all for some truly inspirational xaml-inspired poetry. Keep up the good work. Like a proud parent, I don’t have favorites (that I’ll admit to). But let’s just say that Cory is a straight-A student and I know what you mean about the bitter tears. And Dr. WPF, if you send me your Zune then I’ll happily Kaxaml-brand it for you.

Once the stickers show up, I’ll start trying to track folks down for a place where I should send the loot. In the meantime, if you’ve submitted your poem then know that your sticker has been secured (no pun intended).  For those who haven’t yet found inspiration, there’s still time.  Haiku too constraining?  New rule: I’ll also accept a Fib (that’s right, Fibonacci poetry).

With MIX quickly approaching, it’s time for the (soon-to-become) annual tradition of producing some Kaxaml swag.  Last year I made buttons (the kind you might pin to your backpack).  This year, I’m faced with a choice about what to make.  Well, since the swag is ultimately for you, the Kaxaml enthusiast, I’m looking for some feedback.  What kind of swag would you actually want / keep / not throw away?

Kaxaml brings in exactly $0 in revenue every year (or week for that matter), so I have a pretty limited budget.  The choices are below.  I probably need to decide pretty soon so that I have time to get stuff made which means your chance to sway me is short lived.  So vote soon.  Here’s the poll, additional detail follows:

[poll id="3"]

More Detail

Stickers

For me, this is the most practical because it goes anywhere (car, computer, sofa).  And to be clear, we’re talking about a high quality stick here: clear vinyl with a die cut (yup, it’s in  budget, barely).  There’s a risk though.  They’re saying they need 2-4 weeks turnaround on these.  In spite of this risk, I’m leaning toward stickers right now.

Buttons

The buttons would be a new design. I’m sort of a button kind of guy for some reason. Buttons were all the rage at SXSW last year and that only fueled my interest. From a purely creative perspective, this one is probably the most fun.  On the other hand, once you have one Kaxaml button do you really need another?

Pocket Protectors

I will make these eventually because they are too cool not to make. I also thought about making these with a Nerd + Art or Pixel Lab log. My wife doesn’t think people will take me seriously, though. Oh, I’m serious.

How to Get Your Swag (even if you aren’t at MIX)

If you really want Kaxaml swag, you can definitely get it.  There are three different paths to Kaxaml swagness.  All swag is, of course, first come first serve and here are the options in the order in which it will be served:

1. First, you can come to either of my workshops.  I get that not everyone can convince their boss to pay for workshops this year.  If it helps persuade, you can take one for your boss too.
2. You can find me at MIX and say “I want some Kaxaml swag.”  I’ll be flattered and I’ll be very generous.
3. If you won’t be at MIX, you can leave a comment to this post that includes a Haiku (syllables will be counted) expressing your feelings for Kaxaml.  Also leave me some way to get in touch about where to send it.  Particularly moving entries get double swag.

A really interesting way to evaluate the rhetoric and ideas on the minds of our Presidents over the past two or three decades.  via ReadWriteWeb.

President Obama (2009)

President Bush (2005)

President Clinton (1997)

President Reagan (1981)