Since Microsoft’s announcementsat MIX’07,I have been doing in increasing number of talks centered around Silverlight and our technologies for building Rich Internet Applications (RIA). Of course, anytime you do a talk on Rich Internet Applications and Silverlight, you have to include the Expression suite in the conversation. Although I’m a developer and not a black shirt wearing designer type, I find myself wanting to learn more about this design space and how our tools fill this need. I will say that it’s fun to see what kind of craziness I can create with Expression Blend.

Thankfully, the people behind our Expression product site have released a wealth of training material to help me navigate this land of Expression. The “Knowledge Center” includes Quick Start Guides, Starter Kits, Tutorials, Training Videos, Webcasts, Virtual Labs and a book resource page.

I just received word that there is scheduled chat coming up with members of the Visual Studio Team System team.

Join members of the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, Team Editions for Architects, Developers, Database Pros, and Testers. In addition, discuss what’s new in the upcoming Orcas CTP.

There are two sessions scheduled to offer everyone throughout the world to talk with the team.

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007, 10:00am – 11:00am Pacific Time

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007, 4:00pm – 5:00pm Pacific Time

Click on the date/time that works best for you to join the chat.

If you want to learn on how to utilize Windows Communication Foundation for your distributed app needs, be sure to come out Wednesday night for the Chicago .NET Users Group meeting in Downers Grove.

Pizza and soda will be available and prizes will be awarded to a lucky few. We hope to see you there.

What: Chicago .NET Users Group (West) presents Windows Communication Foundation
Where: Microsoft, 3025 Highland Parkway, Suite 300, Downers Grove, IL. 60515
When: Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 6PM

Register Here

This year’s MIX conference brought a lot of excitement and buzz to the industry with the announcements around Silverlight, our Dynamic Language plans and our Expression tools suite. I just received word that we are all set for MIX’08 taking place, once again at the Venetian in Las Vegas on March 5-7, 2008. Mark your calendars now.

To relive the excitement from this year’s MIX’07conference, head on over to http://visitmix.com.

I’ve been sitting next to “The Jon Box” for the past few days during an internal training class in Chicago. If anybody knows Jon, they know he’s a big St. Louis Cardinals fan. It’s amazing that we’ve lasted this long sitting next to each other with a Cards fan and a Cubs fan sitting next to each other for so long, but we’ve managed.

Jon was bragging about his true love of the Cardinals with his recently acquired Baseball Team Score Vista Gadget that let’s him keep tabs on his lowly baseball team. He was bragging so much that he blogged about it.

Reading his blog post, Iasked Jon how hecaptured the screencapture of the gadget; he toldme heused the ancient art of Alt-Print Screen. Turns out if you click on a Vista Gadget, you set focus to the gadget and Alt-Print Screen works as expected. It turns out that gadgetsseem to be running as their ownapplication windows.

I told Jon to let the past go already and jump into the 21st century with some great tools found right in Windows Vista. Vista comes with it’s own screen capture utility called Snipping Tool. You can find the Snipping Tool under the Accessories Menu of the Start menu. The Snipping Tool is a great little utility for capturing all types of screen captures: Free-form Snip, Rectangular Snip, Full-Screen Snip and Window Snip that snaps the lines against any Window instance on your desktop including your gadgets.

Jon Box has learned something new today – amazing!