It must be nice to be an MVP (or how I stopped worrying and learned to love Vista)

A couple weeks ago a Microsoft MVP screamed at the top of his blog that he’d give Vista 2 more weeks and then he’d leave for the murky waters of XP forever. Well some folks at Microsoft jumped onto the case and figured out the problem. I have co-workers and friends and acquaintances and people that I probably won’t ever talk to again tell me that they hate Vista so much that they’ll never use it. In some cases they never used it to begin with, but that’s a different tale. This guy rants about a sidebar app that he installed on his computer and developers jump on the case to solve the problem. I guess at the end of the day Vista doesn’t suck as long as you know people at Microsoft to help you make it work. Too bad all those other people out there will never gain the knowledge to make Vista work.

As for the second part of his rant, he states that Windows 7 will suck simply because it is built on the same core code that Vista is built on. That tells me that he really hasn’t given Vista much of a chance. Sure, the sidebar sucks up system resources like nobody’s business, and Aero Glass also takes more than its fair share of system resources. There isn’t anything that says you have to leave them running. My wife got a new Dell computer at work the other day. She was happy that it has Office 2007 on it, but she didn’t like how slow it was. She brought it home and I turned off the sidebar and changed the system theme to Windows Classic. That computer now screams! She even said it’s faster than her old computer, but I think that’s just because she hasn’t installed iTunes yet.

What’s the point, well the point is that the Vista core is really good. If you are contemplating a new computer you really should get Vista, but unless you have 8GB RAM and the best video card out there, I wouldn’t turn on all the goodness. Based on what I’ve seen in Vista, and remember I’ve been using Vista a lot longer than 95% of you out there, it is a killer Operating System. Windows 7 is going to kick ass based solely on what I know Vista can do. Then again, I haven’t even tried Windows 7 yet, but I’m betting I’ll have a copy in my grubby little hands in October. I’ll let you know more then.

In the meantime, don’t believe the Apple hype. Vista is a really good operating system.

Now Loading… a Public Service Announcement

This is a web page. The browser says that it is done. There’s nothing obvious going on with the screen and for all that I know the page just won’t render. However, if you look really closely at the top left, in browser default font there is a number that is counting up. Eventually it reaches 100 and the site finally appears, but considering I have a truly blazing Internet connection I don’t usually expect to wait 30 seconds to see anything on a site. The thing I really dislike about Flash and Silverlight sites is the loading time. I’m guilty of it too as I had to put a “Now Loading” screen in Server Unleashed, but I at least gave the user something to let them know the page is actually loading. This example of a loading screen is unacceptable from P.F. Changs. All of you web developers and designers out there, please remember that if your site is going to take more than 5 seconds to load even on a really fast Internet connection, let the user know that something is going on.

KB955011 Silverlight Update

Some of you may have noticed that there is a new critical update on Windows Update. This update brings Silverlight 2 Beta 2 up to a new build described in KB955011.

This update improves stability, media streaming, and the auto-update component. Most importantly for a lot of people is that this build improves support for Firefox 3.

Up till now, I’ve received a lot of questions from people about Silverlight on Firefox 3. They said that it just proves Microsoft cannot write a Netscape style plug-in. The fact is though that Firefox 3 included some breaking changes to the Netscape style plug-in that they did not share with Microsoft. They did however chose to share the details with Adobe. I’m sorry to go off on a rant here, but I think that this negativity towards Microsoft is completely unwarranted. Silverlight is a really good product and you will be seeing a lot more of it here on my blog.

Give Silverlight a chance. If you are a little weary about installing beta software, there is a released version of it that downloads lickity-split. Go to www.microsoft.com/silverlight or silverlight.net for more information. If we can get more of you out there to install it, then maybe I won’t have to use the Windows Media Player control as much at work.

Silverlight.js V1 to V2 Change In Functionality

I’m sure there are a lot of changes in functionality in the Silverlight.js file from version 1 to version 2 beta 2. One of the ones I’m most excited about is that version 2 will automatically refresh the page after you’ve installed Silverlight so you don’t need to ask the user to restart their browser.

However, today I was updating the Server Unleashed site with the new Silverlight.js file and I found a breaking change that I hadn’t seen documented anywhere. In Silverlight 1 I was checking if Silverlight was installed by using this property:

Silverlight.available

It seems they’ve removed this property, and now you need to use the method:

Silverlight.isInstalled(“1.0”);

WebClient Does Not Send HTTP Headers By Default

Something to keep in mind as you are coding your Silverlight 2 Beta 2 applications is that the WebClient does not send any HTTP Headers by default. If you need some headers you must explicitly add them. For example, if you have a form you wrote in Silverlight and you need to post that data off to a web service or a POX page what you need to do is add something like this right after you initialize your WebClient (in this case the WebClient is called request):

request.Headers[HttpRequestHeader.ContentType] = 

     "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";

HTH

IE6 Is Now Dead to Me

Hello out there in Internet-land. There is a shocking number of you coming to my web sites using Internet Explorer 6. I don’t think that you realize that a lot has happened in browser technology since August 27, 2001. You see, that date almost 7 years ago is the day that Internet Explorer 6 was released. At the time it was a fine browser, but that time has passed. It is time to move on.

Please note that on this blog, the navigation on the side does not appear in IE6. You may be wondering when I’m going to fix that. The answer is simple, I’m not planning on fixing it. There are 3 other released browsers out there that run perfectly well on the Internet today. I would suggest you download one of them. There are 2 browsers coming in the very near future that will hopefully make massive changes to the way the web works, but most developers still have to account for the lowest common denominator, and that would be you IE6. You are the lowest common denominator.

I drink the Microsoft Kool-aid every single day and even in my sleep, but just like I don’t run Windows 2000 anymore (and only use XP begrudgingly at work) I also don’t use IE6. From this day forward I’m going to take the Apple approach to IE6. If it doesn’t work, oh well. (notice all the transparent PNG’s that don’t work in IE6)

So what browser do I recommend you upgrade to? Well of course I’m going to suggest Internet Explorer 7. You already use IE6, you may as well stay in the family. If you are falling into that trap of the haters out there that say all IE’s are evil (they aren’t) and you don’t trust me on IE7 (although you should) then I suggest Safari 3. “Like OMG! Todd just suggested an Apple product, and now has more links to Apple on this blog than to Microsoft.” Yes, I use Safari. I use it a lot. It’s a really good browser, and I like the way it renders fonts. However, Silverlight is not officially supported on it (the Windows version anyway, the Mac version is supported). Finally, I’ll give you the obligatory link to Firefox. I don’t like Firefox. I used to use it exclusively before they released version 1, but now there are too many fanboys out there that think this is the greatest thing since Tim Berners-Lee invented HTMLD.

So, now you have no excuse. I’ve given you the links, and I’m thinking that sometime between now and August 27 I will just redirect all IE6 users to this blog entry.

Next up, I’ll try and find out why some people are still on Firefox 1.5. There is no reason for that mess either. Upgrade! This is the Internet, anything older than 3 years is ancient.

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Get Ready for Silverlight 2 Beta 2

We are down to the last hour that we have to live without Silverlight 2 Beta 2. I’m sure that many of you are wondering what you can do to help pass the time. Well you can get your computer prepared for the new bits by following a few simple rules:

1. First, be sure to uninstall all of that old beta 1 crap from your machine. That includes any beta 2 builds that you may have been lucky to get. The full list of items to remove include:
1. VS90-KB947520 or KB949325
2. VS90-KB950630
3. VS08 Silverlight Tools
4. Blend (1, 2, and 2.5)
5. Deep Zoom Composer
6. Silverlight SDK
7. Silverlight Runtime
2. Next, be sure to delete the following file if it exists: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\Microsoft.VisualStudio.ServicesProxy.dll
3. Delete the following file if it exists: %temp%\Silverlight Tools Beta2\Silverlight.2.0_Developer.exe
• This one should raise the question, How did you get beta 2 you lucky so-and-so.
4. Finally, the installation order of the new stuff. Install the developer chainer, then Blend, then the new Deep Zoom Composer.

Now, it’s the weekend so let’s regroup on Monday with a cool demo to show everyone.

Why Silverlight?

Today I was pointed to an essay by W. Daniel Hillis titled "Richard Feynman and The Connected Machine." This essay started off with a phrase that I wish I could say, but never will get a chance to, "One day when I was having lunch with Richard Feynman." Start an essay like that an I am hooked. Most of the essay is about Mr. Hillis starting a company that was building a massivly-parallel-processor computer. About half way through the essay is this paragraph:

To find out how well this would work in practice, Feynman had to write a computer program for [Quantum Chromodynamics]. Since the only computer language Richard was really familiar with was Basic, he made up a parallel version of Basic in which he wrote the program and then simulated it by hand to estimate how fast it would run on the Connection Machine.

My first thought was, "he did what, in what language?" I have a co-worker who will turn off if you suggest writing anything in basic, and here is one of the finest minds of the 20th Century making a version of basic that will run on a machine with 64,000 processors in 1983. Then he's simulating the code by hand. A-frackin-maz-waitforit----ING!

Stop for a moment though, why write it in basic? Would I write it in basic? No. Why not? Because I am not familiar enough with basic to do that kind of work. I'd write it in C#. The reason I would use C# is not because I drink the Microsoft Kool-Aid (even though I do), it is because I'm most familiar with C#. It may not be the best language for the job, but if I need to get something done I need to go with what I know right now.

What does this have to do with Silverlight? I am regularly asked in the course of a day why someone would write something in Silverlight instead of Flash. The answer is the same as why Richard used basic to code his program. It depends on what you know today. I know how to write C# very well. I don't know anything about ActionScript. Why would I go out and learn ActionScript to do something I could write in C# today? When people ask me why I like Silverlight, my answer is that as a .NET Framework engineer, and a C# coder to be more specific, Silverlight has a lower bar of entry than Flash does for me.

Does that mean everyone should use Silverlight? Heavens no, but if you are a .NET Developer and already know the framework you have a good head start to learning Silverlight.

As for the rest of the essay, the ending is a bit of a downer. I'm sorry that Richard Feynman is no longer with us. I'm glad that he has "told most of the good stuff [he] [knew] to other people." At least we have stories like this one to read.

SilverSpine Technology

I have devised architecture for developing websites that allows for search engine friendly Silverlight web sites. The current guidelines from Microsoft for Silverlight search engine optimization (SEO) is that they are working with search engines to help them index XAML files, but with Silverlight 2 bundling those XAML files into a XAP file those search engines will have more work than they bargained for to index this new breed of rich interactive applications.

My method involves using HTML for the purpose that Tim Berners-Lee had in mind, content. All of the site content will be housed in semantically correct HTML. This way if the person viewing your web site does not have Silverlight installed they can still view all of the content of the site. Coupled with CSS and JavaScript this “No-Silverlight” version of the site can be quite compelling. However, if the user has the Silverlight plug-in then the rich interactive interface comes out and the site dazzles the viewer.

There are many benefits to this methodology:

1. Search Engine Optimization
2. Centrally Managed Content
3. Accessibility and Portability
4. Localization
5. Time Savings
6. No Need for Specialized Skill Sets to Maintain

I have written five blog entries describing some of these benefits. The five blog entries that I've already written on this technique can be found here:

1. Silverlight SEO
2. More on Silverlight SEO
3. Centrally Managed Content
4. Accessibility and Portability
5. Localization

I'm still working on a working demo of this technology. Look for a link for this coming soon. I wrote these blog entries months ago, but it is just now coming into use a lot at work. We've named it "SilverSpine" because we call the HTML content the "spine" of the site. Please let me know if you have any questions, or room for improvement.