[These are my notes as I took them. I am not the best note taker in the world but this is what I wrote down]
Bill Gates Keynote
Tools changing rapidly broadband, devices, deyboard, remote control, cell phones
Browser experience and beyond the browser experience focus of the conference
IE7 provides: 1. Streamlined UI 2. Security - low rights mode, opt-in for active controls, block phishing, new certificates to show how long the site has been around. 3. Presentation - RSS feeds and doc store
Releases of IE will be more rapid
Web sites specialize in an area and then combine them into applications
Office 2007 - InfoPath and Excel viewable in a browser
Atlas has a go live license
WPF - declarative programming model
Live Software = Software that assumes connectivity to the web
Microsoft is focused on building a platform for Live Software
Aber Whitcomb - CTO - MySpace.com
Reduced CPU from 85% to 27% with ASP.NET 2.0
MySpace gadget in Vista sidebar to show slide show of pictures.
Profile 2.0 uses Atlas to drag and drop regions to update public profile. Looks like a web part manager.
Ashley Highfield - Director of New Media & Technology - BBC
Use broadcasting/multi casting and P2P to get TV programs down to the desktop.
DRM is an important model. Need to allow UK viewers rights for free for 1 week but external viewers must pay.
Gadget in Vista to view content.
Tim O'Riley - Q&A
Q: How do you explain innovation outside fo established frameworks?
A: Microsoft has always been about leading edge innovation and then making that better and easier for the masses.
Q: Do you see the Internet taking over from the OS?
A: We will provide a comprehensive set of tools. There is still room for other innovation.
Q: Will your tools only support MS tools?
A: There will always be areas where Microsoft doesn't have expertise that will be available.
Q: Social computing where the more users you have the better software you have is important. Do you see that coming into Microsoft? i.e. Dr. Watson error reporting and live update
A: Help text is updated monthly based on the feedback
Q: OK that is explicit. What about implicit like anti-phishing in IE7?
A: Reputation is important in IE7. You can set it so you will be warned if millions of people have not used the site.
Q: It seems data rather than API could be the lock-in?
A: Eventually data should come from the community
Q: You are starting to face competition from people who have different business models. How do you compete?
A: Microsoft has pushed hith volume/low cost. There will always be smarter and better competitors.
Q: iTunes is "software that spans more than a single device". Is it something you will dow?
A: iTunes is different because they make money on the hardware. We should be making services that span devices and it is all about the user experience. You shouldn't have to configure devices. They should know what I like.
Q: How do you see competition on the phone?
A: It is different because there are intermediaries that provide content but competion will open it up. Competition between telcos and cable will make everything better for us.
Q: How do you see publishing and books changing in the future with the hand held devices?
A: We see leaps with music and video. We are working on getting the right devices so people will want to read on the screen.
Q: With the web and periodic releases we can get changes quickly. Microsoft is much slower to release. Will you be more agile?
A: It depends on the product. SQL and OS wll be slow but IE, MSN messenger, and others will have quicker releases.
Audience Questions:
Q: Can you open up the APIs so we can share contact information?
A: Sure, it is standard in Vista. Presence, calendaring, addressing, etc.
Q: For an ISV using IE we have a problem with too many releases of the browser. How do you not break us?
A: The UI piece will rev more often than the core rendering piece. Also looking at administrative policy to make sure versions are consistent.
Q: … not sure what the question was …
A: WPF uses a templated approach to dynamically layout.
Q: What are you doing to be changing the licensing to make it easier to see what the upgrade path is?
A: For large companies the cost of the tools is small. We are working on getting prices down.
Dean Hachamovitch - Browsers and RSS
Next generation browser goals - Succeed through:
1 Great browser experience
2 Customer confidence
3 Rich site experience
IE7 Beta 2 build on the web
Open search is open standard on searching. You can us it to add ability to put your site in the UI of IE7.
Print improvements to make sure things are not cut off.
Zoom up and down on the size from presets at the bottom of the UI.
IE remembers if you have set your security settings to put you at risk and will block sites. You can continue or use 1 click to reset permissions.
Phishing filter, High Assurance Certificates, InfoCard
InfoCard is not a user name/password manager it is designed to eliminate the need for user name and password.
InfoCard uses standard web protocols so any web site can use it.
www.meyerweb.com - CSS demo that actually works in IE7
RSS moved to platform service to share feeds between applications.
Yahoo!, Amazon, and E-Bay are using RSS extensions to allow you to view, sort, and search data.
Scott Guthrie
Atlas provides client side JavaScript libraries. There is also work to integrate the client libraries into ASP.NET membership providers.
Atlas March CTP has a go live license
Developing a Better User Experience with Atlas
Atlas has a server side model that renders the initial UI and behavior. On the client side it will take user input and request updated UI and behavior.
Atlas server scripts let you create AJAX apps without having to learn JavaScript and communication protocol.
<Atlas:UpdatePanel> control lets you mark parts of the page that can be updated independently.
Setting an UpdatePanel to be conditional means it wll not update with the rest of the UpdatePanels. If you want to update it you can server side by calling the Update method on the UpdatePanel.
There is a timer control to have something happen at specified intervals.
Atlas ahs control extenders to let you provide responsive user input.
Client side controls and script library to provide data binding on the client among other functionality.
Client scripts can be pulled out of the Program Files directory but you will have to write your own server side code to do the integration.
http://atlas.asp.net - tutorials, samples, and forums and source doe from these sessions.
Developing a Windows Presentation Foundation Application
Expression Interactive Designer and VS 2005 can use XAML.
PropertyElement syntax lets you assign objects (XML) as properties.