Interested in a course on Silverlight but not sure what to start? Mike Harsh has recorded five hours of video training for Lynda.com, which you can access for free.

It covers the following topics -

1. Understanding Silverlight
2. Discovering Silverlight Experiences
3. Silverlight Tools: Expression and Visual Studio
4. Getting Started with XAML, JavaScript, and HTML
5. Advanced XAML
6. Advanced JavaScript Techniques for Silverlight
7. Asset Preparation for Designers
8. Working with Media in Silverlight
9. Creating a Media Player with Silverlight
10. Creating Programmatic Animations
11. Silverlight Deployment
12. Conclusion

You can check it out here:

It's not quite the end of January, but there's already alot of "new" in my new year.  There's a  new car, some new gadgets, and on the work front a new project and a new team.

As you may have heard, Charles Fitzgerald, left Microsoft to head to a startup. Charles was the GM that my old team, platform incubation, reported into. Charles set the mission for that team, and was the major stakeholder for Tafiti and several other internal facing projects that I worked on. Charles was a great GM, and while this is a loss for MS, I'm confident we haven't heard the last of him.

With Charles' departure, Scott and I will be moving to different roles in the company. I am happy to report that I am now officially part of Simon Guest's team.   

One of the few negatives about my last role in incubation was that it was inherently secretive, as parts of the work could be patented. As a result, after delivering my book on CardSpace I mostly dropped off the public scene, save for promoting Tafiti. With Simon's team having a key focus on talking about architecture with the broader community, this is something that will change, and you'll see me engaging more publicly on architecture related subjects. Simon's team has a big focus on Software+Services, which if you've read the blog for awhile know is something I've been looking at for some time in and outside of Microsoft. Expect to see me blogging more, podcasting/screencasting more, and writing the odd article or two. (No more books for awhile, though. Having written or co-written 3 books in 2 years, I've committed to my wife not to start another one until 2009)

I also mentioned there's a new project. I'll be carrying over a project with me from incubation to Simon's team as well. Nothing I can share at the moment, other than it will be public focused and it's going to be a key focus for me for a good portion of 2008.

While this project is big, there's another project I'll be working on that's even bigger.  This is a longer term project, estimated to last decades with a budget estimated to be in the seven figures. Oh, and it has nothing to do with software. My wife and I are expected our first child, a son, to literally arrive any day now. While there's alot of great 'new's in 2008 already, this will surely be the best.

Here's hoping your 2008 is going well, and I look forward to engaging with the community more broadly once again.  If there's anything you'd like to see me engage on - be it in blog, article, or podcast, let me know. As always, I can be reached at mmercuri@microsoft.com

When we released Tafiti, I had a chance to sit down with Beet.TV for an interview/webcast.

This can be found here: http://www.beet.tv/2007/09/tafiti-microsof.html

The link to the standalone video can be found here: http://blip.tv/file/377555

Note: this was before we added the limited edition Halo skin to Tafiti. To get to the UI listed here, use the link in the upper right corner of the UI.

When I wrote my new book, Beginning Information Cards and CardSpace: From Novice to Professional, I wanted the reader to go beyond building just 'Hello World' applications that just focused on learning features. Instead, I wanted to have the readers build practical, usable code.

In an effort to let you see what you'll be getting when you buy the book, I thought I'd do some screencasts to highlight what you'll build out.

I'm going to start with Chapter 13, which focuses on automating the issuance of managed cards with Workflow Foundation.

In that chapter, you'll create a number of Workflow Foundation custom activities that can help you automate the issuance of managed cards, complete with email delivery.

Also included is a sample application will calls the workflow and generates a card based on data provided.

Click on the image below to see the video:

Richard Turner has posted a couple of information card / Windows CardSpace videos on his blog.

If you've kinda/sorta heard about CardSpace and information cards and want to get a quality intro with a demo and a description of what's happening behind the scenes, check out the first one.

http://blogs.msdn.com/richardt/archive/2007/03/18/cardspace-simple-demo-screencast-on-channel9.aspx

If you're looking to develop a site on IIS7 (meaning Windows Vista or Longhorn Server), and were curious about how to configure the site to support information cards. That video steps through how to configure your IIS7 server for sites that will accept information cards.

http://blogs.msdn.com/richardt/archive/2007/03/28/new-screencast-how-to-configure-iis7-for-windows-cardspace-sites.aspx

Just a reminder - I've got a webcast tomorrow on WCF, WF, and Infocard in Public Sector.

This will also include some new, never before seen demos, so wanted to make sure it was reposted.  As a side note, I think I'll tweak with the blog while I'm at TechEd to provide more direct links to samples and webcast information.

The title of this blog is “Living in a World of Connected Systems“. It does not say “Living in a World of Connected Systems Written Exclusively on the Microsoft Platform“.  Why?

First, the title would go from long to annoyingly long. More importantly, if you're in the Enterprise space you know it's a heterogenous environment.  If you've seen me speak, I talk more about how to interop with what you've got and explicitly don't preach 'rip and replace' your existing stacks.

Several of the companies I work with have ,at one point or another, made some investments in Java. When we chat about architecture, number one on their list of topics to discuss is interop.

If you're doing work in both .NET and Java today, and you want to do more interop - there's a video clip I want you to check out.

 Watch this video from the JavaOne 2006 keynote here.  (Annoyingly, you'll need RealPlayer, find that here).

The video shows WCF/Java interop, with Sun showcasing what was called Project Tango (aka Web Services Interoperability Toolkit), which in their words is described as

“Web Services Interoperability Technology (WSIT) is an open-source implementation of next generation Web services technologies that deliver interoperability between Java EE and .Net to help you build, deploy, and maintain Composite Applications for your Service Oriented Architecture. Built upon JAX-WS (Java API for XML Web Services), this implementation will be made available as the "Web Services Interoperability Technology (WSIT)" and is focused on four main categories: Messaging, Metadata, Security, and Quality-of-Service (QoS). “

Nigel Watling, one of the co-authors of “Windows Communication Foundation: Hands On!” has just published a video on Infocard over at Channel 9.

In the video, Nigel leads an in depth discussion of how InfoCard works, how it's designed (and why) and how it will evolve in the future with InfoCard chief Architect Arun Nanda and Software Developer Ruchi Bhargava

Check it out here.

While I'm very good about posting the WF webcasts I'm doing, Paul Andrew keeps his list up to date with everyone's WF presentations.

He's got a good list going, check it out here -

http://blogs.msdn.com/pandrew/articles/460630.aspx

I'm delivering a webcast next Monday, on WCF and WF in Retail and Hospitality. Details are listed below.  Also listed below is a link to Vittorio's webcast that covers Infocard for this vertical.

 Vittorio's got a session entitled Using Infocard to Safely Manage Customer Identity

Check it out here

http://www.microsoft.com/events/EventDetails.aspx?CMTYSvcSource=MSCOMMedia&Params=%7eCMTYDataSvcParams%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ID%22+Value%3d%221032296340%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ProviderID%22+Value%3d%22A6B43178-497C-4225-BA42-DF595171F04C%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22lang%22+Value%3d%22en%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22cr%22+Value%3d%22US%22%2f%5e%7esParams%5e%7e%2fsParams%5e%7e%2fCMTYDataSvcParams%5e

Vittorio also recently did a session focused on the manufacturing vertical. You can check that out here.

http://www.microsoft.com/events/EventDetails.aspx?CMTYSvcSource=MSCOMMedia&Params=%7eCMTYDataSvcParams%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ID%22+Value%3d%221032295605%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22ProviderID%22+Value%3d%22A6B43178-497C-4225-BA42-DF595171F04C%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22lang%22+Value%3d%22en%22%2f%5e%7earg+Name%3d%22cr%22+Value%3d%22US%22%2f%5e%7esParams%5e%7e%2fsParams%5e%7e%2fCMTYDataSvcParams%5e

Happy viewing.

Podcasts. I'd been interested in them before, but because my old mp3 player was a bit dodgy, I'd really only listened in on my desktop. As a result I'd stuck mostly to screencasts, and largely bypassed podcasts altogether.

Knowing I had alot of traveling coming up, I recently upgraded to a new portable music device. I loaded it up before I left, downloaded some technology content, some news podcasts(Meet the Press, and Wall St Journal Tech Week), as well as some comedy (Ricky Gervais - the guy who created The Office - is hiliarious) 

Loaded up, I listened to podcasts as I went from Seattle->Denmark->London and back again.  Annoying lines at customs that were 4 rows deep didn't seem so bad. The 2 block line to get through security in Denmark, no worries - I was being entertained and educated with an interview of a tech legend. Podcasts are a beautiful thing.

I was looking forward to this before, but even more so now - I'm sitting don with Ron Jacobs next week to record a few ARCast sessions. Ron is part of our Architecture Strategy Team and does some great podcast work that's posted up on Channel 9. 

If you've not come across the ARCasts yet, I'd definately recommend checking them out.  You can find them here: http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/ARCast_with_Ron_Jacobs

If you're like me and wanted to go but missed it - good news.  The sessions have just been posted online for free view/download.

Sessions here: http://sessions.mix06.com/

NGW034 - From "Username and Password" to InfoCard

DIS003 - Today's Identity Crisis, and the Identity Metasystem

For those unfamiliar with MIX, here's the pitch -

“

MSDN TV has a new episode focusing on the hosting model in WF.  The episode features the WF team's Israel Hilerio.

Check it out here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdntv/episode.aspx?xml=episodes/en/20060323WWFIH/manifest.xml

Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, and Identity in Financial Services (Level 200)

Tuesday, March 28, 2006
11:00 AM - 12:00 pm Pacific Time
Presenters: Marc Mercuri & Vittorio Bertocci

Financial service companies face market pressures to lower information technology (IT) costs and retain existing customers while growing their businesses. Complicating these business goals are complex IT challenges that result in costly system maintenance and integration. As a result, companies are looking to service-oriented design as a means to leverage their IT assets to meet their business goals, focusing on lowering integration costs within and beyond their corporate boundaries. Microsoft is providing the tools to build connected systems based on service-oriented design principles. In this webcast, we specifically discuss Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, and the Microsoft WinFX application programming interface (API) component code named “InfoCard.”

I delivered a session on WCF & WF earlier in the week, this is now online.

For those interested, it can be found here:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032289084&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US