i'm headed out on holiday for about a week.  i haven't taken one in a long while and this will be good for me (hopefully).  i'm also headed to europe where i've never been, so i'm pretty excited.  i'm leaving the cell phone behind, so no twitter, etc.  i am equipped with a windows mobile gps-enabled handset and skype.  i'm looking forward to that experience and being able to use my custom application that i wrote to plot my points so my family can track us on virtual earth.

anyhow, likely no posts for a week (not that you care).  when i get back i'll tell you all about the plans for The Code Trip, but in the meantime, feel free to peek.

the ability to embed messenger 'stuff' into your web applications, now you can!  just announced the ability to provide your status as well as have people interact with you directly on your web applications/sites.

how do you do it?  visit http://settings.messenger.live.com/applications/CreateHtml.aspx to create the html for your specific presence/messenger account.  you first have to enable the ability to do it (i.e., you'd be allowing anonymous visibility into your messenger status), but once you do, you'll be able to cut and paste.

on my blog (if you are reading this through a reader) i've added my presence indicator as well on my contact page, you can start a messenger chat with me in the browser.

very cool for messenger users/developers!  get yours today!

yo, check it.  expression design has released a service pack. 

what!?  i know how can that be?  a service pack < 8 months after its release?  i say awesome.  i've been wanting microsoft teams to continue to become more and more agile especially with regards to very helpful features or great improvements of existing features based on user feedback.

one such point of feedback that is implemented in expression design is that of xaml generation of the layers and/or complete surface.  you didn't know design can generate xaml?  shame on you.  i did a podcast (you should really subscribe to the podcast feed on the left of my blog or just use this link) talking about using vector images (svg) and importing into expression design and getting xaml that you could use in your applications. 

there are essentially two ways of doing this in expression design:

1. if you only want pieces of your design file to be xaml (i.e., you want to xaml-ize a fragment of the design), you can select the layer(s) in your design file and go to the edit menu and choose 'Copy as XAML' and bam, you now have xaml for those selected fragments in your clipboard.  go forth and develop.
2. if you want the entire design surface to be a xaml representation, you would use the file menu and choose export.  from there you'll be presented with what looks like a typical 'save as' dialog box.  change the file type to xaml and after choosing location/name click ok.  you'll now be presented with a much improved options window (in service pack 1):

in previous versions the options weren't exactly clear.  for instance the xaml type you wanted (either WPF or silverlight) was in a different tab).  i really like this improved export user interface.  i especially like the option of converting text to paths.  this really helps when you don't want to (or can't) redistribute any type faces.  upon export, you will get all the xaml plus (if you chose that option) path data for your text areas.  very cool.

so if you have design files or vector files that you would want to use in silverlight, this is the perfect tool and function to create the xaml representation of that data.  so go get service pack 1 for expression design and you'll be happy.

contest alert, contest alert!  i wrote a while back about creating your own virtual earth 3d tour using collections and the live platform.  by doing this you can create your own windows media video file of your locations using virtual earth 3d rendering.

well, now you can benefit.  the virtual earth team is hosting a contest.  what do they want you to do?  they want you to build up some interesting collections and create the virtual tour.  after you've done that, post it on soapbox or youtube (or both) and submit your entry.   

this should be a fun few minutes for you to mess around with virtual earth 3d.  they've posted some samples such as a major league baseball tour, etc.  since i'm ineligible, here's some ideas noodling in my head:

• seven wonders of the world
• united states war battlefields
• government capital buildings
• royalty residences (i.e. US president white house, parliament, whatever the dude who runs italy lives in)
• amusement parks
• nfl football fields
• airports

anyway, have fun with it, get creative and submit your entries!

so maybe my dream of getting exciting people in the silicon desert really starting to think different is coming to fruition?

this past weekend was PodCampAZ, an event organized by some community members, sponsored by a few organizations and attended by many.  the primary face of the event seemed to be brent of iboughtamac.com.  let me tell you, if anything else brent seems to have solid skills as an organizer, designer, and marketer (i'm amazed at how he's marketed the iboughtamac brand -- how do i get a shirt?).  the site for podcampaz was very cleanly designed and wasn't thrown together (or at least didn't appear that way).  kudos to brent (and anyone else who helped) for that effort.

UAT was again the host for a community event and i'm liking this trend A LOT for them.  UAT has really, really stepped up to support these community events starting with Desert Code Camp and then BarCamp (note: another BarCampPhoenix will be happening on 08-DEC) and now PodCampAZ!  for an institution to recognize the value of having such things is great and i applaud UAT and all the staff that make these things happen (thanks Meredith!).

I wasn't able to stay long at podcampaz because my wife was in a triathlon and i had full-time mr. mom duty with a 1 year old and 5 year old (small children + geeks + no dora != fun).  i did manage to stop by and drop off some stuff to brent for giveaways for the ending session (i dropped of a zune, some copies of vista/office/windows server, and a lifechat headset).  i stayed for a few minutes and walked around.  surprisingly there was a zune table (apparently they were a sponsor but didn't donate a zune themselves :-)).  they had the banner and some stickers so i grabbed a few as the laptop lid is a little bare these days.  whomever was able to reach out to the zune team, kudos -- i don't even know how to get them to answer my calls.  hopefully they kicked in more than stickers :-).

there was a flurry of podcast-type sponsors.  techsmith and their supremely awesome camtasia studio and snagit products were being demonstrated in the foyer by bruce jacobs (done very well, i might add).  bruce was also talking about jinq, a very cool mini-screencaster i know betsy weber was there but didn't get a chance to catch up.  they had the twittercamp application running on the wall so you could get your twitter fixes while walking to the next sessions.

the sessions themselves seemed really broad as well. there was plenty to listen about core podcasting itself (audio basics, equipment, screencasting tools, etc.) but there were also discussions about social media and how to integrate better with other platforms. 

securely delivering media content was another topic and also one of the sponsors preeso had information about their secure and subscription delivery mechanisms.  one of the interesting sessions i saw on the agenda was leveraging social media and podcasting in the classroom.  there was an instructor there talking about how he'd begun to use the concept of podcasting to get his lecture content our, streamline learning for students and just overall be more efficient using platforms that were available to him (i cought some of this on the live ustream.tv feed).

there were also some big name bloggers there as well.  the internet herself, iJustine, was there in full force.  rumor has it that ask-a-ninja himself was there.  it seemed like a really good time with some energy.  i have no idea how many people were there (it didn't look like the scale of a typical code camp).  brent was running around a lot (i only got to introduce myself a bit to him -- call me, i'll buy lunch) and there was a host of volunteers doing all sorts of things.  the event was very well put together.  i wish that i had been able to stay the entire day.  i also wish that i would have seen this marketed in some of the other broader user groups in phoenix area.  it didn't hit some of the groups like refresh until only a week or so out.  i think next time around it will have bigger traction from simple awareness.

until then, great, great job brent and team.  looked very well done and i love to see the commitment to community in our area.  keep up the great work and i hope that the contributions microsoft was able to make to the event prizes were met with few boos :-).  this event reminds me that there is usually something in the community happening EVERY day if you are looking for it.  speaking of which, remember facebook developers garage is coming!