the concepts of these 'devcamps' seem to be a winning formula.  a combination of open spaces, tech content, socializing, and contesting is luring people to iphone devcamps, silverlight, adobe air, and now sharepoint.

my compadre dave in chicago is helping to support a MOSSCamp in chicago.  using the barcamp site?  of course not, it is for moss :-) so they are using some of the new sharepoint features in a public site.  you can read about the plans for the 9 NOV event being held at clarity consulting.

so if you are available, in the area, and not too tired if you are coming back from devconnections in vegas, you should head over there -- it is free!

should be a good time if you are in the area.  sharepoint has really evolved to be a great platform for content management and internet sites...now that it is built on asp.net, it makes development much more flexible on that platform!

one of my favorite network shows is 'the office' (other than that i think the reality shows suck.  damages (on fx network) season finale was pretty decent by the way, not great, but decent.

anywhoo... it seems second life is making it's way all over the entertainment world.  apparently csi:ny had second life on it and then on the latest episode of 'the office' my favorite character (other than creed), dwight shrute, pursues second life.  in his words:

"second life is not a game...it doesn't have points, scores, it doesn't have winners or losers." (jim: 'oh it has losers')

dwight then goes on to say:

"i signed up for second life about a year ago.  back then my life was so great that i literally wanted a second one.  in my second life i was also a paper salesman, and was also named dwight. absolutely everything was the same...except i could fly."

the show is hilarous...you can watch it on nbc.com for free after 2PM tomorrow apparently (i love how networks are doing this now).  later in the show dwight's world is discovered where he has acquired land in second life and called it "second second life."

brilliant.

a video screencast that jesse and i collaborated on was just posted.  in the screencast jesse demonstrates the code we did to demonstrate a concept he calls "hypervideo" which is basically leveraging media metadata, and simulating retrieving related data information to display in the experience.

this concept is very similar to the experience at HSN.tv of showing "related products" using the metadata being streamed in their experience.  i hope you find it useful and if you have any questions, please let me know!

again, my goal is to try to help provide you with relevant information about microsoft web platform technologies like silverlight and enabling scenarios.  if you have a good idea (and aren't exactly sure how to go about it), send it my way as i'd love to help you and the broader community learn how to do it.

are these fully complete samples?  probably not.  they are intended to help you think and work through a portion of potentially your use of these technologies.  if they suck, let me know.

saw this on the 'sphere...using ulead, swf2xaml jeff and michael created 'silverlightvr 360,' showing an image of a jeep in virtual 3d.  the user is able to move the image on along both axis points to look at the object (jeep) in a virtual 3d view.

tools and directions are listed on their write-up here.

recently i was at a conference in aspen, colorado.  for those who don't know, aspen is at roughly 8K elevation and is a small ski town with a pretty affluent lifestyle.  my commercial flight was the only commercial plane on the strip :-).  it is also one of the most photographed mountain ranges in the united states (utah actually used the scenic maroon bells in one of their ad campaigns!).

during this conference, one of the sponsors provided an outdoor activity.  we traveled to maroon bells for what we were told was going to be a photo scavenger hunt.  on the bus ride up we were told to break into teams and begin looking at the list.  the list had things like: act out a scene to a movie, take a picture of your team from a different perspective, make your team look small, etc. -- different things.  i quickly picked the team members with the most photographic talent :-) -- cheating?  sure, but survival of the fittest!  my team was jonathan z and mike palermo.  i didn't bring my photog equipment, but jonathan did, and all the good stuff, high end lenses, etc.  we were in.

until we got there.

the sponsor handed us the trick.  all the contest photos were to be taken with disposable digital cameras...and she started passing them out (about 15 of them...each team had 2).  we open them up to learn they are keychain digicams...WITH NO VIEWFINDERS!  our pictures would be guesses, completely.  the camera (you can get it here) actually had different modes, etc.  there was a popup piece of clear plastic that was labeled viewfinder, but it was essentially useless. 

being the geeks my team was, we spelunked through the directions.  we paid attention to details: max resolution and focul length.  we also learned there was to modes "hd" and "ld" and we opted for "hd" immediately...thinking of course it was cooler.  we began our quest.  while others maxed out their cameras (there was a counter that you could see being decremented), we didn't, only taking pictures that were a part of the contest.  at the end of the trip we turned in our cameras...the next day we'd be presented with the winners.

the next day came and our esteemed sponsor melissa was upset...turns out only 3 of the cameras actually had pictures on them!!!  we all had a good chuckle and although she was disappointed, it was truly a fun event.  luckily, OUR TEAM was one of the cameras that worked!  our knowledge of the geekiness of the instructions and choosing "hd" mode paid off...here's some of the set.  granted they are 100K resolution, but in some regard, our shots look like monet paintings!

(our team from a different perspective)

(me trying to make jonathan look small)

(c'mon, that's art baby -- random that it turned out that way, but art)

we had a lot of fun doing this.  i highly recommend it for your team's next ice-breaker activity...get cameras that you can't see what you are shooting...brilliant.  it really, really was a fun few hours in a beautiful area.  for some perspective, here's a better show that jonathan took at sunrise...i love how the mountains look gold as the sun hits them:

have fun the next time you use this idea...and read the directions!