Digital Thoughts @ Wesstyware

Wednesday was the last day for the Tech Days 2009 tour hosted by Microsoft. This year, they decided to put on the full two day show for Winnipeg, and something was different this year. Something was better. That something better can be explained with the following formula.

Be warned that if you do not have some kind of training with formal mathematics, this may blow…your…mind.

The big difference about Tech Days this year was that the Wessty wasn’t just an attendee, but a presenter. I took part in two presentations over the course of the two days. The first day, I worked with Miguel Carrasco on the presentation entitled Expression Blend for Developers (with Miguel Carrasco). The second day, I presented Building RESTful Services in WCF on my own.

Expression Blend for Developers

As you may have noticed, the topics of my two presentations were very different. The first one was about my bread and butter, that being Expression Blend 3. Considering that I am something of a User Experience person, this topic was right up my alley. Miguel started off the presentation by introducing the software and explaining how it can be useful to developers.

My work in the presentation involved demonstrating how a developer can use Expression Blend in their work. I started out by demonstrating how to use SketchFlow with WPF and giving people a quick run down on its capabilities.This was followed up by implementing the front-end of the SketchFlow application using Blend and seeing how the new features in the software can help me build something that not only works, but looks good too.

I very much enjoy the Expression Suite of software. For more details, check out the Expression website.

Building RESTful Service with WCF

The second presentation discussed how developers can use WCF to implement RESTful services. At a glance, you might thing that a UX developer has no place presenting this topic, but that is where you would be wrong.

My roots are with .NET 3.0 and 3.5, which includes the project formerly known as Indigo (a.k.a. WCF). I have always loved WCF for its simplicity to get working and have a flexible communications layer in my application, without having to write any complex communications code. Unfortunately, this fantastic tool is only fantastic thanks to the tooling that has been provided with Microsoft. It sets up everything for the developer, without the dev actually knowing what is happening under the covers.

SOAP (which is the protocol used to send and receive messages in WCF) is quite complex, specifically with the protocol that must be followed on both the client and server to get it working. A service implemented with a RESTful architecture demonstrate a refreshingly easy way to implement a communications layer using nothing more regular web protocols.

For more information about this, check out the MSDN and get started.

Conclusion

This was a very enriching experience, and I would recommend anyone dealing with Microsoft technologies to considering coming out to the next one or checking out any of the other .NET development events happening in your area.

If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line on here or drop me an email.

Oh, and I will be posting some photos sooner than later. I just need to get them organized. Until then…

Catch you on the flip side.

Related Resources

Here are some other findings on the web that discuss Tech Days 2009. Check them out!

• D’Arcy Lussier Blog Post
• Canadian Developer Connection – Joey Devilla (a.k.a. Dude with the accordion)
• D’Arcy Lussier’s thoughts….

It has been quite a while since I have been able to blog about anything as I’ve been working exceptionally hard on my project at ANVIL as we are going live on Tuesday morning. As things seem to be moving smoothly, I have decided to take some time this weekend to report on something that has captivated my attention. That something is Microsoft Expression Studio 3.

A Brief Introduction

Expression Studio is a suite of applications that have been development by Microsoft for designers as opposed to developers. Over the past few weeks, Microsoft has officially released the third version of this suite of applications that include the following:

• Expression Blend 3 with SketchFlow
• Expression Web 3 with SuperPreview
• Expression Design 3
• Expression Encoder 3

I could go off and give you a detailed explanation of each application, but with its release the Expression Team has updated the Expression site and there you can find a slew of resources and explanations about all of the applications. I strongly suggest heading to the site and checking out the resources available and trying some of the applications.

My purpose for blogging today is specifically for Expression Design, the drawing software that is provided by Microsoft with Expression Blend and Web.

Why Expression Design and Not Photoshop?

This question goes back to me learning how to use designer/drawing software. Being in the UI/UX field, occasionally you need to work with image files. If you work with designers, like I do at ANVIL, then then you “obviously” need to learn Photoshop. Here’s the thing: the work I need to do with the images I get from the designers are simple edits and Photoshop provides far more functionality than I need. So, why would I go off and learn how to use this software if I don’t need it?

Well, that need came up a while ago. I have a couple of personal projects that I want to work on, but as they require some design work to create some web graphics for the project. I had learned to use the GIMP to do my minor edits, but I never really felt fully comfortable when creating graphics, not to say that it can’t live up to my expectations. I suppose the real issue is me spending the time to learn how to use the GIMP to create the design that I want.

At this point I took some time to take a look at Photoshop. I played around with it, found some resources, and talked to the Designer about it as every designer I have spoken to as said that Photoshop is pretty much the industry standard for creating UI designs. Well, if I wasn’t comfortable learning and working in the GIMP, why would I want to learn how to use a whole new application with which I have no foundation? This lead me to take a look at Expression Design.

I have worked in Silverlight and WPF since both of their releases in the past few years, and thus have worked with Expression Blend to get some of the desired UI effects. Expression Design looks and feels like Expression Blend, so I immediately felt comfortable with it. Plus, as luck may have it, Microsoft had decided to take it to the next level with version three and include with both Expression Blend and Web. In the end, the real question was: Why hadn’t I considered this earlier? I have to learn some sort of designer application, and Expression Design is able to import PSD files. Why not give it a shot?

And so I did.

The Result

With a potential side project coming my way with another friend of mine, and with my want to actually do something more with Wesstyware.com than just have it forward everyone to my blog, I started working with Expression Design 3 and this is what I came up with:

I realize that a designer can do much better than I, nor would I ever challenge a designer to some sort of web design face off. But for my intents and purposes, I think I have managed to create something pretty nifty that I can use for my website.

For the time being, I will be using Expression Design for my design needs as I’m sure that when I find its limitations, it will not be in the software, but more as my skill as a graphic designer. It is important to remember that although I live and breath in the realm of UI, I’m still a developer and not a designer. I think that Microsoft has definitely shown with the Expression Design along with the rest of the Expression Studio that the bridge between developers and designers can be bridged.

Catch you on the flip side.

Side Note: The Face

One quick note. The image you see of me in the top left corner was actually a birthday present from the Designer last year. He sent me a PNG a while back, and I have decided that for the time being that will be the official logo for Wesstyware. What better image to associate with my software ramblings and developments than a digital version of my face?