Windows Experience Blog : MIX07

WPF Screensaver Flittrbook from MIX07

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 01 May 2007 18:45:00 GMT

Microsoft Technical Evangelist Karsten Januszewski blogs about his WPF Screensaver he created that is installed and running on all the MIX07 PC's called Flittrbook. As many of you probably already know - WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) is built in to Windows Vista which allows for some really amazing things that can be done with applications.

Flittrbook is a WPF mashup of Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook all in to one really cool screensaver. Karsten worked with Tim Aidlin who is a designer at Microsoft to design all the neat visualizations you see in the screensaver. The screensaver is configured to pull MIX07content from Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook but has customization features to pull any content from these three services.

Here is a little video demo of the screensaver in action!

Video: WPF Screensaver Flittrbook

Karsten has put online some of the screensaver bits for download. However he was unable to include Facebook support in this release and there seems to be some issues with the Twitter feed being flakey. This is "definitely v.0.0.0.1" as Karsten notes. Give the screensaver a try and make sure you send in feedback for Karsten! I installed it and love it.

To install the bits, just download the .zip file and extract its contents. Inside you need to find the .scr file and righ-click to install the screensaver on to your PC.

Thanks to Nathan Weinberg over at InsideMicrosoft for pointing this out earlier today.

Download Microsoft Silverlight DreamScenes for your desktop!

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 02:19:00 GMT

In celebration of Silverlight at MIX07 this week (and the upcoming launch of their new website) – the wonderful folks on the Silverlight Team have released a slick looking new DreamScene for your Windows Vista Ultimate desktop. Their new website is due to go live at www.microsoft.com/silverlight tomorrow which will include the DreamScene downloads. But I'm giving you a sneak peek at the DreamScenes tonight!

The DreamScene is called “Dusk” and can be downloaded in two formats (Standard or Widescreen):

Download: Microsoft Silverlight “Dusk” DreamScene (Standard)
Download: Microsoft Silverlight “Dusk” DreamScene (Widescreen)

I shot some video of the Silverlight DreamScene running on my desktop PC and put it up on Soapbox.

Video: Microsoft Silverlight "Dusk" DreamScene

In order to enable these DreamScenes, you must have Windows Vista Ultimate and have installed the Windows DreamScene Technical Preview which is under Ultimate Extras in Windows Update. To install the DreamScenes, just right-click on the above download links and save them to your Videos folder. Then right-click on your desktop, go to Personalize and then Desktop Background and under Location choose your Videos folder and select the new Silverlight DreamScene.

Enjoy the DreamScenes and expect more Silverlight announcements as MIX07 kicks into high gear tomorrow morning!

Welcome to the Windows Experience Blog

Brandon LeBlanc — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:29:00 GMT

Welcome to the Windows Experience Blog!

My name is Brandon LeBlanc. I’ve been hired on as a vendor to work on this awesome new project: blogging about the amazing experiences you can have with Windows Vista. Previously, I had been blogging at The Hive talking about my Windows Experiences there. The Windows Experience Blog will build off what we originally started at The Hive but take it to the next level – which makes this a very exciting project for me.

So you are probably wondering what it means to be a vendor working on a project with Microsoft. Being a vendor means I’m not a full-time employee (or FTE). At Microsoft, that means I have an orange badge instead of a blue. Vendors are usually hired on a per-project basis. My project will be the Windows Experience Blog here.

With the Windows Experience Blog, the idea is to showcase and talk about all the amazing experiences one can have with Windows Vista. I’m taking my lead from Nick who will continue to share news, information, and technical insight about Windows, and I’ll expand on that with the Windows Experience blog. The Windows Experience blog is focused on Windows Enthusiasts and dives deeper into the fantastic experiences within Windows. And the experiences here won’t always be experiences from myself or other folks at Microsoft. We want to highlight experiences *you* have as well! Expect to see lots of videos and lots of screenshots! Just like Nick, I plan to spend a lot of extra time beyond simply posting blog posts. I plan to continue the conversation into the comments on the blog posts as well. So don’t be shy! Leave a comment! I will try to respond to as many as possible. Please note that this blog isn’t a technical support blog. If you’re having specific technical issues with Windows Vista your best bet is to head on over to Microsoft’s public Windows Vista newsgroups.

Moving forward, we’ve got some great things planned for the Windows Vista Team Blog. Expect some excellent showcase posts on Certified for Windows Vista products and coverage from events such as MIX07, WinHEC and TechEd.

Right now I am preparing for my trip to Las Vegas to attend MIX07. Live MIX07 coverage begins this Sunday. Nick will be covering the announcements and I will of course be sharing my experience being at MIX with folks here.