18,230 miles, 8 events, 1 vacation and 25 pictures later…

Starting with MIX10, I’ve been on a bit of an odyssey the last month. My itinerary looked something like this:

• MIX10 – Workshops, @Ch9Live shows, my Flash skills session and having a great time with attendees
• go home for the weekend
  
• London trip – presented MIX10 Recap  at Edge UG meeting, Silverlight Design Day London, Silverlight UK User Group, NxtGenUG Coventry
• Dublin trip – presented SketchFlow at IXDA Dublin and MIX10 Recap at MTUG Meeting
• go home for the weekend
  
• Washington DC trip – actual vacation time acting as a chaperone on my son’s 6th grade class trip.

I’ve posted a few of my favorite photos on Flickr of London, Dublin, and Washington DC.

Thanks to all of those who acted as hosts for the events, attended the events and hung out in proper English or Irish pubs (and the occasional Vegas casino bar) afterwards. I had a great time discussing all of the great news about Windows Phone, Blend 4 and IE9 from MIX10.

And now to return this week with Visual Studio 2010 and Silverlight 4 releasing along with the announcement of the KIN, there is a ton of fun to be had and work to be done.

Now, back to work…

Silverlight and Blend events tour this week in England and Ireland

I jokingly told many of my friends at MIX from the other side of the Atlantic that I would be chasing them home.  The truth is, I am heading to England and Ireland this week and will be participating in a few events along with a workshop of my own device.

Most of the events will be a local recap of the amazing MIX10 event with the exception of the IXDA Dublin event and the Silverlight Design Day workshop.  Being a “Silverlight and Expression Blend” guy myself, I hope to skew the MIX recap discussions towards RIA and Windows Phone as much as possible. Here is the agenda for the next two weeks:

Tuesday, March 23rd

     Mini-MIX at the Edge UG
     London, UK 
     18:30 – 20:30

 Wednesday, March 24th

     Silverlight Design Day – London
     Chertsey, UK
     8:30 – 17:00

     Silverlight UK User Group
     London, UK
     18:00 – 21:30

 Thu, March 25th

     MixGenUG – Coventry
     Coventry, UK
     19:00 – 21:00

 Mon, Mar 29th

     The Blend Experience – IXDA Dublin
     Dublin, Ireland
     18:15 – 21:00

 Tue, Mar 30th

     Best of MIX at MTUG
     Dublin, Ireland
     19:00 – 21:00

Happy to confirm that I will be heading over there to meet up with friends, I am glad to say the other joke about me riding back in one of their suitcases is not true. I get to ride in tiny seat watching MIX10 videos the whole way, like everyone else.

Silverlight Design Day Registration Open for Boston

The registration links for the Silverlight Design Day event in Boston is now available.

• May 14 – Boston, MA, US 
      register here

"A Silverlight Design Day is opportunity to learn about Silverlight and Expression Blend from a design and interface developer perspective."

This event is taking place in the New England Research & Development Center, better known as the NERD center. I’ve never been there but it looks like a great location.  More seats than normal at this event, too, so make sure to invite your friends.

For more information about the free training events check out the Silverlight Design Day information page.

Silverlight Design Day Registration open for NY, Chicago, Austin

The registration links for the Silverlight Design Day events in Chicago, Austin and New York are now available.

• May 7 – Chicago, IL, US
      register here
• May 11 – New York, NY, US
      register here
• May 26 – Austin, TX, US
  register here

“A Silverlight Design Day is opportunity to learn about Silverlight and Expression Blend from a design and interface developer perspective.”

For more information about the free training events check out the Silverlight Design Day information page.

I hope to see you there!

Silverlight Design Days – Free Blend Training on Tour

Silverlight Design Days have been given a new name and life as .toolbox Events.
Check them out!

Event Schedule

• Jan 29 – Mountain View, CA, US
• Feb 9 – Irvine, CA, US
• Mar 15 – break for MIX10
• Mar 24 – London, UK
• May 7 – Chicago, IL, US
  • register here
• May 11 – New York, NY, US
  • register here
• May 14 – Boston, MA, US
  • register here
• May 26 – Austin, TX, US
  • register here

A Silverlight Design Day is opportunity to learn about Silverlight and Expression Blend from a design and interface developer perspective.

The first half of the day will start out with a short poll, asking these three questions:

1. How many of you write code?
2. What technologies do you use today?
3. Is there anything specific you want to cover?

The tools and the platform will then be introduced by accomplishing designer tasks based on the earlier poll as much as possible.

The second half of the day will be your opportunity to get your hands on Blend and Silverlight. PCs will be available already configured to run through tutorials, made especially with designer and UI tasks in mind.

SWAG and giveaways will be saved till the end of the day, for those hardy souls that can make it all the way through.

Where and When:
The events will be held in training centers with pre-configured PCs available. Feel free to request during the second half of the day, help configuring your own laptop. Once the Event Schedule (shown above) is complete we should end up with an even number of US and non-US locations.

Cost:
This event is free of charge. However, attendees are responsible for booking and paying for their own travel and accommodation. Both breakfast and lunch will be provided.

Registration:
You register by click next to the location you wish to attend in the Event Schedule above.  Registration is handled via the MSDN events site, so be sure to have your LiveID credentials ready.

Online Training:
Sounds like a great idea but you can’t wait? Here are a few online sources to get you started:

• Project Rosetta – Blend Tutorials and a Flash to Silverlight Guide
• Kirupa.com – Blend and Silverlight Tutorials
• Expression Blend blog – Blend Tutorials