1 – Windows media support for streaming (silverlight 1.0),
2 – A CLR plug-in for Mac and PC so you can the use the .NET framework on the client, and
3) Services – you can put your app up in the MS cloud and they will host and deliver for you.

Item 2 requires Silverlight 1.1, which is in alpha form now. Having universal access to .NET stuff give you multi-lingual support, the WPF UI framework and rich controls. Additionally there is HTML DOM Integration, networking goods and LINQ query processor and caching. Additionally .NET is much faster than JavaScript.

I listened to the keynote, and I picked up a number of things. They have abstracted UI design into a tool called Expressions. FWIW, this was new to me…not new to the world. You can then use another tool called Blend that lets you composite the assets developed in Expressions together. The output is XAML: a declarative language for defining page objects and properties in XML that can be passed to developers to complete the application logic to bring all the magic together. The demo showed how in Visual Studio you can make silverlight projects that have client and web services based components, writing applications in C#, and you can debug remotely if the client is running on a Mac somewhere. When you bring in the web services based project the programming API’s are made available to VS so all the intellisense stuff works. So the whole .NET set of goods is available, REGARDLESS of platform. They’ve even included IL bindings for Python (they called it Iron Python?), JavaScript, and Ruby.

With the MS live stuff, they are creating a cloud and inviting developers to use it’s tools and services ala Amazon S3.

My lesson from this: Cloud computing is here to stay, and MS developers should continue to rely on MS to evolve the .NET platform and make it easier and easier for them to create rich internet applications (RIA), which is the model for great computing experiences going forward.

John Gruber had some thoughts about measuring the simplicity of UI’s. Good stuff about measuring the effectiveness of a UI, counting the number of UI you have to deal with, and the number of clicks and a good application as it relates to entering dates. He actually states that he “enjoys” entering dates in Backpack….now thats effective.

Jason Fried is blogging about 37signal’s new product Highrise. In the 3/6 post he includes a link to a little video of entering the due date for a task. I dig the fact that the time stuff is hidden unless you need to add it. 37signals is the company that built Backpack…the one that John Gruber enjoys using.

Googles quick Add is another great idea:

Allow a user to type the event and date/time in a text field. 1 thing to deal with.

A couple of key take aways: 1) Leaders most think about and coach both individuals and teams about how to manage information and use it effectively in their day to day operations. 2) Knowledge networks are important. The most effective individuals were often the ones that had great working relations with people both within and outside their immediate organizational and company structure. 3) The web and applications such as wiki’s and RSS readers are great tools for integration learning and collaboration into busines process. We have to keep looking for ways to organize information and making it readily available to the knowledge workers.

There’s good information in here you can use to help you look for and nurture great people, and understand some of the environmental issues surrounding creating an effective knowledge management culture.

Web related technology enablers such as blogs, wiki’s, and forum’s have and will continue to drawn millions of individuals into conversations and they are having a profound and exciting impact on marketing. I am convinced it is imperative that companies and organizations embrace and harness this crucial marketing channel if they are going to thrive.

Yesterday as I was reading Guy Kawasaki’s blog I came across a recent post he made of “Top 10″ marketing podcasts, so I decided to explore further. The podcasts are interviews available at www.podtech.com under marketing voices. In these podcasts, Jennifer Jones interviews various marketing leaders about why social media is important, how it is evolving, and how it has become a first class citizen in the overall marketing strategy. What’s the big deal? Its just a bunch of people rattling off their questions and opinion’s right? Well opinions and questions generate conversations and answers; conversations and answers generate friendships and happy customers; friendships and happy customers generate trust; trust generates recommendations; recommendations generate purchases. The podcasts cover a range of social media impact topics from where VC investors are putting dollars, to it’s effect on corporate culture, to how small is the new big. This last item is what intrigues me the most.

There’s an interview with with Marketing whiz Seth Godin who’s written a new book aptly titled “Small is the New Big”. Small groups are critical to the success of church’s, associations and non-profits, people, and business in general e.g. marketing. How often do people tell you to “Think small”? Never. That’s what makes this statistically improbable phrase such an attention grabber.

I got a few minutes to catch up with my brother on Friday and social medai has been on his mind as well. Software that facilitates small groups is a commodity these days: Google and Yahoo groups are the obvious biggies. The problem with those is that it’s hard for an organization to integrate them into their web site which is a necessary and crucial part of corporate identity these days. Pluck has the right idea here with their SiteLife product: offer the solutions as a service. From the marketing perspective there are a slew of benefits to opening and nurturing these conversations. Self help, customer feedback, buzz, the ability to identifying critical spokes people and advocates, the list of benefits goes on and on. But what’s next?

As we talked we came to the conclusion that one of the next stages in this arena is enabling people to participate in projects: Community action, street teams for bands, committee’s, collaborating on an itinerary for trip, pursuing business ventures, the list goes on an on. Some small groups have short half life’s, some are longer, but they are what make us move and grow. How will web technologies evolve to enable groups to get stuff done? It should be interesting.

I walk away thinking OK…got to save a file on the disk some how…gosh what format?…then copy over…crap that means setting up file sharing…. “Dad, we can just e-mail it to ourselves”. But wait I haven’t set up the e-mail on the new computer yet. But before I can get the words out of my mouth Ben’s already pushed send and is checking his gmail. Sure enough there it is.

I’m going riding. These guys don’t need me. Sure enough I get back and they each have their own calling card: Meet “The Janitor”, “The Beast”, “Chicken Little”, “The Fuzz”, and “Rex”:

I am living testament to the wonders of modern medicine. The yesterday AM I could not straighten my leg. At 10 AM I was in surgery. I was up and walking without pain or crutches by 2.

I’ve had 2 prior surgeries on my left knee, and around new years eve I somehow irritated it either biking or dancing around with Ben at Penny and Jim’s wedding. I had trouble all week with my knee and was icing and taking advil. Nothing unusual for a knee surgery veteran. Tuesday AM I woke up and could not straighten my leg. I crutched to work and called the Dr. Wednesday I saw the doctor, and yesterday (Friday) I had the arthroscopic surgery. Yesterday PM I dropped off one of our computers to be fixed and went over to watch Jeremy at basketball practice. Sans crutches, up and down stairs.

The Dr. removed a piece of bony cartilage that had lodged near the staple they used to reattach my ACL back in ’85 and cleaned up around the edges. I had a general anesthesia and the surgery took less than an hour. It’s was amazing to me that I had no hangover, and little to know pain even when I was walking. Thanks Dr. Windler, you’re the best!

Yesterday we rode up to an old abandoned mine called Ida Belle. Bagger had the GPS tracking, and we took a few photo’s along the way. In the past my attempts to get GPS tracks on maps on the Mac have proven futile, but this time I succeeded. Here’s how I did it and what it looks like
Here’s the order of events:

1) Get the GPS tracks in a format Google Earth can read (KML)
2) Get the photo’s on flickr
3) GeoTag the photo’s
4) Wire it together in Google Earth

GPSbabel is the tool to change GPS data from any one of the gazillion formats to another. The problem is it’s a bit of a pain to use. Enter the web service version of GPSBabel from GPSVisualizer. Choose the input/output format select your file, run and download. Double click on the generated .kml file and wa-la, it opens in Google Earth.

Getting the photo’s on flickr is simple enough, export from iPhoto with flickrexport.

The next step is Geo Tagging the photo’s. To do this, you need to know the latitude and longitude of the location where you took the photo. That can come from the waypoints we marked along the way, or by just placing a place marker on the map in Google Earth, edit that place marker and look at the latitude and longitude values. Note you need to change the default way Google Earth displays Lat/Lon from deg, minutes, sec to degrees so that the numbers are displayed as decimal values. Once you have these values, you tag the photo’s in flickr as described here.

The last step almost seems like magic. You simply add a magic link (www.robogeo.com/Flickr2Map/) on the description of the photo, save and select the link and wala, robogo magically creates the placemark in Google Earth with the necessary HTML in the placemark description to render the photo. Here’s a snapshot:

Pretty cool, but even cooler if you grab the .kml file and fly around it yourself!

On Monday May 8th I happened to get the phone number of a woman named Mary from a women an attorney had recommended to Missy and I about home health care a week earlier. The cascade of events since then have been somewhat miraculous.

Mary was recommended as someone that could tell me something about “Residential Care Services”: a home health care option that seemed an ideal first step for Padre (aka Dad) in his journey to Austin. I spoke to Mary that day while Jeremy was in his guitar lesson. She explained to me what residential care service was, and then kindly asked: “Where do you live?”. I told her. “Do you know where the intersection of 44th and Bull Creek is?”. Of course. “We own and operate a home there, and 1 of the 2 patients living there passed away 10 days ago.” For those that don’t click on links, 44th and Bull Creek is 2 blocks from our home; 0.3 miles (about 34 seconds) according to Google maps.

Mary suggested I drive by the house, and Jeremy and I did on the way home from his lesson. I had written down the address, but alas could not read my writing (go figure) and had to call Mar from in front of what I thought was the house. “Yep, that’s it. Want me to come up and show you the house?”. I did, and she did. We talked. This seems perfect.

Bring in the A team of mom, Bill, Missy, and Marshall, and by Wednesday we had a plan whereby I would drive to Clayton, with a stop in Amarillo to pick up Marshall (who would fly there from Albuquerque), and bring Padre back to Austin for a lovin’ spoonful. Fast forward to 2 AM Sunday, and I’m sitting on the porch sipping a cold one with my old man trying to knock the edge off of the Starbucks I consumed 2 hours earlier up the road. On Sunday we moved Dad in the 44th St. house.

I could go on and on about the coincidences, sacrifices and heartache that became the AUS-OLF-AUS turn, but suffice it to say, it was nothing short of amazing. Tuesday PM Marshall, Dad and I were visiting and pickin’ with my friends Randy and Cheryl.

Last week Dad saw a Dentist, and a PA at a Senior Specialty health care place. Yesterday he saw the eye Dr, and today he’ll see an MD. Dad has MANY MANY miles to go, but we’ve taken the first step.

New Artists

Every year there seems to be at least one artist I’ve never heard before that lights it up and garners one new fan. Three years ago it was Smokin’ Grass (who are now splitsky/gone), in 2004 it was the Waybacks, last year it was The Bills, and this year it was Abigail Washburn. Thursday night is the first night of the festival, and it’s called the Settle In party. Abigail plays the banjo claw hammer style. Her partner was a young Cellist names Ben Colee, who played the Cello like a sideways fiddle. They were awesome. She played 3 other times throughout the weekend, once with Ben on the main stage, once with the sizzling Uncle Earl, and I don’t remember the third. Two weeks ago happened to be the same week that Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the United States. One of the things that makes Abigail unique is that she spent time living in China and actually managed to learn the language. Not only that, but she’s written and plays/sings old time folk songs in Chinese. I definately recommend her album Songs of the Traveling Daughter. You can check it out at the iTunes music store. Try Red & Blazing.

Back Stage

One great privilege I get is backstage access. For a bluegrass junky, this is the ultimate. I get to see and meet some of my hero’s up close and personal. This year I got to meet Peter Rowan, and one of my favorite local producers/artists, Lloyd Maines. He’s from Lubbock Texas and has spent the last 5-10 years playing with a local folk singer Terri Hendrix (who I got to say hi to as well). he plays the pedal steel guitar, dobro, and other stringed instruments. What can I say, he reminds me of someone I know and love.

Late Night Pickin’

No bluegrass festival would be the same without people with instruments of all kinds traversing the camp grounds looking for a pickin’ circle. OSMF is IDEAL for such gatherings as Austin in April is comfortable all night long, and that’s just how long it goes. The best group I saw this year had a fiddler named Paul from Houston, some other young fiddler, a couple of guitars, and a guy on a clarinet. Bluegrass morphed into Jazzgrass right before my eyes. Saturday night they had a crawfish boil at 2:30 in the morning! Big fun.

Old and New Friends

Every year I camp and hang out with friends that I really only know and see at the festival, Nona, Danny, Chris, Betsy, Eric, Shane and a few others. This year I met and spent some time talking with Gary Jaroz, the father of a local young mando/singing up and coming, Sarah Jaroz. It was funny, I’d see him, we’d visit a bit, go our separate ways, and the next time I’d sit down to watch a great set, I’d look over and there was Gary. He loves great bluegrass as much as I do. Both he and his wife are great support for their daughter, and I look forward to running into him this year in Telluride!