What a ride this has been! This is what I and other more than 30 people from different companies have been working on together for the last 6 months: .toolbox.

A bit more than a week away from when we went live we already have around 2,500 students from 80+ countries around the world!

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook ad YouTube.

.toolbox is an online design training program where you will find two study tracks: Design Principles and Design Scenarios.  You can take the training, present evaluations, collect badges and share your status via Twitter and Facebook. Do you have what it takes to get the ultimate Design All-Star badge?!

Design Principles is all about learning how to do better UX and design in general. We have received HUGE number of requests for this type of content. You will find 12 modules on this track, each about an hour long so 12 good hours of UX lectures

Design Scenarios is all about learning how to use Expression Blend and the design aspects of Silverlight. We have 12 modules, each about an hour long. The evaluations will only cover what is on the video but in addition we’ve included assets and a guide where you can follow a hands on lab. Some of the mini apps we have in the school are: SketchFlow Prototyping, Music Mixer, Canvas, Games, Business, Avatar Creator, Weather and more…

Since we first released Expression Studio 1 and Silverlight 1 the need train developers and designers in the use of this new platform has been huge. Everyone knows how to use Flash or Photoshop but no one knew how to use Expression Blend. All this time Microsoft has been growing investment on Silverlight resources and building better websites with learning materials. These days passionate community members also drive amazing blogs where they share tips and tricks to use Expression Blend.

For a couple years I drove a program called Artist in Residence which invited designers to Microsoft to work with developers to learn Silverlight and Blend. I also did the internal Artist in Residence where dozens of Microsoft teams, from XBOX to Office, to Bing to MSN got trained in the use of Silverlight and Blend.

After all these interactions I realized we were reaching maturity level in the business where we needed to go broader and reach many more people. Even though having designers visiting us in the campus was unbelievably fun and one of the most memorable experience of working for Microsoft, you can only reach so many people that way. An online design training program was a better solution moving forward and so we came up with the idea of creating the .toolbox.

The .toolbox is a website that trains developers and designers, evaluates knowledge, awards badges for achievements and that then shares your status via Twitter or Facebook. We hired multiple companies to help us build this site: Avlade produced all the Design Scenarios modules. Archetype many of the mini apps you will build in the school. Fuel Industries created the whole website and also a couple of the mini apps. Template Monster provided 3 beautiful sample templates from their library. Internal Microsoft UX designers contributed to the creation of the Design Principles modules.

If you have any questions/comments about .toolbox drop me a comment here and if you run into issues while taking the training please post directly to the Expression Blend forum. Remember to label your questions with TOOLBOX and then you question.

I received this message from Elwe the Lizzard Elf - I thought you would find it useful (it’s about a big discount on Expression Studio 3!!!) Ay caramba!

“If you are an elf like me who enjoys holidays because of the amazing, sometimes crazy discounts you find everywhere these days, from shiny new green hats, red shorts, elf curly shoes and those always nice stripe socks then the following deal is for you: Get a 30% OFF on Expression Studio. Offer ends this Monday, December 28th!

This offer is only for elves living in the US - Get it now and get those Silverlight and Blend projects rollin’! - make Santa proud! “

Hello!, here is a summary of the activities Microsoft will host during SxSW. Hope you can join us! lots of opportunities to talk about Expression, Silverlight, Windows Mobile, Web Standards. Lots of parties too :)  Also in the Microsoft Tradeshow booth you can play with our new Microsoft Interactive Canvas… a great way to play with a wall panel with screens that react to your actions.

And on Monday 7pm don’t forget to be there for the PhizzPop Design Challenge finals!

For a full listing of sessions and after hours events, please visit the following sites:

SXSW Sessions
Parties/Lounges  

You can also follow Microsofties using Twitter:

@wtschumy | Will Tschumy - UXE
@chrisbernard  | Chris Bernard - UXE
@shanemo | Shane Morris - UXE
@arturot | Arturo Toledo - Product Manager
@seanseven | Sean Seibel - UXE

These are our daily activities during SxSW Interactive:

10am-6pm | Fri - Tues |INTERACTION AREA | Microsoft Interaction Area
Convention Center, 4th Floor NW Corner

High traffic physical presence in the main corridor of the Convention Center that will highlight Silverlight and Surface demos (to include partner applications), a lounge area, and attendee surveys to include a plant a tree reforestation incentive along with a Website Named Desire Poster giveaway incentive.

1pm-6pm | Fri – Tues | LOUNGE | TechSet Blogger Lounge, Sponsored by Windows Mobile
Convention Center, Austin Suite, 3rd Floor

Area in which bloggers can crash and work. In addition to broadband, a video recording area for podcasters and video bloggers will be provided.

12pm-6pm | Sat - Mon | EXPO BOOTH | Visit us at the Microsoft Expo Booth!
Convention Center, Grand Ballroom

Visit  us at the SXSW Tradeshow Floor with Expression Studio, Live Search, Azure Services Platform (to include partner applications), and MSN demonstrations. Meet the experts, ask questions.

2pm-6pm | Fri - Mon | VIDEO GAMES | ScreenBurn Arcade: Video game element of SXSW Interactive.
Convention Center, 1st Floor

Brings together new media, music, film, and video games.

FRIDAY, March 13th

8pm - 10pm | PARTY | The Rat Pack, Sponsored by TechSet and Windows Mobile.
Belmont Lounge, 305 W. 6th Street

SATURDAY, March 14th

10am - 11am | PANEL | Is Privacy Dead or Just Very Confused? with Danah Boyd, Researcher, MSFT Research
Convention Center, Room A

While many assert that “privacy is dead,” the complex ways in which people try to control access and visibility suggest that it’s just very confused. Rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water, let’s discuss people’s understanding and experiences of privacy and find ways to 2.0-ify it.

11:30 - 12:30am | PANEL | Microformats – A Quiet Revolution with Karsten Januszewski, MSFT Sr. Tech Evangelist
Convention Center, Room 10

Microformats are quietly changing the landscape of the web, achieving some of the original ideals of the “semantic web.” In the past year, we’ve seen increased adoption from web designers and popular web sites, improved browser support for microformats in both Firefox and IE, and search engines beginning to support microformats.  Come hear from the leaders who are driving these changes in the industry, and find out what the future holds for microformats.

3:30-4:30 | PANEL | Everything I Needed to Know About the Web I Learned from Feminism with Danah Boyd, Researcher, MSFT Research
Convention Center, Room 9

Feminism teaches “the personal is political” and the web shows that the personal is now public. Christmas newsletters and recipes are the social media of their time, and women are the key social nodes of our culture. In her comic and thought-provoking style, Heather Gold brings together 4 very different feminist and web thinkers to discuss what makes social networks strong and predict where they’re heading next online.

6pm-8pm | PARTY | SXSW Interactive Opening Happy Hour hosted by Razorfish
The Madison, 307 W. 5th Street

8pm-11pm | PARTY: SxSW Interactive Opening Party hosted by frog design
Mexican American Cultural Center, 600 River Street

Official kickoff of the 16th year of SXSW Interactive

SUNDAY, March 15th

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | Violating the Warranty on Your Touch Computing Device with Chris Bernard, MSFT UXE
Convention Center, Room 10

Simple touch computing is taking the world by storm in desktop, mobile, and environmental computing. The best and brightest are taking their gloves off, drawing inspiration from Star Wars to James Bond, and going beyond the conventional bounds of touch computing. See what design and technology leaders are doing next with technology like Microsoft Surface and other touch computer platforms.

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | Taking Responsibility for the Quality of Your Life with Brian Yeung, MSFT Design Strategist
Convention Center, Room 5C

How can we live so that things that drive us to be great don’t have to make us miserable every step of the way, and that the way in which we make great things can also make us happy in and of itself? This talk will discuss ways to think about goals, personal expectations, and boundaries, and how to take control of your own personal happiness.

2pm-3pm | PANEL | CSS3: What’s Now, What’s New and What’s Not? with Sylvain Galineau, MSFT PM; Chris Wilson, MSFT IE Principal PM
Convention Center, Room 8

This panel explores how major browsers implement CSS3. The focus is on finding effective and efficient methods for developers to unleash their creativity while maintaining cross-browser compatibility. The panel covers current implementations, future plans from the major browser vendors and some discussion of the current progress on the standard itself.

2pm-3pm | KEYNOTE | Nate Silver, fivethirtyeight.com interviewed by Steve Baker, Business Week
Convention Center, Room A

9am-11am | PARTY | FG Squared Party
Lucky Lounge, 209 W. 5th Street

Gathering of influential interactive marketers

MONDAY, March 16th

10am-4pm | START UPS | SXSW Accelerator, sponsored by BizSpark
Hilton Downtown, 500 E. 4th Street

Pitch competition featuring 16 top startups and showcasing some of the Web’s most exciting new innovations.

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | Browser Wars III: The Platform Wins with Chris Wilson, MSFT IE Principal PM
Convention Center, Room Hilton C

We’re doing *so darn much* with the Web platform these days, from cross-domain access mechanisms to new drawing and graphics tools. But in the end, we still have to deal with different web browsers. This discussion brings the leads from Mozilla (Firefox), Microsoft (IE), Apple (Safari) and Opera (Opera) together for yet another incendiary discussion about the future of the web.

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | Entrepreneurship in the Belly of the Beast with Chris Bernard, MSFT UXE
Convention Center, Room 18 BCD

Small is beautiful at SXSW. From Getting Real to starting up, the ethos is largely anti-large corporation. This attitude overlooks one of the most satisfying professional accomplishments: doing your own thing while working for The Man. This presentation uses examples to offer strategies for making the corporation work for you.

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | My Car is Talking to Me But What’s It Saying? with Jason Kriese, MSFT Autos UX PM
Convention Center, Room 9

We call it the 60 MPH User Interface. Challenges abound in designing multi-modal voice and touch interactive user experiences in the car, for directions, traffic, information and communication. Come learn guiding design principles, see examples from today and talk about the experience of tomorrow.

2pm-3pm | KEYNOTE | James Powderly, Graffiti Research Lab, interviewed by Virginia Heffernan, NYT Magazine
Convention Center, Room A

4pm-8pm | PARTY | Rackspace Cloud Lounge Party
Brush Square Park West Tent

BizSpark hosting partner sponsored party.

5:30-7pm | DEMOS | Sensorium: Exploring the Digital Universe with Next Generation Interfaces
Pangaea, 409 Colorado Street

Live demonstrations focused around how Microsoft is coupling computing hardware with software and Web services. Presented by Microsoft.

7pm-10pm | PhizzPop Design Challenge: Tour Finale
Pangaea, 409 Colorado Street

Register for FREE! Here…

Winning teams from each city present their applications in the final square off. Get more info here.

TUESDAY, March 17th

10am-11am | PANEL | Cloud Computing: Defending the Undefinable with Yousef Khalidi, MSFT Engineer
Convention Center, Room 8

The brave new world of cloud computing is radically changing how we build web applications. What is a platform, what is a service, and how will the future of web applications be built? More importantly, how do these various clouds compare, and what do the differences mean? Are they ready for your world-rockin’ startup? In this panel, we’ll get nerdy with technical details, you’ll yell at us, and we’ll argue why your app should already be in the cloud.

10am-11am | PANEL | Latino Digital Drive: Why this Audience Matters with Javier Farfan, MSFT Zune Sr. PM
Convention Center, Room Hilton A

An in-depth look at the growing Latin music market, why this demographic represents an alluring audience, who and how they should be targeted and in what language. What’s the secret and should there be an English crossover? More and more artists are noticing this community - even Beyonce singing in Spanish.

10am-11am | PANEL | Collabotition: Can Companies Work With Their Competitors with Niko Chauls, MSFT Managing Editor
Convention Center, Room A

Costless organization of people, ideas, and information has changed how we collaborate and compete. Social media companies that might be competitors are working together to beat each other; sharing gossip, using each other’s products and making the battle a bit more efficient. Will the cream rise to the top?

2pm-3pm | KEYNOTE | Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine; Guy Kawasaki, Garage Technology Ventures
Convention Center, Room A

3:30pm4:30pm | PANEL | Brave NUI World: The Fearless Future of Device Interaction with Kristen Alexander, MSFT Xbox
Convention Center, Room 9

Designers and engineers are focusing attention on the NUI - Natural User Interface. As computing becomes more powerful and ubiquitous, ways we interact with computing will shift from classic keyboard/mouse to natural intuitive interactions. NUIs present new opportunities and challenges, as they become the next wave of computer/human interaction design.

Hello!

One more drop of content. I’m heading to SxSW tomorrow morning and I’m expecting lots of folks will want to learn more about using DeepZoom Composer to create immersive photo experiences with the help of Silverlight. We have four videos right here that will help you create DeepZoom experiences in a snap. It is a 3 step process… very simple and you can get DeepZoom Composer for free here…

Mastering DeepZoom Composer Series - 6 videos (only 4 available below…) - We will publish the other two in the Expression Community site soon.

DOWNLOAD ZIP file > 58MB

1. Composing DeepZoom Layouts
2. Exporting to PhotoZoom
3. All About Exporting DeepZoom Composer Project
4. Inserting an DeepZoom Composer Project into an Expression Web website
5. Inserting a DeepZoom Project into an Expression Web website (coming soon)
6. Simple Manipulation of a DeepZoom Control with C# (coming soon)

Hello! We’ve published new training content for Expression called: Silverlight for Designers Getting Started Guide. This content is available in the Expression Community site.

This content includes a manual, assets and 11 videos. The content was produced by AGI (AQUENT). It’s very useful ‘getting started’ content created for designers. In summary this week we released two new Getting Started Guides, the Silverlight one I just mentioned and the Expression Web guide too…

Remember that we have tons of videos at microsoft.com/videos under the Expression Studio channel :)  Enjoy! and let me know what you think about the content. We are producing content permanently. If you feel like we missed a topic or you have a question about Blend or Web please send and we can answer.

These are the videos and topics available in this Guide: 

• What is Silverlight? An Overview (this video)
• Understanding and Working with XAML Code in Expression Blend
• Creating Vector-Based Artwork with Expression Design
• Applying Color and Effects to Projects using Expression Design
• Organizing Your Project using Layout Containers in Expression Blend
• Editing the Appearance of Your Project Items using Expression Blend
• Exploring the Objects and Timeline Task Pane in Expression Blend
• Customizing Silverlight Video Players using Expression Blend
• Optimizing Video for Silverlight Playback using Expression Encoder
• Adding Interactivity to Silverlight Projects using Expression Blend
• Publishing Silverlight Projects to the Web using Expression Blend

Lori and Patrick in the Expression Community site have just published a new Expression Web Starter Kit. This kit was produced by AQUENT and includes a reference booklet, assets and a collection of videos. Hope you enjoy!

Remember you can always download the videos or watch them full screen.

Very shortly we will publish another Starter Kit called Getting Started with Silverlight - for Designers.  The UI Design for Developers video series will also be made available in the Expression Community site soon.

Here are some goodies for you:

• AQUENT gave us a discount code ‘holytoledo’ which will give you a $50 discount.
• Also, AQUENT will give away a box of Expression Studio ($699 value) to the first 5 people who sign up to an event.  

Join an AQUENT seminar and learn more about designing Silverlight experiences with Expression Blend and other Expression tools. I reviewed their 3 day course in Redmond a few months ago when we hosted a pilot event. The event went great. They put together fun materials to go through. The theme for the course is creating a website and assets for an aquarium. You get to design some fun and wacky fish in Expression Design, you take those into Blend and they teach how to animate. You also build a video gallery with shark and other fish videos. You learn how to create and customize Silverlight controls and on the third day, mainly for designers you learn the basics of how to code in C# with fun activities like generating a new human race with code .

Here is the outline/curriculum for the course.

Our friends from AQUENT GRAPHICS INSTITUTE have been in the business of training designers for almost 15 years. Last year we began working with them to produce training content for us. Collaborating with such an amazing team of talented trainers who know how to talk to designers has paid of tremendously as they are helping us bridge the initial gap between designers who have previous experience with Flash and the new concepts now available in Expression Blend and Silverlight. They are also providing training to our internal Microsoft design community via events we call Expression Sessions. These events help us train our internal design team (Office, MS.COM, MSN, Game Studios, Live, Windows etc) in the use of Silverlight and Expression. In February AQUENT will visit Redmond to train our internal design teams once more, this time to provide a course called Coding for Designers which is a fun one day event where AQUENT will teach designers in a fun and creative way the basics of coding with C#. We are recording that day in video so I will share the videos soon after. Jennifer Smith and Fred Gerantabee will also be presenting at MIX, also covering a C# for Designers session so visit MIX. AQUENT is also the official training partner for PhizzPop both online and in person design challenges.

Anyway, going back to the seminar tour that AQUENT is running… you can visit their Seminar site and learn more about how to participate. It is a 3 Day course for designers (although UI Developers who are relatively new to Silverlight would also find it very useful). They are currently offering events in NY, Boston and LA but if you want them to visit you in other cities in the US or around the world just drop them an email.

The amazing ColourLovers.com community has added a special section for you to download color palettes in WPF and Silverlight formats. You can the use these palettes in Expression Blend. This will help developers get access to a huge library of colors that simply look great! and will also help designers get more inspiration and save sometime by using these palettes as starting points for their own projects.

The ColourLovers.com community now allows you to download 3 new color palette formats (example):

• Expression Design Swatch
• WPF Resource Dictionary
• Silverlight XAML Resources

There is tons you can do with this so we’ve put together a tutorial | Word format | with all the details of how to search for colors in ColourLovers.com, how to download your palette and how to integrate in your Expression Design document, you WPF application or your Silverlight website in Expression Blend.

Get a 50% discount on Expression Studio, Expression Blend and Expression Web when you visit the Microsoft Store in the United States. Let’s begin 2009 with good deals and since economy is a hot topic right now, check out this limited time offer to get Expression Studio, Blend and Web at 50% their original cost. Expression Studio is $349.95, Expression Blend is $249.95 and Expression Web is $149.95. This offer is available in the U.S.

Now, let me tell you why you want to buy either of these 3 products. First of all, Expression Studio includes both Expression Blend 2 plus Expression Web 2, so that is already the cost of it. In addition however you get 3 additional products when you buy Studio. You get Expression Design 2, Expression Media 2 and Expression Encoder 2. Basically with these $349.95 you get the full design tool studio from Microsoft that can help you create Standards Based Websites, (HTML, ASP.NET, PHP), Silverlight 2 websites, WPF Windows applications, manage digital assets, encode and prepare video for the web and create stunning graphics. My advice, get Expression Studio, it’s a great deal and you can always update to the next versions of Studio.

Get Expression Blend is you are interested only in creating Silverlight and WPF applications. For many of you this is the case but basically for $100 more (Expression Studio) you web four additional products: Expression Web, Expression Encoder, Expression Design and Expression Media (all of these in version 2 of course)

Get Expression Web by itself if you are a previous or current user of Dreamweaver, Frontpage or other HTML website design tool. With Expression Web you will be able to create professional websites for your business or personal use. From small information sites based on standards to fully enabled rich media websites, Expression Web will help you design html based websites.

Upgrades from version 1 to version 2 of Studio, Blend and Web are also 50% off so this is the right time to upgrade.

Hello! We’ve posted a new challenge for you.

This time it is for you to create a Silverlight + Live Services experience. Very fun!

Here’s how to compete in the online PhizzPop Design Challenge!

First of all if you have not done before, register to create a PhizzPop account by clicking the Sign In link on the top left of this page.

1. Download the sample application - You will use this Silverlight project as a starting point.
2. Download the Guide - this is a manual that will help you learn more about Silverlight, Live Services and how these two technologies work together.
3. Create a solution for the current Online challenge. Use the provided sample, tweak it, chage the visual design, add more Live Services, extend the experience… Use the Guide as a reference and/or watch these videos we produced to help you learn more about Silverlight and Live Services. The videos are short and concise and will give you valuable tips & tricks for the Challenge. Read more about the Challenge objective >>
4. Download the tools. If you do not yet have Microsoft Expression and other tools needed to compete in this Challenge check out this blog post which lists everything you need to install.
5. Participate in the Community!, share your progress or send questions in this PhizzPop Community Forum.
6. Submit your entry for the Online challenge - Go to the phizzpop.com site, Sign In, and then Submit your Entry. Once you are done with changing the visual design of the provided sample and/or extending it with additional services, send us your entry, from there it’s all about being the best! We wish you luck!

Challenge 2 is due on January 20th. Good luck!

Arturo

Hello! Some of you might have visited www.microsoft.com/videos. It’s a Beta version portal for video that uses Silverlight. Microsoft Expression has its own channel in there and currently has 140+ videos and we are continously adding more. This year we will be producing many more for you so if you have questions, tips or tricks or techniques you would like to learn more about when using Expression drop me a comment so we can consider in the video production reviews

Ah! giving away free stuff is what I like the most  Makes people happy!

This year we are producing lots and lots of small 5min videos (aprox) to answer particular questions we’ve received about Expression Studio tools. We will be publishing these videos (dozens and dozens, which will become hundreds and hundreds soon) in the Expression Community site but in the meantime, let me do it again and share with you a sneak peak.

Here you have 16 videos originally recorded using Expression Blend 2.5 June Preview showing Silverlight 2 related activities. These videos are great for designers and also developers who are interested in UI design. Even though these were recorded with a preview version of Blend, the content is still valuable now that we’ve released Blend 2 SP1 (remember Blend 2.5 got renamed to Blend 2 SP1 - Service Pack 1 - after we released it a couple weeks ago). Check ‘em out and enjoy!

Blend2_Silverlight_Batch01.zip | Windowless Control | Customizing a ListBox | Databinding | How to Bind to a Scrollbar

Blend2_Silverlight_Batch02.zip | Binding to a Slider | Creating Transitions | Using the StackPanel control | Using Resources | Reusability with User Controls in Blend

Blend2_Silverlight_Batch03.zip | Modifying Storyboards at runtime | RadioButton Template | ScrollBar Template | HandOff Animations in Blend

Blend2_Silverlight_Batch04.zip | Creating User Controls | Building a small Calculator (to explore User Controls) | Grid Layout Panel

SkyDrive by the way is a free storage service (5GB) provided by Windows Live. Let me know if it works well for you. (I do not have the assets used in the videos to share with you but we will post those in the Community site in the future).

Hello! Yesterday evening we released a Service Pack for Encoder 2. The amount of improvements and new features are so many that I think it’s actually better if you visit this site to get a comprehensive list. Notice that we now have an ‘Express’ version of Encoder. This is a free version you can get by downloading the trial for Encoder, letting it expire and then the product will continue to work without a few features listed in the page I mentioned above.

Expression Encoder 2 SP1 now also supports Silverlight 2 video player skins so you can now do a similar video player customization workflow from Encoder and then into Blend as we did in the good old Silverlight 1 days… old days indeed as now with Silverlight 2 everything is more straighforward and eaiser to do.

As a reminder we also have Service Packs for Blend 2 and Media 2. The one for Blend is particularly lovable as it provides Blend 2 with full support for Silverlight 2 projects… a must for all of you owners of Blend 2 (it’s a free upgrade).

 Enjoy!

Hello!

A moment ago we launched the PhizzPop Design Challenge . PhizzPop is a series of activities for designers and Agencies to have fun and learn how to create experiences using Silverlight, WPF, Expression Studio and Live Services. PhizzPop has different activities:

PhizzPop Online

Everyone can participate here starting TODAY! Join the first online challenge and Build Games with Silverlight. We are providing a couple sample games you can customize with you own visual design elements. Deisgn new characters and settings, add sound or extend the game. You will also find 12 videos from AQUENT that will help you learn more about Expression and Silverlight and how to modify these games. If you need more training check out Total Training’s series on Expression Studio 2 tools. Participating in the PhizzPop Online Challenge is a great way to learn how to use Expression. If you are a designer, partner with a developer and customize and extend the game. If  you are a developer, partner with a designer and work together to enhance those games. If you want to learn more about games with Silverlight check out the following links:

Andy Beaulieu - Andy has some amazing information and samples games for you to learn from. The Avalanche game in the PhizzPop Challenge is based on Andie’s SilverlightRock game.

SilverlighRocks - Beginning game programming in Microsoft Silverlight 2 using C#, presented by Bill Reiss and Silverlight Rocks!

PhizzPop Design Challenge

A web design and development competition. It is comprised of the PhizzPop Tour, a set of in-person challenges targeting top U.S. agencies; and PhizzPop Online, four online challenges targeting the broad community of Web professionals. 

PhizzPop Tour

Between November 2008-March 2009 we’ll touch down in seven major cities. In each location, agencies will compete to design the best solution that solves a unique design challenge using Microsoft technologies. More info here…

Hello!

As many of you know already the buzz about Silverlight 2 being released started over the weekend. We first announced this during the Silverlight Day (MIX Essentials) event in Tokyo last Friday. Forest Key hinted about this imminent release. Today Silverlight 2 is available and resources are available at silverlight.net. At the same time the Expression team released a Service Pack (SP1) for Expression Blend 2. With this SP, Expression Blend 2 now fully supports Silverlight 2. To install the SP1 you need to have Expression Blend 2 installed.

We also released a Service Pack for Expression Media 2. �

From Lutz Gerhard:

Hey everyone –

I started a deep zoom blog to answer some of the many questions I’ve been getting and to put some nice content and samples out there.

My first post is here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/lutzg/

Please join us to watch the first live concert cybercast by Microsoft Silverlight - Tomorrow Saturday March 15th, 8pm Central/6pm Pacific

Microsoft has partnered with UVNTV.com to cybercast Ice Cube Live from SxSW Music festival in Austin, TX. Ice Cube, hip hop legend, performing classics and his new album “Raw Footage”. Register online- http://home.uvntv.com/events/view/event/sxsw_ice_cube

More info… http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003723151

Hello!  After two years of having announced Expression for the first time, we have now released something everyone wanted: the Expression Community site.  This will be place where you can read blogs for the different product team blogs, like Encoder, which just got added with new content about version 2 during MIX or the Blend team blog which included access and info on how to use DeepZoom.

In this Community site we will have blogs, forums, galleries, samples, tutorials and more coming up.

Nishant Kothary, Microsoft User Experience evangelist here in Redmond recently announced a very exciting side of MIX08… Come join us!

MIX UX, a three-day user experience track that debuts at the MIX 2008 Conference, is dedicated to exploring and evolving the practice of user experience. Through unique content delivered by user experience thought-leaders, MIX UX broadens the content choices for designers and creative professionals to include broad and relevant UX topics that are not specifically related to Microsoft products and services. Each day MIX UX will focus on a particular theme, the sum of which exposes the essence of MIX UX: Discovery, Exploration and Inspiration. It is no coincidence that these qualities are also at the core of designing great products and software.

Discover. A broad look at UX through the visionary minds of Lou Carbone, Dave Armano, and Dan Roam

Explore. An in-depth, practical workshop on user experience in the real world lead by Adaptive Path

Inspire. Microsoft’s new perspective on UX viewed through the eyes of Office, Zune, and Surface.

MIX UX is one of the many great reasons for all types of designers and creative professionals to attend MIX this year. 

 Debuting at MIX08, MIX UX puts the focus on the practice of user experience through the insights of visionaries like Lou Carbone, Dan Roam, David Armano and the Microsoft Surface, Office and Zune UX teams.

Many of you probably noticed we released the new Expression Blend 2 December preview. I’ll add the ‘new feature’ list here very soon! but go uninstall, Blend 2 September Preview and get the new shiny December Preview

We also released the Expression Blend 1 SP1 (Service Pack). If you have Blend 1 installed go here and download the update. This Service Pack will fix different bugs or issues that have been reported by the community. If you are using a Preview version of Blend 2 then you *do not* need to install this Service Pack.

As part of the Service Pack, the UE team also released an updated Online Documentation which you can download here.  Installing it can be a little tricky but the team has provided good info in the Download page. Check out the Instructions section in the Download page.