When I first got out of university, my first job's biggest client was in Las Vegas -- I used to have to go out there constantly to install software and train.  (Our second biggest client was in Orlando, Florida, what a great way to start a career!)  I hadn't been to Vegas in years and now I totally remember why I hadn't gone.  One can only take Vegas in a 3 day window.  The place is so dry, that I had to keep slathering on lotion.  Coupled with the second hand smoke and open alcohol on the streets, I thought I was back at university.  The conference seemed to be over before it started, because each time slot had 2 or 3 sessions I really wanted to see.  The sessions are all online at sessions.visitmix.com.  I downloaded the sessions I missed to my iPod for my commute to work.

The keynotes were great, the Hard Rock Cafe demo was uber cool, and very well put together.  I'm totally on an island on this (everyone loves the demo), but the curmudgeon in me says that we've seen this technology before, in javascript, and in production, at Google maps, etc.  What is a map of the world, other than a finite set of images at varying levels of detail that allow zooming in.  After I saw the HRC (hard rock cafe, not Hillary Rodham Clinton) session this morning, though, the Vertigo team did a really awesome job with pretty crude tooling support.

The AOL silverlight email client was well done, but I would have been interested in more talk about why the client is so fast -- what techniques they used to download and cache the data from the server.  To get that performance they must cache the heck out the data (They said you get 1MG for free, but after that it gets tricky.  1mg seems awfully small in today's world)

During the keynote, they showed another mobile application for social networks ("I'm going to this bar tonight, is any of my friends around? Let me type into my mobile, and see...")  I must be old, because I totally don't get that.  If I am going out I'll either Call/SMS my friends and tell them where I am, or I'll simply "look around the bar" and see if I recognize anyone.   My friend Jason went to the show with me, and he said "Mobile applications are completely dead.  What we should be working on is making the mobile devices that have a real browser on them."  I totally agree with him.  I'd rather just use a quick web page that works well on my mobile, then install and mind another application on the client.  I have (and love) my Blackberry, and I used to have a windows mobile.  The browsers on both leave a lot to be desired.

I didn't do well at the conference in networking with other developers.  I totally didn't use my twitter correctly, and missed the opportunity to meet some of the people I have always wanted to chat with.  Perhaps the show is just to short!

They just posted a page where you can download all the MIX08 tools here.  I tried to install SilverLight into my VisualStudio 2008 tonight and didn't do so well --- Whatever you do don't hit 'cancel.'  In fact, they should have just change the 'cancel' button to a 'Press this button and totally mess up your machine" button -- I probably would not have hit it then.  If you do hit the 'cancel' button, this link helped me get the beta installed.

We've been working a bunch with Silverlight so far, and I can't wait to dig into the new beta.  Dax and I will have much more to say about the new tools in the weeks and months to come!

Official MIX08 water bottle (This is for you Liam, airport security took the bottle I grabbed for you -- the best I could do was grab the label...)

I only took 1 picture in Vegas, how dumb was that??