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We know you’re busy. Even with every social media, web, and
RSS tool at your disposal, you can occasionally miss out on some of the week’s most
insightful content.
Never fear. We’ve taken a moment to round up the best Mashable resources from this past
week and present them here for your weekend enjoyment.
From in-depth how-tos, to app lists, to valuable business guides, browse below for a veritable
smorgasbord of value you may have passed over.
Music sharing and distribution on the web is nothing new. But some artists, bands, and labels
are going the extra social mile to get their music heard. Here’s how they’re
doing it.
Dick Tracy’s gadgets have nothing on today’s socially-savvy police departments.
Find out how they’re using social networks to catch criminals, prevent crime, and keep
the public informed.
Is you Facebook Fan Page lacking a little engagement “oomph?” Has your fan growth
leveled off? Try these four dead-simple ways to get folks sharing your brand again.
Location-based social media is still relatively young, but the future is bright for users,
marketers, and businesses alike. Here are 5 important lessons to take away from the current
LBS landscape.
For more mobile news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s mobile channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.
The B2B potential of social media is often overlooked. If you sell to fellow business owners
and you’re looking for an in on the social media action, don’t miss this post.
Social media is not the beginning or end of a marketing effort. It should be woven into every
aspect of your business plan. Take in these four tips on how to make that happen.
Is your business ready to make the leap into the cloud? Smart integration of Google Apps for
Business can really benefit your team and workflow. See how in this post.
Streaming recorded TV to your hotel room. Grabbing files off your home computer from work. Checking
on the dog walker. Your computer can do amazing things while you're nowhere near it, and these 10
killer remote access apps help you do them. More »
Streaming recorded TV to your hotel room. Grabbing files off your home computer from work. Checking
on the dog walker. Your computer can do amazing things while you're nowhere near it, and these 10
killer remote access apps help you do them. More »
I didn’t have the same problems at SXSW this year
that some people did. Was it too crowded at some events? Sure.
But there were plenty of alternative things to do. Did some of the keynotes bomb? Yes.
But there were plenty of other things to listen to. Did AT&T fail? No. Actually, they
did an awesome job keeping the
network up. Instead, I had a problem of a different kind: check-in fatigue.
Seeing as location was this
year’s Twitter at SXSW, and seeing as I write a lot about location, I wanted to try to
use as many of the services as I could during the actual conference. I drastically underestimated
how much work that would actually be.
At first, I was using all of the services I had on my phone to check-in when I arrived at a place
in Austin. This included: Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Whrrl, Brightkite, Burbn, MyTown, CauseWorld, Hot
Potato, Plancast, and (at certain places) Foodspotting. Even with great AT&T service, this would take a
solid 10 minutes or more to check-in to all of them. And it took even longer when I’d have
to pause to explain to my friends what the hell I was doing on my phone all that time.
This was at every venue we stopped at. The situation simply wasn’t tenable.
By the second day, I had cut the services I would check-in to in half. It still wasn’t
close to being something I would consider doing on a regular basis. By the end of my
time in Austin, I was down to using only two services — yes, the two in the
midst of the
“war” — Foursquare and Gowalla.
Pretty much everyone I knew in Austin were also using both Foursquare and Gowalla to send out all
their check-ins. And all seemed to agree: it was still too tedious to use even just two services
to do the same thing. In the end, there should be only one.
And so it should be no surprise that a few companies are already working on a solution for this
problem. One is by the creators of Brightkite, who managed to obtain the killer check.in domain name. The team showed me a preview of the app at a party
one night, and I immediately knew it was exactly what I needed (see a
preview of it here).
But there’s a problem with this solution too. Currently, Gowalla’s API is read-only,
which means you actually can’t use another app to check-in to the service. I spoke with CEO
Josh Williams a bit about this just prior to SXSW, and he noted that the main thinking behind
this is to maintain the user experience Gowalla is looking for (a very Apple-like argument). But,
he did say that eventually he thinks they will open up a two-way API — maybe
once they have time to create some best practices documentation, he noted.
Another problem is that currently each of these check-in services has their own places database.
That means that a place on Foursquare may be slightly different than a place on Gowalla, even
though they’re technically the same place. Worse, there are plenty of duplicates for some
venues since people are allowed to create their own. Check.in works around this place problem by
doing a look-up on each service and letting you pick the correct check-in spot. But it’s a
bit slow, and still seems rather tedious.
A better solution would be for the various services to adopt a standard for places. The Activity Streams group is working
on such a concept. Yahoo may also be able to implement such a system on top of its WOEID system. Of course, any
service that adopts such a standard would be risking at least part of their business since these
place databases are one of the keys to each service.
Meanwhile, Facebook is thinking about aggregating data from
both Foursquare and Gowalla for its own upcoming location implementation. Might that be the
one location stop to rule them all (of course, the writing back to Gowalla would still likely be
an issue)? Not if Twitter has anything to say about it.
During our Realtime Crunchup last year, I brought up this issue during our panel on
location. All the players on stage (including Twitter, Foursquare, Hot Potato, Google
Latitude, GeoAPI, and SimpleGeo) seemed to want to say that they could all get along and play
nicely together for the betterment of location as a whole. I didn’t buy it then, and
I’m definitely not buying it now.
From a business perspective, it doesn’t make sense for these guys to all play nicely with
one another and make it so you don’t have to use their services. The need to take steps to
ensure that you will use their
service, and will do so instead of a rival service. That’s the way it works, and
that’s the way it has always worked. And that’s why it’s a war. Right now,
it’s just the early stages where all sides are arming themselves. Soon, they’ll try
to kill one another. And that may not be such a bad thing.
Three million people used the March
Madness On Demand video player to catch the first round of the NCAA Men’s College
Basketball Championship online yesterday, according to a press release sent out by CBS Sports
today. Sports fans watched a total of 3.4 million hours of live streaming video and audio online
yesterday, 20 percent more than in 2009. And the most-watched game even saw 50 percent more
traffic than last year’s most popular first day face-off.
We’ll leave it to others to speculate how much of a productivity killer March Madness is,
but the fact that CBS saw its biggest spike in traffic in the hour after 2pm Eastern — 533k
streaming hours for the full hour, with a peak of 147k streaming hours between 2:45 and 2:59 p.m.
— suggests that the championship may actually be an ideal lunch time companion, at least
for us West Coasters.
Yesterday’s most popular game happened to be the match between Florida and BYU, with a
total of 521k hours of streaming video and audio. Those new audience records are another
validation for CBS’s strategy to air full live games without access restrictions online, a
strategy that’s also been paying off with advertisers, who have spent a total
of $37 million on ads for March Madness On Demand this year.
However, one should take CBS’s claim that this was “the largest single day of traffic
for a live sport event on the Internet” with a grain of salt: The 2008 Olympics had a huge
online worldwide online audience, with 1.6 million viewers
tuning in simultaneously through the Chinese P2P video client PPLive during the opening
ceremony alone.
The Iranian indie band talk about life as outlaws in their homeland, as documented in their new
film No One Knows About Persian Cats
At first glance, Take It Easy Hospital look like any other aspiring indie duo. Dressed
in impeccable Shoreditch chic – plaid shirt and skinny jeans for him, cute
vintage dress, black tights and brogues for her – their teenage epiphanies
came on copied cassettes of Nirvana and Pink Floyd, while these days they're more into Sigur
Rós and Foals.
Their ambition for next year, once they find a drummer, is to get on to the bill at Glastonbury
or Reading. The difference is that Take It Easy Hospital originally formed in Iran, where rock
music is banned. When the local music industry is non-existent, gigs and recording studios are
regularly raided by police and even MySpace is monitored, simply finding someone who shares your
love of guitars and plaintive vocals is fraught with difficulties.
Ash Koshanejad and Negar Shaghaghi, the twin songwriters of Take It Easy Hospital, are the stars
of a new Iranian film by garlanded Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi, called No One Knows About Persian Cats (so named because pet cats,
like rock musicians, are outlawed in Iran). The film is a fictionalised account of the duo's
attempts to recruit a rhythm section in order to play a local underground gig and ultimately
escape to the rock-friendly west. As the two indie innocents are taken under the wing of
music-loving wide-boy Nader (Hamed Behdad), the film becomes a Linklater-esque romp through
Tehran's clandestine rock underground. All the bands and musicians featured are real, but whether
hairy blues rockers, jazz singers, class-war rappers or indie kids, they exhibit a love for
making music that overrides the fear of being arrested the moment they switch on their amps. "If
you were discovered playing rock music, you'd get arrested, you'd have to pay a fine," reveals
Ash, matter-of-factly. "Sometimes you'd go to prison."
The film gleans affectionate humour from the various bands' ingenuity when it comes to hiding
their rehearsal spaces from the authorities in diligently-soundproofed underground caverns,
shacks constructed on the roofs of tower blocks or, in one case, in a working cattle barn (much
to the cows' displeasure).
By coincidence, there is a British film out this month which also documents the struggle of a
couple of indie dreamers to form a band – except 1234 is based in London, so the
only obstacles are their own musical inadequacy and weedy sexual tension between bandmates.
Persian Cats makes 1234 look rather pathetic.
In Iran musicians are forced to behave like fugitives, even though the charges invoked against
them are vague (Ahmadinejad imposed a ban on "western and decadent music" soon after becoming
president in 2005). "It's a not a written law," complains Negar. "There isn't this red line. You
never know when you're crossing it. [The authorities] don't even really know what they're
opposing. They don't see that music brings energy and good nature to society."
In 2007, Ash's former band Font staged an open-air gig in a private garden in a suburb of Tehran.
Armed police arrived en masse to shut it down, arresting everyone in the audience, and slinging
the band in prison for 21 days. "They didn't have any law that said what they should do with us,
so they called us satanists. They said we were against the moral law and disgracing the face of
society." Ash chuckles wryly at the memory. "It was an odd experience, sleeping next to a serial
killer for three weeks. But it made me believe even more in what I was doing."
Font and Take It Easy Hospital are rarities: most Iranian wannabe rockers never even get further
then their bedrooms, due to the subtle pressure exerted within families. "Under this regime, you
don't have any opportunity to make a living from being a musician, so families prevent their
children from learning music in the first place," Ash explains. "Families are a small example of
big government. They don't trust the young generation."
When Ash and Negar were kids, the only opportunity they had to hear western rock music was when
somebody from their community travelled abroad and brought back CDs. "They'd be copied on to a
tape over and over again," says Negar. "We used to write the track names in class when the
teacher wasn't looking and take it home with such excitement to listen to it." Even so, whatever
they got depended on the tastes of the traveller; often hoping for something similar to Nirvana,
they'd end up having to make do with ABBA.
The advent of the internet changed everything for Iranian teenagers, who were suddenly able to
participate in global youth culture, employing their technological nous to stay one step ahead of
government censors. The fact that the bands in No One Knows About Persian Cats wear Strokes
T-shirts and pass around copies of the NME shouldn't seem that strange. But what is the
attraction to Ash and Negar of the kind of fey indie music that even within its countries of
origin is often considered a bit insular?
"Well, we are indie!" declares Ash. "We had to do it ourselves in bedrooms because if
you step out into the streets, you cannot even tell anyone you've just written a song. We would
make our own imaginariums in our rooms."
If they'd grown up in England, Take It Easy Hospital's wan, organ-driven indie-pop, topped with
earnest observations about the "human jungle", might stand accused of being a little bit twee.
But once you learn how hard Ash and Negar have had to fight just to get their songs heard, they
take on a whole new complexion. And despite their ugly experiences in Iran, they are determined
not to make rebel rock. "Me, I don't care about politics," says Negar. "The value of art is a lot
more than politics. Politics is something that passes, but art stays for years."
Ash picks up the thread: "Politics is a tool to solve a situation at one moment. We believe that
art is pure and always depending on human nature, so we've always kept ourselves far from
politics. Our music is not dangerous, but the current regime in Iran feels that it has to keep
people away from honest expression because if they face up to the reality they will soon find out
what they are missing."
Ash and Negar agreed to star in Persian Cats not to make a political point, but to try to show
the older generation, including their parents, that music is a force for good. But while Ash has
received some positive feedback from older Iranians – "I've heard that they
walk away after seeing this film to remember what they had before the revolution"
– Negar is despondent that most of them haven't been able to overcome their
prejudices. "I guess that when people decide to close their eyes to something, you can't force
them to see the truth."
In the light of last year's post-election protests, the police crackdown on young people involved
in music and the arts has intensified. When Take It Easy Hospital's old drummer went back to Iran
several weeks after the election, he was arrested and beaten. Last January, the film's co-writer,
Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, was arrested in Tehran and handed an eight-year jail
sentence on trumped up charges of being a US spy (she was eventually freed following a global
outcry).
Reluctantly, Ash and Negar decided it was unsafe to return to Iran and have successfully applied
for asylum in the UK, where they've been living since coming over to play at Manchester's In The
City festival in 2008. In the film, the duo never make it to London, so in this case, truth is
happier than fiction. However, Negar is at pains to point out that they never viewed England as
the promised land, despite our rather more relaxed laws regarding the public airing of
Farfisa-driven jangle pop.
"Some people say we've run away," says Negar. "But there is no running away. Moving from one
country to another doesn't necessarily solve all the problems that are on your mind." Proof that
indie introspection truly is an international language.
No One Knows About Persian Cats is out Fri; it previews atBrixton
Ritzy, SW2, Tue
Kevin Nakao is VP of Mobile & Business Search for
WhitePages, a Top 40 Web and Mobile
Publisher. You can find him on Twitter,
and on the Whitepages
Blog where he writes about mobile, local, and social media.
While last year’s SXSW seemed to serve as the
“coming out” party for location-based services (LBS), maybe this year’s
conference signifies the migration of these platforms into mainstream culture. And perhaps the
only real “new” concept to emerge this year is the idea that there is finally a real
opportunity to make money via “location.”
Here are five things that companies should consider as they look to utilize location-based
services (LBS) as part their mobile strategy.
1. Location Shouldn’t be the Only Goal
From finding the nearest ski slope on REI’s Ski and Snow Report to a nearby movie on Flixter, there are
plenty of Top iPhone applications that have incorporated a “lead with the offer, not the
capability” philosophy into their mobile product offering to provide a better service.
Build the best service first, then add the bells and whistles.
With all the hoopla surrounding location, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that
location’s real appeal to advertisers is the fact that with this functionality, you can
reach the on-the-go user, who is ready to buy and consume. Just because Twitter and Facebook offer location doesn’t make
that valuable or new to advertisers. Location-targeting via IP address has been around a while.
For the same reason radio is a great advertising channel for retailers, LBS advertising is also
valuable: because it can reach the consumer near the point of sale.
However, if you apply any city’s share of the total U.S. population, the results show some
pretty low estimates of Foursquare users in individual localities. What emerges is a very
“long tail” — a steep, narrow graph — of local user adoption. This shows
why it is important to achieve scale if you hope to see return on investment in the location
marketing space.
For example, using these rough estimates of a city’s proportional share of the U.S. population, if a
local pet supply store wanted to target people in San Francisco, the estimated reach would be
1,310 Foursquare users. Even if you double this audience estimate, the number is fairly small for
even a local marketer. We had to hit around 4 million downloads of the Whitepages iPhone app to
achieve the minimum scale needed for advertiser geo-targeting. Today, 80% of our campaigns from
major brands are geo-targeted.
Editor’s Note: It’s important to remember that these are just rough estimates.
Because Foursquare was initially only available in a handful of major metro areas, the geographic
distribution of users may not precisely follow the geographic distribution of the
population.
3. Mobile Battery Life is Key
Battery life is the single biggest threat to location. With GPS on, the phone is asking the
network where it is, and this chatter can drain battery life — anyone with an iPhone knows what I am referring to. Thus, phone
manufacturers will play a critical role in the future of LBS. RIM, the manufacturer of BlackBerry devices, faced this problem early on with
the energy-tax of e-mail polling, and as a result, their devices now have some of the best
battery life.
Foursquare has helped us move forward here as well. “Check-ins” help to address the
issue as they offer efficient geo-triggers without having to keep battery-draining GPS features
on at all times.
4. Location Will Be the Battleground of the Mobile OS
Looking forward, I predict the mobile platform wars will be fought with location and maps. This
is an important feature that a platform can use as a point of differentiation for consumers and
developers.
In anticipation of that battle, Apple purchased mapping company Placebase, and Google is starting to provide unique
mapping features like turn-by-turn navigation on
its Android devices. The only hope I see for
Windows Mobile is if they do something
completely revolutionary on the mobile location front. A development like this was alluded to at
the recent TED conference with its augmented reality
layering of geo-tagged Flickr photos and real-time
video integration.
5. Location Pays
At WhitePages, we monetize our mobile services through a mix of premium, national display, and
sponsored links for local business. Our effective CPM (revenue per thousand ad impressions) for
sponsored local links is $30-$50 — double the effective CPM (eCPM) rate we see for premium
display ad campaigns from national brands. The eCPM multiple of local targeted ads over ad
network rates is a staggering 10x.
Location-based inventory will also become scarce as Apple recently
announced that iPhone apps will not be permitted to access GPS capabilities for advertising
alone. There now needs to be some consumer benefit and functionality in order to access a
user’s location. Geo-targeted inventory on mobile will continue to be at a high premium
with no excess supply or ad networks to drive it down.
Conclusion
It is my hope that by this time next year, SXSW –- the festival of
“emerging” music and technology –- will have finally moved on from
location. It’s clearly happening now, and if integrated wisely, location will be making
companies too much money to be called the “cool kid on the block” any longer
"I've been incarcerated for 40 years, and I've had a good record all around. I don't see any reason
for holding me." —Thomas Hagan, the confessed killer of Malcom X. The state agrees with him:
he will soon be out on parole, a murderer and a free man....
What the crap? A French comic? Are the French even allowed to make comics? Aren't they too busy
being snooty and smoking Gauloises and wearing inappropriate swimwear? Where do they find the
time to make comics, anyway?*
Well, the French can do all those things as long as they keep making comics this good, I tell ya.
West Coast Blues is a cracking good crime comic, not really noir but definitely a tale
of bad people doing bad things to each other. It's also, oddly enough, very wryly humorous, in a
way we don't often see in crime comics here in the States. It was a novel by Jean-Patrick
Manchette in 1976, and in 2005, Manchette's old collaborator, Jacques Tardi, finally adapted it
to comics (and then Kim Thompson translated it into English). Presumably, had DC's association
with Humanoids continued, this would have been a DC book. As it is, Fantagraphics has published it in the States. Good for them!
The plot is deceptively simple, as for most of the book, we have no idea what's going and
Manchette simply follows his main character around. We begin in the present with George Gerfaut, cruising around in his Mercedes in
the middle of the night listening to West Coast style jazz (hence the name of the book - George
digs the jazz!). After a few pages, we're introduced to another man, Alonso Emerich y Emerich, a
Dominican of German descent who used to be in military intelligence. We have, initially, no idea
what his purpose is, because we quickly get back to George, who is passed by two cars, one
chasing the other. The first car crashes, the second car takes off, and George helps the first
driver to the hospital. Then he returns to his house. A few days later, his family heads out on
vacation. It takes us a few pages to realize that this is happening in time well before the
opening scene, because Manchette doesn't give us any indication that we've flashbacked. That's
okay, though - the transition between the "present" and the "past" is interesting because
Manchette links them through George driving late at night. While we may be a bit lost initially,
we quickly regain our footing.
George doesn't realize he's being tailed by two hitmen in the employ of Alonso, who goes by Mr.
Taylor. Again, we don't know why they want to kill George (we can figure out it has something to
do with the driver of the car, but we don't know what), but that's part of the fun. Because as
the follow George to the seaside, the plot kicks into high gear. It's rather humorous - the
hitmen can't kill George. Through, really, very little effort on his part, he manages to elude
them. In their first attempt, he manages to grab one of the killer's balls, which of course tends
to put him off. This attempt switches something on in George, and he abandons his wife and
returns to Paris. The killers can never quite catch up with him, and when they do, he escapes
again, killing one of them almost accidentally. Then he flees into the forest and ends up in the
foothills of the Alps, where he's found by a slightly eccentric woodsman. And he simply stays
there. He becomes someone else completely, learning how to be self-sufficient, hooking up with a
woman, and changing his appearance by growing a beard. But the second killer tracks him down, and George ends up back in the world, ready
to find out exactly why these two men were sent to kill him.
The fascinating thing about this story is the character of George. Actually, Carlo and Bastien,
the two hitmen, are pretty interesting as well, but George is the central character, so he ought
to be fascinating. As I pointed out, he doesn't escape from the killers because he's tougher than
they are; he might be a bit smarter, but he's also really lucky. Manchette doesn't make it a
ridiculous, corny kind of luck, but he does show that George happens to do things that throw them
off the track without knowing he's doing it. This makes the pursuit rather odd and darkly
humorous. The book is full of violent death, and it's definitely not a comedy, but just the fact
that these two professional killers have such a tough time blowing away this rather inept sales
manager makes it border on the surreal. Then, we think the book will be about George becoming
more of an independent dude and less of a simpering whiner, as he's forced to live in the wild
for so many months. But Manchette doesn't quite give us that, either. George is a complicated guy
who realizes certain things about the way society is structured but still yearns for other
things. By the end of the book, we're back on the freeway, but Manchette has made us see that
George has changed, just maybe not enough that we would expect. West Coast
Blues is, in my mind, very "European" in that regard - this is a broad generalization, but
Europeans are more bound by history, both societal and personal, than Americans, so if this book
had been written by a Yankee, it probably would have ended much, much differently. That it
doesn't is a testament, I think, to Manchette's storytelling - he never takes the easy way out,
even if George's fate might seem like he does. George has been affected by what happens to him,
but in not so overt (American?) way.
Tardi's art is quite stellar, as well. He's amazingly detailed, but he doesn't pull any tricks on
the reader - his work is very straight forward. He relies on very strong storytelling skills, as he simply takes us through
George's story. We get a great sense of place from Tardi, either in the urban settings or, even
more impressively, in the rural interlude George experiences. Tardi does masterful work with the
characters, too - they look and move like people, stumbling when you might expect it, breaking
bones when you'd expect it, acting like human beings. His best work might be with Carlo and
Bastien, as George remains very low-key throughout (except for one brief scene). Carlo and
Bastien, however, have a fun relationship, and Tardi helps with it. Manchette gives them good
banter, but Tardi manages to portray their care for each other even as he keeps their faces
impassive. It's a very verbose comic, but Tardi matches Manchette with panels that demand a great
deal of attention - this is a visual feast as well as a literary one.
I suppose the only problem one might have with the book is its somewhat excessive narration,
because often Manchette simply tells us what the pictures already do (and Tardi adapted it to
comics, so why he didn't cut some more of it is beyond me). Occasionally, the narration is
absurdly excellent - when Manchette lists all the weapons Carlo and Bastien have in their car,
for instance, it's a comic mini-masterpiece - but occasionally, we can tell exactly what's going
on and don't need to be told. Again, this is a comic adapted from a book into French and then
translated into English, so there are many filters for it to go through. I don't have too big an
issue with the words, but I should caution you that it feels bloated every once in a while.
Other than that, West Coast Blues is a very good crime comic. The fact that it has a
slightly different sensibility than most American crime fiction makes it refreshing, and the fact
that Manchette has a wry sense of humor about the material works well, too. And it looks great.
And Ed Brubaker thinks Tardi is great. Dare you go against Ed Brubaker????
* Before you jump my shit, I'm joking. I am well aware of the long French tradition of comics,
and cut my teeth on Asterix and Obelix before I had even heard of the X-Men when I was
but a lad. Chillax, people!
Next: Can it be more Tardi? Well, of course it can!
The
Predator franchise of science fiction/horror/action films is coming back into the
zeitgeist, this time without the Aliens. The trailer hit the web today; watch it to find out if the franchise is worth
revisiting.
The new film is called Predators (evoking Aliens, the sequel to Alien) and the
premise seems to be that several of humanity’s most effective killers are stranded on a
jungle planet where they’re hunted for sport by a whole legion of predators. The film stars
Adrien Brody, Lawrence Fishburne and Topher Grace, and it’s directed by Vacancy
and Armored director Nimród Antal. Sin City’s Robert Rodriguez is
one of the three credited screenwriters.
Adrian Brody is a surprise choice for leading man, seeing as how the first Predator film
starred Arnold Schwarzenegger; let’s just say no one would picture Brody playing Conan the
Barbarian. We’ll see if the new vibe works when the movie hits theaters this July.
Je suis rentré de Las Vegas hier soir tard après une correspondance via Londres et
c’est l’esprit encore un peu embrumé par le manque de sommeil et le
décalage horaire que je vais tenter de rédiger ce compte-rendu sur le Microsoft Mix
10 qui s’est tenu à Sin City de lundi à mercredi.
Le Mix de Microsoft se tient traditionnellement à Las Vegas chaque
année et c’était ma première participation. Cette conférence
réunit des développeurs venus du monde entier, soit près de 3500 personnes
hautement expertes en programmation dans un environnement Windows. J’étais pour ma
part invité par Microsoft France dans le pack « presse et
média », petit privilège qui nous donnait accès à toutes
les conférences et au silence feutré de la salle de presse, richement dotée
en connexions web, muffins et café américain.
Côté impressions, ma première fut celle du gigantisme des
lieux. Dans une ville ou le problème de l’espace ne se pose pas (encore)
puisque plantée en plein désert du Nevada, l’unité de mesure de base
semble être l’hectare (y compris pour les chambres suites d’hôtel), et le
complexe hôtelier et loisirs dans lequel se déroulait le Mix en compte exactement
vingt-quatre, d’hectares. L’autre impression est le paradoxe entre l’image
corporate et assez peu fantaisiste de Microsoft et le choix du lieu, même si Las
Vegas est devenue en quelques années une grande ville de congrès, ce qui en
banalise fortement le côté joyeusement déluré (voire
dépravé). La dernière sensation est celle procurée par
l’ambiance de ce Mix, particulièrement cool et bon enfant, où rien
n’est imposé, et où vous pouvez naviguer au gré de vos
affinités et de vos centres d’intérêt pour picorer ici et là de
l’information au fil des keynotes ou des sessions. Impression renforcée par la
musique d’introduction ou d’attente entre les keynotes, à forte dominante rock
(et du bon).
Les développeurs sont à la fête dans ce type de
conférence, et nombre de sessions – trop techniques pour moi et sans grand
intérêt pour la plupart d’entre vous – ont certainement fait le bonheur
des programmeurs.
Côté annonces, même si aucun scoop fracassant ni aucune présentation ne
fut de nature à provoquer un séisme dans le monde de l’informatique et du
web, plusieurs nouveautés ont été présentées. Vous avez
déjà certainement lu de nombreuses choses sur le sujet, aussi vous donnerais-je
simplement mon point de vue sur ce que j’ai retenu :
Silverlight 4
Ce fut le premier sujet de la première keynote, mais aussi la première
grosse surprise pour moi. A votre avis quel est le taux de pénétration
mondiale du player Silverlight dans les ordinateurs, autrement dit, quel est le pourcentage
d’ordinateurs équipés de Silverlight ? 5% ? 10% ? Vous n’y êtes
pas du tout : près de 60% ! Rappelons pour ceux qui sont moins au fait que Silverlight est
un environnement de développement et de lecture de fichiers multimédia dans le
navigateur web directement concurrent de Flash (qui lui équipe 98% des ordinateurs).
L’environnement Silverlight est composé d’un outil de développement,
Expression Blend, lui-même intégré à Expression Studio et du player, un plugin à installer dans son
navigateur web. Le taux d’équipement a connu une très forte croissance depuis
que certains grands médias ont délaissé Flash pour signer un accord avec
Microsoft en vue de la diffusion de leur contenu multimédia. Ce fut le cas notamment avec
des chaînes de TV américaine, canadienne et norvégienne lors des derniers JO
de Vancouver. Chez nous, c’est par exemple France TV qui propose notamment la vidéo
à la demande dans un player Silverlight, comme ses journaux télévisés.
La keynote fut donc l’occasion d’annoncer la disponibilité immédiate de
Silverlight 4 (applaudissements de l’assistance) en version
développeur, la version définitive arrivant d’ici fin avril.
Pour l’internaute, quel est l’avantage d’installer le player
Silverlight si l’on possède déjà Flash ? Ce n’est pas
véritablement une question d’avantage mais de choix : si vous voulez accéder
au contenu multimédia d’un site en Silverlight, vous devrez installer le plugin
sinon vous aurez droit à une jolie page vide. Pour les avantages il faut voir du
côté des éditeurs de site : la technologie Silverlight serait plus
évoluée et plus flexible que Flash (smooth streaming HD, deep zoom… ) et
consommerait moins de ressources. Côté versatilité des applications,
Silverlight représente un avantage incontestable car il sera nativement
intégré dans Windows Phone 7 Series : les applications du futur Windows Phone
seront en Silverlight, et les sites proposant du contenu Silverlight seront normalement
compatibles avec les Windows Phone de prochaine génération. Un exemple nous a
été fourni avec
Seesmic pour Twitter sur Windows Phone présenté par Loïc Le Meur.
Windows Phone 7 Series
J’ai déjà eu l’occasion de vous parler ici de Windows Phone 7, lors de
sa
présentation officielle au MWC de Barcelone le mois dernier. Nous avons pu cette fois
prendre en main un
prototype de mobile Windows Phone 7 et, pour un proto et un OS en version beta qui a encore
un bon semestre de développement devant lui, la bonne impression de départ est
confirmée. A ce sujet je voudrais en profiter pour tordre le cou à une affirmation
un peu simpliste que je lis régulièrement : Windows Phone 7 Series
n’est PAS une copie de l’OS de l’iPhone, et c’est même
tout l’inverse. Microsoft, contrairement aux autres, a compris in extremis que s’il
tentait de faire un énième iPhone killer (ou iPhone like) il allait droit dans le
mur (un mur sans fenêtres cette fois, hahaha). Les équipes de Windows Phone,
largement renouvelées par rapport à celles qui avaient conçu les versions
précédentes, sont donc parties d’une feuille blanche et ont tenté de
repenser complètement ce que devait être l’interface utilisateur d’un
mobile. D’ailleurs le résultat n’a pas grand chose à voir avec
l’iPhone puisqu’ici nous avons affaire à une logique de hubs (les
grands thèmes, People, Music, etc…) et non plus à un choix par icônes.
Je reviendrai dans un article séparé et complet sur la session à laquelle
j’ai assistée sur la genèse du design de l’interface utilisateur de
Windows Phone 7 (nommée « Metro »), un moment passionnant au cours
duquel j’ai pu récupérer un document riche en informations dont je publierai
quelques extraits scannés. Maintenant on ne pas nier que l’iPhone ait imposé
un nouveau standard de fait dans le mobile. Un standard qui est devenu en un peu plus de deux ans
l’ABC de l’interface mobile, comme les quatre roues et le volant pour
l’automobile. Difficile dans ce cas de se démarquer complètement. Nous
verrons si Microsoft va réussir en faisant de cette alternative un nouveau paradigme.
L’accueil de l’assistance et des grands éditeurs semble en tout cas
très encourageant, et de nombreuses applications ont déjà été
développées, et présentées au Mix, comme notamment une version
très convaincante de FourSquare mais encore une application Shazam pour Windows Phone ou
des jeux et même une fonction de télécommande pilotant un robot-canon qui
catapulte des missiles en carton-pâte dans le public (applaudissements).
Les outils de développement pour Windows Phone 7 Series sont disponibles
immédiatement et sont gratuits ici : http://developer.windowsphone.com/
(applaudissements).
Internet Explorer 9
Je vais être direct : pour moi Internet Explorer est mort depuis
longtemps. Je n’utilise plus jamais ce navigateur sauf dans deux cas bien
précis : pour tester une page web et quand j’y suis contraint et que je n’ai
pas d’autre choix (PC d’entreprise sans navigateur alternatif principalement).
Aujourd’hui je partage mon surf entre Firefox la plupart du temps et Google Chrome, sans
oublier bien sûr Safari sur iPhone ou… Opera sur Windows Mobile [1].
Je ne suis évidemment pas un cas isolé puisque les parts de marché
d’Internet Explorer, largement préservées par une forte présence
d’origine dans Windows et en entreprises, se sont fortement dégradées au
cours des cinq dernières années, passant de plus de 90% à moins de 60%
(source).
Internet Explorer 9 va-t-il changer la donne et permettre à Microsoft de
reconquérir une partie du terrain perdu ? En tout cas là aussi on sent le
vent du renouveau, qui consiste surtout ici en une mise à niveau. En substance, la keynote
sur IE9 a principalement consisté à démontrer que cette nouvelle version
allait faire à peu près aussi bien qu’un Firefox, qu’un Chrome ou
qu’un Safari, démonstration comparative à l’appui (applaudissements).
Aussi bien, c’est tout ? Non : mieux. Microsoft, décidément en mode
reconquête semble vouloir faire un peu mieux et a introduit dans Internet
Explorer 9 un traitement GPU, soit une accélération matérielle via
un traitement par la carte graphique des données rendues par le navigateur, ce qui promet
normalement un affichage optimisé et plus fidèle mais surtout un temps de
chargement des pages très fortement réduit.
Le reste de la démo a donc consisté à mettre en exergue la bonne
intégration de SVG et de HTML5 et CSS3 dans Internet Explorer 9, à tel point que
cette présentation ressemblait davantage à un inventaire des progrès et
avantages de HTML5 plutôt qu’à une démo du futur navigateur de
Microsoft. Pour vous faire une idée vous pouvez télécharger une version de
preview ici : http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/. Attention, cette preview n’est pas
compatible avec Windows XP ni avec Vista première version. Il vous faudra au moins Vista
SP2 ou Windows 7 pour l’installer.
Tous ces arguments, qui montrent là aussi que Microsoft tente de se remettre en question,
seront-ils suffisants pour inciter les internautes qui ont déserté Internet
Explorer à le réutiliser ? L’avenir le dira. Pas gagné pour
autant…
En vrac
D’autres annonces et démonsttations ont été faites lors de ce
Mix 10, et je vous les livre en vrac car toutes ne justifient pas à mon sens un
développement détaillé :
le code source du player vidéo de Silverlight 4 va être prochainement
publié en open source
présentation de Pivot, un outil en Silverlight de gestion de de
manipulation d’images (notamment pour les archives de presse) aux effets étonnants.
Je vous conseille de regarder la démo ici : http://www.getpivot.com/
présentation de Bing Maps qui propose un mode Street View
à base de photos retraitées en 3D (possibilité de tourner autour d’un
bâtiment) avec une technologie empruntée à Photosynth.
démonstration d’un widget eBay « eBay Simple
Lister » en Silverlight qui permet aux vendeurs de scanner par exemple
directement le code-barre ISBN d’un bouquin pour le mettre en vente. Toutes les
données ISBN seront alors incluses automatiquement dans son annonce avec notamment la
couverture du livre.
présentation des dernières avancées sur JQuery par son
créateur, John Resig.
hormis les applications Silverlight, Windows Phone 7 supportera les jeux
multi-plateformes : vous pouvez commencer une session de jeu sur votre XBox360 chez vous
et la continuer sur votre Windows Phone si vous devez partir en déplacement. Voir la
démo dans cette vidéo.
Ce que je n’ai pas vu au Mix 10
Au rayon des petites déceptions, et contrairement à ce que certains, dont je
faisais partie, envisageaient, nous n’avons pas vu trace ni du Slate de HP et encore moins
du Courier, pour lequel le blackout d’information semble être total chez Microsoft.
Sauf si j’ai raté quelque-chose, rien non plus sur Office 10 et sa version Online,
mais nous en saurons certainement plus d’ici fin avril.
En conclusion
Le vent tourne et après des années de domination écrasante sur
l’informatique mondiale, Microsoft apparaît dans une nouvelle posture de challenger
dans des domaines ou le marché et les utilisateurs l’attendent au tournant,
notamment le mobile, la navigation web et le respect des standards. Concernant le mobile,
à une époque où l’on commence à assister à des querelles
de chiffonniers entre Adobe, Google et Apple, notamment dans le débat autour de Flash,
Microsoft se démarque et va proposer une solution avec un avantage concurrentiel
incontestable : l’intégration de Silverlight dans Windows Phone. Un avantage
énorme pour les développeurs mais aussi pour les consommateurs, qui risque de
rendre très vite obsolètes les questions existentielles sur Flash et les
applications mobiles riches.
Enfin je ne pourrai pas finir ce billet sans remercier l’équipe de Microsoft France
pour son accueil, sa sympathie et sa bonne humeur tout au long de cet évènement, et
notamment un super poke au camarade David Cohen, aux petits soins avec nous.
(applaudissements)
Pour en savoir plus (vidéos et autres compte-rendus) :
Dan Kantor
knows the web, and he knows music. Better still, he knows how to make the two play nicely together.
If you're not familiar with his work, Dan built Spinner --
AOL's popular music site -- when he was part of our family.
Now he's on his own, and he's got a new musical marvel to share: ExtensionFM. While using the extension inside Google Chrome is fun
enough, it's easy to see just how cool it's going to be on the Google Chrome OS smartbooks and
tablets that are due out later this year.
The concept behind ExntensionFM is a simple one: scan the webpages you browse for embedded MP3s and
build a library of tunes inside your browser. You can also put together playlists, and the music
will keep streaming in the background as you happily (or unhappily, depending on your modus
operandi) surf the web.
ExtensionFM also provides listings of artists and albums in your library, and a list of the sites
you've listened to -- which adds a whole 'nother layer of cool. Once you've grabbed a track from a
particular site, ExtensionFM keeps tabs on it for you. We'll have more on this after the break,
along with more screenshots and Dan's screencast! Right now, I've got
some 2 Skinnee Js queued up from Archive.org, with some SXSM tracks from Sam Roberts on deck. Play
controls are always within reach -- just click the ExtensionFM button in your browser actions area.
Now, back to
that 'subscription' thing...Sites in your library are set to auto-update by default -- which you
can disable on a per-site basis if you prefer to update things manually. Right click and hit
refresh to do a quick check for new tunes. You can also play or queue entire sites, or delete them
if your tastes have changed. I've played with
ExtensionFM in Hexxeh's builds of Chromium
OS -- the source of Google's upcoming Chrome
OS. To me, there's no question that this will be an absolutely killer extension for your
Chromebook (or tablet). It's an awesome, easy-to-use bridge between all the great, free music in
the cloud and your lightweight browser OS.
So what's next for ExtensionFM? I mentioned to Dan the possibility of using Chrome's bsync
abilities to store your library in the cloud, and he said they've been pondering that already.
Doing so would give you log-in-anywhere access to your music...Anywhere including, say, an Android
handset -- where it wouldn't be a big stretch to tap into Google's APIs to give you
music-on-the-go.
"We want exfm to be the only player you need," Dan told me. They're well on the way to achieving
that goal: ExtensionFM is pure awesome.
Right now, ExtensionFM is in closed beta. If you want in on
the action, head over to our
Facebook page -- or share this post on Twitter and make sure you @downloadsquad!
Gero Langisch ist musikbesessen, war schon Chef eines Labels, hat während der letzten
re:publica moderiert, ist Mitarbeiter von MotorFM ... und was fast alle seiner Bekannten bereits wissen, wird nun
auch im Netz manifestiert: Gero pokert leidenschaftlich gerne.
Das Pokerspiel ist das vielleicht amerikanischste aller Spiele. Kein Westernsaloon ohne die
Gruppe abseits sitzender Männer, Ernest Hemingway soll angeblich einmal das Manuskript zu
The Killers am Tisch verspielt haben, John F. Kennedy musste sich bei seinem Bruder
Nachhilfe im Bluffen holen und die Neuerfindung James Bonds geschah nicht zuletzt am Pokertisch.
Durch die epidemische Verbreitung des Onlinepokers spielt man inzwischen überall auf der
Welt die fünf Karten, mit denen es, so die Verheißung, für jeden Außenseiter
etwas zu holen gibt. Dabei ist Poker, sagen seine aktiven Spieler, mehr als ein gut gegebenes
Blatt. Poker ist Statistik, ist Strategie, ist Psychologie und ein ganz klein wenig Glück.
Wie man den prozentualen Anteil des Zufalls am Spielausgang durch geschicktes Lesen und
Täuschen des Gegenübers senken kann, erzählt und zeigt Gero Langisch im neuen
Selbstauslöser.
Selbstauslöser
Junge, alte, mehr und weniger bekannte Menschen zeigen per Selbstauslöser, wofür ihr Herz
schlägt. Einen Interviewer gibt es nicht, die Kamera ist das einzige Gegenüber und was
wichtig oder nebensächlich ist, entscheidet allein die Person, die sie hält. In
Eigenregie entstehen so Selbstdarstellungen, die nur das preisgeben, was man zeigen oder
erzählen möchte. Welche Grenzen dem Zuschauer geöffnet oder zugewiesen werden,
liegt im Ermessen des Selbstauslösers, der jede Folge zu seiner eigenen macht. Wir
garantieren für nichts.
Selbstauslöser ist eine konstante
Variable aus dem Hause spreeblick.com und erscheint dort jeden Freitag neu.
Selbst mal Selbstauslöser sein! Du hast ein leidenschaftliches Hobby,
kennst dich extrem gut mit irgendetwas aus oder stehst zu deinem gern gepflegten Spleen?
Schick’ uns ein paar Sätze, ein Foto, am besten noch ein kurzes Beispiel-Video sowie
deine Adresse und Telefonnummer an selbstausloeser [at] spreeblick punkt com! Wir melden uns dann
bei dir.
Here’s Vanessa Hudgens at the closing night ceremony for the 2010 edition
of ShoWest looking as super cute as she always does, and showing off her killer
pair of legs like she always does as well. And to (ahem) top it all off, she’s showing off
her cleavage. Hmmm, did I miss anything? Oh yeah, she’s also blowing kisses at yours truly.
So basically she just entered the race for being my future ex-wife. Enjoy!
Senator Chuck Schumer signals
commitment to inclusion of LGBT provisions in comprehensive immigration reform: "I
support [UAFA] and I am working on introducing a comprehensive package that would address this
issue along with a host of immigration issues . . . At this time, I believe that the only way to
pass meaningful and effective immigration reform is through a comprehensive bill, not through
piecemeal legislation."
Janet Jackson announces release date of new single, called
"Nothing".
Nice
knowing you, Bluefin tuna:
"Global talks on the conservation of endangered species have rejected calls to ban international
trade in bluefin tuna, raising new fears for the future of dwindling stocks. Countries at the
meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in Qatar voted
down a proposal from Monaco to grant the fish stronger protection. The plan drew little support,
with developing countries joining Japan in opposing a measure they feared would hit fishing
economies."
Chicago Mayor Daley appoints
new chair to gay advisory council: "Elizabeth Kelly will serve a three-year term as
chairperson of the Advisory Council on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues. Kelly is a
professor of women's and gender studies at DePaul University. She was a founding member of
DePaul's interdisciplinary program in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies."
Gay
Facebook founder Chris Hughes starts
Jumo.com, a social platform for global volunteerism: "Think of the site as philanthropy,
volunteerism and social networking all rolled into one. It's a platform that will connect people
and organizations around the world, and Hughes is arguably the most well-known tech entrepreneur
to enter the still evolving global space." Site.
Vman modeling search winners
announced (site possibly nsfw).
Siem
Reap, Cambodia's gay
haven: "Homosexual acts are not outlawed in Cambodia, as they are in a few Southeast Asian
countries, but outward displays of affection and untraditional lifestyles are rare. Yet in Siem
Reap, a small town that gets about a million tourists a year, gay visitors and locals are carving
out a little haven. In the last few years, a small flurry of gay-friendly bars, restaurants and
hotels has opened up in the city’s center and beyond, with wink-wink names like the Golden
Banana and Cockatoo."
Atlanta Eagle lawsuit grows: "Thirty-one Atlanta
police officers have been added to a federal lawsuit that complains patrons of a gay nightclub
were ordered to lie on the Atlanta Eagle Bar floor, on spilled beer and broken glass, while
enduring insults about their homosexuality. The suit, originally filed in November, was expanded
Wednesday to include six more bar employees and contractors, bringing the total to 28 people who
say they were victimized during the highly publicized raid on Sept. 10."
On Monday I had the opportunity to present the MIX 2010 Day 1 Keynote in Las
Vegas (you can watch a video of it here). In the keynote I announced the release of the Silverlight 4
Release Candidate (we’ll ship the final release of it next month) and the VS 2010 RC tools
for Silverlight 4. I also had the chance to talk for the first time about how Silverlight
and XNA can now be used to build Windows Phone 7 applications.
During my talk I did two quick Windows Phone 7 coding demos using Silverlight
– a quick “Hello World” application and a “Twitter”
data-snacking application. Both applications were easy to build and only took a few minutes
to create on stage. Below are the steps you can follow yourself to build them on your own
machines as well.
[Note: In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share
links. Follow me at:twitter.com/scottgu]
Building a “Hello World” Windows Phone 7 Application
First make sure you’ve installed the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP
– this includes the Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone development
tool (which will be free forever and is the only thing you need to develop and build Windows
Phone 7 applications) as well as an add-on to the VS 2010 RC that enables phone development
within the full VS 2010 as well.
After you’ve downloaded and installed the Windows Phone Developer Tools
CTP, launch the Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone that it installs or
launch the VS 2010 RC (if you have it already installed), and then choose
“File”->”New Project.” Here, you’ll find the usual list of
project template types along with a new category: “Silverlight for Windows Phone”.
The first CTP offers two application project templates. The first is the “Windows Phone
Application” template - this is what we’ll use for this example. The second is the
“Windows Phone List Application” template - which provides the basic layout for a
master‑details phone application:
After creating a new project, you’ll get a view of the design surface and markup. Notice
that the design surface shows the phone UI, letting you easily see how your application will look
while you develop. For those familiar with Visual Studio, you’ll also find the familiar
ToolBox, Solution Explorer and Properties pane.
For our HelloWorld application, we’ll start out by adding a TextBox and a Button from the
Toolbox. Notice that you get the same design experience as you do for Silverlight on the web or
desktop. You can easily resize, position and align your controls on the design surface. Changing
properties is easy with the Properties pane. We’ll change the name of the TextBox that we
added to username and change the page title text to “Hello world.”
We’ll then write some code by double‑clicking on the button and create
an event handler in the code-behind file (MainPage.xaml.cs).
We’ll start out by changing the title text of the application. The project template
included this title as a TextBlock with the name textBlockListTitle (note that the
current name incorrectly includes the word “list”; that will be fixed for the final
release.) As we write code against it we get intellisense showing the members
available. Below we’ll set the Text property of the title TextBlock to “Hello
“ + the Text property of the TextBox username:
We now have all the code necessary for a Hello World application. We have two choices when
it comes to deploying and running the application. We can either deploy to an actual device
itself or use the built‑in phone emulator:
Because the phone emulator is actually the phone operating system running in a virtual machine,
we’ll get the same experience developing in the emulator as on the device. For this sample,
we’ll just press F5 to start the application with debugging using the emulator. Once
the phone operating system loads, the emulator will run the new “Hello world”
application exactly as it would on the device:
Notice that we can change several settings of the emulator experience with the emulator toolbar
– which is a floating toolbar on the top right. This includes the
ability to re-size/zoom the emulator and two rotate buttons. Zoom lets us zoom into even
the smallest detail of the application:
The orientation buttons allow us easily see what the application looks like in landscape mode
(orientation change support is just built into the default template):
Note that the emulator can be reused across F5 debug sessions - that means that we don’t
have to start the emulator for every deployment. We’ve added a dialog that will help you
from accidentally shutting down the emulator if you want to reuse it. Launching an
application on an already running emulator should only take ~3 seconds to deploy and run.
Within our Hello World application we’ll click the “username” textbox to give
it focus. This will cause the software input panel (SIP) to open up automatically. We
can either type a message or – since we are using the emulator
– just type in text. Note that the emulator works with Windows 7
multi-touch so, if you have a touchscreen, you can see how interaction will feel on a device just
by pressing the screen.
We’ll enter “MIX 10” in the textbox and then click the button
– this will cause the title to update to be “Hello MIX 10”:
We provide the same Visual Studio experience when developing for the phone as other .NET
applications. This means that we can set a breakpoint within the button event handler, press the
button again and have it break within the debugger:
Building a “Twitter” Windows Phone 7 Application using
Silverlight
Rather than just stop with “Hello World” let’s keep going and evolve it to be a
basic Twitter client application.
We’ll return to the design surface and add a ListBox, using the snaplines within the
designer to fit it to the device screen and make the best use of phone screen real estate.
We’ll also rename the Button “Lookup”:
We’ll then return to the Button event handler in Main.xaml.cs, and remove the original
“Hello World” line of code and take advantage of the WebClient networking class to
asynchronously download a Twitter feed. This takes three lines of code in total: (1) declaring
and creating the WebClient, (2) attaching an event handler and then (3) calling the asynchronous
DownloadStringAsync method.
In the DownloadStringAsync call, we’ll pass a Twitter Uri plus a query string which pulls
the text from the “username” TextBox. This feed will pull down the respective
user’s most frequent posts in an XML format. When the call completes, the
DownloadStringCompleted event is fired and our generated event handler
twitter_DownloadStringCompleted will be called:
The result returned from the Twitter call will come back in an XML based format. To parse
this we’ll use LINQ to XML. LINQ to XML lets us create simple queries for accessing data in
an xml feed. To use this library, we’ll first need to add a reference to the assembly
(right click on the References folder in the solution explorer and choose “Add Reference):
We’ll then add a “using System.Xml.Linq” namespace reference at the top of the
code-behind file at the top of Main.xaml.cs file:
We’ll then add a simple helper class called TwitterItem to our project. TwitterItem has
three string members – UserName, Message and ImageSource:
We’ll then implement the twitter_DownloadStringCompleted event handler and use
LINQ to XML to parse the returned XML string from Twitter. What the query is doing is
pulling out the three key pieces of information for each Twitter post from the username we passed
as the query string. These are the ImageSource for their profile image, the Message of their
tweet and their UserName. For each Tweet in the XML, we are creating a new TwitterItem in the
IEnumerable<XElement> returned by the Linq query.
We then assign the generated TwitterItem sequence to the ListBox’s ItemsSource property:
We’ll then do one more step to complete the application. In the Main.xaml file, we’ll
add an ItemTemplate to the ListBox. For the demo, I used a simple template that uses databinding
to show the user’s profile image, their tweet and their username.
Now, pressing F5 again, we are able to reuse the emulator and re-run the application. Once the
application has launched, we can type in a Twitter username and press the Button to see the
results. Try my Twitter user name (scottgu) and you’ll get back a result of TwitterItems in
the Listbox:
Try using the mouse (or if you have a touchscreen device your finger) to scroll the items in the
Listbox – you should find that they move very fast within the emulator.
This is because the emulator is hardware accelerated – and so gives you the
same fast performance that you get on the actual phone hardware.
At MIX this week a number of great partners (including Netflix, FourSquare, Seesmic, Shazaam,
Major League Soccer, Graphic.ly, Associated Press, Jackson Fish and more) showed off some killer
application prototypes they’ve built over the last few weeks. You can watch my full day 1 keynote to see
them in action. I think they start to show some of the promise and potential of using Silverlight
with Windows Phone 7. I’ll be doing more blog posts in the weeks and months ahead
that cover that more.
[Mobile] BlackBerry T
: l’iPhone killer de retour Le fameux BlackBerry à clavier coulissant
s’appellera t-il le BlackBerry T ?
C’est en tout cas ce que laisse croire un des fournisseurs de RIM, Woojeon & Handan, qui a indiqué que ce smartphone est
«un projet ambitieux...
[MP3] GMP3 :
l’Energy 4204 en mode déballageAvec les beaux jours, les jolis
minois sont de sortie. Voici donc dans son maquillage fushia - il existe aussi en noir et bleu -
l’Energy Sistem 420x.
L’artiste Kordian
Lewandowski a visiblement deux passions : la sculpture et le jeux vidéo.
Sans m’avancer, je dirai également qu’il a du subir trop
d’écrans Game Over dans ses jeunes années.
Kratos en chair
et en os C’est sur la musique Sex Therapy de Robin Thicke qu’un fan
à parodié kratos le héros de God of War. Une video hilarante a
découvrir dans la suite de l’article...
Police in Huntington Beach, CA are asking for the public's help in trying to identify possible
victims in photos belonging to convicted rapist and serial killer Rodney Alcala (the "Dating Game"
killer). Above, photo #110, from a series of hundreds taken on of before July, 1979, many believed
to have been shot by Mr. Alcala. The prints were found in his Seattle storage locker. Some have
been ID'd since the scans were published online. (Random case fact: he is reported to have studied
film under and worked for Roman Polanski.)...
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I didn’t have the same 
Kevin Nakao is VP of Mobile & Business Search for
The
Predator franchise of science fiction/horror/action films is 
Right now, I've got
some 2 Skinnee Js queued up from Archive.org, with some SXSM tracks from Sam Roberts on deck. Play
controls are always within reach -- just click the ExtensionFM button in your browser actions area.
Now, back to
that 'subscription' thing...Sites in your library are set to auto-update by default -- which you
can disable on a per-site basis if you prefer to update things manually. Right click and hit
refresh to do a quick check for new tunes. You can also play or queue entire sites, or delete them
if your tastes have changed. 
I've played with
ExtensionFM in 
Recommandations
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
