The entire conference was fantastic! I learned a lot, ate a lot, drank in moderation (er...most nights), and gambled nothing!

I thought I would be able to blog each night about the experiences that day at the conference and also the city, but it did not land up happening. Not that I was not inspired to write but the internet connection the hotel was incredibly slow and nothing like a slow connection to destroy creative blogging.

Anyways a short recap of the sessions. All the sessions are available online (you will need to get Silverlight.. few seconds to install), and they are all (well... most anyways) awesome.

Day 1: Keynote, Silverlight, and Champagne at Tao!

Day 2: IE8, Silverlight (cont.), Steve Ballmer & Guy Kawasaki, More Silverlight, Non-code Information Architecture, humble and usable User Interfaces, Buffet at Bellagio!  Want more?

Day 3: Microsoft Surface, Silverlight, some dopey presentation, some Silverlight coding at last, Bellagio Fountains.....(yawn!) need some sleep!~ 

Day 3: What will you bring me today!

• At breakfast table, I debated on what session I wanted to go to and found absolutely nothing for the first set, and found three for the second time slot. Argh! So, rather than beat myself up in a session, where I would hate it. I spent time one on one with Microsoft Surface. I have only three words for this..... I WANT IT! hmmm... No! Maybe four words... I WANT IT NOW!. Take a gander folks! and be jazzed with what is coming down the Pike! Literally! (I mean, I-90 does start (or end) in Seattle). There were two sets shown and while I was playing with one set, on the other was Donna, the Documentation Manager of Silverlight 2.0.
  
• I didn't want the playtime to end, but it did. Donna and I chatted about MSDN Online documentation and what is coming new for support et. al. Albeit documentation is important, and all techies agree to it, it really does not happen unless there is a dedicated team for it. It is the techies way of saying... 'don't make me document!' very nicely and 'correctly' request the need a specialized team to do it.... :) So, it is a win-win situation from Donna's and my perspective. Donna wants to document, and I ..... well.... have skills better suited for technology architect. (hee hee! read as: I don't have time to do document.... I am too busy developing stuff)
  
• The last session.... I thought we would go out with a bang! Alas no! We thought it was going to be a bit more on WPF... but it wasn't. This is where I realized I am a techie... really, give me code..... and code speak..... and I am a happy code junkie! Don't just show me a jazzy presentation.....show me how to build it. Tell me why a particular design worked for you and what didn't.
  
• We needed to code as we never needed before! Such code-junkies! We huddled in one of the colleagues room (swanky room at the Venetian) and for the next couple of hours tried different animations and fun stuff with Silverlight and Expression Blend. So utterly cool! Couple of times we had to turn away the room-cleaning woman, because we were working, and finally just gave up and let her in to make the bed and clean the space.
  
• My friends needed some time with the casinos.... So, after coding, take a short break we all met up for the last evening in Las Vegas (for this year at least). Dinner was grilled Salmon, Gaucomole and Chips with Riesling at a Mexican place right on the stripe. After dinner, I spent some time looking over my friends shoulders on craps table, but I found it boring quite quickly. It just does not hold my interest, which is interesting to most people. Afterawhile, I was watching the dealers and pit boss. It was incredible to see how much they have an eye on continously. Much later.... I was ready to get out.... I said my goodbyes and walked down......Along the way! Bellagio Lake held my attention for 10 mins with all the sound and water show! Loved it. I rather be out here in front of the spectacular show, than in a casino. Awesome pictures coming soon.

Day 2: Too many great sessions! No clones! WAH!

• Post breakfast headed to learn about IE8 - Webslices & Activities (how to build them and how to subscribe to them). Now, I am used to having an action-packed (spoiled by Day 1 sessions) tech-heavy presentations, and this one did not deliver. I learned about Webslices and Activities, but just felt that the presentation needed more. But perhaps, it was the first (early) morning session from the night before partying, so people were not really awake!
  
• My blood-stream needed more techy stuff! So, headed into Creating Rich Dynamic User Interfaces with Silverlight 2 Controls. Another awesome speaker Karen Corby. She is a Program Manager and was present at both the Day 1 sessions and helping out the presenters when they needed. I remember remarking then (Day 1), I got to go to her sessions.
  
• Post Lunch, the Keynote with Steven Ballmer and Guy Kawasaki was not what I expected it to be. It was Guy Kawasaki interviewing Steve Ballmer. It was awesome to see both of them, and no blog will really do it any justice! So, go see it for yourself on the mix08 site.
  
• The keynote really energized me (or it was the endless cups of coffee) to get to the afternoon sessions. To mix it up, I wanted to go to non-coding session. I did go to Creating Better User Experiences: Information Architecture. In this session we got to 'architect' as a group, the attributes for small boutique hotels in california. It was interesting exercise to do. There were other related sessions with the Creation of better User Experiences, and I definitely will read them... ah... post conference.
  
• Gaming sounds fun, and online gaming sounds fun too... so, how can Silverlight help as a gaming platform? I could not resist this one. So, while my friends dashed to hear Scott Hanselman, I headed to check this out. It was interesting to see what gaming design concepts to keep in mind, what works, what doesn't etc.
  
• Like I said at the start of the day, too many sessions happening at the same time, and not enough clones of me going all these places. Fortunately, the organizers realized that, and they repeated sessions after the day was done. Yeah! I really wanted to get to Crossing the Usability Chasm - Advanced and Adaptive User Interfaces. Anything that says "Advanced and Adaptive" kind of catches my eye. I was tired at the end of the day, yet, the presenter Dr. Gil Hupert-Graff held my attention with the simplest of the concepts of what is usable and what is not. Before this session, I was all ready to develop a really snazzy-blog application with flyouts, and flyins, expand and collapse and loads of Silverlight's Light up the web concepts. But, after this sessions, the realization hit home (yet again!) we shouldn't be doing something, just because we can. I am pretty sure (my friends agree), after this conference, there are going to be a host of really ugly, non-user friendly and downright hideous applications. I vow, that mine will be at the edge of cool. :)
  
• By 7:30 PM..... we were ready for .... er.... fresh air. We wandered around.... to different casinos. Finally the Bellagio Buffet looked great! Because it catered to one of my colleague's and my need for Japanese and the other who wouldn't touch fish with a ten-foot pole, had italian, american, chinese, salads, fruits, and a whole dessert section. I was happy with Salmon and Tuna Poke for dinner and dessert!

Notes of Day 1:

• Las Vegas is in Pacific time, I live in East Coast time. So, I am wake at my normal 5AM (EST) and by 6AM (EST) clamoring for coffee! I know that Treasure Island has a Starbucks (the reason that this hotel gets 4 stars!). So, I grab some money and head down to the hotel-lobby. Of course, I don't know where it is located, so catch hold of a security fella and ask. He gives me directions to get to Starbucks and proceeds to tell me that they don't open till 6 in the morning. With a perfectly honest horrified look, I mention that is way past 6 AM. It is few minutes.... for me to register the fact that it is really just around 3 AM! Too damn early for coffee! What a perfect start.
  
• Breakfast was served with Eggs.... hmm.... I was hungry! and the Eggs looked so yummy! Lent was out the window!
  
• Kick off and Keynote by Ray Ozzie, Scott Guthrie and Dean Hachamovitch, talking about the latest, greatest and whats new in the web-technologies.
  • It was fantastic to see Silverlight apps in some incredible applications such as Hard Rock Cafe - Memorabilia (the Deep Zoom technology).
  • The keynote also declared the release of Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1, IE 8.0, and Expression Studio with Blend 2.5. Whee! Woohoo! Right, Right!
  • At this point, I am simply happy to be here to listen to all these release proclamations! Also, these bits were readily available for downloads!
    
• After pigging out on a good lunch, I couldn't wait to get my paws on learning Silverlight 2.0. So, rest of the afternoon was spent, listening to Eugene Osovetsky (Working with Data and Web Services in Microsoft Silverlight 2), then Joe Stegman and Mike Harsh (Building Rich Internet Applications Using Microsoft Silverlight 2). These two gave a really good kick start into the development of Silverlight applications. Of them all, Joe Stegman is an awesome speaker!
  
• By the end of the day, my fingers were itching to start twittering about Silverlight and developing something. Instead we head to Tao for a fantastic party. Now there is a party! Open bar with Champagne (Yeah! Lent is so out the window! Thank God I am not Christian, so breaking Lent was not too bad! I might still go to hell, but I hope I am forgiven! :))