endquote: Archive

2 tags

SurfaceScrollViewer Behaviors

In my last Surface project, I developed a couple of behaviors which tweak how SurfaceScrollViewer works. You can see them in the video below. Here is a VS 2010 project which includes the demo application shown in the video. Let’s discuss them over on the Surface forum.

Jul 12th

3 tags

ManipulationViewport

By default, a ScatterViewItem can be scaled as large as the display. If the content is an image, the image will scale up with it. This works well, but if the application has multiple users at the same time, one person could scale an image up and occlude everything the other user was working with. A solution to that would be to limit the size of the ScatterViewItem, but allow the content within it...

Jul 7th

4 tags

Flipping ScatterViewItems

If you’re building a Surface or Surface Toolkit application, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re using ScatterView. ScatterView is an ItemsControl, so it’s a great way to show information about a list of objects and allow multiple users to manipulate the objects independently. However you’re usually only showing a small amount of information about the object...

Jun 19th

2 tags

Modeling the World

I forgot to mention the launch of Modeling the World, a collection of videos and the start of a community from Microsoft Technical Computing. The lobby is the most interesting bit, and features a gravity simulation developed by Joel Pryde. I was in charge of the video player, which features Smooth Streaming video, a transcript, and extras timed to specific cuepoints in the video. You may...

Jun 18th

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3 tags

PlaneProjection in WPF

Silverlight has an excellent feature called PlaneProjection which enables basic perspective transforms on any display object. That’s great for Silverlight, but when I’m working with Surface, I’m still using WPF 3.5. If I want to do any kind of 3D transform there I need to use the WPF 3D library, which is very powerful and very scary, especially if all I want to do is rotate a...

Jun 18th

“Working at @stimulant is all about spending hours building transitions that last...”

– tweeted

Apr 30th

There's always more to learn

My main project these days has been a bit of a stretch, as it’s neither Silverlight nor Surface. Things involved that I have never used before: .NET 4 Windows 7 touch Flicks p/invoke DWM WCF But, somehow it’s all coming together and we’re dropping a beta tomorrow, and should be done soon. Next up, I’ll be back in the cozy world of Surface, where I can stretch my...

Apr 16th

1 tag

The Silverlight for Symbian development experience →

I wrote a bit about developing for Silverlight on Symbian on the runtime team’s blog.

Apr 5th

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Mar 17th

1 note

Watch

A video of me talking about TouchTones with Eric Havir from Surface. TouchTones is the first application to be “Certified for Surface”, and is also the first freeware application for Surface. You can download it now from our newly launched site.

Mar 17th

Mar 11th

Long Time No Blog

I haven’t been doing so well on the updates lately, but lots of things have been up. Wind finished up a while ago. We had a Surface app at TED. I just wrapped up a Silverlight mobile project for MIX. I’ve been to SF twice in the past two weeks to attend some pretty exciting meetings with new clients. I’ll (probably) be at MIX myself. We’re taking delivery of some new and...

Mar 1st

3 tags

Watch

Our official video and post for the Wind Mobile app is up. We’ve been so busy with project work that we’ve fallen behind with keeping our own site up to date, but we’ll make up for it soon with a whole new site launching shortly.

Mar 1st

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Jan 22nd

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Jan 1st

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Dec 22nd

3 tags

Project Tuva Updated

We released a new version of Project Tuva (previously) last week. There isn’t really a news feed for the project, so I’ll have to tell you about it here. Project Tuva was designed for use by students, and one of the big learning features is the ability to take notes on a video. These notes are synced to the video timeline, and restored when you come back to the app. However...

Oct 14th

3 tags

Oct 9th

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Updates to Microsoft Local Impact Map

Not sure if this will warrant any big announcement, so I’ll post here about how the Microsoft Local Impact Map (previously) has been updated. The functionality is pretty much the same as before, but the design is totally different, much of the backend has been reworked, and there’s now an RSS feed for new stories. Most of the front-end rework on this was done by our newest hire, Joel,...

Oct 5th

5 tags

Watch

Stimulant’s official video and writeup for the Kodak application. We’re doing another, sort-of-similar app for their booth at CES. Should be fun.

Sep 29th

Surface and Stimulant at Decibel Festival →

Sep 23rd

1 tag

Sep 19th

4 tags

Watch

A video of folks using the Surface app that Stimulant made for the Kodak booth at Print 09.

Sep 15th

4 tags

Sep 15th

Sep 2nd

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Misc

Things: Nathan did a post on his sound design for the Surface version of the Local Impact Map. His new audio-focused blog is fun, and it’s great to have such a multi-talented person to work with. Stimulant hired a new developer, my long-time friend Joel Pryde. He should appear on the about page soon. He works with me in the Seattle office and has lots of experience in the world of...

Aug 17th

4 tags

Microsoft Local Impact Map (for Surface)

A couple of months ago we finished the Microsoft Local Impact Map, a Silverlight app highlighting all of the progressive and wonderful things Microsoft does around the world. Today we launched a new look at the same data, presented on Microsoft Surface. Microsoft Local Impact Map: Surface Edition from Stimulant on Vimeo. Aside from being a cool multi-touch, multi-user, 360-degree...

Jul 28th

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Holy crap this is cool. Via Today and Tomorrow.

Jul 24th

1 tag

Watch

Nathan schools you on NUI. 40min long and entertaining, it covers a lot of the things Stimulant deals with day-to-day that normal (aka: web) interactive firms don’t.

Jul 24th

4 tags

Project Tuva Post-Mortem

Microsoft Research and Stimulant just launched the first version of Project Tuva, a platform for the delivery and study of classic lecture material. At launch, it features the legendary “Messenger Lectures on Physics” which were given by Prof. Richard Feynman at Cornell University in 1964, recorded by the BBC, and later purchased by Bill Gates. The project was led by Curtis...

Jul 19th

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A video about Stimulant and our use of the Expression tools, with a focus on Mixr, the Silverlight Mobile app we made for MIX 08. This video was shot ages ago, but is just now online.

Jul 16th

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Jul 14th

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Silverlight, Deep Zoom, and ScatterView

I worked on an image viewer for MSN that displays an arbitrary set of photos and lets you filter them based on attributes of each. LINQ is used heavily for the filtering logic. You can also drag, flip, and throw images with an experience that borrows heavily from Surface’s ScatterView component. When you select an image, Deep Zoom lets you get up close to the details. The first app to use...

Jul 13th

1 tag

Jul 8th

The current requirements aren't the only ones.

A big difference between the projects we do at Stimulant and those I’ve done previously is longevity. In game development (and in most of the Flash projects I’ve worked on, which are many), you ship the project and it’s unlikely that the code will ever be seen again. If you’re able to come back to a project after a day or a week and are still able to figure it out,...

Jul 7th

Watch

I’ve been slacking on posting, but I’ve definitely been busy. Two big launches are happening soon, one of which is visualized above. Lots of other exciting things are happening too, and I’d write more about them if I wasn’t leaving for the airport to head to the SF office right now.

Jun 27th

2 tags

Watch

Microsoft produced a promo video for the Local Impact Map project. The video makes the app look like it’s so exciting and fun! It is exciting and fun, but it’s interesting to see my work repurposed into such a marketingish context.

May 14th

1 tag

Took a break, got old.

I took a break from work and posting last week to go to Mexico. I kept hearing so much about this swine flu thing that I had to check it out for myself. Turns out the place is full of sun and beaches and fun people. Not sure why the news kept saying not to go there. I went to attend an epic wedding, but since my 30th birthday happened to be Cinco de Mayo, I also invited a bunch of friends to...

May 13th

3 tags

Microsoft Local Impact Map →

A project that’s been in the works since late last year at Stimulant has just launched on Microsoft.com. The Local Impact Map presents over 500 stories about the positive impact of local programs supported by Microsoft around the world. Some marketing will be following the launch soon, but I’m more interested in the technical side. Some cool features: The map in the background is...

Apr 23rd

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This is apparently months old, but I hadn’t seen it til it went up on the Stimulant blog. Darren and Nathan dropped some science at UX Week last year regarding the practical methods behind building installation-based software. 25min of goodness. They’ll be back at UX Week 2009, hopefully with more pirates.

Apr 22nd

2 tags

IQSC Explorer nominated for a Webby

The projects I worked on for the International Quilt Study Center got nominated for a webby in the “Cultural Institutions” category. If you go through all the pain of registering, you can vote for it. Things are busy in Stimulant land, too. We have a big launch next week, another in May, and another in June. Yes, we do make things more interesting than celebrity photo viewers.

Apr 15th

3 tags

Watch

This is the Stimulant Surface demo reel that Nathan put together for MIX09 (and was a third-place winner in the show-off contest). It covers all of our Surface projects to date. I’m actually working on a new Surface project right now, which is a reimagining of a Silverlight app that we’re just finishing up. No rest for the wicked.

Mar 27th

3 tags

Mar 23rd

Constructive Criticism

I’m not going to MIX09, but Darren is, and he’s planning to hang out with some Expression people, so he asked Jules (our visual designer) and I to write out some feedback on our experiences with the suite. “Fun,” I thought, thinking I’d come up with a rushed list of three complaints. I later learned that providing feedback on a product that is kind of great but is...

Mar 10th

3 tags

Silverlight Around the World / Showcase

This is about a year old, but I’ve been referring to it recently, as the current Silverlight project is also a big world map. The Silverlight Around the World app is used to visualize data from the Silverlight Showcase (which I also built). I can’t prove it, but I think these are some of the most complex apps that were made in the Silverlight 1.0 timeframe. Keep in mind that this is...

Mar 9th

Polish it til you can see yourself, pt 2

I spent all of last week in the SF office, working on the current gargantuan Silverlight project. It was definitely more productive to work for niggly bugs and design issues in person rather than remotely. A main reason for the trip was to teach our visual designer a bit about Expression Blend. It didn’t start out too well, but I think he had a handle on things by the end of the week. In...

Mar 9th

Mar 1st

Feb 27th

“You know you’re on the right track when the client actually squeals with...”

– tweeted

Feb 27th