Microsoft Developer and Platform Evangelism Team
From 2004-2007 I was an 'evangelist' in the Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) Team at Microsoft. I was based in Dublin, Ireland - which was awesome.
My focus was working with Microsoft's partners and customers who were building solutions with Visual Studio Team System, Team Foundation Server, SharePoint 2007, ASP.NET and ASP.NET AJAX, XNA and of course the components of .NET 3.0 (WPF, WCF, WorkFlow, etc.).
My
MSDN weblog chronicles my time there.
Here are some of the custom demos and utilities I built while part of the team.
Mosaic Art Website (ASP.NET AJAX)
Without writing a single line of custom Javascript, ASP.NET AJAX let us build a cross-platform, cross-browser website with partial page updates, and a streamlined Administrator interface behind it.
Technologies: ASP.NET AJAX, Flickr.NET
Demonstrated at: ApacheCon Europe,
IT@Cork Conference on Web 2.0
More information: Site was recently taken offline, but suffice to say that the UpdatePanel, at the time, was indistinguishable from magic.
A Wii Flock of Boids (XNA)
Use the Nintendo Wii Wireless Controller to control a flock of butterflies, and help a tightrope-walking creature keep his balance.
Technologies: XNA (for PC and XBox 360)
More information: This blog entry talks about the demo and
Connecting your Wii Controller to XNA.
Ireland's Call for Guitar Hero (XNA)
Use the Guitar Hero X-Plorer Controller to play Ireland's Call, a.k.a. "The Rugby Song".
Technologies: XNA (for PC and XBox 360)
More information: Demo, source code and jamming guide here.
Little Syncr (WinForms+ClickOnce)
A little POC that showed how you can synchronize metadata for photos (titles, descriptions, privacy information, tags) between local images and online photo sharing site Flickr.
Technologies: Windows Forms, Flickr.NET
More information: Download available
here.
NLarge (WPF Technical Presentation Utility)
NLarge is a little utility for technical presentations that I used extensively during my demos. It magnifies the screen through a smooth animation, and allows you to pan and zoom around the magnified screen. You can annotate the magnified image using the mouse or a Tablet PC pen.
NLarge runs from your system tray, and is triggered by a hotkey (Alt-1).
Technologies: Windows Presentation Foundation (.NET 3.0)
More information: Download and source code available
on CodePlex. Direct download of most recent release
here.
Launch of Windows Vista, 2007 Office System and Exchange 2007
Unfortunately, a recording of the demos from the December '06 launch is currently not available. I'm still trying to find one and make it available here.
This was a particularly engaging presentation that involved set of four custom demos that integrated multiple clients and 3 servers (Sharepoint 2007, Exchange 2007, and a streaming server for a custom WPF app).
The themes for the four parts of the demo were:
- Simplify how people work together
- Help protect and manage content
- Find information and improve business insight
- Reduce IT costs and improve manageability
Additional Information about this launch: Follow-up links.
Additional Information about my time with Microsoft DPE: My
MSDN weblog chronicles my time there.
