March 2006 - Posts

Fun with Borders

Now that rounded borders are the rage, creating an "organic" look.  You can create this in WPF/XAML with no problem.  And there's good news, it's not an all or nothing look, you can round any corner that you want.  Take a look at the XAML below for nine different versions.

Creating 10 different rounded borders in XAML - Image hosting by Photobucket

Tags: Expression |  XAML

posted Monday, March 27, 2006 12:04 PM by Sean Gerety with 0 Comments

Forget Web 2.0

WPF is where it's at.  While you get great mashups and AJAX and ATLAS fun, to get a really immersive experience you need to use WPF.  Don't believe me?  Look at the BBC demo from yesterday's keynote.  And from what I hear there is an even cooler app coming today.  See you at Mix06 today.

Tags: Mix06 | WPF

posted Tuesday, March 21, 2006 11:25 AM by Sean Gerety with 0 Comments

WPF Process

I've been using Expression Interactive Designer (formerly known as Sparkle) since it was publicly released.  I have to say that even though this is a tool targeted at designers, it really can be used by developers, designers, information architects, interaction designers and hobbyists. 

It's great for quickly prototyping a UI and if you have a couple of web services or objects to push some data to you can quickly see how things look.  Add animation, event triggers and styles and you can get a great looking prototype very quickly. 

Below is a diagram to show the process of using VS.NET and Expression Interactive Designer together to create a WPF application.  There are a couple of entry points, EID and VS.NET and those depend on what you are doing.  If you're at Mix06 I'll be happy to talk about it.

 

EID and WPF Process - Image hosting by Photobucket

Tags: Mix06

posted Monday, March 20, 2006 2:35 AM by Sean Gerety with 1 Comments

New Edward Tufte Book "Beautiful Evidence"

Edward Tufte's new book "Beautiful Evidence" is available for pre-order.  You can get it here: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_be  Better hurry!

 

 

Tags: Tufte | sparklines
posted Thursday, March 02, 2006 12:37 AM by Sean Gerety with 0 Comments

My Next Car?

Wow, now if they only made one that fit my wife and kids.

http://www.saab.com/microsites/aero_x/GLOBAL/en/index2.shtml

Tags: cool stuff

posted Wednesday, March 01, 2006 10:49 PM by Sean Gerety with 0 Comments

Drive around Seattle

Here's a cool new site from the folks over at Virtual Earth.  You can race, drive or walk around the streets of Seattle with a overhead view and first person point of view.  Very cool and handy for visiting a city.  This would be great for walking cities, ala NYC or Vegas (ok well just the strip).  So far they just have Seattle and San Francisco.  Here's the link: http://preview.local.live.com/

Tags:cool stuff

posted Wednesday, March 01, 2006 9:34 PM by Sean Gerety with 0 Comments