Delicate Genius Blog

Often referred to as “the bear that cares”, today I can proclaim that axiom true.

I can proudly lift the cone of silence on the “secret project” that I’ve been working on. The SMH Silverlight Deep Zoom for Mardi Gras 2009.

It’s live now, as we speak. Check it out here – http://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2009/mardigras/silverlight.html

So, why is this an awesome thing? Well there are many reasons but the number one reason on my list is Silverlight adoption.

The question I get asked most around Silverlight is about adoption and thus one of my jobs in life is to work with the biggest sites where Silverlight makes sense and help them use it. And it doesn’t get much bigger than front page SMH/The Age etc my friends.

How does it all hang together:

• Used Expression Blend and Visual Studio 2008 to build the app.
• Much code was stolen/borrowed from Kirupa Chinnathambi and his very useful Deep Zoom Tag Sample.
• The Deep Zoom collection itself is currently 533 MB!
• It’s being stored on Windows Azure Storage Services. Much props to Greg Willis for making this happen (with love from Davie Lemphers)
• We (aka Greg) used the the very cool SpaceBlock (Codeplex project) to get stuff to and from Azure Storage.
• Deep Zoom Composer is an awesome tool for medium size Deep Zooms but it failed me on this project. I ended up having to write my own little composer (based on DeepZoomTools.DLL) that generates the sparse image collection and writes out the metadata file (for tagging). I used Brian Likes’s work as a starting point on this one.
• DeepZoomTools.DLL (and DZC) can’t handle images that have differing horizontal and vertical DPI. So I used PhotoELF to batch process and correct the images so that they can be run through DeepZoomTools.DLL.
• I will share the source (on codeplex) when it’s ready.
• Greg and I put this thing together in record time. Literally, 6 days from idea to full deployment. A total testament to how flippin’ rapid and awesome Silverlight dev (and MultiScaleImage) is.
• Many thanks to the fan club for their support and testing efforts: Andrew “minimum height” Coates, Shane “have you thought about this” Morris, Nick “I’ve got cycles” Hodge, Deeps “i know everyone” De Silva and Chris “bashing out a prototype” Auld.
• There’s also a very cool little easter egg in it There’s a prize in it for the first person to find it (and how to get to it).

-mk

For those in Melbourne, be sure to attend the Melbourne Silverlight Developer and Designer Network on Thursday 27 November.

The inaugural meeting will have two speakers:

Shane Morris: Shane will be, well, Shane. Not sure what he plans to open with but I’m sure he will provide insight into the goings on in land Silverlight.

The Awesome Jonas Follesø: I’m getting quite sick of this guy showing up all over the place and disseminating awesome wherever he goes. Jonas will be doing a PDC debrief and, as always, he will rock.

They’re also giving away an full MSDN subscription to one lucky punter.

So, mosey on over to the SDDN site and register if you want to attend.

-dg

Jeremy Kelaher interviewed Shanemo and I at teched this year. He has finally placed the interview online in Podcast form.

We go into our thinking around:

• Silverlight Adoption
• The state of Silverlight in Australia and who’s using it
• Designers and Silverlight/Expression
• They synergies between Mesh and Silverlight
• Surface

Take a listen.

-dg

A few ppl have been asking about Firefox 3 support in Silverlight.

There is a fix, and it’s v/simple.

Replace your old silverlight.js with this new fangled one, located here http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/silverlightjs

I’ve updated all of my dg.tv’s and all is working fine, let me know if they’re not.

-dg

Launched today, Linerider.com. Yeap, Line Rider in Silverlight 2. Very cool me reckons – play it now.

And the coolest thing of all, the brains behind the code – the one, the only, Jose Fajardo. You remember Jose from DeepZoom Awesomeness fame!

-dg

Paul Keen breaks the news. Ninemsn is now live streaming the 6pm news and, you guessed it, they’re offering Silverlight as an option.

Paul does share one interesting stat with us ”from the soft-launch stats 55% of people have chosen the Silverlight player”.

I find this interesting as, for the most part, the Silverlight and Windows Media Player options deliver a comparable experience. So, the majority of visitors, even though they might already have WMP, chose Silverlight. I can only think that they did it either because of either 1) the promise of a richer experience, 2) they’re on a mac, 3) running Firefox (the WMP experience in ffox or on a mac is generally non existent or average).

I reckon this (coupled with BigBrother, ABC etc) continues to validate Silverlight as a viable (and almost necessary :-)) option for anyone delivering Windows Media to a browser.

Congrats to Paul and the team!

-dg

You’ve seen the ABC Shop Silverlight experience. Now hear from the guys that made it happen.

“evolutionary, revolutionary” – Delicate Genius

-dg

Does John O’Brien ever sit still? Check out this v/cool DeepZoom photo mosiac that he put together, all from VirtualEarth tiles. Mosey on over to his blog to check out how he put it together. 

-dg

So, you missed Jose’s amazing DeepZoom session at REMIX08? Or you just want to relive the magic? Behold Jose Fajardo and DeepZoom.

EMBED: <iframe src=”http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/35679/2008_05_28_jose_fajardo/iframe.html” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ style=”width:500px; height:400px”></iframe>

Seriously, this was one of the best demos @ REMIX this year!

-dg

Filed under awesomeness, Big Brother 08 is doing the free version of its live stream in Silverlight this year – check it!

Why? Well it’s simple, they, like many major media companies have truckloads of assets (especially streaming) in WMV. So, in previous years, they’ve been doing it in Windows Media Player.

Now, with the Silverlight doing the client bits, they can have a consistent user experience across Windows and Mac in Firefox, IE and Safari. And even more importantly, they have a client platform that they can build upon and build a truly emmersive media experience.

All without barely having to touch or invest in the backend further.

Kudos to my mates over at Hyro for doing a great job building it and to Channel 10/Southern Star.

-dg