Congratulations Chuck Sears of Oregon State Univeristy -- you are now the proud owner of the last Media Center Keyboard given away at PDC05.  Thanks to all who gave me their business card (or name written down on a piece of paper) at PDC05 -- let's do it again at the *next* PDC.

Well, Troy beat me to the punch, but I might as well post anyway.  You can get a copy of the PowerPoint deck I used at PDC05 for PRS322 Windows Vista Media Center: Developing for the 10-Foot Interface, a high level introduction to some of the features we are adding to the Media Center platform for Windows Vista.

I also recommend a couple of the other presentations from http://commnet.microsoftpdc.com/content/downloads.aspx for you to get a more complete picture of the development platform for Media Center in Windows Vista...

The Hosted HTML model isn't going away for Media Center developers in Windows Vista, and Michael Wallent's talk helps you decide which is the best approach in PRS200 Choosing the Right Presentation Technology: Windows Presentation Foundation ("Avalon"), Windows Forms, ASP.NET, IE, and More.  Furthermore, the ASP.NET 2.0 team tells you how to get the most out of targeting HTML in PRS312 ASP.NET: Future Directions for Developing Rich Web Applications with Atlas (Part 1) and PRS420 ASP.NET: Future Directions for Developing Rich Web Applications with Atlas (Part 2).

Robert Ingebretson has a must read PRS317 Windows Presentation Foundation ("Avalon"): Beautiful Code, Beautiful Design - Applications Your Designers Can Work With.  Memorize this deck and you will be well prepared for creating wonderful experiences in 2' and 10'.  And don't forget his demo deck for the presentation.

PRS324 Windows Presentation Foundation ("Avalon"): Using Data in Your Windows Presentation Foundation ("Avalon") Applications: XML, Windows Communications Foundation ("Indigo"), ADO.NET and More will help you wire up the great graphics and UX to the underlying data.

For those of you who want the nitty gritty, check out PRS435 Windows Presentation Foundation ("Avalon"): Going Under the Hood to Understand the Architecture and PRSL05 Case Study: What We Learned Building Project Max on WinFX are invaluable.

These presentations will give you a great introduction and begin to build your foundation for Media Center design and development in Windows Vista.

And there is still more to come...but I can't talk about it just yet...you're gonna love it...

John G. Spooner: The rise of the Media Center PC may finally be at hand.

The music and video-oriented PCs, which are based on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP Media Center Edition, are showing signs of life, thanks to efforts by Microsoft and PC makers such as Dell Inc.—which will roll out several new Media Center models later this month—Gateway Inc., and Hewlett-Packard Co.

Read more at Media Center PCs Look to the Future over at www.pcmag.com.

We are showing an XBox360 running Media Center Extender today as part of my presentation PRS322 Windows Vista Media Center: Developing for the 10 Foot Interface.  We also talk about the new developer features coming to Media Center in the Windows Vista timeframe.

Derek Hatchard of Ardent Development Solutions has won the second Media Center Keyboard at PDC.

We are giving away a third Media Center Keyboard today at PDC so stop by the Presentation Track Lounge and ask me a great Media Center development question to be entered to win.

Wayne Bynum of Intel has won the first Media Center Keyboard at PDC.

We are giving away another Media Center Keyboard tomorrow at PDC so stop by the Presentation Track Lounge from 2:30 - 6:15 PM and ask me a great Media Center development question to be entered to win.

Stop by the nSoftware booth at PDC and register to win a Media Center Extender for XBox kit.

Here I am backstage with Beth (aka 'Sonic' -- you will understand if you see her at the conference).  Beth is a keynote technical specialist.  Also here is Eric C., the keynote technical lead.  This guy and gal are what make PDC keynotes sing. Things go right with our keynotes because of their hours and hours of both advance planning and dedication to making everything work as planned.

Beth has especially been helpful in tracking down one of our keynote primary machines that was 'lost' for a time yesterday in shipping from Redmond to the Los Angeles Convention Center.  Thanks Beth.

It's now about 4 minutes before the BillG and JimAll keynote, and they are cool as cucumbers -- all is well. Time to rock-n-roll.

Scoble, you need to come do a Channel9 video back here with these folks.

They keynote is absolutely going to rock this morning.  There is an *hilarious* video that most everyone in the audience will relate to their teen years.  There are more fantastic demos in this keynote than in years prior with a bunch of serious eye candy developers and designers will love.

Andrew and I will be hanging out in the track lounge after the keynote and this afternoon.  Don't forget to come and ask us a great question to win a Media Center keyboard.

Later on this evening, Sean, Andrew and I will be hosting Geek Drinks (Andrew is buying the first round -- we will see if we can talk him into subsequent rounds.)  Details are on Sean's blog post Update on Geek Dinner (er...drinks!)

Sean Alexander and I are hosting a geek dinner this coming Tuesday, September 13.  If you are interested in attending or suggesting a location leave a comment over on Sean's blog post.

If you haven't already given, let this be your incentive, as it was for Brian...

"I got up last Saturday morning planning to go to the Red Cross web site and make a donation and reading your post pressed me to do it sooner rather than later."

I posted Donate To American Red Cross Hurricane Relief To Enter Raffle for a Copy of Visual Studio 2005 at the very start of a long holiday weekend, so perhaps folks missed.  Based on the stats for this blog, I have about 200 regular readers. I know Media Center users and developers are a passionate bunch of folks, so I'm hoping the community will step up. The math is pretty awesome...

200 Readers X $100 Each = $20,000

Don't miss out on this wonderful opportunity to help the thousands in need.

[Thanks to Brad C. who caught my poor math skills...]

Our Media Center presentation at Professional Developers Conference keeps getting better and better...

I will demonstrating XBox360 + Media Center Extender at my presentation on September 15.  The Meet Me At Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2005 and Win A Media Center Keyboard has more details on place and time.

Our good friend Ian Dixon joined Robert Scoble et al for a tour of the Microsoft Home in London.  This time he is the interviewee.

Ian Dixon (and others) - Microsoft Home in London, UK

And Ian definitely needs to update his avatar -- doesn't look anything like him, really.

Donate To American Red Cross Hurricane Relief To Enter Raffle for a Copy of Visual Studio 2005

I really love what Ian Dixon is doing -- his show is an invaluable resource for me. I listen to every one he puts out there and if you are a Media Center developer you should as well.  The show notes are quite detailed allowing me to instantly review portions of the show after I have listened to it's entirety.

Ian and I spent about 40 minutes together last week chatting about the SDK, programmatic access to the EPG, the Click To Record API and a host of other things.  This show goes pretty deep into some of the technical details compared to The .NET Show or Channel9 Part I and Part II videos.

So without further adieu...

The Media Center Show #23

Enjoy!

We will be giving away a wireless Media Center Keyboard each day at the Professional Developers Conference 2005.

In order to qualify, you need to...

1. Find me or Andrew Adamyk.
2. Ask a really great question about developing for Media Center.
3. Hand us your business card.

At the end of each day we will randomly pick a winner from the business cards gathered that day.  I'll announce the lucky person on my blog each night and the winner can pick up the keyboard from us the next day if they so desire (except for the last -- we will ship that one).

We will be hanging out at PDC all week so catch us anytime by visiting a Track Lounge or attending the Media Center session.  If you don't want to rely on running into me purely by chance my official schedule is as follows...

September 13

2:30 - 5:30 PM
Track Lounge (Presentation)

September 14

2:30 - 6:15 PM
Track Lounge (Presentation)

7:00 - 11:30 PM
The PDC Party at Universal Studios

September 15

11:30 AM - 12:45 PM
Room 501 ABC
PRS322 - Windows Vista Media Center: Developing for the 10-Foot Interface

5:30 - 9:00 PM
Ask The Experts

September 16

8:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Track Lounge (Presentation)

Hope to see you at PDC...!

Total Raised So Far: $1,323

Update: Through the generous gift from one of the MVPs and a fellow Microsoft employee I can sweeten this offer.  We now have a copy of Windows XP Professional, Office Professional Edition 2003 and Visual Studio 2003 to raffle in addition to Visual Studio 2005.  Instead of one lucky winner we will have four.

Ed Bott, Newsgator, Thomas Hawk, Microsoft and a great discussion during our team lunch today made me want to do *something* to help in the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

The result: I'm going to raffle off a single copy of Visual Studio 2005.

Here is how you enter...

1) Visit https://give.redcross.org/.

2) Donate a minimum of US $100 (One Hundred US Dollars) towards 'Hurricane 2005 Relief'.

3) Forward to me the email confirmation you receive from the American Red Cross.

FAQ

• The email confirmation from the American Red Cross does not contain any credit card information -- it's only your name, address, donation amount, time stamp and two tracking numbers.
• Unless you state otherwise when you forward the email confirmation I will post your first and last name in updates to this post to recognize your contribution.
• The email confirmation from the American Red Cross includes a link which can help you identify whether or not your company has a matching gifts program, and give you some details on how to leverage.
• Raffle entries will be accepted through September 30, 2005 11:59 PM.
• I don't know the ship schedule for Visual Studio 2005.  The software will be delivered to you sometime the first week of October or when it becomes available in the retail / reseller channel, whichever comes last.

Contributors

• Greg Duncan http://coolthingoftheday.blogspot.com
• Brian Lakstins http://www.balconsulting.net/DasBlog/default.aspx
• Steven Ackerman http://spaces.msn.com/members/sjackerman
• Paolo Hutchison
• Stephen Carroll

• Robert Jordan