WynApse

Maybe this concept is simpler for me because of all the jobs I've been on over the years requiring security clearances.

I've signed quite a few NDA forms. Some for big companies, some for small, but the meaning of "NDA" remains constant: Non-Disclosure Agreement. To me, that takes no further explanation, but apparently it's confusing to some people, and I don't understand how you can be confused. The papers I signed with the U.S. Army in 1970 read "10 years and $10,000" for a violation... can't imagine what it's up to now, but THAT is a strict NDA :)

So those things I've been told, I cannot talk about, period. Even if the entire world knows about them, I cannot speak about them until the information goes off NDA.

An example was a Silverlight release a while back. It might have been Silverlight 3, I don't remember. Everyone was anxiously awaiting the release so they could post their material. Of course the entire world knew it was coming out and imminently so. Some enterprising folks had even found the bits on a server before the official announcement.

So then the situation became: everyone knew about it, some were even coding with it and blogging about it and yet we couldn't talk about it. Scott Guthrie's posting about it opened the flood gates and then it went off NDA, but up until that moment, we were locked.

Sitting out on the edge you're uninstalling and re-installing all the time and you get frustrated when things that used to work don't, but hey... those bits were still warm when you got 'em, and that's the fun. But that fun comes at a price, and the price is the NDA.

Awkward yes, confusing no...

See you at MIX10, and

Stay in the 'Light!

MIX10

We had a great Silverlight User Group Meeting in Phoenix last night!

Before I go any farther I want to say thanks again to David Silverlight and Kim Schmidt for coming to talk to us! And not to forget Victor Gaudioso over the wire :)

David, Kim, and Victor talked to us about the Silverlight User Group Starter Kit they are working on with an extended stellar list of talented developers. Don't bypass looking at this by thinking it's only for a User Group... this is a solid community-supported full-up application using MVVM and Ria Services that you could take and modify for your own use. Take a look at the list of developers. Chances are you know some of them... send them an email of thanks for all the hard work over the last year!

David and Kim discussed the architecture and code, demonstrating features as they went. Then Victor came in through the application itself on a high-intensity live webcast from his home in California.

The audience of about 15 seemed focused and interested which says a lot about the subject and presentation.

Tim Heuer came bearing some gifts (swag) ... a hard-copy of Josh Smith's Advanced MVVM , and couple cheaply upgradeable copies of VS2008 Pro that were snatched up very quickly.

We also gave away a few copies of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, some Arc mice, and some Office 2007 disks... so I don't think anyone left empty-handed.

Personal thanks from me go out to Mike Palermo and Tim Heuer for the surprise they had waiting for me that's been over Twitter, and to Victor for only mentioning it at least 3 times in a 5-minute webcast.

Thanks for a great evening, and I look forward to seeing all of you in a couple weeks at MIX10!