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Going to Berlin (TechEd Europe)

Laurent Bugnion — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:15:22 GMT

I will make a short appearance at Tech Ed Europe. Due to the amount of work we have right now, I cannot spend more than a couple of days in Berlin, but I still hope to meet many of you all.

I will arrive in Berlin on the Sunday, 8th of November, and leave on Tuesday, the 10th. During the day, I will mostly be helping at the Silverlight booth, together with other MVPs and Silverlight evangelist superstar Tim Heuer. I really hope that many will come and admire the booth, Silverlight 3, ask many questions and hopefully get good answers ;)

See you there!

Laurent

Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft)
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Geotagging pictures made even easier

Laurent Bugnion — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:55:38 GMT

Some time ago, I wrote a blog post titled “Geocoding pictures automatically with Nokia E71 and gpicsync” which was explaining how to use the built-in GPS in your mobile phone (in my case a Nokia E71) and a utility program called gpisync to enter geographical tags into your pictures. This is useful because using a program supporting this feature (such as Flickr for example), you can then see all your pictures on a map, and remember where you took the pictures.

In the post, however, I mentioned that using gpisync was a bit painful, as this application was obviously developed by non professional software developers, had a bad user experience, etc…

Almost by chance, I found this other great utility software made by Microsoft and named Microsoft Pro Photo Tools.

This application is focused at allowing you to edit the EXIF tags in the picture. These tags are made to contain various information about the picture, such as name of the photographer, copyright, description, date, model of camera and many others such as the geotags mentioned before. The user experience is much better (though some aspects are a bit annoying still) and provides a really cool interface. If you didn’t record a GPS log of your movements while you were taking the pictures, or if you need to amend a location, a Virtual Earth integration is provided, and allows you to visualize the pictures directly on a map. Just like in the more primitive tool I mentioned before, you can also load GPS logs in various formats and geotag your pictures automatically.

I had never heard of this tool before, and was quite surprised to find it, but I have been using it avidly since then and can really recommend it to everyone.

Member of the INETA Europe Speaker Bureau

Laurent Bugnion — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 03:53:56 GMT

I am very proud and happy to announce that I am now a member of the European INETA speakers bureau.

For those who don’t know it, INETA is an non-profit organization dedicated to “support all user groups interested in Microsoft .NET platform. (from http://europe.ineta.org/) One of the aspects of this support is the speakers bureau, which gathers experts in various .NET related fields. Right now there are 39 speakers available for talks for your user group.

As a user group responsible, you can request speakers for your events! More information about that topic on the INETA Europe speaker bureau page.

I really hope that this new position will give me opportunity to meet many people in Europe. If you are interested in hearing me talk about topics such as WPF, Silverlight, Designer-Developer Interaction, Model-View-ViewModel pattern, Expression Blend, SketchFlow or other that I talked about on this blog, let me know, and ask the INETA Europe Speaker Bureau to help us meet!

Making good tea while travelling

Laurent Bugnion — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:59:43 GMT

I am just back from a long absence to the Pacific Northwest. I went to Seattle for business, met tons of people there and then my family joined me and we had a little more than a week vacation between Seattle, Victoria and Vancouver. For those interested, you can see our pictures on Flickr:

Seattle:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lbugnion/collections/72157604406125724/

Victoria:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lbugnion/collections/72157621755064349/

Vancouver:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lbugnion/collections/72157621765415383/

Being just back, my fingers are itching to start blogging again, but I thought it would be fun to start with a more relaxed topic, one that I have been wanting to write about for quite some time: How to make good tea when travelling?

Those of you who know me well know that I am a tea lover. I drink much more tea than coffee, and in fact I don’t have a coffee maker at home (well, I have one of these italian coffee makers), but I use it only when I have guests, really (or when I make tiramisu ;))

The thing that really keeps me pumping is tea. But not just any tea: I strive on great tea. And no, great tea does not always mean expensive tea (though I did, once, pay 60 USD for 100 grams of Yunnan tea…). But still, I just cannot take what they serve you in airplanes and most restaurants, which is basically just tea dust. It results in very bitter tea, almost undrinkable. As in US hotels, sometimes you cannot even find tea bags.

Portable tea “pot”

The solution is to resort to the Chinese wisdom, and to use an accessory that they, too, have been using for centuries.

This “pot” is made of one main container and two lids. The first lid is a metal mesh, and the second lid is water tight. When both lids are closed, no water can escape the container.

To make great tea with this device is super easy. In the morning, I add some tea leaves. Then on my way, I always find a place to get hot water. In airplanes, just add the stewards. In hotels, they sometimes have hot water cookers (especially in Europe), but in the US they mostly don’t, so you can just ask in bars and restaurants. Sometimes you get weird looks (I am not sure if some people think I am using drugs or what) but it’s also a nice way to start a discussion by explaining what kind of tea this is. Also, in offices in the US, you often have a hot water tap on the sink. Just make sure that this is indeed potable water, and that it is hot enough (at least 80 celsius, ideally around 90).

I bought my tea pot from the Mad Hat tea shop in Tacoma, WA, USA but I am pretty sure they can be found elsewhere too. It is a typical Chinese article, and super easy to find in Asia.

Drinking the tea

When the tea is ready, I simply unscrew the first lid, leaving the metal mesh, and pour the tea into one of these portable cups with a lid that you can buy from Starbucks. The capacity is roughly the same, so you can empty the “tea pot” into the drinking cup completely. This is actually very important if you intend to reuse the leaves during the day (see below).

Reusing the leaves

With some teas, you can actually reuse the leaves multiple times during the day. Often, the first infusion is actually not the best, because it tends to be stronger and more bitter than the following ones. Perfect teas to carry through the day are Oolong teas.

What teas to use?

The previous paragraph says it all, mostly. If you want to reuse the leaves throughout the day, prefer teas with large, mostly uncut leaves. This can be a white tea, certain greens, oolongs. Black teas are less suited to be reused throughout the day, and the flavor tends to fade after 2 infusions. With a good oolong, however, the flavor remains for 5, 6 infusions without any worries. And if you like white teas, you can infuse and drink almost like water, perfect for health!

Typically I take 2 or 3 different teas with me on trips. One oolong for the day, and two other teas for morning or evenings, to break the monotony.

Boiling water

If you want even more freedom to get hot water, you can do like I did and purchase a portable water cooker. These can be found in airports. It is very small and easy to pack, can switch between 115 V and 230 V (there is a small switch below the pot), and cooks the exact quantity of water that my “tea pot” can hold, so it is perfect. I take this pot with me mostly when I am away for more than 3 or 4 days.

And sugar?

Even though tea purist frown on it, I do like sugar in my tea sometimes, especially in the morning. Finding sugar is very easy, any bar, Starbucks, hotel etc have sugar packs lying around. So it’s really easy to have some for your tea if you are so inclined.

I hope that this info helps you to become a travelling tea lover like me!

New intro on my website

Laurent Bugnion — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:02:14 GMT

The time was ripe for a new intro on my website www.galasoft.ch. Here it is below, posted for my blog’s readers. I hope that you find it entertaining.

----

Time sure flies when you’re busy :) Already middle of the year, summer is coming and I have been so busy with amazing projects! Yes, since last time I wrote here, much water has run under the bridges and I am loving my job.

I have taken part to an exciting series of conferences: The Microsoft Most Valuable Professional summit took place in March in Seattle. After that, back in Europe for a quick jump to Belgium where I held two talks at the TechDays conference in Antwerp. This was a fantastic experience by the way. Later, back to the US for the most exciting of all conferences, MIX in Las Vegas! And this time I was a speaker, what a thrill! I often say that MIX06 is the conference that changed my (professional) life completely, and to be accepted to speak at MIX09 was a fantastic and exciting achievement.

After my return in Switzerland, I had two more talks, one in Geneva and one in Bern. This was the same talk, but once in French and once in German. The response has been really good and it was a nice experience (even if it was a bit scary when I was preparing ;))

After this crazy travel time, I had time to work on exciting projects at IdentityMine. Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation are my daily bread and I love it. WPF really rocks, and the more I use it, the more I am in love with that framework. Since I have the chance to work with some of the best designers in the industry, I can really (some would say finally) create the beautiful applications I have always dreamed of, and Love my Software (which is incidentally IdentityMine’s motto). It’s really amazing to be part of that world class team of experts. What a motivation to get better. In the process, I am also learning a huge lot about interaction design, and sometimes it is tough, but it is always a passion.

One more talk took me to Belgium again, this time in Kortrijk for MultiMania 2009. It was an interesting event, with a crowd in majority favoring Adobe products, but I think my talk was well received and we had a lot of interesting discussions.

One project that has been occupying most of my “free programming time” is a toolkit to assist the implementation of Model-View-ViewModel applications in Windows Presentation Foundation and in Silverlight. After quite some time, I released the first version of the toolkit. I am still working on it and should post an installer soon (for the moment the installation is manual). I also have a couple of ideas about things I would like to add to the toolkit. Finally, the grand plan is to post everything on Codeplex and to let the community do its thing. That should be fun.

The coming weeks will be quite packed with work. I will be in Seattle from the 11th of July. I will stay a couple of weeks to work with the team (and meet tons of friends I am sure), and then my family will join me for a week of leisure between Seattle and Vancouver. This should be a lot of fun.

For more information about my whereabouts, planned talks (such as the one I will give at the SD2IG group in Seattle on the 15th of July), make sure to subscribe to my blog. Meeting you all is what is keeping my motivation high and my passion alive.

Me @ MIX 2009

Laurent Bugnion — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:47:18 GMT

Well here is the time of the year again where choices, hard choices must be made. Yes, this is a crucial time, one of decisions: The MIX conference is around the corner and I need to complete my schedule.

This year is slightly easier than the 3 previous editions, though. Since I will be speaking, I have less sessions to choose from (I asked, but apparently they don't let you attend other sessions while you're presenting yours, bummer).

So here we go, this is Me @ MIX 2009:

The red entries are sessions that I am part of, either with friends (the workshop on the first day) or alone (the session on the Thursday).

Looking forward to see you there. And don't forget to follow me on Twitter (@LBugnion)

Going to Seattle (MVP summit 2009)

Laurent Bugnion — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 04:41:37 GMT

The March travel madness is about to begin. During this month I will be away a lot. First destination is Seattle where I will attend the MVP summit 2009. Last year was my first summit and I loved this experience. This year should be even more fun, because I met so many software enthusiasts over the past year, and many of them are going too, yay.

I will leave Zurich tomorrow around 14:50 tomorrow and transit via London to Seattle where I should arrive around 7PM. Stay tuned to my Twitter account for updates. I hope it will go smoother than last year, where the idiots at Lufthansa made me miss my connection in Frankfurt and I had to go to Vancouver instead, and then drive down to Seattle. Crossing fingers ;) I fly British Airways this time, I am pretty sure it will go better!

On the last 2 days of my trip, I will be at IdentityMine's offices in Seattle ad Tacoma and connecting with as many of my colleagues as possible. Working from home and remote is really OK but sometimes you need direct contact, and I am really looking forward to this!

Ski holidays

Laurent Bugnion — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:01:04 GMT

It's this time of the year again... we're leaving tomorrow for a week of snow, fresh air and awesome ski. Like these last few years, we will be heading to Serfaus, Austria, and spend the week there.

Last year at the same time, I was writing Silverlight 2 Unleashed, the chapter about integrating Silverlight applications in HTML pages. Time sure flies...

This year I will take my laptop, but I probably won't be able to connect to Internet much, so I'll see y'all in a week. Take care!

25 things about me

Laurent Bugnion — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:08:13 GMT

There is a new game of tag going on on Facebook, and I was tagged 3 times in the last few days, so I thought I should really try and find 25 interesting things to mention about me. I posted this on my Facebook profile (such are the rules of the game) but it makes sense to get this on my blog as well!! So here we go, all you always wanted to know about me but were afraid to ask.

Rules:
Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.
(To do this, go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. As a kid, I wanted to be a professional pilot. I actually became an engineer because it was the best way to become a pilot. And then Swissair went bankrupt... Now I am really glad because I love to be an engineer :)
2. I got my private pilot license at 18, and was active in the Swiss alps for about 10 years before I started travelling a lot and gave up on being a pilot.
3. I met my wife on ICQ (she is Malaysian Chinese), about 11 years ago. Back then when I was telling people about that, they looked at me as if I was crazy.
4. We didn't have a computer at home until I was 14 (I think). We got a second hand PC from a friend of my father's. My first move was to delete everything on it, and then the PC stopped working. I had to call the guy for help and reinstall the operating system...
5. I tried learning the guitar when I was a kid, but hated every minute of it. I gave up on learning music altogether, but I love music and can sing quite well.
6. I am almost always whistling, or singing in my head. One neighbour once told me she knew I was coming home when she heard whistling in the staircase.
7. My two daughters both have a westerner name and a chinese name. Finding names that matched and made sense in both cultures was pretty tough.
8. I hate to have dust or flour or other such substance on my hands. If I do dusty work, I go to wash my hands often.
9. After highschool and before engineer school, I took a long break and backpacked 3 months alone in New Zealand and Australia.
10. After highschool and before engineer school, I worked on construction sites as a plumber for more than a year.
11. I sleep in a very weird position which actually hurts my shoulder - but it's the position in which I fall asleep the fastest.
12. I don't like to sleep. If I could, if it wouldn't hurt my health or affect my mood, I would pass on sleeping altogether.
13. I am a very good cook, even though I don't have enough time to cook as I would like to. When I was younger, I took cooking courses with my mom.
14. We speak 4 languages at home. I speak French with my daughters; my wife speaks Chinese to them; my daughters speak German at school and with friends; my wife and I speak in English.
15. I don't know what my daughters' zodiac sign is. I think of zodiac as being altogether useless crap and am always astonished when fairly educated and clever people ask me what is my zodiac sign.
16. Even though I was raised as a reformed christian, I officially left the church about 12 years ago. I think religion is something too personal to be encompassed by a general institution. But I am not an atheist either.
17. I love my job. For many years, I thought that most people love their job. When I realized that most people actually dislike their job, it was a real shock for me.
18. I have a real passion for tea. I drink at least one liter tea per day, often more.
19. My favorite painter of all times is Salvador Dali. My website (galasoft.ch) is named after a cat I had who was named Gala,and Gala was named after Dali's wife.
20. My favorite painter who is still alive is Gigi Lee from Macau.
21. When my second daughter was born, I took a 3 months unpaid leave to take care of her when my wife went back to work after her maternity leave, and I loved it.
22. I worked at 80% for many years, to take care of my daughters one day a week. I loved that time. I had to stop when I starting travelling a lot, but I would go back any day.
23. I was a Mac fanboy for many years and used a Mac throughout my engineer school and later. I stopped using a Mac when it became so fashionable that I can hardly stand it anymore (see 24).
24. I hate trendy stuff. Sometimes I dislike products just because they're trendy. That's the main reason why I dislike the iPhone and will never have an iPod.
25. If I died today, I would be satisfied with my life so far. I wish to have a long life, but I am in peace with my life as it is now.

Nice plug: Silverlight 2 Unleashed (and my girls) in TCS weekly

Laurent Bugnion — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:14:35 GMT

Thanks Adam for making my day (and my daughters') by including them in The Continuum Show weekly edition. It was so cool (and unexpected) :)

(mention starts at 0:57 in the show)

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/TCSWeekly/TCSWeekly003/

And my good friend and colleague Kurt's daughter was also featured! Great day for IdentityMine's families :)

KaXaml love

All this is thanks to Robbie Ingebretsen and his amazing KaXaml editor. I can never underline enough how amazing KaXaml is. It's grown to become an unavoidable tool when like me you work as a WPF and Silverlight integrator.

http://kaxaml.com/

See Robbie talk about KaXaml:

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Continuum/Kaxaml/