After a whirlwind 3-days at MIX 2009 in Las Vegas the .NET web developer
and designer community is a little bit better for the Umbraco love they
were shown. With Niels Hartvig and Per Ploug
Hansen present, attendees were able to feel the love and admire
the t-shirts - surprisingly we heard dozens of compliments on the
Umbraco t-shirts from CG08 and CGUS08. I helped spread the love as much
as I was able, but the Danes really know how to do it!
Windows Web Application Gallery
Umbraco made its big-conference-keynote debut 
with its presence in the Windows
Web Application Gallery and the Web Platform Installer v2.0 - both which
launched at MIX on 18 March. Umbraco is now available via the Web Platform
Installer and its various outlets; Windows Web Application
Gallery, IIS 7.0 add-ins, Control Panel apps cPanel and
DotNetPanel, and the publically available ATOM feed. In
addition to dramatically increasing the exposure Umbraco receives,
the Web Platform Installer streamlines the Umbraco installation
process significantly. No more are there dozens of steps to
be completed before actually 'installing' Umbraco - now, the
database creation and setting of Acls is performed by the Web
Platform Installer's robust installation handlers. If your
web server is running IIS7 you can install Umbraco remotely,
without requiring you to log on to the server, using IIS7's remote
management capability and the Web Platform Installer
integration.
We're excited about what this means for Umbraco adoption - it's
very cool! Go check it out next time you need a fresh Umbraco
installation.
'Open Space' Demo and Guerilla Recruiting
In the Umbraco tradition of open-space we set a session at MIX's 3rd Place (sort of a room with too loud
music and couches). As with open-space we didn't know who or
what to expect and we were pleasantly surprised by number of MIX
attendees who stopped by for a demo or to ask questions.
Niels promoted the session with his special style of guerilla
marketing 
by placing 'cards' in each toilet stall where
they would not be missed. It worked!
In addition to Umbraco, the MIX conference included some
excellent sessions that we thoroughly enjoyed - although I wasn't
able to convince Per to attend the "Next Gen Web Commerce" session,
we all managed to find content to suit our interests.
Umbraco Futures
It was a true pleasure to discuss the vision that Niels and Per
have for Umbraco in the future. Some of this is underway
already (LINQ to Umbraco for example) and some of it is not, but
all in all Umbraco's future is very exciting. Look for
Umbraco to start showing up in even more high-profile installations
(as if Wired, NAIAS.com, and others were not already high-profile);
look for a bigger, more tangible Umbraco presence in North America;
and look for a (possible) Umbraco book in the one-year
timeframe.
I'm looking forward to CodeGarden 2009 on June 22-23 in Copenhagen and
I hope to see you there.
-Paul