ESRI have now released their pre-conference Q&A and you can find it here:
http://events.esri.com/uc/QandA/index.cfm?ConferenceID=2F6DC1A1-1422-2418-883C3868A9004888

Here are some interesting blog posts about it:
http://blog.geocortex.com/2010/07/01/esri-pre-conference-qa-now-available/
http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/2010/07/01/the-esri-uc-qa-response-is-up/

In this Q&A session you will find information such as:
-The WebADF will be deprecated in the next release after ArcGIS Server 10
-The next release of ArcGIS Server after 10 will run entirely as a 64-bit application

The ESRI UC starts on the 12th of July. Twitter: #esriuc

So ESRI have now decided to rename their next release from 9.4 to 10. The reason for this seems to be that it is a larger release then the last few dot releases. Especially desktop side looks and works a bit different than 9.3. Jack Dangermond also says in the podcast (see link below) that the beta users have asked for this to be a major release and they have listened to the users.

It will be interesting to see at the Developer Summit what exactly they will add to the 10 release. Because there are quite a few things that aren't in the 9.4 beta version that people expects the next major version to include.

ArcGIS 10 is still planned to be released mid-late Q2 this year.

Listen to the podcast

Looking back at 2009 I am quite happy that I got the chance to work with new technologies such as Silverlight 3, WPF, ASP.NET MVC and WCF. Even though it can be a bit stressful working as a developer with new stuff released every day it is still a pleasure when you realize that something new is actually very good and helps you build better applications. One thing that I have come to love in 2009 is the Entity Framework! That helps me build better DALs faster. Another thing that I really like is the ASP.NET MVC 2 that makes it easier to build great web applications.
One thing that disappointed me in 2009 was the .NET RIA Services that wasn’t all great under the hood. But I think that WCF RIA Services will solve most of the problems I had with the .NET RIA Services. 2010 will tell..
Another thing that disappointed me was Google Wave, I was “lucky” to get an invite almost straight away but I was a bit let down by the whole thing. The ideas behind it are quite good but since the hype was to big I was expecting a lot more out of it! Lets see what's happens in 2010..

Here are a few things I would like to do in 2010:

• Sharepoint 2010 and ArcGIS Server/MapIt: This will allow us to do some new cool stuff
• Scripting: It will be interesting to see what ESRI release at the developer summit but I need to get up to speed with all the scripting languages
• MapIt: I have done quite a bit of development with MapIt in 2009 and it will be interesting to see what ESRI will include in the upcoming versions in 2010. I still need to finish off the list with improvements ideas I promised to email ESRI..
• Silverlight 4: I hope that more companies will add Silverlight in to their IT plans so that I can deliver more powerful solutions to them. I have actually seen Silverlight in a few client sites already! More of that please!
• WPF: I hope that I don't have write another winform application, I want to do them all with WPF! ArcMap extensions rewrite to WPF?
• Expression Blend: I want to improve my skills in Expression Blend this year!
• ASP.NET MVC: I probably have a few classic asp applications that needs to be rewritten. This has to been done with MVC, cant wait!
• FGDB API? We have waited for ESRI to release the API for File Geodatabases for years.. Time now?
• Multitouch: I hope I can start looking in to the multitouching APIs in Windows 7 (and perhaps Surface?) this year.
• ArcGIS 9.4: I have already spent quite a bit of the time with the first beta version but I guess 2010 will be all about 9.4 which is good!

Happy new year everyone! 

One of the most interesting new feature in Silverlight 4 is the COM interoperability functionality. This enables developers to access other components on the users machine (if the user allows the application to have elevated permissions).

There is a few examples out from Microsoft on how developers can access Microsoft Excel through it’s COM interfaces and pass data between the Silverlight application and Excel (and the other way around). This is quite cool but I wanted to develop my own COM classes and hook them up with a Silverlight mapping application.

So what I have done here is to build a mapping application with ESRI ArcGIS Server where the user can access data from ArcSDE (and also update the data). This can obviously be done by webservices (or the WebADF) today but in this example this is all happening on the clientside which is quite cool! This is just an example but the interesting thing now is that it is now possible to access ArcObjects (and other COM objects) on a users machine  from a web (OOB) application!

It might also be possible to stream down a COM dll from the server in a trusted application, register it on the client machine and then access it from Silverlight. I haven't tested this yet but I heard people mention it at the PDC. That would make it really simple to deploy your own COM classes and then do more stuff on the client machines!

Anyway, here is a video on how to integrate ArcSDE with your Silverlight application: 

I have a lot of ideas on how this can be useful to existing ArcGIS users (both desktop and server). You could potentially build COM classes with the ArcObjects functionality you want to use on the client side and have that streamed down and registered (and license with an Engine license perhaps?) on the client machine.
There is also other libraries that would be useful to get access to from a web mapping application.

These Out-Of-Browser applications (with elevated permissions) can be centrally managed through Group Policies (in Active Directory) which will make it very easy for IT admins to manage these applications within a Enterprise.

Links
Tim Heuer - Silverlight 4 Beta – A guide to the new features
Tim Heuer - COM Object Access in Trusted Applications (video)
The ArcGIS API for Microsoft Silverlight™/WPF™

So one of the new features in Silverlight 4 is that you can make controls ‘dropable’ which means that you can drag files from the local machine and drop them on controls in Silverlight and access these files. This can be handy in a mapping application if for example a user wants to add data in to the application and view it on the map. I just quickly created a simple video that demonstrate this:

Links:
Tim Heuer - Silverlight 4 Beta – A guide to the new features
Jesse Liberty - Using Silverlight As Drop Targets

So Microsoft released the first beta version of Silverlight 4 at the PDC earlier this week. I am very impressed with the release frequency from the MS Silverlight team and they also seem to add the stuff that we developers are asking for! Good job! If Microsoft continues to develop Silverlight with this speed and with the same good quality then I am thinking about becoming a fulltime Silverlight mapping developer :)

There are a lot of new stuff coming in Silverlight 4 and here are some of them (my favourites):

• Comprehensive printing support – FINALLY! I expect a good client side printing solution in ESRI-s Silverlight API next year!
• The CLR now enables the same compiled code to be run on the desktop and Silverlight without change – yes!
• Enhanced databinding support – again..
• MEF supports building large composite applications - nice
• Webcam and microphone to allow sharing of video and audio for instance for chat or customer service applications
• Bring data in to your application with features such as copy and paste or drag and drop – this could be useful in mapping applications – add data!
• Support for Google’s Chrome browser – This is good! No more annoying scrolling issues..
• Performance – Starts quicker and run 200% faster than the equivalent Silverlight 3 application
• Multi-touch support – I need a new multitouch laptop!
• Provide support for ‘toast’ notification windows – eg. Outlooks popups
• Read and write files to the user’s MyDocuments, MyMusic, MyPictures and MyVideos folder (or equivalent for non-windows platforms) for example storage of media files and taking local copies of reports
• Run other desktop programs such as Office, for example requesting Outlook to send an email, send a report to Word or data to Excel
• COM automation enables access to devices and other system capabilities by calling into application components; for instance to access a USB security card reader – Major one!

Ok, so there are a lot of new good features in Silverlight 4 and a lot of them can be useful for mapping applications. The one that strike me as the most interesting is the last one. Silverlight is now starting to erase the clear border from a desktop application and a web application. With this new functionality you can call COM objects on the client computer to do specific things. There is obviously a security model in place to minimize the risk for a hacker to abuse this functionality.
I have seen a good example (see link below) on how Skype and Silverlight now can be integrated through this functionality.
So what does this mean for our mapping applications written using the ESRI Silverlight API? Well, I guess it will be possible to access client side ArcObjects from Silverlight? I guess it will be possible to write own client side libraries that we then can easily install on the client side and access from Silverlight? We can also access other libraries that are usually installed on machines – any of them that we can use to create new functionality?
So the big question now is to think about all the good stuff that we now can enable in our mapping applications using this new COM functionality!

It will be very interesting to see what ESRI will do with the Silverlight API for ArcGIS Server in Silverlight 4. I can see a number of features that now can be added in to their API that enables the new good functionality in SL4. I guess we will find out at the developer summit 2010..

Silverlight 4 will be released Q2 2010..

Links:
Microsoft Silverlight 4 – whats new and how to get started
Shawn Wildermuths blog
Tim Heuer
Silverlight 4 and Skype

So I (finally) got my sandbox account for Google Wave a few days ago and I have now started to play around with the APIs. There are a lot of new concepts to learn when building applications for Google Wave and I have just started so I still have a lot to learn. The first example I did was very basic and that was to write a simple gadget for Wave containing a ArcGIS Server map using the ESRI JavaScript API. This gadget can be included in a wave and will display a map:

This is the simple workflow to build your own ArcGIS Server Map within a Google Wave:

1. Just create a simple XML file that looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<Module>
  <ModulePrefs title="Hello Wave">
    <Require feature="wave" /> 
  </ModulePrefs>
  <Content type="html">
    <![CDATA[     
    <!-- ADD YOUR MAPPING LOGIC HERE -->
    ]]>
  </Content>
</Module>

So where my comment is (“add your mapping logic here”) you can just paste in your html code that contains the mapping functionality. In my example I just used some sample code from ESRIs Resource center: http://resources.esri.com/help/9.3/arcgisserver/apis/javascript/arcgis/help/jssamples_start.htm

3. Host this XML file somewhere on the web so you get a public URL to the file

4. Then just create a new ‘Wave’ and click Debug->Extensions->Add Gadget so this popup opens:

5. Just type in your URL to the XML file and hit “Add by XML”. The map has now been added to your wave and you can use the functionality within Wave (in this case just map navigation). This is all you have to do!

6. You can also add the gadget to your Wave using “Add Gadget by URL” (the green button below) if you don't want to run it in debug mode:

This is obviously a very basic example but the Google Wave APIs are very interesting and I have a lot of ideas on how to integrate Google Wave and GIS using ArcGIS Server. I hope I get some time soon to blog about more advanced things you can do when combining ArcGIS Server and Google Wave..

Here are some useful links regarding Google Wave:

ESRI will release Service Pack 1 for the ArcGIS 9.3.1 platform in December 2009.

More information:

http://geo.geek.nz/esri/arcgis-9-3-1-service-pack-1-coming-in-december/

http://downloads2.esri.com/support/documentation/ao_/9.3.1_SP1_Announcement9_1.pdf