Home sick and head is swimming in sudafed- a good time for a diversion.  Pete asks what my Top 10 Sidebar Gadgets are.  Here is my latest list:

1. Weatherbug
2. Traffic by Live Search
3. App Launcher
4. Gas Price Information
5. Outlook Info
6. Traveler's Toolkit
7. iTunes or The Zune
8. Multimeter
9. DriveInfo
10. The Magic Folder (great idea, but buggy on my system)

Ok the blog is back up with some load-balancing features so I can talk about Popfly!  This is for the YouTube & MySpace generation- interested in mashups that bend to your will, combining mapping, Flickr, and bLaugh with unintended consequences.  Given all the new API's starting to show up, this has tremendous potential for the developer challenged.  Just connect the dots (literally) and create your own. It will even roll the code into a Windows Sidebar Gadget or enable you to embed easily into your own site. This is just an Alpha and LOT more is planned.  But I have to hand it to John, Dan and team this is an awesome use of Silverlight.  Watch the video and let the mashing begin.

Earlier this week, Roxio launched a beta of Roxio Buzz with Silverlight Streaming support.  What is Buzz? It's a simple tool for editing and publishing user-generated video to the Web. This thing is so simple my mother could use it.  Built with .NET (WPF), Buzz will encode and publish your video to a # of user-generated sites, or now, your free Silverlight Streaming account for embedding on your website.  Bloggers can now go forth and enjoy the 4GB of free goodness.  Could a Windows Live Writer plug-in be around the corner? A friend tells me, "Yes".  

S itting in Newark Liberty Airport and catching up before my flight.  As announced in Bill Gates' keynote at WinHEC this week, 81 entries into the NextGen Windows PC competition were entered, and the three winners were announced, complete with a few physical prototypes showcased by CNET. It's great to see this program live on from when we first launched it two years ago.  The entries are definitely evolving into some very cool designs.

This is what happens when my worlds collide.  Feel free to listen in on my chat with Ian Dixon of The Media Center Show about Silverlight.

This weekend, you can experience the Xbox Elite campaign in Silverlight on the Microsoft.com homepage.  Go check out the Xbxo 360 Elite in all its glory.  (Note: If you don't have the Silverlight Beta installed, you'll see a ribbon to see the site in Silverlight, note that Silverlight is in Beta).

This is only the beginning... Kudos to the Microsoft.com team on this pilot endeavor.  I'm off to NY tomorrow- spend Mother's Day with my mom (sorry honey) and then off to Streaming Media East.  It should be a fun time.

Last night, Scott Guthrie and a few of us on the Silverlight product team went to see Aerosmith in concert at the Mandalay Bay - something I've always wanted to do and it as worth every moment!

Tonight I finally met Dave Winer in person at a Blogger meetup.   Today was mostly partner meet & greets, keynote rehearsals (which look great) and a few other things. One of them was giving Jeff Sandquist a special edition Microsoft Silverlight skateboard- the same design seen in the intro video at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight.  He love skateboarding as do I.  The difference is tha the can actually skateboard.

These are special giveaways for partners and customers.  I've had to carry a few around the Venetian and keep getting stopped by security guards wanting to look at it, attendees etc.  I have one extra and will probably send it spontaneously to the person who does the most impressive Silverlight-enabled app about 30 days from now.   Heck, you might see a few given away at MIX07 :)

Tomorrow blogging is going to be a bit sporadic as I have a pretty tight schedule but will try to post as soon as possible - lots to talk about, so much good but will be covered elsewhere.

If' you're at MIX and want to meet up and discuss Silverlight's media capabilities, feel free to text me at +1-425-442-5712 or leave vmail (sporadic notification) and we'll try and meet up Tuesday or Wednesday. 

My trusty ipod is sitting in its docking station and awakes on it's own.  I hear  buzz buzz buzzing in my stereo speakers.  My Cingular Blackjack is sitting right next to the iPod.  What happens next?

The Blackjack continues buzzing from its data connection, picking up steam while my ipod starts to freak out- as if someone is randomly cycling up and down in the main menu, it goes into a full-on seizure.  Then I realize the two are in cycle.

Holy cow... and they say these phones don't cause cancer?  Anyone else see this kind of behavior before before?

I  love my TiVo Series 3.  It has a great Spousal Acceptance Factor (SAF) and though the price was crazy high, it has run flawlessly in our family room for months on end and I can't seem to fill it up with content.  

If you're interested in a Series 3, TiVo has a great deal at $499.99 + free TiVo Wireless adapter here.

Now if they can just get that whole TiVo to TiVo sharing feature running again...