We're hiring!

Yep, you read that right. :-) We're on the lookout for a talented and passionate digital designer and 2-3 software developers with programming flair. We'd like to have you join us as soon as possible.

If you're into working with the most up to date, latest technology (some of it not yet publicly released), and you're passionate about learning, we'd love to hear from you.

To find out more about us, visit our web site before sending your CV to jobs@nsquaredsolutions.com.

Do you glow?

We released the new version of Locus last week on the Apple AppStore.
This week we have released an extra online feature. You can now track where people are posting from Locus on a Silverlight map.
Can you see your glow?
Can you see the glow from your Locus friends?

Silverlight 3

Last Friday Silverlight 3 was released, though it has been available in beta for a while now. As it is version 3, it has all the things we wanted in version 1.

At nsquared we have been doing some work with Silverlight 3 and the advantages over Silverlight 2 seem small but tidy. The tooling however has mostly gotten a lot better. Blend 3 is really looking good, it hardly even crashes any more. Strangely Visual Studio seems to have taken a step back with no visual preview of the Silverlight rendered from the XAML.

The Silverlight 3 out of the browser experience on OSX would be nice if we had not already implemented our own version for Silverlight 2 last year. It is great that Microsoft can maintain that experience for us in a way that reduces our costs.It seems like more and more teams at Microsoft are now fixing their websites to drop Flash and move over to Silverlight. Our favorite is, of course, the new Surface website.

As always, nsquared is staying ahead of the curve by implementing the very latest technology products. We are here to help you bring your innovative software ideas to life!

A Top Secret Revealed!

nsquared is proud to announce the completion of yet another top secret project!

nsquared partnered with Microsoft to aid John L. Scott Real Estate (a major US real estate company) in bringing Windows Live Services to their web site. John L. Scott was looking for a way to attract users and agents by providing a unique service unlike any other real estate company. nsquared put together various samples and documentation on how to implement the Live Services and helped create JLSConnect.

JLSConnect utilizes the software-plus-services approach where a Silverlight browser plug-in on user desktops combines with web-based services to allow consumers to share and exchange comments about real estate properties with others. This innovative solution takes advantage of Windows Live ID to sign into the site, Windows Live Messenger to chat live, Windows Live Presence to see who is online, and Microsoft Virtual Earth to help users visualize locations.

Check out the Microsoft case studies at here and here for more information.

Let us know if YOU need help with Windows Live, and remember we are good at keeping secrets! :)

nsquared magic gets MIXed in!

Day one of MIX 09Announcements made at the keynote address presented by Bill Buxton and Scott Guthrie brought joy to the guests at the standing room only event. Our favorites were:·

• Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview Beta http://blogs.msdn.com/xweb/archive/2009/03/18/Microsoft-Expression-Web-SuperPreview-for-Windows-Internet-Explorer.aspx: Preview and debug your Expression Web projects in Firefox, Safari, IE6, IE7 or IE8 at the same time, even if you don’t have them installed on your local machine!·
  
• Silverlight 3 Beta
  http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight3/default.aspx: The latest release of Silverlight contains more than 50 new features and brings the beauty of Silverlight to the forefront once again. The new features will improve productivity of developers and include enhanced video capabilities and the ability to run Silverlight applications out of the browser on both Windows and OSX.·
  
• Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta http://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/default.aspx: Allows simpler, more efficient installations and updates of Microsoft’s free web products and components. Works with PHP and the final release of ASP.Net MVC 1.0 <http://www.asp.net/> .

This year at MIX, nsquared is running demos on two Surface units, and tomorrow Dr. Neil presents the results of one of the projects we have been working on with Microsoft Research. The presentation will culminate in a grand example of the new technology. Will you be there? Vous y sera ? Werden Sie es? ¿Usted estará allí? Lei ci saranno?