It’s well after 2:30am, and, despite many good reasons, I’m finding myself too preoccupied with MIX09 to sleep.  The Day One keynote was apparently enough to send me buzzing around like a sugar-high ferret (multi-tab browsing as fast as my laptop and Internet connection can handle) to download Visual Studio 2008 SP1, the Silverlight 3 Beta, and Blend 3.  Some of the key points that Scott Guthre and others hit on with Silverlight 3 include:

• Adaptive streaming:  automatically cycled bit-rates on streaming content to provide a responsive user experience and the best quality possible given available bandwidth
• New codec support for  H.264, AAC, MPEG-4, and custom codecs for your own bitstreams (see Expression Encoder)
• Improved logging for media analytics
• Support for IIS Media Services, an integrated HTTP-based media delivery platform (free download)
• GPU hardware acceleration and HD quality media on the web
• GPU support for scaling and stretching video
• Perspective 3D
• Bitmap/Pixel APIs
• Pixel shader effects
• Deep Zoom improvements, including hardware acceleration
• Deep linking, navigation and SEO
• Multitouch support
• 100+ new Controls
• Library caching support: referenced libraries and assemblies can be downloaded and cached on system, speeding up repeat visits and visits to other sites the use the libraries
• Data binding improvements
• Validation error templates
• Server data push on databound fields
• Multi-tier REST support
• New DataForm control
• Eclipse Support on Mac
• Out of browser, standalone application support

And in Expression Blend 3:

• SketchFlow: prototype design tool that handles behaviors and styles with very little code; build flow within application with high-level diagramming; demo to stakeholders using freely redistributable SketchFlow Player; generates document outlines
• Supports import from Photoshop and Illustrator
• Integrated revision control support

Microsoft fanboy?  So it would seem.  Evangelist in training?  Definitely.  Sleep-deprived?  Very much so.  Perhaps more on these topics after a couple software installations and a few REM cycles.