Microsummaries work by creating an XML file which is polled on a regular basis by the user agent to check for updates; WebSlices work on the same principal, although they leverage the power of Microformats instead. A very simple WebSlice could be marked up like so:

<div class="hslice" id="myid">
<h2 class="entry-title">Title</h2>
<p class="entry-content">Lorem ipsum dolor</p>
</div>

If that code was embedded in a page and you were using IE8, the notifier would light up and alert you to the presence of the WebSlice, allowing you to subscribe (see image below). Every hour (or time period specified) the browser would check that code to see if it had been updated, and alert you accordingly. Pretty slick.

The entry-title and entry-content classes are taken from the hAtom Microformat, which is also a good move on the IE team’s part, as it shows they are taking notice of movements in semantic markup. It also means hSlice can be implemented into other Microformat tools; Daniel Glazman has already put together a Firefox/Greasemonkey add-on.

You can read more about WebSlices and learn how to implement them on your site by downloading the White Paper. IE comes in for a lot of stick from the web dev community — myself included — but I’m happy to say I think they’ve got this one right.

* I should mention that this also sounds pretty similar to Apple’s Web Clip function, although I haven’t had the opportunity to try that out yet.

Sessions which I found particularly interesting should be covered in more detail later, and I’ll update here as I find more presentations.

Designing our way through data (Jeff Veen)

How good design can make sense of data (and how bad design can complicate it too much), and using user feedback to make data findable.

For example: BBC and Edenbee (Tom Cartwright & Clare Roberts, and James Box)

On the challenges posed by redesigning on of the most visible homepages in the world, and on how to build a social community.

Getting your hands dirty with HTML5 (James Graham & Lachlan Hunt)

Introducing the new structural elements (which I will definitely write more about later), and what HTML5 you can use right now.

Underpants over my trousers (Andy Clarke)

What inspiration we can take from the narrative devices of comics? Andy Clarke is always an entertaining speaker, and this was no exception — although I’d seen some of it before.

Details make the difference (Dan Rubin)

One of the best and most practical of the sessions I saw; tips on how to make compelling designs and details.

Professional front end engineering (Nate Koechley)

A call for professionalism in the web development community. Very interesting, although recapped some of the points from last year’s talk.

Building on the shoulders of giants (Jonathan Snook)

How to make practical use of frameworks, libraries and APIs in your work. Revealed some new tools which I will check out.

For example: The Guardian and Dopplr (Marc Pacheco and Matt Biddulph)

Similar to the earlier ‘For example’ session; a look at the practicalities of building a large content portal and a social community. The latter displayed how to take advantage of the many APIs that exist.

WAI-ARIA – it’s easy (Steve Faulkner)

I didn’t know what WAI-ARIA was before this session, but this was a comprehensive and practical introduction.

Global design: characters, language, and more (Richard Ishida)

Another very practical session, which I really wish I’d taken more notes on. Why character encoding matters and how you can use it.

There were three presentations; the first, by Cyril Doussin, introduced the subject and explained the core concepts behind it; the ways in which users find your content (or product) and how you can make it easier for them.

Next, Stuart Colville showed practical ways to make the content on your site more findable, from design through to mark-up, style and behaviour. He raised the interesting point that tagging is better than categorising, as categories tend to be fixed whereas content changes over time as information evolves; time for me to start using WordPress’ tagging function.

Finally, Steve Marshall showed off Yahoo!‘s latest project, Fire Eagle (currently invitation only; I was handed one at @media today), which is a service that lets you update your physical location across multiple sites and services. It’s pretty impressive in theory, but the fact that I can only currently update from the desktop means I am limited to home or work, mostly.

The whole evening was nicely balanced to appeal to a broad range of skills and knowledge, and had the right mix of theory, practice, and showing off. I’m aiming to get more involved in organising future events, and I hope to be part of more quality events like this one.

Some interesting stuff about HTML 5 to discuss shortly.

First (and foremost), it wasn’t really about Microformats. The first speaker talked about RDFa and GRDDL, the second about RDFa and FOAF.

Second, the presumption was that we had an extremely high level of technical knowledge; a presumption that wasn’t true, in my case at least. I’m fairly new to Microformats but I have a pretty good idea of what they’re about; both talks went over my head anyway. And my poor wife, who’s learning about them for the first time, had no idea what was going on.

The description of the event said:

We hope that no matter your experience level, you’ll find the evening informative, enjoyable and inspiring.

I didn’t. In fact, it may well have been counter-productive for me; it took a subject I’m excited about, and made it sound complicated and boring.

I’m sure that some people would have got a lot out of it — the man next to me who’s studying for his pHD in artificial intelligence certainly seemed to enjoy it — but I think the organisers should have been more honest about the technical knowledge required, and saved some attendees a bit of time.

I did get a book for asking a question, however, so it wasn’t a total loss.

So far I’ve reserved places at the opening party, the Microformats and Findability events, and the two-day @Media conference; I may well make the closing party on Sunday as well. I wanted to attend Bar Camp but tickets went faster than hot cakes and I missed my chance.

Other than @Media, which I enjoyed greatly last year and no doubt will do so again, I’m really looking forward to the Microformats event. I’ve recently started implementing hAtom and hCalendar on sites I’ve been producing and am finding it hugely interesting.

The WSG’s Findability event I’m anticipating less, but then I thought the same about last year’s Microformats talk and regretted not attending, so this time I don’t want to make a similar mistake.

I’ve no doubt this will provide me with plenty to write about in the coming weeks and months, and it’s exciting to have so much happening on your doorstep. If you’re planning to attend and want to say hello, let me know; it’ll be nice to put a face to a name.

Finding Inspiration for Design (Patrick McNeil)

I missed the beginning of this, but it seemed to be pretty sage, if not rather commonsense, advice (don’t just use websites for web design inspiration), as well as some notes on current trends and tips on future ones; soft colours, more use of horizontal space, more video.

User Experience vs Brand Experience (Steve Pearce and Andy Clarke)

Set up as a confrontation, but in fact both speakers were at pains to point out that both should be thought of together. Andy Clarke adds: don’t be afraid to fail, we learn from our mistakes.

Sponsors Presentation: Silverlight

Oh dear. While the demo showed off Silverlight pretty well, the presenter didn’t. Already at a disadvantage by talking Microsoft in a room with a majority of Apple-heads, his nervous speech was uninspiring and he was almost yanked off stage.

Designing the User Experience Curve (Andy Budd)

How to ensure that the customer gets the information or experience they want from a website. Revealed: Silverback is a usability testing tool.

Photoshop Battle

Low point of the day for me. A panel of some of the top designers in the field swig beer on stage while teaching us nothing about Photoshop or their working habits. Pointless tittering smuggery.

Print is the New Web (Elliot Jay Stocks)

How to gain inspiration from print; not only in terms of typography, but layout too. Didn’t break new ground, but interesting and really nicely presented.

From Design to Deployment (Jon Hicks)

A polished presentation as always, but better for designers learning to be better coders than vice versa. How to set up your file structure, use grid layout, code across browsers.

Sponsors Presentation: AIR/Flex

Better than the Microsoft one, but still failed to captivate. What the new products can do, and how to add them to your regular work flow.

Unconventional Ways to Promote your Site (Paul Farnell)

Give away free stuff, get involved with message boards, blogs, chat forums, social networking sites; not that unconventional, surely? Pretty good for a first-time speaker, anyway.

Evolving the User Experience (Daniel Burka)

Better your site incrementally; listen to and learn from your users. Thought-provoking stuff, much of which is completely impractical for most coal-face web designers (I hope that phrase catches on).

I’ll write short reviews of the individual sessions at a later date, but my general opinion is that it was just OK; it dealt more in current design trends than future, almost all of which you probably already know if you keep up to date with sites like A List Apart or some of the better blogs. Although that’s not to say it was a complete waste of time; few of the speakers were less than interesting, and there are always new techniques to learn or existing techniques to reinforce.

Some of the speakers suffered from not having worked (or, at least, not for a long time) in a regular agency position (if I may coin a phrase, coal-face web development), and their advice was therefore useful on a theoretical basis only. Sure, it would be great if we could make mistakes in public and make constant revisions to our websites, but who pays for that? The client almost certainly won’t. We think ourselves lucky to have some clients who are savvy enough to make annual revisions to their sites! And while I’d love to just “get better clients”, that’s just not how the real world works for those of us who don’t work at start-ups or own our own agencies.

In summary, then, compared to last year’s @media, which I found genuinely inspiring, this was ‘only’ interesting. I’ll give careful consideration as to whether or not I attend again next year.