If you've never been to Mix, you're missing out on what is arguably one of the best conferences that Microsoft does. I'm not just saying that because I work here... I felt that way before, having been to most of them. The breadth of people and disciplines make it a really exciting event that pushes it well beyond the "Redmond bubble," as I like to call it. You should go.

In any case, there's an Open Source Fest happening the night before Mix starts, on Monday, from 6 to 9 p.m. There will be people there representing a ton of great projects, some as enormous as Umbraco, as well as people doing SDK's, controls and other neat stuff. Best of all, you get to vote for your favorites. Unless your favorite is Orchard, because Microsoft is sponsoring that directly. Or if it's POP Forums, not because Microsoft is sponsoring it, but because that's where I work in my day job. No prizes for me! Come by and say hello. I think the app will be nearly final by then, and it's already running on MouseZoom, one of my little side projects.

The quality and diversity of open source projects around the Microsoft stack just keeps getting better. Our platform is also pretty great at running stuff we don't make. This will be a pretty exciting Mix. Can't wait!