Microsoft’s MIX Web Development conference was held in Las Vegas last week and while I would have loved to go, the cost and scheduling just made it impossible :(.  Despite that, I’ve been spending the past few days “attending” MIX virtually!  Microsoft posts high quality WMV versions of the talks on the MIX website, perfect for catching up on the sessions.  With my Media Center PC hooked up through my Xbox 360, I can browse through my rapidly growing collection of talks and watch them at my leisure.  It’s almost like being there!  A couple of my recommendations are below:

• Day One Keynote – I haven’t had a chance to watch this yet, but it already has two things going for it.  Bill Buxton talking about User Experiences and a live DotNetNuke installation using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta.
• ASP.Net MVC: America’s Next Top Model View Controller Framework – I love ASP.Net MVC, and this is a great intro.  Of course, I may be biased since I worked on the team last summer. BTW, version 1.0 was released last Wednesday, and a large chunk of the AJAX stuff is my code (my code is actually in a released Microsoft product! w00t!)
• Microsoft ASP.NET Model View Controller (MVC): Ninja on Fire Black Belt Tips – If the previous talk was MVC 101, this is MVC 201 :P.  Though I have to be honest, I haven’t actually watched this one yet.  I’m sure its chock full of useful MVC tricks though!
• File|New -> Company: Creating NerdDinner.com with Microsoft ASP.NET Model View Controller (MVC) – I know, yet another MVC talk, but if you’re more of a “get to the code” type of programmer, this may be your style.  Plus, Scott Hanselman is an excellent presenter.
• How'd they do it? Real App. Real Code. Two Weeks. Nothing but .NET – Another Scott Hanselman talk, this one only 20mins long.  You hear people talk about “Rapid Application Development” but in this talk Scott shows off a concrete example of a 2 week project that forms part of the Adidas Motorsports portal.
• Building Out of Browser Experiences with Microsoft Silverlight 3 – This is another one I haven’t actually watched yet but intrigued me.  With Silverlight 3, Microsoft is positioning itself to take on both Adobe Flash and AIR.

That’s by no means a complete list of great talks, just my first impressions based on the first few I’ve watched and the abstracts that interested me on the list.  Feel free to post your own favourites in the comments!