Microsoft Developer Evangelist
Posts tagged Silverlight
Silverlightplooza! It’s a wrap!
Jun 22nd
I had a great time over the weekend teaching and working with folks from all over South Central at our first ever Silverlightpalooza! This two-day event was a combination instructor-led introduction to Silverlight, WP7, Blend and RIA Services and hands-on instructor-led-labs + code-a-thon. Space was limited to 50 people to make sure we had enough mentors at the event to help people during their coding time with any question they had or to help them work through any issues that came up. My job was to give a Silverlight Development 101 session and help proctor the labs for 50 very excited attendees. Most had little to no Silverlight or WP7 development experience, so they were really starting from scratch when it came to XAML, Blend, Data Binding, etc.
At the end of the 2 days, there were several very interesting projects made during the weekend, including a live-camera feed WP7 application for horse shows, the beginnings of a Silverlight 4-powered tank game, and a WP7 controller for a Roovio Robot! All in all, the projects were very well done considering the amount of time folks had to work on them, and all said that they were committed to completing their applications as soon as possible.
Everyone in attendance agreed that the weekend went off without a hitch – the instructors and mentors were well prepared, the attendees were excited, the food was great and the time was a total blast! Teresa Burger did an amazing job of getting everything organized, as well as showing us all a thing or two about how truly powerful Expression Blend has become.
I can’t wait for the next one!
For more information about Silverlightpalooza, check out the web site at http://silverlightpalooza.dynamitesilverlight.com/. Teresa has added some posts on the individual development projects, and (hopefully soon) some pictures – or links to pictures – from the event.
Silverlightpalooza! WP7 and Silverlight DevCamp
Jun 2nd
Come Join Us for two day s of Code and Fun with Silverlight and Windows Phone 7!
We will start Friday June 18th with a walkthrough of the tools and some key skills to get you started. The goal is to provide a foundation to enable groups to build dynamic Windows Phone 7 applications using Microsoft Silverlight. How we structure the training and focus points will depend on how attendees answer a few questions when they sign up. At the end of the day on Friday, you will join with a few of your peers to start collaborating on your own WP7 or Straight-up Silverlight application to work on and present to the other groups at the end of Saturday.
Saturday June 19th, we build, build, build (you can start Friday night if you want but you will need to do that off site). Mentors will be on hand to answer questions and add clarity to problem spots.
At the end of Saturday, the groups will have an opportunity to show what they built and bring it all together. Before we all go home, we’ll have some cool giveaways.
Lunch will be provided both days!
You can get more information about this event at http://silverlightpalooza.dynamitesilverlight.com/ or register right here, right now!
How Do I: Code Navigation Improvements in VS2010
Apr 9th
Exploring code is a great way to learn, but CTRL-F isn’t the only way to get around. Visual Studio 2010 adds some interesting new code navigation features to help developers better understand their code and find what they need quickly and easily. in this video, I explore a few of the new features and show you how to be more productive editing code with Visual Studio 2010.
To see all the videos in this series, check out my channel on Vimeo
Silverlight 4 Launching at DevConnections
Mar 29th
Annouced on MSDN this morning, Scott Guthrie will be announcing the release of Silverlight 4 to the web at the upcoming DevConnections event in Las Vegas!
If you haven�t already signed up for DevConnections, here�s some additional incentive (from the website):
The first 100 to sign up between 3/23-3/29 will get a free Zune HD and a $25 discount on your registration! Make sure to enter "ZUNE" in the Coupon Code field when registering to be eligible for this promotion** Winners will be notified via email with instructions for pick up at the launch event.
Now, more than ever, is the time for you to make your investments in learning Silverlight. The power of what Silverlight gives you over the web, plus the cross-over to WPF and recently announced inclusion in Windows Phone 7 Series platform makes Silverlight a very compelling technology.
ugMIX 2010 Tour Started
Mar 26th
Did you get to attend MIX 2010? If so, I know you found it to be full of great information about our latest and greatest web technologies, and gave you some great insight into where some of our tools and technologies are headed.
But what if you didn�t get to go? You could navigate your way through 141+ hours of content on the http://live.vistmix.com web site and try to pull out some of the more important nuggets (and I think you ultimately should) but that would take at least 90 hours (presuming you watch all the video on 1.5 speed in Windows Media Player having downloaded all the content the weekend before you started watching).
Another option is to attend a ugMIX event in your area. Popular all across Microsoft�s Central Region, ugMIX is a highlight-reel of the top stories to come from MIX 2010 focusing on the key messages for developers. Each district, and potentially each speaker, is doing something different, but all of us agree that MIX was a really important conference this year and one you should definitely catch up on.
For my part, I�ve just completed 2 of my 4 currently scheduled ugMIX talks, one at the Dallas ASP.NET user group and one at the Fort Worth .NET User Group. I�ll be in Tulsa on Monday to bring MIX to them, and if you�re interested, we can make arrangements for me to bring it to you (see note at bottom of post).
Here�s the outline of what my version of ugMIX showcases:
- OData � a uniform way for sharing your data across organizational boundaries, the OData is your data over REST. We�ll show what OData is, how you use it, and write some code to consume it.
- Windows Phone 7 Series � A new phone, designed for a life in motion. Calling all Silverlight developers – we�ll look at the phone design, specs and philosophy while writing some code using the free development environment (which includes a FREE express version of the Blend 4 Beta with Windows Phone 7 Series support)!
- Silverlight 4 � Overview of what�s new in the Silverlight 4 RC and show some cool code demos of those new features in action.
- Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview � interested in where IE9 is heading? I�ll show you the IE9 Platform Preview, released at MIX 2010, as we discuss the team�s plans for supporting HTML5, CSS3, in-line SVG graphics and hardware-acceleration in the browser.
I�ve shared a copy of my slide deck if you want to get a head start, but I can�t share all my demos at this time, unfortunately� I can provide other links, though, to help you get started on this amazing new platform!
- My ugMIX deck
- Mix Session List
- OData.org
- Download Silverlight 4 RC and Silverlight Developer Tools RC
- Download the Windows Phone 7 Series developer tools preview
- Expression Blend 4 Beta
- Expression Blend 4 Beta SDK for Windows Phone
I look forward to seeing you at the next ugMIX!
Note: this offer good only in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, UK, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Japan. 
#ugPDC visits Northwest Arkansas
Jan 11th
Attention all you peeps in Ft. Smith, Fayetteville, Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale and surrounding areas! Tonight and tomorrow night are the first parts of my 2010 #ugPDC tour. Visiting the FSDNUG tonight and the NWADNUG tomorrow night, I�ll be talking about a bunch of the cool stuff announced at PDC09 including Azure, Silverlight 4, Visual Studio 2010, parallel programming features, dynamic language features, and more! Here�s the info for each of these groups so you have absolutely no excuse to skip out!
January 11, 2010 – Fort Smith .NET User Group
http://fsdnug.org
EagleOne Headquarters
4001 Planters Rd. Fort Smith, AR 72908
Meeting starts at 6:00 pm. Food will be provided
January 12, 2010 � Northwest Arkansas .NET User Group
http://nwadnug.org
Jones Center For Families
922 East Emma Avenue, Springdale, AR 72764
Meeting starts at 5:30 pm. Food will be provided
There are more #ugPDC visits scheduled for next month, including the Fort Worth .NET User Group and the Dallas ASP.NET User Group. If you�re interested in having one of our Developer Evangelists come out to your User Group during January, February or March to tell you about all the cool, new and exciting things announced at PDC, just drop me a line and let me know!
