December 30, 2008 By 61 Comments

Silverlight and the UFC

UFC - The Ultimate Fighting Championships I love the UFC.  It’s the one sporting event I never miss.  I’ve always been a fan of the Martial Arts since I was a little boy and my dad was a bronze medalist in the Chilean National Championship’s.  Now that MMA is going more mainstream, more and more people are getting exposure to the Mixed Martial Arts sports.

This weekend was the fight card of they ear for the UFC, with UFC 92, The Ultimate 2008. Frank Mir vs. Noguiera was an instant classic.  I wanted to watch the weigh ins on Friday night, but I was pretty busy with Christmas still so I missed it.

I was pleasantly surprised on Saturday when I logged onto the site, and noticed they had launched a new Silverlight version of the weigh ins that had an interactive chat window as well as a live stream and recorded stream that you could watch. 

While other videos on the www.ufc.com site are still using the Flash technology, it’s nice to see another big online video site testing the Silverlight capabilities.  Now that Silverlight 2.0 is out, I am hoping to see a lot more tracking from this technology in the months and years to come.

Filed Under: Microsoft Expression, MMA, Silverlight
October 28, 2008 By 35 Comments

Silverlight Toolkit Launched at PDC 2008

What is the Silverlight Toolkit?

The Silverlight Toolkit is a collection of Silverlight controls, components and utilities made available outside the normal Silverlight release cycle. It adds new functionality quickly for designers and developers, and provides the community an efficient way to help shape product development by contributing ideas and bug reports. This first release includes full source code, unit tests, samples and documentation for 12 new controls covering charting, styling, layout, and user input.

How the Silverlight Toolkit is Built

We use an iterative, evolutionary development model to release new controls and updates often and get feedback from the community to our development team quickly. With access to source code, unit tests and the infrastructure magic we use internally, the community can let us know what it likes and what it wants to change. Anyone can download the source code and start exploring. This transparency will allow the community to help us prioritize features based on real-world usage and actual customer scenarios. We also want to make it easy to reuse skills and source code which is why all our components are designed with Windows Presentation Foundation in mind and the Silverlight Toolkit is released under the Microsoft Public License.
Silverlight Controls Example

Get Started

Silverlight Toolkit November 2008 Overview

The Silverlight Toolkit defines four Quality Bands that describe the stability and finish-level of each component. Below is a summary of where the components currently in the Silverlight Toolkit fall within the quality bands.

[Microsoft via Codeplex]

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Filed Under: PDC, Silverlight
October 13, 2008 By 55 Comments

Microsoft Silverlight 2 Released

Silverlight 2 was finally released to the world today!  Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Division at Microsoft made the official announcement today at 9am PDT. This is a significant event as it not only marks a huge milestone for the Microsoft Silverlight Team, but it also marks the date that Flash finally got a true competitor after years of complete domination.  While Silverlight 1.0 was released last year, it was mainly a video only version, with some JavaScript/AJAX support that lacked the true power of .net.  With the release of Silverlight 2, Microsoft has introduced a cross-platform, cross-browser version of the .NET Framework.

I originally spoke about Silverlight in 2007, and since then have spent most of my evening time learning the Expression tools, and focusing on getting Designers and Developers to work together to create beautiful Silverlight applications. Silverlight 2 allows web developers to create applications using any of the programming languages that are available in Visual Studio, including C#, VB.net, JavaScript, IronPython, and IronRuby.

As a Microsoft Expression MVP, people are always asking me to point out cool Silverlight sites. So far it’s been pretty hard to find awesome sites because all the new sites are being built are being built on Silverlight 2 beta which is not yet supported fully by Microsoft. The release of Silverlight 2 will allow many of these applications to launch out of beta, and into production.

How is Silverlight doing?

You have to remember that Silverlight only launched about a year ago.  How is it fairing with market penetration?  In the United States, Silverlight is now running on 30% of the computers. Worldwide, 25% of consumers now have access to Silverlight.  Remember this market penetration was with the mainly Video only version of Silverlight.  Now that Silverlight 2 is here with complete .NET Framework support, expect thousands of applications to pop up, and the install base to grow rapidly.

Microsoft Silverlight Coming to Eclipse

Silverlight on Eclipse Microsoft also announced its plans to support Silverlight development in tools other than Expression Studio and Visual Studio.  In fact, Microsoft will provide funding to an Eclipse Foundation Member, Soyatec, to lead the project to integrate Silverlight development into the Eclipse IDE.  The project will be released under the Eclipse Public License on SourceForge.

The download of Eclipse Tools for Microsoft Silverlight “Community Technology Preview” is already available for download from eclipse4sl.org.

Furthermore, Microsoft will release the Silverlight Control Pack (SCP) and publish on MSDN the technical specification for the Silverlight Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) vocabulary.  The pack will include controls such as: DockPanel, ViewBox, TreeView, Accordion and AutoComplete.  With the release of the Silverlight XAML vocabulary, third-party ISV’s will be able to create applications that can read and write XAML for Silverlight very easily.

Some Highlights of Silverlight 2

  • .NET Framework support with a rich base class library. This is a compatible subset of the full .NET Framework.
  • Powerful built-in controls. These include DataGrid, ListBox, Slider, ScrollViewer, Calendar controls and more.
  • Advanced skinning and templating support. This makes it easy to customize the look and feel of an application.
  • Deep zoom. This enables unparalleled interactivity and navigation of ultrahigh resolution imagery.
  • Comprehensive networking support. Out-of-the-box support allows calling REST, WS*/SOAP, POX, RSS and standard HTTP services, enabling users to create applications that easily integrate with existing back-end systems.
  • Expanded .NET Framework language support. Unlike other runtimes, Silverlight 2 supports a variety of programming languages, including Visual Basic, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby, making it easier for developers already familiar with one of these languages to repurpose their existing skill sets.
  • Advanced content protection. This now includes Silverlight DRM, powered by PlayReady, offering robust content protection for connected Silverlight experiences.
  • Improved server scalability and expanded advertiser support. This includes new streaming and progressive download capabilities, superior search engine optimization techniques, and next-generation in-stream advertising support.
  • Vibrant partner ecosystem. Visual Studio Industry Partners such as ComponentOne LLC, Infragistics Inc. and Telerik Inc. are providing products that further enhance developer capabilities when creating Silverlight applications using Visual Studio.
  • Cross-platform and cross-browser support. This includes support for Mac, Windows and Linux in Firefox, Safari and Windows Internet Explorer.

Silverlight 2 will be available for download on Tuesday, Oct. 14, at http://www.silverlight.net. Customers already using a previous version of Silverlight will be automatically upgraded to Silverlight 2.

Read all the details on the release of Silverlight 2 at Microsoft PressPass

Filed Under: Microsoft Expression, Silverlight Tagged With: ,
September 26, 2008 By 34 Comments

Silverlight 2 Release Candidate 0 Released

Microsoft Silverlight The wait is over!  Microsoft has released the first Release Candidate for Silverlight 2.0.  The full version number is 2.0.30523.9.  The version that will be released as Silverlight 2.0 will be 2.0.30903 and should be available here once released.  This is an important release in that it allows developers of Silverlight applications to test their applications and prepare them for the imminent release of Silverlight 2.0.

Some of the most exciting changes besides the much cleaner path between Silverlight and the full .NET framework is the addition of three controls that we have been waiting for (although we already rolled our own): ComboBox, ProgressBar, and PasswordBox.

There are a slew of changes that really stabilize and standardize this release, however you should be aware of things that will break your existing applications, so read the guide from Microsoft.  Also, Microsoft has provided some developer release notes that are quite useful so you should make sure to check those out as well.

Anyway, my downloads are done so I am off to play around with the new toolset and runtime.  Enjoy!

Get the Tools to build Silverlight 2 RC0 Applications

Microsoft Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 Preview

Microsoft Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1

Get The Silverlight 2 Release Candidate 0 Runtimes

Download Silvleright 2.0 Release Candidate Runtime 0 for Windows

Download Silvleright 2.0 Release Candidate Runtime 0 for Macintosh

Breaking Changes in Silverlight 2 Release Candidate 0

  • Important! Migrating Older Code to the Newer Release
  • ContentPresenter now derives from FrameworkElement instead of Control
  • Layout Rendering Slightly Changed
  • Cross domain hosts of Silverlight must set the right MIME type for XAP (application/x-silverlight-app)
  • Exceptions now thrown in HttpWebRequest.EndGetResponse()
  • Font URI is Restricted to Assembly Resource
  • Browser.HtmlElementCollection replaced with by Browser.ScriptObjectCollection
  • Exceptions When Changing Some Properties on an Active Animation
  • System.Windows.Controls.Extended.dll renamed to System.Windows.Controls.dll
  • VisualStateManager Changes
  • KeyDown Sent Synchronously
  • MeasureOverride/ArrangeOverride on Canvas Now Sealed
  • UriTypeConverter moved to System.dll
  • HtmlPage.UnregisterScriptableObject Removed
  • RenderingEventArgs Changes
  • ContentPresenter and ContentControl Changes
  • Removal of FileDialogFileInfo Type and OpenFileDialog.SelectedFile(s) Properties
  • Removal of FullAccess Option on the ExternalCallersFromCrossDomain attribute in the Silverlight 2 application manifest
  • KeyFrameCollection Changes
  • Request stream must be closed before calling HttpWebRequest.BeginGetResponse()
  • HtmlWindow references on Safari/Mac will no longer evaluate to true
  • Address property removed from all WebClient EventArg classes
  • Constructors Made Internal
  • Exception type change for System.Xml exception type
  • Cannot create classes in XAML that do not have accessible constructors
  • Get AG_E_UNKNOWN_ERROR in Silverlight 2 but not in Silverlight 1
  • Platform looks for generic.xaml as a resource at themes/generic.xaml
  • HTTP Polling Duplex OM Changes and Reengineering
  • Breaking change to Silverlight native hosting IXcpControl COM interface
  • Content-Type is allowed on cross domain request by default
  • Enforcing delegate type check when two delegate objects are combined
  • Miscellaneous API Changes

Well there you have it!  Of course as always you should check out Scott Gu’s blog for all the awesome details of the release.

Filed Under: Blend, Microsoft Expression, Real World News, Silverlight, Visual Studio
September 17, 2008 By 43 Comments

TechDays 2008 Session Preview

TechDays 2008 Microsoft Canada TechDays 2008 is generating a ton of hype around the Internet, but no word yet on the sessions, until today!  You might want to go get an extra pair of socks, because they are about to be knocked off!  Compared to other events I have attended in the past that cost thousands of dollars, not to mention the hotel and travel expenses incurred because the event didn’t come to me, this is a ridiculously awesome event!

Let’s dive into some of the sessions you can expect at TechDays 2008!

The TechDays 2008 Session Breakdown

There are five tracks that you can choose in the TechDays tour:

  1. Windows Developer
  2. Web Developer
  3. Virtualization
  4. Data Platform and Business Intelligence
  5. Infrastructure

TechDays Day 1 Session Breakdown

TechDays kicks off with a bang on day 1!  Click the image if you want to see the details, or just keep reading below to see the breakdown.  I know I know I blocked out certain tracks. I wanted to focus mainly on the sessions I will make an effort to attend.  Plus I thought it might be nice to let the IT Pro’s comment on their tracks.

image

 

Windows Developer – Track 1

  1. Building Killer Line-of-Business Applications with WPF
  2. A Platform in Your Pocket: Windows Mobile for Windows Developers
  3. Just Sync It! Leveraging the Microsoft Sync Framework in Your Applications
  4. Building Differentiated UI Applications Using Composite WPF

Web Developer – Track 2

  1. Goin’ Up to the Data in the Sky: ADO.NET Data Services for Web Developers
  2. Internet Explorer 8 for Developers: What You Need to Know
  3. A Deep Dive into the _________________  hmmmm, trust me, don’t miss this deep dive
  4. __________________ Silverlight ___________  again, this session will rock!

Virtualization and Data Platform and Business Intelligence  – Track 3/4

Blocked information due to the fact that I don’t want to spoil all the surprises for everyone!

Infrastructure – Track 5

  1. Building High Availability Infrastructures With Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering

Just one of the sessions in Track 5 that focus around getting the most out of your infrastructure.  We’ve been doing some testing and deployments with Windows 2008 in the last little while and let me tell you something, the big secret right now is how powerful Windows 2008 truly is.

Oh don’t worry, I’m not even close to being done!  This is just day one for the two day event!  What else could possibly be added to this event?

TechDays Day 2 Session Breakdown

Day two kicks off where day one left off.  For those that are lucky enough to be in a city where you get both days, you are about to get completely spoiled.  Check out the sessions I will try and attend!

image

Windows Developer – Track 1

  1. The Best of Both Worlds: WPF in WinForms and Vice Versa
  2. The Windows Vista Bridge: How .NET Developers Can Easily Access Exciting New Vista Features
  3. Blackbelt…. (Sorry, you’ll have to wait till the site launches!)
  4. Developing Windows Mobile Applications with Visual Studio

Web Developer – Track 2

  1. Mastering Your Silverlight Samurai Skills (Part 1 of 2)
  2. Mastering Your Silverlight Samurai Skills (Part 2 of 2)
  3. Car or Motorcycle: _____________________   <—This one will rock, come check it out
  4. The Zen of PHP on Windows!  Boooyaaaaa, I’m not the only one doing this clearly! 

Virtualization and Data Platform and Business Intelligence – Track 3/4

These are amazing tracks, but allas, I promised the mother ship I would not let out all the secrets in the candy bag.  I’ll let an IT Pro talk to these!

Infrastructure – Track 5

  1. ROCKBAND 2!!!!! Just kidding… or am I?
  2. Windows Deployments the Way You Want Them: Unleashing the Power of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit with Customization
  3. Streamlining Web Site Migration and Web Server Management Using the MS Web Deploy Toolset
  4. Special Guest Appearance by the Mad Mexican! (or not)

And of course, you can bet that the entire event will include many question and answer sessions and opportunities to meet one on one with the speakers and ask your super geek questions to the experts!  Lunch time for example will feature Birds-of-a-feather sessions where you will have time to ask your questions and be heard!

There will also be evening receptions on both nights, giving you even more time and ability to make connections with your peers.  While I have shown the two day event schedule, the one day event schedule will be just as powerful, and just have a blend of day one and day two. 

One Final Thought… RockBand 2?

One last note, and this is to the Microsoft Canada guys, I am hoping we have some RockBand 2 at the evening events, and maybe even some Karaoke!  Also, you guys might want to do some screenings of the Microsoft Commercials with Seinfeld and Gates.

Being in Winnipeg, I usually don’t look forward to December.  I am confused now as to what to think… Bring on December!  See you at TechDays!

Microsoft Canada - TechDays 2008

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Filed Under: Current Affairs, Silverlight, Software Development, Web Development
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