Brian H. Madsen - .Net Powered by Caffeine : Silverlight

LIDNUG: Scott Guthrie session recording now available for download

Brian Madsen — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:51:49 GMT

It’s almost like a broken record, but i still can’t stop saying it – Scott Guthrie absolutely rocks!

In his open Q&A session for the Linked .Net Users Group (LIDNUG) he again dazzled us all with his “geeky” brilliance..seriously, i’m starting to think there’s at least a couple of thousand Gu clones walking around for him to retain that much knowledge!

In a 1 1/2hr session he answered questions from the attendees (252) and it was as usual a brilliant session.

For those that missed out – here’s a tidbit…The Silverlight team is working hard on Silverlight 4 already….He owns other coloured polos as well, not just red ones (????).

Lastly, head on over and download the recorded session from our archives – my voice’s still rather raspy/croaky etc, so i elected not to speak during the session (nobody’d be able understand me anyways).

LIDNUG: Tim Heuer presentation recording now available on www.lidnug.org

Brian Madsen — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:17:13 GMT

The recording of Tim Heuer’s presentation earlier this month, was delayed due to disk space running out – that’s been sorted out and the recording is now available for download over on www.lidnug.org.

The topic of the night was Silverlight 3 and Tim showed us around some of the new features as well as answered questions from the audience.

To download his presentation (or others), click here.

Perth gets Silverlight Designer and Developer Network!!

Brian Madsen — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:06:45 GMT

Finally!!!

Perth gets it's very own Silverlight Designer and Developers Network - SDDN - and they're kicking off their first event on Wednesday the 22nd of April, 2009 (yes boys n' girls, that's tomorrow).

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=90663012552

It promises to be an exciting event (i know, because Dave Glover presented to us tonight) and will show some of the cool new features of Silverlight 3.

So, Wednesday at 43Below, 43 Barrack Street from 6pm to 8pm.

Most comprehensive list of Silverlight Controls and Vendors I've ever seen

Brian Madsen — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:30:00 GMT

Tim Heuer just posted one of the most comprehensive lists i've ever seen of Silverlight controls and component Vendors that supports Silverlight.

Here's the full list: http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2009/01/28/comprehensive-list-of-silverlight-controls.aspx

There's naturally some in the list that's known to everybody - but what i find exciting is to see Silverlight being taken on board by so many component vendors.

I believe it's a testament to the fact that Silverlight is here to stay, adoption is growing rapidly and that it's THE real contender to the UX application-centric world.

Excellent list Tim! Thanks for that.

Silverlight fixed - no more odd behavior

Brian Madsen — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:30:00 GMT

I posted recently that i've had some odd behavior from Silverlight and started to look into why i was getting this.

Couldn't find any exact explanation on how to resolve it, but did finally manage to get things rolling.

Basically what i think happened was a restore (from previous version) hadn't been done properly - not entirely certain what went missing, but the fix was to uninstall Silverlight 2 and Silverlight tools for Visual Studio 2008.

I then re-installed Silverlight 2 and added Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and voila - the behavior went away.

So, if you're experiencing the same problems i had, just follow that and things should be fine again.

Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=c22d6a7b-546f-4407-8ef6-d60c8ee221ed&displaylang=en

Silverlight acting up on me!!

Brian Madsen — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 22:11:00 GMT

Been getting this for a couple of days now - tried uninstalling Silverlight 2 and re-installing it, yet it doesn't seem to make a difference.

So what happens? well i go to a site, which uses Silverlight and of course i get this message:

(this was at the Microsoft Visitor Center..) As you can see, it runs Silverlight and provides a neat link for me - "Click here to install Silverlight".

I then click on it, even though i was pretty sure i had the latest version running:

The Silverlight site tells me it'll just check the current installation status...and then?

voila - i get this..it's installed...and it runs. the little globe next to the "The latest version of Silverlight 2 is installed" message is rotating - which should indicate that Silverlight is indeed installed as it claims.

yet for some reason i keep getting sites where Silverlight just isn't happy. Not entirely sure why it's behaving like this. It could be a version issue - eg. the site is using an older version compared to what i'm running. But then, shouldn't Silverlight be backwards compatible? The Microsoft Visitor Center was only just launched last week or so, and i'd have thought it'd be using the latest as well.

So, help!!! why do i keep getting this on some sites? do i have a faulty install? and why does it work on one site, while on the other it doesn't? I don't get any "do you want to run this blah blah blah" warnings - just...no silverlight :(

Scott Barnes calls Silverlight and WPF users for feedback

Brian Madsen — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:46:00 GMT

Scott Barnes, the UX god, is asking for silverlight and/or wpf developers/designers to spend 1 min of their time to answer a very simple survey.

One thing is certain, if Scott is asking for feedback then he seriously intend to use that feedback - and it's not just a marketing ploy.

So take that 1 minute out of you busy schedule and complete the survey - and as Scott says, there's no personal information required - well except your birth year.

Find the survey here: http://deploy.ztelligence.com/start/index.jsp?PIN=13APU9WJMSVWA

and Scott's callout here: http://blogs.msdn.com/msmossyblog/archive/2008/11/04/calling-all-silverlight-wpf-developers-designers.aspx

Silverlight 2 is out – cross platform .Net development with a bang!

Brian Madsen — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:26:13 GMT

The much awaited version 2 of Silverlight (eg. Silverlight 2 - hehehe) has just been released.

The announcement came approximately 4 hrs ago.

InnerWorkings steps up and offers free Silverlight training for CSharpZealot.com members

Brian Madsen — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 11:30:39 GMT

CSharpZealot.com - a C#.Net centric community received good news today - namely, InnerWorkings are offering all of its members FREE Silverlight training.

The story about how this came about is quite funny. But, i've been on the Beta test for me.dium for a while and as it's just been released it was also published on Facebook and here one of the guys on the me.dium team, Tobias Peggs, introduced me to Brian Finnerty, who's involved with InnerWorkings. He noticed that I ran the CSharpZealot.com community and wanted to offer our members something special.

Not only have they provided 1hr free Silverlight trianing, but they've also extended a discount code which entitles the members to a 20% discount on all training packages/drills in their catalogue. Guys, this is a limited time only offer so better head over, register at CSharpZealot.com, and check out the promotion they've created, just for us!!!

Click here for more information.

- Take .NET training that's 100% practice-based

- Gain skills by solving problems using key .NET techniques

- Work at your own pace in a realistic learning environment

- Get feedback as you learn from our code-checking engine

- Enjoy smart, engaging, and effective .NET learning

When companies come out of the woodwork and support the community, you know they are passionate about what they do. Especially in a geek-driven industry as us developers are in.

I want to thank Brian Finnerty and Claudio Perrone for taking this step forward and for making a brilliant training experience available to our members!

Come to a Silverlight Lab in Redmond - why not Perth, eh Scott?

Brian Madsen — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:49:29 GMT

I'm nudging and winking at Scott Barnes to follow Tim's example.

Since i've come across his blog i've seen what can be done. I realise that their team is most likely 600 times larger than ours here in Australia buuuuuut...well lets see what we can do.

Wouldn't it be cool to have Scott Barnes come over to Perth to hold some hands-on lab sessions for Silverlight?

The DPE team is trying to organise having a member visit Perth every other month - one of the last initiatives from Frank before he leaves for the US.

Since Scott is a brilliant presenter and definitely knows his stuff, lets see if we can't pull him over again for a lil' bit of Silverlight fun :)

Tim Sneath : From A to Z... 50 Silverlight Applications

Brian Madsen — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:38:22 GMT

I'm amazed at the work Tim put into this list - absolutely brilliant!

bookmarking his post is a must for any silverlight fan out there:

Tim Sneath : From A to Z... 50 Silverlight Applications

I wonder if we're going to see more on the australian front from now on (nudge nudge wink wink @ Scott) with regards to Silverlight.

Silverlight version incompatibility...

Brian Madsen — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 14:25:10 GMT

I'm working on a little side project which has just ground totally to a halt.

i've done all the research, all the tutorials and it's about time to put it all together...and then..durrr...not going to happen just yet.

I wanted to create a silverlight sidebar gadget and thought i'd use Expression Blend, Silverlight and VS2008 "Orcas".

Well, to create a Silverlight application in "Orcas" you need the Silverlight Visual Studio extension for version 1.1 Alpha.

To create a Silverlight project in Expression Blend, you need Silverlight 1.0.

Unfortunately version 1.1 Alpha is NOT backwards compatible with version 1.0 in terms that version 1.1 Alpha will not allow you to create a Silverlight project in Expression Blend.

Bummer i say..I guess i have to wait till Silverlight catches up..or Blend catches up..

either way, it's on the backburner for now - been trawling the interweb to locate a solution, but so far it's a no-go.

any suggestions?