Out Of The Box

To go along with the recent Silverlight applications from the CMA Music Fest (Be This Close and PhotoBooth), check out this new DeepZoom experience of Michael Jackson. As you zoom into the center picture of Michael, you’ll find out that there are hundreds of pictures that are basically the pixels of the larger picture.

The (middle) image on this page is your entry point to hundreds of photos of Michael Jackson, his life, his work, his fans and tributes to his career as King of Pop.

You’ll need the the latest version of Silverlight in order to make the zoom function work. It is quick and easy to install from here if you haven't yet done so!   Click on the picture to get started.

Ran across an interesting article today. Titled LearnHub: Powered by Rails, Searches with Bing, this is about a Canadian social learning network site for preparing students for standardized testing (called LearnHub). It talks about their struggles with Google’s search API, and how they took their Ruby-on-Rails based content system and converted to Bing. They even show you how to use the Bing API, get registered at the Bing Developer Center, talk about the Bing Terms of Usage, and their experience. So, Bing your web site!

As some of you know, I and my teammates have been working on activities at the CMA Music Fest. We had a great time, as you can tell on my Facebook pages. Since it’s Microsoft’s end of year, we are now busily documenting the successes of the year including Music Fest. Today, I found that Santiago Leguiza  wrote a blog post in Spanish about CMA’s Be This Close, a cool game developed on Silverlight/DeepZoom by FireFly Logic of Nashville. Very cool. http://www.cmafest.com/bethisclose

That’s a blog post for another day. Today, I wanted to mention what you can do when you’re on a web page and can understand the language. In this case, I know a little Spanish, but couldn’t read this. But with 2 features from Microsoft, it was no problem. First, we have a Live Translation service (free), and second, IE8 has an accelerator that uses this service and translates to English. Highlighted the text, clicked on the accelerator icon, and a preview window showed me the English translation. Problem solved in just a few seconds.

The IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit helps Web developers, hosting providers, and Web server administrators to improve their Web site’s relevance in search results by recommending how to make the site content more search engine-friendly. The IIS SEO Toolkit includes the Site Analysis module, the Robots Exclusion module, and the Sitemaps and Site Indexes module, which let you perform detailed analysis and offer recommendations and editing tools for managing your Robots and Sitemaps files….

From the Using IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit article:

The components of IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit include the following features:

• Site Analysis:

  • Fully featured site crawling engine - in order to perform detailed analysis of site's structure and content, Site Analysis tool uses a built-in web crawler, called "iisbot", to download and cache all the publicly available web site content. The web crawler is fully compliant with robots exclusion protocol.

  • Report summary dashboard - the results of site analysis are presented in an easy to use dashboard page that serves as a start page for various types of analysis. In addition this page includes a large set of pre-built queries for most common reports.

  • Query builder - Site Analysis tool includes a powerful and flexible query builder user interface that lets you create any custom queries that are run against the cached web site content.

  • Detailed URL information - you can obtain various detailed information about every URL in your web site, such as response headers and content, the pages that link to that URL as well as all the referenced URLs.

  • Detailed Violations descriptions - each content or SEO violation found on a web site has a detailed description as well as a recommended corrective action.

  • Word Analysis - any web page can be analyzed with regards to the most commonly used words and phrases within the content of that page. The results of that analysis can be used to select the keywords that most accurately describe the content of the page.

  • Route Analysis - unique routes to any page can be displayed in a separate report. This kind of information helps better understand how search engine and site visitors reach a particular page on your web site.

• Robots Exclusion

  • User interface for editing robots.txt file - the content of the robots exclusion file - robots.txt - can be edited by using IIS Manager GUI

  • Selecting URL paths from physical view of web site - the paths that are specified for "Allow" and "Disallow" directives in robots.txt file can be selected from the physical file system layout of your web site.

  • Selecting URL paths from virtual view of web site - the paths that are specified for "Allow" and "Disallow" directives in robots.txt file can be selected from the logical view of your web site obtained from the results of site analysis.

• Sitemaps and Sitemap Indexes

  • User interface for managing sitemap and sitemap indexes files - the content of the sitemap and indexes files can be edited by using IIS Manager GUI

  • Selecting URLs from physical view of web site - the URLs that are specified within a sitemap can be selected from the physical file system layout of your web site.

  • Selecting URLs from virtual view of web site - the URLs that are specified within a sitemap can be selected from the logical view of your web site obtained from the results of site analysis.

Other Articles

Ramp Up is a free, online, community-based learning program, with a number of different tracks that will help you build your portfolio of professional development skills.

Ramp Up has a solid foundation of premium technical content from subject-matter gurus, and provides easy-to-access content in a variety of forms that guide you in learning the important skills. It's free!

Starters for PHP, Java, ASP, VB6, and older VS developers. There’s even SharePoint development in there. New tutorials just added!

If you haven’t seen this technology, check out the MIX Day 1 Keynote video. Very cool stuff. Now, you can download a trial edition of Expression to try this out.

Expression Web SuperPreview for Internet Explorer is a stand-alone visual debugging tool that makes it faster and easier to migrate your sites from Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 7 or 8. With Expression Web SuperPreview for Internet Explorer, you can ensure that your Web sites work correctly in Internet Explorer 8 while also maintaining compatibility with earlier versions of Internet Explorer.

Expression Web SuperPreview for Internet Explorer shows your web pages rendered in Internet Explorer 6 and either Internet Explorer 7 or Internet Explorer 8, depending on which version you have installed on your machine. You can view the pages side by side or as an onion-skin overlay and use rulers, guides and zoom/pan tools to precisely identify differences in layout. You can even compare your page comp to how the targeted browsers render the page.
To help you quickly identify problem elements, DOM highlighting shows absolute positions of the rendered elements and HTML elements display CSS properties.

Recording: Principles of Microsoft Silverlight Animation (T12F)

Presenter: Jeff Paries,SR. Experience Developer, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide. Author of Foundation Silverlight 2 Animation (Apress).

• Session Topics
  • Storyboards, Animations and keyframes
  • Vectors
  • Frame-based Animations
  • Particle Systems
  • VR Objects
• Where do Storyboards come from?, 2:00
  • Shows creating storyboard in Blend
  • <Storyboard x:Name=”StoryBoard1”/>
  • Are containers
    • Can contain many animations
    • Can be left empty (used as timers)
      • <Storyboard x:Name=”Move” Duration=”00:00:00”/>
  • Can also be crated in code
• Where do animations come from?
• Are placed inside Storyboard containers
• Used to change object properties over time
• Animation types correspond to data types:
• Double (Width, Height, Left, Top, etc.)
• Color (Fill, Stroke, etc.)
• Point (for Path manipulation)
• Can also be created with code
• Each animation type has two variations
• From/to
• UsingKeyFrames
• Where do keyframes code from?
• Three types
• Linear (linear movement between keyframes)
• Spline (allows motion “easing”)
• Discrete (holds an object until next keyframe)
• Change type by right-clicking keyframe
• “Ease in” or “Ease Out” = Spline
• “Hold in” = Discrete
• No direct way in Expression to build Linear
• A spline keyframe with no easing applied is a linear keyframe, which is why Expression does not use them
• Demo of keyframe types, 8:30
• Demo of Storyboard animations
• http://www.modelsremixed.com
• http://www.visitmix.com/labs/descry/theobesityepidemic
• What’s a Vector?, 12:00
• Are a key component of procedural animation
• Describe direction and distance independent of time (very different from storyboard)
• Vector movement is simple – for each unit of time that passes, add the vector components to the objects’s XY position
• Vector Movement (1D)
• Changing Vector Direction
• Viewing related code snippets
• Ball Drop example w/ real time gravity slider
• What is frame-based animation?, 17:08
• Imitates original “flipbook”techniques that have been used in animiatio for years
• Accessible via:
• Storyboards
• Visual State Manager
• Code
• Complex frame-based animation (i.e. characters) requires planning
• What’s a Sprite?, 18:05
• a 2D or 3D image or animation that becomes part of a larger scene
• First used in the mid-70’s, still in use
• Methods of producing sprite content
• Rotoscoping live video (blue screen)
• Claymation
• 3D Software
• Vector artwork
• Sprite with Discrete Keyframes, 19:15
• A series of images that depict the desired action
• Images are aligned
• Translated at some interval with keyframes
• Shown via Expression
• Sprites with Visibility
• Demo with Space Marine
• Low load on CPU
• Movement Flow Chart (Linear)
• Goes directly from one move to another in a fixed order
• Limits Options
• Movement Flow Chart (Radial)
• Less restrictive, but still limiting
• Movement Flow Chart (Descending)
• Works best, but more complex
• Sprite Animation with Visual State Manager, 27:00
• Pro: works well
• Con: VSM does not support custom transitions yet
• Particle Systems, 28:45
• Often used to model “fuzzy” objects
• Fire, smoke, explosions, water
• Basic Model for Particle System
• For each unit of time that passes:
• New particles may be created
• Old particles are conditionally removed
• Existing particle positions are updated
• Model in C#
• position, age, remove, create, restart storyboard
• Interesting Particle Systems
• Randomize!
• colors, scale, life spans, velocity
• Use storyboards for secondary animation
• Let the user modify the system
• Use emitters
• What do Particle emitters do?
• define shape/area of system
• Point
• Rectangle (bounding box)
• Can be animated
• How to Implement an Emitter, 34:21
• Name your emitter object (for accessing from code)
• Generate particles based on object location
• generate to layout root, not emitter
• Comet example
• Fountain example (water hose / fountain)
• Silverlight VS (SLVR) Objects, 38:10
• Like frame-based animations, but user controlled
• Allows users to explore objects online
• 360 degree view
• product assembly
• product packaging
• time-lapse photography
• VR Object Approaches, 39:58
• “flipbook”
• Load all images
• flip forward or backward like a deck of cards
• Why not ideal:
• Managing images become cumbersome
• Takes too long to set up new items
• VR Object Approach
• Single image translation
• Load single image consisting of all frames
• User controls the image translation
• Better choice
• single image
• easy to setup
• Types of VR Objects, 40:17
• Single row (or plane)
• Multi-row (or plane)
• Getting VR Images
• 3D Rendering program
• Self-shot photography
• Professional service like PhotoSpherix
• use stable, specialized rigs
• Shoot to precise requirements
• Multiple planes
• I have a lot of images – now what?, 42:26
• Single plane = 10+ images in a single row
• Multi-plane = 10+ images per row TIMES 5+ rows
• Use a program like Adobe Photoshop or Irfanview, to create a single image
• Contact Sheet
• The SLVR Control, 44:35
• can download from book site
• Canvas / Image Control, MouseControl Rectangle, ActiveImage Image
• Examples –
• Bed object – single plane
• Mini-cooper – multi-plane
• Q&A
• How to make smooth ticker?
• Speed of system could be problem
• Consider MaxFrameRate=30
• Do you prefer animation in XAML or in code?
• Prefers being more explicit in XAML
• Suggestions for 4 frame animations
• these techniques will work for those
• Performance guidance
• Depends
• Advantage over browser timer vs. storyboard
• Different ways to do this
• Use based on what you find works
• Prefers storyboard

Session: Recording, Code: T87F, 59 minutes

Jeff Wilcox, Software Development Engineer, Silverlight Toolkit team, Microsoft

• Agenda
  • Client platform vision
  • What’s shared between Silverlight and WPF?
  • Today’s Controls and Features
  • Building controls for Silverlight and WPF
  • Bringing it all together
• Why?
  • Become a .NET expert once
  • Develop a versatile skill set
  • Not about building apps that “just work” everywhere
• Client Platform Vision (3:12)
  • Great Platforms
    • Maximize reach with Silverlight
    • Add value with WPF
  • Shared skills, techniques, and vocabulary
  • Create once, use everywhere
    • XAML
    • .NET Code
    • Tests
  • World-class developer and designer tools
• Current State of Microsoft client platforms, 5:14
  • Compatibility Council
  • SL3, SL Toolkit, .NET 4
  • We’re working to ensure compatibility
• You don’t have to be a code ninja!, (6:20)
• A Shared Demo
  • Build a SL app, and a WPF app
  • Makes a common folder
  • In 2nd project, “Add as Link”
• What just happened?
  • Shared .NET platform
  • Shared development environment
  • Shared components
  • 100% the same source code
  • 'Can make changes in Blend to the common, and they show up in both app’s
• Shared Client Platform
  • The Gu Technology
• Shared .NET Framework
  • Great application platform
  • Powerful runtime
  • Great language support
  • Amazing Communities
• Business Objects
  • Modern .NET business objects and logic
    • Collections, Generics, LINQ
  • Easy to add framework-specific value
• Core Building Blocks, 16:21
  • XAML
  • Rich compositing
    • Shapes
    • Visual tree
  • Managed framework
    • Dependency and attached properties
    • Events
    • Control model
  • Controls
  • Layout
• Improving compatibility, 17:50
  • Silverlight Toolkit
    • March 2009 release
      • SL2 and SL# releases available
    • SL2 development continues
  • WPF Toolkit
    • Available today
    • .NET 4
• Silverlight toolkit
  • Fills today’s slight compatibility gap
  • Developing new controls with a rapid development cycle
  • Ships in Silverlight SDK and on CodePlex
• Silverlight Toollkit, 20:20
  • WPF Compatible controls
    • DockPanel
    • WrapPanel
    • TreeView
  • WPF Compatible feautes
    • ImplicityStyleManager
    • LayoutTransform
  • New controls offered for Silverlight and WPF
    • Charting
    • AutoCompletedBox
• WPF Toolkit and .NET 4, 20:38
  • Calendar
  • DatePicker
  • DataGrid
  • VisualStateManager
  • All of the SL themes will be included in WPF Toolkit
• Building Controls for SL and WPF, 20:54
  • Summary: build for Silverlight first, and then move to WPF
  • Step 1: Basics and C# Strategy
  • Step 2: Source layout
  • Step 3: Dependency properties
  • Step 4: XAML
  • Step 5: Default styles
  • Step 6: VSM
  • Step 7 Wild hacks
• C# Techniques
  • Partial classes
  • Extension methods and utility classes
  • Preprocessor directives
    • #if SILVERLIGHT
      • // Silverlight
    • #else
      • //WPF
    • #endif
• Source layout, 23:05
  • Peer folders for Silverlight and WPF
  • File links and source control
  • Try to do the real work in Silverlight projects, and link from the WPF project
• Dependency Properties, 25:55
  • Avoid WPF-specific metadata
    • Coercion
    • Read-only properties
• XAML,31:26
  • Use WPF namespace
    • xmlns:=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation”
    • xmlns:x=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml”
  • Watch out for the Silverlight 1.0 namespace
    • http://schemas.microsoft.com/client/2007
    • “if you use this one, you won’t have the compatibility story”
• Default Styles, 31:54
  • Default styles and templates for controls are selected via DefaultStyleKey property
  • Defined differently
    • WPF: Static constructor
    • Silverlight Instance constructor
• VSM, 35:05
  • Silverlight doesn’t have triggers
  • .NET 4 / WPF get VSM
  • Add a dependency to WPF toolkit, to get VSM
  • Try to have a central state management code
• Wild hacks, 37:45
  • Declare routed events in a partial class
    • MyControl.Wpf.CS
  • Firing routed events
    • source.OnSelectionChange (new SelectionChangedEventArgs(
      • #if SILVERLIGHT
        • SelectionChangedEvent,
      • #endif
      • removed, added));
• Wild Hacks 2, 39:30
  • helper extension methods
  • Utility Classes
    • Abstract out application model differences
    • Abstract client platform differences
• Putting it All Together, demo

From The Windows Blog, Brandon LeBlanc reports: “pleased to share that the RC is on track for April 30th for  download by MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Broader, public availability will begin on May 5th.”

Also changes to Beta 1 here and here.

 Windows 7 Home site

Windows 7 Home Premium

In addition to the features of Windows 7 Starter and Windows 7 Home Basic, this edition includes:

• Aero Glass & advanced Window navigation
• Windows Touch (Multi-touch and handwriting support) Video demo, More here
• Windows Media Center
• Internet Explorer 8: Web slices, accelerators, InPrivate Browsing 

Windows 7 Professional

Contains all features in Windows 7 Home Premium and also includes these features:

• Domain Join (Step-By-Step Guide)
• Group Policy Controls (More)
• Location Aware Printing
• Encrypting File System
• Advanced Backup (First Look)
• Offline Folders (more)
• transparent caching, background sync for offline files
• Remote Desktop Host (More)
• Windows Mobility Center: Presentation Mode

Windows 7 Enterprise

In addition to the features of Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional, this edition includes (Some features require Windows Server 2008 R2):

• DirectAccess keeps mobile users connected on the go

• BranchCache makes file access faster (TechNet description)

• Search information on the PC, mail or SharePoint

• BitLocker protects data on a PC and portable drives

• AppLocker lets you control what user's can run

• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure made better

Other stuff

IT Pros: Windows 7 Springboard Series on TechNet

Windows 7 Features Walkthrough videos

Developer Resources for Windows 7

Windows Sensor and Location Platform (location aware, light aware, and more) PDC08 Session

This is a look at the CoreCLR, which is what Silverlight runs on.

Session abstract: See how the CLR team slimmed down the size of the runtime into a small, zippy download, the Core CLR, yet kept the experience .NET developers have come to love.

Presenter: Brandon Bray, Senior Program Manager Lead, CLR Team

Video and PPT

21:58

• Agenda
• Why use .NET with Silverlight?
• Slimming down the desktop CLR
• New features for Core CLR
• Future Investments
• Why use .NET with Silverlight?
• strong developer community
• tool ecosystem can be reused
• .NET features
• AppDomains, security verification, partial trust, strong type safety
• So, why not use .NET instead?
• .NET 3.5 is large, nearly 200MB
• Not everywhere yet
• .NET Architecture
• supports many scenarios
• Applying the RIA Scenario
• CoreCLR will focus on fewer scenarios
• Goal: Build CoreCLR/CLR from same code
• The RIA scenario
• Only considers end-user code as partial trust
• Don’t need all interop features
• Versioning model can be simpler
• CoreCLR will be activated through a host
• Silverlight Architecture
• fewer scenarios, keep the essentials
• From the previous CLR slide, now missing NGEN and profiling
• CoreCLR reduced to around 2MB
• Slimming down the Desktop CLR
• The Small Base Class Library
• CoreCLR includes a subset of the BCL called Small BCL
• Built from same source as BCL
• Some features of BCL become more prominent (e.g. IsolatedStorage – better enforcement of quota mgmt)
• Other parts of Silverlight not part of CoreCLR: agcore.dll (presentation layer), npctrl.dll (Silverlight host)
• Files
• coreclr.dll – JIT and other runtime components
• mscorlib.dll
• mscorrc.dll
• System.dll
• System.Core.dll
• System.Net.dll
• System.RuntimeSerialization.dll
• System.ServiceModel.dll
• System.ServiceModel.Web.dll
• System.XML.dll
• The Core CLR Security Model
• Code running atop Silverlight is sandboxed
• Silverlight assemblies are trusted through the CoreCLR hosting API’s
• SecurityCritical Code – doing things that are fully trusted, or trust anyone that calls you
• SafeCritical code – plays the bridge, should always validate inputs
• Transparent Code – lives outside of Silverlight framework, can call any other Transparent code or SafeCritical code
• Transparent Libraries (14:42)
• Desktop framework has other libraries lke LINQ and DLR
• these are delivered as transparent libraries included in the application download
• Additional UI controls from Silverlight SDK are also transparent libraries
• Other CLR Features (15:33)
• CoreCLR is tuned for interactive applications
• Slimming down by removing options
• JIT – minimally optimized code to improve start-up time
• Garbage Collection – only interactive client mode
• although 2 different ones for regular framework
• Reflection – no support for modules
• Rely on underlying system
• Globablization – string tables supplied by Windows of MacOS
• learning being taken to next desktop framework version
• New Features for Core CLR (17:11)
• Side by Side
• CoreCLR and CLR need to co-exist
• CoreCLR focuses on RIA scenarios
• CLR still supports multiple scenarios
• Need to be able to load both into same process, and this comes up occassionally, like during exceptions
• Silverlight does not need CLR installed
• Cross Platform Support
• Silverlight is largely built atop CoreCLR
• supporting new platforms is simpler
• CoreCLR is one code page
• additional O/S supported with a PAL
• refer to writings on Rotor to see how this is built into CLR principles
• Helpful that this is all bases on x86
• Future Investments (18:56)
• Features coming back to desktop in CLR4
• in-process SxS support
• Simplified security model (much better than CAS)
• CoreCLR will focus on feature parity with desktop CLR
• exposing profiling API’s
• investing in code quality and performance
• It’s not just about Silverlight
• Resources (20:17)
• Email brandon.bray@microsoft.com
• Andrew Pardoe’s CLR Inside Out article, Program Silverlight with the CoreCLR

After the IE8 release and ESPN’s immediate usage, I’ve had the ESPN Headlines web slice on my browser.

Most of my friends know that I’m a Cardinals fan, and that I usually have a Cardinals sidebar gadget on my desktop. But, now I have the ESPN’s Cardinal’s web slice loaded – and I’m ecstatic. It’s exactly what I wished I had in a sidebar gadget. Thanks ESPN for a cool web slice.

• See the human TAG at MIX. A unique application…
• Check out the new Black and White TAG
• Note the interesting usage that the Sacramento Book Review – purchasing the book after reading the review….
• iPhone update includes active reading
• Microsoft Tag Interview on Channel10

All on the TAG blog…

Also, check out the new ServerQuest 2. It has a very interesting interface (like old PC games), and computer geeks will appreciate the humor especially if you have to support other people’s computers.

Also check out the ServerQuest game contest. The winner gets $5K.

After seeing the presenter’s attire the morning of his presentation, I had to watch this session. It’s too bad that they don’t show a picture of Ward.

Presenter: Ward Bell, VP Technology, IdeaBlade, Inc.

Presentation page:  http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/T69M, 26 minutes

• Introduction
  • Silverlight is about glitz, but also about business
• The Data Story
• Silverlight Data Access Today
  • can’t go directly to database
  • WCF services
  • ADO.NET Data Services
  • DevForce (product from IdeaBlade)
• It’s real, It’s now
• Creating an application
  • Create solution
  • Build model
  • Write queries
  • Show it
• Architecture
  • Server
    • database
    • Entity Framework
    • DevForce Server
  • Client
    • DevForce Entity Manager
    • UI/Presentation
• UI
• Using MVVM
• Model
• Business logic persistent state
• View
  • Visuals
• View Model
  • View state & responses
• Persistence Service
• Entity Manager
• Demo
  • DevForce tutorial
  • Solution has 2 projects: web and Silverlight
  • Build ADO.NET entity model
  • DevForce Object Mapper
  • DevForce Pluralizer
  • Client-side LINQ
  • DevForce offers client-side cache
• Model Explorer
• Summary
  • One Model
  • Silver-LINQ, Ward’s name for Silverlight programming utilizing LINQ
  • Validation
  • Offline
• Not a Toy!
  • WPF/ Winforms/ASP
  • Security
  • Scaling
  • Transactions
  • Testing
• IdeaBlade
• AskWard@ideablade.com