Katrien's MSDN Blog

Celebrate the 1st anniversary of Belgian Silverlight User Group

2009-10-25T17:14:54Z

On November 5th the Belgian Silverlight User Group (BESUG) is already celebrating its 1st year anniversary. Congratulations are in order!
After a successful startup year with workshops organized by the founders Frederik Duchi and Kevin DeRudder, as well as some sessions with top speakers like Laurent Bugnion in May and Arturo Toledo just last month we wish the user group a good continuation in its second year.

As a celebration the user group is organizing an anniversary dinner on November 5th 2009 in the Chess Café in Gent. And what’s more: it’s free! There are a few places left so if you would like to join the team and discuss future projects or sessions, mingle with people interested in Silverlight and have fun – don’t wait and register for the dinner.

Sistr – Free open source rich typography tool for Silverlight

2009-10-25T16:52:42Z

Last week during the ReMix 09 keynote in Belgium, two companies, These Days and Ventigrate officially announced the first alpha release of Sistr. Sistr is a component that makes use of jQuery and Silverlight 3 to render richer fonts in web applications. It’s implemented in such a way that it’s very SEO friendly but at the same time allows you to integrate fonts that would otherwise need to be converted to PNG images.

You might have seen the Flash counterpart of this component, named sIFR. You might want to look at a short comparison table to see the capabilities.

Using Sistr on your site is pretty straightforward and explained on the HowTo page.

How to get started? Easy, just download jQuery library and Sistr component. The standard version does not include the source code, which is available if you want to embed fonts.
Unzip the Sistr file, this gives you a small sample project that shows you how to integrate the component in a site.

Congratulations to Ventigrate and These Days for giving back to the community with this tool.

REMIX 2009 – all recorded sessions now online

2009-10-25T14:31:53Z

ReMix Brussels 2009 was held at the end of September 2009. We had a great day with a general opening keynote and eight technical sessions on Silverlight, ASP.NET MVC, Expression Blend and general UX around Surface.

Four speakers from Microsoft corp joined us in Brussels and continued on to Helsinki, Vienna and Lisbon for a ReMix Europe tour: Adam Kinney, Arturo Toledo, August de los Reyes and Brad Abrams. For the Belgian event we also had Belgian MVP Maarten Balliauw join us for a session on ASP.NET MVC.

If you were unable to attend or missed a session, there is good news. All sessions are now available online for on-demand viewing.

You will notice there is also a link with all the partner testimonial videos (with Emakina, LBi, The Rerence, Paratel, Ordina, These Days, Ventigrate, RealDolmen and DigiPoint).

Next to accessing all videos, make sure to check out the Announcements page where you can find more information on the most important announcements we made during the keynote:

WebsiteSpark
Web Platform Installer & Gallery
Silverlight and Internet Explorer 8 Contests (still a good month to go!)
Start to Silverlight training
Getting started links – for Silverlight and Expression Blend

Enjoy!

PHP Benelux event on Oct 28th – Microsoft & PHP

2009-10-20T09:23:52Z

Next week Kevin Dockx and Maarten Balliauw will be presenting a session at the PHP Benelux user group event. The event will take place on the 28th of October at 18h. Check out the site if you want to register.

Maarten & Kevin’s session will be around Silverlight with PHP. Interesting topic if you ask me!

After their session I’ll also be talking at the event around the Microsoft Web Platform Installer & Gallery, but also in general how Microsoft is supporting PHP on Windows. It will be interesting to be at a completely non-MS user group and session. Looking forward to the attendees feedback.

Session will take place at RealDolmen Kontich, registration details and route information can be found on the PHP Benelux page.

See you there?

Start to Silverlight – jumpstart your first project with coaching and training event

2009-10-19T09:16:12Z

Something I thought may be worth a short blog post: the Partner department is organizing a Start to Silverlight training next week. The event is called Start to Silverlight, taking place on 29th and 30th of October 2009 at the Microsoft Innovation Center in Mons.

Why is this more than a training? To start there is a full day Silverlight for developers delivered by Regional Director Gill Cleeren (Ordina) and a full day for front-end design/integrators focusing on Expression Blend 3 (delivered by Jonas De Geest from RealDolmen). But that’s not all. After the training we have foreseen 5 separate coaching sessions that you can take advantage of. Let’s say you have a first idea on a project or proof of concept. This is a great chance to get guidance and help to take the correct first decisions on the setup of that first project.

Registration is open to partners, but then becoming a partner is free if you are not one yet. Pricing is set at €99 per day for partners. Be quick if you need to register because seating is limited.

All details and registration information here.

Internet Explorer 8 – Webslices and Accelerators Belux Contest is on!

2009-10-14T08:59:03Z

This fall we’re giving you not one but two chances to win a netbook and other prizes! Next to the Belux Silverlight contest we are also launching the “Internet Explorer 8 – Webslices & Accelerators Contest”.

Webslices

Webslices allow your site visitors to subscribe to portions of information on your site. They will see when the information is updated without having to go back to your site. For example, I have installed the Vacature.com webslice that shows me the latest additions to jobs for a certain keyword, as you can see in the screenshot on the right.

Accelerators

Accelerators allow users on any site to quickly do an action that is enabled by your own site. In the example below I’m selecting a sentence in Dutch and using the “Translate with Bing” accelerator to give me the translation in English – all of this without leaving the visited page. You can go further with this by showing mapping information, a calculation of some sort, a lookup of information at the user’s fingertips, etc.

In the IE8 contest your webslices must have a preview window such as the Bing translator one below.

The contest jury

The jury will be evaluating both the Silverlight and the IE8 contests. A great chance for some extra visibility of your skills and creativity!

Brice Le Blevennec, CEO, Emakina Group
Michael Kogeler, General Manager, Microsoft Consumer & Online
Luc Van de Velde, Director Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft
Kurt Vergult, Creative Director, LBi

How to participate

Any Webslices and Accelerators you enable on your site can be submitted to the contest. For accelerators you will need to make sure they have a preview window. Other than that, we suggest you be as creative as possible in coming up with ideas for Webslices and Accelerators. Take a look at was is available today in the IE Add-ons gallery for some inspiration.

All the details on how to participate:

The contest is open to residents of Belgium or Luxembourg.

Guidance on how to develop Webslices and Accelerators

A few weeks ago we launched the Web Application Toolkits, (currently) seven different toolkits that give you project templates and sample code on developing a set of typical projects. These include making your site social, sending templated e-mail, integrating Bing search and also one giving you guidance on developing Internet Explorer 8 customizations such as Accelerators, Webslices and Visual Search.

A great start to get your first steps in this contest. A few new ASP.NET controls like the ASP.NET Web Slice control enables you to implement webslices very quickly. Be sure to check the Channel9 video explaining this toolkit.

The toolkit is most useful if you are developing in ASP.NET . But, if you prefer can also develop these customizations in any other platform. Some help on getting your webslice for Drupal and Joomla. See more at Hans Le Roy’s site (Dutch).

Good luck!

BeLux Silverlight 3 Contest – Be creative and win cool prizes

2009-10-13T15:52:15Z

We just launched the BeLux Silverlight 3 Contest, where you have a chance to win a cool HP Mini Netbook pre-loaded with Windows 7 Ultimate or other cool prizes.

Got any cool project or idea for a Silverlight 3 project? Participating is easy and quick. Make sure your application or component is accessible publicly, send us a small description of why this is such a fantastic application and who knows, you might even win.

Need some visibility? This is a great chance to get some from top notch agencies at the same time!

The Jury

People from both the Belgian web community as well as directors from Microsoft Belgium.

Brice Le Blevennec, CEO, Emakina Group
Michael Kogeler, General Manager, Microsoft Consumer & Online
Luc Van de Velde, Director Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft
Kurt Vergult, Creative Director, LBi

How to participate?

You have until December 12th to submit, read all about it:

Good luck!

Seen at REMIX: WebsiteSpark and Web Platform Installer 2.0

2009-09-30T21:55:13Z

Yesterday we held REMIX Brussels 2009 at Kinepolis. I had a good time during the keynote and talking to many of the attendees during the day. I’ll do a more detailed write-up in due time. In the meantime you can already see some pictures here and here.

WebsiteSpark

During the keynote, Luc Van de Velde officially launched WebsiteSpark in Belgium. This program is now available to small web development and design companies in Belgium. Next to giving you access to software, tools and training it also gives visibility to potential customers.

For more information, FAQ and to register, go to http://www.microsoft.com/web/WebsiteSpark/.
The program is launched in Belgium with two hosting network partners: Combell and Hostbasket.

Web Platform Installer 2.0

Released last week, the Web Platform Installer 2.0 (Web PI) is the easiest way to setup your development machine with all the tools, framework, web server and database elements, or can be used to very quickly deploy a server. It’s a single download that gives you a single interface in which to choose what you want to install on your machine. It contains all the free tools and frameworks from the Microsoft Web stack. But that’s not all, it also gives you a simple way to install open source web applications.

When you choose to install an application from the Web App Gallery the Web PI will automatically check for any dependencies like the database, certain IIS extensions, and so forth. This applies to ASP.NET applications but also for any PHP open source application that is part of the gallery. It will automatically install CGI on IIS and PHP 5.2.11, and any other dependency needed by the application.

Are you working or participating to an open source web application? Why not check out how to add it to the gallery? You will need to follow the Web App Gallery Principles and package your application to submit it to the gallery. You can find the details at microsoft.com/web page for developers, where you will find tutorials and the forum.

Upcoming MSDN Live Meeting events (September-December 2009)

2009-09-11T13:46:25Z

Starting next week we have a new set of MSDN Live Meetings coming to a computer near you. MSDN Live Meetings are all online, so you can follow them either from work or home.
Subjects range from Silverlight & WPF, to Visual Studio 2008, to the Windows Azure Platform. All sessions are delivered in French and Dutch.

September 15th - MSDN Live Meeting - Modules gebruiken voor het bouwen van WPF- en Silverlight-applicaties (PRISM)
Als er twee UI-technologieën beschikbaar zijn, zoals WPF en Silverlight, die in gelijkaardige talen zijn geschreven (XAML) maar met verschillende assemblies in verschillende situaties draaien, dan is het logisch dat je liefst één keer een UI schrijft om later met minimale inspanning de beste, of de twee opties te kunnen kiezen. In deze sessie tonen we hoe u het maximum uit op XAML gebaseerde applicaties haalt en welke architectuurbeslissingen kunnen helpen om deze opties van in het begin van de ontwikkelingscyclus mogelijk te maken.
Gill Cleeren will be presenting this session.

October 6 -
MSDN Live Meeting - Visual Studio Team System & Team Foundation Server Licensing Roundtable – exceptionally this session is English only
Have questions around licensing of Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server? Take this chance to get answers to all your questions.

October 20th

MSDN Live Meeting - REST-ful services bouwen met WCF
Een van de belangrijkste nieuwe features van Windows Communication Foundation 3.5 (WCF 3.5) is het Web Programming Model, dat de ontwikkelaars in staat stelt om services te bouwen met behulp van een RESTful-architectuur. Het aantal services dat met deze nieuwe architecturale benadering wordt geïmplementeerd, neemt hand over hand toe. In deze sessie bekijken we de basisprincipes van REST in vergelijking met SOAP/WS-* en bespreken we hoe je services die RESTful van aard zijn, kunt bouwen met behulp van WCF 3.5. We behandelen ook het toevoegen van Web feeds (RSS en/of ATOM) aan onze services om de toegang tot de bedrijfsgegevens te vergemakkelijken.

MSDN Live Meeting - onstruire des services REST-ful avec WCF
L’une des principales nouveautés de Windows Communication Foundation 3.5 (WCF 3.5) est le modèle de programmation web - Web Programming Model. Ce modèle permet aux développeurs de construire des services sur la base d’une architecture RESTful. Le nombre de services mis en œuvre à l’aide de cette nouvelle démarche augmente à vive allure. Cette session présente les notions fondamentales de REST par rapport à SOAP/WS-*, et explique comment construire, avec WCF 3.5, des services intrinsèquement RESTful. Nous expliquons aussi comment ajouter des flux Web (RSS et/ou ATOM) à nos Services, afin de faciliter l’accès aux données de l’entreprise.

November 3rd

MSDN Live Meeting - Tips en tricks met de Visual Studuio Debugger
De Visual Studio debugger is een tool die door ontwikkelaars nog te weinig wordt gebruikt. In deze sessie tonen we hoe u hem als professional kunt gebruiken en leren we nieuwe technieken aan om het oplossen van problemen en de debugging te versnellen. We tonen het gebruik van geavanceerde breakpoints, geavanceerde watch window / Expression evaluator trucs, modifiers, assertions on the fly, remote debugging, en nog veel meer. We geven ook tips en trucs om sneller en efficiënter te debuggen bij het schrijven van C#, VB, WPF, ASP.NET, Windows Forms, of services. De debugger is het belangrijkste instrument om bugs op te sporen, het is dus zeker de moeite waard om deze sessie te volgen en hem optimaal te leren gebruiken.

MSDN Live Meeting - Conseils et astuces pour l’utilisation de Visual Studio Debugger
Visual Studio Debugger est un outil largement sous-utilisé par bien des développeurs. Au cours de cette session, vous apprendrez à utiliser ce debugger comme un pro tout en acquérant de nouvelles techniques qui vous aideront à résoudre rapidement vos problèmes et à déboguer vos applications. Nous vous montrerons comment tirer parti des perfectionnements sophistiqués qui font partie intégrante de cet outil, et nous vous donnerons toute une série de conseils et astuces dans différents domaines : évaluation watch window / Expression, modifiers, assertions on the fly, débogage à distance, etc. Que vous écriviez en C#, VB, WPF, ASP.NET, Windows Forms ou que vous développiez des services, nos conseils vous aideront à mettre vos applications au point plus rapidement et beaucoup plus efficacement. Le debugger deviendra votre outil de prédilection pour repérer les bugs ! Alors, n’hésitez pas : suivez cette session et tirez-en profit au maximum.

November 24th

MSDN Live Meeting - Transposer une application ASP.NET vers Windows Azure (24 novembre)
Envoyez vos applications dans les nuages! Windows Azure vous permet de profiter de l’infrastructure cloud computing pour l’hébergement, l’exploitation et le stockage de vos applications. Ponctuée de nombreuses démos, cette session vous explique comment transposer une application ASP.Net existante pour l’héberger dans Windows Azure, tout en profitant de la fonctionnalité de stockage de Windows Azure.

MSDN Live Meeting - Een ASP.NET-applicatie overbrengen naar Windows Azure
Zet alles over naar the cloud! Met Windows Azure kunt u voordeel halen uit de cloud computing-infrastructuur voor hosting, computing en storage van uw applicaties. De sessie bevat talrijke demo’s, we brengen een bestaande ASP.Net-applicatie over naar hosting in Windows Azure en maken gebruik van Windows Azure storage.

December 8th

MSDN Live Meeting - Kennismaking met .NET Services
Een gedeelte van het Windows Azure Platform, Microsoft .NET Services is een set door Microsoft gebouwde en gehoste Windows Communication Foundation services voor het bouwen van Internet-enabled applicaties. Volg deze sessie en leer alles over de belangrijkste onderdelen van .NET Services: Service Bus en Access Control Service.

MSDN Live Meeting - Présentation des .NET Services
En tant qu’élément de la plate-forme Windows Azure, Microsoft .NET Services est un ensemble de services Windows Communication Foundation hébergés, construits par Microsoft. Il s’utilise pour développer des applications dotées de fonctionnalités Internet. Participez à cette session et découvrez les principaux éléments de .NET Services: Service Bus et Access Control Service.

December 17th

MSDN Live Meeting - Utiliser XML avec Visual Basic 2008
Rares sont les applications modernes qui ne font pas appel à XML ; documents professionnels, fichiers de configuration, sérialisation d’objets, SOAP, RSS et Open XML n’en sont que quelques exemples. Même vos fichiers de projets Visual Studio et vos paramètres de configuration sont des fichiers XML. Récemment encore, le traitement XML vous obligeait à apprendre toute une série de concepts et son format à base de texte n’était pas des plus aisés pour un programmeur. Avec Visual Basic 2008, les choses changent ! XML devient un type de données intégré, avec une riche expérience d’édition qui élimine totalement l’entrave conceptuelle entre le code que vous écrivez et le XML que vous essayez de manipuler. Au cours de cette session, vous apprendrez à créer, interroger et transformer aisément du XML à l’aide de la syntaxe puissante mais conviviale de Visual Basic. Nous nous concentrerons sur des fonctions comme XML IntelliSense, XML literals, les expressions incrustées et l’utilisation de language constructs au lieu d’un DOM pour naviguer dans la hiérarchie XML. De nombreux conseils, astuces et "gotchas" figurent également au programme. Dites adieu à XSLT et bienvenue à Visual Basic 2008!

XML gebruiken met Visual Basic 2008
In de meeste moderne toepassingen wordt XML gebruikt; zakelijke documenten, configuratiebestanden, object serialization, SOAP, RSS en Open XML zijn slechts enkele voorbeelden. Zelfs uw Visual Studio projectbestanden en configuratie-instellingen zijn XML-bestanden. Voor XML processing moet u wel een aantal nieuwe concepten leren en het op tekst gebaseerde formaat van XML is programmatorisch niet zo eenvoudig …. tenminste, tot voor kort! Met Visual Basic 2008 wordt dat namelijk anders en wordt XML een ingebouwd data type met een rijke editingervaring die de conceptuele barrière tussen de code die u schrijft en de XML die u wilt manipuleren, volledig wegneemt. In deze sessie leert u snel en eenvoudig XML creëren, ondervragen en transformeren met de krachtige, maar gemakkelijk te gebruiken syntax van Visual Basic. We bespreken features zoals XML IntelliSense, XML literals, embedded uitdrukkingen en we gebruiken language constructs in plaats van een DOM om door de XML-hiërarchie te navigeren. Daarnaast onderzoeken we tips, trucs en ‘gotchas’. XSLT behoort tot het verleden, we gaan nu aan de slag met Visual Basic 2008!

Another chance to meet two ReMix speakers

2009-09-10T12:36:00Z

If you have not yet registered for the full day free event “ReMix 2009”, taking place on September 29th in Kinepolis Brussels I suggest you don’t wait too long. Registration is still open, for the time being that is…

There is also very good news because next to the ReMix event we have two user groups doing evening sessions on Monday September 28th. This is your chance to meet with the speakers in a more informal way and catch up on some great presentations. So what & when:

Brad Abrams on Framework Design Guidelines - 28 September – 18:00 – hosted by VISUG (Visual Studio User Group)
Learn about guidelines that have helped the Microsoft .NET Framework grow into the most popular developer framework Microsoft has ever created. After ten years of use, we have an enormous amount of real customer data about what makes great framework design. Whether you are building your own framework or just want to get the most out of the .NET Framework, this is a must-attend talk!
More information and registration
Arturo Toledo on Expression Blend 3 – 28 September – 19:00 – hosted by BESUG (Belgian Silverlight User Group)
Arturo is doing an interactive session on Expression Blend 3 the day before ReMix. In this session he will talk about SketchFlow, Behaviors, Sample Data, Control Customization (Visual State Manager), Animations and the Photoshop / Illustrator import. This is your chance to meet Arturo in a more informal setting and of course fire off any questions you have.
More information and registration.

Hope to see you at one of the events!

Slides and sample code from my .NET RIA Services webcast

2009-08-12T18:05:00Z

A few weeks back we had an MSDN Live Meeting around .NET RIA Services. During the webcast I was using a sample database with some restaurant (dummy) data and accessing that data.

Update:

Sample code

The sample is using a Silverlight Navigation Application, which itself can be used without the .NET RIA Services. There is a demo database, sample code for retrieving data into a datagrid, editing data through a DataForm, validation, using a new theme, etc.

You can download the sample code and slides from the links below.

Pre-requisites

If you want to play around with this sample and get going with .NET RIA Services you will need the following on your machine:

Get the pre-requisite Silverlight 3 software through the Microsoft Web Platform – or check out the Get Started page on silverlight.net site
Download Microsoft .NET RIA Services July 2009 Preview

Session Q&A

Here’s also some answers to questions that came after the session.

French version of Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008
The French version that allows to install on a French Visual Studio version is available since the end of July 2009. Download link here.
At this stage there is not yet a French version of the .NET RIA services, and I don’t currently have a date for when this will be available.

Accessing styles
During the webcast I used one of the new skins available for Silverlight Navigation applications. You can find these in the Expression Gallery, see a sample of each in Tim Heuer’s blog post. After downloading the theme of your preference, copy the Styles.xaml file and save it to the /Assets folder of your Silverlight project. In my case I left the default Styles.xaml file and renamed the downloaded theme to Pink.xaml. Reference this resource file in the App.xaml file and you’ve got your theme change.

Silverlight 3 features
There were also some general questions around Silverlight 3 and out-of-browser applications. I recommend checking out the Silverlight 3 Overview page for a listing of features matrix on Silverlight 1, 2 and 3.

Recommended resources

.NET RIA Services documentation, a must-read (available in PDF or Word format).
Brad Abrams’ blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/ (extremely good series of posts with lots of demos, a must-read)
Brad Abrams’ session at MIX09: Building Amazing Business Centric Applications with Microsoft Silverlight 3
Nikhil Kothari’s session at MIX09: .NET RIA Services - Building Data-Driven Applications with Microsoft Silverlight and Microsoft ASP.NET
.NET RIA Samples on MSDN Code Gallery

And don’t miss REMIX Belgium 2009 where the one and only Brad Abrams himself will be giving a session on .NET RIA Services. Other speakers joining are Adam Kinney, August de los Reyes and Arturo Toledo. Register in time!

ReMix Belgium 2009 – join us for Silverlight, Expression Blend, UX and Surface sessions

2009-08-07T11:58:53Z

ReMix Belgium 2009, coming on September 29th 2009 in Kinepolis Brussels is a free event bringing in-depth sessions around Silverlight, Expression Blend and SketchFlow, Surface, ASP.NET MVC and .NET RIA Services.

Joint keynote and two tracks
Starting with a joint local keynote, we then split into a User Experience Track and a Web Developer Track. In total 8 different sessions will be presented during the day. When you register you are still free to choose and switch between the two tracks. Checkout the full agenda here.

Register in time! Since this is a free event and places are limited we recommend registering as soon as possible to secure your seat.

Follow ReMix on Twitter: @remixbe and add to your Facebook events.

The speakers

We have some top-notch speakers joining us from Microsoft corp, coming to Europe especially for the ReMix events. Take a look at this list!

Adam Kinney – Technical Evangelist at Microsoft Corp focusing on Silverlight and WPF from a designer but also developer perspective. Adam will be talking about Expression for developers.
Blog: http://www.adamkinney.com/
Arturo Toledo – Product Manager. Arturo will be talking about SketchFlow and rapid application prototyping, and how to create Silverlight experiences with Expression Blend. Blog: http://ux.artu.tv/
August de los Reyes - Principal Design Director for Microsoft Surface, his team is dedicated to pioneering intuitive ways to interact with technology. August will be doing two sessions: one on the Natural User Interface (NUI) and Surface, the second one an inspiring session on the future of UX. Not to miss!
Brad Abrams - Principal Product Manager at Microsoft, founding member of both the Common Language Runtime, and .NET Framework teams at Microsoft Corporation. Brad is currently the Product Unit Manager of the Application Framework team which is responsible for, amongst others, delivering .NET RIA Services. Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/BradA/
Maarten Balliauw - Maarten is the only non MS speaker at the event, but has quite a proven track record when it comes to ASP.NET MVC and much more. Maarten is author of one of the first books on the subject and will be doing a talk on creating an application in 60 minutes using ASP.NET MVC. Blog: http://blog.maartenballiauw.be/

I’m really excited to be working on the preparations of this event. After having participated in the organization of MIX essentials last year this is the second event of its type, looking forward to v2! By the way if you are wondering: MIX esentials was the name for last year, this is now officially renamed to ReMix.

See you there, in the meantime leave me a note here or on Twitter.

3’ on Blend 3 - #10: XML Sample Data and DataGrid

2009-07-28T06:09:14Z

In this video we look at how to use an XML file as the basis for Sample Data in Expression Blend 3. We look at where the data gets imported, adapting it and binding it to a DataGrid control.

3 minutes on Blend 3: #10 XML ample Data and DataGrid

The 3 minutes on Blend 3 series:

3’ on Blend 3 - #9: Using Sample Data

2009-07-24T17:35:31Z

In this video we take a look at a new feature in Expression Blend called Sample data. We create a new sample data source and edit some of the properties, next we create a ListBox with a binding to the collection of data. You will see that Blend also allows you to create a details view and binds to a ListBox selected item automatically.
The fact that Blend does some of this stuff automatically for might be good but in case you need more control that’s also possible, check out the recommended link below for some more in-depth information.

3 minutes on Blend 3: #9 Sample Data (master-detail)

Recommended resources

Expression Blend 3: Secrets of working with data
This blog post by Evgeny is a must-read. It gives you some extra details like using keyboard shortcuts to change the default behavior of Blend to databind and automatically create controls and such.
Introducing Sample Data support in Blend 3 – blog post with sample by Unni (Program Manager at the Expression Blend team)

The 3 minutes on Blend 3 series:

3’ on Blend 3 - #8: SketchFlow States

2009-07-21T12:27:14Z

In this video we look at how to use States in a SketchFlow project in order to add interactivity to screens. By using screens you can give the prototype more real looking interaction. For example, having a state to show or hide a block of information upon a click event. You will also see that States are taken into account by the SketchFlow player giving reviewers direct links to the available states on a screen without any work from your side.

#8 – SketchFlow States

3 minutes on Blend 3: #8 SketchFlow States

Recommended resources

Full session video: The future of Expression Blend at MIX09
Electric Beach (Christian Schormann’s blog contains several posts about SketchFlow)

The 3 minutes on Blend 3 series: