Lindsay's Blog O' Stuff v1.9

MSDN Event Resources

I had a great time kicking things off in NYC for this quarter of MSDN Events!  In case you missed something, or wanted to investigate further, check out the links below.  I've also attached the slides for this quarter.

Mike Benkovich, a fellow DE, posted some links for resources, which I've pasted below and added to.

WPF Demystified Links

• Scott Hanselman build's a WPF app
• WPF Page on MSDN
• Felix Corke Explains Design
• Baby Smash - great WPF app
• Family.Show - also a good app
• Bill Steele's WPF Soup to Nuts Webcast Series
• Moving Toward WPF Databinding - Josh Smith walks through databinding in WPF
• Great Channel9 video about a real WPF implementation, and originating blogpost - update (8/29)

Vista Security Links

• Mark Russinovich explains User Account Control
• Security Development Lifecycle - MSDN
• Security Briefs: Protecting Your Code with Visual C++ Defenses - MSDN
• Security Watch: Services Hardening in Windows Vista
• User Account Control
• Windows Firewall and Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
• Registry Virtualization in Windows Vista
• Mandatory Integrity Control
• Windows Vista Security Guide

.NET 3.5 sp1 and Visual Studio 2008 sp1

• MSDN: Visual Studio 2008 sp1 and .NET 3.5 sp1
• Download Page for sp1
• Rob Bagby's REST in WCF blog series to understand more about ADO.NET Data Services
• MSDN: ADO.NET Entity Framework
• MSDN: ADO.NET Data Services
• ADO.NET Entity Framework article in MSDN Magazine
• Screencasts on ASP.NET Dynamic Data and ADO.NET Data Services

General Resources

• MSDN Webcasts - search for a topic and view OnDemand or live
• Silverlight.NET site
• Microsoft Surface - great example of WPF on Windows Vista (and more)
• The Mojave Experiment
• ASP.NET MVC Site

Influence our products, chat with Microsoft Experts!

A great way to gain insight into a technology and to give direct feedback to the product team developing the technology is via MSDN Online Chats (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx).  They post new chat topics every week, so check back often or subscribe to the RSS feed.  If there's a chat topic you would like to see, let me know!

Here are some upcoming chats:

August 21st 4pm PST - Windows Media Center Expert Zone Chat, a monthly chat with the WMC guys.
August 26th 9am PST - Windows Embedded CE and Windows Mobile Live Chat, pick the brains of the Microsoft Embedded Devices group.
September 11th 10am PST - Windows Internet Explorer 8 Expert Zone Chat, I know you're going to jump all over this one.

Have fun chatting!

MSDN Events are back again!

After quite an exciting Heroes Happen Here Launch, MSDN Events are here again!  This quarter we have some tantalizing new content for you to enjoy, and I'm kicking it off in a couple of weeks in New York City and Edison, New Jersey.  Due to some unresolved venue selection, our msdnevents.com site isn't updated with information yet, but you can register directly for the events by going to http://www.microsoft.com/events and searching for In-Person Events.  Here are the links for registering for the NYC and Edison events, and the abstracts of what will be covered:

August 26th, 2008 - New York, New York: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032383953&EventCategory=1&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

August 28th, 2008 - Edison, New Jersey: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032383955&EventCategory=1&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Goodbye, Randy Pausch. Thank you.

"You just have to decide if you’re a Tigger or an Eeyore."

Yay! Philly Geek Dinner

Whooohoooo, geek dinners are coming to Philly!  A geek dinner is just that: eat dinner with fellow geeks.  Any (geeky) topic is open for discussion, no canned presentations, no corporate-ness, no specific technology...just a place for geeks to be geeks, together...and of course, enjoy Philadelphia and it's great food attractions!  Apparently, they're looking to do this monthly, kicking off August 5th.  Unfortunately, I'll be out of town for a work meeting, but I'll be sure to catch the next one!  Check out the links below for more info.

Sol Young's video post about the geek dinner: http://solyoung.com/2008/07/17/good-morning-philadelphia-geek-dinner
Upcoming.org: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/899004/?ps=5
Evenful.com: http://eventful.com/events/philly-geek-dinner-/E0-001-013966534-4

Somebody PLEASE go and report back to me!

"Look What You Can Do with Silveright 2" Part 6: Adaptive Streaming and More

The last part of webcast series didn't focus specifically on one facet of Silverlight 2, but rather highlighted various aspects: media improvements Adaptive Streaming, Server-side playlists, DRM, Accessibility and UI Automation, OpenFileDialog, Isolated Storage and Silverlight for Mobile.  Phew, that was a lot to cover in one hour!  There was a question from Andre about the Silverlight Ad Template I mentioned that was introduced during Scott's keynote.  It's actually not available yet (sorry to mislead you!), but the project that used to demonstrate the addition of the template was the Video.Show S+S Blueprint.  Video.Show is a reference-quality blueprint for implementing a user-generated video content site. It provides everything you need to create a website for uploading, encoding, cataloguing, publishing and commenting on videos, using Silverlight, Expression Encoder and Silverlight Streaming by Windows Live.  You can download it, play around with it, change things around and customize it!  So, sorry for the confusion, I thought the Ad Template made it into the blueprint.  Stay tuned to SIlverlight.net for updates.

Here are the resources I mentioned during the webcast:

The MediaStreamSource class used as a source for the MediaElement in Adaptive Streaming: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.media.mediastreamsource(VS.95).aspx
Scott Guthrie's Mix08 Keynote: http://visitmix.com/blogs/Joshua/Day-1-Keynote/ (fast forward to minutes 55 - 1:10 or so, where Scott talks about Adaptive Streaming, Silverlight Advertising, Bit rate throttling, etc)
Brad Abram's original and updated posts highlighting OpenFileDialog and Isolated Storage (download the source in the second link): http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2008/04/25/silverlight-flickr-example.aspx and http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2008/06/19/updated-silverlight-flickr-demo-for-beta2.aspx
Silverlight for Mobile page on Silverlight.net: http://silverlight.net/learn/mobile.aspx
Video.Show Software + Services Blueprint (SO COOL!): http://www.codeplex.com/videoshow

Thank you to everyone who tuned into any part of the series!  I had a blast preparing and presenting them.  Please don't hesitate to email me with any questions, and I would LOVE to hear about how you're implementing your new found Silverlight 2 skills.

PS>  Perfect timing -- 10 minutes after I wrapped up our webcast, the UPS man dropped off my pre-ordered copy of Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 2 by Laurence Moroney which just hit the book shelves.  I wish I had this book a month ago when I was prepping for the series!  But I suggest you read it along with me to provide some functional context to all that we went over in our series.  :)

"Look What You Can Do with Silveright 2" Part 5: Testing Framework

In the fifth part of our series, we examined Unit Testing in Silverlight 2.  Not only did we release the source code to many Silverlight 2 controls, we shipped over 1500 unit tests that target them.  We also shipped a very robust Silverlight Testing Framework that was built on the Visual Studio Team System unit test framework.  This enables developers to write API-level and UI-level tests for their Silverlight applications.

Resources:
ScottGu's blog post on Silverlight 2 Unit Testing: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/04/02/unit-testing-with-silverlight.aspx
ScottGu's ChatClient Tutorial that we used for our demo: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/02/28/first-look-at-using-expression-blend-with-silverlight-2.aspx
Jeff Wilcox's (developer of the testing framework) post that I based our demos on: http://www.jeff.wilcox.name/2008/03/31/silverlight2-unit-testing/
Jeff Wilcox's post updating for Silverlight 2 Beta 2: http://www.jeff.wilcox.name/2008/06/11/silverlight-unit-test-framework-download-for-silverlight-2-beta-2/
Download Silverlight 2 Beta 1 Controls (source and tests): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ea93dd89-3af2-4acb-9cf4-bfe01b3f02d4&DisplayLang=en

"Look What You Can Do with Silveright 2" Part 4: Web Services Support

Today we discussed consuming Web Services in our Silverlight 2 applications using ASMX Web Services, WCF Services and REST.  This webcast was based on a blogpost by Tim Heuer.  The attached code is modified from his source code to work with Silverlight 2 Beta 2.  The changes I made from his code are as follows:

1. In the CallingServices Silverlight Project I added a reference to System.Net
2. I changed the startup project to CallingServices_Web and the startup page to CallingServicesTestPage.aspx
3. In the Bin folder of the CallingServices_Web project I updated the path of the System.Web.Silverlight.dll.refresh item to point to my local silverlight.dll (as I'm running Vista 64-bit, it's saved to my Program Files x86 folder)
4. In Page.xaml of my CallingServices Silverlight project, I all references to System.Windows.Controls, which included removing the text below from the UserControl xaml element and removing "Controls:" from the beginning and ending <Button> tags
   xmlns:Controls="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls"
5. I added my Flickr API Key in the URI for my Rest button implementation.

Here are the links I referenced:

Tim Heuer's blogpost on Web Services in Silverlight: http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2008/03/14/calling-web-services-with-silverlight-2.aspx and follow up: http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2008/03/19/calling-services-with-silverlight-part-2.aspx
A great explanation of when and how to use WebClient or HttpWebRequest in Silverlight: http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/Using-WebClient-and-HttpWebRequest.aspx
Tim's videos on Web Services from Silverlight.net/learn.  There are 3 videos - one one WCF, one on Cross Domain networking, and one focusing on WebClient/HttpWebRequest usage:  http://silverlight.net/learn/videocat.aspx?cat=2#HDI2WebServices

Please let me know if you have any questions!  See you on Wednesday for Unit Testing!

Ooooh looky, XNA on CNN.

We all have our start-up routines, the boot order we go through as we sit down at our computer in the morning.  Mine includes reading CNN.com.  Today, one of the headlines in the Tech section caught my eye, "Indie video game designers break through".  I thought, "Could it be on XNA, really?"  And the answer was, YES!  Check it out as the winner of our Dream, Build, Play competition talks about creating games as an independent and how XNA enables developers:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/06/23/indie.games.ap/index.html

"Look What You Can Do with Silveright 2" Part 3: Introducing Deep Zoom

Today we covered Deep Zoom, based on Seadragon technology, which allows the users of our Silverlight application to navigate large amounts of visual information (images) regardless of the size of data and bandwidth available for downloading it.  A really cool implementation of Deep Zoom was introduced at Mix08 by Hard Rock Cafe (http://memorabilia.hardrockcafe.com).  We examined the Deep Zoom Composer, and discussed how it processes images and breaks them into lots of tiles and creates lower-res versions of them and tiles those.  We then took a look at how the output of the composer is wired up to our Silverlight application using the MultiScaleImage element.  Luckily for us, in the latest version of the Composer, we can have it generate all the wiring and Silverlight project for us, complete with Input (Mouse) handling!  I was going to post the project I created, but it came out to 85MB, so I decided against it.  The reason it's so big is because each image I imported into the Composer was 4MB, so when it did all the tiling and created lower res versions, it became very large.  I would have just uploaded the solution without all the images, but it wouldn't run (of course).  But since I didn't change any of the code you can do it yourself by creating your own project with the Deep Zoom Composer and outputting the images and Silverlight project.

Here some links to some Deep Zoom resources, keep in mind that a lot was changed with Silverlight Beta 2 and the new version of the Deep Zoom Composer, so walking through the steps outlined in the demos below won't work.

Expression Team Blog post on What's New in the Deep Zoom Composwer - http://blogs.msdn.com/expression/archive/2008/06/07/what-s-new-in-deep-zoom-composer.aspx
Jaime Rodriguez's post on Deep Zoom (good stuff!) - http://blogs.msdn.com/jaimer/archive/2008/03/31/a-deepzoom-primer-explained-and-coded.aspx
Dan Water's video on getting started with DeepZoom - http://silverlight.net/learn/learnvideo.aspx?video=45278 (using Beta 1)
Deep Zoom Composer User Guide - http://blogs.msdn.com/expression/archive/2008/03/05/deep-zoom-composer-user-guide.aspx (for Beta 1)
Mike Harsh's Mix Session on Silverlight 2 - http://blogs.msdn.com/mharsh/archive/2008/03/05/slides-and-demos-from-my-mix-08-talk.aspx

"Look What You Can Do with Silveright 2" Part 2: WPF UI Framework Continued

Today we continued our discussion on why I love Silverlight 2 by examining Layout Managment using Grid, StackPanel and Canvas.  We also took a look at binding controls to data (see Jesse Libery's video) and styling/skinning controls.  Attached is the code.

"Look What You Can Do with Silveright 2" Part 1: Overview of Silverlight 2 and WPF UI Framework

Today we went over the architecture of Silverlight, the new features in Silverlight 2 and started our discussion in the WPF UI Framework.  We took a look at creating a Silverlight app in Expression Blend and VS2008.  Attached to this post is the code.

Upcoming Silverlight 2 Webcast Series

In June I'll be doing a very condensed 6-part webcast series entitled: Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2.  I wanted to call the series "Top Reasons I think Silverlight 2 is COOL," but that didn't fly.  Click on the Webcast titles to register.  Hope you can make it!

Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 1 of 6): Overview of Silverlight 2 and the WPF UI Framework
June 16th, 2008 1pm EST

Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering the next generation of Microsoft .NET-connected media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. In the first part of this webcast series, we provide a brief overview of Silverlight 2, and we describe its architecture, the new features specific to Silverlight 2, and the tools for working with the technology—Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft Expression Blend. We also discuss the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) UI framework for Silverlight, which is a subset of the WPF UI framework for the desktop and Windows Presentation Foundation. Learn how to use Silverlight controls for a rich way to build sites and layout management, how to render content correctly when you resize the page, and the available Silverlight controls, including Button, Calendar, ListBox, Image, Grid, Slider, and TextBox.

Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 2 of 6): WPF UI Framework Continued
June 18th, 2008 2pm EST

In the second part of this webcast series, we continue our investigation of the Microsoft Silverlight 2 Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) UI framework. We discuss data-binding support and the ability to customize the appearance of your controls with the templating and skinning model in Silverlight 2. Learn how data-binding support in Silverlight 2 enables you to bind UI elements to business objects for rich data scenarios with model, view, and container separation. By taking advantage of the control templating available in Silverlight 2, you can do more than just change the color and style of your controls; you can change the whole visual tree of your control and even add custom animations without writing code.

Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 3 of 6): Introducing Deep Zoom
June 20th, 2008 1pm EST

The Deep Zoom feature in Microsoft Silverlight 2, which is based on SeaDragon technology from Microsoft Research, allows users to easily and cleanly navigate through very large images and only download the portions of the images needed. In this third part of our Silverlight 2 webcast series, we take an in-depth look at Deep Zoom. We discuss the considerations that you must make when working with large images and we explain how Silverlight 2, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, and Microsoft Expression Blend enable you to implement Deep Zoom in applications easily.

Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 4 of 6): Web Services Support
June 23rd, 2008 1pm EST

Microsoft Silverlight 2 has a robust networking stack, and it supports  Representational State Transfer (REST), SOAP, WS*, HTTP endpoints, and even cross-domain networking. In this webcast, we examine how to implement calls to Web services from your Silverlight 2 Microsoft .NET-connected applications using a variety of methods, including standard ASP.NET Web Services (ASMX), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Services, and REST.

Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 5 of 6): Testing Framework
June 25th, 2008 1pm EST

A new testing framework is shipping with Microsoft Silverlight 2. This testing framework enables you to write unit tests for UI and non-UI functionality in Silverlight 2, and it includes more than 2,000 unit tests covering all of the released Silverlight 2 controls. In this webcast, we examine some of the built-in unit tests and how to build your own unit tests or extend the included unit tests, all of which are covered under an open-source license. We also discuss the support in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 for debugging your Silverlight 2 applications.

Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 6 of 6): Adaptive Streaming
June 27th, 2008 1pm EST

In the last part of our Microsoft Silverlight 2 webcast series, we highlight adaptive streaming, which is an addition to the rich media capabilities of Silverlight 2. Adaptive streaming enables Silverlight 2 applications to examine the capabilities of the client computer, like CPU and bandwidth, and adjusts the bit-rate encoding of streaming video to handle network congestion and CPU usage automatically. We demonstrate how to implement adaptive streaming in Silverlight 2 applications, and we wrap up our webcast series with a brief look at some other cool features of Silverlight 2 and a glimpse of Silverlight Mobile.

A Weekend of Firsts (or Ode to Live Search)

I've lived near Philadelphia for just over 2 years now, and until last weekend had never been "down the shore."  For those of you not familiar with this magical land of goodness, "the shore" is how New Jersians and Eastern Pennsylvanians refer to the beaches along the New Jersey coastline.  And one does not "go to the shore," one goes "down the shore."  Can't mess that one up, they get mighty offended.  "The shore" refers to all 130 miles of New Jersey coastline, but I went to the southern end to a place called Wildwood.  My boyfriend printed out Mapquest directions (old habits die hard) and it showed that the quickest way to get to Wildwood from Philadelphia was to take the Atlantic City Expressway towards Atlantic City, then take the Garden State Parkway south.  My Windows Live Maps analysis confirmed this to be true.  We left before rush hour on Friday and after crossing the Walt Whitman bridge to leave the city, traffic slowed considerably.  Uh-oh, we hadn't even reached the Atlantic City Expressway and there's already traffic!  "Don't worry," I said to my concerned boyfriend, "I can check the traffic patterns to see if there's an accident!"  With that, I confidentally whipped out my trusty AT&T Tilt and opened my FAVORITE MOBILE APPLICATION OF ALL TIME: Live Search.  "It looks like there's an accident ahead, we should take 55 instead," I declared.  The 55 is a more direct route to Wildwood, but not all of it is a highway.  So that's what we did.  Ahh, I love that app.  Fast forward about an hour, we're reaching the end of the road and I need to check the next step of directions.  I open the application, and I get notified that and update is available.  I download and install the new version (takes about a minute), and the whole while I have just one thought: I want to use my GPS.  One of the reasons I bought the AT&T Tilt is that it has GPS built in.  Since I travel a LOT, I thought it'd be a good idea to have as I've been avoiding purchasing a separate device.  And everytime I get lost, I've regretted that decision.  Unfortunately, Live Search wouldn't work with my GPS.  Whenever I tried to use the application to find my location, it would hang.  I know that Google Maps mobile app worked with the Tilt, but I didn't want to fold to the pressure and have been desperately awaiting an update.  And that update was finally here!  I started entering directions: from GPS Position to Wildwood.  And as I waited the few seconds for the route to display, my heart thumped with anticipation -- will it work for the FIRST time?  YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  At this point, my boyfriend thinks I'm crazy.  And I am; I'm crazy for Live Search.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend.  I really enjoyed my first boardwalk experience and I'm even more reliant on my Tilt and Live Search now that I can use GPS...I've used it to drive to/from Richmond and Baltimore for events this week.  GPS is becoming my new favorite Live Search feature (I'm torn between that and Speech Recognition).

So, go try Live Search - it's not just for Windows Mobile phones, but any mobile device, including Blackberries.  Let me know what you think!

XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP Released!

Yesterday, I had the distinct pleasure of announcing the CTP of XNA Game Studio 3.0 LIVE.  I was speaking on XNA at Laguardia Community College's 3rd Annual New Media Day, my first session went from 10:15 - 11:15...and since I couldn't announce the CTP until 11am - it was a great finish to my talk!

Here's the link the the CTP announcement: http://blogs.msdn.com/xna/archive/2008/05/07/announcing-xna-game-studio-3-0-community-technical-preview-ctp.aspx

Some highlights:

• You can now develop XNA games for the entire Zune family (4,8,30,80 gig models, both v1 and v2 versions) - with access to the Zune's wireless functionality and non-DRM music.
• Visual Studio 2008 is supported (and only Visual Studio 2008 with C# or Visual C# Express works with the CTP, not VS2005)
• You can submit feature suggestions or report bugs via the Microsoft Connect site.  Who knows, they may make it into the final release (which is targeted for the holiday season)!

If you write a game for the Zune - let me know, I'd love to test it out.