Mark Johnston's Blog : Silverlight

Microsoft Expression offer in UK 40% off

markjo — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:28:31 GMT

If you are a designer or developer that works with Microsoft technology (ASP.NET, Silverlight, etc) then this is a cracking offer from the guys over in the Microsoft Store – 40% off which means you can bag Expression Web (upgrade) for just under £60 for instance.

Check it out – 40% off select Expression products

Flash v Silverlight Gallery

markjo — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:36:36 GMT

Stumbled across this great site with a tonne of examples built for Flash and Silverlight. It’s from Terence Tsang, who has 6 years Flash experience and 1 year in Silverlight.

Examples include source code demonstrating effects, animation and 3D. If you are a Flash developer and trying to understand Silverlight then this might be a great starting point

Flash vs Silverlight Gallery

MSDN UK events – Silverlight and WPF

markjo — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 21:55:02 GMT

The guys in the MSDN team are presenting a load of events on rich client technologies during February:

Event Description

Audience: Developers

In this half-day session we’ll do a refresh of the technologies that we can use to build rich, interactive clients with .NET in 2008. We’ll take a look at how we can be cross-platform, cross-browser with Silverlight 2 and yet get the full development experience of a .NET application and then we’ll explore how we can take that further with the Windows Presentation Foundation V3.5 Service Pack 1 which allows for the richest, most-productive development model for Windows applications. There’ll be lots of demos and code as we bring you bang-up-to-date with what’s happening in the world of Microsoft clients.

Agenda:

Silverlight 2: From Scratch

Haven’t seen or experimented with Silverlight 2? This session is for you. We’ll explain the platform’s capabilities for rich, internet applications and we’ll look at how you go about building applications using a combination of the XAML language and the .NET Framework. Along the way, we’ll look at the major stepping stones like how we can make use of the network, how we can make use of the filesystem, how we can re-use and make use of existing controls and we’ll look at the controls that come “in the box” along with the ones in the Silverlight Toolkit on CodePlex. We’ll also look at the tooling involved in building a Silverlight 2 application with Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 and Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1.

Windows Presentation Foundation: From Scratch

New to WPF? Coming back to the world of “rich client” after building web applications? In this session we’ll do a refresh of what Windows Presentation Foundation is, what its core capabilities are and how we build applications using a combination of the XAML language and the .NET Framework. We’ll bring this bang up-to-date by having a look at what’s new for WPF since its original release in 2006 and we’ll look at some of the newer developments such as the WPF Toolkit with its DataGrid and Ribbon controls on CodePlex.

They will be presenting in the following cities:

London
Birmingham
Edinburgh
Manchester

You can find out more and sign up for the event by visiting the MSDN Events site here

Silverlight skills are hot!

markjo — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 12:44:36 GMT

And my name ain’t Paris either.

Nick Langley over at Computer Weekly has a great piece on how important Silverlight is in the RIA space for those with .NET skills.

C# and ASP.Net web developers with Silverlight £28-40k

Not bad eh?

And if you fancy some formal training, check out Xpertise and this blog for more training providers in the new year.

Computer Weekly: Hot Skills - Silverlight

CM’s Christmas card in Silverlight Deepzoom

markjo — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:53:20 GMT

The nice people over at Content Master created their Christmas card with DeepZoom:

Check out Merry Christmas from all at CM Group

(HT to Kris)

Photosynth goes Silverlight

markjo — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:54:34 GMT

Spotted this one on the DeepZoom blog

Kudos to Mark Dawson for this

Check it out - Experimental Silverlight Photosynth Viewer

Microsoft Student Technology Day Videos Online - SteveB and more industry/MSFT greats

markjo — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:49:35 GMT

On 1 October 2008, Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer and a host of industry professionals discussed the next generation of computer science innovations with more than 300 students and lecturers from across the UK - the event was the Student Technology Day.

The videos are now all online in glorious Silverlight. And I've embedded the big man here, he was on fire that day:

The videos:

There is embed code on the site for you to put the videos on your blog/site/etc - Student Technology Day

Enjoy!

FREE Designer event in Manchester on 3/12 - Screenedit Sessions

markjo — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:15:23 GMT

I've teamed up with the chaps from Tricky Business, Splendid and my northern pal Phil Winstanley to organise an evening focused on design and what Microsoft has to offer designers and developers who care about Experience/UX/Silverlight/WPF/Expression/Cool and beautiful technology

The sessions look pretty cool:

Tricky from Tricky Business:

People don't buy products, they buy experiences. Get the thoughts of Tricky on 'experience design' and the methods that his team have put into practice on digital projects for Audi, Alton Towers and John L Scott. Discover why design is an essential stage in the creation of rich interfaces, and how you can shape your product so that it's right for the people who really matter, your customers!

Ben and Michael from Splendid:

Leave the thoughts of plug-ins and technology stacks at the door, we want to talk to you about how we create a compelling user experience for the coolest brand in the world (that’s official) going through real world experiences and showing you the outcome (with no acronyms used along the way).

And my contribution to this great event, I'm buying the beers and food! So come along.

Remix videos online

markjo — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:29:45 GMT

Remix was only a few weeks ago now, and for those that missed out on the experience we have uploaded all the sessions and recordings for the event to the Remix site.

Highlights for me:

Anything by Bill Buxton!
How we built the wall by AllofUs
Becoming human; smiling like you mean it, and learning to say hello by Denise Wilton from Moo
XNA Game Studio by Paul Foster

Remix UK 2008 Videos online

H.264 and AAC support coming to Silverlight

markjo — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:19:26 GMT

A preview of Silverlight was shown at IBC last week which supported the H.264 and AAC. Cool stuff, if you are into your video...which lots of people are.

“At IBC 2008 we will be demonstrating a technology preview of H.264 video and Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) audio playback support in Silverlight, and H.264 authoring using Microsoft Expression Encoder and Windows Server 2008 for delivery. Until now, Silverlight has supported the SMPTE VC-1 and Windows Media formats, as well as MP3 for audio, enabling customers to take advantage of broad support across the Windows Media ecosystem, including third-party tools, service providers and content delivery networks.
We’ve always wanted Silverlight to support a variety of formats, so today we’re announcing that H.264 and AAC support will be available in a future version of Silverlight, which will offer content owners greater flexibility and choice to deliver video and audio.”

Read the Q&A with ScottGu

Mojave Experiment, now with added Silverlight

markjo — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:58:51 GMT

Whenever Microsoft release a site with Flash on it these days, there is a lot of stick both internally and on the blogosphere about why the marketing team didn't mandate the agency build it using Silverlight.

It's amazing to see that the Vista marketing folks have released an updated version of the site built on Silverlight. Even better that it uses Deepzoom to power the user experience!

Check it out - www.mojaveexperiment.com

I'll be at Remix UK in Brighton on 18-19 September

markjo — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:12:02 GMT

I'm going to be at Remix in Brighton on 18-19 September.

It is going to be great. Tonnes of great content. Great speakers. Great location. It should be the Great British Remix :)

I'll be there in my new role as Expression Product Manager, rather than my other role with academics/students. If you are a designer then I want to meet you and talk about Expression and Microsoft's relevant offerings for designers from WPF, Silverlight through to stuff like Surface. Ping me on twitter or email me

Oh, and I have discount codes if you want £50 off the price. Just email me at markjo@microsoft.com

Silverlight + Deepzoom + Cars = Me Happy

markjo — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:29:37 GMT

I saw this internally and again on Tim Heuer's blog. Kelley Blue Book looks similar to an AutoTrader or Autoebid in the UK and it's Perfect Car Finder service built using Deepzoom and Silverlight allows users to filter on their preferences and see the cars available to them visually before zooming in to see a high res photo.

Now, what I want to see is a Deepzoom implementation of a top end car brand like Audi (hint hint to an agency we use who also work with Audi ;-)) with super high resolution images! Drool!

Perfect Car Finder

Want to see some cool Silverlight sites?

markjo — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:03:25 GMT

The Microsoft Art & Technology site showcases a load of Silverlight based web sites from Ice Cube through to Presidential Election sites. The site has:

Microsoft Art & Technology

My love for Silverlight...

markjo — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:32:12 GMT

...is so strong that I had umbrellas made for a recent event:

(The pantone matches the nebula logo as well!)

:-)