Developer Community

Code Bubbles

Frank La Vigne — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:08:00 GMT

A researcher at Brown came up with an interesting twist on the UX of typical IDEs (integrated development environments.

IDEs haven’t really changed radically since the early 2000s.

Sure, there have been updates, upgrades, and enhancements, but no one has done anything radically new in a long time.

So, how long before Visual Studio has a view like this? ;)

Avast Ye XAML Heads

Frank La Vigne — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:16:00 GMT

Arrr, Cameron Albert is cookin' up a cool Sil'erlight Game Gar, Where can I find a bottle o'rum?

Sorry, I couldn’t resist using the Pirate Translator.

Cameron shares a screencast of the pirate themed game he’s developing in Silverlight.

Technorati Tags: Games,Silverlight,Casual Games,Silverlight Game Dev

Slides from Bing Maps & Silverlight Talk at N3UG

Frank La Vigne — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:39:00 GMT

To go along with the links from my talk, here is the slide deck:

Bing & Silverlight: Perfect Together

View more presentations from Frank La Vigne.

I’ll be giving a similar talks in the near future in the Mid-Atlantic area, so keep an eye on my blog and Community Megaphone for more details.

Technorati Tags: North Jersey,N3UG,Bing Maps,Silverlight,GeoLocation

CapArea.NET Silverlight SIG News

Frank La Vigne — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:29:00 GMT

In case you're wonder WTH happened to the Silverlight SIG in January and February: you may have heard the good news: I'm a dad now!

You may not have heard the bad news: I seriously injured my shoulder in January.

Meetings will resume March 31.

In fact, I’ll be doing a Deep Dive talk on Silverlight 4. [add to calendar]

If you can't wait until March 31 to get your Silverlight fix, keep a close eye on the goings on next week at MIX10. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I won’t be able to make it this year. :(

Congratulations to Leonard Van Lowe!

Congratulations are in order to the Leonard Van Lowe (@lvanlowe), the new vice-president of the SIG.

He's a local Silverlight expert and all around great guy. He'll be there to help run the group and make sure I am no longer a single point of failure.

Sponsors!

We're looking for sponsors to help support the group. Seriously, we need sponsors. Our pizza fund is in jeopardy.

see more dog and puppy pictures

I'll bring cake to a meeting in the near future to celebrate the publication of my Silverlight 4 book, but unless more sponsors step up, that'll be all the food we'll get for a while. Contact us for details. (frank@franksworld.com or scott@caparea.net)

There are a lot of great things coming down the pipe this year: Windows Phone 7, Silverlight 4, etc..

Here's to a great 2010, even if we have to start it in March. ;)

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,SilverlightDC,Pizza

Links from Bing Maps Silverlight Talk at N3UG

Frank La Vigne — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:06:00 GMT

Thanks to everyone who attended my Bing Maps & Silverlight talk the other night at the North Jersey .NET User Group.

It was good to be home, even if just virtually.

As promised here are some links I mentioned in my talk.

IP to Location – free IP to LatLong service
Download the Bing Maps Silverlight Control
Bing Maps Silverlight Edition
Interactive SDK
Bing Maps Developer Portal – this is where you’ll get an API key
Cake-O-Rama Locations – basic mapping sample from my book
Delivery Application – advanced sample from my book with geocoding, reverse geocoding and routing
Twitter Map – see who’s tweeting what and where

Paul (@moon) was kind enough to record the session on video and post it to his site, so you can relive the entire experience. ;)

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,Bing Maps,Bing,Mapping,GeoLocation

Speaking Virtually at N3UG on Tuesday

Frank La Vigne — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:59:00 GMT

I’ll be speaking via web-conference at the North Jersey .NET User Group (aka N3UG) on Tuesday, March 9.

Session Abstract
The Silverlight Bing Maps control is one of the coolest and most practical uses for Silverlight ever. Learn how to make your site geographically aware, provide directions, get traffic data and more.
Bio
Frank La Vigne has been hooked on software development since he was 12 when he got his own Commodore 64 computer. Since then, he's worked as developer for financial firms on Wall Street and in Europe. He has worked on various Tablet PC solutions and building advanced user experiences in Silverlight and WPF. He lives in the suburbs of Washington, DC. He founded the CapArea.NET User Group Silverlight Special Interest Group. Once upon a time, he lived in North Jersey and attended N3UG regularly. He blogs regularly at www.FranksWorld.com.

N3UG was the first user group I ever attended and I’m excited to speak there again.

Here’s a sneak peek of what we’ll be building, though I’ll re-factor it to focus in on NJ. :)

Technorati Tags: N3UG,Silverlight,Bing Maps

Silverlight 4 Deep Dive at CapArea.NET Silverlight SIG on March 31st

Frank La Vigne — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:35:00 GMT

I’ll be speaking at the next meeting of the CapArea.NET Silverlight SIG. At the risk of overdoing the self-promotion thing: here’s the Asbstract/Speaker bio:

Silverlight 4 Deep Dive

Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 7:00 PM [Add to Calendar]
The ink on Silverlight 3 books were barely dry when Microsoft announced Silverlight 4. Come to this talk and get up to speed quickly on the must know features of Silverlight 4. Web Cam/Mic access, Fully trusted applications, COM access and more!
Speaker Bio:
Frank La Vigne has been hooked on software development since he was 12 when he got his own Commodore 64 computer. Since then, he's worked as developer for financial firms on Wall Street and in Europe. He has worked on various Tablet PC solutions and building advanced user experiences in Silverlight and WPF. He lives in the suburbs of Washington, DC. He founded the CapArea.NET User Group Silverlight Special Interest Group. He blogs regularly at www.FranksWorld.com.

Technorati Tags: Sivlerlight,SilverlightDC,CapArea.NET,Frank La Vigne

Joel Cochran on Community Megaphone Podcast Show #2

Frank La Vigne — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:34:00 GMT

Local WPF/Silverlight guru is on the latest episode of the Community Megaphone Podcast.

Way to go Joel!

Show #2 with guest Joel Cochran posted on Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Originally an AS/400 RPG Programmer, Joel is a former Contributing Editor for ITJungle.com (originally MidrangeServer.com) and has taught various programming languages and Internet technologies at Blue Ridge Community College. He has been developing in C# full time since 2003 and currently devotes most of his efforts to Blend and WPF. A frequent speaker at User Groups and Code Camps, he enjoys teaching and writing about .NET and other technologies, which he happily shares on his blog at http://www.developingfor.net. Joel has served as the Director of Operations for Stonewall Technologies, Inc., in Staunton, VA, since 2000.
Show Notes

Pro WPF in C# 2008: Windows Presentation Foundation with .NET 3.5, Second Edition By Matthew MacDonald

Silverlight 3 Programmer's Reference by J. Ambrose Little, Jason Beres, Grant Hinkson, Devin Rader, Joe Croney

Technorati Tags: WPF,Sivlerlight,Community Megaphone,Developer Community

The Top 10 Treats in Entity Framework 4 Webcast

Frank La Vigne — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:27:00 GMT

Tomorrow, Julie Lerman will present on the top 10 treats in EF4 in a free webcast.

Registration is free. [register now]

Additional details below:

Tour the Top 10 Treats in Entity Framework 4
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
10am PT, San Francisco
6pm - London | 1pm - New York | Thu, Jan 28th at 5am - Sydney | Thu, Jan 28th at 3am - Tokyo | Thu, Jan 28th at 2am - Beijing | 10:30pm - Mumbai
Presented by: Julia Lerman
Duration: Approximately 60 minutes.
Cost: Free
Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0 bring us a new version of ADO.NET Entity Framework, called Entity Framework 4. From the designer, to the APIs to entire new feature sets to support agile development, even former EF skeptics are getting excited about this version. There is a lot to see. In this one hour webcast, Julie Lerman, who is currently working on the 2nd edition of Programming Entity Framework, will highlight the ten most significant changes to the Entity Framework

Entity Framework is definitely something worth learning and Julie is an excellent presenter, so do what you can to make this.

Technorati Tags: EF4,Julie Lerman,O'Reilly,MEF,Enitty Framework

Pittsburgh Code Camp Call for Speakers

Frank La Vigne — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:33:00 GMT

It’s still January, but Spring Code Camp season is just around the corner: including Pittsburgh Code Camp and they’re looking for speakers.

When: April 17th, 2010, 9 AM - 5 PM
Where: University of Pittsburgh, Sennott Square

Technorati Tags: Pittsburgh,Code Camp,Developer Community