Frank La Vigne

Mix10 Session Downloader

Frank La Vigne — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:57:00 GMT

I’ve created a very basic downloading tool for grabbing all the MIX10 Session Content.

Absolutely, no frills, in the UI . Seriously.

Downloads are all synchronous. Did I mention it was a no frills, quick and dirty app?

It’s alpha code all the way.

On the plus side, it renames the files to something more friendly than just the session code.

For example: “CL02” becomes “CL02_Authoring for Windows Phone, Silverlight 4 and WPF 4 with Expression Blend.wmv”

It’s based heavily on my no-frills PDC09 Downloader with a few improvements.

The primary improvement is that it screen scrapes directly from the MIX10 site. There’s no longer the intermediary step of me creating an XML file based on the HTML. I do that programmatically now.

The app also creates a sub-director for each content type: WMV, WMVHigh, Slides, and MP4.

Here’s how it works:

Download from www.franksworld.com/Downloads/MIX10Downloader.zip [20k zip file]
Pick a directory and the program will download all the MIX10 sessions listed on http://live.visitmix.com/videos
Click on the checkboxes to choose which content you want to download
Click the Start Download Button
Let simmer for a few hours (or days) depending on your internet connection
When it’s done, the program will show a dialog box of any errors it encountered.
If you need to stop it, close the program and delete any unfinished downloads: the program is smart enough to pick up missing files.

I’ll post the source code soon here on franksworld.com as soon as I clean it up a bit.

UPDATE: Removed dependency on .NET 4.0 Thanks to Daniel McCoy for pointing that out!

Technorati Tags: Mix10

Chuck Norris and Silverlight Facts

Frank La Vigne — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:52:00 GMT

Inspired by Chuck Norris and SharePoint: here’s Chuck Norris and Silverlight.

Silverlight’s original codename was CN/E or Chuck Norris Everywhere.
Even when Silverlight throws an AG_Unkown_Error, Chuck Norris knows what caused the problem.
Chuck Norris not only codes XAML by hand, he does it while fighting off ninjas, terrorists, and kung fu masters.
Even when you use hardware acceleration, Chuck Norris’ fists are still too fast to see them coming.
Chuck Norris chooses to put his files in isolated storage to protect you from him.
Chuck Norris didn’t have to wait until version 4 to get Commanding support
Chuck Norris doesn’t have to ask for permission to use your web cam.
Chuck Norris has to run in out of browser mode. No browser can contain him.
There’s actually only one timeline that matters: Chuck Norris’.
Chuck Norris isn’t afraid to use Expression Blend. Expression Blend is afraid of being used by Chuck Norris.
Chuck Norris doesn’t refactor to MVVM. MVVM refactors to Chuck Norris.
In addition to COM Interop, Silverlight 4 now sports Roundhouse Kick Mode.

If you think of any more, let me know via Twitter. (@tableteer)

Technorati Tags: Chuck Norris,Silverlight,Fun,Humor,Geek Humor

Airships Rebooted

Frank La Vigne — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:33:00 GMT

The Mail Online has a story about airships possibly making a comeback, but these aren’t your grandfather’s blimps.

Standing 98ft taller than Canary Wharf, packing 330,000 cubic metres of hydrogen gas and capable of lifting 396 tonnes, the Aircruise concept features penthouse apartments, bars and even dizzying glass viewing floors.
Aircruise was created as the antithesis of a hurried, crowded passenger jet. London-based design and innovation company Seymourpowell wanted to rethink transport - on the premise 'slow is the new fast'. It could ferry 100 people from London to New York in a leisurely 37 hours as opposed to the seven it takes now by airplane.

Penthouse apartments? That sure beats sitting in a fetal position for hours on end.

I want to live in one of these things! :)

Check out this video to get a better idea of what they’ve got planned.

Technorati Tags: Blimp,AirCruise,Cool,Future

Bea Stollnitz on Advanced Features for Line-of-Business Applications in Silverlight and WPF

Frank La Vigne — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:12:00 GMT

Bea Stollnitz, formerly of Microsoft, gave a talk on Advanced Features for Line-of-Business Applications in Sliverlight and WPF at Øredev and now it’s on Vimeo.

The latest versions of Silverlight and WPF make it easier than ever to create compelling user interfaces. This presentation will cover advanced topics of these frameworks, with a special focus on features relevant to business applications. You will gain a solid understanding of virtualization, data validation, and other advanced areas that are sure to increase your productivity and effectiveness.

It looks like she has video embedded disabled, so you’ll have to watch the video on this page.

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,WPF,Line of Business,AppDev

Pi Day Hits the Big Time

Frank La Vigne — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:05:00 GMT

Today is Pi-Day (3 – 14) and even Google is marking the occasion.

Yeah, it’s like a geeky version of, well, I can’t really think of a good comparison.

Facts About Chuck Norris and SharePoint

Frank La Vigne — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:32:00 GMT

You may know about chucknorrisfacts.com and how tough he is, but did you know he’s into SharePoint?

Chuck Norris never starts an Approval workflow in SharePoint. Chuck doesn’t need approval.
Chuck Norris’s favorite SharePoint site theme is Cardinal. Chuck enjoys the color Red.
Chuck Norris can modify SharePoint’s application.master in a supportable manner.
Chuck Norris doesn’t have a SharePoint Disaster Recovery Plan. He doesn’t recover data, only hostages.
Chuck Norris can upgrade SharePoint In-Place. (and it will actually work)
Putting Chuck Norris in the SharePoint Visitors group is futile. Chuck always has Full Control.
Chuck Norris doesn’t prepare for SharePoint 2010. SharePoint 2010 prepares for him.
Microsoft asked Chuck Norris to sign an NDA about SharePoint 2010. Chuck Norris asked Microsoft to sign a Living Will.
In SharePoint 2010, the Farm Administrators group is being renamed to ‘Chuck’s Group’.
Chuck Norris isn’t afraid to customize, one look and SharePoint runs at peak performance

Read the full list at Blair’s blog.

Technorati Tags: Chuck Norris,SharePoint

Mike Swanson on MIX10

Frank La Vigne — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:50:00 GMT

Mike Swanson has a blog post on the MIX10 conference taking place next week. Here are some of the highlights:

Windows Phone 7 Series – Honestly, it was tough to keep this one under wraps, especially with something this exciting. If you haven’t watched the Mobile World Congress keynote with Steve Ballmer, Joe Belfiore, and Andy Lees yet, go do that first. It’s a great introduction.
We have 12 Windows Phone sessions, and while we haven’t revealed the real titles and descriptions yet, know that MIX10 is the best place to learn how to build applications and games for Windows Phone 7 Series. You’ll be introduced to the development platform and we’ll show you how to use the tools. Best of all, attendees will receive exclusive free developer support.
To stay in-the-loop on Windows Phone 7 Series-related information, be sure to follow @ckindel on Twitter.
Channel 9 Live – Similar to PDC09, Nic Fillingham (@nicfill) and crew are planning to broadcast live content during most of MIX10. Watch the 10-minute Countdown to MIX10: Let’s do it Live for the details and follow @ch9live on Twitter.

Keynoters:

Back by popular demand is Bill Buxton, recently honored as one of BusinessWeek’s World’s Most Influential Designers. Bill was a favorite at MIX09, and we received a lot of positive attendee feedback about how accessible Bill was in the hallways between sessions. Well, Bill loved it just as much, and he’s excited to be back again this year.
MIX veteran, Scott Guthrie, returns to the stage as one of our highest-rated keynote speakers. I’ve been working with Scott and his team on keynotes and demos for the past few months, and I have to say that I’m excited about what he has to show this year. Well, I’m excited every year, but MIX10 feels special. Be sure to watch Bill and Scott in the MIX09 day 1 keynote.
The astute among you may remember MIX10 keynoter, Joe Belfiore, and his Beyond the Browser general session from MIX06 (the first year of the conference). He’s back this year, and as the Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Program Management, you can probably guess what he’s going to talk about.
Last, but certainly not least, is Dean Hachamovitch, another MIX veteran and General Manager of Internet Explorer. You can watch Dean in last year’s MIX09 day 2 keynote. To get a sense of what his team has been up to, watch the PDC09 day 2 keynote with Steven Sinofsky, and jump to 39:34.

I’ll be in MD, but my head will be in Vegas next week. ;)

Technorati Tags: MIX10,Windows Phone 7,WP7

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? ;)

Sneak Peek at .toolbox design school for Silverlight and Expression

Frank La Vigne — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:56:00 GMT

Adam Kinney shows us a sneak peek at the .toolbox design school for Silverlight and Expression tools.

The site will be launching soon, so follow @designtoolbox to be among the first know when it does.

<\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt="">

The animation reminds me a bit of South Park. ;)

Technorati Tags: .toolbox,Silverlight,Expression,Training

Big Jake?

Frank La Vigne — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:04:00 GMT

While doing some research for my talk on the Bing Maps Silverlight control, I discovered this store near where I went to college.

I’m impressed, my son Jake, barely three months old is already an entrepreneur. ;)

I wonder if they sell t-shirts. I could get one for him. :)

Technorati Tags: Humor

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

Silverlight 4 Book Discount Codes

Frank La Vigne — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:05:00 GMT

If you plan on picking up Silverlight 4 Business Application Development – Beginner's Guide, you might as well save money. Use the following codes when purchasing directly from Packt Publishing.

MsSilver15 – Save 15% off hard copy of the book

MsSilver30 – Save 30% off the eBook

If you are a .NET developer looking to expand your skills into Silverlight this is a great introductory book.

The book gets you involved in the code right away and we try and keep the working code philosophy throughout. If you like to learn by doing, then this is the book for you.

So, what are you waiting for? Pre-order now. ;)

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,Silverlight 4,Book,Packt

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

Sadly, Not Going to MIX10

Frank La Vigne — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:53:00 GMT

Despite my best efforts, MIX10 was just not in the cards for me. I think the hardest part of not going will be telling the dogs: I think they were looking forward to the buffets.

see more dog and puppy pictures

While I may be stuck in Maryland, my head will be in Vegas next week. I’ll keep a close watch on all the live video feeds, recorded sessions and breaking news coming out next week.

Technorati Tags: MIX10,Windows Phone 7,Silverlight

Lego: The Force Unleashed

Frank La Vigne — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:50:00 GMT

Star Wars + Lego = Pure Awesome.

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

Windows Phone 7 Development Details Announced

Frank La Vigne — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:01:00 GMT

Charlie Kindle blogs about some of the details of Windows Phone 7 development, taking the wraps off many mobile geeks have been eagerly awaiting:

In just over a week we (finally!) get to pull the cover off of the Windows Phone application & game developer experience at MIX10. There, through keynotes and more than 12 technical sessions over 3 days, we will “tell all” about the what and how of the new developer platform for Windows Phones.
[. .. .]
The Windows Phone 7 Series developer platform is as different as the new user experience. It’s fresh. It’s pure. And it’s powerful.
We took the feedback we gathered from developers, looked at the full potential of Windows Phone 7 Series and landed on 3 basic goals for the platform we’re delivering;

Enable end users to be able to personalize their phone experience through a large library of innovative, compelling, games and applications.
Enable developers to profit.
Advance the “3 screen plus cloud” vision

The first one is pretty obvious: A key value proposition for Windows Phone is personal. We believe consumers will use games and applications to make their phone experience their own.

The bottom line is that you’ll be able to use Silverlight and XNA to develop for the new Windows Phone.

A lot of this will be revealed at MIX10, but in the meantime, Charlie lists out the following resources:

If you like blogs, I suggest you follow these guys as well; they are all part of the extended team of people at Microsoft who are helping to deliver the new platform.
Andre Vrignaud: www.ozymandias.com / @ozymandias
Christian Schormann: electricbeach.org / @christianschormann
Shawn Hargreaves: blogs.msdn.com/shawnhar / @shawnhargreaves
Todd Brix: windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowsphone / @toddbrix
Anand Iyer: www.artificialignorance.net/blog / @ai
Michael Klucher: klucher.com / @mklucher

Technorati Tags: windows phone 7,xna,Silverlight

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

Vintage Windows Mobile Commercials

Frank La Vigne — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:27:00 GMT

PocketNow has a bunch of “retro” commercials for Windows Mobile.

This one is my favorite: the “we have some catching up to do” line has a nice prophetic ring to it.

Technorati Tags: Windows Mobile,Windows Phone 7

Embeddable CapArea.NET Silverlight Meeting Widget

Frank La Vigne — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:18:00 GMT

I’ve made some updates to the meeting detail widget for the CapArea.NET Silverlight SIG.

If you’d like to place it on your site, simply use the following code:

   1: <iframe src="http://www.franksworld.com/silverlight/meeting/"    2:         frameborder="0"    3:         style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; width: 492px; height: 290px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px">   4:     <br />   5: </iframe>   6:  

If you’re feeling really industrious, here’s the data file I am using for the both this and the countdown widget:

http://www.franksworld.com/Silverlight/Meeting/ClientBin/MeetingData.xml

Keep in mind that I may replace this with a WCF service and this endpoint might change.

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,SilverlightDC,Widget

8 Insane But True Things About Frank's World

Frank La Vigne — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:10:00 GMT

I had some fun posting some funny headlines to Twitter that were generated by the Link Bait Generator. Despite what I may have posted from the @SilverlightDC account, the user group has never appeared in a music video.

At least not yet.

One of the other “uses” of the Link Bait Generator is to inspire actual blog posts and so here it is:

The 8 Insane but True Things About Frank’s World

Frank’s World was originally a fake news site modeled on the Weekly World News.
The first “issue” of Frank’s World was a one page sheet posted on my dorm room door in 1991. The idea was to irritate an obnoxious roommate further by posting ridiculous stuff like “Elvis is alive and living in New Jersey” and “Bruce Lee frozen until economy improves.” There’s even a Flash movie intro sequence depicting the events.
Frank’s World moved to the web in October 1995, with a lead story on how Bigfoot killed Nicole Simpson, complete with Photoshopped “proof” of her relationship with him. Despite my best efforts, I’ve not been able to find that image.
Aside from the fake news site, Frank’s World at one point included:

a prank call humor site
a satire e-zine
a Schnauzer site, complete with a 3 virtual dog park done in VRML
a Mac fanboy site (yes, you read that right. I said Mac)
an Adobe Atmosphere showcase and developer resource site
a site promoting a video game I was writing (a Mortal Kombat style game for the Mac)
a site for the video game company I had planned on starting.
a site called Junklets that showcased useless Java applets.

On 9/11 I posted an “I’m alive and trying to get out of lower Manhattan” message once I got back to my apartment. I also uploaded photos up to the site right away in case something happened to me or my camera.
In 2000/2001, the site became a travel blog of sorts as I’d post to the site my whereabouts when I lived in Germany. In 2001, I used an FTP/SSI hack to use Blogger as a blogging engine. In 2004, I installed .TEXT locally. Sadly, the site still runs on .TEXT. ;)
In the early 2000s,I had an altercation/running feud with a soap-opera-star-turned-real-estate-agent when I lived in North Jersey. I blogged about it. I even named names. I hear it got picked up by a soap opera gossip site. I never was able to confirm that, but the whole event unfolded like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
When I first blogged about expecting our baby, I called the post “Project Neo-Natal,” a play on Project Natal for XBOX. More than a few people forwarded the post, writing excitedly about a “release date” (aka due date) of December 2009. I’m sure someone somewhere freaked out about NDA related issues until they read the post a little more closely. :)

Looking back, it’s interesting to see how the site has evolved and grown over time. I wonder where it’ll go next. :)

Devotion to Duty

Frank La Vigne — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:38:00 GMT

Some SysAdmins take their job very seriously.

Technorati Tags: xkcd,Humor,Geek,Die Hard

Shoulder Injury

Frank La Vigne — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:39:00 GMT

In case you’re wondering what’s been going on in Frank’s World in the longer than average gaps between blog posts, I severely hurt my shoulder last month.

Since then, I’ve been doing physical therapy and healing. I’m out of the sling now and (mostly) out of pain. The doctors say I’ve made great progress.

When you hurt any part of your body, you quickly realize how often you use it and rely on it. This injury makes holding my son an excruciating experience. I still do it anyways, because he’s worth the trouble. :)