If you’re interested in Silverlight 3 and building business applications you’re not going to want to miss this excellent free Silverlight training opportunity!

Join us at Advanced Home Care on Tuesday, 7th July, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. (Dinner & Meet & Greet: 6-6:45 p.m.)

Directions link: (4001 Piedmont Parkway, High Point, NC 27265).
Overview:

Silverlight 3 is expected to hit the web sometime soon this summer and in this presentation you will learn about some of the new features applicable to developing business applications with Silverlight 3. We will look at building solutions with the new navigation framework, accessing, validating, and updating data with .NET RIA Services, working with the new capabilities to make your Silverlight applications SEO friendly, and a few more things as well. Agenda : 6:00 – 6:30          Dinner & Meet & Greet 6:45 – Presentation · General Announcements · Building Business Applications in Silverlight 3.0 Presented by : · Jim Duffy is founder and president of TakeNote Technologies, an award-winning training, consulting, and software development company specializing in .NET software developer training and helping clients create business solutions with Microsoft technologies. Jim is a Microsoft Regional Director, a Microsoft MVP, an INETA speaker, and is an entertaining and popular speaker at regional user groups and international developer conferences. He is also a co-host of Computers 2K9, a call-in radio show on WRBZ (AM 850), 850 The Buzz, in Raleigh, NC. You can find additional information about Jim, TakeNote Technologies, links to his blog, as well as a public training class schedule, on-site training information, consulting information, and software development services at at   http://www.takenote.com Please see the www.triaddev.org site, or click the Directions link. So be sure to RSVP today! Note: You may RSVP in reply to this e-mail, or to www.triaddev.org

Tonight the gang at the TRINUG Web Apps SIG (Special Interest Group) decided to take a break from their monthly MVC and JQuery fun to take a look at some of the new features of Silverlight 3. The screenshot above and link below is the completed code sample that I was walking through to show some Silverlight basics and look at a few of the new features.

The sample includes Perspective 3d capabilities, element to element bindings, and Pixel Shader Effects.

Download SigDemo SL3 Code

The Silverlight 3 Out Of Browser Slide application demo that we took a look at as well is available here on Mike Harsh’s Blog.

Thanks to everybody that attended my presentation at the Carrboro RIA meetup last night.

Here are a few links to items discussed:

Getting started with Silverlight:

http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/

Microsoft Expression Blend website:

http://www.microsoft.com/expression/

Some of the demo sites we looked at:

http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/

http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/webclient/

http://www.smoothhd.com/

http://www.robzelt.com/silverlight/planets/

 

Silverlight Control Toolkit

http://silverlight.codeplex.com

Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton

Mix09 Content

http://www.vistimix.com

With the recent public announcement that the Release Candidate (RC) of Win7 was just days away, we’re starting to hear a lot more buzz around some details that had been kept secret.

Have ever wondered why Microsoft makes certain decisions for the Windows OS and what’s behind those decisions? For a behind the scenes explanation from some of the key engineers behind Windows 7 and IT Pro’s about their own experiences, check out the introduction to “Talking about Windows” by Stephen Rose.

But wait! There’s more! This isn’t just a video site, it’s a community hub that allows discussions around the content, as well as links to the Springboard Series of technical guidance.

“Communication is key...We look forward to continuing the conversation.”

Well worth checking out.

If you missed the MIX09 keynote, check it out!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately on how different types of layout controls can be used make the tools and the framework do the heavy lifting for us in our Silverlight Development. Karl Shifflett recently posted an example creating a custom WPF control to make it easier to layout a data input screen and I decided to build out a Silverlight version.

The control extends an ItemsControl to use a custom container that provides a text label and layout for input controls.

The result is a custom control that allows me to add input controls such as TextBoxes and CheckBoxes and get labels and much of the styling for free. Silverlight’s DataBinding capabilities allow me to set a DataContext for the FormControl, and then simply specify an individual binding for each field.

          <
          TextBox
          Zelt:FormItem.LabelContent="First
Name"Text="{Binding FirstName}"Width="250"/><TextBoxZelt:FormItem.LabelContent="Last
Name"Text="{Binding LastName}"Width="250"/>

Utilizing this type of markup allows for a lot of potential in tool support. I’m sure that Karl plans to support this type of content in his XAML Power Toys add-in.

I’ve got a few additions before I share out the code, but I’d welcome any feedback on this approach.

In early December Montreal is hosting an exciting developer conference covering a wide range of topics from some of our industry's leading presenters. The 3 day conference is packed with information in 136 sessions. Pre and Post conference sessions are also available to increase your learning potential at the event. Attendees will also receive over $1000 in free software!

The fun starts Tuesday December 2nd with a key by Ted Neward. See you there!!!

http://www.devteach.com

Did you miss PDC? Want to see some of the latest content relating to Cloud Computing, Silverlight 2, and the future directions of ASP.NET 4? Links are below for your FREE invite!

Introducing the MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow:

The MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow is a  ¾ day, free developer event with a southern flair where you will learn about some of the latest developments in Microsoft technologies. For this edition we will cover a broad range of the latest Microsoft Technologies:

· Take a tour of Microsoft’s cloud computing platform and the services that make it easy to give your applications the most compelling experiences and features.  Explore the journey a developer takes, from writing a service to launching that service in the cloud. Learn about the cloud services that enable developers to easily create or extend their applications and services.

· Microsoft Silverlight provides a powerful platform for building the next generation of rich interactive applications on the Internet. In this session, we take a look at the programming model and tools that developers and designers can leverage to build these true next-generation experiences for consumers and business, and demonstrate building a rich interactive application (RIA) using Silverlight and Microsoft .NET.

· ASP.NET is evolving a very rapid pace, come explore all the latest features of ASP.Net such as Dynamic Data, MVC, and even take a sneak peak at the upcoming features in ASP.NET 4.0!  We’ll look at some new features such as taking control of your Control IDs, using the DynamicImage control, and ViewState management options.   We’ll spend plenty of time talking about MVC and creating applications based on this framework, so if you’re wondering how to leverage MVC in your web applications, this talk is for you!

12/2/2008 -- Charleston

12/3/2008 – Wilmington

12/4/2008 - Raleigh

12/5/2008 - Charlotte

A while back I posted on creating a custom layout panel in WPF that could arrange items based on an assigned date property to create a timeline view. Working through the creation of this panel taught me a great deal about how powerful the layout system was in WPF, and now how that power and flexibility extends into Silverlight 2.

The Silverlight 2 layout system is largely based on the use of panels, which includes the Canvas, Grid, and Stack Panel. Silverlight 2 includes a base Panel that you are able to derive from and override it’s default layout behavior. In addition to the basic functionality that comes with Panel, it provides two methods that you can easily override to create your own behavior. MeasureOverride and ArrangeOverride are the heart of the layout, determining the the position of elements. It’s essentially a to phase process where MeasureOverride examines the child elements of the panel to see what size they would “like to be”. The ArrangeOverride the tells the children the size and location they “are going to be”, based on whatever calculations you specify.

This example shows how using a custom attached property to specify an event date for any child element placed on the panel that ArrangeOverride can then use to position them.

This view showing the history of Windows version release dates is created using this XAML markup:

          <
          local:TimelinePanel
          Width
          ="800"
          Height
          ="280"
          StartDate
          ="1/1/1984"
          StopDate
          ="12/12/2010"
          Background
          ="LightGray"
          >
          <
          TextBlock
          local:TimelinePanel.EventDate="11/1/1985">Windows
1.0</TextBlock><TextBlocklocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="12/1/1987">Windows
2.0</TextBlock><TextBlocklocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="5/1/1990">Windows
3.0</TextBlock><TextBlocklocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="4/1/1992">Windows
3.1</TextBlock><TextBlocklocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="5/30/1995">Windows
NT 3.51</TextBlock><TextBlocklocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="8/24/1995">Windows
95</TextBlock><TextBlocklocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="6/1/1996">Windows
NT 4</TextBlock><TextBlocklocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="6/1/1998">Windows
98</TextBlock><TextBlocklocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="2/1/2000">Windows
2000</TextBlock><TextBlocklocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="7/1/2000">Windows
Me</TextBlock><TextBlocklocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="10/1/2001">Windows
XP</TextBlock><TextBlocklocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="1/1/2007">Windows
Vista</TextBlock></local:TimelinePanel>

As you can see from the XAML markup, a Start and Stop date are specified for the date range that the panel will display. Each child element, in this case TextBlock’s have an EventDate property specified. It should be noted that the TextBlock itself has no concept of an event date coded into it. EventDate is an Attached Property, a dependency property that can be “attached” to any element.

“An attached property is a concept defined by XAML. An attached property is intended to be used as a type of global property that is settable on any object element in XAML. In Silverlight version 2, attached properties are typically defined as a specialized form of dependency property that does not have the conventional property wrapper in the object's CLR object model .”

MSDN has more details on attached properties in Silverlight 2 online.

In the ArrangeOverride code I simply scale the date based on the EventDate’s relative position to the StartDate and StopDate of the TimeLinePanel giving me a horizontal position. For the vertical position I track the position of the previous element and if it overlaps I place it below, creating a cascading effect for overlapping elements.

          protected
          override Size
ArrangeOverride(Size finalSize) { double lastX = 0; double lastY
= 0; foreach (UIElement element inthis.Children)
{ DateTime eventDate = (DateTime)element.GetValue(EventDateProperty); double pos
= ScaleDate(eventDate); double left = finalSize.Width *
pos; double top = (double)element.GetValue(VerticalOffsetProperty); if (double.IsNaN(top)
== true) top = 0.00; double width
= element.DesiredSize.Width; double height = element.DesiredSize.Height; if (lastX
+ width > left) { top = lastY + 20 + (double)element.GetValue(VerticalOffsetProperty);
} else { top = 0 + (double)element.GetValue(VerticalOffsetProperty);
} element.Arrange(new Rect(left, top, width, height)); lastX
= left; lastY = top; } return finalSize; }

The use of custom panels for layout in Silverlight 2 creates a world of exciting possibilities, giving developers and designers an incredibly flexible set of tools. With the ability for panels to be reused within other controls such as the ListBox (Shown in my previous Solar System ListBox Demo) advanced user experiences become much easier to create. By placing the TimeLinePanel into the ItemsPanelTemplate of ListBox and attaching the EventDate to the ListBoxItem, I now have all of the functionality of a ListBox, with the visual display of my TimeLinePanel.

          <
          ListBox
          >
          <
          ListBox.ItemsPanel
          >
          <
          ItemsPanelTemplate
          >
          <
          local:TimelinePanel
          Width
          ="800"
          Height
          ="280"
          StartDate
          ="1/1/1984"
          StopDate
          ="12/12/2010"
          Background
          ="LightGray"
          >
          </
          local:TimelinePanel
          >
          </
          ItemsPanelTemplate
          >
          </
          ListBox.ItemsPanel
          >
          <
          ListBoxItem
          local:TimelinePanel.EventDate="11/1/1985"><TextBlockText="Windows
1.0"/></ListBoxItem><ListBoxItemlocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="12/1/1987"><TextBlockText="Windows
2.0"/></ListBoxItem><ListBoxItemlocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="5/1/1990"><TextBlockText="Windows
3.0"/></ListBoxItem><ListBoxItemlocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="4/1/1992"><TextBlockText="Windows
3.1"/></ListBoxItem><ListBoxItemlocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="5/30/1995"><TextBlockText="Windows
NT 3.51"/></ListBoxItem><ListBoxItemlocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="8/24/1995"><TextBlockText="Windows
95"/></ListBoxItem><ListBoxItemlocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="6/1/1996"><TextBlockText="Windows
NT 4"/></ListBoxItem><ListBoxItemlocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="6/1/1998"><TextBlockText="Windows
98"/></ListBoxItem><ListBoxItemlocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="2/1/2000"><TextBlockText="Windows
2000"/></ListBoxItem><ListBoxItemlocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="7/1/2000"><TextBlockText="Windows
Me"/></ListBoxItem><ListBoxItemlocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="10/1/2001"><TextBlockText="Windows
XP"/></ListBoxItem><ListBoxItemlocal:TimelinePanel.EventDate="1/1/2007"><TextBlockText="Windows
Vista"/></ListBoxItem></ListBox>

Live demo of TimeLinePanel

Silverlight 2 TimeLinePanel Demo Source Code

With the release of Silverlight 2, I’ve been working on updating a number of my existing demos as well as building a number of new ones for upcoming presentations. One of my favorite features in Silverlight 2 (And WPF) is the ability to change the visuals of a control through styles and templates, without impacting the control logic. The demo that really drove this home to me was created by Beatriz Costa. Her post on The power of Styles and Templates in WPF showed a simple yet effective way to have the visuals of controls can be altered, leaving the logic of the control intact to do all of the expected ListBox stuff. (Fire events, provide a selected item, respond to keyboard up/down). This flexibility and separation of control visuals from control logic is one of the key elements of WPF, and now Silverlight.

I started with a some basic controls on a page including a databound ListBox and a UserControl containing some TextBlocks.

After applying the styles and templates the application visuals are transformed into something much more interesting, while maintaining the complete functionality of a ListBox, while appearing as a Solar System ListBox.

          <
          ListBox
          x:Name
          ="listbox1"
          Height
          ="600"
          Width
          ="1000"
          SelectionChanged
          ="listbox1_SelectionChanged"
          Template
          ="{StaticResource
ListBoxTemp}"
          ItemContainerStyle
          ="{StaticResource
DefaultListBoxItemStyle}"
          ItemTemplate
          ="{StaticResource
ListBoxItemContainerPlanet}"
          >
          </
          ListBox
          >
        

In order to take things a step further, I also replaced the ItemsPanel of the ListBox with a custom carousel panel. The original CarouselPanel code I started with is by Jamie Rodriguez and found here.

          <
          ListBox.ItemsPanel
          >
          <
          ItemsPanelTemplate
          >
          <
          local:CarouselPanel
          x:Name
          ="planets"
          Width
          ="800"
          Height
          ="600"
          Grid.Row="0"Speed="0.03"UseMousePosition="False"ScalePerspective=".2"/></ItemsPanelTemplate></ListBox.ItemsPanel>

The result is an interactive interface with the planets orbiting around the screen, while still maintaining the full functionality of the underlying ListBox below.

Live Demo HERE

Source Code: (Soon)

Control Customization Documentation Resources:

Styling and Templating Overview
Control Styles and Templates
Creating a Templatable Control

** And yes… I know the ongoing debate about Pluto being a “dwarf planet” and not a “real” planet any more… deal with it.

Registration will soon be opening for the Raleigh Code Camp 2008 Fall Edition (RCC2008FE for short). Keep an eye on www.codecamp.org and www.trinug.org to register for the event in the near future. It’s going to be a crazy couple of weeks for me here so I wanted to get this reminder out early.I was able to sneak a peak at the session list and it’s action packed with a variety of great topics covering pretty much every aspect of .Net development.

We’re also very excited to have Karl Shifflett back in the Carolinas as our keynote speaker. Karl who has recently taken a position with Microsoft in Redmond will be covering some WPF and Silverlight related topics including his recently released XAML Power Toys and Ocean.

If you have never attended a Code Camp event before, I strongly encourage you to plan to attend. The events pack a variety of topics presented by a wide range of speakers, both local and from afar. In addition to the presenters, the events attract an energetic group of your peers interested in learning and expanding their .NET related skills. This is a great way to cram much of the value of an industry conference into a local, 1 day, free to attend event. With some uncertainty  in the economy, this is a great way to get some free training, network with your peers, and sharpen your skills.

With Code Camp falling just a couple of weeks after the Microsoft PDC conference, I can pretty much guarantee that at least a few of the sessions will contain some valuable details on things to come.

As you’ve likely heard, Microsoft has released Silverlight 2. I was fortunate to have been involved along the way and getting to interact with many members of the various teams involved. I want to start by offering a gigantic congratulations to everybody involved. You guys did a great job moving things along with such speed an innovation! Having had a chance to see a glimpse of what went on behind the scenes I have a tremendous level of respect and admiration for that teams of great people that made this release possible It is truly an amazing  and passionate group, and every member should be proud. It seems like just yesterday that “Silverlight” was unveiled as the proper name or WPF/E. I can’t wait to see the future innovation.

Some of the key highlights of this release include:

•.NET Framework support with a rich base class library. This is a compatible subset of the full .NET Framework.

•Powerful built-in controls. These include DataGrid, ListBox, Slider, ScrollViewer, Calendar controls and more.

•Advanced skinning and templating support. This makes it easy to customize the look and feel of an application.

•Deep zoom. This enables unparalleled interactivity and navigation of ultrahigh resolution imagery.

•Comprehensive networking support. Out-of-the-box support allows calling REST, WS*/SOAP, POX, RSS and standard HTTP services, enabling users to create applications that easily integrate with existing back-end systems.

•Expanded .NET Framework language support. Unlike other runtimes, Silverlight 2 supports a variety of programming languages, including Visual Basic, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby, making it easier for developers already familiar with one of these languages to repurpose their existing skill sets.

•Advanced content protection. This now includes Silverlight DRM, powered by PlayReady, offering robust content protection for connected Silverlight experiences.

•Improved server scalability and expanded advertiser support. This includes new streaming and progressive download capabilities, superior search engine optimization techniques, and next-generation in-stream advertising support.

•Cross-platform and cross-browser support. This includes support for Mac, Windows and Linux in Firefox, Safari and Windows Internet Explorer.

For me personally, Silverlight 2 represents a great opportunity to leverage my existing skill investment in .NET and extend beyond the server and desktop  into a richer browser experience. I’ve been working on updating the code for a number of new posts that I will be sharing in the days ahead, as well as updating some of my previous samples.

Microsoft has released Release Candidate 0 of Silverlight 2 today. This release is intended for developers to allow them to test there application and bring it up to speed with changes for the release. Tim Heuer has an excellent post explaining the details. If you’re developing for Silverlight 2 go read.

It’s exciting times in Silverlight Land!

Earlier this spring the Microsoft Patterns & Practices group released the Composite Application Guidance for WPF, or Prism. Initially released for WPF, the team has been continuing their work, expanding the scope to include WPF and Silverlight.

The direction they are taking includes the ability to build applications that can provide both both Silverlight and WPF experiences through sharing and re-using code and components between the two environments. I’ve honestly learned a lot digging into Prism 1, and look forward into digging deeper into the new bits in the week ahead.

David Hill has a great post that includes more details here.

Congrats to the Prism 2.0 team on getting this turned around so quickly!

After doing that "Seinfeld thing" Microsoft has released a series of ads standing up for PC. I wonder if I should send in an "I own a Mac, but it runs Vista" clip?

The full set is available here

The innovative minds over at Identity Mine have release a beta of Desklighter, their utility as part of their Blendables product family to create Silverlight applications that run outside of the browser.

"Desklighter is a windows utility that will create a “Desklight” from Silverlight xap file. The Desklight is a standalone exe application that renders Silverlight content that is easily portable and accessible. With Desklighter, you can share your Silverlight applications without having to worry about the hosting infrastructure. Distribute your Silverlight content whenever and wherever you need it. The possibilities are endless."

This concept creates a lot of very interesting possibilities, especially in the area of disconnected applications. Back when I saw how the New York Time created a special host on the Mac for their Silverlight based Times Reader, I really started to think about the potential.

With all of this comes many questions about functionality, so I'm curious to see how things work.

Adam Kinney recently announced the launch of a new Channel 9 series called <DeepVoice Echo="High">The Continuum Show</DeepVoice> in which he takes a look at many of the exciting new technologies from Microsoft that are pushing the limits of traditional applications on the web and desktops through technologies such as WPF, Silverlight, and ASP.NET

"This is the beginning of a new show on Channel 9 focused on the world of UI technologies available from Microsoft.  This includes some of your favorites like WPF, Silverlight, ASP.NET, Expression, IE8 and more.  We'll be showing new features, patterns and practices from experts and samples of inspirational applications. "

Episode 0 gives an intro

Episode 1 looks at the MVC Framework with Phil Haack

Episode 2 details the NBCOlympics.com video player

This space is getting really exciting. Great job Adam! I look forward to seeing more.

Triangle .NET User Group
Wednesday, August 13, 2008 , 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM

INETA Speaker Jeffrey Palermo will be presenting at TRINUG August meeting in Raleigh, NC. Registration is required for this event which is being held at ECPI.

dive into how to design a presentation layer using ASP.NET MVC.  In today's industry, TDD, DI, and SoC are proven concepts that lead to more maintainable applications.  Along with demonstrating how to use these techniques with ASP.NET MVC, we will discuss just what concerns should be separated.  This talk provides a unique perspective on separation of concerns and uses TDD and DI to make it happen.  MvcContrib is used in all the demos.

TO REGISTER and get more info visit the TRINUG Website

South Carolina Silverlight Superstar Page Brooks has put together an awesome contest with some great prizes!

"The Silverlight Control Builder Contest is all about contributing to the Silverlight Community. We hope this contest will serve as a catalyst for an expanding Silverlight control developer community."

I look forward to seeing the innovation from the community, and will hopefully get something of my own submitted.

For those of you that attended by recent talk at the SoCal Code Camp in San Diego, here is the code sample that I used including my one page text file that I used instead of Power Point

It's called Code Camp, not Power Point Camp for a reason right? (No hard feelings against anybody planning to attend or previously attended a power point related event)

In this sample I start off taking a basic look at some of the controls available in Silverlight 2 (Beta 2 at this point) and then move into Control Styling.  In the SilverlightCotrolStyling project you can see that basic use of "Property Bag Styling", or defining a style to set the available properties of a control.

           <
          StackPanel
           Orientation
          ="Horizontal"
           Margin
          ="20,20"> 
          
          
          <
          Button
           Content
          ="Default"
           Height
          ="55"
           Width
          ="160"/> 
          
          
          <
          Canvas
           Width
          ="80"
>
          <!-- Just used to take up some space
-->
          </
          Canvas
          > 
          
          
          <!--
This second button is styled using the "FancyButtonStyle" Static resource from app.xaml--> 
          
          
          <
          Button
           Content
          ="Fancy"
           Height
          ="55"
           Width
          ="160"
           Style
          ="{
          StaticResource
           FancyButtonStyle
          }"/> 
          
          
          </
          StackPanel
          >
        

The result gives us a styled button, that can be used consistently throughout the application.

In the next example, SilverlightControlSkinning I take a look at defining my own template to completely replace the visuals of a control, in this case a button.

          
          
          <
          StackPanel
           Orientation
          ="Horizontal"
           Margin
          ="50"> 
          
          
          <
          Button
           Content
          ="Button"
           Height
          ="55"
           Width
          ="160"/> 
          
          
          <
          Canvas
           Width
          ="80"></
          Canvas
          > 
          
          
          <!--
This button uses the template "SubmitButtonTemplate" from app.xaml --> 
          
          
          <
          Button
           Template
          ="{
          StaticResource
           SubmitButtonTemplate
          }"
           Content
          ="Submit"/>
          
          
          </
          StackPanel
          >
        

This gives us complete control over the visuals of the control, while maintaining the existing logic.

In the Silverlight CustomControl project, I put a number of these concepts (Including a UserControl and Custom Layout Panel) together to create a new visual appearance for a list box containing planets and their associated info.

I will be posting some more details on specifics of the projects, but wanted to get it posted for those that attended. Please feel free to contact by with any comments or questions. I'll dive into the Visual State Manager project tomorrow.

Wow, I'm really late on getting this posted....

The RDU .NET User Experience group will be meeting tonight at 6:00 pm  at 1143 Executive Circle, Suite H, Cary, 27511. I'll be walking through some demos on "Over the wire data access" (aka - network communication) as well as reviewing some of the changes in Silverlight 2 Beta 2

If you're interested in WPF, Silverlight, and issues surrounding Rich Interactive Applications you'll want to check it out.

If you're planning to attend, please RSVP by sending me a note or leaving a comment.

Last week at TechEd I had the privilege of attending a roundtable luncheon with Bill Gates and S. Somasegar following their keynote presentation, along with a group of "influential members of the community."

With this being the last developer conference keynote for Bill before transitioning from Microsoft to a full time role with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the timing added extra significance to the event. The lunch conversation largely centered around education, both in the US and around the world and ways to improve it including the use of technology. It's great to still hear that Tablet PC's are still in the picture.

It was extremely interesting to hear how many of the same skills and viewpoints that made Bill so successful with Microsoft are now being applied through the foundation. His explanations of the foundation's approach to solving problems was extremely insightful and showed a very systematic and numeric approach to problem solving. It was great to see him very relaxed and speak candidly about his goals and passion for making a difference through the foundation. As a community, it was motivating for us to think more about how our efforts could be used to make a difference as well.

It was a lunch that I will never forget, and an honor to be associated with the group in attendance. Thank you to Bill, Soma, and everybody that was involved in making this event possible and for including me in it.

Just a [late] reminder the the RDU .NET User Experience group will be meeting at 6:00 pm next on Tuesday May 27, 2008 at 1143 Executive Circle, Suite H, Cary, 27511.

Local Microsoft Regional Director Jim Duffy will be presenting highlights of from a recent day long Silverlight 2 training presentation on Building Line of Business (LOB) Applications with Silverlight 2.

If you're interested in WPF, Silverlight, and issues surrounding Rich Interactive Applications you'll want to check it out.

If you're planning to attend, please RSVP by sending me a note or leaving a comment.