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.

Posted in Silverlight  | Comments [2] 

Today ScottGu announced on his blog the release of a public beta of the upcoming .NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 releases planned for "this summer as free updates"

There are a few important installation notes, and a reminder that this is a beta, but there are also a bunch of very cool improvements. Scott's blog post goes into many of the details for web developers and VS2008 in general and Tim has a post going into specifics relating to WPF.

Download links of goodness:

• Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (Beta)
• .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (Beta)
• Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions SP1 (Beta)
• Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server 2008 SP1 (Beta)

Posted in Software | wpf  | Comments [1] 

In a recent blog post, Karl takes us on a journey to Metadata Island. (From the pictures, it looks like a place I would like to visit frequently!). Though his post and accompanying Silverlight videos he brings up a number of very valid points regarding the use of existing metadata to make development faster.

A big pain point in development is duplication of efforts, and even in simple cases it can eat up a lot of time very quickly. Consider creating a simple database entry form. We're first creating a database table with field names, we then construct a data layer of some sort to read and write to those field names, we then add textbox (or other) controls to a form facilitate the data entry/edits, and then usually create labels (again using the field names), tools tips are added, data validation. To Karl's point, all of this information lived in the database already, or possibly even in a specification document prior to the database being created.

More tooling support would be great. Or at least some consistent tooling, as I know we've all written code to do a variety of these tasks in the past, but never really in coordination with VS.

[Karl's form generator]

As we go forward, I hope that we see a lot of innovation in this space. I think there are a lot of opportunities as WPF and Silverlight push into line of business applications.

Posted in Rant | Silverlight | wpf  | Comments [0] 

Bill and the gang down in Charlotte have opened up registration for their spring Code Camp on Sat May 17th. A number of people from the Raleigh area are thinking of carpooling down, and a number of us are speaking at the event. I will be presenting a session on Silverlight 2 control customization.

Code Camps are a great way to get training on a variety of topics, as well as to meet peers in the community and benefit from the energy and excitement that goes hand in hand with these events.

To attend this event you must pre-register: http://www.developersguild.org/Default.aspx?tabid=240 

Posted in Rant  | Comments [0]