Not satisfied with conquering the South Coast and Ireland, Rich and Chris are taking the Silverlight Assault Course to Wiltshire.
Details can be found here.
Progress on the Block Protocol
1 year ago
22 Jan 2009
An interesting video on Testing :)
A friend passed this link onto me recently. The speaker makes some good points, but my favourite is reduce the complexity :)
Have a look here.
Have a look here.
19 Jan 2009
Silverlight Assault Course - Ireland
On the 16th January, 4 NxtGenUG bods flew out to Ireland to give the Silverlight Assault Course in Dublin and Cork our hostess for the weekend was Martha Rotter. I compiled a list of questions during the sessions, and they will be posted here in due course with answers and resources mentioned during the nuggets.
Dublin - 17th January 2009
The event kicked off early on a blustery day at the Microsoft Campus in Dublin. Speakers Rich Costall and Chris Hay felt a news conference was needed for this historic event of Irish and English developer communities working together.
As you can see the massed crowds were overcome with excitement and joy at their announcements.
A large crowd of developers (and one designer!) crowded into the lecture theatre ready to be wowed and educated.
The morning started with Rich and Chris taking the attendees through the basics of Silverlight, What is a Silverlight project composed of, how do you host a Silverlight app, what is contained within the mysterious XAP file?, and how to communicate with Silverlight. This gave the attendees the vital basics of how a Silverlight app hangs together. Time for a quick coffee break before marching onto the second part which got into the juicy details of the DLR, Styling, Templating, Images and Media.
The second part rocketed along with an impressive array of Silverlight Tip and Tricks for creating the basics needed to put your Silverlight app together! We also discovered Chris was a big Monty Python fan with a particular love of the "Knights of the Round Table" Lego tribute video and the "Lumberjack Song". Lunch swiftly arrived and everyone tucked into the traditional food of choice, pizza.
Pizza consumed everyone piled back into the lecture theatre for the increasingly exciting Silverlight topics. Part 3 contained the real meat of Silverlight Brushes, Transformations, Animation, Data Binding and Isolated Storage.
The attendees were now armed with everything they needed to be wowed in part 4 by Rich and Chris's games examples and coffee from the break. Rich took the audience through his Manic Miner port, and Chris rolled out his Spectrum emulator, both of which showed what could be achieved using the previous nuggets. Part 4 also contained the essential advanced topics needed to create a truly custom experience in Silverlight, such as User Controls, Encryption, Compression and Martha's excellent integration nugget which included a demo of how easy the Deep Zoom Composer is to use and how to control Flash from within Silverlight (No, really!).
With the attendees' brains bursting to the limits with Silverlight info, it was time to roll out the NxtGen game show, Swaggily Fortunes. Having just achieved NxtGen Game Show Console Trainee certification, we were all set to swag the attendees!
10 attendees leapt from their seats, in what can only be described as a "Swag frenzy" we started the Show.
It was tough going, with the contestants battling heroically to gain dominion. But there could be only one team of winners. All contestants made away with an impressive selection of swag.
The winners swag.
The runner ups swag.
With heads (and in some cases arms!) filled to bursting the attendees dispersed into the evening, and we packed up to catch a train to Cork.
We caught the 7pm train to Cork and were relived to get in on time without any delays, as our very helpful and friendly cab driver from the Microsoft campus had informed us that every line had trees blown down on to it, but he'd happily drive us down to Cork if we wanted to :)
Cork - 18th January 2009
The second event kicked off Sunday morning in the Imperial Hotel (Where we'd been staying! :)) in the Morgan Suite. This event was being hosted by Joe Gill of the Microsoft Technology User Group Ireland (mtug.ie)
No press conference this time, which I think helped fill the Morgan suite with another large crowd of Developers and several Designers ready for Silverlight to be pumped into their brains.
Rich, Chris and Martha delivered their nuggets to the attendees with the same skill and knowledge as had been demonstrated the previous day, I won't reiterate them here as the schedule was the same :)
The attendees heads were soon bursting with Silverlight knowledge, tips and tricks, so what better way to round off the day than to bring on Swaggily Fortunes. Another 10 attendees leapt from the gathered ranks ready to be questions and swagged within an inch of their lives.
Again the competition was intense, the scoring dubious in places, but there could be only one winner! Rich's team won for a second time that weekend and the swag was distributed to both teams.
I speak for Rich C, Chris H, John P and myself when I say we had a stonking time and really enjoyed meeting the folks at both events and giving the courses.
We'd also like to thank Martha for all her hard work organising the weekend us, as we all know organising Devs is like herding cats, and thanks to Joe Gill for hosting and providing us with a venue in Cork.
See you next time! ;)
Dublin - 17th January 2009
The event kicked off early on a blustery day at the Microsoft Campus in Dublin. Speakers Rich Costall and Chris Hay felt a news conference was needed for this historic event of Irish and English developer communities working together.
As you can see the massed crowds were overcome with excitement and joy at their announcements.
A large crowd of developers (and one designer!) crowded into the lecture theatre ready to be wowed and educated.
The morning started with Rich and Chris taking the attendees through the basics of Silverlight, What is a Silverlight project composed of, how do you host a Silverlight app, what is contained within the mysterious XAP file?, and how to communicate with Silverlight. This gave the attendees the vital basics of how a Silverlight app hangs together. Time for a quick coffee break before marching onto the second part which got into the juicy details of the DLR, Styling, Templating, Images and Media.
The second part rocketed along with an impressive array of Silverlight Tip and Tricks for creating the basics needed to put your Silverlight app together! We also discovered Chris was a big Monty Python fan with a particular love of the "Knights of the Round Table" Lego tribute video and the "Lumberjack Song". Lunch swiftly arrived and everyone tucked into the traditional food of choice, pizza.
Pizza consumed everyone piled back into the lecture theatre for the increasingly exciting Silverlight topics. Part 3 contained the real meat of Silverlight Brushes, Transformations, Animation, Data Binding and Isolated Storage.The attendees were now armed with everything they needed to be wowed in part 4 by Rich and Chris's games examples and coffee from the break. Rich took the audience through his Manic Miner port, and Chris rolled out his Spectrum emulator, both of which showed what could be achieved using the previous nuggets. Part 4 also contained the essential advanced topics needed to create a truly custom experience in Silverlight, such as User Controls, Encryption, Compression and Martha's excellent integration nugget which included a demo of how easy the Deep Zoom Composer is to use and how to control Flash from within Silverlight (No, really!).
With the attendees' brains bursting to the limits with Silverlight info, it was time to roll out the NxtGen game show, Swaggily Fortunes. Having just achieved NxtGen Game Show Console Trainee certification, we were all set to swag the attendees!
10 attendees leapt from their seats, in what can only be described as a "Swag frenzy" we started the Show.
It was tough going, with the contestants battling heroically to gain dominion. But there could be only one team of winners. All contestants made away with an impressive selection of swag.The winners swag.
The runner ups swag.
With heads (and in some cases arms!) filled to bursting the attendees dispersed into the evening, and we packed up to catch a train to Cork.
We caught the 7pm train to Cork and were relived to get in on time without any delays, as our very helpful and friendly cab driver from the Microsoft campus had informed us that every line had trees blown down on to it, but he'd happily drive us down to Cork if we wanted to :)
Cork - 18th January 2009
The second event kicked off Sunday morning in the Imperial Hotel (Where we'd been staying! :)) in the Morgan Suite. This event was being hosted by Joe Gill of the Microsoft Technology User Group Ireland (mtug.ie)
No press conference this time, which I think helped fill the Morgan suite with another large crowd of Developers and several Designers ready for Silverlight to be pumped into their brains.
Rich, Chris and Martha delivered their nuggets to the attendees with the same skill and knowledge as had been demonstrated the previous day, I won't reiterate them here as the schedule was the same :)The attendees heads were soon bursting with Silverlight knowledge, tips and tricks, so what better way to round off the day than to bring on Swaggily Fortunes. Another 10 attendees leapt from the gathered ranks ready to be questions and swagged within an inch of their lives.
Again the competition was intense, the scoring dubious in places, but there could be only one winner! Rich's team won for a second time that weekend and the swag was distributed to both teams.I speak for Rich C, Chris H, John P and myself when I say we had a stonking time and really enjoyed meeting the folks at both events and giving the courses.
We'd also like to thank Martha for all her hard work organising the weekend us, as we all know organising Devs is like herding cats, and thanks to Joe Gill for hosting and providing us with a venue in Cork.
See you next time! ;)
14 Jan 2009
WF 4.0 at DotNetDevNet
On Tuesday the 10th Feburary I'll be travelling up to Guy Smith-Ferriers DotNetDevNet User Group and doing a talk on WF 4.0, which was revealed at PDC 08.
The talks in 2 segments, the first is a recap about WF in general and why it's a good thing, the second will concentrate on the new features of WF 4.0.
So if you in the area, come along! The registration link can be found here, and I hope to see you there! :)
The talks in 2 segments, the first is a recap about WF in general and why it's a good thing, the second will concentrate on the new features of WF 4.0.
So if you in the area, come along! The registration link can be found here, and I hope to see you there! :)
11 Jan 2009
Windows 7 and Visual Studio 2008
I've now been using Windows 7 Beta since release to MSDN subscribers, and am pretty chuffed with it. The new Taskbar is a joy to use, and the whole thing is very stable :)
I've only one niggle with it and that is that when I'm trying to add 3rd party controls to Visual Studio via the browse assemblies dialog, VS2008 has a think, throws a silent fit and disappears. This doesnt happen when adding references.
Has anyone else had experience of this? I shall do some digging and see if I can isolate it a bit more :)
I've only one niggle with it and that is that when I'm trying to add 3rd party controls to Visual Studio via the browse assemblies dialog, VS2008 has a think, throws a silent fit and disappears. This doesnt happen when adding references.
Has anyone else had experience of this? I shall do some digging and see if I can isolate it a bit more :)
8 Jan 2009
Dr Neils coming to Southampton!
As apart of our upcoming January session on design with Tricky, I'm very pleased to announce that Dr Neil (MVP & Regional Director) will also be presenting!
If you don't know who Dr Neil is (Shame on you!) then you can check out more on his blog and on his MVP profile. I saw Dr Neil present at ReMIX:UK 07 with Tricky and then again at ReMIX:UK 08, both sessions were absolutley cracking. Dr Neil can be considered a Guru on all things Live Service related from Microsoft.
I'm very excited about this session as it was one of the first we started planning when Southampton was just getting off the ground, in fact doubly excited now that Dr Neil will be joining us.
Go register now at the following link!
If you don't know who Dr Neil is (Shame on you!) then you can check out more on his blog and on his MVP profile. I saw Dr Neil present at ReMIX:UK 07 with Tricky and then again at ReMIX:UK 08, both sessions were absolutley cracking. Dr Neil can be considered a Guru on all things Live Service related from Microsoft.
I'm very excited about this session as it was one of the first we started planning when Southampton was just getting off the ground, in fact doubly excited now that Dr Neil will be joining us.
Go register now at the following link!
6 Jan 2009
The Silverlight Assault Course comes to Ireland
After our cracking initial run of the Silverlight Assault Course down here on the sunny South Coast in July, we're taking it on tour to Ireland!
Martha Rotter has the details on her blog for Dublin here and Cork here, and of course extra details can be found on the NxtGenUG site here. We're be in Dublin on the 17th and the Cork on the 18th.
See you there!
Martha Rotter has the details on her blog for Dublin here and Cork here, and of course extra details can be found on the NxtGenUG site here. We're be in Dublin on the 17th and the Cork on the 18th.
See you there!
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