Cambridge User Group Launch (Evening of September 18th)

Oh yes!

I know have been a little quiet the past few days, and here is why:

We have just launched the Cambridge Region of NxtGenUG.

We have Mike Ormond doing a talk on Silverlight (full 60 minutes), and One of the Microsoft Researchy Guys (to be confirmed whom), doing a talk on F#, We also have Pizza, and We have Swag (free stuff).

It's going to be an amazing event, so please come along. You do need to register so we can plan for pizza and for the security guy at MS Research.

The group will be held at Microsoft Research in Cambridge (Thanks Guys).

After the launch event we will be holding one session every month, and we have some great sessions in the pipeline

Register Here (registration is free, come along and get free pizza):

Silverlight Mix UK Sample Site (First Version)

I've now posted up my Mix07 UK Silverlight Sample Site.

This is the first version of an Event Registration System written in Silverlight.

You can click here if wish to view the application online (please be patient for the videos to download, you will probably want to refresh the browser after the videos have downloaded, I haven't smoothed up this process with a downloader yet).

You can also download the source from here.

In future posts, I will explain why i have done things certain ways and what my thoughts were during development.

This sample will show some of the following things in action:

Loading of an Xml using XmlReader
Video Button Control (MediaElement, ButtonBase, VideoBrush)
LINQ
Seperation of UI, Business and Data

In the future the sample will be extended to use the following

1) Expand to show Day 2's schedule
2) On Click of the Video Button, bring up Session Information, and show a Video Clip in a main media player
3) Speaker Information Page
4) Pulling the XML from a web service and storing in isolated storage
5) Use of a downloader for downloading the Videos
6) Use the base code to perform event selection
7) Funky Background Music

Hopefully you might find this sample useful, and I hope to expand this to show how to perform various tasks in Silverlight. This will become a bit of a working reference application for me.

This sample should show that in the world of Silverlight we can do great things, and produce much more interesting websites.

Looping a Media Element in Silverlight

I answered this post earlier today, because there is no support for mediatimeline in silverlight, we have to code in looping of media elements.

All you really need to do is call play on the mediaended event (remember to hook in the event in the xaml)

code below:

protected void myMediaElement_MediaEnded(object sender, EventArgs args) 
{

// Replay the video

MediaElement video = (MediaElement)sender;video.Position = new TimeSpan(0); 
video.Play();

}

Silverlight and Bandwidth Detection

Somebody wanted to know in the Silverlight forums, if you could do automatic bandwidth detection, and grab a video based on the calculated bandwidth.

This got me thinking........

If you use a downloader to download a known image, you would be able to calculate approximately the bandwidth of the user based on the time taken to download that known image size. You can then use that bandwidth calculatation to download the approriate media automatically,

I will probably knock up a sample in the next couple of weekes, when i have finished the little app I am doing just now (still got another week or so before i will publish it).

In the meantime you can get information about downloaders from silverlight quickstarts.

Or feel free to get in touch

Silverlight in the UK

It would be interesting to know who in the UK is messing around with Silverlight?

Are we all developing stuff for fun or is anyone doing commercial development just now?

Would also be interested in knowing what sort of stuff folks in the UK are developing?

Are there many of us?

Anybody going to Mix in London?

Silverlight 1.0, Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas), Sql Server 2008 (Katmai) Release Dates

Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas)

RTM - End of this year (Expected in November)
Launch - February 27th 2008

SQL Server 2008 (Katmai)

RTM - May 9th 2008
Launch - February 27th 2008 (Marketing Launch Only)

Windows Server 2008

RTM - End of this year (Expected in November)
Launch - February 27th 2008

Silverlight

Silverlight 1.0 - Unknown but Scott Guthrie did say it would be end of this Summer. The real question is how long does Scott Guthrie think a Summer lasts, if he is a pessimist (we should expect it very soon), if he is an optimist (not so soon).
The current RC expires November, so it is likely to be before then.
I am going to take a stab in the dark, and I reckon they might do a surprise release at Mix07 in the UK on September the 11th. Especially since Mr Guthrie himself will be there (and I thought I read Tim Sneath would be there also). However this is my humble guess, and if any Microsoft bods would like to give me the actual date it would be most appreciated.

Silverlight 1.1 - Uknown not expected until 2008

Silverlight Offline Mode

I just recently read in the Silverlight Architecture Overview that "Silverlight is designed for Web page content that is connected to its host (it will not work offline), that deeply engages the user, and that can render on any browser."

Hmmn, doesn't work offline. I think that is not the greatest idea in the world as the power we can have with Silverlight and Isolated Storage together to produce funky little applications. Surely this is not right!

So I have done a little test by switching Internet Explorer to Work Offline, and see if my apps run.

Surprise, Surprise they do run, however they don't seem to be able access video etc.

So for example in my Rotating Video Picture Board if you connect to it offline mode, the application will work (and rotate), however the video doesn't run.

I must experiment a little more, for example if I access media and put it in Isolated Storage and then download it, will it work?

Also I am going to assume that embedded resources will work (but I need to check this)?

However I think a better option is to plea to Microsoft that being able to run offline (including cached video), is a good option and will bring a lot of power to Silverlight Applications.