Channel 9

Pete at Tech Ed 2011: Cogent DataHub WebView in Silverlight

Pete Brown — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:20:10 GMT

At Tech Ed 2011, David Pugmire and I had the pleasure of speaking with Ken Collins from Cogent. He demonstrated the Cogent DataHub WebView product—a product built using Silverlight and backed by cloud services.

The product includes real-time information display from various sensors and industrial computers, a great design surface that enables drag and drop placement of controls and full layout, and a powerful binding engine, all built on Silverlight 4.

Watch the video, then check it out yourself at Cogent's site.

You can talk with Pete at his site, 10rem.net, or on twitter at @Pete_Brown.

Pete at Microsoft: Tsitsi Gora on being a Designer at Microsoft

Pete Brown — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 19:19:26 GMT

User Experience is important at Microsoft. One place where UX really shines is in Visual Studio, and the tooling and templates for Silverlight.

In September, I had the pleasure of catching up with Tsitsi Gora, UX designer at Microsoft. We discussed what it's like to be a designer in developer division, what she's done for the products, and her recommendations for people interested in getting into the field.

Pete at Microsoft: Glenn Block on WCF HTTP

Pete Brown — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 23:15:15 GMT

I caught up with the always-amazing Glenn Block right before his PDC10 session on WCF HTTP. You can tell he was really jazzed about something, so I just had to have the scoop.

After watching the video, be sure to visit wcf.codeplex.com

wcf.codeplex.com
wcf.codeplex.com
wcf.codeplex.com

Pete at Microsoft: Joel Barsotti and CalMAN in WPF

Pete Brown — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:34:16 GMT

In September, I met up on campus with Joel Barsotti. Joel, and the company SpectraCal, have created an awesome WPF application used for analyzing and calibrating various types of displays (computer screens, LCDs in stores etc.)

When Joel first told me about the application, I was really excited about how he leveraged WPF and the power of desktop integration to create something that would have been a lot more work just a few years ago. Watch the video for more info.

Pete at Microsoft: WCF RIA Services Team Interview

Pete Brown — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 10:00:00 GMT

While on campus in May, I met with the WCF RIA Services team at Microsoft. We discussed both the awesome parts and the difficult parts of the recent product release.

Microsoft WCF RIA Services simplifies the traditional n-tier application pattern by bringing together the ASP.NET and Silverlight platforms. RIA Services provides a pattern to write application logic that runs on the mid-tier and controls access to data for queries, changes, and custom operations. It also provides end-to-end support for common tasks such as data validation, authentication, and roles by integrating with Silverlight components on the client and ASP.NET on the mid-tier.

Join Pete, Jeff, Dinesh, and Deepesh for a fun talk about this awesome product.

[note, the audio is a little off around 2/3 through, but it clears back up, so stay tuned. I blame the low camera battery. ]

For more information on WCF RIA Services, be sure to visit the RIA Services page on Silverlight.net.

Pete at MIX10: Josh Blake on Natural User Interface and WPF Multi-touch

Pete Brown — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:41:00 GMT

With Windows 7, WPF 4, Silverlight 4, and the road paved by our multi-touch handheld devices, Multi-touch is really hitting mainstream.

While at MIX10, I spoke with Josh Blake about NaturalShow, his multi-touch not-PowerPoint presentation approach, written in WPF. Josh uses multi-touch to navigate through a really clever way of presenting material. I'd try and describe it, but it's really best if you watch it.

Pete at MIX10: Emil Stoychev on the CompletIT Silverlight Site

Pete Brown — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:47:00 GMT

Creating your whole website using Silverlight isn't usually the approach you'll take--unless you happen to be a company specializing in Silverlight development.

At MIX10, I caught up with Emil Stoychev, founder of SilverlightShow. His company, CompletIT, located in Sofia, Bulgaria, created a very slick animated website entirely in Silverlight. It has everything from background animation, to cool folding effects, to a full portfolio to...flying pigs!

Definitely worth a view.

Pete at MIX10: David Kelley on the Prototype WPF and Silverlight Retail Experience

Pete Brown — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:47:00 GMT

At MIX10, I spoke with Wirestone Principal UX Architect David Kelley about a prototype retail experience he's built in WPF and Silverlight.

The experience is based around the concept of small updatable product price tags (actually screens) that can both be updated in real-time and react to the presence of a person standing near them.

Very cool stuff. I'm always interested in seeing folks with an octopus of devices hanging off a PC that all converge into a single cohesive experience. Sweet.

Pete at MIX10: Mime Cloud for Umbraco and More

Pete Brown — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:59:00 GMT

Content management of images, especially in publication scenarios where multiple crops and sizes of one image must all be available and associated together, is not a simple problem to solve.

At Mix10, I caught up with Pete Miller from Conde Nast Digital and Alex Norcliffe from Xeed. (Alex and Pete are also on the Umbraco core project team.)

We talked about the challenges around content management of images, and Pete and Alex showed off WPF, Silverlight, and Windows Phone 7 clients for the open- source Mime Cloud CMS add-on.

Pete at MIX10: Cory Plotts on Snoop for WPF

Pete Brown — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:43:00 GMT

Folks in the WPF world have long relied on Snoop to figure out what the heck is going on in their applications. Originally written by Pete Blois from the MS Expression team, Snoop provides information about all the elements, and even a slick 3D blown-out view of the visual tree.

Cory Plotts has taken over Snoop development and added a bunch of enhancements - some his own, and some from the community. I caught up with Cory at MIX10 and talked to him about what he's been up to and why Snoop is awesome.

Pete at MIX10: Dave Campbell on Silverlight Cream

Pete Brown — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:37:00 GMT

Dave Campbell runs the super-popular SilverlightCream. SilverlightCream is the best place to find current and past blog posts related to Silverlight development.

I caught up with Dave at MIX10 and asked him what went into putting together this daily list of excellent Silverlight content.

Pete at MIX10: Richard Costall - Silverlight Manic Miner for Windows Phone 7

Pete Brown — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:32:00 GMT

One of the more interesting uses for Silverlight is casual gaming. When you add Windows Phone 7 Series into the mix, it becomes even more exciting.

At MIX10, I met up with Microsoft MVP and all around cool guy, Richard Costall. He showed me how, with no real changes, he was able to get his Silverlight game Manic Miner to run on the Windows Phone 7 Series. In fact, he did the port that day, using bits he just received at the conference. He plans to take this further and optimize the experience for the Windows Phone. I can't wait to see the results.

Bruno Sonnino on DiskPie Pro in WPF

Pete Brown — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 16:46:00 GMT

At the 2010 MVP Summit in Redmond, I met up with the always-fun Microsoft MVP Bruno Sonnino. Bruno has developed a ton of great utilities over the years, including many for PC Mag.

In this video, Bruno talks about DiskPie Pro 2, a utility originally written in Delphi and recently rewritten in .NET using WPF. Check out the neat use of transitions and the sharp use of 3D charts and presentation.

Visit Pete's blog at 10rem.net for WPF, Silverlight, Windows Phone, and more.

Pete at MIX10: Robert Kihm on Aptify RAD

Pete Brown — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:30:00 GMT

While at MIX10, I met up with Robert Kihm, Director of Product Architecture at Aptify. We talked about how Aptify enables you to create metadata for an application as well as surface the UI, including bindings and validation rules across multiple user interfaces (Silverlight and Windows Forms shown), without making any changes.

Building on all the cool things in .NET, Aptify uses Silverlight, WCF RIA Services, SQL Server, Regular WCF SOAP Services, and tons more to help you build cross-technology, cross-platform business applications using Microsoft tools and technologies.

The Aptify Web Site offers more details on the Aptify product.

Visit Pete Brown's Blog at 10rem.net for more information on Silverlight, WPF, Windows Phone, C++, and more.

Pete at MIX10: Umbraco Core Team Interview

Pete Brown — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:16:00 GMT

I recently ported my own site and blog from a combination of community server and custom code to the Umbraco open source CMS and Blog4Umbraco 4. There are several other sites at Microsoft that are following a similar path.

At MIX10, I caught up with a bunch of dudes related to Umbraco, including Per Ploug Hansen from the Umbraco Corporation itself, Alex Norcliffe, a core team member from Xeed, Pete Miller, a user and creator of some related work from Conde Nast Digital, and Will Coleman from Microsoft UK. Together we discussed what Umbraco is, how folks are using it, what you need to know to work in it, and a little on where Umbraco is going in the future.

My MIX10 Wrap-up post on my Umbraco-based blog.

Pete at MIX10: Your Favorite Things at MIX

Pete Brown — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:12:00 GMT

During the final hours of MIX10, I ran around randomly shoving a camera in front of people and putting them on to the spot to tell me their "Favorite thing at MIX." Watch to see why MIX is more than just the sessions, more than just Silverlight and Windows Phone, more than the Next Web...and why I spent most of the conference slacking in the Commons.

Recognize yourself in the video? Drop a note below to tell everyone who you are and what you liked.

For more MIX10 information, see my MIX10 recap post here.

Pete Blois on Windows Phone 7 in Blend 4 and Rooler

Pete Brown — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:39:00 GMT

In February, while up on campus for the MVP summit, I snuck over to the Expression side of building 41 and met with Pete Blois.

Pete Blois is a Senior Program Manager Lead on the Expression Blend team. He's responsible for tooling for Silverlight, WPF, and now Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 Series.

Blend 4 supports not only Silverlight, WPF, and Windows Phone, it now includes multi-targeting support for the .NET framework 3.5sp1 and 4, Silverlight 3 and 4, and Silverlight for Windows Phone, just like Visual Studio 2010. In this video, Pete goes into some detail about how they have accomplished multi targeting in Blend 4.

Pete also talks about Rooler, the screen measurement and sampling tool he created for designers and developers. Written in WPF, this has become one of my go-to tools whenever I'm working with an existing design.

Finally, we get into the new Blend tooling for Windows Phone Series 7 development. As expected, the Expression team delivers with an awesome design and development experience for a new platform.

Jeff Handley on WCF RIA Services for Silverlight 4

Pete Brown — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:29:00 GMT

In February I popped on over to building 42 and met with my friend, Jeff Handley, who works on the WCF RIA Services team. Jeff talked about what it's like to work on RIA Services, sharing with the community, and openness at Microsoft. Then we chatted a bit about framework development vs. application development and what it means to put something out to the public in released bits.

Jeff and I also talked about what it's like to come back to an office full of popcorn, as well as some tidbits regarding some RIA Services and validation changes coming up as RIA Services takes on INotifyDataErrorInfo vs. the old exception-based validation approach.

Jeff's Blog
Follow Jeff on twitter at @jeffhandley
Pete's Site and Blog
Follow Pete on twitter at @pete_brown
The WCF RIA Services page on Silverlight.net

Henry Sowizral on Refacing C++ with WPF in Expression Design

Pete Brown — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:31:00 GMT

While on campus for the MVP Summit in February, I had a chance to visit Henry Sowizral over in building 41. Henry Sowizral is a Principal Architect in Microsoft Expression, and he and his team did something really cool: they converted an existing C/C++/MFC application to have a WPF front-end, while still leveraging all that existing code.

If you have legacy code and are considering porting the UI to .NET, pick up some pointers from Henry.

Once you've finished, check out Henry's presentation deck on how the team converted the Expression Design UI to WPF.

See more WPF at Pete's site and blog http://10rem.net
Follow Pete on twitter at @pete_brown

Pete at Reykjavik: Silverlight, Azure, RIA Services Event Site in 8 days

Pete Brown — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:40:00 GMT

In January, I spoke at the best of tech-ed and Convergence 2010 conference in Reykjavik, Iceland. The event was a huge success, bringing in one out of every 300 people in Iceland (just under 1200 people total)

While there, I met with Sig (Sigurjon Lydsson - Microsoft) and Jon (Gudmundur Jon Halldorsson - Landsbankinn) and talked about the awesome site they built for the event.

The site is 100% Silverlight, powered by WCF RIA Services, with data and app hosted in Azure. They built out the first functional and usable version in 8 days. The site supports registration, general event info, scheduling, speaker bios, track info etc. - everything you'd expect to see in an event site.

Gudmundur Jon Halldorsson - Twitter, (gudmundurjon -AT- hotmail DOT com)
Sigurjon Lydsson - (v-siglyd -AT- microsoft DOT com)
Pete Brown - Blog, Twitter

The site is still live and running at http://fenrisevents.cloudapp.net/

Pete at PDC09: WPF 3d Awesomeness with Tor and Robby

Pete Brown — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:09:00 GMT

While at PDC09, I met up with Tor Langlo and Robby Ingebretsen who had just built a really cool closet configuration application using WPF and 3D.

Think about going to a high-end home store, where the consultant sits down with you and helps configure a walk-in or other type of closet for your house. They help you do everything from pick materials to structural layout to deciding where you might want drawers vs. hanging baskets. Now imagine that they're doing this all in 3d instead of an old pad of white paper with all the options listed and a little spot of graph paper in the corner.

This is not your typical business application, but it still does the things business apps all do including some nice forms over data parts shown near the end of the video. If you're looking for a little inspiration for your own apps, check this out.

Pete at PDC09: The Sobees Social Client, WPF, Silverlight and Yahoo!

Pete Brown — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:04:00 GMT

While at PDC09, I met up with Francois Bochatay from Sobees. He showed me an internal build of the Sobees clienst that has a ton of new features, including inline URL previews, Windows 7 integration, support for different social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Myspace, as well as integration with Yahoo. A version hosted on Azure will also be coming soon.

The Sobees clients are written in Silverlight and WPF and share 90+% of their code between the different versions. The Silverlight version supports different systems, and the WPF version includes Windows 7 light-up such as jump lists.

Pete at PDC09: Mike Wolf on Stop Motion with the Silverlight 4 Webcam

Pete Brown — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:15:00 GMT

Pete Brown and his lovely assistant , Tim Heuer, interview Mike Wolf from Cynergy Systems at PDC09. Mike has built a Silverlight 4 demo application that uses the new webcam feature, and a png sequencer of his own design, to create stop-motion animation.

Mike's Blog
Tim's Blog
Pete's Blog

Pete at PDC09: Jon Galloway on Witty Twitter

Pete Brown — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:09:00 GMT

I caught up with Jon Galloway at PDC09, just before he joined our team at Microsoft. Jon is a developer on Witty Twitter, one of the first and longest-maintained WPF Twitter clients. Jon and Pete talk about the history of Witty Twitter, challenges of working with Twitter, how it works with WPF, what it does and where it's going in the future.

Learn more about using WPF here.

Pete at PDC09: Rick Barraza and Mike Wolf - Star Trek Experience

Pete Brown — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:20:00 GMT

While in the big hall at PDC09, I spoke with Mike Wolf and Rick Barraza from Cynergy Systems.They've been busy buiding some awesome WPF and Silverlight applications. This one, the Star Trek Experience, is a WPF application built for the Microsoft Surface.

The application these guys built, in such a short time, is really awesome. Even if you're more of a Star Wars geek like me, I think you'll like this.