Continue reading »]]> After reading Carl Dickinson’s post on Mando Group Labs about the Bing Silverlight Control, I wanted to give it a try myself.

I decided to set about using the Bing Silverlight control to display available hotels from LateRooms.com.  LateRooms.com have an affiliate scheme that exposes the availability of hotels via XML feeds (you do need an affiliate ID to use the feeds but this could easily be replaced by any other similar feed).

You can view the sample app I have created here (note: LateRooms has mostly UK hotels so probably best trying a UK location, e.g. “Southport UK”). 

To create the app I create added four controls to my page;  

• Bing Silverlight Control – This is obviously the main focus of the app.
• A text box and a button to accept a location from the user and start the request to get the hotels.
• A list box to display a picture, the name and the first line of the address for each of the hotels.

Once the user enters a location into the text box and clicks the button the following happens;

• The location entered by the user is sent to the Bing Geocode web service and providing it can find a match it returns the lattitude and longitude for the location.
• This map is then centred on this location.
• Finally the newly returned coordinates are used to get a list of available hotels from the LateRooms XML feed. This list is then iterated through and a pin for each hotel is added to the map and the list is then bound to the list box.

Finally I added an event handler to the selection changed event of the list box to re-centre the map on the coordinates of the selected hotel.

There is plently more that could be done with this app, not least making the UI a little more attractive, but I wanted to just get a feel of how easy it was to implement some basic Bing maps functionality in Silverlight.

If you are interested to see the source code to the application let me know and I can post it.  Right now I am off to try some more experiments!

Don’t forget if you liked this, subscribe to my RSS feed and / or follow my Twitter (links at the top of the page).

Technorati Tags: bing, Silverlight

Continue reading »]]> The Silverlight Tour comes to the UK – and it’s called the Masterclass!

This 3 day hands-on training with both designer and developer tracks looks awesome and (uniquely) has two expert trainers per course. 

Currently scheduled in London, Manchester, and the Midlands for June, all courses also come with the chance to win an xbox 360, and Silverlight Spy licences!

Early bird discount of £100 if you book in May, and if you are a member of #SLUGUK or #nxtgenug there are additional discounts to be had.

Full Details are here: http://silverlightmasterclass.net

In addition bbits are holding a raffle for a free ticket for the masterclass. To be eligible to win the ticket (worth £1095!) you MUST paste this text, including all links, into your blog and email Ian@bbits.co.uk with the url to the blog entry.  The draw will be made on June 1st and the winner informed by email and on http://silverlightmasterclass.net

Technorati Tags: Silverlight, training

Continue reading »]]> With the recent announcements regarding Silverlight 4 and Windows Phone 7 Development, I thought I would share a few links to some sites I have found useful, both recently and in the past when starting to work with Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 dev using Silverlight.

Windows Phone 7 Dev

WP7 Panorama App  Â
http://blogs.claritycon.com/blogs/design/archive/2010/03/30/building-the-elusive-windows-phone-panorama-control.aspx

Twitter App Receiving Push Notifications on WP7   Â
http://skeevs.com/blog/?p=35

Push Notifications Types and a Tutorial Â
http://blogs.claritycon.com/blogs/design/archive/2010/03/30/building-the-elusive-windows-phone-panorama-control.aspx

Building a Flickr AppÂ
http://skeevs.com/blog/?p=4&cpage=1#comment-16

Bing Location Programming on WP7 Â
http://www.earthware.co.uk/blog/index.php/2010/03/writing-a-bing-maps-location-aware-application-for-windows-phone-7-series/

Windows Phone 7 Icon Pack  Â
http://www.sevenforums.com/news/74137-windows-phone-7-series-icon-pack.html 

General Silverlight

Silverlight 4 – A guide to the new features Â
http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2009/11/18/whats-new-in-silverlight-4-complete-guide-new-features.aspx

Getting Started with Silverlight and Blend   Â
http://refcardz.dzone.com/refcardz/getting-started-silverlight?oid=hom20371

Silverlight UI ControlsÂ
http://www.silverlight.net/learn/tutorials/controls-cs

Silverlight Data Binding Â
http://www.silverlight.net/learn/tutorials/databinding-cs/

Visual State Manager  Â
http://www.silverlight.net/learn/tutorials/stylestemplatesvsm-cs/

Intro to BehaivoursÂ
http://www.kirupa.com/blend_silverlight/introduction_behaviors_pg1.htm

Technorati Tags: Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, WP7

Continue reading »]]> Ok, so this is not exactly a surprise to many people, but as posted on the Expression team blog, the Silverlight team have announced that Silverlight will be integrated into Windows Mobile 7, the reboot of the mobile OS from Microsoft.

According to the Silverlight team, they are totally commited to having Silverlight work on all mediums, from desktop PCs, TVs and mobile devices.

This comes at a time when Flash is likely to appear on more and more mobile devices soon, but with the success of Flash Lite…well…not really being a success, it remains to be seen how well the next wave of Flash mobile will be accepted.  It certainly looks like Silverlight might have the upper hand here if things continue as they are.

There has been talk about Silverlight coming to the mobile platform for some time, with a lot of people for a while, myself included, expecting it to arrive in time for Windows Mobile 6.5, which is due for release in around a month.  However, 6.5 is only an interrim release until the complete overhaul that is Windows Mobile 7 is released.

So, are you excited about seeing Silverlight on mobile devices? do you think it will be a good thing or a bad thing? or could you not care less?

Technorati Tags: mobile, Silverlight, Windows Mobile

Continue reading »]]> Ok, so a few weeks ago I posted about my plans to attend the MSDN Roadshow 2008 in Manchester and I said that I would post about the event once I had attended.  So as promised here is that very post along with some useful links;

Firstly, the venue for this years event was excellent.  The Odeon in Manchester City Centre in the Printworks is quite simply huge.  Luckily there were escalators for those of use who were to lazy to climb all of the stairs.

Once you reached the third floor, we were greeted by poster boxes with MSDN posters inside with some nice quotes, such as "There’s No Place Like 127.0.0.1" and "I’ll make him a program he can’t refuse", which was a nice touch I thought. Made the whole thing feel like more of an event rather than just a meeting.

In the corridor outside of the actual conference room were the usual stands familiar to those who have attended a Roadshow before, such as the registration table, a stand with discount books from the guys over at Computer Manuals selling discounted books on a variety of subjects from Expression to LINQ and of course, every developers favourite stand, the SWAG stand, with free goodies like the updated Developers Highway Code (which is available for download and I have included a link in the useful links later in this post).  We did all get a free software pack when we left, but more on that shortly.

In addition to the usual stands this year though, we were treated to a couple of really interesting tables showing off the XNA Framework on a dev Xbox 360 and the new Microsoft Robotics studio.  I have to say, some of the games produced with the XNA framework for the 360 were pretty impressive and most of them are available as starter kits from Microsoft if you’re interested.  I will include some links for both of these areas at the end of this post.

The conference room itself was actually a cinema room (surprisingly being at the Odeon ), which was fantastic.  This meant most people got comfortable seats to enjoy the show and those all important cup holders! I arrived slightly late, and so didn’t manage to get a seat, however, the nice Roadshow staff got me a seat and put me right at the side of the stage and I got a ringside seat which was great.  As you can see from the picture to the right (apologies for the quality, somehow I managed to set my camera phones’ resolution unusually low by mistake) of MSDNs Mike Ormond presenting, the slide being on a cinema screen really helped, as they were always clear and nobody was struggling to see anything.

The presentations themselves were, as always, of an excellent quality, with the speakers conveying their expert knowledge in their respective topics clearly and concisely.  I particularly enjoyed Mike Ormonds’ talk on the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions, especially the new Dynamic Data capabilities (which I am hopefully going to be posting a small tutorial series about shortly. If you’re interested, add this blog to you’re favourites or subscribe to my RSS Feed).

The refreshments this year were good, a choice between ham, cheese and chicken sandwiches, along with crisps and soft drinks for lunch.  Very nice Coffee during the breaks and even popcorn or Ben and Jerrys ice cream in the afternoon!

As I have already mentioned, if you handed in your feedback form and your pass before you left you were treated to a nice software pack, which didn’t disappoint.  Contained within the set were promotional copies of Windows Server 2008 32bit and 64bit editions, SQL Server 2008 Preview along with a voucher to get a development copy when it is released, and my personal favourite, a full copy of Visual Studio 2008.

All in all, an excellent day, well put together and very well received!

One last note, the MSDN Roadshow’s are an invaluable free event from Microsoft giving excellent technical and hands-on insight into the latest techniques and strategies for developers.  Every year they seem to sell out really fast, so my one message to you for next year is….REGISTER EARLY!

Now as promised, some useful links regarding the days speakers, events and topics;

Presentation Slides

Definitely worth a look through…..

Xbox 360 XNA Game Framework and Microsoft Robotics Studio and the Developer Highway Code

As promised, a couple of links to the areas that were the subject of two impressive stands this years event.

Technorati Tags: .net 3.5, ADO.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Dynamic Data, Microsoft Robotics, MSDN, Silverlight, XNA Framework

Continue reading »]]> Just registered for the 2008 MSDN Roadshow in Manchester on 1st May

At last years event, I particularly enjoyed a demo around WPF/E, which ofcourse has now been released as Silverlight.

Well, this years event looks to be even better.  Below is the event summary from the Microsoft web site;

Microsoft is pleased to present the 2008 Technical Roadshow where MSDN will be visiting 5 cities across the UK to share with you the latest technologies and developments in our platform.  It you are a developer who is interested in Microsoft technologies, then come along to one of these free all day events where you will learn how to apply the technologies in your everyday life.  We will be covering Silverlight – Microsoft’s browser plug-in that allows rich web applications to be developed quickly and easily, ASP.Net as well as the ADO.NET entity framework.  We have our own expert presenters who will be available for questions throughout the day.  We will also have representation from  the community to provide additional support and some fun activities.  If you have attended a Roadshow event before, you will know the value of this day out of the office and if it is your first time, you will be amazed at how much you will learn – all this without a sales pitch!

Really looking forward to this year, especially the demos around Silverlight 2.0.

I will post an update about how the event was once I have attented and I will try and get some photos as well.

Technorati Tags: .Net, MSDN, msdn roadshow 2008, Silverlight