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Last Ten Blog Entries

You may know about chucknorrisfacts.com and how tough he is, but did you know he’s into SharePoint?

1. Chuck Norris never starts an Approval workflow in SharePoint.  Chuck doesn’t need approval.
2. Chuck Norris’s favorite SharePoint site theme is Cardinal.  Chuck enjoys the color Red.
3. Chuck Norris can modify SharePoint’s application.master in a supportable manner.
4. Chuck Norris doesn’t have a SharePoint Disaster Recovery Plan.  He doesn’t recover data, only hostages.
5. Chuck Norris can upgrade SharePoint In-Place.  (and it will actually work)
6. Putting Chuck Norris in the SharePoint Visitors group is futile. Chuck always has Full Control.
7. Chuck Norris doesn’t prepare for SharePoint 2010. SharePoint 2010 prepares for him.
8. Microsoft asked Chuck Norris to sign an NDA about SharePoint 2010.  Chuck Norris asked Microsoft to sign a Living Will.
9. In SharePoint 2010, the Farm Administrators group is being renamed to ‘Chuck’s Group’.
10. Chuck Norris isn’t afraid to customize, one look and SharePoint runs at peak performance

Read the full list at Blair’s blog.

Mike Swanson has a blog post on the MIX10 conference taking place next week. Here are some of the highlights:

• Windows Phone 7 Series – Honestly, it was tough to keep this one under wraps, especially with something this exciting. If you haven’t watched the Mobile World Congress keynote with Steve Ballmer, Joe Belfiore, and Andy Lees yet, go do that first. It’s a great introduction.
  We have 12 Windows Phone sessions, and while we haven’t revealed the real titles and descriptions yet, know that MIX10 is the best place to learn how to build applications and games for Windows Phone 7 Series. You’ll be introduced to the development platform and we’ll show you how to use the tools. Best of all, attendees will receive exclusive free developer support.
  To stay in-the-loop on Windows Phone 7 Series-related information, be sure to follow @ckindel on Twitter.
• Channel 9 Live – Similar to PDC09, Nic Fillingham (@nicfill) and crew are planning to broadcast live content during most of MIX10. Watch the 10-minute Countdown to MIX10: Let’s do it Live for the details and follow @ch9live on Twitter.

Keynoters:

• Back by popular demand is Bill Buxton, recently honored as one of BusinessWeek’s World’s Most Influential Designers. Bill was a favorite at MIX09, and we received a lot of positive attendee feedback about how accessible Bill was in the hallways between sessions. Well, Bill loved it just as much, and he’s excited to be back again this year.
  
• MIX veteran, Scott Guthrie, returns to the stage as one of our highest-rated keynote speakers. I’ve been working with Scott and his team on keynotes and demos for the past few months, and I have to say that I’m excited about what he has to show this year. Well, I’m excited every year, but MIX10 feels special. Be sure to watch Bill and Scott in the MIX09 day 1 keynote.
  
• The astute among you may remember MIX10 keynoter, Joe Belfiore, and his Beyond the Browser general session from MIX06 (the first year of the conference). He’s back this year, and as the Corporate Vice President of Windows Phone Program Management, you can probably guess what he’s going to talk about.
  
• Last, but certainly not least, is Dean Hachamovitch, another MIX veteran and General Manager of Internet Explorer. You can watch Dean in last year’s MIX09 day 2 keynote. To get a sense of what his team has been up to, watch the PDC09 day 2 keynote with Steven Sinofsky, and jump to 39:34.

I’ll be in MD, but my head will be in Vegas next week. ;)

A researcher at Brown came up with an interesting twist on the UX of typical IDEs (integrated development environments.

IDEs haven’t really changed radically since the early 2000s.

Sure, there have been updates, upgrades, and enhancements, but no one has done anything radically new in a long time.

So, how long before Visual Studio has a view like this? ;)

Adam Kinney shows us a sneak peek at the .toolbox design school for Silverlight and Expression tools.

The site will be launching soon, so follow @designtoolbox to be among the first know when it does.

While doing some research for my talk on the Bing Maps Silverlight control, I discovered this store near where I went to college.

I’m impressed, my son Jake, barely three months old is already an entrepreneur. ;)

I wonder if they sell t-shirts. I could get one for him. :)

Arrr, Cameron Albert is cookin' up a cool Sil'erlight Game Gar, Where can I find a bottle o'rum?

Sorry, I couldn’t resist using the Pirate Translator.

Cameron shares a screencast of the pirate themed game he’s developing in Silverlight.

If you plan on picking up Silverlight 4 Business Application Development – Beginner's Guide, you might as well save money. Use the following codes when purchasing directly from Packt Publishing.

MsSilver15 – Save 15% off hard copy of the book

MsSilver30 – Save 30% off the eBook

If you are a .NET developer looking to expand your skills into Silverlight this is a great introductory book. 

The book gets you involved in the code right away and we try and keep the working code philosophy throughout. If you like to learn by doing, then this is the book for you.

So, what are you waiting for? Pre-order now. ;)

To go along with the links from my talk, here is the slide deck:

I’ll be giving a similar talks in the near future in the Mid-Atlantic area, so keep an eye on my blog and Community Megaphone for more details.

In case you're wonder WTH happened to the Silverlight SIG in January and February: you may have heard the good news: I'm a dad now!

You may not have heard the bad news: I seriously injured my shoulder in January.

Meetings will resume March 31.

In fact, I’ll be doing a Deep Dive talk on Silverlight 4. [add to calendar]

If you can't wait until March 31 to get your Silverlight fix, keep a close eye on the goings on next week at MIX10.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I won’t be able to make it this year. :(

Congratulations to Leonard Van Lowe!

Congratulations are in order to the Leonard Van Lowe (@lvanlowe), the new vice-president of the SIG. 

He's a local Silverlight expert and all around great guy. He'll be there to help run the group and make sure I am no longer a single point of failure.

Sponsors!

We're looking for sponsors to help support the group. Seriously, we need sponsors. Our pizza fund is in jeopardy.

see more dog and puppy pictures

I'll bring cake to a meeting in the near future to celebrate the publication of my Silverlight 4 book, but unless more sponsors step up, that'll be all the food we'll get for a while. Contact us for details. (frank@franksworld.com or scott@caparea.net)

There are a lot of great things coming down the pipe this year: Windows Phone 7, Silverlight 4, etc..

Here's to a great 2010, even if we have to start it in March. ;)

Follow us on Twitter => @SilverlightDC

Thanks to everyone who attended my Bing Maps & Silverlight talk the other night at the North Jersey .NET User Group.

It was good to be home, even if just virtually.

As promised here are some links I mentioned in my talk.

• IP to Location – free IP to LatLong service
• Download the Bing Maps Silverlight Control
• Bing Maps Silverlight Edition
• Interactive SDK
• Bing Maps Developer Portal – this is where you’ll get an API key
• Cake-O-Rama Locations – basic mapping sample from my book
• Delivery Application – advanced sample from my book with geocoding, reverse geocoding and routing
• Twitter Map – see who’s tweeting what and where

Paul (@moon) was kind enough to record the session on video and post it to his site, so you can relive the entire experience. ;)