Archive for September, 2008
The Release Candidate for Silverlight 2 is available! This is great news. We’re getting close to the release, and Erik takes us through what the RC means and where we’re at.
Scott Guthrie’s post – http://tinyurl.com/theGu
Shawn Wildermuth’s post- http://tinyurl.com/RCAvailable
Silverlight.net Get Started with RC – http://tinyurl.com/sl2rc
Podcast: Download
September 30th, 2008
In this mini-episode, Erik gives a brief overview of animations in Silverlight. Why do we use them? What are the different types of animations and how do they work?
Podcast: Download
September 26th, 2008
What is templating? Why do people talk about it so much in Silverlight?
On this show, Jesse Liberty gives us an amazing overview of templating and what it means to customize controls. What’s the vocabulary? How is templating done? What are the different approaches? Jesse takes us on a tour starting with basic principles and finishing with all of the power that Silverlight templating has to offer.
Jesse Liberty is a returning guest on the Sparkling Client podcast. Jesse has 2 decades of being a programmer, teacher and author. Right now, he works at Microsoft, and he’s co-authoring (along with Tim Heuer) the O’Reilly book: Programming Silverlight 2.


Useful links for the show:
Silverlight.Net Videos: http://silverlight.net/learn/videocat.aspx?cat=2
Music for the show:
Lido In The Morning by General Fuzz from the album Messy’s Place
I Believe In You by YACHT from the album Instrumentals 2007
Sidetrack by Lisa DeBenedictis from the album Fruitless
Podcast: Download
September 23rd, 2008
In this mini-episode, Erik reveals a common misconception about transforms in Silverlight. What are transforms? Why are they useful? What don’t they do?
Podcast: Download
September 17th, 2008
I’m pleased to reverse an earlier announcement: Jesse will be joining us in September. We just finished recording a Templating episode, and we’re going to put it up on September 23, 2008. It’s a great tour of the how and why of templating.
September 16th, 2008
In this mini-episode, Erik talks about dependency properties in Silverlight. What are they? Why would you want to use them?
Podcast: Download
September 12th, 2008
Due to some logistical issues, Jesse Liberty won’t be on the podcast in September
Instead, he’ll be on the show starting in October!
September 12th, 2008
In this show, we talk about the business of writing games on Silverlight.
Can developers write Silverlight games in their spare time? What is the best way to get a game noticed? Where will game engines fit into the Silverlight world? What’s in Bill’s new book for game developers?
Bill is a Silverlight expert, and he’s co-writing “Hello! Silverlight 2” from Manning Press with Sparkling Client favorite Dave Campbell! In the book, there’s going to be a recipe for building a Silverlight game from scratch.
Interested in getting your game noticed? Here’s a game contest that he’s helping to run: http://www.teamzonesports.com/SilverlightGameContest (it’s over now, but you can get more information)
Useful links for the show:
Blue Rose Games – http://www.bluerosegames.com/brg/
Bill’s Blog – http://www.bluerosegames.com/SilverlightBrassTacks/
Music for the show:
Lido In The Morning by General Fuzz from the album Messy’s Place
Sidetrack by Lisa DeBenedictis from the album Fruitless
Podcast: Download
September 9th, 2008
I’ve been invited by Shawn Wildermuth to join the Silverlight Tour as an instructor! It’s a tremendous honor, and I’m very excited. Part of what sold me on the plan is Shawn’s outstanding syllabus: It’s a jam-packed 3 days of Silverlight goodness. But most of all, I like his down-to-earth approach to Silverlight: Silverlight isn’t the solution to every problem on the web, but used appropriately, it’s an amazing tool. This fits well with my own thinking, and I think this is going to be a great opportunity for me to teach something I’m passionate about.

September 6th, 2008
In this mini-episode, Erik talks about control creation. Why do Custom Controls exist? When would you write one? How are they different than User Controls? It’s a key (but often overlooked) part of Silverlight.
Podcast: Download
September 4th, 2008