Windows Presentation Foundation Community Workshop

Ok, so you’ve seen Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and you thought the technology looked interesting. You know your applications are starting to look dated, you understand WPF has matured, now in its 3^rd release; but life gets in the way and you haven’t had the chance to get down and dirty with it yet. So here’s your opportunity to skill up, and raise money for the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal, in this One-Day Workshop!!

To help you get to grips with this great technology quickly, Microsoft has created a series of Hands on Labs and Presentations. These will grow your skill set, putting you on the path to building the rich user interfaces your customers are demanding.

This training event comes to you courtesy of the .NET User Groups across Australia, and Cliftons, who are generously providing their training facilities at minimal cost. This is your chance to learn new skills, network with other professionals, and have a bit of fun along the way.

Registration and Payment

There is a nominal charge of $100. With the help of Cliftons we are keeping costs minimal and if we fill all workshops across the country then this event will raise close to $23,000 for the Red Cross “Victorian Bushfire Appeal 2009”.

Places are limited and to register interest please send a mail to mahesh.krishnan@readify.net

Workshop Format

To make it easy for you to attend we are running the workshops on a Saturday in all major cities. The sessions will commence at 8.30am with registration. Check the schedule below for the date and location in Melbourne.

Following a 10 to 15 minute introduction to each topic, you will kick start Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Blend and work on the relevant lab!! Regardless of your current level of experience, you can work at your own pace; a facilitator will be on hand to guide your learning; and you’ll be able to take the lab content home for further learning.

Content

The WPF Skills day will cover

1. Creating layouts, compositions and templates
2. Building custom controls
3. Working with Styles and control templates (includes using Expression Blend to restyle)
4. Using the Ribbon control to effortlessly create applications that are as familiar to your customers as Office 2007 (not to mention the Windows 7 Core Applications)
5. Working with the new DataGrid control to display tabular and editable data
6. Binding data with ease to your user interface
7. And more...

Event Dates

The Windows Presentation Foundation Community workshop in Melbourne is to be held on Saturday, March 28^th, 2009 at Cliftons on Collins Street.

Be in to Win

The workshop will also feature a prize draw to win a copy of Visual Studio 2008. Nice!!

So get clicking and sign up by sending a mail to mahesh.krishnan@readify.net and tell your mates about the day, learn something new and help out the Bushfire victims!!

As much as anything this is to bookmark the S+S solution Silverlight/Deepzoom solution for the SMH (Sydney Morning Herald).

Check out http://blogs.msdn.com/gwillis/archive/2009/03/06/software-services-meets-sydney-mardi-gras.aspx

and

http://delicategeniusblog.com/?p=809

Oh and there is an Easter egg along with prize for first person to find it - see http://delicategeniusblog.com/?p=809

Cheers Dave

As much as anything this is to bookmark the S+S solution Silverlight/Deepzoom solution for the SMH (Sydney Morning Herald)…

Check out http://blogs.msdn.com/gwillis/archive/2009/03/06/software-services-meets-sydney-mardi-gras.aspx

and

http://delicategeniusblog.com/?p=809

Oh and there is an Easter egg along with prize for first person to find it – see http://delicategeniusblog.com/?p=809

Cheers Dave

Well in my world birthday time equals a gadget and this time around I had a hankering for some good quality portable speakers for when travelling, holidays, conf calls etc…

I spotted the Soundmatters speakers in a magazine and you can find more about them at http://www.foxl.com.au/.  The speakers are indeed small, come with charger, cables, nice velvet bag and the speakers themselves feel robust, ie it’s not about to fall apart if dropped or banged etc.

First Impressions

First up I love em, they are not perfect but are bloody good and no buyers remorse.  For their size then the sound quality is awesome, great for chillout, nice warm sound, for heavier rock then they can distort a bit at higher volumes, you could happily use to fill a medium size room for demos etc – all up a great audio experience!!

Battery Life

Battery life is pretty good, not sure I get the full 5 hrs but certainly enough time on battery to be very useful!!  You can charge via the supplied charger or the supplied USB cable (note you can’t play music via the USB connection, bit of a shame).

Bluetooth support

I got the Bluetooth unit thinking how handy it would be to be able to play music over a Bluetooth A2DP profile, cut down on wires etc, alas the sad reality is that the music quality over A2DP sucks – the documentation says as much:(

On the plus side, the Bluetooth support is brilliant when using the device as a speakerphone, the sound quality is great and the echo cancelling microphone works well, bloody perfect – more than enough to make  make up for sucky A2DP Stereo quality…

Cheers Dave