Beginning Silverlight 2: From Novice to Professional

I am very pleased to announce that my latest book Beginning Silverlight 2: From Novice to Professional (Apress 2009), is released!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590599527

http://www.apress.com/book/view/1590599527

I will be shortly posting the source for the book and will of course be posting any updates as they come in.  If you own the book and like it, I would greatly appreciate if you would add a review on Amazon supporting the book.

I am also currently making plans for a Silverlight 3 book, so if there is anything you would like to see in that book (that either isn’t in the Silverlight 2 version, or something in the Silverlight 2 version that you definitely want to see again for Silverlight 3), then feel free to contact me.  One snag in the process is that apparently I let robertlair.com expire and it was snagged by one of those “give me $1500″ services, so I am currently working on a replacement site.  Soon robertlair.net will be up and running and I will be posting additional files and information there.

You can also contact me directly at robertlair at gmail dot com.

Silverlight 2 Released Today? … Ok… TOMORROW!

Quite a bit of rumors out there that indicate that today is the day that Silverlight 2 will be released.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1634

Update: The announcement was that it will be released tomorrow. 

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-13Silverlight2PR.mspx

Chrome Fixes for Silverlight Coming Soon

There is a developer build out there now of Google Chrome that fixes the support for Silverlight.  This is good news.

http://jonas.follesoe.no/DeveloperBuildOfChrome1251FixesSilverlight2Bugs.aspx

Santa IPhone… Here is my Christmas List

With the IPhone, there is not that much that I really want.  However, there are two things that I REALLY want.  First… I WANT TO DEVELOP FREAKIN’ IPHONE APPS ON MY PC!  I would love to be able to write IPhone apps, but I make my living as a Microsoft .NET developer, there is no way in heck that they are going to “convert” me using the IPhone.  They should be jumping in joy in my first ever Apple purchase.  Now support me in my desire to build applications for THEIR PHONE, helping them get MORE users of THEIR PHONE.

Secondly… I want Silverlight to run on the IPhone.  If they give me this, then I will be fine with not having the first one.    Because I will just write my apps in Silverlight.  The issue I see here is that they like their little monopoly called the AppStore, and if they enable Silverlight, then that will allow applications to be built outside the AppStore.

I don’t think I will get either for Christmas… oh well.    I still can ask eh?

Expression Blend 2.5 is now Blend 2.0 SP1

With the release of RCO of Silverlight 2, there has been many questions as to Expression Blend.  In the past, we have been using Expression Blend 2.5 Preview June 2008.  However, with the release of Silverlight 2 RCO, we are indicated to download Blend 2.0 RC1.  The question then arises, “what happened to 2.5?”  Here is the response from Scottgu:

“Rather than give it a new version string (and force existing users to upgrade to a new version), we decided to release the functionality using a service pack for the existing shipping product. All the functionality that was in previous Blend 2.5 builds is now included in SP1.”

So there you have it, Blend 2.5 is no more, and instead you should be using Blend 2.0 SP1 to build your Silverlight 2 apps!

Now go light up your web.

Multi-Line TextBox in Silverlight 2

Yes, you can have a multiline TextBox in Silverlight 2.  Naturally you would look for the Multiline property, but it in Silverlight 2 it is AcceptsReturn.  Here is an example:

<TextBox
VerticalScrollBarVisibility=”Visible”
HorizontalScrollBarVisibility=”Auto”
AcceptsReturn=”True”
BorderBrush=”Black”
BorderThickness=”2″
Margin=”5″>
</TextBox>