Silverlight Makes Version 3

Here we are at MIX ‘09, and like the past couple of MIX events, Silverlight, this time v3, has taken center-stage, and is promising to be a great platform for developing Rich Internet Applications, as well as now, the typical Line of Business Apps to power both consumer experiences and work experiences. It is often cited that Microsoft gets it in v3. V3 is an important milestone, and it certainly is for Silverlight.

Silverlight Progression

Indeed Silverlight which started out by focusing on being a scriptable graphics and media runtime in v1, and incorporated the CLR, controls, and a nice subset of managed code framework in v2 is growing up in v3 to become a full-fledged application platform. Several new features were highlighted during the keynote today:

 

• New Graphics and Media Capabilities – GPU support, perspective transforms, pixel shader effects, media smooth streaming, new codecs, including ability to write your own, better text rendering, etc.
• Data – new data controls, data-binding improvements, and validation
• Application model – ability to use library cache for reducing xap package sizes, better styling, capabilities
• Out-of-browser – ability to write apps that escape the browser chrome, run offline, and across platforms.
• Networking – besides offline/online notifications, support for binary serialization, server push and local connections (for communication across silverlight apps)

All this and more. Even better, Silverlight 3 is a tad bit smaller in size than Silverlight 2. I think Silverlight 3 is pretty much a no-brainer choice for developing a whole new set of experiences on the Web.

Other interesting stuff included tooling for creating Silverlight apps on the Mac using Eclipse as the IDE. The other big interesting announcement was around SketchFlow, an exciting new addition to the Expression line centered around sketching, prototyping, collecting feedback, and the coolest part – the ability to transform some of your early work into an start for the real application.

Microsoft Ajax 4.0 Preview 4

The Microsoft Ajax team made the fourth preview of the 4.0 version available on CodePlex. This is an important release because it enables the full client data story, complete with the ability to get changes back to the server automatically.

 

Here’s a quick recap of some of the available features:

 

• Getting a client representation of data from an ADO.NET and REST data service.
• Rendering data on the client using templates.
• Declarative instantiation of client components.
• Live bindings, enabling changes in the UI and in the data to be automatically propagated.
• Command bubbling for codeless wiring of events in template-driven controls.
• Data identity and association management for efficient and consistent client-server data exchanges.
• Sending changes back to ADO.NET and REST data services.

In a nutshell, it is probably the easiest way to build a data-driven client application.

Enterprise Library 4.1 released

Don’t forget to download Enterprise Library 4.1, which was recently released by Microsoft Patterns & Practices.

The Microsoft Enterprise Library is a collection of reusable application blocks designed to assist software developers with common enterprise development challenges. This following application blocks are included: Caching Application Block, Cryptography Application Block, Data Access Application Block, Exception Handling Application Block, Logging Application Block, Policy Injection Application Block, Security Application Block, Validation Application Block, and Unity Application Block.

This release includes:

• Support for Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1.
• Interception mechanism in the Unity Application Block.
• Performance improvements.
• Usability improvements of the config tool.
• Fixes

Download Enterprise Libary 4.1 here.

Laraib’s Birthday

Exactly 4 years ago, nearly 7 in the morning, we were blessed with a beautiful gift, which can not be matched by any other gift. GOD blessed us our very first child, a cutest baby girl. I am amazed how fast time has passed on, and she had started her schooling.

There teacher informed us that they encourage students to share and celebrate there birthday in school. So her mother has prepared a lot of things for that occasion. She is sending Biryani, Shami Kabab, and a delicious cake for all students.

We have seen a lots of up and down of her. She is a quick learner, but most of today’s lot capture faster than us. She is naughty, very much active, mostly assertive, but requires a basic trust relationship to build first.

She is a good teacher too, we have seen so much of that of her, that sometime we are amazed of her skills. Whatever she learns, she pass it on to her younger brother Ahsan. Do like this, don’t do like that. It has given us a cushion too, we don’t have to rigorously work with Ahsan for all those things.

At the end I will say Laraib is a really blessing for us, a presence which cannot be ignored.

I pray for her health, wisdom, strength and sense of good things in life.

Dr. Afia by Khalid Masood Khan

This is a Urdu poem about what one of our poet think about Pakistani people’s thoughts about Dr. Afia’s case.

read more | digg story

Laraib’s first day at school

Today was the very first day in school for Laraib. She has been admitted in nursery. This was only due to her own enthusiasm and hard work by her mother, who helped her go through all her primary books before taking a tough test from her teachers. I have taken her some snaps before leaving for school, she looks quite confident and happy to be in school uniform.

It was a tough ride today. We all went with her today. Roads were mostly empty, only traffic we faced was for school going children. It was a good experience though.

She also had a chat with her baba (grandfather)  before leaving. He was excited too. He would have liked to drop her himself.

At school her teacher (Asifa) took her into her class. She told us that we would have to participate in a Parent-Teacher meeting on Friday. It would be basically a introductory meeting for parents, they would be informed about the procedures of school. We would be looking for that.

More would come on these topics in future.

Silverlight – Developer Reference Posters

Today I found two posters of Silverlight, given below.

Head First PMP – Page 56-7

I think they like putting all things in different compartments, either in process group or knowledge areas or both.

Match the knowledge areas to each description. We’ve done the first for you.

Coordinating all of the work so that it happens correctly. Making sure changes are approved before they happen.	Integration Management
Figuring out what work needs to be done for your project. Making sure your end product has everything you said it would.	Scope Management
Figuring out the time it will take to do your work and the order you need to do it in. Tracking your schedule and making sure everything gets done on time.	Time Management
Knowing how much you’re able to invest in the project and making sure you spend your budget accordingly.	Cost Management
Making sure you work as efficiently as you can and don’t add defects into the product.	Quality Management
Getting the people to work on the team and helping them stay motivated. Rewarding them for a job well done and resolving conflicts that come up.	Human Resource Management
Making sure that everybody knows what they need to know to do their job right. Tracking how people talk to each other and dealing with misunderstandings or miscommunications if they happen.	Communication Management
Figuring out how to protect your project from anything that could happen to it. Dealing with the unexpected when it does happen.	Risk Management
Finding contractors to help you do the work. Setting the ground rules for their relationships with your company.	Procurement Management

Pakistan’s Musharraf will resign

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who is facing impeachment by parliament, says he will resign. See more on BBC.

Head First PMP – Page 52

This looks tricky as you have to see it in different perspectives.

Think of the vacation we talked about on page 48 as a project, and each of its steps as a process. Here are some inputs, tools, and outputs that could be used in each of the vacation steps. Can you look at each of the underlined words and figure out if the words represent an input, tool, or output? (Here’s a hint: some of them are an output from one process and an input for another.)

1. You log in and check your company’s vacation calendar to see how much vacation time you have for you trip. (input)

2. You create an itinerary on a travel web site. You’ll use the itinerary when you board your flight. (tool)

3. You have some hotel reservation documents you created on the travel web site, too. You’ll use them when you check into your hotel. (output -> input)

4. You use a travel web site to book the place, hotel, and sights you’ll see on your trip. (tool)

5. You verify your bank account balance to make sure you have enough money to pay for everything. (input)

6. You use a hotel feedback web site to review your stay in the hotel once you get back home. (tool)