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POKE 53280,0: Pete Brown's Blog

Silverlight, WPF, Woodworking, .NET Programming, CNC, Nature, and other topics.

Pete Brown writes on a number of topics including Silverlight, WPF, .NET, woodworking and working as a consultant in the DC area. On most forums, Pete goes by the name Psychlist1972. Pete has worked at Applied Information Sciences (AIS) since 1996 where he currently performs as a lead architect and project manager.

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October 2007 - Posts

Extension Methods in Silverlight and .NET 3.5
In my spare time, I've been working on a Silverlight sample that can be used to browse the wallpaper on my main web site. As part of that, I have been implementing a custom panel with layout/positioning code. Since all coordinates in Silverlight are Read More...
Optimizing the Silverlight Install Experience
Tim Sneath has put together a post and his team a whitepaper with information on how to do an in-place install of Silverlight. Using the default approach (as we did on our early work) is ok, but it isn't a great user experience. In that setup, the Read More...
Silverlight LED Control
Fello AIS'er Frank LaVigne put together a cool Silverlight 1.1 LED UserControl and posted it on his site . Check it out Frank also converted his Flash-based site navigation menu to Silverlight 1.0. Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg Read More...
Upcoming Silverlight Talks and Events
Recap of my upcoming talks and events: Thursday November 1: PAFox - Introduction to Silverlight (almost two hours of introduction to Silverlight) Saturday November 3: Silverlight DC Devcamp (this promises to be a great full-day event) Tuesday November Read More...
Autumn Desktop Backgrounds
My main website is pretty disjointed from my blog here, and with one exception, is rarely updated any more. I do plan to convert the main site over, prune out old stuff at somepoint, and make it as easy to update as my blog (WSS will likely be part of Read More...
Introduction to Silverlight Talk on Thursday in Fairfax
Andrew Duthie turned me on to the Potomac Area FoxPro Users Group (PAFOX) in Fairfax. This is a dedicated bunch of folks in Northern Virginia that, among other things, are doing some great work in FoxPro. It has been over a decade since I have written Read More...
Welcome Steve to Blogging
My colleague at AIS, Steve Suing, just started up his own blog today. Among other things, Steve was half of the team on the Carbon Calculator project as well as a contributor on Silverlight.net . Steve's a talented guy, so I'm sure we'll see Read More...
MySpace Sites - The Junk Drawer of the Internet
I have to admit that I just didn't get into MySpace at all. I guess that's because I'm 35 and don't have a band or something. Every once in a while, a MySpace page comes up in search. I also get requests to use my desktop wallpaper backgrounds Read More...
Brian Eastwood's article on the Silverlight Carbon Calculator
Brian attended my session at ReMIX07 in Boston earlier this month, and wrote up this great article covering our real world Silverlight project. Thanks Brian! Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! Read More...
Vectorform Silverlight 1.0 Demos
A number of decent demos here on the vectorform site. All are Silverlight 1.0 but could be translated conceptually or logically into 1.1 Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! Read More...
Expression Design SP1
Expression Design Service Pack 1 has been released. See the Expression Design Team Blog here . These two features are one that I've really been waiting for: Text can now be exported as TextBlocks for Silverlight applications. In the release version Read More...
SQL Injection Comic
Yes, you are a geek if you laugh at this :) From Frank's World . Thanks Frank! Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! Read More...
UserControls as Screens in Silverlight 1.1 - Part 2 of 2
In Part 1 , I outlined how we handled screen management in the Silverlight 1.1 Carbon Calculator. In Part 2, I'll present a basic framework for handling similar screen management in your own Silverlight applications. If you haven't yet read Part Read More...
Cool Tools for Kids
I'm in the middle of a never-ending home renovation project. As such, I tend to use my two Bosch drills a lot. My son (20 months old now) was obsessed with the "brrrumba" (his name for the drill, based on its sound), and would go nuts whenever Read More...
Silverlight In-Place Installs and Using CreateSilverlight.js and Silverlight.js
This article on MSDN has some great detailed information for the parameters into the CreateSilverlight function. Among other things, it includes information on doing an inplace install. It also tells you how to detect the version of Silverlight installed. Read More...
UserControls as Screens in Silverlight 1.1 - Part 1 of 2
The main pattern I followed in the Silverlight 1.1 Carbon Calculator UI development was the pattern of using UserControls as screens. I spoke about this pattern in my Remix07 Presentation in Boston this week during my Real World Silverlight session. I Read More...
Hit Tracking, Usage, and Web Analytics in Silverlight 1.1
I hadn't blogged about this before, because the solution was really simple. From looking around the net a bit, though, I see that folks have really struggled with this with other RIA platforms. So read below to see how simple this was to do in Silverlight. Read More...
Announcing squrl.us
A colleague of mine at Applied Information Sciences , Oskar Austegard, just announced squrl.us on his blog at mo.notono.us Squrl does a few more things than your average short URL generator. For example, when I entered the URL for one of my blog pages, Read More...
Nikhil Kothari's Web Development Helper
If you attended Brad Abrams' Remix07 Boston session on Silverlight, Ajax and Video, you saw him use Nikhil Korhari's Web Development Helper. I highly recommend this tool. You can download it from Nikhil's projects site here . Share this post: Read More...
Links from my ReMIX07 Boston Silverlight Talk
Here are some links from today's ReMIX 07 talk in Boston, and a couple extras that may be of interest Silverlight Community Site Applied Information Sciences Balloons Demo with Source Code (be sure to read the past posts on it as well, linked via Read More...
I Love the Smell of Bandwidth in the Morning
I'm at a hotel in Boston, doing some last-minute updates to my Remix07 slide deck. I tried to do these last night, but found it impossible; there wasn't even enough bandwidth for a consistent IM connection. The surest way to completely collapse Read More...
Silverlight Enterprise Deployment Guide
Microsoft has release t he Silverlight Enterprise Deployment Guide This only includes 1.0 right now, but the deployment instructions and specifics should be pretty similar between versions. Microsoft wants to make sure Silverlight is taken seriously in Read More...
Silverlight Game Developer? Check out this 2D Physics Engine
If you write games for Silverlight, Windows, or XNA (Windows/XBOX 360), you will want to try out this port of the Farseer Physics Engine. If targeting Silverlight, you'll need Silverlight 1.1 to use this. Here's a set of demos done in 1.1. You'll Read More...
Microsoft Releasing Source Code for .NET 3.5
In case you haven't seen it yet, Microsoft is releasing a huge chunk of source code for .NET 3.5. From Scott Guthrie's blog: One of the things my team has been working to enable has been the ability for .NET developers to download and browse the Read More...
Silverlight Kit3d
I'm always amazed at what people can create with the most minimal of tools. In this case, a 3d library for Silverlight 1.0, written all in javascript. The animation looks pretty smooth too. Check it out Kit3d at Mark Dawson's site . Share this Read More...
Real, Working Transformers
Pretty cool! Japanese Transformer A six-wheel transformer And just to round it all out, here are some people who made transforming costimes. Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! Read More...
More on Silverlight and the Carbon Calculator
Frank LaVigne and I were both interviewed as part of a Silverlight article for Redmond Developer News. Being one of the first (if not the first) Silverlight 1.1 applications to go into production, the Carbon Calculator has received a lot of attention. Read More...