Blogs|Feb 7, 2010

A Fluent RSS Reader for Silverlight Part 1: Proof of Concept

One of the most common examples to help learn a language or framework is an RSS Reader. This is an ideal mini-project because it includes networking, parsing XML, and binding to data elements such as lists. I wanted to provide an example that shows some more interesting solutions that are possible using C# in Silverlight.…
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Blogs|Feb 2, 2010

Using Moq with Silverlight for Advanced Unit Tests

Moq is a library that assists with running unit tests by providing easily mocked objects that implement interfaces and abstract classes. You can learn more about Moq on their website. There is a distribution for Silverlight, and in this post I’ll focus on some ways to use Moq for some more involved testing scenarios. Download…
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Blogs|Jan 30, 2010

Microsoft Online Services: Very Cool (and Cheap!)

This is not a technical post, but one that bumps into business. Yes, occasionally us software developers have to lift our heads up and see that there’s more to life than hacking code. This is especially true at small companies, such as Wintellect, were the effort to do business means you can’t just hide in…
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Blogs|Jan 29, 2010

Programmatically Accessing the Live Smooth Streaming API

Live Smooth Streaming is a Microsoft technology that allows you to take a live, encoded, incoming video stream and rebroadcast it using Smooth Streaming technology. This technology multicasts the video stream in segments of varying bandwidths. This can then be played with a Silverlight-based client like the built-in MediaElement or more advanced player like the…
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Blogs|Jan 23, 2010

Simple Dialog Service in Silverlight

I noticed on the forums there are a lot of users not comfortable with asynchronous programming who struggle a bit in Silverlight with getting their arms around the concept of a dialog box. In other environments, you can simply shoot out a dialog, wait for the response, and continue. In Silverlight, of course, the action…
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Blogs|Jan 20, 2010

New Silverlight 3 Version Released (3.0.50106.0)

A new version of Silverlight 3 has been released. You can download the latest control here. If you are a developer, then you’ll want to use the developer installer that is available here. This version fixes some issues related to hardware acceleration in the graphics processing unit (GPU), certain cases that cause Deep Zoom to…
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Blogs|Jan 16, 2010

Making Your Own 8K Homegrown Inversion of Control Container

If you develop software, chances are you you’ve worked with Inversion of Control containers and the Dependency Injection pattern. Many frameworks exist to address how to marry concrete implementations to abstract classes and interfaces. A few popular ones on the .NET platform include: Autofac Castle Windsor Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) Ninject StructureMap Unity Download the…
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Blogs|Jan 12, 2010

Quick Tip: Embedding and Accessing Schemas in .NET

I have a project I’m working on that requires the use of some extensive XML manipulation. While XML can be very powerful, XML without a schema is like JavaScript objects: no strong typing and the wild west as far as standards are concerned. A good, solid XML document will have a valid schema to validate…
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Blogs|Jan 10, 2010

Auto-Discoverable Views using Fluent PRISM in Silverlight

One reason a developer would use a technology like MEF is to, as the name implies, make an application extensible through a process called discovery. Discovery is simply a method for locating classes, types, or other resources in an assembly. MEF uses the Export tag to flag items for discovery, and the composition process then…
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Blogs|Jan 9, 2010

Automated Silverlight Unit Testing Using StatLight

One concern with the Silverlight Unit Testing Framework is that it runs on a UI thread and requires a browser to function. This makes it difficult to integrate into automated or continuous integration testing. Difficult, but not impossible. A solution is provided by the project called StatLight which not only supports Silverlight testing automation, but…
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Blogs|Jan 7, 2010

Silverlight Unit Testing Framework: Asynchronous Testing of Behaviors

Last month, I bogged about Unit Testing ViewModels AND Views using the Silverlight Unit Testing Framework. I wanted to take that post a step further and talk about some more advanced testing scenarios that are possible. The site itself provides a lot of information about how to get started and what is available with the…
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