Learning Silverlight

I’ve been very interested in Silverlight since it’s introduction (and more importantly XAML), but have never really had the time to invest in learning it until now.

Recently I’ve been performing a technical evaluation for an upcoming project and Silverlight is one of the proposed technologies that could be used. Naturally I started Googling around the web for some learning resources and stumbled across (yet another) series of videos by Mike Taulty posted on Microsoft’s Channel 9 website entitled “44 Amazing Silverlight 2.0 Screencasts”.

These short (usually under 10 minutes) screencasts are each focused on a particular aspect of Silverlight and start from the very basic and progressively build to more complex topics. Mike has a very easy-going approach to explaining the topic and makes (purposefully) makes mistakes along the way to show you some of the common pitfalls/issues that you could encounter along the way.

If you are at all interested in Silverlight (and I think you should be), I would highly recommend this video series as one of your first stops along the way.

Preparing for Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0

While poking around Microsoft’s Channel 9 website, I stumbled across a series of videos dubbed “10-4”. Those of you that have had your morning coffee have probably already guessed that these videos are about Visual Studio 2010 (also referred to on the net as VSX) and the .NET 4.0 Framework. These videos are quick (less than 20 minutes) that highlight what is new or changed from previous versions.

I’ve watched about half of them so far and they have been helpful in identifying new technologies to incorporate into new or existing applications.

Give them a go on your lunch break or whenever you need a break from your current coding headache!