wintellect-blogs|Mar 17, 2010

ViewModel binding with the Managed Extensibility Framework

This is just a short post to share an “ah-hah” moment I experienced building out a large Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) Silverlight application. Traditionally, I’ve wired in the view models using the code behind. I’m not one of those who believes code behind is evil no matter what, so I haven’t taken issue with something…
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wintellect-blogs|Mar 12, 2010

Custom Export Providers with Custom Metadata for Region Management

Over the past few weeks I’ve been exploring the concept of region management using the Managed Extensibility Framework, and for a good reason. I’m working on a project that has several different regions and controls that must be managed effectively and across the boundaries of dynamic XAP files in Silverlight 3. Sound like a mouthful?…
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wintellect-blogs|Mar 10, 2010

Start-PowerShellPoint

Working on my PowerShell for Developers presentation I’m doing at our upcoming Devscovery Conference in NYC (April 27-29) it was a no brainer to use Jeffrey Snover’s excellent Start-Demo script (much improved by Joel Bennett). If you’re a bad typist like I am having the demo script is a godsend when showing techniques in a…
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azure-and-cloud-computing|Mar 10, 2010

How To Get Diagnostic Data From Services Running In The Windows Azure Cloud

Each instance of Windows Azure Service Role runs its own monitor to gather its own instance specific diagnostic data. The problem that immediately presents itself is knowing what exactly is being collected, where the data is being saved, and how to retrieve it for inspection. The purpose of this blog post is to illuminate these…
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wintellect-blogs|Mar 9, 2010

MVVM with MEF in Silverlight Video Tutorial Part 2: Plugins and Metadata

In the first part of this series, I demonstrated a very simple project that used MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) along with the Managed Extensibility Framework to produce a simple screen that toggled between a square and a circle. In this next video, I am re-designing the original project. This video starts with the original solution, but then…
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wintellect-blogs|Mar 7, 2010

MVVM with MEF in Silverlight: Video Tutorial

This is a video tutorial to introduce beginners to how to use both MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) and MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework) with Silverlight (should work for versions 3 and 4). Of course, some “veterans” may want to watch as well in case you’ve missed some of the fundamentals, or have a clever way to do something…
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wintellect-blogs|Mar 4, 2010

Silverlight Line of Business Applications

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of presenting a talk entitled, “Silverlight Line of Business Applications” at the Atlanta Silverlight Meetup Group. This talk focused on several aspects of building line of business applications, ranging from the principles that belong in the foundation or architecture, to specific frameworks and methodologies. You can view…
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wintellect-blogs|Mar 3, 2010

Animations and View Models: IAnimationDelegate

We often trip over ourselves trying to minimize code behind and abstract behaviors in the UI from the models, etc. This is important for clean separation, but sometimes behaviors may add too much abstraction. The real fact is many applications require some sort of transition or animation based on events, and while we can try…
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wintellect-blogs|Mar 1, 2010

MEF instead of PRISM for Silverlight 3 Part 2 of 2: Region Management

In my last post, I showed you how to dynamically load modules on demand using the latest MEF release in Silverlight 3. This post, I will take you through managing regions with MEF. This will enable us to have a 100% MEF-based solution in Silverlight 3 if the only pieces of PRISM we were using…
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wintellect-blogs|Feb 28, 2010

Idempotency for Windows Azure Message Queues

Idempotency is the mathematical term used to describe a system that produces the same result when a formula or procedure is applied numerous times against the same target. In software systems, this translates to an ability to perform an operation more than one time with knowledge that the resulting state of the system will be…
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wintellect-blogs|Feb 26, 2010

MEF instead of PRISM for Silverlight 3 Part 1 of 2: Dynamic Module Loading

Recently I’ve been having lots of conversations about the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF), the Composite Application Library (CAL or PRISM), and how they relate. One point of confusion that many people has comes when they try to force the two solutions to work together. In a recent conversation, I mentioned that PRISM has some great…
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wintellect-blogs|Feb 25, 2010

Vancouver Olympics – How’d We Do That?

The Silverlight team recently posted a blog entry entitled “Vancouver Olympics – How’d we do That?” in which they detailed the massive effort across multiple partners to pull together the on-line solution for streaming HD videos, both live and on demand. This was an exciting post for Wintellect and me because it detailed the effort…
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