Gil Fink's Blog : Silverlight

MIX11 Second Keynote Session Summary

Gil Fink — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 23:31:53 GMT

MIX11 Second Keynote Session Summary

I’m currently attending the MIX11 second keynote session. Here are some of the things that you might consider to checkout in the following weeks:

The next version of Windows Phone 7 – Mango – is coming
- 16 additional languages will be added in the next version (still without Hebrew)
- More countries will be added for apps creation
- More countries will be added for apps commerce
Mango will include new features like
- Search capability for your installed apps
- Search extras that are connected to you search results
Mango will include support for IE9 as a browser for the phone
- Meaning that the same markup on PC can be viewed in the phone (but will less capability for hardware acceleration)
- HTML5 support included in IE9 and now in the phone browser
Phone integration

Metro UI controls
Live Tiles
Custom ringtones
Sockets
Database
More launchers and choosers
Raw camera access
Raw Compass access
Raw Gyro access

Motion sensor API will be available on Mango
Multi-tasking support in Mango

Fast apps switching
Background: Audio, downloads, alarms etc.
Live Agents in order to save battery

Angry Birds app will be available May 25th
Developer tools for Mango will be available next month

Improved emulator – location, gestures and more
New profiling support (identify hot spots in your app for example)

Performance enhancements in Mango

Scrolling and input
Image decode
Garbage collection
Memory usage

1500 new APIs in Mango. For example

Local SQL CE database
Network sockets support
Silverlight and XNA combination

Silverlight 5 beta is available for download

Hardware decode
Trickplay
Remote controls support
A lot of new APIs such as 3D, Data Binding debugging and more

Kinect Windows SDK is being built and will be available soon

P.S – Every attendee in the conference is getting a Kinect sensor

OData Explorer

Gil Fink — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:46:55 GMT

OData Explorer

One nice tool to use with OData is the
OData Explorer. The OData Explorer
is a tool that helps to explore OData feeds
in a visual way and not by exploring the
Atom/JSON responses. You can download
the tool from here. Another way to use the
tool is by going to the following link:
http://Silverlight.net/ODataExplorer.

OData Explorer Requirements

The tool is a Silverlight 4 project.
In order to use it you’ll have to answer these requirements:

Visual Studio 2010
Silverlight 4 Developer runtime
Silverlight 4 SDK
Silverlight 4 tools for Visual Studio
Latest Silverlight Toolkit release for Silverlight 4

or of course use it on-line in the link I provided previously.

Using the Tool

When the tool start you’ll get to the Add New OData Workspace view:

Here you can address your feed or address public OData feeds.
After choosing the workspace you’ll get into the tool:

Now you can go over the collections (entity sets) and get their information
in grid representation (which can be edited if the service is updatable):

or in row data (Atom/JSON):

You can type your own queries in the upper text box or you can
use the Build Query view to create a query:

Summary

The OData Explorer is very useful tool when you want to
understand and look at OData feeds without understanding the
protocol. It comes with very nice features and can be very handy
in presenting your feeds.

How to Add Silverlight Installation to IE8 Installation Package using IEAK8

Gil Fink — Sun, 09 May 2010 17:58:00 GMT

How to Add Silverlight Installation to IE8 Installation Package using IEAK8

During the last
weeks I’m helping
Microsoft customers
to create custom
installation packages
to Internet Explorer 8.
In this post I’ll explain
how to add Silverlight
installation to the
generated installation
package of IE8.

Using IEAK8

In order to create custom installation packages for Internet Explorer 8
you first need to download the Internet Explorer Administration Kit 8
or IEAK8. You can download the tool from here.

How to Add Custom Component?

When running IEAK8 we can add custom components such as Silverlight
installation to the generated installation package.

How to do that?
During the IEAK8 Wizard you use the Custom Component step and add
your custom components:

Press the Add button in order to open the Add a Custom Component step.
In the opened Add a Custom Component window you browse for the location
of the custom component installation. You need to fill the Name of the
component and then choose when the component will be installed
(Before or after the IE installation occurs).
You can use the “Only install if Internet Explorer is installed successfully”
checkbox in order to enable the installation of the component if
IE installation succeeded or not.

One other thing to notice in the supplied figure is the /q parameter.
This parameter will enable silent installation on the Silverlight installation.
Pressing the Add button at the bottom of the window will add the Silverlight
component to your to the list of components which will be installed by the
custom IE8 installation.

Pay attention that the custom components will be installed only in the full
generated version of the installation packages and not as
part of configuration installations (brand installation).

Summary

It is very simple and intuitive to add custom components to IE8 installation
packages using the IEAK8 tool.

Why Data as a Service isn't a Bad Idea

Gil Fink — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:30:00 GMT

Why Data as a Service isn't a Bad Idea Early this week I encountered the post " Why the Database as a Service is a Bad Idea " written by Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz in DZone . The title caught my eye and I read the post. I must say that there are a lot of things that I agree with the author and there are some things that I think should be considered again and will be explained in this post. Why Not to Use Database as a Service? As the author wrote the exposing of a database internals through...(read more)

ADO.NET Data Services Introduction

Gil Fink — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:30:00 GMT

ADO.NET Data Services Introduction Introduction From the early ages of development, the separation of presentation and data was very necessary and was considered (and is considered) a good practice. As you all know, the current trend in the web development world is building Rich Internet Applications ( RIA ) and buzz words like Ajax and Silverlight are very popular today. The RIA technologies ( Ajax , Silverlight and etc) are built on the concept of separation between the presentation and data in...(read more)