Firestarter: Silverlight for Windows 7

Here’s another free series of events brought to you in early 2011 by my East Coast colleagues: Dave Isbitski, Dani Diaz, Joe Healy, and Glen Gordon.

Windows 7 and Silverlight make for a fantastic platform to build and deploy applications. Together, you have the power to build smart, visually stunning applications that truly light up. Want to learn how to take advantage of your desktop OS using Silverlight? Want to learn some Silverlight programming techniques? Want to dialog about some Silverlight Futures? Join us for a full day of Silverlight with a special emphasis on out-of-the-browser applications.

Click on city below to register
January 18	New York City
January 19	Iselin NJ
February 2	Malvern PA
February 3	Chevy Chase MD
February 10	Alpharetta GA
February 22	Waltham MA
February 22	Tampa FL
February 24	Rochester NY
February 24	Coral Gables FL

Firestarter Agenda

Session One – Silverlight on Windows Fundamentals

Get an introduction to the basics of working with Silverlight. We’ll cover how to create and lay out a user interface using XAML, and examine the rich control set for building applications. Then we’ll look at coding with C# and Visual Basic, as well as the cool things you can do without writing code using features like behaviors and data binding.  Finally we’ll look at how to continue your learning with an orientation to the numerous resources available today for learning more Silverlight.

Session Two – Empowering Line of Business (LOB) Applications on Windows

Line of Business Applications (LOB) are all about adding value to the business and helping it run at full capacity. In this session you will learn how to take LOBs to the next level. We will discuss full trust, out of browser scenarios, SharePoint integration, RIA Services and more. We will also discuss the basics of the MVVM pattern that will simplify the way you develop applications today. After this session you will have all the tools you need to make your Line of business applications stand out on Windows.

Session Three – Creating Interactive Windows applications using Media and Touch

You’re a developer, not a designer, but in recent years the media side of development is getting more intense.  How can you keep up?  A basic understanding of Expression Blend, Silverlight 4 and Microsoft Pivot, which you’ll have by the end of this session, will get you farther along this path than you thought possible.  Start leveraging the power of Multi-Touch, Video and Data Visualization to create engaging experiences that will light up on Windows.

Session Four - Building RAD Silverlight Applications using LightSwitch

Visual Studio LightSwitch is a new development tool (currently in beta) for building business applications. LightSwitch simplifies the development process, letting you concentrate on the business logic and doing much of the remaining work for you. By using LightSwitch, an application can be designed, built, tested, and in your user’s hands quickly. Come explore LightSwitch for forms-over-data applications in a rapid application development fashion.

Session Five - Light up your Silverlight Apps for Win7 using Native Extensions

Learn about a new toolkit called Native Extensions for Silverlight (NESL) , which provides Silverlight friendly hooks to a number of native Windows 7 features you can use in your Silverlight applications. The libraries make it significantly easier to leverage Windows 7 from Silverlight. The libs also help with lighting up a Silverlight application with a minimum of effort for Windows 7 with items like jumplists and icon overlays. Learn “how-to” with special rigging-it-up sessions on video capture, speech, and Win7 features  like jump lists, icon overlays, taskbar progress and more!

Session Six – Silverlight Futures

This session will highlight the compelling features coming in Silverlight 5. With tighter integration with Windows APIs, full trust operations, XAML debugging, and support for a 64 bit browsers, you’ll see how Silverlight continues to be the dominating platform for building rich Internet and Windows applications.