Brian's Blog

PDC 2009

Brian Peek — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:33:18 GMT

PDC 2009, starting November 17th, is almost upon us and I’ll be heading out to the conference once again with my Coding4Fun/Channel 9 playmates. Anyone else heading out to the big show?

We won’t be doing a Coding4Fun session like we did last year, but I will have another fun project for people to check out in the Coding4Fun area. I can’t give out details until after the show begins, but you can probably guess there is a Wiimote in the mix somewhere. And some spiffy new hardware. And maybe some XNA. Look for the details here after the show, and an article with full source code shortly thereafter.

We also have 4 or 5 other developers with their latest and greatest projects, all of which are nothing short of incredible and put mine to shame. I will likely be doing a compendium Coding4Fun Show with all of this year’s project authors so those not in attendance can see their incredible work.

If anyone will be attending the conference, please let me know so we can meet up for lunch or a beverage. Hope to see you all there!

Tech Valley Code Camp 2009

Brian Peek — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:08:00 GMT

Update 11/1/09: Session schedule is posted! 20 sessions to choose from.

The Tech Valley Code Camp is almost here! This year’s camp will be taking place on Saturday, November 7th, 2009 at SUNY Albany from 9am-3pm and is absolutely, 100% free for everyone to attend. So far we have 18 sessions scheduled for everything from LINQ to Silverlight to iPhone development to Ruby on Rails. I encourage all of our local developers to attend this event, and furthermore, present something to the group! This code camp is platform agnostic, so practically software development topic would be great to present.

I’ll be presenting two sessions on Silverlight which I recently presented at VSLive Orlando 2009:

Getting Started with Silverlight
Room: CC 367
Time: 1:00pm

Microsoft Silverlight allows developers and designers to build rich cross-browser and cross-platform applications for the Web using the same tools and technologies that are familiar to .NET developers. This session will cover the basics of Silverlight, including basic XAML, the tools that can be used to create Silverlight applications, the controls available in the Silverlight framework, and pros and cons of Silverlight vs. other web technologies, all while building a few very simple applications demonstrating the power of the framework.

Silverlight Controls and Animations
Room: CC 367
Time: 2:30pm

The Microsoft Silverlight framework contains an assortment of pre-built controls that can be used directly by your applications. Developers can also create their own custom controls to fit their requirements. In addition, Silverlight can be used to create animations that are simple or extremely complex, from pulsing buttons to 3D movement. This session will demonstrate how to use the most common and important controls, as well as how to create custom user controls, along with demonstrating how XAML, Visual Studio and Expression Blend can be used to create animations that will spice up any application.

It’s not too late! Head on over to the site to register to attend, and think of a topic to present. Looking forward to the event and seeing you all there!

Akismet Spam Filter for Community Server 2008.5

Brian Peek — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:41:37 GMT

It appears the fantastic Waegis spam filtering site used to block blog comment spam has been down for over a month as the author tries to find hosting and figure things out. Sadly, that leaves a lot of Community Server users with no decent comment spam blocking solution since Waegis was perhaps the only spam blocking engine which actually provided a working plug-in for Community Server 2008.5.

So, as the community around Community Server gets more and more fragmented, and as Telligent leaves its non-paying, hobby/personal use customers in the dust, I decided to write a simple Akismet spam filter for Community Server 2008.5. Please note that this works ONLY with Community Server 2008.5. Any previous version will not recognize it.

This wound up being pretty simple because the Waegis filter, written by Keyvan Nayyeri, had its source code included, and Joel Thoms had written an Akismet library for .NET, available on CodePlex.

So, putting the chocolate in the peanut butter, we now have this new filter which appears to be working just fine on my Community Server installation (i.e. this site). I welcome everyone to try it and to get back to me with feedback.

One thing to note: There is a bug with 3rd party spam filters in CS2008.5. Telligent pretty much refuses to acknowledge it, but it exists. If you have more than one 3rd party spam filter, ONLY the first (or is it last?) one will execute properly. Therefore, ensure that this spam filter is the ONLY 3rd party spam filter used with your site!!

You can download this filter here. Full instructions and source code is included in the package. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you!

Windows 7 Launch Party in NYC

Brian Peek — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:05:00 GMT

I had the extreme pleasure of being invited to and attending the Windows 7 Launch Party in New York City on October 22nd. I went down to the city with fellow MVP Bill Pytlovany, author of the popular WinPatrol security software. You can watch a video of the entire launch below or at the official Windows 7 press site. Be sure to watch to the end to get a glimpse of some super-awesome hardware that takes advantage of all Windows 7 has to offer.

All in all, It was quite a day, from getting a picture with Steve Ballmer himself to meeting segment producer and occasional on-screen Late Show with David Letterman character Brian Teta who was amazed I recognized him. Mr. Ballmer was just on his way out of the bathroom only 15 minutes before show-time when Bill and I accosted him and begged for a picture. Frazzled though he was, he agreed and Bill snapped this...

There were plenty of awesome pieces of hardware to play with, including a ton of high-power and super-light laptops, multitouch laptops, multitouch desktop monitors, all-in-one touch-screen PCs, and even an amazing setup of nVidia’s 3D Vision running Batman: Arkham Asylum on a large monitor, which I swear is the best consumer-level 3D experience I’ve ever seen, complete with wireless shutter glasses. You may see a Coding4Fun article about those in the future, assuming I can convince someone to send me a set. Again, be sure to watch the launch video above to the end to see a demo of many of these items and get a feel for what hardware is available now and in the near future.

And on the way out, everyone was given a goodie bag of Windows 7 items, including a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition, “signed” (i.e. embossed) by Steve Ballmer.

A fantastic day and I’m certainly glad I made the trip down to the city to take part in this. I thank Microsoft and the MVP program for the invite and Bill for heading down with me and getting the pic of Ballmer and I. I'm already looking forward to the next Windows launch. :)

The Coding4Fun Show – Ep 4 with Jeremiah Morrill

Brian Peek — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:39:22 GMT

The fourth episode of my Coding4Fun Show, the second show live from Las Vegas, is now up on Channel 9. In this episode I interview interview Jeremiah Morrill who has written WPF MediaKit, an amazing library to quickly build DirectShow and MediaFoundation media player controls in WPF. It's amazingly powerful and, as a developer, can be used with just a few lines of XAML. In fact, you can create a full-blown DVD player or webcam capture control in your application each with a single XAML tag! Learn all about this great project, how it was written, and how to use it in your own creations.

You should see the video below if you have Silverlight installed, otherwise head over to the episode on Channel 9 to watch and download in a variety of formats for offline viewing.

The Coding4Fun Show: WPF MediaKit with Jeremiah Morrill

A big thanks to Jeremiah for the interview!

VSLive! Orlando 2009 Sessions Posted

Brian Peek — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:56:08 GMT

Thanks to everyone who came out to my two VSLive sessions today. You can find the slide decks and full source code posted in my download section. Please note that in order to save some bandwidth, I didn’t include the 125MB video file I used in my examples, but you can download that separately here. Just unzip and copy to the Media and GPUAcceleration sample directories and build the project.

I welcome any and all questions, and especially comments/critiques. As a speaker, I rarely, if ever, receive any formalized feedback from the session organizers, so I’d love to hear what those in attendance thought of my sessions. Good or bad, please send it along! Thanks!

VSLive! Orlando

Brian Peek — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:16:23 GMT

Anyone out there heading to VSLive! Orlando this week? I will be giving two introductory sessions on Silverlight as listed below:

Getting Started with Silverlight
Tuesday, October 6, 10:30am

Microsoft Silverlight allows developers and designers to build rich cross-browser and cross-platform applications for the Web using the same tools and technologies that are familiar to .NET developers. This session will cover the basics of Silverlight, including basic XAML, the tools that can be used to create Silverlight applications, the controls available in the Silverlight framework, and pros and cons of Silverlight vs. other web technologies, all while building a few very simple applications demonstrating the power of the framework.

Silverlight Controls and Animations
Tuesday, October 6, 12:00pm

The Microsoft Silverlight framework contains an assortment of pre-built controls that can be used directly by your applications. Developers can also create their own custom controls to fit their requirements. In addition, Silverlight can be used to create animations that are simple or extremely complex, from pulsing buttons to 3D movement. This session will demonstrate how to use the most common and important controls, as well as how to create custom user controls, along with demonstrating how XAML, Visual Studio and Expression Blend can be used to create animations that will spice up any application.

If anyone will be attending the conference, let me know so I can say hello!

The Coding4Fun Show – Ep 3 with Rick Barraza

Brian Peek — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:56:00 GMT

The third episode of my Coding4Fun Show, live from Las Vegas, is now up on Channel 9. In this episode I interview Rick Barraza of Cynergy Systems, who has put together several very unique applications and accompanying tutorials demonstrating advanced rendering techniques using Silverlight 3. During the show, we discuss Silverlight 3, UX design, and the three demos he has created showing off advanced rendering techniques. For more on how these amazing demos were made, check out his (currently) three part series at his blog:

You should see the video below if you have Silverlight installed, otherwise head over to the episode on Channel 9 to watch and download in a variety of formats for offline viewing.

The Coding4Fun Show: Advanced Rendering with Silverlight, Rick Barraza

A big thanks to Rick for taking a few minutes out of his vacation to chat with me. Enjoy!

Anyone in Vegas for C4F Show Interview?

Brian Peek — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:16:34 GMT

Is there anyone in or around the Las Vegas area between September 7th and September 12th that would like to be my guest for an episode of the Coding4Fun Show? I’ll be in the area for the week and would love to do an in-person show with anyone doing a cool project with Microsoft technologies. If you’re interested, please contact me so we can set something up. Maybe you’ll even get a free lunch out of it. :) Thanks!

The Coding4Fun Show – Ep 2 with Arian Kulp

Brian Peek — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 02:26:00 GMT

The second episode of my Coding4Fun Show is now up on Channel 9. In this episode of the Coding4Fun Show, I interview Arian Kulp, creator of the MEF Utility Runner, a unified host for system tray utility applications. Learn a bit about MEF and how it can be leveraged to create a plugin architecture for any application, as well as how it was used to create the MEF Utility runner, and how you can write your own plugins for this application.

You should see the video below if you have Silverlight installed, otherwise head over to the episode on Channel 9 to watch and download in a variety of formats for offline viewing.

The Coding4Fun Show: MEF Utility Runner with Arian Kulp

Enjoy!