Knockout is a javascript framework that can help you simply building dynamic UIs by applying the Model-View-View-Model (MVVM) pattern. In this presentation we’ll go over the basics of Knockout to bind data to html elements, including how to use jQuery templates. We’ll then quickly build out a small application using the new WCF Web API to provide our application a JSON service to work with.

Hope to see you there!

And yes, we may even cover the HTML5 vs. Silverlight debate!

(Parking is free and ample)
Weber State University Davis Campus, Room 114
2750 N. University Park Blvd.
Layton, Utah
84041

Topic: KnockoutJS
Presenter: Joe McBride
Date: Thursday July 07, 2011
Time: 6:00pm Birds of a Feather Round-table; Session starts at 6:30pm

The sample code is in a Mercurial repository and is a fork of the WCF Web API Contrib project.  You can use a client such as Tortoise Hg to get the source. You’ll also need to have the Async CTP installed.  After you compile the contrib project (using build.bat from the VS2010 command line), place the async libraries in the bin/debug folder that is created in the root of the solution folder.

Get the sample source.

Enjoy!

Download: Windows Phone Push Notifications Slides & Demos

Push Recipe: http://joem.me/WP7PushRecipe

XML Messages Documentation: http://joem.me/WP7PushXML

The one question I didn’t have off the top of my head is about the file size of tiles.  According to the documentation, the maximum allowed size of the Tile image is 80 KB, with a maximum download time of 15 seconds.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask them here or on twitter!

May 19th 4:00 PM MST

I’ll be giving this presentation at the Agile Executives monthly meeting.

• Discovering Intrinsic Motivation

Veracity Solutions
6770 South, 900 East, Suite 202
Midvale, UT 84047

May 25th All Day Event

Windows Phone 7 Unleashed is an event sponsored by Microsoft, Utah Geek Events, and Veracity Solutions for free Windows Phone Training. Check out the Utah Code Camp website for more information.

• Windows Phone 7 Unleashed

Microsoft offices
3400 N. Ashton Blvd., Suite 300
Lehi, UT 84043

June 1st 9:00 AM MST

Telerik has started a Windows Phone Wednesdays (REGISTER HERE) webinar series, which I’ll be giving the presentation for week 3.

• Push Notifications and Tiles for Windows Phone

June 4th All Day Event

I’ll be at the Portland Code Camp 2011, and I’m hoping these presentation proposals are approved.

• Push Notifications and Tiles for Windows Phone
• How To Become a MEF Head

Portland Code Camp 2011
Eliot Center
1226 SW Salmon Street
Portland, Oregon 97205

Discovering Intrinsic Motivation

There’s a mismatch between what science knows and what business does. Traditional motivational “if-then” rewards can sharpen focus, though often destroy creativity.  What science knows about motivation revolves around three key elements;  Autonomy, Master, and Purpose.  Autonomy – the urge to direct our own lives, Mastery – the desire to get better and better at something that matters, and Purpose – the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.  With the help of Daniel Pink and his book Drive, let’s explore a few examples of what science knows and how these three key elements of motivation can help us understand what drives us, and those around us.

Windows Phone 7 Unleashed

Windows Phone 7 is HOT! Come check out Windows Phone 7 Unleashed for everything you need to know to develop for WP7. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or you’re just starting with .NET development, there’s something in it for you. The first half of this deep dive event is lecture and hands on lab. At the half point mark of the day, you’ll have a solid foundation for building WP7 applications. The second half of the day is going straight to code.

Push Notifications and Tiles for Windows Phone

Windows Phone has provided a refreshing new interface in its use of Live Tiles.  In this webinar we’ll demonstrate how to use push notifications to update Tiles, provide Toast notifications, and raw data notifications.  We’ll take a look under the covers on how this done today, and what’s coming in the Mango update for Windows Phone.

How To Become a MEF Head

In this fast moving presentation we’ll cover what it means to be a MEF Head and how you can join this exclusive club. “Application requirements change frequently and software is constantly evolving. As a result, such applications often become monolithic making it difficult to add new functionality. The Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) is a new library in .NET Framework 4 and Silverlight 4 that addresses this problem by simplifying the design of extensible applications and components.” We’ll cover the following features of MEF: • Parts • Catalogs • Metadata • “Stable Composition” • Integrating MEF into Existing Applications • Debugging Strategies • Application Strategies: Desktop vs. Silverlight vs. WP7 • MEF Futures

I’m looking forward to attending MIX this year.

I’m typically rather “what sounds interesting at the moment” with these types of conferences, however here are a few sessions I’m interested in attending.  Unfortunately some of them overlap, so we’ll see who wins out!

Boot Camps

Silverlight Boot Camp

Windows Phone 7 Boot Camp

Sessions

The Microsoft Surface MVPs Present: Natural User Interfaces, Today and Tomorrow; An Interactive Discussion and Demonstration

Deep Dive MVVM

Crafty UX – UX Lightning Series

Inspiring UX – UX Lightning Series

Application Design for Windows Phone

Designer and Developer: A Case for the Hybrid

Going Mobile with Your Site on Internet Explorer 9 and Windows Phone 7

Deep Dive Into HTML5 <canvas>

The Devil Went Down to HTTP: Debugging with Fiddler

HTML5 for Skeptics

Good JavaScript Habits for C# Developers

JavaScript: The Language

Data in an HTML5 World

ASP.NET MVC 3 @:The Time is Now

An Overview of the MS Web Stack of Love

If you’re headed to MIX, hit me up on twitter and lets talk about what you’re working on!

Download WordPress Metro Theme:  metro-wp-theme

Download html/css Metro Theme:  metro-html-theme

There are two themes available, a light and a dark theme.

Download Slides & Code – How to Become a MEF Head

http://mef.codeplex.com
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hammett
http://github.com/MefContrib
http://mefcontrib.codeplex.com
http://rapidmef.codeplex.com
http://pillbox.codeplex.com

‘Can’t connect to your phone. Disconnect it, Restart it, then try connecting again.’

I tried that once or twice – didn’t help. Turns out there was a certificate issue. I used the Windows backup and restore to move my data from my old system, which included copying over the certificate created for my Windows Phone. After deleting the old certificate I was able to once again connect to the device.

What is frustrating is that the error message given was not helpful at all in providing me the information I needed to figure out what the issue was. I don’t think this would pass ‘my grandma could figure this out’ test. Since I typically reinstall my system about every 6 months I see this as a very relevant scenario.

Luckily there was at least a Security Event Log which pointed to the problem.

Cryptographic operation.

Subject:
Security ID: Joe-PC\Joe
Account Name: Joe
Account Domain: Joe-PC
Logon ID: 0xa7108

Cryptographic Parameters:
Provider Name: Microsoft Software Key Storage Provider
Algorithm Name: Not Available.
Key Name: zune-tuner://windowsphone/091e7f91%20-%202cc7f7fd%20-%20bfc37a51%20-%2069e23ca2
Key Type: User key.

Cryptographic Operation:
Operation: Open Key.
Return Code: 0×80090016

I’m not sure what the security implications would be, but since I’m allowed to connect my phone to multiple computers, upon failure to decrypt it would be nice if the Zune software removed the existing certificate and tried again.

• Parts
• Catalogs
• Metadata
• “Stable Composition”
• Integrating MEF into Existing Applications
• Debugging Strategies
• Application Stragies: Desktop vs. Silverlight vs. WP7
• Your questions and specific features

Do you have a specific feature of MEF you would like to see presented, or an aspect of the framework that you’d like to see a deep dive? Contact me via my blog or Twitter!

Date: Thursday, March 10th, 2011
Time: 6:00 PM
Place: Neumont University (10701 South River Front Parkway, South Jordan, UT)

http://utahdnug.org/

To that end, I created a ‘SimpleHttpClient’ which can be used in Silverlight to access a WCF Web Api.  It currently can be found as a fork of the WCF HTTP Contrib project.  Silverlight does not provide the ability to create your own custom query provider, so this ‘SimpleHttpClient’ and classes do not use LINQ directly, though the API is fairly similar (using extension methods).  The client & helper libraries were written from scratch with no direct dependencies on the core http framework.  I’m currently also working on a WP7 compatible version.  If you’re interested in seeing improvements to this or have any suggestions I’d love to hear them.  Hopefully this helps in your quest to write and consume REST Apis in Silverlight.

EDIT: Vote up Silverlight support for WCF REST at the codeplex site! http://joem.me/fnKy5Q

EDIT2: Note that for this to fully work with Preview 3, make sure you have this patch

http://wcf.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=242523

And the UriTemplateOperationSelector changes from this changeset:

http://wcf.codeplex.com/SourceControl/changeset/changes/c4e21202c82d

Get Source: https://hg01.codeplex.com/forks/xamlcoder/wcfhttpcontrib

Here are a few sample queries:

// Get all people
SimpleHttpClient client = new SimpleHttpClient("http://localhost:1182/people");
// can also use MediaType.Json, which is the default
client.Accept = MediaType.Xml;

var query = client.CreateQuery<Person>();

HandleQuery(query);

// Get person by ID
int id;

if (Int32.TryParse(this.uxPersonID.Text, out id))
{
    SimpleHttpClient client = new SimpleHttpClient("http://localhost:1182/people");

    var query = client.CreateQuery<Person>().Where(c => c.ID, id);

    HandleQuery(query);
}

// Get top 3 people
SimpleHttpClient client = new SimpleHttpClient("http://localhost:1182/people");

var query = client.CreateQuery<Person>().Take(3);

HandleQuery(query);

// Get 3rd person
SimpleHttpClient client = new SimpleHttpClient("http://localhost:1182/people");

var query = client.CreateQuery<Person>().Skip(2).Take(1);

HandleQuery(query);

// Handle query method used above
private void HandleQuery(HttpQuery<Person> query)
{
    var task = query.ExecuteAsync();
    task.ContinueWith(t =>
    {
        Execute.OnUIThread(() =>
        {
            if (!t.IsFaulted && t.IsCompleted && t.Result != null)
            {
                t.Result.Apply(p => { Debug.WriteLine("Person: {0}", p); });
            }
        });
    });
}

// Create new person
Uri uri = new Uri("http://localhost:1182/people");

SimpleHttpClient client = new SimpleHttpClient(uri.ToString());

var contact = new Person { ID = 5, Name = personName.Text };

var stream = contact.WriteObjectAsXml();

var request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Post);
request.Accept = MediaType.Xml;
request.ContentType = MediaType.Xml;
request.RequestUri = uri;
request.Content = stream;

var task = client.SendAsync(request);
task.ContinueWith(t =>
{
    Execute.OnUIThread(() =>
    {
        var person = t.Result.ReadXmlAsObject<Person>();

        if (person != null)
        {
            Debug.WriteLine("Person: {0}", person);
        }
    });
});