Friday, April 29, 2011

The Los Angeles Silverlight Usergroup (LASLUG) is Growing by Leaps & Bounds – State of the Usergroup


Hello LASLUGers!
Today we had an occurrence that sets us apart as a premier .NET Usergroup;  today we hit the BIG TIME: Telerik has signed on to become a proud sponsor  of the Los Angeles Silverlight Usergroup.  In their own words, Telerik’s Emily Parker writes “(we) provide 1 Telerik Ultimate Collection valued at $1999/month. This license is our largest bundle so it includes tons of software – check them out here: www.telerik.com/purchase. I know you said other’s do two licenses/month but this license is a  huge bundle which always goes over well.  We send a demo CD with the license codes on them so your winners can just walk away with this and they are all set!  
 Are they awesome or what? 
 Mission Statement:
To provide the local Los Aneles .NET community (with an emphasis on Silverlight & WPF) with the finest speakers that the planent has to offer.  Further, we pledge not to ever charge any of our members any money for this service.  While most other usergroups are free to attend they tend to charge for the raffles whereby they give away prizes.  We not only offer free gourmet pizza, beer, softdrinks and deserts we offer free prizes.  It is our goal to provide every member in attendence with a free prize be it a small prize such as a DevExpress tee-shirt, or a Microsoft Flash drive to something more significant such as an Apress book on how to do game programing for Windows Phone 7 to something very expensive such as Telerik’s Ultimate Silverlight Software Collection (a $1999.00 value).  Further, we promise to update our venues to make it easier for some members to attend one month and then easier for other members to attend another month.  We also feel this keep the group fresh and reduces the chance of them becoming bored with LASLUG meetings.  Finally, we have commited to our sponsors to help them add to their customer base by touting the positive aspects of their products and by encouraging our members to use their decision-making power at their places of employment to employ these books and tools if they enjoy the products we give to them as prizes. We also promise our sponsors high-visibility on our website (www.laslug.com) as well as in our meetings.
So Wed May 25th is the tentative date for our next LASLUG meeting and the first meeting we will be giving away Software from:
1. Telerik (one copy of Ultimate Collection – Value: $1999.00);
2. DevExpress (two copies of Silverlight Controls for Silverlight – Value: $799.99 (times two));
3. Syncfusion (two copies of Essential Studio Enterprise Edition – Value: $1,995.00 (times two));
4. VIBlend (VIBlend WPF Controls package – Value: $349.000), (VIBlend Silverlight Controls package – Value: $499.00).
  
We will also be giving away books:
1. Apress - Four titles to be determined – Approximate Value: $50.00 (times four));
2. FreindsOfEd-  One title, two copies - Expression Blend 4 with Silverlight – Value: $49.00 (times two));
3. Safari Books Online (10 day free trial and 20% off with purchase of a year subscription).
 
We will also have swag from:
4. Telerik
5. VIBlend
6. Nowcom
 
This comes out to a total of $9,283.  So by the time the meeting takes place I expect the prizes to be valued at well over $10,000.
 
And this is just as of right now…we are currently in talks with O’reilly, Manning, Anheuser-Busch, New Belgium Brewers and a few others.
 
So look for email blasts from me and the management team with regards to new sponsorship and meeting details.  Once you get the meeting announcement please secure your spot ASAP as space is limited and I think that will all of these new prizesswaggourmet pizza and beer the meeting is going to fill up fast! 
Visit www.laslug.com to join today!

Friday, April 15, 2011

New Silverlight 5 Video Tutorial: How to Create Implicit DataTemplates


Hello All!
Silverlight 5 Beta just came out yesterday and I am jumping on it with my first video tutorial. 
In this  short 12 minute video I show you how to:
1. Create a custom DataType called Developer. 
2. How to create an ObservableCollection of Developers and then turn that into a DataSource. 
3.  How to bind that DataSource to a ListBox and define a DataTemplate that describes how to show the data (namely a TextBlock for the name and an Image for a picture of the developer). 
4. How to remove that DataTemplate and add it to App.xaml and define a new property called a DataType. 
You will then see how Silverlight 5 will automatically find that DataTemplate anytime you are displaying that custom DataType.
Enjoy!  Victor

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