Win a Free Month Pass to PluaralSight Online Training Courses from the MSFT Stack – Contest Closed

UPDATE: Hello LASLUGers! Thank you all for you entries but effective immediately the contest has been canceled. But not to worry, I will think of other ways to reward you for your efforts. As for the tutorials I made them all easy and with step-by-step instructions with video.

So, if you are serious about your desire to learn Silverlight/ WPF / Windows Phone 7 then you are in the right place.

Thankfully, I been given the God given talent to take any subject, no matter how difficult the subject matter may seem, and make it understandable so much so that I can have my 16 year old daughter (Brianna), who has no desire to be a programmer whatsoever, to follow along the video tutorial and complete it perfectly. She is very smart though but if you are reading this than I think you must be as well.

On a side note, soon I’ll be implementing a rating system to all 70+ video tutorials in place whereby I rate the tutorial between 1 and 10; 10 being the most difficult and 1 being simple enough that my preschool son (Luke) would he able to complete it (I don’t know that his attention span could handle it but if it were he would be able to complete it).

So, if you do want to learn Silverlight (that uses XAML which will be included in the Windows 8 SDK (WinRT)) then please pick a tutorial and give it a go as what you learn here will be transferable to developing applications for Win8.

Once you see how easy your chosen tutorial is then you can pick another

If you are so inclined send me a URL to your published work or just zip up your entire solution and send it to me so I can take a look. I ask this because I love to see what my “students” have created. Some even get a little over zealous and make the app do things that the tutorial didn’t ask of them; that is when I get really excited as I know they (you) really understand what you are doing and can even go above and beyond what the tutorial requested of you!

Good luck and I cannot wait to see your completed work. If you choose to zip up the Solution then email it to me at my personal email address: wpfauthor at gmail dot com.

Victor Gaudioso

–

Hello All,

PluralSight, which does online training courses of MSFT technologies was kind enough to donate me a bunch of one month free trial activation codes. All you need to do to win is follow ANY of my Silverlight Video Tutorials, show it to me and you get the prize. You can find all 75-or so Video Tutorials here: http://www.windowspresentationfoundation.com/?p=712 Some are very short and most are very easy. So, pick a short easy one and complete it and email me at my personal address wpfauthor at gmail dot com and I will email you back with the code. Good luck! Victor

3 Comments for this entry

• 

  Cindy K. 
  February 8th, 2012 on 6:19 pm

  I am having a hard time viewing at least one of the videos. It tells me to install Silverlight, but when I click on that and let it try, it tells me I already have that version. I think the Silverlight version detection code is not detecting that I have the latest and should be fine to run the videos. What should I do?
• 

  Victor 
  February 9th, 2012 on 3:31 am

  Hello Cindy,
  If I were you I would go to the control panel (assuming you have a Windows-based PC) and uninstall anything having to do with Silverlight (excluding Visual Studio 2010 – leave that alone). Then go to a page that has Silverlight content (www.silverlight.net) and click on the Showcase button. It will eventually bring you to a site that has a very cool SL application. Then it should install the latest and greatest SL runtime. Do that and you should be good to go. Let me know if you have any problems after you try this. Thanks, Victor

  Victor Gaudioso
  The Los Angeles Silverlight Usergroup (LASLUG)
  http://www.laslug.com
  Founder, President, Organizer
  818.455.1994
• 

  Victor 
  February 9th, 2012 on 6:35 am

  Did you try my suggestion? Did it work? Victor

  originally posted http://www.windowspresentationfoundation.com/?p=925#comments

The LASLUG Raffle Chooser App has been Published in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace

Raffle Chooser App in the WP7 Marketplace

Hello All,

If you attended our May 25, 2011 Los Angeles Silverlight Usergroup (LASLUG) meeting then you saw Kim S (LASLUG Special Event Coordinator) use the custom built Raffle ChooserWindows Phone 7 Application to choose the Winning Raffle Tickets.

Well, I figured that this could be a handy tool for our other .NET Usergroups such as LA C# Usergroup or even our friends at SoCal Code Camp ran by Woody
Pewitt (@woodyp on Twitter) as I think they all hold raffles as well. So I published it on theZune Marketplace.  It is under the Social Category and is FREE!

You can Install the Raffle Chooser app directly from here: http://tinyurl.com/4xhcltr

If  you would like the source code feel free to email me at victorg at laslug dot com.

Thanks!
Victor

originally posted http://www.windowspresentationfoundation.com/?m=201106

The Los Angeles Silverlight Usergroup (LASLUG) Mentioned in the Weekly MVP Newsletter

Hello All,

As I do every Friday I opened up my weekly MVP News Letter and there it was, a whole section on the Los Angeles Silverlight Usergroup (LASLUG).  Don’t take my word for it…take a look at this screenshot I took of it:

LASLUG gets mentioned in the weekly MVP Newsletter

1 Comment for this entry

• 

  Ele Munjeli 
  May 21st, 2011 on 7:29 pm

  Good job, Victor!

  
  

  originally posted http://www.windowspresentationfoundation.com/?p=879

The Los Angeles Silverlight Usergroup (LASLUG) is Growing by Leaps & Bounds!

The Los Angeles Silverlight Usergroup (LASLUG – www.laslug.com) has begun its journey to become the Biggest and Best Silverlight Usergroup on the Planet!

Last month we had three sponsors and gave away roughly $2,500 in prizes not including Swag and Food. This month, and every month hereafter we are giving away OVER $12,000 in prizes because of existing sponsors such as Apress, DevExpress, United Future/Wongdoody and new sponsors such as Telerik, Infragistics, ComponentOne, Red Gate, VIBlend, the Jeff Levy Show (the Digital Doctor), Safari Books Online, Syncfusion, Nowcom, the Windows Phone Dev Podcast, theSilverlight Show, Microsoft and more coming soon!!

And at our next meeting, Wednesday May 25th (7pm PST), we will be BROADCASTING theMeeting/Show LIVE ONLINE for the Very First Time!  But we are not just pointing a camera and turning it on; we went out and purchased  Thousands of dollars in Equipment and Software and even brought a Director/Producer on board, Peter Genovese, to coordinate the whole thing.  There will be multiple camera angles, special effects, cut away sponsor spots, live chat and the audience is encouraged to participate in chat, questions and are even eligible to WIN their share of the $12k in PRIZES!* This special ONLINE Meeting/Show is brought to you in part by Infragistics andRed Gate software.

So go to www.laslug.com and sign up as a member for FREE and you will be sent information about the Onlineas well as In-Person meeting.

* To be eligible to win prizes online you must live outside of a 100 mile radius of Los Angeles.  All shipping costs associated with prizes won online are the responsibility of the prize winner.

Victor Gaudioso
Silverlight/WPF User Experience Developer
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)
Blog: windowspresentationfoundation.com
Twitter: victorgaudioso

2 Trackbacks / Pingbacks for this entry

• Śmieciowisko (ale pożyteczne) « Wiadomości o technologiach IT 
  May 18th, 2011 on 2:23 pm

  [...] Ciekawe prezentacje – http://www.windowspresentationfoundation.com/?p=861 [...]
• Victor Gaudioso’s Presentation, Interview, and Tutorial Examples – www.nalli.net 
  May 20th, 2011 on 3:53 am

  [...] Victor Gaudioso’s Silverlight Blog Here is a wealth of video cuts from my free two-day training session on Silverlight called [...]

  
  

  originally posted http://www.windowspresentationfoundation.com/?p=861#comments 

New Silverlight Video Tutorial (10 minute): How to create a fake Winow Control that can be dragged, Expended and Collapsed

Hello All!

In Silveilght 4 there is no WindowControl..that is a Control that looks like a traditioanl Windows window. So, I made my own version, a Window control that can be dragged around, expanded and collapsed.  In this video I show how to do it with two simple Grids, one for Collapsed and one for Expand. I then use the Visual State Manager (VSM) to make it collaspe and expand.  Further I use the MouseDragElementBehavior Behavior to make both the collapsed and expanded windows draggable, just like a real window!  You can see the functioning demo on this Silverilght page:  http://tinyurl.com/456xsno

Working Demo: http://tinyurl.com/456xsno
Video: http://tinyurl.com/3jocf5c
Source: http://tinyurl.com/3fc3cb2

IMPORTANT: If you watch the video you will wee that after I drag, expand and collapse the window a few times I get a JavaScript error marked by an exclaimation point in the bottom left of the browser window.  Shawn Wildermuth speculates that it is because the Behavior get’s confused about who its parent object is.  The way I fixed it was to wrap the Expanded grid into another Grid and put the MouseDrageElementBehavior on the parent Grid. I don’t show how to do this in the video but it is in my source code (ie., the source code has no JavaScript errorrs).

Enjoy! Victor

PS: We have been growing the Los Angeles Silverilght Group (LASLUG – www.laslug.com) like crazy…for instance we gave away $2500 in gifts in our April meeting…in our next meeting we will be giving away over $12,000 in prizes all FREE to our members; we do not even charge for the Raffle tickets! So join us for pizza, refreshments, great presentations (Morten Neilsen and Josh Kales in May), plenty of Swag from our sponsors and all things Silverlight!

PSS: Our new prizes have been made possible from our new sponsors, Syncfusion, ComponentOne, Manning Books, O’Reilly Books, Nowcom, Telerik, the Windows Phone Dev Podcast, Jeff Levy (the Digital Doctor on KFWB 980 am – Sundays from 5-6pm) where I host a segment called “The Silverlight Corner” bi-monthly. 

To stay abreast of everything going on with LASLUG and get prizes you don’t need to live in the LA area..we often hold online prize give-aways and online meetings and soon all of our meetings will be streaming live.  So, if you live in Los Angeles or  Baton Rouge, LA you can be a LASLUG member by simply signing up for free at www.laslug.com

Victor!

1 Trackback or Pingback for this entry

• New Silverlight Video Tutorial (10 minutes): How to create a fake Window Control that can be dragged, Expended and Collapsed – www.nalli.net 
  May 6th, 2011 on 1:35 am

  [...] Victor Gaudioso’s Silverlight Blog If you watch the video you will wee that after I drag, expand and collapse the window a few times I [...]

  
  

  originally posted http://www.windowspresentationfoundation.com/?p=844