Upcoming Silverlight 2 Webcast Series

In June I'll be doing a very condensed 6-part webcast series entitled: Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2.  I wanted to call the series "Top Reasons I think Silverlight 2 is COOL," but that didn't fly.  Click on the Webcast titles to register.  Hope you can make it!

Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 1 of 6): Overview of Silverlight 2 and the WPF UI Framework
June 16th, 2008 1pm EST

Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering the next generation of Microsoft .NET-connected media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. In the first part of this webcast series, we provide a brief overview of Silverlight 2, and we describe its architecture, the new features specific to Silverlight 2, and the tools for working with the technology—Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft Expression Blend. We also discuss the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) UI framework for Silverlight, which is a subset of the WPF UI framework for the desktop and Windows Presentation Foundation. Learn how to use Silverlight controls for a rich way to build sites and layout management, how to render content correctly when you resize the page, and the available Silverlight controls, including Button, Calendar, ListBox, Image, Grid, Slider, and TextBox.

Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 2 of 6): WPF UI Framework Continued
June 18th, 2008 2pm EST

In the second part of this webcast series, we continue our investigation of the Microsoft Silverlight 2 Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) UI framework. We discuss data-binding support and the ability to customize the appearance of your controls with the templating and skinning model in Silverlight 2. Learn how data-binding support in Silverlight 2 enables you to bind UI elements to business objects for rich data scenarios with model, view, and container separation. By taking advantage of the control templating available in Silverlight 2, you can do more than just change the color and style of your controls; you can change the whole visual tree of your control and even add custom animations without writing code.

Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 3 of 6): Introducing Deep Zoom
June 20th, 2008 1pm EST

The Deep Zoom feature in Microsoft Silverlight 2, which is based on SeaDragon technology from Microsoft Research, allows users to easily and cleanly navigate through very large images and only download the portions of the images needed. In this third part of our Silverlight 2 webcast series, we take an in-depth look at Deep Zoom. We discuss the considerations that you must make when working with large images and we explain how Silverlight 2, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, and Microsoft Expression Blend enable you to implement Deep Zoom in applications easily.

Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 4 of 6): Web Services Support
June 23rd, 2008 1pm EST

Microsoft Silverlight 2 has a robust networking stack, and it supports Representational State Transfer (REST), SOAP, WS*, HTTP endpoints, and even cross-domain networking. In this webcast, we examine how to implement calls to Web services from your Silverlight 2 Microsoft .NET-connected applications using a variety of methods, including standard ASP.NET Web Services (ASMX), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Services, and REST.

Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 5 of 6): Testing Framework
June 25th, 2008 1pm EST

A new testing framework is shipping with Microsoft Silverlight 2. This testing framework enables you to write unit tests for UI and non-UI functionality in Silverlight 2, and it includes more than 2,000 unit tests covering all of the released Silverlight 2 controls. In this webcast, we examine some of the built-in unit tests and how to build your own unit tests or extend the included unit tests, all of which are covered under an open-source license. We also discuss the support in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 for debugging your Silverlight 2 applications.

Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 6 of 6): Adaptive Streaming
June 27th, 2008 1pm EST

In the last part of our Microsoft Silverlight 2 webcast series, we highlight adaptive streaming, which is an addition to the rich media capabilities of Silverlight 2. Adaptive streaming enables Silverlight 2 applications to examine the capabilities of the client computer, like CPU and bandwidth, and adjusts the bit-rate encoding of streaming video to handle network congestion and CPU usage automatically. We demonstrate how to implement adaptive streaming in Silverlight 2 applications, and we wrap up our webcast series with a brief look at some other cool features of Silverlight 2 and a glimpse of Silverlight Mobile.