Thursday, October 28, 2010

Win Free Windows Phone 7, Telerik Licenses

Bring_friend_prizes Now that Windows Phone 7 is finally a reality that you can (almost) pick-up in stores (in the US), and now that Telerik has unleashed the powerful RadControls for Windows Phone CTP, it's time to giveaway some hardware and software! Over the course of several weeks in November, Telerik will giveaway a Windows Phone 7 to someone that has told a friend about Telerik's new RadControls for Windows Phone, and at the end of the contest, two people will get Telerik Ultimate Collection licenses (that obviously included licenses to Telerik's Windows Phone controls).

How do you enter? Simple:

  1. Visit the "Bring a Friend" page on Telerik.com
  2. Enter two email addresses for friends you think would like to know about Telerik's RadControls for Windows Phone 7
  3. Tweak the email message (if you're a good friend) or just use the template we provide
  4. Submit the form and wait to see if you win!

We'll draw winners every Thursday, beginning November 4th and wrapping-up on December 3rd. Full contest rules are available on the contest page, but this is definitely one of the easiest ways to get your hands on a Windows Phone 7 device and Telerik's new software this holiday season!

Help us spread the word and share RadControls for Windows Phone news today!

RadControls for Windows Phone CTP now available

teleirk-wp7-LayoutTransform Today is a big day for Telerik and Microsoft. As Microsoft shares news of its latest mobile development platform at the sold-out PDC in Redmond, Telerik is today announcing the immediate availability of the RadControls for Windows Phone CTP!

With today's CTP, and the first version of the RadControls for Windows Phone in general, Telerik is helping complete the Silverlight development toolbox for Phone developers. Out-of-the-box, the Microsoft Silverlight toolbox for Phone lacks many of the native Windows Phone 7 UI elements phone in the OS, such as the picker box and window. Telerik completes the development toolbox by providing many of the "missing" OS UI controls to Silverlight application developers, including a rich animation framework optimized for performance and battery life. For a complete comparison of the Telerik tools for Phone to the Microsoft toolkit, check-out the online comparison chart.

In addition, you have a chance to get a free license for the v1 RadControls for Windows Phone simply by being one of the first 500 people to download the CTP (and downloads are already going fast)! So what are you waiting for?! Download the CTP, have fun building mobile apps for Windows Phone 7 with unprecedented productivity, and maybe you'll walk home with a free license!

Oh! One more thing. You can also take a shot at winning a Windows Phone 7 simply by telling two friends about the Telerik RadControls for Windows Phone 7 CTP. For contest details, check-out this page on Telerik.com.

Finally, if you're in a rush, check-out the quick overview video on Telerik TV introducing the new RadControls for Windows Phone.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Q3 2010 betas available now for testing

q3-2010-beta Want to start trying the new features coming to Q3 a few weeks early? Want a chance to impact design of the new features before we ship? That's what betas are for, and several of the Telerik products have now published (or soon will) their Q3 2010 betas. This is your time to try-out near final versions of the Q3 2010 bits and share feedback on the active Telerik Forums.

Betas are available right now for the following products:

Each link above will take you to the live Beta demos, where you can check-out some of the new features hands-on. Downloads for all betas are available in your Client.net account download page.

Over the next couple of weeks, we'll share more details about all of the new major features available in these suites, as well as in all of the other Telerik products being updated in Q3 (which, for those counting, is now 11 different products!). There are some very exciting improvements in everything from OpenAccess ORM with a radically enhanced Fluent API to Telerik Reporting with its new XML report definitions, so I encourage you to set some time aside to look at the value in  the full Telerik toolbox and try a product you've perhaps overlooked in the past.

Until then, enjoy the betas and send us your feedback. Q3 is just around the corner!

BONUS! Here are some quick links to blog posts on the Telerik.com blogs talking about Q3 beta features:

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Using OpenAccess in LINQPad

Have you ever wanted to have a simple "scratchpad" for testing LINQ queries with OpenAccess ORM? LINQ is a great querying language, but sometimes it can be difficult to figure-out exactly how to craft those complex LINQ queries.  And while it's possible to go the route of "make a change, build, and see what happens," it's a huge waste of time.

Enter LINQPad, a simple tool that is perfect for quickly testing queries with OpenAccess ORM. LINQPad, for the uninitiated, is really a great scratchpad for testing any .NET code, but it's particularly useful for quickly testing LINQ queries (especially with the "pro" IntelliSense enabled).

Earlier this year, Steve Scott (aka Sitefinity Steve) posted some quick instructions for using OpenAccess with LINQPad, which was a very useful, simplified follow-up to an OpenAccess Team blog post from last year. OpenAccess has a change slightly since both of these posts were created, so here are quick updated instructions for querying OpenAccess with LINQPad.

SETUP
The first step after launching LINQPad is configuring Assembly References and Namespaces. To do this, press F4 and add the following:

  • Under "Additional References":
    • Telerik.OpenAccess.dll
    • Telerik.OpenAccess.35.Extensions.dll*
    • <Your OpenAccess Enhanced DLLs>
  • Under "Additional Namespaces":
    • Telerik.OpenAccess
    • <Your Assembly Namespaces>

If you're using the new RLINQ OpenAccess DataContext, you should reference Telerik.OpenAccess.40.Extensions.dll instead of the "35" version. The "35" version is appropriate for assemblies using IObjectScope (pre-RLINQ). Your config should look something like this:

linqpad-1

QUERYING
Now that LINQPad is configured, you can start querying! Only two steps are required:

1. Change the LINQPad editor Language to C# (or VB) Statement(s)
linqpad-2

2. Write your query code, including scope initializer and LINQPad "dump":

linqpad-3

Result? You can now start testing away with your LINQ queries and view the results in the LINQPad Results viewer. Clearly, if you're using RLINQ, you can skip the "GetNewObjectScope" and proceed directly to querying the DataContext. The connection string will default to what's stored in your DLL's App.Config. Finally, you're not limited to direct LINQ query testing. If you have repositories in your DAL, you can also test your data access using your repositories in LINQPad, too.

SQL DUMP
Since this approach to using OpenAccess in LINQPad does not implement the LINQPad provider model, the SQL dump is not available. LINQPad's provider model provides a simple way to expose the SQL dump for OpenAccess, but only for the newer RLINQ contexts. If there is interest, I will work on providing a simple OpenAccess driver for LINQPad that supports RLINQ to unlock the remaining features, like the schema explorer and SQL dump window.

WRAP-UP
Great ORMs require trust, and there is no easier way to build that trust with your ORM than to have a quick way to test and verify your queries. With a few simple steps, LINQPad and OpenAccess ORM can give you that simple tool and speed-up your data access productivity!

HTML5 and CSS3 session resources now available

Over the last month or so, I've been traveling a fair amount speaking at .NET events around the world. From TechDays stops in Canada, to a quick stop in Florida for the SW Florida Code Camp, to the local (and huge!) Houston TechFest, to my most recent stop in Bulgaria for DevReach 2010, it's definitely "Fall Travel Season" in full-swing.

At several of the conferences I've visited this fall, I've talked a lot about two technologies that I'm particularly passionate about right now: HTML5 and CSS3. These two evolving standards represent the future of standards-based web development, and with the current crop of browsers, there is no reason to delay adding these technologies to your web applications. If you attended one of my sessions at these events, a special thank you to you! Hopefully you enjoyed the sessions and were able to learn something in the time we spent together.

For everyone else, I've made the slides from these sessions available online via SlideShare. Both presentations are embedded above in this post (sorry RSS readers), but be sure to visit the presentations on SlideShare to see the full slide notes, where I've captured many of the useful links to HTML5 and CSS3 resources that compliment the slides.

Want more HTML5 and CSS3? First, make sure you're following me on Twitter. Much of what I share is related to HTML5 and CSS3, so hopefully you'll catch some good links there. Second, watch for these sessions at an event near your in 2011. I plan to continue talking a lot about HTML5 and CSS3 in 2011, so I look forward to seeing you in a session soon! For now, enjoy the resources.

Monday, October 11, 2010

New Silverlight video player on Telerik TV, HTML5 playback

new-ttv-player While some of you are enjoying your Columbus Day holiday, I've got some exciting news to share that will make your holiday more enjoyable! Today, we are deploying a brand new video playback experience to Telerik TV. New videos added to Telerik TV will now use RadMediaPlayer for Silverlight for playback and IIS Smooth Streaming to give you instant start and skip ability. In addition, we've added support for HTML5 video playback, which means you can now watch videos on most HTML5 enabled devices, like the iPhone, iPad, and Android.

But we didn't stop there.

We have also added support for video chapters! That means we can now add chapters to longer videos, making it much easier for you to find that five-minute chunk you're interested in from a one-hour webinar recording (see some example chapters on this video). Today, chapters are only available on new videos using the new Silverlight RadMediaPlayer, but we aim to eventually make chapters available in HTML5 playback and on older videos, too.

Clearly, with hundreds of hours of video on Telerik TV, converting videos to the new Silverlight player will take some time. In the mean time, old videos will continue to playback with the Flash player you're used to seeing, but all new videos will be immediately available in the new Silverlight and HTML5 players. Over time, we hope to convert most of the older videos to the new format so you can enjoy the new playback features on all Telerik TV videos.

To help orient you to the new player and features, check-out this fresh Telerik Watch Minute. Give the chapters a try to see how they help you easily skip around, and see how Smooth Streaming eliminates the buffer delay.

So, let's review:

  • Telerik now offers video playback using Silverlight!
  • RadMediaPlayer powers the Silverlight playback experience
  • IIS Smooth Streaming enables super fast content delivery
  • HD MP4s and HTML5 video enables access to Telerik TV from devices like the iPad
  • Chapters on videos make it easier than ever to quickly get the info you need

This is just the beginning. Stay tuned for more great updates coming to Telerik TV soon.

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

LIDNUG ASP.NET 4 presentation wrap-up

Ah, LIDNUG. The largest .NET User Group in the world (virtually). We had a great presentation yesterday covering what’s new in ASP.NET 4, with people joining from around the globe to see how Microsoft has improved WebForms in the “senior” release. We covered everything from changes in ViewState, to new modes for rendering ControlIDs, to simple ways you can leverage features of Dynamic Data in WebForms pages. In fact, the Dynamic Data demos lead @coridrew to express on Twitter:

"I want to cry with joy over the Dynamic Data enhancements I'm seeing demo'd in Telerik's .NET 4.0 www.LIDNUG.org webcast right now"

Thanks, @coridrew! If you missed the meeting, fear not. I've embedded the slides from today's presentation in this post (check in a browser if you're not seeing the slides in your RSS reader), and you can already grab the on-demand recording from the LIDNUG website. Hope you learn something useful about ASP.NET 4 and find new ways to be more productive as an ASP.NET developer!

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

TechDays Canada, Stop #2

After a very successful visit to Vancouver to kick-off Microsoft's TechDays Canadian tour a few weeks ago, I'm headed back to the Great White North to present at TechDays Edmonton. Tomorrow, Wednesday, October 6th, I'll be back in Canada talking about MVC for WebForms Programmers and Speeding-up Development Using 3rd Party Controls. If you're in the Edmonton area, hopefully you'll be able to join me for the fun!

As a reminder, all TechDays attendees are getting a license for the Telerik RadControls for Silverlight (a $1000 value). Heck of a deal for a sub-$400 conference ticket. I'm not sure if you can still get a ticket to attend, but it wouldn't hurt to beg at the door if you've not already secured your seat!

This will be my last stop in the TechDays tour. While I am the content owner for the MVC session, my fearless (and available) colleagues at Telerik will be covering the rest of the stops in cities like Toronto, Halifax, and frigid Winnipeg. If we don't catch you in Edmonton, come look for a face from Telerik later this Fall and be sure to say 'hi'!

What's New in ASP.NET 4, Today on LIDNUG

Sometimes blogs go silent longer than they should. Such has been the case with Telerik Watch recently. I've got 1,000 reasons why, some of which I'll try to enumerate over the coming weeks, but for now, there is more "urgent" news to share.

Today, Tuesday, October 5th, I'll be presenting at the "virtual" LinkedIn .NET User Group (also known as LIDNUG). At 11:00 AM Eastern (use this handy link to parse that time to your local timezone) I'll be presenting "Getting the Most Out of What's New in ASP.NET 4.0" via Live Meeting to a global audience of hundreds.

If you're interested in learning more about the latest release of ASP.NET, join me for this quick overview. You can register for the free event on EventBrite and then tune-in with Live Meeting from any computer. We'll be focusing on the WebForms features of ASP.NET 4.0, so if you're more interested in MVC, hopefully you can join me in Canada on Wednesday for a conversation on that topic!

See you online soon.