‘Twas the week before MIX, when all through the tubes
Not a developer was sleeping, not even the noobs.

The laptops were paved removed of their glitz
In hopes that they soon will get some new bits.

A developer was coding, building an app
Trying to build the next greatest XAP

Battleship gray?! Now that’s obscene
Check our designers’ latest theme

Okay, so I’m not going to win any poetry awards.  Our UX design team for Silverlight has been thinking about app building a lot this past year, gathering valuable input from developers, designers and end-users about how people interact with applications, primarily line-of-business applications (<shudder>I hate that term</shudder>).  Hot off the press here is a preview of some of the things we’ve been thinking about from a XAML theme perspective.

First, I present to you codename Grayscale.  Some subtle twists on existing base themes but not detracting too much from the ‘traditional’.  (larger view here).

Up next is codename Windows Theme (yeah, original I know, gimme a break here I’m making these up).  Taking a cue from Windows 7 system design, this theme brings familiarity to the end-user. (larger view here).

And finally, Metro.  Taking a cue perhaps from Zune desktop (and device) software design, a clean but fun theme for any application (larger view here).

So there you have some preview of some Silverlight application themes we’ve been playing around with. I know the design team is enthusiastic about getting these in the hands of developers/designers.

What do you think?

Quick, what’s the most popular thing in XAML development?  Yeah, thought so…MVVM or Model-View-ViewModel.

It’s one of the most popular subjects I hear about when people talk about developing applications with WPF and Silverlight.  However, as much as it is talked about and as much as frameworks are born every day, there isn’t a ton of just simplified ‘here’s how you do it’ information in one place.  I mean, sure there *is* information, but I have to admit I think it is a bit scattered all over.

One of the pioneers of promoting this pattern for WPF development, Josh Smith, took some time to try to solve that.  Josh has recently released a self-published book titled Advanced MVVM and is a quick and good read about the pattern.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Josh presented me with a complimentary printed copy of this book a few weeks ago.  I had already intended on purchasing it when available on Amazon Kindle and have since done so.  In the nature of ensuring I share the love and complimentary goodies, Josh allowed me to give away my printed copy to someone, which I did at a Silverlight user group meeting just last night.  I’m grateful Josh provided me with a printed copy and also grateful he encouraged me to give it as a prize.

The book is about 50-ish printed pages and is a quick read.  It covers creating a simple and common game, Bubble Burst, using the MVVM pattern.  The code is all WPF, but the concepts still apply to Silverlight development and Josh points out some areas where there are differences.

All of the code discussed in the book is available to download so that you can work with starting projects as you go throughout the book learning the pattern.  Josh covers all the key topics of the pattern you would expect: ViewModel, View, Commands, etc.  One of the things that Josh is good about is not being a zealot of the pattern.  He’s quick to point out that when code belongs with the View and when he thinks it doesn’t.

When doing development I always think it is a great idea to have some solid references on your shelf.  No matter where you are in your skill set, there will always be those times when you want to refer back to something you may have forgotten or perhaps get a different perspective on a specific way of doing things.  For MVVM development, I think this is one such reference.

On a side note, Josh got a lot of crap for his initial chosen method of distribution (Lulu digital, which uses a DRM PDF).  He quickly responded and offered a printable copy as well as put it on Amazon for Kindle distribution (which I bought and can read on my Kindle, my phone or my PC…note: phone and PC are in color too).  There are a multitude of ways you can get the title all of which are listed at the AdvancedMVVM.com web site which also lists a table of contents for the book.  If you are doing Silverlight or WPF development you should pick it up, read it and keep it handy.  It’s not the only opinion, of course, but it is a great presentation of the pattern relevant to the development platform that I’ve seen.

Recommend.

It’s that time again…beginning of a new month!  That means that Smashing Magazine has released their monthly wallpaper pictures again.

Not as many St. Patrick’s themed ones as I would have expected.  Here are your March 2010 Windows 7 Theme Packs for the wallpapers though…including all images (note: some ‘without calendar’ images are not provided by the authors) unfiltered.

• Smashing Magazine March 2010 Windows 7 Theme (calendar)
• Smashing Magazine March 2010 Windows 7 Theme (no calendar)
• Smashing Magazine Desktop Wallpaper: March 2010 (original post)

For details on these and to see past ones, visit the Smashing Magazine Windows 7 Theme information for the specifications I used for the theme pack as well as previous themes.  Want to participate and submit yours?  Join in!

NOTE: I know last month had some issues with the .themepack files.  I tested these ones on 2 computers and was able to install them.  My previous issue appears to have been with creating the packs on a 64-bit machine which I’m investigating with the Windows team.

Special thanks to the Windows Team Blog for hosting these theme packs for us all!

This week at Microsoft we are hosting roughly 1,300 of our top community experts around the world in various technical competencies.  For Silverlight, we have about 80% of our group in attendance from all over the world.

At the beginning of the year the Silverlight team asked our MVP group to identify the individuals within their group have done a lot for Silverlight community and that they would consider worthy of being named an ‘MVP of the year’ award.

First to be clear, ALL of our MVPs are top notch and all have contributed significantly to the Silverlight community both professionally and personally.  It is really exciting to see this level of commitment to community these folks have.  You should take a moment and check out these folks using the Twitter list that John Papa has put together.

Out of this group of experts, they have peer selected the following individuals for 2009 as their ‘Silverlight MVPs of the Year’ – please join me in congratulating:

• Laurent Bugnion (blog, Twitter)
• Dave Campbell (blog, Twitter)

These two were identified by their peers and the Silverlight team as contributing significantly to the Silverlight community/ecosystem over this past year.  Laurent has one of the most definitive books on Silverlight (and is working on an updated edition) as well as releasing one of his projects, MVVM Light – a Model-View-ViewModel framework for Silverlight developers to help them get quickly started with MVVM pattern development.  Dave has saved us all the searching in the world and continues to scour, validate and surface some of the best Silverlight content around the world in his Silverlight Cream blog – providing a daily post of aggregation of all the cool things happening in the Silverlight community.

Take a moment to subscribe/read/whatever to our Silveright MVPs – they are the folks keeping us honest :-)

Congratulations Laurent, Dave and all the MVPs for the efforts you have accomplished over this past year – looking forward to continued efforts this year!

Something has been bugging me lately.  I feel I’ve become complacent.  And I think you have as well.  We all are surrounded by advertising daily.  Whether it be in print, audio or video, it is always near us in everything we do.  You cannot escape it…nobody can escape it.

Not even our children.

Perhaps this is what is driving my frustration anger.  You see, I have two kids ages 7 and 3.  My daughter (7) is in her second year of elementary school.  My son (3) is in pre-school.  Both are learning various things.  But learning also means questioning…A LOT!  Sometimes as a parent it can actually be frustrating the amount of questions you get!  But it is an opportunity to help my kids’ education and supplement with my own assistance, beliefs and perhaps help them further understand the things they are learning.

Ask yourself this…if your kids came to you and asked Daddy, what does ‘free’ mean? how would you define it?  What about unlimited?  My guess is that you will revert back to your own education and answer accordingly.  My guess is that you would not use the term ‘sometimes’ when defining these terms.  In fact, I would guess you’d follow that giant book of definitions we call the dictionary to assist you.

Here is how the term ‘unlimited’ is defined:

unlimited:

1. not limited; unrestricted; unconfined
2. boundless; infinite; vast
3. without any qualification or exception

And here is ‘free’:

free:

1. provided without, or not subject to, a charge or payment
2. given without consideration of a return or reward
3. not costing or charging anything
4. not subject to rules, set forms, etc

Now I think any reasonable adult would agree as to this is your understanding of these terms.  I think you know where I’m going here.  We’re constantly surrounded by things that contradict not only our teachings to our children, but the literally meaning of things.  I’m not complaining about belief systems and things that are subjective in nature…I’m talking about the definition of words here.

The problem is that we and the elected government we have are allowing this to occur.

WHY?

Allow me to provide some examples.

Recently on the radio I heard an advertisement for getting a free laptop.  It was surrounded by all sorts of testimonials of people who have gotten their laptop.  I was waiting for the hitch.  You know the fast speak at the end that tells you all the terms and you can’t decipher them because you couldn’t possibly hear them how fast they talk (the audio equivalent of ‘fine print’).  There was none.  Of course I was suspicious.  Of course I knew it wasn’t free…but my daughter heard the same ad as well and said Dad, it’s free, I want a laptop.  I was stuck.  In reviewing their site, freeuslaptop.com you see the banner add with ‘participation required’ listed.

Then in the fine print you read:

In order to receive your gift you must: (1) Meet the eligibility requirements (2) complete the rewards bonus survey (3) complete a total of 13 Sponsor Offers as stated in the Gift Rules (4) Follow redemption instructions.

The ‘Sponsor Offers’ of which you have to complete a total of 13 of them are things that are not free (one exception I could see).  Completing 13 of these would surely cost you a couple hundred dollars at least…maybe even enough to buy a decent used laptop on craigslist.

There is nothing that matches the English language of free in here at all.  The ‘free’ is bound to so many offers that are, in fact, bound to costs, subject to rules, charge payment.  There is no way anyone can look at me with a straight face and tell me that this is free at all.

You see these ‘free’ deals all over the place.  Mobile telephone carriers use this tactic as well with offering ‘free’ phones (in exchange for your commitment to a 2-year cost contract – again, ‘subject to rules’). 

Now let’s talk about ‘unlimited’ – this one also points most recently to the mobile phone industry for me.  I’ve been seeing advertisements on television about unlimited internet plans.  Of course television advertisements are the worst because of the fine print.  I have a large 50” HD screen and I still can’t read the paragraph of text in 4px blurred font that is displayed on the screen.  Why we feel this is an acceptable advertising practice is beyond me.

Of course, as a tech savvy person, you know that there is no such thing as ‘unlimited’ broadband.  It is another advertising shield for a bait to get you.  Unlimited to mobile carriers in the US is now defined as 5GB of usage.  Granted for most that should be way more than enough…but is that unrestricted as the definition of unlimited suggests?  Absolutely not – in fact they are defining the restriction of the unlimited deal.

Now all the online terms for the plans clearly spell this out (and not in fine print) so that is great.  But they are preying on the fact that people don’t pay attention to that.  I was trying to find one of the recent advertisements TV add on YouTube, but couldn’t (if someone finds one post it below).  One of my local carriers, Cricket, has a data plan that reads:

Now your laptop or desktop computer can have unlimited high-speed wireless Internet access on Cricket's 3G network.

However, here’s their lovely footnote at the very bottom:

Throughput speed may be limited if usage adversely impacts our network, service levels or exceeds 5 GB per month.

Hmm, sounds an awful lot like a restriction to me.

So what can be done?  Doesn’t seem like a lot without significant pressure to the FTC about these practices.  The FTC web site and process for complaining isn’t intuitive and isn’t really consumer friendly either.  A lot has been done about the mobile carrier ‘unlimited’ stuff – I see online the more prominent placement of specific data plans and very few are using the term unlimited anymore.  Still, this hasn’t changed their mainstream advertising channels like audio/video outlets.

I just hope that we’d all stop being so complacent about how we look at these things.  It’s becoming hard to explain to my children the oddities of how companies are redefining words and what my kids know to be true.

Rant over…had to get it off my chest how frustrated I am at these types of deceptive practices.  If you can’t succeed with your product by being honest, then your product sucks.