I just saw a discussion on my WebMonitor application on Codeplex, that a Chris Blankenship had asked me some questions and wrote an article on how he had improved my application.

His observation is really good. Normally WebMonitor uses a GET request to see if the web site is up. The reason I did that originally were because, as Chris also writes, that I sometimes need to look at the actual HTML on a particular web page.
What Chris has done is to change this to a HEAD request, as it saves data traffic and is more friendly to the server. In his article he writes how he did that, which is actually pretty easy.

Go and read his article, it pretty good and take a look at WebMonitor of cause :)

I will try to find the time to include this fix and make a new release.

- Enjoy!

I came a cross this competition the other day and it’s actually pretty interesting for many reasons. Apparently Dr. Dobb's and Microsoft Silverlight have teamed up to launch a game competition called Dr. Dobb's Challenge Deuce. http://dobbschallenge2.com/
Users can win cash and prizes for submitting new in-game levels or creating a new game by modding the code. This is actually one very interesting part, both coders and non-coders can participate. Non-coders can make new levels in the browser by using a build-in game editor (haven’t tryed it my self yet), and normal game developers can download the source code and start modding it.

This is a really great idea and when you have tryed the game out, you will notice that it runs pretty smooth and cool which, by it self, is reason enough to download the source and see how they do it.

It’s things like this that will make Silverlight (as a plugin) and Silverlight as a gaming platform a success.

- Enjoy!

I just found these really nice tips from Scott Hanselman himself. It's sort of a "check-list" for what you need to know before going to the stage.

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TipsForPreparingForATechnicalPresentation.aspx

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/11TopTipsForASuccessfulTechnicalPresentation.aspx

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TechnicalPresentationsBePreparedForAbsoluteChaos.aspx 

Enjoy - and thank Scott for the tips :)

Microsoft just published the source code for the controls that ships with the Silverlight 2.0 runtime. This means that you can now create your own versions, which means that you can modify them and fix bug (if any) of the real "native" silverlight 2.0 controls.

Sweet!

See more at SilverLite

I have heard about podcast for a long time and of cause knew what it was, but if you should be in doubt here goes:

According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, a podcast is "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player," but the generally accepted definition has expanded to include video as well as audio. Originally derived from a combination of "broadcasting" and "iPod ™," the word was declared "word of the year" when it was added to the dictionary at the end of 2005.

I have never owned an Ipod untill I brought my iPhone 3G this summer. At that point I, sadly, HAD to install iTunes. As you all know iTunes is a virus on a PC, but if I wanted my iPhone 3G to work at all, I had no choice. Therefore iTunes got installed.

As I now were the owner of an “ipod”, formed as an iPhone, I could start look more into podcast. Actually it all started when I found the Sparkling Client – Silverlight podcast by searching for “silverlight” inside iTunes Store. I subscribed for the podcast and got them all on my iPhone 3G. On my way to work the next day, on my bike cycle, I started the first podcast. When I arrived at work 15 minutes later, I realized that I had actually learned something while doing something simple as riding my bike, which I do 25-30 min. two times a day(to and from work).

This is were it started to get very interesting for me. Instead of listening to Ozzy, Metallica, Plain White T’s etc. to and from work, I could now learn something real, while doing something trivial as riding my bike. When I say real, I mean something I can actually use at my job or on my hobby projects, and not just the “lastest news” and “weather” in the normal FM radio (which the iphone 3G actually don’t have :P).

So at this point I became wiser, times two. I learned that listening to podcast could actually give me some knowledge, while I’m doing other trivial things. I also learned something about templating in silverlight as Jesse Liberty were on this podcast :) 

Nothing new

Yes, your right, this is nothing new and you all knew it all along. I know. I just learned that now and are now listening to podcast when I do the dishes, the laundry etc. Generally task that I don’t need to think to much about is great for listening to podcasts.

Great podcasts I enjoy at the moment

As already stated, I listen to the Sparkling Client – Silverlight podcast. This is the only podcast I have been able to find which is only about Silverlight. If you know others, please let me know.

Hanselsminutes Podcast is also a podcast I enjoy alot at the moment. It not only about silverlight, but generally interesting stuff for a developer. Besides that, these podcasts is actually very funny. It’s seems that Scott Hanselman is a funny guy by nature, which just makes it all much better. See for instance his BabeSmash session at PDC2008 which shows his own “Babysmash application” but also gives an overview of the .NET framework.