By default, Firefox uses a dotted rectangle to indicate that an object element has focus. Since Silverlight is implemented using the object tag, it also "suffers" from this behavior. To remove this focus rectangle, simply include the following definition in your CSS:

Here's the pretty version:

Does anyone have a good way to paste code into Word 2007 such that when the post is published, the code remains intact? Here's what I'm getting (which is close, but not perfect)

object:focus {

    outline: none;

}

Last Thursday I presented my "Introduction to Silverlight 2" talk to the Memphis .NET User Group. This was the second time I have been fortunate enough to have a captive audience to present this talk to. I was able to "pilot" the talk to the FedEx user group a couple of months ago - while Silverlight was still in beta. We had a good crowd on Thursday and LOTS of great questions.

I've zipped up the sample code and the slide deck at the bottom of this post. The sample code does assume that you are running a local Adventure Works database. I prefer the "LT" version as the download is much smaller than the others.

Here are some of the links I referenced in the presentation:

Silverlight resources:

• Silverlight Homepage
• Silverlight: Getting Started
• Scott Guthrie's Blog

Some of my favorite examples:

• Patient Journey Demonstrator
• Hard Rock Café Memorabilia
• Windows Vista Emulator
• Physics Powered Games

Presenter: Scott Hanselman

• This is pre-release... keep that in mind
• IT'S NOT WEBFORMS 4.0
• Creating a new project
• Must select .NET 3.5 from the multi-targeting combobox
• You can generate test against any testing framework that supports it (including NUnit/MbUnit)
• System.Web.Mvc/Routing/Abstractions
• Routing not under MVC - can be used outside of MVC
• Abstractions also not under MVC - can be used for other Web "stuff"
• Convention over configuration
• URI determines which controller gets called
• URI parts make up parameters that are passed to the controller
• IT'S NOT WEBFORMS 4.0
• It's about alternatives.  You choose.  It's awesome.
• "ALT.NET" (N*)
• It's part of System.Web... it's not going anywhere.
• Plays well with other N* stuff (Brail, etc. too)
• Goals
• Separate concerns:  TDD, maintenance
• Extensible
• Enable clean URLs & HTML
• Great integration w/ ASP.NET
• Rude Q&A
• LOB - no, keep truckin' on WebForms
• Front controller
• Widgets? Component story?  "We're working on it..."
• Yes, Ajax, no control toolkit (yes JS libraries)
• Released when?  When it's done...
• Is it safe?  What about security?
• My battery is dying... over and out.

These are my notes from Nigel Ellis' talk at MIX 08

• MSFT Data Platform is evolving: Data is moving to the cloud
• New Challenge: Connecting islands of data and connecting them
• Data services vision
• Data Services interface on top of a data store
• SSDS vs. ADO.NET Data Services/Live Services
• Sync-Framework ties all data islands together
• Demo: Sync Framework
• Sync between platforms: Access, Data Services, Local VCF
• Sync app sitting in tray hosting sync framework; performs orchestration between data islands
• Value of SSDS
• Application Agility
• Scalability
• High-Availability: SLA
• Nuts & Bolts
• There is no schema - everything is a property-bag/hash table
• Everything is done using XML payload through REST
• There are "metadata properties" that describe the entity: ID, Kind, Version
• "Flex" properties
• Instance type can be changed on the fly (add/remove properties of an instance)
• Support for simple types: decimal, string, bool, etc.
• All properties are indexed (CN: Interesting... I wonder how they're efficiently doing this?)
• Containers
• Stores flexible entities
• Widest domain of search
• Authority
• A collection of containers
• Analogous to a namespace
• Unit of billing & geo-location
• API
• SOAP & REST (SSL)
• Operations
• Authority provisioning (CRUD)
• Container provisioning & querying
• Entity storage, update, delete, & query
• Query using simple LINQ-like syntax
• REST API
• Service: /v1 (CreateAuthority)
• Authority: /v1 (FetchAuthority, QueryContainers, CreateContainer)
• Container: /v1/{ContainerID} (FetchContainer, QueryEntities, UpdateContainer, DeleteContainer, CreateEntity)
• Entity: /v1/{ContainerID}/{EntityID} (Fetch, Update, Delete Entity)
• Used in a multi-tentant senario (LitwareHR)
• "ACE" Concepts (Authority, Container, Entity)
• Availability
• Closed beta 3/5/2008
• Open beta 7/2008
• Service refresh every 8 weeks
• Go live H1-2009

It seems to me that when a bunch of geeks get together, it should be seen as an opportunity to learn.  Too often, the procedure is for each person to jump into the "look what I did" game or to stand back and passively listen.  I encourage you to not look at "nerd gatherings" as a time to assert your dominance over the crowd or a time to stand back and simply observe; instead, actively try to learn as much as you can.  Ask questions; dig into how other people approach problems; find people that have achieved what you would like to achieve, and find out how they got there.

Obviously, "nerd gatherings" aren't the only place that this skill is desirable - but it's a good place to start.