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Read original post by Samidip Basu at Windows Phone Love & .NET Ramblings

So, if you are passionate about Windows Phone development, a little something on the .NET web stack should interest you. It is called SignalR — An async signaling library for persistent connections between server & client. The real fun begins when you consider Windows Phone applications as client, with a SignalR powered server backend .. you get real-time connectivity on Windows Phone!! And tons of possibilities, like Chat, Maps, Game Scores, Stock Tickers, Object Exchange etc.

Read original post by Michael Washington at LightSwitch Help Website

Xpert 360 has released a new LightSwitch extension, Lightning Dynamics CRM Data Source, that allows LightSwitch to connect to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. It allows LightSwitch to connect to 40 Dynamics CRM entities. The unusual thing is that currently the product is free:

“We have decided to go ahead with an unusual business model, for a software product company, but the upshot is there will be several free-use software products for LightSwitch. We use our software ourselves for developing customer funded custom solutions.”

Here is Dave Campbell's top 5 at Silverlight Cream for June 27- July 3, 2011:

• Binding to View Model properties in Data Templates. The RootBinding Markup Extension
• Silverlight Debug Helper
• Storing Files in SQL Server using WCF RIA Services and Silverlight – Part 3
• Silverlight, HTML and the WebBrowser Control for Offline Apps 
• Consume a Socket using Reactive Extension

Getting samples to Silverlight is an interesting task. Your code will respond to Silverlight’s request for a sample with a buffer of samples of a size you determine. Rather than a push model, like generating video, it is a pull model.

Here is one video tutorial on how to make your own transparent wallpaper for your WP7 lock screen.

Source: Phone 7 Blog

I’ve had quite a few requests asking how to create transparent wallpapers for Windows Phone 7 lock screens. I explained the basic concept in my original post, but I figured I would clarify the process by creating a video tutorial. You can check out the video below and hopefully it helps. If you’ve created your own wallpaper, you can share it in the gallery.

My temporary obsession with 2D barcodes came about after I installed the awesome Starbucks Card Mobile app for my iPhone and drove by the Madison Park Starbucks on my way to Redmond, trying out their sweet mobile payment experience. The app worked great – I can only imagine how nice it will be once I can leave my physical Starbucks card at home!

Read the interview at MSDN UK Team blog

Tim Leung interviews Garth Henderson about how he uses LightSwitch.

Last week saw a major milestone in the development of the Microsoft LightSwitch, a new addition to the Microsoft Visual Studio family.

After being in development for more than 2 years, the product has been finally released.  Many of those in the LightSwitch community have eagerly awaited this release for a very long time.

For those unfamiliar with LightSwitch, it enables you to quickly build data driven Silverlight applications for both the desktop and the web. A major selling feature is that applications are built using well-known patterns and best practices such as n-tier application layering and MVVM, as well as technologies such as Entity Framework and RIA Services.

It is possible to create entire applications using just the graphical designers and not have to resort to writing code. It appeals strongly to non developers and to those from Access, Excel VBA and Foxpro backgrounds.

James Kovacs wrote an interesting "story" about the MVVM ComboBox.

Source: CodeBetter

Once upon a time there were four friends – two TextBoxes and two ComboBoxes. They all lived happily on a WPF Window bound together in blissful MVVM harmony. The TextBoxes were bound to the ViewModel’s TextBoxText property and the ComboBoxes to the ComboBoxSelectedItem property.

In this blog post, Paul Sheriff demonstrates how to give a reflection a little more depth and interest to the user’s eye.

Source: Paul's Blog

Gradients are pretty easy to add in Visual Studio. There is no need to go into Expression Blend. Simply click on a Grid or Border control, then go to the Properties Window and drop down the arrow next to the Background property as shown by callout #1 in Figure 2. You can then select the 3rd icon from the left just above color palette (callout #2). That is the Linear Gradient brush. Then down below the color palette (callout #3) you can select whether you want a horizontal, vertical or radial type of gradient.