Answer My Query

Paul Sheriff demonstrates two ways of using the CollectionViewSource to sort data. The first one is in XAML and in the second post Paul is using code.

If you are using Silverlight's ListBox control, you do not have to write code to sort your data. Instead you can use the built-in CollectionViewSource object in XAML to perform the sorting for you. This assumes that you are using a collection that implements the IEnumerable or IList interfaces.

Designing applications for the cloud is not business as usual. Though it is not rocket science, it has several nuances which are somewhat counterintuitive. Let me be more specific about what I mean by designing application for cloud. First let me exclude the whole universe of Software-as-a-Service where the applications are ready for use and need not be built. That implies, if you are planning to use Salesforce.com, Google Apps or any other similar service – this post may not be relevant. However, if you are planning to utilize Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure or Google App Engine then read on...

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There’s a never ending supply of information out there for us web designers. If there’s something we need to learn, we can find it in one form or another. Sometimes it may be on a blog or it could be in a book. While you may have to shell our some money for a good web design book, there are a number of them out that have online versions that are totally free. Here are 10 you should find very useful.

A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web

A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web aims to teach you techniques for designing your website using the principles of graphic design. Featuring five sections, each covering a core aspect of graphic design: Getting Started, Research, Typography, Colour, and Layout.

Getting Real

Getting Real is the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies of 37signals — a developer of web-based software used by over 1 million people and businesses in 70 countries.

The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web

In order to allay some of the myths surrounding typography on the web, is structured to step through the principles found in Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style, explaining how to accomplish each using techniques available in HTML and CSS.

jQuery Fundamentals

jQuery Fundamentals was written to help you understand the fundamentals of this JavaScript library and teach you how to complete basic tasks with jQuery.

Web Style Guide, 3rd Edition

Consistently praised as the best volume on classic elements of web site design, Web Style Guide, now in its third edition, maintains an emphasis on fundamentals while bringing every chapter topic up-to-date.

Access by Design

Access by Design offers guidelines for universal usability, and the online version includes examples and links to related articles and tutorials.

Web Designer’s Success Guide

Web Designer’s Success Guide is the definitive guide to starting your own freelance Web design business. This book gives you step-by-step instructions on how to do things like transition from full-time to self-employment and how to price your services appropriately.

The Web Book

The Web Book contains all the information you need to create a Web site from scratch. It covers everything from registering a domain name and renting some hosting space, to creating your first HTML page, to building full online database applications with PHP and MySQL. It also tells you how to market and promote your site, and how to make money from it.

Dive Into HTML 5

This book seeks to elaborate on a hand-picked Selection of features from the HTML5 specification and other fine Standards.

http://www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/index.html

This book will help you understand and apply principles to make your products more accessible.

Brad Wilson has an excellent series of 5 blog posts on model metadata and templates you can use to get started with templates and metadata in ASP.NET MVC 2. Here are a couple notes I've made around some of aspects that commonly confuse developers (including me, it seems).

1. Although most of the metadata attributes live in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace, there are a few exceptions. If you aren't seeing something you need in Intellisense, then try adding System.ComponentModel (for the popular DisplayName attribute) and System.Web.Mvc (for the popular HiddenInput attribute).

2. Some of the confusion around data annotations exists because the MVC runtime doesn't recognize every data annotation attribute built into .NET. For example, using [Editable(false)] is tempting, but you'll find it doesn't have any impact in model binding, validation, or templating. The built-in templates respect 7 data annotation attributes:

• DisplayColumn
• HiddenInput
• UIHint
• DataType
• DisplayFormat
• ScaffoldColumn
• DisplayName

3. There are two additional attributes the default model metadata provider will consume:

• ReadOnly
• Required

However, the built-in templates do not make use of the information from these attributes. For example, you can apply [ReadOnly(true)] to a property, but you'll find the default templates in use by helpers like Html.EditorForModel will still show a textbox input for the user to enter a value. If you want to get rid of the input with EditorForModel you'll need a custom template, or you'll need to use [ScaffoldColumn(false)].

Note the default model binder does respect the ReadOnly attribute, so it won't move a value into a property with [ReadOnly[false)]. Also, the built-in validation logic respects the Required attribute. These attributes definitely have value in an MVC app, but they won't influence the UI rendered by the default templates.

Details are scarce on this one, but a new shot of the HTC Vision has been leaked. With the shot came a few new details: it’s likely headed for T-Mobile (either in the US, overseas, or both), and will be named the G1 Blaze.

As we’ve stated before, the device packs what has quickly become standard fare for high-end phones:

• 1 GHz CPU
• 3.7” Screen
• Eclair (Android 2.1) + Sense
• HSPA+ (rumored)
• Launching in September
• Slide-out four row QWERTY keyboard

If it’s true that this...