Hold the phone! Yes, Jesse Liberty, author of over 20 books, Program Manager on the Silverlight Team at Microsoft, self-confessed "Silverlight Geek" (it actually says that on his business card) is coming to Bristol. And he's going to talk on Silverlight for 2 hours! Jesse is doing a lightening tour of the UK combining The .NET Developer Network in Bristol, ReMix in Brighton and 2 events in Dublin and Belfast. On Tuesday 16th September 2008 he is in Bristol to cover two Silverlight subjects:-

Styles, Templates and Visual State Manager
1.       Introductions, Make fun of the American
2.       Modifying a toolbox control with in-line attributes
3.       Creating Styles and applying them to controls in Xaml
4.       Creating Styles and applying them to controls in Blend
5.       Reskinning toolbox controls with Templates, by hand
6.       Reskinning toolbox controls with Templates, in Blend

Skinnable Custom Controls- The Parts and State Model and Inside the VSM
1.       An introduction to the Parts and State Manager and VSM in detail
2.       Creating a Custom Control
3.       Visual States and Visual State Groups
4.       Storyboards and Transitions
5.       Inside the VSM
6.       Creating a Custom Control Contract
7.       The Template Part Attribute
8.       The Template Visual State Attribute
9.       Putting it all together.
10.     Good night and where’s the beer?

Attendance is free - you just have to be a member (which is free) and send an email saying you want to attend. If you're into Silverlight can you afford to miss hearing about it straight from the horse's mouth ? (Sorry, Jesse, British colloqualiasms sometimes leave something to be desired).

Here's another automatic translation tool from Microsoft: the Captions Language Interface Pack (CLIP). CLIP is an offline real time translator that translates whatever control is under the mouse cursor. CLIP manifests itself as a stand alone window and a tooltip (you can enable/disable both independently). Here's the window:-

Here's a cut out of a menu with a CLIP tooltip translating "New" into "Nouveau":-

At the time of writing CLIP supports translation from English (United States) to French (France) and Alsatian (France) and vice-versa but you can probably expect more languages to be added in the future.

CLIP has similarities with another Microsoft technology. Back in May 2004 Microsoft announced Microsoft Application Translator (MAT). This product was designed to translate applications on the fly. MAT was never released but I'm guessing that CLIP is using some of the same technology.

The .NET Developer Network are having a Summer Social event. It's a simple plan: we go to a pub and we argue debate the relative merits of WPF vs. Silverlight (and also windows applications vs. web applications). We may drink, we may eat and we may even have a jolly good time. Everyone is invited - you don't have to be a member (membership is free anyway). It's on Thursday 21st August 2008, anytime from 6:30pm onwards at The Fox Den pub, New Road, Stoke Gifford, Bristol, BS34 8RQ (0117 979 1861).