Data Services: Create Data-Centric Web Applications With Silverlight 2

.NET RIA Services relies heavily on metadata annotations for expressing intent beyond what can be inferrd via convention. For example, validation rules on entities and members can be declared as annotations, which then enable a variety of consumption scenarios. We also have metadata for describing model aspects in DAL-agnostic fashion, and hints for automatic UI-generation. What we have today is just a first step.

I'll explain in this article why memory leaks exist in .NET and how to avoid them. Don't worry, I won't focus here on the inner workings of the garbage collector and other advanced characteristics of memory and resources management in .NET.

It's important to understand leaks and how to avoid them, especially since they are not the kind of things that is easy to detect automatically. Unit tests won't help here. And when your application crashes in production, you'll be in a rush looking for solutions. So, relax and take the time to learn more about this subject before it's too late.

VPL, part of Robotics Developer Studio is intended for novice programmers, but is also useful for testing and prototyping. We write a simple serial port service that allows you to send and receive data.Trevor TaylorMSDN Magazine February 2010

Silverlight provides support for dynamic languages such as IronRuby and IronPython. We'll walk you through the creation of a custom Silverlight control using Bing Maps and IronRuby.Ashish GhodaMSDN Magazine February 2010

A good case could be made that computers should not make noise except in response to a specific user command. We're going to ignore that and show you how to play custom sounds in a WPF application.Charles PetzoldMSDN Magazine February 2010

To better understand how SOA patterns can be applied to Windows Azure deployments, we walk you through a scenario in which a bank moves its services to the cloud.Thomas Erl, Arman Kurtagic, Herbjörn WilhelmsenMSDN Magazine January 2010

Many early adopters cloud platforms have questions about security. We review some of the cryptography services and providers in Windows Azure along with some security implications for applications in the cloud.Jonathan WiggsMSDN Magazine January 2010

Charles Petzold continues his investigation into robust XAML coding made possible by Windows Presentation Foundation, this time tackling the complicated process of creating line charts.Charles PetzoldMSDN Magazine January 2010

Building an NHibernate-based desktop application isn't any harder than building a web application, and in many cases NHibernate simplifies elements of session handling and concurrency.Oren EiniMSDN Magazine December 2009

Kirk Evans shows how to take advantage of SharePoint 2010 Business Connectivity Services (BCS) to develop solutions with deep integration of external data and services. BCS builds upon its BDC predecessor in the key areas of presentation, connectivity, tooling and lifecycle management.Kirk EvansMSDN Magazine December 2009