Home Page Re-Write

So I was looking at my home page and I decided it was time for an update. My home site served me well, but it has become outdated and needs a fresh look and feel along with some updated functionality.

So I have decided to Re-Write the whole thing, but I am going to use it as a learning experience. I am going to use ASP.Net and C# as the base technology, but will be trying some new stuff out as well. What I plan on using:

• Web Client Software Factory (Re-vist and check out new updates)
• Silverlight 2.0 Beta (Somewhat New to Me)
• AJAX.Net (good feel for it but want to look deeper into it)
• NHibernate(good feel for it If I use a db....)
• XML to LINQ (New to me)
• MigratorDotNet (Great DB utility if I use a db.....)
  

I will be adding to this list as I work on the site.

I really don't have a time frame for when I want to be complete. I plan on working on it as I find time. So please check back as often as you can to catch the updates. Also I have not decided if I am going to use a data store. It will cost me $100 to use Sql Server at my provider, or I could use MySql for $10. I am not a big fan of MySql so I am not sure what I will decide. Maybe I will jump providers..... just a thought.

Anyways that is my update for the week.

Mix 07 SilverLight

So Mix 07 main theme was Silverlight and how to use it.

Silverlight is a new Web presentation technology that is created to run on a variety of platforms. It enables the creation of rich, visually stunning and interactive experiences that can run everywhere: within browsers and on multiple devices and desktop operating systems (such as the Apple Macintosh). In consistency with WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), the presentation technology in Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (the Windows programming infrastructure), XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language) is the foundation of the Silverlight presentation capability. (This was taken right from Microsoft)

So think .Net version of Flash.

So what does this mean to me.... Well since most of the web site projects I work on are internal or B2B I really never needed flash so I never wanted to invest the time into learning it. That said the fact that version 1.1 Alpha supports .Net, Ican take advantage of Silverlight since I know .Net. So that leaves the real question of will I use it?

The answer of that question is tough. All the examples that were shown to us were very cool uses of the technology. The thing is though all the demos were for sites that were more customer oriented. I am not saying that some of the things cant be brought into my development, for example I could see doing some interactive menus, similar to this. Or even maybe something like this.

I will be thinking of ways to try and use this technology more in my applications. What I wont do is use it just for the sake of using it. So if anyone out there can think of some possible uses of Silverlight let me know.