Based in Sydney and not doing anything this Saturday evening? Do you like looking up at the sky at night? Do you want a closer look at the Moon, Jupiter, and various beautiful deep sky objects such the Jewel Box, Omega Centauri, and various Messier objects? Don’t have a clue what I’m talking about but would like to learn a bit about astronomy? Then join the Northern Sydney Astronomical Society (which I’m a member of) and Willoughby Council for a “star party” this Saturday September 26. Click here for details on the council website (though there’s not much there).
I’ll have my telescope there showing people Jupiter and its moons (the 4 that are visible from Earth), and there will be 9 other telescopes set up looking at various objects in the sky (fingers crossed for good weather and no dust storms). There will also be talks, food, and information stalls, and I’m sure lots of fun to be had.
It’s free, so come along and join us between 6pm and 9pm this Saturday at Bicentennial Reserve, Small Street, Willoughby.
Chris Anderson 
Hi Chris,
Wish I could make it, it looks like fun. I’m in the Midwest part of the US. I enjoy looking at the amazing creation around us.
Quick question: I am a developer at heart and have almost “zero” creative juices. I’m looking for a way to create a cosmetically appealing login page and will likely hire some help for this. But I want to get as much done as I can myself, maybe through Expression Blend 3, etc. Then turn them loose on pretty pictures, color schemes, etc.
I’ll take care of the architecture, About Us, Contact Us, and other content. Do you have any suggested strategies for creating cosmetically “wow” login pages? Is there a web site that supplies these for Silverlight 3?
I’m in the process of creating a “story board” to flush the details.
Thanks,
Sean
Hey Sean
Sorry, I don’t know of anything fantastic off the top of my head. I guess I’m not even sure if I know of any “wow” login pages (Silverlight, web, desktop, or otherwise) that I can think of. The only thing I remembered seeing in Silverlight was emulating the Vista login screen and looked it up – it’s for Silverlight 2 Beta 2 but may help a bit :). http://blogs.windowsclient.net/ilves/archive/2008/08/27/creating-vista-style-login-screen-with-silverlight-2-beta-2.aspx
I guess it really depends on your tastes of good design too. Have you been using the navigation framework in Silverlight 3, or developing your own? If so, were you after a design for the popup window or filling the entire browser window? Having a smaller area by using the popup window might be a bit easier to create something nice for.
I believe Template Monster is about to start selling Silverlight templates (http://www.templatemonster.com/silverlight.php). My last article (http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/Building-a-Silverlight-Line-Of-Business-Application-Styling-Part-7.2.aspx) also mentioned a few other theme locations you might want to check out.
Anyway, sorry I couldn’t have been more help…
Chris
Sounds good. That was good help. I thought this might be the case, but wanted to double check.
You know how users like Eye Candy! Myself, I like more of the nuts and bolts of applications, but since users are the one paying the bills 🙂
I’ll check out the resources you mentioned.
Thanks again,
Sean
Hi Chris,
A colleague of mine heard on a pod cast, that Microsoft officials mentioned they are planning not to continue support for Silverlight. I am not for sure the source.
Disclaimer: I did not hear it, so this is speculation.
Have you heard anything about this?
Thanks,
Sean
Hi Sean
I don’t have any inside information, but I think I could say with almost a 100% certainty that Microsoft would not be discontinuing Silverlight. Nothing would make sense by them doing that (from so many perspectives), and it’s had a huge amount of support both internally and externally to Microsoft, so I can’t see it happening. It would be interesting to know which podcast that was on – sounds like deliberate rumour mongering to me!
Chris
Roger that. That was my take too, but I wanted to see what you thought. I have seen both the internal and external support too, so this would not make sense. I’ll dig into the source a little more… you never know, maybe someone from the Flash team was doing a pod case 🙂
Thanks again,
Sean
FYI – Dug a little deeper and my “source” was not for which pod cast it was 🙂 Plus, they couldn’t remember if it was a observation or just mentioned in passing! Sorry, I should verify the rumors coming from the rumor mill more closely.