There was an idea for a game. A game based on touch and physics and stripped of non-essential components. Our job, as it so often is, was to take this idea and craft it into an application. Of course we chose the iPad for this app, and we worked to incorporate the essentials of what a good game can be.

Tools

Every successful project needs the right tools. For this project we opted for XCode (of course) for the IDE, OpenGl for the drawing support, Cocos2D for menus, transitions, etc., and Box2D for physics support. And by the way, this particular toolset demonstrates a deep understanding of the iPad platform (and iOS in general). It's programming at the core of the device where few developers go.

Process
We love to see the application every day. And so do our testers. We used our amazing process to move this application from concept to reality. Every day we could see the application and understand exactly how it was unfolding.

Digital Sports Video had a need for an application to display sports videos and statistics. The application requirements were very extensive and included support for multiple kinds of users. Silver Bay Labs looked at this as a challenge and brought in the best of breed tools (Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services, MVVM Light, the Managed Extensibility Framework) and practices (Agile process, high platform skills, daily builds and client feedback). To jumpstart the process, Silver Bay Labs leveraged their knowledge of what works in a Silverlight application and what doesn't. The benefit to the client was a world-class application developed in record time.

The Vessel Tracker visualizes the status and location of vessels from around the world. The interface is similar to Virtual Earth and allows a user to hover over a vessel and find out detailed information about the vessel. Behind the scenes, the application was created with features that enhance the lifetime and serviceability of the application. It was designed to use MVVM to separate the UI/Application logic layers. This means that the UI and logic of the application can be enhanced and changed independently. It also means that the application is testable. As an extra service to the client, I included unit tests for the application so that they can, now and in the future, be assured that the application is operating correctly. In addition, I used ADO.NET Data Servies (formerly Astoria) for the communications with the server. ADO.NET Data Services is a powerful technology that uses REST to communicate LINQ queries to the server. The benefit here is that the client has very efficient (and loosely coupled) access to the server. If a developer needs a new set of data on the client, it's as simple as writing a new query: creating a new server side web service isn't required. This benefit required some effort on the server (the client uses an Oracle database), and to that end, I created a pair of IQueryable endpoints for ADO.NET Services to consume. This project also highlights another service that I provide: leveraged use of existing code. I was able to point the client to an open source project that provides Silverlight mapping capabilities. This saved the client weeks of development time and thousands of dollars.

I contributed to the initial version of the Heroes Happen Here site. This version was in 2007 and used Silverlight 1.0. In this project, I used the downloader object to download dynamically generated XAML. While the initial version of the site has been upgraded over the past couple of years, much of the original design and development remain the same.

Development Guides is a ASP.NET MVC site powered by multiple Silverlight applications. It allows users to interact with code screencasts at an unprecedented level. It has the following SEO and user friendly features:

• Display of code in the video
• Ability to copy code from the video
• Deep Linking into the video
• Great experience for users without Silverlight
• OpenId logins
• Silverlight application for enriching videos

See an example video with code integration. The video application displays code to the user by using the Html Bridge and jQuery integration. The application includes a custom file-upload control for uploading raw videos. In addition, the site uses cloud services to distribute and display videos. Jesse Liberty of Microsoft has said of the implementation, "The integration is a work of art."

I'm a champion of best practices in Silverlight. As a part of that focus, I release Prism Code to the community. This code takes a concept or best practice and shapes a solution. The samples have been very well accepted by the community.

As a part of my dedication to patterns, I've been involved in popularizing the best practices for Silverlight. This has involved interviewing Microsoft Patterns and Practices team members and releasing screencasts on the best way to write silverlight applications.

This Hierarchical Video Player has several interesting features. It's based on the Expression template and integrates this player with a hierarchical tree control. This allows a user to navigate a rich collection of videos. The player is driven by an XML file that describes the videos and embeds metadata (links to other videos) in the player. In addition, the player is designed in such a way as to provide a seamless viewing experience even as the underlying media changes.

When Silverlight 1.1(the forerunner of Silverlight 2) was released, I was asked to write some of Microsoft's MSDN internal training materials for the alpha version of Silverlight. These materials included details on how to access web resources and utlize the new programming model in the new runtime.