MSDN Magazine May 2010
Now Playing:Building Custom Players with the Silverlight Media Framework
The Silverlight Media Framework is an extensible and scalable video framework upon which you can create your own player experiences. We’ll walk you through a custom player project that displays suggested videos for further viewing after the current video ends. Ben Rush
Silverlight Security:Securing Your Silverlight Applications
Josh Twist explains the unique challenges developers face in securing Silverlight applications. He shows where to focus your efforts, concentrating on the key aspects of authentication and authorization. Josh Twist
RIA Services:Enterprise Patterns with WCF RIA Services
Learn how to leverage WCF RIA Services in your Silverlight applications. Michael D. Brown uses an extensive point-of-sale program to illustrate how to meet the needs of the simplest to the most complex business apps with various enterprise design patterns. Michael D. Brown
Workflow Services:Visual Design of Workflows with WCF and WF 4
The .NET Framework 4 makes it easier than ever to implement WCF services using WF. We’ll demonstrate just how easy it is by modeling a long-running, durable and instrumented workflow based on a real-world business case without having to write any code. Leon Welicki
Columns
Editor's Note:This Way-Cool 'Internet' Doohickey
It wasn’t all that long ago that surfing meant grabbing a board and hanging 10.Keith Ward
Cutting Edge:Using the Dynamic Keyword in C# 4.0
C# 4 provide a new dynamic keyword that enables dynamic typing in what has traditionally been a strongly typed language. We explain how the dynamic keyword works and what it offers that casting, var, and System.Object cant’ match.Dino Esposito
CLR Inside Out:Production Diagnostics Improvements in CLR 4
The Common Language Runtime (CLR) 4 includes new APIs that expand diagnostic support toward the production end of the spectrum. We explain how the debugging APIs support dump debugging for application crash and hang scenarios and make it easier to detect when hangs are caused by multi-threading issues. It will also describe how adding the ability to attach profiling tools to an already-running application will further ease troubleshooting these same scenarios and greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to diagnose problems caused by excessive memory consumption. Finally, the author will briefly explain how we have made profiling tools easier to deploy by removing the dependency on the registry.Jon Langdon
Data Points:LINQ Projection Queries and Alternatives in WCF Services
LINQ's ability to project randomly shaped data into anonymous types can be a blessing and a source of frustration, says Julie Lerman. It’s great when you just need to grab a special view of your data, but it can be problematic in certain circumstances. She explains what the limitations are and how to get around them.Julie Lerman
Test Run:Combinations and Permutations with F#
Understanding combinations and permutations is a fundamental skill in software testing. We show you how to work with combinations and permutations using code written in the new F# language.James McCaffrey
Foundations:Service Bus Buffers
Learn some advanced Windows Communication Foundation programming techniques as Juval Lowy begins an in-depth examination of the Windows Azure AppFabric service bus, focusing first on buffers.Juval Lowy
Security Briefs:Regular Expression Denial of Service Attacks and Defenses
Microsoft security expert Bryan Sullivan believes denial-of-service blackmail attacks will become more common as privilege escalation attacks become more difficult to execute. He demonstrates how to protect your apps against regular expression DoS threats.Bryan Sullivan
The Working Programmer:Going NoSQL with MongoDB
MongoDB is one of the principal tools of the NoSQL movement, which offers alternatives to the traditional relational database system. Learn its strengths and weaknesses as Ted Neward examines the document-based database in detail in the first of a series of columns.Ted Neward
UI Frontiers:Thinking Outside the Grid
In Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight, using a Canvas or a single-cell Grid seems very similar. The difference is in how the container appears to the rest of the layout system. Canvas doesn’t participate in layout, so you can use it whenever you need to transcend layout.Charles Petzold
Don't Get Me Started:Fundamental Laws
Programmers will never develop great software until they learn that it’s not about themselves.David Platt