Page Brooks “Mr. Silverlight” has just kicked it up a notch…

Imagine the Silverlight developer community in a friendly competition to created to see who can write the best Silverlight control.

That’s what has begun at GoSilverlight.org, brain child of Page.

From the site:

Welcome to the Silverlight Control Builder Contest! With this contest, we hope to incite the development of many open and free Silverlight Controls that all developers can use in their applications…

… and win some pretty cool prizes…

Prizes? Oh yeah… Here they are:

1st Place:

• 1-Year MSDN Premium Subscription (Not for Resale)
• Your choice of one book from the entire O’Reilly catalog

2nd Place

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition
• Your choice of one book from the entire O’Reilly catalog

3rd Place

• Essential Silverlight 2 Up-to-Date from O’Reilly
• Your choice of one book from the entire O’Reilly catalog

To read the specific rules and submit your entries visit http://gosilverlight.org/

Download Attempt 1

Download Attempt 2

Hehe… I will keep hitting Ctrl + F5

BTW: Thanks to Jayson, it has been confirmed Mozilla is having some issues…

Today at 10:00 AM Pacific time, Mozilla will release Firefox 3.0!

We want to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. With the backing of our community and your help we know we can make it. What else can you do?

– Quoted from SpreadFirefox.com

I have been using Firefox 3.0 (RC and Beta) for a while and really like what I see. The speed and stability have been impressive.
(It really snaps when loading Jayson Rowe’s blog!)

Visit Mozilla’s Party Central and/or follow Mozilla on twitter for the latest information!>

Hasbro’s new Star Wars Millennium Falcon!!!

It’s bigger and better than the one I had when younger… Probably going to be a lot more expensive too!!!

(Watch Video)>

• Light-up headlights and loads of electronic vehicle and weapon sounds – engine boost, cruise mode, fly-by, firing cannons, and more
• Opening, light-up cockpit can fit up to 4 figures.  Vehicle includes Han Solo and Chewbacca and can hold up to 18 figures
• Remove outer panels to access the ship’s interior, then head for the medical bay to treat wounded Rebels
• Secret smuggling compartments to hide from stormtroopers
• Boarding ramp with auto-opening action, deployment sounds and landing lights
• Pivoting gunner station to target Imperial fighters
• Light-up hyperdrive lights and authentic movie phrases and sounds from favorite characters: Han, Luke, Obi-Wan, C-3PO, Chewbacca and R2-D2
• Rotating laser turret fires 2 missiles and makes weapon sounds; ship also features a 3-missile launcher with blasting sounds, and a cannon that launches a “laser” missile
• Missile-firing mini-fighter fits inside an opening docking bay that makes electronic boarding and flight sounds
• Pivoting training probe makes lightsaber and movement sounds – learn the power of the Force
• Illuminated dejarik table with holographic creatures – let the Wookiee win
• Being Released on July 26th (not on Amazon.com… yet…)

Gotta get me Jake & Sam one of those!>

(HT: Gizmodo.com)

My good friend Chris Craft started a 30 days of mobile development series last weekend. If you are into mobile development or would like to learn more about it… Check it out. He explains the app, explains the technology, provides screen shots, and provides code in C#. For you VB.NET people… visit Lou Vega’s blog for the VB.NET code.

From Chris’ site:

Over the years, I have given many presentations on developing Windows Mobile applications. One thing that I have heard time and time again is that people have a hard time writing their first mobile application. I think sometimes people have a hard time taking those first steps. It is easy to think that it will take too much time, and that it will be too hard. But that is simply not the case.

But instead of telling people, I’m going to show them how easy it really is. The key here is simple: “Taking baby steps is better than taking no steps at all!”

I plan on writing 30 mobile applications in the next 30 days. I will publish both the executable and the source code for each application.

My goal is for each of these applications to be useful, interesting, and straight-forward. Someone considering writing their first Windows Mobile application should be able to look at these applications and “get it”.

One of the great things about his series…

He is looking for more ideas for his applications.

I encourage you to go to his site and leave him a comment… you never know, he may choose yours to write as part of his 30 day challenge.