How to use Silverlight RC0 -- and some code updates for my Silverlight 2 book.

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RC0 Update:

So, after a lot of effort, we finally got Silverlight 2 RC0 out the door, and it's a release that we're really proud of. I won't go into a lot of detail as to what's new, Scott's Blog does that quite adequately. 

I've had lots of questions and confusion around what RC0 actually is, and what Microsoft mean by it being a developer release. Basically this means that the end user runtime (Silverlight 1, Silverlight 2B1 or Silverlight 2B2) will not automatically get updated to RC0. So you should **not go live**on RC0.

The core scenario is that you, as a developer, put your application on a staging server and test it with the RC0 runtime [ Windows  Mac ] . It will break. Then use the RC0 tools, the updated Blend,  and the breaking changes document against your source until you have a version that works. [The developer release notes are useful too]. Once you've done this, and you have a working app, you can rest assured that it will work with the final release of Silverlight 2 (we call it RTW). We'll announce when it is released, and you can then take the app that you've tested against RC0 and go live with it. End-users will get Silverlight 2 RTW and will be able to view your app. Hope that makes sense :)

Introducing Silverlight 2 Book Update

Additionally, I have been working on lots of updates for my Silverlight 2 book, but decided to hold off to make sure that they are in line with RC0, so the first batch, for part 1 of the book is now available, and you can download it from here. The second batch, for part 2 of the book should be ready by EOW. I'm also working on some bonus chapters on the installation experience and visual state manager. They'll end up on the blog here in some form soon.