Microsoft released the Ramp Up initiative, the place where we can learn several emerging technologies such as VS 2008, SharePoint, and Silverlight. This is a free service, all we need is a Live account to start. It has collection of article, Webcast, demo code, and virtual lab running on Virtual Server.

I signed up to SharePoint 2007 developer track and tried several PPT and virtual lab. The lab speed was acceptable, of course we cannot expect the same speed as the real machine. But given a condition with my 1 MBps connection, It was running fast.

All lab pre-requisites, VS 2008, SharePoint, code snippet, including a downloadable lab manual is available. I should admit this is an amazing job, well done ramp-up team!

I completed SilverLight lab in 1 hour. Actually I just want to try it out, because I already know the stuff. The lab started from level 200, and then progressing to the higher level at the end. An experienced developer can skip lab 01 or 03, and jump to the more challenging code.