Ooh, ooh, I'm bursting with questions for Nick Landry. Since he left
Mondays I've been dying to find out how he got on working/consulting
at (I think) that firm in New York where he kept finding reasons to go
wandering to the other end of the office so that he could catch a
glimpse of that woman he fancied. I think you should get him to make a
guest appearance on Mondays one weekand take the piss out of him again
for his lack of a love life / pitiful attempts at chatting up women
and the such like.

Anyway, on the note of mobile development, you could ask he where the
decent resources are and how I could get started in mobile .NET
development. I've got an SPV C550 (I used to have the SPV C500 which
was marketed over in the States as the AudioVox SMT 5600 or something.
I think Scoble had it at one point), and access to both Visual Studio
2003 and Visual Basic.NET 2005. My phone is running Windows Mobile
2003 second edition.

Does he recommend using VS 2003, or can I use VS 2005 with this phone ?

Does VS 2005 only work with phones running Windows Mobile 5.0 ?

Can I send SMS text messages from VS 2003 and / or 2005 ?

Can I process incoming SMS text messages from VS 2003 and / or VS 2005
? I've got an idea for a little app that would need to run based on
the results of incoming text messages that would require no
intervention from the user. Reading back through this it sounds like
I'm trying to use it for nefarious purposes, but really it's in case I
leave my phone somewhere and I want to lock it / turn it off.

Can I update the phone to Windows Mobile 5.0 ? If so where do I get
the software, roughly how much does it cost, and how do I do it ? Or
would I be better off waiting until November when my contract runs out
and getting another phone that runs Windows mobile 5.0 or whatever the
version is then ?

I'll send you more questions if I think of them. When's the deadline
to get the questions in ?

Oh bollox.

I just realised this was a post about a new show, not an upcoming show announcement.

I really should start reading things before replying.

Hi cometbill,

If you listen to the show I think you'll get a lot of answers. I use the same Smartphone as you (the Audiovox SMT5600) which I use with Cingular. I use my Treo 700w with Verizon for data only. I do not use it for voice since I already had the Cingular account. I'll use the Treo for voice once our VoIP infrastructure is completed at Infusion.

In terms of getting started with mobility, the show has a lot of good hints, and make sure you check the collection of links I have put on my blog post related to the show: http://www.infusionblogs.com/blogs/activenick/archive/2006/02/28/360.aspx. I'll add more links to it over time.

Your Smartphone is a Windows Mobile 2003 SE device and does not support Compact Framework 2.0. You can however use Visual Studio 2005 to do Compact Framework 1.0 development, which is what I recommend. When you create your project, just make sure you pick the template with the (1.0) tag.

As for SMS messages, you have a few options. If you had Windows Mobile 5.0 (which you do not on that phone) you could use the WM5.0 SDK to access the Microsoft.WindowsMobile.PocketOutlook namespace and the Pocket Outlook Object Model (POOM) using managed code, and control text messaging from there. Your other option is to use the OpenNETCF.org Smart Device Framework 1.4 which works with CF 1.0. It has a namespace called OpenNETCF.Phone.Sms which has the classes you need. It is an open-source project led by mobility MVPs and is free. You can also download the source code and use it in commercial applications. Just make sure you have a cellular plan with your carrier that has unlimited incoming SMS or else you'll pay through the nose at $0.10 per.

No, unfortunately you cannot update your phone to WM5.0. Windows Mobile licenses are different than desktop and server since it is an embedded OS that must be licenses by the OEM. It would be up to Audiovox to provide such a new device image, and then up to the carrier to make it available. Microsoft cannot do anything here since each OS image has to be customized and tested for specific devices, which is the OEM's job. I have not heard of any upgrade for the SMT5600. You'll have to get a new WM5.0 Smartphone.

It's a big problem in the mobility market as OEM's but especially wireless carriers treat $500 devices like throwaway phones. There have been a lot of internal discussions between MVPs and Microsoft mobility teams over this, and Microsoft is doing everything to make the upgrades easier for OEMs and carriers, but in the end, their (OEMs & carriers) greediness takes over and Microsoft cannot do much more.

Hope this helps.

As for my "lack of a love life / pitiful attempts at chatting up women" I guess I would have run out of stories for Mondays had I stayed since I started dating this wonderful girl around the same timeframe last year. Ask Carl, he met her once. She's a great girl and we just celebrated our first year together 9 days ago. So there you have it, take you best shot now cometboy :)

Let me know if you, or other listeners, have more questions.

Cheers!

cant wait to get a chance to listen to the episode, after looking at your links i was glad to see someone giving the guys over at OpenNETCF.org all the credit they deserve, seriously couldnt imagine doing mobile development without it... its funny you mention forgetting to talk about them on air, i had every intention of mentioning it when they did their road tour but blanked as well !
i think it would be awesome to hear an interview with the opennet project leaders... would make for a cool show...

Hello Ryan,

I am glad you agree. The OpenNETCF guys are truly the unsung heroes of the Mobile .NET world. One of them in fact works with us at Infusion, Alex Yakhnin, probably one of the best developers I ever met.

I wanted to mention them on the show, but we can only discuss so much in one hour, and when we started talking about Mobile PCs, we never went back to CF. But I agree it would make a great DNR show.

So here it is folks, testimony from another CF dev: you need the OpenNETCF Smart Devices Framework!!! Go get it at www.opennetcf.org. It's free!!!

Hope you enjoy the show Ryan, cheers!