Doing a bit of P/Invoke lately (for COM Interop on NETCF), I became curious (and my fingers tired), so I purchased the
P/Invoke Wizard ..... that was yesterday. I just got the e-mail back from them today (with the attached .zip file)...so now I'll play with it a bit..and give some feedback to everyone
-Nino
[Listening to: The Sky Is a Landfill - Jeff Buckley - Sketches (For My Sweetheart the Drunk) Disc 1 (05:09)]
Microsoft has released eMbedded Visual C++ 4.0 SP2. Yay! I can uninstall the beta of SP2 that I picked up at MDC. Hmm... WinCE.NET 4.2.. now eVC4SP2...the Ozone release must be *right* around the corner... (although someone (from Microsoft) told me it had RTM'd last month...
-Nino
Well, well... I just got put on another mobile engagement (in St. Louis - woohoo, flying to STL for 6-8 weeks)...looks to be challenging. =) Worse case is that I got yet another mobile opp under my belt (darn!).
Rob beat me to the punch on this 15 Seconds article ..
Open NETCF is now online ..check it out.
From their site: "Welcome to OpenNETCF.org, the web's central repository for information and open-source projects specifically targeting the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework.
OpenNETCF.org was started by the members of the OpenNETCF Advisory Board as an independent source for Compact Framework development information working under the spirit of the open-source movement. We welcome suggestions for projects as well as submissions of code, articles and white papers. All submissions are reviewed by the OpenNETCF Advisory Board members.
For free-flow, unedited, warranty-free (and untested) code, we offer the OpenNETCF Forums. These forums are the largest repository of independent Compact Framework code on the web."
Also...
Found this article entitled Changing the Meaning of Mobile (got the link from Pocket PC Thoughts...which also links to some rumors about the iPAQ H5550...you'll need to be able to read Italian (yep) or use the fish) ...... yeah...
-Nino
Windows CE.NET 4.2 ("McKendric") has been released to manufacuring. WinCE.NET 4.2 is what Pocket PC 2003 rides on so..... PPC2003 is just around the corner for release. :-D
MSFT Press Release:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/Apr03/04-23Version42RTMPR.asp
Product Overview:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/embedded/ce.net/evaluation/overview/default.asp
-Nino
Woo Hoo! Toshiba has released the e755. The first Pocket PC that I've seen with new Intel PXA255 (the 'fixed' XScale - bus upped to 200MHz and voltage dropped - cpu is still at 400MHz).
ESUP: $599.00
Equipped with Intel® PXA255 processor 400MHz, 3.8” TFT Transreflective Color display (240 x 320 portrait resolution w/64K colors), 96MB (64MB SDRAM/32MB NAND) memory, 1-SD (Secure Digital) card slot (3.3V), 1-Type I/II CF Card Slot (3.3V), integrated Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b), Infrared port (115kbps), and Stereo headphone/Microphone port (Stereo; 4 ring jack 3.5mm). 1-RGB (Monitor) port and 1-USB port may be added via the optional Expansion Pack.
Additional software: Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, Pocket Outlook®, Pocket Internet Explorer, Microsoft® Reader 2.0, Media Player 8 for Pocket PC, File Explorer, MSN® Messenger, Microsoft® Transcriber, Microsoft® Active Sync 3.5, Microsoft® Outlook 2000, IA Presenter, IA Screen Mirror, Adobe Acrobat® Reader® for Pocket PC, and ArcSoft® PhotoBase™ for Pocket PC.
Box contents: Toshiba Pocket PC e755, USB Cradle, 10W AC Adapter, 1-Stylus, Soft Slip
Also, a review on MSNBC here. Now I just count the days until Pocket PC 2003, aka "Ozone", ships... in a device with the PXA255.
You should expect a fairly noticeable performance improvement in your NET CF apps on a device with the PXA255 ..and a slight boost from PPC2003 (not done any testing using the beta SDK yet, just hearsay at this point, IMO). A client of mine (who uses a ruggedized PPC device) not long ago received a unit with a 'test' PXA255. The app we wrote for them (NET CF, of course) got about a 30% perf boost (according to their testing). I can't wait to run my own numbers on the app / NETCF performance on this chip. FWIW, in some activities, my iPAQ H3650 (StrongARM 206MHz) beats the XScale (PXA250 - the original one) two-to-one. The PXA255 should put my StrongARM in it's place. ;)
and yeah, slightly OT...but I did mention NETCF :)
-Nino
Chris Tacke has an excellent article on MSDN about using dumpbin.exe as an aid to .NET CF developers (particularly focused) in declaring P/Invokes. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetcomp/html/netcfdumpbinpinvoke.asp I don't know anyone who has done NETCF development (including myself) that hasn't had to P/Invoke at some point...
-Nino
Saw this in Mitch Rupp's Blog here
Greg first told us about his Event Log monitoring with RSS, and now he's looking at creating an RSS feed for NNTP. Cool!
-Nino
Quite a few new articles published in the last day here: http://smartdevices.microsoftdev.com/Learn/Articles/default.aspx
Good Stuff. =) I'm stoked to see Microsoft getting behind us mobile developer types as they are.
-Nino