Nino.Mobile

NETCF MVP blogs

Neil Cowburn, a .NET Compact Framework MVP has a blog.  He has an RSS feed for each category (NETCF, VS.NET, etc) that he blogs about, so you'll need to subscribe to each..   good stuff here. 

Check out his blogroll, too.... links to such NETCF folks as Alex Feinman  and Alex Yakhnin.

-Nino

Upcoming Service Pack for .NET CF

I was catching up in one of my favorite hangouts (microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.compactframework), and noticed these two interesting threads of late:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=cifYbbyHDHA.2372%40cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fsourceid%3Dnavclient%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26q%3Dcompact%2Bframework%2Bservice%2Bpack

More specifically, from Message 5 in the above thread:

We are going to release a Service Pack for the Compact Framework 1.0.  It is not ready for release yet.  And you are correct that it improves a few very specific performance fixes.   When the Service Pack gets released, the download page will show you all of the bug fixes included in SP1.

Christin Boyd
Program Manager
Visual Studio, Smart Device Development
Microsoft Corporation

Thanks for the clarification, Christin!  I am very interested to see what is fixed and improved. 

This upcoming SP is also discussed in the following thread:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=ktfPsdKJDHA.1944%40cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl&rnum=2&prev=/groups%3Fsourceid%3Dnavclient%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26q%3Dcompact%2Bframework%2Bservice%2Bpack

..and I will disagree with "Dom" from the second thread who stated: ""performance enhancements"
Nirvana ! Please let it be true. This is the one thing stopping me from
developing any new products for Pocket PC."

BAH! I think that the NETCF does quite well.  I have implemented solutions that run on both the StrongARM and the XScale (PXA250(sigh)/PXA255(yay!)) processors.. apps perform (responsiveness and throughput) very well, IMO.

-Nino

[Listening to: This House Is on Fire - Natalie Merchant - Motherland]

Acquisitions

...it looks like I've beaten my co-worker, James, to the punch on this.  Our employer has been acquired.. we had a company-wide conference call this morning.  We now are part of Avanade.  Avanade, as you may know (or may not) was founded approximately three years ago as a joint venture between Microsoft and Accenture.   

I cannot speak for James, but I certainly feel quite positive about this, particularly their mobility service offerings.  I can't wait to get my hands on the Avanade Connected Architecture Mobile (ACA Mobile).   I'm convinced that this is going to be a Good Thing (tm).... combining the skilled team of G. A. Sullivan with the resources of Avanade. 

-Nino

Yet another P\Invoke type translator

Happened across TypTrans  over at The Code Project today.  Not bad.. have only done two .h files with it so far.. and neither one was extremely complicated..

A queue of soap and other oddities of the natural world

Over at The Code Project, Simon Gregory has an interesting article entitled Secure Web Services via Message oriented Middleware.  (AKA .. SOAP over MSMQ / MQ)   He recently posted an update (with some delay due to publishing difficulties) that I'm in the process of reading again (and figuring out how to apply it with .NET CF)

I was thrilled when I found his original article (and the revision is even better), as my current project (ok, the largest of my current projects)  has reliable messaging constraints that this is germane to.   Somehow, I don't think that WS-ReliableMessaging  is going to be able to fit in here without some creativeness on my part. 

Hey NETCF team:  When is .NET CF going to have support for WSE ?    On that note, I saw that Casey had done some futzing with .NET CF and WSE ....

Is anyone have issues getting SharpReader through a firewall ?

.. this is my first post in 11 days *twitch* .. this project has been keeping me busy..not to mention the associated travel (woohoo frequent-whatever points)..

Two new articles in the Smart Devices Community

Microsoft has released two new articles in the SmartDevices Developer Community:

Pocket Outlook Data into Your Microsoft .NET Compact Framework-based Applications

Writing Mobile Games Using the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework   (hey, James..looky here!)

There is also a handy  Notify me when a new item is added  checkbox. =)

Speaking of notifications..I put in my $.02 in regards to Sara's request for suggestions for RSS feeds from Microsoft  (mine were for mobility items, of course) ...make your voice heard.. :-)

-Nino