Nino.Mobile

The Mobile Minute 16

Arggghh .. five days since the last issue of TMM....work, illness, spousal illness, car illness....pick one of many reasons :-/

• Jon Box notes a great review for his (co-authored with Dan Fox)  .NET CF book.   Ordered mine last week.
• Simon Fell has opened a Pocket SOAP store  Get your swag!
• Monday, December 15 - MSDN Webcast: Smartphone and Pocket PC Programming: Performance and Power Considerations
• Dug up this article on device configuration with .NET CF
• Here, here, and here is info about the upcoming MPx220, the replacement for the MPx200.  Purported features are: Smartphone 2003, camera, Blueooth
• MoDaCo Smartphone Journal - sync your call history into your Outlook Journal (finally, a reason to use that thing)
• Camera wrapper for .NET CF
• Walter Mossberg (WSJ) disses the Smartphone

..and on a non-Mobile front, Steve “Furrygoat” Makofsky notes that Microsoft wants to know if you use the SoapFormatter.

Sometime after this week, I'm going to be moving my blog.  I've been thinking about it a while, and I just feel too constrained to .NET / technical topics here.

-Nino

Slipstick.com now has an RSS feed

The Mobile Minute 15

Hello again folks; sorry for the delay in TMM, a bout of bronchitis got in the way.    Quite few things of note:

• Robert Levy of smartphonethoughts.com comments on the MPx220 rumors
• Alex Feinman responds to a question about J2ME vs .NET CF
• Geoff Schwab from MSFT informs us that .NET CF FAQ has been updated
•  Whack-A-Mole for Smartphone2003  Fun.
• Don't forget about the Windows Mobile 2003 Power Toys
• CoolSmartPhone has a review of the SPV E200
• Brian Loomis asks “What is mobile computing?“
• DevX has an article (basic, IMO) about Smartphone development
• From the presses of Wi-Fi Planet, Intel predicts hazards ahead for Wi-Fi
• Peter Foot publishes his article on using NDoc with  .NET CF
• Peter also has posted code to toggle the Bluetooth stack from .NET CF
• Some thoughts on Motion's new indoor-outdoor display for Tablet PC
• pocketpcthoughts.com posts an interview with Valentin Iliescu who's PocketPC Chess game was the focus of a MSFT case study

oh.. and I seem to have garnered another reader.  Cool.

-Nino

[OT] NWS Alerts

The Mobile Minute 14

Yay..Thursday.. my travel home day.

• Frank Arrigo notes all the nifty resources Microsoft has for mobile solutions development
• Microsoft has a list of current Smartphone operators and their respective operating policy and execution mode
• Pocket PC Developer Network has an interview with Neil Cowburn and Chris Tacke, OpenNETCF.org co-founders.
• Alex Yakhnin posts a snippet on how to implement Control.GetNextControl in .NET CF
• SmartphoneMinds.com has launched.
• Chris DeHerrera publishes another article on Windows Mobile 2003 Network Security
• Windows Media Overview and Optimization for Windows CE.NET 4.2

-Nino

The Mobile Minute 13

Lucky edition 13.. hrmmm

• More talk about SPV E200 Bluetooth "issues".  ppcw.net has the story
• Hey Kids!  moblog your wish list
• More on the WLNP (number portabilty) front:   http://www.numberportability.com
• The Introduction to Development Tools for Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs and Smartphones, orginally published in August 2003 has been upated.
• Pocket PC Developer Network has a link to an MSDN article about hosting web services on .NET CF here.  I can understand applications for this; however, when someone says “Cool! I can do this” and just does it, I get concerned.  There are a lot of things that need to be thought out (hmm, device resources for one) before implementing this.   I will grant that it is cool, though. :)
• Lufthansa will soon be offering WiFi link via pocketpcthoughts.com
• Steven Bush from Brighthand has recently had a Smartphone epiphany 
• Find a Wi-Fi hotspot   (nifty.. found some close to where I'm staying in Cleveland)
• More Tablet PC pictures [via TabletPCTalk.com]

Lasty, Neil Cowburn announces the OpenNETCF.org Smart Device Framework (SDF) Beta program on his blog.  Alex Yakhnin mentions it, too.  Apply here.  Application submitted.

-Nino

Chris Tacke is blogging

Win2k3 .NET / WebSphere security eval

I was perusing some older Microsoft blogs and came across this post by Vittorio Bertocci from September of this year.  Here's the link straight to the executive summary. ...wonder how I missed this original posting; nonetheless, it is a good read.

-Nino

The Mobile Minute 12

After recovering from a bout of gluttony yesterday (way too many tasty desserts), yours truly is back on the wagon. 

• Develop SmartPhone 2002 Applications with Embedded VB (eVB) - Catch the story at msmobiles.com and smartphonethoughts.com.  They both link to here - make sure you RTFM as there are a number of Registry edits to make - oh, and this hack cannot co-exist with the Smartphone 2002 SDK. I'm a little conflicted on this one.. I think it is neat that John Cody sorted this out; however, I am not in favor of continuing to use a clearly deprecated language (yes, eVB is deprecated - for example, you must install the eVB runtime on a Windows Mobile 2003 Pocket PC device, an eVB app won't run natively) despite this opening up this platform to more developers.  Your thoughts?
•  Want to beta test a SQL CE bulk loader library?
• Pocket PC Developer Network has published their first newsletter.  Subscribed.
• Vassili Philippov of pocketpcdn.com has published a Q&A article entitled How to create a spin control like in Microsoft programs?
• Also at pocketpcdn.com, Andrey Lebedev published a Q&A that answers a question I've heard asked quite a bit: How to avoid multiple entries in the task list for the .NET application?
• From MoDaCo: Database Conversion Wizard Power Toy
• Omar Shahine shares his thoughts about buying a Tablet PC fr his father link from tablula pc.
• More Omar:  He's been running Lonestar (cool!)
• Tablet PC Corner has some nifty phots of the upcoming Toshiba M200.  (Here's the English translation)
• Also from Tablet PC Corner, a review of the new Acer C302MXi  (English translation)

-Nino

The Mobile Minute 11

Yesterday I received an e-mail from the fine folks over at expansys (or http://www.expansys.com for those of you outside the US) that my QTek 8080 would be delayed until January.  *sigh* They did offer, instead, an i-mate 8080 which is slated to arrive in the next week; I, of course, switched. 

• Today there was a posting on the Internet that Orange was recalling the SPV E200 due to customer complaints (FYI: this is the same phone as the QTek 8080 and the i-mate 8080).  Orange subsequently released a statment stating that they were not recalling the phone and that they were not aware of any of the alleged customer complaints. Look here, here, and here
• PPCW.net is having a Christmas Raffle
• Paschal posted about MobileRSS on Tuesday, amongst other things (wonder if he reads my blog...)
• Chris DeHerrera has updated his ActiveSync Troubleshooting Guide
• An Open Letter To Developers From A Pocket PC User  (aka  it's all about the CABs)
• OpenNETCF.org Desktop.Communication Library v2.2  has been released

Lastly, I realized earlier today that I simply forgot to post yesterday...oops!

-Nino