Well, time to explain why I have been so busy,.

As I have previously stated I am working on a book on smart device development, however whilst I am still working on this book.  I have been considering strating a new software focused company based on a few technologies and ideas I have been working on over the past few years. Unfortunately it is too early to say much more, except that it is pretty likely that once I get the new venture up and running that I will put some of the book work I have been doing online for the community, most specifically the book on Smart Client Development. Now all I have to do, is get things moving.

More on what is going on will appear here over the next few weeks...

Scott Worley,
  Getting too busy but loving it all, as always...

Well, I got too busy once more, and have been neglecting the blog, but am back in a week with more posts and information on the books I am currently working on.

I am not sure if VS2005 actually has this or not, yes I know that I can use other tools to do it. But would it not make a great feature.

I ask this since I have quite a few screens that I am preparing for an article on Smartphone 2003 SE UI development, and its a pain to create sized images of the display, now if only I had a print winform/webform/whatever to clipboard or file option in the standard graphics formats I would love such a simple addition.

Maybe I should, think about an addon to do this, unless it already exists?

Does it?

 

Well I love the challenge of creating a meaningful UI on a SmartPhone device, for some reason I find it more limiting than WAP/WML but am getting used to it.

The biggest problem is figuring out how to use the device in the most effective way, I am just so thankful that T9 input is pretty advanced and functional these days.

Later on I will post some <what I define as well designed> SmartPhone UI images from the project I mentioned earlier. these are just proof of concept images. The PocketPC ones are coming soon.

I am also working on a UI design guide for SmartPhones at the moment, and also another art finished article on Smart Client Functionality degradation through the UI Layer <ewww, I need a better title for that...>

Arrrgghhhh, I hate having to reset my development machines. yeah I know its part of the fun working with Beta products.... But it drives me crazy, last night at least 20 resets, So much lost time... oh well, time for coffee and munchies I suppose...

Now the real issue, I noticed that if you close down the SmartPhone emulator for 2003 SE, without stopping a project running in debug mode, you can't re-run your application using the emulator. Since unless I reset my system, it will not deploy the new application and either lockup or just throw errors about the file system... I hope this is a problem with my system; however if I use a different emulator I do not have the same issue???

Any ideas?

Well I have been working a a few book proposals once more, and noticed that I needed a really good sample application to demonstrate most of the the areas covered in most of the books I am planning <publisher permitting :) of course>.

So at the moment I actually have 2 main application types to create (I Will be doing both parts of the app, just need a little push on which one to do first.)

The objective of the app, thats simple I am building what I tend to refer to as a distributed Smart Client and Web Connected application.

The two application Types I have are:

• Project management and Issue Tracking Solution <probably based on Scrum techniques, maybe also Agile MSF and XP Practices as well>
• Simple CRM system - initially focused on the SFA aspect of CRM

The UI Clients that I will be designing, will be

• Winform Smart Client
• PocketPC Smart Client
• SmartPhone Smart Client
• MS Office based Smart Clients/<tags>
• Web based connected Client
• <maybe VS 2005 addon/smart client - still looking into this>

Smart Client Connectivity options: <WS and/or remoting>

• Full Sync on connect and request
• P2P Sync
• Messaging Based Sync and Wait

SO THE QUESTION IS, what would people like to see first CRM application or Project Tracking Application.

I will be posting design notes, sample screens etc... as time goes on,  but prefer to create something the community would like to see. And of course my website will be back up soon to help track and update the status of this slightly ambitious project.

Scott Worley

 

 

 

I am buying a new SMARTPHONE.

Yes I could buy a PDA phone but since I already have a PDA, and am doing the preparation work for 2 books that are  using the same application sample (I hope). that features a Smartphone based Smart Client. I have the excuse I need, that and my old phone, well, looks old I suppose.

I will be posting information on the application I am building as a source example for my next set of books very soon. <once I have decided what it will be... any ideas appreciated...>

 

 

Just had to mention that whilst I have been skulking around various blogs, I kept finding references to X1. Now X1 is a very functional desktop search engine. and all I can say is that I AM BLOWN AWAY BY HOW SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE THIS TOOL IS.

If you have not seen it yet, go give the download a trial, I am on day 2 of using it, and already it is part of my daily toolset.

X1 can be found at: http://www.x1.com

 

Well  I know this is old news, but I have been updating my MSF knowledge from version 3 to the newer version 4, and some nice changes have been made <I will post some details later when I get a little more time...>.

A link to the overview of the MSF models supported by the new Team Services part of Visual Studio 2005 is below, I am now working on some templates for other Methodologies.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvsent/html/vsts-msf.asp

oh yeah the TEAM SYSTEM ROCKS! great job MS.

Scott Worley

Well Ken Cox once more has his MVP title for another year, congratulations Ken, it not go to a nicer guy!

I have worked with Ken over the past few years, and I class Ken as a great, friend. Again Ken, congratz.

Oh before I forget his MVP is for ASP.NET.

-->Kens Blog is in the refer list on this site, if you get 5 mins please go check it out an say hi.

Scott Worley