Me, Myself and My Blog.

Getting some reports of IE8 Beta with Smart Device Projects

2008-06-10T23:38:00Z

A couple of customer pinged me recently that when they create a new Smart Device Native Project in VS 2008, the dialog comes and goes away and nothing really happens. On futher investigation it appears that installing IE8 Beta cause this.

I don't have a work around to share at this point (other than un-installing IE8) but as soon as I have something additional to share, I'll update this post with a workaround.

Amit Chopra

Jan 29, 2008 ** Verified that the Release Candidate of IE 8 does not cause any issues **

March 26th 2009 - Hmm not good. THis is back again, please give us some time to get this taken care of. Working with desktop C++ and IE Team to get a fix/workaround out asap.

A good list of mobile optimised websites

2008-05-02T21:17:00Z

Last night I was browsing around the web when I saw very handy collection of Web Sites that are optimised for mobile devices. I thought I should share

http://www.windowsmobiletraining.com/connection/forums/p/14/21.aspx#21

Business
Ameritrade	Trade and Watch Stocks
Bloomberg	Track your portfolio
Business Week	Mobile Business Week
Fidelity	Trade and Watch Stocks
Forbes	Mobile Forbes
StockPoint	Can't create a portfolio, but other tools such as charts are awesome
Schwab	Trade and Watch Stocks
Entertainment
Billboard	Music industry weekly that tracks record and song popularity in dozens of "charts", the best known of which is the Billboard Hot 100. All the charts are available on this new mobile site along with album cover art and chart history by artist.
Broadway Mobile	Mobile guide to Broadway plays, pls synopses, cast list and curtain times for current on-Broadway shows.
ClubFone	Nightlife guide for 30 US cities. Lists the major venues and headliners for various categories of music and comedy. Also a good selection of neighborhood bars, brewpubs and dance clubs.
Fandango	Buy those tickets on your way to the theater. Theatre show times and movies as well.
Radio Online	Steam that radio to your device using Tuned.mobi's service.
News - International
AllAfrica	Good to see Africa represented in the mobility space.
BBC News	This is BBC's PDA website. The graphics are awesome and are optimized for the PDA form factor. For WAP website, go here.
CanWest	CanWest's take on the news is also non-wap based. Mobile continues to go mainstream.
ChannelNewsAsia	Based in Singapore, here's a non-wap news site for APAC.
CNN International	If you're a CNN junkie, here's your fix.
DW - Deutsche Welle	German broadcaster but you can get content in 29 different languages from this site.
India Times	I usually don't like wap but India Times is a really rich site.
International Herald Tribune	117-yo Paris based English language daily. Solid graphics and very fast.
Malaysian News	Here's a site in English, Malay and Chinese
SwissInfo	Can't get enough of EMEA, here's another great broadcaster taking it to mobile
News - United States
ABC News	WAP based
CBS News	HTML based
Chicago Tribune	Get the latest from the Windy City's best daily newspaper.
Christian Science Monitor	Popular and html based.
KING5	Seatttle area folks can get the latest news, weather, and traffic.
LA Times	Arguably one of the top papers in the country mobilized!
MSNBC	Uses browser detection to serve you the best content for your device.
New York Business	Gotta get your business news from the Big Apple.
Orlando Sentinel	Going to MGX or CTIA? Here's your news, plus you can email articles.
Salon	Popular Online News magazine is mobile.
SF - KTVU	Fox's KTVU uses intelligent browser detection to help send content for your screen size.
Washington Post	One of the most prestigious papers in the US has fixed it's mobile site.
USA Today	WAP based version of a popular American Daily - Great Sports.
News - Humor/Satire
The Onion	Humorous, made up news stories.
Package Tracking
FedEx	Track a package, get rates, or find a FedEx store.
People Search
InfoSpace	White Pages, Yellow Pages and Reverse Phone directory.
Switchboard	White and Yellow pages. Reverse phone number lookup. Driving directions
YP	Yellow Pages, While Pages Reverse Phone Lookup, Reverse Address Lookup, Neighbor Look-up, and MapQuest Maps and Driving Directions
Reference
Answers.com
Dictionary.com	Dictionary
LangtoLang	Medical Questions
Pocket Doctor
Wapedia (Wikipedia)
Search - Local
10Best	Find the 10 Best of anything in 3,500 cities around the world. Very nice HTML based site.
MSN Live Local	Web site for Live Search.
Starbucks Locator	Get your fix anywhere in the US or Canada.....sorry EMEA
Search - Web
Google	Pretty good site but results are an amalgam of mobile and non-mobile optimized sites which makes the usability of web searches questionable.
Live Search	Microsoft's Web Search
Yahoo oneSearch	Yahoo's Web Search
Shopping
Amazon	Amazon.com Shopping Site - Books/Music/DVDs/Toys/etc.
Craigslist	Free Classified Ads
Century 21 - House Shopping	Drive a new neighborhood and search fort available houses while you're at it. Brilliant!
Ebay	Worlds Largest Auction site / Garage Sale
Overstock.com	Supposedly overstock items being blown out at low prices.
NY Book Review	Books
Social Networking
Flickr	Yahoo's Photo Sharing Site
Live Spaces	Your personal web page with blogs, photos, etc. By Microsoft
Sports
BBC Sports
CBS Sportsline
ESPN	ESPN Sports
Travel - Airline
Air Canada
America West
American Air
Alaska Air
Austrian Air
Continental Air
Delta Air
El Al
Jetblue
KLM
Lufthansa
Northwest Air
Qantas
SAS
Southwest
United Airlines
US Airways
Travel - Destinations
Disney	Visitor's Guide to Disney parks - Superfast!
Travel - General / Tools
Cabbies.mobi	Get a cab in the US, Canada, or the UK
CarRentals.com
Concierge
FlightStats	Simple Flight Status Website. Great for checking on airport status, security wait times, and flight delays.
Fodors	Travel Guide
Travel - Hotels
Hotels.com
Travel - Rail
DB European Travel	Plan trips between any town in Europe.
Travel - Booking
CheapTickets	Can't book, but you can view your itineraries.
Kayak.com	Travel Meta-Search engine is really cool.
Orbitz	Flight status, itineraries, hotel finder, and contact info.
Travel - Trip Planning
Hop Stop	Public Transportation in DC, NYC, SF, Boston, and Chicago
NextBus	Satellite tracking tells you when the next bus will arrive.
Portland Transit Tracker
WebWatch
Worldwide Travel Info
Weather
Animated Weather	PDA Animated Weather - Not only can you get the weather, but the satellite images are animated and zoomable.
WeatherBug
Weather Channel	Get your US weather here by zip, or city/state.
Weather Network	Get your international forecasts here.

I will be @ Mix 08

2008-01-31T02:03:55Z

Will you ? Also I am told that the Early Birds Discount Ends soon. So act fast !

Amit Chopra

Looking for an easy way to try VS 2008?

2008-01-08T22:13:05Z

While we do have trial editions available for download, but if you don't want the hassle of installing this on your main machine, I noticed that there are VPC Images with Visual Studio 2008 [Trial] pre-installed also available for download.

More details available here.

Amit Chopra

Tools and Resources for Windows Mobile ISVs

2007-12-14T00:51:33Z

Just noticed a message from my Product Management team around the launch of "Innovate On Windows Mobile Site". It Provides provides targeted tools, support, and training to help ISVs develop and market their mobile applications more quickly and efficiently. By enrolling, ISVs gain access to exclusive benefits, such as free test vouchers and technical support, and the information they need to certify, test, and sell their mobile solutions.

http://www.innovateonwindowsmobile.com/

Yes we are done ! VS 2008 is now available.

2007-11-20T00:18:13Z

Very excited to share that Visual Studio 2008 in now available at the MSDN download site.

And this is me at the box signing event :-)

Amit Chopra

Windows Mobile Developer Experience Connect Site

2007-11-02T23:56:57Z

We’d like to give our developer community more opportunities in shaping the future of the Windows Mobile developer experience.

Therefore, a Microsoft Connect website has been created to allow developers to:

1. Formally submit feature requests online

2. Vote on existing feature requests, thereby giving the developer community a say in deciding the importance of a feature request

Please proceed to http://connect.microsoft.com and submit your feature requests to the Windows Mobile Developer Experience connection.

Spread the word.

Amit Chopra

See you in Las Vegas at the Mobility Connections 5-8th Nov.

Dress Up your phone this Halloween !

2007-10-19T23:19:19Z

Enjoy the music, ring tones and wall papers at https://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/domore/halloween-ringtones.mspx

An opportunity to Save a 100$

2007-09-27T00:47:43Z

Mobile Connections is a great opportunity for developers and IT Professionals to connect with Microsoft and experts in the Mobile industry. Attendees can expect to learn about the tools and techniques to building rich and effective applications on Windows Mobile.

Attendees this year will be able to attend an exclusive invite-only feedback session where they can sit down together with members of the Microsoft product groups to provide honest and direct feedback for a chance to make a difference with Windows Mobile or its platform and tools.

On top of the Harley Davidson contest, there will also be a ton of exciting activities that will happen during Mobile Connections from device giveaways to being able to play with cool new devices. So don't miss out on the action.

Sign up now at : http://www.devconnections.com/shows/FALL2007MOB/default.asp?s=103 and use this special coupon code (MSBLOG) to get an immediate $100 discount.

And I will be around too, talking about Visual Studio 2008 and will be at the invite-only special feedback session that we will be hosting.

Looking forward to seeing you there !

Thanks

Amit Chopra

Why do I get this exception when running a Unit Test for Devices on Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 ?

2007-09-20T22:45:53Z

A customer got this to my attention today.

The test adapter ('Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.TestTypes.Unit.UnitTestAdapter, Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.Tips.UnitTest.Adapter, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a') required to execute this test could not be loaded. Check that the test adapter is installed properly. Exception of type 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.SmartDevice.TestHostAdapter.DeviceAgent.NetCFNotInstalledException' was thrown.

The most common reason for this is if you are running a test on the emulator on which you don't have .NETCF 2.0 or 3.5 already installed. A simple workaround is to create a Smart Device Application and F5 it to deploy to the emulator before you run unit tests.

What I also do on my machine is that I have deployed .NETCF 2.0 and 3.5 to my emulators and Saved States. That way every time my emulator loads, Visual Studio does not have to push .NETCF over to the emulator. Make a considerable improvement in deploy Speed.

Thanks

Amit

Heading down to the Handango Partner Summit next week

2007-09-20T22:39:17Z

I'll be in San Diego on Tuesday and Wednesday next week at the Handango Partner Summit. If any of my blog readers are going to be around, drop me a note and I would look forward to meeting with you and talk about device application development experiences and scenarios.

Amit Chopra

Mark your calendars - Mobile Connections.

2007-08-14T06:42:01Z

When ? November 5-8, 2007

Where ? Mandalay Bay Resort,Las Vegas, NV

What is it about ?

Enterprise mobility is the wave of the future and this future is now! Connections brings you all the latest in mobility development technologies ready for prime time today. Train with Microsoft architects and top notch industry speakers and also network with your colleagues to build a valuable resource of peers.

Co-located with Mobile Connections this fall will be: Microsoft® ASP.NET Connections, Visual Studio Connections, SQL Server Connections, SharePoint Connections, Windows Connections and Exchange Connections, each with their own set of tracks and speakers. As an attendee of Mobile Connections you may attend the sessions at any of the concurrent events.
Register for Mobile Connections and attend sessions at any of the above concurrent events for FREE!

Amit Chopra

The operation could not be completed. The device is not connected. - Another reason for this.

2007-08-09T19:59:52Z

Traditionally this error has been a result of the corrupted local device datastore that stores information about all your devices and emulators. However during a recent incident where I was trying to help someone in the office with this issue, I uncovered another strange reason for this issue to show up.

In the case of the person whose machine I was trying to troubleshoot had an interesting symptom. Only 1 project on this machine when I pressed F5 gave this error. All the others worked. Which kind of implied that the datastore is healthy.

On further investigation it turns out that there is a .ico file in the project that does not exist on the disk. I removed it and hey the deployed when like a charm.

So in the nutshell if you are seeing this error message

The operation could not be completed. The device is not connected

on just a few of your projects, do check that all the files in your solution/project that are marked as content are actually present on the disk. This can happen sometimes when you copied a project from someone else and didn't get all the files or you may have accidentally just removed a few files from the disk.

Thanks

Amit Chopra

Unable to see the Windows Mobile 6.0 Templates in VS 2008 Beta 2?

2007-08-09T19:45:00Z

If you have been using Visual Studio 2005 with Windows Mobile 6.0 SDK, you will notice that after you install VS 2008 Beta 2, you don't see the templates for this SDK in the New Project Dialog for Smart Devices.

You attempt to repair the SDKs, but still no luck.

So here is what is happening.

A device SDK needs to register with a specific version of the development tool when you install the SDK. This is done by making a Call to what we call the SDK Installer Shim. During Install and Un-Install a call is made to this shim to register or un-register the SDK. Also when repair on the SDK is called, it should make a call to the Shim. *however* the WM 6.0 repair logic did not make the call to the shim. So no matter how many times you repair the SDK, the templates won't show up.

To fix it, just un-install and re-install the SDKs. If you had VS 2005 and VS 2008 Side by side, everything will still work as expected and you can either of the development tool to build applications for this SDK.

The advantage of using VS 2008 would be that now you can use NETCF 3.5 to target the WM 6.0 Devices, as well as take advantages of new Unit Testing features for device developers which are available in VS 2008.

I do want to clarify that VS 2008 only ships with Windows Mobile 5.0 SDKs in the box. You would need to download Windows Mobile 6.0 SDKs from here.

Thanks

Amit Chopra

The missing VMNET Driver mystery

2007-07-31T19:48:53Z

Over the last few days I got a number of requests on the microsoft.com help alias for customers trying to locate the VMNET Driver which is used by the Microsoft Device Emulator to enable to networking scenarios on the emulator.

Instead of making just this driver available as a standalone driver, at this point we recommend that you installed Virtual PC Software which includes this driver. The VPC Software is available as a free download from Here.

Our current download page will also be updated to show you this information very soon so that you don't get the "download is unavailable" message.

By doing this we are ensuring that you always get the more up to date version on the driver on your machine and is in sync with the main product that ships this driver.

Thanks

Amit Chopra