Jason Langridge's WebLog - MR Mobile! : Development

Free Mobile Architecture Pocket Guide

jasonlan — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 23:01:05 GMT

If you are a developer looking to build a Mobile Application on the .NET platform then I have great news for you!

Our Developer team has been working with the Patterns & Practices team in Microsoft to update the Mobile Architecture Pocket Guide.

This can now be downloaded from HERE

MSDN Windows Mobile Developer Chat

jasonlan — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:02:00 GMT

Do you have questions regarding Windows Mobile application development that you need answers to? Our Developer team have setup a number of Windows Mobile Developer Chats where you can spend an hour with Microsoft employees and MVPs who are experts in Windows Mobile application development online.

You do this via a live online chat!! So bring your questions on the tools and technologies used to develop both native and managed applications using the Windows Mobile operating system.

You can find the list of when these chats will occur on the MSDN Chat calendar here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx

NEXT CHAT: Tuesday, October 14^th 2008

Rob Tiffany on .NET Rocks

jasonlan — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:21:16 GMT

My colleague Rob Tiffany recently did an interview with .NET Rocks. Rob is a Development Guru for Windows Mobile and the interview is definitely worth a listen!

You can check out the interview HERE

Rob has a great blog HERE

Windows Mobile application Development Webcast part 2

jasonlan — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:26:00 GMT

Tomorrow - Wednesday 10th at 10 AM PST is part 2 of our MSDN Webcast series on “Windows Mobile Application Development.”

In tomorrow’s Webcast, MVP Maarten Struys and Constanze Roman will be diving deeply into how to use the Device emulator. They will show you how to get the most out of Device Emulator to test, debug and run your applications on a range of different devices with various form factors without having to connect to a physical Windows Mobile device.

If you want to join the webcast you can sign up here -

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032386649&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US.

If you can’t make it for tomorrow’s webcast, you’ll be able to download the on-demand version later tomorrow.

Introduction to Windows Mobile Development Webcast

jasonlan — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 07:19:06 GMT

Tomorrow (September 3rd) there is a webcast available for those of you considering starting to develop applications for Windows Mobile. The webcast is an introductory session on developing managed applications for Windows Mobile devices. It will cover the tools that are available as well as giving guidance on how to best approach developing applications.

If you are interested in attending you can get more details and register online HERE

MSDN Online Chats about Windows Mobile Application Development (and more)

jasonlan — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:23:38 GMT

Our Developer team has setup a number of Online Chats where you can ask questions real time in a chat room. The first one is scheduled for September the 16th and is an Application Development discussion.

Windows Mobile App Dev Chat
Do you have questions regarding Windows Mobile application development that you need answers to? Spend an hour with Microsoft employees and MVPs who are experts in Windows Mobile application development. Please join us for a live chat and bring on the questions! This chat will cover the tools and technologies used to develop applications using the Windows Mobile operating system.

You can even add the session to your calendar by clicking... Add to Calendar

Get more information on these Chats HERE

W3C release new Web standards guidance

jasonlan — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 07:05:52 GMT

Late last week the World Wide Web (W3C) Consortium released a new set of Web standards to make it easier for people to browse the web from their mobile device.

Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0, published as a W3C Recommendation by the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group, condenses the experience of many mobile Web stakeholders into practical advice on creating mobile-friendly content. These guidelines will help to improve the experience of people browsing the Web on a wide array of mobile handsets. W3C published a second standard today: XHTML Basic 1.1 Recommendation, the preferred format specification of the Best Practices.

You can read the press release HERE

Windows Mobile API Usage Tool

jasonlan — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:14:05 GMT

We’ve just released to the web the Windows Mobile API Usage Tool.

This tool will report on the APIs that are being used by your application. It does this by scanning the CAB, MSI or Binary and then produces a report in SQL Mobile (.sdf file)

It will also produce a list of the deprecated APIs that your application is using so you can understand the impact of them on your application once they are removed from Windows Mobile.

You can download the tool from HERE

Windows Mobile MVP Spotlight – Maarten Struys

jasonlan — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:20:11 GMT

Constanze has started interviewing some of the Windows Mobile MVP’s and publishing them. First up is Maarten Struys from the Netherlands!

MSDN Webcast: Unit Testing for Mobile Devices

jasonlan — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:37:10 GMT

Constanze Roman and Maarten Struys are delivering a web cast for developers today which covers the subject of Unit Testing within Visual Studio 2008.

If you are a developer then this webcast could be very useful. You can sign up to the webcast HERE it starts at 10am Pacific Time (GMT-8)

BT PayPhones case study

jasonlan — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:22:00 GMT

We’ve recently published a great case study for BT Payphones. BT Payphones, a division within BT Retail, has approximately 400 maintenance engineers who are now equipped with a Windows Mobile device and a solution they developed themselves using the .NET Compact Framework.

BT Payphones operates a field workforce of 400 maintenance engineers to repair and maintain its public payphones. Until recently, slow, cumbersome laptops restricted their retrieval of new work while on the road. The organisation uses devices running Windows Mobile® software combined with an in-house application called Minerva, which offers engineers an always-on, real-time work distribution system. Users can view and select new tasks at any time, from any location. Built-in satellite navigation guides them to new jobs quickly, and seamless integration with back-office systems ensures data captured in the field can be used in a timely way to support the business. The solution has already reduced fault repair time by 10 per cent, and increased engineers’ productivity by 20 per cent. BT Payphones also expects future analysis to reveal a reduction in fuel costs and carbon emissions.

You can get more details and download the case study from HERE

30 days of .NET Mobile Applications

jasonlan — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:01:46 GMT

Chris Craft is helping new Windows Mobile developers by publishing a new Windows Mobile application every single day! It's day 25 of 30 and he's already published some great applications such as Weather, SMS Logger, Speedometer and even a flashlight.

He is providing the source code and applications!

You can view the list of applications HERE!

Windows Mobile Developer WebCasts now Available on Demand

jasonlan — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:00:45 GMT

Prior to and during Tech-Ed US 2008 a series of 5 webcasts was recorded to help developers start to develop for Windows Mobile.

The series is now available on-demand so if you missed them first time round - now you have no excuse :)

· Developing Applications for Windows Mobile Devices

· Developing Your First Real Windows Mobile 6 Application

· Using Device Capabilities & Device Functionality

· Mobile Data Strategies & Synchronization Using SQL Server Compact, XML, & LINQ

· Windows Mobile Development - Live from TechEd Orlando

.NET the preferred choice for wireless applications

jasonlan — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:13:05 GMT

Infoworld has just published article highlighting the recent results of a developer survey run by Evans Data where they looked at which platforms were being targetted for development.

The great news was that the .NET Compact Framework came up #1 with 43% of developers targetting that with Java Micro Edition coming a very close second with 42%.

In terms of OS platform Windows Mobile came up #1 again with 31% of developers targetting Windows Mobile 6 and a 19% targetting Windows Mobile 5.0.

Some great momentum here! You can read more at the Infoworld site

Customising the sliding panel Home Screen

jasonlan — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:12:11 GMT

Jorge from our Windows Mobile Developer team has written an excellent article on the Windows Mobile Team blog on how to customise the Sliding Panel Home Screen that we shipped as part of Windows Mobile 6.1

If you want more information you can read the full article HERE