This morning Microsoft announced Windows Mobile 6.1 and an upgrade for Internet Explorer Mobile. Windows Mobile 6.1 will start showing up in devices very very soon, and the IEMobile update will be available later this year.
Windows Mobile 6.1 includes a slew of new features and improvements, including a redesigned home screen, built-in Task Manager, threaded SMS client, browser improvements, Copy & Paste support for non-touch devices, integration with SCMDM 2008, improved Windows Live integration, Getting Started Wizard, faster Bluetooth setup, significant and noticeable improvements in performance and battery life, and much more.
Upgrades for several current devices will be available including the HTC Touch, BlackJack II, Moto Q9h, Pantech duo and AT&T Tilt. For screenshots, please visit the Windows Mobile page on Facebook. I'll post more information about Windows Mobile 6.1 shortly.
-Mel
I was having dinner with someone when she pointed out the huge amount of Microsoft phrases some of us tend to use outside of work. It was amusing, so I wrote down a list of phrases I catch myself using. For those of you who are friends with, or dating, or just trying to converse with a Microsoftie, here's a guide to decipher what they're saying:
| Overly used phrase | What this means at work | Example of non-work usage |
| "By Design" | Something was done intentionally and isn't really a defect. | "Wow, your walls are orange!"
"By design dude. I needed something bright". |
| "Punted" | Rejecting or ignoring something due to insufficient resources or justification (used in the context of bugs that get pushed to the next milestone). | "The mechanic suggested replacing my brake pads but I punted it a few more months" |
| "Repro/No Repro" | The ability to "reproduce" something - a bug, an experience, a set of instructions etc. | "man, I'll never be able to repro that weekend I just had", or "dude, I couldn't repro that pickup line at the bar". |
| "Take this offline" | Table a heated discussion during a meeting out of respect for other people's time or to protect privacy. | "guys, can you two please take this offline coz the rest of us don't want to hear those details about your life!" |
| "Foo" and "Bar" | Readily available, on the fly labels for two generic but similar items in a list. | "honey, if you eat foo in the morning with 100 calories and bar in the afternoon with 200 calories, it's probably healthy" |
| "Red/Green/Yellow" | Weekly status for projects, teams, individuals are reported up the management chain in terms of Red (at risk), Yellow (slight delay), or Green (on track) | "hey, my kitchen remodeling finally turned green" or "I've been so busy this week, I'm red on my workout routine" |
| "uber"* | Something overarching, collectively inclusive of all things under it. Meant to imply scope, not size. (Use with nouns, not adjectives) | "I had to speak with the uber-chef of that restaurant to get a reservation!"
"she is uber-rich" (this is improper usage) |
| "Go Offsite" | Act of going somewhere far from one's normal work environment to discuss new strategy or ponder a difficult situation. Typically used to isolate upper management from mundane day to day problems. (Often just a conference room across campus, not necessarily involving travel) | "Honey, we need to discuss our issues offsite" (meaning go to Las Vegas) |
| "hard stop"* | An important, non movable meeting that someone has to attend at a specific time. E.g. "Sorry but I have a hard stop at 3:30" | "mom, I'd love to chat longer but I have a hard stop in 5 minutes". |
| "P.O.R" | Plan of Record. The currently agreed upon decision by a large group of stake holders. It is subject to change in the future, but it is what everyone is comfortable with right now. | "The POR is we're going camping this weekend." |
| "Ship it!" | Expression of confidence, positive connotation. Use when someone shows you something that is so cool that they should just "go for it". | "Mel, do I look good in this dress?"
"Totally. Ship it!" (meaning, wear it) |
*I'm not sure if some of these are Microsoft-specific, but I've heard them used by Microsoft employees more than anyone else I know.
Many years ago someone made a more complete list like this called Microspeak. It's kind of outdated now but still fun to read. Are there any other phrases you catch the Microsoftie in your life using frequently? Feel free to share, or just ask for true meaning!
-Mel
The hallways and elevator entrances in most Microsoft buildings are always covered with posters announcing internal betas, promotions, new initiatives etc. Every once in a while I'll see a poster that's incredibly funny, witty or effective. I just noticed this one from the Windows Live OneCare team and had to share it!
It reads "Nasty Virus? Don't worry, we took OneCare of it". I love the leprachauns. Hope you get a kick out of it too. Happy St. Patrick's Day!
-Mel
You thought txting coworkers is iffy. My good friend and popular Windows Mobile blogger Loke Uei Tan is starting a trend at Microsoft. He's making "Poke me" a mainstream, accepted means of corporate communications - at par with "call me", "email me", "page me" etc! And it's catching on! I doubt Loke has confused anyone yet, maybe because most Microsofties we know are Facebook junkies. I'm definitely saying "don't bother calling, just poke me" in my OOF message on my next road trip :)
Have a good weekend.
-Mel
This video has been shown at internal Microsoft events a few times. It always draws a great response from the audience, followed by internal email aliases flooded for days with requests for a link or high bandwidth version. I finally found it on MSN Soapbox and YouTube (thanks to whoever posted it there). It shows a whole bunch of Microsoft consumer technologies working together in this average guy's "digital lifestyle". Most Microsoft products featured in this video, including Windows Mobile, Zune, XBOX 360, and Windows Media Center fall under the Entertainment & Devices (E&D) division, arguably the best division to work at within Microsoft (biased personal opinion). Come work here!
The soundtrack in this video is very catchy too, and I've seen just as many requests from people asking about the song and band. The song is called "Girl From Mars", and it is covered by a band named Magneta Lane. I'm not sure but they might have done some private/promotional work for Microsoft because I can't find the track associated with Magneta Lane anywhere else. The original song was released in 1995 by a band named Ash from their album named "1977". Watch the original Ash version on YouTube or check out the Wikipedia entry if you like the song.
-Mel
(update) p.s. I don't know where the green jacket is from. Banana maybe?
Scott Hanselman and I sat down last week to talk about writing Facebook applications. I share my experience developing Facebook apps such as OutSync and "I Love My Phone". If you're new to Facebook or writing Facebook apps, take a listen. Our discussion is mainly based around Microsoft's open source Facebook toolkit for .NET developers.
Link to podcast:
Hanselminutes Podcast 88 - Writing FaceBook Applications with .NET
I heard someone say they wished it were possible to create a speed dial entry for text messaging in Windows Mobile. As most of you might know, text messaging is not a standalone app - it's just another account within the Messaging client, which also supports Outlook and other email accounts (Hotmail, POP3 etc).
So how do you create a speed dial entry that always goes directly into Text Messages (and not any of the other types of messaging accounts?)
I decided to write a tiny app that does this. My first thought was to launch a command line like Inbox.exe with some special parameter that would force it into the Text Messages account. The downside of doing something like that is the .exe name/path might change in the future and the command line parameter is probably undocumented.
I then remembered reading about some APIs that let you interact with the messaging client. I found one that did exactly what I needed: MailSwitchToAccount.
Sweet! With this documented API, the task becomes very easy and immune from breaking in future versions of Windows Mobile. The entire program is as follows:
#include <windows.h>
#include <cemapi.h>
int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance,
HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
LPTSTR lpCmdLine,
int nCmdShow)
{
MailSwitchToAccount(_T("SMS"), MCF_ACCOUNT_IS_NAME);
return 0;
}
As you can see, it is very easy to write an app that launches a specific account within the Messaging app. The user can then create a shortcut to this app and launch it from speed dial or the Start menu. For more MAPI functions that might be useful to you, click here. (Note: you will need to link with cemapi.lib to use these functions).
-Mel
Are you on Facebook? Do you use Outlook and Windows Mobile? If you answered yes and yes, get OutSync, a free app to sync your Facebook friends' photos with Outlook! It's written by me, and is free to use. Watch my 7 minute video with Laura Foy on Channel 10, and visit the OutSync site to download it.
Windows Home Server hit RTM. Wow, I need this product today for my huge collection of photos, media and documents! Can't wait to see all the cool hardware coming from HP and others. Check out this Channel 10 video for more information.
2 reports out this week showing Windows Live search gaining market share vs Google and Yahoo:
If you haven't tried a Live search lately, now's the time to give it a spin.
-Mel
Say you search the Web for "foobar". What if the first website in the search results redirects back to the search itself (e.g. http://www.google.com/search?q=foobar)? Would that send the search engine bots into some kind of crazy recursive loop?
Someone just pointed out this feature I didn't know existed in Windows Mobile. When you have a contact highlighted you can press the d-pad Left and Right keys to change communication methods for the person (work, home, mobile, txt, email etc). Watch really close when pressing Left/Right, and you'll see the tiny "w" turn to "m", "h", "e" etc.
I suppose this is most useful for alternating default phone numbers - when you press Talk, the selected number is dialed. Previously I used to just open the contact and select the number I wanted to call from the card view. My coworker thinks this is much faster. Agree?
Mobile Search v2 has just been released with improved navigation, caching, movie listings, restaurants, GPS, traffic reporting and more! This is one of my all time favorite apps, and not just because I work in the Windows Mobile team. It is extremely well designed, the search results are accurate, and it comes with enough bells and whistles to be useful in many scenarios. Read the announcement and download the latest version from the team blog (while you're at it, check out this review on CNET news.com).
Also try out the updated Live Search in IEMobile by visiting http://m.live.com.
If you want one more cool mobile search option, try Microsoft's recently acquired TellMe's service. Simply SMS a search query like "Starbucks 90210" to TELLM (83556) and wait for the results. This works on all phones - not just Windows Mobile.
Note: If you're a Windows Mobile developer, I especially recommend downloading the Mobile Search client above. This app follows all the design guidelines and compatibility best practices that ensure it works on the widest range of devices. And it is written in managed code (C#)! Seeing it work may help you improve the usability of your own applications, or inspire you to create something equally cool with the Windows Mobile 6 SDK.
-Mel
Someone from Recruiting recently interviewed me about what it's like to work at Microsoft. You can download the audio interview here (16 MB), and hear some of the ups and downs of working here.
Speaking of work, here's some news for those of you that read this blog or know me outside Microsoft. This week I start a new job - still within the Windows Mobile division, but with new responsibilities and a new management chain.
For the last 18 months I've been on the Developer Experience (DevX) team. I worked on our application compatibility strategy, ISV engagement and various developer platform features.
Going forward, I'm a PM on the Windows Mobile shell team. This team owns the user-facing "look and feel", among other things. My primary responsibility is ensuring that all our internal apps (Calendar, Contacts, Phone, Home screen etc.) shine in the next version of Windows Mobile. That includes ensuring UI consistency, common control usage, theming and extensibility. I can't reveal any specifics about WM "7" at this time, except that the new user experience will blow your socks off. This is a very exciting transition for me, and indeed an honor to work on core apps such as Outlook Mobile, which make our devices so powerful.
I will still continue blogging about developer issues, as well as UX/UI stuff and Windows Mobile in general. However, I'm no longer the "App Compat PM" as some of you might know me, and not exclusively focused on the developer platform.
-Mel
Thanks to everyone that attended Microsoft TechMela in Mumbai last week. It was great meeting all of you, hearing your development experiences and realizing just how much Windows Mobile has grown in India over the last year.
The feedback I gathered from you was invaluable, and I'm already using some of it to influence our product planning. The presentations I delivered are all available for download in a single .zip file. This zip contains the following presentations:
Day 1:
- Managed Development for Windows Mobile
- App Compat Best Practices
- Building AJAX Applications on IE Mobile
Day 2:
- Building World-Ready Windows Mobile Applications
- Device Independent UI Design for Windows Mobile
I had an amazing experience and hope to see you again at future Microsoft events in India. Stay in touch!
-Mel
Here's yet another one of those "what's on your device?" posts. I'm on the road as part of the MEDC 2007 worldwide tour, and will have visited nearly half a dozen countries over the last 2 weeks. My Windows Mobile 6 device (currently an HTC Excalibur) keeps me connected with personal and work information, saves me time triaging email, and does all sorts of useful things like wake up calls, currency conversions, play music, track business expenses, locate frequent flyer numbers etc. So I thought I'd share a list of the software and web sites I'm constantly using - in taxis, airports, cafes, hotels and wherever else I may roam:
Microsoft stuff:
- Messaging, Contacts, Calendar - out of all the time I spend on my device, 70% is in Outlook Mobile. Without Outlook and Exchange ActiveSync my life would be in chaos. This stuff is free - as in, it comes with every Windows Mobile device.
- Office Communicator Mobile - someday it'll do VoIP, but for now helps stay in touch with co-workers, exchange quick IMs for stuff that is too urgent for email, check people's presence or availability. The client is free, but it requires Office Communications Server.
- Office Mobile - I use an internal dogfood version that supports Office 2007 (as well as 2003) formats. Great for practicing PowerPoint decks, read Word & Excel attachments and making BlackBerry users in the business class cabin jealous.
- Live Search Mobile - find nearby businesses, get directions to anywhere, find phone numbers for airlines, rental cars, hotels etc. Unfortunately only works in the US and UK at present. Free.
3rd Party stuff:
- EzAlarm - nice and simple. never have to tinker with hotel alarm clocks, some of which can be too high-tech to experiment with when you're falling asleep.
- FlexWallet - stores my frequent flyer accounts, credit card numbers and stuff that I don't want just sitting around on my device unprotected.
- CorePlayer - watch short clips or music videos when there's nothing better to do. I use this for MPEG files only. I think there's a free version called TCPMP.
Web services: (all these are mobile optimized websites that are easy to browse on slow networks and tiny screens):
There are a few more that I use occasionally, but the above are those that I'm on constantly. If you're looking for more mobile friendly sites, check out Derek Snyder's huge list here.
Accessories: