December 2004 - Posts
Following on from the I’d never use Windows CE or Windows XP Embedded post one of the requests that came up was for the list of features or technologies contained in Windows CE 5.0 (and a comparison against Windows CE 4.2), one reason to choose an embedded
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It’s been pretty awful watching the news over the last few days, hearing about the thousands that have lost their lives, homes, families and belongings, it was only this morning that I heard on the news the number of people that are in desperate need
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From eWeek Vegas Airport is going to offer FREE wireless access starting January 4th, this won’t be interesting for the flight into Vegas for CES next week since you don’t typically hang around in the airport for long on the way into a city,
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Uwe Keim posted the following comment to my “Dumber” post. But if I think about the future, I fear that we (the developers) are slightly loosing bit for bit of our knowledge to the "big framework author" (like e.g. Microsoft) and some day
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I needed to take my car for a service today (I had some strange knocking noises coming from the engine), while the mechanic was delving around under the hood and making appropriate mechanic sounds (the odd ‘hmm’ here and there – which is always a little
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This weeks CodeProject e-mail arrived with the usual interesting topics covering managed application development, controls, tools, Win32, C++, MFC etc… (I’d like to see more embedded articles on CodeProject – perhaps I need to start writing some) – one
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Question: if you have a Pocket PC or Smartphone device, how many of you have customized the Today/Home screen ? – if so, what software did you use to customize the UI ? – what customization features are important to you, image rotation, image
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I was out doing some last minute food shopping yesterday afternoon and found the display of Valentines clothing in Fred Meyers – is it just me, or are holidays and special days such as Valentines just blurring into one long shopping experience ?
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I’ve just been responding to some interesting comments around my Windows CE and Windows XP Embedded post from yesterday – and noticed that I’ve just passed the 500 post mark – this month is going to be somewhat quiet since I’m
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That’s quite a strong statement, right ? – so why wouldn’t I use Windows CE or Windows XP Embedded ? The operating systems are too big There’s no support for real-time functionality The operating systems are not secure It’s too hard to configure an operating
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Just in time for “the holidays” Master Chief gets a friend, The “Channel 9 Guy” I plan on taking the Channel 9 guy to CES with me, so look out for the “C9 Guy” from CES… – Mike
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I’m heading down to CES on January 5th, I think I get a whole day to run around the show floor looking at what’s cool/new/interesting – If you know of something that I need to go check out then do let me know, I will add it to my list.
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I guess Christmas must be getting close, it’s cold and wet outside (actually that closely describes most days in Seattle), and the stores look like they are getting ready for Valentines day, or Easter, or something like that… I see that you
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I recorded some MSDN Channel 9 videos with Joe Morris (Windows XP Embedded SP2) and Don Box (yep, him), these have been up on MSDN Channel 9 for a few days now, so I decided to update my Blog’s Channel9 Video page – Mike
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Steve Makofsky has been having some fun – check out the “Portable CE” project over on the FurryGoat blog . Steve has a USB key with an emulator image of Windows CE booting, from here he can run his Internet Browser or local applications
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If you’ve been programming against the .NET Compact Framework 1.0 (and if you haven’t, then shame on you!) then you probably have a wish list of classes that would have been nice to have in the 1.0 product (like serial support for instance),
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I’ve decided to read a number of books over the Christmas period, one of the areas that interests me is user interface design, especially for embedded systems, there are some really, really bad user interfaces out there, and also some good examples
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Windows XP Embedded SP2 is now available for download – this provides a number of updates from Windows XP Embedded SP1, including Hibernate Once Resume Many (HORM), updates to the Enhanced Write Filter, all of the XP Pro security updates (Security
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I got to play with an Akimbo Video on Demand (VoD) player tonight, the box looks exactly like a set top box, and includes an IR remote control – the only thing missing from the box is the channel number, and this is deliberate. Akimbo run a service that
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RSS Feeds come to Smartphone – Handango have the FeedBurner RSS Reader for Smartphone going for about $8.00. Pretty cool, eh? – this could be useful for getting news headlines or status information from your servers etc… The FeedBurner
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I installed the MSN Desktop Search Beta a couple of days ago, this integrates an outlook search tool ( http://www.lookoutsoft.com ) with a desktop search tool – the integration with outlook is very similar to the LookOut product, the desktop search
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Technology is moving forward at a startling rate, think about how we get music – over the last 50 years we’ve gone from using records which were great for random access play (lift the needle, move to a different place on the record and drop
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From http://www.windowsfordevices.com – Microsoft is asking Windows Embedded and Windows Mobile developers to recommend technical content for publication on the Microsoft Developer Network ( MSDN ). To gather input, the company has created a pair
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ok, so this was fartoo good to pass up, this taken from Engadget – We’re not exactly sure what kind of drag races you’d want to get this thing into, but if you’re the Al Bundy type, why not go on the go? Strapped to a 750-pound
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Last night I decided to setup an 802.11g network at home so that we could remote my son and his XBOX from the main family room to the kids play room – the plan is to also use the newly connected 802.11g XBOX to remote the Media Center UI – I already have
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Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, and it’s time to start thinking about something to read over Christmas – Brad Tipp recommended The Age of Spiritual Machines, when computers exceed human intelligence which arrived in the post
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Inside an intercity warehouse sits a desk, a laptop, and a few partially charged batteries. Three attendees are taken to The Code Room by host Jessi Knapp, following a free developer seminar and asked to complete a complex software challenge. With limited
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MSN today introduced the MSN Desktop Search Beta – you can download it from here http://beta.toolbar.msn.com . You can also find a video demo and interviews with the team is up on Channel 9. I’ve just installed the software which is currently indexing
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No that I have the XBOX Media Center Extender up and running it’s time for me to try out some more gadgets – some time later this week I plan on grabbing one of the new MSN TV boxes from one of the guys on the team and have a look at simple
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Enter the 2005 Windows Embedded Student ChallengE Up for a real-world challenge? Enter the 2005 Windows Embedded Student ChallengE, where you’ll partner with three fellow students and a faculty mentor to develop a computer-based system that solves a real-world
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On Friday I picked up an XBOX Media Center Extender and decided that I would spend some of the weekend setting this up… The good news is that the entire setup process took less than 10 minutes for the XBOX and for the Media Center PC. Setup is a
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I see more and more people using Tablet PC’s around Microsoft Campus, and more applications are becoming “Ink Aware”, so it’s only natural to take this to the next logical step which is to allow Blogging in Ink, or BLInk –
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At lunchtime today I purchased a Media Center Extender for XBOX , this is an XBOX title that streams Media Center content to your TV set – so the plan for the weekend is to get this up and running with my Media Center Edition 2005 PC. The Media Center
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Craig Neable has started blogging (and aboot time to!) – Craig is a pretty interesting guy, even though he doesn’t think so, and knows a ton of stuff about the .NET Compact Framework – I’m sure Craig is going to have a ton of interesting stuff to say
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I presented at a conference a couple of weeks ago (no surprise there, I appear to be the talking head in the Mobile and Embedded Devices group these days), my session covered application testing for Windows CE, primarily using the Remote Call Profiler,
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Eileen Brown from Microsoft UK has a Blogcast on her blog that shows some of the cool features of Smartphone – here’s a link to the article . Which leads to a question… [watch the Smartphone video first] Would you be interested in seeing
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You’ve all heard of Don Box, right ? – he’s the guy that gives SOAP talks from a bathtub (see below). I grabbed some time with Don to talk about giving a good presentation or conference session, the MSDN Channel 9 video is now live,
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Now this is pretty cool, running Macromedia Flash on your Smartphone, the code is still in Beta, so you should back up your device before trying this out… The Flash based clock can be found on the CoolSmartphone.com web site. There are instructions
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I met with Brad Pitt yesterday afternoon and again this morning, how cool is that!!, and here’s the proof, Brad, sitting in my office today. What ? – “that’s not Brad Pitt” I hear you say, oh, whoops, my mistake, this is
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As many of you know, my background is in low level O/S and application development, starting out in Assembler, then C, moving onto C++, and now writing most of my desktop code and samples in C# (you’ve got to try writing in C#, it’s awesome)
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In an earlier post (today), I asked what you are using to write applications for Windows CE/Embedded devices – Daniel Moth posted a comment to the blog which explains why his company chose Windows CE and Compact Framework for an HVAC unit –
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I met with Gudge this morning, it was great to see him, we’ve not hooked up in a while (probably because I whooped him at squash some time back ), which prompted me to go and check out his blog , one of the postings has a link to an online quiz which
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Pocket PC Thoughts has an interesting article which looks ahead to the year 2020, will we still be carrying mobile phones, or will the phone be imprinted directly into our heads, what about communication between devices, perhaps the BodyNet will be implemented
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Mike Zintel has an article on his blog which talks about .NET Compact Framework Advanced Memory Management – if you are new to .NET Compact Framework programming, or moving from C++ to C# (or VB.NET) then this article should be interesting for you.
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From NewsForge, what are the real vulnerabilities of Linux? – Here’s some extracts from the article. "The [Linux] users who use default settings or do not harden for security are increasingly at risk," Dunham said. "They don't harden against attack --
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I’ve just come straight from WE-DIG HQ (conveniently located in the Starbucks next to Barnes and Noble in Bellevue) – the WE-DIG meeting is usually held on the First Wednesday of the month, but for January we’re going to move to Wednesday
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Take a look at this article on OS News – the document describes “Today’s Geek”, see if you fit into the category or can at clearly be identified as a true Geek… – Mike
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I think the Motorola MPx is probably the ideal hybrid Pocket PC/Smartphone device, it’s a clamshell type device that can either be used as a phone, or hinge the lid in another direction and you get a usable keyboard for entry – anyhow, the
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We’ve been through one cycle of WE-DIG meetings covering Windows CE, Windows XP Embedded, Windows Mobile, and some miscellaneous topics (like location based server), we’ve structured the content to run in cycles, CE, XPE, Mobility. So, given
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Business Week have an interview with Robert Bach, talking about Microsoft’s Consumer Strategy. The article lists some of the devices that are now shipping that have Microsoft technology inside, this includes XBOX, Media Center PC, Media Center Extender,
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From eWeek , today Microsoft released the first release candidate of major security update for Windows Server 2003 – a 316MB download – this provides many of the features found in Windows XP Professional SP2 brought including protection against
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How bad is your spellink ? – if you want to disguise the fact that your spelling is pretty bad then you might be interested in using the English to 1337 converter (thanks to Chris Gray from the server team for the link). so, “Welcome to the
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I’ve been thinking about how Microsoft is viewed by customers and consumers of technology – when I was “growing up” in the technology industry (many years ago, in a place far, far away [cue Star Wars music]) there were some obvious
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Pocket PC devices use a touch screen for input, right ? – that sure used to be the case, at a recent mobility meeting I spotted a number of people using Pocket PC’s in Landscape Orientation and an external foldable keyboard to take notes – but you still
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At a student conference in France (November 17 2004), Bill Gates talks about Robotics – It will be interesting to see more robotics projects based on Windows CE and Windows XP Embedded – here’s the complete transcript MB : So universities are key players
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Ok, this is pretty wild, stare at the image below for a few seconds, you should be able to make out a Giraffe… – Mike
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This is taken from a 1954 “Popular Mechanics” magazine, 50 years ago the RAND Corporation built a prototype of how a Home Computer might look in the year 2004 (that’s about now, right?). At the time some of the required technologies were not available
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Just wanted to let you know that the Christmas spirit is alive and well, or at least was alive and well in the Starbucks opposite the Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Seattle today - I parked under the World Trade Building which just happens to have a Starbucks
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I’ve managed to get my hands on a .netcpu development system (SPOT Development System), I’m going to get this setup and working over the next few days, I will of course document the components that come with the development kit, and take a
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One of the attendees at tonights WE-DIG meeting was using an OQO device, this was running Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Office, and other desktop applications, the device is not much bigger than a Pocket PC [4.9 inches long, 3.4 inches wide, .9 inches
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at 9pm PST tonight two new Microsoft services come online, a Beta of MSN Messenger 7.0, and MSN Spaces MSN Spaces: More Than a Blog The MSN Spaces beta version is a free service available in 14 languages and 26 markets worldwide. MSN Spaces was designed
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Have you ever been away from home, trapped in a meeting, stuck in traffic, or whatever and knew that you were going to miss this weeks episode of Cops, Enterprise or whatever – if you