Rob Tiffany's Windows Mobile Accelerator : C#

Mobile Architecture Pocket Guide v1.1

robtiffany — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:01:00 GMT

Just wanted to let everyone know that version 1.1 of the Mobile Architecture Pocket Guide is now available on CodePlex at http://www.codeplex.com/AppArch/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=19798. This is the first patterns & practices update to this guide since 2002 so it's a welcome sight to to have it out there for all our Windows Mobile developers.

I've spent the last couple of months working with J.D. Meier, Rabi Satter, Rob Boucher and the rest of the P&P team to tune, tweak and update the new Mobile Architecture Pocket Guide to ensure that it's as accurate and relevant to today's Windows Mobile platform and runtimes as possible. The guide's chapters include:

Ch 01 > Mobile Application Architecture
Ch 02 > Architecture and Design Guidelines
Ch 03 > Presentation Layer Guidelines
Ch 04 > Business Layer Guidelines
Ch 05 > Data Access Layer Guidelines
Ch 06 > Service Layer Guidelines
Ch 07 > Communication Guidelines
Ch 08 > Deployment Patterns

Our goal is to empower our Windows Mobile developer community as much as possible, and while this guide may seem like it's targeted exclusively to developers, I ensured that the IT Pro side of the house is accommodated as well. Mobile infrastructure elements of this guide include System Center Mobile Device Manager (Deployment), SQL Server (Sync Services + Merge), IIS (Web Services + Sync + WCF), Exchange (WCF Store and Forward) and Active Directory (Auth).

Download it, take if for a spin, and give us your feedback so we can keep improving it.

- Rob

See you in Barcelona for Tech Ed EMEA Dev

robtiffany — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:14:00 GMT

Looking forward to seeing lots of familiar faces and meeting new ones starting December 10th at Tech Ed EMEA! While I ran the Windows Mobile track for Tech Ed North America last June in Orlando, this time around I'll just be delivering a couple of presentations and spending most of my time helping empower delegates to create incredible mobile applications. I'll be delivering the following breakout sessions:


	MBL301	What's New in the Windows Mobile Line of Business Solution Accelerator 2008	November 10 16:00 - 17:15	Room 121
This session walks through the new features that we have added to the Windows Mobile Line of Business Accelerator 2008; features such as adapting your application to any device or screen size with a single binary, sync services, store and forward, and advanced data access objects with Microsoft .NET CF 3.5.


	MBL310	Mobilize your Enterprise and Achieve Global Scalability with Windows Mobile and SQL Server Compact	November 11 15:15 - 16:30	Room 121
With the world's largest organizations rolling out tens of thousands of Windows Mobile devices to empower their respective workforces, the ability to create mobile line-of-business solutions that can support large user populations is critical. Based on his third book on Windows Mobile development, Rob Tiffany shows you how to take the Microsoft SQL Server data you use to run your organization and make it available to all your mobile employees. Utilizing the performance, scale-out, and filtering capabilities of Merge Replication Republishing, Rob shows you how to build an n-tier mobile synchronization architecture designed to scale to hundreds of thousands of devices. Take the guesswork out of mobilizing your enterprise by tapping into the experience of one of the world's foremost authorities on Windows Mobile infrastructure and development.

See you there!

- Rob

New Resco MobileForms Release for NETCF

robtiffany — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 05:19:00 GMT

Just in case all you mobile developers didn't hear, Resco has released Volume 3 of their MobileForms Toolkit 2008.

Resco MobileForms Toolkit contains:

Resco CustomKeyboard for .NET – flexible control supporting custom keyboard layouts
Resco SmartGrid for .NET - powerful grid control with built-in auto edit capabilities
Resco AdvancedList for .NET - professional list control suitable for small displays of mobile devices
Resco AdvancedTree for .NET - featured tree control excellent for displaying tree-organized data
Resco DetailView for .NET - elegant and quick way of creating user input forms
Resco CompactChart for .NET - charting control supporting 5 chart types
Resco OutlookShortcutBar for .NET - popular shortcut control, common to all modern applications
Resco OutlookWeekCalendar for .NET - day/Week appointment scheduling control
Resco OutlookMonthCalendar for .NET - month/Year scheduling control
Resco OutlookDateTimePicker for .NET - modern version of common control providing advanced styles
Resco InkBox for .NET - ink control suitable for quick notes or signatures
Resco ImageBox for .NET CF - versatile image control supporting various graphic formats
Resco ImageButton for .NET CF - adjustable, modifiable and skinnable button
Resco Audio for .NET CF - powerful library for playing and recording audio
Resco Zip for .NET - industry standard compression library

For more information about Resco MobileForms Toolkit, visit http://www.resco.net/developer/mobileformstoolkit/default.aspx.

Additionally, they'll be at Tech Ed EMEA in Barcelona exhibiting at booth E12 so please check them out to see if their controls meet your mobile development needs.

-Rob

Chapter 1 of my new Book is Ready!

robtiffany — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 04:12:00 GMT

Mobile Data Synchronization with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server Compact > Second Edition

Achieving Global Scalability via Merge Replication Republishing

Download and review the PDF from my Windows Live SkyDrive @

http://cid-8b9c82da88af61fc.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Sync/Ch%201.pdf

The new book shows you how to scale out your Merge Replication Architecture with Republishing. It's chock full of new insight to show you how to get the most performance and scalability out of your system. It also shows you how to make replication Subscriptions available to the Internet via ISA Server 2006 or System Center Mobile Device Manager.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Best Regards,

Rob

Listen to Rob's Windows Mobile Interview on .NET Rocks!

robtiffany — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:07:00 GMT

I was recently interviewed by Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell who run one of the Internet's most popular developer sites, .NET Rocks! You can catch the interview at http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=384 where you can either listen to it live via the website, or download it to your favorite device to listen later.

I cover the current state of Windows Mobile + the entire ecosystem including OEMs, Mobile Operators, developers and who does what within Microsoft's Mobile Commications Business in Redmond and the Mobile Development Center in Hyderabad. I take Carl and Richard on a deep dive of our latest mobile development technologies and techniques with the .NET Compact Framework, SQL Server Compact, and WCF Store and Forward just to name a few. I also cover all the features of System Center Mobile Device Manager including OTA software distribution, Group Policies, Mobile VPN security and Domain join.

Download it and give it a listen

- Rob

Welcome to the New Windows Mobile Developer Center

robtiffany — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:21:00 GMT

A quick glance at the Windows Mobile Developer Center clues you in to the fact that we’ve done a complete overhaul of the site. For years, our “bread and butter” has been delivering you content on Smart Device Development which most often included articles on building apps with the .NET Compact Framework and SQL Server CE/Mobile/Everywhere/Compact. While we will still do that, we’re now making a concerted effort to expand the diversity of our content to cover an ever-growing mobile developer audience.

The biggest thing you notice when you come to the site is 4 big boxes. Think of these as 4 concurrently running worker threads delivering more content on more topics than ever before.

1. From the “Applications for Smart Devices” box, you’ll see content that targets native, managed, and SQL Server Compact topics. Don’t worry. It won’t be 100% enterprise development 24/7 anymore. We’ll tackle more and more consumer scenarios like Peter Foot did recently with his article on Mobile Facebook. We’ll also go the other direction too and provide content on working with low-level APIs with C++. And yes, we’ll even start talking about creating better device drivers.

2. The “Mobile Web” box will unleash wave after wave of new content that covers the explosion that some are calling “Mobile 2.0.” You’ll learn the nuts and bolts of building web sites designed for mobile devices as we talk about things like the new .MOBI standards, W3C Mobile Web best practices and the XHTML Mobile Profile. Don’t forget AJAX on Internet Explorer Mobile. Jim Wilson and Mel Sampat have blown everyone away with their coverage of AJAX on our favorite mobile platform.

3. In the “Mobile Games” box we’ll resurrect a topic that we used to give a lot of coverage to several years ago. Based on the way this segment of the market is taking off, teaching you how to build games for Windows Mobile devices could turn out to be just as important as the work we’ve done in teaching you how to build mobile apps for the enterprise. We do in fact have a portable gaming runtime for all our devices called Direct3D Mobile that can be programmed via another portable runtime called the .NET Compact Framework. We also have Direct Draw or you could just chill out and create a casual 2D game with simple Sprites using NETCF and maybe a little GDI+.

4. The “Rich Internet Applications” box is a bit of a mystery and looks to be pretty vacant place at the moment. Don’t think of it like you would an “Under Construction” web site. Think of it as the big tease that it is. Who knows for sure what’s to come in the RIA space for Windows Mobile devices?

Now that I’ve covered the 4 big boxes, take a look at the “Getting Started with Windows Mobile” section on the top-right hand side of the page. This place is a tour de force of readiness to get you going with Windows Mobile development. Labs, Webcasts, Videos, Solution Accelerators, Wiki’s, SDK’s, runtimes, and Power Toys oh my!

Stay on the right side of the page and drop one section down to give props to our Device Application Developer MVPs. We all owe so much to these great folks! They single-handedly created the Windows Mobile developer community back at the beginning of this decade by answering questions in the NETCF newsgroup, writing books, speaking at conferences (with the highest scores) and creating amazing organizations like OpenNETCF.org. They also identify a disproportionally greater number of bugs in our beta software than any other individual or group.

If you move back beneath the main boxes on the page, you’ll see a section on the left that completely displays the content of the latest Windows Mobile Team Blog. The section on the right displays the latest blog posts from Jim Wilson, Loke Uei, Me, Visual Studio for Devices, the NETCF team, the SQL Server Compact team, Steve Lasker, Jason Langridge, Mel Sampat, Constanze Roman, and Frank Prengel. The real-time information delivered by these blogs will keep you abreast of the latest developments in the Windows Mobile community.

Last but not least is a section at the bottom that lists all the Forums that help make up the Windows Mobile ecosystem. Get answers to some of your toughest questions from Microsoft employees and the community at large whether you’re building apps with C++, C#, VB, and/or SQL Server Compact.

As a Mobile Developer, Architect, Marketer, Planner and former Embedded MVP, it’s been my vision to create a one-stop resource for all my Windows Mobile needs. I believe this new Windows Mobile Developer Center is a big step in that direction. The multiple, concurrent streams of content that follows the launch of this new site will represent the proof in the pudding. It’s been my great pleasure to deliver fresh content on a monthly basis to the Windows Mobile developer community. As always, I look forward to your feedback so that I can better equip you with the information you need to get your job done.

Best Regards,

Rob Tiffany

Yes, We Can Scale to 1,200 Concurrent Subscribers!

robtiffany — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 07:28:00 GMT

Yet again, I've doubled the number of concurrent Subscribers to 1,200 where each Subscriber is equivalant to a Windows Mobile device. I used 6 servers running 200 Subscribers each to create client load, plus 3 load-balanced IIS servers, and a separate SQL Server Distributor and Publisher. Each IIS server had its MAX_THREAD_PER_POOL registry setting set to 10 and had to handle 400 concurrent Subscribers. With 1,200 concurrent Subscribers contending for resources on every tier, the system performed 10,693 syncs per hour, which is half the 22,401 syncs per hour that I saw when running 600 Subscribers back at the Partner Summit. That being said, the system held steady at the number of rows it could change and replicate per hour:

Rows changed: 12,831,600 per hour | 307,958,400 per day
Bytes per row: 116
Data replicated: 1.42 GB per hour | 34 GB per day

The longest and average sync times jumped significantly over the results I got with 600 concurrent Subscribers:

Longest sync time: 17 minutes
Shortest sync time: .5 seconds
Average sync time: 6 minutes, 38 seconds

Just like in Vegas and at the Partner Summit, the IIS and SQL Servers are chilling out throughout this test with the IIS servers and Distributor using more memory:

IIS1: CPU: 8% | Mem: 229 MB | Network Utilization: 1%
IIS2: CPU: 14% | Mem: 225 MB | Network Utilization: 1%
IIS3: CPU: 8% | Mem: 226 MB | Network Utilization: .89%
SQL Distributor: CPU: 5% | Mem: 2.95 GB | Network Utilization: .32%
SQL Publisher: CPU: 36% | Mem: 4.12 GB | Network Utilization: 1%

The obvious takeaway from this test is that we can scale to 1,200 concurrent Subscribers but we're no longer sustaining an upward curve in performance. In fact, the curve has started heading downward. Does performance always head northward in a linear fashion forever in other systems? Of course not, so don't be bummed. I think a system that can change and replicate almost 14 million rows per hour while accomodating 1,200 Subscribers that are making 1,200 row changes per sync is pretty incredible! Remember, real-world systems don't have each Windows Mobile device make 1,200 rows changes every time they sync. My portable data center and test harness is designed to dramatically exceed what one would see in the real world!

I might be crazy, but I don't want to give up on pushing the performance of this system higher without a fight! Therefore, I'm going to run this test again with 1,200 concurrent Subscribers, except next time I'll use 6 IIS servers. If you remember, I didn't just double the number of Subscribers replicating against SQL Server, I also doubled the number of Subscribers hitting each IIS server. I went from 200 to 400. By adding 3 more IIS servers, I'll be backing the number of Subscribers per IIS server down to 200 again. Don't be fooled by those low CPU numbers on the 3 IIS servers. The ISAPI DLL gets all it can handle long before you begin to stress the server as a whole. Also, reading to and writing from all those .IN and .OUT files creates a lot of I/O. Stay tuned to see what happens...

- Rob

Windows Mobile Partner Summit Day 1

robtiffany — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:16:00 GMT

The Windows Mobile Partner Summit is going great and the event looks to be twice as big as last year. It's always nice to reconnect with our partner community. Steve Hegenderfer was kind enough to allow me to bring my rack of servers to his event. This time, I have a much lighter, 24U half rack which is much easier to move around. At the Dev Connections conference, I used a new stress test designed to push the number of row changes per sync. At that event, I used 300 concurrent Subscribers to perform 23,330 syncs per hour and make changes to 7,000,000 rows per hour. Each complete row change consisted of 116 bytes of data which meant I changed and replicated 812 MB of data per hour.

This time around I decided to double the number of concurrent Subscribers to 600. Keep in mind that each Subscriber is equivalant to a Windows Mobile device. I used 6 servers running 100 Subscribers each to create client load, 3 load-balanced IIS servers, and a separate SQL Server Distributor and Publisher. With 600 concurrent Subscribers contending for resources, I managed to perform 22,401 syncs per hour which is slightly fewer syncs than I saw when running only 300 Subscribers back in Vegas. The important story here is that I almost doubled the number of rows I changed and replicated per hour:

Rows changed: 13,440,600 per hour | 322,574,400 per day
Data replicated: 1.45 GB per hour | 34.8 GB per day

Just like in Vegas, the IIS and SQL Servers where just chilling out throughout this test:

IIS1: CPU: 7% | Mem: 188 MB | Network Utilization: .69%
IIS2: CPU: 8% | Mem: 187 MB | Network Utilization: .88%
IIS3: CPU: 5% | Mem: 185 MB | Network Utilization: .95%
SQL Distributor: CPU: 5% | Mem: 994 MB | Network Utilization: .77%
SQL Publisher: CPU: 36% | Mem: 4.11 GB | Network Utilization: 1%

This is truly incredible and further proves that SQL Server 2005 + SQL Server Compact 3.1 + Merge Replication is the most powerful data sync technology on the market today.

- Rob

New Mobile Merge Replication Benchmarks

robtiffany — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:02:00 GMT

I just finished up a week of teaching attendees at the Dev Connections conference how to setup and use mobile merge replication to sync data between their Windows Mobile devices and SQL Server 2005. As usual, I brought along my favorite teaching tool, my portable data center, to take attendees on deep dives of the 4 different tiers of my replication architecture. This time around, I changed the way my stress test harness works. In the past, my goal has always been to see how many Subscribers I could connect to the system at the same time. With the new test, I'm stressing the system to a much greater degree with my software to push the envelope in regards to how many table row changes I can make per hour.

With an eye towards the stress testing system that has helped give iAnywhere's ASA database and MobiLink replication server a dominant market position, I built a similar test where the amount of data in each row changed is exactly 116 bytes each time. I think the iAnywhere stress test used 92 byte rows. I used 3 servers to create client load, 3 load-balanced IIS servers, and a separate SQL Server Distributor and Publisher. The results I got from my test harness performing 23,330 syncs per hour are nothing short of spectacular:

Rows changed: 7,000,000 per hour | 168,000,000 per day
Data replicated: 812 MB per hour | 19.4 GB per day

Now check out how the IIS and SQL Servers where just chilling out throughout this test:

IIS1: CPU: 5% | Mem: 216 MB | Network Utilization: .44%
IIS2: CPU: 7% | Mem: 147 MB | Network Utilization: .13%
IIS3: CPU: 8% | Mem: 170 MB | Network Utilization: .42%
SQL Distributor: CPU: 5% | Mem: 2.15 GB | Network Utilization: .58%
SQL Publisher: CPU: 17% | Mem: 4.25 GB | Network Utilization: 1%

Not bad! Thanks to Loke Uei, we were also able to give away 300 copies of my new book that walks you through the construction of this scalable mobile merge replication system. Lots of Windows Mobile developers and IT Pros are now empowered to "mobilize" their organization's data out to mobile field personnel. Just as important, they can take the proof back to their respective organizations that this technology is build to perform and scale!

I'm just getting started with this new test harness. Come to the Windows Mobile Partner Summit in December to see me push this system even further and break new replication records!

- Rob

Chapter 1: Getting Started with Merge Replication

robtiffany — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 08:54:00 GMT

The non-linear fashion by which I've been writing this book reminds me of the way Pulp Fiction jumps around. Chapter 1 is ready to go so you can get started with Merge Replication for Windows Mobile devices. In addition to obvious technology walkthroughs, I also decided to add a bunch of scenarios that illustrate how mobile data synchronization can add tangible business value to existing endeavors.

The book is called "Windows Mobile Data Synchronization with SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server Compact 3.1" and it's being published by Hood Canal Press. Click on Chapter1.pdf below to download Chapter 1 on getting started with Merge Replication.

Book Review: Microsoft Mobile Development Handbook

robtiffany — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 01:40:00 GMT

Best Windows Mobile Development Book Ever Written!

Trust me, I've read them all going back to 2001 and I've written two of them myself. This is as broad and deep as it gets when it comes to managed code development on Windows Mobile. This should come as no surprise as it was written by the Windows Mobile MVP "Dream Team" of Andy Wigley, Peter Foot and Daniel "The Moth" Moth (now at Microsoft). Not only is this one of the first books to cover the .NET Compact Framework 2.0 and SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition, it even gives the reader coverage of Visual Studio 2008, and .NET Compact Framework 3.5 technologies such as WCF, LINQ, Compression, and "on-device" Unit Tests.

This book provides superb coverage of Security Programming where it shows the reader how to encrypt data with AES and RSA plus the signing of exe's and dll's. If you're interesting developing games or UI's that can't be created with the controls found in the Visual Studio Toolbox, the two chapters on Graphics and Direct3D Mobile are unparalleled. As someone who has a personal interest in the sucess of games on Windows Mobile using the .NET Compact Framework as a consistent game development runtime, this book serves as the launch pad for such endeavors. Whether you're an ISV looking to build the next killer app, a corporate developer tasked with mobilizing your line of business applications, a consultant that needs to aquire mobile development skills, or a game development house looking to take advantage of the explosive growth of the Windows Mobile platform, I highly recommend you get this book!

-Rob

The new book is underway...

robtiffany — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 01:26:00 GMT

As some of you know, I've been building and piecing together the documentation necessary to build out a scalable merge replication architecture for your Windows Mobile devices. If you've been to MEDC 2007 in Las Vegas or Tech Ed 2007 in Orlando, you may have stopped at my booth where I demonstrated a 4-Tier merge replication architecture with 800 subscribers synchronizing simultaneously. You might also have worked through my hands-on lab to see how to construct much of this architecture in a Virtual PC.

Now that I'm taking some time off at the beach this summer, I'm putting together all the best practices, how-to's, and step-by-step instructions so you can build a highly performant and scalable data synchronization architecture for your organization. This will be my 3rd book covering the constantly evolving Windows Mobile platform. This one will be different in that it won't be as developer-focused as the previous two and will instead empower the IT Professional.

The title will be:

"Windows Mobile Data Synchronization with SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server Compact 3.1"

The tentative chapter list is as follows:

Introduction
Domain Security
Configure the Distributor
Configure the Publisher
Configure Web Synchronization
Build the Client
Ongoing Maintenance

I expect the first draft to be completed by the end of July.

Rob

Book Review: Professional Microsoft Smartphone Programming

robtiffany — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 06:18:00 GMT

A collegue of mine, Pei Zheng, who works in OEM Services for Mobility at Microsoft recently dropped off a new book he wrote with Baijian Yang and Lionel Ni. It's titled "Professional Microsoft Smartphone Progamming" and it's published by Wiley Publishing under the Wrox imprint. This may very well be the first book written about developing for the Windows Mobile Smartphone platform with the .NET Compact Framework 2.0.

I appreciate how the book tackles issues surrounding Smartphone-specific topics like UI design and flow. The authors discuss things like how to create and navigate a multi-form app as well as how to deal with things like T9 input mode, keyboard input and working with soft keys.

The authors do a great job on the device and application security front by covering topics like application signing, privileged and unprivileged apps, trusted apps, and security policies. They even walk the reader through the certificate management lifecycle including obtaining certificates, signing apps, and then using XML provisioning files to provision a device. The book then goes on to provide in-depth coverage of data encryption on the device with algorithms like AES 256 and data protection over the wire with TLS.

One of my favorite chapters goes after Performance issues with guns blazing! They point to the .NET Compact Framework Performance Counters which can now be read in real-time with the Remote Performance Monitor as the best way to monitor what's going on under the hood of your application. The authors then drill into CLR performance categories like garbage collection, call overhead, math, reflection, and the use of Generics. Performance and memory management are two of the most important issues to deal with in Windows Mobile application development and it's great to see these topics get full coverage here. I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone interested in diving into the world of Window Mobile Standard/Smartphone development.

Rob

Windows Mobile 6 Line of Business Integration

robtiffany — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 02:32:00 GMT

In the beginning, Windows Mobile could sync a Pocket Access database with Access on the desktop over ActiveSync. Today, the Swiss Army Knife of Integration that is Windows Mobile 6 can communicate with almost anything. Windows Mobile 6 can communicate directly with any enterprise package or hosted service that supports Web Services, HTTP (Name/Value Pairs | REST | POX), ADO.NET or Sockets as long as it can be reached via Cradle, WLAN, or WWAN.

Leveraging a mature network and security infrastructure along with the Microsoft server stack, Windows Mobile 6 can further extend its reach as shown in the diagram above. It can use Remote Data Access or Merge Replication to synchronize data with SQL Server. That same data can be synched with Oracle via Transactional Replication. The same Exchange Active Sync technology that facilitates push email, allows Windows Mobile 6 to access UNC shares and SharePoint documents. Utilizing BizTalk 2006 Adapters allows Windows Mobile 6 to integrate with enterprise packages such as SAP, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and countless others while providing Single Sign-On.

The big takeaway from all this is that Windows Mobile 6 is a line of business development platform with no equal in the mobile device space. Whether you're looking to build a point solution or a comprehensive system that utilizes BizTalk to aggregate multiple enterprise packages; Windows Mobile 6, Visual Studio 2005, and the Microsoft server stack will take you there. Make sure and join me for an in-depth discussion of this topic at Tech Ed 2007 in Orlando.

Rob

The Mobile Line of Business Solution Accelerator is Live!

robtiffany — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 03:18:00 GMT

If you're looking for resources to give you a head start in building a Windows Mobile line of business application to deploy in your enterprise, look no further than http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=80a5c2c5-4f9b-4c1a-bff6-2a3c6b68d15b&displaylang=en. Covering the use of Visual Studio 2005, the .NET Compact Framework 2.0, C#, Windows Mobile 5.0, SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition (SSCE), this kit illustrates the best development practices in the following areas:

Supporting various device UI's through Docking and Anchoring.
Utilizing Error Logging to capture application exceptions for later analysis.
Bringing desktop-style XML Application Settings to the Compact Framework.
Enforcing the use of Application Layers to promote loose-coupling and flexibility.

UI Layer - UI components, navigation, input validation and communications only with the Business Layer.
Business Layer - Services and Business Entities.
Data Layer - Classes that communicate with SSCE, the file system, and the network.

Data Access In-Depth

High-speed data retrieval from SSCE.
Hydrating Business Objects and populating strongly-typed Collections.
Data Binding Collections to UI components.

Merge Replication

Describes how to build a scalable, multi-server solution that utilizes Active Directory.
Enforces security best practices through the use of reduced-privilege Domain user accounts.
How to reduce bandwidth needs by reducing the number of objects in a published Article.
Marking lookup tables as Download-only to eliminate tracking metadata.
Selecting Column-level tracking to reduce merge conflicts.
How to create Static Filters to reduce the amount of data going out to all Subscribers.
How to create Parameterized Filters to reduce the amount of data going out to specific Subscribers.
Create a secure mobile Subscription inside the SQL Server Management Studio.
Includes a SQL Server 2005 database to get started with in a lab.

Learn about Custom Control development by creating a Signature Capture Control.
Using a Singleton to cache frequently used objects.
Making your mobile application Network-Aware via the SystemState object in order for it to make intelligent decisions regarding communications with network resources.
Utilizing Splash Screens to occupy and inform the user while your application is loading.
Adding Help to each of your application's screens via a hyperlink in order to educate your users and reduce support calls.
Inform your users of important application events through the use of Notification Balloons (Toast).
Communicate with the MapPoint Web Service in order to retrieve maps and directions to a mobile device.
Learn how to build a CAB project in order to deploy your application to the field.

The kit contains a fully-functioning Mobile Supply Chain application with over 5,000 lines of commented code to help boost your understanding of Windows Mobile development. It also includes a Visio diagram that illustrates the architecture of the Supply Chain application.