Rob Tiffany's Windows Mobile Accelerator : Custom Controls

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

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

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