Jason Langridge has posted information and links on two new mobility webcasts planned for this December. They’ll take place on December 11 and 12, with the 12th’s webcast focusing on an Office 2007 / Vista sneak peak. Neat stuff.
“Do you think you’ve got what it takes to educate developers, device makers, business & marketing decision makers and IT Professionals on delivering compelling devices, experiences, and cool applications? Well, Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded Developer Conference might be your chance to prove it. We’re looking for experienced conference presenters who have built and deployed mobile devices and applications to come and share their best practices and tips and tricks at MEDC 2007…The Microsoft MEDC team invites you to submit proposals to speak in the conference breakout sessions. MEDC is one of Microsoft’s most important annual technical training events, and our speaker selection process is extremely rigorous to ensure that attendees experience outstanding quality technical training. Successful proposals will be technical presentations that target best practices and tips & tricks, delivered by experts with significant and highly-rated speaking experience.”
Papers, and their corresponding conferences, are one of the best-accepted ways of disseminating information, and if you’ve done some interesting and important mobile development work, here’s your chance to both add to your resume and give back to the development community. Hit the link above if you’re interested. 
“Microsoft Corp. today unveiled new technologies that enable developers to build next-generation interactive applications for Windows Vista?, the 2007 Microsoft® Office system and the Web. The new technologies are designed to help developers build Web services and connected, service-oriented applications that deliver the levels of security, reliability and differentiation that business and consumers expect. ?With the release of Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system, the sky is really the limit on what developers can build ? from applications that deliver advanced data visualization to highly connected line-of-business solutions,? said Scott Guthrie, general manager of the Developer Division at Microsoft, during his keynote speech at the Visual Studio® Connections event. ?By embracing trends such as AJAX and delivering new technologies for Windows® and Microsoft Office, we are opening the door to entirely new levels of innovation in the software industry while still allowing developers to use their existing skill sets.?
A bevy of Developer news in Microsoft’s latest press release. Specifically, the announcement of .NET 3.0 and VS extensions, as well as progress on AJAX. Time to gear up for new technologies!
“SYWARE, Inc., a leading developer of mobile database development tools for business and personal productivity, today announced the world wide release of Visual CE 10, a major new release of its award winning mobile database development tool. The new release significantly extends the capabilities of Visual CE and its drag-and-drop desktop development environment, which enables both business professionals and developers to easily create Windows Mobile based applications with little or no programming.”
SYWARE has just released a new version of their Visual CE development system, so if you haven’t looked recently and are curious about the benefits of this type of programming, head over to their site and take a peek!
Microsoft released the files that were given to attendees of the Mobile and Embedded Devices Convention 2006 earlier this month and if you’re in the mood to download several gigabytes of information, it may be worth checking out. Some neat videos and other assorted information are to be had, all for an incrediably reasonable price of FREE.
“Here are some desktop keyboard shortcuts you can use on the Device Emulator. Learning these keys should make debugging your Windows Mobile applications a lot faster! If you’re not a developer but simply interested in playing around with Windows Mobile, you can always download the free standalone emulator to take our OS for a test drive.”
Microsoft’s Windows Mobile emulators are great for both developers and end-users, but using them can fast become an annoyance without keyboard shortcuts. Mel’s post over at the Windows Mobile Team Blog lists the useful ones, so hopefully, you will no longer be tied down to your mouse for 100% of the tasks that you have to perform.
“Seattle, WASHINGTON, October 11, 2006 - Volantis, the world’s leading supplier of Intelligent Content Adaptation? solutions for the Mobile Information Age, today announced the availability of Volantis’ Mobile Content Framework 4.0. Volantis’ new release significantly improves mobile Internet browsing through dynamic web applications, providing a unique and rich browsing experience. Framework 4.0 represents the Company’s most recent initiative to achieving its vision of Web technologies as a ubiquitous platform supporting advanced applications for both fixed and mobile devices.”
Another day, another mobile framework 
I wonder how many developers actually use third-party tools vs. how many simply use the Microsoft provided solutions. Third-party is obviously more expensive, but do provide more rapid development. I’m wondering what the average ratio between price & speed of development is!
“We’ve just updated the Windows Mobile 5.0 SDK Documentation, with lots of key information for developers targetting the Pocket PC and Smartphone. You can either use Visual Studio 2005’s built-in Help system (make sure Online Help is the preference), or visit the MSDN page”
Updated information is always good. John Kennedy’s blog (linked in the source) has more information on exactly what is up to date in this new version of the SDK Documentation if you’re interested. If not, just have the piece of mind that more information is now available!
Jason Langridge (in his posts on the professional exam and on the developer’s exam) has let it be known that the betas are back on, so if you’re interested in taking either exam and missed it the first time, check out his page for details. Offer good until around the beginning of November, so act fast!
“I’ve had a number of questions come through on e-mail about the recently announced Windows Embedded CE 6.0 RTM (Release to Manufacturing), many of the questions relate to Windows Mobile and are asking questions like “Since you have just announced Windows Embedded CE 6.0 will Windows Mobile Smartphone have a word application?”. The Windows Embedded CE 6.0 release is for embedded developers, this is not a Windows Mobile release. I’d like to just take a couple of seconds to explain what that means.”
CE & Windows Mobile are different, yet similar. Want to know the exact info? Check out this article!
“There was an announcement made this week about Visual Studio 2005 SP1 and support for Vista. In a nutshell, SP1 won’t resolve all the issues of running VS on Vista. However, I want to point out that if you’re developing Windows Mobile applications, there isn’t much to worry about. I’ve been using Visual Studio on Vista for months now, developing and debugging both managed and native applications. Apart from a few setup issues, everything works great. The minor setup issues have workarounds that were mentioned on the VSD blog a while back. I’ve been told by the VSD team that these issues will be also fixed in SP1 instead of the post-Vista update, so that’s great news.”
Mel Sampat has released a video and info on Visual Studio 2005’s compatibility with Vista. In a nutshell, it sounds like you’ll have a few work-arounds to implement, but nothing horribly bad if you want to take the Vista plunge. Personally, I’m waiting until Vista is released before playing with it - beta testing is not for the faint of heart or for those with limited play time. I fall in the the latter category!
“This preview release of Adobe® Flash® Lite? 2.1 for Windows Mobile 5.0, planned for release later this year, allows mobile developers to create Flash Lite applications and content for both Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone and Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC configurations. Mobile developers can now benefit from cross-platform development since Flash Lite 2.1 for BREW is also based on Flash Lite 2.1 and allows repurposing of content and applications with minimal changes for another platform. Flash Lite 2.1 is based on the Flash 7 standard for content. This means that content developed in the Flash 7 authoring environment can be re-purposed for mobile and consumer electronic devices.”
If you’ve been toying with Flash Lite, here’s a chance to grab the latest developer preview for Windows Mobile 5.0. Flash Lite 2.1 Preview includes support for dynamic XML data, persistent data, powerful and dynamic media, text enhancements, ActionScript 2.0, synchronised device audio, and compressed SWF files. There’s a messy process of player activation and it requires a device IMEI, so it looks like standalone PDAs are out of this one. 
“ITTIA, developer of database software for embedded systems and mobile handheld devices, today announced the availability of version 1.1 of ITTIA DB, its flagship database. New features include an enhanced C API, improved performance and additional configuration options. In this release, the powerful C API is now the primary interface to ITTIA DB and the C++ API has been rewritten to use only C API calls, allowing it to be compiled separately or omitted when not needed. Now compilers from multiple vendors are compatible with a single DLL library release. In addition, the C API supports three kinds of data bindings, absolute, relative, and managed, providing efficient methods for applications to retrieve data while supporting full dynamic alteration of the database schema. Additional control has been added over storage size for each data type, allowing for more compact database files. Also, the interface for accessing binary large object (BLOB) data has been improved, providing an easy way to store data that is larger than available memory.”
ITTIA DB has been updated, designed to be sleeker and a bit quicker. ITTIA is one of a small number of third-party database systems developers can utilize when building a data-driven program. Any ITTIA users out there?
“The SpiderUI Developer’s Suite is a collection of navigational and UI controls that are designed for .NET developers who write Pocket PC applications. Only your competitors will fear the SpiderUI Developer’s Suite!”
The SpiderUI Suite has been around for a bit, and it looks like a snazzy and low-priced way to liven up your application. $34.99 for a license until Halloween, then it’s back to its normal price of $49.99
“PPL is a fast and easy-to-learn programming language that is fully object-oriented. PPL runs on all PocketPCs and PC’s. Programs written for one system are 100% compatible with each supported platforms. PPL comes with a complete development environment on the PC and PocketPC allowing you to develop anywhere from your PDA. Write high quality games in no time using our easy-to-use GameAPI that incorporates physics, isometric display support, pixel-perfect collision detection and so much more… Design forms visually on your PDA or desktop computer with the visual form builder. Edit components properties and code events within the same interface. PPL has been in active development for more than two years now. It has been beta tested by hundreds of people all over the world. PPL has proven to be very stable, many projects have been developed with it and some are being sold right now even using a beta version of PPL.”
A fairly interesting object-oriented programming language for Pocket PC and available for other platforms as well. Starting at $39.95, the pricing isn’t too bad either!
“Windows Mobile is more than email. Windows Mobile lets you re-use your existing infrastructure, business logic and desktop code on a mobile device, to innovate and solve new business problems. By leveraging the familiar.NET programming language and Visual Studio development environment, you can use your existing development skills, and push corporate data out to your users in situations where a desktop or laptop solution is not feasible.”
For the developers out there that want to learn more about various technologies, Microsoft has released 6 new virtual labs including labs on SQL CE, security, multi-threaded apps, and more.
“Today I’m pleased to announce ScreenLib, a new library for native Windows Mobile developers. It takes away a lot of the pain of designing user interfaces for multiple screen sizes, orientations, form factors etc. It lets you create a user interface once and have it automatically adapt to whatever the device’s screen size is at runtime. By doing this, it offers basic docking & anchoring support for native development and can do a lot of UI plumbing work with just 1 or 2 lines of code. ScreenLib works on Pocket PC and Smartphone devices, so it’s a great step towards creating single binaries that will run on both platforms.”
Libraries, especially UI libraries, can be quite costly. ScreenLib is FREE, so cost isn’t a worry for us poorer developers! The automatic adapt feature should make our lives easier when developing for multiple machines and screen layouts!
“MicroCharts enables you to understand complex relationships in your data with sparklines. Sparklines are tiny charts with an intensity of visual distinctions comparable to words and letters invented by information design guru Edward Tufte. Placed in an Excel cell this format allows fast effective parallel comparisons.”
Somewhere between the time you start a project and the time you get annoyed with it, you invariably have the problem of failing to see the big picture or even a subset of the big picture! MicroCharts by Bonavista Systems seems to provide some answers to atleast help the visual learners among us see the grand scheme of things!
“The next meeting of the Windows Mobile Developer Virtual User Group (?WMDVUG?) will be held on Wednesday, September 20th from 12 Noon - 2 PM EDT. You can register for this Live Meeting event at the Microsoft Events web site. … Whether you were first introduced to .NET via the Compact Framework / Windows Mobile or via the full .NET Framework on the PC, it may make sense to share your code assets between the two platforms. In this session we will explore when you should be doing this and when not. We will then explore the options available (e.g. directly sharing binaries or conditional compilation) and drill into problems and workarounds. This will include framework differences, platform/OS differences, optimal usage of Visual Studio 2005 and how things have improved since NETCF v1.”
The next meeting of the WMDVUG looks to be interesting for new developers as well as seasoned vets alike. Plus, it lets you experience a Live Meeting, in case you were curious about that MS product but hadn’t had a chance to see it in action!
“Mobility Connections is new this year from the DevConnections folks and this year, will feature updated Mobile content from the Mobile PC and Windows Mobile groups here at Microsoft. You’ll also be able to take a look at the new tools and platforms that we’ll be releasing pretty soon. (can’t talk much about it now). So sign up now and make sure you’re there to get your first taste of what’s to come in the Mobility space.”
Another year, another developer convention in Vegas! This one, while not targeted solely to Windows Mobile, will give a chance to those developers and companies that want to market to mobile (or portable) devices in general a chance to meet and learn. Anyone planning on attending?
“Basic4ppc is the easiest and most affordable way to develop applications for Pocket PC / Windows Mobile devices. Basic4ppc Version 3 released! Compiles to Windows / Device executables (EXE files). Built-in database support.”
I posted on Basic4PPC in the past, however with a new version and a limited time offer on pricing, now may be a good time to look into it again if you were intrigued the first time!
“Windows Mobile supports an increasing variety of screen resolutions and orientations. Here you’ll find the latest news, guidance, and tools to make it easier to Adapt Your App and keep your applications running on the latest device displays.”
There were simpler times. Times when Microsoft kept ODMs on a rather restrictive leash when it came to Pocket PCs. Times when you could count on QVGA resolutions, set screen sizes, and other things. Well, those times are over. And if you want to keep your apps competitive, you may want to check out Microsoft’s Adapt your App resources. Otherwise, your app may look like the early screenshots of Calendar on a VGA screen. (To get the reference, grab your trusty copy of Pocket PC Magazine and see the November 2005 issue, page 68. Suffice to say, it’s not pretty!)
“I posted yesterday about the MCP exams we are creating for Windows Mobile Want to become a Windows Mobile Certified Professional- Well Loke Uei has just posted more details on the exam and how to sign up for the Beta exam itself!”
Jason Langridge has posted a nice write-up chalk full of links regarding the new MCP exams that will allow you to become certified on Windows Mobile. Hopefully if you decide to take this MCP exam you’ll find it useful in your career (Unlike one of my electives, ISA Server 2000, that no place I worked decided to implement until version 2004 was released!). I’ve found that employers can be really amazed by the MCP credential, so if you’ve got the knowledge, get the cert!
“I’ve received a lot of questions over the last while as to how the Windows Mobile shell handles low memory on both Pocket PC and Smartphone and I thought it’s about time somebody gave a decent explanation as to how the shell handles this situation. This is mostly an FYI post but hopefully if you’re writing an app for Windows Mobile you’ll also stop and consider how well your app will behave when confronted by a device running low on resources. To start, low memory is a very important consideration to take into account when dealing with a resource constrained device such as a Pocket PC or Smartphone (or any other embedded device for that matter). Unlike the desktop we don’t have a large source of memory to tap and no virtual memory (since we don’t require a device to have secondary storage that we could swap memory out to) so a device can quickly get into a state where most of the available memory is in use.”
Some interesting tidbits of information on memory management on your Pocket PC have been posted on the Windows Mobile Team Blog, with ramifications for building your apps to be more memory sensitive.
“VistaDB 3 is the world’s first fully managed and typesafe SQL database engine designed specifically for the Microsoft .NET Framework, Compact Framework environments, Mono and the upcoming release of Microsoft Windows Vista. This page is provided to inform developers about VistaDB 3 key features, benefits and design goals. Most of the features listed on this page are currently code complete in the recently released Community Technology Preview (CTP). … To maximize integration into the .NET Framework, Compact Framework, 64-bit .NET Framework and Mono, VistaDB 3 has been completely redesigned and redeveloped using Visual C# to be fully managed and typesafe.”
VistaDB is an alternative to other database frameworks that you may be exploring for your applications. Unlike competitors such as Microsoft SQL Everywhere, VistaDB does come with a price tag attached. However for the feature set, the asking price seems reasonable. Hopefully the recent growth of this area means we can expect to see more feature-rich database driven applications in Windows Mobile’s future!