I learned my lesson, I need to do a better job of scheduling my travels as to not interfere with Florida code camps. It sounds like much beer was drank and a good time was had by all.
Credit @devfish for, ah, snapping the picture
Next on the agenda is Orlando Code Camp http://www.orlandocodecamp.com/. I heard a rumor that there might even be a room dedicated for Windows Phone 7 Series. See you all there!
-twb
I just deployed a sample page at http://www.wimo-gf.net/gotballs.htm to demonstrate 
a non-trivial application built on top of WiMo-GF. This sample runs on:
You can download a CAB file to install the Windows Mobile version and if you have XNA SDK along with the Zune HD extensions you can download the Zune HD version. In addition you can download the source code from http://wimogf.codeplex.com look for the sample labeled Collisions.
Now that I’m fairly happy with the rendering engine, I’m going to submit the Windows Phone version of GotBalls! to Marketplace for Windows Phone and make sure that games created with WiMo-GF can get approved. Then the fun will begin!
WiMo-GF is an open source framework for building casual games to target mobile devices. WiMo-GF is available at http://wimogf.codeplex.com and is currently in Alpha.
Ping me on twitter at @ByteMaster if you want to get involved.
-twb
Just before Christmas, I dropped my Verizon Touch Pro 2 running a new shiny build of Windows Mobile 6.5.3 in the ocean. Needless to say I was not pleased. Saying that it may have been a blessing in disguise. I had my eye on an HTC HD2 on ebay but just couldn’t justify dropping $800 for a new phone. This gave me an excuse to help convince the wife
that this was really required for my job. A week later, the fed-ex man dropped off a package and I had an early Christmas.
I’m really glad I did this, although I was happy with my TP2, the hardware and the HTC Sense home page truly made this a completely different experience. Yet, one that will hopefully pail in comparison to when we start getting new Windows Mobile 7 devices later this year.
Here are some of the features that make the HD2 what I believe is the best smart phone you can get today. Some of which aren’t unique to the HD2, but the combination brings home the point and identifies what is possible.
Enjoyable Experience – Using the HD2 is an enjoyable experience. Over the past year I really started to get the concept of User Experience. This isn’t any one thing but there is a science to this. It’s a combination of instantaneous response time, animation, providing the exact right information that is available with a minimal mount of interaction. All of which the HD2 excels at. 
HTC Sense Interface - I use my mobile device to try make sure little sparks don’t become big fires, keep up to date what is going on and keep in contact my clients. The HTC Sense interface achieves this goal in spectacular fashion. Within a second or two of unlocking the device, I can do a couple quick swipes of my finger and I’m up to date. You may say, well that’s not really a Windows Mobile feature, I somewhat beg to differ. Show me this type of home page on an iPhone, Android or Blackberry and we can have that discussion.
Capacitive Touch Screen – The capacitive screen makes a big difference for accurately capturing gestures. All my Windows Mobile devices before this one had a resistive interface, they worked fine, but this one works flawlessly. It’s very seldom that my gestures or touches get misinterpreted. Multitouch is also a nice added bonus on applications that support it.
Touch Access – The HD2 doesn’t have stylus nor does it need it. With the huge screen you can access all the features/functions by just touching the screen.
Performance – What can I say, the 1GHz processor makes simple work of most tasks. The device is extremely responsive.
1/8” Headphone Jack – I really like the ability to just plug in a set of headphones and as much as I like my ZuneHD, I find I’m starting to use this device as my media player.
MicroSD Card – Pop in a cheap 16GB SD card there’s plenty of room for music and TV shows.
Display – the 4.3” display is HUGE. If you like big displays this is for you. In some cases the size of it makes it a little difficult to use with one hand, but as with everything there are trade-offs.
5MB Pixel Camera and Flash – Although I’ve had devices in the past that claimed to have a built in flash, they really didn’t work all that great. The flash in this device works great. The pictures from the 5MB camera are also very impressive.
Battery Life – So far, I’ve been very happy with the battery life of this device. Although I haven’t really done any formal tests, in most cases I have WiFi turned on and it seems like I’ve never picked it up and was surprised that the battery was unexpectedly drained.
Micro USB – At first I was somewhat annoyed by the fact this device didn’t use the standard Mini USB, but rather the Micro USB, the smaller flatter version. I’m starting to like it, I can’t exactly describe why but it seems like it’s a better fit, or maybe it just a sleeker look. It seems like a number of other newer devices including my Sprint MiFi and the wife’s Omina II both use this connector.
Microsoft My Phone – Set it and forget it. If you aren’t using this program you should. This really works well if you have multiple devices like I do. It’s nice to have all your pictures, text messages and documents sync between your different devices.
Overall I’m very happy with this device, I have two complaints however. Since I didn’t get the device from a carrier, it doesn’t have support for 3G on T-Mobile. This is a minor gripe, I just don’t do that much surfing. My major gripe is that even with this expensive device HTC continues to ship their devices with the software reference drivers for DirectDraw. Most users probably don’t even realize this, but the device supports hardware acceleration for the display and has the potential for stunning 3-D graphics. It’s sort of like purchasing a Ferrari but only 2 of the 8 spark plugs are installed.
Using the HD2 as my primary device raised the bar on what I expect from a mobile device. It’s currently expensive but as soon as it comes to T-Mobile this will probably be the best phone you can get your hands on.
-twb
Yesterday morning the twitter stream came alive with people updating their status with receiving their 2010 MVP awards. I knew I was nominated for the award but didn’t want to get my hopes up. I didn’t receive any emails.
Then I decided to check in my junk mail folder a was greeted with a rather innocent looking email.
What a great way to start out the year!
-twb
The following are resource links as discussed in my talk “Windows Mobile – Tools, Tips and Tricks”
- Slides and Source from Presentation
- Windows Mobile Developer Center
- Differences between Compact Frameworks, Full .NET Frameworks
- Windows Mobile Device Center
- Windows Mobile 6.0 SDK Refresh
- Windows Mobile 6.5 DTK (Developer Tool Kit)
- How Do I? Videos for Devices
- Speeding up Compact Frameworks Builds
- State and Notification Broker
- Great List of “How-To” items for Compact Frameworks
- Windows Mobile 6 Documentation
- Location of System_SR_ENU.cab (used for displaying useful error messages)
%Program Files%\Microsoft.NET\SDK\CompactFramework\v2.0\WindowsCE\Diagnostics
- twb
Here are the links and resources as discussed in my Building Windows Mobile Location Aware Applications talk.
- Slides and Source from Presentation
- MSDN Article on create Location Aware Applications
- MSDN Article on cell tower lookup
- GPS Intermediate Driver Sample (From Windows Mobile 5.0 SDK)
PROGRAMFILES\Windows Mobile 5.0 SDK R2\Samples\PocketPC\Cs\Gps
- Code Project on more detail for doing cell tower lookup
- Open Cell ID (Free data project for cell tower lookup)
- GPS Intermediate Driver Information (Configuration and Usage)
- Using FakeGPS
Side Note: Configure Settings->System->External GPS to COM2 9600 Baud
- Tool for creating GPS text files
- Bing Maps Customer Service Site (Used to get tokens and credentials for web services
- Bing Developer Center Used to get AppId for AJAX and Silverlight integration
-twb
This weekend, December 5, 2009, I’ll be doing three and one-half sessions on Windows Mobile development at the Windows Phone Camp in Tampa.
Getting Started with Windows Mobile Development (Tools, Tips and Tricks)
This session assumes you know a little bit about developing applications using Visual Studio 
2008, specifically WinForms, but assumes you haven’t developed for Windows Mobile before. We will cover the tools necessary to build Windows Application using .NET such as Visual Studio, emulators, device manager, security configuration as well as others. We will build a small internet enabled application to demonstrate how it runs on the emulator and devices. Time permitting I’ll also share some tips and tricks I’ve learned from developing real world applications for Windows Mobile.
Building a Location Aware Application with GPS and Bing Maps
We will build on what we learned from the first session and create a useful application. In this session, we will use the GPSID or GPS Intermediate Driver to acquire our current location. In addition to the GPS, we will use Cellular towers to get a rough idea of the current location. We will then “wire-up” our application to Bing Maps to display that information on a map. Along the way we will introduce some additional Windows Mobile programming concepts such as how to load child forms, the GPS simulator and multi-targeting your application so you can develop 
and run your applications on the Desktop.
Building Casual Games for Windows Phone, ZuneHD and Silverlight
Are you interested in building games, doing something a little different than your normal 9-5 activities? If so you will learn how to leverage WiMo-GF or WiMo Game Frameworks to build games for mobile devices in a way that your game can be deployed to different platforms such as Windows Phone, Zune HD and Silverlight. The approach taken will ensure forward compatibility with Windows Mobile 7 once more information is available about this release. Click here to see the Channel 9 video on WiMo-GF.
How to submit your app to Marketplace
In this session, my partner in crime Nikita Polyakov and I will discuss Windows Marketplace. What it is, requirements for your application as well as a general discussion about this great opportunity. We will build a setup application and review the web site used to submit your application.
As an added bonus, I might bring the collection of 20 or so devices I’ve accumulated over the years.
I hope to see you all there!
-twb
