I’ve been quite astonished to find out, that the Dev Toolkit for WM 6.5 doesn’t have any documentation on how to create Widgets for WM 6.5 included.

Instead of finding it within the Dev Toolkit, an article can be found under Getting started with widgets on Windows Mobile 6.5 on MSDN. This article is supposed to be a starting point of an article series, as the information provided isn’t fully covered. Topics around the included Widget API are missing.

A small remark on the article: If you have already installed the Dev Toolkit instead of the WM 6.5 Emulator package, the description on how to use the emulator isn’t correct.

Instead of using this entry:

you have to use one of the Windows Mobile 6.5 Emulators, listed under the Windows Mobile 6 Professional / Standard SDK entry.

Yep – it is available now: The Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Toolkit.

Developer Toolkit means that it isn’t a full blown SDK and therefore needs the Windows Mobile 6.0 SDK as a base installed.

The Toolkit includes the Windows Mobile 6.5 Emulator and is available in 7 languages (yes, already german!!!!).

You can find a brief description on the Toolkit here, or just go ahead and download it from here.

As a few people already realized, the VS 2010 Beta documentation states:

“Support for smart device development has been removed from Visual Studio 2010.”

Short answer: VS 2010 won’t support WM 6.5 / CE 6.0 and earlier, but will support the following versions.

Long answer: Read this official statement from Microsofts Technical Evangelist Frank Prengel.

Ever wanted to write your blog posts from your Windows Mobile device? As there are a lot of mobile twitter apps the applications for mobile blogging are rare.

Therefore you shall take a look at Windows Live Writer for Windows Mobile, which I now take as a working name.

The name itself states that it is an application from Microsofts Windows Live Team, which ISN’T true. It isn’t associated with Microsoft in ANY way, so expect the application name to change soon.

The application itself, as published on Codeplex here, looks very promising for the moment as it has started a few days ago.

The UI isn’t anything extraordinary at the moment: Plain Windows Forms controls. In my eyes this isn’t anything bad as it goes down to the basics and just serves the needs.

Looks promising – let’s see what happens in the future with this tool!

Have you ever experienced the problem, that your .NET CF application throws the following exception using a SSL Connection?

System.Net.WebException: Unable to read data from the transport connection (System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: Unknown error (0x0))

If this is the case, than you probably want to get the HotFix for Web Services over SSL for .NET CF 3.5.

Unfortunatelly this error exists with the .NET CF 2.0, where no fix is available and I’m not commenting this any further.

MyPhone

If you have been interested in testing MyPhone on your Mobile Device, you now have the possibility as the beta has been opened to all users.

More Info can be found on the teams blog post.

Windows Mobile Marketplace

1.) As a lot of you have been asking, when the registration will be available to NON US citizens: It’s going to be mid july.
2.) The Windows Mobile Marketplace Forum on MSDN has opened it's doors. You can find it here.

New to Windows Mobile Development? Want to speed up fast?

In this case you shall have a look at the rampup modules at MSDN.

In 7 courses you will learn:

• Level 1: Mobile Development Introduction
• Level 2: Device Emulators
• Level 3: Mobile Windows Forms Development
• Level 4: Advanced Mobile Windows Forms Development
• Level 5: SQL Server CE Introduction
• Level 6: Security and Deployment
• Level 7: Mobile Web Development

The rampup modules can be found here.

Thanks Maarten for pointing out!

Are you attending TechEd US and interested in the Windows Mobile Track? Than you shall take a look a this post from the Windows Mobile Blog post for a summary.

I wish everyone a pleasent time over there.

I actually can’t attend the TechEd US but I’m actually looking forward to attend TechEd EMEA, which will take place this year in Berlin from Nov 9th to Nov 13th.

Ever wondered when you will get an optimized Facebook application for Windows Mobile? The time is now.

Some key features are:

• Send messages to any of the people in your Friends list.

• Take pictures and videos on your phone, then upload them right to Facebook.

• Send messages or call people in your Friends list.

• Manage your profile and post anytime, anywhere.

A more detailed description can be found here.

Or download it directly from your mobile browser here.

 
(Source: Microsoft)

Very often I get asked via Mail or Messenger “Can you help me”, “How do I…”, “Can you tell me how…” or similar questions.

My general reply is (especially for german based persons) to use the Windows Mobile Forum on MSDN. There is even a localized forum for those who aren’t that familiar with the english language… (Okay, in that case they aren’t able to read that post, but this is another story ).

The reason I tell people to use this forum has several reasons:

• Probably there is someone out on the Net, who has the same problem. Documenting it that way makes it easy for others to find THAT solution.
• Searching the forum minimizes the questions.
• I don’t know all the answers. On the forums are several other people around, who can answer questions even better than I do.
• You can ask in native german language.

Even those of you who tried it earlier and haven’t been satisfied with it shall give it another try: The Forums have been reworked at the beginning of this year.

This doesn’t only mean a facelift but new functionality as well. If you are interested in a breif german overview I suggest reading Kai’s blogpost on this.

As I’m a Moderator on this Forum as well seeing forward to see you there.

Link: German Windows Mobile Forum on MSDN