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Peter Nowaks Mobile Blog - Friday, July 10, 2009
Windows Phone in the cloud
 
 Friday, July 10, 2009

As I’ve been talking in the past already, it is sometimes valuable, to create applications for the .NET CF, which are running unter the .NET Framework as well.

This can cause some issues on the .NET Framework, as you don’t have direct access to Environment variables and all enumerations from Environment.SpecialFolder when you probably need them.

But you can achieve access to this information through reflection.

For environment variables this is easy:

public static string ReadEnvironmentVariable(string variableName)
{
        return (string)typeof(Environment).InvokeMember("GetEnvironmentVariable", BindingFlags.Default | BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, "", new object[] { variableName });
}

 

The same applies to the SpecialFolder-Enumeration:

public static string ReadSpecialFolder(string variableName)
{
        return Environment.GetFolderPath((Environment.SpecialFolder)Enum.Parse(typeof(Environment.SpecialFolder), variableName, true));
}

 

Accessing both types of information is also easy. Please be aware of to do this only on the desktop system, via requesting the platform underneath:

if (Environment.OSVersion.Platform == PlatformID.Win32NT)
{
    string tempPath = ReadEnvironmentVariable("TEMP"));
    string localApplicationDataFolder = ReadSpecialFolder("LocalApplicationData");

}

Friday, July 10, 2009 8:14:42 AM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [0]   .NET Compact Framework | P/Invoke  |  Trackback
 Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Maarten Struys, a former DAD MVP, has published a whitepaper on Creating Location Aware Applications for Windows Mobile Devices.

This whitepaper doesn’t only cover GPS, but Cell Tower Lookup as well. Cell Tower Lookup is based on GSM, where a position can be retrieved by the according CellID. The pros and cons of each method are covered by the whitepaper as well. A sample application is also included.

As the sample application is using the Yahoo web service for retrieving the location based on the CellID, I’d suggest to take a look at Providers like CellDB and OpenCellID. Those providers don’t only enable (after registration) to request CellID locations, but also to upload new ones.

If you are especially interested in posting new CellIDs, than you probably shall take a look at the Open Cell Client.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009 6:21:24 AM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [0]   mobile Tools  |  Trackback
 Thursday, June 04, 2009

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:

image

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

Thursday, June 04, 2009 6:56:48 AM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [1]   mobile Tools | Windows Mobile  |  Trackback

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.

Thursday, June 04, 2009 5:29:38 AM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [0]   mobile Tools | Windows Mobile  |  Trackback
 Thursday, May 28, 2009

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.

Thursday, May 28, 2009 6:49:25 AM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [1]   Visual Studio  |  Trackback
 Wednesday, May 27, 2009

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!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 6:12:29 AM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [0]   mobile Tools  |  Trackback
 Monday, May 25, 2009

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. ;-)

Monday, May 25, 2009 6:09:21 AM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [0]   .NET Compact Framework | .NET Compact Framework 3.5  |  Trackback
 Tuesday, May 19, 2009

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.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 5:52:40 AM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [0]   MyPhone | Windows Mobile Marketplace  |  Trackback
 Friday, May 15, 2009

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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!

Friday, May 15, 2009 8:36:03 AM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [0]   MSDN  |  Trackback
 Monday, May 11, 2009

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.

Monday, May 11, 2009 5:47:22 AM (W. Europe Standard Time, UTC+01:00)  #    Comments [0]   Veranstaltung  |  Trackback
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