Microsoft New Zealand are running a competition to win a trip to the next Microsoft PDC event in Los Angeles. It is open to all developers living in New Zealand. All you need to do to enter is help them out with questionnaire:-
“Targeted towards NZ developers, we want to get a better understanding and better cater our resources, events and training in the future. The survey is from now until the end of April. One lucky NZ developer will win an all expenses paid trip to the next PDC in LA.”
Martijn Hoogendoorn provides a description of how to avoid the message:-
“An error message is available for this exception but cannot be displayed because these messages are optional and are not currently installed on this device. Please install ‘NETCFv35.Messages.EN.wm.cab’ for Windows Mobile 5.0 and above or ‘NETCFv35.Messages.EN.cab’ for other platforms. Restart the application to see the message.“
Even if you have installed the cab file with message resources. A useful link:-
In November Microsoft will be hosting the twin conferences of Tech Ed Developers and Tech Ed IT Forum in Barcelona. Tech Ed Developers runs the week of 5th to 9th and covers 14 different tracks, one of which is Mobile & Embedded. This will cover the latest versions of all of Microsoft’s Mobile & Embedded products from the .NET Micro Framework through to Windows Mobile, Windows Embedded CE and Robotics studio, and of course the .NET Compact Framework.
This year I’ll be delivering a session on networking technologies available to Windows Mobile developers. This will cover a broad spectrum from personal area networking (Bluetooth and IrDA) through to cellular network specific (SMS, GPRS etc) and internet standards (FTP, HTTP etc). We will look at which technologies are appropriate for which scenarios, the relative costs and how to implement them. It’s going to be an interactive session and will include plenty of code snippets and an interactive demo or two.
My co-authors Andy Wigley and Daniel Moth will also be delivering sessions in the Mobile & Embedded track and we plan to get together for a book signing during the event. Registration for the conference is available with a €300 off the full price until 28th September.
Following on from the developer contest I mentioned a while ago, Motorola are running a series of developer summits later this year. They will be covering development across their range of platforms and devices, including Windows Mobile. They will have a UK event in London on the 9th of November, which conflicts with Tech Ed Developers 2007 in Barcelona which I’m already committed to – more details on that to follow…
Full details – MOTODEV Summit
Rob Miles has just blogged that his book “Embedded Programming with the Microsoft .NET Micro Framework” is currently on special offer at Computer Manuals through the MSDN Flash email newsletter. So if you have a wobbly table, or a door you want to prop open now is the time to buy (just kidding) 🙂
For exactly the same reasons you might want to grab the Mobile Development Handbook at 32% off. Alternatively if you just want some fun browsing the site then why not enter “Windows CE” into the quick search box. The only result is “The Johns Hopkins Manual of Gynecology and Obstetrics” an ideal addition to any mobile developers toolbox!
Finally on a related note I spotted that Doug Boling is working on an update of his Windows CE book due out in October – “Programming Windows® Embedded CE 6.0 Developer Reference“. Definitely worth adding to your wish list, even if you are primarily a managed code developer as it is important to know your way around the underlying OS.
Over on the Windows Mobile Developer Wiki is a topic listing all the APIs and technologies which are deprecated in Windows Mobile 6. This is essential reading for any Windows Mobile developer:
http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/MobileDeveloper.DeprecatedFeaturesInWindowsMobile6
Although it took a lot longer than I originally anticipated I’ve finally put the finishing touches to v2.0 of the 32feet.NET library. v2.0 is a major re-write of the code so that the single codebase can be built into separate dlls for desktop or device. This was primarily to get around the bug in the desktop VB.NET compiler which couldn’t cope with redirecting the device System.dll reference to the desktop equivalent. It has had the pleasant side-effect of making the footprint much smaller. The 4 previous dlls are now merged into the single InTheHand.Net.Personal.dll which range from 91kb for the .NETCF v1.0 version to 76kb for the desktop v2.0 version.
You can download the installer which includes the library, documentation and samples from the 32feet website. This release is the first release version to have the full source code available since the project was hosted at CodePlex. You can also use the CodePlex site to download other builds of the code and post bugs/feature requests. If you want to get involved in the project drop me a mail, or join the discussions on the 32feet site.
Casey posted this cool technique of using the Virtual Earth Locator in your own apps. Next task is to find out how to stop it locating me in Surrey 🙂
The “Implementing a Proximity Search with SQL 2000” article describes how to create a local method of searching for nearby places on your own locally held data. However it makes a couple of assumptions, one being that you will import your data via Access.
It’s quite likely that you may want to put your place data directly into SQL Server, you can then calculate the X, Y and Z co-ordinates using a stored proceedure. Firstly I’ll assume you place the data into a table in your SQL database with fieldnames Latitude and Longitude storing the values in decimal degrees as a float type. You’ll also need to add columns named XAxis, YAxis and ZAxis to your table, again with a float type. Then the following stored proceedure can be used to populate these fields.
UPDATE [tablename] SET XAxis = cos(RADIANS(Latitude)) * cos(RADIANS(Longitude)),
YAxis = cos(RADIANS(Latitude)) * sin(RADIANS(Longitude)),
ZAxis = sin(RADIANS(Latitude))
WHERE XAxis IS NULL;
Note that the where clause ensures it doesn’t process rows you have already populated. You may choose to run this procedure manually when you add new data, or schedule it to run regularly. If your data is editable once it’s in the database, you should ensure the X,Y,Z values are removed if the Latitude and Longitude are changed on a record. Once you’ve run this on your data you can use the FindNearby procedure described in the article.
One of our forum members posted about an open source social networking project which uses the Bluetooth.NET library. The project is created by Software Greenhouse which is a joint venture between Microsoft India and Cynapse.
Their initial prototype release and source code can be downloaded by registering at the Software Greenhouse site. The software will allow users of Windows Mobile devices to compare user profiles to look for shared interests and chat with other users. This is an interesting use of the technology and it will be interesting to see how the project evolves. Have you used the Bluetooth library in any projects? if so please leave a comment.
In The Hand Ltd 