StevePresley.net - mobile

Using data encryption on Windows Phone 7

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

I saw this great post on encrypting your data using Windows Phone 7 by Rob Tiffany.

Rob makes several great points, including how easy it is to accomplish this task in Windows Phone 7.

Keep in mind that not only passwords and connection strings should be encrypted - anything that your application uses that may be sensitive to your application or company's way of doing business may be a candidate for encryption. That being said, just because you *can* encrypt everything, doesn't mean you *should* -- if the data is publicly accessible on your website and your app is just an extension of it, don't encrypt it - get the performance "boost" by not encrypting it.

Also, remember that encryption = processor time = chewing up the battery. The less work that the processor on your device has to do to pull the data out, the longer your device's battery is going to last!

Introduction to Windows Phone 7

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:06 GMT

Thanks to everyone who came to my session this morning at Richmond CodeCamp!

The Presentation and Demo Code can be downloaded here: (link) (6.9 MB)

Please email me with any questions you may have.

Why Windows Phone 7 is better than Windows Mobile 6.x

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:06 GMT

After having several discussions at CodeCamps, seeing the debate on Twitter and even the comments on Charlie Kindel's recent post "Hey, You, Get Off of my Cloud" on the Windows Phone Developer Blog, I felt compelled to answer a few of the points that quite a few people, including quite a few the mobile developers that I think are brilliant, seem to be missing.

Complaint #1 - "All of the work I have done for the previous Windows Mobile platforms has been wasted." Well, if you're complaining about having to ditch embedded C++ or embedded VB and their associated handicaps, I respond with a resounding "YES!" (which also means you wrote no managed code at ALL for mobile devices). If you have written managed code (and aren't living in the 90's anymore ), but can't adapt anything you have written for any other platform to a new one, again yes, but in that case you are learning *every* new technology from the ground up, and I suggest you take up a new line of work. As you can see, I *hardly* think that is the case. Are you giving up the "Ability" to have your program sleep in the background and crash the phone constantly? Yes. Are you giving up the "luxury" of managing thread pools on your own? Yes. What's that, you LIKE writing interop code and dragging along legacy code for the next 10 years? Yep, you'll be "giving that up" too.

Complaint #2 - "There is no multi-tasking." That's not entirely true: There is multi-tasking, but it's not third-party developer controllable multi-tasking. You can easily let the operating system manage the limited CPU and RAM available on a mobile device and let *it* decide what is best for the *user* based on what the user is trying to do - not what you, third-party programmer, have decided - that your app is more important than one the user is actually trying to use instead. Your app should be sophisticated enough to save state when it is sent a Pause event (meaning it could live on in the background, or be killed for another app to run). If it's not, I would probably uninstall your Windows Mobile 6.x app anyhow. Your app is not *that* important. If it were, it would be part of the OS.

Complaint #3 - "Everything has to go through the marketplace, so Windows Phone 7 is useless for business applications." For initial release, this is true. However, if you were serious about reading what the platform has in the works, you would know that Microsoft is very up-front about initial release being a consumer target. You would also know that the enterprise deployment scenarios will be discussed in Q1 of 2011 (according to multiple presenters at MIX this past March). Also, do you really think that most businesses would immediately jump to a completely rewritten platform as soon as it launches this fall? I know I wouldn't recommend any business do that without having been in some sort of alpha/beta/TAP program - that's just good risk mitigation. That's regardless of vendor or technology. Heck, it took over 2 years to get another mobile device approved to connect to Exchange for the firm I work for, and for good reason! The corporate developer story for that competing device is also very much an afterthought, so don't go waving the fruit-adorned flag as a pinnacle of enterprise development success. Windows Phone 7 will be able to connect to us within a week or two after release, all thanks to not having rogue code, otherwise known as your Windows Mobile 6.x style app (which we would probably block anyhow), being able to run on the phone and steal all of our Exchange data and send it to a server of your choice.

Complaint #4 - "Everything is Silverlight or XNA, you can't just use WinForms anymore" Thank Goodness! One of the things I completely hated about the previous versions of applications (and to a good extent the operating system UI) was the fact that it was WinForms on a 3" screen. Thank goodness things like HTC's Sense UI and other application launchers/home screen replacements came along. Seriously, do you know how big my thumbs are and how little the "X" in the upper right hand corner is? Sure, you can butcher Silverlight or XNA apps to look like WinForms, but take a design cue from the templates and the SDK. Make target areas bigger than they should be. Don't expect people to read your application's version of "War and Peace" or whatever else you are trying to fit on a 3" screen - it's just not feasible or enjoyable. If you aren't good at usability design, either step outside your comfort zone, or hire someone to do it. Silverlight is a prime candidate (finally) for having a design person do the "pretty stuff" and you, being the big brain you are, stick to writing code. Oh, and if you aren't a graphics person, seriously, don't bother with any XNA bits short of very elementary games that you don't expect to sell 100,000 copies of. Sure, that's a bit of a rant, but I'm *tired* of seeing application UIs designed by engineers, not designers (myself included). If it's more than a list type app, I'm getting design help - and will probably do so on some of the list apps.

Complaint #5 (which I think is the big one) - "You mean the applications I currently sell won't work on Windows Phone 7?" Yes, that's right - the "cash cow" that you wrote 5 years ago in C++ won't port over.. you may actually have to get out there and write some *new code* (shudder) instead of dragging all that old code (and its backwards compatibility) along with us. And seriously, just how many copies of that app did you sell before the Windows Marketplace was an *option* to sell your app through? Oh, that's right, people knew to go look on 200,000 different sites for your "perfect" app instead of finding it in the Marketplace (alongside your competition's apps BTW.. how's that for incentive to actually update your app on a regular basis?). Yeah, I'm being sarcastic, but come on people.. innovation comes with sacrifice, and you're in line to be put on the alter next.

My position - I *applaud* Microsoft for realizing that Windows Mobile 6.x was dead on the vine. Let me be clear, I'm not dissing the former Windows Mobile team in any way, you guys did a great job of porting a desktop OS to a mobile platform. Unfortunately, Windows apps designed for desktops do not translate well to use on a touch screen that was one fifth of the size of a regular monitor 10 years ago. The developer story finally started to catch up a few years ago, but it was admittedly still a second class citizen due to conscious limitations put in to the compact framework. I love the fact that the code will be reviewed and signed, and have to live up to the coding guidelines. I love that your apps won't be able to steal the data from my app or the OS without user approval, and even when they do, it's not across the board access.. it's one lonely item at a time. I think Windows Phone 7 will be just as functional in its initial release as the competitor mobile operating systems out there were after 2 or even 3 major versions.

The comment box is open.

Windows Mobile "How Do I Videos"

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:06 GMT

There's a great wealth of knowledge in these short "How Do I" videos on MSDN. Check out the latest videos here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/bb495180.aspx

Want to know how to do any of these 77 things? (all links open in a new tab/windows)

Sony posted the Xperia X1 user manual..

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:06 GMT

Kind of feel like I'm opening a present before Christmas Eve since I don't have the phone yet, but here is a link to where to download the manual. (click here)

Also, if you haven't seen it yet, here is a link to the Panels SDK (click here)

Setting up the GPS on the Ultimate 9502

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:06 GMT

Here's a quick video of how to setup the internal GPS on the Ultimate 9502 by iMate.

Download here (Right Click, Save As)

Ordered a few phones week before last..

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

Picked up the following iMate phones: SPL, SP3 (I Finally got one!), SP5 and the Ultimate 9502.

Top: Nokia 770

Left to Right: iMate SP3, SP5, SPL, JAM, HTC Touch Enhanced, O2 XDA Trion, iMate Ultimate 9502, iPhone 3G

My collection now includes:

iMate
- JAM (128mb upgrade by PocketPcTechs.com)
- SPL
- SP3
- SP5
- Ultimate 9502 (photos) *For Sale*
HTC
- TyTn - O2 XDA Trion (photos) *For Sale*
- Elfin - Touch Enhanced - Red UK Version (photos) *For Sale*
Apple
- iPhone 3G
Nokia
- 6820
Sony Ericsson
- Ice Blue t39mc

Phones I've owned, but have sold:

HTC
- Elf - Touch
- Wizard - CIngular 8125
Arima
- o2 xda Flame
Sony Ericsson
- T300 (photos)

[Wisbar] - Creating notification icons/meters

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

Since I picked up an O2 XDA Flame,I've been tinkering with skins lately on Wisbar - been almost forced to as there aren't that many VGA themes out there, mainly because the number of VGA devices aren't as high as the QVGA ones.

I've been customizing themes and posting mainly on the LakeRidge Forums about some of the things I've done and gotten a few questions about how to make signal/battery notifications. There's a great tutorial on the site (here), but something that people don't quite get when figuring out how the signal/battery images work is where/how you can tell the dynamic part of the image to end up. There's a column on the right of the image that tells Wisbar which palette color you used for the signal strength (or battery/memory usage). Based on the colors in those single pixels in the right hand column, wisbar drops in the appropriate indicator from your meter. You can put the pixels anywhere on the image - the right column just tells Wisbar what you're doing in the image. Make your image look however you want, and then based on the colors you put into the right most column, Wisbar will do the magic for you.

For instance - most signal meters look like this:
(each column is the color of the number)

            *
     * *
      * * *
     * * * *
* * * * *
0 1 2 3 4 5

Image would look like this:

So the next step could be something like this:
(each row is the color of the number)

5 * * * * *
4 * * * *
3    * * *
2 * *
1     *
0

Image would look like this:

So that's a simple example.. there's nothing to stop you from doing something like this:
(here each number is the color)

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 0
5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 0 0
5 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 0 0 0
5 4 3 2 2 2 2 0 0 0 0
5 4 3 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
5 4 3 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
5 4 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
5 4 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
5 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Image would look like this:

Hopefully that gives you a better idea of what you can do.

JAM vs. 8125 vs. trion

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

Finally had the chance to shoot some side by sides of the three. You can check them out here.

Here's a preview:

My Trion is on the way...

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

Direct from Deutschland, hopefully it will be here this week and I'll have time to play with the device a bit in addition to doing a Jam vs. 8125 vs. Trion review with pics. Stay tuned!

O2 XDA trion released in Germany

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

I really like the appearance of this device leaps and bounds above the early pictures of the TyTN.. the TyTN just doesn't look very "professional" to me..

There are also updated specs on the site as well if you click on the "HandyDetails" tab. Confirms the 400mhz profile, but I don't see anything about which one made it - Mini or Micro SD..

329.99 Euros (419 US) with 1 year contract, 699.99 euros (889 US) without any contract.
German link Translated to english

Windows Mobile API Usage Tool

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

Microsoft just published the Windows Mobile API Usage Tool (Click here to go to the download page). This is development tool that requires Visual Studio 2005 or 2008.

Once you install the tool, you need to manually navigate to your Program Files directory to find the tool - it's command line only, no GUI. On my machine, the install went here to "C:\Program Files\Windows Mobile API Usage Tool" by default. Here is a screen shot of the folder listing:

To use the tool, you run WMAUT.EXE from the command line with a series of parameters, one of which is a path to an output database that you can run SQL statements against, and one is the CAB or MSI for your mobile app.

Here is a listing of the command line options:

I plan to run this tool on a few of the mobile applications that I have been working on and provide results and tips in blog posts in the future. Keep an eye out for those as part of the products I'm working on in my spare time.

Minor issues with the VGA/QVGA Vista portable skins

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

I'm running the PocketXP theme for WisbarAdvance, so my device normally looks like this:
[zoom]	[zoom]
I installed the VGA skin, as I thought my JAM is a VGA device, and noticed some weird issues with the buttons on the taskbar.
[zoom]	[zoom]
I headed over to the XcSkins forum . I found the thread for the Vista skin and posted a message. Did a little more digging and found this post. Sounds like someone else was having the same problem, and tried running the QVGA skin on her device. I tried copying the QVGA skin to my device and got these results:
[zoom]	[zoom]
I love the blue of the PocketXP skin, but I'm digging the vista skin. Now my device looks like this:
[zoom]	[zoom]

Vista Theme for Wisbar Advance

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

Found an awesome theme pack that features a Vista feel. It's by xcilion who runs XCSkins. The theme is called Windows Vista Portable Edition. The skin is supported on both VGA and QVGA devices. This skinsuite isn't supported or licensed by Microsoft, and xcilion is quick to point that out in the skin information, but he does a great job of getting the feel and look down in my opinion.

If you would like more information, click here or on the image below. You can get the skins here or in the thread above.

AudioVox SMT 5600 for free at buy.com (or $225 without contract)

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

I came across this link today. You can get the SMT 5600 for $224.99, with $225 of mail-in rebates if you sign up for a new account with Cingular. Otherwise, you can save the extra $204.96 if you were planning on buying it from Expansys, who lists it for 429.95.

If I hadn't of picked up a JAM, I would be all over this. Halfway thinking of picking it up just to have a dev smartphone..

Cheers!

Tricking out your gadgets..

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

Found this link on hackaday of some pretty decent paintjobs for gadgets.. I've seen a couple other sites that feature mods as well.. anyone done anything cool to their PocketPC or Smartphone?

JAM is on its way!

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

Thanks to a user of HowardForums whom had to give up his JAM, I was able to work out a deal and it should be here by the weekend. He also got the 128 MB upgrade from PocketPCTechs, so I'll have a good amount of on-board RAM, then plan to pick up a 1 or 2 gig SD card for my music. Sweetness.. I can't wait!

The luxury of being able to change one's mind..

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

So after this enGadget article and its associated review on Geek.com, and a post on Scoble's blog about the “LennPhone” I think I have decided to get a JAM instead of an SP3i. One main factor is that I'm starting to follow the “Getting Things Done” personal productivity methods by David Allen, and have discovered along with a few colleagues, that it is really hard to keep your “one list of things to do” in one place if you can't write things down. Granted, you can do voice recordings and then transfer the list later, but why not have a phone that is basically the same size as the SP3i but with a touch screen? This may also help solve my portable music player dilemma. The JAM has a full-size SD card, rather than the mini-SD that the SmartPhones have. While the 1gb mini-SD was just released by Sandisk, the 2GB SD has been available for a bit, and I would imagine it not be long before we see the 5gb+ SD cards out - hopefully much sooner (and cheaper) than the mini-SD versions. I can also get SDIO WiFi for the JAM, whereas the mini-SD on the SP3i is inside, so kind of hard to have peripherals that aren't the exact size of the mini-SD to fit in the case.

Cure for a thumbboard Part II

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

At $229 msrp, it looks like it isn't quite as cheap as I thought initially, but Dave's iPaq has a great review of the iTECH BlueTooth Virtual Keyboard.. check it out!

iPod or Not?

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:07 GMT

So I'm on the fence of whether to get an iPod or some sort of non-Apple based “MP3” player.. I have primarily WMA's in my collection thus far (although do admit that I installed iTunes the other night and converted a fair amount of my 60+ gigs of 192khz WMA to roughly 80+ gigs of 128khz m4a).. I really enjoy the space saving at a higher bitrate using WMA. So I had pretty much decided on picking up an iPod, but then saw Dave Ciccone's iPod Shuffle vs. Sandisk MP3 review on Scoble's blog and it got me thinking.. do I really want to go with Apple? I had been thinking about a Creative Zen Touch or the Archos Gmini XS200 - both 20 gigs and 50 bucks cheaper than the standard iPod. If I wanted to kick it up a notch, the 40gig Zen Touch ($329) is also $70 cheaper than the 40gig iPod ($399) - or 30 bucks more than the cheaper iPod and twice the storage!

Now here's where it gets complicated - the Zen Touch isn't quite as sexy as the iPod.. My good friend Laura who just bought an iPod mini (pink, of course) summed it up pretty well in her statement “Wow, some people get really into this... I just want something cute that plays music...” As much as I would prefer to not think of my purchasing preferences as “cute or not“, I definitely agree - a big part of this decision is the device as a “fashion accessory“.. b.k.a - the “cute” factor. So it's gotten me thinking about the mini versions of these things. The mini's definitely have it goin' on.. the Zen Micro is so much more aesthetically pleasing than its big brother Zen Touch. The iPod mini has its big brother beat in that respect as well. Although I do have to admit, I prefer the dark blue of the Zen Micro to the iPod mini's light blue only offering (the Zen has a similar light blue to the iPod). The iPod mini does have more of an annodized look as opposed to the molded plastic look of the Zen. So what to do...

It would be so much easier if there was a 5gb miniSD card available for the SP3i - then I would have both problems solved in one device... at this point, the best I can do is a 512MB for about $80 (or the alleged 1gb miniSD from Teravit for $185) plus the cost of the phone (which at this point is still in the $400 range).