10 days to go and i am off. Tickets and hotel are booked and i am going to Las Vegas and the Mandalay Hotel & Casino for the MIX10 conference.

After the launch of Windows Phone 7 Series at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona i am really looking forward to get a deep dive into the development capabilities of the new OS.

With me I’ll bring along a Canon 5D Mark II camera for snapshots and i’ll post updates as soon as time permits. Continue Reading

I am happy to see that Microsoft are working on an updated version of their 70-540 exam for Windows Mobile 5.0 application development. -It’s given the certification number 70-580 and is named TS: Windows Mobile 6.5, Application Development. It currently ”in development” and due as i understand it for release March 18, 2010.  From the list of “Skills being measured” in this exam it looks like Microsoft has put a bit more thought into what you actually need to learn before you venture into compact framework development.  If they at the same time upgrade the Microsoft Mobile Developer Handbookboth the exam and book will be a great starting point for new mobile application developers.

I hope that there will be a certification upgrade possibility for those of us that already has the 70-540  certification.

At work we are in the process of evaluating enterprise mobility platforms.  An unified platform that help make enterprise data available to mobile devices or computers.  When i evaluate candidates begin to have a look at the integration engine. How will the integration engine help me get hold of the data i require. At a minimum the engine must have connectors to the most common back-end systems like SAP, Dynamics, Agresso, Siebel and/or Oracle and also provide ways of more generic  connectors through web services, XML etc. If you don´t have this; you´ve failed!

If you got step one – integration, you´ve come a very long way! You now need to make sure that the system is capable og keeping the flow of data to and from the devices. Handle distribution of software and updates, Manage the devices within the enterprise and keep it secure in an integrated manner.  Oh, software..That is important! The software  must be possible to develop without too much of a hassle. Don´t constrain the possibilities within an already constrained mobile platform (ie javaME or .NET Compact Framework). Don´t force the look and feel.

A few days ago i picked up a tweet by Rob Tiffany at Microsoft, he blogged about Microsoft MEAP – Mobile Enerprise Application Platform. MEAP is a platform where you design toghether a set of well known Microsoft technologies, and together they make up a unified mobile application platform. Continue Reading

The day we have been waiting for is finally here. Someone published malware in an appstore, and to no surprise it was published to the Android Marketplace.  Norwegian newspaper Digi.no has written/translated an article form The Register about an phishing application written to hijack your banking account information.

This was bound to happen, and this is whythere is such a strict regime to submit applications into appstores like the Apple AppStore and the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Today’s smartphones are trusted devices and the general public does not yet think of their mobile phone as a device that needs antivirus, firewall and malware detection software. But as long as there are vendor solutions like the Android Marketplace; where there is no quality control and no reviewing of applications except for the user feedback from those who already have been fooled by such applications i think things will get a lot worse before it gets better. Continue Reading

Qtek 9090 Pocket PC

This was fun. While looking around for some cables i found one of my first ever Windows Mobile phones. An ancient Qtek 9090 Microsoft PocketPC phone.

I remember when i got it I was stoked on how cool this phone was 32bit Intel PXA263 CPU with a blazing speed of 400MHz. a 3.5″ Transflective TFT-LCD screen, a camera, WiFi and bluetooth. And the QWERTY keyboard was actually quite good to use for SMS’ing and emails. Continue Reading

To help spawn some better facebook apps and services on the Windows Phone platform someone has proposed support for compact framework as a new feature to the Facebook developer kit. 

Visit the proposition site and sign in with your CodPlex or create an account and vote for this.

It’s needed

A bit late, but i was planning to comment on an article (in Norwegian) from beginning of November  that refere to a statement from the Gartner Symposium ITxpo 2009 conference.

Made by Gartner analyst Monica Basso that muses that the Windows Mobile OS doesn´t have a future, that Microsoft is working to slow, and that they’re not able to renew the OS according to whims and wishes of the consumers. That they will not be able to regain any market share because of that.

Basis for this is according to Gartner that the Windows Mobile platform is to big and not dynamic enough to be scaled down to function on the less powerful and not so advanced phones, aka the regular cellphones(?) that dominates today’s mobile market. Continue Reading

Norwegian Yellow Pages (Eniro)  have created one of the first augmented reality application for the iPhone.  Augmented reality is the concept of adding value-adding information onto real time imaging. One use i think this could be a really cool tool for is visiting tourists. Hold up your iPhone and get instant tourist information anywhere in Oslo.  The application is due to be launched in November/December 2009 at no cost, but will only be available for the iPhone 3GS because it uses the digital compass.

For developers of Android applications there is an AR API called Wikitude. It is a application programming interface which allows for the open development of markerless AR experiences, providing developers with the tools to either create their own android augmented reality applications, or enhance their existing Android applications with an AR camera-view engine. Continue Reading

Stumbled upon this quite funny device while reading ITavisen.no (article in norwegian). It is a Windows XP based ultra portable computer called xpPhone from Technology Group Limited (ITG). ITG say they specialize in research, development and production of pocketable mobile internet devices and this looks like a Nokia communicator on steroids.

A “pocketable mobile internet device” is a device term I have not seen before but no matter what you call it, it could be an ideal device/tool for the busy representative that need to have a really portable device for slide show presentations and light typing. A ruggedized version of this device could have been an interesting feature.

Why has it been equipped with Windows XP? An almost obsolete OS but i guess it´s just a matter of time before this comes with Windows 7 installed. This is a step beyond the NetBook computers and will fit into a bit larger pocket but it has most of the capabilities from a phone adding phone features. Continue Reading

Norwegian online paper digi.no (Norwegain article) has an interesting article today about an anouncement from the open source project MONO. They have completed a SDK called MonoTouch. MonoTouch is the Mono edition for Apple’s iPhone and Apple’s iPod Touch devices.  MonoTouch allows developers to create C# and .NET based applications that run on the iPhone and can take advantage of the iPhone APIs as well as reusing both code and libraries that have been built for .NET as well as existing skills. MonoTouch also includes XCode integration.

MonoTouch is not open source and comes with some quirks when it comes to application distribution and licensing but it is a good step in the right direction.

MonoTouch comes in three version Personal for $399, Enterprise for $999 and Enterprise 5 for $3 99. Continue Reading