Planning has started for the second Windows Phone Developer Community meetup. The meetup topic wil be usability and UX on small screen devices. We have contacted a highly skilled UX professional and he’ll be giving a 45-60 minutes speak on the topic.

We would also like to have an application showcase that shows the use of good UX and are open for suggestions from users and developers. If you are a developer and would like to show off you app at the meetup, don’t hesitate, get in touch with us.

The meetup will take place in Oslo in the beginning of March.

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

If you are in Oslo, and you’re a developer that do Windows Phone software development, or are curious about what’s in it you should come to the December meetup for Windows Phone Developer Community.

WPDC has it’s first meetup next Thursday on December 3rd.  at 6 pm. The meeting will be held at NITH, located in Grønland.

View Schweigaards gate 14 in a larger map

In this first meetup we want to use more as a “constitutional” meeting. Getting to know those who are interested in Windows Phone development and most importantly find others who are interested in being “driving forces” and help build the community. Continue Reading

Today was a cool day!

Finally the Windows Phone Developer Community is announced and started. I was attending a developer presentation for Windows Mobile 6.5 and Microsoft Marketplace today and just before we broke for lunch i was called to stage to “tell the world” that on Thursday 3. December 2009 we´ll host the first meeting.

This first meetup will be mostly about getting to know each other, and find out who´s interested in becoming driving forces. It is not to be taken lightly that if this is to have any form of success it needs to have support and contribution from developers.

For the occasion we have set up a meetup.com group to handle “members” and announcement of meeting events, so check it out at http://www.meetup.com/Windows-Phone-Developer-Community/. Continue Reading

Last week we hosted our first 3 hour session on Microsoft Windows Mobile development at NITH in Oslo. The session was split into two topics - usability best practises and developing custom GUI controls. Me and Per Ola split the session where i did the first part and he did the custom control development.

Since this is an introductory class to Windows Mobile development we cannot go too deep into the how’s and why’s but rather give a brief overview with pointers to more information for those wanting to learn more.

The UX session started as i always like to do by introducing “Death to the stylus” as i am a firm believer of that it has no future in the world of mobility. It is an obstacle for efficient use of applications. Following this i talked about that it is not a goal for mobile developers to minimize an existing application or process, but to mobilize. 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

EDIT: a step closer now: http://agilemobility.net/2009/10/15/getting-the-developer-community-up-and-running/

Norwegian? Want to help create a developer community? I need your help!

What I miss is having a developer community like i had when i did regular .net work. I miss seeing technology relevant sessions on MSDN Live or NDC and i want to do something about it. Maybe even a MSDN Mobile event?

Who am I? Continue Reading

Kom over et blogginnlegg på Windows Mobile Team bloggen som handler om Microsoft Tag.

Kort fortalt består teknologien i et system for å generere en type strekkode man kan trykke på fysiske produkter som linkes til informasjon på nettet. Via en klient til mobiltelefonen kan man med telefonens kamera ”scanne” strekkoden for å automatisk hente opp mer informasjon om vare eller for eksempel arrangement.

Ser veldig interessant ut og har ”tagget” løsningen for å se nærmere på den. Ser for meg mange områder hvor dette vil kunne komme til nytte. Continue Reading