Mark Arteaga

With a new year come new beginnings in both work and personal life.  Although there are not many significant changes in my personal life there are some new changes in my professional/work life.

After three years I’ve decided to leave OpenNETCF and pursue other opportunities.

Working with Neil, Chris and Alex was one of the best experiences I’ve had in my professional life. Being part of a team to help deliver some great products to the Windows Mobile, Windows Embedded and .NET Compact Framework developer community was fun. In the process becoming friends with three great and brilliant guys was a bonus.

As I leave OpenNETCF, there are some exciting things happening with things like Padarn and the Smart Device Framework so make sure you stay tuned to the OpenNETCF blog.

Here’s continued success to the OpenNETCF team and the products they create for the developer community!

Have you ever tried to use wceload to install your application and had a complete headache to get it working?  Ever wish you could just get ride of wceload and have more control on your installation process?  If you did, you should definitely check out our new CAB Installer SDK which will help you install your applications with ease and more importantly give you the developer more control.

Check out Chris' announcement post here and the CAB Installer SDK product page here.

This product is being sold under our new 'Value Based Pricing Model' which basically means you pay what you think it's worth.  See here for more details on the new pricing model.

As always feedback is welcome!

Starting July 1, 2008 I will be the new Mobility Chair for IAMCP Canada.  What is IAMCP, it stands for International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners and is a worldwide organization made up of Microsoft Partners from around the world.

The International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners (IAMCP) represents Microsoft's best of breed partners from around the globe. Our organization was formed in 1994 and provides Microsoft Partners a voice into Microsoft programs, to the IT community at large, as well as a vehicle to facilitate mutual growth and business development among partners. The non-profit organization is operated by an annually elected board of directors, an is funded through membership fees and sponsor grants.

So what does this all mean, well I pretty much be doing the same thing I've always done in terms of developers and Windows Mobile and now I can have some other partners along side of me doing the same thing.

It's going to be fun with all the new competition and RIM right in my back yard :)

It's my pleasure to announce that we have recently achieved Gold Certified Partner Level status within the Microsoft Partner Program in the Mobility Solutions and ISV Software Solutions competency. 

You can read the official press release here.

What exactly does this mean?  Well here is an excerpt from the partner web site:

Gold Certified Partners represent the highest level of competence and expertise with Microsoft technologies, and have the closest working relationship with Microsoft.

In my view it only means good things for our customers as this will allow us to strengthen our already existing relationship with various product groups within Microsoft.

Thanks goes out to all our customers who supported us through this process.

Here are some plaques we got for attaining the competency.

Back in September 2007 we released our first version of Task Manager (formerly called TaskManCF). 

Last week we released Task Manager 2.0.  A few major things we have added to this version:

1. Changed the name from TaskManCF to Task Manager.
2. Improved the UI for Windows Mobile Professional
3. Ability to switch to application
4. Ability to find an applications associate process
5. Ability to kill all running applications

One of the more exciting things is we decided to get Task Manager logo certified and it is now we can proudly say Task Manager is "Designed For Windows Mobile 6"!.

Of course this does not mean it only runs on Windows Mobile 6, it also supports Windows CE, Pocket PC and Windows Mobile 5.  Only requirement is .NET Compact Framework 2.0 which can be downloaded here.

Here is a screen shot of Task Manager running on Windows Mobile 6 Professional device

Currently it does not support Windows Mobile Standard (aka SmartPhone) but if there is a need for it we can add that.

Go ahead and download the Evaluation version and let us know what you think and if you want other features added!