Mark Arteaga

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!

From my recent DevTeach and EnergizeIT sessions I got a lot of interest in WCF Store and Forward feature in .NET CF 3.5 and I promised to put together a white paper on the topic. 

I just finished an article on Exchanging Data using Windows Mobile, Windows Communication Foundation, .NET Compact Framework and Exchange 2007 and posted it on our Community site.  It basically goes through some of the technical details with getting WCF and Exchange working using two sample applications, a Dispatch Sample and a Photo Sharing Sample.

With TechEd 2008 quickly approaching wanted to point out some sessions OpenNETCF partners (well one partner :) ) will be doing related to Compact Framework and Windows Mobile

Building CustomDraw and OwnerDraw Controls Using the Microsoft .NET Compact Network (Alex Feinman)
Standard Windows controls allow a degree of customization that offers significant UI flexibility, while relying on proven and robust foundation of existing OS controls, such as TreeView, ListView. This session shows how to build such controls in managed code, using the .NET Compact Framework 2.0 or newer.

Using Microsoft DirectDraw in Windows Mobile Applications (Alex Feinman)
As GAPI becomes deprecated, the recommended approach to building high-speed, device-independent Windows Mobile applications is using DirectDraw API. This session provides information on DirectDraw for mobile devices basics, as well as common problems and pitfalls associated with using it.

Hope you are able to attend!