Mark Arteaga

If you develop Windows Mobile applications then you definitely want to keep the Windows Mobile Developer Center url handy as it will cover things from developing games to mobile web to developing enterprise applications.  Don't forget to check out the community section where you will get a list of all Microsoft and non-Microsoft resources.

I've been using DiskKeeper 2008 for a while now and is a pretty good defragmenter utility. 

Previously I was running on XP and it I did realize a ‘responsiveness’ difference on that machine more than I noticed on my new machine (Dell XPS M1710).  On my new box I installed it probably 3-4mths after I got my machine so that might be a reason why I did not notice much.  On my old box I installed it probably 1.5yrs receiving the box so that’s probably why I noticed a bigger difference.  Looking at the stats in Diskeeper it’s been running everyday without a problem and is defraging files (currently I'm at 10% fragmentation) everyday.  If you hard drive seems to be thrashing instead of re-formatting try a defrag first with DiskKeeper. Get a trial version here.

There are a few events that OpenNETCF will be attending and/or presenting at so far this year.

• DemoCampToronto17 - Feb 25
• Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 Launch Event - Feb 27
  
• Toronto CodeCamp 2008 - March 1
• DevTeach - May 12 - 16
• TechEd North America 2008 - June 3 - 6

We are also working on putting together a 'Windows Mobile Developer Tour' in Canada with Microsoft Canada.  Once we get some dates and cities finalized I'll be sure to let everyone know.  If you're reading this, you are in Canada and want us to come to your city contact me at mark[dot]arteaga[at]opennetcf[dot]com and let me know!

Rick Segal of JLA Ventures is looking to put together a VC Roundtable series to help give startups in the Canadian tech community an understanding of the VC world.  If you are a startup in Canada or thinking of doing a startup and want to know how the whole VC world works or how to get money and where to look for money this is something you don't want to miss!  If you are interested let him know.

With the recent Padarn press release and our case study with Microsoft there are a couple of quotes I found interesting:

- “OpenNETCF is a very interesting consulting firm who specializes in building libraries which complement the .NET Compact Framework. They are always on the cutting edge of providing new ways of helping mobile device developers build great applications.”
- S. Somasegar – Senior Vice President, Developer Division for Microsoft (source)

-  “OpenNETCF is a recognized leader in the development of .NET Compact Framework solutions ... Padarn exemplifies OpenNETCF’s development ingenuity and understanding of the needs of Windows- embedded customers.”
- Steve Hegenderfer, Senior Technical PM for Microsoft (source)

Have you used some of our products, either commercial or open source?  Have you benefited from the community site?  We want to hear what our customers have to say.  If you have some comments (either good or bad) email me at mark[dot]arteaga[at]opennetcf[dot]com and let me know what you think of OpenNETCF!

Over the past few months we've been doing a lot of preparation for Visual Studio 2008 in terms of getting the Smart Device Framework integrated with the new version of Visual Studio.  Neil has done some great work in leading this effort and resulted in a case study with Microsoft titled "Developers Use New Testing Capabilities to Reduce Costs and Boost Productivity". 

We will definitely be using a lot of the new features available in Visual Studio 2008!

A while back we announced Padarn.  Since then we have been added some features and fixes and currently in the process of adding features requested by customers.

I think one of the best advantages of Padarn is it makes the developer tasked with building a web front end for their embedded device a lot easier. Before Padarn, to write a web page on Windows CE you would use the HTTPD server that comes with CE using classic ASP.  If you wanted access to the hardware you would need to write an ISAPI filter or plug-in which is not fun since it's all COM.  To top it all off you don't have debugger support.

Padarn allows you to write web pages using .NET Compact Framework and easily access hardware, file system, use SQL Server Compact Edition databases and anything else you can do in a standard application. 

So what are some of the features coming?  Here is a list:

1. Support for HTTP POST Method using both application/x-www-form-urlencoded and multipart/form-data
2. Support for Form Based File Uploads
3. Support for Virtual Directories
4. Support for specifying multiple default documents for example default.aspx, default.htm, home.html etc
5. Support for Basic and Digest Authentication
6. Support for Secure Socket Layer (SSL)

Interested? Want to try it on your own device? Send us an email at support [@] opennetcf [dot] com to get access to a fully functional version.   It won't have the features listed above but you'll be able to get a feel for Padarn and if it meets your project requirements.

Want to see it in action? Then browse to www.padarn.net. 

We also provide free versions for academic use.  Contact us at the email above if you are interested.

It's been a while since I have posted anything but I've been keeping busy with customers, product development, sales, marketing and a new member to the family.  There have been lots of things happening since my last post and we have definitely been keeping busy!

Recently we released version 2.2 of the Smart Device Framework.  We basically went through a lot of the bugs in our bugzilla database and added some new features (Chris talks about them here).  Currently it is for Visual Studio 2005 and Compact Framework 2.0. We are working on SDF 2.2 for Visual Studio 2008 and SDF3.5 for Visual Studio 2008 and Compact Framework 3.5. 

One of the coolest features we have added is NetworkInformation and MemoryMappedFiles.  Chris has some posts on using NetworkInformation here, here and here.

Remember to download the free community edition to use in your projects.