Mark Arteaga

What is FITC Mobile 2009?  It’s a 2 day mobile developer’s conference packed with presentations, demos, and panels covering all aspects of mobile development.  The great part is, it’s not just about Windows Mobile, but about virtually all mobile platforms and will cover things such as iPhone, Flash Lite, Android, Palm, Blackberry plus various other topics.  Check out the sessions available at FITC Mobile 2009. 

I’ll also be there and will be doing 3 sessions and a workshop on Windows Mobile development.

• Windows Mobile Developer Workshop
• Windows Mobile Developer Boot-Camp
• My Windows Mobile App Looks like Windows 3.1 ... HELP!
• New Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Features, Sensor API & Mobile Marketplace

So if you are near the Toronto area, be sure to check out FITC Mobile 2009!  At only $209 ($89 if you are a student) it’s a great place to learn not only about Windows Mobile development but also what options are available to you as a mobile developer.

With the Windows Marketplace for Mobile now accepting applications submissions, Microsoft is running a Race to Market Challenge which is a contest to be one of the first developers to get your Windows Mobile app into the Windows Marketplace for Mobile and on potentially 30million users.

Check out the official details at the Race to Market Challenge website and check out the official prizes, one of which is a Microsoft Surface computer!

Internally at RedBit we have a set of in house libraries that we have developed to help improve the user experience for projects we deliver to customers.  But sometimes using third party controls makes sense especially when you have a schedule to keep. 

Check out the controls offered by Bee Mobile as they can help in making your .NET based Windows Mobile software look a little nicer.  Check out the progress bars they have:

Although we have ProgressBar controls with glass effects internally one control we don’t have is an iWheel type control so I decided to give it a try

I’m not a big fan of making Windows Mobile look like an iPhone but the iWheel control is functional and makes things like selecting a date a lot more convenient for the user as opposed to using the standard dateTimePicker

The RedBit team will definitely be using the iWheel on a few projects we are working on and definitely worth the  39.95 € (About $60 Canadian).

This makes it 5 years in a row that I have been awarded Device Application Developer MVP.  See here for a description of what is the Microsoft MVP.  What’s a Device Application Developer (DAD) MVP?  Basically it’s a category for my contributions to the technical community for developing for Windows Mobile using various technologies such as the .NET Framework and .NET Compact Framework.  I’m hoping to do a lot more things this year so stay tuned.

Last year when I was awarded I was the only DAD MVP in Canada and I’m pretty sure it’s the same story this year.  If I’m wrong let me know.

If you are sharing your Windows Mobile developer experience with the community also let me know and I can put in a nomination for you.  If you want to know what you need on how you can be awarded the MVP award see question #9 here.

Back in April at the Toronto Code Camp 2009 after my Windows Mobile Developer Boot-Camp presentation I met Dan Douglas and we discussed about some Windows Mobile projects he has worked in his organization.  He recently blogged about a Mobile Scanning Framework he implemented and demonstrates one possible way to encapsulate bar code scanning input and validation of the data within a Windows Mobile application using .NET Compact Framework.