Windows Mobile Blog Article Suggestions

Hello world. My name is Luke Nyswonger and I manage the Windows Mobile SDK documentation team in addition to promoting an active blogging community here at Microsoft. Over the past 3 months we’ve tried to put a steady stream of consumer and developer focused content out to the community for commentary and collaboration. Now we’re looking for you to help shape our future posts...

For some insight, here are some ideas that made the first round of triage for upcoming articles:

• <secret stuff coming out soon>
• Dream Spark: Student's Guide to Getting Started
• Deep Dive: RIL APIs vs TAPI
• Silverlight for Mobile
• Game Development
• Community discussion on mobile strategy
• Facebook solutions in the community
• How to upload to YouTube from your Windows Mobile Device
• Synchronizing with the Drafts folder
• Recording a call on a Windows Mobile device
• Removing duplicate contacts
• Exploring podcasting applications for Windows Mobile?
• GPRS Settings Worldwide
• How to capture a screenshot with .NET CF?
• Internal FAQ: How To Stream Video From The Phone’s Camera to the PC
• Tethering your blackjack II
• Error logging on Windows Mobile
• Developing a system tray homescreen plug-in
• Determining CPU type
• Review of Twitter and Twitter APIs (how to build a twitter app)
• Review of homescreen customizations

And here are some ideas that were left on the cutting room floor:

• Deep Dive: Windows Mobile version numbers and the history behind it
• Downloading text messages for offline use
• Solving album art issues with media player
• Targeting both the desktop and .NET CF with the same code
• Discussion on machine translated developer documentation
• Internal FAQ: How To Programmatically Access the “Program Files” Path
• Internal FAQ: How to Disable a Cab Install From Storage Card
• GSM band reference page
• How to hard reset the T-mobile dash
• Restoring AT&T proxy information

You may not be able to get a complete sense for the underlying concept of the article with some of the titles, but hoping it triggers some brainstorming and conversation. How do they sound? Should we scrap em? Anything of interest you want us to go deep on? If you have a suggestion for content you’d like to see us write, let us know!

Comments

• Anonymous
  February 13, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  February 13, 2009
  It's a pretty good list, and the one I'm especially keen to see (Silverlight Mobile, AKA The Salvation of Windows Mobile If It Works) is on the list. Anything else on UI development would also be appreciated.

• Anonymous
  February 13, 2009
  The list looks fantastic. In the list I especially like to read more about Silverlight for Mobile and Home Screen customizations (especially for upcoming versions such as 6.5 and 7). I think some articles in location-based programming for Windows Mobile would be helpful, because location-based mobile applications are of great demand nowadays. Developers and ISVs will really appreciate if there're more such resources. It would also be great to have more information about localization and internationalization programming for future versions of Windows Mobile. For consumers, I think contents that help people utilize what they can do with a Windows phone will be really useful. A lot of current Windows Mobile consumers does not fully utilize the features of their devices. They either don't know certain features or don't know how to use certain features available on their devices. Just my 2 cents.

• Anonymous
  February 13, 2009
  Two issues I would like to see addressed please.

1. Is it possible to display caller ID for numbers in Business Contact Manager for WM6 (without duplicating them in Contacts)
2. Is it possible to set up repeat alert after a time period for unacknowledged SMS or voicemails. Thanks Nick

• Anonymous
  February 14, 2009
  The list looks fine, as loong as you try to create the articles in Managed and Native!

• Anonymous
  February 14, 2009
  Thanks for the feedback/suggestions so far. A few are obviously percolating to the top (SLM, UI, Homescreen customization, Location). There is content in the works for some of these areas already…of which it may or may not come via the blog channel. BTW, do you care that it’s in the format of blog articles? Would you rather have whitepapers on the Developer Center or maybe content in the library? Or do we over think that at Microsoft? @Jay the data loss/battery idea is a great suggestion. @Nuo good feedback on consumer direction Love the feedback, keep it coming! This is where a voting system on the blog platform would definitely help. :)

• Anonymous
  February 14, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  February 14, 2009
  Things i am interested in:

1. nicer UI development
2. even nicer UI development :)
3. Recording a call on a Windows Mobile device (without using the speakerphone)
4. More InteropServices examples of calling various .dlls functions from managed code

• Anonymous
  February 14, 2009
  Today screen improvements will be much appreciated from the community.

• Anonymous
  February 14, 2009
  Game Development using .NET DirectX.  I would like to see the mobile and desktop versions of managed DirectX compatible so that one executable runs on both platforms.  Currently, the desktop version is named Microsoft.DirectX.dll and the mobile version is named Microsoft.WindowsMobile.DirectX.dll.  The mobile version contains some unique fixed-point functions.  Can not you also add those fixed-point functions to the desktop version? Microsoft should consider making Visual Studio Standard free or add support for Windows Mobile to the Express edition.  iPhone SDK is free.  Android SDK is free.  Windows Mobile SDK needs Visual Studio Standard which is not free.

• Anonymous
  February 15, 2009
  hello,  Things should interest me : everything almost! lol ;)  The top 3 :    - Recording a call on a Windows Mobile device    - Internal FAQ: How To Stream Video From The Phone’s Camera to the PC    - Removing duplicate contacts  The missing one :    - Using the phone camera "embedded" (integrated in an application not launching the camera default application)  I already developed kind of "Removing duplicate contacts", will you post source code (post or whitepaper or other kind) or a "finished" application ?  +1 about the express version to support mobile, I have VS thanx to my job but should be a jump for the community!  Great work with this list!!

• Anonymous
  February 15, 2009
  I'd like to see the next articles:

• Deep Dive: RIL APIs vs TAPI
• Recording a call on a Windows Mobile device
• GPRS Settings Worldwide
• Error logging on Windows Mobile

• Anonymous
  February 15, 2009
  Hi I also work at an ISV targeting windows mobile technologies.  The things that we would be interested in are:

• Synchronizing with the Drafts folder (synchronization is general would be good).

• Synchronizing with Azure (specifically Azure storage or SDS).

• Targeting both the desktop and .NET CF with the same code (as previously stated this has been cut but it would be interesting). An extra item that would be interesting is:

• executing workflows created using the full framework on WM. Again, the format is not important so long as I can RSS to it.

• Anonymous
  February 16, 2009
  along the same lines of Targeting both the desktop and .NET CF with the same code, I would suggest Targeting both the pocketpc and smartphone using .NET CF with the same code. One of the things that many developers have to do is target the different platforms with the same code base.  Also, best practices for handling orientation changes and different resolution settings with custom drawn controls.

• Anonymous
  February 17, 2009
  I'm interested in both recording audio from a call, AND Using the camera w/o the camera interface (and possibly streaming it)

• Anonymous
  February 17, 2009
  What I´m interested in:

• How to use Active Sync to sync my own managed Application?
• How to write a wrapper to create HomeScreen PlugIns in managed Code. Why are managed code developers so limited on WM? That is really disappointing...

• Anonymous
  February 18, 2009
  We need a mobile version of xbox.com and no xbox.mobi does not count.  ;)

• Anonymous
  February 18, 2009
  Hi, I'd be interested in the following from your list:

• Deep Dive: RIL APIs vs TAPI
• GPRS Settings Worldwide I'd be happy to see some more for OEM's:
• Developing RIL for CellCore and CellTSP, an overview of a working RIL Shai

• Anonymous
  February 20, 2009
  Great suggestions everyone. We are sitting in triage right now going through the upcoming articles as well as your suggestions. Regarding Location....what specific scenarios are you interested in?

• Anonymous
  February 23, 2009
  how about this: the fac thactive sync is using tcp/ip and regedit has the capability to connect o networked machines to edit the registry. what i would personally love to see is rediediting the mobile devices registry from the desktop.

• Anonymous
  March 15, 2009
  lesvaches: Check out CeRegEditor which does exactly what you are looking for (if I understood you correctly).

• Anonymous
  March 16, 2009
  Whata good list, I'd be interested in

1. Error logging on Windows Mobile
2. How to upload to YouTube from your Windows Mobile Device thanks

• Anonymous
  March 24, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 24, 2009
  Have you tried http://qik.com ? I have just started playing with it myself... but I know a number of MVPs and other MS folks have been using it for a bit... and really like it.

• Anonymous
  March 30, 2009
  thanks for knowledge about windows mobile.....

• Anonymous
  April 14, 2009
  I am a game programmer for a mobile game publisher; I would like to see an article on setting up sound code for games in Windows Mobile. My preference is C# on the .Net CF, but CPP might be the way to go? Unfortunately at the moment it really seems like I'm forced to either go with a licensed 3rd party API to get sounds rolling, or play one sound at a time from a file system file (as opposed to multiple sounds at once, and from a buffer).