Operating Systems and Internet Messenger in the USA

Not too long ago I wrote that I would be covering a number of big Ruby happenings, then I let the summer run away with me. Let me run down a quick list of things, and then try to come back and cover them in August.

If you'd missed it ... Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 Professional was made available for download last Friday.  The marketing blurb about it is below.  Note : if you already have the Windows Mobile 6 SDK or SDK Refresh installed, you'll need to re-install it after you're done with installing the VIsual Studio 2008 Beta 2.

Download Link

Visual Studio 2008 delivers on Microsoft’s vision of smart client applications by letting developers quickly create connected applications that deliver the highest quality rich user experiences.  This beta is intended for early adopters of the Microsoft technology, platform, and tools offerings. We designed this release to let developers try out new technology and product changes, but not to build production systems. This limitation is fully covered in the Microsoft Software License Terms that accompany this beta.

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 is available for download from July 27^th 2007 and introduces several new features for mobile developers.

New Features for Mobile Developers

·         Unit testing is now available to mobile developers

o   Developers have told us that testing mobile applications is time consuming and costly.  Visual Studio 2008 enables automated functional testing of managed code to reduce that burden.

·         Latest Device Emulator (version 3.0)

o   You can now automate testing scenarios in the device emulator allowing you to simulate real world changes in device state – signal dropoff, battery running dead etc

·         Latest .NET Compact Framework (version 3.5)

o   .NET Compact Framework 3.5 introduces new features like LINQ as well as an implementation of the Windows Communication Foundation enabling device to device and device to server communication over the Exchange Activesync transport

·         Designer support for SQL Server 3.5 Compact Edition

o   You can now build SQL Server 3.5 Compact Edition applications using the Visual Studio 2008 designer experience

Mobile developers will need to use Visual Studio 2008 Professional Beta 2 and above to build Windows Mobile applications.

Supported Platforms

·         .NET Compact Framework 3.5

·         .NET Compact Framework 2.0

·         .NET Compact Framework 1.0 (projects will be upgraded to 2.0)

·         Windows Mobile 6 (by installing the Windows Mobile 6 SDK Refresh)

·         Windows Mobile 5.0

·         Pocket PC 2003 (managed and native code)

·         Smartphone 2003 (native code only)

·         Windows Embedded CE 6.0

·         Windows Embedded CE 5.0

Someone just pointed out this feature I didn't know existed in Windows Mobile. When you have a contact highlighted you can press the d-pad Left and Right keys to change communication methods for the person (work, home, mobile, txt, email etc). Watch really close when pressing Left/Right, and you'll see the tiny "w" turn to "m", "h", "e" etc.

I suppose this is most useful for alternating default phone numbers - when you press Talk, the selected number is dialed. Previously I used to just open the contact and select the number I wanted to call from the card view. My coworker thinks this is much faster. Agree?

Mobile Search v2 has just been released with improved navigation, caching, movie listings, restaurants, GPS, traffic reporting and more! This is one of my all time favorite apps, and not just because I work in the Windows Mobile team. It is extremely well designed, the search results are accurate, and it comes with enough bells and whistles to be useful in many scenarios. Read the announcement and download the latest version from the team blog (while you're at it, check out this review on CNET news.com).

Also try out the updated Live Search in IEMobile by visiting http://m.live.com.

If you want one more cool mobile search option, try Microsoft's recently acquired TellMe's service. Simply SMS a search query like "Starbucks 90210" to TELLM (83556) and wait for the results. This works on all phones - not just Windows Mobile.

Note: If you're a Windows Mobile developer, I especially recommend downloading the Mobile Search client above. This app follows all the design guidelines and compatibility best practices that ensure it works on the widest range of devices. And it is written in managed code (C#)! Seeing it work may help you improve the usability of your own applications, or inspire you to create something equally cool with the Windows Mobile 6 SDK.

-Mel