Rampidbyter Rampid byter: A byte of my .Net developing life.

Last week I ended up getting up at about 3:30am and couldn’t sleep. So I did what any self respecting nerd would do. I went upstairs, opened up Visual Studio, and started making my first Windows Phone 7 program. I really wanted to create a program to be able to read the Mac address and display it easily from the phone. I quickly realized that the Silverlight functionality available on the phone is incredibly limited. By incredibly it’s really very pathetic. I would say it’s the most closed ecosystem of any mobile phone on the market, with exception to BlackBerry, but even then I haven’t dived into BlackBerry programming since the 8000 series.

It was fine enough to be able to use the emulator for phone development, but since I have a real phone I wanted to dive right into using things I create directly on my device. That’s when I discovered the App Hub. It’s basically like Apple’s development program where you have to pay $99 plus tax to join their little programming community/marketplace. With that cost you you are entitled to exactly one year of membership, and access to using a development device. This is where Apple and Microsoft take a sharp turn away from each other. With Apple it’s a one time yearly fee for complete access to the marketplace, documentation, code development environments (Xcode), SDK’s, and ability use development profiles on your physical devices. Microsoft on the other hand requires a background check to even get started. Microsoft didn't mention this until AFTER I paid them.

I failed the immediate background check. This is the second time I've failed to prove that I am me. It was asking questions related to my mortgage bank, my student loan bank, and what my monthly mortgage rate is. Well, first the mortgage bank list didn’t display my bank, my student loans were paid off/bank not listed, and none of the listed monthly mortgage rate range were even close to mine. Instead of a quick check it’s turned into a week long wait, having to fax a copy of my drivers license, and just today was granted access to start using my device for programming.

Talk about a buzz kill. Nothing like waiting a week with NO status updates to kill my enthusiasm. First the device is incredibly limited in access to physical functionality, and then jumping through hoops even to use the device I paid hard-cash to own really just puts it over the top from being sad to pathetic. Still, I am happy to see they finally agreed I am me, and now from this day forward I actually feel the $100+ dollars I paid to get denied was at least worth _something_. I’m hoping to push out a few project ideas and at least get a bullet point on the resume that I’ve made Phone 7 applications.

As I mentioned previously I embarked on a one certification a month mission. For October I took the 70-528 Web 2.0 certification, and last weekend I took the 70-536 .Net Framework Application Development Foundation exam. I passed and now officially have the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist for Web 2.0 Framework certification. I bought a few new study books from Amazon so I’m hoping to keep the ball rolling. December is shaping up to be very difficult to schedule time for an exam with the holidays, but I may make this a new years resolution to continue my goal of one certification a month. 

After getting a first hand glimpse of the Windows Mobile Phone 7 from a buddy I just couldn’t contain my desire to program on the new platform. I’ve been slowly drifting away from Microsoft since the introduction to iPad development, and especially after having been burned so badly by the brick that was my Windows Mobile 6.1. Two years of servitude to the stylus will make anyone a bit skittish to get back into the mix. However, the newly intuitively designed touch sensitive interface really showed me that Windows Mobile had changed, and maybe this time it really would stop beating me at night.

Later that night I happened to be cruising around on Amazon looking for some decent study guides for future exams, and happened to note Amazon had a beta wireless.Amazon.com. Man, what a mistake to click that link to see the Windows phone offerings. Not only were the Windows Mobile Phones listed, but they were only $49.99 with new contract sign-ups. I still haven’t seen my willpower since that moment in time, and I think it left me for good this time.

Two days later my new Windows Mobile Phone 7 was at the door, and a crisp clean gorgeous Samsung Focus was unboxed. Instantly I knew this was the phone for me. The display was epic, the finger tracking was tops, and the fluid OS sealed the deal. I realized then I had made a good decision, but also a two-year pact with the devil (AT&T) but that’s another story.

After having spent the better part of last weekend out of town I had ample time to study, delve into phone functionality, and really get a sense of total device functionality The first thing I noticed was how heavily tied to social networking this phone is. The integration of Facebook/Live/Gmail contacts is astoundingly good. Albeit a little confusing trying to manually import my old contact list to the new phone. There didn’t seem to be a clear cut ‘add contact’ flow. The contact list was initially created from my Facebook friends list, live messenger contacts, and when adding phone numbers the phone asks to append details to the contact. This indicates to me these contacts are co-dependant on my current friend or buddy statuses. I'm not totally sure whether they’d be removed from my ‘People’ list if i dropped them from Facebook or messenger accounts.

The entire weekend was one big love fest with the device. I don’t think it left my hand for more than an hour or two, and at that point was either on my lap or at the charger. Don’t even get me started on the Zune device management software. Talk about making iTunes look like something straight out of the early 90’s. Seriously, iTunes is a pile of crap comparably to how fluid and well thought out the Zune interface software is. Somehow Microsoft managed to make the act of syncing look cool.

I didn’t really run into the negatives of the phone until I got home and tried to set the phone up on my wireless network. It was a disaster. I try to run a tight ship on security around my house, and especially with wireless access. I use a three stage approach, first I disable SSID broadcast, I require a connection password, and I use Mac address filtering. To say I was shocked to find that the Windows Mobile Phone 7 doesn’t display a Mac address anywhere in any settings would be an understatement. It’s nowhere. I spent close to an hour examining every single menu, setting, and poking in places I knew it couldn’t be. Turns out I wasn’t crazy, for now, and Microsoft didn’t include support to display the Mac address. On top of that the phone can’t see SSID broadcast disabled networks, and does NOT include support for manually adding the network to the phone. The solution? Enable SSID broadcast, turn off Mac address filtering, allow the device to connect, and then get the Mac address from the LAN device connection listing. Considering this device is targeted to business users try talking a bank’s network admin into that one.

The next problem I had ended up being with what I was most excited about, the Xbox Live integration on the phone. Before I knew what I was doing I setup my phone to use the Live account my MCP credentials are associated with. It then created a temporary XBox Live account under that Live account. That is NOT the same Live account my actual XBox Live account is associated with. There is no obvious way to change the associations on the phone, and instead requires going to the ‘Edit Profile’ settings for the auto-generated account. Once in the edit profile area you have to scroll all the way to the bottom, past the form entry fields, and there is a link on how to change the Live account the XBox is currently using. Ok, I can try that, but kind of annoyed the phone isn’t the one that can be changed. The saddest part is the XBox Live account steps provided by the phone show the pre-Kinect XBox update menus. Not entirely accurate account management menu navigation instructions, but none the less I found where I needed to go and followed the steps from there. After OK’ing the change on the XBox to use the Live account my phone is using my XBox instructs me that I cannot change the Live account it’s associated with because the one on the phone already has has an account. Seriously? I tried it twice to the same results. At this point I have some auto generated ‘PlayerXXXXXX’ account, and no way to get my gamer tag information for my real XBox Live account.

The remaining problems are more nit picking (so far) than anything else major, and could be from my past year of using primarily Apple interfaces. It has to do with the cursor displayed on finger press to navigate blocks of text. That is where iWhatever kills Windows Mobile. The cursor appears and the first thing to note is how incredibly distant it is from your actual finger whereas with Apple the retina display appears at least at your finger tip. The next thing you notice is how incredibly jerky the cursor behaves when it actually gets focus within the text block. It takes a surgeons dexterity to get the dang thing moved between a character and a trailing period. Good luck if you’re in a moving car. Seriously, it’s horrible, and makes me really wish I had a physical keyboard to overcome how terrible it is.

Still at the end of the day for all the negatives (so far) the device really stands out. The interface responsiveness is what amazes me the most. Coming from a web background I can’t help think it looks like like someone threw a bunch of floating divs with fixed width/height styles with solid background colors. Really though it’s the small things that amaze me the most. When I scroll through the main category list the bunching of the boxes when I try to scroll too far, or when I flip my thumb sideways and the top panel just folds out of view. Simple but oh does it make such a difference to me. Even when the wallpaper (if you call it that) needs to be slid upwards to view the menu options is simply an aesthetic wonder. I sat slightly sliding it upwards just enough so it would fall back down for at least ten minutes. When it comes to actual applications don’t even get me started on how neat the panorama display is. Its noticeable after years of navigating an iTouch interface that my thumb isn’t bent nearly as often to press or move around. I just slide my thumb from left to right and things just happen. It’s just the way you physically interact with the device that really stomps the competition. It’s much more… for a lack of a better world ‘useable’.

Why can’t I quit you Windows Mobile? I am now the semi-proud owner of a new Windows Mobile Phone 7. The specific phone being the Samsung Focus. In short it’s night and day better functionally than Windows Mobile 6.1, and I dare say superior to the experiences I’ve had with iPod Touch 3rd gen and iPad. There are server quirks I really do not like with the Windows Phone 7, but all-in-all it’s not a bad first gen phone.

I took the 70-528 MCTS Web 2.0 certification today. Passed it and now can add the MCTS to my resume. I didn’t blog about it, I did tweet it though, but I decided to do a challenge to myself to get one certification a month until the new year. The last certifications I took for were back in 2007, with one upgrade failure in 2008ish, but since then I hadn’t really felt the need to get any additional certifications (especially when MCSD expired.)

Since I’m a independent consultant now it seemed to behoove me to get additional certifications. For the simple fact when I list them the description web/desktop with framework number helps HR see I'm still relevant to their search. Considering my current job duties focus mainly on web development I’d really like to get a few desktop and database related certifications in the list.

I scheduled the exam two weeks ago, studied each evening, and took it today with a successful result. What was even more awesome was I actually found Microsoft has a certification pack deal going on where you get a big discount WITH second shots for each certification in the pack. I bought the 3-exam pack and saved a boat load of money AND get free second-shot chances if I blow the first try. For the month of October I have my first MCTS in web, and looking forward to getting more in the coming months.

Ok, I built something I am excited about. The one biggest gripe I’ve had with blogs is that it’s often hard to sort and filter the posts to find the posts I’m most interested in. In comes Microsoft Pivot. Microsoft Pivot allows for viewing data in an intuitive filterable manner in a completely visual context. Incredibly cool for filtering images, magazines, or even the magic the gathering card collection. Take that single column blog lists!

My idea last night is to view blogs through Pivot. I set about programming the cXML schema into a series of .Net classes, and then built an input mechanism to build a static cXML file with my blogs postings. It’s still in the early phase of just the roughest information, mainly blog title and descriptions, but given another day of polishing will have additional meta data with appropriate blog links. I also realize how terrible my categories are since the Pivot category filtering is very limited with my junk data input.

Below is a screen shot of the very rough data output I created with cXML for viewing in Microsoft Pivot. Now that I have my framework together I can expand the idea to anything with categories.

I will keep the cXML path displayed in the Pivot screenshot so if you’re interested you can also view the generated blog Pivot output as it goes through the transition to getting cleaned up totally.

I’ve been trying to use nothing but Visual Studio 2010 for my at-home development uses. For the most part it works decently until it decides to be not be so cordial. I’ve seen things from group boxes all of a sudden only half the text on any contained controls displays. Restarting Visual Studio does nothing to redisplay the text even though it’s clearly in the Text property window. The only solution to that seems to be to add or change one character on any of the contained controls and auto-magically the rest of the text in all the controls displays properly again within the group box. That one has happened several times already.

There has also been the fancy quirks of leaving Visual Studio 2010 running and using it through a remote desktop connection. That one causes some strange behavior from getting stuck in a frozen state, not releasing locks to referenced assemblies, which that assembly part sucks when said assemblies solution is open in another Visual Studio instance you want to compile. That may have just been something weird between Visual Studio 2010 as the main windows form project and Visual Studio 2005 as the assembly project. The worst being when switching between code pages where the code-behind looses the cursor. Just stops showing up, don’t know where you are, but it can still move and select text using the mouse or keyboard. Just the funny thing is the text doesn’t show itself being selected either, but you can definitely ctrl-c it and it copies find to the clipboard.

Who knows, but the oddities are adding up quickly. I just had Visual Studio 2010 crash for the third time for unknown reasons as a result of adding an About Form to the project and modifying the About Form’s form wide text. Open the project, close all code behind, open the About Form, right-click to view code, and then it prompts to restart itself. I think that means go to bed and shut down for the night.

I have a confession to make. I have cheated. I have been in a long term relationship for many years, and in a moment of weakness I did the unthinkable. I was weak, the opportunity made itself available, and worst of all it was unimaginably good. I also want to say I don’t plan to end it anytime soon either. What I’m trying to say is I went Mac.

Yes, Mac, I bought a Mac Mini so I didn’t go all the way but I went enough Mac that I feel really dirty about it. Worst of all I bought the Mac the very day before I was to go Windows 7 official release date. I was curious about the Mac Mini, and the day before Windows 7 a new product version was released. With a student discount and the new machines coming out that day. Well i just couldn’t resist.

I whole hardily blame the iPod. That was my first Apple product and it is one heck of a gateway product. I just expect it to work, be easy to use, and also be small and stylish. I have been using the Windows Mobile 6.1 for some time now. It sucks. Let me be clear it sucks pretty badly. So bad that Windows Mobile 6.5 is night and day better. Oh, I am aware that Windows Mobile 6.5 is lacking and has lackluster features. It’s big claim to fame is not being Windows Mobile 6.1. I so wanted to work on the Windows Mobile phone but really what’s the point when I can get an iPhone?

So the very fact that Windows Mobile was such a pile has lead me into the arms of Apple. I am one of the small percentage of people who own a PC and STILL decide to buy a Mac. I want to do iPhone applications, and eventually ditch my worthless Windows Mobile 6.1 phone for an iPhone. Something with multi-touch interface, a browser that doesnt require a toothpick and a prayer to scroll, and be able to take advantage of the sweet app store.

Yes, I’ve gone Mac, not all the way, but we’ll see what happens. I can tell you right now that it’s gross how the Mac mini boots to the useable desktop in about a minute while my quad core beefy dell XPS 720 takes about four to five minutes to do the same. I’ve used CCleaner on the desktop to trim startup apps just so you know it’s not bloated with startup programs.

Anyway, that is my confession. I am glad to have that off my cheat. I will still claim to love Microsoft, Windows, and especially the .Net framework. I am just going to a more open relationship with Microsoft until they decide to commit to me in providing top quality environments to work with.

Hahahaha. Came across this gem while reading about Visio Services and Sharepoint 2010.

Upgraded Windows Home Premium 64x last night. Took six grueling hours of starring at the screen while Windows 7 installation upgraded the system. It did take six hours, but unlike any other OS upgrade I have done it actually left the programs in tact.

To my dismay found that while Visual Studio 2005, and Visual Studio 2008 work fine the beta Visual Studio 2010 crashes whenever I try to open it. I get the beautiful exception dialog below. Bummer.