Quick post
I’ve posted the code of TrafficCamsFlanders & WOL on codeplex 🙂
http://trafficcamsflanders.codeplex.com/
http://wolwp7.codeplex.com/
No idea if anyone would ever use it…
But there it is! 🙂
I’m happy about them!
And guess what, apparently 2856 other persons on this world are as well ^^
(probably a lot less, ‘cause of idiot’s downloading random apps without reading a description…)
Remember them?
According to microsoft’s statistics they have been downloaded as much as 2856 times =)
I don’t think they’re features somewhere big… But at least they’re mentioned in Johan Peeters‘ Belgian Apps list 🙂
Apparently, when you create a live tile, and you use an external URI to point to an image for the tile, the operating system removes the tile after a reboot…
This behaviour doesn’t occur when you use a local resource to instantiate the tile…
Just something you don’t actually know until you see it happening ^^
I’ve been programming again!
This time on soms apps called “PrefabSMS” and “WOL”.
More info about the app later, but now I just want to share some code snippets about sockets en live tiles!
Sockets is something introduced since WP7.5’s update mango.
Something that should have been there since the beginngin… But hey, it’s here now, so enjoy it from now on!
Anyway, a first thing to do is include the namespace.
using System.Net.Sockets;
After that we can declare some new things 🙂
Socket _socket = null; static ManualResetEvent _clientDone = new ManualResetEvent(false); const int TIMEOUT_MILLISECONDS = 5000; const int MAX_BUFFER_SIZE = 2048;
Which meaning is all pretty obvious I think…
After this the socket is initialized with
_socket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Dgram, ProtocolType.Udp);
The 3rd thing we need is a send() function.
This should be something as follows:
public string Send(byte[] payload))
{
string response = "Operation Timeout";
if (_socket != null)
{
SocketAsyncEventArgs socketEventArg = new SocketAsyncEventArgs();
socketEventArg.RemoteEndPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Broadcast, 11000);
socketEventArg.Completed += new EventHandler(delegate(object s, SocketAsyncEventArgs e)
{
response = e.SocketError.ToString();
_clientDone.Set();
});
socketEventArg.SetBuffer(payload, 0, payload.Length);
_clientDone.Reset();
_socket.SendToAsync(socketEventArg);
_clientDone.WaitOne(TIMEOUT_MILLISECONDS);
}
else
{
response = "Socket is not initialized";
}
return response;
}
So, after initialisation, you can call send to send your byte array into the wild!
You can change the IPEndPoint in the send function into IPEndPoint(“192.168.1.100”, 80) or something else, just an ip address and a port for the packet! 🙂
I’ve also been playing with the live tiles. In mango you can setup live tiles to enter a deep state of your application. With this you can open a specific page with specific data in your application instead of just “regularly” opening your app…
Add following reference.
using Microsoft.Phone.Shell;
StandardTileData NewTileData = new StandardTileData
{
BackgroundImage = new Uri("ftgxmessage.png", UriKind.Relative),
Title = temp.sendBody,
BackTitle = temp.sendTo,
BackContent = temp.sendBody,
//BackBackgroundImage = new Uri("Blue.jpg", UriKind.Relative)
};
ShellTile.Create(new Uri("/MainPage.xaml?action="+listBox1.SelectedIndex, UriKind.Relative), NewTileData);
This piece of code instantiates a standard tile with some info. Notice: you have a front and a back of the live tile (it flips around on the home screen 🙂 )
And the create() puts it on the homescreen.
An action can be included in the create function: here we call mainpage with a specified action to execute, this is done by a QueryString – see further.
Adjust at your own needs 🙂
At the page data can be passed from the tile into the app (this is done by a so called QueryString). This can be accessed in the Loaded function for the program with following code:
int id = Convert.ToInt32(NavigationContext.QueryString["action"]);
Et voila, you have your action variable at hand! 🙂
When you want to delete a tile, you first have to find your tile 😛
If we put the tile from above on the homescreen, it can be identified with the action variable in the QueryString. So we use this to find our tile and identify it. And to delete it 🙂
string tempstring = "action=" + listBox1.SelectedIndex; ShellTile TileToFind = ShellTile.ActiveTiles.FirstOrDefault(x => x.NavigationUri.ToString().Contains(tempstring));
That’s all for today 🙂
Allright, 1 app passed certification and can be found in the marketplace: RegularDommel. (It’s just a bandwidth meter for your dommel account)
But it’s a start! =)
On the other hand, MobileVikingsReloader still fails certification…
Main reason is the following…
So what this app does is sending an sms towards the phone number of mobile vikings, just to let you know you want a top-up (also see MV’s faq)
Apparently I cannot “promote” other voice plans… Trying to get around this… Any suggestions?
Nice things:
WP7 is a leap forward, but there is always a lot of comment and missing things.
Know your weaknesses!
Now, a couple of the mentions above are going to be solved in the upcoming “mango”-update. So let’s hope it becomes available quickly 😎 (September? 😕 )
Another suggestion:
One of the best initiatives Microsoft has created for us, poor students, is the platform called DreamSpark https://www.dreamspark.com
For the people that are not familiar with it: it offers a lot of ide’s and tools, and even some full featured os’ses so you can start develop within a couple of hours, read: visual studio, windows server, sql server, windows embedded, etc… And all of this is for free if you are a student. NIIIIICE 😎
Anyway, when you want to develop something for Windows Phone, you get the emulator. But eventually, you want to test your app on a real world device (at least, I want that 😀 ).
The privilege of placing your app in the appstore, and thus being able to test this on a physical device, is reserved for developers who pay $99… And for students, when you register via DreamSpark… NIIICE again! 😎
Because you are getting a spot in the marketplace for free, you have to be authenticated. This authentication process is done by geotrust, a third party doing Microsoft’s work 😛
The process exisits out of 3 steps
And you’re ready to go 😎
Currently, I passed the authentication process from geotrust by scanning my Belgian ID and e-mailing this towards geotrust. (A couple of stupid errors came trough, like for example “mendel alias” is not my real name of-course… 😀 , but the guys are geotrust where wonderful, thx again if you’re reading this!)
So, from now on, I’m an official WindowsPhone developer! Lol ^^
First app in the marketplace (still needs to be approved) is a check tool (like for example the mobilevikings tool) for the download statistics of my ISP: Dommel.
We’ll see how everything turns out in the future 😎
When electronics become slow, unstable, or just boring, you can (mostly) upgrade them.
If your computer is getting slow you can buy a new cpu.
When you laptop has a shortage on storage space, you buy a new hard disk. Same with soundcards, RAM, and others.
But you can’t (yet) do that with a telephone (or a mac ^^)
Anyhow, my old & trusty HP was getting rusty… (Not literally ofc ‘cause plastic can’t rust 🙄 )
So it was replaced 😀
Let’s compare!
| name |
Hewlett-Packard iPAQ 614c |
Samsung GT-i8700 Omnia 7 |
|---|---|---|
| cpu | Intel XScale PXA270 @ 520MHz | Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 @ 1000MHz |
| ram | 128MiB | 512MiB |
| storage | 256MiB+8GB µSD | 7.97GB |
| display resolution | 240*380 | 480*800 |
| display diagonal | 2.8″ | 4″ |
| camera resolution | 3.1MP | 4.92MP |
| weight | 145grams + battery (+- 180grams) | 138grams |
Jeeaaaah, it’s a bit of an improvement 
I went to Fnac, a multimedia shop, located here in Ghent. Played with several devices (including some high-end android and even symbian)… But WP7 popped out. It’s animations are incredible fluent, wonderful eye-candy, and it just works. A lot of things are still missing: like for example the copy-paste functionality, and a skype client. But I’m sure (call my naïve) they will become available in the next few months… 😎
And something I noticed on android, sometimes frames are just skipped? The menu’s are just not THAT fluent, especially when I compared it with WP7… I didn’t had the chance to try the GalaxyS, and I don’t know what versions of android where installed on the devices I tried, but maybe some optimizations can be made… (Tried the high-end HTC’s though…)
Anyway, I’ve been playing with my omnia for a couple of days now, and I’m loving it… Everything is synchronized with hotmail, and my desktop computer. Google Android surely has the same functionality, but still…
Marketplace is something nice, the only close the entire platform as money in a safe… Damn, I hate that… Microsoft went “Apple-style”… Hopefully they’ll create something android like with next to the marketplace, the apk-installable files 😀
Pictures aren’t that bad, at least they don’t “move” like my previous cellphone…
even at night
The biggest issue is ofcourse the battery. I play with that cellphone all day long… But you can’t do that without charging it… When you do nothing with the device, you’ll probably make it trough the day… Maybe I need to find some energy saving tricks ^^
Now, after some days, I noticed that it’s perfectly doable to make it trough the day… Which wasn’t always possible with my hp… But the hp was continuously syncing with hotmail, the samsung only each 30 minutes (which IS a pretty huge difference…)
The list of negative arguments will probably grow in the future, but for now it’s a great device
Atm only the lack of copy/paste 😐 (I notice I used that quite a lot, even on a telephone 😀 )
