Search results for 'app:weblogs' matching tags 'Misc Technology' and 'Windows Mobile'

Windows Mobile 7.0 Delayed

William — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 05:00:00 GMT

At first glance, the announcement that Windows Mobile 7.0 will be delayed is pretty frustrating. MS has been in the mobile phone game for a while now and it's really hard to argue that Apple didn't get it right with the iPhone. So why can't someone with Microsoft's power get it right a little quicker? One of the main things I would guess is hardware - Windows Mobile is rolled out onto a lot of different devices and that complicates things greatly. With that said though, it's not as disappointing as it may seem. Perhaps the biggest frustration with Windows Mobile has been the browser and as the article states, there's going to be a better one released well in advance of 7.0. The flashy screen that's responsive and easy to navigate is the other big issue and there are already several providers coming out with UI's that rival the iPhone. 6.1 was far from perfect but did a decent job bridging the gap and well, if both of those issues are addressed in a timely manner, it'll go really far into mitigating any frustration related to the postponement of 7.0. Truth is, when 7.0 comes out, it needs to make a Huge splash. It doesn't need to just be good, it needs to be great. And it needs to be visibly better than anything iPhone. Being that MS can't afford to get that wrong, it's understandable (yet no less disappointing) that they are taking the 'better safe than sorry' strategy.

Create a Mobile office with Windows Mobile

William — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 05:00:00 GMT

With such a compelling title, I figured the article would be quite intriguing.

I've had a lot of phone drama recently, dropping my WM 6.1 Dash and breaking it, leaving the replacement on the roof of my car and driving off, buying another imate but dropping it into a diet coke. So I reverted back to my old beloved Voq. A coworker of mine got in iPhone and hacked it up so it would play relatively nice with T-Mobile. He wanted to get rid of it though so I ended up buying it off of him (I can almost hear Sahil gloating now). Shortly afterward, I received a Samsung i780 as a gift so I've mainly been switching between the two (I still can't get the iPhone to work with my T-Mobile data service which gets frustrating). I mention this b/c while the Dash was a pretty nice phone, it really didn't perform all that well. In fact, it was often frustrating. The 6.1 Flash made it a lot nicer but it still was rather slow compared to an iPhone. I had gotten rid of my original iPhone before I really got a chance to use it b/c at first, i didn't like it. After using it regularly for a while though, I'll admit that its usability is very impressive. Its frozen up on my twice in about a month and a half (with heavy usage) compared to the daily freezes I experienced with the Dash. The comparison isn't completely fair b/c hardware wise, the dash is a lot cheaper. And so I guess I'll just come out and concede that Sahil was right, with respect to consumer features, the iPhone provides a much better experience even when you factor in hardware differences. 6.1 mitigates some of that, but there's still a way to go.

Although the iPhone's screen is quite responsive, I think I still prefer an actual keyboard. Unless I'm extremely careful, I almost always spend more time correcting stuff then I do typing when what I'm working on is more than a sentence. Away from that though, there's the Push with Exchange and Sharepoint integration (which surprisingly, I find myself using quite a bit). B/c I don't have wireless Internet on the iPhone, it might be a bigger deal than it should be but AFAIK, Push/Exchange isn't available on iPhone yet. Another really annoying thing w/ iPhone that makes Windows Mobile more 'business friendly' is copy and paste. I never realized how much I used it until I lost it. And I guess I end up using copy/paste much more when I'm mobile then at work b/c typing is still not much fun but being able to quickly edit Excel sheets and paste stuff from word to Outlook and vice versa is huge. And I don't know if it's a true iPhone limitation again b/c I don't have my gprs, but I don't see any way to do internet sharing - from what I can tell, it's not doable with standard USB or Bluetooth.

As far as development goes, well, I'll give Apple some props for the iPhone SDK and I can't say I've spent more than a grand total of 15 hours trying to build stuff with it, but all else being equal, I still think that if I had to build any sort of critical business application, the compact framework not only makes it an easier trip, but it opens up a lot more doors. I don't want to run my big mouth too loudly b/c some of what appear to be limitations may just be limitations with my familiarity of the SDK, but I'm pretty sure that WCF integration is off the table with the iPhone, as is MapPoint / LiveEarth. Same seems to be the case for connecting w/ Sql Server or Oracle although the local db solution offered by Apple does the job pretty well.

At the end of the day, i can say I've really grown to like the iPhone and well, I already like Windows Mobile, even with some of the performance issues that would drive me nuts at times. But I find myself using them for totally different purposes other than of course, to talk. In the same way that I use my UMPC totally differently from my laptop, I find myself switching between these phones the same way. It'll be interesting to see how things develop b/c there's no doubt Microsoft is going to use Silverlight to greatly enhance user experience w/ Windows Mobile 7 and it's a similarly safe bet that Apple is going to try to make the iPhone better at business applications. For now, I'm just really glad I can swap out a SIM card and use whichever I want b/c having to make a firm choice between one or the other would be a real bummer.

Looking for some .NET Developers

William — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:00:00 GMT

A client of mine located in the Aiken/Columbia South Carolina Area has asked me if I had any friends who are .NET Developers and looking for a job. They are looking for at least one Junior Developer, on Mid-Level Developer and several Senior developers. I know these folks quite well and I can vouch for the following:

They pay extremely well
Generous benefits package
There's plenty of cool people on their staff
They are growing at an explosive rate so there's plenty of room for upward mobility. There's also a very strong focus on learning/teaching and career development.
They are an Agile/SCRUM shop
Currently developing with the following technologies:

Visual Studio Team System 2008 / .NET 3.5 Framework
Windows Communication Foundation
Windows Presentation Foundation
ASP.NET
LINQ
Silverlight
Windows Mobile 5/ Windows Mobile 6/ .NET Compact Framework
Sql Server 2005 / Sql Server 2008
Windows Installer for XML
Sandcastle

If you're in the area and looking for a job... if you know someone who looking for a job.... or if you're willing to move, please drop me a line using the Contact option on my blog or emailing me directly at WilliamRyan@gmail.com and I'll put you in contact with them. They are looking to hire folks immediately so I can probably get you an interview within a few days.

Junior Developer:

Ideal candidate will be a recent college graduate with a Computer Science of MIS degree. No experience is necessary for this position. The main soft-skill qualifications for this position are:

A true love for development
Strong desire to learn
A desire to stand out among one's peers

The hard-skill qualifications include a good theoretical understanding of at least two of the following:

Object Oriented Design and Analysis
Relational Database theory
Design Patterns
Familiarity with at least two of the following: C, C++, Java, C#, VB.NET

This is essentially a dream job for recent college grads b/c the job is being offered "no experience required". Since they are a SCRUM/Agile shop, you'll get to work extensively with their Senior and Mid level devs via Pair Programming. You'll be able to pick an area to specialize in which you will decide on for yourself. Additionally, you'll be using some of the most sought after Microsoft technologies available. Go to Monster.com or Dice.com and see for yourself how much demand there is for the above technologies and how much those jobs pay. You'll get to work with these on day 1 and essentially carve out a path for yourself using whichever technologies you like the best. If you want to be a "UI" expert, that's where you'll be put. If you want to be a Web Services dev, again, that's what you can focus on. If you want to be an expert buildmaster who specializes in installers, that's what you'll get to do. The company is looking for some excellent candidates and willing to offer a really fun and great paying job with plenty of training and career development available.

Mid-Level Developer:

The ideal candidate will have a computer science or MIS degree and 1-3 years of development experience. The ideal candidate will have two or more the following abilities:

Solid command of OOP/OOD using C++, C#, Java or VB.NET
Test Driven Design
Service Oriented Architecture
Familiarity with MySql, Sql Server (T-SQL), Oracle (PL/SQL)
Basic understanding of both Winforms and ASP.NET
Basic familiarity with Web Services, MSMQ, Enterprise Services/COM+, .NET Remoting, DCOM, J2EE, Java Beans

Just like the Junior development positions, these ones will provide a great deal of flexibility to learn and specialize the area of your choice. These are considered 'fast track' positions to move into the Senior Developer or Architect roles

Senior Developer:

The ideal candidate will be someone with at least 4 years experience. This person will love challenges and love coming up with solutions to problems that other people run from. They will be people that love figuring out how to do things that everyone else said can't be done. They will be the stereotypical Alpha-Geek, Someone that spends their spare time answering quiz questions like these:

All of the requirements for the Mid-Level Developer as well as several of the following skills:

Proficiency with T-Sql or PL/SQL. You should be able to write a 5 table join on your own. You should have written several stored procedures that were > 100 lines long.
Strong command of query tuning and ability to easily spot design flaws
Ability to design 'real' objects.

Someone who pays meticulous attention to the scope modifiers of their classes/functions/properties
Someone who understands the problems associated with coupling and strives to avoid it.
Someone who can write and use events in their classes without thinking twice about it.
Someone with a solid understanding of thread safety and thread synchronization
Someone who is comfortable using several different design patterns
Someone who is comfortable implementing several different interfaces in one object, using combinations of interface implementation and inheritance and someone who can use inheritance responsibly

Keeps up with technology, reads computer books regularly, has favorite blogs in multiple disciplines and/or blogs themselves, attends or speaks at user's groups, is active in one or more online forum or newsgroup
Someone who answers "Which is better, C# or VB.NET?" with "Either can be better depending on the circumstances but I'm comfortable writing in either of them" and then "But I've been learning F# lately and it's really been growing on me"
Experience with .NET Remoting, Web Services & Web Services Enhancements, MSMQ, Enterprise Services and/or WCF
Ability to create syntactically correct UML diagrams (meaning they can do more than write the letters "UML" on their resume) and if not, they are willing to learn to do this.
Understands data structures solidly and could easily implement their own HashTable or LinkedList
Someone who's always looking to come up with a newer, cooler, faster, and more secure way to do implement something
Experienced with either Biztalk server or Sharepoint
Takes pride in their code without falling in love with it or getting all defensive about it. Ability to acknowledge the fact that everyone makes mistakes and can talk about their mistakes/bugs without getting defensive.
Someone who is the first to raise their hand whenever the boss says "I need someone to learn ____________, do I have any volunteers"

Basically, if you love development, love creating new cutting edge solutions all the while making a lot of money and having a lot of fun you definitely should talk to these folks. If you're interested...... Please drop me a line using the Contact option on my blog or emailing me directly at WilliamRyan@gmail.com and I'll put you in contact with them.