Search results for 'app:weblogs' matching tag 'WP7'

Moving podcast subscriptions with Zune

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 05:00:00 GMT

If like me you listen to many podcasts, then swapping the PC your Phone7 syncs to collect the podcasta is a real pain. The problem being as far as I can see Zune has no podcast subscription export/import, so you are left with a lot of copy typing to re-enter them.

Whilst rebuilding my PC with Windows 8 today I have at least found a work around

On your old Pc open you ‘c:\user\[user]\My Podcasts’ folder (shown in Windows Explorer as the ‘Podcast’ folder).
You will see a folder for each podcast you are subscribed to
Copy the whole folder to the same location on your new PC (I did via a USB drive as I was reformatting the disk on the same PC)
Install Zune on the new PC
Open Zune and look in the Collection>Podcasts, you should see all your podcast – but your are not subscribed yet
In Zune, highlight and select all podcasts
Right click and you should see a Subscribe option, select it.
Zune now sorts itself out re-subscribing and checking for new programmes
It gets a bit confused over what you have watched so might pull them down again. Also you might want to alter subscription settings for specific podcasts as it will default back to just 3 programmes.
When you are happy with your settings just drag the podcasts onto your newly resync’d mobile device to finish the job.
You might need to look at the podcasts that are on the device as seems it does not removed one previously there via Zune (again it seems unsure of what you have listened too)

Not perfect but better than trying to removed load of site URLs

Moving podcast subscriptions with Zune

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Whilst rebuilding my PC with Windows 8 today I have at least found a work around

On your old Pc open you ‘c:\user\[user]\My Podcasts’ folder (shown in Windows Explorer as the ‘Podcast’ folder).
You will see a folder for each podcast you are subscribed to
Copy the whole folder to the same location on your new PC (I did via a USB drive as I was reformatting the disk on the same PC)
Install Zune on the new PC
Open Zune and look in the Collection>Podcasts, you should see all your podcast – but your are not subscribed yet
In Zune, highlight and select all podcasts
Right click and you should see a Subscribe option, select it.
Zune now sorts itself out re-subscribing and checking for new programmes
It gets a bit confused over what you have watched so might pull them down again. Also you might want to alter subscription settings for specific podcasts as it will default back to just 3 programmes.
When you are happy with your settings just drag the podcasts onto your newly resync’d mobile device to finish the job.
You might need to look at the podcasts that are on the device as seems it does not removed one previously there via Zune (again it seems unsure of what you have listened too)

Not perfect but better than trying to removed load of site URLs

Nokia adds vcard support to Windows Phone 7.5

bill — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Recently Nokia rolled out a couple of updates for Lumia owners including an OS update that provides tethering support for Lumia 800’s, and some cool camera extras that provides a great group photo merge. Nokia also released a “Contacts Share” application that provides vcard support for sharing contacts.

Install Nokia’s Contact Share, and next time someone sends you a vcard attachment you can simply open it and select to add it to your contacts. There’s other contacting sharing apps out there, but this is the first one I’ve seen that adds vcard attachment support. The app doesn’t integrate completely into the People hub, but it’s the next best thing.

You might have trouble locating the app in the windows phone market place: it was released in June. Here’s the direct link:

http://windowsphone.com/s?appid=feb55f4c-1e2d-497e-b1ee-fce04a9a11ae

Enjoy

Using SignalR for real time communication on the web

Maurice — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 05:00:00 GMT

In a previous blog post I mentioned how exited I was about WebSockets and the future with real time duplex communication over the Internet. Unfortunately the current support for WebSockets, both on the client and on the server, is still somewhat limited making this a thing of the future. Does that mean we can do this yet? Not quite.

SignalR to the resque

Even if a pure Web Socket solution isn’t possible yet there are perfectly good alternatives. And the one I really like is SignalR as it allows for the same kind of application today. Check out a live demo of a simple chat application here.

So if SignalR works today does it mean it doesn’t use Web Sockets? Well it might or might not depending on the circumstances. SignalR actually provides an abstraction layer over the actual transport used. And depending on the client and sever capabilities it can use one or 4 different networking techniques

WebSockets
Server Send Events
Forever frame
Long polling

It just chooses the best solution that both the browser and server support.

SignalR is multi browser

I have create a simple chat page using SignalR and as you can see in the screenshot below it supports lots of browsers on different platforms, here I used desktop IE, Chrome and FireFox as wel as my iPad and Windows Phone 7. All of these just work with SignalR. Pretty good as Web Sockets would only work on Chrome and FireFox at the moment.

The client side code

The HTML markup required is really simple

<h2>

    SignalR Chat</h2>

<input type="text" id="txt" />

<button id="btn">

    Submit</button>

<ul id='messages'>

</ul>

<script src='@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.signalR-0.5.2.js")'>   1:  
</script>   1:  
   2:  
   3: <script src='@Url.Content("~/signalr/hubs")/'> 
</script>

The most important thing about the markup is the two script references at the bottom. The firsts, jquery.signalR-0.5.2.js, points to client side library that ships with SignalR. The second, /signalr/hubs, is a dynamically generated based on the server side Hub classes, see below.

The client side JavaScript is also quite simple.

$(function () {

    var hub = $.connection.signalRChatHub;

    $.connection.hub.start();

    hub.ChatMessage = function (msg) {

        $('<li>').text(msg).prependTo('#messages');

};

    $('#btn').click(function () {

        var txt = $('#txt').val();

        hub.sendMessage(txt);

        $('#txt').val('').focus();

});

});

Basically SignalR extends jQuery and add the connection property containing a property for each hub. Next we call start() to initialize the communication and start listening for the ChatMessage callback, this is the method being called on the server Clients property below. To send some data to the server we just call the sendMessage() function, the public function defined on the server side hub below.

The server parts

The server side implementation of SignalR is also quite nice. All I had to do is add the SignalR nuget package and create a class deriving from Hub.

public class SignalRChatHub : Hub

    public void SendMessage(string message)

        Clients.ChatMessage("Echo " + message);

The public SendMessage is automatically made available to JavaScript clients and the Clients property is a Dynamic object. Just call a method on Clients and it will fire on all connected JavaScript client. You can also just call back to the originating client using the Dynamic Caller property if you want to. And best of all this works perfectly fine with my budget shared hosing account.

Check out a live demo here.

Enjoy!

Why isn’t Windows Phone 8 an update for Nokia Lumia’s ?

bill — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Yesterday’s announcement of Windows Phone 8 not being an upgrade for the latest Nokia phones, including Lumia 800, 900 et al, has been met understandably with both disappointment and anger from many existing handset owners. I’ve also seen some articles/comments that suggest it is needed for the greater good; articles which clearly missed what WP8 potentially brings, and clearly missed the point that existing handset owners clearly like what WP8 has to offer: hence their angst.

First of, the question of hardware. Existing Nokia Lumia's use Snapdragon ARM (v7) processors also known as system on a chip (SOC). The new version of Windows Phone will also run Snapdragon ARM chips, also currently ARM V7. Where’s the massive hardware incompatibility? There’s been silly comments about the NFC chips, but no, the real hardware issue is most likely the graphics drivers. For a closer look, read the Windows 8 team blog on building for ARM. You’ll see that the Windows 8 team actually did a lot of their early development on existing phones !! It doesn’t look like it is a hardware issue, rather it’s a question of the investment into updating drivers for existing graphics chips

Secondly, there’s the misnomer that having the new start screen will make Windows Phones 7.5 just like Windows Phone 8. Wrong. WP8 brings with it some very important changes, two of which are native code, and drivers. Drivers will open up a world of possibilities with both existing hardware such as printers and scanners, external drives, external video etc. WP8 will start the era of new connectivity for devices.

Native code will change the games and apps we see for Windows Phone. Many of the apps Windows Phone users have been waiting to be ported over from the iPhone or Android will be written in native C++ and hence never be seen on the existing devices. New immersive games with stunning graphics also won’t be available for existing devices as long as they are stuck on Windows Phone 7.X

Even the fate of web browsing on the phone is looking bad. With the existing share of Windows Phones being such a small market segment, if the phone doesn’t get the newest IE and HTML 5 support there’s an increasing chance over time that web sites won’t even consider the existing devices and their rendering capabilities a viable target.

Thirdly, the lack of an upgrade for existing phones is going to do severe damage to the Windows Phone market whilst the market waits for WP8 capable devices. This sounds like it is still months and months away. After the recent hype and marketing push for the Nokia Lumia’s this is a massive back step. Will Microsoft and Nokia be buying back existing devices retailers feel they are stuck with or giving massive rebates (remember the Microsoft Kin anyone?). The real cost to the market is going to be huge.

This black hole of no devices available that will be upgradable to windows 8 is going to strike at the confidence the market place has with Microsoft. It was only three years ago Microsoft abandoned Windows Mobile 6.5 for Windows Phone 7. Now they are abandoning it again. The upgrade policy announced yesterday is for only 18 months (although expect that to be challenged legally in Australia at least where telco’s are required to guarantee products for the minimal term of the contract which is usually 24 months). This adds to the recent history of abandoning Zune devices and phones such as the Microsoft Kin.

Windows On ARM (WOA) which is the shared core for Windows RT (Windows 8 on ARM tablets) and Windows Phone 8 will most likely at last bring a stability to the core for devices. But this is the same OS core that we have to regularly update, virtually every month. A support guarantee for 18 months only isn’t going to really cut it.

Lastly, but certainly not least-ly, many of the people who have bought Windows Phones have done so knowing the devices won’t upgrade in terms of hardware, but they expected the software to be updated and new applications to be available to them. Microsoft’s rush to get windows Phone 7 out left it without many features, features people expected to be updated/upgraded over time. The lack of some big name apps was something people thought would be fixed with time as more people bought the Windows Phone. People bought into Windows Phone on a promise of things to come, and did so knowing that the more that bought the phones the more likely we would be to see new apps on the phone.

They bought into trust and faith that things were going to get better. And it might, but not for those who backed Windows Phone 7.

What I’d really like in a phone

bill — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 05:00:00 GMT

The software a phone runs is important but the hardware is even more so. My current day to day phone is the Lumia 800, and the previous one was a HTC mozart. To me the difference is massive. The lumia has a much better display, better reception (which is really important to me), and better battery life. Like I said the difference is massive to *me*.

So whilst thinking/talking hardware, here’s some of the updates I’d like to see:

No more charge cables ! I’m sick of plugging in my phone to charge it. Sure there’s those adapters with pins and charge pads, but I’d really like some like inductive charging. If it’s good enough for my toothbrush I’m sure they can make it work for phones
NFC. Yes many phones already have this, enabling secure payment. Unlike a credit card you can remotely lock a phone if it lost/stolen. Plus it’s one less thing I have to carry if all cash transactions can be done with the phone
Smart key integration. I’m sick of keys. It’d be nice if my phone could replace all my keys, starting with the car keys first.
More wireless communications. Apple has some of this, but it would be nice if it was all open standards. I'd like to be able to post my phone screen to the television; wirelessly print and general wireless device communications. We’re very close on this ...
Tougher gorilla glass.

Most of those things are about less clutter, less cables. It’d be nice if I didn’t have to worry about keys, wallet, phone, pager, instead just had to grab one device to do it all First on my list is get rid of the daily grind of charging it !!!

DotNed Podcast: Tom Verhoeff over geld verdienen met Windows Phone 7 applicaties

Maurice — Thu, 10 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

In deze podcast spreekt Maurice de Beijer met Tom Verhoeff over zijn sessies op de TechDays. Tom presenteerde een sessie over hoe je geld kan verdienen met Windows Phone 7 applicaties. Het lijkt op het eerste gezicht zo eenvoudig, je maakt een app en het geld stroomt binnen. Maar in de praktijk blijkt het toch iets lastiger te zijn en zijn er best wel veel details waar je op moet letten.

Links:

Blog: http://blog.tomverhoeff.nl/
Blogpost nav TechDays sessie: http://blog.tomverhoeff.nl/2012/02/24/making-money-with-windows-phone-applications-at-techdays-2012/
Mark Monster zijn Unified Ad oplossing: http://mark.mymonster.nl/2012/02/07/windows-phone-unified-ad-part-1-introduction/
Verschillende posts over Tom zijn review reader tool: http://blog.tomverhoeff.nl/tag/wp7rr/
AddDuplex: http://www.adduplex.com/
Managing Trial Applications for Windows Phone: http://www.slickthought.net/post/2010/08/30/Managing-Trial-Applications-for-Windows-Phone-7.aspx

Je kan hem hier afluisteren.

Met dank aan onze sponsor RedGate.
http://www.red-gate.com/

Enjoy!

Changed my phone to a Nokia

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 06:00:00 GMT

I swapped to a Nokia Lumia 800 yesterday from my LG E900, all very quick an easy after my experience last month.

My first impressions

the on/off/volume buttons were better placed for a left hander on the LG, but I expect I will get used to that.
the poor reception in my house was not the LGs fault – just a bad reception area
the Nokia does seem faster

Changed my phone to a Nokia

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 06:00:00 GMT

I swapped to a Nokia Lumia 800 yesterday from my LG E900, all very quick an easy after my experience last month.

My first impressions

the on/off/volume buttons were better placed for a left hander on the LG, but I expect I will get used to that.
the poor reception in my house was not the LGs fault – just a bad reception area
the Nokia does seem faster

Error 0x80070490 when trying to make any purchase on WP7 MarketPlace

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 06:00:00 GMT

Recently I have had a problem with my LG E900 Windows Phone 7 running Mango. Whenever I try to make a purchase on marketplace I was getting the error “There has been a problem completing your request. Try again later” and seeing the error code 0x80070490. A search on the web, asking around everyone I thought might have an answer and placing a question on Microsoft Answers got me no where.

The phone had been working fine until a few days ago. The problem started when I tired to run the Amazon Kindle app (now my primary platform for reading, yes decided not to buy an actual Kindle at this point), this failed to start, it just kept returning to the phone home page. A power cycle of the phone had no effect. I have seen this before and fixed it with a remove and re-install of the app. However, though the remove was fine, whenever I try to reinstall I got the 0x80070490 error.

I tried installing another WP7 application (not a reinstall) but I got the same error.

As this is a development phone I was able to try to deploy an app XAP file I created from my PC. This worked without a problem.

I checked my account in Zune, I could login and see the applications I have purchased in the past, so I suspected the issue was corruption of the local catalogue on the phone, but I had no way to prove it.

At this point I was out of ideas so did a reset to factory settings on the phone. This was a bit of pain as my phone is one of the ones form the PDC last year, which Microsoft sourced in Germany. So it was off to Google Translate to help me through enough German screens to set the language to English. But on the plus side I have learnt ‘notruf’ is German for ‘emergency call’.

So I had to

Sync with Zune to get my data off the phone
Factory reset (Settings|About)
Set to English
Reinstall Apps I had previous purchased
Re-Sync with Zune and put back any music, podcasts etc.
Set the APN (Setting|Mobile Network) as with Vodafone UK the phone does not seem to pick this automatically
Set things like ring tones, screen locks
And I am sure there are things I will notice I missed over the next few days…..

So this took about 30 minutes to get my phone back to something like my settings. Not a great owner experience, but we repave our PCs regularly to get ride of the accumulated rubbish, so why not our phones?