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This week I've mostly been...(#2)

Last weeks Success-o-meter - 37.5%

  • Transparent Winforms - 0%..although I did find this article on developing irregular shaped forms with .Net CF (via OpenNetCF/Alex Feinman)
  • Security documents for KPI Dashboard...got the copy done - 50%
  • MMC Snap-in for KPI/Mobile device management - 0%
  • Horse riding lesson, well I got a freebie when we went to visit my girlfriends horse back up North at the weekend - 100%

Here's a picture of the beast...or rather 'Royal' as he's affectionately known with Caz's sister Becky riding him at a show this year,


Reading
Still reading Excession by Iain M. Banks, must remember to ring the library to get another extension on it!

Lean Software Development - An Agile Toolkit by Mary Poppendieck. Only really started the first chapter so not got my teeth into it yet. The Software Factories book also turned up thanks to my boss Colin bringing a copy back from Redmond but god knows when I'll get round to this one!

Securing Web Services - decided I needed a refresh on some of this as I'm starting to field some questions about how our mobility solutions implement security. I want to check out WSE2.0 with .NET CF...seen a couple of articles on it.

Installing
Wise Solutions Windows Installer - trying to get to grips with this tool. Looks good but the oddities of installation packages on mobile devices could put a fly in the ointment - however so far so good not withstanding the Wise UI!

Deciding
On how to best manage my music media. Caz bought herself a mini iPod at the weekend and it's a cool bit of kit even if it is pink! In the meantime I've pretty much decided to dump ShowShifter and go down the MCE route. ShowShifter, on my hardware anyway, sucks. It appears to be VERY buggy and will not run for more than an evenings use without crashing/locking up/generally being crap. So comes the clash of the media players...currently use iTunes and it's a sweet bit of software and obviously plays nicely with the iPod - however if I shift to MCE I don't really want to install iTunes - I'd rather have it all managed by WMP/MCE. The good piece of news (kinda) is that we like completely different styles of music so I could install iTunes just for Caz's music and use WMP/MCE for mine!

Watching
Couple of MSDN webcasts, in particular "What's new in the Compact Framework 2.0" was quite informative.

Making my millions on eBay
I finally decided to sell some junk around the flat and with last weeks success selling a couple of old TV's through Loot I thought I'd step things up a bit and start using eBay (I won't link this as you must have it already!). So if you need a set of speakers for a Samsung PS42V4SX, a nice winter jacket or some riding boots you know where to go!

Using
VillagePhotos to host images for this blog and eBay. They provide free image hosting plus has a great "gallery" feature (hey, why not check out one of my eBay items for an example...!).

Next week I'll be...

  • Playing with .NET transparent Winforms to create a desktop version of our Windows Mobile application KPI dashboard.
  • Finishing the slides to describe the security in KPI dashboard/Mobile Applications
  • Starting the KPI/Mobile Device MMC management snapin using one of the MMC .NET shims listed here.
  • Joining the CFNUnitBridge workspace on GotDotNET as this weeks attempt crashed and burned.
  • Investigating how to create a service that provides AD synchronisation with support for full and delta updates - this is going to be incorporated into a mobile address book type application we are developing at the moment.
  • Watching more webcasts, I'm looking forward to "Tricks and tips with the Compact Framework"
  • Booking another riding lesson, now I've got the basics I want more! Next target, getting it into 3rd gear (Canter).


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