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November 28, 2003. SQL Server CE Tools for .NET CF

Posted by Chris Forsberg.

As you may be aware, loading very much data with ADO.NET is not very fast. Here comes a solution that is optimized to bulk load tables in SQL CE, and my preliminary tests show that it is much faster than regular ADO.NET. Go and sign up for the recently released beta and try it out yourself!

FITIRI SS Suite of High Performance Tools allow developers and companies to Bulk Insert data into their Pocket PC based handheld devices from disparate sources of data. SSCEDirect does this in a fraction of the time compared to using ADO.Net. Typical load time for 10,000 records is 8 - 10 minutes, the same data takes only 15 seconds using SSCEDirect.

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November 27, 2003. Pocket PC style spin control

Posted by Vassili Philippov.

What I dislike in Pocket PC development that there are many features that Microsoft uses and even recommends but that are not described for developers.

For example many Pocket PC programs like Pocket Word use two "flat comboboxes" over the file list for folder selection and sorting. But there is no documentation how to do the same. Or recording control... one provided by Microsoft for developers is much worse than one used by Microsoft in Notes and Inbox. And so on.

One of such things that Microsoft always uses in their application but does not disclose how to implement (indeed there is one help page that gives a hint but it is almost impossible to find this page and it contains only 50% of needed information) are spin controls.

Spin controls used in standard Pocket PC applications have special look and feel optimized for working with stylus. We publish a new QA that explains how to make spin controls in this Pocket PC style.

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November 26, 2003. Enhanced Standard Controls for .NET CF

Posted by Chris Forsberg.

Did you ever feel restrained by the limitations of the .NET CF standard controls? This package include a number of standard controls with enhanced capabilities. You can set more colors, styles, and so on, and you have all the possible events available. A trial version would be nice, though.

This package contains four controls (Label, Button, Checkbox, Radio Button) that completely replace the standard controls that come with the compact framework. The new controls contain ALL the functionality of the standard controls in addition to many features that were left out or simplified in the standard controls. The new controls also implement ALL events that are provided by the base Control class, not just the standard small subset, this allows much more flexibility.

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November 25, 2003. Web Service Enhancements with .NET CF

Posted by Chris Forsberg.

Now he is at it again! This is the latest in a series of article by Casey Chesnut where he focuses on how to utilize the Web Service Enhancements (WSE) and the currently forming Global Xml Architecture (GXA) from a smart device (read Pocket PC and Smartphone) using .NET CF. This time he partly focuses on the crypto functionality building on his previous article where he implemented a managed crypto wrapper. Go dig in deep!

This should give you a great start for calling the next generation web services with the .NETcf. It provides the fundamentals of WS-Routing / Addressing, DIME, and WS-Security (including Xml-Encryption and Xml-Signature).

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November 24, 2003. Free Chess for .NET CF

Posted by Chris Forsberg.

Although not entierly developer-oriented I thought it would be nice to put an interesting .NET CF developer on display as it could encourage other .NET CF developers. The link and screenshot is from the second version of Valentin Iliescu's free chess game. Be sure to also check out his other free logic games based on .NET CF.

Features include: easy-to-use interface with nice graphics, 4 playing modes: play locally (against the computer or in two-player mode) or over the internet (against a chess XML Web Service or against one of your MSN Messenger buddies), 3 versions: for PocketPC, Smartphone, and desktop, chess engine with 6 difficulty levels, full understanding of the chess rules: draw by repetition / by 50 move rule / by insufficient material, castling, en passant etc, save/load games in FEN (Forsyth-Edwards Notation) format, automatically resumes an interrupted game, board editor, move history in standard algebraic notation, two image sets to choose from can rotate the board, gives next move hints small size, under 200KB for both mobile versions.

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