Kinoma FreePlay - Great WM Application

Two weeks ago I started to use the Kinoma FreePlay. It is available as a free download at: http://www.kinoma.com/freeplay/get/. I have to say it is a great application. It is basically like having iLife for Windows Mobile. It is a photo & Video viewer, audio player, streams video and audio, and connects to many popular sites (YouTube, Flickr, etc).

It is basically one place to manage your digital media stored on your PDA and on the net. The User Interface is very nice and really sets the standard for ease of use that we would love to see in other Windows Mobile applications.

The FreePlay version has some limitations, but for free it is great. I ams still debating if I will upgrade, as the FreePlay version does a lot of what I want. I think the $29.99 price tag is a little steep for the additional features they are offering. We will see, maybe I will change my mind.

I have a 3G connection on my TreoPro and I have to say the YouTube integration with Kinoma is awesome for searching and the playback is very good (fast in my opinion).

I now use Kinoma for managing viewing my local pictures, video and for playing audio.

Give it a try! http://www.kinoma.com/freeplay/get/

LiveMesh on the PDA

I was very happy to get in on the LiveMesh beta for the Windows Mobile PDA. I have a Palm Treo Pro running Windows Mobile 6.1. In addition, I am using LiveMesh with a Windows desktop and a Mac Desktop. So far, the service works very good and is reliable.

I also use www.getDropBox.com for synchronizing files. At this point, DropBox is faster and a little simpler to use. However, they dont have a Windows Mobile client!

The windows mobile client works as you would expect, it correctly synchronizes files. However, it is VERY SLOW. I am sure this is because its a beta, but the file synchronization takes for every.

When you tell it to sync, it seems to THINK for along time before it actually starts moving files. I hope we see this improve in upcoming betas.

Also, I cant wait for MS to open up LiveMesh with a programming API. This is very exciting to be able to have a space in the cloud to store PDA information from custom applications.

NeboPad 1.1 Update Released

Today we are very pleased to announce an update to NeboPad. NeboPad was released just over a month ago and has been a very popular download.

Download the update at: http://sites.google.com/site/nebowiki/Nebopad

Version 1.1 is a response to all the user feedback and we believe NeboPad is ready for prime time use. Thanks for the all the feedback and keep the suggestions coming. Here is are recap of the 1.1 update:

New Features

• Word Wrap (Per document setting and a global setting)
• Font Selection: Now you can choose the font used in NeboPad
• open file from explorer (See below for some details)
• Option to startup in full screen mode by default

Improvements

• It should be more obvious now which items in the navigator are available and which are not.
• Now displays |NewFile| for new files, as opposed to an empty tab
• Tweaked for Palm Treo 850 (resolution 240x240 and 320x320 support)

Bug fixes

• NP doesn't crash now when a file is opened from File Explorer
• Problem in file browser fixed in how it displayed sub directories
• Rotate caused crashed if device does not support rotations

Note regarding opening files from explorer: You can now open a text file from the OS if you have associated a file type with NeboPad. However, NeboPad is written in .NET and NeboPad will only launch and load a file if NeboPad is not open. So if NeboPad is open and you try to load a file from the OS, NeboPad doesn't do anything. I am working on fixing this, however this is a .NET Limitation.

Increase Writing area in threaded SMS on Treo Pro (or other HTC Devices)

I really like the thread SMS messaging support included with the Treo. However, I tend to write longer SMS messages and I constantly find the space allocated for SMS writing is too short when viewing a threaded discussion, so as my message gets longer I cant see all my text.

Thankfully, you can customize this.

In the \Windows folder on the Treo, edit the file thread_sms.htm. You can use NeboPad to do this if you like :-)

Look for a line that has the text Height=35. The 35 represents a height of 35 pixels, roughly 2 to 3 lines of text depending on your settings. You can increase the number as you like. As mentioned before, I run my treo 320x320 and for this reason I changed Height to 75.

Here is an example:



Now I can see much more of my personal message that I am typing and still see the threaded conversation.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt to back up this file before you go editing it.

This also works on other HTC devices with Windows Mobile 6.1 (On the few that I have tried :-)

Treo Pro 320x320 Love

I have been using RealVGA with my Treo Pro for 2 weeks and love it. For those who don't know, RealVGA lets you take advantage of the 320x320 capabilties of the TP. Yes, they advertise the 320x support, but really the TP runs in 240x240 mode. To me, this is a very ugly resolution for this device, as the device has to distort the screen to compress the standard 240x320 into the 240x240 resolution. You can download RealVGA free from the XDA website.

I use the 96DPI mode and this requires the two following files from the site listed above:
RealVGA_11.CAB
ResPack96dpi.ARM.CAB

Install the cabs and then launch RealVGA. Select 96DPI in the list of choices. As a side note, there is an option to remove the dialer, I cleared this check box. On another phone I have, I found that RealVGA did not work well with this option turned on and then I couldn't get my dialer back. So with the TP I just unchecked it and all is good.

You will then be prompted to reboot the TP.

Now one thing to note, is that not all applications run well in 320x320 mode. For the most part I have had no problems and am very happy with this mode.

Interesting side note: I am putting the final touches on a new version of NeboPad that has been optimized for the Treo Pro at 240x240 and 320x320.

A few problems I have had with software:
* The icons used in windows messenger disappeared, I am assuming this is because the Treo doesn't have the high resolution version of the images with the software. No problem, messaging still works 100%

* when you are in the dialer, you can see a little bit of the application running behind the dialer. Honestly, I never notice it. Dialer works great.

* SPB Mobile Shell: On previous devices I used SPB Mobile shell. this product works fine on the treo in 240x240, but does not work for me in 320x320. I was disappointed at first, but I dont miss it now. The built in keyboard with lots of shortcut keys allows me to map applications to buttons and I dont have a need for the shell app like I did before.

Overall, I am very satisfied with my experience. Just thought I would share that with you.

WM Team... Rescue us.

Interesting post over on wmpoweruser.com about MS needing to catch up in the Mobile game. I could not agree more. I posted a comment there and later decided to post my comment here. (http://wmpoweruser.com/?p=1451)

MyComment:
You could not be more right. I love developing for Windows Mobile. Visual Studio and CF are best solution out there for dev. Fast, easy, and flexible.

Having said that, the WM UI is really behind the times. The CF list of controls are very windowish (lets just say I sometimes feel like my CF APPs look windows 3.1 like).

I really wish they would modernize the UI. Finger friendly! and including lots of friendly and exciting controls.

CF 3.5 was a waste. Ok, if you are an enterprise dev and need that kind of stuff great. However most developers will stick with 2.0 if they can because there is no compelling reason to upgrade and the 2.0 CF is installed on most devices.

Please MS. WAKE UP. Learn, investigate, (Steal) from the UI experience of the iPhone. We need great visual controls and we need them standardized. Lots of people are reinventing the wheel today with their own unique UI (Ex: HTC Touch interface, TouchFlo, and many 3rd parties imitating with their own thing.)

Resco Developer controls are awesome

Sadly, there are very few 3rd party controls on the market for the Compact Framework. What saddens me is to see so many developers building common controls that really should be available commercially. For example, many applications now emulate the stylus free capabilities of the iPhone. Many developers are rolling their own solution for scrolling and navigation.

However, I did not say there was no one out there. Resco, the famous mobility developers have a library for the Compact Framework that is simply superb. You can check out their full offering at:

http://www.resco.net/developer/

I have mainly used their AdvancedList and DetailView control. AdvancedList is a listbox on steroids. Really, its not a fair comparison, but ListBox is a similar idea. You can display a list of information. However, Resco supports unique layout in the listbox, so you can stack multiple items in one row. They also support a template model that allows you to create a different presentation for different rows.

The thing I like most about their controls is something they call Delayed Loading. In other word, their control only renders the part of the control and your data that are currently visible. As the user scrolls the list, the conrol queries your data for more information and then displays it. The net result is speed. Imagine you have a list a 1000 items. With a listbox you have to populate the entire list box. With AdvancedList, only the first 10 or 20 rows that are actually visible are rendered. Its a very efficient model for Mobile devices.

They also recently added Touch Scrolling like functionality. This gives you a little bit of a iPhone touch and feel.

Check out Resco, you wont be disappointed.