If it’s Thursday, it must be Freeware and Open Source for Windows day. Here’s a summary of Freeware/FOSS I mentioned in my personal blog last week…

Juice Podcast Receiver (and how to get it work with Vista)
The Juice Receiver was formerly (and probably better known as) iPodder. It is a multiplatform Open Source Podcast aggregator client. It was the first podcast receiver I used (first on a Windows PC and later on a Mac until iTunes added podcasting features). I still use it on the Windows side for the few podcasts that do not go on my iPod.

Windows Vista users may run into a glitch when attempting to run it on that new OS release. However, there is an entry in the Juice Receiver Support Programs that explains how to use it under a Windows XP SP2 Compatibility Mode for use with Vista…

7-Zip: A Great Little File Archiver
If you are looking for a free Windows file archiver that can pack/unpack 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR and unpack (only) RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS, grab a copy of the Open Source…

7-Zip

It not only works well but can be integrated with the Windows Explorer so you don’t even have to manually run the application to unpack files. It has become part of the standard set of tools I install on a rebuilt or freshly built Windows PC.

ExplorerXP (freeware)
If you’ve become accustomed to tabbed browser windows in Opera, Firefox, or Internet Explorer 7, you probably wonder why Microsoft didn’t provide tabbed windows for Windows Explorer from day 1. Fortunately for us, someone with some programming chops thought so too and took care of the issue by creating…

ExplorerXP

It is freeware for non-commercial use and provides a number of features missing from Windows Explorer in a small 410KB installation package.

IrfanView 3.99 Graphic Viewer (Freeware)
I haven’t tried the freeware IrfanView graphics file viewer in a long time. But, it was pretty good the last time I tried it a couple of years ago and continues to have good buzz from its current users. Its About page lists features well beyond simple file viewing including some graphic editing (e.g., sharpening, cropping, rotating) as well as image batch processing. The current version was released just a week ago on Nov. 16.

Notepad++
Notepad++ is an Open Source text editor for Microsoft Windows. It is so much better than Microsoft’s Notepad (which has not been changed since its Windows 1.0 incarnation in the 1980s as far as I can tell), that you should run to install Notepad++ and at least test it out. It can open multiple documents, view two documents simultaneously, has syntax highlighting (for programmers), and many more useful features.

The five-year long march to developing Windows Vista exposed just how broken Microsoft’s Windows-development process is. It took far too long, major features were dropped along the way, and it was wrapped up in more red tape than the IRS. That’s why I think that Vista will be the last of the “big-bang” Windows releases.

Here’s the weekly summary of a mix of Windows Mobile and general mobile tech related items from my personal blog.

Yahoo! Mobile: The Unsung Mobile Portal Page

Yahoo! MobileYahoo! Mobile gets no respect (with respect to the late Rodney Dangerfield). But, it should. Google Mobile gets a lot of press like most Google products. Microsoft’s Live Mobile is in a design transition phase (and it really needs to sync up with MSNBC’s mobile solution while it is at it). Yahoo! Mobile has a few beta-stage components. But, for the most part is a mature, simple to navigate, and content rich mobile portal site. It has much more content formatted for the small screen than either Google or Microsoft’s mobile portals. It also has a simple and fast news interface that makes it easy to go from story to story even on a relatively slow GPRS or EDGE connection. It’s only shortcoming compared to its two major competitors is that its web cookie does not stick properly on a Windows Mobile device. My login/password seems to be forgotten much more quickly after leaving the Yahoo! Mobile site. To be fair, Microsoft’s Live Mobile seems to have a similar problem. Only Google’s Mobile portable has the right amount of session stickyness. So, I find myself rarely using it on a QWERTY-less Smartphone while using it quite a lot on a Pocket PC (where login/password entry can be performed much faster).

If you haven’t tried Yahoo! Mobile, head over to the following URL on your phone: http://wap.oa.yahoo.com.

ActiveSync Info for an Old Pocket PC
Reader Phil Smith (in a comment to a previous blog item) asks: My wife has an HP IPAQ 1910 PDA, running the older version of ActiveSync that allows backups and restores. The battery died and it lost everything. Can you tell me what is the latest version of ActiveSync that includes backups and restores. Also, what is the extension on the backups. I have to hook up an old hard drive to find the backup and don’t know what to look for.

I thought the response to this might be of enough general interest to merit its own blog item. So, here are my responses.

• The most current production ActiveSync 4.2 actually provides Backup/Restore functions for pre-Windows Mobile 5 devices. It does not provide it for current generation Windows Mobile 5 devices though.
  
• The extension for backup files created using ActiveSync’s Backup/Restore feature is .stg. In fact, unless you chose something different the default backup filename is backup.stg.
  
• Click -> ActiveSync 4.2 web page for the current version. Veresion 3.8 seems to have disappeared from Microsoft’s site. So, if 4.2 doesn’t work for you, you can find version 3.6 here -> ActiveSync 3.6.
  

US Copyright Office Gives Cell Phone Users the Right to Take Their Phone to a New Carrier
GSM users (e.g., those with service from Cingular or T-Mobile) have been able to get their phones unlocked reasonably easily to let them put a SIM card from a different carrier to change their service. CMDA phone users (e.g., those with service from Sprint PCS or Verizon Wireless) don’t have SIM card that contain their identify and have had a more difficult time in moving their phone from one service to another.

CNN reports that…

Cell phone owners getting new rights

…that this is changing now that the Library of Congress Copyright Office ruled that Cell phone owners will be allowed to break software locks on their handsets in order to use them with competing carriers under new copyright rules announced Wednesday.

Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) 3.01 Firmware Upgrade
Sony released the Sony PSP 3.01 Firmware upgrade just days after the 3.0 release. The stated reason was to address a security vulnerability. I’ll guess this translates to the 3.0 was cracked by PSP enthusiasts who like to run their own apps on the PSP.

Many of the new 3.0.x features tied into the recently release Sony Playstation 3 game console. It also adds the ability to access online (via WiFi) manuals for both the PSP and PS3. Support for a Sony USB camera is also in this upgrade. But, the camera is not available in the US as far as I can tell.

The most surprising thing about the upgrade to me is how long the download took over its 802.11b WiFi connection. I didn’t time it with a stopwatch, but I believe it took well over an hour over a relatively fast broadband connection.

I’m testing the waters this week to see if there is any interest in weekly blog entry excerpts of freeware and Open Source applications for Microsoft Windows. I post such items to a personal blog as I discover them, note an update, or decide to mention a favorite freeware/Open Source tool for Windows. Here’s some of the items from last week’s blog entries…

TrueCrypt: Encryption for Windows & Linux
I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this Open Source application for Windows and Linux (and maybe Mac OS X someday).

TrueCrypt

TrueCrypt is the most flexible and secure way I know of to encrypt pretty much anything in Linux or Windows. It supports multiple encryption techniques (AES-256, Blowfish (448-bit key), CAST5, Serpent, Triple DES, and Twofish) and can encrypt to hard drives, flash drives, external drives, optical discs and pretty much anything that supports a file system.

Getting Java to Install in Windows Vista
Like many Vista testers, one of the first things I did after installing Vista on a test PC (a mandatory clean install in the early beta days) was to install a bunch of must-have free applications: Macromedia/Adobe Flash, Adobe Acrobat, Firefox, Thunderbird, and a bunch of other apps. Although Java isn’t an app, there are a number of apps that require the Java Runtime to work. Unfortunately, it looked to me like JRE/JDK5 simply wouldn’t install. I didn’t get it. Fortunately, Chet Haase does and explains the Vista/Java relationship in his blog:

Java on Vista: Yes, it Works

The R Project for Statistical Computing
The R Project for Statistical Computing is an Open Source application with binary installation routines for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. It is much much more than a simple statistical package. R provides an interpreted statistical programming language that looks a lot like S. The resemblance is so strong that I can use my old S language reference books to work with R.

R provides a graphing facility that goes far beyond what you might have used in spreadsheets like Excel.

R version 2.4.0 was just released last month (October 3).

RubyCLR (Ruby for Microsoft .NET Development)
I’ve spent the last 5 years developing software mostly for Linux systems (PHP, Python, Ruby). But, I’m also a Windows user and with Vista finally nearing release (after 5 years of development itself), I’m considering doing some development for Windows Vista. So, I was very interested to learn about…

RubyCLR

…which lets you develop for Windows using Ruby using the .NET Framework.

The .NET Framework 3.0 was recently released too…

.NET Framework Developer Center

…giving me some incentive to take a closer look at RubyCLR.

Not too long ago, Microsoft signed a deal with Novell, which showed that Redmond’s siege mentality when it comes to Linux is finally over. But now Steve Ballmer has essentially told Linux users that they’re infringing on Microsoft intellectual property. What’s going on inside Microsoft when it comes to Open Source?

Here’s the weekly summary of a mix of Windows Mobile and general mobile tech related items from my personal blog.

Craig Peacock (Microsoft Windows Mobile) Drops an Anniversary Note
I mentioned Craig Peacock (now a member of the Microsoft Windows Mobile product group) and (as far as I call tell) his creation of the first non-Microsoft Windows CE site 10 years ago in an blog entry a few days ago. I asked him to jot down a few thoughts on the last 10 years of Windows Mobile and he was kind enough to comply. You can read his thoughts below…

From Craig Peacock, Microsoft Windows Mobile Product Group

The last 10 years have flown by at such a pace that it’s hard to believe. I remember with fond memories that day in November 1996 it was my first trip to the USA it was Comdex Las Vegas I walked into the exhibition area I saw the Microsoft stand and saw a group of ladies walking round with bright yellow shirts on asking if I needed helping finding any stands. The devices in their hands were Casio devices and so next stop the Casio stand, whilst waiting to see the devices (the lines were several people deep) I saw some people who looked rather out of place in their suits and one of them ordering the person at the other end of the phone to get as many of these devices to the stores in the Vegas area as the existing stores were all selling out.. Off I went to a sharper image store if I recall correctly and I was the owner of a nice new Casio A11.

Then with the Microsoft SDK in hand (and the cezoom screen grab utility) I spent some time getting the device connected to the Internet - dialup in those days and figured that was pretty tricky stuff I think I want to document that with some screenshots. Login was via a terminal window and after login I was browsing the web on Pocket Internet Explorer and life was great. With hindsight of these last 10 years some of the challenges and problems that I saw users face with those early devices still happen today.. Questions like “Why doesn’t the documentation tell me this?”, “How do I get online easily?”, “How do I connect this up to my laptop and use it as modem?”, “how do I setup my e-mail?” - all familiar to most of you.

Just for a trip back to those days of old - the original email setup page is http://www.craigtech.co.uk/ce-emailhowto.html and the getting connected page is taken from an HP 320LX from early 1997.

I remember some of the criticism from around the time with people saying these gadgets from Microsoft and Casio would never catch on and why do people need to take their email’s or documents around with them - funny how things change - I can’t imagine not having my email pushed to my Windows Mobile device wherever I am on the globe these days..

What’s changed - The software / The hardware / The number of ISVs & applications and of course the integration of Cellular technology into the mobile devices. Push Email and of course the Internet’s become a much bigger place.. I haven’t had time to update my website in about 6 years or so.. (www.craigtech.co.uk). The software - from those early days of keyboards which didn’t even support the uk pound symbol on them to Pocket PCs and Smartphones being available in lots of languages all over the world and now stuffed with lots of features and my oh my look how many different applications exist today.

What’s not changed - Online support from MVPs and enthusiasts is still fantastic and provides the now multiple millions of users Windows Mobile devices with help and support. Manufacturer’s websites and support sites still aren’t the first place people think about when looking for help and getting answers. From those early days I remember seeing Iliumsoft (www.iliumsoft.com) & Bsquare (www.bsquare.com) at the original launch event and it’s great to see those early pioneers still doing great things with the Microsoft platform.

If ten years ago Todd would have said to me - Craig in ten years time we’ll have devices with color screens, multi-gigabyte hard drives in them, cellular network speeds of over 1.5mbps, streaming media to the device and multi-gigabyte storage cards smaller than a postage stamp and all those with much better battery life and an even better Web Browsing experience I would have said maybe I can believe the Browsing one and the battery life but I’m not so sure..

I wonder what the next ten years will bring in this vibrant and exciting mobile space - I just can’t wait to find out..

Craig

Google Spreadsheets Can’t Display Certain Excel Mobile Functions
I wanted to take long close look at a spreadsheet on my Pocket PC the other day. So, I emailed it to my Gmail (Google Mail) account from where I could easily download the file to a PC that did not have ActiveSync on it (and on which I did not want to install it). When I opened my email in Gmail, I noticed that one of the options was Open in Google Spreadsheets. A column with text it in appeared but two columns containing date and time functions (e.g., =date(2006,11,18), =time(22,49,00)) were all empty.

I manually typed in a date function to demonstrate to myself that Google Spreadsheets supported that function… and it does. I was able to view the Excel spreadsheet translated to HTML by Gmail as well as download and work with the file showing that Gmail itself left the data unmodified.

It would have been nice to be able to email an Excel Mobile spreadsheet to myself at Gmail, work on it at any web enabled PC, and then mail it back to myself on my Pocket PC. But, oh well, perhaps Google will fix this in the future.

Happy 10th Anniversary Microsoft Windows Mobile

I don’t know the actual introduction date for the first Windows CE devices. But, I always considered their launch at Fall Comdex 1996 to be their public introduction. The original devices were pretty spartan by even my 1996 standards. So, I waited until early 1997 to buy my first Windows CE device: An HP 320LX Handheld PC. It was a step up from HP’x 300LX. The 320LX had 4MB RAM (compared to the 300LX’s 2MB), a backlit screen, and a CompactFlash slot as well as a PC Card slot. Unlike other Handheld PC, it also had a 640×240 grayscale (greenscale) screen. It was a great device and as you can see from the photos here, it still works! HP engineers really built stuff to last back then (I have a few choice words about the iPAQ line HP inherited from their Compaq merger in some other blog entry). I just stuck in a fresh pair of AA batteries and the HP 320LX fired up. Even the backlight still works fine.

Microsoft’s manufacturing partners experimented with all kinds of Handheld PC form factors before the HPC bit the product life dust in 2000 (or thereabouts). You can see the Compaq Aero 8000 Handheld PC behemoth in the second photo. Yep, this monster is a Handheld PC too. It has a 800×600 color screen, built in modem, and a bunch of other interesting features. But, alas the instant-on notebook sized device concept never caught on. The Aero 8000 also suffered from a pitiful battery life. I recall not being able to get much more than an hour of use under battery power. The T-Mobile SDA phone in the photo is just there to help you get a feel of the size of the devices.

Although the Handheld PC platform rode off into the sunset, a good idea never truly dies. We can see that current day Pocket PC Phone Edition devices like the JasJar, K-JAM (both pictured here), and host of QWERTY keyboard enabled Pocket PCs and Smartphones owe a great deal to the original Handheld PC design.

I have to mention the first non-Microsoft Windows CE web site I found before signing off on this blog item: Craig Peacocks Windows CE Pages. I believe he created the site shortly after seeing the first Handheld PCs at Fall Comdex 1996. I didn’t attend that Comdex. But, I did go to Fall Comdex 1997 and was able to sync up with Craig in person. Craig’s work inspired me to get involved in getting a deeper working understanding of Windows CE and I ended up creating and then managing the MSN Computing Central Windows CE Forum for a number of years. Craig went on to much bigger and better things than I and is currently a key player in the Microsoft Windows Mobile product team!
So, happy 10th anniversary Microsoft Windows Mobile! It will be a blast to see what happens in the next 10 years.

Freeware: XnView Pocket-Image Viewer for Pocket PC
Ran across this freeware image viewer for the Pocket PC the other day…

XnView Pocket

Those of you with older Pocket PC devices might find it especially interesting since its creator provides versions for devices going back to the Pocket PC 2000.

DeveloperOne Agenda One for Smartphone
DeveloperOne released their Agenda One for Smartphone last week and the Pocket PC version this week. I bought a much earlier version years ago for an early model Pocket PC and liked it quite a bit. But, moving from one device to another as I do, I lost my product registration and didn’t install it on subsequent devices. For the past 8 months or so I’ve been using a Windows Mobile Smartphone (T-Mobile SDA) as my primary device. This is quite a change for me since I usually prefer to use a Pocket PC Phone Edition (the i-Mate K-JAM was my previous phone). I still carry a Pocket PC around with me if I need to take notes since I still can’t enter text quickly enough using T9 on DTMF layout keyboard.

My Smartphone currently only has two add-on applications: Ilium Software’s NewsBreak RSS newsfeed reader and Microsoft’s (now defunct) Pocket Streets (most of my data entry related work takes place on a Pocket PC). So, a lot of consideration goes into deciding whether or not to install and try an application on a Smartphone. The weak calendar viewing capabilities of Windows Mobile’s integrated calendar finally drove me to install Agenda One just to get an informative week-view on my phone.

Agenda One provides alternate views for Contacts, Tasks, and other Calendar views too. But, for me the winning feature is the week-viewing feature. That alone may convince me to keep it on the Smartphone beyond a test period.

Rumors have been rife that Google plans a nationwide free Wi-Fi network — and it looks like Microsoft is jumping in as well. Yesterday the company announced that it was partnering with to build a citywide Wi-Fi network in Portland, Oregon.

Firstly, a quick shout out to the folks on irc://freenode/conary, in particular mkj_wk, jtate, and Tybstar for helping me to quickly get to the bottom of a build problem I was having —

And when I say quickly I mean from the time I logged in to the time the problem was solved was less than two minutes.

TWO MINUTES!!!

NOTE-TO-WWW: If you know nothing about rPath and/or rBuilder — you need to fix that and you need to fix that *FAST* else get left behind by the rest of us that took the time to learn about all the wonderfullness that is rPath, rPath Linux, rBuilder, the conary build and distribution system, and the rPath Appliance Agent (among other things.) To truly understand virtualization and appliance-based computing, you need to get to know *EVERYTHING* you can about all of the above mentioned products and services made available to the world at *ZERO* cost by the good folks @ rPath.

More on the above soon, though I would *HIGHLY* recommend watching this two minute clip and be a smarter, more informed human being because of it. I would alsp recommend learning more about rPath, the company, in general. Contact information is located @ that same link. :)

In the mean time,

As per my recent check-in notes to the nuXleus project repository (*PROUDLY* hosted and developed by the same mentioned technologies by the same mentioned folks).

Here’s the weekly summary of a mix of Windows Mobile and general mobile tech related items from my personal blog.

Windows Mobile Loses Features With Each Upgrade???
The Microsoft Windows Mobile platform turns 10 years old next week (more on this topic next week). Mike Calligaro’s most recent blog item which bravely (Mike blogs about a lot of hot button topics on behalf of Microsoft) tries to explain Microsoft’s rationale for removing the ability to use ActiveSync over Ethernet (wired or wireless) reminded me of an interesting fact about Windows Mobile: It may be one of the few products that actually lost functions across a series of upgrades. Let’s take a look at just the features I can remember losing in no particular order (I don’t claim this is a comprehensive list. So, feel free to let me know about lost features I neglect to mention).

• ActiveSync over Ethernet
  
• Microsoft Access Database Importation
  
• Printing (with add-on driver)
  
• Microsoft Reader
  
• Creating a Media Player Playlist on the Device Itself
  
• Ability to Manually Disconnect from ActiveSync while connected over USB
  
• AvantGo Reader in firmware
  
• Menus at the bottom of the screen (replaced by two giant soft-buttons)
  
• Ability to add to Tasks on the device (Smartphone)
  
• Ability to encrypt Word or Excel documents/spreadsheets
  
• Backup entire device to PC using ActiveSync
  
• Pocket Money (add-on Microsoft application)
  
• Pocket Streets (add-on Microsoft application)
  

The Windows Mobile Pocket PC (perhaps soon to disappear in non-phone configurations based on sales declines) and Smartphone are still my mobile devices of choice. But, even with explanations from people like Microsoft’s Mike Calligaro about various design choices, it is difficult for an ordinary end-user like me to understand why I’m losing features and options (even software add-ons) which each new Windows Mobile generation of devices.

Q&A: Excel Mobile Unsupported Content & Formatting
Reader P.L. asks: I just purchased a Treo 700W from Verizon. Excel Mobile will not let me save updates to most of the Excel files that I have synced to the handheld. It gives me a window that says unsupported content and formatting will be lost if I save the workbook and then it will not let me save it. I’m forced into a ‘Save As’ function. I cannot figure out what is unsupported and cannot find any documentation on the subject. Can you help?

I’m guessing a few details are missing from this story and will assume the following additional details…

• The problem spreadsheets were created using a full version of Excel on a desktop or notebook.
  
• This spreadsheet was copied to the Pocket PC Phone Edition (Treo 700w)
  
• The spreadsheet was modified (new data and/or change existing data in cells)
  

If this is the case, then this is, believe it or not, normal (though undesirable). Word Mobile and Excel Mobile only provide small subsets of the features available in the full version for Windows XP. And, despite years of pleading from many users (including me), neither Mobile application provides what is called non-destructive round-tripping. So, if you use, for example, unsupported features like macros or unsupported statistical functions on the original version created using the full version of Excel 2003, these features will not be preserved if the spreadsheet is modified on the Pocket PC and then saved back to the same file.

The workaround is to adopt a workflow model that takes this into account. For example, let’s say we have an Excel 2003 spreadsheet file named FOO.XLS. Instead of copying it directly to the Pocket PC, we make a copy named FOO-MOBILE.XLS on the desktop first. This renamed copy is copied over to the Pocket PC where it is worked on. When saving the modified spreadsheet back to the Pocket PC, you can ignore the warning and save it. This modified FOO-MOBILE.XLS is then copied back to the desktop PC where the data can either be manually or automatically (using additional macros or VBA scripts) merged back into the original version.

I am not pleased with this situation either. A number of people including me have been telling Microsoft’s Windows Mobile product management group that it is critical to have non-destructive round-tripping for Excel Mobile and Word Mobile. However, we have always been told that major customers have not identified this as a high priority issue. If this is an issue for you (as it is for me), you should definitely let Microsoft know through your Microsoft account executives, at conferences, or the Microsoft wish request.

CNET’s Top 6 Business Phones
CNET lists their…

Top 6 phones for business users

7.7 - Palm Treo 700p
8.0 - Cingular 8525
8.0 - T-Mobile Dash
6.6 - Nextel i930 by Motorola
7.0 - Sprint PCS PPC-6700
7.3 - Nokia E62

It is interesting that half of this list is based on Windows Mobile (Cingular/Sprint devices are based on the HTC Wizard Pocket PC Phone Edition while the T-Mobile Dash is a Windows Mobile Smartphone). The three Windows Mobile devices have an average Editor’s rating of 7.67 while the other three devices average out at 7.2.

All You Need is… a Pocket PC?
(with apologies to Lennon & McCartney)…

It’s not unusual to see me taking notes in a meeting with just a Pocket PC (with a thumb keyboard or add-on keyboard) although I will take a notebook too depending on what needs to be done at the meeting. But, I rarely see other people take anything other than a notebook (I also rarely see Tablet PCs for that matter).
Fellow Microsoft Windows Mobile MVP Jaap van Ekris asks Can a PocketPC replace a laptop in real life? on his Modern Nomads website. Jaap reaches the conclusion that agrees with the original philosophy of the Windows CE team way back when the Handheld PC was introduced 10 years ago: Ultramobile devices are PC Companions.

That didn’t stop another friend and also a Microsoft Windows Mobile MVP Bev Howard from turning that idea on its head though. If you really want to travel with just a Pocket PC, head over to Bev’s site where he provides The Minimalist Road Warrior’s Guide to Traveling Light” using a PocketPC. If you want to just leave your notebook behind while on Travel, Bev lets you know what you need to do and what you need to take with you to stay mobile while, well, being mobile.

I found the following in my current feed reader of choice yesterday, installed the Windows Bits, and even finished cooking the Linux bits into the nuXleus project earlier this morning (still working on the next release, though its within spitting distance of being ready — two more apps to finish out.)

Mono 1.2 Released - Mono Project News

Mono 1.2 Released

Mono 1.2 has been released.

Go to the downloads page to get a copy.

Very Cool! Congratulations to the Mono folks for yet another amazing milestone!

That said, to whomever came up with the following feature in the latest Windows installation,

Those who believe that Microsoft only pays lip service to Open Source may be surprised by the mega-deal Microsoft just signed with Novell, which shows that Microsoft has finally decided to come to terms with Linux.

Nicholas Allen’s Indigo Blog : V1 RTM Downloads

V1 RTM Downloads

After a long wait, WCF V1 is now available! We will of course be shipping with Vista, but the online download is accessible now. Everyone should be upgrading from the beta and RC releases now. Remove any previously installed versions before attempting to upgrade.

Here are the download materials:
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Redistributable Package
Microsoft� Windows� Software Development Kit for Windows Vista™ and .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime Components

You can also get the Visual Studio Orcas extensions corresponding to this release.
Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (WCF & WPF), November 2006 CTP

SWEET! Congratulations to all of those in whom played a role in bringing WCF into being. Today *MOST DEFINITELY* marks the day that a whole new world of intra and inter-application communication interop will begin to make itself known in ways I don’t think most of us have even imagined.

That said, I don’t think it will take very long for the development world to realize what is now possible that simply was not possilble — at least not very easily, anyway — before now.

Thanks MSFT!

*VERY* informatiave Q&A between Jeremy Kirk from IDG and Bill Hilf from Microsoft regarding the recent MSFT/Novell deal,

Q&A: Microsoft open to open-source pacts | InfoWorld | News | 2006-11-06 | By Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service

DGNS: It seems like a veiled threat to Red Hat users — there’s only one way to protect yourself legally and that’s by using Suse Linux.

Hilf: There’s no threat. There’s a fundamental premise that we need to have the market understand we have a substantial amount of intellectual property in the operating system space.

IDGNS: Is Microsoft going to approach other open-source vendors?

Hilf: Our door is open to anyone to do a similar deal.

IDGNS: Why do this deal now rather than a few years ago?

Hilf: We started on the general framework for this three years ago. The deal with Novell started about six months ago. There was just a lot of work we needed to do to understand the GPL side of it and not violate the GPL. We don’t actually license patents in this agreement. There is no patent cross-licensing. We are saying we are providing coverage for Novell’s customers from a Microsoft intellectual property perspective. That allows us to work with the GPL because the GPL is very specific about licensing of patents. That took a while to get to that point from a legal framework.

So what’s the bottom line? First, a bit more from the beginning of the interview,

If you head over to Microsoft’s Live Search Maps site, you’ll find an option to download and install their new Virtual Earth 3D Beta. I happened to see it demoed on the evening news and decided to try it out.

The 2D satellite images are spectacular: Clear and comprehensive. Microsoft Live’s maps showed clear photos in areas where Google Maps a we don’t have any imagery at this zoom level for this region.

It looks like the 3D mapping feature may be a disappointment for those of us with less than high-end gaming machines (in my case, much less). I used a PC with an AMD Athlon 3200+ CPU, 1GB RAM, and an nVidia GeForce 5200 graphics card with 256MB of dedicated graphics RAM. Admitedly, this is pretty low-end in a world of dual and quad processor PCs and Macs. But, still, I had hoped the nVidia card would help with the processing requirements. If you take a look at the embedded video, you’ll see that I had a less than thrilling 3D experience.

I’m saving my nickels and dimes to buy a Core 2 Duo notebook (I’m waiting for notebooks with the Vista Sidenote LCD screen) in 2007. Hopefully, I can get one with a dedicated graphics card and enough horsepower to take a second look at Virtual Earth 3D again at that time.

Here’s the weekly summary of a mix of Windows Mobile and general mobile tech related items from my personal blog.

Windows Live Barcode

Microsoft’s Windows Live Barcode sites touts using Denso’s QR Code. QR Code is a 2d matrix barcode that can store more information than other kinds of barcodes currently in use. Microsoft’s website lets you create a QR Code barcode (you can see mine here) and says they will provide a reader for handsets to use them. However, the site does not have any download just yet. QR Code has been around since 1994. It will be interesting to see if it finally catches on because of this apparently new push from Microsoft.

New Google Mobile Gmail (if-fy on Windows Mobile Devices)
Google released a Java Midlet Gmail client for mobile devices today. So, of course, right off the bat it doesn’t work with my Dell Axim X50v (Windows Mobile 2003 2nd Edition) or T-Mobile SDA (Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone). My i-Mate K-JAM (Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone Edition) has a Java runtime, however. So, I was able to install and test it there. Couple of thoughts.

• The fonts look horrible on he 240×320 LCD. The fonts are small and jaggy (aliased).
  
• The scrollbar on the right is razor thin. I guess this is ok on a phone/smartphone device. But, it is difficult to grab with a stylus on a PDA type device. Of course, the navigation buttons work on a Pocket PC. So, I could use it instead of a stylus. But, when I am using a stylus, I don’t want to have to put it down just to scroll a page.
  
• Navigation through a threaded message list is fast. But the navigation is not as intuitive as it could be. Clicking on a thread item’s tab expands or collapses it. But, it is not immediately obvious.
  
• The menus look ok when my K-JAM is used in portrait mode but are truncated at the bottom when I’m using it in landscape mode (keyboard pulled out).
  

Google should go back to the drawing board for this one. They should also take a good look at the Yahoo! Mobile web interface. Yahoo’s mobile web interface is a relatively simple HTML one that seems to work with everything, is easy to understand, and look fine on pretty much any screen.

Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) Overview (MS’ Mr. Mobile)
Microsoft’s Jason Langridge (AKA Mr. Mobile!) wrote an overview of the Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) that replaces ActiveSync in Windows Vista. He also provides a bunch of screenshots. So, head over to his blog to get the details.

Windows Mobile Device Center Overview

Free Pocket PC Software @Microsoft Windows Marketplace
The Microsoft Windows Marketplace lets you filter and sort in a number of ways. If you filter on Pocket PC and sort by price, you can find the free downloads for a Pocket PC.

Microsoft Windows Marketplace filtered on Pocket PC

Microsoft Mobile Windows Live Beta

I use Microsoft’s Live.com as my default Internet Explorer 7 home page. Its tabbed page interface and hover over text expansion work great on my desktop and notebook PCs. The Mobile Live Beta is interesting but loses everything but the main page. Clicking More… just takes me to the current Windows Live mobile page which is a rehash of the MSN Mobile page. The Mobile Windows Live portal can be a great resource once they get more of the info from the desktop version and navigation that isn’t totally tied to a phone-centric interface (i.e., don’t forget the larger Pocket PC form factor).

SoftMaker Office for Pocket PCs
SoftMaker is taking pre-orders for their SoftMaker Office for Pocket PCs which bundles TextMaker 2006 (word processor) and PlanMaker 2006 (spreadsheet). Although Microsoft provides Word Mobile and Excel Mobile for Pocket PCs, SoftMaker’s offerings were much more full featured and closer to the desktop Office versions that Microsoft offerings the last time I took a close look a few years ago. If the firmware based Microsoft products lack some of the functions you would like to have on a Pocket PC, take a look at this bundle.

I just tried to install Vista RC-2 Build 5744 on two production PCs (vs a test box). Here’s how it went down… The hard drive in the Dell Lattitude D600’s notebook PC I use in my office died this past Wednesday. Fortunately, it still has three months left on its three year warranty. The replacement hard drive arrived on Friday and I figured I might as well install Vista on it instead of XP Pro since Vista has been running pretty well on my test PC (a Dell Optiplex GX-280). The installation went quickly (about 30 minutes) and everything except the integrated Bluetooth radio was recognized by Vista. The D600 has an ATI Radeon 9000 with 32MB of video RAM. Decent for a business notebook. But, not enough for Aero Glass (128MB required). So, no Bluetooth, no Aero Glass. But, good enough to consider this installation a hit.

Next on a my list: My home low-end but serviceable PC with an Athlon 3200+, 1GB RAM, and nVidia GeForce FX5200 board with 256MB video RAM added in (Microsoft’s Vista upgrade checking utility said the card was ok for Vista). I figured this would be my chance to play with the Aero Glass interface and little tweaks like 3D-Flip (the test PC Optiplex GX-280 does not have a dedicated graphics card). I decided to perform a clean install since all the data was backed up to external drives and all the applications CD/DVD discs were on hand to reinstall applications. The installation seemed to go smoothly. So, I left the room to let it complete the process and go through its auto-reboot. However, when I came back to the room, the display was dark. I powered the system down, rebooted, and watched what seemed like a normal post-install reboot until the LCD flashed that it was getting a sync signal greater than its 1280×1024 maximum. I tried a couple of reinstallations to see if Vista would let me know force a lower resolution. But, I didn’t see any such option during the installation process. I installed XP Media Center 2005 on it. It did what Vista should have done: It set the resolution to a relatively low one and let me reconfigure it after starting up. So, let’s call this Vista install a miss.

I could probably pull the nVidia card from my PC, install Vista, and then re-install the graphics card. But, that seems like such a hassle.

I wonder what the overall Vista upgrade experience will be when the personal retail versions become available in January 2007?

Update: Firstly, Marcel Weiher gently reminds me of a fairly important point,

In regards to OOP — Smalltalk is at the very foundation of classic Object Oriented Programming.

via [Vista:SmallTalk] On Alan Kay: It’s *ALL* About Messaging

Smalltalk is not only NOT its syntax or the class library,
it is not even about classes. I’m sorry that I long ago
coined the term “objects” for this topic because it gets
many people to focus on the lesser idea.

The big idea is “messaging” — that is what the kernal of
Smalltalk/Squeak is all about (and it’s something that was
never quite completed in our Xerox PARC phase). The Japanese
have a small word — ma — for “that which is in between”
- perhaps the nearest English equivalent is “interstitial”.

The key in making great and growable systems is much more to
design how its modules communicate rather than what their internal
properties and behaviors should be.

Think of the internet — to live, it
(a) has to allow many different kinds of ideas and realizations
that are beyond any single standard and
(b) to allow varying degrees of safe interoperability between
these ideas.

Secondly, I think one of the O’Reilly servers needs a bit of a tune-up on the system clock — Regardless of what it might seem, I promise, I didn’t reply to Marcel *BEFORE* he made his original comment. ;)

None-the-less, thanks for the reminder, Marcel!

[Original Post]
As promised, Peter Fisk has followed up yesterdays post with an overview of using JSON Arrays together with Smalltalk messages,

JSON Arrays and Smalltalk Messages � Microsoft .Net and Smalltalk

JSON (Javascript Object Notation) is a simple, lightweight data-interchange format which has libraries available for most languages. Using JSON, simple arrays of objects can be sent between Vista Smalltalk sessions.

And this method in class Object can then execute the arrays as Smalltalk messages:
performArray: anArray
self perform: anArray first asSymbol withArguments: anArray withoutFirst

As an example, the TmsTicTacToe game sends two kinds of messages to the opposing player:
- a text message which appears in the chat window
- a “mark tile” message which marks a tile on the opposing player’s board

For those of you who would rather chew on tinfoil than muck around with angle brackets, my guess is that this is something you will find most exciting. :)

Couple of things to note,

Update: Peter mentioned several items of interest in a follow-up email. With his permission, I have updated the end of this post with two separate tidbits of info I believe are well worth the click and/or scroll :D

[Original Post]
Peter Fisk, developer of Vista Smalltalk, gave a presentation last Wednesday to what I believe was a local Ottawa Smalltalk user group (will verify this with Peter.) the Ottawa Smalltalk Users Group at Carleton University. David Buck attempted to record the presentation, but apparently had some problems half way through. Not to fret, however, as he has created a compelling screencast of Vista Smalltalk running a XAML-based application inside of IE7 which includes various applications that help showcase some of the capabilities of using Vista Smalltalk as a browser-based solution for application development.

Couple of things to point out,

* Vista Smalltalk has built in support for Jabber/XMPP. Couple this with Windows Communication Foundation (the .NET 3.0 runtime library’s are required for VST to run) and you have one heck of a strong communication platform for hucking XML messages from one node to the next. The implications in regards to usage of VST for AJAX-like applications should be quite obvious.
* The XBAP-enabled runtime for Vista Smalltalk will be added to the latest release of the nuXle.us project (I finished the latest release on Tuesday, though there are still a few more pieces to add to the mix, so chose to hold off announcing it until I have a chance to finish building and testing these last few pieces.) and will be ready for download just as soon as I have had a chance to finish out all of the testing. You can find a listing of whats available now and what is to come at the projects ExtensibleForge.Net home.
* Don’t think VST is a cross-browser/cross-platform solution? Think again. ;)

Will update accordingly with a new post when its finished out and ready to go.

Until then, please enjoy the above screencast. *WELL* worth the five minutes invested!

IronPython: ASP.NET Web: The Official Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Site

With Microsoft IronPython for ASP.NET, developers have the ability to create compelling web applications in the popular dynamic language for .NET, IronPython, using Visual Studio or the free Visual Web Developer.

IronPython for ASP.NET is a free extension to ASP.NET that is targeted at:

* ASP.NET developers looking to enjoy the simplicity and flexibility of a dynamic language, specifically IronPython; and
* Python developers looking to harness the power of ASP.NET and its rapid application development (RAD) environment.

Python’s clean object-oriented design, dynamic nature, richness of expression, ease of use, and concise syntax has won over many users in the last several years. IronPython is a new implementation of the Python programming language running on .NET. It is well integrated with the rest of the .NET Framework and makes all .NET libraries easily available to Python programmers, while maintaining full compatibility with the Python language. To learn more about IronPython and to download the project, including complete source code, please visit www.codeplex.com/ironpython.

Microsoft ASP.NET is a free technology that allows programmers to create anything from small, personal web sites through to large, enterprise-class web applications. All you need to get started with ASP.NET is the free .NET Framework and the free Visual Web Developer.

If you are an ASP.NET developer, the key thing to know is that you can leverage your existing knowledge of Visual Web Developer and ASP.NET, including its Page framework, server controls, and file formats. In fact the only thing that is not supported in this preview release is the development of web services.

The benefits of developing ASP.NET web applications with IronPython for ASP.NET include:

* the simplicity and clarity of the Python language;
* the power and extensibility of the ASP.NET framework;
* faster initial page processing; and
* better scalability.

To provide you with a deeper understanding of IronPython for ASP.NET, David Ebbo, an architect in Microsoft’s .NET CLR team, has written a great IronPython for ASP.NET whitepaper, which is also available as a Word document or a PDF document. Additionally to help you get started with IronPython for ASP.NET, the team has provided the following five walkthroughs:

1. Creating a Basic Web Page with IronPython.doc
2. Using Shared Code with IronPython for ASP.NET.doc
3. Databinding with IronPython for ASP.NET.doc
4. Debugging IronPython for ASP.NET.doc
5. Creating a User Control with IronPython.doc

We hope that you enjoy this Community Technology Preview, and we invite you to provide feedback in the IronPython forum.

Microsoft sure had a busy day on Thursday.

• They changed the Vista retail license terms that only allowed for a single re-installation: (WindowsVistaBlog.com): News: Revision to Windows Vista retail licensing terms
  
• They launched the new Microsoft Office site
  
• They launched a new site: Zune.net
  
• They moved Internet Explorer 7 into the critical upgrades list in Windows Update
  
• And, apparently, November 30 has been set as the release date for Vista, Office 2007, and Exchange Server 2007 for business customers while January 30, 2007 has been set as the release date for the release of the Vista/Office consumer editions
  

Microsoft and Novell Announce Broad Collaboration on Windows and Linux Interoperability and Support: Companies also announce a patent agreement covering proprietary and open source products.

REDMOND, Wash., and WALTHAM, Mass. — Nov. 2, 2006 — Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. today announced a set of broad business and technical collaboration agreements to build, market and support a series of new solutions to make Novell and Microsoft� products work better together. The two companies also announced an agreement to provide each other’s customers with patent coverage for their respective products. These agreements will be in place until at least 2012. Under this new model, customers will realize unprecedented choice and flexibility through improved interoperability and manageability between Windows� and Linux.

“They said it couldn’t be done. This is a new model and a true evolution of our relationship that we think customers will immediately find compelling because it delivers practical value by bringing two of their most important platform investments closer together,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. “We’re excited to work with Novell, whose strengths include its heritage as a mixed-source company. Resolving our patent issues enables a combined focus on virtualization and Web services management to create new opportunities for our companies and our customers.”

While there have been WAY TOO MANY signs over the last year+ that something like this would be taking place, it’s still pretty amazing to see something as official as the above announcement take place.

Wow! Wow, WoW, WOW!

With the above in mind, some of the key “WOW” take aways from the above linked announcement include,

Until RC2, one of the best features of Vista was its speedy, exceedingly powerful Search features. But with RC2, Microsoft essentially threw Search under the train, making some of the most bizarre user interface decisions imaginable. Why did Microsoft decide to decimate the great Search tool?