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Last Ten Blog Entries

One of the hurdles Microsoft has to overcome in order for Windows Phone 7 to be successful is a variety of high quality software available for the device.

There’s certainly a lot of compelling content for the other two major platforms and for Microsoft to be a serious contender, there has to be a a lot of great apps available for it.

Based on this list Pocket Lint has compiled, it looks like WP7 is well on its way to a great selection of cool apps and games.

Here’s the list:

• Seesmic for Windows Phone 7
  This will bring the Seesmic experience on Windows Phone 7 and lets you gather in your Twitter, Facebook, and the thousand other social networks into one application. You'll be able to do all the usual things, plus it will work seamlessly with the Windows 7 and Mac versions of the software. Where it takes things one step further is full integration of other services in the phone like Bing maps.
• Twozaic for Windows Phone 7
  There isn't an integrated Twitter support in Windows Phone 7 from day 1, but that doesn't mean that there won't be Twitter apps to tweet from. If Seesmic isn't your cup of tea, one alternative will be Twozaic that offers a more simplified Twitter experience judging from the demo pictures.  The most interesting element to the app will be the "Cloud view" that shows 20 tweets in a mosaic layout, with 3 levels of importance, currently based on the number of followers and favourites.
• Foursquare on Windows Phone 7
  There might be plenty of talk about Facebook Places, but Foursquare is still popular, and still getting plenty of check-ins. Come Windows Phone 7 launch day you'll be able to check-in via your Windows Phone 7 phone thanks to the Foursquare Windows Phone 7 app. It will come with Bing maps integration, all the usual Foursquare features and make checking-in something pretty easy to do. You'll even get directions of how to find your friends nearby.
• Graphic.ly for Windows Phone 7
  How much do you like comic books? If it's a lot then this is going to be the app that you'll want to look out for come launch day. Graphic.ly lets you carry your favourite comics, buy comics and of course read comics on your new phone. The interface is all very Windows Phone 7, but also very comic book friendly allowing you to select your comic, and touch to read swiping through the pages. You'll be able to deep zoom into the images, and even comment on individual images to share with other Graphic.ly friends.
• Netflix for Windows Phone 7
  One for our American friends, but Netflix will let you stream movies and television shows over the air directly to your Windows Phone 7 handset to watch, as long as you've got Wi-Fi access. If you're a member, that means never having nothing to watch on the go. That's pretty impressive.
• Shazam for Windows Phone 7
  We know you like a good music track as much as the rest of us, and have no doubt seen Shazam working on an iPhone, BlackBerry or Android device. Thankfully Shazam is in development for Windows Phone 7, meaning if you switch to the new Microsoft mobile OS you'll still be able to find out what that track is in the background.
• Flickr Uploader for Windows Phone 7
  Judging by most of the leaked hardware doing the rounds on the Internet at the moment, all the launch phones are going to come with 8-megapixel cameras. That means plenty of potential when it comes to snapping shots on the go. But what do you do when it comes to sharing those images. One Windows Phone 7 app in development is the Flickr Uploader that will let you upload images directly to Flickr to share with your friends. It's simple, but will it let you share that picture of the weird dude sitting opposite you in the restaurant wearing a tea cosy on his head?
• USGA Golf for Windows Phone 7
  Do you play golf? Thought you did. Then you'll probably want to get the USGA golf app for Windows Phone 7, if it makes it to the App store. Created by Microsoft's Jeff Arnold, Lead motion designer for Windows Phone 7, the app shows what is possible for golfers who've got a Windows Phone 7 phone. The app lists virtually all the golf courses of America and then based on that choice will give you all the details of the course you are about to play. This isn't a game mind you, but an aid to the course you are about to play in real life. The app tracks players you've played against in the past, lets you step up new players and basically track all your shots, how you did, what your scorecard looks like out on the course using the phone, data in the app, and your GPS location. It will be time to ditch the pencil.
• TouchCall for Windows Phone 7
  An incredibly simple app that will let you create shortcuts to six phone numbers on a single screen, allowing you to touch the relating button to phone them. If it sounds simple, that's because it is, but who said apps had to be confusing.
• Halo Waypoint for Windows Phone 7
  There are over 63 games available for Windows Phone 7, and the Halo Waypoint Windows Phone 7 app will act as a hub for all things Halo on your phone. According to Microsoft, Halo fans will want it because you'll be able to get videos, comics, news, and plenty of other stuff on your phone on the go.
• Crackdown 2 for Windows Phone 7
  Set in the world of Crackdown 2, you've got to fight off zombies using towers to defend your pile. The interesting thing here is that you can use Bing maps to actually defend certain places in particular; like your house, your office, or your favourite pub.
• Wall street for Windows Phone 7
  This look like one for the Gordon Gekko fans of this world, bringing you all the stock market data that you could want using the Yahoo's Stock tracker service. The app will let you drill down to get more information, graphs and company news while also giving you an overview on the world's biggest markets while you're at the country club sipping a gin and tonic.
• Marathon for Windows Phone 7
  If you're training for a marathon or just like running this is going to be an app to put on your list. Using the GPS on board in the camera, it will help track your run so you can keep an eye on your training. The software lets you set goals, will map your course and give you announcements to whether you are ahead or behind your target time. You'll even be able to run against yourself thanks to a ghost mode.

He may be talking specifically about Java in his books and talks, but .NET developers can learn a thing or two from (Uncle) Bob Martin, of Clean Code fame.

On this page at JavaLobby, you can watch two videos of Bob Martin talking about cleaning your function and arguments.

The mindset of "I'll clean it up later" can kill a business.  A company's productivity will gradually decay as the system gets messier and messier, and when the business is forced to do a large-scale redesign, it rarely succeeds.  This presentation is heavy on the code, and it will take you through its cleanup step-by-step.   It's a great experience to see Martin present at a conference because the audience is directly involved in the example where you help Martin clean up a module.  Interesting astronomy facts precede each talk.

Clean Code I: Arguments from Mike C. on Vimeo.

Another audience-challenging presentation by Bob Martin examines the process of cleaning up Java functions.   This talk starts with a pop quiz - you have three minutes to examine a two-page Java function and figure out what it does.  Examples of great Java functions and poor Java functions will be examined for the audience's review.  Martin will help you learn the process by which an expert coder would approach, analyze, and refractor this code.   You'll discover how large functions should be and how they should be named and documented.  You'll also learn how many indent levels it should include and how it should deal with exceptions, arguments, and return values.

Clean Code III: Functions from Mike C. on Vimeo.

This probably isn’t what comes to mind when you hear “the mobile version of Facebook”

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Why would anyone take a perfectly good Caprice Classic and do that? Or is this a hoax?

[found via AllTop]

I’ve seen this problem before in Live Meeting and I’m somewhat surprised that it’s still as issue.

This makes demonstrating Blend online in real time a little less appealing.

Last week, my wife’s grandfather passed away. At least he got to meet my son – his great-grandson.

Here they are together at Easter, hence the bunny hat on the baby. ;)

The important lesson I took away from last week was the importance of family and that life is too short to be concerned with problems that, in the cosmic scheme of things, are actually quite petty.

I stumbled across this video lecture on functional programming on Channel9.

Very interesting stuff. (and it’s only one in a series)

In part 3 of the Advanced Functional Programming lecture series, Dr. Lämmel focuses on the domain of language interpretation as a method of understanding some important functional programming techniques. As a side effect, some basics of programming language theory are also informally presented.

Yet another service outage courtesy of WebHost4Life.

They’re working really hard to win the PEPCO* Service Reliability Award.

* PEPCO is the local power company in DC and MD. They’ve come under fire after recent outages. They’ve never been known for the reliability and it’s only gotten worse lately. Much like WebHost4Life.

Roger Peters (@SmartyP) wrote a blog post on how to unit test Silverlight apps on Windows Phone 7.

Definitely worth a read.

Much to my delight, the InkPresenter control works on Silverlight for Windows Phone the same way as it does for regular Silverlight.

In fact, I was able to take sample code from one of the apps in my book and create a simple drawing app in a few minutes.

Now, all I need is an actual phone to play with. :)