Obama helped me fix my XBOX 360

I had XBox 360 and it was my home entertainment system(combined with Orb )
I was very satisfied with my game console until the 3 red rings of death appeared.
Unfortunately, there is no official XBox support in Bulgaria (the place where I live) and I had to the buy another one - Elite edition this time.
The reason - I was XBox addicted and really love my XBox experience.


Few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me to borrow him my "bricked" XBox 360.

He spent few days in reading blogs and watching YouTube clips and finally managed to bring the brick , that I gave him, back to live.

See my friend's blog post in the links section bellow for repairing details

Links:
Obama helped me fix my XBOX 360
by Pavel Natov

Mobile sessions during October and November 2008

PowerPoint files are available for download at the bottom of this post

I'm going to have few public speaches dedicated to the Microsoft's mobile development technology stack.
The first two sessions are part of the Microsoft Day events organized in the local universities.
The last two are part of a free set of sessions dedicated to Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008 and Office Project 2007, sponsored by Microsoft Bulgaria and New Horizons Bulgaria

30.Oct.2008, 15:00h,Varna, University of Economics - Varna
Lap around Windows Mobile

31.Oct.2008, 10:00h,Varna, Technical University - Varna
Mobile development with Visual Strudio 2008 and Compact Framework 3.5

6.Nov.2008, 18:30h ,Sofia, New Horizons Bulgaria
Developing Windows Mobile Applications with Visual Studio 2008

20.Nov.2008, 18:30h,Sofia, New Horizons Bulgaria
Under the hood: Windows Mobile and Visual Studio 2008

All the sessions are free to attend, however the last two require you to sign-up in advance

UPDATE:
PPT File: Developing Windows Mobile Applications with Visual Studio 2008

Managed Library to boost your Compact Framework development productivity

Here comes a short list of managed classes/libraries developed by the community members , which may speed up your regular dev activities.

Note that some of them are not complete solutions, but they may give you a good idea how to acomplish tasks considered as hard for the regular managed dev.

1. Managed Today Item
by Christopher Fairbairn
http://www.christec.co.nz/blog/archives/281

2. Managed Notification With Soft Keys
by Christopher Fairbairn
http://www.christec.co.nz/blog/archives/150

3. Improved OpenFileDialog
by Christopher Fairbairn
http://www.christec.co.nz/blog/archives/286

4. Managed Services
by Peter Nowak
Actually it isn't possible to create Windows Services for Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded CE in managed code.
Pavel Bánský's shows in his blog post, how Services in Windows Mobile in managed code can be created...
http://blogs.compactframework.de/Peter.Nowak/2008/05/31/Dienste+Mit+Dem+NET+Compact+Framework+Erstellen+Creating+Services+With+The+NET+Compact+Framework.aspx

5. DynamicDNS Library
by Peter Nowak
Library to update dynamic DNS providers like DynDNS.org , NoIP.com and others. Usefull in some "push" scenarios
http://blogs.compactframework.de/Peter.Nowak/2007/11/29/nahtlosmobilde+DynamicDNS+Library+10+Released.aspx

6. PowerShell Windows Mobile Provider
by Oisin Greham
Explore and manipulate your mobile device with Windows PowerShell. Supports PocketPC and SmartPhone devices; WM2002, 2003, 2003SE, 5, 6 and 6.1...
http://www.nivot.org/CategoryView,category,WindowsMobile.aspx

7. AlphaMobileControls
AlphaMobileControls is a .NET Compact Framework 2.0 API offering WinForm Controls for Windows Mobile 5 or 6 able to handle images with alpha channel and alpha blending.
http://www.codeplex.com/alphamobilecontrols

8. P/Invoke Library
by Warren Tang
http://www.cnblogs.com/WarrenTang/archive/2008/08/28/1278853.html

Projects from OpenNETCF

9. Smart Device Framework 2.2 (Community Edition)
Compact Framework developers know that they have a subset of the full framework to work with, and often it can be frustrating and even crippling for a project. Version 2.2 of our award-winning, industry standard libraries for .NET Compact Framework helps bridge the gap between the .NET Compact Framework and the .NET Full Framework...
http://opennetcf.com/Products/SmartDeviceFramework/tabid/65/Default.aspx

10.OpenNETCF Advanced Debugging Toolkit (ADT)
Advanced Debugging Toolkit -- Addins and libraries to enable faster, more efficient debugging of .NET Compact Framework applications...
http://www.opennetcf.com/FreeSoftware/tabid/84/Default.aspx

11.OpenNETCF.Desktop.Communication
The Desktop.Communication Library contains classes used for communicating with a CE device from a PC such as Microsoft's Remote API (RAPI)...
http://www.opennetcf.com/FreeSoftware/tabid/84/Default.aspx

12.OpenNETCF Smart Device Framework v 1.4
Targeting Compact Framework 1.0 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2003
http://www.opennetcf.com/FreeSoftware/tabid/84/Default.aspx

13.Mobile Ink
The Mobile Ink Library is a .NET component that provides support for the new Windows Mobile 6 WISP Lite API in your .NET Compact Framework applications...
http://www.opennetcf.com/FreeSoftware/tabid/84/Default.aspx

14.OpenNETCF QRCode Library for .NET Compact Framework
The OpenNETCF QRCode Library is a .NET Compact Framework component that allows developers to decode QRCode images on a Windows Mobile or Windows CE device...
http://www.opennetcf.com/FreeSoftware/tabid/84/Default.aspx

UPDATE

15. 32feet.Net
by Peter Foot
A shared-source project to make personal area networking technologies such as Bluetooth, Infrared (IrDA) and more, easily accessible from .NET code. Supports desktop, mobile or embedded systems. The project currently consists of the following libraries:-
http://www.codeplex.com/32feet/

YET ANOTHER UPDATE
16. Mobile MVC Framework
by Alex Yakhin's
Model-View-Controller Framework for mobile devices running .NET Compact Framework 3.5.
http://www.codeplex.com/MobileMVC

17.Windows Mobile Unified Sensor API
by Kuosh
The Windows Mobile Unified Sensor API allows developers to easily access the hardware sensors that are available on various phones.
Sensors supported: Light Sensor,Capacitive Touch Pad,Accelerometer
Devices:HTC Touch *,Samsung Omnia/Instinct
http://www.codeplex.com/sensorapi

 

Did I miss something? Ping me if you know other useful non-comercial third party managed libraries

Interview with Ilya Tumanov

 

Christopher Fairbairn published a short interview with Ilya Tumanov:

I am a Software Development Engineer (SDE) within the Developer Division (responsible for development tools like Visual Studio). I have been with the .NET Compact Framework team almost from the start and helped shipped version 1.0 of it.

I used to own numerous portions of the .NET CF base class libraries (BCL), for example ADO.NET and LINQ and was responsible for the .NET CF installation story on both the desktop and device sides.

Recently I’ve moved on to another position and now I’m with Microsoft’s Office Labs. My line of work is around mobile productivity, so I’m still working with NETCF, now as a regular developer.

Read the rest here...

Managed Services and Today Screen Item with .NET Compact Framework

I'm .NET addicted and never felt comfortable to realize that I can't solve my problem in pure managed manner.
Well, the "native" is a native part of the mobile developer, but anyway I prefer managed.

I was happy to see that some mobile folks here work for my comfort :)

Peter Nowaks has a post about creating Managed Services in Windows Mobile by using .NET Compact Framework. He has created a managed library, hosted in CodePlex. His work is based on article by Pavel Bánský

Christopher Fairbairn also published  a very handy library, which may help you creating a managed Today Screen Item.

 

Great work guys!

 

Links
Peter Nowaks on Creating Managed Services in Windows Mobile
Pavel Bánský on Creating Managed Services in Windows Mobile
Christopher Fairbairn on Creating Managed Today Screen Item