Kartones Blog

After doing a few weeks ago the Beta MCP of Windows Mobile 5.0 (71-540 if I'm correct), here are the resources I found. Bad news (for me) is that I wasn't in a good mood and full of work so I think I'll not pass it.

• Mobile main page: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/default.mspx
• MSDN main page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/windowsmobile/default.aspx
• Channel9 WinMobile wiki: http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/MobileDeveloper.HomePage
• MSDN SDK Doc: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/mobilesdk5/html/mob5oriWelcomeToWindowsMobile.asp
• MSDN Technical Articles: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnanchor/html/WinMobile_TechArticles.asp
• Hands-On Labs: http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/windowsmobile/howto/hols/default.aspx
• Channel9 WebCasts: http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/MobileDeveloper.WebCasts
• Virtual Labs: http://msdn.microsoft.com/virtuallabs/windowsmobile/
• Basic Needed Tools: http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/windowsmobile/howto/windowsmobile5/install/default.aspx
• Course 2556: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/syllabi/en-us/2556Afinal.mspx
• Unai Zorrilla's Blog (in Spanish): http://geeks.ms/blogs/unai/default.aspx
• Windows Mobile Starter Kits: http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/windowsmobile/howto/starterkits/default.aspx
• .NET Compact Framework Application Samples: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/30taewf4.aspx
• Windows Mobility Marvels (WebCasts): http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/msdnmobility.mspx

Hope they prove useful for someone!

Although I don't have too much spare time, I've finally decided to buy an XBox 360, mostly after I found there's an official VGA cable (so I could plug it directly to my TFT monitor and enjoy it at 1280x1024) and that the game Dead Rising was available (John Romero's Zombie film is one of my all-time classics).

I'm downloading some demos before deciding if I buy another game or wait for upcoming ones (like Gears of War and Mass Effect).

One screenshot of the fantastic Dead Rising (click to enlarge):

Well, as I can't right now install the pre-RC1 of Windows Vista in any of my pcs, last weekend I decided to install it on a Virtual PC 2004 to see if it works... And it worked!

The VM Additions work, at least the graphic driver (without them it was hell to move a single window!), and well... you can test Vista. No fancy 3D, and you should disable some things, but it works fast enough to try it's new security system, tools, options rearrangement and such.

I've installed it on a P4 HT 3,4 GHz, 1 GB DDR2 Dual-channel RAM (700 MB assigned to the VM), and a SATA HD (15 GB assigned), with almost no other application running.

I've disabled/deactivated the following to try to optimise for speed:

• Cleartype font smoothing (vast performance improvement), and menu animations, fades, slides, and such (shadows and visual styles kept)
• Windows Defender & Firewall (no change in performance)
• No screensaver/power-saving
• HD not indexed for fast searching (took a lot to "deactivate" indexing because of the almost 6 GB Vista takes once installed)
• Disabled System Restore
• Defragmented the HD

And now it goes quite good. It's not as fast as an XP (I've developed with an VS2003 and XP Virtual Machine on lower specs PCs) but I'll be able to play with the OS for a while :)

Note: I haven't configured internet/LAN yet, so I hope VMAdditions' ethernet virtual driver works. Emulated Sound Card didn't.