The other day I was trying to tweak my homescreen on my SDA. I’m not fond of how it is setup and would prefer to have different items on the screen and in a different order. One thing that I was really looking for was a way to add another clock with a different time zone to my homescreen (and not have to buy a component for it). So, this had me poking around on a way to do it and I found a way to re-arrange the homescreen layout by building images and defining the x and y coordinates on where smartphone components would go. The thing is that you can place items wherever on the screen, but they HAVE to be defined as an element already in the smartphone OS. So, in order to get the clock, you specify and give it attributes for year, date, etc. But, that’s all you can do with the clock element. So I thought - there’s all these pc desktop widgets around, yahoo has them and microsoft has them…now, why can’t a smartphone have a similar system that you can supply widget code that fits a particular format that will run on the homescreen? You can write a homescreen element in c++, but the guy who had coded it up on the internet said it was a pain to work with. So it is possible to do it but it seems like it will be very time consuming - and I would rather have some sort of “widget engine” on the smartphone that you can plug in custom pieces that people write. Maybe I should start a codeplex project? Does this sound like a good idea to anyone?

Here’s some images I prototyped:

    

Recently I went to flickr and attempted to login and didn’t remember my password. Flickr then prompted me to enter in information that would help me remember my password (birthplace, first car, etc). When I register with sites, I usually put in almost garbage for every field. Then when it asks me to enter in “hints” that I left when I registered, I can’t remember. Another problem is that every site has their own idea of what a strong password and they make you change your most frequenly used password to fit their standard. Also if a site decides to have your login be a user name instead of email, your preferred user name could be taken already, so what you end up with is a lot of usernames and passwords to manage. So, after getting my account locked twice at Flickr, I decided to write a little application that would store my passwords. I finally had some time over the holidays and I wanted to refresh my C++ skills, so I wrote this application in managed C++ (I’ll attempt the native C++ version at a later time). There might already be a program that does this on the internet that’s available to download, but I didn’t look and just wanted to tackle it myself.

The basics of the program is a tree that has your websites listed and gives you a field entry for site name, username, and password. In the password field you can put a hint, or whatever you want to help you remember. Then when you save the file, it encrypts it and saves off the file. The only password you will NEED to remember is the one to open and unlock the application file so that it can be decrypted.

Now I just have this one encrypted file with all my sites, usernames, and passwords in it! I think I’m up to around 20 sites in my file, and find myself constantly opening it to find information.

Here’s a screen shot:

and the encrypted file opened in textpad:

I will never see your passwords, and there is nothing in this program that goes to any other web service or anything. (you can use reflector if you are still unsure).

As of 7/12/07 I have 44 entries stored in mine! Holy cow - it seems like every site makes you register now.

Use at your own discretion. Downloads as a zip file, and then run Setup.exe.
Download here: Store My Information [ 604 Downloads ]

Manage your passwords for free!

I thought I would mention one tool that I discovered that I can’t live without now, Onfolio. About a month ago, I was trying to find a web page that I looked at a few days ago - which I seem to do often. Well, I guess at the time that I found the web page I didn’t think it was valuable enough to bookmark, so I figured it was time to look into my browser history. But, if you’re like me, I set my history to expire after about a day or two and I don’t bookmark sites unless I frequent them often. My thoughts were: I wish I had some toolbar clipboard that I could save links and text-clips to and be able to refer to it when needed. After thinking I might write the toolbar myself, I came across Onfolio (which was acquired by Microsoft). So, now you can find this amazing tool in the live search toolbar.

You can read about it here: Onfolio

And download it here: Live Search with Onfolio

Yesterday there was a public release about Microsoft’s new Zune. This thing is pretty cool…it might be the replacement for my archos. There is an official Zune site: Coming Zune, but I can’t figure what is going on with the bird catching on fire and the giant and tiny man petting and hugging a rabbit.

Here’s a quick run down of the features (from the Zune press pass site)

• Wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing. Zune lets you spontaneously share selected full-length sample tracks of your favorite songs, homemade recordings, playlists or pictures with friends wirelessly, device to device. You can listen to any song you receive up to three times in three days. And if you like a song you hear and want to buy it, you can flag it right on your device to easily find it later.
• Your own personalized Zune. Zune is easy to use and easy to love. You can choose one of three base colors, each combined with a distinctive double-shot finish created by the overlay of one color on another. The player also can easily be customized with your favorite pictures.
• Large color screen. Zune comes with a bright 3-inch LCD video screen that works in portrait or landscape mode. Your music, video and pictures never looked better.
• 30GB player. Zune stores up to 7,500 songs, 25,000 pictures or 100 hours of video. You can make playlists on the go and watch a slide show while you’re listening. Watching video in landscape mode gets the most out of the vivid display.
• Zune Pass. Downloads or a subscription? It’s your choice. A Zune Pass subscription gives you “all you can eat” access to discover and explore the Zune Marketplace.
• Built-in FM tuner. With the built-in FM tuner you can listen to local FM radio stations or tune in to programming while you’re at your local health club, for example. Advanced tuning capabilities allow you to see the name of the song currently playing on selected frequencies.

The DJ mode sounds amazing! The Zune looks like a great piece of technology. Watch out iPod.

Looks like they will be out in stores around November.

Well, I might not update my blog for a week or two because I’m moving to Seattle. I leave towards the end of July and start work in early August in Redmond! To see where I’ll be working go here: http://blogs.msdn.com/BrettRobinson/

Well, we finally pulled down the curtain that was hiding AudioDizer from the general public. Although there are a few things that we are still improving, we think the user experience will be a good one. Keep checking back as we are constantly improving the audio files that come back. AudioDizer enables you to either upload your blog (rss) or a different blog that you read, and get an mp3 that you can play on either your portable media player or computer. Some of the coolest stuff is in the member section - so sign up…it’s free!!

Check it out here: AudioDizer

So, I purchased the T-Mobile SDA that I wrote about last week and I have had it for about 5 days. Here are my thoughts on the phone…Overall its great. I have enabled the wi-fi and have been able to connect to a network and browse the internet, etc. Its pretty neat. When riding on the train I enable the wi-fi and watch the networks pop in and out. The camera and video have great quality. I have not had time to hook up the email yet to our exchange server, but from what I have read it is a pretty simple thing to do. Here are the negatives, the first is response time. When you try to navigate sometimes the phone is unresponsive for a few seconds and then it catches up with the clicks by doing 10 things in 1 second. The little knob that you’re supposed to navigate with is kind of hard to push in the right direction and click things. For example, you’ll select an item and click the button thinking it will open the application…but it doesn’t and maybe navigates to the item next to it. The last negative thing is memory. There isn’t much so a mini-SD is almost necessary to hold songs, application, etc. Overall a good purchase and I’m just getting started (wrote the first sample phone application yesterday and deployed it to the windows mobile 5.0 emulator in VS 2005).

I’ve been looking at getting a smartphone for some time and it seems the time is almost here. T-Mobile announced last month that they are finally releasing the MDA and SDA in the US. These phones have been over in Europe for some time now, and after many months of rumors and leaks about the phones coming to the US it seems they are finally here (almost). You can pre-order the phone once they are available from T-Mobile. Before this I almost broke down and purchased an i-mate or Qtek on Expansys. But, I’m glad I waited because the new SDA has tons more capabilities. It has has GPRS/EDGE/WiFi capabilities, bluetooth, and runs on Windows Mobile 5.0. I’ve been reading about the .NET Compact Framework bluetooth library and hope to create a bluetooth application once I get my phone - right now the library is only available to MSDN subscribers.

Here’s the official T-Mobile announcement - click it to sign up to get notified of the release (I cropped the photo just to show the SDA):

I’ll write more once I get the phone and can try out writing a bluetooth application.

The Channel 9 Wiki for Mobile Developers has pretty good information about Windows Mobile development.

Video on programming for a smart phone

I decided to start a blog given that 1) I am in the tech field and it seems to be the thing to do, and 2) I have started a company that is very tightly coupled with blogs. So, enjoy.