I've been seeing code floating around that suggests that in order for you to get an assembly's version number in Windows Phone SDK 7.0/7.1 you have to call Assembly.ToString() or Assembly.FullName and then parse the output. Please don't do that. There is a better, more stable, and more supported way to get the information you seek:
new System.Reflection.AssemblyName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().FullName)
Most people by now are aware of the design changes from Visual Studio 2010 to VS11 Beta, and from Beta to RC. There were quite a few complaints about the Beta design, not the least of which included the lack of colors and the ALL CAPS tool window title bars and tabs. Now with the RC, the biggest complaint is that the ALL CAPS weren't removed completely, but were instead moved to the menus. So why is all of this going on?
Sometimes I like to play around with the registry to see what little tid-bits of info I can find in it. Here are some interesting entries I've found recently (and not so recently). It goes without saying that modifying registry entries is very dangerous, and you can brick your device doing it.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Connectivity\CellularCPL]
"Show3GToggle"=dword:1
Cellular control panel (settings item) --> show/hide the 3G toggle option.
This week I got a Samsung Focus Flash. It's a nice upgrade from my first-generation LG Optimus 7. Although I have a Nokia Lumia 710, I can't actually use it because it still doesn't support tethering. While the Focus Flash does support tethering (or "internet sharing"), the functionality is tied to AT&T. I don't have AT&T; I'm using an MVNO as my cellular provider. That means I simply can't activate tethering.
Every so often I see articles and news blurbs about yet another product that allows people to create a mobile app once and automagically publish it on all of the major smartphone platforms. Recently, I've seen lots of buzz around PhoneGap becoming fully-featured in regards to Windows Phone. And just today I saw an article on Slashdot about Yahoo! getting into this space. Although, as a developer and a techy, I love the idea of being able to write an app and quickly have it available on multiple platforms, I must say I do not approve of actually doing it.
Chances are, you've never heard of the Flucard. You may, however, have heard of its Singaporean maker, Trek 2000 International Ltd. This company holds key patents on USB flash drives, and it holds the ThumbDrive trademark. Indeed, Trek released one of the first commercial USB flash drives in the year 2000. So as you might imagine, the Flucard is related to flash storage. It is in fact an SDHC card. But it is no ordinary storage card.
I strongly believe that a distinguishing mark between a good app and a great app is resilience, or in other words, its ability to adapt to unusual conditions. Naturally, it's up to the app's architects and developers to make it resilient, but too often I see apps that break with the slightest change of an upstream API. This has been observed not only with small, relatively unknown apps, but also with some high profile ones, such as the official Facebook app for Windows Phone. Why is this behavior so prevalent?
I have recreated my arktronic.com blog in a new version of Drupal. The old one started having some issues that I don't care to fix, and recreating it was the easiest solution. Some of the old posts have been added back because I have deemed them useful in one way or another. Comments did not make it, however. I always intend to blog more when I make any kind of site change, but in the past that hasn't really worked out. We'll see what happens now.
Microsoft has released updated application certification requirements for submitting apps to the Marketplace that, according to this blog post, will go into effect on June 3 (after the release of Mango tools).
