Running Ruby on Windows Phone

Ruby on Windows Phone

If you are interested in modern languages you have got to get this for your Windows Phone.  For a mere two pounds you get a Ruby runtime and editor which lets you create and run programs on the device itself. Let me be clear about this; it means you can create brand new programs and store and run them on your phone, without using a PC or anything else. Astonishing.

The installation comes with a bunch of programs including a Twitter client and a passable Tetris clone.

I’ve not played with Ruby much, but I’m always fancied having a go,  and now I have the perfect platform. You can find out more at http://www.iron7.com/

Windows Phone Blue Book Pdf

As well as getting a copy of my Windows Phone from Microsoft Faculty Connection you can also now get the text in pdf form from http://www.csharpcourse.com/ where it is displayed alongside my other coloured text books. You can also get the sample code there as well.

Shazam and Zune Pass can damage your street cred.

I heard a tune on the radio that I quite liked this morning, so I used the amazing Shazam program on Windows Phone to find out what it was, and then downloaded it onto the phone for free using my Zune Pass. I thought this was quite impressive.

How was I to know it was Kylie Minogue?

Bye Bye iPhone

Today is a fairly momentous one (if you can have fairly momentous days). I’ve reached the end of my 18 month iPhone contract and it is time to formally move all my mobile phone stuff over to my Windows Phone device. I’ve been carrying two phones around for a while, which has been a pain. Anyhoo, today is the day that the number transfer goes through so that in the unlikely event of anyone ringing me up, they will now reach me through the wonder of Windows Phone.

I’ve really enjoyed using an iPhone. It represented a genuine advance on the field when it came out all those years ago. It is a delightful device which is a pleasure to use and has served me very well. I went through three iPhones in total in my time with the platform. However, I’ve used Windows Phone for a while now and I prefer it. Stuff seems to take fewer presses to achieve. When I use my iPhone I find myself pressing the screen for a back button that isn’t there and the way you move between applications seems clunky to me. Some of the more recent advances to the OS seem to have detracted from the initial simplicity that it had.

The Windows Phone has a way to go. There are a few iPhone features that I’ll miss for a while but I reckon that Windows Phone will catch up over time.  And I love the idea that I can write C# for the device.

Optimus Quest Winner

Well, I’ve had a fun weekend going through all the Optimus Quest entries. By the end I’d had loads and it has taken a while to take a look at each one. Quite a few people had submitted multiple ideas, which was great but meant even more stuff to go through. For each of the entries the questions I considered, in order, were:

• Can this application actually be made to work on the phone?
• Can I see anyone using/playing the application?
• Has it been done before on Windows Phone?

That narrowed things down a bit, and then I moved on to picking a winner from the ones that are left.  Which was very, very, tricky. At the end I settled on “Magic Finger” from Marcin Limanski. A very nice idea that I hesitate to describe in too much detail in case someone else takes it on and gets there first. If you want to contact me Marcin we’ll see about getting the phone sent to you.

The Bad Taste award goes to “Poo Shoot” from Marc Cutsforth which was pretty much as disgusting as the name implies. The Most Amusingly Useless award goes to “Spinning Bow Tie” from ‘Ignorant Pom’.

Honourable mentions go to Emma-Jane Alexander,  Beverley Usher, David Parker, Simon Johnson and Jason Wakefield for workable ideas that really should be taken further.

Thanks to everyone who took part, and thanks again to Sheryl at LG for supplying me with such a nice prize to give away.

The Optimus Quest Nears its End

You have have just over an hour to get your ideas for Windows Phone applications to optmiusquest@robmiles.com. Best idea gets a shiny LG Optimus 7. Find out more at /optimusquest

Free “Windows Phone Blue Book” Course

Microsoft Faculty Connection have just released my “Windows Phone Programming Blue Book”. This is kind of a companion to the "C# Yellow Book” which has been around for a while. However, it has a lot more stuff with it. There are demo programs and also a whole set of presentations and exercises that you could use to create a complete course on Windows Phone 7. You can find the content here:

https://www.facultyresourcecenter.com/curriculum/pfv.aspx?ID=8729

LG Optimus 7 Windows Phone Review

Don’t forget my Optimus Quest, where you can win an LG Optimums 7.

For the last few days I’ve been using an LG Optimus 7 Windows phone. I really like it. Actually, I like all the Windows phone models. They all run the same operating system and so their look and feel is going to be the same. They also have to hit the same platform specification which means that display, camera, performance and battery life are going to be good.

However is interesting how different phone manufacturers have taken the platform and worked at making it their own. LG have done quite a few things to make their phone special. They also seem to have had some luck getting access to parts of the hardware that other phones can’t reach.

The phone itself is pleasingly weighty and is rounded to fit the hand very well. The back has a brushed metal finish that pulls off the trick of being shiny but not showing any nasty fingerprints. The screen is bright and clear and very responsive. Unlike other Windows Phone devices it actually has physical buttons along the front which add a nice tactile feel to using it. Inside the phone you can find 16G of memory, which is useful if you have a Zune pass and want to store a bunch of music on the device. From a hardware point of view the design is nicely understated and classy.

Each Windows Phone manufacturer has their own application store and this is where the LG phone starts to pull away from the crowd a bit.  For a start there are more than a handful of programs in there and a few of them are actually useful and fun. The Panorama shot makes a reasonable job of controlling the camera, letting you stitch together up to 5 pictures to make a panorama. The Voice to text application takes what you say and puts it into a Tweet, Note or email. And it works too. The Scan Search application is very interesting in that it is the only program I’ve ever seen on Windows Phone that actually uses the compass and a video overlay from the camera to provide an augmented reality display that points you at nearby points of interest. 

If you are in the market for a Windows Phone I’d start with a look at this one.

Got your Zune Pass Yet?

If you’ve got a Windows Phone and you haven’t checked out the Zune pass yet then you are missing out. Zune pass is an “all you can eat” deal which lets you download and store loads of music onto mobile devices and PCs. You pay a monthly fee to keep the music going and you can have as much of it with you as you can fit onto your Windows Phone or Zune. You can chop and change your tunes as much as you like and keep a different range of sounds on each platform. Of course the bad news is that if you stop paying, it stops playing but I think that for around nine quid a month it is actually a pretty good deal.

I really like the way that you can hear a tune you like and then have the whole album on your phone a few minutes later. Windows Phone even has the amazing Shazam application (one of the few programs that I reckon is actually powered by magic) that will put a name to tunes that you play to it, to make the process easier. I’ve been happily downloading content and listening to it. Current favourites is “Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter Plays the Hits”. Country music (and other stuff) done real well.

Win an LG Optimus 7 Windows Phone

Coming to your pocket soon?

Thanks go to Sheryl for sending me an LG Optimus 7 phone to take a look at. She has also sent one for me to give away, so I proudly announce the “Optimus Quest” competition.

Send me your ideas for Windows Phone Marketplace programs and I’ll give the phone as a prize to the best idea. You can find full details in the Rob Miles Optimus Quest Competition pages.

I’m going to be using an Optimus 7 (not the prize one – that is staying in the box all shiny and new) for the next few days and I’ll let you know what I think of it. First impressions – very nice indeed.

Album Shower on Marketplace

Hot on the heels of Cheese Lander, you can now download and play with my second Windows Phone application. Album Shower displays your album artwork as a moving display on the phone screen. Touching any album starts playback. You can find out more at the Zune Marketplace link for the application.

Snowed in Phone Fun

If you ask for “Hot Chocolate Deluxe” at the Purple Cow you get this. We had to take the sweets home for later.Fantastic.

Spent today snowed in working on some more Windows Phone fun and games. (although we did step out for Sunday Lunch at the Purple Cow in Cottingham – have the gammon with two eggs on top it is ace)

If you are a Windows Phone developer (and you should be) you must get the Windows Phone October update. This gives you some nice extras, including a way of debugging Windows Phone applications that use the media content on the phone. I’m finding this very useful just at the moment. And remember that if you write Visual Basic there is now an Windows Phone Visual Basic SDK just for you.

Cheese Lander has Landed

Anyone with a “Cheese Lander” shaped hole in their lives now has somewhere to turn. For the princely sum of 79 British Pence (that’s a couple of normal Mar Bars or one and a bit of the really large ones) you can now own a copy of “The Best Cheese Landing Game in the World”. That I know of. In Hull. Written by me.

Anyhoo, if you want to be able to whip out your Windows Phone at a party and say “Anyone here fancy landing some cheese?” you can find it on Windows Phone Marketplace here.

Windows Phone Mixer

Free food and drink? In  a brewery? Sign me up…..

After the exertions of the day we went out to the Windows Phone Miser at a really nice little brewery. The place was just nicely full with Windows Phone Developers and folks and we sat around chatting, drinking the excellent cloudy light beer and eating free food, my favourite kind.

The guys at the bar insisted I took this picture.

Then we trundled back to the hotel on all the right trains. Great fun.

Tech Ed 2010 Day 2

I wonder if they’ll let me take it home…

When is a phone not a phone? When you get it brand new on Friday and forget to enable international roaming before you go to Berlin on Sunday. Although my shiny new phone does work very well on WiFi and since just about nobody knows my new number it is not as if I’m missing out on many calls.

Anyhoo, spent another day writing today, including 25 multiple choice questions for the second year Software Development course.  Such lucky students…..

I also went along for the Tech Check for my sessions tomorrow and Thursday. These are where we plug everything together and see if it works. It all did, which bodes well for the future. The girl who manages one of the rooms said that she was really excited when she found out that one of the speakers was from Hull. Which was very nice, although I did wonder out loud whether she might not think about getting out a bit more. My firsts session is tomorrow at 12:00 in Hall 7.1b, London 2. It is all about Building Windows Phone Games. Should be fun.

TechEd 2010 Day 1

Where all the cool kids are hanging out. And me.

Number one wife asked me how I was enjoying TechEd. The truth is I love these gigs. It only takes the smell of brand new carpet tiles to get me in the mood for some conference action. Although I seem to have spent most of today in the Speakers Lounge writing stuff.

I got up bright and early and wandered to the station to catch the train from the hotel to the conference centre. The carriage was full of delegates clutching their bags and so I knew I was headed in the right direction. The conference centre is huge. It was big last year, but it seems to have grown a couple of extra wings and a whole new set of routes around. I usually manage to get where I want to go, but I’ve never gone the same way there twice.  I wandered into the Speakers Lounge again and met up with a few familiar faces and then settled down to work. Towards the end of the day I headed down to the conference floor and the busiest part, which seemed to be the bit around the Windows Phone stand. HTC were also there demonstrating their extensive range of phones and they all look very nice.

I’ve been lent an HTC HD7 for the demos in my sessions and I must admit to being pretty smitten with the device. It has a huge screen and shiny buttons, plus a really stylish kick stand that lets you stand it on the desk to watch videos. Great stuff. I’ve seen pretty much all the devices on sale now and I reckon there isn’t a bad one amongst them. Just different kinds of lovely.

Got my own Windows Phone Today

I must admit I was getting a bit worried. It looked as if I wasn’t going to get my shiny new hardware before going to Berlin next week.  Then I got a call from James at the Orange store saying that my chosen device had actually arrived in stock. Apparently there has been quite a run on Windows 7 phones and the one I wanted, the Samsung Omnia 7, was the hardest one to get hold of. I wanted the Samsung mainly because of the lovely screen, and also I’ve always liked things with square corners. I’ve seen pretty much all the WP7 devices now and there isn’t a bad one amongst them, but I like the angular lines of the Samsung best.

The phone is lovely. At last I have phone that is as stylish and well made as an iPhone, but it is not an iPhone. And I much prefer the user interface too. I’ve been using developer versions of Windows Phone for a while and they are OK, but having one in a proper box, and with a proper (sigh) contract makes it that much more official I reckon.  I’ve got a month or so left on my iPhone contract and so I’ll be carrying two phones around with me for a while, but I know which one I want to play with. And it runs Cheese Lander a treat…

Windows Phone 7 Devices

Students keep coming by my office and showing me their new Windows Phone devices. A couple have the really nice HTC HP7, with the enormous screen, and today someone dropped by to show me a Samsung Omnia 7 which they were very proud of, and quite right too.

I’ve told them all they should have Marketplace accounts and should be making applications and games. Quite a few already are. When I get back from TechEd I think I’ll set aside an afternoon and help folks refine their programs and test them on real devices so that we can get a few more Hull student products out there. I’ve got some ideas for things that I’ll never have time to make myself, and so I think we’ll see if we can get some development action going on them too.

Tech Ed Deck Frenzy

Spent today working on my presentations for Tech Ed 2010. In exactly a week I’m going to be out in Berlin getting ready for the conference. I’m giving two sessions this year:

Wed. 10th November WPH307 – “Building Windows Phone Games with Microsoft XNA and Visual Studio 2010” at 12:00 pm in Hall 7.1b London 2

Thu. 11th November WPH310 – “Giving your Windows Phone XNA Games Plenty of Whizz and Bang” in Hall 7.3b Europa 1

I’m going in demo heavy for this one, with loads of stuff to show what you can do with Windows Phone and XNA. All the demo programs will be available for download so that you can download them and submit them to Marketplace learn how to write your own great games from them.

Should be fun. If you are going along to Berlin it would be great if you could drop by and say hi.

Hull Digital Windows Phone Fun

I didn’t actually shout out “Look ‘Thoughtful’ Folks”, but it looks as if I might have done….

Had a great time at the Hull Digital Group meeting tonight. The topic for the night was mobile development. First up was John Connolly who gave a smashing talk on the pitfalls and potential of mobile development.

Then there was me. I gave a “Biased Overview of Windows Phone 7” where I extolled the virtues of the platform and very nearly showed my Windows Phone Twitter reader working. The audience was great, with some lovely discussion and very thoughtful questions at the end.  You can find the presentation and code files (including a version of that video game grate “Cheese Lander”) here.