Showing posts with label mobile devices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mobile devices. Show all posts

Beginning Windows Phone 7 Development Review

Beginning Windows Phone 7 Development
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Beginning Windows Phone 7 Development ReviewBeginning Windows Phone 7 Development by Lee and Chuvyrov is aimed at developers new to the Windows Phone 7 platform (which is probably most of us). This book expects a basic understanding of C#, the .NET Framework and XAML so if you have no prior programming experience, an introductory text is a pre-requisite. .NET developers without Silverlight or WPF experience shouldn't find the content too challenging as it is either explained sufficiently by the authors or fairly easy to grasp in its own right.
Part 1, The Essentials of Windows Phone 7 Application Development, starts with a high level introduction to the Windows Phone 7 platform and then drills into some examples ranging from the obligatory Hello World through to a thorough Windows Azure-based cloud services end-to-end scenario. There are plenty of step-by-step instructions and loads of screenshots in these five introductory chapters making them a easy read.
Part 2, Using Windows Phone 7 Technologies, comprises the remaining fourteen chapters and the vast majority of the book. The meat of the book is in these chapters and provides a reasonable grounding for developers looking to discover the breadth of the Windows Phone 7 platform without getting bogged down in too much detail.
The book is organised reasonably well and covers the material well enough for someone new to the platform to become productive relatively quickly. The tone of the book is light without trying too hard to be humourous, which I was thankful for. However, I have two complaints to make, resulting in a less than perfect score.
First, there are a number of inconsistencies in the example code printed in the book. For example, in Chapter 2, the book refers to a TextBlock called textBlock1 in the description of the subsequent code but then goes on to use a TextBox called txtMessage in the actual code listing. There are plenty of similar errors in this section. Its easy enough to understand where the book has gone wrong and correct for it but it may be frustrating for beginners.
Secondly, and far more annoying for me, was the volume of grammatical errors. The authors' command of English is obviously good but between the frequent errors, odd turns of phrase, and some repetitive wording, I found the writing to be a distraction (there's something about code being referred to as codes that really irritates me). Thankfully I perservered through to Part 2 of the book where either the writing improved or I became too desensitised to care anymore.
The book is fine as a survey of the important areas of Windows Phone 7 which will likely require your attention as a developer. If you don't mind the occasional superficial inconsistencies in code examples or if the quality of the writing doesn't get in your way, you could do far worse. Some work by the editors at Apress should result in a much improved second edition as it really only needs polishing rather than a rewrite.
Beginning Windows Phone 7 Development Overview
Microsoft'sWindows Phone 7 handsets have injected a new vibrancy into the smartphone marketplace and provided bold new opportunities for the Microsoft development community. Now in its second edition, Beginning Windows Phone 7 Development has been written to help you identify those opportunities and to learn the skills you'll need to harness them. It covers the very latest developments in the field, including the extended APIs offered in Microsoft's automatic platform update, so you'll have timely, accurate information at your fingertips. Beginning Windows Phone 7 Development, Second Edition starts with the basics, walking you through the process of downloading and setting up the right development tools, including Visual Studio, Expression Blend, Silverlight SDK, and Windows Phone SDK. It then takes you step-by-step though the development process as you build and deploy a working application, complete with a sophisticated user interface. Finally, you'll receive step-by-step instructions on selling your applications through the Windows Phone Marketplace.

What you'll learn
How to create effective networked applications
How to leverage your phone's GPS capabilities from within your application
How to interact with the phone's built-in functionalities (camera, contacts, maps, accelerometer, video and web browser to name but a few)
How to construct highly graphical and responsive user interfaces quickly and easily using these features
How to package and distribute your applications for bothpersonal distribution and commercial sale via the Windows Phone Marketplace

Who this book is for
This book is for anyone interested in developing applications for the Windows Phone 7. You might be an existing .NET developer looking for a new creative angle, or perhaps an iPhone or Android developer looking for a new opportunity. If you have an understanding of basic .NET coding practices, then this book is for you.

Table of Contents
Introducing Windows Phone 7 and the Windows Phone Platform
Building Windows Phone 7 Applications
Using Cloud Services As Data Stores
Catching and Debugging Errors
Packaging, Publishing, and Managing Applications
Working with the Accelerometer
Application Bar
WebBrowser Control
Working with Controls and Themes
Integrating Applications with the Windows Phone OS
Creating Trial Applications
Internationalization
Isolated Storage
Using Location Services
Media
Working with the Camera and Photos
Push Notifications
Reactive Extensions for .NET
Security


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Mobile Design and Development: Practical concepts and techniques for creating mobile sites and web apps (Animal Guide) Review

Mobile Design and Development: Practical concepts and techniques for creating mobile sites and web apps (Animal Guide)
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Mobile Design and Development: Practical concepts and techniques for creating mobile sites and web apps (Animal Guide) ReviewOriginal review written by Pasquale Granato, JUG Lugano, [...] First of all, let's clear the field from a possible misunderstanding: this book is not about general mobile design and development but it is about web mobile development. The author states a precise, despite arguable, opinion that brutally said is: do not code native applications but prefer as much as you can web applications. This statement is largely discussed across the book and everyone can make up his own opinion about this. Mine is that currently times are not mature to consider to write just web applications both because mobile browser are not powerful enough (on average) to assure a smooth experience on all devices and because of the lack of a good way to make money from your web app.
The first three chapters of the book are a really good introduction to the history of mobile, to the mobile current status and to the reasons that should drive an approach to the mobile development. These chapters are a well written recap of the status of the art and present a lot of data useful to understand the global situation. Unfortunately the book is printed in black and white and several pie-charts and graphs are pretty much impossible to read.
The central part of the book, chapters from four to ten, is devoted to design issues and, despite the lack of an in-depth examination of some subjects, offers a pretty good survey of the topic.
The final part of the book is slightly more technical covering topics such as XHTML-MP, CSS, HTML5, device adaptation, etc. The problem here is that there is nothing really practical and all remains at an introductory level. To give you an example, a capital topic in device adaptation like Media Queries is covered in half a page with just a trivial example. Furthermore the author seems to be unaware of things like XwapProfile or UAProf (that is probably a obsolete and unreliable method but deserve at least a notation).
My biggest complain is anyway about the author's obsession for the iPhone. The Apple's jewel is referenced continuously and always with great glorification: the word iPhone recurs 99 times in the book and out of the 115 pictures in the book as many as 37 depict an iPhone. An entire chapter is devoted to iPhone web applications development even though most of the concepts presented here are common to other modern devices.
This is overall a decent introductory book, if you are completely new to the field, and it's packed with many good advices but do not expect much from the practical techniques promised by the title.Mobile Design and Development: Practical concepts and techniques for creating mobile sites and web apps (Animal Guide) OverviewMobile Design and Development by Brian Fling is a start to finish guide for designing and building mobile apps regardless of experience, device or platform. Brian took on the daunting challenge to write the mobile guide missing from bookshelves. As Brian describes it "this is a book that teaches people how to cook, not a collection of recipes."Since its release the book has been incredibly well received. It has being described as a "must have" by many experts in the mobile community. The 16 chapters, and 85,000 words within the book have helped thousands understand and dive into mobile.The first half is a crash course in the mobile ecosystem: how to develop a strategy, address the mobile context--even how to decide which of the multiple mobile application types is best for you, and finally, how to create a user experience for it. The second half is focused on using these principles to make a mobile website or web app.Mobile Design and Development is a comprehensive resource covering all aspects of the mobile ecosystem. The book covers a great number of topics, however each are described in practical and common sense way—making easy for anyone at any technical level to understand the inner working of the mobile medium.
A Brief History of Mobile
The Mobile Ecosystem
Why Mobile?
Designing for Context
Developing a Mobile Strategy
Types of Mobile Applications
Mobile Application Medium Types
Mobile Application Media Matrix
Mobile Information Architecture
Mobile Design
The Elements of Mobile Design
Mobile Design Tools
Mobile Web Apps Versus Native Applications
When to Make a Native Application
When to Make a Mobile Web Application
Mobile 2.0
Mobile Web Development
Mobile Markup
Mobile CSS: Cascading Style Sheets
Mobile JavaScript
iPhone Web Apps
iPhone Markup
iPhone CSS
iPhone Javascript
Creating a Mobile Web App
Web Apps as Native Apps
Tools and Libraries
Adapting to Devices
Device Targeting
Full Adaptation
What Domain Do I Use?
Making Money in Mobile
Working with an App Store
Mobile Advertising
Supporting Devices
Device Testing
Desktop Testing
Usability Testing
The Future of Mobile
If you're a web designer, web developer, information architect, product manager, usability professional, content publisher, or an entrepreneur new to the mobile, Mobile Design and Development provides you with the knowledge you need to work with this rapidly developing technology.

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Pro J2ME Polish: Open Source Wireless Java Tools Suite Review

Pro J2ME Polish: Open Source Wireless Java Tools Suite
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Pro J2ME Polish: Open Source Wireless Java Tools Suite ReviewWhen you first learn J2ME, you learn about this fantasy world where all devices follow the J2ME specification to a tee. But in the real world, because of the interpretive nature of the specifications, no two devices really implement the specification exactly the same. So this requires either targeting a particular device or have many versions of you app to run on different devices.
Man what a pain. But that is where J2ME Polish comes to the rescue. J2ME Polish provides pre-compiler directives to allow you to write code such that J2ME Polish's build script can automatically create different versions for you on the fly however you want. There is a lot more to J2ME Polish than just that, but this is a book review.
So let's get to that review. Well, first Robert Virkus is J2ME Polish, well he is the architect and lead programmer for J2ME Polish. Who better to write a book about it? Consider this book the hard copy of the manual for J2ME Polish. If you are going to use J2ME Polish, then this book is a must. It is the reference book that you will need to find anything you need to know about J2ME Polish.
Now, it isn't really a read all the way through the book and you can be J2ME Polish expert. You really need to be actually using J2ME Polish at the time, to better grasp what is being explained. The book can be hard to understand, not because of the writing, but because J2ME Polish is feature rich and there is lots to learn.
I highly recommend using J2ME Polish and buying this book if you will be developing for more than one device, and also to get their cool looking GUI screens, rather than MIDP 2.0 High Level GUIs.Pro J2ME Polish: Open Source Wireless Java Tools Suite OverviewPro J2ME Polish is written for wireless and other mobile Java programmers who want to improve their efficiency and acquire in-depth knowledge about programming real world J2ME applications. It describes the leading open-source tool for tackling device differences and creating "polished" mobile applications. It also uncovers all common device limitations and quirks and explains how these can be circumvented.The book consists of a whole suite of tools for wireless programmers to use to optimize applications for multiple devices or to localize their applications in two simple steps. It also explains how to change the logging level for specific classes or packages, or to remove all logging parts completely from the application by setting simple switches.Moreover, the author includes a device database with all relevant data for programming in J2ME and provides a game API for MIDP/1.0 devices that is compatible with the MIDP/2.0 game, so readers can automatically port their game to MIDP/1.0 devices.And for programmers who want to use animated backgrounds, different designs for the application user interface, or Custom Items on MIDP/1.0 devices, this book explains in full detail why the GUI of J2ME is the key.

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