Microsoft

Setting Up Hotmail POP Access on Windows Mobile

Dugald Wilson — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:29:16 GMT

I recently saw the announcement that Hotmail now supports POP access. Awesome news, as logging into the web version is a pain on a mobile phone. I grabbed my phone, and gave it a go:

After entering my Hotmail information, I got a nasty surprise:

Windows Mobile is smart enough to recognize the "Hotmail.com" extension and redirect you to their web interface. How helpful!

So, you are forced to do what you often have to do when someone walls you off with BS: you have to lie to them.

Here we have gotten extra sneaky and renamed Hotmail to hotmail2 - don't worry - this isn't actually used for anything.

Upon entering our new email address, we are through the gates:

Windows Mobile will offer to try to hunt down your settings for you, but since we have them in hand (see first link on this page), and since we gave them a bogus account, we will pass on this offer.

Next we specify this account as an Internet email provider

After that, we provide a couple names. These are for display purposes only:

Now we start entering useful settings for the POP account:

And finally, we can be truthful about our Hotmail account:

Finally, we set up our outgoing server:

And we are done:

Click Finish to tidy it all up, but you now have POP3 access to Hotmail from your Windows Mobile Phone.

The New Year: Reflections and Goals

Dugald Wilson — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:52:13 GMT

2008 was a pretty good year: I left a job where the path forward was to abandon my .Net skills in favor of learning Java, and returned to Progress Energy to develop and support .Net applications. I was elected President of TriNUG, and given the opportunity to stop whining and start making TriNUG better. I started using Twitter, and really grew my community of peers by dozens.

I feel like if I don't put something down for where I want to be at the end of 2009, I will spend much of the year drifting about. So here are my goals for 2009:

Work: I would like to make more of an impact on what our group does technically at Progress. I'd like to see if I can help push adoption of Entity Framework and jQuery, possibly through helping facilitate discussions or brown bags during the year.
TriNUG: I'd like for us to get the rest of the year ironed out for speakers, first, so I have less to worry about. Then, I'd like for us to do a CodeCamp even better than our last. I also need to improve the meeting experience for new users, and find ways to reach folks we aren't currently.
Blue Hill: I need to get serious about my side consulting/dev work. At the very least I need some demonstrations of what I can do for folks unfamiliar with me. To that end:
WhoDoesWhatIDo.com: A site for developers to build peer groups and career networking around skills and tools. Currently vaporware. I'd like to have this in beta by third quarter and released by end of year. Plan is to build it using ASP.Net MVC and NHibernate
Learning: I'd like to end the year with a solid understanding of Ruby and Rails. I also want to be better versed in ASP.Net MVC, jQuery, and NHibernate. I also need to learn to type, so help me God.
Conferences: This is more of a 2010 goal now, but I'm going to CodeMash if it kills me.

Windows Mobile 6.1 Upgrade

Dugald Wilson — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:52:19 GMT

I had dinner with a few friends a while ago, where they proceeded to show off their newly upgraded phones. They finally sold me on upgrading to Windows Mobile 6.1. It is a fantastic upgrade, and if it is available to you, I strongly urge you to get it.

To do the upgrade, I followed the link to information in this great post by Keith Elder.
He is right when he says it is an intimidating number of steps, but they are all very straightforward, and there is little chance of error if you follow through them all.

The Windows 6.1 Upgrade has several valuable new features:

Threaded SMS Messaging: Now you can view your SMS messages just like a threaded messenger chat window. Invaluable, as most of my SMS messages involve some back and forth. Viewing the full conversation is much more helpful.
New Home Screen: Much more dynamic menus in the home screen. I do wish it was customizable and had a listing for recent programs. Other than that, a welcome revision.
Vanity Dialing: Under Key Settings, this option allows you to dial 1-800-FLOWERS style numbers using the QWERTY style keyboard of most smartphones.
Voice Command: This tool reads to you your messages, incoming calls, calendar events, etc. It's is very configurable, so you can turn off individual types of notifications. I find it a great help when driving, and I can't read the messages that come my way. Still, you may want to exercise discretion in what you want your phone reading aloud to you.

Check it out!

RDU Code Camp Thanks

Dugald Wilson — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:16:10 GMT

RDU Code Camp was yesterday (Nov 15). It was just an awesome time. From what folks say, it went very well. I'd like to thank all of the folks who made this possible:

Chris Love - Chris was the original driver for doing another Code Camp this year. He took the lead on getting the speakers and sessions together, and stepped up to handle the emceeing on the event.
Rob Zelt - Rob secured all the swag for the event, resulting in some very happy folks when they left yesterday afternoon.
Chuck Scheier & Srinu Tulluri - Chuck and Srinu handled the food, which surpassed all expectations.
Greg Pugh - Greg handled the promotion for Code Camp, and the excellent turnout we had is a result of his work.
Glen Alfredson - Glen handled all the financial dealings of working with our sponsors and vendors.
Jeremy Brown - Jeremy, and his wife Julie, took on the responsibility of creating the t-shirts for Code Camp. Julie came up with many designs, and Jeremy stayed on us to actually DECIDE and get it done. They turned out great, and I couldn't be more appreciative of their efforts.
Anita Luthra- Anita came in and volunteered, and helped make our registration process run smoother than I've ever seen it.
Josh Carlisle - Josh helped deliver swag, sodas, and maps. He was an invaluable fixer.
John Anderson - John volunteered for us and single-handedly turned room 201 from a classroom for 40 to a conference room for 120.
James Avery - James volunteered to run Open Spaces, which was a huge hit, and will hopefully be a part of our future Code Camps. He then helped craft the idea of our sponsorship being limited, which raised visibility for sponsors, and reduced the number of sponsors we had to handle. He then helped land us Red Gate software as a sponsor.
Brian Hitney - Brian is our Microsoft DE, so I think there is some part of his job description that has him help us out on these things. Brian helped sponsor us and provide swag, but more importantly was an invaluable resource for how to run the Code Camp, and I couldn't have done my part without his counsel.
Derik Whittaker - Derik was instrumental in securing Allscripts as a sponsor, without which we would have had a much more limited Code Camp.
Todd Phelps & ECPI - ECPI has been a wonderful host for our Code Camps, giving us complete access to their building. Todd came in on his own time Sat to open and close the building for us.
All our speakers - We wouldn't have had an event without our amazing speakers. Thank you all for traveling out of your way, and helping us have one of our best Code Camps ever!
Our sponsors - big thanks to Allscripts, Inkscribe Designs, Microsoft, Red Gate, SoftPro, and Tek Systems

If anyone has been overlooked, it is no reflection on your contribution, but rather the oversight of my still-weary brain.

RDU Code Camp

Dugald Wilson — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:04:42 GMT

RDU Code Camp is this Saturday, Nov 15, from 8:15am to 5pm. Door open at 7:30am.

It promises to be a great day full of developer-oriented content. In addition, there will be an Open Spaces, and an XBox 360 for playing Rock Band! Lunch will be provided, and there are prizes at the end - hope to see you there!

Microsoft and jQuery

Dugald Wilson — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:32:18 GMT

There have been numerous postings announcing that Microsoft is going to start shipping jQuery alongside Visual Studio. If you haven't read about this already, see Scott Guthrie's post.

This is wonderful news for the developer community for many reasons.

First, the acceptance of jQuery by Microsoft should be contagious. A lot of large enterprise organizations get their software from Microsoft, and their software tools from Microsoft. The rule in those circles seems to be "No one ever got fired for using Microsoft", and so, Microsoft tools tend to dominate the short list of what can be used in an enterprise environment. With Microsoft shipping and supporting jQuery, these developers should be able to get the buy-in from management that they need to start using jQuery.

Second, Microsoft has, in a big way, included the developer community in their path forward, and embraced existing Open source software. Microsoft has a long history of having a competing product in every market space, from web browsers and search, to video game machines and mp3 players. This seemed to have extended to the developer division, too, as MSTest and Entity Framework came in as competing offerrings. With jQuery, they are jumping in and providing support to their customers who use it, and planning to contribute tests, bug fixes, and patches back to the jQuery project. This is an exciting step forward, and leaves me optimistic about the future of Microsoft's relationship with Open Source and the developer community.

RDU CodeCamp is Looking for Speakers

Dugald Wilson — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:44:34 GMT

RDU CodeCamp is coming!

Nov 15, 2008 at ECPI in Raleigh we will be having the RDU CodeCamp. Registration will be coming soon.

Currently, we are actively seeking speakers! If you are interested in speaking at RDU CodeCamp please drop us a line at http://www.codecamp.org/Speakers.aspx - We would love to hear from you.

TriNUG August 2008 - Jeffrey Palermo - TDD, DI, and SoC with ASP.NET MVC

Dugald Wilson — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:33:50 GMT

On Wednesday, Aug 13, Jeffrey Palermo will be talking about separation of concerns, dependency injection, and test driven development with ASP.Net MVC. This should be an excellent discussion on some of the benefits in using the new MVC framework for ASP.Net.

There are some important points to underline about this meeting:

It will be awesome.
Registration is required to manage headcount, especially for our dinner arrangements. To attend, you must register on the site.
This meeting is not at RTI. The August 13 meeting will be held at ECPI.

This should be a great meeting. Hope to see you there!

TriNUG June 2008 - Community Launch Event

Dugald Wilson — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:21:55 GMT

Join us for a rapid fire evening full of new VS2008 features presented by our local TRINUG members!

Here's some of the topics you can expect:

  - Chris: XML Literals
  - Diane: LINQ to SQL Performance
  - Glen: VS Tools for Office
  - Greg: Extension Methods
  - Josh: Office Automation
  - Srinu: ASP.NET Dynamic Data

(Disclaimer: This post is a shameless cut and paste, with no original content whatsoever.)

Charlotte Code Camp – Spring 2008

Dugald Wilson — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:33:30 GMT

The Enterprise Developers Guild is hosting a Code Camp all day this Saturday, May 17 in Charlotte, NC. You can find the agenda here - it looks to be a great event, with lots of good sessions! If you can make it there, I strongly encourage you to register.