I start this blog to keep notes of some works or to have a better understanding of some technologies.  You "probably" notice my English is not perfect, and this is because it's not my primary language.  I was doing this blog in English to improve my skill, but now with my new job, the new schedule and everything, I found that it's to much.  I will continue to do my blog but in french.

J'ai commencé ce bog pour garder des notes des petits projets que j'ai fais, sans prétention.  J'avais décidé d'écrire en Anglais pour me pratiquer.  Après avoir essayer quelques temps je trouve difficile de bien expliquer en Anglais.  De plus je trouves qu'il manque de ressource francophone sur le net, donc je continuerai mon blog mais en français.

As long as I remember I always want to keep information close to my workspace.  I try the little bloc-note, but I was unable to keep one note on top...  So I switch to post-it, you can easily imagine what my screen look like.   But recently I found "the thing".  I will not anymore stick post-it on my screen but in my screen.

Stickies is a little application done by Zhorn Software. This nice application is a virtual post-it manager.  A simple double click on the little post-it icon place in you're tray and a new post-it appear on you're screen.  The post-it is fully cutomizable.  You can create different style that regroup paper color, font, etc.

You can attach a alarm to the note and put it to sleep.  So if you want to call you're Mom for her birtday you just need to create a new note and specify the date...  Then the note will popup shaking and buzzing just n time.   

Another nice feature is the network share.  You cant create as it's call some friends.  Those friends can have e-mail address and ip or network name.  Then by right-clicking you can share one or all note to one specific person or to all you're friends.  You can event configure it to sync with you're mobile device!

That it.  Let go and try it you will see it could be a great tools.

~ Franky

While I was doing the SMS GChat application I need to send and receive SMS to my device emulator.  But first let’s start by the beginning, what the cellular emulator.

The cellular emulator is a nice tool that is provide when you install the SDK.  May be you didn’t notice but if you go trout you’re Start menu: Programs | Windows Mobile 6 SDK | Tools, you will found a Cellular emulator.

Configure the phone emulator

Before you can use the phone emulator you need to connect it to your device emulator.  To do it it’s very simple.  First start both emulator the device and the cellular, the order is not important.

Then on the low left corner of the phone emulator you will see a inscription like DE: COM3.  It’s mean that this emulator is working with the COM3 (in y case it could be different for you).

On the device emulator go in the menu File | Configure. Then select the tab Peripherals.  The first dropdown on the top, Serial port 0, shouldn’t have the COM 3 already so type it in.  Then click OK button.  Again in the File Menu this time choose to reset softly.  You have now the two emulator configured to work together.

Tab: Call Manager

In this tab you will found the tool for the phone (regular voice) call. 

On the top you will found a grid with the list of the call the device emulator did.

On the device type any phone number and “do” a call.  You will notice that the number you type will be added in the Active Calls grid.

If you want a do instead a call from the phone emulator then you need to type a phone number in the Phone Number textbox and click the Dial button.  Notice that the number you type represent the number you call from.

Tab: SMS

Like previously the tab is simple.  In the top the Text area is to send a message.  The Phone Number will be use as called ID.  On the bottom as you can you expect the grid is for the message you receive from the device.

Conclusion

Now you know how to configure and use the phone emulator.  

While I was coding the SMS GChat mobile application I discover that the message box of the Mobile standard (smartphone) is really not like the notification of the Mobile Professional and Classic (Pocket PC). 

As you can see the Notification is a nice balloon that allow display of HTML content and is visible only for a for period of time. 

In other part the Alert from the Mobile Standard platform is not that powerfull. No Html is support and no timer.

So I want a subtitude those control by a cutom one that will take the advantage of the Notification but will be compatible with all platforms.   Then I remember that the LOB Accelerator 2008 got already something like that.  So I did my SmartNotification base on those recommendations.

Basically it's a form that contains WebBrowser control and a timer.
To be able to use this control you just need to refer the library and create a instance like this:

C#-Code:

001using fbLib;
002SmartNotification oNotif = new SmartNotification("ALert", "SMS Notification", "Here you HTML message code", "This message will be save in you're SMS history");
003oNotif.TimerNotification.Interval = 20000;
004oNotif.ShowDialog();

I'm planning to add some CSS functionalities later, but that it for now...

Enjoy!

Download the Library | Read the Code