Satter Ramblings

Code Junkie

One of the things that I have been thinking about for many years is how software is built. Great leaps in productivity have been achieved in the workplace via

• Focus on metrics
• Understanding of processes
• Computerization and automation of tasks and processes

Scheduling Processes

My friend Ryan has written a great article on how to use CeRunAppAtTime to schedule a task to run. You can use this function to launch a program in the future. He then discusses the affects of changing the clock. Very cool.

Kiosk Pattern

So the Today screen is just not what you want to use for a kiosk or custom shell. What is a developer to do?

Thank God for Compact Framework 2.0 SP2

So I have been looking for a memory pressure issue with an application running on Windows Mobile and Compact Framework. The applicaion was going "live" for expanded testing on April 2nd with 1500 testers. We knew we had a memory issue but finding it was nearly impossible until Compact Framework 2.0 SP2.0 come out.

Lets shell some more - Oops

The included example has a bug. The correct location of the registry entry is HKLM\Security\Policies\Shell. Thanks to my buddy Ryan for pointing it out.

Lets shell some more

So you want to use the Today screen or a custom Shell over top of the Today screen to create a kiosk device. One of the things you can do is blacklist applications and use what is called lock mode.

Mobile Spying

My friend Ryan has written a C# mobile version of Remote Spy. If you want some insight into what has Window handles are around or even how to write such applications take a look.

WM5 Shells

If you want to build a single purpose device using CE or WM you have a couple of choices. If you are using CE you can build and incorporate your own shell replacement. What if you are using WM? In this case you have two choices:

• you can use the provided shell or
• build your own

Ruby In Steel

Ruby in Steel was officially released yesterday. This IDE plugin for VS2005 allows developers to build Ruby applications using VS2005.

Code Complete 2 & Performance

I have been reading the Code Complete 2nd Edition by Steve McConnell. I read the first edition and thought it had been a while and worth reading again.