AM TasksPlus is a Pocket PC today screen plug-in that replaces the simple tasks plug-in provided by Microsoft. AM TasksPlus shows compact tasks statistics or a detailed list of incomplete tasks grouped by hierarchy ( Due today, Overdue and Future tasks), category, importance, sensitivity, progress or ungrouped(plain list) . Using user defined configuration profiles, various views can be quickly applied to change the Today screen. Tasks are filtered by importance , categories, and sensitivity. Groups are expandable to list the grouped tasks. Standard operations as copy view, beam, send to bluetooth, delete task, or make task complete are accessible from Today Screen pop-up menu.
Today we chat to Martin from slimCODE, with some great apps in the Marketplace under his belt. We look at his apps and how he got motivated to develop for Windows Mobile. His thoughts about Marketplace and what slimCODE has in store for us in the near future. :)
SlimCode
Tell us a bit about yourself and slimCODE.
It all started on a Vic-20, when I was 14. A few months later, I was already making programs too large for the wobbling 3.8 kb of RAM available for programs. After a brief Apple II+ era, I moved to a PC running MSDOS. It’s all been Microsoft since then, an attachment strongly linked with the quality of development environments available for their platforms.
After graduating in Computer Science at university, not before some wandering in Chemistry, I became a software consultant for Hydro-Quebec, then moved to work with friends who had started their own company three years before: Xceed Software. They were making a Zip compression library, selling to other developers. I worked there for 9 years, having the chance to learn and work with many development languages. Xceed was part of the .NET early adopters, so I had the chance to visit Redmond regularly to participate in the beta programs and ask questions to the same people who conceived the .NET Framework. Clearly, my years of C++ and COM programming were getting to an end. I’d become mostly a C# and .NET developer from now on.
Three years ago, I left Xceed and founded slimCODE. My goal was to develop Windows applications for the general market, and complete my revenues with consultancy projects here and there. But the reality struck me hard. My main software, slimKEYS, wasn’t popular enough to pay for the hosting alone. Web development for customers kept me alive, but that’s not what I wanted to do for a living. Then, my presence became more and more required at home (personal reasons) so you could say I’m now a part-time software developer and full-time dad/husband at home.
I was developing some hobby software for an old HP Jornada for some time now, but the purchase of a new Windows Mobile cell phone (an HTC P4000, or “Mogul”) convinced me there could be some potential on that platform. That, and the crazy idea the popularity that some iPhone apps had on the AppStore could be translated to the Windows Mobile platform. That’s why I moved almost all my development time to the Windows Mobile platform.
Lights out is a fun game, the object of the game is to light up or knock out all the lights in a 5×5 grid. When a square is selected that square and its four immediate neighbors, above, below, and to each side invert. There is no wraparound. The object of the game is to get all the squares black. It will run on Portrait, Landscape on all major resolutions, and is aware if you switch the screen orientation. It has 5×5, 7×7 9×9 and 11×11 grids. The new build supports smartphones too.
Lights out is a fun game, the object of the game is to light up or knock out all the lights in a 5×5 grid. When a square is selected that square and its four immediate neighbors, above, below, and to each side invert. There is no wraparound. The object of the game is to get all the squares black. It will run on Portrait, Landscape on all major resolutions, and is aware if you switch the screen orientation. It has 5×5, 7×7 9×9 and 11×11 grids. The new build supports smartphones too.
SmartLyrics is a great new Pocket PC Freeware from lpaso from xda-developers. You can manually search for the lyrics to any song and the best part is it can automatically pull the lyrics for the song you play on windows mobile using Windows Mobile Media Player or in HTC AudioManager. The app uses the www.LyricsPlugin.com services to retrieves the lyrics, so it does require a data connection. It should work with any WM5/6/6.1 machine, with the .NET Framework 2 installed.
FingerPoint is a new finger friendly application launcher for Windows Mobile. Change log:
1. Quicker start
2. Less memory used
3. Skinable interface
4. Groups In Favorites
5. Progress bar while caching
6. ExitOnLaunch option (can be configured for every app separately)
7. ExcludeFavoritesFromAll option
8. First VGA skin – needs testing
9. Update information
10. Shortcuts to Control Panel settings
11. Removed sorting in Favorites
PocketZax is an interpreter for a large number of Interactive Fiction (“adventure game”) titles. It is able to play Z-Machine games, which include all of Infocom‘s classic games, and also an enormous number of games that have been created more recently using Graham Nelson’s excellent Inform application.
PocketZax should provide you with hours of entertainment — make sure you take a look at the Interactive Fiction Archive Games section for hundreds of games to play on PocketZax.
PocketZax should support all V1 to V5, V7 and V8 games, including the original Infocom titles (though I’ve not tested it on a huge range of different titles so please let me know if you encounter any problems).
The Z-Machine engine used by PocketZax (ZaxCS) is based entirely upon the “Zax” interpreter written by Matt Kimmel , ZaxCS is a port of Matt’s original version into C#.
Numpty Physics is a Physics game for Windows Mobile. the aim is to get the red ball towards the star. Just use the stylus to create new objects that you can fling around using the game’s built-in physics engine. Unfortunately no button that freezes the animation exist in this version.
UP – previous level
DOWN – Next level
RIGHT – restart animation
LEFT – seems to exit the game
centre button – nothing happens
schlubadub: Yawn, they should think about extending Nook to other countries first. I can’t get any of this in Australia (even via web). [Posted from the 1800PocketPC app]
Nick: Nice work, cool ideas. Now, let’s hope MS has something to say in the joint-venture since B&N is not paying any attention to designers. In some ways, MS Reader was ten times better...
fatfingur: I’m not saying this mockup is legit or real. My only point is that using comic sans does not make you unprofessional. Balsamiq is a professional wireframing tool used by pros....
simphf: One paragraph reads ‘NOOK for Android’. Ha [Posted from the 1800PocketPC app]
Hog: Almost forgot, are you going to enter the Nokia X Challenge for over 2 million in prize money? The info.is at Nokia Conversations and with your IT background. Lots of ideas swirl around in my...
Hog: Very nice. I’m not familiar with the Nook at all for content but I really like your design. I hope the Barnes app is made available for all windows phones also. [Posted from the...
schlubadub
Nick
fatfingur
simphf
Hog
Richard Clubb
moe1up
Lee
Xmel
