Bill Lodin » Uncategorized

Windows Mobile 6.5 Development

bill — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:55:57 +0000

Just posted a 30-minute session on Windows Mobile 6.5 – if you’re new to Windows Mobile development and you want to get up to speed quickly, this is a good place to start! Here’s the link to the session:

http://www.msdev.com/Directory/Description.aspx?eventId=1665

This is actually the first in an eight-part series on WM6.5 that IT Mentors is doing for msdev. Oh, and you can download the demo that I used here (note that in order for this demo to work you’ll need to grab the managed code wrapper for Windows Mobile Gestures!)

Azure Virtual Lab Changes

bill — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:33:12 +0000

In case you hadn’t noticed, the Storage Client sample in the SDK is no longer a sample – as of the November CTP it has become part of the core Azure runtime classes. This is good news for those of us who like having built-in, easy-to-use, managed wrapper around all the REST-based storage API calls. Unfortunately, the namespace and API changes mean that lots of sample code out there is now broken… But hey, that’s why it’s a CTP, right?

At any rate, the changes mean that the Azure Virtual Lab at msdev.com no longer works as is. I’ll be working on updated content that reflects the latest changes, but in the meantime you should be able to proceed with the help of the following file (luckily, I encapsulated all storage client code into a single class, so this should be a relatively easy fix.)

AzureStorageClient.cs

UPDATED: The Windows Azure Virtual Lab has now been updated to reflect the November API changes – you can check it out here.

Back to Blogging

bill — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:26:16 +0000

After a rather lengthy hiatus from blogging (although to be fair, you can hardly call two posts “blogging”), I’m back and hope to be able to update more frequently. New content coming soon!

It’s About Time!

bill — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:02:19 +0000

I realize I’m very late to the party but the time has come for me to enter the blogosphere. A number of factors have led to this, but these are probably relevant only to me! In considering what to post “out of the gate” I’ve determined that there are two questions I ought to answer: 1) who am I? and 2) what will I be blogging about?

In answer to the first question, and as the blog title confirms, my name is Bill Lodin and I work for a technical training company called IT Mentors. I consider myself first and foremost to be a software developer, although like most developers my job responsibilities often expand beyond that role. My personal history as a programmer began in the early 1980s with the Aim 65 and the Apple II+, and although I did not formally pursue computer science (I majored in Communication Studies) I found myself working with proprietary mainframe technologies by the late 1990s. I started working for Tim at IT Mentors in January 2000, teaching Java to mainframe developers in New York and New Jersey. Nowadays, I spend most of my time with .NET and related technologies, and I consider C# to be my current “native language.” In fact, in the unlikely event that you’ve heard of me before this, it is probably because of the in-person and web-based training I’ve done for Microsoft over the past five years.

On to question two, “what will I be blogging about?” The short answer is, “whatever strikes me as interesting but mostly it will probably be related to .NET and Windows development.” The long answer will have to wait for another post. No, that’s not meant to be a tease; I just feel that blog entries ought to be reasonably short and this one is already feeling long-winded!