Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

According to Scoble , here are the reasons why WP7 will be successful - 1. It’s a sexy new OS that gives app developers more capabilities. 2. Developing for it is easy and consistent across the devices that it runs on 3. There are a ton of bored developers who are familiar with .NET 4. Almost every developer I’ve met lately has been approached by Microsoft’s evangelists 5. The hooks with Microsoft Xbox have developers intrigued

Now that Windows Phone 7 has hit the technical preview milestone, there are even more resources for developers to learn from. Here's a compilation of free learning material on WP7 Development - Books - Programming Windows Phone 7 - Microsoft Press has announced that Charles Petzold’s upcoming book Programming Windows Phone 7 will be available for free download by October end. The second draft preview of the ebook (PDF link)   contains 11 of the total 22 chapters planned. Learning Windows Phone Programming -  a free sampler of 2 preview chapters from the book by Yochay Kiriaty and Jaime Rodriguez is available for download. Videos - Channel 9 videos on developing with WP7 Windows Phone 7 Jump Start sessions  .

Two books by Microsoft Press author Rob Miles are available for free download - C# Yellow Book (197 pages) Introduction to Programming Through Game Development Using Microsoft XNA Game Studio (400 pages) He co-presented Windows Phone 7 Jump Start sessions. The recorded sessions of 12 hours duration are also available for download.   Also see: Free E-Book - CSharp for Sharp Kids .

If you are getting started with Windows Phone 7 development, you can check two preview chapters from the book Learning Windows Phone Programming being written by two Microsoft folks Yochay Kiriaty and Jaime Rodriguez . On the book's dedicated website, the authors specify their objective - "Our goal for the book is to share an insider view into Windows Phone. We want to share the insights from the product team, and lessons learned from the very early adopters." The site also has a Windows Phone FAQ that has links to two other FAQ compilations . Also see: What's in Windows Phone 7 for Developers 180

I 've been reading with interest all the Windows Phone 7 news thats relevant for developers. I'll keep jotting down summaries here as I find them - Though Windows Phone 7 supports multi-tasking...developers won't have access to it in the initial release. Native applications are not permitted on Windows Phone 7 devices. Developer access to Microsoft SQL Server Compact, a free SQL Server embedded database, is not part of the initial release..."isolated" local storage based on XML files and cloud-based storage are alternatives Windows Marketplace is intended to be the sole means of finding and downloading phone applications ..fast and open process for certifying Windows Phone applications and deploying them to Windows Phone Marketplace With features like push notification service, WP7 is carefully engineered to minimize battery use (Source: ComputerWorld) Windows Phone 7 mobile OS will not include a clipboard capability for copy-and-paste operations - at leas...