Ecpc version 1.4 Announced!
Posted by Albegor in Euro Coins Pocket Collector, Mobile, Software on November 10, 2004
I’m ready with the announcement of the long awaited version 1.4 of Ecpc.
It’s currently in betatesting and I won’t release it until the transfer to the new hosting provider TotalChoice Hosting will be completed, but you can get a preview of the new features and changes in the Updates page.
To celebrate the announcement I’ve added a bonus section in the Download page where you can find a little present: a free Euro coins related Pocket PC theme made by McDeb.
Download it, it’s available even for WM2003 SE with QVGA and VGA support.
Another funny addition to the site are the seven deadly sins of e-mail I added to the contacts page, something everyone should keep in mind when dealing with e-mail, me included of course. 😉
It may take up to a week for the hosting transfer to complete, so enjoy the Euro coins theme and prepare for the re-launch of Ecpc! 8)
A Motorola MPx200 in my hands and Premio Palinsesto Italia Contest
Posted by Albegor in Euro Coins Pocket Collector, Mobile, Software on November 6, 2004
Much work is going on behind the scenes around here and the next week is going to be even busiest.
Since I’m an expert at making things at the last minute ;), yesterday I’ve been able to send a participation dossier for the italian contest Premio Palinsesto Italia containing the latest 1.4 beta version of Ecpc and a preview of the desktop PC version with the same interface of the Pocket PC one, although I use it only for development purposes since the final desktop PC version will have a better and extended user interface.
Finally a contest with some money for the winners, something that might be vital lymph for the next projects if the submission will pass the selections and will go up to the final round. Let’s hope for the best, finger crossed!
I even got my first Smartphone this week, a Motorola MPx200. I don’t like the clamshell design, but I must say that the integration of e-mail, SMS, MMS, Outlook contacts and so on surprised me positively. It only needs a stylus! 😉
And considering that it’s very similar to a Pocket PC from a development point of view, you might expect a Smartphone version of Ecpc well before the desktop PC one.
If you like to read the blog and you check it out for updates every now and then, I suggest you to use the Mozilla Firefox browser and setup up a weekly check in the bookmark manager.
Tabbed browsing and an efficient bookmark management are the killer features which made me to switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox as the default browser. Give it a try!
Another quick news: I’ll make a test of the revolutionary BatteryLife Activator. 8)
Update: since version 1.0 of Firefox the development team discarded the notification option in the bookmark manager since it was buggy. I hope to see it again, or maybe provided by some extension plug-in.
New Devices and Old Friends at SMAU 2004
On Friday 22 October I’ve been in Milan to attend SMAU 2004, the 41st International Exhibition of ICT and Consumer Electronics, the biggest event of this kind in Italy.
Although it’s getting smaller at every edition and this year even the big telecommunication operators such as TIM, Vodafone and Tiscali weren’t present, I’ve been able to spot something interesting in both the Windows Mobile and Palm worlds, to meet some old friends and to make a few new contacts.
In particular it has been a pleasure to meet again with Giorgio Cifani and Pino Paparone, the two Italian Microsoft MVPs for mobile devices, Enrico of Pocket PC Italia and Diego, editor of the Italian magazine Il Mio Palmare. There was even the troupe of Netcafé walking around the stands. 🙂
Here are some pictures I shot at the show. The first one is pretty curious. The new Asus A730 in VGA landscape mode with its 1.3Mpixel integrated camera pointed towards the HP stand, where visitors could find notebooks and printers, but alas none of their new iPAQs…
In the Windows Mobile corner of the big Microsoft stand Enrico showed me the new Qtek 9090, the Qtek 8010, the iPAQ 1710 and the Sagem My S7. For the Palm side of things at the Palmosoft stand I’ve been able to make a confrontation between the Tungsten T3 and the brand new Tungsten T5, both in 480×320 landscape mode.
At the end of the day I even got a good deal by purchasing the 2 DVDs box of the Schindler’s List movie, which I was searching for some time but I was not willing to pay it at full retail price. 😉
Essential Development Software
Posted by Albegor in Euro Coins Pocket Collector, Mobile, Software on October 18, 2004
As I came back spending much more time in front of the compiler than I did in the previous months, I’ve also started searching for development tools which could increase my productivity or simply make the coding activity easier.
So, when I went back to the Wholetomato website I’ve really been pleased to see that Visual Assist X now supports even the Microsoft eMbedded Visual Tools which I use to build my software for the Pocket PC platform.
In short Visual Assist X is an enhancement to the so called Intellisense, but this definition is too much reductive. If you’re a developer using Microsoft IDEs just try it and you’ll immediately miss it after the trial version will be expired.
So I did and then I’ve purchased a license. On the Wholetomato website there’s also my quote rotating among their many testimonial comments. 🙂
Since Ecpc will soon go multiplatform I’m in the need of a more professional installation tool than EzSetup which I’m using now.
I’m evaluating e-PocketSetup and Installshield X, both finalists in the Pocket PC Magazine 2004 Awards. Unfortunately they doesn’t seem to offer a license model for hobbyists or independent developers.
The choice is an important one because when distributing your software the installation is the last thing you work on, while it’s the first thing the user has to face.
Yes, this means Ecpc version 1.4 is almost ready, although I might delay its release if the two new translators who’re working on the french version will complete the translation this week.
Strike or Die PayPal Donation Campaign
I recently moved the website dedicated to Strike or Die, my turn based wargame project now suspended due to lack of resources, here on the main website.
Every now and then someone contacts me asking something about its status, since to them it looks good and promising even if I’ve never released a public version of the latest alpha version.
This interest in the project just gave me the idea to start a donation campaign by adding a PayPal link as you can see in the product page, so that people who would like to contribute and support me in completing the wargame now have the opportunity to do it.
I really hope to get back to it as soon as possible, maybe already during 2005, and I plan to work even on a mobile version of SoD.
Any contribution to the project from my visitors will be very important, since I’ve found out long ago that no publisher is going to pay in advance for a wargame unless it has already reached beta status, which means almost finished, but going from alpha to beta is a lot of work…
I hope you’ll show your support if you’re interested in a good conclusion of the project.
The choice is only yours! 😉
The Clooney effect
The Clooney effect, that’s how they called the 40% increase of american tourists who visited our Lake of Como this summer.
Actually, since the Hollywood celebrity purchased Villa Oleandra in 2002, a 25-room 18th century villa in Laglio, a little village near Como, the attention of the international gossip-related press started to focus there and more recently in june the choice of Villa Erba as the location for some shots of the Ocean Twelve movie made the rest. 🙂
On local newspapers I’ve even read that our lake should become the Beverly Hills of Milan in the intentions of the provincial administration. Beverly Hills or not, american tourists are very welcome here, especially if they’ll bring their PDA with a copy of Ecpc to help them discover the secrets of the Euro coins and maybe start collecting them. 😉
I’ve never seen George Clooney in flesh and bones around here yet, but I’ve been curious enough to take a couple of pictures of his Villa Oleandra while I was biking around Laglio during the last may:
Villa Oleandra from the center of Laglio and the footbridge connecting the Villa to the upper section of Clooney’s estate.
Back to my software… do you want a little-big anticipation about the incoming version 1.4 of Ecpc? FREE VIEWER, that’s all I can say! 
Speaking about good software…
Posted by Albegor in Como, Euro Coins Pocket Collector, Mobile, Software on September 24, 2004
While I was working as waiter at the recent Workshop Ambrosetti, the international meeting about economy taking place annually at Villa d’Este during the first week of september, I had the unexpected chance to exchange a few words with Carlo Rubbia, the 1984 Physics Nobel Prize, and you can imagine my satisfaction when I told him that I choose his quote, “Hardware is nothing without software”, as the topic for the written composition at my school-leaving examination, a quote which is now printed on my business card. 😉
So, speaking about good software, I think I’ve finally found the best hard disk defragmenter tool on the market, Raxco’s PerfecDisk, a combination of speed and efficiency which is uncommon in current defragmenters.
Just after purchasing it I also discovered an invaluable system recovery tool on Raxco’s website. It’s FirstDefense, a tool which works with the concepts of “snapshots” and “anchored data” to safeguard from system failures a hard disk with WindowsXP and the NTFS file format or even to quickly boot to a clean OS installation.
Had I discovered it earlier I would had a better time the two times my system crashed, so now I’m passing the advice.
Getting back to good Pocket PC software, I’ve just upgraded to RepliGo version 2.0 and I’m satisfied of the new features Cerience introduced, like bookmarks, text searches and live hyperlinks among the favorites.
Then I must say that SpbTime, the advanced time tool from Spb Software House, has been a new discovery since I find myself often using its timer and desktop clock functions, with different skins.
Well that’s just what I need to keep up with my software projects… time!
But I must also say that Ecpc 1.4 is progressing nicely.
Acurious note about Rubbia: during his lunch a sommelier approached him and asked what was the status of his project for the atomic propulsion space engine and Rubbia told him that the research is proceeding, but in the USA, not certainly in Italy…
A long and busy summer
Posted by Albegor in Como, Euro Coins Pocket Collector on September 10, 2004
This has been a very busy summer since I had the opportunity to work as waiter in some restaurants in my town, such as the ones in the exclusive Villa d’Este and in the recently opened Birrificio di Como, one of the biggest brew-pubs in Europe.
During these months the coding activity has been pretty limited and I barely managed to keep myself updated about news and events of the frenetic information technology world.
Things to do on my good old PC piled up so much that the only way to actually complete most of them is sorting them out and set a series of well definite priorities.
Top priorities are publishing a new version of Ecpc with some important changes and updating the website, then I’ll start the work to make Ecpc fully multiplatform.
I’ve met a lot of people and found a few old and new friends by working in these summer months and the season is not over yet, so if you find me working in one of those places I’ll be pleased to serve you as an Ecpc user really deserves, in particular at the Birrificio di Como, because… no matter what happens in life, there’s always time for a good beer! 😉
As Paracelsius said in 1614, Cerevisia malorum divina medicina. 🙂
Ecpc 1.4 in progress and hosting change
Posted by Albegor in Euro Coins Pocket Collector, Mobile, Software on April 22, 2004
I haven’t been able to keep the site updated lately due to personal matters I had to take care of, but I haven’t been inactive at all and I can say that the recent release of the developer tools for Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition, which officially introduced support for the 480×640 display resolution on VGA capable Pocket PCs, gave a boost to the development of the next version 1.4 of Ecpc since now I’ve got the opportunity to integrate the high resolution graphics resources I was making for the desktop version even on the Pocket PC one.
More details when I’ll have a screenshot of the desktop version of Ecpc to publish. 😉
In the meantime I’m changing the hosting service for the website, so there could be some problems in accessing it during the next days until I complete the migration.
The forum will be closed, but that shouldn’t be a problem since it seems you prefer to contact me by e-mail for general or technical support questions.
Albegor.com on Il Mio Palmare and article about QQAAXX
When I got a copy of the issue number 13 of the italian magazine Il Mio Palmare, I was surprised and pleased to see my website mentioned in the overview about the scene of italian mobile application development! 🙂
This is the third time in a row, as you can read in the Magazine Reviews section I just updated, so I can’t but be grateful to them.
Since this issue they added a section, both on the CD and the magazine, about software for Smartphones to the usual ones about Palm OS, Pocket PC and Psion. A good move, in my opinion.
Also, Dario, CEO of QQAAXX, was glad of the article I wrote about QQAAXX’s product line for the local daily newspaper La Provincia.
You can read the article at this link in PDF format where you can notice this is the first time they wrote the address of the website below the sign, WOW! 🙂
