I've had a Creative Zen for about a month now so it's the only one I can speak to. For one thing, it's pretty clear that Microsoft's stated intent it to create a new market - Marcus Ash the PM in charge of PMC has told me that repeatedly. It's true that they will compete to one degree or another b/c the market of people buying high end multimedia devices is only so large but that's ancilliary. If MS doesn't convince new people to buy that otherwise weren't interested, it won't be a winning proposition.
As far as the unit itself - I think the Zen is pretty typical of the form factor they'll all have. Here's some pictures with actual size comparisons. It's just slightly larger than an average PDA. The interface is sweet and very easy to navigate. I also have an iMATE PocketPC Phone edition and this things blows it away in every category as far as multimedia goes. The only real shortcoming is the speaker volume is challenged. I think you're wrong about the battery life issue as well. If you are playing Video than it's reduced a bit, but as far as Audio goes, battery life virtually identical to that of an iPOD.
I've mostly worked as a DBA and programmer, and my experience mimicks yours. On the one hand, if your database never goes down, you 'don't do anything' If it screws up all the time and you have tons of downtime, but you stay up all night to fix it, you are 'committed'. Managers do tend to think in those terms...b/c in their world it's probably true.
So it's easy to get bitter, and try to avoid 'them'. It's also career suicide!
Almost nothing? Are you kidding? There are many things to criticize about SQL CE, and many about the compact framework, but integration isn't one of them. The whole ADO.NET library is available, if anything is missing, it's not very much because I sure haven't seen it. Performance is slow on your PDA with the CF? Compared to what? The only thing that CE performs notably slow on is opening connections and closing them. And I'll admit that since you can only maintain one open connection at a time, in some scenarios it can be slow. Then again, how many times do you need to open and close connections on a properly designed ADO.NET app?
Mono rocks, and I don't think SQL CE is going to run on it, but you can still use XML/Web services and to that end, mono will still provide an excellent mechanism for data access. There's a new book coming out next month on C# and Mono...and I've been doing a lot of development on Mono - they are doing absolutely wonderful work and the final product will really be cool.
No, that wasn't my point at all. There are multiple ways you can access data, you can use some or none of what I mentioned, or all of them. One very common scenario though is to pull data from a Web Service, use the data locally, and if you can send it back when you need to, great. If you don't have connectivity, you will probably want to persist it somehow, XML is a great mechanism. You may not want to use a Web Service at all. You may only want to use SQL CE so that they code that's being used for data access on the desktop or web will work on a PDA.
But I guess I was unclear. The steps you mention aren't all necessary to access and manipulate your data....
There's a lot not to like about SQL CE. However, if you are getting paid to build apps on it, and the clients insist on it, not sure that "Do NOT do that" will be helpful. I don't think SQL CE is the best thing going by any means, but it is something that many people are paying folks to build. And depending on your lot in life, you may or may not be in a great position to turn down the kind of cash that CE devlopment provides.
Well, after the flaming I took for dare reviewing another compact framework book and taking feedback from it, I decided to speak to a few issues in more detail. I do think it's relevant that the guy's book talks about stuff that people have a lot of trouble with. With that said, it's only my second review here, but with all of this feedback, I'll get better.
Guess it just goes to show you can't make everyone happy.
I have dealt with it, I was just pointing out how silly your comments sounded to me. And not surprisingly, you didn't repsond to as much as one of my points. I did with yours but oh well. As you say, Deal with it.
Well, the publisher nor Microsoft had anything to do with it. I'm a PDA software developer and have been for a while - and I'm enthusiastic about any good CF related book. This book rocks.... Did you read it? Does every review of a book that's enthusiastic about it 'sound like it were written by the publisher?'
What would you propose I refer to it as? In the book's title which is clearly mentioned in the review are the words Compact Framework. There is no mention of Macromedia up there.
Many times one thing can be an acronym for many different things and with all due respect, I don't havne't seen Cold Fusion's patent on those letters. I've seen many other references where people refer to the Compact Framework as the CF.
If there were a definitive guide to acronyms, a super-authority that could tell me if someone may get confused b/c there are other things that use that acronym, I would use it. Until then though...sorry for the confusion.
Are you kidding? The fact that the author (me) 'came from a Compact Frameword specific site' somehow discredits him? First, let me clear a few things up. I work on multiple web sites, devbuzz is just one of them. Morever DEVBUZZ is not a Compact Framework Specific Site. Check it out for yourself, we feature many different technologies, only one of which is the compact framework. Being that our site has been around 2 years longer than the CF, it's absurd to say it's a CF specific site.
But, assuming it was, who would you have write reviews on Compact Framework related material? Garbage Men? Pizza Delivery drivers? Burger Flippers? Who would you deem worthy to give an objective opinion on a given technology? I guess Doctor's shouldn't comment on Health books by your reasoning.
As far as other books on the topic, THERE AREN'T THAT MANY for God's sake. And I'm supposed to be writing about this book after all. My review wasn't "An in depth analysis of the 5 Compact Framework books out there".
As far as quaility of the book, what did you want me to do, post source code and compile it too? I discussed the highlights of each section and what I liked and didn't like about each. It just so happens that I really liked this book, you haven't even looked at it, so can you claim that my review is a shameless plug? Maybe if you read it, you'd agree that it's a great book.
Finally, I have no affiliation whatsoever with APress or Microsoft. I have absolutely no financial incentive to write what I did, and as a PDA and.NET enthusiast, I felt like writing about it. I also have a lot of experience with Oracle, Java, C++, Macromedia Flash, Coldfusion...so I guess that disqualifies me from ever writing on any of those subjects. Being that I've written a few hundred reviews on various technology books, (many of which have nothing to do with MS technologies) can you please tell me what my motive was to write all of them? You seem to know so much else about my motivations.
And by all means, write some of your own reviews (show me how to do it correctly). Contribute something of your own instead of silly conjecture about my motives.
So, if I get this right, the Compact Framework isn't really that compact, and the authors encourage using unmanaged code to get around the unsupported things. And since it's constantly evolving, by the time I've mastered one version, the next will be out, and I'll have to learn that one too...
It's Compact compared to the full framework. And yes, you do have to use PINvoke to get many things done - The CF just came out for God's sake.
As far as the mastering issue, I guess that depends on how fast you learn....
If you aren't interested in the CF, then why are you reading a review about it? I wasn't evangelizing the CF, I was commenting on a book, and it's great.
Go ahead and write your own platform if you wish, but if you want a quick way to write some cool PDA apps, then the CF is a great place to go.
Well, it's pretty simple. Software tends to come out in versions or builds. At any given time, you can have a definitive explanation of that build or version.
Just because an OS for instance is always being developed, there can't be a definitive guide?
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Good catch and actually it's not a nitpick. I wrote a book on the stuff so I should have at least gotten its name right. Sorry about that.
I've had a Creative Zen for about a month now so it's the only one I can speak to. For one thing, it's pretty clear that Microsoft's stated intent it to create a new market - Marcus Ash the PM in charge of PMC has told me that repeatedly. It's true that they will compete to one degree or another b/c the market of people buying high end multimedia devices is only so large but that's ancilliary. If MS doesn't convince new people to buy that otherwise weren't interested, it won't be a winning proposition. As far as the unit itself - I think the Zen is pretty typical of the form factor they'll all have. Here's some pictures with actual size comparisons. It's just slightly larger than an average PDA. The interface is sweet and very easy to navigate. I also have an iMATE PocketPC Phone edition and this things blows it away in every category as far as multimedia goes. The only real shortcoming is the speaker volume is challenged. I think you're wrong about the battery life issue as well. If you are playing Video than it's reduced a bit, but as far as Audio goes, battery life virtually identical to that of an iPOD.
I've mostly worked as a DBA and programmer, and my experience mimicks yours. On the one hand, if your database never goes down, you 'don't do anything' If it screws up all the time and you have tons of downtime, but you stay up all night to fix it, you are 'committed'. Managers do tend to think in those terms...b/c in their world it's probably true. So it's easy to get bitter, and try to avoid 'them'. It's also career suicide!
Excellent point, and that sig is priceless
I see your point and appreciate your feedback. I'll see if I can do a little better next time.
No, it tells you how to program and use a SQL Server CE database on your PDA if you have it installed or want it.
Almost nothing? Are you kidding? There are many things to criticize about SQL CE, and many about the compact framework, but integration isn't one of them. The whole ADO.NET library is available, if anything is missing, it's not very much because I sure haven't seen it. Performance is slow on your PDA with the CF? Compared to what? The only thing that CE performs notably slow on is opening connections and closing them. And I'll admit that since you can only maintain one open connection at a time, in some scenarios it can be slow. Then again, how many times do you need to open and close connections on a properly designed ADO.NET app?
Mono rocks, and I don't think SQL CE is going to run on it, but you can still use XML/Web services and to that end, mono will still provide an excellent mechanism for data access. There's a new book coming out next month on C# and Mono...and I've been doing a lot of development on Mono - they are doing absolutely wonderful work and the final product will really be cool.
No, that wasn't my point at all. There are multiple ways you can access data, you can use some or none of what I mentioned, or all of them. One very common scenario though is to pull data from a Web Service, use the data locally, and if you can send it back when you need to, great. If you don't have connectivity, you will probably want to persist it somehow, XML is a great mechanism. You may not want to use a Web Service at all. You may only want to use SQL CE so that they code that's being used for data access on the desktop or web will work on a PDA. But I guess I was unclear. The steps you mention aren't all necessary to access and manipulate your data....
There's a lot not to like about SQL CE. However, if you are getting paid to build apps on it, and the clients insist on it, not sure that "Do NOT do that" will be helpful. I don't think SQL CE is the best thing going by any means, but it is something that many people are paying folks to build. And depending on your lot in life, you may or may not be in a great position to turn down the kind of cash that CE devlopment provides.
Well, after the flaming I took for dare reviewing another compact framework book and taking feedback from it, I decided to speak to a few issues in more detail. I do think it's relevant that the guy's book talks about stuff that people have a lot of trouble with. With that said, it's only my second review here, but with all of this feedback, I'll get better.
Guess it just goes to show you can't make everyone happy.
I have dealt with it, I was just pointing out how silly your comments sounded to me. And not surprisingly, you didn't repsond to as much as one of my points. I did with yours but oh well. As you say, Deal with it.
Well, the publisher nor Microsoft had anything to do with it. I'm a PDA software developer and have been for a while - and I'm enthusiastic about any good CF related book. This book rocks.... Did you read it? Does every review of a book that's enthusiastic about it 'sound like it were written by the publisher?'
What would you propose I refer to it as? In the book's title which is clearly mentioned in the review are the words Compact Framework. There is no mention of Macromedia up there. Many times one thing can be an acronym for many different things and with all due respect, I don't havne't seen Cold Fusion's patent on those letters. I've seen many other references where people refer to the Compact Framework as the CF. If there were a definitive guide to acronyms, a super-authority that could tell me if someone may get confused b/c there are other things that use that acronym, I would use it. Until then though...sorry for the confusion.
Are you kidding? The fact that the author (me) 'came from a Compact Frameword specific site' somehow discredits him? First, let me clear a few things up. I work on multiple web sites, devbuzz is just one of them. Morever DEVBUZZ is not a Compact Framework Specific Site. Check it out for yourself, we feature many different technologies, only one of which is the compact framework. Being that our site has been around 2 years longer than the CF, it's absurd to say it's a CF specific site. But, assuming it was, who would you have write reviews on Compact Framework related material? Garbage Men? Pizza Delivery drivers? Burger Flippers? Who would you deem worthy to give an objective opinion on a given technology? I guess Doctor's shouldn't comment on Health books by your reasoning. As far as other books on the topic, THERE AREN'T THAT MANY for God's sake. And I'm supposed to be writing about this book after all. My review wasn't "An in depth analysis of the 5 Compact Framework books out there". As far as quaility of the book, what did you want me to do, post source code and compile it too? I discussed the highlights of each section and what I liked and didn't like about each. It just so happens that I really liked this book, you haven't even looked at it, so can you claim that my review is a shameless plug? Maybe if you read it, you'd agree that it's a great book. Finally, I have no affiliation whatsoever with APress or Microsoft. I have absolutely no financial incentive to write what I did, and as a PDA and .NET enthusiast, I felt like writing about it. I also have a lot of experience with Oracle, Java, C++, Macromedia Flash, Coldfusion...so I guess that disqualifies me from ever writing on any of those subjects. Being that I've written a few hundred reviews on various technology books, (many of which have nothing to do with MS technologies) can you please tell me what my motive was to write all of them? You seem to know so much else about my motivations.
And by all means, write some of your own reviews (show me how to do it correctly). Contribute something of your own instead of silly conjecture about my motives.
Well, it's pretty simple. Software tends to come out in versions or builds. At any given time, you can have a definitive explanation of that build or version. Just because an OS for instance is always being developed, there can't be a definitive guide?