wilmens

Spoppin! for Windows Phone 7

wmensah — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:31:31 +0000

The Spoppin! app for Windows Phone 7 has been submitted to the Marketplace. Hopefully it gets published before the launch of Nokia’s Lumia 900 for AT&T on April 8th. The app supports 5 languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian and German. I’ll provide a direct link to the app in the Marketplace once it is available for download.

Expand Windows partition for Bootcamp

wmensah — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:06:03 +0000

Bootcamp allowed me to create a 20GB partition for Windows. Fair enough, but that’s not very helpful since installing Windows 7 takes up almost 10 GB of space leaving you with only 10 GB to work with. Well, there’s an easier way to create a larger partition using GParted. To do so, backup your files and follow these steps (at your own free will. I’m not liable for any adverse consequences):

1. Grab a copy of GParted and burn the ISO to a disc. You can use disk utility to do that.

2. Restart your Mac and press the Alt key when the screen turns white. You’ll get a few icons showing bootable mediums.

3. Select the CD so GParted is loaded.

4. From GParted, create a new partition specifying a size of your choice for it.

5. If everything goes well, reboot into your Mac OS, and format the new partition you just created as MS-DOS

6. Insert your Windows installation disc and reboot again.

7. Hold the Alt key until you are given an option to boot from the CD.

8. From that point, just follow the instructions to install Windows.

9. Done.

Migrate/Export MySQL to SQL Server

wmensah — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:52:29 +0000

Getting this done is super easy so I’ll keep it short:
Note: I wasn’t able to connect to the MySQL database on my server, so I installed XAMPP (Go with default settings all the way when installing), and imported the database there (ie. MySQL (server) -> MySQL (localhost)). Now with all database tables in localhost, follow these steps:

1. Download Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant for MySQL v1.0 from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=14280 and install it (choose 2005 or 2008, which ever you need)

2. Click the Connect to MySQL button and enter localhost for server, root for username and leave password blank (default settings for XAMPP)

3. Click the Connect to SQL Server button and enter your SQL Server information

4. In the MySQL Metadata Explorer, select the database you want to migrate, and click the Convert Schema button.

5. After the schema has been successfully converted, right-click on the database you want to migrate to (in the SQL Server Metadata Explorer) and click on Synchronize (make sure the database names are the same and that the cases match too)

6. After synchronization is complete, click on the Migrate Data button

7. If everything goes well, you’re done!

HTC Arrive + Windows Phone 7

wmensah — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 17:35:49 +0000

So I finally gave up on my Blackberry Tour and picked up the HTC Arrive running Windows Phone 7 (with NoDo) from the Sprint store a couple of days ago. Before getting the phone, I played dumb at the Sprint store and listened to the folks there try to talk me into getting an Android phone. Almost all the workers there had Android shirts on, I guess to mark the release of the Evo 3D. For a second, it felt like I was in an Android store. But no, what I really wanted was the Windows Phone. In my opinion, Androids are laggy and cluttered. But that’s just my opinion. I’ve messed around with a few and have actually written a few apps, but I’m really not a fan. Setting up the Arrive took almost an hour. No, seriously. Don’t believe me? Ok, first of all the guy didn’t know how to pop the back cover and get to the battery. Wow. I’ve never used one, and I don’t work there, but I know you have to slide out the keyboard till the screen tilts in order to gain access to the battery. I didn’t say a word. Just waited till this guy figured it out for himself. Bear in mind, there were illustrations of how to do this on the back of the phone. That by itself, took about 5 minutes. Next, he didn’t know how to get past the lock screen. Wow. Activating the device itself was another issue on its own. I watched him enter some numbers (the MSID i believe), restart the phone and repeat the process like 10 times. Thank goodness the phone reboots quicker than my Blackberry. That would have been a nightmare! Occassionally, he’d ask an employee next to him what do, but all he kept saying was: that’s how the Windows Phones are….you’ll have to keep messing with it until it activates. Well that helps a lot! The supervisor was conducting an interview so he wasn’t available to help. Sorry buddy, looks like it’s just me, you and the phone…figure it out! (I didn’t really say that )

After several minutes, he confessed that he’d only been working there for a week and that I should be patient. I didn’t mind at all. Rather, I was amused by his frustration. Stood there watching him so long that I forgot my parking meter had run out. So yes, I got a parking ticket. A while after, the poor guy got the phone to activate. I didn’t even bother asking him to transfer my contacts. Who knows how long that would have taken? I can do that via Google anyways, so no worries. I thanked him and left the store. Surprisingly, the activation was instant. Usually you have to wait about 10 minutes or so, but my calls came right through.

Since then, I’ve been playing with the phone and I actually do like it. Of course it’s got its pros and cons (like everything does), but I definitely think more pros than cons. I like the fluid and responsive nature of the UI, and I really don’t mind the tiles. I’ve read a number of posts where people have vented that the tiles are too big. But then making it them smaller would reduce their functionality and make them no different from icons. And then everybody is going to scream out that Microsoft copied Apple and blah blah blah. The tiles really express the “glance and go” philosophy. For instance, if I pin a contact to my start screen then I can see their Facebook status updates without launching a Facebook app or even going into the People Hub. Now that’s novel!

It would have been very cool if the “Me” tile had push notifications when, for example, some one writes on your Facebook wall. Unfortunately, at the moment, it only shows your picture and status. You have to actually access your profile to see what’s going on. At least the Facebook app now has push notifications so that helps somewhat.

Things I don’t like (or just aren’t used to yet):

I installed an app from the Marketplace and had no clue where it was located on the phone. It turned out to be a game and had been placed in the Games Hub. Some scrolling will be required to reveal the game. This is not intuitive and not very user friendly. It was a typing app and I didn’t presume it was a game so it didn’t occur to me to look in the Games Hub. And even when I checked that Hub, I failed to scroll to the bottom because nothing really indicated that I could scroll down (A thin line appears at the edge for a few seconds and then vanishes. If you miss it, scrolling down would never be obvious.)
When a list is short and does not require scrolling, it almost seems the screen doesn’t respond to touch because it will never budge when you try to scroll up or down.
LED notifications would be nice. I guess I miss that from being an ex-Blackberry user, but really think about it – If I don’t see a flashing LED, I won’t have to wake the phone every now and then just to check if there’s been any notifications. It seems very logical to me.
Multitasking – but that’s coming with Mango. Because currently, If you access the Zune market place, access a genre, find a song and start sampling it and then return to the Start screen. To get back to the song will require all the previous steps, which can get very tedious and annoying.
Would be nice if pressing and holding the volume buttons would skip tracks. Helps a lot when playing music in the car so I can skip to the next track without even looking at the phone.
BBM style chat – pleeeeassssee!!! I know there’s some cool chat stuff coming with Mango but none of it sounds BBM’ish……just Facebook chat and what not.

Other than that, i really love the phone and I’ll be looking forward to Mango . I don’t miss my Blackberry yet.

Windows Phone 7 review

wmensah — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 15:38:58 +0000

Best Windows Phone 7 review I’v come across so far….

Spoppin!

wmensah — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:25:29 +0000

It’s Friday night and you’re trying to go out for a good time, but not sure where to go. Perhaps you’re new in the area and don’t really know what’s around you; or you’ve been in the area for a while but always go to the same spot not knowing that the spot around the corner is where it’s at. You Google nightclubs in your area and get a list of places with some stars, but how long have those stars been there? If those stars were last updated months or even years ago, then that doesn’t really help. You check Twitter and can’t even think of which hash-tags to search. Your Facebook and foursquare buddies have checked in to places around you but heck, they could be just as bored as you are…or maybe not. So finally you try texting one of your buddies to ask what it’s like where they are at but that buddy of yours is having such a blast he/she can’t hear the phone ring or even feel it vibrate. So you’re stuck at that miserable bar because it’s going to cost you more to go elsewhere, and cost even more mentally to leave for another spot only to find out that its worse. So there you are, all by yourself, broke and miserable. Come to think of it, you would have been better off staying at home and watching Netflix by yourself.

Fortunately, now there’s Spoppin! to fix that. Spoppin! is a social/decision-influencing utility that informs you about the most popular bars, night clubs etc. within your vicinity in real-time. In addition, you can influence the ranking for a place simply by indicating whether it is exciting (spoppin) or boring (sucks). So before that buddy of yours can start getting his/her grind on (or doing the robot, whatever his/her preference is), he/she can spop the club, letting everyone know it’s Spoppin! so that club gets the highest rank, and you can spop that the club you’re at Sucks! so it trickles down the list. No need to be blowing up people’s phones, just check your Spoppin! app and know exactly where to experience the best night life. No signing in, no checking in, no stalking, no privacy issues, no boring nights.

Spoppin! is currently available in the App Store for iPhone, iPod and iPad. Get it here http://bit.ly/gn8m10, it’s free!

For updates on new locations follow @Spoppin on Twitter. For more information, visit http://www.spoppin.com

Windows Phone 7 (cont’d…)

wmensah — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 14:50:31 +0000

Well well well, it’s next year already (continued from previous post), and already 4 months into it and like I hoped for, there’s WP7 for CDMA phones. Being a fan of Sprint (not sure why most people aren’t, but that would be a post on its own), I’m certainly excited about that.

I currently own a Blackberry Tour and for the most part, it gets the job done. Prior to the Tour, I had a Palm Treo running Windows Mobile 5. It was my first smartphone and although I didn’t even have a data plan with it, I enjoyed having it (I’m a nerd, what can I say), but boy was it chunky!! Anyways, Treo to Tour was a nice transition because the Tour was light, sexy, had a clean UI and just gave you that swag, you know; plus Blackberry’s QWERTY keyboard is in a class of its own. Another reason I got a Blackberry was so I can develop mobile apps, but the development process is a nightmare. To test out any changes you made to code, you had to restart the emulator. That got annoying real quick, so writing apps for BB never happened.

Anyways, after 2 years of BBM’ing, my thumbs are starting to hurt. I was initially reluctant to getting a phone equipped with a virtual keyboard because I have an iPod touch, and typing on it is a chore, especially since I have big thumbs and was used to feeling the keys I pushed when typing. Owing to that, an iPhone is not much of an option for me since a virtual keyboard is all it offers. Fortunately, the HTC Arrive arrived with me in mind, offering both a virtual and physical keyboard. From playing around with the handset at the Sprint store for a bit, it looks like the phone’s virtual keyboard is pretty legit, and the physical keyboard is nice too.

If I was to upgrade my phone right now, I’ll certainly go for the HTC Arrive simply because:

Blackberry is getting old, it’s time to go (glad they took care of the trackball issues though. That used to be a pain!!)
Not a fan of android, just not it.
Can’t get an iPhone because I’m pretty content with Sprint. The unlimited data plan for 69 bucks is the best out there (hands down) – add an employee discount to that and you’re set. (Sadly, writing apps for iOS is a lot of fun – but oh well, i have an iPod touch for that)
I like to try out new stuff. Some people are so drawn into Apple products they don’t know what else is out there.
WP7 will do really well if 3rd party apps take the OS seriously. Microsoft is used to letting people do whatever they want with their OS and ruining the experience as a result. If all apps are slick and clean, I don’t see where WP7 will fail (of course, as long as there are no blue screens or red rings )

I’m looking forward to getting an Arrive sometime soon (not sure why WP7 phones for Sprint are so expensive compared to those for AT&T and T-Mobile). For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s what the HTC Arrive looks like

Windows Phone 7

wmensah — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 04:35:12 +0000

I think the Windows Phone 7 has some potential. A lot of potential actually. Enough to get them back in the game. The UI is very well done in my opinion – as long as it doesn’t EVER lag. If it starts to lag, perhaps after you’ve installed an infinite number of 3rd party apps, then the experience could be tragic – because undeniably, the phone is packed with more animations than Witch Doctor

All the same, until I get my hands on one, my judgement from all the videos I’ve seen is that the Windows Phone 7 should definitely be an option to ponder over when shopping for a new phone. Sucks that there’s no CDMA version till next year

Getting back in the swing

wmensah — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:23:23 +0000

After a busy summer and the start of a rough semester, I’m back at doing what I love the most. Documenting my research, developing small scale applications and tweeting. Maslow was right on point with his hierarchy of needs

Clear Visual Basic 2008 recent projects without messing with your registry

wmensah — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 14:09:21 +0000

It’s pretty simple.

- Close Visual Basic 2008 if you have it opened.

- Go into My Documents or wherever the Visual Studio 2008 directory was created and rename the directory to something else. Preferably, append some characters to the end of the current name

- Start Visual Basic 2008 from your start menu

- When it’s done initializing, try opening the recent project you want to remove from the list. Visual Basic should say it can’t find it and ask if you want the project to be removed from the list – click yes!

- Exit Visual Basic 2008, go back into My Documents (or where you have the VB directory created) and delete the new Visual Basic 2008 directory that was created.

- Rename the original directory (that was renamed) back to its original name and then start VB again.

- Done.