Running Google Android on top of Windows Mobile

Now it’s possible to run Google Android on top of Windows Mobile! But you have to keep in mind on issue about “Device Compatibility” This Google Android if you noticed, is running on my Xperia X1. I’ll post a link where you can find a copy of Google Android for your device. So How’s this possible? Thanks to fatsal in XDA for making this possible for X1’ers. Check fatsal thread in XDA here Here’s a video preview. But am not sure why Wi-Fi is not working.

As I promised. The links for your device.

Scan Negative Films using Show Me Positive + Web Camera (Video Inverted Effect)

Lastnight,Me and Wife were looking at Negative Films that were never develop and they were taken way way back before she was baby, grade school to high school. It was fun, though you’re looking at the pictures in inverted colors so it was bit of ..

So after that, I thought of something doing what I have thought before, scanning the negative pictures on a flat bed scanner but sadly after scanning, and inverted the colors in Corel, all we can see is cyan and white colors and barely can see that picture. I tried putting the negative film in front of my LCD screen and I thought, “yeah, why not add a little backlight?” hehe, so I scanned the negative film again pressed with my HTC Touch ELFIN  with backlight on and the brightness were set to maximum. After scanning, it was awesome! though am not sure why it turned in grayscale but that’s fine at least we saw something and the image were very clear! Though bit of worried in my Canon Pixma MP198 – Lamp!, because everytime she want to look at something, of course I have to do a re-scan.

So wife went to bed and me, thinking an alternative way, and something kicks and hah! why not use my very very awesome give-away web camera! (why awesome? read here..)

So I set it up, run the web cam window, runned File Explorer in my elfin Windows Mobile just to get that white background, inverted the colors in my web cam and hah! TOTALLY ROCKS! but that problem was my finger accidentally keeps on pressing something in File Explorer, so it’s bit of irritating.

And so I thought of creating a small tool that has white static background so I don’t have to worry on accidentally pressing something everytime I flatten the film.

The small tool called:

Show Me Positive it’s basically a white form that automatically set the orientation to landscape and back to original when closed. download the tool here > binaries

And here’s a little video preview

How to? just look at this pictures :) all you need is a bit of creativity! :D

Just invert the colors of your web camera video. Lot of web cam software feature has that :) check the video!

The main idea here really is, you need a BACKLIGHT source at the back of your Negative Film and something that can invert the colors! :D that’s it!

Cost? PRICELESS! ^^

Please, a feedback is appreciated :)

Windows Mobile 6.5 – 5 Columns Start Menu in Portrait – Grid Scene

<Form Width="240" Height="320"> <StartMenu_GridScene ID="Scene"> <GridView ID="Start Menu Items List" Top="0" Left="0" Width="240" Height="268" Columns="5" Scrollable="TRUE" HexagonGrid="TRUE" HorizontalWrapAround="TRUE" PaginatedScrolling="TRUE"> <Image ID="Selection" Left="0" Top="0" Width="64" Height="64" Source=".\StartMenu_Selection.png" /> <Layer ID="GridItem" Width="64" Height="64" OnAction="GridItemAction"> <Layer ID="Normal"> <Image ID="Image" Left="21" Top="3" Width="24" Height="24" ScaleStyle="Fit" /> <Text ID="Text" Left="11" Top="36" Width="45" Height="29" FontFamily="Tahoma" FontSize="7" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Top" Wrap="True" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter" ForeColor="#00FFFFFF" BackColor="#00000000" /> </Layer> </Layer> <Layer ID="NoItems"> <Text ID="Text" Width="240" Height="20" FontFamily="Tahoma" FontSize="10" ForeColor="#00FFFFFF" Wrap="False" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Trimming="Character" InnerTextType="Resource">shellres.dll,22596</Text> </Layer> </GridView> </StartMenu_GridScene> </Form>

This is QVGA, I don’t really need big icons, I have Asian fingers :P :)

Get Application Startup Path – for NETCF

Why Application.StartupPath is missing in NETCF? I don’t know why either.. so most of you will try looking for some answer .. and the answer is this.

string startup = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase;
string directory = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(startup);
string file = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(startup);

Upgrade/Downgrade C# Project Target Framework.

I don’t know if this will help anyone, but I’ve been doing this for a long time.
Actually you can manually change the Target Framework in .csproj file.

Here’s how:

1. Open .csproj in any text editor, I prefer Notepad++. This file contains XML tags.
2. Now in PropertyGroup node, look for child node named TargetFrameworkVersion
3. and if your project version is 3.5, and want to target 2.0, just change the value to 2.0, vice versa.

But if you want to upgrade your 2.0 cs project in Visual Studio IDE, just right click on the project, and click Upgrade Project.

That’s all.

Note: This doesn’t work all the time. Reason was, some 3.5 methods and properties doesn’t exist in 2.0. duh..

cheers :)

.NET CF Screen Orientation Awareness

There’s always an easy way making your mobile application aware of screen orientation changes without coding some hard math’s to update your control locations and sizes. A good example is setting the Control Anchor Property.

What does Anchor Property do?
Gets or sets the edges of the container to which a control is bound and determines how a control is resized with its parent.

Anchor does the job for you for updating the control location and size! But one little problem for Windows Mobile. The Form doesn’t resize correctly when the screen orientation has changed.

Now how are we going to fix it? With just 2 simple codes, the problem will be solved.
Form.Hide() and Form.Show() follows.

Here’s a little video demonstrating how the problem and how will the 2 simple code can fix it.

Now why Hide() and Show() method? These can be use to refresh the form layout. I was also trying to find some simplest way to do it, but looks like this methods is the simplest.

Download the sample code here

Download count:

Cheers!