Windows Phone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

By now most of you know that Office 2010 is in an open beta for anyone to download. I was perusing the release notes when I ran across something in the Outlook 2010 section that bothered me a bit.

• Programmability / Add-ins:Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) no longer operates when 64-bit Outlook 2010 is installed on 64-bit Windows.
• Upgrading 32-bit Outlook 2007 to 64-bit Outlook 2010 could also result in data loss during first sync with WMDC.
• The WMDC will not be upgraded to work on 64-bit Windows when 64-bit Outlook 2010 is installed.

All of the fixes and workarounds revolve around retaining a 32 bit version of Office 2010 rather than a 64 bit version. I cannot tell if this is a temporary issue during the beta phase or a permanent one. If the latter, it means WMDC is nearing the end of its life. I think Windows 7 is the last 32bit OS Microsoft will release for desktops and it is likely that the next version of Office may be 64 bit only as well.

Before anyone jumps up and asks why anyone is using WMDC anyway, just remember, not everyone has a cloud solution to sync with and even if they do, some apps like eWallet or PocketBible still require WMDC to do record level syncing with its desktop counterpart. I am sure those apps and others are headed towards online syncing, but in the meantime, if you still need WMDC, keep the above warnings in mind when deciding between a 32 bit and 64 bit version of Office.

Earlier this week, synchronization service NuevaSync announced their latest addition to the platform, push e-mail. NuevaSync already had calendar & contact sync from Google to Windows Mobile, iPhone, and pretty much any platform that supports the Microsoft Activesync protocol. Since I've been using Google for the last month or so (in lieu of my exchange server), I thought it may be interesting to give this service a shot. After all, only $25 for a year of service isn't too pricey (.002 cents per hour if you want to think of it that way...).

The first thing you notice about NuevaSync is it's no-frills website. This makes it mobile friendly, and still usable on the desktop. Their site was a bit disjointed (with a Wiki and Blog loosely linked up, with recent navigation improvements) but it gets the job done. After upgrading to Premium (for $25 a year), you can access the e-mail action. This is where you link up your IMAP e-mail account. Any IMAP server that supports the IDLE command should work just fine with their service, and they have an express setup option for GMail users. Contacts & Calendar set up easily as well, and as a premium user you can select which Google Calendars you want to sync with your device. Read more...

"Microsoft Synchronization Services for ADO.NET 1.0 provides the ability to synchronize data from disparate sources. Rather than simply replicating a database and its schema, the Synchronization Services application programming interface (API) provides a set of components to synchronize data between data services and a local store. Applications are increasingly used on mobile clients, such as laptops and devices that do not have a consistent or reliable network connection to a central server. It is crucial for these applications to work against a local copy of data on the client. Equally important is the need to synchronize the local copy of the data with a central server when a network connection is available. The Synchronization Services API, which is modeled after the ADO.NET data access APIs, gives you an intuitive way to synchronize data. It makes building applications for occasionally connected environments a logical extension of building applications where you can count on a consistent network connection. Synchronization Services for ADO.NET 1.0, which released with Visual Studio 2008, enabled synchronization between a server database and a SQL Compact 3.5 client database running on a desktop. With this download, you can also synchronize between a server database and a SQL Compact database on a Windows Mobile 5 or 6 device."

Developers, head over to the Microsoft Download Center and grab Sync Services for ADO.NET on Windows Mobile. The prerequisites are SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1, so install those if you already haven't done so. Happy syncing!

Microsoft has opened up their Live Mesh service to the general public in the form of a "tech preview" which is a nicer way of saying "mostly still beta". I've been using Live Mesh for a couple of months now, and it's a pretty cool service. You set a folder to be "Live Meshed" and not only will it be kept in sync between multiple computers, the contents of the folder will be kept in the cloud (where you have 5 GB of storage). I think there's a lot of potential here, especially since they've stated they'll be targeting mobile devices. I've been dreaming of having my FlexWallet file be pushed to my device when there's a change in it, because connecting my device with my desktop computer is something I just don't do anymore. I was hoping for years that the FolderShare team would release a Windows Mobile client, but they're still struggling to get the service stable, so no joy there. If you have a desktop and a laptop, and haven't checked out Live Mesh yet, you should.