Well… Looks like the response to the video tutorial was pretty strong. I’ll definitely be making this a semi-regular feature here. I’d make it plain old “regular,” but my job makes it difficult for me to put things out on a regular basis, and I’m finding that a when-it’s-ready approach is best.

Case in point, I’m in Vegas right now for a team meeting, and I don’t have the equipment here to do one of the video tutorials. I have, however, put together a fun little demo app that I’m going to feature in the next one.

So, thanks for all the great comments. I seriously appreciate them, and it’s nice to hear some of you saying that it was what helped motivate you to take a look at developing for devices. Having been there, I can understand and relate. It’s the first push that’s the most difficult, but after that, when you realize what can be done even without a device (just using the emulator), it’s just fun.

There were some suggestions for topics, and I’ve been getting email as well with recommendations. I’m paying attention to everything I’m getting, and it’s helping me to form a little plan of action – a way to get from point A to point B, building incrementally on previous videos so that it will be easy for people to follow through the sequence and actually learn something.

Also, I have another MP3 I’ll be putting up over the next couple days, so that’s good stuff, too.

Until then, thanks again, people :)

Hello, hello.

I’m trying something new today. When I first put this site up, one of my intentions was to do video tutorials along with the audio show, and I finally got around to putting one of the tutorials together this afternoon.

It’s aimed at people who are new to developing for devices. I figure that some familiarity with the tools might make it easier for people to get into the audio show.

The focus of this twenty minute demo is developing a simple PocketPC application using VS 2005 and one of the built-in emulators. Note, however, that if you have VS 2003, you’ll still be able to follow along. Your emulator will be different, and you won’t have as many whiz-bang features, but the basic concepts are the same.

It’s just about twenty minutes in length, and comes in at a little under twenty megs, which is nice.

The one problem, which won’t happen again in the future (still learning how to do this), was a portion of audio that went totally nuts. The CPU got hit really hard while I was starting up the PocketPC emulator, and it basically put the audio through a sort of washing machine. It came out the other end garbled. So, I had to snip a small portion of the tutorial (nothing big – just waiting for the emulator to load).

There are also a couple very small audio glitches outside that, but nothing that should ruin your day. I’ve since figured out how to avoid this problem in the future, so it won’t happen again.

You can download the show here [wmv].

Enjoy, and let me know what you think :)