You can’t have a pimped out ride with the factory sound system, and you can’t have a pimped out phone with the default themes.

Here are some of the best skins I know of. If you know of any others please share.

Name: Microsoft Voice Command Windows Mobile Media Player Skin

Description:

OrangeGlass VGA is a cool, new skin designed for VGA Pocket PCs. If you are tired of skins that mimic everything else under the sun, have a go of this. It is completely original, created from scratch with a close attention to detail and perfection.

Commercial $39.99

Note: You get this skin with Microsoft Voice Command. You can’t buy it separate.

Name: Vista Windows Mobile Media Player Skin

Description:

Glassy looking Vista windows media player skin with accessible interface and big buttons for finger control.

FREE

Name: Windows Medial Player 11 Window Mobile Media Player Skin

Description:

The Windows Media player skin free for Windows Mobile Standard.

FREE

Name: Tweak Windows Mobile Media Player Skin

Description:

Introducing Tweak, the new skin from Twisted Pixels Multimedia that includes buttons with real life-like motion.

Commercial $1.99

Name: OrangeGlass Windows Mobile Media Player Skin

Description:

OrangeGlass VGA is a cool, new skin designed for VGA Pocket PCs. If you are tired of skins that mimic everything else under the sun, have a go of this. It is completely original, created from scratch with a close attention to detail and perfection.

Commercial $1.99

I had a problem where I needed to get an Enum, but all I had to work from was a string value of that Enum.

I’m not sure this is the best way to convert a string to an Enum. And that is one reason why I wanted to post this on my blog, so others could provide feedback and ideas. The other reason is so others can learn from what we know (and I’ll have it somewhere for the next time I need it ).

There is two pieces of useful information below. One is the Enum.Parse() method exists. And the other is a neat trick to get around having to deal with Enum.Parse()’s Type parameter.

Note: the method and the extension method will work in later versions of .NET and .NET Compact Framework.

Show me the method:

   1: public static T StringToEnum<T>(this string name)

   2: {

   3:     return (T)Enum.Parse(typeof(T), name, true);

   4: }

Chublogga, one of our readers, asked could the StringToEnum method be made into an extension method. It can, see below.

Show me the extension method:

   1: using System;

   2: using System.Linq;

   3: using System.Collections.Generic;

   4: using System.Text;

   5: using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

   6:  

   7: namespace CraftExtensions

   8: {

   9:     public static class CraftExtensions

  10:     {

  11:         public static T StringToEnum<T>(this string name)

  12:         {

  13:             return (T)Enum.Parse(typeof(T), name, true);

  14:         }

  15:     } 

  16: }

Seamless video loops (that is, clips that play without a sharp cut when you loop them) are very useful in today’s media oriented world. And it seems like lately, I’ve been having to fight against this obstacle more and more.  It wasn’t too long ago that Page Brooks and I ran into this issue with a project at ACS Technologies. Recently, I had a friend of mine mention, he has some video he’d like to be able to play in a loop, but whenever the video repeats there is a flicker, which he doesn’t like. And I have an idea for doing some Windows Mobile development video, but I want to have a seamless looping video background.

I was taking some garbage to the dump the other day, and I had an epiphany:

How to Create Seamless Animation Loops from any Video:

Let’s say you have a video that is represented by the following three frames:

If you were to loop this video it wouldn’t look right because there would be a very noticeable flicker when the video moved from the last frame back to the first frame. I’ve made an animated gif to simulate this. It’s a little rough anyway since we are just using three frames, but I think you can get a feel for this issue I am discussing.

Non-seamless Animated Gif Example

Ok, now that you understand the issue fully, we can discuss the solution. It’s almost too simple. I’ll admit, you’ll always be able to create seamless animation video loops using this technique, but that doesn’t mean it’ll always be what you need, but for most video “FX” loops this is a great solution.

Seamless Animated Gif Example

Anytime you have video that is time agnostic, not sure what else to call it, then you can use this technique to make a seamless video loop:

Take your video loop, say “video loop 1”, and make a copy of it “video loop 2”. Now take “video loop 2” and reverse it. Combine “video loop 2” to the end of “video loop 1” and you’ll have made “seamless video 1”.

What would you be able to do with a browser that doesn’t suck? Just imagine all the possibilities.

Ok so what are our options for a Windows Mobile Browser that doesn’t suck?

Opera Mobile 9.5 is probably my favorite.

Deepfish may be a viable alternative to Opera, but Microsoft hasn't accepted new testers into their pool for many months, and hasn't updated their team blog since March 2007.

I’m not sure exactly how long I’ve been on Twitter, but it is a decent bit. I know I am the 7943052 member to join, because that is my user id, and Twitter uses a simple auto-incrementing integer to assign member ids. You can find your user id, by checking the RSS link at the bottom of your Twitter home page. Here’s mine:

http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline/7943052.rss

Feel free to follow me on Twitter if you like:

http://twitter.com/CJCraft

Not too long after joining, I decided I wanted to use a client application to access Twitter instead of the Web page. I decided to use Twhirl.

It’s a great little app, and it really does a great job of solving the “Accessing Twitter on the Desktop” problem. The only problem I have with it is for some reason after a certain amount of time passes the application disappears, and its tray icon disappears as well.

This has been really bothering me for a couple months now, and I haven’t been able to find a great solution for it. Up until now my solution has been to open the Windows Task Manager, and kill the process and restart it manually myself. This always works but is a bit of a pain, and means I could miss messages since client Twitter applications can only pull messages so far back.

I decided it was finally time to do something about this problem, or either find a new Twitter client.

After a little research, here is what I learned:

I learned on GetSatisfaction.com that this was a fairly common problem, and there wasn’t a great known solution for how to fix it, except on a Mac.

Apparently this an issue with Adobe Air and not Twhirl directly.

It amused me the solution was to right click the tray icon and select “Reset Windows”. Too bad I can’t see the tray icon on my system, lucky Mac users with your visible invisible icons.

People must REALLY like Twhirl because one user rebooted their computer 20 times, and then reformatted their disk to get Twhirl again, and they were upset with Adobe for this.

Here’s how to fix it

I decided to try Process Explorer. I had a feeling it would have an option to help me make the invisible visible again.

Process Explorer Official Overview

“Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.

The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.”

Process Explorer is to Windows Task Manager what Superman is to Clark Kent. In other words, it's the bomb. It’s actually useful.

All I had to do once I had Process Explorer installed and running was find and right click twhirl.exe, then click Window, and Bring to Front.

If you click on the Process Explorer image it will open a larger full sized version.

I hope this helps others in their fight to be able to use Twhirl once again. I only wished I had picked up my boxing gloves sooner. Hope to see you on Twitter soon!

You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m a big fan of keyboard shortcuts. And you probably know that I present at a lot of user groups and code camp, sometimes I even present on keyboard shortcuts. Recently I learned about some PowerPoint keyboard shortcuts that I didn’t already know and I decided to share them with my readers, since many of you also use PowerPoint to do your presentations.

Here are what I consider the “Top 10 PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts”:

Built-in PowerPoint Slide Show Cheat Sheet (Press F1 during Slide Show)

If you have a Windows Mobile device that can be upgraded to the newest version of Windows Mobile 6.1, then do so immediately.

Here are some phones that already support Windows Mobile 6.1, or will do so soon.

It’s the best version of Windows Mobile yet, and it has a lot of great new features to offer.

• Instant messaging-like texting
• Improved Internet browsing
• Simpler e-mail and Bluetooth setup
• New Home screen interface
• New Getting Started Center
• Security enhancements
• Easier Wi-Fi connection
• More personal choice

Plus it looks great too!

Newest version of Windows Mobile aka “The New Hotness”

Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional	Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard

We’ve come a LONG way since the first versions of Windows Mobile. Take a look below and see for yourself.

Previous versions of Windows Mobile aka “Old and Busted”:

By now you probably have seen the show Pimp My Ride from MTV. Each show consisted of taking one car in poor condition and restoring it, as well as customizing it. The same way this made a great car show for TV, I think it will make a great Windows Mobile series for my blog.

I’ll be sharing some of my best tips and tricks, and hopefully you will be too!

Check back every day for information on how to take your Windows Mobile phone from “Old and Busted” to becoming “The New Hotness”.

I thought it would be useful if I did a recap of all of the 31 tips and tricks from the 31 Days of Visual Studio Tips & Tricks. I hope it helps. I’ll post a follow up with all the user submitted tips soon!

Here’s the download link for the for the complete PowerPoint:

PowerPoint: 31 Days of Visual Studio 2008 Tips & Tricks.pptx

PowerPoint Slide	Keyboard Shortcut
	Day 1   Show Shortcut Keys
	Day 2 Open Smart Tag Ctrl + . Open Smart Tag Ctrl + Shift + F10
	Day 3 Navigate Forwards Ctrl + – Navigate Backwards Ctrl + Shift + -
	Day 4   Tools, Options…, Display Line Numbers
	Day 5   Cycle Clipboard Ring Ctrl + Shift + V
	Day 6   Go to Definition F12
	Day 7   Go to Line Ctrl + G
	Day 8 Vertical Block Selection Alt + Mouse Shift + Alt + Right Arrow
	Day 9 View Properties Window F4 View Properties Window Alt + Enter
	Day 10 Comment Selection Ctrl + K, Ctrl + C Uncomment Selection Ctrl + K, Ctrl + U
	Day 11   Toggle Code / Design Views F7
	Day 12 Make Lowercase Ctrl + U Make Uppercase Ctrl + Shift + U
	Day 13   Incremental Search Ctrl + I
	Day 14   Ctrl + Tab Navigator Window Ctrl + Tab
	Day 15   View Object Browser Ctrl + Alt + J
	Day 16   Delete Line Ctrl + L Shift + Delete
	Day 17   Add New Item to Project Ctrl + Shift + A
	Day 18   Close Current Document Ctrl + F4
	Day 19   Toggle Breakpoint F9
	Day 20   Find All References Shift + F12
	Day 21 Move Cursor One Word Right Ctrl + Right Arrow Move Cursor One Word Left Ctrl + Left Arrow
	Day 22   The Rename Refactor Ctrl + R, R
	Day 23   Find All References Shift + F12
	Day 24   Format Document Ctrl + K, Ctrl + D
	Day 25   View Task List Ctrl + \, Ctrl + T
	Day 26   Find in Files Ctrl + Shift + F
	Day 27   Toggle Outlining Expansion Ctrl + M, Ctrl + M
	Day 28   Close All Documents Alt + W, L
	Day 29   Save Any Output Window Ctrl + S
	Day 30   Build Solution Ctrl + Shift + B
	Day 31   Reset Window Layout Alt, W, R

 A place for everything, everything in its place.
Benjamin Franklin

Many times I find that throughout my word day I have move and resized many of the various elements in the Visual Studio IDE. I might have expanded my properties windows, in order to see more of the property name. And I might have end up needing to shrink my toolbox window so I could see more of my code on the screen at one time. But sometimes you just want to hit reset and have everything go back to where it belongs.

Reset Window Layout

Alt, W, R

Note: The preceding image will take you to a full size image if you want to see this in more detail.

Feedback:

If you have a favorite Visual Studio Tip or Trick be sure to share it in the comments. I’ll compile a list and post it for everyone once there are enough.

PowerPoint: 31 Days of Visual Studio 2008 Tips & Tricks.pptx (Note: PowerPoint is updated daily to include new items.)