Windows Embedded Blog

CE6 – Instant SDK?

I’m busy bashing out my Win32 code for the “choose an API” session at ESC East, I’m using Visual Studio 2005/Platform Builder to build/deploy/debug/test my CE 6.0 image, and have a couple of choices for application development.

1. Write a Win32 C/C++ application as a “subproject” in Platform Builder – this means that the application is integrated into the O/S when I build either the O/S or the application
2. Create an SDK for my OSDesign, install the SDK on the same development machine, and then use a second instance of Visual Studio to write/deploy/debug the application – without touching the running operating system.

I decided to go with the second option – but… the process of building an SDK and installing the SDK seems pointless if I already have the built operating system with the appropriate header files and libraries – If I’m developing locally (on the same machine as my Platform Builder install), would it be useful to have an “Instant SDK” option? – which takes the .h/.lib for your current workspace, drops it into the appropriate folder, and registers the SDK with VS 2005?

The process of building the MSI is useful if you want to publish the SDK to other teams internally, or to customers.

- Mike

Which API should I use? – Using the .NET Compact Framework.

A couple of days ago I published an article which talked about a session I’m presenting at ESC East on choosing an API for your embedded device – The plan is to show building a FrameIt enabled Picture Frame (RSS Feed with image enclosures).

The application has three parts.

1. Pull down the FrameIt XML feed
2. Parse the XML feed – pull out the enclosures (URL to an image)
3. Pull down the images and display them on the screen

I’ve written a simple application that clearly shows each of the three phases – Here’s the application running on the desktop.

<a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=b7c9e7db-6b7c-4575-9bfc-18e9b7afd6a8" target="_new" title="Picture Frame Demo Application">Video: Picture Frame Demo Application</a>

Here’s the same code (no source code changes) running on the Windows CE 6.0 Emulator

<a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=44485c29-e52b-4199-96de-532375052670" target="_new" title="Device Emulator Picture Frame Demo">Video: Device Emulator Picture Frame Demo</a>

And now the code…

1. Get the RSS Feed from FrameIt http://demofeed.frameit.com

   1:      WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create("http://demofeed.frameit.com");

   2:      WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();

   3:      StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream());

   4:      string str=sr.ReadToEnd();

   5:      textBox1.Text = str;

   6:      response.Close();

   7:      StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(strXMLFile);

   8:      sw.Write(str);

   9:      sw.Close();

   1:  private void ParseXML(string strFilename)

   2:  {

   3:      string strURL = null;

   4:      iArrayListPointer = 0;

   5:   

   6:      Console.WriteLine("Parsing - " + strFilename);

   7:      if (File.Exists(strFilename))

   8:      {

   9:          XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(strFilename);

  10:          while (reader.Read())

  11:          {

  12:              switch (reader.NodeType)

  13:              {

  14:                  case XmlNodeType.Element: // The node is an element.

  15:                      if (reader.Name == "enclosure")

  16:                      {

  17:                          Console.WriteLine("enclosure...");

  18:                          if (reader.AttributeCount > 0)

  19:                          {

  20:                              strURL = reader.GetAttribute("url");

  21:                              if (null != strURL)

  22:                              {

  23:                                  Console.WriteLine("strURL == " + strURL);

  24:                                  ar.Add(strURL);

  25:                              }

  26:                          }

  27:                      }

  28:                      Console.Write("<" + reader.Name);

  29:                      Console.WriteLine(">");

  30:                      break;

  31:              }

  32:          }

  33:          Console.WriteLine("---------------------------------------");

  34:      }

  35:  }

3. Now get the image (store in the local file system, so we don’t need to get it every time we display the image), and display the image in a PictureBox.

   1:  private void GetAndDisplayImage(string strURL,int iIndex)

   2:  {

   3:   

   4:      string strFile= @"c:\demo\foo"+iIndex.ToString()+".jpg";

   5:      if (!File.Exists(strFile))

   6:      {

   7:          WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(strURL);

   8:          WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();

   9:          long iFileSize = response.ContentLength;

  10:          BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(response.GetResponseStream());

  11:          FileStream fs = new FileStream(strFile, System.IO.FileMode.CreateNew);

  12:          BinaryWriter bw = new BinaryWriter(fs);

  13:          byte[] bArray = new byte[iFileSize];

  14:          int iRead = 0;

  15:          do

  16:          {

  17:              iRead = br.Read(bArray, 0, Convert.ToInt32(iFileSize));

  18:              bw.Write(bArray, 0, iRead);

  19:          }

  20:          while (iRead > 0);

  21:          bw.Flush();

  22:          bw.Close();

  23:          fs.Close();

  24:          br.Close();

  25:          response.Close();

  26:      }

  27:      pictureBox1.Image = new Bitmap(strFile);

  28:  }

Next step is to reproduce the same three steps in Native/Win32 code (rolls up sleeves), makes sure that Coffee cup is full… Look out for the next post coming soon (at least before ESC East).

- Mike

.NET Micro Framework Competition – Dare to dream different challenge.

The .NET Micro Framework team are running a competition called the Dare to dream different challenge. Like most competitions there are a number of rounds, as follows.

• Round 1 – Submit your idea (October 8th – December 15th 2008)
• Round 2 – Create a working prototype (January 15th – March 31st 2009)
• Round 3 – Show your thing, doing its thing (April 15 – May 31st 2009) – includes prizes!

More information about the competition, and the .NET Micro Framework over on the competition web site.

- Mike

Does this video make you want to go to the PDC ?

Just found this video on Engadget – Does this make you want to go to the PDC? (or come to my sessions at ESC East!)

- Mike

Q: Which API should I use?

I’m going to be presenting a couple of sessions at ESC East, Boston October 26th-30th (both of my sessions are on Tuesday, 28th October).

One of the sessions covers the topic of “Which API should I use” for an embedded device, for the session I will be building a digital picture frame based on CE 6.0 R2 – there are a number of requirements for the frame which I will list in a second – and then follow up with some additional posts that cover off each of the requirements.

You have a number of choices when writing your code – this includes Win32 (C/C++), MFC (also C/C++), or managed code (C#/VB). There are perhaps two things to think about when choosing your API set, one is device performance, the other is developer performance.

Device performance may include the “real-time” performance of the system, or at least having your code (and operating system) run within the hardware/software bounds that are required to fulfill the device scenarios defined by you or your customer.

Related to performance is reliability – you may be really good at writing small, fast code, but if the code is buggy, or leaks handles/memory then you have the potential to have an unstable system.

For the talk at ESC East I will focus on the two API options exposed on Windows CE, these are :Win32, and .NET Compact Framework (in my case using C# as the development language – I’m a “curly brace guy”).

In a nutshell Win32 gives you low-level access to your embedded device, perhaps you can think of Win32 as being the assembly language of Windows. Giving you a lot of flexibility, but also requiring you, the developer, to do most of the heavy lifting, including cleaning up after yourself (memory/handle/object allocation/free). In some cases you may need additional frameworks to add support for useful classes/libraries (strings for example), examples are MFC, ATL, WTL, STL. Win32 is required for some o/s pieces, including Drivers and Services, and typically used for all “real-time” work. Interestingly, Maarten Struys wrote an article called “Real-Time Behavior of the .NET Compact Framework” so it may be possible to build a hybrid device that requires real-time behavior and uses both Win32 and .NET Compact Framework.

Managed development (.NET Compact Framework) – The .NET Compact Framework exposes a set of application development libraries that provide the developer with a toolbox of classes/APIs that provide for rapid application development – using a language like C# also gives the combined benefits of C++ and Java programming combined into one language. Unlike C/C++/Win32 you can be a lazy programmer (I’m not saying that you should be), letting the framework clean up behind you – if an object you’ve created goes out of scope then the Garbage Collector will come along behind you and clean up. There is of course a hit for taking the Compact Framework into your image, for .NET CF 2.0 this is about 4MB. Perhaps this is ok given the upside in application development speed and the reduction in leaks.

ok, now over to the DPF requirements.

1. Must be internet connected (wired or wireless) – I won’t spend any time talking about how to get the device connected, perhaps that’s another post – having a frame that just loads images from a USB stick, or from a Windows Media Connect source is so… last century.
2. Must consume an image RSS feed – I’m using FrameIt (super cool!) – here’s my demo feed http://demofeed.frameit.com [1]
3. Supports JPG Image format only (but only because the images coming from the RSS feed are JPG) [2]

For my session that means that I will focus on three things.

1. Code to pull the RSS file down from FrameIt (so I can parse out the enclosures)
2. Code to parse the RSS feed, and then pull down the images (could probably re-use the code from step 1).
3. Code to display the images (nothing fancy, no cool transitions, but enough to show the images being displayed)

I will probably get the Compact Framework code done first, since that should be quick and easy!

Look out for some more posts on this subject coming soon…

- Mike

[1] – FrameIt – I really like the FrameIt concept, the fact that the DPF doesn’t need to know anything other than how to parse an RSS feed and pull down images from an enclosure rocks – this means that the FrameIt back-end owns building the images for the frame, and can aggregate content from a number of different sources – the frame only needs to subscribe to the one RSS feed.

[2] If you are using Win32 and want to load image formats other than BMP then you need to resort to the Windows CE Imaging APIs, these are COM based, and even though Don Box thinks COM is Love I’m not sure that I completely agree. There’s a Win32 sample for loading images here in the Wince600 install tree %_PUBLICROOT%\GDIEX\SDK\SAMPLES\SIMPLE

Windows Embedded Sessions at the Embedded Systems Conference Boston (Oct

ESC Boston is running October 26-30, the Windows Embedded team is running a series of sessions (and labs) covering Windows Embedded CE 6.0, and Windows Embedded Standard (Windows XP Embedded) – here’s the list of sessions that will be presented.

First up, Windows Embedded Standard (Windows XP Embedded).

and now the Windows Embedded CE 6.0 sessions.

I’ve highlighted two sessions that I will be presenting at the conference (both on Tuesday!) – hope to see you there.

- Mike

Imagine Cup 2009: Solve the World's Toughest Problems (sign up now!)

The United Nations has identified some of the hardest challenges in the world today in its Millennium Goals. This year the Imagine Cup uses these ambitious challenges as a guiding light to inspire change all over the world. Learn more about the eight Millennium Goals

Information on the Embedded Competition can be found here.

The Registration Period begins on August 29, 2008, at 12:01 AM GMT, and ends on March 1, 2008, at 11:59 PM GMT.

If you wish to participate in this Invitational, you must register at www.imaginecup.com

- Mike

Get Hands on with Windows Embedded technologies at Embedded Systems Show 2008 (October 1-2, NEC Birmingham, UK)

Direct Insight are running hands on technical sessions at this years Embedded Systems Show (October 1-2, NEC, Birmingham, UK) – Here’s your chance to get hands on experience with building operating systems and writing applications, plus the opportunity to talk to technical experts about your experience or projects.

Here’s the Agenda for the session (run on both days of the event).

Sign up for the session is here

- Mike

Am I a PC? (a quick comparison)

Yesterday I posted “I am a Device” to the blog, and got a comment back that “we are what we eat”, so we could be a cheeseburger, or a slice of lemon loaf, but we cannot be a “PC” – but there are a number of similarities between a PC and a person, some of which are listed below – how many items need to be the same before you can say that you really are a PC?

• Central Processing Unit – Check! – Some peoples CPU appear to be faster/better than others, same is also true of a PC
• Memory – Check! – again, some people appear to have more, better, faster memory than others
• Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) – Check! (moving right along…)
• Support for a wide array of peripherals – Check! – Most of us use a large array of peripherals every day, like my car for example – My car requires an appropriate driver, some drivers are better than others, some drivers are known to crash every so often…
• Mail – Check! – I have the ability to both send and receive mail (through the postal system), I only send useful mail, and I get a ton of junk mail in return (wouldn’t it be good to have a “real mail” filter)
• Viruses – Check!
• Browser – Check! – Some people are very good at spending hours wandering around the shopping mall!
• Office – Check! – This is where I spend most of my time, in fact, I’m sat in my office while I’m typing this blog post.
• Windows – Check! – Luckily I’ve been at Microsoft long enough to have a Window office, and have quite the view of the new campus construction site.

Did I miss anything?

- Mike

I’m a Device!

You’ve probably seen the new “I’m a PC” adverts, either on TV or the internets (what do you think of the adverts?), there’s also downloadable Life without walls (wallpapers) available from the Windows Vista Team Blog – the tagline for the wallpapers is “Windows | Life without walls”.

But, I’m in the Windows Embedded team, and spend my time thinking about devices, and building software for devices (and playing the odd game of squash!), so I think my tagline should be "I'm a device!" - interestingly, if you really are a device, let's say a networked media player, then your view of the world is "other devices", devices that serve up media, or devices that consume media, from this viewpoint, the PC is just another device on the network.

- Mike

Mobile Internet Device (MID) Shell for Windows Embedded CE 6.0

I saw a posting to “/.” last week that talked about a mobile internet device shell (MID) for Windows Embedded CE 6.0 – here’s the post.

The shell is developed by Quarta Mobile, and will be made available as “open source” – here’s a link to the Quarta site.

There’s a photo of a netbook device running the MID shell on the Quarta site (see below) – The shell looks very similar to the Windows CE “Standard Shell” that ships with the CE 6.0 product – there’s not too much detail on the Quarta site about the capabilities of the shell, and downloads are shown as “coming soon”.

- Mike

<$100 .NET Micro Framework Development board!

Check out this low cost .NET Micro Framework board from GHI Electronics -

The GHI web site also contains a video of the board being used to play a .MP3 file from a USB stick - pretty cool!

The board is listed at $99, and has the following hardware and software features.

Software:
• Micro Framework 2.5 and 3.0
• USB Host (MS, HID, Printer and more)
• FAT File System
• Peripherals (SPI, PWM...etc.)

Hardware:
• 72Mhz ARM7 Processor
• USB Host/Device
• Plenty of Digital I/O
• Interrupt Inputs
• SPI (8/16 bit)
• I2C
• 4 UART
• 2 CAN Channels
• 4 10-bit Analog Inputs
• 10-bit Analog Output
• 4-bit SD Memory Interface (uSD connector)
• PWM
• Low Power and Hibernate Modes
• -40 to +85 Operational
• Lead Free

[UPDATE] GHI have a projects page that includes sample code, and some videos showing the code running - here's a link to the page.

- Mike

Zune 3.0 Software available for download.

Zune 3.0 software is available for download today. What's new? - check out the new features list here. There are new device features, Software Features, and Social Features.

Here's some of the device features:

• New device hardware (16GB, 120GB)
• Buy from FM radio
• Games!!
• Clock
• Browse Marketplace wirelessly

- Mike

A documentação de CE 6.0 agora disponível em português (Brasil)!

Graças ao Windows Live tradução (Equipe de tradução de automática do Microsoft Research), a documentação de CE 6.0 agora está disponível em português! -Eis um link para o material traduzido.

Thanks to Windows Live Translation (Microsoft Research Machine Translation team), the CE 6.0 documentation is now available in Portuguese! - here's a link to the translated material.

- Mike

Video: Porting Drivers to CE 6.0

Travis Hobrla has posted a new video to MSDN Channel 9 titled "Porting Drivers to CE 6.0" - this session has been presented at MEDC a couple of times (and I think was also presented at ESC West and TechEd this year) - This presentation covers everything you need to know to port your driver to CE6.0 including access checking, marshalling, thread permissions, and security.

- Mike