Warez ahoy! Windows Phone 7 DRM has been broken – Cell Phones & Mobile Device Technology News & Updates | Geek.com

Interesting...

Warez ahoy! Windows Phone 7 DRM has been broken – Cell Phones & Mobile Device Technology News & Updates | Geek.com

OfficeMax Fail

OfficeMax - Customer Service

Normally I'm not an uninformed consumer but this black Friday the joy of that one deal too good to be true, overcame me. I purchased an Acer 20" monitor for $79 prior to taxes. A good deal as I was searching for a second monitor to compliment my current 22" Acer. However, this week I found another deal, although not as tempting, for a 22" monitor for $119. Since the 20" seems small when placed next to my 22" I decided to return it. Man was I in for a surprise, to my delight the return policy on opened electronics requires the forfeiture of a 15% restocking fee, what? I haven't had the monitor that long and other stores give you 30-days, no questions asked, Wal-mart comes to mind. So now I'm stuck either trying to offload the smaller monitor through craigslist or return it sans 15% of my hard earned money. Thanks Office Max, for nothing. In the future I will more carefully look at the return policy and I will most definitely never shop at the aforementioned store, see i'm already refusing to give them a plug.

Finals

It's been a while since I've added a post so here's a short one.  I'm currently finishing my last assignment for my class on software design and than it's on to preparing for finals.

Texas Holdem Calculator Initial Release 1.0.0.0

The source is finally up:  HoldemCalculatorWP7-1.0.0.0-Src.  Feel free to download it and check it out.  Let me know if anything fails to open/run, etc and I'll do my best to fix it.  This was developed using Visual Studios 2010 with the RTW Windows Phone 7 tools.

WP7 Texas Holdem Calculator

I'm currently in the process of posting my WP7 source on sourceforge.net, my project page can be found here: Texas Holdem Calculator.

I'll probably offer the app via the Windows Marketplace to see what kind of interested it generates, clearly this is worth .99 cents or less.  The price really isn't the point but rather the experience.  The WP7 version of THC will be under the Create Commons license using, cc by-nc-sa or Attribution, Non-commercial, Share Alike.  Essentially this means that any may copy and distribute derivatives for non-commercial uses as long as they attribute me as the author.  However, feel free to contact me if there is a use case that might need my permission to bend the license.


Stay tuned, I hope to have the source up by end of day or tomorrow at latest.

CDMA A No Go For WP7

Until recently I was sporting a xv6800, the Verizon Wireless version of the HTC Titan, however, the phone has been put through the ringer and freezes quite often.  I decided to retire it and activate my old feature phone, the LGVX8300.  Clearly it's less capable, no touch screen a paltry 1MP camera, very little on-board storage, etc.  But, it's a champ when it comes to battery life and making calls.

I have been eligible for an upgrade for quite some time.  When it first came around, my upgrade, I was anxiously awaiting the Samsung Omnia II.  I picked one up, but after the 30 day trial a beast of a phone came through the rumor mill, the HTC HD2, so I quickly sent the Omnia back.  However, while waiting for the HD2, Microsoft decided, maybe not suddenly, to announce that Windows Mobile would be no more.  Instead they were to introduce a new OS, Windows Phone 7 (after some naming experimentation).

Since that time I have been diligently converting my Texas Holdem Calculator, THC On Source Forge, from Windows Mobile 6 (.NET using C#) to Windows Phone 7 (Silverlight using C#).  However, I guess this was announced a while ago, recently I've learned that WP7 will not be coming to Verizon wireless when it rolls out later this year.  This is extremely disappointed since I have waited nearly two years to upgrade to a phone I actually like.  Don't get me wrong Android seems decent but since I'm a .NET developer, I have dabbled in Java ME but it's lack luster, I prefer to develop using that platform especially since mobile development is my part-time hobby.

It seems I have two options, suck it up and wait a little longer or jump ship to a provider that uses GSM, namely T-mobile or AT&T.  I guess the third option is to skip WP7 entirely and go for the iPhone or an Android based device, but as mentioned earlier I like to write apps, even if I'm not making money.

For now jumping ship is not an option as my family members, who I share a plan with, still have contracts.  I guess I'll have to wait until then to make a final decision.

Homework

I have finally finished and submitted my homework.  The assignment was to express a domain model given the use cases developed in the previous assignment.  This is not something I am unfamiliar with but I couldn't seem to just sit down and get it done.  However, the next assignment should prove to be more motivating as it involves actually implementing the system that is expressed by the domain model and described by the use cases.

My university has a propensity to gravitate towards open source software.  This means that I have to write my modeled system using Java.  There are no requirements on the version so at least I can use the up to date JDK.  Although I am not new to Java my experience lies solely with desktop applications with no web technologies.  Given Java is not my specialty, unlike .NET, this upcoming assignment should hopefully be challenging.

Blogs Smogs

This is my first foray into the blogosphere.  I mostly due software development by day, homework by night and well more software in my spare time.  Currently I'm creating a domain model for one of my assignments, working on my master in computer science.  That should be done tomorrow and maybe I'll have time to do another post with details on current side projects.