Saturday 12 November 2011

Verkeer 2.0 is ready

The Verkeer app has so far been reasonably popular. However that isn’t to say that there wasn’t room for significant improvement. Because of the way the original rendering engine was built quite a lot of data had to be downloaded which, especially on slower connections, made the whole experience less than pleasant.  In addition the large dataset also had an impact on the responsiveness of the UI. At the same time the map data remained distorted if users would zoom in sufficiently.

To address these issues the rendering engine has been revamped and now uses Bing maps as the primary map data visualization with traffic and speed cam data projected on top of it. This results in less data traffic, shorter loading times and an overall better experience.
Hope you enjoy this new release and if you run into any bugs please let me know and I’ll do my best to fix them.
Regards,
LeonK



Monday 31 October 2011

Meeting Room October update



After launching my Meeting Room app I have received tons of feedback ranging from thank you’ s to feature requests. Unfortunately there were still quite a number of users that couldn’t get the app to work even though they met the only requirement: an Exchange 2010 server. Their help and inputs form the basis for this October update. In addition to fixes and specific help massage the biggest improvement is in the error logging during server configuration. Should anything go wrong during the configuration of the exchange server the error is captured and can be directly mailed for support. Hopefully all the improvements we made make this feature obsolete but at least it’s much easier now to ask for help.
Focus for the next release of Meeting Room is on adding new features. So if you have any please feel free to use the in app feedback options (found in the about menu) to submit your idea’s.
Key features of this release are:
·        Enhanced performance. The tiles in the initial screen now only refresh when something has changed (instead of every time the user navigates to the page)
·        Mango compatibility, including support for task switching.
·        Support for Office 365, including instructions on how to configure the app.
·        Improved diagnostic information when trying to configure the server
o   Also includes the ability to send an email with the complete details of the error as well as some basic server information. Field-testing has shown that with this info it’s possible to resolve 66% of all problems
·        Better error information and guidance for common problems like exceeding the amount of paired devices per account
·        Microsoft Ad control integration. (the previous Ad control made me $2,54 in 4 months, I’m curious to see if this one fairs better)

Friday 2 September 2011

Meeting room updated

I’ve submitted and update of my meeting room app today. It includes one new feature and a ton of bug fixes here’s an incomplete list:
·         Added the ability to specify the name of a meeting
·         On the home screen changed the text when a room is either busy or free for more than an hour
·         Updated the status for unknown availability from NoData to Unknown
·         Fixed a bug that caused meetings to be scheduled at different time than selected by the user
·         Added a more descriptive error message  when trying to connect to an Exchange 2003 or 2007 server.(Unfortunately prior to Exchange 2010 the command for retrieving availability was not supported and there is little we can do to fix that in this app)
·         Much much more

Monday 22 August 2011

Introducing Meeting Room

Don’t you hate it when you’re not able to find an available meeting room to take that call. Or being kicked out of a room that seemed available only a few minutes ago? For circumstances like this I created the meeting room app. Now you can find available rooms on your exchange server and book them right from you smart phone without having to even boot a computer.

In addition to just being useful to individual phone owners it also supports a kiosk mode. In this mode it doesn’t lock allowing you to affix it to the meeting room itself. That way anyone can check availability and make a booking just by walking up to the room

You can download the app here: zune://navigate/?appID=89107b5a-bf36-4b6f-b980-a1710a77b16c
(please note: the current version only supports Exchange 2010)

Here’s a few screenshots:




Verkeer app back online

It took a while to realize but I am happy to announce that the Verkeer app is back online. Not only that but it now supports better controls and higher resolution mapping. Give it a spin and let me know what you think.

Leon

Tuesday 5 July 2011

Verkeer App for windows phone 7 no longer working


Today I discovered the hard way that the ANWB has altered its mobile website causing my 'Verkeer' app to no longer function correctly. instead it stays zoomed on a particular region with no explanation. Hence I have pulled the app from the appstore for now. Hopefully I'll have time to update it next week or so.

-Leon

Wednesday 29 June 2011

Problem when installing the Mango beta (visual studio setup cannot run in compatibility mode)

Today I got great news: my invite for the Windows Phone 7 Mango Beta arrived. Installing it however requires that you first install Beta 2 of the Windows Phone 7.1 SDK. When trying to install that though I encountered the error of "Visual Studio setup cannot run in compatibility mode. For more ...." etc etc. 
*update*
It seems the error above stems from the fact that the Beta 1 of Expression blend for Windows Phone 7.1 was installed. The Beta 2 of the Windows Phone 7.1 SDK checks for the presence of  PSDK 7.1 Beta 1 but apparently not Expression blend. Removing Expression Blend for Windows Phone. Removing Blend and re-running setup fixed the installation problems.

I'll keep the instructions below in case they are needed as some intermediate step but likely you wont need them



A quick fix for this problem seems to be to extract the contents of the WebInstaller (vm_web2.exe) manually and then run the 'setup.exe' contained therein under administrator privileges. (just running vm_web2.exe as administrator seems to be insufficient) Below are some screenshots of the steps involved. 

Nothing overly complicated but I hope it saves some others a few minutes of searching.



-Leon

Pic 2: Having installed Winrar right clicking on the vm_web2.exe executable displays the 'extract to' option we need for this


Pic 3: once extracted we select the 'Run as administrator' option for Setup.exe and we're off.