Tuesday, October 02, 2007 9:24 AM usoup

Windows Mobile Web Server in .Net CF

This might interest Windows Mobile apps developers out there. Tan Loke Uei (Microsoft's technical product manager of the Mobile Communications Business division) mentioned in his blog that one of his buddy, Richard Jones (of Best Developer Award fame), wrote a Web SERVER in .NET Compact Framework that runs on a Windows Mobile device!

Just imagine the possibilities then.

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# re: Windows Mobile Web Server in .Net CF

Tuesday, October 02, 2007 4:30 PM by Softwaremaker

ok. hmmm. >> Just imagine the possibilities then.

Share with us the possibilities (realistic and pragmatic of course) that a web server running on a Mobile device brings, bearing in mind that:

1) Power consumption will really su** when you run a "always-listening" tcp socket

2) Mobile Device is not always on

3) You are NOT on Wi-Fi all the time. And if you are, refer to point [1]

# re: Windows Mobile Web Server in .Net CF

Wednesday, October 03, 2007 8:25 PM by usoup

Well, I wasn't imagining along the realistic or pragmatic line, of course, especially on the battery life. (That's why we called it imagination :p) The battery life is what we need to live with, until some company managed to pull lots of power out of thin air (pun intended). :D

But this popped into my mind when I read that blog (please correct me if i got the possibilities wrong here): given Lego Mindstorm NXT, Microsoft Robotics Studio, Windows mobile capable device, and .net CF, we can build a remote controlled robot. And I really meant remote, as far as the internet can reach. Think of something like iRobot movie (starring Will Smith), where we have a central server that pushes updates (or intelligences) to bots throughout the country. The power in this is that, the robot is contactable as long as internet connection is detected (wiFi?, GPRS?), compared to Bluetooth range of max 100 metres. Imagine asking your robot to deliver a Visual Studio 2008 Team Systems Beta 2 DVD to your colleague at the next block, or buy you a snack from a vending machine or canteen within the company premise, all controlled from your pc (speaking of which, you may need camera attached to your robot).

And yes, you may need lots of power juices, so why not considering these alternatives (I like the solar panel, better if it can store more power quickly):

- various power supplies, as compiled by Chan Wei Min a.k.a Marauderz. (The kinetic supply from Nintendo is interesting though. Similar to what Loke Uei mentioned in his blog.)

- Wind powered phone charger, found in Geekologie (and found from Loke Uei's blog)