Quick Hitter: The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Champion versus challenger. The perennial winner versus the lovable loser. The guy people love to hate versus the guy people love to cheer. The same qualities that make a heated sports rivalry so spectacular are in full effect in Seth Gordon's amazing documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Gordon's story details the battle between challenger Steve Wiebe and champion Billy Mitchell as they vie for the Donkey Kong world record. Wiebe, with a wife, two kids, no job, and a penchant for crying, fights for integrity and respectability. Mitchell, the 1980's arcade master with the 1970's haircut, fights for video game supremacy. Colorful characters are plentiful throughout which only adds to the narrative. A highly gripping and entertaining picture.

What is a movie review doing on a blog about mobile and embedded technology?

Well, the main CPU for the Donkey Kong arcade game machine was a Zilog Z80.

Quick Hitter: Installing Windows Embedded CE 6

During the installation of Windows Embedded CE 6, sometimes the installer displays a dialog box stating that it "Could not access network location [url]." An example of this is displayed in Image 1. Hitting the Retry button on the dialog may not have any effect at first. What appears to work when this occurs is to open Internet Explorer, type the url in the location bar and hit Enter. Hit the Cancel button on the File Download dialog. Then, go back to the installer dialog and hit the Retry button again. This time it should work fine.

Image 1 - Error Dialog

Quick Hitter: Indoor GPS Navigation

After working for some time on projects requiring a Global Positioning System (GPS) solution, mostly involving Windows Mobile, I have learned that there are associated headaches due to GPS not working indoors. Two of the GPS pioneers from the 70s are trying to change that with a solution using TV signals.

Rosum: Taking GPS Indoors [Business Week]

Quick Hitter: Navigating Windows Folder via ActiveSync

Annoyed because the \Windows folder can't be viewed when trying to "Explore" a Windows Mobile device using Microsoft ActiveSync? Well, actually it can. Where the setting to change that behavior is though is fairly counterintuitive. In order to be able to see the \Windows folder on a Windows Mobile device, the Windows Explorer folder options of the machine ActiveSync is running on are what need to be changed.

Image 1 - \Windows folder not visible through ActiveSync


On the window displayed in Image 1, from the main menu select Tools-->Folder Options. Switch from the General tab to the View tab located at the top of the Folder Options dialog window. In the "Advanced Settings" area, there will be an option under "Files and Folders" named "Hidden files and folders".

Image 2 - Folder Options dialog with Hidden files and folders highlighted


Change the "Hidden files and folders" value from "Do not show hidden files and folders" to "Show hidden files and folders". Click the "Apply" button and then click the "OK" button to close the dialog window. The explorer window should now display and allow access to the \Windows folder.

Image 3 - \Windows folder visible through ActiveSync

Quick Hitter: Securing the Run Dialog

The Windows Mobile taskbar provides users with an ability to run any particular program via the Run dialog. The Run dialog is accessed by pressing the action key (the center button of the directional pad) and tapping and holding (right-clicking) on the clock.

Image 1 - The Run Dialog menu


When writing line of business software which should be the only application the user should run on the device however, it may be necessary to disable the Run dialog as a security precaution. Disabling the Run dialog makes it more difficult for users to bypass the desired functionality. Access to the Run dialog can be disabled by setting a value within the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Security\Policies\Shell registry key. Inside that key, a value named NoRunDlg needs to be set as a DWORD with a value of 1.

Image 2 - Remote Registry Editor showing NoRunDlg value


Once the NoRunDlg value has been set, the menu showing Run and Clock is still accessible. However, the Run menu option is now disabled (indicated by it being grayed out) preventing users from running applications via that option.

Image 3 - Run Dialog option grayed out

Quick Hitter: Blank Form

What a difference a function call makes sometimes, right?

Ever start a program, go to a specific form and all the controls that were placed on the form at design time are missing? Well, some way some how, the InitializeComponent method has probably been removed from the form's constructor. The InitializeComponent method is a private void method which is placed inside the "Windows Form Designer generated code" region by Visual Studio. The attached comment even states that it is a "Required method for Designer support - do not modify the contents of this method with the code editor." This method sets all the properties of the form, initializes every control and subsequently adds each one to its parent control. Sometimes people think this is just magic that the controls get added to the form, but it's the InitializeComponent method which is doing all of the heavy lifting. So, if the controls are missing, check to verify that InitializeComponent is being called in the form's constructor.