Darin's Web my home on the web

11/10/07

Well another year has flown by and again I am updating this site.  When I first developed this site I had big aspirations on updating this site weekly or at least monthly.  But I guess life catches up with us all.

I started working at Microsoft in May of 2005 as a Software Developer in the Microsoft "Metro" team.  The Metro project (now XPS) developed several products related to documents and printing on the Windows platform.  I worked on several public API's that handled serialization, de-serialization and printing of these documents that were defined by a subset of XAML.

In May of 2007, I transferred from the XPS team to the Windows Mobile team at Microsoft.  I really did enjoy my time with the XPS team and the Windows Vista org.  I was part of one of the biggest software releases even (Windows Vista), and now have a new appreciation for all the quality measures that transform good software to great software.

I now work in the Windows Mobile Connectivity Experience team as a software developer building the next generation of user experience for the Windows Mobile platform.  The transition back to mobile has been a great change for me.  My two years working on the desktop was a needed change but it made me realize how much I love developing software for the mobile user.

Now that I am back focused on mobile development I hope to make time to write articles again that focus more on the industry in general. 

Before joining Microsoft I worked for several startup companies that developed products for the mobile space.  Like almost all startup mobile software companies the software was developed to be deployed on as many devices as possible.  Different Operating Sytems (Windows Mobile, Symbian, Brew, MIDP), different versions of the OS, different screen sizes and resolution.  As you know if you are in the mobile industry, this list could continue, especially if you also start to include proprietary OS's.

While working at these startups I started to gain a certain expertise in the Symbian operating system.  At first it was a love/hate relationship, especially when I was the only developer in the company that knew how to develop Symbian.  But then I started to get an appreciation for why Symbian does things a certain way.  That is when I started my Symbian blogging to start a conversation about nuances I may have figured out or problems that I was having.  Even though I only achieved a small fragment of what I set out to do, I was able to help many (do I dare says 100's?) with issues they had with their applications and understanding Symbian in general.  I wrote a few samples apps here and I answered technical questions at NewLC (a Symbian developer portal).

For now, I am leaving my Symbian example projects and whitepaper posted as I continue to get feedback that they are helping developers understand the complexities of the Symbian development environment.

Symbian - links, projects, and general Symbian information
Projects - a snapshot of projects I have developed over my career
About Me - random miscellaneous facts about me

Note: I am well aware that I am not a web developer, and this whole site is in bad need of rewrite, maybe I will add that to the "To Do" list for the coming year ;)...but don't hold your breath.