Tabs and formatting in VS 2005

If you coded for any length of time you've come across code that was written with an editor that defines different tab spacing than what you use. The result is is usually a mess of unevenly spaced code.

A simple fix to this is to replace tabs with spaces.

So the first step is to set up your editor to enter several spaces instead of a tab character. 4 spaces is recommended.

In Visual 2005 (this is probably true or similar for other versions)

Select Tools from the menu

Options...

Under "Text Editor" expand the section for the type of coding you're currently doing and open "Tabs". You'll want to change the setting to "Insert spaces" to "Keep tabs" and make sure the "Tab size:" value is set to 4 (or your preferred setting).

The second step is to replace your existing tabs with spaces. This is easier than it sounds - any good editor will allow you to select one tab although it will look like you're selecting a section of nothing. Copy the "tab", open search and replace (Ctrl-H on VS 2005) and paste into the "Find what:" section. Then enter 4 spaces into the "Replace with:" section and start replacing.

You may have some minor alignment errors you'll need to fix after the search and replace but this should help keep things tidier in the long run.

How to run Pocket PC software on a PC using Emulators (without Visual Studio)

Here's a quick answer on how to run Pocket PC games on a Desktop PC.

Its not a simple process but I thought this was a useful post.

Taken from answers.yahoo.com
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/answer;_ylt=ApkZyyC_FOaoOLCzJbE_yWkazKIX;_ylv=3

You can run Pocket PC software using an emulator on a Windows PC but its not a simple process. You'll need to download the Standalone Device Emulator (link below)Then you'll need to sync the emulator using through ActiveSync (for Windows XP) or the Windows Mobile Device Center on Vista. If you're using Vista read the blog post linked below.Finally - you'll need to use the Device Emulator Manager which "should" be installed with the stand alone emulator. Using the Manager you first have to "Connect" to an emulator of your choice (right click on the emulator) and then once its loaded "Cradle".From there you can install any games or programs onto the emulator.

5 Application Every Windows Mobile Developer Should Use

As a Windows Mobile developer with quite a few years of experience I would like to pass on a few of my favorite tools.

These are 5 programs I couldn't (or at least wouldn't want to) live without.

In no particular order:

Paint.net
http://www.getpaint.net/

This is an excellent freeware paint program. No it won't replace Photoshop but this is excellent for quick edits. If you can use MS Paint, you can use Paint.net. I've been using it for months and never ran into a bug.

Visual Assist
http://www.wholetomato.com/

This program is unfortunately not free. In fact, its very pricy. I'd like to tell you its overpriced but the amount of time you'll save using Visual Assist will more than make up the cost. It adds brilliant shortcuts to toggle between .h and .cpp files, it does an excellent but non-intrusive job of color coding your code. It finds spelling mistakes in comments, it has an excellent predicition engine to help cut down on typing, etc, etc etc. Just install the 30 trial - you'll love it. Note - last I checked it won't work on Visual Studio Express.

Beyond Compare
http://www.scootersoftware.com/

I know there are a lot of tools to do file comparisons but this one is simply flawless. Its brilliant at comparing large quantities of files and equally compitent at comparing two text files. If you need more it has a great list of free plugins for comparing images, mp3s, hex, etc.

http://www.scootersoftware.com/download.php?c=v2plugins

At $30 its steal.

Notepad2
http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html

This program may not be essential but its a nice upgrade to Notepad with low overhead. It has color syntax schemes for most common lanuages but is still light and simple like the original notepad. I use it for doing side by side comparisions with Visual Studio. If you want just a little more functionality do a search for Crimson Editor. Both are free and both work very well.

IcoFX
http://icofx.ro/

Now this program might not be very exciting but when you need it, its perfect. I have been searching for years for a descent icon editor and have probably wasted more hours than I care to admit. I've even bought two retail icon editors but nothing comes close to IcoFX. If you're creating Windows Mobile Icons from pre-created images - this is the only program you need. It makes it dead simple to create multipage icons with different sizes and bitdepths. And it does an excellent job scaling down images. For Windows Mobile, I simply create one 64x64 image and let IcoFX do the rest.