Checkpoint: an eye to the past and one to the future

Recently my blog got migrated from the now defunct Windows Live Spaces to WordPress and I must say I am pretty pleased with the experience so far. Good job to the teams for a smooth migration.

That also gave me the chance to review my past blog entries and man, that was like taking a trip to the museum! The are a bunch of technology posts that look like ancient history:

• Windows Vista, who needs that anymore! Plus “cmd-here” is now an out-of-the-box feature of Windows 7 (SHIFT+Right Click a folder)
• My plug-in for the Windows Live Toolbar is useless since there is no Windows Live Toolbar anymore
• Yes, I am still running the old Dell Dimension 8400, but it’s now Windows 7 and some new implants for memory and graphics
• Who needs 11 killer apps for Pocket PC?? Does anybody know what a Pocket PC even is anymore??? Today it has been replaced by flashier devices and in my case by a Windows Phone 7 (#wp7 for short), but more on that later
• Netflix is no longer selling their own used movies, Hollywood Video is out of business, Blockbuster almost, Red Box was not even here. Netflix did not have any streaming at all. BTW, what does Netflix do with used physical movies? Interesting factoid, as of this Christmas, I will have 5 (five!!) devices that can stream Netflix attached to the same TV: Xbox, PC, PS3, TiVo and the TV itself.
• Rise of Nation, from Big Huge Games, was all the rage then
• dCut for Media Center has been replaced by MCE Buddy for Windows 7, much simpler to use, much more open and flexible in conversion formats. It seems like MCE Buddy is approaching its end of life judging from the very few updates on the web site, but it really gets the job done.
• All the messing around with music album art and metadata has now been replaced by an all-you-can-eat Zune Pass subscription.
• Orb, an excellent piece of software, is still around, although I do not use it a lot since I got a Windows Home Server. Notable competitors are now TVersity and PlayOn.
• While I still own my Canon 20D, tools have evolved. Pixmantec RawShooter, one of my favorite RAW conversion tools , is no longer around, killed by Adobe and replaced by Lightroom.
• And Xbox!, OMG, where do I start!! My last entry was about the preorder for the 360. Since then I have gone through several consoles (RROD, Pro, Elite, S). Now I have an Elite and a Halo Reach Limited Edition of the new S model. I also own a PS3, yes, I caved, mostly for Uncharted 2, what an amazing game!

Some less-technological things have also changed, for example I am no longer a Karate brown belt, I got my BLACK belt in October of 2009, even though I am not training now as I used too.

Aaaaanyway, long story short, why am I telling you this (assuming there is someone reading)?

I decided to get back into development as a personal project, specifically building an app for Windows Phone 7 and putting it though the Marketplace and see how that goes. So I thought “heck, probably there are a lot of people in my position, maybe what I will be going through will be helpful to other!”

So, here it is, over the next few weeks I’ll take you though my experience of developing and publishing an app on the wp7 marketplace and hopefully that experience might help you, dear reader, go through the same experience or maybe push you over the fence if you are considering doing the same.