.NET Micro Framework Service Pack 1 -- Visual Studio Magazine

.NET Micro Framework Service Pack 1

First service pack ships for .NET Micro Framework.

By Chris Kanaracus
10/15/2007

Microsoft has released a service pack for the junior framework in its family of programming models for small devices, the .NET Micro Framework 2.0.

The pack, made available for download last month, includes a tool that can be used to block anyone from installing unsigned code on a device. It also provides an upgraded MFDeploy tool for configuring firmware, as well as the ability to generate bitmap fonts from a TrueType font, extending localization capabilities.

"This really addresses some of the requests we got from customers who are moving from pilots to manufacturing," says Jonathan Kagle, senior program manager for Microsoft's .NET Micro Framework.

Enterprise Ambitions
Despite these additions, the Micro Framework remains Redmond's preferred platform for developing to devices that aren't powerful enough to support a bona fide operating system, compared to frameworks such as Windows Mobile 6.

Kagle insists, though, that the Micro Framework has gotten a lot of interest from enterprises. "A lot of people don't realize that they can target devices that are smaller," he says. "Having something that's still occasionally connected but still an intelligent endpoint has a lot of interest for enterprise developers." One example might be an ice cream truck, he says. The company who owns the truck may want to attach a device to the cooler door to monitor and collect temperature information.

But Kagle concedes that these scenarios to date are probably largely just that. "It's definitely in the interest phase. I'm not sure we're talking about specific corporate situations."

First Dev Efforts
Dev efforts to date seem confined for now to the device-maker community, for which the Micro Framework seems best suited. Companies including SJJ Embedded Micro Solutions LLC and EmbeddedFusion made announcements around the framework in September.

SJJ Embedded, for example, is shipping its Embedded Development Kit (EDK) for the Micro Framework. It consists of an EMAC iPac-9302 Single Board Computer pre-installed with the framework, sample source code, guidance and accessories.

SJJ says the product is aimed at students and others who wish to learn how to write apps against small devices.

About the Author

Chris Kanaracus is the news editor for Redmond Developer News.

Printable Format

comments powered by Disqus

Featured

VS Code v1.99 Is All About Copilot Chat AI, Including Agent Mode

Agent Mode provides an autonomous editing experience where Copilot plans and executes tasks to fulfill requests. It determines relevant files, applies code changes, suggests terminal commands, and iterates to resolve issues, all while keeping users in control to review and confirm actions.
Windows Community Toolkit v8.2 Adds Native AOT Support

Microsoft shipped Windows Community Toolkit v8.2, an incremental update to the open-source collection of helper functions and other resources designed to simplify the development of Windows applications. The main new feature is support for native ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation.
New 'Visual Studio Hub' 1-Stop-Shop for GitHub Copilot Resources, More

Unsurprisingly, GitHub Copilot resources are front-and-center in Microsoft's new Visual Studio Hub, a one-stop-shop for all things concerning your favorite IDE.
Mastering Blazor Authentication and Authorization

At the Visual Studio Live! @ Microsoft HQ developer conference set for August, Rockford Lhotka will explain the ins and outs of authentication across Blazor Server, WebAssembly, and .NET MAUI Hybrid apps, and show how to use identity and claims to customize application behavior through fine-grained authorization.
Linear Support Vector Regression from Scratch Using C# with Evolutionary Training

Dr. James McCaffrey from Microsoft Research presents a complete end-to-end demonstration of the linear support vector regression (linear SVR) technique, where the goal is to predict a single numeric value. A linear SVR model uses an unusual error/loss function and cannot be trained using standard simple techniques, and so evolutionary optimization training is used.