Book Review: Microsoft Mobile Development Handbook

Best Windows Mobile Development Book Ever Written!

Trust me, I've read them all going back to 2001 and I've written two of them myself.  This is as broad and deep as it gets when it comes to managed code development on Windows Mobile.  This should come as no surprise as it was written by the Windows Mobile MVP "Dream Team" of Andy Wigley, Peter Foot and Daniel "The Moth" Moth (now at Microsoft).  Not only is this one of the first books to cover the .NET Compact Framework 2.0 and SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition, it even gives the reader coverage of Visual Studio 2008, and .NET Compact Framework 3.5 technologies such as WCF, LINQ, Compression, and "on-device" Unit Tests.

This book provides superb coverage of Security Programming where it shows the reader how to encrypt data with AES and RSA plus the signing of exe's and dll's.  If you're interesting developing games or UI's that can't be created with the controls found in the Visual Studio Toolbox, the two chapters on Graphics and Direct3D Mobile are unparalleled.  As someone who has a personal interest in the sucess of games on Windows Mobile using the .NET Compact Framework as a consistent game development runtime, this book serves as the launch pad for such endeavors.  Whether you're an ISV looking to build the next killer app, a corporate developer tasked with mobilizing your line of business applications, a consultant that needs to aquire mobile development skills, or a game development house looking to take advantage of the explosive growth of the Windows Mobile platform, I highly recommend you get this book!

-Rob