Justin joked about the Palm OS being the ultimate undying mobile OS.  In many ways this is true.  For a while now, a company called StyleTap has created a Palm OS emulator that runs on Windows Mobile or Symbian.  I was actually very surprised at Palm’s announcement that it was a company other than StyleTap that would be developing the Classic app for WebOS.  At the same time, I am glad.  I have never had much luck with applications that use large database files on StyleTap.  But, this means that now Palm OS applications can be run on Symbian, Windows Mobile (Pro, Classic, and Standard), and now WebOS.  That sure is  a lot of market availability for a dying OS!

I really think that an application like this is going to be a huge hit (if it is implemented properly), especially since Palm has said that they plan on making tools that will transfer data over from a Palm OS device to the Pre running Classic.  There are a ton of medical databases that were made for the Palm OS that are still being supported.  This will allow these programs to be available to use on the Pre as soon as it is released.

Is this a long term solution?  Of course not.  But it will make a lot of users very happy that they can use some of the Palm apps that they have been using for years (and years and years and years…) until their favorite developers start making native applications for WebOS.

And honestly, one of the most played games on my Nintendo Wii is Mario Kart 64.  Some things just never get old.

It seems that everyone is talking app stores these days.  Apple started the trend and is doing a very good job selling applications through their App Store.  It probably helps that users cannot install applications in any other way unless they risk jailbreaking their precious iPhones.

Microsoft recently announced their own Marketplace that will be included with every device running Windows Mobile 6.5 on.  Of course developers will probably still be able to distribute their applications through other means, whether that be sites like Handango and MobiHand or through their own means.  You would think that would mean that Microsoft would make it easy for developers to get their applications into the Marketplace, right?

Well…it is Microsoft after all…

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The experience of searching for and finding the SDK, and a beginners guide couldn’t be easier.  A google search provided immediate results for the 6.1 SDK refresh, and a search of a well known community (MSDN) provided plenty of information to get started writing apps using the .net development platform.  Microsoft Windows is still one of the most widely used operating systems, making it an easily accessible native platform.

WineHQ has a write-up on installing Visual Studio .NET 2005 Express natively in Linux, but is mostly rated as garbage.  I suggest using the same technique here as installing the Apple SDK – grab a copy of windows and install it in a VM session.  Running a Mac you could easily run this using Parallels or VMware Fusion.