Developing iPhone and Android Applications using C# .Net

Being a .Net developer did you think how great if you could develop applications for most popular mobile device platforms like iPhone and Android with the .Net skills you already have. If you were thinking like me then the wait is over.

Now with Mono you can create cross platform applications using your .Net framework skills. Mono is a software platform using which you can develop applications which runs on iPhones, Android devices, iPads and iPod Touches.

As per the Mono site, “The Mono Project is an open development initiative sponsored by Novell to develop an open source, UNIX version of the Microsoft .NET development platform.” If you are wondering about the name Mono, it is 'monkey' in Spanish.

You can try Mono for free by downloading the trial by going to the trial link. The good thing is after installing Mono you can use the more familiar Visual Studio to do the development using the available Mono templates.

Setting up Networking in the Device Emulator

The method to connect the new Device Emulators that come with Visual Studio 2005 is different from the Emulators that came with Visual Studio 2003. The earlier version of emulators were able to connect to the external world by just clicking the Open and giving the network path to be opened in the File Explorer. But the new one if you try the same way it will give you and error saying there are no modem entries and also there are no network card present.
So if you would like to connect your emulator to the external world, please continue reading.

First thing you need to do is to install the Virtual Machine Network Driver for Microsoft Device Emulator.
To download that visit,
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=DC8332D6-565F-4A57-BE8C-1D4718D3AF65&displaylang=en.

Then install it in your machine.

After installing it, new item will come under your network connection properties named "Virtual Machine Network Services". To make the emulator use your current network connection, you have to select the "Virtual Machine Network Services" check box. Afterwards it will use this connection when connecting out side.
To configure the Device Emulator to use the network, start the emulator of your choice, then go to File->Configure... . In the network tab select "Enable NE2000 PCMCIA network adapter and bind to" check box and press Ok. Now the emulator has a connection to use but to properly connect we need to set the network settings in the emulator.

Go to Click on Start->Settings and select Connections in the emulator. Then select "Network Cards".

Select "NE2000 Compatible Ethernet Driver" from Configure Network Adapters screen.

From here onwards you need to setup the settings as required by your network. The easiest way is to open the Network connection properties of your machine and set the emulator according to it.

After doing the settings you have to restart the device emulator to make the changes effective by clicking File->Reset->Soft from the emulator screen.

When the device restarts your emulator will have the ability to access the network.

To test the connectivity open the File Explorer from the Programs. Then click on Menu -> Open Path-> New Path.... Then type a valid path in your network and press Ok. Then you will be prompted for a User name, Password and a Domain. Fill the applicable details and press Ok.

If it doesn't get connected check the emulator connection settings. Check whether you need to setup proxies. To setup proxies click Start->Settings and go to Connections tab and select Connections and click on the "Set up my proxy server". Select "This network connects to internet" check box to make the emulator access internet. If proxies are used then enter the proxy details also.

If you correctly setup, the emulator will connect to the network and internet without problems.