Question

If I wanted to be able to sync my computer with my phone. My send messages from my computer to my phone (texts messages and custom phone application) what parameters would I need to connect the 2. And where could I find some information on how I might do this?

Answer 1

It seems to me that the use of the word “sync” in this context is going to confuse people.

I think (if I understand you correctly) that you want to have a custom phone app, that can “talk” to another custom app on your computer or some server. Is that correct? If so, the in concept this is what you’ll need to do.

1. Build a custom phone app that can
   talk “tcp/ip” (either a known
   protocol such as http or a custom
   tcp/ip protocol you design, which if
   you’re not done tcp/ip before will
   be fairly complex).
2. Build a custom
   application that runs on your
   desktop. If you’re decided to use
   http, then this app will most likely
   be an ASP.NET application or a WCF
   application (self hosted or IIS
   hosted)

In this scenario, the phone app is the only one that can initiate the communication because effectively it is a tcp/ip client (it doesn’t have to be but it’ll be simpler to build initially). The desktop application will have to be running prior to the phone app attempting to “connect”. Since it is effectively a tcp/ip server application.

The phone app can makes requests of the server app (your desktop app) and get responses back from the server. The phone app can send “data” across to the server app and the server app can send “data” back to the phone app.

I suggest using HTTP REST with JSON as the data interchange format. That is the data is sent over the “wire” in JSON format (it’s lighter in terms of bandwidth than say XML).

Note that when I say “desktop” application, this application can also be run on some server on the Internet (or cloud) provided your hosting providers allows it. WCF services hosted in IIS are typically allowed by any hosting provider supporting ASP.NET.

This Google link generates multiple results that will help you get started
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=windows+phone+7+HTTP+REST&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

If you’re completely new to the various technologies that brace yourself, cause it’s not going to be easy. There is nothing really complicated in all this, but like with everything else, when you first start with something, you see a huge mountain in front of you that you need to climb (circumventing won’t help :)).