MobileViews Blog

Author: todd

  • Eee PC 901, 1000, or 1000(H)???

    Wasn’t it less than a year ago that we didn’t have any sub-$1000 ultralight notebooks? I bought an OLPC XO because I thought it was a good idea to have one donated somewhere and another for my daughter to play with. Unfortunately, the XO provides little interest for a child who grew up with full-powered Windows PCs and Apple Macs around her. I probably should have bought the original Asus Eee PC model at the time. Ah well. Now, we have a bunch of copycat sub-$1000 mini-notebooks from many vendors. And, here comes Asus again to up the ante with new models powered by the new Atom processor.

    Asus Eee PC 901, 1000, and 1000(H) specifications

    I’m leaning towards getting the 901. But, I’ll wait for the Dell Inspiron Mini to get a release date before making a decision.

  • Windows Mobile PowerShell Provider

    I haven’t taken a close look at this yet, but this sounds very very cool! I found it mentioned in Jeffrey Snover’s blog…

    PowerShell Access to Windows Mobile Devices

    …and then hopped over to the Nivot Ink blog to learn more…

    Windows Mobile PowerShell Provider

    Here’s the feature list from that blog entry…

    • Copy, Move, Delete items between folders on your device (including Storage Card) with standard PowerShell Cmdlets
    • Move/Copy files to/from your device and your desktop with ConvertTo-WMFile and ConvertFrom-WMFile
    • Get device information and manipulate and explore the registry with a rich device object returned from Get-WMDevice
    • Invoke-Item against remote items to or execute or trigger their associated applications
    • Invoke-Item with -Local switch to attempt to execute a remote file in the context of your local desktop (e.g. office docs or images/videos)
    • New “Mode” attributes specific to Windows Mobile file attributes: (I)nRom, Rom(M)odule
    • File/Folder objects’ attributes can be modified with .Attributes properties just like FileInfos etc.
    • Tab completion with MoW’s PowerTab Download

  • iPhone/iPod touch: Tap Top Tip

    I’ve had my iPod touch since, hmm, last October. But, I only learned about this iPhone/iPod touch browser tip a week ago. One web page design convention for iPhones is to put a tabbed row at the top of a web page for navigation. This tab set disappears if you are reading a long page that scrolls down. If you tap the top of the screen, you are flung back to the top of the page and, therefore, back to the nav row. I really should read product documentation more 🙂

  • Windows Mobile WiFi Fussiness

    Windows Mobile WiFi stability seems to have hit its peak with Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition. My Dell Axim X51 could connect to pretty much any unsecure or WEP wireless access point (WAP). It did not support WPA. My Windows Mobile 5 devices seemed a bit fussier about which WAPs they would connect to. Older WAPs seemed to cause the most issues. Windows Mobile 6 devices (all of mine are upgraded devices, I don’t have any native WM6 boxes) supports WPA. And, connecting to WAPs seems like a real hit-or-miss proposition here. It again looks like older WAPs (even with the latest firmware for the model) cause the most problems. But, it seems like my iPod touch doesn’t have the same problems I’m having with my Windows Mobile devices. It is pretty frustrating to see the SSID for a WAP and then watch my WiMo devices flail about trying to connect and fail most of the time. Some WiMo boxes are better than others. But, I’ve never quite figured out which ones work best under what conditions.

  • Apple MobileMe: What About the Rest of Us?


    My first opinion of Apple’s MobileMe was: OK, so they renamed .Mac, it has more storage, it costs the same (US$99/year), and… wait… It is what I wishes Microsoft Live would give Windows Mobile users like me.

    I used to sync my WiMo smartphone daily with my PC. But, that has become such a chore and a statistical probability rather than a sure thing that I don’t do that anymore. I still sync a couple of times a week to make sure I have a backup of my current calendar and contacts. But, it is a chore. I hope the Windows Mobile and Windows Live team can get together and provide similar functionality for WiMo smartphone users soon.

    The one big iPhone issue for me is still the lack of a physical keyboard or a Bluetooth keyboard option. I still can’t type worth a darn on my iPod touch. So, I still can’t use it effectively use a email or data entry device.

  • Mobile.FlightStats.com


    Air travel used to a relatively pleasant experience decades ago. It has become a darn right onerous task in recent years. I’m expecting airlines to install pay toilets on flights any day now 🙁 Airlines are merging, shutting down, reducing flights, and all kinds of other activities that make catching a flight a statistical probability rather than a given these days.

    If you have a web-enabled smartphone and a data plan, this site might come in handy when you are traveling by air. Check it out…

    Mobile.FlightStats.com