MobileViews Blog

Author: todd

  • Information Week says: Most Companies Don’t Have A Mobile Device Management Plan

    I went on a rant a few months ago chiding Microsoft for their assumption that most of their Windows Mobile customers live in an IT Utopia where mobile devices are managed by dedicated highly trained IT mobile device support staff with exactly the right management tools. Well, according to this Information Week article…
    Trouble Ahead: Most Companies Don’t Have A Mobile Device Management Plan

    Not only have most organizations in InformationWeek’s recent survey of 307 business technology managers not adopted mobile device management strategies, most of them–52%–don’t even have plans to buy or implement tools that would help them corral proliferating wireless devices.

    The article goes on to report: Those who haven’t adopted such products and don’t plan to cite three reasons: lack of need, cost, and complexity.

    So, it looks like most of us, whether inside or outside the enterprise, are on our own when it comes to mobile devices.

  • Why I Switched from a Pocket PC Phone to a Smartphone

    I’ve spent the last few days using either a K-JAM or TyTn Pocket PC Professional Edition (Phone Edition) device. If you scroll down to the last couple of blog entries, you will know why: My T-Mobile Dash smartphone (Standard Edition) went bonky, froze on my this past Sunday, and went into a repeating boot cycle after putting the battery back in it.

    After two days of using a Pocket PC Phone Edition, I remember why I switched from the more powerful touch-screen based device to the non-touch Smartphone. Both Pocket PCs are not huge compared to other touch-screen devices like the Universal or Advantage (great data devices). But, even the relatively small K-JAM and TyTn are huge and heavy compared to the Dash or many other non-touch smartphones. The need for two hands and stylus also became kind of annoying after having used a number of smartphones over the past couple of years (the SDA preceded the Dash I use now). One handed operation is the way to go when on the move.

    That said, I hope we always have some kind of touch screen Pocket PC type device to carry around as an additional device. I use mine a lot as a sit-down data device and would hate to give it up for that kind of work.

  • Hard Reset My T-Mobile Dash


    My T-Mobile Dash (HTC 620) couldn’t break out of its endless boot loop. So, despite my dislike of hard resets, I went ahead and reset the Dash. Here’s how you perform a hard reset on one of these things, btw.

    1. Press the left and right soft keys simultaneously
    2. While pressing the soft keys, press and hold the On button for a couple of seconds and then release it
    3. You will see a screen that tells you to press Send to reset the device. You can sort of see a blurry picture of this screen above (sorry ’bout that). The Send button is the green Call button

    I just deleted the former partnership with ActiveSync and then re-partnered the Dash with my PC. Everything looks ok so far. The problem might be related to one of the beta apps I tried recently on the unit. But, I’m not assigning blame until I can find more information.

    The bad news is that I lost the OneNote Mobile notes after re-partnering. Everything on the PC side was deleted. I think I backed it up a week or so ago. So, I should be able to recover most of my notes though.

    The good news is that the phone looks like it is working. I will use my TyTn as my main phone for another day or two until I get a better feel for how the Dash is behaving after its hard reset.

  • Sigh… My Dash Looks Very Sick

    My T-Mobile Dash (Windows Mobile 6 smartphone) started acting oddly about 6 weeks ago. I turn it off each night and it started taking a while to cold start in the morning. It started cycling through the boot process repeatedly every now and then about a month ago. It locked up last night (WiMo screen visible but unresponsive to any button presses. I had to pull the battery to shut it down. Placing the battery back in and starting it up (pressing the power button works), it started cycling through the boot process but never completed. After pulling the battery and repeating this process a few times, I pulled the SIM out and tried it with two other phones. The SIM works with both phones. And, the Dash shows the same power cycling power without the SIM it. So, the SIM is not the problem.

    The odd thing, though, is that both phones show me as roaming even after verifying that I’m on the T-Mobile network. Not sure what is going on there yet since I’ve never seen this happen when switching to unlocked phones before.

  • Excellent Detailed Asus Eee PC 900 Reivew at EeeUser.com

    EeeUser.com has an excellent detailed (really detailed) review of the Asus Eee PC 900 at…

    EeePC 900 in-depth review

    It is scheduled for release in the US on May 12 (next week Monday). After watching the Eee PC 4G, Eee PC 8G, and HP Mini-note released, I think I am ready to make a purchase of some kind of low-priced ultraportable. I hope this thing actually ships in quantities that doesn’t cause an order backlog.

  • Intermittent Problems are the Worst: SIM Problem?

    My WiMo smartphone loses all connectivity every once in a while. Once in a while is defined as once every week or two. It has happened three times in the past month. I noticed that a SIM message was on my screen when it happened the other day. I opened the battery cover, pulled the battery, and reseated the SIM card. Actually, I did this about three times before my phone booted normally. It kept recycling through the boot process the first two times never displaying the Windows Mobile Today screen.

    The problem is too intermittent to test cleanly. I’ve been thinking about switching to another WiMo phone for a while to see if the problem is the SIM itself or the connector in my main phone (a Dash). The SIM is about 4 years old. So, it has been in and out of various phones over those years. It may be that its connector is wearing out. Ack.