MobileViews Blog

Category: Windows Mobile

Microsoft Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Pocket PC Phone Edition, and Smartphone

  • Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone Lost Category in Calendar

    Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone Calender

    Microsoft has been telling us not to fret about not being able to sync Outlook subfolders and to use Categories instead. OK, fine. I’ve been doing that since 1997. But, um, look what’s missing in the Windows Mobile 6 Standard Edition (Smartphone) Calendar… Yep, the Category field is not there anymore. If I missed it, just let me know. ‘Cause I actually use Categories when I create an appointment. The Category field still exists in the Windows Mobile 6 Professional/Classic Editions (Pocket PC/Phone Edition) though. So, it is a little bit of a mystery why it was removed from the Smartphone. Maybe only “professionals” need categories for calendar events? I dunno.

  • Used OneNote Mobile Because I’m Too Lazy to Use a Scanner

    OneNoteI maintain another blog (OgasaWalrus.com) where I focus on one of my other personal interest topics: Freeware and Free & Open Source Software for proprietary systems (Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows). I decided to mention the cover story in the current issue of PC Magazine and wanted to include a photo of the cover. However, I was too lazy to go to the Mac where my scanner is connected to, scan the cover, convert the image from TIFF to JPEG and then post it to my blog.

    So, instead, I brought out my Dash (Smartphone), took a handheld shot of the cover from OneNote Mobile, synced the Dash to my PC (using Bluetooth since I was also too lazy to connect a USB cable), and let ActiveSync take care of copying it over to OneNote on my PC. After copying it from OneNote to a photo editor, a quick rotation and crop, I posted the blog item. The cover shot is not nearly as nice as a scanned image (see a previous blog item about a PC World magazine article for comparison). But, it is more than good enough for a quick blog item. If you haven’t tried OneNote and OneNote Mobile for your Windows Mobile Smartphone, give it a try. You might find it as useful as I have.

  • EXIF Data in T-Mobile Dash Photos

    T-Mobile Dash EXIF dataThe T-Mobile SDA (Windows Mobile 5) smartphone didn’t place any EXIF data in its photos. The T-Mobile Dash (Windows Mobile 6), however, does. It doesn’t store much EXIF data. But, the Dash at least identifies itself as the camera type. This means that if you use it to upload photos to sites like Flickr, statistics about camera types will tally it correctly and viewers of your photos can tell it is a camera phone. It also stores data, time, and resolution and file size. I noticed that flash information is also stored even though the Dash does not have a flash (or one that is evident to me).

    The Dash’s camera controls are not as intuitive as the SDA’s. But, more on this later. For now, I’ll just add that I received my MicroSD card on Saturday and finally have enough storage space to test photos and video recording on the Dash. More later…

  • Small Smartphone Excel Mobile Display Glitch

    Windows Mobile 6 Excel Mobile for Smartphone Find Screen GlitchI found a minor display error in Excel Mobile running on a Windows Mobile 6 T-Mobile Dash (Smartphone; AKA Standard Edition). The “Look in:” selection box in the “Find” window is not completely displayed. It is still usable since I can see enough of the option to figure out what the choices are. But, it would be nice to see the whole thing. I suspect we’ll see a few more of these screen form format glitches as time goes by. The variety of resolutions and screen orientations (landscape or portrait) is bound to mess up some applications on the Pocket (Classic or Professional Edition) and Smartphone (Standard Edition).

    Excel Mobile is probably a double whammy case since the Office Mobile components are seeing their first appearance on the Smartphone starting with Windows Mobile 6 and most people (including developers) probably think of the Smartphone as having a portrait oriented screen.

  • Windows Mobile 6 Pocket PC

    Windows Mobile 6 Excel Mobile for Pocket PCI’ve got Windows Mobile 6 on a Pocket PC to compare with a Smartphone (or Professional and Standard Editions if you prefer). Word Mobile and Excel Mobile have obvious advantages on the larger Pocket PC format factor with a touchscreen. But, it is amazing how much nicer some features like word completion look on a Smartphone vs. a Pocket PC. You would think the more mature (from an editing perspective) Pocket PC would have the advantage. But, that is not the case from my point of view. Despite this, though, entering information in Word Mobile or Excel Mobile on the Pocket PC is still a much better and easier experience overall.

    And, ack, ack, ack, when is Microsoft going to bring the good ol’ calculator for the Pocket PC out of the 20th century and into this one? It looks awful and out of place compared to the rest of the Pocket PC and downright archaic compared to the small but reasonably effective UI they added for the Smartphone’s WM6 calculator.

  • Windows Mobile 6 Word Mobile Looks Surprisingly Good!

    I had to rush out of my office early this afternoon after completing a 6 page memorandum draft. I didn’t want to use a USB thumbdrive or a take the notebook with me. So, I just emailed it to myself after saving the file to Word 97-2003 format (from Word 2007). The document does not have any unusual formatting (e.g., embedded images). But, I did use a Word 2007 theme (Header 1 is a large font in blue, etc.). So, I was quite surprised how good the document looked on my T-Mobile Dash. The edge wrapping was well done, the titles and text looked good and was easy to read on the phone’s screen. I kind of wish there was an option to view it at, say, 33% size to fit more on the screen. But, the 50% size view was reasonable to use. If you haven’t tried viewing a “real” Word document on your Windows Mobile 6 phone, try it out. You might be pleasantly surprised like I was.