Every so often I think about starting a podcast or videocast. This lasts about as long as it takes me to remember how much work it takes to put one together on a regular basis :-)Â If I create a mobile themed podcast someday, it would seem appropriate to actually record it on a mobile device once it a while. Here’s a freeware tool for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs that might make this task a little easier.
Audacity Personal DVR for Pocket PC
Category: Windows Mobile
Microsoft Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Pocket PC Phone Edition, and Smartphone
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Audacity Personal DVR for Pocket PC (freeware)
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We Need a Good Non-Microsoft Windows Mobile Sync Solution
I just read on PocketPCThoughts.com that HP is no longer providing Microsoft Outlook with Windows Mobile devices. You might be thinking that you can simply buy the most inexpensive version of Office 2007 to deal with this issue. But, think again. Head over to the Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 edition page and look at what it includes: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. No Outlook in that package. While only HP has gone down this no-Outlook-with-devices path so far, they do sell a good sized percentage of Windows Mobile devices in the US. One can assume that Dell and other Windows Mobile vendors will not be far behind.
Your next thought may be that it might be good to sync with a bunch of Google web apps. Unfortunately, while Google has a decent calendar, it does not have a contacts solution. Yahoo!, on the other hand, has decent contacts, calendar, and notes web apps. It even provides a free IntelliSync (now owned by Nokia) utility to sync with its apps. Unfortunately, I had such poor experiences with it years ago that I am afraid to try it again. Yahoo! has been aggressively pursuing mobile users recently. So, I hope they take this opportunity to create a good mobile sync scenario.Microsoft is only focusing on Enterprise users with Exchange Servers. But, that leaves out a lot of consumers as well as double digit percentage enterprise users who do not have Exchange Servers. The importance of the desktop OS has been less and less important over the years as we increasingly find ourselves dependent on web-based applications. Even Microsoft’s own confusing Live brand web services acknowledge this trend. So, why are our mobile devices still often tied to a PC-bound Outlook client? What we need is a good non-Exchange Server web-based sync solution that can sync with any mobile device: Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Linux, Apple iPhone, whatever.
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Windows Mobile Screen Formats
Quick, what is the difference between Windows Mobile Standard and Windows Mobile Professional? Had to think a moment, huh? What? Still need more time. Yeah, that was a great renaming move. But, hey, there’s more to confuse you beside branding changes. There are now 5 possible Pocket PC (oops, “Professional”) screen formats and 3 possible Smartphone (oops, “Amateur”…wait, that’s not right either, “Standard”) screen formats. Microsoft’s Mike Calligaro explains it in all its gory detail in a blog item titled…
The article focuses on the 320×320 format introduced for Windows Mobile 6 (based on Windows CE 5… Got a headache yet?) but has a great table placing all the screen possibilities in perspective.
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Pre-Windows Mobile Office Files vs. Windows Vista WMDC
Reader Patrick (PHH) says:
WMDC imports all my Word and Excel files (I have over 1200 on my pda) in ppc format (pws and pxl). I thought it was the fault of Office XP vs Vista (I could read those files fine on Office XP installed on an XP pc)and that when I bought Office 2007 I’d be able to read the ppc files on my PC. No such luck.It will import rtf files directly, so I’ve translated literally hundreds of doc files into rtf format; however I don’t see any workaround for the spreadsheet files. I even tried openoffice on my Vista machine. It won’t read those files either.
I’m running ppc 2003 on an iPAQ 2755. Have been using them FINE for over a year on XP and using various versions of ActiveSync.
I’m close to paying the computer shop that built my machine for me to revert to XP from on my brand new machine unless I can get some answers.
Is there any way to get Microsoft to talk about these problems for brand new software?
Patrick: Welcome to the wonderful world of poor initial design decisions! The original Windows CE Handheld PC designers decided to create unique Word and Excel file formats a decade ago. When Mobile Office components came to the Pocket PC, they kept the same broken design that required a translation before the files could be read on the desktop. This led to all kinds of problems for Windows CE/Mobile users for years. This finally changed in Windows Mobile 5 based Pocket PCs. But, that was too late for your aging Windows Mobile 2003 based iPAQ.
I’m not syncing old 2003 or 2003 2nd Edition Pocket PCs with my Vista box. So, I can’t test your situation at the moment. However, it looks like Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) actually reverts back to ActiveSync 3.8 code when old legacy devices are partnered. This means that there should be an option that becomes visible when you sync an old device that lets you check or uncheck the Office Mobile translation feature (it is turned off by default since Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices use native DOC and XLS [but not DOCX and XLSX] file formats).
You might also want to consider upgrading two or three generations and move up to a WiMo 5 or 6 generation device.
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What’s the Difference Between Windows Mobile 5 & 6
I just saw a comment about the Windows Mobile 6 SDK post ask what’s the difference between Windows Mobile 5 and 6?I guess the official statements can be found on the Microsoft web pages at…
…and…
Microsoft Reveals New Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone Software
My irreverent answer is “1” (6 – 5 = 1). My slightly less irreverent response is: Not much unless you have access to Exchange Server for email (I don’t). I am, however, interested to hear what the Windows Mobile product group has to say to me and other Mobile Devices MVPs later this week to change my mind.
I should also note that there are differences from a developer’s point of view. Changes to the screen form factors and inner workings make a difference to them. From the end-user point of view, however, there is not much that makes you say “ooh, wow”.
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Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 for (some) Windows Mobile Devices
Yahoo! announced the gamma release of…
Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 Goes Windows Mobile
You can find the Yahoo! Go site at go.yahoo.com
How far it Goes on Windows Mobile is debatable though. The interface looks pretty and slick at first glance. But, then you start to notice things like the soft-buttons at the bottom don’t work. And, wow, is it slow! Of course, this was tested on a relatively slow SDA Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone. So, what about other devices?
When I tried to install it on an i-Mate K-JAM Pocket PC Phone Edition (WM5), I got a message saying that it was not available for that yet but to check back. So, I tried it on a Dell Axim X50v running Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition (I have the WM5 upgrade disk but never upgraded it). The message there pretty much said that device would never be supported.
If you have a supported device and want a pretty interface, try Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0. If you want a useful fast experience even at the relatively slow EDGE data rates, go back to http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/. Yahoo’s WAP text-based interface is fast and easy to navigate.