MobileViews Blog

Category: Pocket PC/Phone Edition

Pocket PC or Pocket PC Phone Edition

  • A Tale of Two (USB) Cables

    USB cables

    According to Wikipedia, USB 1.0 emerged in 1995 and 2.0 in 2000. You would think after all these years, its operation should be dirt simple and flawless (although I guess you would think ActiveSync/WMDC would have its act together after 11 years too). So, USB’s finickyness always amazes. Take the two cables pictured above. You would think they would be pretty similar. And, in fact, for the most part they are. The exception is when I try to use the white cable with an HTC Vox smartphone and try to sync it to WMDC on Windows Vista. Windows reports that it sees a USB device but can’t identify. Switching to the black cable solves the problem. And, yet, the white cable works for other functions and devices.

    And there’s more USB-wise. Most of us know by now that there is a difference between powered and unpowered USB hubs. Windows Mobile users also generally know not to use any hub at all when upgrading firmware (plug in directly to the PC’s native USB port). But, did you know that the front ports sometimes deliver less power than the rear ports? This makes a difference to devices that draw a lot of power (e.g., USB hard drives powered through the port).

    So, if you run into sync or other USB related issues, be sure to check all the variables you can: Cable, port position, unpowered vs. powered hub, front port vs. rear port, and whatever other USB variable you can manipulate.

  • Once Again: The Value of a Camera Phone

    Camera phone photo

    I took part of the afternoon off to attend a function for parents and students at my daughter’s school. And, sigh, I forgot to bring my digital camera (a Canon PowerShot A710IS). Fortunately, I always carry one or two Windows Mobile devices with integrated cameras. Today I had an HTC Advantage Pocket PC Phone Edition that happens to have a pretty decent lens and a 3 megapixel resolution. So, I was able to squeeze off a couple of photos at the school.

    Now, are these photos as nice as ones that a decent point-and-shoot like my Canon would have taken? Not really. Are they better than nothing and pretty decent looking (good enough for a 4×6 print)? You bet! Thank goodness for cameraphones.

  • Raise Your Hand if Your IT Dept. Supports Windows Mobile

    I read Gerardo Dada’s MSDN Blog item titled Windows Mobile eMail Troubleshooting with the hope of getting some insight on topic. Then, I read the key sentence:

    If step 2 fails then you need to chat with your IT department.

    Um, say what? Let’s think this through. From my observation, the vast majority of Windows Mobile device users do not have an IT department to consult with. And, for the ones whose organizations do provide them a WiMo device, their IT group is probably so busy with Windows Server, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and a bunch of server and desktop applications that they are not really focusing on WiMo support.But, let’s say I’m wrong. Let’s say that 80% of all WiMo users are part of an organization that handed them a WiMo device and supports it fully. Why would those people need to read a blog to fix their email problem? Wouldn’t they just go to their IT department first? And, what about the other 20% (which is probably more like 95%) of WiMo users? Let’s say that there are 10 million WiMo units out there in use. If 80% is enterprise supported, that still leaves 2 million people without support of any kind.

    I think a reality check is needed here. The vast majority of people I have spoken or emailed with over the past 10 years do not have an Exchange Server or are not allowed to connect to it with their WiMo devices. So, we really need some non-Exchange based ActiveSync/WMDC/email support. Even those of us who do work for large organizations often (usually) do not have WiMo support (there may be Palm OS or Blackberry support though).

  • Is 0x85002002 Meaningful to You???

    There is no doubt in my mind that no matter how much you like a Windows Mobile smartphone or Pocket PC, you will one day have an epic battle with ActiveSync or its Windows Vista counterpart WMDC. And, on that day, if you look through a log file, you may find a meaningful message such as 0x85002002. This tells you so much, right? It turns out that this code means ActiveSync ran out of memory. That is obvious, right? Sure it is. Fortunately, Jason Dunn over at Pocket PC Thoughts has been contracted by Microsoft to explain this gobblygook and found that Palm has a great customer support web page that deciphers ActiveSync’s otherwise useless error codes. You can find it at…

    ActiveSync error messages when trying to sync a Windows Mobile device

    I suggest you bookmark this page on multiple bookmark sites so you can always find it.

  • Facebook iPhone Site Snubs Windows Mobile

    Facebook iPhone site

    I mentioned a while back that the Digg iPhone website wasn’t viewable on Windows Mobile devices. Well, we WiMo users are being left in the browser dust again. This time it is the Facebook iPhone formatted site. The m.facebook.com site still works for WiMo and other mobile platform users. But, it is still kind of irritating to be left behind again. Ah well.

    FYI: The screen cap above was taken by using Firefox on a Mac (it works on Windows too).

    BTW/FYI: If you are on Facebook, I created a Facebook MobileViews group. Drop by. Say hello. Tell us about your iPhone, Nokia, WiMo, or any other interesting mobile device.

  • Podcasting on the Move

    I’m still playing around with the idea of podcasts for my two main blogs (this one – MobileViews – and my Freeware/Open Source blog – OgasaWalrus). The Blogr web service that lets me easily post Podcasts and even videos has been a huge factor in working towards this goal. They just applied a fix to let their users email audio files directly from a mobile device and post it as a podcast. I recorded a short audio clip on my T-Mobile Dash and posted it today. You can find all 14 seconds of it at…

    MobileViews Mini-cast 4: Blogr email podcast test

    There are, however, two problems I need to deal with before I will feel comfortable with the process. First, Windows Mobile smartphones appeared locked in at 11KHz for recordings. I would really prefer to record at 44KHz. Second, even at 11KHz, the resulting WAV file is pretty large (e.g., 14 seconds = 320KB). This can take a long time to upload using the pokey ol’ T-Mobile EDGE network (and, no, I don’t want to move to AT&T Wireless or Sprint/Verizon). So, I need to find an audio recorder that can produce smaller MP3 files. Three apps that look interesting are Resco Recorder, Vito SoundExplorer, and Vito AudioNotes. Unfortunately, only AudioNotes works on a Smartphone. The other two are for Pocket PCs.

    Any comments on those three apps would be appreciated. And, any recommendations beyond those three apps would also be appreciated.