Pocket PC or Pocket PC Phone Edition
Each time I look at the calculator Microsoft provides on the Pocket PC or Smartphone, I am amazed at the fact that they have not improved it one bit in over a decade. The Pocket PC is a natural form factor for a great calculator. Fortunately, there are a number of freeware solutions available. Here’s one you might want to take a look at…
There are versions for Windows Mobile, Windows, and Palm OS.
Although I have a PC setup running Windows Vista Ultimate Edition and the new Windows Mobile Device Center (ActiveSync replacement), my main PC that syncs with most of my Windows Mobile devices runs Windows XP Media Center. Since…
…was released for those of us still syncing Pocket PCs and Smartphones with XP, I decided to upgrade from 4.2 to 4.5 today. No problem right? Simple upgrade, right? Wrong…
The upgrade process itself went smoothly. However, when I brought up ActiveSync 4.5 (without any WM device attached to the PC), I noticed it had lost all of its device partnerships! This meant that I had to re-partner every device. The pre-Windows Mobile 5 devices partnered quickly as usual. However, because Windows Mobile 5 devices keep their PIM data in slow non-volatile RAM, the partnership for WM5 boxes took forever. I’m talking what seemed like 5 to 10 minutes per device.
The Windows Mobile platform is over 10 years old now. This sort of problem should have stopped happening during the last century. ActiveSync continues to be a user-hostile application and continues to earn its nickname of ActiveStink. Let’s hope its successor, WMDC, doesn’t earn its own pejorative nickname.
So, this push-email (made popular by the RIMM Blackberry) is all good and well. But, you are a Windows Mobile device user and do NOT use an Exchange Server for your email. So, big deal. Right?
Well, it turns out that push-email can be had with the free Hotmail service from Microsoft and the upcoming Windows Mobile 6 devices. Here’s a link to an article on the MSDN Blogs that describes how to set up a free push-email service.
Microsoft announced and made available Live Search for Windows Mobile and Live Search for Java over the weekend. Unlike most Live services, this Live Search requires installing client software. The other interesting aspect is that versions for both Windows Mobile and Java based mobile devices (such as Nokia smartphones) were made available.
You can either download the software to your desktop (for later installation on your phone) at…
http://mobile.search.live.com/
…or download it directly to your phone by visiting…
This service includes live traffic information for 25 U.S. cities. Maps and driving directions are available for other locations.
The Microsoft Developer Network(MSDN) has a new overview page for developers interesting in creating Windows Mobile 6 applications. You can find it at…
What’s New for Developers in Windows Mobile 6
The page has a broken link to the Windows Mobile Wiki. I found it and have it linked correctly below.
Along with introducing Windows Mobile 6, Microsoft is once again changing the device naming scheme. The new device type names along with what we call them now are:
To make things even more interesting, the Standard Edition (Smartphone) includes a read-only (no editing) version of Office Mobile. Does all this really help differentiate the different Windows Mobile device types for the non-techie consumer (i.e., the vast majority of people buying these things)? I think not. My guess is that a common scene that will play out again and again are executives asking IT why they were given the obviously inferior Standard Edition instead of Professional Edition based solely on the naming scheme. This doesn’t help anyone and, in fact, may confuse even more people. Microsoft should have just renamed the phone-less Pocket PC to Pocket PC Standard Edition and left the other two names alone.