Windows Mobile Smartphone
I guess this is my mobile blogging topic week. Here’s another mobile blogging client…
Pocket SharpMT and Phone SharpMT
…are freeware mobile blogging applications for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs and Smartphones (with .Net CompactFramework 2.0). As you might guess from the MT part of the app name, this client works with the MoveableType API.
Reader Meg asks: I am thinking of buying a HTC Dash but would like to be able to edit word & excel docs on the road. Is there a free software you would recommend? Even one I have to pay for?
Although there are Word and Excel viewers for Windows Mobile Smartphones and one third party spreadsheet for Smartphones…
Westtek ClearVue Office
Repligo for Microsoft Smartphone
…I don’t know of any actual Office Mobile alternative for the Smartphone that provides editing features. The real question here is whether or not a Smartphone is the appropriate tool for your requirements.
If editing Word and Excel documents on the road is a key requirement, you should really looking at a Pocket PC Phone Edition instead of a Smartphone. T-Mobile has a single PPCPE available: The T-Mobile MDA.
There is one other alternative. However, it requires buying two or three separate devices. You could purchase a T-Mobile Dash Smartphone and a Pocket PC with integrated thumb keyboard or a Pocket PC and a Bluetooth keyboard. This combination would allow you the convenience of a Smartphone with the application richness of a Pocket PC.
Finally, be aware that Office Mobile components are subsets of the full Microsoft Office components. You will not be able to do everything you can do on the desktop. And, formatting can be lost in a roundtrip from your desktop to the Windows Mobile device and then back to the desktop.
Ilium Software’s eWallet is a secure information storage application for Windows Mobile, Palm OS, and Windows XP. It is much more than a simple password storage application. It is basically a small secure nearly freeform database application.Â
I’ve been using a Windows Mobile device since the 1.0 days in 1997 when it was still referred to by the kernel name: Windows CE. From those Handheld PC days to the current Pocket PC/Smartphone days, there has only been one 3rd party (non-Microsoft) application that has been resident on my daily working device: Ilium Software’s eWallet. So, I was very pleased to learn that after all these years, Ilium continues to develop, refine, and enhance this truly must-have Windows Mobile product. You can find information about the open beta of this new version linked below.
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Spb Mobile DVD (US$24.95) doesn’t actually run on a Windows Mobile Pocket PC or Smartphone. It is a Windows desktop application that creates video files (WMV or XVID) optimized for the small Windows Mobile devices’ screens.
Although there are a lot of commercial and freeware/Open Source applications that can migrate DVD video to a computer, Spb’s entry into this crowded market focuses on simplicity. And, it definitely wins in that category. The only gotcha is that its wizard waits until the DVD menu appears before turning over control to the end-user. This means a long wait if the DVD has a series of previews (commercials) before the DVD menu appears. The wait (which might be 10 minutes in some cases) is worth it though. Because, once there, a few clicks completes the migration process instructions. And, the actual process seems much faster than other video converters I’ve seen.
The resulting video looked clear and smooth on my relatively slow i-Mate K-JAM Pocket PC Phone Edition (195MHz CPU). A definite thumbs up for this product from me.
A year ago (2005), the category of Windows Mobile devices with QWERTY keyboards was restricted to Pocket PC Phone Edition devices like the ones pictured below.
Now, however, we have Windows Mobile Smartphones like the Motorola Q and T-Mobile Dash that have QWERTY thumb keyboards too. If you’d like to get more use from your Windows Mobile QWERTY thumb keyboard, take a look at the article I wrote for Microsoft.com earlier this year:
Mobile Typing: Two Thumbs Up!
DeveloperOne released their Agenda One for Smartphone last week and the Pocket PC version this week. I bought a much earlier version years ago for an early model Pocket PC and liked it quite a bit. But, moving from one device to another as I do, I lost my product registration and didn’t install it on subsequent devices. For the past 8 months or so I’ve been using a Windows Mobile Smartphone (T-Mobile SDA) as my primary device. This is quite a change for me since I usually prefer to use a Pocket PC Phone Edition (the i-Mate K-JAM was my previous phone). I still carry a Pocket PC around with me if I need to take notes since I still can’t enter text quickly enough using T9 on DTMF layout keyboard.
My Smartphone currently only has two add-on applications: Ilium Software’s NewsBreak RSS newsfeed reader and Microsoft’s (now defunct) Pocket Streets (most of my data entry related work takes place on a Pocket PC). So, a lot of consideration goes into deciding whether or not to install and try an application on a Smartphone. The weak calendar viewing capabilities of Windows Mobile’s integrated calendar finally drove me to install Agenda One just to get an informative week-view on my phone.
Agenda One provides alternate views for Contacts, Tasks, and other Calendar views too. But, for me the winning feature is the week-viewing feature. That alone may convince me to keep it on the Smartphone beyond a test period.