MobileViews Blog

Blog

  • Q&A: Windows Mobile Pocket PC Web Database Interaction

    Reader R.L. asks: came across your Blog and similarly O’Reilly articles. Wonder if you
    could help please. Looking for a PDA Application (Mobile Windows) that
    has the potential to push and pull data to and from a Web Server based
    Database. Effectively allowing such aspects as ‘Search’ (via some nice
    GUI tools) that then checks Server (assuming WIFI and/or GPRS enabled)
    and brings relevant data about that ‘Object’ to the PDA App screen.
    Hope you can help; much appreciated.

    You are going to have to build it yourself. Here are a couple of Windows Mobile database tools that might do the trick for you.

    Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Mobile Edition

    Syware’s suite of mobile development products

    db40

  • MSNBC’s Krakow Raves about the T-Mobile Dash

    MSNBC’s Gary Krakow gave the soon-to-be-released T-Mobile Dash (AKA HTC Excalibur) a rave review in…

    T-Mobile’s Dash: Head-turning smartphone

    I’d like to make a correction to his article though. He says Dash runs on the latest version of the Windows Mobile operating system. That means you get the portable versions of Outlook, Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player and lots more.

    Dash is a Windows Mobile based Smartphone, not a Pocket PC Phone Edition. So, it does not have features like Excel Mobile and Word Mobile.

    You can find more information about the Dash on T-Mobile site at…

    T-Mobile Dashâ„¢

    The first things you’ll notice about it is its QWERTY thumb-keyboard and QVGA landscape format screen (320×240). I sure hope it is affordable because I now want to replace my T-Mobile SDA smartphone with the Dash. Its scheduled availability date is October 25.

  • Bye Bye ActiveSync, Hello Windows Mobile Device Center

    Bye bye, ActiveSync! Hello, Windows Mobile Device Center (at least for Vista). If you plan on using a Windows Mobile based Pocket PC or Smartphone with Windows Vista, you will need to learn a new and more unmemorable name for the software that syncs with mobile devices. You can find the download for it at…
    Microsoft ® Windows Mobile ® Device Center Beta 3 for Windows Vista™ (x86)

  • Microsoft Explains Why X Doesn’t Exit Windows Mobile Applications

    You wouldn’t think a simple X in the upper right hand corner of a Microsoft Windows Mobile Pocket PC/Phone Edition would cause so much heated discussion. But, it does. The reason? A Windows Mobile Pocket PC somewhat resembles its older and larger sibling: Microsoft Windows. In all its various versions (from 1.0 to Vista), clicking the X in the upper right hand corner causes the application to close (most of them, anyway).

    This doesn’t happen on a Windows Mobile Pocket PC. Clicking the X on a Pocket PC simply leaves the application running in the background and brings the previous application placed in the background to the foreground (makes it visible). Mike Calligaro, of the Microsoft Windows Mobile Team, explains the rationale behind this design choice in his blog entry…

    The Emperor Has No Close

  • T-Mobile USA Talking about Apple?

    Found this PC Magazine news item via the MacRumors site.

    T-Mobile Talks Up 3G Network—and Apple?

    The article reports Dotson singled out Apple’s efforts on the desktop as a “great precursor of where I think the marketplace is headed in 3G,” leading to speculation that T-Mobile, not Cingular, will host Apple’s much-rumored iPhone project.

    Yet, it also says that Dotson focused on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and not the iPod.  So, maybe Apple is going with T-Mobile instead of Cingular? Why? Although Cingular has the largest US mobile footprint, T-Mobile has a larger worldwide footprint.

  • Upgrading a Windows Mobile 2003 2nd Ed. Pocket PC to Media Player 10 Mobile

    Zack Whittaker over at MSBlog.org asks how to upgrade a Windows Mobile 2003 2nd Edition Pocket PC to Media Player 10 Mobile. And, the answer is:  Not from Microsoft. Windows Mobile devices are more like applicances than computers. The large ROM-based applications like Media Player must be burned-in rather than simply installed on top of whatever is there. These firmware based applications are updated by the device manufacturer (not Microsoft). It tends differ from manufacturer to manufacturer. My Dell Axim X50v device, for example, got its Media Player 10 Mobile upgrade with the large AKU2 upgrade Dell made available last year. HP and other firms provided similar upgrades.