by Frank McPherson, author of How To Do Everything With Windows Mobile

 
I've written often of how Ilium Software's eWallet is perhaps the most important Windows Mobile application for me. I use it to securely store all bits of information, particularly passwords, to the numerous web sites that I subscribe to. Most often I will find myself at a web site that I need to log in to, reaching for my Pocket PC to retrieve my user id and password for that site. When this happens I am reminded of something that I really wish I could to, which is to highlight text in a card, tap-and-hold and use Bluetooth to transfer the text over to my desktop PC precisely at the cursor location.

Yesterday I discovered a program called TrueConnect that brings my vision for sharing information between my handhelds and desktop PCs closer to reality. To use the software you connect a Windows Mobile device to a Windows PC and after the connection is made you can do one of two things. You can move the mouse cursor off the right edge of the screen (or any other edge depending on how you configure the software) and the cursor appears on the device, where you can then manipulate the device using the mouse and keyboard. Imagine using this feature with a Pocket PC sitting in a cradle right next to your computer, it allows you to manipulate the device without ever having take the Pocket PC out of the cradle.

Another feature that TrueConnect provides is to display the Pocket PC screen on your desktop computer, again you can operate the device using the keyboard and mouse on the desktop computer. You can enlarge the display even as large as the entire size of your computer monitor, though at full screen QVGA displays are pretty pixelated. The 2x enlargement is very legible and about the right size for a window on the screen. I tested the full size display using my Tablet PC in portrait mode and it was decent, and a bit funky manipulating the device using the Tablet PC stylus.

Now, here is the feature I really like. TrueConnect allows the sharing of clipboard contents between Pocket PCs and desktop computers. So, back to the beginning of this article I described my vision for squirting information between my device and computer, with TrueConnect I can highlight text, copy it to the clipboard, then move the cursor over to the browser window on my desktop and paste the content. With eWallet I click and hold the mouse (simulating tap and hold) on the user id and password fields on the Internet site cards and click copy user id or copy password in the context menu that pops up. (Unfortunately, this only works on Pocket PCs, or Windows Mobile Professional devices because SmartPhones, or Windows Mobile Standard devices do not have clipboards to support copy and paste, an odd lacking given how so many SmartPhones now come with QWERTY keyboards.)

My vision is not completely realized, unfortunately, because to use TrueConnect you must have the device physically connected using a USB cable. So far I have not seen any documentation saying that you can use Bluetooth, but given how Bluetooth connections are made for ActiveSync connections, it may be possible but I have not had time to test it out. Ideally I would like a tap and hold feature that would just send the text to the desktop and insert it without further interaction on my part, but I can live with copy and paste.

Labels: 2008, software

posted by Frank at 5:54 PM

1 Comments:

Have you considered using My Mobiler? Same sort of features as described in your post, yet it is free. I use it all the time.

By  Wingman, at 9:06 AM  

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