PocketPCHow2 Log

Friday, January 19, 2001

What is the Pittsburgh Pebbles PDA Project?
posted by Frank McPherson 6:47 PM | link

Pebbles SlideShow Commander "Slide Show Commander allows the user of a Windows CE or Pocket PC device to control a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation."
posted by Frank McPherson 6:45 PM | link

If you are going to the Sundance film festival you might see few Pocket PCs out and about.
posted by Frank McPherson 4:04 PM | link

Thursday, January 18, 2001

New sleeve! - Brighthand's Discussion Board
posted by Frank McPherson 11:11 PM | link

Sunnysoft - InterWrite is localization software for your Pocket PC. It includes software keyboards for different countries, handwriting recognition for accented letters, and regional settings for all Central and Eastern European countries.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:18 PM | link

Several sites such as smaller.com have posted information about Handspring looking for a different operating system than the Palm OS. If this is true why is it that I find Palm & Handspring founder Jeff Hawkins a tad hypocritical? First he says that expandability isn't important and then he creates the Visor which features expandability as its chief differentiator from Palm. Then there are rumors that he is looking to ditch the key to "Simply Palm", that being the Palm OS. Then you go read interviews such as the one in U.S. News & World Report where he rips Microsoft. For a guy who seems to have a problem with Microsoft's strategy towards PDAs he seems to be doing a very good job of imitating it.
posted by Frank McPherson 8:20 PM | link

Smaller.com pointed out something that I completely overlooked in my post here on Wednesday. Pocket PC Thoughts not only reports that Colorgraphic Communications is working on iPAQ drivers for their VGA output PC Card, but they also have a prototype of a CompactFlash card that will take up to 6 more months to bring to market.
posted by Frank McPherson 8:11 PM | link

Support WebCast: Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Windows CE Edition Overview and Programming If you are seriously considering database development for the Pocket PC then I highly recommend that you catch this webcast on January 25.

BTW, this web page has a cool link that adds an appointment to Outlook's calendar. Now I wonder what potential mischief that could lead to?

posted by Frank McPherson 6:54 PM | link

Expanding Options: My PDA of Choice "The only acceptable position to take when selecting a device is that it depends totally on what your needs are It sounds like a cop-out but it really is the truth. I'll take this one step further and say that until you actually get a PDA and use it for a while, even you won't know what those needs are." True!
posted by Frank McPherson 6:45 PM | link

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

Macintosh owners, read this! - Brighthand's Discussion Board If you are a Mac owner and interested in native Pocket PC syncing with your Mac, please stop buy this thread at Brighthand and make your wishes known.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:58 PM | link

NotAPalm.Com has a coupon code for $80 off Franklin Planner for Outlook.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:42 PM | link

Do you want to watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer on your Pocket PC? Well you can using SnapStream Media's PocketPVS. To play the video on your Pocket PC you will need either the Windows Media Player V7 or TechPreview. You will also have to get a tuner card for your PC and SnapStream PVS software.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:36 PM | link

Pocket Bar will be a rreeware drink recipe program for Pocket PCs. If you have any recipes please hit the web site the suggest a drink for the database. Heck, make up a drink and become famous! (That would be more than beer for you Canadians, 'eh!)


posted by Frank McPherson 11:29 PM | link

wimr@mypaq.net shows you which files are sucking up valuable storage space on your Pocket PC.
posted by Frank McPherson 6:06 PM | link

Pocket PC Thoughts Jason reports that Colorgraphic Communications is working on an iPAQ driver for their VGA output PC Card. That means you might be able to show the iPAQ's display on a PC monitor, or projector. What what software could make use of that?

posted by Frank McPherson 6:05 PM | link

Iomega has started selling their mMicrodrive. Yawn.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:55 AM | link

Reading Palm documents on a PocketPC PDAK12 provides this link to an excellent article about converting Palm documents to Pocket PC.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:40 AM | link

Just yesterday I was looking for this utility that backs up CompactFlash cards to a PC. Thanks for the link Jason.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:14 AM | link

Tuesday, January 16, 2001

Support Downloads Novatel has released Compaq iPAQ drivers for their Merlin CDPD card. You can download it from this site provided you have a card.
posted by Frank McPherson 8:53 PM | link

Pumatech Synchronization Engine Selected by Yahoo! It looks like Yahoo is switching from using Truesync to Intellisync. I tried Yahoo's synchronization with Truesync and basically it required that you connect your Pocket PC with a desktop computer which would provide a passthru synch with Yahoo. It is a pretty easy way to get your data up on the web, now the question is the merits of doing that. One cool thing is that since Yahoo has to support Palm it provides a way of porting Palm data to Pocket PC.
posted by Frank McPherson 6:18 PM | link

I don't know how reputable vnunet.com is, but their PDA security warning to businesses has some validity. However, the concerns are pretty much the same for PDAs as they are with notebook computers. Companies need to start with an understanding of what information can be downloaded to these devices and what are the risks if that information is stolen. Ultimately only individual employees can insure that data is secure. At this point it would be fultile for companies to prevent the use of PDAs. After all, even if a PDA is never connected to a corporate network or a PC on that network it may still contain sensitive information. Instead, companies need to know how the PDAs work and what security features are available for them.

For example, you can password protect all Pocket PCs so that a password has to be entered every time the device is turned on. Do you use that? Several programs exist that can securely store data via password protection and encryption. You can even use software that encrypts an entire storage card, and consequently the files that you put on them. But I venture to guess that 99% of the corporate information on PDAs consists of contacts. What happens if a company phone list gets in the wrong hands? Is that bad? Only the company can know for sure.

BTW, this problem is going to get worse when Bluetooth becomes widely used and employees use it to sync contacts to their cell phones.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:46 PM | link

Sunday, January 14, 2001

MSN E-mail for the Pocket PC Todd Ogasawara has put together a handy page of information on how to access MSN email from your Pocket PC. I have also added this as question to this site.
posted by Frank McPherson 7:55 AM | link