Paul Thurrott: "Although the Pocket PC hasn't yet matched the Palm OS's market share, the turnaround of the past year has been amazing. Once the laughing stock of the handheld market, Microsoft's Windows CE--which drives the Pocket PC--is now coming on strong. We haven't seen a turnaround this dramatic since Larry Bird joined the Boston Celtics for the 1979-80 NBA season."
posted by Frank McPherson 11:29 AM |
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Callouses for Handheld Makers The handheld market is changing. It is going to be an interesting year.
posted by Frank McPherson 8:54 PM |
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Car price guide goes wireless at Edmund's Edmund's provides popular car buyer, and they have now come out with a wireless web site that works very well in Internet Explorer on a Pocket PC. The URL for the site is edmunds2go.com. I didn't find the site to be terribly fast, and there is a bug in the load calculator, but there is a neat integration with Omnisky and the dealer locator where you can click on a button and the dealer's address is saved to the Contacts on your Pocket PC. This is the first time I have seen this type of integration between a web site and a handheld device, and I think it is kind a cool. Imagine registering for the Microsoft Mobile Experience tour on their web site from a Pocket PC, and being able to tap on the information to have it stored in the Calendar app.
posted by Frank McPherson 1:14 PM |
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Dale has posted a bit more of a review for the production version of the @Migo PD-600C. This device was panned several months ago because U.R. There shipped beta units to several reviewers and customers.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:28 PM |
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OmniSky: Products and Services: Compaq iPAQ Omnisky has launched the Compaq iPAQ version of their product. I don't understand how they justify the $20 per month price difference between the Jornada monthly plan and the iPAQ plan, but if you buy the modem & one year service bundle you actually save a good chunk of money.
posted by Frank McPherson 8:54 PM |
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ZDNet: Interactive Week: VoiceStream To Expand Aggressively "Stapleton said VoiceStream will be promoting wireless devices in addition to mobile phones in its stores. These include handheld-PCs with phone capability, e-mail devices and PC cards that consumers can insert into laptop computers to gain direct Internet access."
posted by Frank McPherson 7:01 PM |
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ZDNet: Story: Clie, take two: Bringing Pocket PC multimedia to the Palm world "IN ALL, IT TAKES 60 PAGES of printed instructions to cover the ins and outs of getting music onto the Clie and listening to it. We're happy to see the detailed documentation--a rarity nowadays--but geez." Not so simple.
posted by Frank McPherson 5:51 PM |
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Trimble Unveils Mini GPS Receiver "Trimble has introduced a personal, pocket-sized GPS (global positioning system) receiver that is designed for use with pen-based or laptop computers, Pocket PCs and Palm OS-based devices." My guess is that this GPS connects to a Pocket PC via a serial port given that it can connect with laptops & Palm OS devices as well. It will probably require using the ActiveSync cable, which is not an optimal solution. There is also no mention about what software this will work with.
posted by Frank McPherson 6:12 PM |
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Larry Bank, who is the author of the Virtual PPC software that allows you to show a Pocket PC display on a desktop computer, has developed a new program called IRDAsh. It's basically a File Explorer alternative that also supports file transfers over infrared, serial, USB and LANS. The cool thing is that this program will support infrared transfers without requiring ActiveSync, so you can just beam a file to a notebook. You can also transfer multiple files at once. The product is currently in beta.
posted by Frank McPherson 5:38 PM |
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News: Compaq's miserable month could end in court "Reaud is among the richest lawyers in America. In the 1980s and early 1990s, he made millions in asbestos litigation. He's one of five lawyers sharing a $3.3 billion fee from the state of Texas' 1998 settlement with cigarette makers. In addition, Reaud has the home-court advantage. Beaumont, a blue-collar refinery town, is viewed as a plaintiff's paradise, where juries frequently make multimillion-dollar awards." This guy is suing Compaq over their warranty on iPAQ Pocket PCs, amongst other devices.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:28 PM |
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Arne Hess provided me with the URL to the Bandwidthspeedtest.com site, which works with Pocket Internet Explorer. How much faster is my 802.11b connect vs. HomeRF? About 3 times faster. The download test using my Symphony card in my Intermec 6651 measures out at 300 kilobits per second. The Linksys card measures at about 1012.7 kilobits per second.
posted by Frank McPherson 7:01 PM |
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InternetNews - ISP News -- Starbucks Says Wireless Rollout to Start With 3 Cities I am wondering what configuration changes I will need to make to use my 802.11b gear with these public wireless ethernet networks. I use a unique id for my wireless network, along with WEP and I am thinking at least those items would have to be changed. It might not be easy to connect up as one would think.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:59 PM |
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ZDNet: Story: From one David to another: Palm isn't dead--at least not yet "But part of me is thinking that David Coursey may get a victory party invitation from Microsoft after all." I'm seeing more and more articles being written by pundits now that is basically beating up on Palm for practically standing still while Microsoft has been plowing ahead.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:53 PM |
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Over the weekend Alex Kac released the public beta for version 2.5 of Pocket Informant. PI provides an alternative to Pocket Outlook on your Pocket PC, and it adds features not found in Pocket Outlook such as being able to link items together, or to assign a task to a specific time. I've been using this app for a while now and I have it assigned to a hardware button so that I can quickly get into PI's agenda view.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:25 PM |
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Originally I was going to get a Lucent Orinoco residential gateway kit (RG1000), which I had ordered from CDW a month ago. On Friday I called CDW to get a status on the order and I was told that there was no ETA and that 200 people were waiting on them, so I cancelled the order. Then I went to CompUSA and bought the Linksys gear. This is the second time that I have tried to order something from CDW that they were not able to ship, so I will probably avoid them for any future purchases.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:24 AM |
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I spent more time than I should yesterday playing with my new Linksys wireless access point and PC Card. Setup was darn near plug and play except that the PC Card is not able to obtain an IP Address from the Linksys ethernet router that I use. I know that there is a firmware update for the router that I haven't applied and which might fix this problem. The Linksys wireless ethernet PC Card works with the Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC using Compaq's wireless LAN drivers. The connection is fast and signal strength is pretty good on all three floors of my condo. As you can tell by my two test posts yesterday, I don't get much signal strength outside on the patio. I figure that if I really want wireless ethernet on the patio I will either need to add another access point and put it closer to the patio, or maybe get external antennas for my current access point. I am also able to use the Linksys PC Card in a Intermec 6651 using Compaq's wireless LAN drivers for Handheld PC Professionals, but for some reason the Compaq driver refuses to work on a HP Jornada 720. I've started writing a more detailed overview of how I am using using these wireless products to extend my home network.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:18 AM |
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The signal strength is a little weak from the patio, but much stronger here in the living room.
posted by Frank McPherson 2:04 PM |
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This post is coming to you from my patio. I am using a Compaq Ipaq and a wireless ethernet connection.
posted by Frank McPherson 2:00 PM |
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