It occurred to me that I have not posted an explaination for why I haven't been posting here regularly during the last couple of days. Right now I am entering this using a Merlinized Compaq Ipaq and a wireless LAN card while sitting in a conference room on the Microsoft campus. The days have been packed, not giving me enough time to write here. Things will get back to usual on Monday.
posted by Frank McPherson 5:52 PM |
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I am at a different hotel now and I am testing the Internet connectivity by making this post. I recommend using Yahoo mobile for checking email from within Pocket Internet Explorer.
posted by Frank McPherson 2:11 AM |
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I just checked out Traveller from two peaks software. Previous information that I had read about this program had me interested in seeing whether this would be a worthwhile travelling assistant. The program costs $19, which at first glance seems expensive for a program that has one purpose. If you travel a lot then it may be worth it, otherwise I doubt it. At any rate, the program seems decent enough though I found a few flaws. For example, it has buttons on the command bar for switching between the Trip Manager, Frequent Flyer accounts, a Phone book, and a Currency Convertor. If you tap on the Phone book button you cannot switch to the other views without tapping OK to close the Phone book. Another big flaw, IMHO, is that the tap and hold event is incredibly slow. I made some expense entries that I wanted to edit or delete. I tried to tap and hold on the entries in the Expense list view but the menu didn't appear, leaving me to think you can't edit or delete expenses. Well, you have to hold the stylus on the entry for a long time and eventually the pop-up menu appears.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:08 PM |
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Here is a lengthy CNET article about the HP/Compaq merger. The nugget of information that I found in it is that Compaq and IBM have been working together to build a Lotus Notes client for the iPAQ. The author of the article suggests that with this merger announcement, the Lotus Notes client may be in doubt. I can't imagine why.
posted by Frank McPherson 7:40 PM |
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Gary Krakow has a take on what the HP/Compaq merger means to Pocket PCs. An interesting bit of news in the article. Gary says HP will be shipping their new Pocket PCs by the end of this week. I don't know what that means or whether it is true.
posted by Frank McPherson 4:08 PM |
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I guess one of the cool things about living on the left coast (if I lived here) is that you get to hear the latest breaking news. The news about HP acquiring Compaq is a shocker, and if it is true and happens there are definite ramifications to Pocket PC users. No doubt there will be questions about which Pocket PC product will survive. I am fairly certain that both companies are planning on shipping Merlin devices, and we are all more certain about HP's product than Compaq's. I doubt that anyone will have answers, but when this news breaks on Tuesday pay particular attention to any mention about what they will do with products. It could be interesting to be around the Microsoft campus tomorrow.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:41 AM |
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To test whether Mobilestar knows that I disconnected I pulled out the Orinoco card and re-inserted it. Sure enough the logon screen re-appeared and took my information. Now I am wondering with wireless being what it is, does this mean that every time my card loses connection with the access point I will have to log in again?
One downside to the pre-pay plan. They round up to the nearest ten minutes. So if you connect and use the service for 5 minutes, 10 minutes will be deducted from your pre-pay balance.
I tested the connection at the Starbucks before going to dinner. On my way back from dinner I noticed that the Starbucks was closed. I walked up to the front of the store and took out my Amigo and inserted the Orinoco card. Sure enough, it was able to obtain a connection. Not that I was surprised, I doubt that the people working in the store know much about what is going on with the service. But this makes me wonder.. if I was the owner of the store right next to Starbucks, I would consider signing up for Mobilestar's $29 per month plan. That would probably be much cheaper than the rate the local telcos would wnat to charge to provide Internet access to a business. If the store owner was real good they would be able to set up a little Internet connection sharing and share that wireless connection to the Internet amongst multiple computers.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:37 AM |
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I am entering this post sitting in a Starbucks using my @migo Pocket PC and the Orinoco wireless ethernet card. I started Internet Explorer and loaded a page. That brought up the Mobilestar login screen, on which I entered my userid and password. Tapped login and off I went.
I checked the speed. 890 kilobits down and 400 kilobits up.. much faster than my hotel connection.
Now I wonder how it will know that I disconnected?
posted by Frank McPherson 10:12 PM |
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I just got back from lunch. On the way back I stopped by a Starbucks to see if the Mobilestar service is turned on. I had the @migo with me along with the Orinoco silver PC Card. The first thing I had to do was create a new profile for the wireless card. I got into the settings for the card, created a service named Mobilestar and had the software scan for networks. It found the Mobilestar network, and the software reported an excellent connection. I then started up Internet Explorer and tried to open a web page, but nothing happened. The problem was that I had the Orinoco card configured in the network settings with a static IP and DNS addresses for my home network. I changed the configuration to obtain addresses from a DHCP server and reinserted the card. Then I started vxUtil and checked to see if the @migo received address information, which it did. Back to Internet Explorer. When I tried to open the page to my web site the MobileStar login page received, which had a link for new users.
Mobilestar has several service plans, including a local monthly plan at $29 per month that limits to sites in a geographical area. There are unlimited nationwide plans, and a pay per use plan. They also have a couple of pre-pay plans where you can buy a set number of minutes for a flat fee. The 120 minutes for $20 was the most appealing to me, but I was not comfortable with entering my credit card information over the wire. I checked the page and it was using SSL, but Mobilestar's service does not use WEP. Not that WEP is all that secure mind you, but I didn't want to enter my credit card info over the air anyway.
So I came back to the hotel, and just signed up for the 120 minute pre-paid plan. This evening when I head out for dinner I'll stop back at that Starbucks and see how well it works. Here is what I learned so far:
1. One of the nice features of the Agere Orinoco card is that it supports multiple wireless network profiles. If I was using the Linksys card I would have to delete the network information that I had already entered so that I could connect to Mobilestar's network.
2. The network card needs to be configured for DHCP. That's not terribly surprising, but if you access multiple networks which use static addressing you will probably find switching address information to be a pain. In this case Phatware's HPC NetProfile can be useful.
posted by Frank McPherson 5:58 PM |
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Pocket PC Thoughts links to the NFL skins provided at WebMcDeb. The Packer skin is loaded on the @migo, just in time for the kick off of the NFL season this coming Sunday. Deb has become a prolific skinner, and her Skin Service, which uses Applian's Web Sync, provides a way to download a new skin to your Pocket PC every week. Deb also makes custom skins.
posted by Frank McPherson 3:05 PM |
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One of the most frequent questions that I get from Pocket PC users is whether there is a program available that turns the Pocket PC into a TV remote control. Up to now I have had to say no, but PDAWin has solved that problem by releasing TV Remote Controller. It's interesting since I've been lead to believe Pocket PCs couldn't be used as remote controls since the IR port is not strong enough.
posted by Frank McPherson 2:41 PM |
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I just tried Blogger's right-click menu option in IE V6 but I keep getting a permissions error in the JScript. (I think) I wonder if that has something to do with the server or IE 6? Perhaps that is another reason to not upgrade to IE V6 on my main machines.
posted by Frank McPherson 2:38 PM |
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Yesterday was a travel day. I'm here in Redmond to do a little work on the book and meet with Microsoft folks and talk about Pocket PCs. Today is a writing day, which is made easier by the high-speed Internet access in my room at the Residence Inn, Redmond.
posted by Frank McPherson 2:00 PM |
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