PocketPCHow2 Log

Saturday, March 16, 2002

Brighthand has pictures of the Pocket LOOX. There is a lot of buzz coming from the folks who attended mobius Europe about this device. The press release from the US devision of Fujitsu says it will be available at the end of May for $599. That is a bit earlier than I am hearing from the mobius folks. Perhaps there will be more about this at CTIA next week.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:12 AM | link

PDAFrance has some pictures of the NEC Mobile Pro 300E that was shown at CeBIT. This is slightly different than the Mobile Pro 300 that just started selling in the United States. It has 64 MB of RAM, and only one SecureDigital, taking a step backwards from the P300 that has two slots.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:27 AM | link

Friday, March 15, 2002

News: Breaking News In Brief Taiwan's First International Computer to launch a Pocket PC with built-in Bluetooth. I don't know if this means they will manufacture something we already know about (like the Pocket LOOX) or if this is truly something we have not heard about.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:30 PM | link

Pocket PC Writer.Net - It's all about the Unwired-I.Net Arne reports that Audiovox will be selling a CompactFlash GSM/GPRS card in the second quarter, for the low, low price of $200-$250.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:20 PM | link

We may hear more information about when the Sendo Z100 SmartPhone, which will use Microsoft's SmartPhone 2002 software (aka Stinger), will make it to US markets during the CTIA show. Sendo is scheduled to announce a US Operator partner for the phones. My guess would be Voicestream, but with AT&T and Cingular both going to GSM/GPRS, they could be in the running. Word is that it will appear 2nd half of this year, which I translate to mean by Christmas.
posted by Frank McPherson 1:54 PM | link

If you want to use your Compaq iPAQ to remotely control a television, stereo system, or DVD player, UltraMote sounds like the product that you want. You can buy just the software to work with the iPAQ's built-in infrared port, or you can buy it bundled with their IR extender that works in the CompactFlash sleeve. The extender increases the IR range to up to 50 feet, and bundled with the software costs $40.
posted by Frank McPherson 1:36 PM | link

What a freakin tease!

Dale says: "But wait till you get a look at the smallest Pocket PC of all! It is a device that will be coming out to North America later this year and it is a full fledged Pocket PC that is physically smaller than a PalmV form factor.... AMAZING!"

No pictures, no more details... just have to wait.
posted by Frank McPherson 1:29 PM | link

I did a little testing today with the F-Secure FileCrypto encryption product. This product comes in two versions, a personal version free to Compaq iPAQ owners, and an enterprise version that costs $68. You can download a free 30 day eval of the enterprise version. The two main advantages of the enterprise version is that it automatically encrypts files, and it encrypts files and email. The personal version requires you to manually lock and unlock the encrypted files folder. If you have a few select files that you want to encrypt, the personal version will be good enough. If you want to encrypt everything, then you will want the enterprise version. However, the $68 price tag is too high. If you want to save a little money you can go with Sentry 2020, which costs $50. PocketNow has a review that you can read. An even cheaper approach is PocketLock from Applian, which costs $19.95, but I think it works more like the personal version of FileCrypto.
posted by Frank McPherson 1:15 PM | link

Pocket PC Thoughts has more details about the CheckPoint VPN-1 SecureClient for Pocket PC 2002 and Handheld PC 2002. I first found out about this product at Chicago Comdex 2002. I didn't realize that it is a combination personal firewall and VPN client. Apparently the VPN supports IPSec and IKE VPN.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:27 PM | link

Handango Mobile Software Store I really need to update my PIE directory. Add this one to the list of online stores that work from Pocket PCs.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:48 AM | link

Thursday, March 14, 2002

Wireless Internet and wireless Web browser technology I am glad to learn that another web browser is being developed for Pocket PCs. Internet Explorer is not bad, but could be better, and there is nothing like a little competition to push Microsoft along.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:19 PM | link

PCWorld.com - PrintMe Networks Eases Mobile Printing If you are a road warrior and find that you have the need to print documents, PrintMe may be a service worth checking out. Unfortunately there is no mention about Pocket PCs. Palm is one of the partners.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:51 AM | link

yaffle dot org - PocketMarkup This is a free text editor designed for creating HTML and XML documents.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:05 AM | link

Tekguru - Latest News Animation Technologies' FlyCAM-CF is a CompactFlash camera that will work with all Pocket PCs that have at least one Type I CompactFlash slot. Up till now all camera solutions for Pocket PCs have been device centric, preventing you from using the HP camera with iPAQS and Casios.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:03 AM | link

One of the cool things at Chicago Comdex was the infrared beaming stations that allowed one to download a show guide to their Pocket PC via infrared. If you want to set up your own beaming station you can use AutoBeamIR from BitBank Software. What is really cool about this product is that it supports beaming to both Palm and Pocket PC handhelds at the same time, which would shut up those who complained that the beaming stations at Chicago Comdex were only for Pocket PCs.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:58 AM | link

infoSync : Two days of Microsoft and mobility InfoSync has a good report on mobius Eurpope 2002.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:51 AM | link

Yahoo! News - Check Point Launches Firewall for PDAs, Pocket-PCs There is not a lot of details in this article, but it seems to support what I found last week at Chicago Comdex that Check Point will be releasing a VPN client for Pocket PCs.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:16 AM | link

Wednesday, March 13, 2002

Novell sings backup for PDAs - Tech News - CNET.com If you work in a Novell shop you will be able to use Novell's iFolder network storage with Pocket PCs.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:23 PM | link

Viewsonic announced the Airpanel 100, which runs Windows CE .NET and supports 802.11b connectivity, but costs $1,195.
posted by Frank McPherson 4:48 PM | link

It looks like there will not be a shortage of LCD screens for handhelds any time soon.
posted by Frank McPherson 4:45 PM | link

Microsoft and Deutsche Telecom announced a deal for providing mobile services. I wonder what this means for Voicestream?
posted by Frank McPherson 1:29 PM | link

Fujitsu Announces Global Launch of Sleek New PDA - 'Pocket LOOX' - News Room - FUJITSU Who knows whether the Pocket LOOX will ever see the light of day in the United States? And why would they put a Bluetooth radio in the Japanese version and not the European version?
posted by Frank McPherson 12:47 PM | link

Pocket PC Thoughts reports that Casio has released a E-200 Protection Enhancement Pack that protects flash memory against improper access by software operations.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:39 PM | link

Tuesday, March 12, 2002

An update to nPOP was released on March 5. I don't know what has changed, but I am beginning to think that nPOP is the best email client for Pocket PCs.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:39 PM | link

Ok, that last post seems to have fixed the log jam. This week's archive page now exists and permalinks should now work!
posted by Frank McPherson 10:39 PM | link

There is some Blogger wackyness going on that is preventing the current week's archive page from being generated, which is messing up the permalinks. I don't know what is going right on and I am trying to track down some information. If you try to link to an article that I wrote here using one of the permalinks and it doesn't work, don't worry, I know about the problem.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:36 PM | link

There is more news about a Real Audio player for Pocket PCs. Apparently it is going to be officially announced at CTIA. I wonder if it will be more stable than their desktop players? And I wonder how good Real Audio will work over a 19.2 CDPD connection?
posted by Frank McPherson 4:05 PM | link

Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco is using Palm handhelds to distribute information to students. As I was reading this article I wondered what it would take to do this with Pocket PCs. The answer is simply price, and the answer to the price problem right now is the Audiovox special that Compusa was running where they were selling 32 MB Pocket PC 2002 devices for $299. The speculation about that deal is that the Audiovox devices are being dumped to make room for the new X-scale devices from Toshiba. I really hope that is not the case because I think there is big market potential for a $299 Pocket PC. ($299 is the right price for a 32 MB device, particularly one that has two storage card slots.)

Let's dig into the article a bit more. Basically the school is distributing content to the Palm handhelds using an infrared beam station. There are two issues here. First is using IR to get the content into the device. That is probably a good choice because it is simple for high school students, but it is not efficient. The beaming station can only accommodate a few students at a time, and it requires line of site. A wireless solution using Bluetooth or 802.11b would be incredibly more efficient. In fact, an 802.11b card would enable one to use the devices for much more than just pushing content. Students could use that network connection to retrieve information during lab work in class. Turning this into an 802.11b solution adds $100 more to the cost, but I think that $100 provides a bunch more functionality.

(BTW, you can do infrared beam stations for Pocket PCs too. There was one set up at Chicago Comdex, though what was being beamed was an EXE file that contend all of the HTML content.)

The other thing about this project that popped into my mind is that a project like this is a perfect candidate for a weblog/content management solution such as Blogger or Radio Userland. Currently one person compiles all the content that is distributed to the handhelds. That could be greatly simplified by providing a tool like Radio to each teacher, who could use the tool to directly publish their own content. Since each "weblog" is template based the teachers wouldn't have to worry about the appearance of the content.
posted by Frank McPherson 2:06 PM | link

The Handheld Librarian is a weblog devoted to the use of handheld computers in libraries. Most of the information in the weblog appears to focus on Palm handhelds. If you are at all interested in libraries and their use of technology, I recommend the Shifted Librarian weblog.
posted by Frank McPherson 1:07 PM | link

Case Western Reserve University is hosting a conference on the application of wireless technology and personal digital assistants in higher education called No Strings Attached, May 1-2. I notice that Compaq is the only Pocket PC-related sponsor and that Palm is also a sponsor, but Microsoft is not.
posted by Frank McPherson 1:03 PM | link

What affect will changes in development tools for Pocket PC applications have on the Pocket PC platform? I am concerned about this because I trully believe it was very important for Microsoft to give the Pocket PC development tools away for free to generate applications for the platforms. The result has been a marked increase in the number of applications availabe today versus three years ago. But, we still don't have enough applications, and a sudden switch to expensive and complex development tools may stunt growth.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:48 PM | link

Pocket Presence hosts a mobile portal.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:24 PM | link

Russ Smith has written a good article about quality control issues with Pocket PCs. He asks a very good question, what can Pocket PC owners do?
posted by Frank McPherson 12:12 PM | link

Anil Dash says that Palm is another company trying desperatly to lose their market to Microsoft.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:22 AM | link

Monday, March 11, 2002

Here is the Pocket PC 2002 Service Pack 1 for the Toshiba e570.
posted by Frank McPherson 3:37 PM | link

Pocket PC Passion - Fix CF and SD card names forever! This is a registry tweak for the Toshiba e570 that enables you to permanently change the folder names for the two storage card slots. I don't know if this change will work on other Pocket PCs. You will want to make this change before installing any software on storage cards. IMHO Microsoft should make a system-wide change that implements this change.
posted by Frank McPherson 1:28 PM | link

www.pda.Toshiba This is Toshiba's web site for the e570.
posted by Frank McPherson 1:13 PM | link

Did you know that Intell sells a Compact Flash wireless Ethernet card? I didn't.
posted by Frank McPherson 1:02 PM | link

Dev Tracker is a Pocket PC program that can be used to track software development.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:15 PM | link

Sunday, March 10, 2002

Compaq has a support page for the 3800 series iPAQ that consolidates all support information for this device.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:35 PM | link