WinMo SOHO

Smartphones, Dumb Prices! (or, the $2.50/month "Email Machine!")

2010-09-28T15:27:00.001-06:00

[Originally posted Feb 8 2010]

Ok, I'm sure almost everyone here is independently wealthy and think nothing of tossing a few hundred bucks on a new phone every few months, and $100/month on a kajillion minutes plan with unlimited data. If so, I'm not talking to you. Take your HD2, and your "backup" iPhone you carry just to impress waitresses and move along to some other thread...

I'm talking to the other folks- the ones still carrying RAZRs and Nokia 6030s, and drooling over the features and capabilities of Windows Mobile devices with email at your fingertips, abilities to play music and video, etc, but deciding that those features just aren't worth tossing $25-30/month extra at, particularly in this economy.

Don't worry, kids, I'm here for you!

What would you say, if I told you that you could have your very own Windows Mobile Touchscreen device, with email and internet access for the amazingly low price of $5 a month?

"Gee, Todd," (you'd say), "I'd think you were full of *bleep*!"

Right you are! Because $5 is too much- I can show you a way to have it for $2.50 a month!

To qualify for this amazing offer, you simply have to lower your standards, and be accepting of yesterday's technology. You also have to live in the USA (sorry!)

There is a prepaid MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) called PagePlus, that resells Verizon service. While, like most prepaid service providers, they'll be happy to sell you a phone, they will also activate any Verizon phone that was not sold as a prepaid phone. (This prevents you from buying a prepaid Verizon phone at WalMart, Target, etc. and activating it on PagePlus.)

PagePlus offers fairly decent voice rates ($0.04-$0.10/minute depending on refill card purchased- as typical, the bigger the card, the lower the per-minute rate), and fairly decent SMS rates ($0.08), at least for prepaid. Nicely, PagePlus' smallest refill cards are $10, and good for 120 days- about 4 months (thus my claim of "$2.50/month.")

Here's the fun part, though. Via a weird Verizon loophole that's been open for as long as any PagePlus user can remember, PagePlus users have been enjoying free QNC data. Before you start dancing in the streets, let me deflate your excitement a little. Back in the olden days, when life was in Black and White, and cellular phones were powered by steam, the earliest digital cellular data methods were launched- essentially "dial up" data using a voice channel. This was called "CSD" on GSM and the now defunct TDMA systems, and "QNC" on CDMA systems, and gave you blazing speeds of 9.6-14.4kbps (yes, I said 9.6- less than a quarter of the speed of a 56k dial up modem!) This is "dog-slow" circa 2001 internet speeds!
For whatever reason, PagePlus phones connecting to Verizon's QNC network, which Verizon called "Quick2Net" (which is still operating, apparently for "backwards compatibility" reasons,) not only are not charged anything per KB for data, but the QNC data call isn't even counted against your minutes.

Sure it's slow, however, even these speeds are sufficient for email and light WAP/mobile web browsing. Since Windows Mobile devices can be set to periodically poll your POP or IMAP email, you can set the phone to check email every x minutes or hours, and have relatively up to date email anytime you check the phone.

Now, here's one of the many catches- while Verizon's QNC service is still operating, Verizon stopped supporting QNC on their phones sometime before the end of the last ice age, so those of you figuring they'll slap a nice new Omnia II on PagePlus are out of luck (you could do it for voice and SMS, of course, and use WiFi for data, but not the free, slow QNC data.) The trick is to find the best, ancient Windows Mobile smartphone that still supports QNC ("Quick2Net") that you won't be embarrassed to be seen with in public.

Fear not, friends- I've found two that I use personally on PagePlus, as a backup for my "real" smartphones on T-Mobile service. [T-Mo is cheap and a great company, but their rural coverage is a bit lacking, so I forward my T-Mo number to my PagePlus number when I know I'll be traveling outside T-Mo coverage areas. Thanks to Funambol service, all of my smartphones sync over the air with a server, so my PagePlus phone has the same Outlook Contacts/Calendar/Tasks data as my "everyday" smartphone, and up to date email, so my transition from the T-Mo phone to the PagePlus phone is virtually seamless.]

Anyway, my suggested cheapie phones for PagePlus are both from Samsung, and can be had on eBay for well under $50. For the touchscreen crowd, there is the Samsung i730- a circa 2003 Windows Mobile phone with a 2.8" QVGA touchscreen that slides up to reveal a QWERTY thumb board. It's as thick as a brick, and about twice as heavy (I'm kidding, of course- it's about the size of an HTC TyTn or XV-6700 but a bit thicker and just a bit heavier), but it's fast (a 526MHz processor), has WiFi and bluetooth, supports full sized SD cards up to 2GB, and actually has a WM5 update available, so you'll only be one or two OS revisions behind the state of the art. Mine set me back $50 on eBay in July 2009. I don't know if it's the faster processor, or that WM5 is just a little less processor-intensive than WM6, but the i730 feels as snappy or snappier than my AT&T Tilt/HTC TyTn II that's 4 years newer!

For the non-touchscreen fans, or those wanting a phone that isn't so heavy it tries to pull down your pants lower than a teenage mallrat's, there's the Samsung i600. It's a pretty standard WinMo 2003 smartphone- no WiFi, no bluetooth, no QWERTY, but it's a fairly small and sleek clamshell flip phone (small and sleek in its day: late 2002 to early 2003, that is!) but it works well for POP/IMAP email, supports Exchange, and is very inexpensive- I paid $35 on eBay for one a year ago- I've seen them for $20 or even less today. I even put the old freeware Core Media Player (TCPMP) on it to play .avi files for the kids! Sure it's old, but think about the economics for a second- you can have ubiquitous access to your email for a lousy $20 for a used phone, and $2.50 a month for service. That's email and "emergency" web browsing for less than, as the song says, "one thin dime" a day!

Now, to repeat the heavy disclaimers:

This relies on a "loophole" in Verizon's billing/accounting system that, while it's worked for a couple of years, could vanish at any time! Reports from users on HowardForums.com (a cellular phone hobbyist's forum) indicate QNC doesn't work in all areas- generally areas where Verizon recently bought out a smaller regional carrier (probably the old carrier never supported QNC, and Verizon obviously sees no need to add legacy support for a system they no longer support on new equipment!)

Having said that, for a lousy $20-50 you can pickup a "new to you" toy on eBay and ride it out as long as it lasts. Besides "smartphone on a budget," it's an ideal rural/travel backup for those of us with carriers with lesser coverage- e.g. T-Mobile, Cricket, MetroPCS, etc. Then you can find a PagePlus dealer to activate the phone for as little as a few dollar on eBay, and those new activations include $2 (20 minutes) in starter airtime, provided the phone you use has never been activated on PagePlus before (those that have been previously activated on PagePlus will be activated, but will not include the starter airtime, presumably to prevent users from getting the free airtime, letting it expire, and trying to activate again pretending to be someone else the next time they need a backup phone!)

In addition, even if QNC disappears or is just too slow for you, PagePlus sells Verizon high speed data at $1.25/MB- not a great price by any means, but for casual use, it's available, and cheaper than many other prepaid carriers' a la carte rates (I'm talking to YOU, AT&T GoPhone!) Make sure you set your smartphone to use "QNC" or "Quick2Net" ONLY or risk burning your airtime on data.

Am I tasting "New Coke?"

2010-09-28T15:17:00.001-06:00

[Originally posted Aug 24 2010]

I was vacationing in Atlanta the week before last, and I took the kids to the "World of Coca-Cola," essentially a museum chronicling the history of the Coca-Cola company, and the refreshing brown liquid so many of us love. Among the displays was a small area dedicated to the accidental marketing brilliance called "New Coke." For a quick refresher course to those not well versed in soft-drink history, when Coca-Cola, the long leader in soft drinks, saw their market share being eroded by Pepsi Cola, Coke panicked and decided to reformulate Coca-Cola, pulling it from the market and launching "New Coke" amidst a giant marketing campaign after successful market research, consumer taste-tests, etc. New Coke flopped, and taught the world that what they really wanted was the good old Coca-Cola they always knew and loved.

While it was huge commercial failure, the reintroduction of "old Coke", renamed "Coke Classic" reversed the market trend, and Coca-Cola regained their lost market share. "New Coke," still sold alongside Coke Classic, was quietly pulled from the market a couple of years later, to no one's notice or dismay, and faded into obscurity.

I find an odd parallel between "New Coke" and Windows Phone 7. (Stop laughing and hear me out! ) Like Coca-Cola, Microsoft was facing the eroding market share of Windows Mobile, and like Coke, decided "reformulating" the product and replacing it with a new one is the solution. My question is, despite the vastly improved UI and exciting new features, will there be any type of backlash over the missing features WinMo offered, like an addressable file system, removable storage, multitasking, sideloading of music without Zune desktop, or installing apps outside of the Marketplace?

Take the hugely successful iPhone. Apple's "game changer" has actually evolved over the years to become a lot more like the mobile platforms it claimed it different from. "No third-party apps" became "web apps," then third-party installable apps (albeit from a central, controlled app store.) The lack of "unnecessary" and "complicated" niceties like cut-and-paste and multitasking have been added, (even a task manager, despite Steve Jobs once saying that a mobile OS' need for a task manager would be "a sign of failure." Well, enjoy your failure, Steve- double tapping the Home key brings up a task manager in iOS 4 last time I looked!) And while the iPhone still lacks a true File Manager, file sync via iTunes now works a lot like file sync via Activesync did/does, hopefully ending the ridiculous kludges needed before like emailing documents to yourself for access later, or turning your PC into a web server to retrieve apps from it via WiFi through third-party apps.

I'm not in any way suggesting Windows phone 7 will be a marketing failure like New Coke, but I'm wondering if, after we've all taken a big swig of WP7, will we miss the taste of "Windows Mobile Classic" and be asking MS to bring these features of Windows Mobile back, and integrate them into the new OS? Or will it all "just work" and we won't even miss what we're missing?

The Windows Mobile Fanboy's Five Stages of Upgrading to Windows Phone 7...

2010-09-28T11:51:00.001-06:00

[Originally written Jul 5 2010 9:54 PM]

With apologies to Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and her "Five Stages of Grief."

I'm not sure exactly what stage I'm at yet- probably somewhere between 3 and 4.

1. Denial: ("Microsoft would never really release a new version of Windows phone without copy/paste, multitasking, or a file system!" I experienced this stage when details of WP7 were leaked a couple of days before Microsoft's announcement at MWC.)

2. Anger: ("Are they serious? Why not just silkscreen a half-eaten pear or an orange on it! I'll buy an Android first!" I hit this stage when reading the coverage of the MWC announcement here at the Connection.)

3. Bargaining: ("Ok, I'll try WP7, but only if the UI is really good, and MS commits to adding the power user features eventually...")

4. Depression: ("I've used, supported and been an advocate for Pocket PC/Windows Mobile for ten years, and this iPhone-a-like is all I'm going to end up with?")

5. Acceptance: ("Multiple Exchange server support, Zune Pass compatibility, and these live tiles are actually pretty cool... Maybe I was wrong...")

And, since we're actually talking about a rebirth, rather than a death, I'll add a 6th stage:

6. Giddy with Anticipation: ("Integrated social networking, Zune, XBox... where was this phone three years ago?!?")

As a long time fan of Pocket PC/Windows Mobile, I'm a little nervous about the upcoming changes to the platform, but it's hard not to get swept up in the excitement coming out of Redmond; some really neat stuff seems to be in the next OS.

If you thought Windows phone 6.x was "dated..."

2010-09-28T11:47:00.002-06:00

[Originally written June 30, 2010]

In light of the darling OSes of the moment, namely iOS and Android, when Windows Mobile/Windows phone gets mentioned in a tech article or blog (rare these days unless mentioning the upcoming Windows phone 7) the term "dated" is typically used to describe the "antiquated UI," and that is the reason often given for Windows phone's declining marketshare and lack of strong retail presence.

I, too, have fallen victim to that line of thinking recently, at least until this week, when I rediscovered what a "dated," "antiquated" UI really is; I picked up a Nokia Symbian S60 5th edition (touchscreen) handset to play with last week- the Nokia 5230, sold as the "Nuron" by T-Mobile USA.

My first "smartphone" was a fairly early S60 handset, the Nokia 3650, that I bought back in 2003 mostly to use as a GPRS modem for my Pocket PCs. (Back then I was still anti-"convergence" because I didn't want to compromise on the features standalone PDAs had that were lost in the transition to the early Pocket PC/Windows Mobile phones, like screen size, fast processors, and multiple memory card/IO slots.)

The 3650 was a good little phone- decent camera, an included email app, and fairly good browser (for its day) and there was a good amount of software available via either native Symbian apps, or Java (J2ME) apps, but nothing like the wealth of native applications available for Pocket PC/Windows Mobile. The 3650 had no touchscreen of course- you thumbed around the screen with a directional pad, selecting icons and moving through "radio buttons" and menus as needed.

Fast forward to 2010, and I'm, as anyone here who reads my posts knows, a die-hard, devoted WinMo user, watching in horror as WinMo has seemingly become marginalized over the last couple of years, and even starting to buy into the "antiquated UI" theories. Tempted by T-Mobile's expansion of 3G service into my neighborhood, I was dying to upgrade to a T-Mo compatible 3G handset, but I just don't like the 3G Windows phones offered by T-Mo (HTC's Touch Pro 2 and HD2) because HTC ditched the directional pad I love dearly, in an attempt, apparently, to "iPhoney"-up their current offerings.

So, I figured, why not just buy a cheap-as-dirt 3G handset I can tether to my current WinMo phone, (a Sony X1, a 3G phone incompatible with T-Mobile's oddball 1700MHz 3G network,) to give 3G a try? Enter the Nuron, purchased as a prepaid handset from a local "warehouse" store for $120, cleverly avoiding a contract extension. So far, so good- out of the box the Nuron supports Dial Up Networking over bluetooth, and it uses the familiar old Symbian OS I used for a few years. And, boy was it familiar- although fully "touchified," Symbian S60 5th edition seems little changed from the 7-year old version on my old 3650. The directional keys have been replaced by flick and scroll motions, and menu items are selected by an annoying double tap (single tap for icons and radio buttons, though- so much for "intuitive") instead of a selection/enter button, but it reminded me a lot of Windows phone 6.5- pretty icons and finger-friendly menus, but under that glitz the old OS was still hiding virtually unchanged. The mail app is virtually unchanged (and pretty primitive.) Even with the new Ovi app store, plus third-party sites, the app selection seems a little weak, probably due to some major compatibility issues with the new touch version of Symbian, rendering a lot of old Symbian apps uninstallable, but presumably that will fix itself with time.

Now, understand that I'm not writing this to pick on Symbian in any way- I'm actually pointing out the parallels between Symbian and WinMo- the relatively static "outdated" UI over the years, the very superficial changes to core apps like the mail client, the mostly unsuccessful "conversion" to finger-friendliness, and the breaking of old apps by new form factors (e.g. HTC's and Nokia's removal of directional pads!)

However, that comparison left a burning question in the back of my mind- why has Windows phone's market share been tumbling in the last two years, while Symbian, though its market share is eroding, is still, by a large margin, the best selling mobile OS on the planet? Why didn't it crash and burn under the Apple and Google juggernauts? Is it simply that it's so large it takes longer to crumble, or is it because Symbian is simply "good enough" for a large number of users, and is available at lower price points?

I've (tried) using this Nuron as my "main phone," to give it a thorough test, for four days, and Symbian S60 is less functional, and no easier to use than Windows phone. (Though I'd almost forgotten how much I love Nokia's hardware! If only Nokia had ever built a WinMo 6.x device...) Symbian seems to lack the power of WinMo, but has the relatively steep learning curve and inconsistent UI WinMo is "famous" for. Like WinMo (and Android,) however, it's available in a plethora of form factors, and multiple manufacturers. So why did Symbian rule the roost for years, while WinMo merely found a nice, stable, niche with the enterprise user?

Again, this isn't a Symbian bash- for $180 list (full unsubsidized price), or free with a contract, I wouldn't expect this Nuron to be the equal of a good Windows phone that costs hundreds more. If fact, because T-Mo considers it a "dumbphone" it's eligible for a $10/month non-smartphone unlimited data plan from T-Mo, and supports tethering out of the box- I'd be very inclined to recommend the Nuron for someone who wants to dip their toe in the smartphone pool without getting soaked in $300+/year data plan costs!

I'm just wondering how Symbian has thrived and survived over the years, while WinMo never achieved that type of success with a superior OS product, and as dedicated an ecosystem of third-party devs as Symbian ever had. After the frustrations of the last few days, attempting multiple times to sync my Contacts and Calendar OTA with the Nuron, (and getting two duplicate sets of each on my PCs, but ironically only 7 of my seven hundred contacts ever making it to the Nuron!) downloading countless apps that wouldn't install due to compatibility issues (made for older versions of the OS,) and not being able to access Windows Media streaming radio or video, I'm done with the experiment. My SIM is heading back to the Sony, unless I decide to party like it's 1999 again, and go back to carrying a separate phone and PDA! For the $120 I paid, however, I suspect I'll keep the Nuron as a full time standalone GPS, and part-time 3G "aircard" whenever needed, when stuck in the occasional hotel without free WiFi! For everyday email, and light browsing use, my good ol' EDGE service is good enough. Other than tethering or streaming video, I don't see any huge advantage in 3G for a device with a 3" screen- certainly not enough of an advantage to compromise and use a device I don't enjoy using, whether it's an alternate OS, like the Nuron, or a handset without a D-pad, like the HD2.

A One Man App Store...

2010-09-28T11:41:00.001-06:00

[Originally written Nov 14, 2009]

Today's tale is a spotlight on one of the unsung heroes of the Windows Mobile platform. Plant your tongue firmly in your cheek and learn of a man who predicted the future, even if he himself didn't know he did it.

Occasionally I play with my wife's iPhone and peruse the offerings at the iTunes App Store. As you might expect, any of collection of 90,000 of anything will have a quite a few clunkers, and the App Store certainly doesn't disappoint! While there are certainly some very good apps and games, the vast majority are tiny apps with a single feature that usually is already available in the core functions of the phone- an app that finds the nearest coffee shop, ATM or nail salon by pre-loading a Google Maps search with the appropriate keywords and displaying the results, for example, or an app that launches a single TV or radio station stream in the phone's media player.

With that on my mind, a couple of days ago while reading Microsoft's Windows Mobile support forum on Usenet to lend a helping hand, I came across an auto-generated posting I've seen many times before: an invitation from Vincent Collura, a Canadian self-described "inventor/engineer" to visit his site www.cebeans.com and check out the over 6,750 free programs for Pocket PCs and touchscreen Windows phones available there. While offering that number of programs is a mildly impressive feat for any Windows Mobile freeware site, what makes this one unique, is that the nearly 7000 programs are all written by Vincent himself! This guy has averaged writing two programs a day every day the platform has been in existence!

To be fair, these aren't complicated multi-functional apps- even Vince himself doesn't suggest that. He calls them "beans," presumably a reference to their small size, sheer number, and relative insignificance. They're simplistic apps like you'd expect from a Visual Basic 101 programming class: many are very similar (a DVD collection database app and music CD database app are separate apps for example,) many simply launch a single function that could be just as easily handled by an existing included program, shortcut or favorite (the "TVNASA" app that simply opens Windows Media Player and displays the NASA TV video stream) and many are absolutely, mind-bogglingly ridiculous (like the "BirdTeacher" app that randomly replays any of five .wav files you pre-record to train your parrot to talk, or the very similar "BabyProgrammer" bean that "allows you to record a word or phrase then place the headphones on the child and the sound file will repeat and train the baby to learn the word..." Um, "place headphones" on a baby? Has this guy ever HAD a baby?)

I've given Vince a little "constructive criticism" on the support group before about the usefulness of his beans (and his weekly auto-generated self-promoting posts have generated a bit of ire there over the years,) but in retrospect, I realize I had it all wrong! Vince wasn't just an amateur programmer/hobbyist pumping out a pile of a mostly useless, redundant programs, he was a man ahead of his time- a true visionary! He alone predicted a day when people would sift through pages and pages of ridiculous, redundant, tiny apps that no one actually needs. He was just a decade early, and therefore coding for the wrong platform! One can easily imagine "BirdTeacher," "BabyProgrammer," or "TVNASA" as iPhone apps- they'd probably even make it into one of those commercials; ("Say your parrot hasn't learned to talk... There's An App For That...")

"LoveSlave," however, probably wouldn't make it into the TV ads: ("This program can be used when making love. Place the headphones on your lover and use the joypad up/down to select a command and right/left to send it to your lover..." (Sorry you TouchPro2 users- you need a D-pad for this app!) If Vince has tried using this app himself, it might help explain his unfamiliarity with babies... (Yes, "LoveSlave" is an actual bean- I can't make this stuff up! In fact, there are 130 beans in the "Love" category alone, including a few that perform functions I can't talk about without violating this site's posting guidelines! Vince offers free email support for all of his apps. You might ask if he needs beta testers...)

So, let's tip our hat to Vince Collura, the One-Man App Store, who proved long before the existence of the iPhone, that there was a mostly useless or awkwardly implemented "App for That!" Or, as Vince himself says, "Did you get your beans today?"

LoudTalks- a PTT app to relieve your Nextel envy!

2010-09-28T11:35:00.001-06:00

[Originally written Mon, Mar 8 2010]

I know- all of us phone users out there who can both talk and listen at the same time are secretly jealous of PTT, Push-to-Talk, service, like Nextel uses here in the US.

I mean, who wouldn't be- the need to hold a button down when speaking, the voice clarity of childrens' toys, the loud annoying "chirp" right before or after you talk alerting everyone around you that you have the height of World War II-era technology built into your handset- this is the stuff communications dreams are made of! If your life to this point has been incomplete because you've been missing Push-to-Talk, do I have good news for you!

Ok, I'm (mostly) kidding- PTT does have a few advantages over normal telephony- the ability to "conference" with multiple callers simultaneously, and the ease of connecting to oft-dialed individuals or groups make it a good service if you have the need. Holding down a talk button to talk does bring me back to my "BJ and the Bear" toy walkie talkies of the 1970s. Ten-4, good buddies!

A company ostensibly called "Officeverse" (their phone number is an unlisted landline in California, and their company name has no Yellow or White pages listing) is offering a service called "Loudtalks" (http://loudtalks.com/) which adds PTT capability to Windows PCs and Windows phones. Based on the web site, it's still in beta, but the service does work (I just talked to my daughter- her on the laptop and I on my mobile) even on a phone as anemic as my HTC Wizard, suffering from the dual handicap of a slow (200MHz) processor, and a slow data (T-Mobile 2G EDGE) connection.

Although they apparently intend to sell this service to corporations, a free "Lite" version, allowing calls to groups of up to ten people exists, and any one can create a user name and get online- think of it as a voice IM service, or a nostalgic look back to the 70s!

R.I.P Pocket PC

2010-09-28T11:33:00.001-06:00

[Originally written Feb 16 2010]

While the announcement of Windows Phone 7 Series is exciting, I can't help but feel a little sad that it is essentially the final nail in the coffin of Windows Mobile, née "Pocket PC".

The new user interface seems slick, but in many ways it tells us Microsoft themselves has bought into the press and validated their critics- that bringing the desktop Windows interface to the small screen was ultimately a failure, and only a ground-up re-imagining could save Microsoft's lagging mobile OS business.

While I'm apparently in the minority, I always felt Microsoft hit a home run with the Pocket PC/Windows Mobile Pro UI. The Today screen was a fantastic "at a glance" roundup of all the important info on the device, and the desktop-like start menu instantly evoked the familiar look and feel of Windows. From there, a set of evenly-spaced, easy to poke program icons took you into your applications. (Anyone want to tell me why the iPhone's UI was so "groundbreaking" when, frankly, if you replaced WinMo's Programs menu white background with black, you've essentially got the iPhone's grid?)

Sure, WinMo wasn't perfect- under the programs and applets were tiny radio buttons and menus that required a stylus even back when 4" screens were the norm, much less a 2.5" one! Even so, I'm not sure it was time to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. WinMo certainly needed a ground-up reprogramming, if only to get rid of the obsolete code most likely present through 10 years of revisions and upgrades, and to tighten up responsiveness, but I'm not sure anyone can declare that the UI was a complete and utter failure. No portable device (other than UMPCs running actual Windows itself) ever came as close to replicating a full computer experience in your palm than Windows Mobile. My wife, who is not a huge technology fan, was able to navigate the various features of her Windows Mobile phone without any help, based on the similarity to desktop Windows alone (though she happily switched to an iPhone eventually, which, while less capable, she considers far more "fun.")

So, looking toward the future with some regret, I wonder about the new iteration of Windows on phones- the strength of Pocket PC/Windows Mobile was that it could be all things to all people- it was a business class device, it offered a decent media experience, and tens of thousands of apps to meet virtually any need- it was a full-fledged PC in my pocket, hence the name . Will "7 series" be as malleable? Or, (with apologies to Steve Jobs,) will it simply be the "best Zune ever"- a media/browsing-centric device with a minor degree in social networking?

"The King is Dead. Long Live the King!"

Using Google Mobile Sync as an alternative to Activesync/WMDC

2010-09-28T11:12:00.002-06:00

[Originally written: Tue, Sep 29 2009, Updated today, Tue, Sep 28 2010]

Google's recent addition of push GMail support to their mobile sync product makes this a good time to revisit using Google as an alternative to desktop syncing, or even Hosted Exchange. Google uses Exchange Activesync as the underlying technology for their mobile sync, meaning Windows Mobile users do not need to add any software to their devices. They simply enter the server settings provided by Google, their GMail account credentials, and then they can be syncing their device with GMail, GMail Contact and Google Calendar all over the air, and all for free.

If you're primarily a GMail/GCal user, this might be all you need. If, like me, you're an "Outlookaholic," then the importance of Google sync is its ability to act as an intermediary between Outlook on your PC(s) and your Windows Mobile device(s) keeping them synced constantly over the air, without ever having to sync physically via Activesync or WMDC ever again, much like Microsoft Exchange allows.

The next step is getting your PC's Outlook installation to sync with Google, so that the PCs and mobiles can each sync to each other via Google. Google has thoughtfully provided an Outlook plug-in to sync Google Calendar with Outlook, but so far has left GMail Contacts sync to third-parties. Three options I'm aware of are the open source GO Contacts Sync, the commercial ($40 US) CompanionLink, and the subscription-based ($10 US/year KiGoo.

Now, just a friendly warning to anyone ready to try the convenience of wireless syncing: backup your current Contacts and Calendar! Messing around with sync can result in duplicate entries or missing items, so you want a safe copy tucked away somewhere!

The best way to switch to a new sync method, whether it be Google Sync, Funambol (my personal favorite), or Exchange, is to perform one final good sync with Activesync/WMDC to insure your data is up to date, then delete the sync relationship between the PC and the device by unchecking "Contacts" and "Calendar" in the sync settings. This will erase the Contacts and Calendar info from the device, but not Outlook on the desktop. (Don't panic- this clearing of the data from the device is what prevents duplicates from being created in a moment!)

Install the various plug-ins on the PC to sync the Outlook Contacts/Calendar data with Google. Go into GMail/GCal's web interfaces to insure the data has indeed synced. Just because I'm the nervous sort, I add one "test" contact and event each both in Outlook and in Google and resync to see if the test data added in each one syncs to the other. This "proves" two-way sync is working, and it's safe to proceed. Don't delete them just yet!

Now, you add the Google sync server settings in Activesync on the device, and sync. All of your contacts and calendar items should come flying down via the internet from Google, including the four pieces of test data we added earlier. Delete a couple of them, and change a couple and resync, checking to see if the deletions and changes propagate to the desktop through Google. (You can initiate a manual sync on the desktop rather than hang around and wait for the next scheduled sync at the interval you selected at installation!) Once the deletions and changes have synced through, you can delete the remaining test data on the desktop, resync, and beam in delight when they are automagically removed from the device a few moments later (if you have the device's sync schedule set to "As Items Arrive") or when you initiate the next sync.

Now you have the push-email and continuous syncing of Exchange without the monthly fee for Hosted Exchange service, or the hassle and expense of setting up your own Exchange server.

[Update: As of August 30th, 2010, Microsoft now uses EAS for Live/Hotmail. The server is "m.hotmail.com," with your full email address as username. The "Domain" in Activesync's server settings must be left blank, which, unfortunately, means this won't work on WM5 or earlier devices like Google's EAS implementation does.]

Mobile Printing

2010-09-28T10:57:00.003-06:00

[Originally written: Tue, Aug 25 2009 12:14 PM]

This topic is very close to my heart, since for me, the true measure of a smartphone is the extent that it can replace a portable PC (laptop, netbook, etc.) My long time use, and love, of Windows Mobile has been forged in the never-ending quest to have my computer in my pocket (ok, in a dorky belt pouch, but you get the idea!)

To truly replace a laptop, the mobile device has to do virtually anything a "real" computer can do, and that includes printing. My early adventures in mobile printing were with this little guy: http://www.geeks.com/search.asp?QUERY=sipix&FIELD=ALL, the long-discontinued Sipix A6 thermal printer with infrared port. Sipix must have built a gazillion of them, because Geeks.com has been selling them for years. My first cost me $30, the last one I bought was $15, now it's $13. (I have three- all still work, I just wanted spares as redundant backups and for convenience. One lives in my car, one at home and one in my travel kit.) It prints thermally on paper about 25% the size of a standard letter paper (using a special, now impossible to find, paper! I have to make my own by literally sawing fax paper rolls to the right size and rolling my own rolls!) The output can be copied to "real" letter paper if need be on a copier with an enlarging function by selecting "200%."

As anyone who regularly reads my missives here knows, I'm a huge cheapskate. Nothing is more satisfying to my frugal nature than stopping at a store or restaurant, quickly Googling/Binging an online coupon, and printing it out right in the car before going in. On my roadtrip vacation two weeks ago, I saved $25 on admission to a Phoenix attraction with coupons I printed on the Sipix. (The clerk remarked "what tiny little paper!") That coupon alone nearly paid for two of my printers! (They've paid for themselves time and again over the years, actually!) Despite my cheapskate status, I'm horrible with coupons- keeping track of them and having the right one when needed is a hassle, so having access to online coupons anywhere fits my love of both cheap and geek!

Unfortunately the included Sipix document printing software no longer works on modern devices (only PPC 2003 and earlier, unfortunately) but PrintPocketCE ($30) supports it, even on newer devices. The Sipix screen capture/print software still works though- this is typically good enough to print an internet coupon or a little cut-and-pasted text. This printer is one of the main reasons I lament the death of the IR port on Windows Mobile devices. Since my AT&T Tilt lacks IR, I have to copy anything I want to print to an older device first. My old Dell Axim X5 used to serve that purpose- now my backup WinMo phone Samsung i730 (with WiFi, BT, and IR) does the job and lives in my travel bag at the ready.

At home, I use Westtek's Jetcet Print (a steal at $10!) with my Tilt. I bought a WiFi-enabled HP OfficeJet recently that works beautifully with Jetcet. The HP isn't portable though- it's a desk-hogging monster, so it only gets use at home. Jetcet does support a ton of printers however, so if you're lucky enough to hit a hotel or office with a Wifi printer in your travels, it'll likely be able to print through it.

In a pinch, I have also relied on the "print to the nearest fax machine" solution. Several email-to-fax services allow you to email a document to them, and they send the doc as a fax to the machine you specify. Fax1.com sends faxes for (USD) $0.12/page and gives you a free $1 credit to try the service. If you like it, you can buy more credits. Faxzero.com is a free ad-supported fax service, but is browser-based (you use a web based form to select the fax number and upload the file) and problematic with most mobile browsers. With Fax1 you do it all by email- perfect for a mobile.

Funambol, or "The Poor Man's Exchange"

2010-09-28T10:26:00.002-06:00

[Expanded from an early post on this blog, last updated on 9/29/2009]

This is a slightly edited/updated version of a blog post I made a while ago, but seeing the number of posts here from folks having trouble synching I thought it might be of use, especially if helps someone save a sale by preventing a return from an unhappy customer having synching problems.

They say a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link, and Windows Mobile's is its sync software- Activesync (for XP PCs) or Windows Mobile Device Center (for Vista.)

From trouble connecting, to data that mysteriously refuses to sync from the PC to device or vice versa, Windows mobile users have struggled with Activesync for many years. Adding insult to injury, the new WMDC for Vista refuses to sync with older (pre-WinMo 2003) devices or older versions of Outlook (again, pre-2003), and the latest incarnations of the sync software no longer allow syncing over the Internet or WiFi, unless you use an Exchange server, which is overkill for those of us with one or two PCs and a mobile device.

Worse yet, Activesync/WMDC only syncs with Outlook, which wasn't much of a hardship a couple of years ago when all WM devices included a licensed copy of Outlook, but today they do not, so after plunking a few hundred bucks on a shiny new WM device, you discover you need to pony up another $100+ on a copy of Outlook if you want to sync.
Unfortunately, Activesync and WMDC, being free, have not motivated third-party developers to exert a lot of effort creating replacements.

However, there are a couple of options available to sync your PIM (Personal Information Manager- contacts, calendar, etc.) data with a PC without Activesync, by using server-based PIM storage. One option, of course, is Hosted Exchange, where you pay a provider to manage an Exchange mailbox for you. Hosted Exchange includes a copy of Outlook, the license for which is good as long as you subscribe to the service. At $7/month, you could buy hosted Exchange service from 1&1 (http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/MailExchange) for over a year for less than a boxed retail copy of Outlook at the local office supply store.

However, I'm a big fan of "free" so let's take a brief look at a good free alternative to hosted Exchange.
I've been using Funambol from www.funambol.com, since the summer of 2008. It's an open source sync system designed for a variety of cellular phones- not just smartphones like WinMo, Blackberry or Palm, but most "dumbphones" as well. You install their client software on the devices (and PCs) you intend to sync, and they all sync with a "Funambol" server- either one you can find online, like http://my.funambol.com, or, if it offends your security sensibilities to store your data on somebody else's server, you can install the Funambol server software on your own PC and sync with your own PC acting as the server. An advantage of using your own PC as the server (besides the warm fuzzy feeling of security!) is that you can direct Funambol to sync a "Briefcase folder" between device and PC, thereby duplicating the "Files" sync function of desktop Activesync, which even Exchange doesn't do.

Funambol syncs with Outlook via a plug-in you install on the PC. I run Outlook on three PCs, my desktop and two laptops, so Funambol keeps them, as well as my WinMo devices, all in sync without the monthly fees of an Exchange service. For those who don't already use or want to buy Outlook, Funambol also has plug-ins for other PIM programs/services, like Yahoo contacts and Calendar, GMail contacts, Mozilla suite (Thunderbird, etc.).

If you want to give it a spin, I suggest trying Funambol out with Funambol's free "test" server, my.funambol.com, that they offer to users, then "graduating" to installing the Funambol server software on your PC if/when you're comfortable with it. But, as a warning, to avoid duplicate contacts and calendar items if you sync with Outlook on your PC, make a good "last" sync with your PC, if possible, then uncheck your PIM data in the Activesync partnership (deleting all such items from the device) then sync first the PC, then the device, with the Funambol server, otherwise the server might not recognize the PC's and device's data as identical, and will combine them, possibly creating a duplicate of each item.

Even after switching to Funambol, I still used Activesync once in a blue moon to sync files, like Word and Excel documents with my device, but now with Microsoft's Live Mesh to handly file sync, I'm finally free of the shackles of Activesync. My last PIM sync with Activesync was in August 2008- since then it's all going through Funambol, which, since it syncs over the Internet, is very convenient- I can stay up to date without having to plug the device into a PC, all without any monthly fees from a hosted Exchange provider!

[Update, 9/29/2009:
Funambol is upgrading their server software, and have decided to make their my.funambol.com test server a real test server. Existing users can still use it indefinately, but new users only get 90 days to try it out, then have to find an alternative server, or set up their own Funambol server.

Two alternatives to the my.funambol.com server that I've used, are AOL's free Funambol-based sync service, which requires a free AOL account, and ScheduleWorld, a $25(US)/year commercial service with absolutely excellent support.]

Moving some content here just in case...

2010-09-28T10:05:00.003-06:00

Perhaps I'm just not egotistical enough, but I suspect that unlike many blogs, I don't actually expect people to read this, or even check in occasionally. This is sort of an archive of Windows Mobile tips and tricks that I expect (hope?) someone will stumble across in a Bing or Google search if they're having a particular issue or problem.

In that vein, I was doing a search for some issue involving Funambol, and was startled, (yet pleased!) to find a post I wrote for the Windows Phone Experts Connection forums pop up. WPE Connection is (was?) a forum on a training site for Windows Phone salespeople, that Microsoft is transitioning (which I think is 21st century-speak for "closing down!") to a different site/format.

I was a participant and eventually a moderator at WPE Connection for nearly two years, so before the myriad of information, suggestions, and advice I gave there disappears into the aether, I thought I'd wrangle some of those posts and repost them here. I'll try to update any out-of-date information as I go, if not immediately, soon.

It's vacation season- make your mobile devices more mobile!

2009-06-16T11:23:00.001-06:00

One of the challenges when traveling with our mobile devices, is that while the devices themselves get smaller and lighter, their accessories don't! AC chargers, car DC chargers, sync/charge cables, batteries, headphones, BT earpices, BT GPS "pucks" etc. take up more room in our luggage than the devices themselves. One of my fellow Mobile Devices MVPs jokes that his friends rib him for traveling with 75-pounds of electronics all in one-ounce pieces!

There are a few fairly obvious, but still worth mentioning, tricks to lighten the load. First, is to try and "standardize" your equipment as much as possible. The ubiquity of mini-USB charge ports had made this easier than ever. For example, while it's not my "usual" BT earpiece, I bought a cheap Motorola HS350 on sale for $10 just to take on vacation. At $10, if I lose it I could care less, but more importantly, it charges via a mini-USB connector, so I can charge it with my WinMo phone charger, meaning one less charge "brick" to lug around. When I used to use a BT GPS "puck" (before using my current phone which has built-in GPS) I made sure to buy one with a mini-USB charge port as well- that was three devices sharing a charger. (well, two chargers- one AC, one 12V DC for the rental car.)

Another trick is to stop bringing dedicated chargers at all! Using generic AC and DC chargers with a USB socket for output instead of a device-specific cable, and then just bringing sync/charge cables for all of your devices that plug into the generic "bricks," rather than their dedicated chargers really reduces the amount of gear to lug around. This is also helpful for the equipment with proprietary charge ports like iPods and Zunes that refuse to share your mini-USB charger. A single AC and DC charger and a half-dozen sync/charge cables takes up a fraction of the space of a half-dozen dedicated charger bricks would! If you also bring a notebook or netbook PC with you on your travels, even the charger brick becomes optional- you can charge your equipment off of the PC's USB ports, so the only charger you need is the laptop's, (which you have to bring anyway!) (Of course, I rarely travel with a notebook or netbook- that's what my Windows Mobile device is for, so that option is out for me!)

My AC charger brick of choice is the very useful and affordable (~$20 US at Amazon.com) MusicPower Encore- it's an AC charger with two USB outputs to charge two devices at a time, plus an internal 2200mAH Li-Ion battery pack that charges whenever the Encore is plugged in and allows you to use the brick as a portable battery pack when not plugged in to AC to keep your devices charged on long flights or anywhere AC or DC power isn't readily available.
You might be surprized at how many portable devices have USB charge cables available, even if the device didn't include one- "dumbphones", BT headsets, even many digital cameras; almost any portable device that uses 5V or less for power often has an OEM or third-party USB charge cable available.

Happy traveling!

Life Without Activesync, Part II

2009-03-11T12:39:00.003-06:00

While I'm still using Funambol as my primary PIM sync system, I thought I'd point out yet another alternative that might be of particular interest to Google Mail and Calendar users.

Google has licensed EAS (Exchange Activesync) from Microsoft, and implemented it as part of their Google Sync service. This means Windows Mobile, iPhone, and some Nokia Symbian users can sync with their Google contacts and Calendar without the need for any additional software- the phones' native included sync applications will sync directly with Google. For Windows Mobile users, this means the Activesync app built into the device.

The instructions are here: http://www.google.com/mobile/winmo/sync.html.

In addition to being able to sync in the "clouds" via Google, adding an Outlook plug-in that supports syncing with Google, like Google's own Calendar (only) sync tool: http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=89955, or a third-party product like OggSync, http://oggsync.com/ that syncs both GMail Contacts and Calendar with Outlook, will give you another free over-the-air PIM-sync alternative to Hosted Exchange.

Why Am I Late? Time Zones and Windows Mobile...

2009-03-11T12:14:00.004-06:00

I've been kicking around the Microsoft support newsgroups for Windows Mobile for a number of years, and one topic that pops up from time to time that really seems to confuse users is Outlook's and Window Mobile's handling of time zones, specifically the automatic (and unstoppable!) shifting of appointment start/end times when you change time zones on the device.

For those who don't travel often, let me explain the feature. If you live in, say, Los Angeles, you have your mobile device set for the Pacific Time Zone or "GMT-8 Pacific US" (the Time Zone at 8 hours before Greenwich Mean Time, the world's agreed upon "official" time.) Interestingly, Outlook (and your Windows Mobile device) stores the date and time of the current time and all appointments in GMT, and uses the Time Zone settings to subtract or add the appropriate number of hours to the all of the entries on the device to calculate the local time. So, our Los Angeles based user above, for example, who schedules a 2PM appointment on her device, has really, unknowingly, entered a "10PM" appointment in Greenwich time, which the device displays as "2PM." So, when you fly to New York, and reset the device for "GMT-5 Eastern", in addition to resetting the device clock, it automagically "moves" all of your appointments 3 hours ahead. (In reality, however- neither the clock or the appointments have actually changed at all- they are still stored internally in GMT, but all the information on the device is now displayed in GMT-5 instead of GMT-8.)

This often drives travelers crazy. Say our LA user has a meeting at her company's New York office next Thursday at 10AM. She dutifully enters "Appointment with the Suits" in her calendar and sets the appointment time for 10AM. Next Wednesday night she hops a plane to the Big Apple, resets her device for GMT-5 Eastern US upon landing (or, more likely in this day and age, her phone does it automatically based on data from her mobile operator), checks into the hotel, checks her device for tomorrow's schedule, and decides to sleep in, because her device informs her that her meeting is at 1PM! After being fired for missing the meeting, our hypothetical user stomps on her Windows Mobile device, and vows to only use cheap Nokias from now on.

What happened, why it happened, what should've happened, and how can you save your job in that situation is the focus of this diatribe!

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit I'm one of apparently seven people on the entire planet who think the feature works just like it should. The vast majority of comments in the support newsgroups are firmly anti-appointment shifting, even after understanding how (and why) it works. I'll try and convince you why it's a Good Thing, (or at least let you learn to live with it since you aren't going to convince Microsoft to change it!)

First the why- Outlook is designed to be collaborative, allowing others to send you meeting invitations, etc. If the "Suits" in the New York office had sent our poor hypothetical victim above an meeting invite to the big 10AM Thursday meeting instead of her keying the appointment in herself, it would've automatically created the appointment on her LA-based Outlook calendar at 7AM, since on both computers- the one in NY and hers in LA, the appointment would really be stored, invisibly to anyone, as "3PM GMT," and both PCs would simply subtract the appropriate local offset (5 hours in NY, 8 in LA) to display the appointment in local time. The 7AM meeting would also have synced to our victim's LA-zoned Windows Mobile device at 7AM, and upon landing in NY, would've displayed as 10AM, and she would still be employed today.

"Sure," you're thinking, "but if Outlook didn't move stuff around, everything would've stayed at 10AM anyway, and not need shifting back and forth to work!" While that's true in this case, real world examples can often get more complicated, particularly for companies that have employees distributed through several time zones. What if, as a last-minute cost-cutting measure, our hypothetical company canceled the flight and directed our user to attend the meeting via conference call instead of in person? Then she'll still be 3 hours late, since the meeting isn't at "10AM" in LA, but at 10AM in NY, which is 7AM in LA. Her Outlook calendar and mobile device SHOULD have the appointment scheduled at 7AM Pacific rather than "10AM" because 7AM Pacific, 10AM Eastern, (and 3PM GMT) is the ACTUAL moment in time the meeting takes place.
The power of the automatic appointment shifting makes scheduling for large companies much easier. Let's say our NY home office is scheduling a conference call or Live Meeting for all management worldwide at 2PM Eastern- one mass meeting invite can be sent to every office or employee worldwide, and automatically schedule every employee's Outlook calendar at the correct local time regardless of wherever they are, (or, more importantly, wherever they'll be on the date of the call/meeting- a boon for oft-traveling mobile employees!)

Ok, I can see you still aren't convinced. No problem. I'll fall back on the 800-pound Gorilla argument: that's the way Outlook works, you're stuck with it, so how can you best deal with it?

First you need to decide if you'll ever need the appointment shifting feature. If you ever get meeting invites from other time zones, yes, you'll probably need it. If you don't collaborate with other Outlook users, you probably don't, and can decide of the shifting feature is right for you or not. If it isn't, regardless of the fact that the appointment shift feature can't be turned off, you can "disable" the shifting appointments feature in a very, VERY, low tech way: DON'T EVER CHANGE TIME ZONES!

I call this "solution" the "Digital Watch Paradigm." Think about this for a moment- when you travel to a different time zone, say from LA to NY, do you "shift time zones" on your digital wristwatch? Of course not- you simply advance the time three hours. If you treat the WinMo device just like a wristwatch, and rather than change time zones when traveling, you simply reset the device's clock to local time, all of your appointments will stay put. If it offends your sensibilities to walk around London or Tokyo with a device set to "Eastern US," try to keep in mind the time zone-based clock on the Windows Mobile device is primarily there to support the Calendar's automatic time zone shift feature. If that feature didn't exist, the device wouldn't need to be "time zone-aware" any more than your watch is- it'd just need a clock. For this to work as I describe, however, it is VITAL that you defeat the automatic time zone/clock setting feature most WinMo phones have preset that allows the mobile operator to set the clock and zone. On touchscreen devices, it's usually found in Start/Settings/Phone/Time Zone. Untick the "automatically set time..." box.

Now, if, like myself, you accept that the time-zone handling of Outlook is a powerful tool, how do we use it without being confused? First, I tend to include the actual time of appointments that take place outside my local time zone in the appointment name or location itself. I.e. in our example above, I'd have entered the appointment as "Appointment with the Suits: 10AM ET" and set it for 7AM local Pacific time. This helps confirming everything is correct at the appropriate time. If our hypothetical victim had seen "Appointment with the Suits: 10AM" scheduled for "1PM," on her device's today screen in the hotel Wednesday night, it would've told her something was awry, and made it obvious that she had a time zone problem.

Those who travel often or deal with an office in another zone tend to add/subtract time zones automatically in our head, so adjusting 10AM or 1PM Eastern to 7AM or 10AM Pacific is no biggie, but what if the meeting or 10AM conference call is with a supplier in Tokyo? I don't know THAT offset off the top of my head. In that case, we zip over to the device's time zone screen, set "GMT+9, Tokyo" as the visiting time and select it. Our device jumps to GMT+9, taking all of our appointments with it. Now we schedule our call at 10AM Thursday "local" Tokyo time, then reset the time zone on our device to our home time "GMT-8, Pacific US", the appointment moves to the correct time in LA: 5PM Wednesday. And, again, the beauty is that you'll always be notified of the correct time for the call regardless of where you are- if you stay in LA, it'll remind you before 5PM, if you fly to Tokyo, it'll remind you before 10AM, or, if your flight to Tokyo has problems and grounds you in Honolulu, you'll be warned before the 3PM meeting start, and be able to call in your apologies, etc.

Outlook 2007 added a neat feature to aid with appointments scheduled for different time zones. In the past, you either had to do time zone math in your head, or, just like on the mobile devices, temporarily shift the PC's time zone to where the appointment was to take place, enter the appointment, and shift everything back. With Outlook 2007, you can now click "Time Zones" in the appointment editing screen and set the time zone for the appointment start and/or end time- the start and end times can even have different zones- a neat feature for entering flights, where take offs and landings are always expressed in local time on the itineraries.
Hopefully this overview has helped you learn to love (or at least live with!) the time zone handling of Outlook and Windows Mobile, and provide a little insight to why it works like it works, which might seem counter-intuitive, at least at first-glance, to anyone who doesn't rely on it's power and flexibility.

I, Android

2008-10-02T11:54:00.004-06:00

Well, the "Google Phone" is finally coming. T-Mobile USA will be carrying an HTC-built phone using Google's new Android OS later this month.

HTC, the builder of T-Mobile's (and many other carriers') Windows Mobile phones, has delivered a touchscreen device with slide-out keyboard that looks like any one of the many of the similarly-configured WinMo phones. It looks like a fun little device, with good support for Google's services, but seems a bit unsuitable for "real work"- no Exchange support, no desktop sync (yet)- instead it syncs with GMail contacts and Google Calendar "in the cloud." But, with its open source platform, perhaps we'll see developers add the needed applications to get work done. Or, maybe they'll just build "flashlights" and games like they have for iPhone!

Fulfilling my legal obligation to blog about the iPhone... ;-)

2008-07-18T11:30:00.005-06:00

Apparently, judging by every other technology related tech blog or website on the planet Earth, we're legally obligated to post some bit of news about the release of the new iPhone 3G.

OK, here goes: Apple released the latest version of their multimedia phone, the iPhone 3G earlier this month. It improves upon the last version by adding nearly half of the features the old one should have had on day one, sells for the price last years' model should have sold for given it's feature set, and is sure to sell millions and millions of units to people who needed a combination iPod and phone, or want to impress other patrons at Starbucks, in one thin sleek-looking device.

Wait- could I be "dissing" the iPhone? Not really- it's a great little device for what it is- a multimedia feature phone with a great web browser and relatively decent e-mail support. But what it ISN'T is a "Smartphone." But it's not really a "Dumbphone" either- it's more of a "Savantphone"- an autistic phone that does a few tricks REALLY well, like Dustin Hoffman in "Rainman."

Could the iPhone replace your Windows Mobile device in a small business/home office situation? That depends, I guess, on what functionality you require from a mobile phone. In my case, I see the Smartphone as a substitute for a laptop- a "palmtop" if you need a label. In my mind, there are certain functions a "computer" needs to perform to be a computer in this day and age. The iPhone meets SOME of these tasks- the ability to surf the web and check e-mail, for instance. OK, that list is pretty much done for the iPhone. For my needs, the device also needs the ability to store, edit and create documents I might need to review or edit when out of the office. The iPhone can view documents when received as e-mail attachments but not store them on the phone or edit them. A friend of mine who travels often for his business (and uses and LOVES his iPhone) has to e-mail himself dozen of documents prior to traveling, so he has access to the documents on his iPhone when out of town. Hardly the "ease-of-use" or "convenience" Apple wants to associate with their uber-phone is is it? I find there are very few laptop computing tasks that I CAN'T do with a Windows Mobile device, although some are certainly more awkward to perform on a phone! (Think "Swiss Army knife" when you think of Windows Mobile- nobody would PREFER to use the scissors or screwdriver on the knife to their full size counterparts, but if you only want to carry one small tool the Swiss Army knife is your tool!)

I can trot out the tired laundry list of "features" the iPhone is missing compared to other Smartphones that anti-iPhone blogs love to list, but that isn't necessary- I don't dislike the iPhone any more than I dislike a screwdriver. It's a tool for a job- in the case of the iPhone, that job is entertainment, and it does it very, very, very well. For business, however, it isn't the right tool for me, any more than the screwdriver is the right tool when I need to drive a nail.

Life Without Activesync...

2008-05-06T10:34:00.005-06:00

They say a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link, and Windows Mobile's is it's sync software- Activesync (for XP PCs) or Windows Mobile Device Center (for Vista.)

From trouble connecting, to data that mysteriously refuses to sync from the PC to device or vice versa, Windows mobile users have struggled with Activesync for many years. Adding insult to injury, the new WMDC for Vista refuses to sync with older devices or older versions of Outlook, and the latest incarnations of the sync software no longer allow syncing over the Internet or WiFi, unless you use an Exchange server, which is overkill for those of us with one or two PCs and a mobile device. Worse yet, Activesync/WMDC only syncs with Outlook, which wasn't much of a hardship a couple of years ago when all WM devices included a licensed copy of Outlook, but today, most do not, so after plunking a few hundred bucks on a shiny new WM device, you discover you need to pony up another $100+ on a copy of Outlook.

Unfortunately, Activesync and WMDC, being free, have not motivated third party developers to exert a lot of effort creating replacements.

However, there are a couple of options available to sync your PIM (Personal Information Manager- contacts, calendar, etc.) data with a PC without Activesync, by using server-based PIM storage. One option, of course, is Exchange. If you don't have Outlook, this is a good solution, either with a free Exchange account at Mail2Web (covered a post or two ago) that will allow you to access your PIM data in a browser window, or a paid Exchange account which will include a copy of Outlook, the license for which is good as long as you subscribe to the service. At $7/month, you could buy hosted Exchange service from 1&1 (http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/MailExchange) for over a year for less than a boxed retail copy of Outlook at the local office supply store.

Of course, as you know if you've read any of my prior posts, I'm a big fan of "free" so let's take a brief look at free alternatives to Exchange.

I'm currently trying out Funambol from www.funambol.com. It's an open source sync system designed for a variety of cellular phones- not just smartphones like WinMo, Blackberry or Palm, but most "dumbphones" as well. You install their client software on the devices (and PCs) you intend to sync, and they all sync with a "Funambol" server- either a free one you can find online (www.scheduleworld.com or http://my.funambol.com, for example) or, if it offends your security sensibilities to store your data on somebody else's server, you can install the Funambol server software on your own PC and sync with your own server.

In addition, Funambol syncs with Outlook. I run Outlook on three PCs so Funambol keeps them, as well as my WinMo devices, all in sync without the monthly fees of an Exchange service.

If you're content to keep your PIM data "in the clouds" (i.e. Google Calendar, etc.) your WinMo device can sync directly with such Internet-based services. Goosync (www.goosync.com) lets you sync to Google Calendar for free, while syncing your contacts and tasks requires a "Premium Account" for about $40/year.

Another service I tried and have nothing good to say about is Emoze (www.emoze.com). Like Funambol, they are a multi-platform server-based sync solution. However, their software didn't recognize any contact with a company name but no first/last name (as a business user, HUNDREDS of my contacts are like that!) and created duplicates of all of these called "Unnamed," that I spent a good hour cleaning out of my device and PC, right after uninstalling Emoze! (My own fault- I generally backup my Outlook contacts before trying any alternative sync software, but that time, for whatever reason, I forgot, and completely "polluted" my contacts!) Like Funambol, they periodically update their software, so this may have been addressed in a newer release, but, as they say, once bitten...

I admit I'm fibbing a little when I say "life without Activesync" because I still use Activesync to sync files, like Word and Excel documents with my device, but I haven't synced my PIM data directly to my PC in a few months- it's all going through Funambol, which, since it syncs over the Internet, is very convenient- I can stay up to date without having to plug the device into a PC, all without any monthly fees from a hosted Exchange provider!

Carry Your Office PC In Your Pocket! [Free Services You Need For Your Windows Mobile Phone, Part 3]

2008-05-02T09:49:00.005-06:00

The miniature marvel we know as the Windows Mobile device can do a great number of amazing things, but it's the few things it CAN'T do that tend to frustrate us! In my case, I've tried to position my devices as full replacements for a laptop when traveling on business or pleasure, and to have access to all of my business information when out and about and away from the desk.

Sure, Office Mobile (née "Pocket Office") handles my Word and Excel docs, and I have e-mail at the ready, but there are times when I wished I had access to that 3rd quarter sales report from 2005, or need to log into a particular vendor's overly Java-laden website that the less than stellar IE Mobile browser can only render as a blank page. At times like that, I REALLY tend to rethink my decision to rely on a mobile device instead of lugging along seven pounds worth of laptop and chargers.

However, you can have the best of both worlds- the portability of a mobile device and the power of your desktop or laptop via a remote control service. Anyone who listens to talk radio had probably heard the host-personalized ads for "GoToMyPC," a subscription service that lets you log in to your desktop from your laptop, and how the talk show host couldn't live without it. GoToMyPC, and competing services, also work from many Windows Mobile devices. Again, my cheapskate nature being what it is, I look for the cheap/free angle whenever possible. As one of my business mentors, a successful retailer, always preaches- "if you can't sell it, don't buy it!" which was his shorthand way of saying that cutting unnecessary expenses to the bone was as important a part of success as maximizing income. (I'm sure his employees' stories that he hangs used paper towels on a rack to dry for reuse are exaggerated, however...) In that vein, I use LogMeIn (http://www.logmein.com/,) a similar, but free, service that brings up a view of your desktop or laptop on any Internet-connected PC or Windows Mobile touchscreen device and lets you operate the remote PC as if you were sitting at it.

While remote access can be accomplished a number of ways, including with tools included in Windows XP Professional and many Windows Mobile devices natively ("Remote Desktop"), LogMeIn is MUCH easier to setup, offers a better display, easier to use interface, and renders faster on Windows Mobile devices than the Microsoft Remote Desktop app.

Setting up is very simple. Go to http://www.logmein.com/ from your desktop PC and set up an account, including your passwords for your account and up to three PCs you want to access remotely. Download a small app onto the PC that allows LogMeIn's servers to connect to the PC, and you're ready to try remote control. Now just go to logmein.com from any Internet-connected PC, (or www.logmein.com/pda from your WinMo device) log in to your account, and you'll get a list of your PCs that are online and able to be accessed. Select a PC to control (the first time you do, a small app will download to the PC or device that runs in your browser to allow remore access) and shortly the display will show what your remote PC is displaying. On the WinMo device you can zoom in or out, scroll around, and use the keyboard and touchscreen as if they were the keyboard and mouse of your remote PC.

Like many of the free services I discuss here, LogMeIn offers both free and paid services, with the paid version offering more features, obviously. The LogMeIn subscription will allow you to print to a local printer from the remote PC, hear the remote PC's audio (important if you want to listen to MP3s on the remote PC I guess?), and let you cut/copy/paste info from the remote PC to the local PC or PPC. None of these features are critical to me, so the free version works fine for my needs, particularly since, with a little creativity, there are often workarounds for the limitations. For example, while I can't drag/drop a document from the remote PC to my Windows Mobile phone, I can simply e-mail it from the remote PC to my WinMo phone by controlling Outlook on the remote PC. And, while I can't print locally, I can e-mail or fax a document to myself from the remote PC and access it via webmail on whatever PC the printer I was going to use to print from is connected to, like a hotel's public lobby PC, for example.

So, in addition to being a phone, an e-mail device, an MP3 player, a navigation aid and everything else it does for you, your Windows Mobile device can also be a remote display and keyboard/mouse for your PC back at the office, and eliminate the need to lug that laptop around. If nothing else, when you're poking around your office PC's display remotely with your stylus, other Smartphone owners looking over your shoulder will be scratching their heads wondering how and where you obtained a phone that "runs" Windows XP or Vista!

Push E-Mail [Free Services You Need For Your Windows Mobile Phone, Part 2]

2008-05-01T13:48:00.002-06:00

Since my goal in creating this blog was to share hints, tips, and ideas with small business owners and home office users, I have to try to remember that the jargon that I and my fellow geeks take for granted might still be a mystery to those who have too much on their plate to keep up with the latest developments in tech. I would assume, in 2008, that instant or "push" e-mail would be a commonly understood technology, but just in case it isn't, I'll give you the 25-cent tour. Those who are familiar with all of the concepts I attempt to explain can talk amongst yourselves for a minute.

Push e-mail, popularized by the RIM Blackberry, is essentially e-mail sent or "pushed" to a device as soon as it's received by your provider, rather than typical e-mail, which is "pulled" to your computer or device at predefined intervals (every 5 minutes, every 15 minutes, every hour, etc.) It's sort of a cell phone text message on steroids, since it's a full e-mail with attachments, pictures, etc. rather than a short text-only message.

In my humble opinion, for the vast majority of us, push e-mail, while "cool," is completely unnecessary. Few e-mails I've ever received in my entire life couldn't have waited 10 or 20 minutes until my PC or phone "pulled" them at it's usual scheduled interval. For quick e-mail "volleys" like the Crackberry addicts engage in, I prefer the old fashioned method of "verbal instant messaging," first popularized by Alexander Graham Bell, known as the "phone call"!

The exception to this rule, at least for me personally, is in the case of Visual Voicemail (covered in part one of this series), where voicemail messages or missed call notifications are pushed to the phone instantly when received. I don't want to wait an hour for a voicemail!

Windows Mobile devices can receive push e-mail from a Microsoft Exchange Server, like a large business uses for e-mail. We little guys probably aren't going to set up a dedicated Exchange server for an e-mail account or three, so the alternative is something called "Hosted Exchange," which is essentially an Exchange Server for hire. Companies set up large Exchange Servers to resell accounts on, and we subscribe to them for $7-20/month/e-mail inbox.

("Um, Todd," you're thinking, "didn't you say 'free' in the subject?") For those of us that don't need a full-featured Exchange Server, an outfit called Mail2Web (http://www.mail2web.com/) offers a free hosted Exchange account, with a few limitations. First, it's web interface has ad banners, and second, it lacks "MAPI support," which means your mail2web e-mail can't be retrieved by your desktop PC's copy of Outlook. It will be pushed to your Windows mobile device(s) only. To read or respond on a PC with your free mail2web e-mail account, you'll be doing it in a web browser, using what's called "OWA" or "Outlook Web Access," which is essentially a web page set up to look like Outlook. In my case, this is no hardship- my mail2web account is almost exclusively used for my phone's Visual Voicemail, plus a few services I use for "alerts" (the stuff I formerly used text messaging for, but in my infinite cheapness see no need to get whacked $0.15/message when push e-mail does it for free - i.e. notification that the stock I'm watching hit a certain price, I've been outbid on eBay, or alerted by the local TV station that weather has cancelled school for the kids, etc.)

A side benefit of Exchange is the ability to sync your Outlook PIM data to the Exchange server. So, in addition to syncing your Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks with your PC, they can also sync with the Exchange server. With a "real" (read "paid") hosted Exchange account with MAPI, your desktop PCs, laptops and mobiles with Outlook will stay constantly in sync over the Internet, eliminating the need to "dock" your phone with a PC to update your PIM data. The free mail2web.com account will NOT sync with your desktop, so you'd need to upgrade to their paid account for that. (Having said that, there are free non-Exchange alternatives for that as well, like Funambol or SyncML, which I'll cover in an upcoming post in this series, same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel!)

Even without over-the-net PIM synching with your PC, having your PIM data backed up on a server somewhere has practical uses. For starters, using OWA, you can access that data from any internet-connected PC on the planet- like the PC in hotel lobby on those trips you didn't bring the laptop, or as a backup to restore from when some glitch wipes out the data on your phone. You simply enter the Exchange settings on the "empty" phone, and the PIM data comes streaming in over the Internet. That ability alone can restart a stopped heart when it happens 2000 miles from your office, believe me!

Visual Voicemail [Free Services You Need For Your Windows Mobile Phone, Part 1]

2008-05-01T12:59:00.004-06:00

Unless you've been hiding out with the Amish like Harrison Ford in "Witness" for the better part of the last year, you've been told that the Apple iPhone is the the most revolutionary device in communications since Ma Bell replaced the hand crank on the telephone with the rotary dial pad.

Part of this "revolution" is "Visual Voicemail" that allows you to "see" your voicemail calls like e-mail and play just the ones you need to hear and in any order you wish. Apple really came up with a revolutionary new way to get voicemail...

...except they didn't. "Visual" voicemail is really nothing new, just a snazzy name for "getting my voicemail attached to my email." The iPhone simply uses a dedicated push e-mail account supplied by the wireless carrier for the sole purpose of receiving the audio of voicemails as file attachments. This is possible with any phone that can receive e-mail and play audio, like your Windows Mobile phone.

Many companies will sell you Visual Voicemail with various extras. YouMail.com, for example, the one I currently use, offers basic Visual Voicemail for free, and for a monthly fee will not only send you the audio in an e-mail, but also transcribe caller's messages into text, so you can read them instead of listen. .

After setting up the YouMail account to forward your voicemail to your e-mail, you just need to set your mobile phone to forward unanswered calls to the mailbox phone number YouMail provides you with. This is called "Conditional Call Forwarding" and the procedure varies by the model of phone and your wireless carrier, but for GSM phones (AT&T, T-Mobile, etc.) it's pretty standard- enter *004*[number you want to forward to]*11# then hit send. To cancel it and go back to your regular phone company voicemail, you dial ##004#.

Now when callers leave a message, the recording is attached to an e-mail as an .mp3 file and sent to your phone, eliminating the need to call in to retrieve messages. As a bonus, any available Caller-ID information is sent as well, so you get an e-mail with a subject line like "XYZ Corp. left a 23-second message" or "800-555-1212 left a 23-second message" (if no caller name ID info is available.)

You are also alerted to missed calls, even if no message was left- perfect for when your phone was off (like on a flight) so you'll know who called but didn't leave a message- info your phone doesn't otherwise give you if it was off or out of a service area, so you'll have an e-mail like "Bob Smith-- Missed Call."

There- now you have the iPhone's "flagship feature" on a far more productive device- your Windows Mobile handset.

Again, the real magic here is being provided by your push e-mail account, so you get the voicemails and missed call notifications ASAP. If instant push e-mail is something you haven't looked into yet, we'll cover that in Part 2! Don't change the channel!

Like the World Needs Another Geek Blog?

2008-04-30T14:52:00.003-06:00

Ok, I admit it! The world DOESN'T need another geek blog about PDAs and mobile phones. This will NOT be a place to turn to see if the new UberPhone 3000 is going to come in a Burnt Sienna color as well as Charcoal and Verdant, or trade rumors about if the next device will have an 800x480 pixel screen. Hopefully I'll be shooting for a far less ambitious goal here!

I've been using Windows CE/Windows Mobile Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones since about the time I started my own business a decade ago, and in that time I've learned a few things about using one with the other.

I read and post in the Windows Mobile Usenet newsgroups quite a bit, which tends to be a bit of a "geek club," so I'm generally communicating with others who are ardent fans and longtime users of the platform, and tend to already know a lot about the capabilities and various software options for the devices, so it's a dose of reality for me when running into friends, acquaintances, (or even strangers!) using these devices who are amazed at what they are capable of, or who amaze me when I realize what they DIDN'T know they are capable of!

So rather than another blog or website devoted to the latest "news" about these devices, I thought maybe there was room in the world for one that traded tips and tricks for the small business owner, or home office user that covered how to increase personal productivity, as well as have a little fun, by using these amazing little powerful devices.

I, for one, do not pretend to know it all, so if you've got a great idea or use for these things I haven't thought of, or have a better way of doing something I'm already doing, please share- I'm always looking for a better way to be more productive and spend less time working!

By the way, if you're NOT using one of these little miracles for your personal or business use, hopefully we'll give you a few good reasons to give one a try.