Life Without Activesync...

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]

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]

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]

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!