The Korean site AVING has managed to snatch a few shots of one of HP’s upcoming handhelds, the 914c business messenger. The shots show little new – but the box looks pretty cool. If you lust for a 914c, get the full scoop here:
http://www.aving.net/kr/news/default.asp?mode=read&c_num=60182&C_Code=01&SP_Num=0
Microsoft offers a new update for handhelds and smartphones with Office Mobile 6. With the new version 6.1, you can even view and edit Open XML files for Office. Documents and spreadsheets can be edited using Word Mobile and Excel Mobile, whereas slideshows can only be viewed in PowerPoint Mobile. Other improvements are a better support for charts in Excel Mobile, support for SmartArt graphics in PowerPoint Mobile and support for compressed .zip files.
This update is for users of Office Mobile 6 and won’t work without it:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=4b106c1f-51e2-42f0-ba32-69bb7e9a3814
If don’t have Office Mobile yet, you need to buy the full version (Windows Mobile 6 only):
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/microsoftprograms/mobileoffice.mspx
UPDATE: Microsoft has took off the download of its server again. There is no information why they did that and when they will put it on again.
This time we will have a look at the Brando Car Charger Cable for HTC smartphones. There are different editions of HTC devices, for example T-Mobile MDA 1, 2 and 3 which can be charged with this cable. It is especially useful for people which want use their smartphone as a navigation system: Navigations over long distances need much power, especially if the Bluetooth adapter is turned on.
It can be easily connected to your car’s power socket. The power supply is indicated by a small LED. As my car’s power socket does not work properly always, I know whether the charger has power or not. While I was testing I noticed that in most cars, there is no power supply of the socket when the car is off. This means: as long as the car is off, you can’t charge your phone.
I regularly charged my HTC Blue Angel (MDA III) with this charger for some weeks without any problems. But when I compare the specifications of this charger and my original one, there are some differences: the car charger’s amperage is 1,25A while my original charger has 2A. This could be because the charger is also suited for other phones.
This car charger is a reasonable investion for owners of a HTC smartphone. With this charger, a GPS receiver and the right software, you can use your smartphone as a navigation system. But also if you don’t need navigation and want to charge your mobile phone/PDA in your car, buying the Brando Car Charger is a good idea. It is available at the Brando Shop for $18, and it’s available for many other devices, too.
The people at xda-developers.com found a way to install Windows Mobile 6 on the HTC Blue Angel (also known as MDA III and others). They have created a page in their wiki with a wizard which describes in detail how to install WM6:
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=HTC_Blueangel_WM6_Home
After the update, the memory management will be different:
With Windows Mobile 2003 SE, you have the RAM memory (about 100 MB) both as a data memory which contains installed programs, data and as a program memory which contains programs while you run them (you can define how much memory each part has). In your file manager, you find “Storage” which is an internal flash drive (about 43 MB) where you can put backups etc. The operating system is saved in the ROM memory, and there is also an Extended ROM memory which contains .cab files that are installed after each hard reset (in my T-Mobile MDA III: ClearVue apps, TrueFax, …).
Windows Mobile 6 will be flashed to the ROM memory. It uses the RAM memory as a pure program memory (like your computer). The internal flash memory acts as your data memory (hence your data won’t be lost after an empty battery anymore). The Extended ROM memory won’t be needed anymore. As you now have only 40 MB of data memory, you can merge the internal flash memory and the extended ROM memory to one big data memory with more than 60 MB.
The wiki site tells you how to do so. You have to install a .cab file which contains four small tools which you can find in your program folder. You must unhide and unlock the extended ROM memory. Using the .exe file, you must format it.
After this, the update process can begin. Expect the next article soon.
For anyone who has ever needed to write product documentation for a mobile application, or write a review on a piece of software on a PocketPC or Palm device, one of the most laborious tasks is having to get the screengrabs that show off the applications various features and abilities. Fortunately, a great developer by the name of MTUX has come up with an application to remedy that.
It’s called My Mobiler, and it goes way beyond just taking a screenshot of what is currently displayed on the device. Essentially, it allows you to do everything you would normally do with a stylus and onscreen keyboard on your main computer, no more having to reply to an SMS using the stylus to peck at tiny letters. On top of all those great features, My Mobiler supports connecting to the IP of your handheld, so you can leave it in it’s cradle in another room and connect via WiFi. I was unable to try this, but the functionality is there.
However, My Mobiler was not without fault, I did find it fairly slow to respond to mouse clicks, and I was often able to type faster than it could transfer to the PocketPC. Even with those small flaws I’d still be more than happy to recommend My Mobiler to anyone who needs to control their PocketPC without wanting to pull out a stylus and start pecking away.
The Austrian Games convention recently offered us the opportunity to get a little interview with Thomas Kritsch from Microsoft Austria. Thomas is the marketing manager for the XBOX platform – and spoke a bit about the XBOX 360 and a lot on mobile devices/gaming – enjoy(picture courtesy of abc texte/Dr. Doris Maria Kohrs)!
What should my readers, who own an XBox 360, do now?
If the console is defective, contact customer care. The console will be picked up, fixed and returned for the next 3 years in Austria…
Should consoles be sent to service preventively?
Not every console is defective. If you have a console at home, it can work well. If it breaks, see above…
As far as I know, the XBox and the PPC both run in the same department at Microsoft’s. Is there any collaboration?
No. The XBox is in Entertainment/Devices department, a department responsible for Games4Windows, the XBox and Microsoft’s mice/keyboards/… . As for the PPC, no idea to whom that belongs…but it isn’t in my department.
Why doesn’t Microsoft attempt to converge Games4Windows to PPC?
We license our games out, but have no own development for mobile games. Stuff like Ages of Empire can be licensed.
How are these licenses given out? Flatfee or profit cut?
Sorry, this is not my department. Out licensing department can decide what’s best on a per-game base, and the results are not being published!
So a house can just walk up?
Yes. Go to licensing and tell us what you want to do…
As for the Zune, will there be games?
No! The Zune is a dedicated media player that is NOT programmable. It is a media player and does nothing else.
Do you plan such an interface?
Can’t say as of now (giggles).
Do you plan to integrate PPC and Zune somewhat? Where is the difference between a 16GB rx4240 and a small Zune? Won’t they converge as SD cards get bigger?
The difference is, that the Zune is intended for people who do NOT need the PocketPC UI. They want media and that’s it – and that’s what the Zune UI is developed for!
Will Zune maybe converge in an “iPhoneish” fashion?
The brand Zune will remain independent. However, we can always expand the Zune functionality later…
What OS is the Zune based on? WM or another RTOS?
No idea. This is information that also won’t be released. The UI needs to work – and that’s it.
Traditionally, business phones have never had integrated cameras – these can make nasty problems when entering a company’s lab, for example. However, hp Austria seems to market the device at prosumers too…which usually don’t mind an integrated camera.
Anyways, the hp ipaq 514’s back includes a 1.3MP CMOS camera without flash or automatic focusing…can it stack up?
The camera application itself appears not very thoroughly-designed. For example, the digital zoom can be enabled from the 5way…while brightness can be adjusted only deep inside a menu:
While the camera supports a variety of white balance modes, it does NOT support any kind of image effects. It can also record 176×144px videos – nowadays, mobile devices can do much more…
Here are a few sample images made all over Vienna(click for full size, against Nokia N71):
ipaq
Nokia N71
In the end, neither the Nokia N71’s nor the ipaq 514’s camera can replace a digital camera. The ipaq manages to deliver pretty good images with punchy colors, decent noise and acceptable sharpness – good enough for showing on-screen. The N71, on the other hand, creates significantly better videos and also bigger images.
WM5torage is a free application for PDAs and smartphone with Windows Mobile / MS Smartphone 5.0 and 6.0. Using this application, your PDA acts as a USB mass storage device and you computer will detect it as an external drive (like USB sticks, card readers, MP3 player and so on).
You just have to connect your device to a computer (via USB connection), start WM5torage and activate it. Then your computer should detect a USB mass storage device and will mount it as an own drive. While WM5torage is connected to the computer, your memory card / flash memory is unavailible on the PDA because it needs to be unmounted.
There are different additional options, for example whether your computer may write or only read on it. Also, LED and vibration can show read / write activity. Multiple cards are supported, but only one can be choosen at a time. You can even mount your Flash memory and data memory, but this can be problematic: When these memories are mounted at PC (= unmounted on PDA), your PDA may crash.
The application worked fine on my MDA III running Windows Mobile 6. I could mount my data memory and memory card; mounting my flash memory crashed the device. While mounting my memory card worked fine (4,1 MBs are transfered in ~ 8 seconds), mounting the data memory was very slow and almost crashed my computer.
While reviewing the 514’s voice command program, we stumbled across the following, very funny message:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8796725381130942217
Whenever the program initializes, it greets you with a friendly “Duffergile!”.
No idea what it wants to tell us though…all ideas are greatly appreciated!
As Tam already wrote on 1src, we are looking for new authors. If you have a mobile phone / PDA running Palm OS, Windows Mobile or Symbian (Series 60) and you are interested in writing news, reviews or tutorials, then send me a mail:
The benefits of a membership (see also 1src thread):
We will be happy to hear from you! The membership won’t mean that you have to write regularly. The most of our authors only write every 3 months or even less.
TamsPPC was among the first sites to post datasheets of the new ipaq’s – anyways, we now know when and where the 914 will materialize first! According to The Boy Genius Report(quoting a leaked HP spec sheet), the 914 will ship as 910c with camera.
No information on pricing and/or availability dates is given as of now. Please rest assured that we will keep you posted whenever a new carrier adopts one of HP’s devices!
The famous file-manager for Pocket PC, Resco Explorer, is now released for Microsoft Smartphone in the version 6.01 (2007).
Features: (source: resco.net )
It implements all standard features such as file/folder manipulation. Thus, you can copy, move or delete files, create folders, run programs with arguments, and search for files or folders.
Link to the program:
Traditionally, HP has included excellent screens into their mobile devices. Years ago, their ipaq’s set the standard for color screens that were well-readable both indoors and outdoors, and the rx4240’s screen returned TFT technology in a truly magnificent fashion. So far so good…how’s the 514’s screen?
From a technical standpoint, there is little new to say about the 514’s screen. 176px wide, 220 high, 16bit color – a classic mobile device screen, especially for Series 60.
In a side-to-side comparison with its excellent-screened sibling, the hp ipaq rx4240, the 514’s colors are a bit less ‘punchy’ than the rx4240’s(both at highest brightness, which is approximately the same).
Also, the ipaq’s screen can be dimmed way lower than the 514’s:
The Treo 680, Palm’s pinnacle in terms of screen quality, also manages slightly better colors – however, its black is less dark:
Dimming the screen of the 514 is not particularly satisfying – the minimum brightness that can be reached still is very high. The rx4240’sa screen can be turned down really low, and the Treo’s transflective screen can even be switched to reflective mode:
In everyday use, the screen did a good job though – no problems whatsoever except for its tendency to pick up fingerprints…
Overall, the ipaq 514 Voice Messenger isn’t intended as a ‘handheld workstation’ type device – and the screen reflects it’s target usage scenario. Nowadays, mobile devices can have screens with much higher resolutions…but the 514 doesn’t need this. Its screen does its job well with strong colors and a nice maximum brightness – not more, not less.
Sebastian Sell currently works on reviewing SPB’s recently-released Business pack. Here comes the first part looking at SPB Finance:
With Spb Finance, you can easily manage your incomes and expenses.
When you start Spb Finance for the first time, you need to create a new account. Tap ‘new’, and choose between several account types: ‘Cash’, ‘Bank’, ‘Credit Card’, ‘Asset’ and ‘Liability’.
After tapping next, enter an account name, description, currency, and an opening balance. You will return to the main window and as you see, it’s quite easy to handle with Spb Finance.
In the tab ‘Register’, all transactions are listed with the date when it was created and the Ending Balance. If you create a new transaction, there are some fields to fill out like a category, a date, the currency, payee, and of course the amount. In addition, you can write a memo and set a schedule with a reminder.
Now lets come to the tab “Reports” which I find quite interesting. You can choose between 8 different graphs and if you choose one of them, Spb Finance will draw a graph for example for the accounts and their balance or ‘Spending by Class’ (pie chart). The option ‘Profit and Loss’ will show 3 graphs: profit, loss, and the difference, the option ‘Income and Expense’ shows – and who guessed that? – the income and expense 
The options menu lets you choose a data file location, an automatical backup file location, customizable fonts, and you can switch between soft-keys style menu (use this for WM5 and higher!) and default menu.
Spb Finance comes with a today plugin.
Conclusion:
Spb Finance is a powerful finance manager with export/import function and several other features. Because of its password protection, you don’t have to worry that you fellow citizens will get any personal information. I would give the program 4 1/2 of 5 points.
Sorry for the change in sequence. However, an urgent report at our sister site TamsPalm has made this reshuffling necessary
HP’s 514 runs Windows Mobile 6 smartphone edition…that is a Windows Mobile 6 derivate for non-touchscreen phones. Windows Mobile has never been a particularly efficient operating system in terms of taps/screen real estate, but the latest versions for PDA’s have improved significantly. Getting an interface migrated to a touchscreen-less device is an effort of its own, however – how has Microsoft managed it?
HP’s 514 has a ‘list-style’ home screen that informs you about network state, profiles, appointments and also has a list of currently open programs:
Hitting the Start menu shows a list of all programs installed onto the device. I would personally prefer to have more icons on-screen. Hitting the buttons 1 to 9 launches the corresponding app:
The settings application is a negative example of how a program should NOT be done…an endless list that cannot be traversed by scrolling. Instead, the element number 9 must be selected to get to the next page(numeric keys work here, too):
Many of the applets aren’t made particularly well, either – here’s the “power management” one(guessed that it also does the screen brightness?):
The PIM application suite of the 514 consists of a calendar, a contact list, a task list and a voice recorder(no ‘memo’ thingy). Most of the apps are good, although the data entry dialogs are a bit annoying(loads of scrolling):
Calendar
Contacts
Task list
Voice recorder
Office Mobile itself is laughable as no new files can be created on the go – this completely disqualifies the application for serious use. Beaming files over allows for extremely basic editing – no praise from me here:
The device also includes a Photo Viewer, Windows Media Player, a few games and a pathetic little file manager that can’t even send more than one file at a time and generally is a nuisance:
File Manager
Photo Viewer
Windows Media Player 10
Solitaire, Jawbreaker
Last but not least, HP added a ‘Help’ application and a few system tools of its own:
As for camera, voice recording and messaging – these will be covered soon!
Overall, one quickly feels that Windows Mobile for Smartphone wasn’t developed with smartphones in mind, but rather is a ‘touchscreen port’. An operating system like Series 60 definitely feels a bit better…but the 514 is usable, too! The included programs fit the reason-d-etre of the 514 well…when thinking about this machine, one must always keep in mind that this is NOT a mobile workstation!
