Posted by Jason Dunn in “THOUGHT” @ 07:45 PM

I was able to participate in a conference call today about Windows Mobile 6 with some people from Microsoft (and my fellow Mobius members). Windows Mobile 6 has a lot of changes over the previous version, but they’re not all easily summed up in a few bullet points. Below are my notes from the call, and what I think about the new features that were discussed. Overall, I left the call feeling quite excited about Windows Mobile 6.

Contacts are now integrated with Windows Live - they showed us a contact that was also on the Messenger list of the devices owner. When you’re signed into Messenger on the device, it will actually pull down the avatar and integrate it into the contact. Being the visual person that I am, I’m quite excited about that. I asked how this process worked, and they explained that when you’re logged into Windows Live Messenger, a background process will cross-reference your contacts with your Messenger list and download the avatars in the background. It will also refresh them if they’re updated (how often I don’t know). There’s also a gleam that shows up, which you can click on if they have a MSN Space that has been updated. I dearly wish MSN would open up their system to allow pings from other blogging platforms such as WordPress, Typepad, Blogger, etc. Not everyone uses MSN Spaces.

Email setup has been streamlined - there used to be an XML blob up on a server that Microsoft had some basic mail settings on, but it wasn’t updated often and tended not to work all that often. Microsoft recently contracted a third party service that has now taken over this task, and the experience is supposed to be much better than before with a broader range of ISPs. Unfortunately they haven’t yet added the one thing that would help me and many others: if I put in [email]username@domain5.com[/email], the odds are very high that my POP/IMAP and SMTP server settings are going to be mail.domain5.com. There’s still no sync with Outlook email accounts - I’ve been hoping (asking) for years that when you dock the device with your PC it would copy over all your Outlook email account settings. That would save me a good 10 minutes of device setup - in fact I’ve tended not to even add all of my email accounts because it was such a hassle. There’s also an irritating IMAP bug that has apparently been fixed in Windows Mobile 6, which will make my device useful with IMAP again.

You know that cool smart filter in contacts where you can start typing out the name of the person and it will filter down to their contact? You can now to the same thing in email - you can type the name of the person that the email is from, or the subject line. You can also search for messages on the server if the smart filter didn’t find what you wanted - it requires Exchange 2007 to accomplish this though, which isn’t all that surprising. But it opens up some very interesting possibilities when you can search through 20,000 messages on your Exchange server and finding the email you want. All the more reason to get a 4smartphone (affiliate) account if you still haven’t experienced how superb it is.

Email downloads are now progressive - let’s say you have your email sync to pull 3K of an email. If the email is bigger than that, there’s an option at the bottom of the screen that says “Get the rest of the message” (not the exact wording). When you click on it, ActiveSync will kick off in the background and it will pull down the rest of the message. What’s really impressive is that it does it immediately, and doesn’t change your location in the message - it will literally grow the message below you, and you can watch the scroll bar get longer.

There’s still no way to do multiple selections for email messages, but this has been largely mitigated by the one button delete. The left soft key has been changed do be Delete by default - before it was New, which didn’t make much sense on a device where people will largely triage email and do a lot of deleting. It’s now very fast to pound through deleting your email with just a single button press, which will make a lot of people happy.

When you select an attachment in an email message, you have the option to open it or do a Save As to put it on a storage card or something similar. Excel in Office Mobile has some basic editing functions - you can change a data field and it will update the embedded chart.

The calendar “ribbon” is useful if you plan your time by looking at the blocks of time - I personally never use this method of appointment planning, but I know a lot of people do. The week view has added a preview of the appointment being selected, so as you move your selection over your appointments you can see what they are.

You can FINALLY invite attendees to an appointment on the Smartphone client, which is a first - and happens to be one of my long-standing pain points with the Smartphone platform because I use the invite attendee function to coordinate appointments with my wife. If someone sends you a meeting request, the request will tell you if there’s a scheduling conflict. You can add required attendees, but you can also add optional attendees. The company directory (via the Exchange GAL) can also be accessed - meaning if someone isn’t in your contact list but you want to invite them to a meeting, it will pull down their information.

Windows Media Player now has the “smart search” for your songs - you can start to type the name of the song and it will filter down to find the song you want. I’m not sure if it works just on songs, or if that includes artist or album names. I hope it works on metadata and not file name. I’ve also been told it will now do full-screen video on VGA devices, which is a big improvement over Windows Mobile 5. It seems like an eternity since Windows Media Player Mobile has had any improvements, so I’m very pleased to see some forward movement with this application. I don’t know if the horrific library update functionality has been improved, but I can hope someone realized it needed an overhaul.

Windows Live Messenger looks like it has a lot of new features - when you select a contact on your list, it expands slightly and it will show you the avatar for that contact. I changed my avatar on my profile, and on the device I saw it updated in about five seconds. Not bad at all! There’s a tabbed interface for multiple chat windows - a critical update if you’re a hardcore chatter. You can quickly move between chats by pressing left and right on the d-pad. There’s a voice clip feature that I’ve been waiting forever for - on the device you can press a button to record a voice clip, press it again to stop and send. It appears on the other end looking like this:

It’s sort of a poor man’s PTT (push to talk), but I think it will get some great usage because voice is such a natural way to communicate. That clip above sent to me was 14 seconds long and 216 KB in size in WAV format - it would be great to see some MP3 encoding someday, but that would probably require a different licensing fee. It has the file name formatted as [messengerusername]_2_8_2007@18_35_43.wav.

And that’s about all that was covered - at the moment I don’t have a Windows Mobile 6 device in front of me, but if you have questions I’ll do my best to answer them.

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He’s loving the Windows Mobile 6 so far!

Requirements
Any Registry editor that is capable of editing the Registry in your Pocket PC. Editors such as RegEditCE from Grundle Software (my favorite because it can export and import registry files), PHM’s Registry Editor or the Remote Registry Editor included in the eMbedded Visual Tools from Microsoft can be used.

Why Change The Font?
In my opinion, some of the font sizes that Microsoft chose for their various built-in apps are just too darn big. For example, the below screen shot shows a section of my contact list using the default 14-point system font. Notice that the email address of almost every contact is cut-off on the right side, because there is just not enough room on the screen to fully display it:

Now check out a screen shot of the same contact list using my 12-point font mod. Not only are there fewer items getting cut-off on the right, but it also now has enough extra room to display two additional contacts on the same screen:

Below are some more before (using 14 point) and after (12 points) screen shots that help illustrate the additional info that can be displayed when using a 12-point font size:

Bonus
If your Pocket PC is in landscape mode (using Jimmy’s JS Landscape app) and a reminder alarm pops up, none of the dialog’s buttons will be visible, making it difficult to close the alert window. However, some dialog boxes will reposition their text when using a smaller system font. The below screen shot illustrates how a 12-point font allows the dismiss and snooze buttons to now be partially visible and thus clickable.

Gotcha’s
Because some dialogs reposition their text when using the smaller font, some text may be hidden or harder to see. But, as shown in the below screen shot, you can usually work around this problem by using an object related to the hidden text, such as dropping down the drop down list to see the different values:

How To Do It
WARNING: Modifying your registry can cause serious problems (including data loss) if not performed correctly. You should only perform the below changes if you are experienced with modifying the registry.

ALSO IMPORTANT: Remember to write down the previous values for these keys before you modify them, in case you want to undo these changes.

To change the System Font size from the default 14 to a more efficient 12-point font, u se your Registry editor and navigate to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\gdi\sysfnt

and change the value for the “Ht” entry to “12″ decimal (the previous value will be a 14 or some huge number like 4327284 for some reason).

The above registry change will change the size of the text in the Title Barm Start Menu and Icons. To change the text size of the menu bar at the bottom of your screen, go to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\gwe\menu\barfnt

and change the value for the “Ht” entry to “12″ decimal.

To change the text size of the entries in the various pop-up menus in the bottom menu bar, go to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\gwe\menu\popfnt

and change the value for the “Ht” entry to “12″ decimal.

That’s it - just perform a soft reset for the changes to take effect.

Conclusion
I hope you find this modification useful. I have been using the smaller font size for the past few weeks and I have not found one reason to switch back.
By John Cody on Monday, March 11, 2002

In part one of this series we covered some of the basics to keep in mind when setting up an 802.11b wireless LAN. Now we’re going to cover how to get your Pocket PC working on that wireless LAN, and give you suggestions on what you do with it once you get going.

What You Need
• A working 802.11b wireless LAN
• An 802.11b card for your Pocket PC (PCMCIA or CompactFlash, depending on model)

Languages Supported
Not applicable.

Gotchas
None.

Step 1: Install the drivers
The first thing you’ll need to do in order to get your 802.11b card working in your Pocket PC is to install the drivers. There will be a CD-ROM included with the card that should contain the drivers. Every card will be different, but in all cases the procedure is the same:

1. Connect your Pocket PC to your desktop computer via ActiveSync
2. Insert the CD-ROM that came with the 802.11b card
3. Install the drivers (I often install them to the Flash ROM memory of the Pocket PC)
4. Disconnect your Pocket PC and insert the card

Step 2: Configure the card
Once you’ve installed the drivers, you’ll need to configure the card. Every brand of card will have slightly different software to configure, but most of the drivers on the Pocket PC will have similar options you’ll want to look at. In order, these are:

Figure 1: Checking the SSID and Operating Mode

Check the SSID and Operating Mode: Figure 1 shows a screen shot from the Symbol card, but you’ll want to check that the SSID is correct with whatever software you’re using. The SSID needs to match whatever you set it as when you set up your wireless access point. In most cases, unless you’ve changed it, it will be “default”. The operating mode should be “infrastructure” - other modes are for wireless LANs without access points (they involve peer to peer access).

Figure 2: DHCP or static IP?

Getting your IP address: Every computer that gets on the Internet has to have an IP address - think of it like an ID number. If you have a router that performs NAT (network address translation), odds are it also has a DHCP server and will automatically dish out an IP address. Most Pocket PC software will default to this mode (Figure 2), but double check to make sure. If you have a static IP address that you want to use, enter it now.

Figure 3: Check your signal strength

Check your signal strength: Every Pocket PC 802.11b driver I’ve seen has some method of checking signal strength. You want to verify that the signal strength is strong enough in the areas where you’ll be working. Walk around your home or office and watch the signal strength - if it drops off in an area where you want coverage, you may need to re-position the wireless access point or purchase another one to increase coverage.

Step 3: Set up connection manager
Once you’ve confirmed your card is working and you have signal strength, open up Pocket Internet Explorer and try to go to a web site. Odds are you’ll receive an error message that looks just like Figure 4:

Figure 4: A common Connection Manager error

This error means it’s time to configure the Pocket PCs Connection Manager! The default settings never quite work right, so you’ll need to change them. Tap on Settings and a new window will load. Odds are the three drop-down menus you’ll see will be set to Internet Settings, Work Settings, and Work - in that order.

If you’re on a business LAN that requires a proxy server, tap on the Modify button under the second drop down menu (”When needed, automatically connect to Work using these settings:”). Click on the Proxy Settings tab (Figure 5) and check of the first box at the top (”This network connects to the Internet”), as well as the second box and enter in your proxy server address.

Figure 5: Setting up the proxy server

Once you’ve changed the proxy settings, click OK and try to connect again. If you still can’t connect, or if you don’t have a proxy server at all (most gateway devices don’t use them), go back into Connection Manager and change all the drop down menus to the following: Internet Settings, Internet Settings, and The Internet (in that order) - just like Figure 6 shows.

Figure 6: Configuring for Internet access

This is the setting that I need to use. Theoretically, the first settings under Work should do the trick, but it doesn’t seem to work unless there’s proxy information entered. Once complete, click OK and try to connect to a web site again - you should connect. You’re live!

It’s important to note here that if you want to use ActiveSync, you’ll need to change these settings all back to work - it won’t function otherwise.

Step 4: Help! It’s not working…
If your wireless LAN connection is working on your Pocket PC, skip this step and move on to the next one. If you’re having problems, here are some things to consider:

• Move within close range of your wireless access point - there may be something blocking or dramatically reducing the signal strength of your wireless access point, so getting close to it will tell you if you’re having signal strength problems
• Change the channel of your wireless access point - remember that 802.11b works on the same 2.4 GHz frequency that some portable phones do, so there’s a chance someone around you has one that is interfering with the signal strength. There are 11 distinct channels for the access point
• Take out the 802.11b card, soft reset the Pocket PC, and after it has rebooted, insert the card
• Check the SSID setting - it’s case sensitive, but to make things simple change it to “any” (no quotes) and you’ll pick up the strongest network signal. If there are multiple networks in your area, use the proper SSID
• If your software came with a PING utility, use it - if you can ping an IP address (like 204.34.121.16), it likely means you’re having DNS server problems and the solution lies with your gateway device
• If all else fails, put the card in a laptop to see if the card is faulty, or if it’s incompatible with your Pocket PC. And there’s a slight chance your Pocket PC may be faulty if the card works in the laptop and you’re sure the settings were all correct

Step 5: You’re done!
Now that you have your Pocket PC working over your wireless LAN connection, it’s time to see what you can do with it. The possibilities are vast, but here are some ideas:

• Set up an email account, especially if it’s IMAP, so you can check your email from anywhere in your home or office
• ActiveSync with your PC to get appointment updates, new email, and updates
• Set up MSN Messenger so you can chat with your friends and co-workers from anywhere
• There’s a new breed of Pocket PC games coming out: wireless multiplayer. If you’re a fan of chess, check out this multiplayer version designed for people with wireless connections
• Set up some of your favourite web sites like TV Guide for checking broadcast times
• Watch video trailers, music videos, and listen to streaming music on the Windows Media Mobile site

Conclusion
Having a Pocket PC connected to a wireless LAN opens up a world of possibilities - enjoy it!
By Jason Dunn on Thursday, August 15, 2002

Wireless technology is hot - there are countless hardware and software solutions on the market today for wireless networking, and the demand is only getting stronger. No one likes wires! This article will take you through a step by step process of picking the right hardware, setting it up, and getting it working. Since exactly setup procedures will differ with every type of hardware, this article focuses on the generic steps you’ll need to take and things to consider while doing so. The focus here is on the network itself, specifically on the wireless portion. This article assumes that you already have a functioning wired network in place (but if you don’t keep reading), and it also assumes you have a basic understanding of networking terminology. In part two of this series, we’ll look at getting your Pocket PC configured on the wireless LAN.

What You Need
• High-speed Internet access
• An already functioning network
• At least one computer (laptop or desktop)
• An 802.11b Wireless Access point (explained below)
• An 802.11b connection device (PCMCIA, CompactFlash, or USB depending on the device you want to connect)

Step 1: Look at your network topology
“Network Topology” is a fancy phrase that just means “look at what you’ve got, and decide what you want to do with it”. What do you want to accomplish with a wireless LAN? Some common reasons for wanting a wireless LAN:

• You have a new desktop computer that you want to connect to a network, or high-speed Internet access, but you don’t want to run cables to it (or can’t)

• You have a laptop that you want to roam the house with and still have a network connection to get Internet access, share files, and print

• You have a Pocket PC, and checking your email from your front porch sounds like a great idea

The next question you need to ask yourself is what sort of Internet connection you have. If you don’t have high-speed Internet access, you’ll be limited to printer and file sharing on the network. If you have high-speed access, you’ll likely fall into one of two scenarios:

• You have high-speed cable or DSL access with a single IP address from your provider. You’ll need to get hardware to enable your computers to share that IP address. You may be able to purchase an additional IP address from your provider for a monthly fee. If you want to avoid this fee, you’ll need hardware that offers a feature called “NAT” (Network Address Translation)

• You have high-speed cable or DSL access and you have multiple IP addresses from your provider. You’ll need a small hub to connect the cable or DSL modem and the wireless access point.

Figuring out exactly what you want to accomplish will help you accomplish your goals much easier!

Step 2: Purchase the right hardware
I can’t list every type of hardware on the market, but I can tell you what to look for. If you don’t already have a wired network in place, you can purchase some two-in-one hardware that will make getting this set up much easier. In the following examples I reference mostly D-Link hardware because I’m most familiar with it , however any brand will do.

Figure 1: A D-Link wireless access point

802.11b Access Point (Figure 1): These are made by many popular manufacturers like LinkSys, D-Link, Symbol, 3COM, and SOHO. You’ll want to make sure that whatever model you get includes full 802.11b support, and has an uplink port on it (most will). This is what you should purchase if you already have a hub and a network connection set up and are strictly looking to wirelessly-enabled your network.

Figure 2: A D-Link Wireless Broadband Router

802.11b Wireless Broadband Router (Figure 2): This class of device is different than the Access Points. Wireless routers combine several functions into one - all will have, at minimum, several Ethernet ports for other hard-wired computers on the network (ie: normal cables), the ability to share one high-speed Internet connection among many PCs (up to 32 computers on some models) using Network Address Translation (NAT), and lastly they incorporate the functions of an 802.11 Access Point. Some models also include hardware firewalls for security, and even a print server for sharing printers. This is what you should purchase if you don’t yet have a working network, or are looking to replace a current hub with a box that will secure your network and give you wireless access.

Figure 3: A D-Link 802.11b PCMCIA card

802.11b PCMCIA card (Figure 3): This will enable you to connect a laptop or PCMCIA slot-equipped Pocket PC with wireless access. There are many brands on the market, so if your goal is to have a single card that you can share between your laptop and your Pocket PC, make sure that brand has drivers for both devices.

Figure 4: A D-Link 802.11b CompactFlash card

802.11b CompactFlash card (Figure 4): An 802.11b CompactFlash card will enable you to connect a Pocket PC, or a laptop with the appropriate adaptor, to the network. These cards are offered in both Type 1 and Type 2 thickness, so make sure you buy one that’s compatible with your Pocket PC. Most will come with drivers that will enable you to use it in your laptop. There are many different brands to choose from: Symbol and Socket Communications both have a very compact model that is popular among Pocket PC owners.

Figure 5: A D-Link USB 802.11b adaptor

802.11b USB adaptor: Designed for either desktop PCs or laptops, this device will enable you to connect your computer to the wireless LAN. In most cases I’d recommend the PCMCIA or CompactFlash version for a laptop and limit this USB-based wireless adaptor to a desktop.

Step 3: Get it all set up
Setting up the specific hardware will require you to follow the included instructions. But no matter which brand of hardware you purchase, there are some things to keep in mind when setting it all up:

• If you already have a hub or switch/router, it should have an uplink port. The uplink port is where your high-speed modem is connected. If you’re integrating a wireless access point into this scenario, the access point should be plugged into the hub just like any other computer. Remember that if you’re out of ports you can purchase a smaller hub and plug it into the bigger hub, then connect the access point to the smaller hub - the data will flow through them all quite easily. You may need to configure the wireless access point with the included utilities.

• If you’re using a multi-function router/firewall/802.11b device, you’ll want to plug the high-speed modem into the uplink port, and plug your local computers into the normal Ethernet ports. Obviously, since the multi-function device has integrated 802.11b, the most you’ll need to do is configure the unit to get an Internet connection. By default, it will likely be set up to find an IP address automatically from a DHCP server (this is the way most cable modem providers are configured).

• Most 802.11b access points and multi-function devices will require a minimum of configuration. The nice part is that most are web-browser based: you’ll type in an IP address (usually 192.168.0.1) into a web browser from a computer already connected, and configure it. Most of the default settings are fine for beginners, but as you become more experienced you’ll be able to set up and configure your SSID, WEP security key, etc.

Gotchas
While costs are falling, this is still a moderately expensive undertaking depending on what sort of hardware you use. And remember that 802.11b has a limited range - inside a house, it’s around 500 feet, but that will vary widely depending on the number and type of obstructions between the wireless access point and the device that is trying to connect to it.

Another important factor here is that 802.11b has several well-known security weaknesses that can be exploited by a knowledgeable person. Do not use wireless networking technology if you have critical data on a shared drive that doesn’t have special permissions for access.

Conclusion
Wireless networking is one of the most exciting technologies to come around in years - it will enable you to work away from your desk while still being connected. I really enjoy having a wireless network in my home - being able to sit down on the couch with a laptop or Pocket PC and work is a beautiful thing.
By Jason Dunn on Wednesday, August 14, 2002