Bruce Atkinson

Archive for the ‘SmartPhone’ Category

I recently switched from an HP 111 to a Tilt.  I prefer holsters and I purchased one for the Tilt.  One problem though, the holster doesn’t have card holder like a leather case does.  With the holster I no longer have a place to carry my On Course Navigator microSD card and an additional SIM card that I have. I searched around for a solution and I finally found the Proporta Aluminum Memory/SIM Holder.

It is the size of a credit card, and has the thickness of 4 credit cards.  It holds 3 SD cards or SIM cards. It is quite sturdy and fits perfectly in one of the pockets in my wallet.  I use an inexpensive tri-fold wallet that I purchased at Walmart.

The length of a SIM card is the same as the width of an SD card, so a SIM card sits in one of the holder’s slots sideways.  To hold a microSD card I use an SD adapter.  I can now easily carry On Course Navigator, my SIM, and an extra SD card for my camera safely in my wallet.

The cards are easy to insert, easy to remove and are securely held in place.  Proporta is a company in the UK that sells accessories for gadgets.  I ended up purchasing it through Amazon for $8.32 with free shipping.

http://www.proporta.com/

I have been trying different methods of synchronizing my Calendars for many years, and I have finally settled on a method that works for me and is pretty much maintenance free.  That method utilizes Google Calendar as my hub and a combination of Google Calendar Sync and an excellent program called gSyncit ($9.99).

Google Calendar supports multiple calendars and lets you publish/share them to other calendar tools like Outlook. Google Sync will synchronize your Outlook calendar to GMail, but it has limitations, and will only synchronize one calendar.  I use Google Calendar Sync to synchronize my work calendar with Google Calendar.  I renamed my main Google calendar to “Work”.  Using Google Calendar Sync on my work computer, I push my work Outlook calendar to Google Calendar.  I have my work Outlook look at my other Google calendars as Internet Calendars.

At home I use Outlook to get my calendar to my iPod and Windows Mobile phone.  Pocket Outlook only has one calendar and Activesync will only sync one calendar to Outlook.   gSyncit is a way to get around that limitation.

gSyncit will synchronize all your different Google calendars to your Outlook calendar.  It does this by using categories. Each Google calendar ends up as a different category.  My Work calendar ends up as category Work.  There are several options for configuring the sync process and controlling what gets synced where. It is easy to setup, so it is very easy to try out before buying.  It worked so well for me I only used it for ten minutes before deciding to pay the $9.99.   gSyncit has other features besides the calendar sync, it will also sync your contacts with GMail and that includes photos.
Once I had gSyncit syncing my Google and home Outlook calendars then my Windows Mobile phone and iPod automatically benefited and were now syncing with all my Google Calendars.

It may seem complicated, but it has actually been simple, painless, and problem free since I set it up several months ago.  I update my personal and work calendars during the day and when I get home and sync my phone my calendars are all synced.   The few hours that I am out of sync I can just go to Google Calendar and get the latest info.

gSyncit – http://daveswebsite.com

Screen shots of some of the gSyncit synchronization options:

WikiPock is a utility for Windows Mobile devices and Blackberrys, that lets you search Wikipedia without being connected to a network.  The costs for this convenience is quite reasonable. The Basic version is $9.99 and the Plus Version, which includes updates for a year and two additional databases, is $14.99.  The additional databases are Wikiquote, and Wiktionary.  The wikipedia database is currently 5 gig in size.  If you don’t have that much free space and you need to buy a memory card, they sell an 8 gig microSDHC card with the database preloaded for an additional $15.00.   The database includes full editorial content except images.

I have found it quite useful and a battery saver.  I find I use it every day.  You can read all about it here: http://www.wikipock.com

The search is real time displaying matches as you type.  Here are some screen shots showing the Search page and the results after searching for HTC  t and then clicking on HTC Touch Pro:

Search Screen	Results Screen

I just recently got a new phone. I had intended to upgrade my Samsung i730 to a Samsung Saga, but I discovered I couldn’t do it without getting a data plan. So I switched back to using a regular Pocket PC (I bought an HP 111 off eBay) and I upgraded for free to a Motorola Q9c). The Q9c is a Windows Mobile Smartphone without a touch screen and with a full qwerty keyboard.  One of the first things that I had a problem with was dialing phone numbers that are a name like (1-800-COMCAST or 1-800-PROGRESSIVE). There isn’t a phone keypad to look at when you dial, so I wrote this program to let you enter the number by name and it will convert it for you.

You can get it here: Keypad Letter Dialer v1.2

It requires the .NET Compact Framework 3.5 or you can download just the .NET CF 3.5 CAB file.

I set a speed dial to launch it, so whenever I need to dial a number by name I just hit the speed dial and then I am able to type the name of the number and press dial.

Updated:

It has been updated to Version 1.2. The following modifications were made:

• Detects if a phone is available and if it isn’t it disables the dial menu. Added for Pocket PC devices that do not have a phone.
• Added ability to add converted number to contacts. The text name is used as the name and the converted number is added as the phone number. If the contact already exists a message box is displayed letting the user know that the contact exists.
• Added “copy to clipboard” menu item.
• Pressing the enter key (or OK button) will dial the number.