I really didn’t think much of the Sideshow feature when I had first heard about it. But that was before I saw this:

This is very cool – you can use your Windows Mobile device to control your Powerpoint slides via Bluetooth.  It basically combines the Windows SideShow for Windows Mobile preview with a SideShow gadget for Powerpoint.

To do this you will need two components:

1. Windows SideShow for Windows Mobile Developer Preview
2. Office PowerPoint Remote

Man, this would be awesome for doing presentations! That’s it, I gotta rebuild my laptop.

(via MR Mobile)

I happened upon ScummVM again recently and wanted to try it on my Windows Mobile PDA only to find out that it’s shipped in a .ZIP file rather than the conventional installers most people prefer.  So, I made one. 

Below are .CAB and .EXE installers for ScummVM 0.10. They were created using the excellent Installation Creator software by Aperitto Software. Here’s the files:

• scummvm-0.10.0-WinCE.cab
  • This is the installer that you can copy to your device and run, or install OTA (over-the-air) if you have network access from your device.

• scummvm-0.10.0-WinCE.exe
  • This installer runs from your Windows PC and will install the program using Activesync.

• scummvm-0.10.0-WinCE.pci
  
  • This is the project file I used with Installation Creator to create the above files.

Here’s a cool bit of freeware that lets you control your Windows Mobile device from your PC.  It requires an Activesync connection for communication.  Some features are:

• copy / paste text
• drag & drop files
• use keyboard & mouse to control pocket PC

And a screenshot:

Just came across this on ye blogosphere.  I haven’t yet tried logging into my other XMPP accounts, but it does let you specify a full JID so I’m assuming it will allow this, despite the Google Talk label.

Feature-wise it looks pretty cool.  The GUI is better than most IM clients I’ve seen on Windows Mobile, but not that flashy.  Not sure what to think about the VOIP, I see no evidence of these in the GUI.  Oops, spoke too soon, I see “call” there now.  Neat.  I don’t have many contacts to test it with however.  Add halr9000@gmail.com to your roster and let’s test it out.   

“OctroTalk is currently in BETA, and is available for download. The current download will expire on March31st, 2007.”

Darn, it’s not freeware. 

Here’s the canned bit from their website:

OctroTalk. Mobile Instant Messaging with full voice integration. This always-on product keeps you connected with your buddies, and your buddies reach you whenever, wherever. Works seamlessly over GPRS/EDGE/CDMA/Wifi/Bluetooth data connections, and cuts down your phone bills. OctroTalk now supports GoogleTalk, MSN, AIM, ICQ and Yahoo.

Features:

• Always on connected to Google Talk with MSN, AIM, ICQ and Yahoo transports
• Complete VOIP product. Access to PSTN coming soon.
• Supports Low Bandwidth Codec (even works with EDGE/GPRS/CDMA).
• Streamlined UI. Optimized for one-handed operation. Today Screen on Pocket PC. Home Screen support for Smartphone.
• Low CPU usage. Only VOIP product that works on Treo 700w (300 MHz processor).
• Secure and Encrypted connection to GoogleTalk. Google Talk messages are encrypted using industry standard TLS/SSL.
• Message Archiving in your GMail Account.
• BOTs coming soon. Access your computer remotely.

And some screenshots from the manual:

Just a quick response to this article from the Windows Mobile Team Blog about why they took Wifi sync capability out of Windows Mobile 5 & ActiveSync 4:

Here is the way I see it:

Microsoft announced their so-called security initiative a year or three ago, and right afterwards, disabled wifi sync. You might recall, this was where they had press releases talking about how they were changing the way they were coding, tools, performance goals, etc all to revolve around security (because they were getting ripped about the lack thereof).

I have no evidence to prove this, but I think what happened was that some supervisor looked into what it would take to really secure wifi sync and after having a good look at the code decided it would be a huge job to redo some endemic design flaws. Supervisor said to his boss something like “it’ll take 3,000 man-hours to do it right”. The reply was something like, “uhh, let’s just disable it. I’ll have Marketing spin some reasons and tie it into our new security initiative”. I’m sure that the decision was intended to be revisited later, but as their enterprise customers (who have a large influence on future roadmap decisions) all were using Exchange so wifi sync wasn’t on their radar. Add to the fact that “everyone knows” that WEP can be broken as easily as an egg and that WPA/WPA2 wasn’t popular yet (not to mention not included in Windows Mobile!) and that basically explains it.

I really thought they would fix this with WMDC but here we are with Beta 2 and I don’t see wifi sync.

For the record, I just did a new Vista beta 2 build, plugged in my Sprint PPC-6700 via USB and…nada. Way to go Microsoft! WMDC is a chip off the old Activesync block!

Funny thread title in a forum I just came across. I ended up spending way too much time composing a reply in the thread, so much time in fact that I’m not going to repeat it here. But if you have a Pocket PC, you’ll want to read the whole thing.

Pocket PC Thoughts :: View topic – What is Your Favorite Yet Unsuspecting Software on Your Pocket PC?

Very cool find. SSH client for Windows CE/Mobile. It runs just fine on WM 5.0. Couple of small bugs, but it gets me a prompt.

### Update 2006-06-15 ###
Website link is now pocketputty.net

Yes! They are bringing Jabber support back! I haven’t done any testing yet, wife’s got my phone and won’t give it back. Agile is one of the best IM clients on Windows Mobile (aka Windows CE), but they went commercial and dropped jabber support some time ago. An older version was floating around available as freeware, but it doesn’t play very nice with Windows Mobile 5. Can’t wait to test this out.

(thx PocketPC Thoughts)

Pocket PC Thoughts – Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

After a painstaking wait and increasing pressure from the online communities, Agile Mobile has finally graced us with a public alpha version of their newly redesigned multi-instant messaging client, Agile Messenger. With full support for Windows Mobile 5, landscape mode, chat history, and its original features we have come to appreciate such as “push-to-talk” audio chat, this new version of Agile Messenger is sure to make its way into many mobile devices when it’s finally released.

Here are some links and pics. I’ll write some opinions later.

* msmobiles.com – CeBIT 2006 coverage: first hand report from Microsoft press conference
* “Smart Caddie” with a VIA chip inside rather than Intel.

* More details on the TabletKiosk V-700 UMPC (good link with specs and pics)
* Official MS Press release & mini-interview
* Flash demo of Windows Launcher
* Ultra Mobile PC Display Emulator Beta – test your application on a UMPC screen format
* MSDN Dev center for UMPC

Obviously I think this is pretty significant or I wouldn’t bother with this article. I’ll tell you why when I have more time.

Quick specs:

* it runs win32 code, not Windows Mobile
* 2.5 hr+ battery life (which is way too short)
* 800×480 is a common resolution
* screen no larger than 7 inches
* tablet style input
* will work with USB or bluetooth keyboards
* wifi (duh)

Psi should be the first Jabber client to run on it. (update: here’s Psi running in the UMPC demo)

I just downloaded, looks cool. There’s another one of these add-ons floating around that was free, ftxBrowser. It’s pretty awkward to use, hopefully this one is better.

Webby provides a powerful desktop-style browsing experience on the Pocket Pc platform. Besides tabbed browsing Webby automatically provides the ability to scale web pages using the two top microbrowsers, Skeezer.net and Google Mobile.

Features

* Tabbed Browsing (Multiple Seperate Browser Windows)
* Superior High Speed Web Page Rendering (Microbrowsers)
* Uses Google Mobile or Skweezer.net formatting automatically
* Support for multiple resolutions, including Landscape Mode
* Fast Scrolling!
* “View Source” option
* “View in Pocket IE” option
* Optionally deletes temporary files on exit to save memory
* Full screen browsing! (ie No address bar by default )
* Handy “Copy Address To Clipboard” function for easy integration with rss readers
* “Quick Link” builder that helps stylus users quickly enter web addresses

More info / download (direct CAB download)