OSNN Forum » Hardware Support & Discussion » Portable Devices & Gadgets

[dave holbon]

I develop applications for Windows CE systems (at the moment) mostly for the PDA (HP iPAQ h4700 type systems) which used the Sony screen.

Battery power is an issue here as well but the single most important unresolved issues relate to the introduction of SQL Everywhere, the VB.Net environment, Visual Studio 2005 and Access (MDB) databases which all my project requests are based on (i.e. getting data out of access into the mobile device and back into Access again).

This seemingly simple issue has proved a nightmare of “almost scenarios” but never mind the data in the tables as it’s almost impossible to input Access MDB tale data into this format (.sdf) and back again without jumping over hundreds of loops.

Access is the most widely used database system on the planet bar none (in terms of applications installed and in use on company systems) SQL Server and other corporate DBMS systems make up the rest (non internet databases) but providing a system to either view or update data on a PDA using Access is just not possible without using huge amounts of code. This is a major gaff on Microsoft’s behalf as they have in just one step isolated Access users (the biggest on the planet in term of people and companies) as they did to the VB community with the forced upgrade to VB.NET, an almost finished project that suffers from to much information, yet not enough, whilst following the holy grail of re-usable code which the whole .NET environment is based on.


I think that MS took a wrong turn about five years ago and should have concentrated on their customers and not the graduates that they employ who are in effect many years out of date, as this seems to be wheel turning round and round on a ten year cycle.

[perris]

Originally Posted by dave holbon

I develop applications for Windows CE systems (at the moment) mostly for the PDA (HP iPAQ h4700 type systems) which used the Sony screen.

Battery power is an issue here as well but the single most important unresolved issues relate to the introduction of SQL Everywhere, the VB.Net environment, Visual Studio 2005 and Access (MDB) databases which all my project requests are based on (i.e. getting data out of access into the mobile device and back into Access again).

This seemingly simple issue has proved a nightmare of “almost scenarios” but never mind the data in the tables as it’s almost impossible to input Access MDB tale data into this format (.sdf) and back again without jumping over hundreds of loops.

Access is the most widely used database system on the planet bar none (in terms of applications installed and in use on company systems) SQL Server and other corporate DBMS systems make up the rest (non internet databases) but providing a system to either view or update data on a PDA using Access is just not possible without using huge amounts of code. This is a major gaff on Microsoft’s behalf as they have in just one step isolated Access users (the biggest on the planet in term of people and companies) as they did to the VB community with the forced upgrade to VB.NET, an almost finished project that suffers from to much information, yet not enough, whilst following the holy grail of re-usable code which the whole .NET environment is based on.


I think that MS took a wrong turn about five years ago and should have concentrated on their customers and not the graduates that they employ who are in effect many years out of date, as this seems to be wheel turning round and round on a ten year cycle.

hey dave, great to see you

I tell you what;

if you can develope the software to get mobile pc to recognize the internal gps, which it DOES have in all cdma phones, then you will earn some good bucks and a great reputation from the comunity

for instance, you can see the gps unit in the 6700 with a reg edit

HKLM
ControlPanel
GPS Settings
Hide
Change from 1 to 0
Save, and soft reset

you'll be able to see the gps in the interface, but the decice won't give any readings off of it...sprint uses the gps for "familiy locator", but the device doesn't access the data...according to this;

http://blogs.msdn.com/netcfteam/arch...11/479793.aspx

the device can be instructed to see the data, I have to download

NETCFv2.wm.armv4i.cab

but I can't find it anywhere...maybe I'm missing it on that site, can you find it?

then create an interface, there's a free program that allows users to interface with google and yahoo maps for directions based on the gps so you won't have to develope software to go with it

also, most users would rather not use an external gps when they do load a gps program

I'm telling you, develope this and you'll make a nice name in the field

[madmatt]

For the last week or so I have been working on taking my technology blog and publishing it for mobile browsers (aimed at those of us with Windows Mobile devices).

Thanks to muzikool and his help with the header I have finally put the finishing touches on the first version.

Please feel free to check it out and let me know of any bugs you come across.

http://mobile.blog.usmsol.com

I've tested it with Windows Mobile 5.0 and IE7.

Enjoy.

[kcnychief]

So I finally have ditched my piece of **** Treo and now have a Cingular 8125.

There really is no comparison, this device is ****ing amazing. I love how it changes from normal to landscape and back again, it's just so cool to have one that works.

Wish I switched awhile ago

[madmatt]

Did you upgrade the firmware yet? If not, DO IT.

And visit my mobile blog.

Also, http://usmsol.spaces.live.com.

[kcnychief]

Haven't yet done that, I'll get to it tonight. Also haven't had the chance to setup Activesync on the PC as I haven't been home since Friday. Working until 8 - when I get out I will do both of those

[dave holbon]

perris vbmenu_register("postmenu_746258", true);

Send me your email address:

Hope is a fine thing.

[madmatt]

I posted a previous article discussing power consumption for SmartPhones and now we have one for the PocketPC.

Power to the PocketPC
In my recent “Power to the Smartphone” entry, I talked about the biggest drains on Smartphone batteries. In this one, we’ll talk about how this differs in PocketPCs. Almost everything I said about Smartphones in the previous entry is also true on PocketPCs, so make sure you read that entry before this one. Note also that, when I say “PocketPC” I’m really talking about “PocketPC Phone Edition” devices. We still sell PocketPCs that aren’t phones, but they’re a shrinking market.

One Man’s Fundamental…
There are two differences between PocketPC and Smartphone that I consider fundamental: touch and suspend. PocketPCs have a touch screen while Smartphones don’t, and PocketPCs suspend while Smartphones are “always on.”

Now “fundamental” and “important” aren’t necessarily the same thing. You might tell me that PocketPC having pOffice is way more important than whether or not the device suspends, and I might not argue with you. But, for a battery life discussion, differences in which applications come with the device aren’t all that relevant.

Touch: It’s not all that electric
The touch screen itself isn’t a very large drain on power. It’s similar to a button. When it’s not being pressed, it burns almost no power. When it is being pressed, it burns some, but not very much. There are much bigger fish to fry than the touch screen.

The touch screen’s big claim to fame when it comes to battery life is that it can cause other big power drainers to run. For instance, if you leave your PocketPC on and put it in your pocket, your pocket might touch the screen and cause the backlight to turn on. As you know from the previous article, turning on the backlight is huge.

Most people suspend their PocketPCs before putting them away, but you also run the risk of having the device wake up in your pocket for a meeting reminder or something, and then not turning off because the screen is being touched. The Treo 700w has a killer solution to this problem in the form of a screen lock. AKU2 devices also have a screen lock, though they’re not as good as the Treo’s. From both a battery life standpoint as well as a “hey, how did this contact get changed?” one, it’s generally a good idea to lock the screen.

Suspend: And in the darkness bind them
The biggest difference between Smartphone and PocketPC is what’s happening when the screen is dark. On both, if you don’t use the device for a minute or two the screen will turn off. On PocketPC, you can also make this happen immediately by pressing the power button. That’s not the important part, though. The important part is that, on Smartphone, when the screen is off, applications are still running. On PocketPC, for the most part, they’re not. From a power savings standpoint, this has advantages and disadvantages.

The main advantage is that it’s much harder for an application to drain your batteries on PocketPC than on Smartphone. Apps can still do bad things, but they have to work at it. On a Smartphone, the app just needs to keep using the CPU to drain the batteries. On a PocketPC, the app needs to keep the system from suspending first, then it can keep using the CPU to drain the batteries. It’s pretty easy to do that, so this isn’t much protection against malicious apps. But it’s reasonably unlikely that they’ll do it accidentally. That stock ticker that I talked about in the Smartphone entry wouldn’t have as bad an effect on PocketPC, since it wouldn’t run while the PocketPC is suspended.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that, if you don’t have apps that use the CPU when they shouldn’t, then suspending is actually worse for your battery life than not suspending. Check out the “Mike, what are you smoking?” section of this entry if you’re interested in why. The extremely short description, though, is that waking up and suspending again on a PocketPC takes a lot more time (and power) than doing the equivalent on a Smartphone. This is no big deal if you’re just turning the device on occasionally to check your calendar. But, in today’s highly connected world of devices that frequently download new mail and get SMSes, etc, the Smartphone model starts to really win out.

The other downside is something of a secondary effect. When PocketPC suspends, it specifically tells every driver to power itself down. Because the PocketPC spends the majority of its time suspended, an OEM driver writer might be tempted to not do much power management in the driver itself and just rely on the suspend to take care of it. On a Smartphone, however, the drivers have to aggressively manage their own power as quickly as possible, since they can’t rely on the big hammer that is suspend. The end result is that, depending on the drivers, when the system is awake, it may be burning more power than an equivalent Smartphone would.

So, what can a PocketPC user do about this? Your job is to get the system to suspend as soon as possible. Don’t wait for it to time out. Press the power button when you’re done using it. Be careful with apps that specifically keep the system awake. For instance, if you use pMSN and sign in to IM, the device won’t suspend, even if you press the power button. If you need to stay signed in, that’s what you need to do. But be aware that it will affect your battery life. If you’re syncing every five minutes, but reading mail every ten, consider syncing less often. Etc.

LCDs and Other stuff
The other stuff is important, but maybe obvious. PocketPCs tend to be physically larger than Smartphones, so they often have the ability to have larger batteries. On the other hand, they also tend to have physically larger screens that need bigger backlights which burn more power.

There were a few questions regarding LCDs in the comments of the previous entry. I’ll try to answer them here. So everyone is on the same page, when I say, “LCD” I’m talking about the screen but not the backlight. Also, what I say about LCDs is the same for PocketPC and Smartphone.

One question was why black and white LCDs burn less power than color ones. The main answer is that every dot (pixel) on a black and white screen takes one transistor, while every dot on a color screen takes three. Transistors burn power. Also, color screens tend to have more pixels than black and white ones (they’re higher resolution). And, since there are more pixels in the same space, they tend to be packed more tightly together. That means that you need a brighter backlight to shine through the tight mesh of them. Finally, because pure black and white is high contrast, you need less light for your eyes to see it. Some black and white external screens (like on a flip phone) don’t even have backlights.

There was also a question on whether choosing a dark or bright background has any effect on power. On a big LCD screen, it really doesn’t. On some LCD technologies, it might have a small effect. For instance, if you think about the black and white LCD on a calculator, when it’s not showing anything the screen is “white” and when it’s showing numbers, those numbers are “black.” Not showing anything probably burns a little less power than showing something. For a color LCD, though, there’s little, if any, difference between black and white. However, there’s an upcoming technology called “OLED” where black doesn’t burn any power and white burns power. So, depending on the technology, we’ve got black background being better than white, white background being better than black, and it not mattering. Confusing? The good news is that none of this matters. The amount of power the LCD uses is completely insignificant compared to the backlight, and there aren’t many hours out of the day where the LCD is on but the backlight is off.

Source: Windows Mobile Team Blog

[kcnychief]

Matt - were you able to get insurance for your 8125?

I was told they don't offer it on Data phones

[madmatt]

Cingular does NOT offer insurance on PDAs which doesn't phase me because if I break it I can get a new one (8525!!!!).

[kcnychief]

We aren't all as rich as you though Daddy Warbucks, still sucks they don't offer it

[madmatt]

I didn't ask some woman to marry me and then turn around and give her all my money.

[kcnychief]

Ouch, low blow.

I didn't either though, we aren't going to have a joint account until after the big day

Then, no more toys

[madmatt]

The new Cingular 8525 that is scheduled for October release.

[kcnychief]

Sexy indeed, I like the change of color too.

Pricing information yet?

I wish they had a step up program, that would rock.

[perris]

chief, did you get credit for the treo?

I hope you didn't have to eat it...sprint gives insurance on the 6700 btw

[kcnychief]

I was able to dump my contract to someone else at this site -

http://www.celltradeusa.com/

No fees for this guy

I heard about the insurance on the 6700, just really wanted the 8125. I'll be careful with it.

[kcnychief]

This is pretty darn cool - Spybot for Pocket PCs

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/08...for-pocket-pc/

[madmatt]

Pricing rumors have varied. I've read $600 with the souped up processor (400MHz). Only time will tell.

[kcnychief]

Anyone using their Device, Activesync and the new Office Betas on Vista?

I'm planning on making the switch when RC1 comes out on my prod machine, wanted to see if others have tested any of those yet.