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Faq's

What is a Pocket PC?

A Pocket PC is a handheld personal digital assistant running the Microsoft Pocket PC/Windows Mobile operating system. The layout of the PPC/Windows Mobile OS is very similar to the Microsoft Windows OS.

What is a Palm?

A Palm is a handheld personal digital assistant running the Palm-based operating system.

What is a Smartphone?

A Smartphone a mobile phone that provides advanced data functions in addition to the voice features of a regular mobile phone. To be considered a Smartphone, a mobile phone should have many of the following features:

Appointment calendar

Internet browser
E-mail in addition to SMS (short message service) messaging
Graphics capability
Multi-tonal ring tones
MP3 player
Digital camera

Microsoft created the Pocket PC Phone Edition OS and software to meet the needs of users who were primarily interested in PDA functionality, allowing manufacturers to create PDA devices which also function as mobile phones. The devices have a large, color touch screen in place of a conventional telephone keypad, and a full suite of Pocket PC software. These phones are considered a PDA first, and a phone second. Microsoft also developed the hardware specifications and software for a new class of devices, which they called "Microsoft Windows Mobile Smartphones". These include many of the same applications found on the Pocket PC, but optimized for the smaller screen size and keypad input method.

While the Windows Mobile Smartphone is based on the same operating system as the Pocket PC, the hardware specs and user interface of the device are tailored to support its primary use as a phone. These devides function as a phone first, PDA second. Instead of a touch screen, it comes with a standard 12-key phone keypad. The Smartphone is much smaller than a Pocket PC and uses a smaller display. In addition to the keypad, the Smartphone has a large five-way navigation button for program navigation and control. For Pocket PC owners, the look and feel is comfortably familiar.

What is Bluetooth?

Bluetooth is the name of an inexpensive radio chip that can be used in virtually any device. It was designed originally to replace the myriad of cables connected to your PC. Think about all those cables; keyboard, mouse, monitor, printer and so on. Why not replace those with a short range inexpensive radio chip and end the clutter? For that matter, why stop there? If Bluetooth works to replace cables then it can also be used to connect a PPC to a PC and a PPC to a printer.

Continuing on that vein you can connect a PPC to a Bluetooth-enabled cellular phone. The ideas for Bluetooth technology are endless, and the PPC world is only one application for this little wonder. The chips are inexpensive and consume very little power making them very attractive to device manufacturers.

In case you are wondering where the name came from it was named after a Danish Viking and King, Harald Blåtand which translates to Bluetooth. He lived in the latter part of the 10 th century and united Denmark and Norway. Thus the inspiration: uniting devices through Bluetooth. Reference: http://www.palowireless.com/infotooth/whatis.asp.

What is WiFi?

WiFi is short for wireless fidelity and is used generically to refer to any type of 802.11 network. Though, originally it only referred to 802.11b networks. In other words it is the common term used to refer to wireless networks that meet the 802.11 specifications defined by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers pronounced I- Triple-E).

The 802.11 specifications were adopted in 1997 for wireless LAN (local area network) use. It was created to augment or replace the wired Ethernet connections associated with offices and home offices.

The first adaptation was 802.11. It provided only 1 to 2 Mbps transmission speeds (traditional Ethernet was 10 Mbps) and used the 2.4 GHz band which is also shared by wireless phones (not to be confused with cellular).

802.11a provides up to 54 Mbps and runs in the 5 GHz band. 802.11b rovides 11 Mbps (with auto step down to 5.5, 2 and 1 Mbps) and runs in the 2.4 GHz band. 802.11g provides 20+ Mbps and also runs in the 2.4 GHz band. 802.11g devices are usually backwards compatible with the 802.11b standard.

What is a soft reset?

A soft reset "reboots" your Pocket PC. It clears your RAM and closes any programs currently running. Installation of new programs on your Pocket PC often requires a soft reset to finish the installation process, just like with a desktop PC or laptop. When your Pocket PC becomes unresponsive or is running slowly, a soft reset is often the solution.

There is a soft reset button located usually on the back or the side of the Pocket PC that can be pressed with the tip of the stylus to initiate the soft reset. There are also programs such as Handy Menu or SPB Pocket Plus that give you the option to initiate a soft reset from the Pocket PC interface.

What is a hard reset?

A hard reset restores your Pocket PC to its original factory configuration, causing you to lose any saved programs, settings, or files that are installed to the main RAM. Hard resets do not affect anything saved to a flash memory card. Programs that come preinstalled on the ROM will not be affected, though any customized settings will be lost.

A hard reset can occur if you let the main battery drain on your Pocket PC and the backup battery also becomes drained. To avoid losing your settings during an accidental hard reset, it is important to back up your Pocket PC configuration and data. Active Sync has a built-in back up component, but many users prefer a separate back up utility such as the popular Sprite Backup software.

What is a cab file?

A cab file, short for "cabinet" file, is a group of files that are compressed into one file. Cab files are used for installation purposes. You can save a cab file to a Pocket PC, tap it once to extract the files and the program will be installed.

How Do I Transfer Files To and From My Device?

ActiveSync

When you first create your PPC/PC partnership ActiveSync is the software that manages the communication. It serves as the “traffic cop” if you will for the exchanges between the two. Though, like any flow of traffic, if one knows where to go and what to look for there are ways to circumvent the traffic cop (more on that below).

Along with the partnership management activesync creates a directory on your PC under the “My Documents” folder. It will be named Device_Name My Documents where Device_Name is the name you set on your PPC. Provided you have not changed the default settings in activesync any files dropped in the Device_Name My Documents folder will be synchronized to your PPC upon the next synchronization (or immediately if the connection is already active). This includes files AND folders.

Note that these files will reside in main memory on your PPC, so keep that in mind BEFORE you drop 100 MP3 files in there.

Manual Copy/Paste

Yes, it still exists and sometimes it beats all other options (sometimes). You will need an active activesync connection between your two devices. That can be accomplished via the cradle (USB or serial), WiFi, Bluetooth or IR. Open activesync on the PC and click on the explore button. This will bring up a windows explorer box on your PC with the list of files and directories on your PPC displayed. One trick here is that the default directory displayed is NOT the highest level. Instead you will be looking at your “Mobile Device” directory which turns out to be your main memory My Documents folder.

To get to the highest level (a/k/a root) directory double click on the My Pocket PC folder/icon. At this point you will now see all directories including any memory cards available. Using another windows explorer window (displaying PC files/folders) you can cut, copy and paste. The mechanics are identical to standard windows explorer. The movement is slower than on your PC as activesync has to handle a lot of overhead associated with format converting amongst other things.

Another “flavor” of this approach is to open file explorer (or equivalent) on the PPC and push/pull files.

Card Reader

These are small devices (often times USB) that connect to your PC and allow it to “see” memory cards of various types. Some units are only compatible with a single type of memory card, while other multi-readers (or all in one) can read six or eight types.

The point of these devices is to allow you to insert your PPC memory card and write to it like a PC hard drive. Then once you have transferred your files you simply remove it from the reader and plug it back into your PPC. Because there is no activesync connection involved here it is much quicker. However, because there is no activesync connection involved there is also NO conversion involved. So if you are trying to move Excel files for example and you use this method, you won’t be able to open them on your PPC with Pocket Excel. There are other software packages out there that will open them, but Pocket Excel expects a Pocket Excel format. Activesync takes care of the conversion for you when it is involved, but you can’t duplicate it with this approach.

This method is best suited for audio, video, eBooks, reference manuals (text, html, PDF if reader has been installed), etc. In the case of audio and video they can be quite large and don’t require conversion to be read on the PPC so you save a lot of time with a reader.

“Beaming”

This term refers to the transfer of information via IR (infrared) communications. It is suitable only for small file transfer in close line of site proximity. IR is low bandwidth compared to other methods already covered and therefore is the slowest of the group. It does however, have it’s place in the world of PPCs.

First, it doesn’t require a wire which makes it a good solution for sending that proposal over to your colleague’s PPC or PC during a meeting. You can also use it to “beam” over appointments or contact from your PPC.

To accomplish this, point the devices at each other (the IR ports at each other, this is line of site only) and establish the connection. Most devices have IR active and will therefore “see” each other automatically. In some cases security has been turned on to block IR signals or configurations have been changed and the IR is turned off. In either case you will have to identify which device has the issue and troubleshoot accordingly.

Once the connection has been established on the sending unit select the item to be sent (file, contact, appt, etc) and hold for that “right mouse button” menu to appear. From that menu you can select send via IR (or equivalent menu option). On the receiving unit go to Start, Settings, Connections, Beam and select “receive an infrared beam”. This will start the device transfer process. (Note, instructions for WM2003, other operating systems and/or PPC units may differ).

How do I install programs on my Pocket PC?

There are two ways to install programs to your Pocket PC:

1.) Running an installation program that installs via ActiveSync. This is very similar to installing a program on your PC. Make sure that you have your Pocket PC connected to your computer and ActiveSync is running. Run the installation file and follow the prompts to install the initial files to your system. At the end of the installation, it calls up the Add/Remove Programs dialog in ActiveSync and installs it on your Pocket PC. It will ask if you want to save it to the default location, which means in the memory on your Pocket PC. If you do not want to save it to the Pocket PC itself, select “No” and it will let you choose your Storage Card as the designated directory.

2.) You can also save a cab file to your Pocket PC or Storage Card directly, and then tap the cab file to install it.

My Stylus Lock or Screen is Broken. Where can I get help?

If your Pocket PC is covered by a replacement policy from Circuit City, CompUSA or other retail extended warranty, or if it is still covered by warranty from the manufacturer, then refer to your warranty details to find out about repair or replacement.

If not, take a look in our Links section under “ 3rd Party Repair and Parts”.These folks can fix broken stylus locks and screens, install additional memory and several other services. You can also purchase the required parts and do the work yourself. This will void your warranty so make an informed decision before you pop the cover.