zondag, juni 03, 2007
Boys and their toys: smartphone
I upgraded my E-Ten Glofiish M700 smartphone to Windows Mobile 6.0. Registered users can download the ROM upgrade for free. I also reinstalled OggSync's latest version to synchronise my Google Calendar. (Be sure to install .NET Compact Framework service pack 2, otherwise it won't work, believe it from someone who tried :-) ).
Windows Mobile 6 has a smoother interface and includes Windows Live, but the major improvements are for companies that push e-mails to the smartphones.
Of course, I've been looking for games to install on my device. That's when I came accross Ice Cream Empire. It doesn't run on my particular phone but I do like the concept: it is a business simulation game you play via your mobile. The slogon of this free game made by Bocconni university is 'Turn the economy into a mobile game'.
Windows Mobile 6 has a smoother interface and includes Windows Live, but the major improvements are for companies that push e-mails to the smartphones.
Of course, I've been looking for games to install on my device. That's when I came accross Ice Cream Empire. It doesn't run on my particular phone but I do like the concept: it is a business simulation game you play via your mobile. The slogon of this free game made by Bocconni university is 'Turn the economy into a mobile game'.
donderdag, maart 22, 2007
Boys and their toys 2 : Google calendar on my mobile
One drawback of the Windows Mobile platform I have on my brand new toy 'E-ten Glofiish M700' smartphone is that out of the box it only synchronises with Microsoft Outlook. I do have contacts in Outlook, but for my private mail I use Firefox, and for my calendar I'm using Google Calendar. In fact, I'm using 3 different calendars in Google: one private, one project based and one for our 'household' shared with my friend.
I looked at two free solutions to let my Windows 5 Mobile calendar synchronise with Google. The first one I tried was the free and open source GMobileSync. As a prerequisite you need the .NET Compact Framework 2.0 installed on your device otherwise the program won't run. The tool works OK, but only synchronises with your default calendar, and you can't configure which one. So I uninstalled it and I'm now using OggSync. This tool also requires the .NET Compact Framework 2.0, and also synchronises over the internet without needing ActiveSync. However it comes in a free and paying version. The paying version allows you to synchronise multiple calendars. The free version just one, but at least they let you select which one.
If you try either one of these tools out: don't forget to set your timezone offset to the same value as the one on your PDA and your Google calendar.
I looked at two free solutions to let my Windows 5 Mobile calendar synchronise with Google. The first one I tried was the free and open source GMobileSync. As a prerequisite you need the .NET Compact Framework 2.0 installed on your device otherwise the program won't run. The tool works OK, but only synchronises with your default calendar, and you can't configure which one. So I uninstalled it and I'm now using OggSync. This tool also requires the .NET Compact Framework 2.0, and also synchronises over the internet without needing ActiveSync. However it comes in a free and paying version. The paying version allows you to synchronise multiple calendars. The free version just one, but at least they let you select which one.
If you try either one of these tools out: don't forget to set your timezone offset to the same value as the one on your PDA and your Google calendar.
Labels: E-ten, GMobileSync, OggSync
maandag, maart 19, 2007
Boys and their toys - mobile on my glofiish
For reasons that don't concern you I was a bit depressed in February. So I spent some money to make me feel better :-). It worked. I bought myself a new mobile phone. Actually, I bought myself the brand new E-Ten Glofiish M700. This baby is a Windows Mobile phone and has everything: PDA, Camera (2 megapixel), cell phone, GPRS, wireless (802.11), sliding keyboard, built-in GPS,... It replaces my old PDA and mobile phone. I bought it via the internet on GSMTrack.nl and their service is correct and fast.I'm quite happy with it, everything I tried out works. The only annoying thing is when I go abroad I keep receiving weird messages from the network. Like last tuesday I was in Germany and every 15min or so I kept getting some number code from the network. Weird.
The number of mobile applications and services are ever growing and also mobile learning is no exception to the hype. So I had to try out my first mobile application. As always, it is a quick and simple experiment with my 6C Quotes site. It turns out it is quite easy to add mobile support to your web application via ASP.NET and Visual Studio 2005.
1. Open Visual Studio and open an existing or new project.
2. Add a new item 'Mobile Web Form' to your project.
3. Put controls from the 'Mobile Controls Toolkit' on the page (These are visible on the toolbar in design mode.)
4. Do your page layout, logic and event handling as you would with any other ASP.NET page.
5. Debug and compile your page as normal
6. Deploy to a web server and test out.
There are also smartphone and pocket pc emulators available for free on the Microsoft site, but I haven't figured out how to use them yet. I used my real device to test and you can see the results on the screen shots.
The screenshots are taken with CapturePro from TekSoft. In the trial mode it displays a black cross but you can use it in trial mode as long as you like. Just install it on your PC, connect your device via ActiveSync, start up CapturePro and follow the instructions.
Try my first mobile page out for yourself : http://www.about2findout.com/6CQuotes/DefaultMobile.aspx .
Of course this is a basic test. I would for example like to find out how to automatically redirect to the mobile page and some other more advanced things, but you have to start somewhere!
Labels: 6C Quotes, CapturePro, E-ten
