Posts tagged pda/smartphone
Use a free Exchange server to sync up your calendar with one person and task list with another.
May 9th
Hi boys and girls,
Do you remember when Ask The Admin covered a very interesting topic of Free Exchange services? For those who don’t, you can look here, here and sometimes here.
In a nutshell, this article talked about how me and my fiance’ had to plan our wedding and had tons of appointments flying in from both directions.
In order to get our two phones talking to one another and playing nicely, I used a free Exchange hosting service called www.Mail2Web.com to enable my WinMo PDA and my fiance’s Blackjack to sync calendars every 10 minutes logging into the service through ActiveSync, as if they are the same phone. As a result, both phones would have the same calendar information, and keep it that way every ten minutes.
I’ve had this system going for some time now, and it’s been working just fine. I haven’t even had to login to the control panel for anything!While figuring out this howto, I noticed in my own phone that WinMo gives you 4 categories of info items to sync, (as illustrated by the image so cleverly placed on the top of this blog) – Contacts, Calendar, Email, and Tasks. I realized that my fiance’s BlackJack also had the choice of 4 different points of info to sync. This meant that every WinMo device can choose which information to sync with an ActiveSync Server Source and more importantly, which information NOT to sync with an Exchange Server. So we’ve established that my fiance’s BlackJack and my ATT 8525/Hermes were acting as if they had the same calendar – consider them synced.
So this was a real world problem solved by the fact that 2 people have phones with WinMo and Activesync, and the availability of a free exchange service @ www.Mail2Web.com.
Now onto the next real-world problem: The Admin and I have a lot of tasks involved with keeping our beloved website up and running, current and fresh. Throughout the months tasks have come and gone, but certain tasks fell through the sieve and got replaced by more current, more urgent tasks that took precedence at the time. So basically tasks were getting lost. Since neither of us used the built in Tasks application in WinMo, this presented the perfect opportunity to put my theory to the test.
I know that I already have 2 people logging into MY Mail2Web account to sync calendars. But what would be wrong with 3 people logging into that same account – except that my Fiance’ will only sync Calendar information, and The Admin will only sync Tasks information (and NOBODY syncs Contact information).
So I had the The Admin log into my Mail2Web account through his ActiveSync Server Connection and sync only Tasks, and I had my own phone begin to sync Tasks with the same service it was already syncing to for Calendar information, which coincidentally my Fiance’s phone was simultaneously syncing Calendar information with as well.
Problem solved:
Me and the Admin with synced Tasklist,
Me and the Fiance with synced Calendar.
Free.
Automatic.
Just the way we like it.
AskTheAdmin.com.
Free Tech Support for the Masses.
Commodore 64 (the one you used to play Bruce Lee on.)
Sync Windows Mobile Calendar, Tasks and Contacts between more than one device.
Feb 28th
Hey boys and girls!
Have you ever been in a situation where you wished you could sync calendars with somebody who is seemingly unconnected? On top of that, you wished that somehow, by some magical force, those calendars can sync automatically, wirelessly and invisibly; involving no further effort beyond the initial configuration, and that this calendar should follow you wherever you go. Naturally (who wouldn’t, right?).
So here is my situation:
Fiance’ 1.5 wants to perform a systems upgrade to wife 2.0.
Now we’ve teamed up towards common goals before. Planning a vacation, weekend getaway or even organizing a trip to the movies takes some collaboration right? After all, we’re busy people in this day and age. We have our own agendas. But now we are faced with the largest team effort we have ever faced collectively, together. It’s not the vows I’m talking about, it’s not the commitment. It’s not the prospect that this is the person you will be staring at for the rest of your life. No. That doesn’t scare me one bit. What scares the holy crap out of me is planning the wedding. This big, monster of a team collaboration project. If you succeed, you win the reverence and admiration of over 150 guests, including family members, friends, coworkers, and possibly bosses. If you fail, FOR SHAME TO YOU (as my Russian family would say). Pure embarrassment. So basically, failure is not an option. So fiance’ 1.5 and I were faced with a conundrum. How do we stay in sync? How do we go about speaking to multitudes of wedding service providers and making appointments with these people simultaneously, while being able to see at a glance whether or not there are any appointment conflicts. So this is our problem – we need to stay connected, within a 10 minute lag time from one another – no more, no less. But who has the time to call each other every 5 minutes, and in between other phone calls, to make sure were not conflicting?
So first I’ll list what we are working with:
- A PC at home with Activesync and Outlook, synced nightly with:
- An AT&T 8525 HTC Hermes with an unlimited internet plan – this is my phone.
- An AT&T Samsung Blackjack – this is my fiance’s phone – never synced, EVER, WITH ANYTHING – she never even knew it could do that.
At first I started insisting that her and I come home at the end of each day, and enter any and all appointments into MY outlook, and then add herself as a meeting attendee. This creates an email which is sent by Outlook that automatically enters the appointment into her phone, and is updated on my phone when I sync via USB every night. This idea looks great on paper, but requires a bit of a commitment to come home every night and devote X amount of time transferring scribbled notes into outlook.
So at first I searched for a way to sync via IP address. No Dice. It seems M$ removed this after version 3.4 of Activesync . My only recourse was an Exchange server. Now I’ve never used Microsoft Exchange, and I’m only now becoming familiarized with what Exchange can do for a person, team, or organization. In my case, Exchange would allow my fiance’ to enter an appointment into her phone, real time and it syncs with my phone. Since Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone Edition doesn’t allow you to add attendees to an appointment, and Windows Mobile 6 doesnt know what to do with vCal items in email, Exchange Server is a requiem for this to work. Considering we’re on a tight budget for time and money as it is, enter mail2web.
From the mail2web site:
“mail2web LIVE, our free Exchange Email solution goes beyond webmail to provide calendars, task management, contact lists, advanced rules for sorting messages, and even ActiveSync capability.”
mail2web LIVE is just one of the many services this site offers. You basically sign up for a FREE (love that) mail2web live account. A free live account comes with alot of task and personal management features. It’s no coincidence that it supports all the various PIM information types that Outlook supports such as Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, Email, and others. For my purposes, I only wanted to use the calendar feature, since I didn’t want any of my fiance’s contacts, nor did she want any of mine. So of all the features mail2web LIVE offers, Calendar was the magic bullet.
I started off by opening the free mail2web account. This process entailed divulging practically no personally identifiable information about myself. Basically choosing a username, and the desired email address to which I’d like the account associated. As soon as that was complete, there appeared an interesting button with the words “configure your mobile device for this account”. Hmm sounds almost too tempting… could this be a trap? It’s just too convenient. Clicking this link yields a popup with links to downloading auto-configuration files. For some strange reason this config file didn’t work for me. However further digging revealed a “Control Panel” page with an “Activesync Settings” sub-panel. This page is dynamically generated to contain the exact settings for your mail account. Which is the main reason I can’t link you guys and girls straight to the page. This page contained all of the settings needed to manually set up my phone to Activesync via this Exchange server, which contains my personal account hosted by mail2web. At this stage I’m presented with a choice on my phone, by activesync, as to which points of information I’d like to have synced with this server. Since this mail2web account is strictly for the purposes of synchronizing my calendar with my fiance’s, I was very careful to be sure that only the “Calendar” checkbox is checked. If you’re using this service as your personal activesync server, that you and only you will be using, you can just as well check every box and have all your information conveniently backed up to mail2web’s servers. But I have a different evil scheme.
My scheme involves both mine, and my fiance’s phone, syncing to this ONE account for the sole purpose of retrieving and synchronizing the calendar, and only the calendar.
While this is not what the service was originally meant for it is technically possible, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t go against any of their policies or T’s & C’s, so I used it to my advantage.
When I was done setting up activesync on my 8525 to sync over the air every 10 minutes with my new mail2web account, I grabbed my fiance’s Blackjack and did the same with her phone. I set up her Activesync to connect to the server provided to me by the mail2web Account Control Panel’s Activesync Settings sub-panel. Now her phone and my phone are magically sharing 1 calendar. And this calendar updates the Exchange Server every 10 minutes when her phone syncs up. This information is grabbed by my phone every ten minutes when that syncs up, and this information is transferred to my home PC’s instance of Outlook when I hook up to USB to charge every night. This works perfectly vice-versa as well, when I enter a calendar item into my 8525.
It is now a seamless and invisible background task that her and my phone perform, and we are totally in sync. Now, when she makes an appointment with a florist for Wednesday of next week at 8:30 PM, My phone knows about it no more than 10 minutes later. And when I look at my calendar to make my own appointments with a Videographer, I’ll see instantly not to mess with Wednesday evening of next week, unless I want to be watching other peoples wedding videos at 10:30 PM on a weeknight, after spending 2 mind-numbing hours in a flower shop.
This is truly the closest I’ve ever felt to my girl, and we really are connecting in a way that not many other couples have connected in. My only gripe with this process is that I keep thinking I have a manicure appointment on Tuesday. She better hope I don’t show up and try to claim it.
I hope this helps some new couples get their schedules together, or some business partners sync their collective work schedules up. I’m positive this free service mail2web provides will help lots of people discover the benefits of collaboration, Windows Mobile style.
Peace
Commodore 64 (the one you used to paly Bruce Lee on)
Can You Explain the 700MHz Auction?
Dec 9th
Could you carry on a conversation about the impending spectrum auction if someone were to strike one up with you? Do you know what the spectrum auction is?
Don’t worry about it, most of us can’t and don’t. Not to worry though. Scott from AndroidGuys is here, guest-blogging for AtA to explain a little bit more about it. You’ve probably seen quite a bit written up recently about who may or may not be bidding in the auction come January, especially last week once Google made the announcement signaling their intent to participate.
Today, we want to tell you a little bit more about what the 700MHz is used for, what it could potentially be used for, and why it has been making headlines. This way you gain an understanding as to why companies are ready to plunk down over $4.6B next spring.
Currently, the spectrum is being used for analog television broadcasts. As we all know, in February 2009 we will no longer be seeing that as we are transitioning to digital television. This spectrum would work well as an alternative to DSL or cable internet providers as it travels easily and penetrates walls. It would be very enticing to businesses already in the wireless game, as it could be how they’d end up providing high speed internet to their consumers. It could also be a great way for companies to get their feet wet offering their own services.
So now we come to Google’s involvement and why it was a big deal that they announced their intention to bid. Back in the summer, Google petitioned the FCC to enforce rules on the companies who intended to bid on the spectrum should they end up winning. The biggest provision made was that it would require the winner to support any wireless device or any software application. Verizon fought these requirements for a while and at one point tried to sue the FCC. Ultimately decided to drop their argument and make nice. In a change of heart, they even announced their “Any App, Any Phone’ initiative last week.
With Google recently making headlines with their ‘intention to bid’, many are asking how serious this bid really is and whether or not Google plans on seeing the auction through to the end.
A lot of people have speculated that Google will make the introductory offer of $4.6B and bow out. It’s been said that they only intend to bid because they were the company that had the FCC make provisions to the rules.
The auction does not begin until January 24th but that doesn’t mean we don’t know who is going to participate. So far, we do know that besides Google, we’ll also get bids from Verizon, AT&T, Cox Cable, Echostar, Leap Wireless and Frontline Wireless. The actual list might be slightly larger because companies only had to notify the FCC of their intent secretly and not publicly. Names that are noticeably absent from the list are Time Warner, AOL, Comcast, Sprint, and Clearwire. These are names that have been essentially confirmed as not partaking in the event. The auction is likely to last several weeks or months, but one thing is certain; Come February 2009, someone else will be broadcasting on 700MHz.
Smart money says Google have their search engine, applications, and ads in place regardless of who wins.
Thanks again to Karl and the other Admins for letting me stop by! If you want to keep up on Google, Android, or the 700MHz auction, stop by AndroidGuys or subscribe to our feed!
Gelaskins for all different devices, reviewed on a Powerbook…
Dec 8th
Hey Boys and Girls,
We’ve had the honor of meeting up with the guys over at Gelaskins. Their products were one of the more popular products at the CES pre-show and Digital-Life Show, mainly because of the sexy designs they use for their Gelaskins. Really wicked stuff. But there’s more to Gelaskins than meets the eye. Beyond the sick designs they’ve used for their products, they’ve also seemingly took great pains to make sure the products are easy to apply, and guess what… IT WORKS.
I wish screen protectors were this easy, because I’ve never had a device with a screen, that didn’t also have an air bubble or two. But this was a pleasure to stick on. It seems the Gelaskin is somehow porous, and air bubbles can be dissipated just by pressing on them. It literally took me 10 seconds to stick this thing. When I noticed it wasn’t perfectly centered, I peeled it off and gave it another go. Once again the product stuck on with no issues, snags, snafus, or the such.
The guys at Gelaskins were nice enough to provide us with a bunch of different sizes and designs, so pretty soon we will be running a Gelaskins Giveaway contest. Sponsored by Gelaskins and Ask The Admin, of course. So stay tuned kiddies, these things are gonna be the hottest new accessory for pretty much every piece of high-end electronics you own, phones, laptops, and everything in between.
I like Gelaskins.
C64
Happy Holidays
Emoze – Free Push Email without a Blackberry – The true path to democratized, real-time mobile email.
Nov 21st
Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen,
This is your friendly Commodore 64 here to report on yet another useful, tech-improving, free service that is bound to improve any nerd’s life fo sho.
This new service, which has solved a long standing problem, in my view, with send/receive, hates attachments, crappy, slow, sluggish, snap-crackle, pop3 email technology. The software is called emoze, which is a spin-off of a company called Emblaze.
We covered this service in one of our previous posts here, but now we’ve really gotten up close and personal.
Now we are not instant fanboys of anything or anyone here, but we are a bunch of wise(ass) admins, and we do know what’s good for us, and any of our end users who are on the go, and email dependent. That person will attest to the fact that it sucks to have to send/receive on a schedule. Most people have their email send/receiving on an average of every 5 minutes, which makes for a very cumbersome convo, at best. If those convos are short and sweet, like most, they become exponentially cumbersome. So we know whats good, and after trying emoze with my corporate outlook mail, and using it’s proprietary ‘desktop to mobile push’ clients for about a week now, we can truly say this a great service, and good for you too! Best of all, for a single end-user, the service is totally free, just the way we love it here at AskTheAdmin.
We had the pleasure of personally meeting with Neftali Shani, Chairman of Emblaze and Active Chairman of emoze, in a one on one pow-wow where we were really able to get a sense of his vision and mission for the company and the free service:
We are committed to enhancing the user experience, making emoze the world’s most flexible and user-friendly push email and synchronization system…
All in all, emoze is the most efficient and effective way to keep up to date with emails, calendars, contacts and other data when on the move, no matter what mobile device or information management system you use.
We support Lotus Notes and Domino Servers, Microsoft Outlook and Exchange, POP3 and Web-Access, among others – democratizing push email and data for consumers and businesses alike.
The emoze program installs a client on your desktop that ‘listens’ to any new emails coming into your Outlook running on your pc. On the mobile side, a program running on your pda/smartphone listens to what the desktop client has to say, and integrates that with an email account that looks pretty much like your other mobile email accounts – with one caveat – NO SEND/RECEIVE!
The service, while connection dependent, works pretty invisibly, though it uses it’s own notification to let you know an email has come in. I’m pretty sure thats the same notification that MMS uses, but I dont get enough MMS messages to tell the difference.
Messages come through to your phone almost as instantly as they do to your outlook, so I’d have to say this service is pretty tight.
The only gripes I have involve issues that, in all fairness, might not be the fault of emoze. These issues might actually be the responsibility of the hardware or OS manufacturer. For example, when starting up the phone, the emoze client takes a little long to load, sometimes taking more than a minute to go through it’s syncing process. However this is most likely due to my connection speed. Also, while tethered to my laptop via bluetooth and internet connection sharing, it seems to want precedence over my shared connection so connection speed was pretty hampered. All in all, these are problems that would likely solve themselves in time, as connection speeds make their way up. Also as more hardware manufacturers adopt the HSDPA standard, this will do away with whatever lag time the emoze client unearths.
Also worth noting is that I can’t be considered the average user. My HTC Hermes/8525 has ALOT of stuff loaded on it, besides the 4gb memory card i have blazing inside. I’m pretty sure that for the average business end-user, this service would be almost completely transparent and would invisibly provide someone with exactly what emoze promises – Free Push Email For ALL!
In summary, emoze is a wonderful service. Free push email for the masses is a big undertaking but the good people over at emoze have taken it upon themselves to try to improve the democracy associated with email.
Very noble.
_ThePushyCommodore_ (yup still the one you used to play Bruce Lee on)
1
Google’s Android Not Just for Phones
Nov 21st
Hey everyone, it’s Scott from AndroidGuys here. Thanks to Karl and the other Admins here, I’m back with another article!
Yesterday, we put an article up on AndroidGuys where we talked about Google’s foray into the television world. I’d like to expound upon that piece and explain how open source could radically change the television and advertising industry.
Google’s $10 Million Android Developers Challenge is not only the open source platform that will help change the way mobile devices are designed and used. It is my opinion that it is more specifically the basis for the way people will stay in touch and get information. Google was never really going to come out with the iPhone killer. I think they have their sites on much bigger things. They’d rather change the way you receive your content, be it television, web, email, photos, etc. Instead of focusing on entirely on the mobile industry, Google is also evaluating the television industry. 
That’s right, we’re already talking about AndroidTV. Is the day that far off where you will be able to sync your favorite shows, emails, and notes between your TV and your mobile device? I don’t think it is. There are already plenty of ways hardware devices can sync up; Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, and of course using the trusty data cable.
By asking developers to write programs around their open source backbone, Google will be able to seamlessly integrate the best features between your phone and television. Today’s cable boxes are more or less computers. They come preloaded with a few limited API’s like a menu setup, a program guide, the DVR software, and a few customer service feature, like account information. Now imagine what you could do with that box if it were open source. There are already scores of “roll your own” DVR interfaces that you can make using your PC or Mac.
Let’s imagine a scenario here. You’re in a fantasy football league and are following your players as closely as possible. Why shouldn’t you be able to watch a pre-recorded program on your TiVo and, at the same time, have a widget display your players’ performances at the bottom of the screen? Stock tickers, real-time weather conditions and traffic are the tip of the iceberg. In the age of micro-blogging, wouldn’t make sense to be able to see what your friends are doing right now without having to log online? Your Twitter widget tells you that Craig is on his way home from work. Maybe a notification when Ted is logged into Facebook. Maybe a popup that alerts you to the fact that someone just left you feedback on eBay. Folks, it’s all going to happen. And very soon.
Need more convincing? The guy behind Android? Andy Rubin. Take a look at his past endeavors. You might recall a little project he was involved in a few years back called WebTV. Oh yeah, for those of you who are currently unemployed, Google’s hiring for a television technology software engineer position in Mountain View, CA.
My grin is bigger than yours.
Scott | AndroidGuys.com | chewie77@gmail.com
