After upgrading to Windows 7 on my laptop I found that I could no longer sync with my Sony Ericsson X1 (Windows Mobile 6.1) Phone. It didn’t even seem to be charging (over USB).

Looking in the system Device Manager I found a missing driver for the ‘Generic RNDIS’ device.

A bit of goggling uncovered that this was something required for syncing mobile devices. Although there are comments around that Windows Mobile devices are not supported on Windows 7 beta, and a number of people seem to be having the same problem, the good news is it does actually work.

I simply downloaded the Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 for Vista (from Microsoft), installed it and everything was rosy.

It installed the driver for the ‘Generic RNDIS’, I connected the phone, it was recognised a Microsoft USB Sync device was installed and it all started working as expected.

Apparently I am rapidly becoming 'Geo Guy'. I seem to be adding Geo / Gps support and plug-ins to everything I use...

I just finished adding 'Insert GPS Link' support to PockeTwit (a great little Windows Mobile twitter client - really, go and get a copy now...)
Previously I added GeoRSS support to dasBlog for individual blog posts as well as the RSS feed, and I also added geo microformat support to Windows Live Writer with my 'InsertGeoMicroformat' plugin.

So, what's next - have you got an app that needs Geo / GPS support added ?

I've had a lot of interest in my SMS Gateway app since this post. SMS gateway consist of two components :

SMS Gateway Addin
This is an Outlook addin that adds a new toolbar to your Outlook instance. The toolbar allow the user to choose a mobile / cellphone number (from their contacts) and enter a message. When they hit the enter key after the message (or click 'Send') a new Task is created when has a subject of 'SECRETCODE' and the mobile / cellphone number and the details being the text of the message.

At some stage this Outlook Task is synchronized (over ActiveSync / Direct Push) to a Windows mobile device...

SMSGateway
This is a small app running on a Windows Mobile device that every 15 seconds checks through the tasks. If it finds any tasks that have a subject beginning with SECRETCODE then it parses out the mobile / cellphone number and sends the message text (from the Task details) to that mobile / cellphone number via SMS. Note: the SECRETCODE word is configurable.

Why develop this ?
The purpose of this app was really to allow me to send SMS messages easily from Outlook without having to sign up for (and pay for) a web to SMS service (I already get 100's of free SMS messages with my mobile / cellphone package).

The application is free for anyone to use (drop me a line - in the comments - if you do use it...)

Windows Mobile CAB file (copy the file to your Windows Mobile device and click on it) : SMSGatewayMobile.CAB
Setup file for the Outlook 2003 Add-in (Outlook 2007 coming soon) : SMSGatewayAddin2003.msi
Source for both the applications : SMSGateway.zip (includes test Outlook 2007 addin code)

I'd be really interested to hear from anyone using this.... post in the comments...

I've had two problems recently and I was looking to buy (hopefully) one piece of software to solve them both...

Problem 1 : The mp4 files output by my Sanyo HD camcorder have the video and audio out of sync with one another when I play them in WMP (which I have to do as QuickTime crashes on every 64 bit machine I've tried it on). I wanted something to convert it to .wmv format that could be played by any windows machine with a default install of WMP.

Problem 2 : I needed to get some of my DVD films into a format (and size) that could be played by my Windows Mobile 6 phone. I thought/think I need something to convert .vob files to .wmv format.

I tried a couple of apps that claimed to do 'any to any' conversion and transcoding - no joy. I then came across Prism Video Convertor which also claimed to do the 'any to any' conversion and transcoding. I downloaded an evaluation copy and set to trying it out with the two cases / problems I needed solved.

Problem 1 - not problem, worked just fine !!
Problem 2 - no joy, blank screen when playing the output file :-(

Searched through the support forums and FAQs, again no joy. By this stage I'm thinking it's probably just me being stupid or choosing the wrong settings/codec/encoder or the like (I don't profess to know much about this technology). I'm excited about the application, it's solved my first problem, just show me the second one working and I'm sold (and I'll rave about it to everyone I know..)

Time for the last resort - open their support page and fill in the form for a support case - enter the details, hit submit, bam "No support contract found, please buy a support contract". The product is around $18, a 'Silver' support contract will cost me another $8, not much, but... I don't want to throw away $8 for them not to fix the problem (it's supposed to be a free trial - right), so I shimmy over to their 'Reasonable Service Terms' (their words not mine)..

Incredulous - the wording, the attitude, the sheer abrasiveness of it all. It made me think that they :-

• Are setting my expectation that I'm unlikely to get a resolution
• Are going to refuse point blank if there is even a chance of it not being their software
• Want me to prove (beyond reasonable doubt) that it's their software at fault before they would even consider helping me.
• Don't want to spend more than 10 minutes on a support case
• Don't really want me as a customer

I am all for setting expectations and outlining boundaries/limits but, in my opinion, this is completely the wrong way to do it.
Certainly as someone who is putting in the effort to trial their software, I do not want to have to pay for the privilege especially when I know it may not even do what I want meaning I may not even buy the application.

You can also bet that when they say...

• It also does not guarantee that they will be able to solve all problems. It means only that they will do their best.

...their definition of 'do their best' will be completely different from mine.

Programmatically sending an SMS message from your Windows Mobile is fairly simple these days.

You'll need the WM6 SDK. Start a new Visual Studio 'Smart Device Project', add a reference to Microsoft.Windows.PocketOutlook, then use the following code...

using Microsoft.WindowsMobile.PocketOutlook;

public void Send(string to, string msg)
{
    if ((to != string.Empty) && (msg != string.Empty))
    {
        SmsMessage message = new SmsMessage(to, msg);
        try
        {
            message.Send();
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString());
        }
    }
}

Job done...

Recently I have wanted to be able to send SMS messages to my contacts without having to pick up my phone and mess around with the mini keyboard (I wanted to do it directly from PC, but have the message still send by the phone...

There are solutions around that allow you to send a SMS from a form on a web page, but these are generally paid for services or limited to XX messages per day - I have a mobile contract with unlimited texting, so why would I want to pay for another service, and I didn't want to be limited in the volume of texts I can send per day. there are also solutions around that require the device to be docked / plugged into the PC, I didn't like this either as it's just too much hassle (and therefore I never do it)...

So I came up with a simple but effective solution that makes use of ActiveSync / push email technology that is built into Windows Mobile devices.

Basically I wrote an Outlook Addin that allows me to choose a contact from a drop down list, type in the message and "send" it - when I say "send" it, what I mean is the request is transferred to the WM6 device which then sends the actual SMS message.

So it goes like this :-

• User chooses the contact from a  drop down list of all contacts with mobile numbers.
• User enters the text of the message
• User clicks send
• Outlook Addin creates a new task with a secret keyword followed by the mobile number as the subject and the message in the body of the task.
• (after a few seconds) the new task is synchronized to the WM6 device via push email / ActiveSync
• WM6 device regularly checks the tasks list for a task with a subject that starts with the secret keyword 
• The subject line is parsed to get the mobile number the text is to be sent to
• The body is parsed to get the text of the message
• A SMS message is send from the WM6 device.
• The new task is deleted (or marked as complete)
• The change to the task (delete or marked as complete) is synchronized back to the PC via ActiveSync / push email.

I'll have more details, the installers and all the source code available next week...

UPDATE: See the follow up to this article here which includes binary files and full source code.

Just changed all my email / calendar stuff to Google Apps for Your Domain (GAYD). It was a breeze to do, took around an hour all in and now all email access is IMAP and Web.

The reason I chose this setup was so that all email and calendar data is stored by google, which is much less likely to loose data that I am (HDD crash, theft, fire, flood etc).

As part of the reconfiguration I changed my usual mail IMAP settings on my WM6 device (Pocket Outlook). After changing all the settings I was surprised to find that it simply didn't work.
After much trial and error I found that WM6 didn't seem to want to swap from non SSL connections for SSL connections.

The 'fix' was simply to delete the original account and then create a brand new one. All is fine and dandy now...

I am totally blown away by this. This is (IMHO) exactly what Windows mobile has been waiting for.

I have downloaded and am using this on my HTC TyTN II (Kaiser) - works like a dream, very easy to use and responsive to finger touch / navigation.
There are a number of known issues with it and some reports of it not being great on devices without touch screens, but run (seriously, run very quickly) over there and grab a copy.

It is still in beta and the guys at Pointui have made it free (paypal donation optional). Unfortunately it does not cover all apps and aspects of the Windows Mobile UI, but the parts they have covered off are stunning - when these folks get all the common apps covered (Contacts, Dialer, Mail etc) then it will be incredible!

I love the list of known issues they have on the release announcement on their forums - it includes : Not enough time in the day and Red Bull wearing off - classy.

I've had my HTC TyTn II (aka Kaiser aka Vodafone V1615 aka HTC 4550) for a couple of weeks now - very impressed. This is almost the converged device I have been looking for (it is still a little too big to be perfect)...

• Wireless Networking 11g
• GPS
• Bluetooth
• GPRS / 3G / HSDPA
• 3MP Camera plus another low spec camera on the front !
• Full slide out keyboard
• Tilt screen

I have it set up for Exchange 2003 SP2 Direct Push email and I actually get the mails on my device a few seconds before they appear on my laptop (cached mode...).

The GPS is really good - it comes with TomTom and the ability to download one city (I chose London). I upgraded to all of UK. Start the TomTom application, it takes over the whole screen (including tool/task bars) and gives a very good 3D (or optional 2D) view of the surroundings. Route planning is very simple, mostly I enter the postcode and it finds an accurate match. I hooked it up to a universal mobile phone windscreen mount and am using it all the time.

With the Vodafone retail package you also get Spb GPRS Monitor which allows you to see how much data you are passing, allows charting of your usage by day, month, hour etc and allows you to set your tariff and get warned when you get to X% of your daily / monthly allowance.
So far even with my busy push email stuff going on I'm only at around 1MB per day.

Application I have installed / tried :

Agile Messenger - this is a pretty neat IM client that handles MSN, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk and others. There is a 7 day free trial and after that costs $44.95 to register ( a bit costly). Actually I don't see myself using this, instead I'm going for Windows Live Messenger for Mobile, this is actually a web app (so no install) but covers everything I need. The only bummer is that I have not yet been able to add a URL shortcut to my HTC Home Launcher plugin.

Diarist 2 - a freeware offline blogging client. Works with many services, and in particular dasBlog, so how could I resist. Also supports newMediaObject, so I can embed images etc no problem.

Kaiser Tweak - freeware application (manual install on the PDA) that tweaks a range of options on the Kaiser device - probably no use on other devices ?

MoDaCo NoData - another freeware utility, this allows you to turn off GPRS / data completely. Good for when travelling abroad and not wanting to get stung for ridiculous roaming data costs.

Google Maps for Mobile - not really used this in anger, not much need when I have TomTom already. The data requirements of this is pretty large but it is displayed to you as you use the application.

Plans :

Couple of things I'm planning on doing with this, the first is auto sending the GPS coordinates to a web service at regular intervals (every 5 minutes for example) - this is so that I can let people see where I am (obviously secured so that I can gives links to certain people only).
The other thing is getting a PocketIE URL into the HTC launcher screen- this normally only takes applications so it may require a small app that simply opens PocketIE and navigates to the chosen URL.

Observations :

It seems (maybe it's just me ??) that I cannot turn off all notifications except the alarm clock easily, so using it as a bedside alarm is not an option

I have not made much use of the keyboard yet, mostly entered text via the stylus and onscreen keyboard.

After a couple of days on connecting to wireless access points (to save on the GPRS usage) I have now turned off the wireless feature, much easier to use GPRS/3G and the bandwidth used is not excessive.

More updates / posts over the next few days.