Donka's Mobile Rambles

Wikipedia is a well known online encyclopaedia with an abundance of information available at your fingertips. Lexipedia from Revolution provides you with a similar resource ever present on your Pocket PC. The content in Lexipedia is an abridged textual format of the online giant meaning you get perhaps a paragraph or two of the article and no pictures. What this does offer however is an always on hand book of knowledge with over 550,000 articles to peruse. Looking up an article is as simple as entering what you are looking for and tapping the Go icon. Searching is very fast given the number of articles on offer however only the subject itself is searched, not the article body. To assist in the look up of items, a phonetic search is employed meaning even if you are not sure of the spelling, subjects that sound similar will be returned. The content itself is good however there are some formatting issues such as certain dates not included or formatting code appearing where a table or similar should be. For the most part though it is well presented and clear.
If you are after more detailed information or pictures then an alternative concise encyclopaedia may be more suitable however these typically contain far fewer articles. If an overview of the subject is sufficient then there is nothing to touch Lexipedia on the Windows Mobile platform. Please also remember that the textually unabridged version is just around the corner at no extra cost. Lexipedia is available from the Revolution website for $13.99.

Yip, I am a self confessed reference junkie and always on the lookout for new reference titles. It's great to learn then that the folks over at revolutionary software front, responsible for the popular Lextionary, have released Lexipedia. This encyclopedia is based on the expansive Wikipedia and contains over 550,000 articles. Subjects range from Classics, biographies, the plant and animal kingdom, human history, music, bands, movies, business, military, medical and many more. This streamlined Pocket PC version includes just the summary sections or beginnings of articles however a textually unabridged version will also be available shortly as part of the same product. This application also supports phonetic searching so you don't need to know the exact spelling to look something of interest up. More information and a free demo is available at the Lexipedia website.

Yesterday, Microsoft officially announced the latest incarnation of the mobile Operating System – Windows Mobile 5. While I have been greatly anticipating this new release, I still feel a little unfulfilled by the changes list. While I applaud Microsoft for the great strives that have been made in the under the hood changes and introducing new technology to the platform, there appears to be some issues that will impact on the experience for the end user. One of my main beefs about Windows Mobile 2003 SE is the implementation of new resolutions such as VGA. While the hardware exists to take advantage of these new resolutions, for the most part the OS and supporting applications still appear very much like QVGA thanks to pixel doubling. Unfortunately I have seen no mention of improvements in this area in the new release. One other area of concern that has been introduced with this incarnation is the inability to sync with a PC over TCP / IP such as Ethernet or WiFi using the new ActiveSync 4. This appears to have been removed for security reasons however I am a big user of Wireless syncing and it appears I am not the only one with some of the grumbling of discontent I have heard of this removal. It would be great if this option had been left in with a warning to the end user prior to enabling it. Anyway, time will tell how well this new OS will be accepted but in the meantime head on over to the Microsoft website for some screenshots and the MSMobile website for a breakdown on the main changes and new features.

It was with great interest that I learned that PDAMill announced their latest project which wasn’t a game. Being a GPS user with my Pocket PC, it was great to both hear and also see a preview of their latest title which is a fully featured GPS navigation system for Pocket PC. When this finally goes gold, I think it will be a genuine contender thanks to a slick interface and very impressive map scaling. PDAMill make great quality games and I have very high hopes for this more serious release from their new start up company. You can check out some screens and a movie or two at the nav’n GO website .

Well I finally opted to go with a Stowaway Bluetooth Mouse from ThinkOutside to compliment my Bluetooth keyboard from the same manufacturer. Compliment is exactly the word that sums up the use of this mouse with the keyboard as only now have I realised how clumsy it was to switch to the stylus to acknowledge something on the screen between bouts of typing. The keyboard and mouse combination on the Pocket PC really work well to make me more productive when I am away from my main PCs. If you are thinking of the keyboard or mouse for your Pocket PC then I really can recommend them but if you can, go for both. Check out the ThinkOutside website for more details.

I have been using WiFi for a long time now, for the most part at home but, never really took a great interest in exploring my connections until recently when curiosity got the better of me. To that effect I went on a hunt for software that will give me information on my current connections but also offer some networking tools for troubleshooting etc. I finally arrived at two applications that offer a Today plug in with good levels of information on your connection but also offer tools for pinging and tracing routes as well releasing and renewing your lease and signal strength among others. IP Dashboard from Hudson Mobile is a clean looking today plug in with some more powerful tools hidden away within. It is highly configurable allowing you to select which information will be reported and offers a handy data meter and timer. The downside for me is that this tool lacks a WiFi scanner as such to seek out new access points and networks. Net@Board from Tonaya conversely offers a great little scanner as well as an intruder detector that will show you clients connected to your network but lacks the handy timer function which would have made it perfect for my daily use. I would recommend both of these applications with Net@Board being the app that seems to be most current.