REVIEW: Bluetooth chatter / Bluejacking app Sniper - General Topics

Ever wanted to use the Bluetooth capabilities of your Pocket PC for local (text) messaging and file transfer, including local broadcasting? Take a look at Sniper, which is a comparatively new, constantly updated native Bluetooth messenger utility.
Unfortunately, there are very few local Bluetooth-based applications on the Pocket PC platform. As has pointed out in my article on Microsoft (MS) Portrait, the only really usable, Bluetooth-capable, internet-less text messaging / file transfer application, Portrait isn’t able to work over the Microsoft Bluetooth stack, only over real TCP/IP networks (including BT PAN and Wi-Fi P2P), which the Microsoft Bluetooth stack doesn't support because it lacks support for the Bluetooth Personal Area Network (PAN).
The same stands for the very similar but already abandoned Gphone . Finally, the other two, similar applications, ProximityMail and Bluetooth Chat, are no longer supported and have never really worked. (Note that I elaborate on the latter two apps and, particularly, the current, similar project of the developer of the former in the Appendix at the end of this article.)
At last: native Microsoft Bluetooth stack messaging solution; on the other hand, some compatibility problems
The new application is definitely good in that it supports the Microsoft Bluetooth stack, as opposed to Microsoft Portrait. If you have a device with the Microsoft Bluetooth stack, you’ll certainly welcome the new application – at last, a local native Bluetooth messaging solution that doesn’t require Wi-Fi peer-to-peer networks or an active Internet connection.
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Unfortunately, it has some severe problems. First, while the homepage of the application advertises the app as PPC2k2+-compliant, it doesn’t seem to work with pre-WM5 Windows Mobile operating systems. I’ve tested all the available versions with both Pocket PC 2002, WM2003 and WM2003SE. I've made some example screenshots (see this and this) to show you it doesn't work: as can be seen, the installer can’t even install the WM5-only CAB files.
Furthermore, it’s incompatible with Widcomm/Broadcom Bluetooth stack-based devices like all HP iPAQ Pocket PC's (an example screenshot of it refusing running on the hx4700 is here), the Fujitsu-Siemens T800 series, the Acer n series and, of course, the Widcomm-hacked, WM5-based Dell Axim x50(v)/x51(v)'s. This is a very bad problem: developers of Bluetooth applications should at last notice that, as has already been pointed out in my articles (example here), Broadcom has in the meantime made its WinCE SDK freely available.
Available versions and differences between them; Bluejacking support in the trial version
There are two versions worth mentioning; first, of course, the latest one, 1.2.368, available here.
Bluejacking (see this article for a complete description), one of the most important and innovative (no other Pocket PC application is capable of this) feature of the application, is completely disabled in the latest, above-linked version. Older versions (for example, version 1.1.237 available here at ClickApps), however, still support this functionality in the demo, except mass-sending more than one file at a time. That is, if you want to give this functionality a try in the demo version (I certainly recommend it), get the older version.
Some examples of it in action
A Pocket PC device discovering two other Pocket PC’s.
Compared to MS Portrait or any other TCP/IP-based chatter application (including IRC clients), its chat feature is a bit more complicated to use. This is how it happens in practice: Sending a message: step 1, step 2. On the receiving end, you get it (note that if you see it this way, it means you’ve forgotten to disable the auto-receive of incoming beam) and save it. If you answer Yes, you’ll be taken to the messages; it's only then that you'll be able to read it. There, you can, for example, reply to the sender.
Examples of file transfer (sending files) 1, 2 3 (sending multiple files like this doesn’t work in the demo). At the receiving end, they’re saved in the pre-set save directory.
An example of bluejacking.
Verdict
If you want local chatting with other Microsoft BT stack-based Pocket PC's or non-Windows Mobile Bluetooth phones, give it a try. If you can’t use a Wi-Fi peer-to-peer connection (or full Internet connectivity) between your WM5 Microsoft BT stack-based devices, give it a try. If you want to do some bluejacking, give it a try. Otherwise, particularly if you have a pre-WM5 or Widcomm/Broadcom-based device, stick with the free MS Portrait.
Appendix: What about ProximityMail and Bluetooth Chat?
Unfortunately, the other two native (non TCP/IP-based, unlike MS Portrait and Gphone) Bluetooth messaging applications, ProximityMail and Bluetooth Chat (latest, tested, still available versions 1.44 and 0.5b, respectively) are both useless and no longer developed.
The former, ProximityMail, will never be updated; the developer, Inventop Corp, has removed all references to the product, including even the old download link (also see this). Its successor, BUZZeeBee (see the homepage for more info), still only has a desktop PC version. (They have been promising the Pocket PC version for months; there is still no sign of it).
The latter, Bluetooth Chat by Andrey Demidov, hasn’t been updated for three years and also seems to be completely abandoned. Needless to say, it has never really worked either.

personal i find it odd whne somebody who have that many posts
deside to make something i can only describe as a commercial

Rudegar said:
personal i find it odd whne somebody who have that many posts
deside to make something i can only describe as a commercial
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If there were a REAL alternative to this app, it wouldn't sound a commercial (check out my other, comparative reviews - I "trash" many apps I test). Unfortunately, when there is only one program for a given purpose, it's hard to write an article that doesn't sound like "musch as it has its share of problems, go get it".
As soon as there will be another, directly comparable alternate to this app, I promise to write a decent comparison

not working on omnia T_T

is there anything similar for android?

Related

New, 2.6 version of Pocket Internet Explorer plug-in Webby Released!

It was some months ago that the previous, 2.5 version of the Pocket Internet Explorer plug-in (enhancer) Webby was released. Now, the new, 2.6 version has just been released.
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I really recommend the above-linked article to see what the advantages and the disadvantages of the previous version were. Here, I “only” elaborate on the new features and whether the problems or, at least, missing functionality I’ve emphasized in the previous version(s) have been fixed / implemented.
Webby is available here. It requires CF2 to run (make sure you download and install SP1, NOT the old, original version), which also means it’s “only” compatible with WM2003+ devices (bad news for pre-WM2003 (PPC2k, PPC2k2) users).
It has two versions: a free, severely “dumbed-down” (two tabs at most, two buttons definable – hardly any good, particularly when compared to the generous 2-4-week fully functioning trials of all comparable products, except for the slightly less dumbed-down NetFront) and a full (Pro) version. The latter costs $20, which is, in my opinion, quite much compared to the price (and capabilities / speed / compatibility) of Opera Mobile, NetFront or PIEPlus, the best, highly recommended alternatives (not to mention the free Mozilla / Firefox port Minimo, which gets better and better all the time and, now, is a pretty decent alternative at least on WM5 devices), particularly taking into account that the new add-on extension mechanism (still) doesn’t work in Webby.
Pros; new functionality
Add-in modules
Probably they are the most important features of the new version. These (are supposed to) implement additional functionalities like the URL builder known from MultiIE / PIEPlus.
Their list can be found here. Note that you should only visit this page from either Opera or Mozilla / Firefox on your desktop computer; for IE, it only returns the first part of the page.
Installing them is (that is, is supposed to be) pretty easy: just go to the above-linked plug-in homepage from inside Webby (you can use the “Get More Extensions” link in the Extensions tab in Options) and click the extension you’d like to download and install. It’ll ask you whether it’s allowed to install it; after the install, you’ll need to restart the browser.
The problem with these extensions is that they (still?) don’t exist on the homepage of the developer. Webby states them to have been installed but, in reality, nothing is downloaded (you can also check this in the \Program Files\Webby\extensions\ directory in the file system of your Pocket PC if interested). To make sure I'm not missing something, here’s a HTTP-level communication trace (two pairs of requests from Webby / PIE and two 404 Not found answers (that is, there indeed isn't anything in there; not even the linked extensions remote folder!) from the server): 1 2 3 4.
That is, you will want to wait until this problem is fixed, which I’ll surely report of. In the meantime, don’t even try to download extensions - it's just a waste of time because nothing will be downloaded.
Button support
The second most important new feature (which I probably missed the most from earlier versions) is the hardware button support.
As can be seen in this and this screenshots, the most important functionality (Back/ Forward; Previous/Next tab, Close everything but the current one / the current only; Full Screen toggle) is accessible.
It only allows for configuring six buttons on all PPC models (with wildly varying number of buttons). It seems all Pocket PC developers should read all my articles as I’ve elaborated on how all the available hardware buttons can be (very easily!) read out of the Registry more than one year ago ( Where does the PPC Registry store button mapping info - a tutorial (alternatives: PPC Magazine, BrightHand; make sure you also follow the link to More Programmers'/Hackers' Stuff, along with some cool Pocket Loox 7xx Hold Button Tips: More on Pocket PC Hardware Buttons for more info.)
Unfortunately, there is no way of for example using the tap-and-hold buttons of the WM5-upgraded hx4700 or the Pocket Loox 720. It’s not possible to define additional functionality for WM5 softkeys, unlike in PIEPlus 2.0+ and MultiIE 4.0+ either. However, it’s possible to enable WM5 softkeys for menus as can be seen in here: 1 2. This is certainly good news.
Also, it should be noted that the free version only supports two button redefinitions.
Cons
View: One Column mode still not supported
One of my biggest grieves with the past versions was the native support for the One Column mode of the underlying PIE. Unfortunately, this hasn’t changed.
This means if you must work on the full (unstripped) version of a page and, therefore, can’t use any Web compression / content stripper / online cruncher service like Skweezer, MobileLeap, Google Mobile or WebWarper (the four services Webby 2.6 supports out of box), you may end up having to switch to the normal view mode, which will result in a need for horizontal scrolling on a LOT of pages. This is a VERY bad bug in Webby!
Lack of context menus
Unfortunately, there are still no image / link / page context menus as can be seen for example here (which shows clicking an image link will bring up the traditional PIE context menu and nothing else).
This means you need to access all advanced functionalities like link target saving from the main menus. It’s only saving images (in WM5 IEM’s; it’s not available in pre-WM5 PIE’s) that is accessible via the context menu – as with IEM. Please also consult the Download Bible for more info on all these questions.
Verdict
The plug-in architecture is indeed promising. Too bad it doesn’t work yet. Hope it’s only a temporary problem, which will be fixed really soon. When it’s fixed, I’ll return to testing and let you know about how these plug-ins fare agains the competition (for example, the Address Bar plug-in against PIEPlus / MultiIE's comparable capabilities).
Plug-in problem aside, I still don’t really recommend this title over the latest version of stand-alone browsers like Minimo, Opera Mobile or, to a lesser extent, NetFront or Thunderhawk.
The same stands for PIEPlus, which I consider currently by far the best PIE plug-in. The latter is just far more capable (just compare their capabilities one by one!) and faster (don’t be mislead by the seemingly small download times: Webby uses the compression / content stripping service Skweezer by default; this is why it seems to be faster than any else PIE plug-in by default) than Webby.
Recommended links
The Web Browsers category in the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's Expert Blog

Mobile Stream releases new version of Windows / Linux / Mac OS X-compatible USB Modem

Anyone using a WM5 AKU3 Pocket PC Phone Edition (any WM5 device with a newer, even unofficial, “enthusiast” ROM) device as an external modem for his or her desktop computer or notebook* knows the new AKU3, while it indeed has a lot of goodies, has several connectivity-related restrictions, most importantly the lack of infrared connectivity (infrared-based dial-up has been left out from the newly-introduced Internet Sharing utility, as opposed to its predecessor, Modem Link) and the lack of using the Dial-up Networking Bluetooth profile. The latter can be a real pain in the back especially for other Microsoft Bluetooth stack or Mac OS X users. See THIS and THIS for more info on the latter.) I’ve elaborated in my article on AKU3 Networking on all these issues; you may want to read the article in order to get a more elaborate picture of in what AKU3 is different.
*: if you don’t, you may want to consider switching to using them – few “traditional” phones offer EDGE / UMTS / HSDPA capabilities. I’m constantly using the UMTS HTC Universal with my notebook to access the Internet and am absolutely pleased by the high, about 40 kbytes/sec downlink speed.
Mobile Stream’s new application, USB Modem, could also address these issues by both providing the standard BT DUN profile and infrared dial-up capabilities. (Note that it’s a “simple” dial-up app, pretty much like WModem or the standardized, pre-AKU3 Modem Link, with the exception that it’s not compatible with several models.)
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Note that USB Modem may not have been at all designed to fix the problems of AKU3. Its sole purpose, according to the blurb, to allow using crippled (ones that don’t have any kind of external modem capabilities) for example Treo 700w PPC Phone Edition devices as modems and to allow for USB / Bluetooth-based access in Mac OS X and Linux (I haven’t tested the latter).
The utility is accessible HERE. It costs $19.95; the trial version allows for 30 connections and / or 14 days.
Compatibility tests
In a word: the current (1.25) version isn’t compatible with either the HTC Universal or the HTC Wizard (both running an AKU3-based operating system with the default Microsoft Bluetooth stack), in neither Bluetooth DUN nor Infrared mode. It does add the DUN profile to the BT profiles offered by the phone when it's active - but that's all, it cannot be actually used (it's like the current state of the Widcomm BT stack hacks on HTC's PPC Phone Edition models - their DUN can't be used for Internet connectivity as has also been pointed out in my related article. Read it for more info / links if interested).
In both (Bluetooth DUN and infrared) modes, Pocket PC clients trying to connect (with the dial-up program active) just display the “No answering modem” error message; with desktop Windows XP clients, error 678. At the same time, with WModem on the HTC Universal (HTC Universal, fortunately, still contains this tool – now, in AKU3, the only one to offer infrared connectivity for external clients), infrared dial-up connections work great. The HTC Wizard, of course, as of AKU3, lacks any kind of infrared dial-up capabilities and, as has already been pointed out, Mobile Stream’s application is of no help.
Verdict
While this application is certainly welcome, in its current form, it’s useless for any HTC Universal and Wizard users. (Actually, as has already been pointed out, it’s highly unlikely it’s been designed to fix the AKU3 shortcomings in mind.)
That is, if you’re a HTC Universal or Wizard user running an AKU3 ROM and would like to have either BT DUN or infrared connectivity (or both), do NOT run to download this version because it will NOT work. I don’t know how it runs on other models; I seriously doubt it works on any AKU3 device out there as it’s recommended for the pre-AKU3 Treo 700w.
I’ll let you know if / when subsequent versions become AKU3-compliant. Then, it’ll become a must; now, you AKU3 users should stay away from it because it doesn’t offer anything to you. (You, however, may still want to test the Linux / Mac OS X support. As has already been pointed out, I haven’t tested these myself.)
UPDATE (03/18/2007): MobilitySite frontpage

Windows Mobile News as of 11/02/2007

As you may have noticed, I’ve started working on the Multimedia Bible, the premier resource of all info on multimedia playback, streaming etc. I don’t know when I get it ready. I’ll announce when the first chart versions are ready for public scrutiny.
After some 13-14 months of the 2.x -> 3.x series jump, the excellent S-K folks have just announced they will release a brand new, 4.0 version of SKTools, the, IMHO, best (albeit a bit overwhelming and, because of its capabilities and complexity, hard-to-discover) all-in-one systems management tool available for Windows Mobile. The new version will have the following new features:
- Cab Manager: SKTools can show all CAB,CPF,TSK files on device, show content (with full names, installation path, registry keys, shortcuts, _setup.xml), extract with full names, install to ANY location (full installation made by SKTools) for WM5/ WM6; SKTools can be associated with CAB files
- Replaced ROM Files: show which ROM files have been replaced by another version, show version and date of these files; the user can see if the "newest" file (the file having the latest time stamp) is, in reality, older than others and, therefore, remove it.
- Move Data: move application, folders, files to any location with automatic (!) registry and shortcut modification (and other data about files and their path)
- Storage Analyzer: show what files and folders (by types, attributes, ...) are stored on the device
The open beta starts next week (I already have a pre-beta); I’ll let you know when it becomes ready.
I’ve reported on LogMeIn Rescue Mobile more than two months ago. Now, a similar product, LogMeIn Hamachi has also been released, which – as opposed to ALL the other, similar tools – even the otherwise BEST Pocket Controller by SOTI – uses HTTP(S) tunneling for remotely controlling your Windows Mobile handheld from a remote desktop PC. This means any Windows Mobile device can be accessed, even ones behind firewalls and/or in NAT’ed networks (like about 60-70% of current mobile networks). See THIS and THIS MoDaCo threads for more info.
Spb has just released an updated version of their flagship, brand new product, Spb Pocket Plus 4.0, of which I’ve reviewed some modules HERE and HERE.
The dialup-sharing-over-Wi-Fi (which is of extreme importance with non-BT DUN and/or non-BT PAN-capable devices like, for example, Symbian smartphones (neither of them) or other Windows Mobile PDA’s based on the MS BT stack (no PAN support)) method (see THIS) has been GREATLY enhanced and automatized. See XDA-Dev forum member TalynOne’s excellent tutorial and tools HERE.
Moving to dialup and DUN: XDA-Dev forum member Technology has come up with a decent tool for making it work on the T-Mobile Dash.
CrazySoft released another puzzle adventure game
Their last “adventure”, “Lost in the Pyramid”, was a complete disaster. The new game is certainly MUCH better, albeit I’ve found some of the steps similarly illogical and/or plain stupid (for example, dying right away if you smash a tile; getting caught by the guards if you, for example, exit your prison through the window etc.). It’s still a far cry away from “real” (even emulated – see my emulation-related roundups and Bibles HERE) adventures like those of Legend Entertainment or Fade Team (Fade / Acedior), but you may want to give it a try nonetheless. Be warned: the trial can be played through in 10-15 minutes and I’m not really sure whether the full game is really worth the money. I’ll wait for either Eric’s or Ben’s reviews; I definitely won’t request a review copy (because I don’t really like biting the feeding hand, which, I think, may happen this time too.)
Therefore, just some remarks: The game is multiplatform and supports both VGA and QVGA on the Pocket PC. I’ve tested it on both VGA and QVGA Pocket PC’s, QVGA Smartphones and the Symbian S60v3 Nokia N95. With the latter two platforms, it’s pretty hard to control because of the lack of the touchscreen (and a sophisticated control system). At least you can use the 3…0 buttons to quickly access the inventory items.
UPDATE (11/03/2007): Oops, I’ve forgotten to tell you the name of CrazySoft game (see the last bullet above): Final Battle. It’s available HERE. You can already read a review of it for example HERE. Note that it’s a Symbian-related review. As Symbian has even less games (not taking Java MIDlets into account, where it’s much-much stronger, let alone the forthcoming N-Gage Platform, which, as of now, is slated for a December release) than Windows Mobile, the review is pretty much positive. I’m not absolutely sure it’d stand so well against the Windows Mobile competition, particularly if you take into account the platform’s (compared to Symbian, much better) ability to emulate platforms with tons of high-quality adventure games (for example, MS-DOS) and having native adventure engines like ScummVM (ok, Symbian (including even S60v3) also has it) and other interpreters like those of Magnetic Scrolls.
Some (VGA) screenshots:
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An example of the guard’s catching you
Smashing your hand 1 2
End of demo (again, the demo of the game is VERY short: I've managed to reach it in about 4-5 minutes after starting to play!)
Finally, as with their previous title “Lost in the Pyramid”, this game is also suffering from the same problem: it takes the operating system a lot of time to find the icon of the game. The CrazySoft folks should fix this issue as soon as possible.
UPDATE (later on 11/03/2007): Because of the insignificance of the release, I don’t devote a separate post/threads to the next game. Exosyphen Studios has released Hacker Evolution for the Pocket PC (no Smartphone version is available), following the May release of the desktop original.
(VGA screenshot; as can be seen, there’s no hi-res support)
Unfortunately, I’ve found the game almost exactly the same as their much older, but VERY similar title, BS Hacker Mobile Console, reviewed HERE. If you don’t believe they’re almost exactly the same game (except for the different colors and the slightly more on-screen buttons) just compare, in addition to the GUI, the built-in help to that of BS Hacker Mobile Console. See? It's, gaming-wise, is exactly the same as the older title. In addition, it is, as with BS Hacker Mobile Console, a much-much worse, much less interesting version of the original desktop Windows version - this is how a desktop conversion should NOT be done.
All in all, I in no way recommend this game, particularly not if you’ve already purchased the very similar BS Hacker Mobile Console.
More info / discussion in THIS PG.org thread.
Menneisyys sorry to "interrupt" you, but we are in SMARTPHONE area and we are looking for SMARTPHONE stuff, not PPC. So please post only smartphone related articles/news/posts.
This is not the first time I see cross-posted topics and PPC related posts on Smartphone area.
Thank you.
DSF said:
Menneisyys sorry to "interrupt" you, but we are in SMARTPHONE area and we are looking for SMARTPHONE stuff, not PPC. So please post only smartphone related articles/news/posts.
This is not the first time I see cross-posted topics and PPC related posts on Smartphone area.
Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Several (of course, not all) bullets also applies to the MS Smartphone platform (serach for the word Smartphone); this is why I've also cross-posted this news item to the SP General forum.
UPDATE (11/13/2007): in THIS German-language PocketPlayers.info review (published after mine), Hacker Evolution is also trashed. (Let me know if you need help in translation - I assume everybody either knows German or at least knows Babelfish / Google Translator.) This shows I was 100% right about NOT recommending the game at all.
Note that the thread also states exosyphen Studios is planning to release a FULL WM port of their desktop games. This is certainly VERY good news.

(Multiplatform) REVIEW: TiVi - a multiplatform video (!) phone application

Because of the huge prices of traditional (non-Internet-based) video phoning services, several Symbian users have been praising TiVi, a VoIP app / service with video phoning and, at least on Symbian, front camera support capabilities. As it also has a Windows Mobile version, I gave it a very thorough, three-platform (desktop Windows, Symbian and Windows Mobile) ride to find out what it's really capable of.
1.1 Registration, Web page
Fortunately, using the service for TiVi - TiVi connections is absolutely free (as opposed to what some people state in some Symbian forums) and works over fully (on both sides) firewalled connections. To being able to reach your buddies, you'll need to register a nickname on the central server. This is pretty easy and can be done HERE.
You'll also need to download the client software; it's available for the desktop HERE and for mobile platforms HERE. Install it; after starting it, press the left softkeys on both mobile platforms and go to Config. There, fill in your login name / password. After this, you'll become available for the others; using your nick instead of a "traditional" number will work when calling you. Note that it also has a built-in Contacts list and also has access to the system-level contacts, offering (of course, non-free - as opposed to in-network calls) dial-out capabilities for them.
Note that the page and the service themselves are pretty far away from being professional. Latvian is used on some both the Web pages (even when using English) and, which is even worse, in the answering machine. This, of course, isn't that problematic, particularly if you speak some Slavonic language because, then, you'll understand at least the last two words of the answering machine message and can deduce what takes place. And, it's only in the first occasion that this can cause any kind of confusion.
1.2 Screenshots
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(a Symbian shot showing the output of the HTC Universal - that is, the Nokia itself, me trying very hard to make a screenshot on it. In the upper left corner, you can also see Nokia's own camera image (of the Universal, with 180 degrees rotated screen, in front of it). Note that the Symbian version, in addition to stopping / restarting video, also supports switching between the front/back cameras if you press 0. By default, the front camera is used, of course.)
(a Windows Mobile HTC Universal screenshot showing the image received from the Nokia N95 and its own picture in the upper left corner. As you can see, the client doesn't even display a button shortcut to switch between the front and the back cameras)
1.3 Operating system compliance; issues
Under desktop Windows operating systems, the client is not really polished but, at least, works. Its usage is pretty tricky and not really intuitive (requires a lot of getting used to): for example, you need to click a given button twice to initiate an audio-only / video call. Nevertheless, it has no problems using my Creative Live! Cam Vista IM webcamera.
Let me know if you just can't find out how the client needs to be operated and I publish a mini-tutorial on it. Again, it's not really intuitive; it took me at least an hour to find out how the three clients work, how they differ and how calls should be initiated.
On Symbian (thoroughly tested this on the Nokia N95 with both Wi-Fi and GPRS / 3G connections (the latter being firewalled and NAT'ed), it worked pretty well: it's able to use both cameras and any kind of connection type. The only problem is the lack of the speakerphone support (despite the title of the left softkey). This means you must use some kind of a headset when using the app.
On Windows Mobile, the situation is a bit worse (tested this with the latest version with CAB internal filedates of 03/2008): as I've guessed, it doesn't support front cameras at all - as is, unfortunately, the case with MS Portrait 3.1 (see review and report HERE). Second, very few models (currently, from HTC, only the HTC Tornado and s620 MS Smartphones and HTC Universal / Wizard Pocket PC's; from HP, the hw6515, and, from Asus, the A716) are supported. Note that at least the two Pocket PC versions (that of the Wizard and the Universal) are exactly the same. Also note that the names are pretty much messed up; for example, under HTC, the Qtek names are listed.
Incidentally, upon installing it on a pretty much crowded HTC Universal on a card, it only seemed to support cellular connections; it just coulnd't make use of Wi-Fi connections. Furthermore, after the first (or second?) restart, it wouldn't connect to the server any more (not even thorugh, of course, a cellular connection) - it just displayed the "Cannot register. Reason: Connection timed out" message. Needless to say that under exactly the same circumstances the Symbian and the desktop Windows versions worked just OK. After a hard reset and reinstalling the client on a clean machine, everything started to work just fine.
The lack of the front camera support can only be fixed in some special cases; for example, the rotatable Universal where you can use the back camera while still seeing the screen; in no other cases. But, then, it's somewhat better to go straight for the way better and reliable MS Portrait instead because it's just more thoroughly optimized and bugfixed. Unless, of course, you need to talk to other TiVi users.
1.4 Speed, data usage
Video phoning is astonishingly good even over slow-speed GPRS. In these cases, you'll want to avoid using uplink video so that uplink audio get all the uplink bandwidth (which, in most cases, will only be sufficient for a stream with moderate pauses) - as has already been explained in my past VoIP articles. Otherwise, should you have at least an EDGE connection, you won't encounter any problems.
As it doesn't really require 3G speeds (unlike the audio-only Skype), if you do have EDGE (and not just GPRS), you can safely switch to 2G mode to avoid excess data usage - and, of course, power consumption, particularly if you always let the client run in the background, waiting for incoming calls. I've explained how this needs to be done on both Windows Mobile and Symbian in THIS article.
2. Verdict
On Windows Mobile, the only usage area I recommend it (if you run it on a rotatable model like the Universal) is connecting to a Symbian phone. Symbian having no other video phoning-capable software (Palringo - see the multiplatform review HERE - is only capable of sending static shots), Symbian users will need to use this client. For talking to other Windows Mobile phones (preferably, HTC Universals with their 180% rotatable screens), you may want to prefer MS Portrait instead - and, again, for talking to desktop Windows clients too.
On Symbian, this is a highly recommended solution, should you want to talk to other Symbian folks with a front camera and/or desktop folks and/or Windows Mobile folks with HTC Universals.

REVIEW & COMPARISON:great, free(!) PDA controller software EveryWAN Remote Support PE

REVIEW & COMPARISON:great, free(!) PDA controller software EveryWAN Remote Support PE
Sparus Software is going to release a free(!), slightly (but not that much) dumbed-down version of their pretty useful EveryWAN Mobility Manager software currently offered for enterprise customers.
The new EveryWAN Remote Support, Personal Edition will be completely free. The biggest difference between it and the already-existing enterprise version is that EveryWAN only supports connections via ActiveSync. This means no (remote) TCP/IP connections are allowed.
Note that this isn’t a full review of the app as most of the functionalities the new application offers are already known from other remote controller applications; for example, VirtualCE, SOTI Pocket Controller or My Mobiler (see THIS for more info on these) or mDesktop, of which the new, 1.0.1 version has just been released, fixing many of the problems / issues I’ve pointed out in my review of the initial, 1.0.0 version. This means you’ll want to read my just-linked reviews and comparisons of what a decent phone controller app should be able to.
Now, let’s take a look at how EveryWAN compares to the above-reviewed & compared apps.
In a nutshell, in my very thorough tests it proved to be VERY good. It has really decent CPU usage, is compatible with both Pocket PC’s and Smartphones, has excellent goodies like a built-in task manager, registry editor etc.
Unique features: direct drawing on client screen, VoIP
Drawing on the client’s screen is really unique (but is, of course, somewhat limited usability in traditional, local USB environments):
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
VoIP (Voice over IP) works just great (tested with several setups), with very moderate CPU usage:
Of course, the lack of real IP connections (and, therefore, remote assistance / connections) make this feature pretty redundant. As with drawing on the phone / PDA screen, it’s over the classic "let’s access an employee’s handset from the enterprise via, say, a mobile phone connection" that this feature can really be used for.
CPU usage
It’s VERY low – much lower than that of ANY other controller application. Excellent! Some example screenshots showing this:
(VGA(!) iPAQ 214 – around 3%; the same on the 520 MHz VGA HTC Universal running WM6.1)
(s710 QVGA Smartphone – around 2%)
(WM2003 iPAQ 2210)
That is, it’s really low even on VGA devices – where alternative solutions consume at least an order of magnitude more CPU time.
Built-in registry editor
(Remote) registry editors built into remote tools are very useful – I very frequently use the one built into SOTI’s Pocket Controller. Unfortunately, the other, highly recommended controllers (VirtualCE and My Mobiler) don’t have a built-in registry editor; hence, I was relaly delighted to see EveryWAN does.
Following is a quick elaboration on the registry editor’s capabilities (see the Registry Editor Bible http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/menneisyys/UltimateRoundupOfRegistryEditors.asp for more info)
It’s capable of all the numeric systems with DWORDs:
There’s a dedicated editor for REG_BINARY values:
and for multi-line strings:
It’s also capable of advanced searches:
However, it’s incapable of exporting / importing; in this respect, it’s definitely inferior to SOTI Pocket Controller’s registry editor – or, advanced Registry editors like Resco running on the handset.
File Transfer
EveryWAN also supports built-in file transfer:
(Note that this isn’t essential – both ActiveSync and the Total Commander WinCE FS plug-in support it –, still, it’s nice to have it built-in.)
System info; task manager
The system info dialog is pretty detailed too:
The task manager dialog is also pretty cool:
Note that, as expected, the CPU % usage meter doesn’t work – you’ll need to run acbTaskMan to get a detailed info on CPU usage.
Skin manager
It also has a very nice skin editor:
MS Smartphone (touchscreen-less devices) support
The keyboard doesn’t work with MS Smartphones with slide-out keyboard when the keyboard is closed (it does when opened).
The on-screen softbuttons can’t be clicked (not that big a problem though), unlike with the other apps.
Note that, by default, it couldn’t install its client to my WM5 HTC s310 (Oxygen). The CAB file, EWRemoteSupportPESetup.ARM.CAB, the installer transferred to the root of the phone, turned out not to be compatible with Smartphones at all. However, manually transferring \Program Files\Sparus Software\EveryWAN Remote Support Personal Edition\EWRemoteSupportPE.ARM.CAB to the phone and executing it there worked:
(Note that the Wm6 QVGA HTC s710 / Vox didn’t have this problem.)
All in all,
Pros
FREE!!!!
Very low CPU usage – while still delivers pretty quick results even on VGA devices
VoIP – working just great!
Registry editor (albeit without export / import)
Lets for emulating button presses (four application keys; two softkeys; the Home (SP) / Start Menu (PPC) button; the Back button on SP’s)
Cons
Save screen only in BMP; no video recording
While clipboard copying does work in both directions, it must be manually initiated every time – via a menu or an icon on the icon bar (no keyboard shortcut is available). SOTI’s approach is MUCH better in this regard, which even allows for very quick Ctrl-C / V / X shortcuts and, of course, clipboard auto-synchronization.
No manual screen rotation for, for example, GAPI games
Verdict
This app is really a gift if you don’t need remote (TCP/IP) connections. Highly recommended!
Note that, in addition to the Sparus Software folks, the XDA-Developers people should be also thanked for this excellent app. The Sparus folks have decided to release this application for free because they wanted to give back something to the XDA-Devs community, which has been very helpful as an information source while the Sparus folks were developing their product.
(Note that the app is still not available. It’s promised to be released in some days. When it’s released, I post an article update so you will surely get noticed of it.)
It is possible to define softbuttons using the skin editor
In fact, the on-screen softbuttons can be clicked if they have been defined using the skin editor
Hello,
I'm one of the devs at Sparus Software, and I'd like to comment on your great review :
* the CPU % usage meters actually works, but its precision is 1%. As a result, any measure below 1% is shown as zero ! Your device probably wasn't really doing anything significant at the moment you measured. But I'll quickly increase the precision to 0.1%, to track those little CPU eaters.
* I'm really puzzled about the installation issue you encountered on your SmartPhone. It seems the file transfer failed, ending with a corrupted file. I'll add an automatic retry in such a case.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback !
EveryWAN Remote Support free download available
You can get it here: EveryWAN Remote Support Free Download
hmm. still cant get it clearly.. anyway.. push on this thread..
UPDATE (08/26/2008): it has been released and is available HERE
EveryWAN Remote Support direct download link (no form)
For those of us who don't like filling forms ...
Direct Download Without Filling a Form:
EveryWAN Remote Support Direct Download
Just a quick precision: it is free even for commercial use (but reselling it is prohibited )
You can put it on BitTorrent and Emule.
There's a check in the setup for current version, so if we release a new version it will detect it automatically...
PS: I work for Sparus Software
EveryWAN Remote Support Entreprise Edition ?
hasta_la_vista said:
For those of us who don't like filling forms ...
Just a quick precision: it is free even for commercial use (but reselling it is prohibited )
You can put it on BitTorrent and Emule.
There's a check in the setup for current version, so if we release a new version it will detect it automatically...
PS: I work for Sparus Software
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, hasta_la_vista !
I know this is an old thread, but what happened to your infamous (and totally impossible to find) solution "EveryWAN Remoet Support Entreprise Edition" ? It seems to be able to do what i'm looking for: remote controlling my WM6.5 phone from PC over 3G... Mind you i'm within 2 private networks so it'd need to have the option to connect from phone or PC and i should be able to choose which port to communicate over, depnding on which ports are open on both sides...
I'm of course not asking for any crack, i'm just looking for that software. Ready to register, pay , or anything that comes with it, as long as it does what i want. There are a number of softs available, none are capable of doing this....

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