In Part I of this series, I’ve elaborated on how quickly switching the 3G and GSM modes to prolong battery life. In this article, I discuss an equally important question: forcing the connection to be closed after a predefined time.
Note that the two situations (and solutions_ are radically different:
Switching between 3G and GSM bands is highly recommended even if you don’t use data connections, “only” phone calls. This is because the radio module of the phone needs a lot more power to maintain a connection with the higher-frequency 3G towers. Again, this has nothing to do with data connections being used or not.
Switching back to GSM, of course, can’t be utilized on non-3G-capable handsets like all TI OMAP-based Windows Mobile phones. The reason for this is that phones of the latter type don’t have access to 3G networks at all and are all operating in GSM networks.
Terminating data connections, on the other hand, are absolutely independent of the band you use and can (should), therefore, be used in both 3G and GSM (pre-3G) modes. This also means terminating a data connection is usable on non-3G-capable handsets too. Remember that switching back to the GSM band don’t work on these handsets as they can’t even use 3G bands.
1.1 Why no auto-disconnect when I exit the program using the connection?
First, some theory, which will be of extreme importance to people coming from other operating systems. Windows Mobile uses the following approach: “when you establish a data connection, it’ll stay on unless you manually disconnect it”. (Fortunately, it also offers a built-in and, by default, inactive timer that does allow for disconnecting and, therefore, preserving battery life. More on this later.)
This approach is diametrically opposed to that of Symbian - the operating system of, for example, Nokia and Sony-Ericsson handsets. Symbian, as opposed to Windows Mobile, doesn’t (generally) use system-level connections. That is, you can’t just start a “global” connection and make all your programs requiring an Internet connection use it. Instead, a program wanting to pass to the Net displays you a list of “hotspots”, which includes your data accounts (and already-used Wi-Fi access points if the handset is Wi-Fi capable). When you exit the application that has opened the connection, it will also be closed, unlike in Windows Mobile (WM). That is, if you, say, connect to the Net by starting Internet Explorer Mobile (IEM) on your WM phone, after you shut down IEM, it’ll still stay on. (Note that Symbian, per se, doesn't offer auto-timeout at all.)
As active data connections consume a lot of additional battery, you will want to make sure you close them. This is particularly true when operating in 3G mode.
2. Manual disconnection
On Pocket PC’s, there’re three ways of doing this manually; one of them (the second) is also usable on MS Smartphones.
First, you can long-press the Red phone button. It’ll result in terminating the connection on most models and ROM versions.
Second, if you go to the pre-installed Connection Manager, you can just click the (active) “Data connection” icon as can be seen in THIS screenshot (the same on another Pocket PC model – the Wizard running mfrazzz’s XDA Mobile 6 Release 3 – is HERE, showing it being active (blue)).
As has already been mentioned, this is the only way to disconnect a Smartphone (a WM6 QVGA screenshot HERE). The Smartphone has no clickable Connectivity bubble and long-pressing the Red phone button results in the locking of the phone, not hanging up the connection.
Third, if you do apply the registry hacks below (see Chapter 3), you can also click the “Disconnect” button in the Connectivity bubble. This, however, requires a registry hack.
In addition, if you prefer an icon / link-based connection termination, you may also want to check out Vijay555's excellent VJVolubilis utility – more precisely, the –gprsoff command-line parameter.
3. Automatic disconnection
In a past article, I’ve already elaborated on GB-SOFT Tweak, a Pocket PC-only (incompatble with MS Smartphones) tool that lets for configuring the system to disconnect the data connection after a freely settable idling period. Check out the linked article for a mini-tutorial.
phoneAlarm, of which the band switching capabilities I’ve thoroughly explained in the previous part of this series, also has some other, data connection-related goodies in the (FULL version only!) Data Connection Settings dialog on the Addon tab. It’s also in there that the system-level auto disconnection can be configured:
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Note that you MUST reset / recycle your device for it to start working (but not in the opposite direction). It works in exactly the same way as GB-SOFT Tweak: it sets the value of HKLM\Comm\ ConnMgr\ Planner\Settings \ CacheTime in the Registry and lets the operating system disconnect when there’s no Internet activity in the pre-set time.
(Also see THIS post (in THIS XDA-Devs thread) for more info on this Registry entry.)
Also note that both these apps (phoneAlarm and GB-SOFT Tweak) can also be configured to enable the “Disconnect” button and the timer in the Connectivity bubble (as was the case in WM2003(SE)) as can be seen in THIS screenshot. This, as with the above-shown auto-timeout setting, is just a widely-known Registry hack. (If you’re interested, it’s HKLM\ControlPanel\ Phone\ Flags2 with values 8 (Disconnect button), 16 (both the Disconnect button and the timer) and 0 (neither of them); also see THIS MoDaCo Wiki page).
3.1 Registry hacks
As all these hacks are “plain” Registry hacks, you don’t necessarily need (the commercial) phoneAlarm Pro / GB-SOFT Tweak for enabling / changing them. If you aren’t afraid of directly editing the Registry, you can do it yourself, without relying on these third-party apps.
3.2 The MS Smartphone platform
So far, there have been no tutorials for MS Smartphone users on this subject (see the comments for example HERE). Therefore, I hope this section turns out to be highly useful for everyone.
The same Registry hack (HKLM\Comm\ ConnMgr\ Planner\Settings \ CacheTime) works as with Pocket PC’s. However, GB-SOFT Tweak doesn’t as it's not MS Smartphone-compliant.
Configuring the MS Smartphone version of phoneAlarm to set a pre-defined timeout is pretty easy (as of version v1.11.1): inside Config, go to Advanced Settings and look for “GPRS Auto-disconnect”:
and set it to your favorite value; for example, 1 (minutes). The result:
Note that an XDA-Devs forum member has written a .NET CF-based front-end to set these values in THIS XDA-Devs thread. He, so far, hasn’t made it available for download. I’ve just e-mailed him about this – hope he’ll do this.
Related
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?
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
In Part I of this series, I’ve elaborated on how quickly switching the 3G and GSM modes to prolong battery life. In this article, I discuss an equally important question: forcing the connection to be closed after a predefined time.
Note that the two situations (and solutions_ are radically different:
Switching between 3G and GSM bands is highly recommended even if you don’t use data connections, “only” phone calls. This is because the radio module of the phone needs a lot more power to maintain a connection with the higher-frequency 3G towers. Again, this has nothing to do with data connections being used or not.
Switching back to GSM, of course, can’t be utilized on non-3G-capable handsets like all TI OMAP-based Windows Mobile phones. The reason for this is that phones of the latter type don’t have access to 3G networks at all and are all operating in GSM networks.
Terminating data connections, on the other hand, are absolutely independent of the band you use and can (should), therefore, be used in both 3G and GSM (pre-3G) modes. This also means terminating a data connection is usable on non-3G-capable handsets too. Remember that switching back to the GSM band don’t work on these handsets as they can’t even use 3G bands.
1.1 Why no auto-disconnect when I exit the program using the connection?
First, some theory, which will be of extreme importance to people coming from other operating systems. Windows Mobile uses the following approach: “when you establish a data connection, it’ll stay on unless you manually disconnect it”. (Fortunately, it also offers a built-in and, by default, inactive timer that does allow for disconnecting and, therefore, preserving battery life. More on this later.)
This approach is diametrically opposed to that of Symbian - the operating system of, for example, Nokia and Sony-Ericsson handsets. Symbian, as opposed to Windows Mobile, doesn’t (generally) use system-level connections. That is, you can’t just start a “global” connection and make all your programs requiring an Internet connection use it. Instead, a program wanting to pass to the Net displays you a list of “hotspots”, which includes your data accounts (and already-used Wi-Fi access points if the handset is Wi-Fi capable). When you exit the application that has opened the connection, it will also be closed, unlike in Windows Mobile (WM). That is, if you, say, connect to the Net by starting Internet Explorer Mobile (IEM) on your WM phone, after you shut down IEM, it’ll still stay on. (Note that Symbian, per se, doesn't offer auto-timeout at all.)
As active data connections consume a lot of additional battery, you will want to make sure you close them. This is particularly true when operating in 3G mode.
2. Manual disconnection
On Pocket PC’s, there’re three ways of doing this manually; one of them (the second) is also usable on MS Smartphones.
First, you can long-press the Red phone button. It’ll result in terminating the connection on most models and ROM versions.
Second, if you go to the pre-installed Connection Manager, you can just click the (active) “Data connection” icon as can be seen in THIS screenshot (the same on another Pocket PC model – the Wizard running mfrazzz’s XDA Mobile 6 Release 3 – is HERE, showing it being active (blue)).
As has already been mentioned, this is the only way to disconnect a Smartphone (a WM6 QVGA screenshot HERE). The Smartphone has no clickable Connectivity bubble and long-pressing the Red phone button results in the locking of the phone, not hanging up the connection.
Third, if you do apply the registry hacks below (see Chapter 3), you can also click the “Disconnect” button in the Connectivity bubble. This, however, requires a registry hack.
In addition, if you prefer an icon / link-based connection termination, you may also want to check out Vijay555's excellent VJVolubilis utility – more precisely, the –gprsoff command-line parameter.
3. Automatic disconnection
In a past article, I’ve already elaborated on GB-SOFT Tweak, a Pocket PC-only (incompatble with MS Smartphones) tool that lets for configuring the system to disconnect the data connection after a freely settable idling period. Check out the linked article for a mini-tutorial.
phoneAlarm, of which the band switching capabilities I’ve thoroughly explained in the previous part of this series, also has some other, data connection-related goodies in the (FULL version only!) Data Connection Settings dialog on the Addon tab. It’s also in there that the system-level auto disconnection can be configured:
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Note that you MUST reset / recycle your device for it to start working (but not in the opposite direction). It works in exactly the same way as GB-SOFT Tweak: it sets the value of HKLM\Comm\ ConnMgr\ Planner\Settings \ CacheTime in the Registry and lets the operating system disconnect when there’s no Internet activity in the pre-set time.
(Also see THIS post (in THIS XDA-Devs thread) for more info on this Registry entry.)
Also note that both these apps (phoneAlarm and GB-SOFT Tweak) can also be configured to enable the “Disconnect” button and the timer in the Connectivity bubble (as was the case in WM2003(SE)) as can be seen in THIS screenshot. This, as with the above-shown auto-timeout setting, is just a widely-known Registry hack. (If you’re interested, it’s HKLM\ControlPanel\ Phone\ Flags2 with values 8 (Disconnect button), 16 (both the Disconnect button and the timer) and 0 (neither of them); also see THIS MoDaCo Wiki page).
3.1 Registry hacks
As all these hacks are “plain” Registry hacks, you don’t necessarily need (the commercial) phoneAlarm Pro / GB-SOFT Tweak for enabling / changing them. If you aren’t afraid of directly editing the Registry, you can do it yourself, without relying on these third-party apps.
3.2 The MS Smartphone platform
So far, there have been no tutorials for MS Smartphone users on this subject (see the comments for example HERE). Therefore, I hope this section turns out to be highly useful for everyone.
The same Registry hack (HKLM\Comm\ ConnMgr\ Planner\Settings \ CacheTime) works as with Pocket PC’s. However, GB-SOFT Tweak doesn’t as it's not MS Smartphone-compliant.
Configuring the MS Smartphone version of phoneAlarm to set a pre-defined timeout is pretty easy (as of version v1.11.1): inside Config, go to Advanced Settings and look for “GPRS Auto-disconnect”:
and set it to your favorite value; for example, 1 (minutes). The result:
Note that an XDA-Devs forum member has written a .NET CF-based front-end to set these values in THIS XDA-Devs thread. He, so far, hasn’t made it available for download. I’ve just e-mailed him about this – hope he’ll do this.
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
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....