Monthly Archives: June 2007

Windows Mobile 6 & Mac OS X

So, the not-quite-ready Apple iPhone is not the only phone that can sync with a Mac. I read an article over at MacNN describing an alpha release of Mark/Space’s…

Missing Sync for Windows Mobile 4.0 Alpha

According to the article the free alpha release (production release is $40) supports WM6 upgraded Blackjack and Dash smartphones. I’m not quite ready to sync my Dash with a Mac. But, if you are, please let me know how well it works for you.

SDHC Card Reader Amazingly Fast

SanDisk MicroMate SDHC Card Reader

I bought a SanDisk Ultra II SDHC 4GB w/MicroMate USB 2.0 Bundle for use with a digital camera. When I bought it the Micromate SDHC reader seemed like a nice to have add-on. However, since the 4GB SDHC card does not seem to be readable by my older SD readers, it became a must-have accessory. The SDHC card is recognized immediately when used with the bundled reader and file transfers are lightning fast. The SDHC card also slips into and out of the reader without any fuss.

The SanDisk MobileMate SD+ reader I bought just a week earlier, on the other hand, has such a tight SD slot, that I’m worried it might strip the metal contacts on SD cards I use with it. I’m probably going to put it away and give it a negative review over on Amazon.com.

The SanDisk SDHC card and reader bundle, on the other hand, gets a thumbs up from me.

Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) 6.1

Microsoft released an update to WMDC (ActiveSync for Vista)…

Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) 6.1

The biggest win probably goes to Smartphone (Standard Edition) users who can now sync files with Windows Vista (Windows XP users could do so with ActiveSync). The surprise for me is that the download worked with Firefox. I didn’t have to switch back to IE to download the file to my Vista box.

PDAmill GameBox Sudoku

PDAmill GameBox Sudoku

I suspect I may be one of the few people on this planet who has not played Sudoku. So, l looked at the announcement of…

PDAmill GameBox Sudoku

(US$14.95)…for the Pocket PC (Classic or Professional Edition in Windows Mobile 6 lingo) with more than passing interest. I installed it on my Windows Mobile 6 Pocket PC to see if it would run on WM6. And, yep, it installed and started up mostly fine. It needed 6MB of free RAM for game play. So, I performed a soft reset (quicker than shutting down individual apps) to free up RAM. Then, I started up the game again and read through the instructions.

There are three board/grid sizes (4×4, 9×9, and 16×16) and three game play levels (Easy, Normal, and Hard). I can see why Sudoku was such a craze for while (Is it still? I’m not sure). I have no idea how easy or hard Sudoku experts would view GameBox Sudoku. But, I can see how it might drain more than a few hours of my time if I let it

Ilium’s 10th Anniversary: Good Time to Get eWallet

Sorry this post’s title sounds so much like an advertisement. But, you may have seen me mention their eWallet product (which I’ve used since version 1.0 on an HP 320LX Handheld PC) and rave about it here.

So, if you’ve been thinking about getting Ilium Software’s eWallet (stores sensitive info in an encrypted file), their 10th anniversary celebration week would be a good time. Ilium has it on sale for $10 (regular $29.95) for the Professional Edition on their anniversary page:

Ilium Software 10th Anniversary

You can also read a bit more about their annivesary on their blog.

I moved eWallet and NewsBreak when I migrated from my SDA smartphone to a Dash smartphone which was also a move from Windows Mobile 5 to 6. Both apps to seem to run ok though I’ve noticed a long pause in NewsBreak (RSS reader) that I didn’t see on the SDA WM5 smartphone. I’m trying to collect more details about this and will report the info to Ilium once I can see some pattern.