This Issue Sponsored By
Windows & .NET Magazine VIP Web Site/Super CD http://www.winnetmag.com/rd.cfm?code=wvep273xup ===============1. Mobile & Wireless Perspectives - A Tale of Two Endings 2. Mobile & Wireless News & Views - Aileron 5.0 - HP Almost Supports 802.11g - Mobility at PDC 3. Announcements - New Web Seminars on Exchange, Active Directory, and More! - Get Problem-Solving Scripts That Will Simplify Your Life 4. Instant Poll - Results of Previous Poll: Ultra Wideband - New Instant Poll: Public AP Usage 5. Resource - Tip: Tablet PC Image Fix 6. Events - New--Mobile & Wireless Road Show! 7. New and Improved - Deploy Wireless Access - Protect Data on Your PDA - Tell Us About a Hot Product and Get a T-Shirt! 8. Contact Us - See this section for a list of ways to contact us. ==== Sponsor: Windows & .NET Magazine Network ==== The Windows & .NET Magazine Network VIP Web Site/Super CD Has It All! If you want to be sure you're getting everything the Windows & .NET Magazine Network has to offer, then you need a subscription to the VIP Web site/Super CD. You'll get online access to all of our publications, a print subscription to Windows & .NET Magazine, and a subscription to our VIP Web site, a banner-free resource loaded with articles you can't find anywhere else. Find out how you can get it all at: http://www.winnetmag.com/rd.cfm?code=wvep273xup
============== 1. Mobile & Wireless Perspectives ==== by John D. Ruley, [email protected] A Tale of Two Endings In this installment of Networking UPDATE: Mobile & Wireless Edition, I want to talk about two interesting efforts that are coming to an end. First, Palm is acquiring Handspring, the maker of the Visor and Treo devices. Second, Barnes & Noble has closed its eBook store. Both developments sadden me, but in Handspring's case, the bad news might ultimately have a silver lining. Handspring was cofounded by Trip Hawkins, the man who invented the original Palm Pilot, and Donna Dubinsky, a marketing genius. They left Palm and broke out on their own after 3Com (which owned Palm) reportedly reneged on a promise to spin Palm off as a separate company. Handspring's original product, the Handspring Visor, resembled a Palm III in design but offered one innovative feature: a slot for "springboard" modules. This feature was an expansion option that offered a way to connect not only add-on hardware but also any necessary drivers and applications software, which resided in ROM on the module. The resulting seamless plug-and-play expandability of the Visor line was (and remains) unique among handheld devices. You could simply add a springboard module to a Visor and it would work--without any need to synchronize the device with a host PC. Although other PDAs offer expansion options, none of them work as seamlessly as the springboard. Unfortunately, the Visor's expandability never attracted enough business to make the company viable, and Handspring was badly hurt during the technology downturn of the late 1990s. However, the company made a remarkable comeback with the Treo device, which combines PDA and cell phone technology. Other vendors have combined this functionality, but Handspring got the Treo right, in part with a unique flip-top design that exposes a tiny but functional keyboard. The Treo is therefore useful for email as well as for phone and traditional PDA functions. Palm has seen its own sales drop off in the face of competition from Pocket PCs and other PDAs, and in June announced plans to acquire Handspring. Last month, with the end of a waiting period that a federal antitrust act had mandated, the deal moved closer. Provided the stockholders of both companies approve, the deal should go through this fall. Handspring always created innovative products but lacked the marketing power to push them. The merger should take care of that problem, but I'm more excited about the long-term prospects of the merged company. If Palm's management personnel are smart, they'll go to great lengths to retain Trip Hawkins and the rest of Handsprings engineering and design staff--a particularly innovative group of people. For more information about this story, check out the following URLs. http://www.handspring.com/company/pr_details.jhtml?id=%2Fcompany%2Fxml%2Fpr_060403.xml http://pressroom.palm.com/InvestorRelations/PubNewsStory.aspx?partner=5150&storyId=92473 I can't see any silver lining to the end of Barnes & Noble's eBook store. Just 3 years ago, Barnes & Noble and Microsoft jointly announced the creation of an "eBook Superstore." Evidently, it never took off. Browse http://ebooks.barnesandnoble.com now and you'll find the sad message, "Our eBook store is closed." eBook sales still haven't taken off in a big way. A recent press release from the Open eBook Forum proudly announced a 40 percent growth in worldwide unit sales of eBooks in the first half of 2003 compared to the first half of 2002, but the numbers remain small. Fewer than 1 million eBooks were sold in that period, with revenue of less than $5 million. To put this number in perspective, in April, Barnes & Noble announced first-quarter sales of close to $100 million. I suspect that the small dollar volume of eBook sales didn't pay for the cost of the necessary infrastructure to support it. According to email from Barnes & Noble, eBook titles not downloaded by December 9, 2003, will no longer be accessible. Users who have downloaded an eBook to a Pocket PC, in particular, might lose their ability to unlock and view the book should they have to perform a hard-reset or perform a ROM upgrade on their device. The closure of Barnes & Noble's eBook store has also exposed a particularly nasty problem for users of Microsoft's Reader software. Most Reader eBooks are encrypted through the Digital Rights Management 5 (DRM5) format, which limits users' ability to copy files between devices. As an author myself, I agree that copyright needs to be protected, but this isn't the right way to do it. Paper books can be freely traded, passed around, resold, or donated to libraries. The DRM5 model, which locks content to a particular device, doesn't provide anywhere near the necessary flexibility. Combine that inflexibility with the limitations of the devices that users view eBooks on, and you can see why paper books continue to dominate the market. However, eBooks are far from dead. I'm finding more and more electronic documents in Adobe Acrobat format (although these documents are primarily technical manuals or other forms of online documentation). And although eBook numbers remain small, they're growing--whereas sales of traditional paper books remain pretty much flat. Over time, eBooks might become a major force in the publishing world. Perhaps Barnes & Noble's eBook Superstore was the right idea, just too early! For more information about eBook stats, see the following URL. http://www.oebf.org/pressroom/pressreleases/stats.htm ==== 2. Mobile & Wireless News & Views ==== (contributed by John D. Ruley, [email protected]) Aileron 5.0 Corsoft announced version 5.0 of its Aileron wireless email solution for PalmOS devices. The new version has a more user-friendly interface, supports sending and receiving a variety of attachments (including Adobe PDFs), and can support multiple email accounts, including AOL, MSN, Hotmail, and Yahoo, as well as corporate email systems. The product provides notification of email arrival on Short Messaging Service (SMS) devices. Corsoft expects to add push notification in a future version for Palm Tungsten C and other Wi-Fi-based devices. The product is available for individual and enterprise licensing, with pricing starting at $49.95 per year. A free trial version is available. https://www.corsoft.net/home.asp HP Almost Supports 802.11g HP announced a new wireless access point (AP) that support both 802.11g and 802.11b networking standards. (For details, see the first link below.) Unfortunately, users of some iPAQ devices with built-in wireless networking won't be able to connect with HP's new ProCurve Wireless Access Point 420 (or any other dual-mode 802.11g/b AP) until a firmware revision becomes available. (For details, see the second link below.) Does anyone besides me see a mixed message here? http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2003/030918b.html http://h71025.www7.hp.com/support/reference_library/viewdocument.asp?countrycode=1000&prodid=2187|Microsoft+Pocket+PC+2002&source=MH030513_CW02.xml&dt=3&docid=18131 Mobility at PDC The agenda for Microsoft's 2003 Professional Developer's Conference (PDC), scheduled for next month in Los Angeles, lists several interesting topics for mobile and wireless users. Among these topics are mobile Web application support in the "Whidbey" release of ASP.NET, smarter network-aware applications, data synchronization in the next version of Windows (code-named "Longhorn"), location-aware applications, and a new release of the .NET Compact Framework. Watch for more information in a future Mobile & Wireless commentary. ==== 3. Announcements ==== (from Windows & .NET Magazine and its partners) New Web Seminars on Exchange, Active Directory, and More! Check out the latest lineup of Web seminars from Windows & .NET Magazine. Prepare your enterprise for Exchange Server 2003, discover the legal ramifications of deterring email abuse, and find out how Active Directory can help you create and maintain a rock-solid infrastructure. There is no charge for these events, but space is limited, so register today! http://www.winnetmag.com/seminars Get Problem-Solving Scripts That Will Simplify Your Life OK, so you're not a programmer. But if you read Windows Scripting Solutions every month, you don't need to be. Tackle common problems and automate everyday, time-consuming tasks with our simple tools, tricks, and scripts. Try a no-charge sample issue today! http://www.winscriptingsolutions.com/rd.cfm?code=fsep26xxup ==== 4. Instant Poll ==== Results of Previous Poll: Ultra Wideband The voting has closed in Windows & .NET Magazine's nonscientific Instant Poll for the question, "Is Ultra Wideband the future of wireless technology?" Here are the results (+/-2 percent) from the 18 votes: - 72% Yes - 28% No New Instant Poll: Public AP Usage The next Instant Poll question is, "Have you ever used a public access point (AP)?" Go to the Windows & .NET Magazine home page and submit your vote for a) Yes or b) No. http://www.mobile-and-wireless.com ==== 5. Resource ==== Tip: Tablet PC Image Fix by John D. Ruley, [email protected] In the August 27, 2003, issue of Networking UPDATE: Mobile & Wireless Edition, I complained about the difficulties I experienced while using my Motion Computing M1200 Tablet PC during presentations, mainly because the device treats external VGA as a separate display surface. Thanks to two readers, I've found a way around the problem that lets me get exactly what I want: the same display on both the built-in LCD and external VGA displays. Lo Yuk Fai of Hong Kong was the first to point me to a helpful Intel Web page ( http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/cs-004665-prd39.htm ) that wasn't directly applicable but did give me a starting point. Roberto Ruggeri helped out a few days later, but by that time I'd figured out the fix. The following steps work on my M1200 and should work on other Tablet PCs that use Intel's 82830M Graphics Controller: 1) Right-click the Intel Extreme Graphics icon in the task bar. (The icon is a multicolored monitor.) 2) From the pop-up menu, select Graphics Options, Output To, Intel Dual Display Clone. 3) The same image should now appear on both the external display and the built-in LCD. If your Tablet PC uses the 82830M controller but doesn't show the Intel Extreme Graphics icon in the taskbar, try Control Panel. Unfortunately, I can't offer suggestions about how to do perform this configuration on devices that use a different video chipset--it's hardware specific. If anyone from Microsoft is listening, I'd still like to see a standardized way to achieve this functionality as part of the Tablet PC UI. Tablet PC users (and the IT folks who support them) shouldn't have to dig through the manuals looking for device-specific ways to accomplish common tasks. ==== 6. Events ==== (brought to you by Windows & .NET Magazine) New--Mobile & Wireless Road Show! Learn more about the wireless and mobility solutions that are available today! Register now for this free event! http://www.winnetmag.com/roadshows/wireless ==== 7. New and Improved ==== by Carolyn Mader, [email protected] Deploy Wireless Access Neoteris announced that the Neoteris Access Series product family will include support for wireless devices and handheld systems so that enterprises can deploy wireless access to mobile employees. The Access Series interoperates with P800 smartphones and supports Symbian and Pocket PC devices. Contact Neoteris at 408-962-8200. http://www.neoteris.com Protect Data on Your PDA SoftWinter announced Sentry 2020/CE 2.5 for Windows Mobile 2003 and Pocket PC devices. Sentry 2020 uses transparent encryption to protect information stored on mobile devices. The user can choose which files to encrypt and which algorithm to use. For pricing, contact SoftWinter at [email protected]. http://www.softwinter.com Tell Us About a Hot Product and Get a T-Shirt! Have you used a product that changed your IT experience by saving you time or easing your daily burden? Tell us about the product, and we'll send you a Windows & .NET Magazine T-shirt if we write about the product in a future Windows & .NET Magazine What's Hot column. Send your product suggestions with information about how the product has helped you to [email protected]. ==== Sponsored Links ==== Aelita Software Free message-level Exchange recovery web seminar October 9th http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;6098474;8214395;v?http://www.aelita.com/090103updatelink CrossTec Free Download - NEW NetOp 7.6 - faster, more secure, remote support http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;5930423;8214395;j?http://www.crossteccorp.com/tryit/w2k.html MailFrontier Eliminate spam once and for all. MailFrontier Anti-Spam Gateway. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;6080289;8214395;q?http://altfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/2848-15512-3892-1 ==== 8. Contact Us ==== About the newsletter -- [email protected] About technical questions -- http://www.winnetmag.com/forums About product news -- [email protected] About your subscription -- [email protected] About sponsoring UPDATE -- [email protected]
==========This email newsletter is brought to you by Windows & .NET Magazine, the leading publication for IT professionals deploying Windows and related technologies. Subscribe today. http://www.winnetmag.com/sub.cfm?code=wswi201x1z ==== This Issue Sponsored By ==== Windows & .NET Magazine VIP Web Site/Super CD http://www.winnetmag.com/rd.cfm?code=wvep273xup
==========1. Mobile & Wireless Perspectives - A Tale of Two Endings 2. Mobile & Wireless News & Views - Aileron 5.0 - HP Almost Supports 802.11g - Mobility at PDC 3. Announcements - New Web Seminars on Exchange, Active Directory, and More! - Get Problem-Solving Scripts That Will Simplify Your Life 4. Instant Poll - Results of Previous Poll: Ultra Wideband - New Instant Poll: Public AP Usage 5. Resource - Tip: Tablet PC Image Fix 6. Events - New--Mobile & Wireless Road Show! 7. New and Improved - Deploy Wireless Access - Protect Data on Your PDA - Tell Us About a Hot Product and Get a T-Shirt! 8. Contact Us - See this section for a list of ways to contact us. ==== Sponsor: Windows & .NET Magazine Network ==== The Windows & .NET Magazine Network VIP Web Site/Super CD Has It All! If you want to be sure you're getting everything the Windows & .NET Magazine Network has to offer, then you need a subscription to the VIP Web site/Super CD. You'll get online access to all of our publications, a print subscription to Windows & .NET Magazine, and a subscription to our VIP Web site, a banner-free resource loaded with articles you can't find anywhere else. Find out how you can get it all at: http://www.winnetmag.com/rd.cfm?code=wvep273xup
============== 1. Mobile & Wireless Perspectives ==== by John D. Ruley, [email protected] A Tale of Two Endings In this installment of Networking UPDATE: Mobile & Wireless Edition, I want to talk about two interesting efforts that are coming to an end. First, Palm is acquiring Handspring, the maker of the Visor and Treo devices. Second, Barnes & Noble has closed its eBook store. Both developments sadden me, but in Handspring's case, the bad news might ultimately have a silver lining. Handspring was cofounded by Trip Hawkins, the man who invented the original Palm Pilot, and Donna Dubinsky, a marketing genius. They left Palm and broke out on their own after 3Com (which owned Palm) reportedly reneged on a promise to spin Palm off as a separate company. Handspring's original product, the Handspring Visor, resembled a Palm III in design but offered one innovative feature: a slot for "springboard" modules. This feature was an expansion option that offered a way to connect not only add-on hardware but also any necessary drivers and applications software, which resided in ROM on the module. The resulting seamless plug-and-play expandability of the Visor line was (and remains) unique among handheld devices. You could simply add a springboard module to a Visor and it would work--without any need to synchronize the device with a host PC. Although other PDAs offer expansion options, none of them work as seamlessly as the springboard. Unfortunately, the Visor's expandability never attracted enough business to make the company viable, and Handspring was badly hurt during the technology downturn of the late 1990s. However, the company made a remarkable comeback with the Treo device, which combines PDA and cell phone technology. Other vendors have combined this functionality, but Handspring got the Treo right, in part with a unique flip-top design that exposes a tiny but functional keyboard. The Treo is therefore useful for email as well as for phone and traditional PDA functions. Palm has seen its own sales drop off in the face of competition from Pocket PCs and other PDAs, and in June announced plans to acquire Handspring. Last month, with the end of a waiting period that a federal antitrust act had mandated, the deal moved closer. Provided the stockholders of both companies approve, the deal should go through this fall. Handspring always created innovative products but lacked the marketing power to push them. The merger should take care of that problem, but I'm more excited about the long-term prospects of the merged company. If Palm's management personnel are smart, they'll go to great lengths to retain Trip Hawkins and the rest of Handsprings engineering and design staff--a particularly innovative group of people. For more information about this story, check out the following URLs. http://www.handspring.com/company/pr_details.jhtml?id=%2Fcompany%2Fxml%2Fpr_060403.xml http://pressroom.palm.com/InvestorRelations/PubNewsStory.aspx?partner=5150&storyId=92473 I can't see any silver lining to the end of Barnes & Noble's eBook store. Just 3 years ago, Barnes & Noble and Microsoft jointly announced the creation of an "eBook Superstore." Evidently, it never took off. Browse http://ebooks.barnesandnoble.com now and you'll find the sad message, "Our eBook store is closed." eBook sales still haven't taken off in a big way. A recent press release from the Open eBook Forum proudly announced a 40 percent growth in worldwide unit sales of eBooks in the first half of 2003 compared to the first half of 2002, but the numbers remain small. Fewer than 1 million eBooks were sold in that period, with revenue of less than $5 million. To put this number in perspective, in April, Barnes & Noble announced first-quarter sales of close to $100 million. I suspect that the small dollar volume of eBook sales didn't pay for the cost of the necessary infrastructure to support it. According to email from Barnes & Noble, eBook titles not downloaded by December 9, 2003, will no longer be accessible. Users who have downloaded an eBook to a Pocket PC, in particular, might lose their ability to unlock and view the book should they have to perform a hard-reset or perform a ROM upgrade on their device. The closure of Barnes & Noble's eBook store has also exposed a particularly nasty problem for users of Microsoft's Reader software. Most Reader eBooks are encrypted through the Digital Rights Management 5 (DRM5) format, which limits users' ability to copy files between devices. As an author myself, I agree that copyright needs to be protected, but this isn't the right way to do it. Paper books can be freely traded, passed around, resold, or donated to libraries. The DRM5 model, which locks content to a particular device, doesn't provide anywhere near the necessary flexibility. Combine that inflexibility with the limitations of the devices that users view eBooks on, and you can see why paper books continue to dominate the market. However, eBooks are far from dead. I'm finding more and more electronic documents in Adobe Acrobat format (although these documents are primarily technical manuals or other forms of online documentation). And although eBook numbers remain small, they're growing--whereas sales of traditional paper books remain pretty much flat. Over time, eBooks might become a major force in the publishing world. Perhaps Barnes & Noble's eBook Superstore was the right idea, just too early! For more information about eBook stats, see the following URL. http://www.oebf.org/pressroom/pressreleases/stats.htm ==== 2. Mobile & Wireless News & Views ==== (contributed by John D. Ruley, [email protected]) Aileron 5.0 Corsoft announced version 5.0 of its Aileron wireless email solution for PalmOS devices. The new version has a more user-friendly interface, supports sending and receiving a variety of attachments (including Adobe PDFs), and can support multiple email accounts, including AOL, MSN, Hotmail, and Yahoo, as well as corporate email systems. The product provides notification of email arrival on Short Messaging Service (SMS) devices. Corsoft expects to add push notification in a future version for Palm Tungsten C and other Wi-Fi-based devices. The product is available for individual and enterprise licensing, with pricing starting at $49.95 per year. A free trial version is available. https://www.corsoft.net/home.asp HP Almost Supports 802.11g HP announced a new wireless access point (AP) that support both 802.11g and 802.11b networking standards. (For details, see the first link below.) Unfortunately, users of some iPAQ devices with built-in wireless networking won't be able to connect with HP's new ProCurve Wireless Access Point 420 (or any other dual-mode 802.11g/b AP) until a firmware revision becomes available. (For details, see the second link below.) Does anyone besides me see a mixed message here? http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2003/030918b.html http://h71025.www7.hp.com/support/reference_library/viewdocument.asp?countrycode=1000&prodid=2187|Microsoft+Pocket+PC+2002&source=MH030513_CW02.xml&dt=3&docid=18131 Mobility at PDC The agenda for Microsoft's 2003 Professional Developer's Conference (PDC), scheduled for next month in Los Angeles, lists several interesting topics for mobile and wireless users. Among these topics are mobile Web application support in the "Whidbey" release of ASP.NET, smarter network-aware applications, data synchronization in the next version of Windows (code-named "Longhorn"), location-aware applications, and a new release of the .NET Compact Framework. Watch for more information in a future Mobile & Wireless commentary. ==== 3. Announcements ==== (from Windows & .NET Magazine and its partners) New Web Seminars on Exchange, Active Directory, and More! Check out the latest lineup of Web seminars from Windows & .NET Magazine. Prepare your enterprise for Exchange Server 2003, discover the legal ramifications of deterring email abuse, and find out how Active Directory can help you create and maintain a rock-solid infrastructure. There is no charge for these events, but space is limited, so register today! http://www.winnetmag.com/seminars Get Problem-Solving Scripts That Will Simplify Your Life OK, so you're not a programmer. But if you read Windows Scripting Solutions every month, you don't need to be. Tackle common problems and automate everyday, time-consuming tasks with our simple tools, tricks, and scripts. Try a no-charge sample issue today! http://www.winscriptingsolutions.com/rd.cfm?code=fsep26xxup ==== 4. Instant Poll ==== Results of Previous Poll: Ultra Wideband The voting has closed in Windows & .NET Magazine's nonscientific Instant Poll for the question, "Is Ultra Wideband the future of wireless technology?" Here are the results (+/-2 percent) from the 18 votes: - 72% Yes - 28% No New Instant Poll: Public AP Usage The next Instant Poll question is, "Have you ever used a public access point (AP)?" Go to the Windows & .NET Magazine home page and submit your vote for a) Yes or b) No. http://www.mobile-and-wireless.com ==== 5. Resource ==== Tip: Tablet PC Image Fix by John D. Ruley, [email protected] In the August 27, 2003, issue of Networking UPDATE: Mobile & Wireless Edition, I complained about the difficulties I experienced while using my Motion Computing M1200 Tablet PC during presentations, mainly because the device treats external VGA as a separate display surface. Thanks to two readers, I've found a way around the problem that lets me get exactly what I want: the same display on both the built-in LCD and external VGA displays. Lo Yuk Fai of Hong Kong was the first to point me to a helpful Intel Web page ( http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/cs-004665-prd39.htm ) that wasn't directly applicable but did give me a starting point. Roberto Ruggeri helped out a few days later, but by that time I'd figured out the fix. The following steps work on my M1200 and should work on other Tablet PCs that use Intel's 82830M Graphics Controller: 1) Right-click the Intel Extreme Graphics icon in the task bar. (The icon is a multicolored monitor.) 2) From the pop-up menu, select Graphics Options, Output To, Intel Dual Display Clone. 3) The same image should now appear on both the external display and the built-in LCD. If your Tablet PC uses the 82830M controller but doesn't show the Intel Extreme Graphics icon in the taskbar, try Control Panel. Unfortunately, I can't offer suggestions about how to do perform this configuration on devices that use a different video chipset--it's hardware specific. If anyone from Microsoft is listening, I'd still like to see a standardized way to achieve this functionality as part of the Tablet PC UI. Tablet PC users (and the IT folks who support them) shouldn't have to dig through the manuals looking for device-specific ways to accomplish common tasks. ==== 6. Events ==== (brought to you by Windows & .NET Magazine) New--Mobile & Wireless Road Show! Learn more about the wireless and mobility solutions that are available today! Register now for this free event! http://www.winnetmag.com/roadshows/wireless ==== 7. New and Improved ==== by Carolyn Mader, [email protected] Deploy Wireless Access Neoteris announced that the Neoteris Access Series product family will include support for wireless devices and handheld systems so that enterprises can deploy wireless access to mobile employees. The Access Series interoperates with P800 smartphones and supports Symbian and Pocket PC devices. Contact Neoteris at 408-962-8200. http://www.neoteris.com Protect Data on Your PDA SoftWinter announced Sentry 2020/CE 2.5 for Windows Mobile 2003 and Pocket PC devices. Sentry 2020 uses transparent encryption to protect information stored on mobile devices. The user can choose which files to encrypt and which algorithm to use. For pricing, contact SoftWinter at [email protected]. http://www.softwinter.com Tell Us About a Hot Product and Get a T-Shirt! Have you used a product that changed your IT experience by saving you time or easing your daily burden? Tell us about the product, and we'll send you a Windows & .NET Magazine T-shirt if we write about the product in a future Windows & .NET Magazine What's Hot column. Send your product suggestions with information about how the product has helped you to [email protected]. ==== Sponsored Links ==== Aelita Software Free message-level Exchange recovery web seminar October 9th http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;6098474;8214395;v?http://www.aelita.com/090103updatelink CrossTec Free Download - NEW NetOp 7.6 - faster, more secure, remote support http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;5930423;8214395;j?http://www.crossteccorp.com/tryit/w2k.html MailFrontier Eliminate spam once and for all. MailFrontier Anti-Spam Gateway. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;6080289;8214395;q?http://altfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/2848-15512-3892-1 ==== 8. Contact Us ==== About the newsletter -- [email protected] About technical questions -- http://www.winnetmag.com/forums About product news -- [email protected] About your subscription -- [email protected] About sponsoring UPDATE -- [email protected]
==========This email newsletter is brought to you by Windows & .NET Magazine, the leading publication for IT professionals deploying Windows and related technologies. Subscribe today. http://www.winnetmag.com/sub.cfm?code=wswi201x1z ==== This Issue Sponsored By ==== Windows & .NET Magazine VIP Web Site/Super CD http://www.winnetmag.com/rd.cfm?code=wvep273xup
==========1. Mobile & Wireless Perspectives - A Tale of Two Endings 2. Mobile & Wireless News & Views - Aileron 5.0 - HP Almost Supports 802.11g - Mobility at PDC 3. Announcements - New Web Seminars on Exchange, Active Directory, and More! - Get Problem-Solving Scripts That Will Simplify Your Life 4. Instant Poll - Results of Previous Poll: Ultra Wideband - New Instant Poll: Public AP Usage 5. Resource - Tip: Tablet PC Image Fix 6. Events - New--Mobile & Wireless Road Show! 7. New and Improved - Deploy Wireless Access - Protect Data on Your PDA - Tell Us About a Hot Product and Get a T-Shirt! 8. Contact Us - See this section for a list of ways to contact us. ==== Sponsor: Windows & .NET Magazine Network ==== The Windows & .NET Magazine Network VIP Web Site/Super CD Has It All! If you want to be sure you're getting everything the Windows & .NET Magazine Network has to offer, then you need a subscription to the VIP Web site/Super CD. You'll get online access to all of our publications, a print subscription to Windows & .NET Magazine, and a subscription to our VIP Web site, a banner-free resource loaded with articles you can't find anywhere else. Find out how you can get it all at: http://www.winnetmag.com/rd.cfm?code=wvep273xup
============== 1. Mobile & Wireless Perspectives ==== by John D. Ruley, [email protected] A Tale of Two Endings In this installment of Networking UPDATE: Mobile & Wireless Edition, I want to talk about two interesting efforts that are coming to an end. First, Palm is acquiring Handspring, the maker of the Visor and Treo devices. Second, Barnes & Noble has closed its eBook store. Both developments sadden me, but in Handspring's case, the bad news might ultimately have a silver lining. Handspring was cofounded by Trip Hawkins, the man who invented the original Palm Pilot, and Donna Dubinsky, a marketing genius. They left Palm and broke out on their own after 3Com (which owned Palm) reportedly reneged on a promise to spin Palm off as a separate company. Handspring's original product, the Handspring Visor, resembled a Palm III in design but offered one innovative feature: a slot for "springboard" modules. This feature was an expansion option that offered a way to connect not only add-on hardware but also any necessary drivers and applications software, which resided in ROM on the module. The resulting seamless plug-and-play expandability of the Visor line was (and remains) unique among handheld devices. You could simply add a springboard module to a Visor and it would work--without any need to synchronize the device with a host PC. Although other PDAs offer expansion options, none of them work as seamlessly as the springboard. Unfortunately, the Visor's expandability never attracted enough business to make the company viable, and Handspring was badly hurt during the technology downturn of the late 1990s. However, the company made a remarkable comeback with the Treo device, which combines PDA and cell phone technology. Other vendors have combined this functionality, but Handspring got the Treo right, in part with a unique flip-top design that exposes a tiny but functional keyboard. The Treo is therefore useful for email as well as for phone and traditional PDA functions. Palm has seen its own sales drop off in the face of competition from Pocket PCs and other PDAs, and in June announced plans to acquire Handspring. Last month, with the end of a waiting period that a federal antitrust act had mandated, the deal moved closer. Provided the stockholders of both companies approve, the deal should go through this fall. Handspring always created innovative products but lacked the marketing power to push them. The merger should take care of that problem, but I'm more excited about the long-term prospects of the merged company. If Palm's management personnel are smart, they'll go to great lengths to retain Trip Hawkins and the rest of Handsprings engineering and design staff--a particularly innovative group of people. For more information about this story, check out the following URLs. http://www.handspring.com/company/pr_details.jhtml?id=%2Fcompany%2Fxml%2Fpr_060403.xml http://pressroom.palm.com/InvestorRelations/PubNewsStory.aspx?partner=5150&storyId=92473 I can't see any silver lining to the end of Barnes & Noble's eBook store. Just 3 years ago, Barnes & Noble and Microsoft jointly announced the creation of an "eBook Superstore." Evidently, it never took off. Browse http://ebooks.barnesandnoble.com now and you'll find the sad message, "Our eBook store is closed." eBook sales still haven't taken off in a big way. A recent press release from the Open eBook Forum proudly announced a 40 percent growth in worldwide unit sales of eBooks in the first half of 2003 compared to the first half of 2002, but the numbers remain small. Fewer than 1 million eBooks were sold in that period, with revenue of less than $5 million. To put this number in perspective, in April, Barnes & Noble announced first-quarter sales of close to $100 million. I suspect that the small dollar volume of eBook sales didn't pay for the cost of the necessary infrastructure to support it. According to email from Barnes & Noble, eBook titles not downloaded by December 9, 2003, will no longer be accessible. Users who have downloaded an eBook to a Pocket PC, in particular, might lose their ability to unlock and view the book should they have to perform a hard-reset or perform a ROM upgrade on their device. The closure of Barnes & Noble's eBook store has also exposed a particularly nasty problem for users of Microsoft's Reader software. Most Reader eBooks are encrypted through the Digital Rights Management 5 (DRM5) format, which limits users' ability to copy files between devices. As an author myself, I agree that copyright needs to be protected, but this isn't the right way to do it. Paper books can be freely traded, passed around, resold, or donated to libraries. The DRM5 model, which locks content to a particular device, doesn't provide anywhere near the necessary flexibility. Combine that inflexibility with the limitations of the devices that users view eBooks on, and you can see why paper books continue to dominate the market. However, eBooks are far from dead. I'm finding more and more electronic documents in Adobe Acrobat format (although these documents are primarily technical manuals or other forms of online documentation). And although eBook numbers remain small, they're growing--whereas sales of traditional paper books remain pretty much flat. Over time, eBooks might become a major force in the publishing world. Perhaps Barnes & Noble's eBook Superstore was the right idea, just too early! For more information about eBook stats, see the following URL. http://www.oebf.org/pressroom/pressreleases/stats.htm ==== 2. Mobile & Wireless News & Views ==== (contributed by John D. Ruley, [email protected]) Aileron 5.0 Corsoft announced version 5.0 of its Aileron wireless email solution for PalmOS devices. The new version has a more user-friendly interface, supports sending and receiving a variety of attachments (including Adobe PDFs), and can support multiple email accounts, including AOL, MSN, Hotmail, and Yahoo, as well as corporate email systems. The product provides notification of email arrival on Short Messaging Service (SMS) devices. Corsoft expects to add push notification in a future version for Palm Tungsten C and other Wi-Fi-based devices. The product is available for individual and enterprise licensing, with pricing starting at $49.95 per year. A free trial version is available. https://www.corsoft.net/home.asp HP Almost Supports 802.11g HP announced a new wireless access point (AP) that support both 802.11g and 802.11b networking standards. (For details, see the first link below.) Unfortunately, users of some iPAQ devices with built-in wireless networking won't be able to connect with HP's new ProCurve Wireless Access Point 420 (or any other dual-mode 802.11g/b AP) until a firmware revision becomes available. (For details, see the second link below.) Does anyone besides me see a mixed message here? http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2003/030918b.html http://h71025.www7.hp.com/support/reference_library/viewdocument.asp?countrycode=1000&prodid=2187|Microsoft+Pocket+PC+2002&source=MH030513_CW02.xml&dt=3&docid=18131 Mobility at PDC The agenda for Microsoft's 2003 Professional Developer's Conference (PDC), scheduled for next month in Los Angeles, lists several interesting topics for mobile and wireless users. Among these topics are mobile Web application support in the "Whidbey" release of ASP.NET, smarter network-aware applications, data synchronization in the next version of Windows (code-named "Longhorn"), location-aware applications, and a new release of the .NET Compact Framework. Watch for more information in a future Mobile & Wireless commentary. ==== 3. Announcements ==== (from Windows & .NET Magazine and its partners) New Web Seminars on Exchange, Active Directory, and More! Check out the latest lineup of Web seminars from Windows & .NET Magazine. Prepare your enterprise for Exchange Server 2003, discover the legal ramifications of deterring email abuse, and find out how Active Directory can help you create and maintain a rock-solid infrastructure. There is no charge for these events, but space is limited, so register today! http://www.winnetmag.com/seminars Get Problem-Solving Scripts That Will Simplify Your Life OK, so you're not a programmer. But if you read Windows Scripting Solutions every month, you don't need to be. Tackle common problems and automate everyday, time-consuming tasks with our simple tools, tricks, and scripts. Try a no-charge sample issue today! http://www.winscriptingsolutions.com/rd.cfm?code=fsep26xxup ==== 4. Instant Poll ==== Results of Previous Poll: Ultra Wideband The voting has closed in Windows & .NET Magazine's nonscientific Instant Poll for the question, "Is Ultra Wideband the future of wireless technology?" Here are the results (+/-2 percent) from the 18 votes: - 72% Yes - 28% No New Instant Poll: Public AP Usage The next Instant Poll question is, "Have you ever used a public access point (AP)?" Go to the Windows & .NET Magazine home page and submit your vote for a) Yes or b) No. http://www.mobile-and-wireless.com ==== 5. Resource ==== Tip: Tablet PC Image Fix by John D. Ruley, [email protected] In the August 27, 2003, issue of Networking UPDATE: Mobile & Wireless Edition, I complained about the difficulties I experienced while using my Motion Computing M1200 Tablet PC during presentations, mainly because the device treats external VGA as a separate display surface. Thanks to two readers, I've found a way around the problem that lets me get exactly what I want: the same display on both the built-in LCD and external VGA displays. Lo Yuk Fai of Hong Kong was the first to point me to a helpful Intel Web page ( http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/cs-004665-prd39.htm ) that wasn't directly applicable but did give me a starting point. Roberto Ruggeri helped out a few days later, but by that time I'd figured out the fix. The following steps work on my M1200 and should work on other Tablet PCs that use Intel's 82830M Graphics Controller: 1) Right-click the Intel Extreme Graphics icon in the task bar. (The icon is a multicolored monitor.) 2) From the pop-up menu, select Graphics Options, Output To, Intel Dual Display Clone. 3) The same image should now appear on both the external display and the built-in LCD. If your Tablet PC uses the 82830M controller but doesn't show the Intel Extreme Graphics icon in the taskbar, try Control Panel. Unfortunately, I can't offer suggestions about how to do perform this configuration on devices that use a different video chipset--it's hardware specific. If anyone from Microsoft is listening, I'd still like to see a standardized way to achieve this functionality as part of the Tablet PC UI. Tablet PC users (and the IT folks who support them) shouldn't have to dig through the manuals looking for device-specific ways to accomplish common tasks. ==== 6. Events ==== (brought to you by Windows & .NET Magazine) New--Mobile & Wireless Road Show! Learn more about the wireless and mobility solutions that are available today! Register now for this free event! http://www.winnetmag.com/roadshows/wireless ==== 7. New and Improved ==== by Carolyn Mader, [email protected] Deploy Wireless Access Neoteris announced that the Neoteris Access Series product family will include support for wireless devices and handheld systems so that enterprises can deploy wireless access to mobile employees. The Access Series interoperates with P800 smartphones and supports Symbian and Pocket PC devices. Contact Neoteris at 408-962-8200. http://www.neoteris.com Protect Data on Your PDA SoftWinter announced Sentry 2020/CE 2.5 for Windows Mobile 2003 and Pocket PC devices. Sentry 2020 uses transparent encryption to protect information stored on mobile devices. The user can choose which files to encrypt and which algorithm to use. For pricing, contact SoftWinter at [email protected]. http://www.softwinter.com Tell Us About a Hot Product and Get a T-Shirt! Have you used a product that changed your IT experience by saving you time or easing your daily burden? Tell us about the product, and we'll send you a Windows & .NET Magazine T-shirt if we write about the product in a future Windows & .NET Magazine What's Hot column. Send your product suggestions with information about how the product has helped you to [email protected]. ==== Sponsored Links ==== Aelita Software Free message-level Exchange recovery web seminar October 9th http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;6098474;8214395;v?http://www.aelita.com/090103updatelink CrossTec Free Download - NEW NetOp 7.6 - faster, more secure, remote support http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;5930423;8214395;j?http://www.crossteccorp.com/tryit/w2k.html MailFrontier Eliminate spam once and for all. MailFrontier Anti-Spam Gateway. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;6080289;8214395;q?http://altfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/2848-15512-3892-1 ==== 8. 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