Wireless DevCenter: Microsoft Smartphone Tips and Tricks

 

Wireless DevCenter: Microsoft Smartphone Tips and Tricks

Microsoft Smartphone Tips and Tricks

by Wei-Meng Lee
05/14/2004

There is so much an excellently designed smartphone can do. But without the software to power it, it's virtually useless. Since the launch of the first Orange SPV Microsoft smartphone in October 2002, there have been a host of new applications designed to run on this platform. In this article, I will show you some of the cool things you can do with your Microsoft smartphone.

Installing Applications

One point about installing an application for the smartphone: you can either use ActiveSync to install the application from your PC to your smartphone, or you can install it directly from the vendor's web site. Figure 1 shows how you can install an application using Pocket Internet Explorer. Simply go to the vendor's web site and click on the relevant link to download the file. Once you confirm the download, it will be installed on your smartphone automatically.

Figure 1. Installing an application through the Web

Easy, right? Now let's move to file transfer.

Transferring Files onto Your Smartphone

Sometimes you just need to transfer files (such as MP3 music files) onto your smartphone. There are a few easy ways to do that. You can either use the infrared port or use ActiveSync to do the job. I use ActiveSync most of time, as it is the most flexible method. Simply hook up your smartphone to your PC through ActiveSync and at the ActiveSync window, click on the Explore button (see Figure 2). You will then be able to explore the file system on your smartphone and drag and drop files as required.

Figure 2. Exploring the file system of your smartphone through ActiveSync

Photo Contacts

One application that is useful for your smartphone is the Photo Contacts application from PocketX Software. Using Photo Contacts, you can assign photos to your contacts in your address book (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Assigning photos to your contacts

If your service provider supports caller identification, the photo of the caller will be displayed when your smartphone rings (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Displaying the photo of the caller

World Time

Another useful application is the World Time application by The MadBeetle. Using the World Time (see Figure 5), you can view the time of 400 cities worldwide. City data includes:

• Sunrise\sunset
• GMT offset
• Daylight savings
• Analogue clock
• The moon phase
• Airport code
• Dial Code
• Longitude and Latitude

The World Time application is useful if you do a lot of travelling and need to check out the different time zones.

Figure 5. Using World Time to check on different time zones

System Utilities

If you constantly install applications and move files into and out of your smartphone, then you need an effective way to view the various resources on your smartphone. I've found Resco SystemToys for Smartphone to be a good choice.

Resco SystemToys allows you to check on your battery status, as well as the amount of memory remaining (see Figure 6). So the next time you want to install that favorite MP3 on your smartphone, check out the amount of available memory first.

Figure 6. Use Resco SystemToys to check the battery and memory status

Pocket TV

If you spend a significant amount of time on the road, then you will be glad that PocketTV allows you to play MPEG movies on your smartphone (see Figure 7).

Figure 7. Watching movies using PocketTV

You can download some free video clips from pocketmovies.net. I downloaded snippets of The Return of the King and played them on the MPx200. The playback was smooth and the sound of acceptable quality. So the next time you hit the road, be sure that you load your smartphone with the latest movie hits.

Media Player on Your Smartphone

Envy those people who have an iPod or a digital video player? Fret not; with a little investment, you can turn your smartphone into a music player. In fact, your smartphone already comes with the required software to play your music and video files (MP3s and WMA are supported). The only constraint that you probably face is storage. While the iPod supports storage of 4GB and above, your smartphone comes with a paltry storage space of about 10MB (this depends on your phone model). So you can literally forget about storing your music files on your smartphone.

Fortunately, this problem can be solved by buying an external storage card. For music- and video-playing purposes, I suggest you invest in at least a 128MB SD card. If budget allows, go for the largest in capacity -- 1GB (see Figure 8).

Figure 8. Invest in a large-capacity SD memory card

To copy CD music or videos onto your smartphone, you can use Media Player 9 (see Figure 9).

Figure 9. Using Windows Media Player 9 to copy your music or video onto your smartphone

Playing music on the smartphone is cool -- the sound quality is good and crisp. However, video playback using the smartphone Windows Media player is not fantastic -- screens tend to be jerky. The sound track of the video is good, but the video does not synchronize well with the sound. Even so, watching videos while you are on the train is still a good way to spend your time (see Figure 10).

Figure 10. Watching a video on my smartphone

Final Thoughts

One of the success factors for a platform is the amount of applications available for it. In my upcoming articles, I am going to dive more deeply into how to get more out of your smartphone. In the meantime, do share with us on your favorite applications on the smartphone.