Category: Mobility
Everyone that attended to the 4th Mobile Technologies Seminar by PocketPT.net won a free license of NDrive 3.1 for Pocket PC. So I left TomTom behind for a few days to try this Portuguese software. First of all I just love the user interface. The dark colors are great. In the menus you are able to scroll using your fingers, which is always nice.
The interface is pretty simple, which is normal since it has fewer functionality that TomTom. It doesn’t allow your to plan a trip and see it in images or to add pit stops to your navigation plan. But since I don’t plan pit stops very often, this isn’t a problem for me. And it has a demo version of the navigation when your GPS is off, and I am able to use to do some planning after all.
NDrive has a lot of Points of Interest (POIs) at least in the map of Portugal that I have. I really like the dynamic POIs that allow your to download information about the weather, traffic, events, pharmacies and speed cameras. I like that I don’t need to be online while driving to have access to this data. I can synchronize it before I leave home and head to my destination free of GPSR charge.
Another feature that amazed me was the amount of information about the POIs that is available. Below you can see information about Convento de Mafra (in Portuguese, thought). Address, description and even pictures. This software can be very useful if you are in some place which is not familiar to you and you want to choose a place to visit.
If you search for a restaurant, NDrive has not only the description and address but also phone numbers, e-mails and website. While reading these details you have a menu that allows you to browse to the website, call the restaurant or send the location information to a friend (ohh, and navigate to the restaurant, of course 
).
Some POIs have 3D models that are shown in the map. It is nice, I don’t think that it is that useful, but it is a nice geeky feature.
The software is very responsive and easy to configure. The driving directions are great, just as TomTom. One thing that I noticed as a problem was the information about speed limits accuracy. The information available in my map almost always tells me that I can travel in a higher speed that I actually can. As a consequence the time that is shown to me as the estimated travel time is pretty wrong. Nevertheless I must say that I paid much more attention to this speed issue in NDrive than in TomTom, so this can be a common issue, who knows.
From now on I will use NDrive instead of TomTom. It fits my needs. Thanks for this software license, PocketPT.net and NDrive.
Have you heard about Windows SideShow? It’s kind of a geeky feature of Windows Vista. 
It allows you to connect an external device to your PC, displaying gadgets like incoming e-mails, photo galleries among other stuff. There are already some devices that support this feature. You may be familiar with an ASUS laptop which comes with a display on top of it.
There are other devices detached from your laptop like digital picture frames.
More details available in the Windows Vista official website - Window SideShow details.
A beta version of a piece of software is now available which transforms your Windows Mobile 5 or 6 devices into a Windows SideShow compliant device (using bluetooth). 
The developer preview can be found at Microsoft Download Center. Follow the instructions that come with the software. After a successful install you can download and install new gadgets from Window Live Gallery. (Suggestions: Microsoft Office Power Point Remote and Picture Viewer)
You can configure your gadgets for each plugged Windows SideShow device in the Windows Control Panel (Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Windows SideShow).
Take a look at some screenshots at Chris Craft’s Blog.
(Based on another great post from Channel 10)
“É com orgulho que vos anuncio que estou a preparar com a minha equipa mais uma edição do nosso evento principal de consumo: a quarta edição do Seminário de Tecnologias Móveis Windows Mobile do PocketPT, sob o tema “Como escolher o equipamento certo para mim…”.
O evento terá lugar no dia 21 de Junho, sendo que decorrerá nos moldes dos nossos eventos anteriores que têm provado ser um enorme sucesso entre os participantes.
Contamos como tem vindo a ser hábito com o apoio da Microsoft Portugal, sendo que iremos ter uma agenda muito rica e cheia de informação para o utilizador final deste tipo de tecnologia.”
Nuno Luz
Estive presente no 1º Seminário de Tecnologias Móveis TI PRO e valeu imenso a pena. Estarei presente em mais este evento com as espectativas em alta.
Inscrevam-se antes que esgote.
Two or three days ago I read in some blog about Live Mesh. What is it?
“Live Mesh puts you at the center of your digital world, seamlessly connecting you to the people, devices, programs, and information you care about — available wherever you happen to be.”
Live Mesh website
You get a place on the web where you can store your data, and access and synchronize from within any computer you use. In this Tech Preview only Windows XP/Vista are supported, but the big picture includes Mac and mobile devices. You can share data with other people, and keep track of the news about your data (changes, additions, deletions, comments added, etc).
Take a look at this video that shows the main features of this new project.
Here is another video tour, this one’s target audience is the developers community. It seems that as usual in Windows Live Services, this new project will be very “developer friendly”.
I look forward to have a chance to try it. Meanwhile I’ll keep tuned in the website.
Some time ago a friend told me about QR-Codes. Before that I had already seen some of them in instant messaging avatars, without knowing the meaning of those images. QR-Codes look like this:
This is a kind of barcode like the ones that you see in the super market, but that can store a lot more information. Take a look at the Wikipedia entry about QR-Code.
An interesting thing about this format, is that there is a lot of software available for mobile phones and even windows mobile, that allows you to read these barcodes using your mobile phone’s camera. It is a nice way of sharing contacts (phone number, e-mail, URL’s) or a simple message (how about wearing a t-shirts, allowing your geek friends to read the message? )
A nice software for Windows Mobile is i-nigma barcode reader. Just point your camera at a QR barcode, and read the message!
A nice usage of this technology is present in the Windows Mobile free software directory freewarepocketpc.net. You can browse for software in your computer, and when you want to install an application in your device, instead of connecting it to the computer to transfer the cab file, or copying the download link by hand, just point your camera at the QR-Code in the download page, and download the software using the link encoded in the barcode image, reading it with i-nigma, or other similar software.
Believe me, it works pretty well. I wasn’t convinced until I tried it by myself.
Thanks for the introdution to QR-Codes, Nelson and thanks for showing me i-nigma, André!
