19.648 state of the art of portability?

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 648.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 07:05:56 +0000
         From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>
         Subject: state of the art of portability?

This is a gadgeteer-scholar's query, so you may wish to turn away now.

I have recently acquired a lovely handheld PocketPC-type machine with
wireless and Bluetooth capabilities (a Dell Axim x51v). Apart from
the fact that Windows Mobile 2005 (a.k.a. 5.0) has more bugs than my
former flat in Toronto, and so requires soft-resetting quite often, I
am very pleased. But there are two technical problems I am seeking a
solution for. I can only be patient with the OS.

Both these problems have to do with wireless connectivity.

The first problem arises because I go back and forth between a
wireless service that hands out IP and DNS numbers and one that uses
a fixed IP. It is heavily tiresome to keep entering the fixed IP and
DNS numbers, as you can imagine. Once upon a time, back in the less
advanced days of Windows Mobile 2003, software existed to stand
between the wireless management software and the device management
software -- the wonderful little program HPC NetProfile -- to allow a
variety of configurations to be specified once and for all time --
until upgrade of the OS curiously rendered NetProfile impervious to
all attempts to register it, including many attempts done with the
kind cooperation of the vendor, PhatWare. So the trial version
expired and I had to abandon it. Question: does anyone know (a) if
there's anything like NetProfile for Windows Mobile 2005? or (b) how
to fix the problem of being unable to get a program under this OS to
accept a valid registration code?

The second problem is with wireless reception. The handheld seems to
require quite a strong signal to be able to connect -- much stronger
on the average than a laptop. I assume that the problem is merely the
size of the antenna. Has anyone produced an attachable antenna for
handhelds -- attachable via the CompactFlash or Secure Digital memory
slots (as would have to be the case)?

Many thanks for all suggestions.

Yours,
WM

Dr Willard McCarty | Reader in Humanities Computing | Centre for
Computing in the Humanities | King's College London | Kay House, 7
Arundel Street | London WC2R 3DX | U.K. | +44 (0)20 7848-2784 fax:
-2980 || willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/
Received on Thu Mar 09 2006 - 02:24:20 EST