Handheld musings

Smartboard Demo of my Mobile Life

2008-05-11T09:35:00.000-07:00

Towards the end of last month I had an opportunity to offer to about 50 or os graduate students at Oxford some glimpses of how I use mobile computing at the University. As part of a day-long session on using IT in various ways to support postgraduate study, I gave two 15 minute demos under the title of, 'Going mobile: online skills in the palm of your hand.'

I deliberately went for a mobile-oriented setup, which had several considerations. At the core, was my intention to do a live demo of the PDA through a whiteboard - it's very gratifying to demo a small screen on a big screen! The smartphone in question was my HTC P3600 (aka Trinity).

The solution had the following components:

PDA phone: HTC P3600
ASUS Eee PC running Windows XP Pro
Remote PDA controller running on the EEE PC and the phone: MyMobiler
Whiteboard Driver (Smartboard Notebook software 10 driver)
Smartboard by SMART Technologies - provided in each of the department's 4 lecture rooms.

One of the first things I did was to evaluate some remote PDA control apps, for which I must thank Werner Ruotsalainen for providing technical review details (see one review from early 2008 ). In the end I plumped for MyMobiler, because it did the basics well - in general I could tap on the whiteboard with my finger to replicate the stylus tap on the device, though curiously i couldn't access the cursive drawing function for handwriting recognition. And naturally it helped that it was free!

I first tried out the remote control on my desktop PC, tethered to the mobile and it worked fine. I then tried it on a lecture room PC with the aid of Dave Baker, one of the IT Learning Programme team (who was very patient as I had delayed testing until quite late). In this case I used ActiveSync as a conduit, but there is also the option to use TCP/IP, as with some other programs, but it wasn't inconvenient for me to have the PDA near to the PC and most of these programs are designed to run on Windows anyway. This worked smoothly once we realized that the firewall was initially blocking ActiveSync. Then we configured the whiteboard, running Smartboard, running the orientation setup, ensuring we used a good number of reference points to allow for fine control.

On the whiteboard everything seemed to work well, and the display could be maximised to fill the screen height (in portrait mode) though I noticed that it's a bit unpredictable whether or not mobile video can be displayed on the big screen. Once the process had been established we then decided to swap the lecture room PC for the Asus, allowing a single machine setup for multiple demos (I had to give the demo in two different rooms, one immediately after the other!).

I then had to think about what to demo. I had at most 15 mins, but actually that was to include the setup! I needed to convey quickly that it was more than a gimmick that required uber geek configuration skills. Fortunately, I didn't really have to go far because I realised that I could at least show some Oxford stuff, mainly through the Today screen.

So this is what I picked:

Oxford newsfeeds: PocketRSS is a wonderful tool with a lot of configuration options and good standards support. It enables you to insert feeds in the Today screen with [+] expanders to allow you to read titles initially and then drill down for the content. Oxford Uni public affairs has been using RSS for a long time (initially with OXITEMS, which actually was superior in that it allowed the inclusion of images.
Oxford Term dates - meetings and other events are often given along the lines of Wednesday Week 4 at 10am, so you have to know the Oxford weeks! I import one of several public Google calendars into Pocket Outlook using Oggsync Mobile.
Inbox (Pocket Outlook) for Oxford mail - it provides a compact and useful count of unread messages, with good updating. (I added some basic instructions for IMAP setup on my departmental site). However, I actually prefer QMAIL3, but not so easy to set up.
Tomeraider + Wikipedia: anyone who has read my handheld blog is quite likely to have seen me promoting this before!
Video (one session): i did manage to show a film (converted from Video CD format to wmv file using Windows Movie Maker) of Pu Tok Rok, a monastery built into a large rock - it is on 7 levels and was constructed by just one monk.

I also offered a little glimpse of the future

Pointui interface: the iPhone has wowed many people with its multitouch interface. Other devices, such as those running Windows mobile, haven't yet got this capability, but there are some interesting experiments and this is definitely an interesting one, which allows you to sweep across the screen to move elegantly between functions (pages are seen gliding across). On the Smartboard, this got demonstrated to good effect :-)
QuickMark 2d barcode reader: I'm in the process of bidding for funds for a project in the use of this technology to enhance the way visitors interact with exhibition displays. For the demo, I printed out a table containing details of some OUCS talks, which had been tweaked by Barry Corneliius, to include 2d barcodes of type URL generated courtesy of the Kaywa Generator which you can invoke in your own scripts by a suitable call to their PHP script.

QuickMark uses the built-in camera, but this is something that couldn't (can't?) be rendered on the big screen, so I just lifted up the sheet of paper to show everyone what i was trying to do and took a snap, and let QuickMark generate the URL. I then accessed the URL to launch the built-in web browser (IE) and it duly displayed information about some talks.

Overall, I think both demos went pretty well on the day; I'm still awaiting feedback for the session as a whole, but technically at least I know this works! Just sorry that no photos or videos were taken on the day.

Asus PC arrives: Easy to carry, Easy to use, Easily liked!

2008-02-05T13:41:00.000-08:00

Today is a little drum roll day ... as I am pleased to announce the purchase and delivery of an Asus EEE PC mini notebook in a smart 'Pearl White'. :-) I had been reading with interest various reviews (almost invariably positive) and had heard colleagues equally lavishing praise - even to the extent that they have suggested that these machines become standard issue! They described how it would be ideal for taking along to conferences for giving presentations, typing notes, quick access to email etc.

Actually, I had been doing all these things with the HP Jornada 720, which is half the size and weight, is instant-on and has double the battery life. However, much as I am very fond of the handheld PC, there's no doubting its limitations e.g. there's no application that delivers full web support, its screen is 640*240. The Asus is in most operational respects far superior, so I made the investment.

Take a look at the following assorted devices.

The Jornada is on the left, the Asus EEE PC in the middle; to the right is a Toshiba 486 laptop, which is about 3 times as thick as the Asus [not mine, I should add]. Underneath is the HTC P3600.

Using the Jornada has proved beneficial because the Asus keyboard is not so much bigger than it, but since I can type almost as quickly on the Jornada as I can on a desktop keyboard, I am quiet comfortable with the Asus.

I've only tried it out for a few hours, so not much to report - first thing I managed to do was connect to the department's Eduroam wireless network and the responsiveness was surprisingly good. However, the battery level was already low and soon was down to 20%, so that was all. Back at home, recharging, I can surf at leisure and once again I compare my experience with the Jornada and naturally find that the screen resolution is generally fine, but the main difference is that this small device is running a full desktop operating system!

It's a case of windows through windows: the screenshot was from the Asus running Windows (!), which I expect more often to run Linux; and the inner screenshot was taken of the Jornada with the Windows CE OS running an X server connecting to a Linux box!

It's reminding me of 'thick' vs 'thin' client discussions, but I won't go into that now.

In the meantime there's quite a bit to explore...

Introducing OxMobile

2008-01-01T13:21:00.000-08:00

I'd like to open 2008 by offering ... a mobile strategy! It's initially for Oxford University, where I work, but in the longer term as a stepping stone for projects and services that will make Oxford's enormous wealth of resources of far wider benefit. It is just a personal document and as such does not in any way reflect official policy. However, as it is a personal creation, it means I can share it freely. :-)

So I am pleased to present:
OxMobile: Towards a Mobile and Ubiquitous Strategy for the University of Oxford

Yes, it is a long document! Why did I go to such lengths? Well, I'm not yet aware of any other explicitly mobile strategy at Oxford; feeling that there really ought to be one I decided to spend time at home writing a document that can move us in that direction. I hope it serves as a basis for various shorter documents that address particular needs such as business case, briefings, project plans etc.

To begin with I suggest just dipping in to the sections that are of interest to you. My core personal interest is in OxPDA and particularly the e-Diary (see sections 5.2 and 5.5), which emerged out of my earlier posts on this blog (parts one, two and three). Since those posts I feel that various factors have ripened to make this really viable.

Any comments and suggestions for improvement are welcome - this is so far only one person's selection, albeit produced over an extended period. I would be particularly pleased if it prompted the development of a variety of mobile and ubiquitous strategies at other academic institutions. Just think how such initiatives might improve education worldwide...

Looking back: 'bread and butter' apps of 2007

2007-12-31T13:03:00.000-08:00

Having purchased the HTC P3600 (aka Trinity) earlier this year, I thought now might be a good time to look back and pick out the applications that I’ve found most useful on a regular basis - the handheld ‘bread and butter!’ So here they are listed in no particular order, with some quick summary notes.

1. QMAIL3

http://q3.snak.org/en/

I have been using this mail client for several years, initially with the HP Jornada 720 (Handheld PC2000). Now I use it with the Trinity, mainly just to keep informed whilst away; I occasionally compose a few short messages and send attachments, but it’s mainly for reading. It’s very powerful, providing good support for the IMAP server at work (e.g. can sync on any number of folders) and quite a number of configurable options in the interface, including HTML support and message threading, though it is somewhat cramped on the QVGA display.

2. Tomeraider + Wikipedia (snapshot with images)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TomeRaider

This was the combination that almost single-handedly removed my dependence on the clamshell form factor. For general facts and figures, Wikipedia is an excellent resource and thanks to Erik Zachte versions of the database have been made available for ready conversion to Tomeraider, an e-book reader whose clever indexing and nifty interface makes accessing and navigating entries a breeze. It usually takes me just a few seconds from switching on the PDA to tapping out the topic under investigation; the version I have also includes small versions of about 2/3 of the original images.

However, the outputs from Wikipedia have been changing from time to time, too much to keep up with, so at present there is not an up-to-date version of the full text that can be read in Wikipedia, certainly not one with images. Alas, the conversion process stalled some while ago. I still hope that some initiative will emerge that enables it to become active again. One area that has been considered is the production of subsets according to particular categories – that at least is an interesting research project!

Working with this combination has sparked quite a few thoughts aboiut which I'm still pondering – first about PDA clients (thick or thin?) and then using this educational resource as the basis of what might become One PDA [or smartphone] per Child, which prompted thoughts in the sphere of education from Leonard Low - One PDA Per Learner (OPAL). With the iPhone bring handheld devices very firmly out of business confines and the emergence of various initiatives concerning small laptops, this looks increasingly likely in the mid term.

3. ZIP for Pocket PC

http://htc-zip.en.softonic.com/pocket

A utility to unpack ubiquitous Zip archives is essential for document bundles, installation files etc. HTC’s offering (Version 1.20) is easy to use and quite flexible in the extraction options.

4. Outlook/Google calendar via Oggsync

http://oggsync.com/
http://www.google.com/calendar/

I have been making daily use of the pocket Outlook client and it works well, obviously has been given a lot of attention for business users. It is a real boon to sync it with Google Calendar – I was hoping for a free client to cover all my needs, but I think for a reasonably reliable and functional product decided it was worth paying for Oggsync, even though I think the licensing model (annual payment) is questionable as it is software that is being provided, not an online service.

I currently sync on 3 calendars: a personal calendar, a work calendar and a public calendar that gives dates of Oxford terms. Google has many public calendars that are worth perusing.

5. Contacts

Similar to the calendar, on using the phone more, I have been storing and updating contacts here.

6. Windows Media Player

[Audio]

One of my Thai friends very kindly scoured Chulalongkorn University bookshop and subsequently presented me with two self-study Thai language courses called ‘Thai for Beginners’ and ‘Thai for Intermediate Learners’ by Benjawan Poomsan Becker. They came with cassette tapes that I’ve digitized into mp3 format [technicalities described in another post]

I still take the physical book with me, but use the phone to listen to the audio. There are better audio players, e.g. GS Player, but WMP does the job okay.

[Video]

I use Windows Movie Maker on a laptop to transcribe videos produced by the Thai temple that I support (see e.g. DMC TV). They are typically made available as .wmv downloads or if collecting on CD they may be supplied as MPEGs encapsulated in VideoCD format (just rename the DAT file). Transcription is straightforward and the output option of PDA (320*240) produces good results. :-)

7. MS Live Search Mobile

http://livesearchmobile.com/

Of the various mapping applications that I’ve tried, I’ve found Live Search to be the most robust. If I’m visiting somewhere I download the tiles in advance. Then, when using that map data, the application works fine and won’t crash when you explore the edges.

8. Camera: pictures and videos

I’m not much of a photographer, but even I find it very easy to take snaps with the Trinity – just switch on and press the camera button twice. A nice feature is that it is integrated with the GPS, so you have the option of recording GPS data in the EXIF file.

Quality is modest, though with the CMOS sensor it works quite reasonably in low light conditions. I’ve uploaded a few to my Flickr space.

9. VisualGPSce

http://www.visualgps.net/VisualGPSce/

This application is well made. In the absence of any GPS application with the HTC ROM upgrade I use this to establish connections and then switch to other apps, e.g. the camera, knowing that a lock is available immediately.

It introduced me to the fun of GPS and digital maps, including a little detective trail and route animation (not sure about the practical value of that!)

10. Adobe Reader

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2_mobile.html

A lot of documentation, especially work-related is distributed as PDF, so it’s necessary to have a PDF viewer. Adobe’s offering works reasonably well, though unless text flow works, then it’s not very practical to read more than a page or two.

Others

There are other apps that I’ve used occasionally, including:

Supersnap: the best tool I’ve found for capturing a sequence of screenshots. The developer was very responsive to comments.
Skype: For the Trinity, I needed to download version 2.1 (2.2 doesn’t work), the latest beta version of which I obtained via archive.org. It works okay, quality fair - I made one overseas call that lasted over an hour and found that although the audio sounded processed, it was clear enough. The main limiting factor is the phone contract, which prohibits its use, along with instant messaging. :-(
MS Powerpoint viewer: for presentations that I prepare and similarly from others
GS Player: I use it occasionally to listen to streams, as delivered by Shoutcast.com; can connect the output to the Hi-Fi. It’s a smart application with a very neat and tidy interface.
XnView for Pocket PC: it’s a great graphics package, which I use to convert screenshots from BMP to GIF and then can upload to the Web.
Word mobile: it’s limited, but sometimes that’s enough :-)
Lingvosoft Thai-English dictionary for Pocket PC: I’m just starting to learn to read and write Thai and this is starting to help me more, though I first need to learn the alphabet! It comes with a virtual Thai keyboard and I can copy and paste Thai words to/from Pocket Word, so I hope eventually to be composing blog posts in Thai :-) It is has a large number of entries, more than adequate. The 2006 version that I bought supports speech synthesis, but for English only!

As this year draws to a close, I'd just like to say thanks for reading - I hope there's been something worthwhile for you. More thoughts in 2008...

Watching BBC Videos on Windows Mobile

2007-06-23T12:50:00.001-07:00

Futurologists often mention that videos are coming to the phone. Actually, the technology is already in place and I've already tuned in a few times to DMC TV (Dhamma Media Channel), as reported for the Earth Day 2007.

The BBC and other broadcast media are thinking hard about how to embrace Internet-based video and maintain themselves as a going concern. At the moment, they make available to the general public selected archives. I found that if I access the BBC site with my mobile phone running Windows Mobile 5, then it redirects me to pages specifically designed for mobile devices (addresses like http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/...) and makes available a few videos, including a news summary. However, the choice is limited and the bandwidth quite low.

Actually, many PDAs nowadays are powerful enough to cope with the same levels of streaming as those aimed at desktop machines. Versions of Windows Mobile and Real Player are available for the mobile platform, so are they able to handle the streams? Could I find the streams in the first place? In true journalistic style... "I decided to investigate!"

[I used my HTC P3600 PDA Phone, with ROM upgrade, running Windows Mobile 5 AKU3.3.1. All screenshots were captured using SuperSnap 1.5 Auto mode, apart from the Windows Media sceenshot, for which I happened to use Pocket Screen Capture from CEToolbox.]

The first aim was to work out how to locate the Beeb videos from the mobile device. There are probably many ways of going about this, but I was just looking for a simple way to navigate: after manually setting URLs it became evident that only on a few pages are you automatically redirected to mobile equivalents. To avoid having to type URLs, you can start by using a search engine like Google:

And that's accurate enough to bring up the desired match without having to scroll :-)

The BBC News World page duly loads in full (note that I had opted to select 'desktop view') but renders differently from desktop machines because there is still some browser detection that decides that Pocket IE needs a bit of extra assistance!

Scrolling down the page, you come across the selection of videos available:

Click on the video of your choosing...

On desktops, you get a picture frame with a video loading in the middle of it, but here on scrolling down the page I got:

Not so interesting! However, we haven't yet defined our video preferences...

Clicking on the preferences link enables you to select the quality (connection speed) and which player:

So which player to choose? As the BBC states that Realplayer is the preferred player (more cross-platform, I presume), I initially tried RealPlayer for Pocket PC 1.1 Preview Release available from RealPlayer's Mobile area. However, it didn't work.

So I opted for Windows Media Player, clicked the [OK] button and was returned to the video page via a confirmation screen.

[Incidental techie point: the use of Perl reminded me of a presentation at the 2002 Oxford IT Support Staff conference on the subject of Content production at the BBC - the presenter related how there was not one supersystem, but rather a lot of little custom Perl scripts, with a lot of home crafting. Evidently, they're still using these "down to earth tools" for the video configurations and they work well) :-) ].

Now was the time to test - I clicked on the link to launch the player...

It worked fine, streaming at around 230kb/s and I was also able to click on the 'full screen' button. The picture quality was quite good, though sound was a little bit out of sync with lip movement and the audio controls seemed to have limited control over volume.

I've managed to watch a number of videos this way and generally it works well. However, if my PDA is doing something else at the same time, then the streaming reverts to a very low rate and I might not even get any pictures. So performance is an issue. Nevertheless, I'm happy to report it works well on a variety of videos, meaning you can keep informed and be entertained wherever there is WiFi or high-speed phone network connection.

Figuring out mobile data tariffs

2007-05-31T12:47:00.000-07:00

I'm generally a very light user of a phone for ordinary calls (voice), so have only ever made use of 'Pay as you go' SIM cards. The exception is when I'm in Thailand, where I find myself making and receiving more calls than I would in the UK during the course of a year! (I have lots of relatives there :-)

Since a few years ago, I was interested in data access and I ran some notional tests using GSM on my Nokia 8210 communicating with HP Jornada 720 via Infrared, but reaching 700bits per second at a cost of several pence per minute wasn't of much practical benefit. But now the landscape has changed, or at least it should have: I have the HTC Trinity with support for 3G and HSDPA and generally there's been a fair amount of momentum, not least because we are getting used to having the Internet 'on tap' with always on broadband connections.

Since buying the Nokia phone, I have stuck with the Vodafone 'Pay as you go' SIM, but when I looked at the data options, it seemed sadly lacking. My phone was indicating 3G receptivity, so that looked promising and I downloaded and installed the Network Settings Wizard off the HTC Europe site. However, I was unable to make a connection. I popped into a local Vodafone store and the staff were friendly, but all they did was give me a printout of settings that I also failed to get working.

Actually I had already heard from a colleague about T-Mobile's 'Web n Walk' day pass and mentioned this in the shop. The sales staff could only say that there would be something to match it, but he didn't know what it would be and I'd have to wait until June. Well, June is almost here and details have been made available - drawn by an article on the Register, I read about the new offer.

However, I had already sent off for a free T-Mobile SIM and have been using it for about 3 weeks, having used the Network Settings Wizard above to connect almost immediately. The basic terms on traffic are: 0.73p per KB, with £1 cap; a 'fair usage' allowance of 40MB per day - see the full terms. That's quite clever, because it seems very generous, but using HSDPA (which is available in Oxford, though Windows Mobile 5 doesn't have an 'H' icon), you can reach the cap in half a second! Furthermore, 40MB is not that much, really. Today I was tuning into a live stream from DMC TV to celebrate Vesak. The ceremony took place throughout the day and during lunchtime I showed some friends on the phone (with a similar display to what I had found for Earth Day). In just a couple of minutes I had consumed more than 1MB, yet I was not using a particularly high bandwidth stream.

Even though the Vodafone has introduced its offer with the benefit of being able to observe the popularity of T-Mobile, it appears to me only marginally better in one respect: you don't reach the £1 cap so quickly - only after 0.5MB as opposed to 73K. If your use is just for checking email selectively (e.g. you download only message headers and then manually pick and choose which text bodies to download) or perhaps a few mobile-optimised web sites, then it may prove a bit cheaper, but with broadband connections I expect most people will be looking to replicate what they do at home and in the office whilst on the move, so 1MB will be gobbled up very quickly and you'll be looking at 15MB for £1, followed by £2 per MB, which is an inferior offer :-(

So T-Mobile's 'Web n Walk' day pass still seems the best deal for users wanting to make more than token use of the Net where you need the phone network for connectivity. Yet it's quite restrictive in the amount of data you can transfer and cleverly imposes other restrictions in terms of applications you can use - it excludes instant messaging and VoIP - and further you're not even allowed to connect it to a laptop: "We do not permit use of this service to provide modem access for a computer." These facilities are allowed, if at all, only for the more expensive plans.

In the UK, the telecoms companies not surprisingly need some means of recouping the considerable costs of buying licenses for the 3G and other radio spectrums...

Geotrailing with Live Search Mobile

2007-05-26T11:13:00.001-07:00

On many domestic and international flights you can see on the TV monitor the gradual progress of the plane as it moves little by little across a map of the world. Out of curiosity, I wanted to know whether you can do something similar with my HTC Trinity phone, using the GPS facility to make a visual record with aerial photos of a route as I was taking it. I didn't have any particular purpose in mind, though I thought that to start I should try out something locally, in Oxford.

I'm still new to GPS and so far had largely just used it to plot a basic trail of GPS co-ordinates and take a few photos recording such details as EXIF data. However, I was soon introduced to mobile mapping software, notably Map24 Mobile , Google Maps Mobile and Microsoft Live Search for mobile devices. Google Maps and Live search both make use of satellite photos and can communicate with GPS receivers, so both looked promising candidates. So which one to choose? They makes use of different satellite data and in some areas Google has higher resolution photos and vice versa. In the case of Oxford, the Microsoft offering has far more detailed images, so I gave Live Search a go.

It sounds relatively simple - assuming you can get a GPS lock on your current location, you just need to ensure that maps are available as you go wandering. The mobile tools helpfully have cache facilities and I set Windows Live to its maximum of 8MB storage and started tracing a route in advance. However, care is needed about the areas you record and the zoom level - start off in the wrong area and/or wrong zoom and you might not see anything! To be safe, at least for a novice navigator like myself, I think you need to have Net access on demand. In the UK there's a good offer for general Net usage called 'Web n walk' available from T-Mobile . I took advantage of the free pay as you go SIM offer. There is very good coverage in Oxford, even for HSDPA

However, as far as I can tell the mapping software don't record your progress, they do not 'film' the steps you make or the path that unfolds, so I needed to find a screen recording utility. I had already made use of some screen capture tools such as Pocket Screen Capture to take snapshots of individual screens, but here I needed to find something that could conveniently record a sequence. Initially, all I could find were tools that required a connection with a desktop PC, which would use a remote viewer in conjunction with screen capture facilities on the PC itself. However, that wouldn't be much use on my travels (unless I wanted to lug a laptop with me!) After a while, I came across an excellent survey by Werner Ruotsalainen, who maintains an informative blog for Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine.

It was through this survey that I found SuperSnap and in the quick tests that I set it worked exceedingly well, so I bought a copy.

Thus I was all set and yesterday provided a great opportunity to give it a whirl - a day out to Great Malvern to go walking on the hills :-) I set off and headed towards the canal, but indications pointed to some obstacles...

Undaunted I made my way and got to the canal and after some fiddling about, managed to get a GPS lock, connect, and start recording ... et voilà!

If you click on the image then it should load the animation on top (will need to wait a while as it is 700K file), but if that doesn't work, you can view the animation separately.

So why did I opt for SuperSnap? Well, apart from having a timer and allowing you to save as BMP or JPEG (variable compression), it has a special function that takes a copy of the screen every time it changes and it appears to do this cleanly and efficiently, fast enough for multiple updates a second. At work, I can see that it will be ideal for recording screens for instructions on using various software, setting configurations etc. I think it's well worth the $9.95 price tag.

However, the sequence is captured as a series of individual files and there is no animation option. In order to produce an animation, I needed the assistance of my desktop PC (bit disappointing for a mobile enthusiast ;-) I used Irfanview to do a batch conversion to GIFs and then imported them into MS GIF Animator, a rather old package that used to come with MS Frontpage 98!

Ideally, I would like to see a couple of other options introduced in SuperSnap - the first is an option to save screens as GIFs, though I expect its viability depends upon the amount of processing overhead and secondly, an option to export sequences as some animation or video file, but perhaps that is being rather too optimistic :-)

I subsequently tried the same activity on the train and it was good, as far as it went... just a few metres down the track and I lost the GPS lock, a little further down the line and the connection was no longer HSDPA or 3G, but GPRS. There's evidently some way to go before it becomes simple and dependable. Even so, it works in principle and I'm sure it'll be commonplace soon.

On the trail of a noble Spoon

2007-04-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

Having discovered my bearings with the enabling of HTC Trinity's GPS receiver, I decided to explore a little more what the device could do.

My first significant experiment was to use with the aid of VisualGPSCE log a train journey from Oxford to Worcester and beyond. Similarly I logged another journey in Worcestershire - a visit to Chaddesley Wood to see if the bluebells were starting to appear (there were some signs, but not yet a profusion of colour). VisualGPSCE records data in a standard GPS log file. From my PDA I uploaded the output to GPS Visualizer, which is a sophisticated online service that can overlay your data on Google Maps or even embed in 3D in Google Earth. I initially tried to generate a Google hybrid map but Pocket IE couldn't render it, so I next chose to simple output in the form of a JPEG:

The track is coloured (ranging from red through the colours of the rainbow to magenta) according to altitude or speed - looking at the track, I think it has indicated speed. I also logged a track in the woods and took a few photos during this time. Provided the camera and GPS clock are reasonably in sync, you can faithfully combine the path data with the images taken from the camera, i.e. geotagging the images. It's again a new area for me so I don't yet know many options, though the Robogeo site lists a number of techniques (as well as offers its software) to solve the problem.

However, an easier solution is for the camera to record GPS details with the photo and as it happens the HTC does indeed have this ability: I entered "HTC P3600 EXIF" into Google and landed on the info I needed to know on Erwin van Hunen's Mobile Viking blog. Indeed, with the ROM upgrade, there has been some enhancement of the camera software, Camera for Pocket PC, now is at Version 4.02. If you access the camera settings and paddle along to settings for Capture Mode and navigating down the menu, at the bottom is the option for 'GPS Photo'. Once you've selected that, then when you come to take a photo the centre of the screen greys out and a message reads 'Initializing GPS...' As that is all it says, on switching on I tend to establish a connection and lock with VisualGPSCE and once I've got a lock I then switch over to the camera, which initializes very quickly.

From then on it's as easy as taking normal photos - I didn't notice any difference in the speed to take snaps. Camera data is stored in EXIF format and GPS details get added - the GPS version ID plus longitude, latitude and time. Ah, on looking a bit more closely, I see that the GPS system has atomic clock time and my PDA is about 1 minute fast! (I now have fixed that manually, but I wonder if there is a nice simple sync utility for the mobile?)

You may be wondering at this stage what the title is about! Well, it's meant to be a very easy little mystery tour - where did I go? I was on the way to visit a large wooden family, somewhere in the city of Oxford. I took a stroll along the canal, keeping a GPS log. I started somewhere in Northern part and took the following photo (click for essential information!)

About 2 miles down the canal I crossed a footbridge and then took a zigzag route, walking for a further 10 minutes or so towards the centre. I passed a legal publishers and a few hundred metres on as I approached my destination it was getting busier with tourists. I then took a left turn and entered a large building, descended some steps and met the family:

But there was one Spoon I was particularly interested to meet and here he was:

But who was he and where was I? You can click on the link to find out and confirm!

[As part of Oxfordshire's 1000 Years celebration, a collective work of art has been created through the transformation of 1000 wooden spoons. It's called the Spoon Race .]

I hope you enjoyed today's GPS journey :-)

No excuses for getting lost with HTC P3600 ROM Upgrade :-)

2007-04-05T12:25:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in my previous post on PDA and phone convergence, the HTC P3600 that I purchased has in its circuit board a GPS receiver, but it was not enabled in my version of the phone. During the past weeks I had been scouring the Web for signs of an official ROM update that might include this. The Asian version (for the Dopod equivalent) had been released in February, but the European version was slow to emerge until news spread via sites like XDA Developers of the official WorldWide English (WWE) release becoming available in a few countries such as Belgium, Sweden and then Italy.

So where was the ROM for UK users? It was a bit odd - I had read of people's queries to their HTC sellers with generally noncommittal responses. Wanting some clarification of the situation, on Tuesday (3rd) I got in touch with Smartphones Direct, the company that had sold me my phone, using their Java-based online chat facility. I asked about the availability of the HTC Rom update to include GPS and at that time was informed that it wasn't available and that even an official ROM download would invalidate the warranty, but there was the possibility of the company installing it for me for a fee.

Disappointed, I was wondering what to do. However, I kept dipping into online fora and the next day I was encouraged by a thread on the Expansys site. It was great news - an official ROM to download from HTC Europe's site. I proceeded to download and was expecting to install straightaway, but I hit a snag - I had left the sync cable in the office and the next day I was on leave and due to be travelling in the afternoon! Never mind. This morning I popped into the office, collected the cable en route to a bit of shopping, then raced back home and carried out the upgrade and it was fine.

Naturally, I was keen to try out the GPS. I see they have since added TomTom Navigator as a freebie, but I was travelling by train this afternoon, so instead I installed VisualGSPCE. Having never used GPS before, I don't know what to expect, but I find this a very nice piece of software that is easy to use and provides very clear details of your co-ordinates (longitude and latitude are very accurate, but altitude seems to fluctuate quite a bit more) plus your velocity. It also shows some stats about the satellites - how many around, how many are being used (have strong enough signal). After installation, I found I needed to do a restart of the PDA and initially it gave an error because by default it was expecting communications to be on COM1; changing (via the app) to COM9 enables it to work. From then on it's a doddle!

My colleague Matthew had alerted me to an article in The Register in which they had tested the GPS in the Orange SPV M700 (rebadged HTC P3600) and they had found it drained the battery as much as talk time, i.e. to about 4.5 hours. One of my other colleagues has the Orange phone and had already tried the GPS; I haven't got round to asking him about battery life, but I think his ROM is dated January and since then I've read very positive remarks about improvements in this area in later ROMs (the HTC WWE one is from March).

So I ran a test. Just before my train arrived I switched on the phone, got a lock (within a minute) and left it on for the duration of the journey. VisualGPSce has a logging facility, which I remembered to switch on just after we had left the station. I then kept the PDA on (with non-backlit display) for the duration of the journey, which was 3 1/4 hours. So did it last the distance? At the start it was at 90% and by the end of that period, it had 50% battery left, which means only about 40% was used in that duration, which also included 3 quick calls and a 1 minute video shoot. All in all, quite impressive, I think!

There are quite a number of features in the ROM Upgrade that are worthy of mention, including support for receiving streaming video. However, now at my destination, I have about 2MB of GPS log to peruse... :-)

My PDA phone convergence - in white

2007-02-25T12:32:00.000-08:00

It had been a long time in the offing and so I finally took the bold step of replacing my somewhat aging iPaq 1940 and Nokia 8210 phone with a combined unit, the HTC P3600, aka 'Trinity.'

Also added into the mix is a reasonable, but not stunning, 2Megapixel camera (the view shown on the HTC is a video still of Christ Church chapel / Oxford Cathedral.) And on the connectivity front, still to come, all being well, is GPS support... There is a receiver built-in, but it is not enabled in the distribution. However, an official ROM upgrade is hoped for soon.

I had found on too many occasions on my travels that I didn't have with me my PDA or camera; it was sometimes merely a matter of their being in a bag or coat pocket, but that was still too far away at that particular moment! So I realized that I probably should find a combined unit and I had been researching last summer, but at that time I didn't feel sufficient impetus. My requirements were largely determined by a few applications: Tomeraider (to view snapshots of Wikipedia on an 1 or 2GB memory card), Windows Media player - my temple creates many videos in this format and more recently, QMAIL3 for my email and more recently Skype, as I expect WiFi hotspots to keep growing.

This helped me to settle on a PDA phone as opposed to Smartphone and I was very interested in the i-mate JAM and i-mate JAMin . I didn't need a built in keyboard - if I want to type large amounts on my travels or at conferences I generally take with me my a Jornada 720 (official site , but Handheld PC Factor is probably the best site for support). The i-mates didn't quite satisfy my requirements - they were either lacked WiFi or (I perceived) were a bit underpowered. However, a few months later, HTC, releasing devices under their own name, seem to have recognsied the limitations and released some phones with very impressive specs.

So I decided to buy one, the HTC P3600. I don't like ties, so I went for a phone only, no contract. Although they're generally made with both black and white covers, there is a UK-designated model that's just black. I preferred the white design and found several places that indicated on their Web sites that they were in stock or "available" only to be told afterwards that they weren't in stock and would I like the black one instead! Eventually, I ordered one from Smartphones Direct, whose "available" phone came via Germany (with Euro-style plug). The few extra days' wait and the plug weren't major issues for me.

When it arrived, eyes lit up in the office and there was an air of expectation. My first challenge (which I initially failed) was opening the back cover - it seems I was not the only one who struggled. Just as well that I saw the summary post at the end about sliding - my colleague Matthew did the honours first time round, before I was able to do so myself.

First observations: I was immediately impressed by the engineering and ergonomics - for example, I like the placing of the buttons, simple things like the phone call and end call buttons are wide apart; the camera button is in just the right place and you only have to click it once from anywhere and you are in camera mode, then click again to take a photo. It feels like this has been considerably refined; the proportions are very nice making it comfortable in the hand, though once the battery is installed, it is slightly heavier than I would like (around 150g). It comes with a mini SD card slot - although I would have preferred a standard SD card slot, it is at least likely to be a bit more cost-effective than micro SD.

I proceeded to install ActiveSync 4.2, as supplied on CD, updating my previous installation of 3.7. I was able to sync my contacts without problems. I also found later on that I could easily import contacts from my SIM card, which is nice. I'm not a big phone user, but it is evident that the integration of PDA and phone has a little way to go - Windows Mobile has a separate SMS Messaging program that I can only access via the Start menu - I can't seem to access it via the Phone options! It seems too tied up with Inbox, Microsoft's pocket mail client.

I haven't looked at what Inbox can do, but already I've been using QMAIL3 (or Babelfish English translation), which is a phenomenal piece of software - it's notable that the mobile versions are largely equivalent in functionality compared with the desktop version. Not only do you get a client that supports POP and IMAP mail under SSL (using openssl libraries), but also newsfeed reader that handles RSS and Atom, and a Usenet client. Further, QMAIL3 is not fussy about where it's installed - it's happy on a memory card.

I have been using it for a couple of years or so with my Jornada: I had a problem accessing work mail (IMAP). It turned out the cause was the wildcard certificates that the department was using. Through Takeshi Takama, a fellow Jornada user, I submitted an error report to Satoshi Nakamura and he immediately provided a workaround and a few days later added wildcard certificate support!

To make this useful really requires wireless network access. Oxford is part of Eduroam and has implemented it for its home users and visitors. I found it quite easy to set up and it seems to work well.

At home, I have a small wireless network setup which included a 3Com Officeconnect 802.11b access point. I tried to configure WEP support but had no success. Seeing that there was no firmware upgrade, I decided to upgrade to something more capable and up-to-date, so I bought a Netgear WG602v3. The about pages of the HTC P3600 indicate that this version of Windows Mobile comes with a 'Messaging and Security Feature pack,' which is generally intended to provide support for MS Exchange. I don't know much about the versions, but thanks to a very informative site about Adaptation Kit Updates , I see that my model comes with AKU 3.0. One of the particular features is WPA2 and there is some support in the Netgear Access Point, at least for pre-shared key mode, which is fine for personal use; I made the passkey phrase long, so it should be more secure than what I have before. It works too :-) [In case you're interested in this area, there is more about AKU3 and WPA2].

However, ideally, I would like not to have to trouble myself with all this security. Some years ago, whilst participating in an interfaith gathering for young people, we were all asked to describe something of a vision for the future. My suggestion was a world without locks or keys...

Now that this is set up, I expect future posts will be less technical, more about the applications, so probably more varied and fun :-) In any case, after 2 weeks, I'm very pleased with this PDA/phone/communications device/whatever you like to call it!

The $100 WikiPDA?

2006-07-16T05:21:00.000-07:00

A few years ago the idea of a pocket encyclopaeadia, the size of Britannica, in your pocket for $100 would have sounded hardly believable or at least cost a fortune. However, there are several ingredients that make this almost a reality now.

Several generations of PDAs mean that you can buy a second hand device in very good condition that's only 2-3 yeards old, with fast processors, and capable operating system.
Flash memory continues to plummet in price
We have in Wikipedia a huge free encyclopaedia with open content that can be converted to other formats
The Tomeraider e-book reader software has a very efficient indexing system and supports highly compressed files
Erik Zachte has done a wonderful job of developing script to convert from Wikipedia to Tomeraider

I've been totting up costs of a system oriented around using Wikipedia offline and based on prices in the UK:

HP Jornada 565, Pocket PC2002, ex demo stock, several sold recently on ebay.co.uk: £33 +P&P.
1GB Compact Flash Card (ORA, Expansys.com): £18 +P&P
Wikipedia: free
Tomeraider 3 license (Pocket PC): $30 (£18 approx)
Tomeraider conversion scripts: free

Total £80 approx inc.

Assuming a conversion rate of UK£1 = US$1.8, that means under $150. PDAs will get cheaper and so will the memory, so expect $100 within a year!

Why not give one to every child...?

2005-07-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

Test post from Diarist

One of a new set of clients is Pocket Blog Writer (aka Diarist). Like most apps for Pocket PC, it needs .Net Compact Framework.

Hitchhiker's Wikipedia - Thick or thin client?

2005-01-24T14:57:00.000-08:00

I recently installed Tomeraider3, an e-Book reader that has a remarkably good indexing system. It has been around since 1996, originally developed for EPOC operating system in the Psion Series of PDAs, later coded for other PDAs such as PalmOS and Pocket PC.

Over on Wikipedia, whose data is stored in an SQL database (MySQL as it happens), you find that there are snapshots of the main textual content for the entire database, generated in Tomeraider2 format targeting different devices using scripts by Erik Zachte. I downloaded the English language snapshot from 30 Dec 2004 for Pocket PC, about 500MB, compressed(!) It doesn't run in Tomeraider3, but you can read it into the Windows desktop client and do a conversion. It requires a lot of crunching, though - I ran it overnight on a fairly new PC with lots of RAM and in the morning it reported that it had taken about 7 hours to do the compilation. For convenience you can buy CDs at modest cost.

It took about another half an hour or so to copy the .tr3 file across to my SD card, filling about half of its 1GB capacity. Then I tapped on it, expecting complaints about errors, but it just worked and very fast too!

It soon passed the acid test of usability down in the department's tea room. We were chatting about films and Harry Potter cropped up. I'm one of the seemingly few people who is not au fait, having not gone much beyond my initial experience of watching the first adventure on video dubbed into Thai on a coach tour. When I started to peruse Wikiepedia to get a clue, I was challenged to look up 'Azkaban'. Tap.. tap.. tap.. and within a few seconds I was reading out Wikipedia's entry on this prison, well before the topic of conversation had moved on. Since then I find myself carrying the Ipaq around with me a lot more.

It may not quite be the world in a grain of sand, but having the text of the world's largest encyclopaedia on an SD card is certainly filling people with wonder. I had mentioned Wikipedia as contained within OxPDA as a possibility, but now having seen it in action it makes me really wonder about its educational potential. As a first point of reference on all kinds of knowledge it is a real boon and now that it is pocketable, it is a veritable Hitchhiker's Wikipedia.

Yet very soon I was challenged with the assertion: "All pocket devices will be wireless very soon so you won't need to store the encyclopaedia on a card on the PDA itself." It prompts me to wonder again about whether PDAs should be thick clients or thin?

High street models are invariably subject to inflationary tendencies - faster processor, more memory, richer operating system and so on. However, I think we've reached the stage where the specs are already good enough to consider taking a different approach in which all the processing power goes into one kind of application - a remote terminal, i.e. a thin client. The kind of terminal I have in mind is an X term.

It is far from an original thought and there are already ways of doing this as I have described a little with respect to the Jornada 720, with e.g. NoMachine offering an experimental client to support its client-server setup that is built around a very efficient alternative to the X protocol .

As the quality of TFT displays now mean that you can get a clear VGA display on a 4" diagonal, sufficient for many windowing applications, it opens up all the applications that you might care to make available. For instance, you could have a classroom with a server making available different applications to different clients, depending upon a student's level of progress. Much easier that engaging in the art of development for mobile computers and all its compatibility issues.

However, my experiences with Wikipedia make me feel that a thin client alone is not optimal. On my PDA I can find entries very fast every time, whereas when I connect to Wikipedia, even across a fast link, there can be quite a lag as the server is usually heavily loaded. And although network connectivity is ever-improving at the moment, it will be quite a while before it is dependable wherever you travel.

So for the moment, although I'll keep an eye open on thin client developments, the processors on my PDAs will be busy as ever with a bundle of apps reading from fat memory cards.

However, it also makes me wonder about gazing into a crystal ball...

- Paul

Pervasive e-Learning in your hands - Part 3: Ideas for Implementation

2005-01-10T13:16:00.000-08:00

At the heart of the OxPDA vision is a replacement for the Oxford University pocket diary. A quick reminder of the diary's usefulness is provided in the Oxford Study Abroad Programme's Student Handbook which supports students coming from outside the UK and who are associated with Colleges of the University. In the preface, it states:

g. You should pick up an Oxford University diary upon your arrival. The book will be invaluable to you. It will allow you to write in your tutorial appointments, which may vary a bit from week to week, and to keep track of other events. It lists address and phone numbers of all the colleges, a handy map, and train and bus schedules. [You should get the latest schedules when you arrive since they change every now and then. There are special passes for those under 25 years old. Ask at the bus and train station.]

It recommends quite a number of other items, many of which could be incorporated to enhance OxPDA' provision of services. These include the Oxford [Student] Handbook available as one of OUSU's publications, plus guides to clubs and societies, college rules etc. Most of these are paper-based items, subject to becoming out of date, so ripe for digitisation. By incorporating many other digital sources of information, I envision OxPDA enabling an undergraduate student to more fully keep up-to-date and connected with whatever the day might bring. Ideally, OxPDA should fit like a glove.

Ingredients

Here are some software components that might provide the right kind of 'infrastructure'. Some require a lot of development, but I hope that it is nevertheless a credible setup overall. Unless otherwise stated, these are all features of the PDA.

(server side) Relational database and management system (RDBMS) in which to store, update all the relevant details. It should expose the data in ways that are readibly accessible to the PDA and should be updateable via the Web, so probably should be implemented using Web services. Providing syndicated newsfeeds in Atom and RSS would be a simple and effective way to achieve the 'read' requirements.
A highly polished software implementation of the Oxford University Pocket Diary itself - easy, intuitive and complete as is practical
Close integration with DailyInfo or access to its types of information - so that items relating to events etc can be easily incorporated in the diary, say. (Will need to co-ordinate with the site).
Good capacity for Internet connectivity, especially through WiFi and Bluetooth
Internationalisation - a high proportion of Oxford's students are from overseas and who knows, perhaps OxPDA could be a product to market abroad one day?
Internal hyperlinking supporting multiple access routes to information ...
Bookmarks and annotations of various types ...
Path creation schemes to navigate the routes... Software has been developed at Oxford that allows the user to create their own paths through learning, initially implemented in Virtual Seminars, more recently as Pacific pathways for the Pitt Rivers museum.
Community support - tools for reading from and contributing to internal and external sources (e.g. online fora, blogs, wikis etc..)
Pocket reference works - University handbooks, dictionaries, thesauri and even encyclopaedia should be available. For instance, Wikipedia is undoubtedly a valuable and extensive encyclopaeadia. Software such as Tomeraider allows its text archives to be browsed offline (around 200MB at present), which can easily fit on a memory card. Its academic rigour is questionable, but actually tutors and lectures can train students to critically analyse such sources of information, which is an essential skill.
Dependable - reliable in operation, data backup regime, etc.
Secure - multi-level security depending upon sensitivity of data

Now let's look in more detail ...

Oxford University's Pocket e-Diary

This should be the 'jewel in the crown' and this is where I reckon effort is well spent in combing the present diary page by page, considering each and every aspect, determining what and how to realise digitally. So the ideas below are just starters! 1. General: the display should allow lots of flexibility in personalisation, especially in the configuration of display (layout, foreground and background colours, fonts, etc), thereby being accessible, and convenient. Perhaps it could contain as the 'Today screen' a mini portal in which you can plug in components such as today's lectures, to do items, photo, etc.? 2. Interactive University Maps An interactive 'Oxford colleges and departments' map (might work similar to MS Pocket Streets, for which a rather lean Oxford map is available) with the following features:

vector-based, zoomable,
database driven
updateable (via Internet connectivity)... data objects stored in and retrieved from online database, with hyperlinks to web sites for these objects
connectivity to other University sources e.g. photo databases that can augment the maps
allows contributions from users, e.g. for places that are not yet listed
GPS-aware... think of: "Show me how to get from A to B in words and pictures..."
viewing modes: e.g. virtual mode: Diary as eBook, where you can turn pages etc, but access is augmented by rich hyperlinking
viewing options: checkboxes for different elements - colleges, tourist attractions, bus stops, etc.
clicking on dept or college can bring up: - list of general contacts, personal contacts - photos - general info - link to web site, Wikipedia entry, etc

3. Calendar system supporting Oxford terms, including:

term dates for several years
A 'Today' view - Term, Week, Day view
lecture lists
degree days
exam days
feast days (can link to a calendar of religious festivals, pity SHAP is no longer available online)
holidays
timetable information should be current (lecture courses, seminars)

The calendar should be linked into a logbook/journal/diary, which can be published as a blog containing text, images and perhaps even video. 4. Contacts Details as provided in the present diary, with mainly personal additions.

friends and family
university officers
colleges
departments
museums
clubs and societies
...

These could be colour coded - for days, weeks, kinds of information, with individual icons for each type. 5. External sources of information such as:

6. Special Features Oxford has such a wealth of arts and cultural resource, that it would be valuable to incorporate this somehow - e.g. on touring a museum, one can download data and prompts on the objets d'arts, and leave comments for others to read. A few galleries and museums have already experimented with this kind of thing.

Seeking an Implementation

How might this materialise and work in practice? I think the key is appropriate wireless technology. The growth of WiFi community networks look very promising and Oxford's campus is fairly compact, allowing an efficient distribution of transmitters (base stations etc), so I feel we ought to be logging on in the streets soon. However, we have to convince OUCS' security team first and then the IT managers of all the colleges and departments ...! So far it seems to be mainly visiting academics from the USA who create the most fuss about not having it, but as such networks mushroom I think the demands will become much more vocal. I'm sure a marketing guru could conjure up a wealth of possibilities - on a fine summer's day some students are huddled together in University Parks discussing finer points of philosophy, waving their arms and in the background a fine strike of the ball from a game of cricket; meanwhile others are gliding through the narrow streets, walking past a college, picking up notices about forthcoming lectures, consulting their e-diaries; or emailing responses to their tutors; or viewing some of the fine architecture with notes, images and videos downloaded on demand. etc... etc... etc...

Some hardware and software specs

I haven't given much thought to this, but a suitable hardware spec shouldn't require the latest and greatest. The following should be fine:

a 16 bit colour PDA, 3.5" TFT screen, at least QVGA
64 MB RAM
memory card slot, SD and/or Compact Flash
200MHz processor
WiFi (802.11x or 802.1x) and/or Bluetooth - the former has greater range, needed for roaming, but consumes quite a lot more power; the latter uses low power, but has limited range (basically for a 'Personal Area Network' within a small room)
lightweight (less than 150g)
audio input with good inbuilt microphone
supports an external (collapsible) keyboard

Built-in software spec:

Web browser with CSS, JavaScript, and SSL support, in the latter case, especially for certificates used in WebAuth, the Secure Single Sign-on system being used here for the Web.
diary/calendaring
Mail client SSL/IMAP
Atom, RSS feed reader, aggregator
moblog authoring software allowing offline authoring and supporting common APIs such as Blogger API, Metaweblog API
Pocket office applications - especially Word-processing
Multimedia players (audio - MP3, video)

etc..

Taking an initial step to Realisation

Technically, I think we can quickly convey quite a good idea of the e-diary by developing mockups in Macromedia Flash, which is cross platform and being vector-based should suit the small screen. It may well be part of the final solution. However, if this is really to happen, then a lot of parties would need to be involved from students to PDA manufacturers. It is the kind of venture where many hands can help :-)

OxPDA: Pervasive e-Learning in your hands - Part 2

2005-01-09T05:25:00.000-08:00

So far, in part 1, I introduced OxPDA as an idea for a specially tailored PDA, at its core a replacement for a University diary. Is this feasible, can such a device really support the educational context, and if so what might be appropriate as technical solutions? What hardware and software platform should be used?

It's easy to think of 'cool features', but a system with a long list full of features is not necessarily supportive of pedagogy, the whole can become considerably less than the sum of its parts. PDAs today have the processing power and contain many applications comparable to desktop PCs of 5 years ago, yet the use of this in education has been limited and sporadic. Why is this the case? Although the reasons may be complex, it is worth puzzling over, I think.

The developers of the operating systems and manufacturers of the devices seem to have consistently aimed at the business market, especially corporations. Hence the need to read office documents on the move, maintain a list of contacts, to dos etc, often oriented to client meetings. The needs of HE are very different, not just in terms of information - different kinds and different ways of working - but also essentially in terms of guidance and support, which appears to be a missing element. The latter is needed because these small devices lend themselves to working independently of the physical learning environments, where support is on hand.

So it is not surprising that 'out of the box' the resulting products remain incongruous for HE. However, they do have the potential to fit our needs and as the next step I would like to define some requirements, that are built on a few principles that I feel favour the educational context.

Requirements - desirable characteristics for education-oriented PDAs

supports creation and authoring as much as reception of communication and information. I view creating content, making contributions as a very important aspect of successful adoption of PDAs. It is not sufficient to support institutional delivery as provided by VLE systems, if it means that content is channelled in only one direction - even if it is dressed up as 'interactive multimedia lectures' it may essentially be just broadcasting.
(Following on) Good means for input, especially of text and audio as for more than token authoring of content, there will need to be support for a lot of text entry. Audio recordings will be need to be of high quality for taping lectures and may even be used in conjunction with speech recognition, though that won't be suitable in all environments - so will need to support a good quality microphone.
configurable for educational needs - I'm thinking here particularly the means by which an institution can create a framework suitable to support a student's academic life.
supports online and offline working anywhere and any time - it is important to maintain continuity of the learning process.
very portable This is determined by several factors. Although we can set some upper bounds in weight and dimensions, it may be estimated as some function of design, fitness for purpose, functionality, physical dimensions, shape, size and general ergonomics.
a responsive device - a lean set of applications on a device with a moderately fast processor and memory may well perform more sprightly than an overly complex app on a very fast processor with lots of RAM.
sufficient in-built memory to store main suite of programs plus personal files - some key applications will need to be ever present.
support for standard memory cards - ready for audio, video and other large files and available at modest cost
a clear and good-sized screen that can display lots of info in many publication formats - the diversity of educational needs will require displays of variously layouts containing text, images and perhaps video. The Web is increasingly becoming the gateway to applications, so the display will need to be suitable for this.
equitable - those with OxPDA should have same levels of access as each other
cost-effective and sustainable over medium to longer term - we should expect other benefits such as reduced costs on PC hardware, printing, etc... if students require less the use of PC suites; there may even be significant power savings compared with laptops and desktops.
easy to support technically - large numbers of devices will need to be rolled out and supported, tailored to the needs of the University.

What are the candidates? We can start with mobiles phones - they certainly allow balance of creation and reception. In the past year or two, mobile phones have been getting increasingly sophisticated - the smartphones run operating systems that are comparable in features to PDAs offered by Palm, HP et al. The vast majority of students own one and for many it has become an indispensible personal possession.Some argue that people only want to carry around one device with them and deduce that the mobile phone is going to be the device that does everything. However, there are other cherished devices, notably iPods, which students will happily carrry around in addition to their phones. [IPods have been identified for their learning potential - not just for playback of audio (which can include recorded lectures), but also for the ability to record. Duke University has been distributing iPods to students, and reports quite a number of educational uses. However, the iPod is essentially a device dedicated to the storage and delivery of audio. Although it can be put to a variety of uses, it would be quite a stretch to make it fulful more general purposes of OxPDA.] There are a number of drawbacks to mobiles:

Many, including myself, prefer phones to be small and light, which constrains what you can pack into them, the input methods, screen size etc; if phones are bigger, with large, brighter screens, then they become more bulky, battery life diminishes, the weight goes up and so on.
Phones are very varied in functionality and capability, so I'd expect only the more expensive smartphones to support the sophistication required for some of the more advanced applications...
as students already have them, many will want to stick with their chosen model, whilst some will want to keep changing ... so to ensure that we are not left with 'haves' and 'havenots', would mean buying expensive phones for all.
supporting phones is an unknown quantity ... expect there to be a lot of support issues ...

I want to stress how important is the first point. I think we can see that this is the case by stepping back in time to consider PDAs that run the Windows CE operating system, putting aside for the moment the smartphones. Devices running version 1.0 were first available in 1996. I happened to buy one (an HP 320LX) in January '98 and like other devices at the time it was a 'clamshell' with built-in keyboard, termed palmtop PC, but now more usually called handheld PC. They weighed typically around half a kilogram, were meant to be used as very small subnotebooks, replicating much of the functionality of the Windows desktop operating system. With the arrival of later versions of CE, the more familiar Pocket PCs emerge, much smaller and lighter and hence more portable, but as explained by Doug Dedo, Lead Product Manager for Mobile Devices (in an interview for PocketPC Magazine, Mar 01) the smaller devices were designed with different purposes in mind, and so quite different (generally humbler) in functionality. There is a comparison chart on Microsoft's TechNet site which illustrates what this meant, for instance, with the Web browser, Pocket IE. Those articles are several years old, but are useful to explain how the form factor affects what might be expected from a device. It affects e.g. how one can work with an institutional VLE - in this case a Handheld PC2000 user can do a great deal more with a full VLE than a Pocket PC user - as intimated in an experiment on accessing a VLE with PDAs.

At the time, I hadn't realised how fundamental were the differences in the browsers for Handheld PC and Pocket PC and just assumed that a PDA ought to accomplish much of what can be done in the same way as on a desktop PC.

In short, we cannot expect the ways of working on a desktop to be replicated on a device if it is physically limited in terms of size etc. It is possible that engineering feats will mean that mobile phones become so well miniaturised that they are multiply collapsible, e.g. there could be large foldout screens or even support for external projection. Or perhaps devices will become modular - so you can assemble only what you need for a day at the office, conference, visit to friends, night out etc.. But I don't expect this in the short to medium future. Hence, on the basis of the above requirements, mobile phones have many weaknesses as candidates for OxPDA. A more general purpose PDA (not sure what term I should use here) seems a more promising candidate to me. When considering such devices, such as iPaqs and PalmOne PDAs we find:

These PDAs are larger (though still pocketable), affording bigger screens, better ergonomics for input, especially for written text, particularly through the use of external keyboards
generally have more memory
are somewhat more standard - figures from Gartner indicate that Windows CE and PalmOS accounted for a little under 80% of PDA sales in Q3 of 2004. Figures from the same period in previous year was higher. (Note also the rise of Blackberry devices)
PDA ownerships among students is low, just a few percent compared with near saturation for phones. This should make it easier for the University to distribute en masse and configure the devices to enable especially the academic services.

But there are still support issues. There are a few institutions that have made available PDAs to their students in large numbers. The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore operated a PDA loan system for several years, where handheld PCs, particularly 1000 HP Jornada 720 (clamshell device), were pre-installed with a raft of applications, especially tailored to access facilies on the local network. However, several years after HP's withdrawal of support for the Jornada 720, support was discontinued as from last month (Dec 04). Now NTU recommend ultra notebooks. So is that the way to go? I think that when considering the requirements and especially the specific niche requirements, then going into mini PC territory is not necessary and goes too far away from true portability - in terms of size, weight, and battery life. I'm not aware that NTU used the PDA as a replacement for something so intrinsic as a University diary. In any case, there is a separate place for laptops, fast becoming desktop replacements. It is difficult to really know what will work best, but for the moment I'm assuming it is most likely to be the likes of the iPaqs and Palm Zires/Tungsten series. We can then move onto features in the next part ... :-)

- Paul Trafford

OxPDA: Pervasive e-Learning in your hands - Part 1

2005-01-08T03:47:00.000-08:00

All staff and students at Oxford University are entitled to a pocket diary. It comes in a standard format measuring approximately 16cm * 8cm *1cm with a dark blue hardback cover emblazoned with a University crest. Opening the cover reveals it packed with various information specific to the life of the University - term dates, maps, contacts and so on.

For many they're an indispensible personal item - they are invariably pulled out at meetings. However, you only have to open to the inside cover to see the first of many limitations: the map of the University area (you'll have to log on to the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) if you are looking for a campus).

You have to squint to read many of the details and even then the locations aren't so clear. I turn a page and see a map of hospitals, but no indication of how to reach them. Later on there's a list of religious festivals, but I can't find any reference to the Buddhist celebration of Vesakh. And aren't the contact names likely to change? More fundamentally, the two page week-to-view format, though quite ample, becomes rather crowded when you've more than the odd meeting,which prompts some to order desktop diaries in addition. And so on...

Back at the meeting table, more and more people are not pulling out their diary, but instead there appear electronic personal digitial assistants (PDAs). These devices contain many other kinds of information such as contact details, to do lists, various documents, a selection of music, and much greater space for jotting notes. Yet, when it comes to making a simple check for availability, their owners are often fumbling about and invariably ask, "What week is that?" Oxford has its own calendaring convention - terms have names such as Michaelmas and weeks are numbered, of which standard calendaring software has no knowledge. In fact, in practice PDAs have been very weakly utilised in the context of higher education, generally only for some elements of personal organisers, perhaps a note pad and some music, nothing that distinguishes them from, say, business use.

I've been working at Oxford since 2000, and have owned a PDA since 1998. I often end up taking both the diary and PDA with me, as they're both provide distinct advantages. However, for a year or two I've been mulling over in odd moments how PDAs might provide not only a genuine improvement in what the paper-based diary has offered, but many other features. I started with what I have imagined might be aspects in the daily life of a student here, in which the diary is just a smallpart. It goes something like this:

Jane starts by reminding herself with her 'To Do' list ... written in the back of her blue diary or on a scrap of paper,
she then checks the term dates .. and looks in her blue diary
to consult the day's lecture list .. she goes to departmental noticeboard or a user area PC to log on and consult a VLE
to sit a trial run of an online examination .. she wanders over to the Department, logs onto a PC, shows some ID, receives an authorisation token, and logs on ..
to provide feedback on a lecture course ... she fills in a paper-based questionnaire
to attend some special seminars in another department .. she checks the map in her blue diary and then walks over
to know about some concerts in the evening .. she pops over to another notice board or consults Daily Information
to look for accommodation .. she consults Daily Information
... and so on ...

Over Christmas I came across an obituary of John Rose, the founder of Daily Information, the popular publication in Oxford, mentioned above. He identified a need to make available in one place a wide range of information, on jobs, accommodation, events, sales and wants etc., but especially to make it up-to-date. Daily Info posters are everywhere and it now has a Web site http://www.dailyinfo.co.uk/ It is very much part of University life, yet it is actually a public service and not directly about education. It is easy to reflect on the educational process being conducted in personal study rooms, lecture theatres and other traditional educational haunts, but not elsewhere. But, of course, education is seldom so hermetically sealed - what happens in the classroom is dependent to some extent on what happens outside.

During the past few months I've been leading a project in mobile weblogs and their integration in institutional learning environments - it's called RAMBLE - see the project site and the project blog. We gave PDAs (HP iPaq and Palm devices) to two small groups of students and instructed them to blog learning experiences - in Chemistry and Medical Sciences respectively. Through blogging, students were able to publish their ideas, reflections and so on with great flexibility. It was obvious from both how the students felt free to make the blogs their own and itis evident how closely leisure and study are interrelated.

So, for a PDA to be owned (and cherished) by students I think it needs to provide a harmonious whole, certainly more than purelyacademic needs...

Enter the Oxford Personal Digital Assistant (OxPDA for short). An all in one solution for an undergraduate student always in touch, informed and able to connect in a convenient and timely manner. It will combine an interactive digital version of the current Oxford diary, made more current with address details etc; timetable information (lecture courses, seminars), linked into DailyInfo, college facilities, University's central services, OxfordUnion, all up-to-date via wireless services.

On hand at any time of day will be electronic 'To Do' lists; term dates available in a variety of formats, displaying by week, month, year; searchable lecture lists; access to e-mail, electronic resources from library, VLE, newsfeeds for events of interest etc. That's the vision. Coming up in the next blog (Part 2) I'll chat about technical solutions.

- Paul Trafford

2004-10-16T11:20:00.000-07:00

Limitation in Pocket Blog editing

A colleague noticed a limitation in Pocket Blog's edting:

"..it seems that the problem is that if you edit a post that you have made on your handheld before you synch the first time, it no longer allows you to submit that posting. That is edits should only take place in posts that have been uploaded - although the software allows you to do it on the PDA."

I verified that this is the case, so some care is needed to work around this bug. Either you are sure that your initial effort won't need editing before uploading or you prepare the entry elsewhere and then copy and paste just before uploading. Actually, you can do this within the program (as I'm doing here). Create and edit your entry as normal and when ready, create a new entry and copy and paste from your draft. Select all the text with the stylus and then use the (virtual) keyboard to do the copy (e.g tap CTRL followed by C .

But, be careful of where you paste from - I introduced some unwanted characters from Pocket Word - the quote above became: "...itÃ?ÃÂ seemsÃ?ÃÂ theÃ?ÃÂ problemÃ?ÃÂ isÃ?ÃÂ thatÃ?ÃÂ ifÃ?ÃÂ you editÃ?ÃÂ aÃ?ÃÂ postÃ?ÃÂ thatÃ?ÃÂ youÃ?ÃÂ haveÃ?ÃÂ madeÃ?ÃÂ onÃ?ÃÂ yourÃ?ÃÂ handheldÃ?ÃÂ beforeÃ?ÃÂ youÃ?ÃÂ synchÃ?ÃÂ t.." Oops!

2004-09-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

test

Pocket Blog doesn't have a title/subject field, so I'm just trying a tag to see if Blogger.com picks it up..

Pebble uses the title tag.

2004-09-06T12:37:00.000-07:00

Pocket Blog on ipaq 1940...

Just testing on this Windows Mobile device. Seems fine :-) In order to get it working, I needed to install a backwards compatible embedded VB runtime environment.

Taking a hint ... eventually

2004-07-08T12:37:00.000-07:00

(Location: Refectory, Level 3, JR
View: in the foreground, empty tables, with chairs stacked, leading onto the terrace and beyond is a view of the emerging extension of the JR - at this stage it is a mere skeleton. It's not often that I'm in limbo, but sitting here after a rather late lunch, I find a little time to start this blog properly. A moment or two to reflect on how it all began... In the mid-80's I was striving to join the hall of fame in developing software for a home computer called the ZX Spectrum, the particular focus of my attention was the board game of Scrabble and I had mustered a program with a vocabulary of a mighty 500 words. However, I realised my limitations and in January '86 sent a speculative letter to Psion House, which had produced a rather more powerful version for the next model up. I made suggestions as to how they could improve its tactics. There was no immediate response, so I had forgotten about it when suddenly received a polite reply in April. My contribution was received with thanks, but I was informed that Psion was at that time in the process of changing its operations. It was going to move away from software and concentrate on portable computers ... [typing a few hours later ... ] I'm now looking at the same construction site, but from a distance - my home happens to has a view of the JR. Of course, being so removed from the construction work, I see only the outline and the gantries. Just as I walked to my entrance, the English 'monsoon' started - heavy rain, flashes of lightning and almost instant echoes of thunder. I've just received an email from a colleague - he says my office is flooded! So if you are living abroad and contemplating a holiday in the UK, it is probably better to wait a few days. When I think of monsoons, my mind tends to go Eastward, to South and SouthEast Asia, especially Thailand. It was there that I made my first proper foray into handheld computing in January '98. Shortly before I was due to fly back to the UK, I was wandering around Pantip plaza, Bangkok's computing and electronics emporia on about 5 floors, and drifted into an authorised HP reseller. My eye was caught by the writing on a box little larger than a shoebox - it claimed Internet and Email on a "palmtop" computer. How could this be? I was intrigued and read the description further: "HP320LX Palmtop PC - the WIDE Screen Palmtop PC with *Backlighting*". Boasting 4MB of RAM and "Loaded with Powerful, Built-In Applications:

Microsoft Pocket Word
Microsoft Pocket Excel
...
Microsoft Pocket Internet Explorer
InBox (e-mail)
...
Solitaire

In Thailand, you don't have to wait very long for sales assistants and surely enough I was soon able to enquire further, but actually I can't remember what questions I had, though I do recollect it had been brought in as a return and actually it originated in Singapore. I was also reassured about the power supply and included in the package were two adaptors - including one suitable for the UK. This item was end of line and the Pound Sterling <-> Baht exchange rate was very favourable, so I made the purchase and my handheld computing days had begun!"

2004-06-15T09:13:00.000-07:00

Just testing offline in OUCS.

A simple WYSIWYG editor might be helpful.

What's this all about?

2004-06-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

Hello, You're welcome to browse, but as yet I have only vague ideas relating to the use of handheld computers, PDAs etc, particularly for education. In fact, my initial reason for setting up this log is just to test some software called Pocket Blog. I'm new to weblogs and would appreciate suggestions as to where I can find preferably open source tools that allow blogs to be written offline and then submitted some time later. Now I shall see if I can post something using Pocket Blog ... and this line written on a Jornada shows it works :-) - Paul