New Stuff
Resources for Your Developer Toolbox
Marnie Hutcheson
Contents
There is more to fielding a mobile device than just putting a couple of company-specific applications on it. Here are some already written mobile applications that might be good to know about if you are tasked with deploying a mobile solution.
Manage Your Personal Information
Chapura's TurboPasswords is an easy-to-use solution for capturing, organizing, accessing, and sharing your personal identification information in a secure source protected by a master password.
The TurboFill feature automatically fills in Web logon forms with user names and passwords, giving you secure, one-click access to your private information while browsing the Web with Microsoft® Internet Explorer.
The Password Generator in TurboPasswords creates random passwords that are less likely to be cracked. TurboPasswords lets you create and edit templates that help you organize your private information and it can be used as a standalone desktop application or synchronized with and edited on a Palm OS handheld device.
PocketCopy, also from Chapura, is a one-click solution for copying Palm Desktop Software records from the Address Book, Date Book, To Do List, and Memo Pad to Microsoft Outlook® Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, and Notes. Just choose which information you want to move into Outlook and click "Copy." There is no need to copy and paste record by record. You avoid the hassle of exporting and importing data from place to place.
Price: TurboPasswords is $29.95; PocketCopy is $19.95.
Store and Organize Your Confidential Data
eWallet Categories
eWallet 4.0, from Ilium Software, is a software utility for Windows® Mobile-based Pocket PCs, Smartphones, and Windows operating systems that makes it easy to secure storage and organization of credit card numbers, passwords, health information, PINs, and other confidential information.
This release includes interface upgrades such as a new tool bar and subcategories that make organizing and finding your information easier. You can modify the cards to suit your own needs, and then save them as templates so you can easily create your own custom cards. You can organize your information any way you prefer using the categories and subcategories that are provided.
The interface works well on all the supported mobile devices, but is the most impressive on the Pocket PC and Microsoft Smartphones.
One of the touches I liked the best on the interface is that my credit cards looked like my real credit cards, giving it a personal touch and making things much easier to identify.
You can keep multiple eWallet files, and make changes to your passwords or your cards on your mobile device or on your desktop. The eWallet cards are automatically updated and keep all changes when you sync your devices. eWallet is completely compatible across your Pocket PC, Palm Powered Handheld, Windows Mobile Smartphone, or Windows PC. It is convenient to have the same information on all your devices.
Price: $29.95; free 30-day evaluation is available.
Read and Write Word and Excel Files
TextMaker Insert Menu
Take a look at TextMaker and PlanMaker from SoftMaker if you need a word processor and a spreadsheet that can operate on six different platforms (including Pocket PC) and read and write Microsoft Word and Excel files without losing any graphics or formatting.
Both programs now offer full support for the new Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition operating system. Both programs support high-resolution, 640 ¥ 480-pixel screens introduced with Windows Mobile Second Edition, and landscape viewing of word processing and spreadsheet files. You can see more of the documents at the same time, and landscape view really helps when you are working on spreadsheets.
TextMaker is one of the only desktop-class word processors for Pocket PCs. TextMaker packs a lot of functionality into a mobile device: multilanguage spell-checking, graphics, footnotes, tables, Microsoft Word-compatible forms, character and paragraph formatting and styles, autotext, and safe conversion of Word files right on your Pocket PC.
PlanMaker for Pocket PCs is the mobile equivalent to Excel on the desktop, offering full spreadsheet power on portable devices. As with TextMaker, PlanMaker reads and writes all Excel files without loss of content or formatting.
All the calculations are preserved along with the charts, images, and even AutoShape drawings, and all are editable from inside PlanMaker. PlanMaker offers more than 320 calculation functions, complex numbers, array formulas, conditional formatting, AutoFormat, sophisticated data analysis capabilities, and more.
TextMaker and PlanMaker work on all makes and models of the Pocket PC, handheld PCs, and Linux.
Price: $49.95 each
Real-Time Access to Enterprise Data
mEnable 2.0
mEnable 2.0, by SYWARE Inc., gives mobile users interactive, real-time access to enterprise data, allowing you to run Visual CE database applications on handheld devices and connect directly to any ODBC-enabled database residing on a corporate server.
mEnable 2.0 runs on Tablet PCs (running Windows XP Tablet PC Edition), Windows Mobile Pocket PCs, and all devices running Windows CE, Windows 9x, Windows 2000, Windows NT®, and Windows XP. mEnable 2.0 runs on any connection using the TCP/IP protocol. The network can be based on local Ethernet, Internet protocol, 802.11 wireless LAN, or Bluetooth for short-range wireless in conjunction with a cell phone's long-range capabilities.
mEnable 2.0 allows software developers to create data-driven applications that wirelessly connect Windows, Windows CE, and Windows Mobile Pocket PC devices to corporate servers in either "Sometimes Connected" or "Always Connected" modes.
In Sometimes Connected mode, you read from and write to the enterprise server when the network is available. When the connection is lost, you can work locally. When it is restored, your local database is synchronized with the server databases and you resume your connection to the server. Sometimes Connected mode is useful when you travel into buildings or areas that are out of range of your network. The local database ensures that data isn't lost when you continue to work while disconnected.
In Always Connected mode, you have continuous, real-time access to server data. No local data cache is required. Always Connected mode is the logical choice when you're interacting with a large, complex database, such as an inventory system. The mEnable application provides much more flexibility and better performance than a Web browser-based application. It is also faster and simpler to implement.
mEnable 2.0 works in conjunction with any ODBC-enabled software, including SYWARE Visual CE. Visual CE's drag and drop customization lets you create database and forms applications quickly—just decide what information you want on the form and then drag and drop the controls you need to create a custom electronic form. Little or no programming is required so mEnable can be used by business professionals as well as by developers.
Price: $499, including 10 runtime licenses. Visual CE with mEnable and one mEnable runtime license is $599. A free 30-day trial offer is available online.
Mobile and Wireless Development Environment
Crossfire 5.1, recently released by AppForge Inc., is a mobile and wireless application development environment that runs on Visual Studio® .NET or Visual Basic® 6.0, and adds support for an impressive list of mobile and wireless PDAs, Smartphones, and industrial devices.
Once installed, Crossfire integrates with your Visual Basic or Visual Studio .NET environment. Building your application is a matter of selecting a new or existing Crossfire project. If it is a new project, you just select the platform on which you want to develop, then build your application using Crossfire's controls. You can develop your application, test it in Visual Studio, then deploy it to your simulator or the device, all from within Visual Studio.
Crossfire 5.1 lets you develop, test, and deploy mobile applications quickly without having to delve too deeply into the device-specific details. It integrates seamlessly with the Microsoft development environment, so your mobile projects work like any other development effort. Crossfire makes it possible to develop device-specific versions of the same application so you can deploy the latest enterprise and industrial mobile devices and still keep your older devices running.
Price: Crossfire 5.1 is $1,000. Customers who are currently using Crossfire 5.0 will receive a free upgrade to Crossfire 5.1. Free 30-day evaluation versions are available.
Give Presentation Capabilities to Your Mobile Apps
Studio for Mobile Devices from ComponentOne includes new components for building applications that use the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework.
FlexGrid for Mobile Devices is a lightweight and powerful grid component that gives your mobile device robust data presentation capabilities. ComponentOne Chart for Mobile Devices handles the details so you can easily display information with a wide variety of 2-D charts and graphs in your .NET Compact Framework-based applications.
ComponentOne Zip for Mobile Devices lets you create, open, and manage industry-standard Zip files. You can also add compression and encryption to any .NET stream, including memory, file, and network streams.
Price: Full version is $799.95; upgrade is $549.95.
All prices were confirmed at press time and are subject to change.
Send your New Stuff to newstuff@microsoft.com.
Marnie Hutcheson is president of Internet Development Associates (Ideva), a firm in Ocala, Florida, that specializes in Internet and intranet Web app design and development. She has published technical papers and books on various computing topics. You can reach her at
marnie@ideva.com.