Help and Howto

It's no secret that some of us around here are none-to-fond of Microsoft's latest browser IE6, which made its debut with the Sprint Treo Pro.

In short, editing this line in your registry will roll back some of the changes in IE6 to make it more IE5-like, including the old-style navigation (i.e. no cursor) and a better layout. And for those who want the .cab, Codyppc even did that for ya for a quick install. Noyce. (Note: yes, this also disables flash, so no more YouTube!)

HKLM\Security\Internet Explorer\MSHTML=0

While technically this only applies to the Sprint Treo Pro right now, it may be worth remembering this little trick for when those newer devices and/or ROM updates start showing up and you find yourself in the same boat as we, yearning for last year's version ;-)

And if you're lost when we talk about editing the registry, check out Hobbes' excellent registry tutorial.

Ever need to hard-reset your precious WM phone but forgot the key combo? (Hint: it's not Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, ... left, right, A and start)

In one of the most ambitious and convenient projects yet, someone has created a huge index of various device hard resets.  Simply pick your brand and model and you'll be presented with a copy/pasted image from your device's manual detailing the nuke option.

Our advice?  Bookmark that page for future reference and pass it around to others.  Sure beats looking up, downloading and opening an actual .pdf document! 

Now, go push that beautiful, shiny, jolly, candy-like button:  hardreset.eu

[via Jason Langridge]

Ed Note: Malatesta checks in with a great tutorial on RSS and why it makes your mobile life better. If you're not already subscribed to the WMExperts RSS Feed, here's the link to our feed. As Malatesta writes below, RSS really is like "TiVo for your favorite websites." If you're not using it now, you should be.

RSS or Really Simple Syndication (as of RSS 2.0) is a method by which a user can check updates on his or her favorite website, blog, news site etc without having to actually “visit” that site through their web browser. Instead, the information or “feed” is retrieved automatically and brought to the user instead The benefits are simplicity and speed as you don’t have to check every website to see “what’s new” but rather you can just view the headlines directly.

The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce this technology to the Windows Mobile user who may not be aware of how this system can dramatically increase productivity and decrease frustrating browser load times.

How it works: Desktop

To use RSS, you don’t need to know how the system works in detail but it is nice to know some of the basics. For one, if you are viewing this story through a Firefox webrowser, you may notice this icon in your address bar (at right).

That’s now the universal symbol to indicate an RSS feed is available for a website. Not all sites have them but you’ll be quite surprised that many nowadays do. If you want, you can simply click that symbol with your mouse cursor and a dialog window will ask if you want to “bookmark” this RSS feed. Doing so will add a new folder with RSS “live” bookmarks to your browser. The term “live” is used since they are updated automatically, pulling down the latest headlines, bloglines and information—what you see is what is on that site at that moment!

Say you do this for your top 10 or 20 websites. What this means is now you can check to see if those sites have any new stories posted simply by looking at your Live bookmarks. No change? No new story or posts. In essence, you can literally check up on all your sites within seconds by just looking through your RSS feeds.

Besides your home or work browser, you can also use RSS feeds hosted by websites like Google Reader or Bloglines. This allows you to view anywhere all your RSS feeds from any computer. You can also access these feeds from your mobile browser, if you prefer.

How it works: Windows Mobile

You can do the exact same thing on your Windows Mobile device (Standard or Professional) as your desktop. As mentioned above, using your Google RSS feeds via your Pocket Internet Explorer, Opera Mini/Mobile, etc are all ways to keep your RSS feeds up to date and save you time from visiting all of your sites just for updates.

There is also a “client based” approach by which you download a special RSS reader program. Some are free, others costs money, though they are usually fairly priced. What’s the benefit for a client-based approach? For one, it still saves your from launching your web browser and having to navigate to a site. Number two, client based RSS programs tend to have many more features (especially the pay-ware type): send a link as email, view pictures, sync on schedule, sort for keywords, Today Plugin and system notifications for updates, as well as full Podcast support.

But the best part of mobile RSS is this: Stories are pulled down from the sites (including photos), formatted for your PPC or smartphone with no “fluff” from the site i.e. you are just viewing that one story: no ads, no other stories and no filler for graphics, which wastes bandwidth and time. What you get is only the story you want to read about, accompanying photos and smooth legibility within seconds.

This is what I mean by saving time (over a 3g connection):

3 seconds: Time to launch RSS reader (Newsbreak) 45 seconds: Time to pull down the RSS feeds of 17 websites (x 15 headlines each = 255 headlines!) 1-5 seconds: Time to pull down actual story with pictures & graphics (only if you click on the headline to read the story)

So instead of me visiting 17 separate websites on my mobile browser, I simply pulled down the headlines, all in less than 1-minute. Now I can minimally browse through the headlines and determine if I want to read any of the stories. When I do find a story that interests me, the story takes 1-5 seconds to pull down the text and any graphics. Take a moment to think of how long that would take to do via a mobile browser. Very impressive! Now let’s see how to set this up…

Setting up

Adding RSS feeds to most clients is easy as they usually allow you to manually type in the RSS address, import a list of them from an external file, or the preferred: search an online database. For an example, say you want to read Engadget Mobile, you would launch the “New” window and go through the process, searching for your preferred site. Once you have all your feeds set up, you can then save and export all of them to your storage card or computer for safe-keeping or even share them with a friend.

But what else can these programs do for you? Take for instance, what is in my opinion, one of the best pay RSS programs out there: Ilium Software’s Newsbreak 2.1 ($19.95) (see here for full review). Using this program, you can have it auto-update your feeds every 2 hours, auto-search it for keywords (e.g. “Windows Mobile” or “Iraq War”) marking them with an icon and it will actually notify you when new stories are published, all without you even touching the device. Think of TiVo but for your favorite websites.

That is getting technology to work for you and is what makes your device truly a “smart” phone.

RSS programs can also handle Podcasts of your favorite shows or sites, allowing them to be automatically downloaded and even kept on your Storage Card to save space. Then on you way to work or on a break, throw on some headphones and listen away.

“Read more online!” Nooo….!

There is one down side to some RSS feeds. Running a website is not a free business, which is why you tend to see flashy ads and banners on many sites as they help pay the bills. No money, no website. But what if you never had to visit the website? Well, if you’ve been paying attention that is exactly what RSS technology enables!

For some sites, they get around this in two ways: (1) they put a small ad at the bottom of your RSS story (2) They only give you part of the feed/story, leaving the torturous “Read more online…”, a link to their site so you can finish reading the story.

Now in a way, this still is better than before as now your web browser will launch, but it takes you right to that story. Still, sometimes they take you to their full-site instead of their mobile one (assuming they even have one) and you spend the next 15-20 seconds pulling down needless graphics.

Unfortunately, they are only two solutions for this, as you cannot change that websites’ RSS feed content (that is up to them). (1) Don’t use their RSS feed and save it for home (2) Follow the dreaded “Read more online…” link and bite your tongue.

But there is a 3rd solution that helps ameliorate the pain: Developer John Cody has developed a free plugin called “John Cody’s SkweezeIt!”. After installing, when you click the “Read more online…” link, a pop up window will ask you “Do you want to Skweeze this link?”. What it is doing is now giving you the option to run that link directly through Skweezer, a web site dedicated to reformatting and removing waste from websites to make them more palatable for your mobile browsing experience.

Using this free and superb option (trust me, you’ll think it’s wonderful if you’ve had the “before and after” experience), clicking that dreaded link becomes a much easier option to choose.

If you've followed WMExperts for awhile, you've probably noticed that we've glanced askance at anti-virus or other malware solutions for Windows Mobile.  The bottom line is that the threat doesn't seem big enough to warrant the performance hit that you'd get by running anti-virus on your smartphone.  In fact, so far as we know, there aren't any serious viruses or other threats out there at all right now.  Nobody here runs anti-virus and nobody here recommends that you do either.

Of course, making such a blanket statement isn't so cut-and-dried -- it's always possible that something nasty could crop up and it's legitimate to be worried about it.  We just received an email from David in this vein.  Find it and our answer, after the break!

(Have a question for WMExperts?  We've added a new "Ask WMExperts" category to our contact form - that's the place to do it!)

One of the more common gripes about a touch screen device is that on incoming calls, it doesn't take much to accidentally tapping the screen, inadvertently answering the call. If I had a dollar for every time I accidentally answered a call while taking my AT&T Fuze out of the case, I could probably afford an early retirement.

Have no fear, a solution to this headache is available. Fuze Mobility forum member herg62123 has created a tweak for the AT&T Fuze/Touch Pro that will add a slider to your answer screen.  Instead of tapping the "answer" or "ignore" buttons on the screen you simply move the newly created slider over which action you want to take. Once the call is answered, a screen appears over the mute, speaker, etc. buttons than can be pulled down with a swipe of a finger. If it prevented the screen from blanking out during the call it would just about be perfect.

The "Slide to Answer" application comes in two styles, one with the standard white background and the other with a black background and can be found here. Currently Herg62123 is ironing out the finishing touches on v5 of this application. The black background works fine in V5 but you need to use V4 for the time being for the white background. The slider to answer flows nicely but the pull down for the screen takes a little more effort. Regardless, if you're all thumbs and find yourself accidentally answering calls, this app is definitely worth a try.

[Read:Fuze Mobility]

A few Twitter-related things have cropped up recently that have swirled up into a perfect-micro-blogging storm for yours truly. The first is that Mike Temporale at Mobile Jaw recommended pocketwit, an excellent Twitter client for Windows Mobile. By the end of this article, I hope you've downloaded the software and installed it, because it's my go-to Twitter client and rivaled only by desktop clients in speed, UI, and convenience. Sincerely, pocketwit is great. (Minor Update: I tend to prefer ceTwit on Windows Mobile Standard devices)

The second is that Engadget Mobile pointed us to this NYTimes article that confirms what I've often ranted about on the Podcast: there's no good reason for text message rates to keep going up as they are, because the more text messages that get sent (and they're getting sent in record numbers), the less each particular text message costs the carriers. In fact, it's even more egregious than your typical economy of scale, because the technology behind SMS is so wildly scalable that they basically cost next to nothing for carriers to transmit -- it uses a “control channel” that has to be open anyway. So basically the only cost to carriers is making sure the buggers get sent correctly and while I don't want to say that's nothing, it's definitely not something that needs to increase in cost as the number of text messages rise.

The third, well, was that I was back home for the holidays and found Twitter to be an excellent replacement for SMS amongst the people that use Twitter.

So read on to see why I think Twitter is better than SMS and what you can do to start using it.

One group of questions we get a lot of around here deals with various types of syncing with Windows Mobile (see other guides: "How to sync with Google", "MediaCenter", "LiveMesh", "Calendar/Live Mail") . Often we know a solution but every once in awhile, one of our readers has a unique trick up their sleeve like that cool ActiveSync "Gues Mode" hack.

In this case, rc46 is a big "Notes" user on his phone and computer (Outlook), but he found the lack of syncing options to be...lacking.

Specifically, WM Notes does not support categories, offer a way to organize and is even "off" by default (yeah, you need to turn it on). Luckily with some elbow grease he figured out a way around these limitations and greatly enhanced his Notes use.

Care to know how he did it?

Read on for details. (And if you have a cool trick that only you know about, share it with us!)

There look to many steps here, but in reality, most of these are straight forward, so don't be alarmed.

Part I: Enable Notes in ActiveSync

• Perform an ActiveSync and leave WM device connected to PC.
• On PC in Active Sync go Menu -> Tools -> Options
• Now check the box that says notes and wait for the sync to complete.
• Now disconnect WM device from the computer

Part II: Organize Your Notes

• On the WM Device make a folder inside My Documents called "Notes"
• Move all the notes that are currently in My Documents into that new "Notes" folder
• Next inside the "Notes" folder make sub-folders for categories such as "Personal" "Business" and so on.
• Now on the WM Device move the appropriate notes into these folders.

Part III: Time to Sync Again

• After you sync look in Outlook on the desktop and you will see all the notes are automatically renamed with the folder structure as part of the name.

For example, the note titled "Christmas List 2008" will be changed to "Notes\Personal\Christmas List 2008"

This allows the notes to be sorted by category on the desktop as well as the WM Device even though no Outlook categories are really assigned on the desktop.

One downside: rc46 mentions is that the "Notes" application on WM won't show this new structure, so he recommends browings your notes and opening directly via File Explorer/Resco Explorer

Part IV: Adding New Notes

• Open Notes and write away
• New notes will then be saved to the folder "Device\My Documents\Notes\"
• Open File Explorer and move new Note to appropriate sub-category created earlier

Part V: Creating/Modifying Notes on the PC

• Create new Note as usual
• Save as usual (do not attempt to add to sub categories)
• Sync with your device --> Note synced to "Device\My Documents\Notes\"
• Later, move Note on device to appropriate sub-category

Finally, rc46 has some closing advice:

I know this sounds like a bit of a hassle but in reality it isn't. Personally I just wait until I have about 10 or so un-catagorized notes in either the "Device\My Documents\" folder or the "Device\My Documents\Notes\" folder before I even bother with organizing them. Then I just do them all at once. Its really not a big deal once your used to it.

One weird little data point is for some reason sometimes you need to un-plug your handheld (disconnect it from the desktop) and then plug it back in before the notes will sync correctly after moving around notes in different folders. Just clicking the sync button in active sync wont do it. Must be an active sync bug?

Another little trick to quickly finding the note you are looking for is to use Resco Explorer instead of WM File Explorer. Just click on the binoculars and type some of name of the note and click search. You will find it right away.

This has been working for me for months now and I sync to 2 different PC's and have over 2000 notes.

So there you have it folks: the best way to sync and organize all your notes, with believe it or not, very little effort.

Thanks rc46 for the great tip!

I have always used my Windows Mobile device for work and personal business, always keeping to two as separate as possible. But the more I use my work

Confession: we love cool GPS apps here at WME.

This little freebie comes from smrtdrmmr over at XDA. Long story short: this is an app that you can use to GeoTag a location (actually up to 3) and it then tells you in feet (or KM) and direction how to get back to it.

Why? Ever park your car at a golf course, far, far from the football stadium where you are catching the local game? Did you ever then spend 20 mins trying to then find you car after the game? Yeah, well smrtdrmmr did and when he looked for a WM version of the popular iPhone app "Dude, Where's my Car" and couldn't find one.

So he went home and programmed up his own version.

It's not a pretty program, but darn it all, it works as advertised. In fact, you can tag up to three objects and name each one (see pic above). To use, just launch the app (you'll need .NET CF 3.5) and that'll kick off the GPS automatically. Give it a few seconds to stabilize your coordinates and then hit "Save". Later, re-launch the app and simply click "Find" and follow the directions. Simple!

Hats off to you smrtdrmmr! More info and download here (need to register).

We all like to customize things to match our personality and tastes. From our computer

WMExperts is going to have a couple ringtone manager reviews coming up, so stay tuned. Before we get started on those, though, it