I'm still a big gadget freak. I have an album full of them, and it doesn't really span most of the esoteric crap that I keep around for no good reason. I'm still selling a lot of the the stuff I do have, but it takes time, so there's this endless pile of crap around here. I'm still searching for the holy grail gadget. I keep a laptop around for "Serious Business", my 5G iPod for music, my Newton for notes and scrawls, my cell phone for phone calls and internet while away from home, and various other things as needs require. No gadget has successfully replaced all of these for me, but I've certainly tried to mix them. I tried the PDA/Phone thing, but Windows Mobile sucks. I tried using PDAs and phones for music, but the interface and storage sucked. So on, so forth.
Nevertheless, I keep trying. So, I bought a Dell Axim X50v. It's a Windows Mobile 2003/5.0 based device with a crisp 640x480 display and a crap battery. I just thought, for my edification and anyone searching on Google, I could outline some of the things that make this a little easier to own.
This will be all null and void once I put Linux and Einstein on this thing, which leads us to point one.
1: There is a semi-active port in progress of Familiar Linux to the Dell Axim x50/x51. All WM2003 X50s are currently supported, with a very small feature set. WM5 x50 and and x51 is still unsupported. I haven't put Windows Mobile 2003 back on the device yet, as I'm waiting for a power adapter to arrive. I'm sure you will all hear more about this soon, as it's probably going to become another unfinished project.
2: The Axim, at least under WM5, is naturally narcoleptic, constantly freezes in the middle of work, drains the battery at weird times, and will probably wake your desktop machine up if it's in the cradle. One thing causes this to happen: ActiveSync. Dell and Microsoft seem to know about this, but they still haven't solved it. You can, just follow these instructions: Open ActiveSync on your Axim. Go to Add Server Source and create an Exchange server. Enter in some dummy data. Save it. In your menu is a 'Schedule" item. Open it, and change everything to "Manual". Save changes. Remove your dummy Exchange server. Problem solved -- you just might have to open ActiveSync manually on occasion.
3: Mac syncing still sucks, but The Missing Sync supports Windows Mobile 5.0 and Intel Macs now.
4: Even Windows Mobile 5.0 hasn't solved that "feature" where all of your apps default to multitask like mad. Microsoft seems to forget that the processor in these machines is barely more powerful than the one in your calculator, and memory is still slim, so having all of those apps open is a real drain on resources. Despite that, every time you hit the big X on an application, it just puts it in the background instead of closing it. To close an app, you have to go to Settings > System > Memory > Running Programs. WTF. There are two great programs to help with this. The free one is Magic Button which sits at the top of your screen and creates a little task bar, and it's quite configurable. The non-free one is Wisbar Advance, which not only has process management, but lets you skin your device in all sorts of neat ways. The image above is a Vista skin on Wisbar.
5: Since the Dell, and most of the new Windows Mobile devices are designed by HTC, you get the benefits of drivers for other machines. For those of you who like to listen to stereo music, the A2DP Bluetooth profile is available, enabling stereo sound over bluetooth from your device.
6: A few internet things: Opera has a Windows Mobile version that is far superior to Pocket IE. Google has a mobile GMail interface. Skype has a client, too.
That's it for now, more later, perhaps.
