Using pocket pcs in one page

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pocket pcs & PDAs

Homage first, to a lyric from the song 'Picture This' (external link) from Blondie, for managing to contain the line 'Get a pocket computer - try to do what you used to do', despite being penned in 1978 ...

Risks and dangers when using pocket pcs

Pocket PCs are small and appear trivial, but as they act as a gateway to your Bath Spa University account, they're not. Three things to watch out for:

Data loss

When you delete something, email, a document, on the pocket pc and then synchronise the thing, active synch may later delete the original copy in your account on the mothership. That's fine if it's what you intended ...

Network Issues

When you're using your account via the pocket pc, you have the full access rights as though you were working with an ordinary pc. These devices are not trivial, so you need to take care when working with them

Security

Again, take care to protect your data and the Bath Spa University network: be responsible with your pocket pc.

Introduction to pocket pcs

If you have a University-owned pocket pc you can look to the helpdesk for support - but if the pocket pc is your own and you're stuck, here's the IT departments original help page on pocket pcs (pdf file: 55 kilobytes).

• pocket pcs tend to connect to other devices using various built-in wireless devices.
• pocket pc's synchronise information with Bath Spa University's systems using something called 'Activesynch' - this can transfer your calendar, email, and other data.

Here's a pdf guide to Setting up 'Activesynch'.

Practical tips

Right mouse click equivalent

Tap-and-hold the stylus is the same as right-clicking the mouse on a normal PC.

Soft-reset

This shuts down your software and restarts the pc.

Hard-reset

You probably don't want to do one of these as it resets the PPC to its factory settings. Some models will retain your data though (Filestore on HP, Builtinstore on Dell), so don't rely on this to clear personal data from memory. For most pocket pcs, a hard reset will lose your data

pocket pcs have a name

This suddenly becomes more important should you synchronise several pocket pcs to one PC ....

Network Drives

Although you can connect to networked drives on servers, you cannot open files on the server directly. What you can do is copy them from the shared drive to the pocket pc.

Password protection

This is available when the PPC is switched on. However, if you forget the password, you may lose your data as you'll have to hard-reset the pocket pc.

ActiveSync

• Synchronises files between the pocket pc and PC
• Installs software from the PC to the pocket pc.

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