RJ Dudley

For years, I used FlexWallet on my Treo 700w to keep track of my passwords and such.  Recently, FlexWallet was merged into eWallet, so I had to install new software and remove the old.  Always scary.

Since eWallet's file format is different than FlexWallet, an import was required.  It failed.  So I e-mailed support, and after exchanging a couple e-mails, they sent me a link to an updated eWallet.  The import worked this time, and I've been very happy with eWallet.  Thanks to Kevin for speedy response!  I've updated my Treo 700w must-have list, replacing FlexWallet with eWallet.

• Handango.com
• PocketPCFreeware.com
• Pocketgear.com
• smartphone.net

There seem to be a lot of SE referrals as to how to erase data from a Treo 700w.  The easiest way is to do a hard reset, where you hold in the red power button and press and hold the reset button (under the pattery cover) at the same time.  Your Treo will start to reboot, and you'll be prompted to erase all the information.

This will reset your Treo back to factory settings (if you installed the update with MSFP, this will be retained).  All e-mail settings and messages, any thrid party software, etc. will be wiped.  Information on your SD card will not be touched.

I've heard of Orb, but wasn't fully aware of its capabilities.  Seems like a good way to access photos and such from your home PC, but if you have a Media Center or record video to your PC, you can stream that to your Treo 700w as well. 

Orb is both the name for the service and the software itself. You install it on any Windows XP-based computer, and it transforms your computer into a powerful solution for serving up your media from any browser, anywhere – including the one found in your Windows Mobile device. The service was initially fee-based at launch, but is now free and advertising supported. Orb is made even more useful when installed on a computer with a TV tuner as I'll explain below, but will work fine without one.

Full story at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/articles/orb.mspx.

Orb also gets a mention in an episode of Hanselminutes (http://hanselminutes.com/default.aspx?showID=11).  If Hanselman uses it, it must be good.

I keep telling people how much the Treo 700w rocks, but here's more proof:

Scott Wilder, a cameraman for the network, had been about 20 blocks away on another assignment when the crash occurred. Wilder ran uptown and reported live from the scene using a hand-held Palm Treo smartphone that uses the existing mobile network to transmit video to the Fox News control room. From there, Fox News sent it out live on TV to supplement other video being shot by local traffic helicopters

...

CometVision runs on a Palm Treo 700-series PDA via the Windows Mobile operating system. The technology is able to transmit video over non-3G networks, using much less bandwidth than would normally be needed, Comet CEO Howard Becker said.

Full story at http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061013/wr_nm/treo_dc.

WebIS has released FlexMail 2007, a replacement for the Pocket Outlook which ships on Windows Mobile 5.0 devices.  This is a significant upgrade to the FlexMail 2006, which I've used for several months now on my Treo 700w, but found myself wishing for a few more features and faster performance.  My few wishes and then some seem to have been taken care of in this new release.

FlexMail is far and above better in how it displayes messages with HTML formatting, and handles IMAP accounts better than Pocket Outlook.  GMail POP3 SSL is supported, as is storing messages on an SD card.  The featurelist is long, and everyone likes different things, so just go check it out for yourself.

Full story at http://webis.net/products_info.php?p_id=mail.

This is one from the SE referrals in my logs.

There does seem to be a problem deleting messages when an account is set up as IMAP.  The “empty deleted items” option doesn’t seem to delete the messages from the server, and they come back with the next sync.  I’m not sure of the technical details, but in Outlook, deleting messages from an IMAP account is a two-step process—first, the delete, then the Purge Deleted Messages.  The empty deleted items on the Treo seems to be only the first step.

I have no problems deleting messages when I reconfigured the accounts as POP3 accounts.

<update 2006–07–30>

If you want your IMAP to work properly, look into FlexMail.  FlexMail is a complete replacement for Pocket Outlook, and then some.  IMHO, FlexMail handles IMAP accounts better than desktop Outlook does.  In addition to properly deleting items in IMAP accounts, FlexMail will perform POP before SMTP, which is a requirement to send e-mail on many hosts.  Pocket Outlook does not have this option.

If you sync to an Exchange server, set that up in Pocket Outlook and let FlexMail automatically import the settings.  If you have POP2 or IMAP accounts alreadey set up in Pocket Outlook, just delete them and set them up again in FlexMail, since there are more settings for these accounts than are available in Pocket Outlook.

Walt Mossberg has a review today of Sharpcast sync service.  What sets this service apart is that no only will it sync with PCs, it will sync with your cell phone.  Specifically, Walt used a Treo 700w for his tests.

Now, a small Silicon Valley start-up called Sharpcast is introducing an impressive, free service that synchronizes data among PCs, phones and a Web site at lightning speeds. I tested Sharpcast for several weeks, and found that it works really well.

The service is limited to photos right now, which means it's more mashed potatoes than gravy:

With Sharpcast Photos, any change you make to an album of photos on one of your devices is replicated within seconds on your other devices. If you add a photo to an album on your PC, it shows up within seconds on your phone and on your Sharpcast Web page. If you rotate a photo on the phone, the same photo is rotated within seconds on the PC and Web page. If you delete a photo on the Web page, it's immediately deleted on the PC and the phone. And if you take a photo with the camera on your Sharpcast-enabled phone, it will show up in seconds on your PC and your Web page.

It's not a huge leap from instant replication of modified photos to instant replication of spreadsheets, Word docs, etc. 

You can also share your albums with other Sharpcast users, and receive shared albums from them.

Sharing = collaboration.  MS's next version of SharePoint will be mobile enabled, but there's a large buy-in and overhead, not to mention connectivity issues.  Instead of sharing a photo album, imaging sharing a project folder.  By the time your plane lands, you have the updated files on your phone, and will get them as soon as you connect your laptop to the Internet.  Sweet!  And, probably with less overhead.

Planned improvements include sync of contacts, appointments, etc.  Not such a huge issue for me, since we have an Exchange server, but very useful for a lot of people I know.

Full story at http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20060713.html.  The possibilities are exciting--this is definately a company to watch in the near future.

When you install the MSFP on your Treo 700w, you can use Exchange 2003 SP2 to enforce security policies on the PDA functions.  One policy includes an access PIN, which locks the phone after a certain period of inactivity (5 min doesn't seem bad in testing, but you might want to make it longer in real life).  This policy seems to be a must for the remote wipe to work correctly.  Additionally, in case the phone is ever lost, you can send a command from Exchange to the phone to wipe it clean of data the next time it tries to sync.

As a proof of concept, my phone was wiped 7 or 8 times yesterday.  Here's a short overview of what happens:

1. The phone retains full functionality.  Whomever finds the phone is free to make all the calls they want if you don't have a PIN policy.  This means that if you do get the phone back, you don't need to go through that Verizon configuration procedure again.
2. Even if you enforce a PIN policy on the PDA functions, the phone can still recive calls.  The ringing phone can be answered without entering the PIN, but no caller ID information is displayed.  Calls cannot be made from the phone until the PIN is entered.  You can set the PIN policy to wipe a device after a certain number of failures, too.
3. The phone basically undergoes a hard reset.  Any aftermarket software that was installed is removed.  Any data stored in system memory is lost.  All configured e-mail accounts (be they POP3 or Exchange) are deleted, as is all the e-mail.  All contacts, appointments, tasks, etc are removed.  Registry settings are removed.  The MSFP is retained.
4. Custom ringtones and other add-ons are also removed.  I have to find that WAV of the Monday Night Football theme again.
5. Data stored on a storage card is not lost.  Don't put confidential/incriminating information on the storage card, or at least don't leave the cards in your phone all the time.  There is an option to store e-mail attachments on the card, and it appears these are removed when the e-mail is wiped.
6. If you get the phone back, or get a new one, your contacts, tasks, etc. will be restored with the next ActiveSync.  You will probably have to reinstall the software yourself.  Make sure you keep good records of your registration codes.

The Remote Wipe will not function if the device doesn't have MSFP installed.  The Remote Wipe functionality is an Exchange plug-in, apparently something you need to download separately from SP2, but I'm not the Exchange admin.

The PIN policy (called the password policy in most of the forums) seems to be key in getting the wipe to work.  If you don't set this policy, then the user is prompted to apply a security setting when the wipe is triggered.  Choosing No means the device isn't wiped, and this is a very common thing in the forums.  Also key is that the phone is sync'd directlty to a Windows 2003/Exchange 2003 SP2 server.  Our bastion Windows 2000 server doesn't pass out the policies to the phone, but the phone can be sync'd against the bastion server, and the wipe is passed through the server as well.  But we had to sync against the Win 2K3 server once (and probably every time we want to upgrade the policies).

If you use a Treo 700w and SplashBlog, don't perform their automatic upgrade.  Their upgrader installs the wrong version of the software on your phone, and the client won't start.  There are two versions for Windows Mobile devices, one for those without a touchscreen (which they call the SmartPhone version) and a separate version for devices with a touchscreen (which they call the Pocket PC version).  Treo 700w users want the Pocket PC Version of SplachBlog.

Get the correct version at http://splashblog.com/portal_download.aspx.

The freeware app ADBWeather Plus runs on a Treo 700w!  This was my favorite weather app on my Axim X5, and with the EVDO network, forecast info and satellite images download fast.  You can install this using a CAB or a desktop installer.  Sweet!

My fabvorite Today screen replacement is now available for Windows Mobile 5.  I blogged about this previously for my Axim X5, and was hoping it would be available for my Treo 700w. 

Full information at http://www.sbsh.net/products/pocketbreeze/.

Technorati: Treo 700w | Windows Mobile 5 | Pocket Breeze | Today Screen

So I returned home, and the temp files were still deleting.  Taking a chance, I stopped the File Explorer, and simply renamed the Temp directory to Temp2, and created a new Temp directory.  That was actually quick.  I un-selected everything I could to sync, and did an AvtiveSync.  It took a bit, but it sync'd.  I started the updater, and after a moment or two, it told me I already had the update installed.  So I called Palm again.  Kudos to Palm support--second ring, an actual tech support person answered and we tried to fix it.  We deleted temp files, soft reset and rebooted, reinstalled the updater, still no dice.  After 45 min, I had to go to a 6th B-Day party, still with no phone.  The install hung right at the end of copying files, and never began the Updating step.

We came home, and I tried it again.  Deleted the few files in my new Temp directory, deleted the TreoUpd123 folder, removed the PalmUpd program, rebooted everything, re-installed the updater, changed the VERS file to 1.12, and let it go.  Removing the PalmUpd program is something we did the first time I called support, but not the second.  Finally, everything worked perfectly, and my phone is back online.  Not to mention ActiveSync is a lot quicker since I cleaned up the error I was getting.  Direct Push e-mail is awesome, and MS seems to have fixed a few things with the POP/IMAP e-mail as well.  Frustrating for a bit, but it's all better now.

The third page of the installer site (http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/treo700wupdater/verizon.html) has some troubleshooting which talks about some of the problems I had.

Technorati: Treo 700w

The Treo Updater has been re-posted.  You can find it at:

http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/treo700wupdater/verizon.html