Anyone running Skype for Mobile on Cellphone PDA?

http://www.skype.com/download/skype/mobile/

Skype has come out with "Skype for Mobile". To use Skype for Pocket PC you
need Microsoft Pocket PC 2003 or Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC operating
system on a 400 Mhz or faster PDA/PDAphone. Unwilling to have some damned
cellphone company screw half the features off I just got a new Dell Axim
X51v, 624 Mhz under Windows Mobile 5.01. Windows Mobile 5.01 still has a
few bugs, the worst of which is it won't connect with my Motorola H300
bluetooth headset, dammit Micro$oft! I'm sure they'll fix it,
eventually...(c;

I'm wondering if anyone is running Skype for Mobile on any of your
PDAphones and how does it work over 1X internet? I've used Skype on a
notebook over a Verizon aircard, which works fine at the slow local speed
as long as you don't put a webcam on it, or use the internet while talking
on it.


--
If you're sending someone some Styrofoam,
what do you pack it in?

At 27 Oct 2006 13:37:23 -0400 Larry wrote:
> http://www.skype.com/download/skype/mobile/
>
> Skype has come out with "Skype for Mobile". To use Skype for Pocket PC
you
> need Microsoft Pocket PC 2003 or Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC operating
> system on a 400 Mhz or faster PDA/PDAphone. Unwilling to have some
damned
> cellphone company screw half the features off I just got a new Dell
Axim
> X51v, 624 Mhz under Windows Mobile 5.01. Windows Mobile 5.01 still has
a
> few bugs, the worst of which is it won't connect with my Motorola H300
> bluetooth headset, dammit Micro$oft! I'm sure they'll fix it,
> eventually...(c;

I recently heard on microsoft.public.pocketpc that there's some kind of
hack to fix the BT compatibilities on the Axim.

> I'm wondering if anyone is running Skype for Mobile on any of your
> PDAphones and how does it work over 1X internet?

I've got it installed on my T-Mobile MDA using EDGE (only a 130kbps
connection) but it won't work through T-Mo's internet proxy.

> I've used Skype on a
> notebook over a Verizon aircard, which works fine at the slow local
speed
> as long as you don't put a webcam on it, or use the internet while
talking
> on it.

You could try connecting the Ax to your phone via BT and give it a whirl,
but other than "hey, I did it," you're better off sticking to Wi-Fi.

If you're thinking of going to a PDA phone on Verizon, keep in mind Skype
for Mobile is very resource intensive. My MDA is only 200MHz so I have
to overclock it to 240 to get the audio to work, and it won't even load
on my phone unless I soft reset before launching, due to WM5 memory leaks
(the longer your WM5 device is on, the more RAM mysteriously disappears
even when you close down all apps!) >

> --
> If you're sending someone some Styrofoam,
> what do you pack it in?

Bubble wrap? ;-)


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in news:454271f1$0$12158
$88260bb3@free.teranews.com:

> If you're thinking of going to a PDA phone on Verizon, keep in mind Skype
> for Mobile is very resource intensive.

If you think a cellular phone company is going to let you use Skype over
their internet connection, you've got another think coming.

http://www.evdoforums.com/thread2366-0-asc-165.html

Verizon's customer agreement for internet service allows webpage browsing,
email up/downloads and connections to corporate intranets so they can sell
it to business. It specifically forbids downloading, uploading, VoIP, all
those things you want internet for.....BANDWIDTH!

Running Skype on a cellular PDA or aircard is, obviously, forbidden...(c;

That problem HAS been solved! http://www.voxlib.com/ Just call Voxlib
running on your unattended home computer with Skype. Call Voxlib from your
cellphone and it sees your caller ID. Then, make Skype calls to the rest
of the planet....without the exhorbitant cellular overseas long distance
scams....(c;

.....or just skype-to-skype. You pay only airtime.

At 28 Oct 2006 00:22:06 -0400 Larry wrote:
> Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in news:454271f1$0
$12158
> $88260bb3@free.teranews.com:
>
> > If you're thinking of going to a PDA phone on Verizon, keep in mind
Skype
> > for Mobile is very resource intensive.
>
> If you think a cellular phone company is going to let you use Skype
over
> their internet connection, you've got another think coming.

I really meant, that if you buy a PDA phone to carry around one device
instead of two, like I did, pay attention to the specs. Most PDA phones
use slower processors to conserve battery life, like the 200MHz OMAP in
my T-Mobile MDA. This processor is too slow for Skype over wi-fi. I
have to overclock the processor (through a freeware program called
OMAPClock) before using Skype via wi-fi.

As far as using it over EVDO, I suspect moderation is the key. As long
as you used it for the occasional international call and not for general
everyday calling to avoid using plan minutes, I doubt they'd notice.



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in news:45442678$0$12064
$88260bb3@free.teranews.com:

> I really meant, that if you buy a PDA phone to carry around one device
> instead of two, like I did, pay attention to the specs.

I agree, especially if it's running a Micro$not hawg of an OS. If it's a
Palm-based phone (of course no Skype), the speed issue with Palm's great,
no-crash, low memory OS isn't an issue.

The Dell Axim X51v runs a 624 Mhz Intel PXA270 processor that "saves
power" by backing off on its speed in steps way back to 100 Mhz if you
don't need to run that fast.

BTW, Newegg has a 4GB RiData Pro SD X150 monster memory for $69! The user
feedback is great, except for the boys trying to run it on something old or
broken. Mine will be here TOMORROW...(c; The card is faster than the
readers, which slow it down.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820183017

The Axim connected me to 4 countries from a chinese restaurant hotspot with
Skype for Mobile, perfectly, today. The OS and its GUI crash a lot without
Skype or any external programs running. WM5.1 is awful buggy and won't
talk to bluetooth headsets without hacking it. How stupid.

Larry
--
I sure hope Halloween comes real soon....
I've run out of Halloween candy THREE TIMES SO FAR!

Larry <noone@home.com> wrote:

>The Axim connected me to 4 countries from a chinese restaurant hotspot with
>Skype for Mobile, perfectly, today.

Do you have any advice on buying a "converged" smart
phone vs buying a separate cell phone and separate PPC?

I'm "thinking" abt buying something..... just cant
decide on a converged device or not

me@privacy.net wrote in news:b33ck25997judrob4556sfatk9mbo6m7mf@4ax.com:

> Do you have any advice on buying a "converged" smart
> phone vs buying a separate cell phone and separate PPC?

Nope, no thanks. I got my 4GB SD card ($68 at newegg.com) today and have
already loaded it up with movies, documentaries, ebooks and music. There's
only 1GB left...(c;

I see over on alt.cellular.vzw they're upgrading the VZW firmware and one
of the big items was they allow them to have 2GB memory cards, now.

I don't want my cellphone company telling me what my PDA can and cannot do,
based on its effects on company profits at my cellphone company. Although
WM5.1 seems buggier than I was lead to believe, everything it can do, it
does. Noone tells me "we've turned that off for the good of the carrier's
profits". It's just better that way.

>
> I'm "thinking" abt buying something..... just cant
> decide on a converged device or not
>
>
My other objection is the cellphone PDAs, in their attempt to make it a
girly glitz device, too, they've gone too far with shrinking the package.
I'm getting too old to watch a movie or see a picture no bigger then twice
the width of my thumb. Playing alongside the monitor is a full length DivX
movie from alt.binaries.movies.divx on usenet. The "full screen" mode on
TCPMP player (http://tcpmp.corecodec.org/about) rotates the image longwise
on the X51v to a really nice little hand-sized, widescreen picture. TCPMP
is an amazing software collaboration of a lot of coders who have great
ideas about PDA audio/video. Don't know if it will run on a hobbled-up
cellphone PDA. It does have its own codecs that play divx/xvid/mp4 video
first class.

I'm not using it at the moment, but I found Qusnetsoft Newsreader 3 for
Usenet from a post on the Microsoft pocketpc newsgroups. I haven't had
time to delve into it, yet, to see if it will download/decode binaries, but
I don't think it will. That would be taking pocket computing pretty far.
http://www.qusnetsoft.ru/

Here's an item someone on the MS groups suggested for mass storage:
http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?l...60&modelmenu=1
No sense limiting yourself to taking a few files on an SD card with you,
when you can play whatever you like off your car's wifi networked hard
drive with webpage interface you can run from the PPC. He told me his
worked very well, but the wifi, of course, reduces runtime on the battery
transferring files. I guess I'll pay that price, recharging while driving
from the little AC inverter also in the car. Wifi range to it should be
good enough to go into a restaurant/store or the office in 1-2 story
buildings, just leaving the network drive running off the car battery....
(c; Again, will this work on a wifi-enabled phone? Have "they" shut its
feature off for their own gains? It's stuff like that that just galls me,
even if they are subsidizing the PDA with their enslavement schemes.

Oh, and I got Mini Net Stumbler to scan and log wifi spots, today.
(http://www.stumbler.net). It even interfaces with BT GPS units to add
lat/long to the log. Copy the log to the notebook or home system and
NetStumbler in the PC will google map/google earth the hotspots into a
printable map overlaid with the hotspots on it. Way cool, Net Stumbler.
The laptop/pc version is great fun on the road! If you download it, link
your PDA to your computer first, then run Netstumbler's Win install exe on
the computer. It self-installs beautifully into the PPC, automatically.

More toys....always more toys....
"Storage and Bandwidth are our friends!"

Larry
--
I sure hope Halloween comes real soon....
I've run out of Halloween candy THREE TIMES SO FAR!

Larry <noone@home.com> wrote:

>I don't want my cellphone company telling me what my PDA can and cannot do,
>based on its effects on company profits at my cellphone company.

So do you use Bluetooth to "connect" your cell phone to
your PPC?

And..... what brand/model cell phone do you happen to
have?

And....what model PPC would you advise buying? have
thumb keyboard as well?

At 30 Oct 2006 18:37:04 -0600 me@privacy.net wrote:
> Larry <noone@home.com> wrote:
>
> >I don't want my cellphone company telling me what my PDA can and
cannot do,
> >based on its effects on company profits at my cellphone company.

I use a T-Mobile MDA (a rebranded HTC Wizard.) It's not in any way
crippled by T-Mobile, with one exception- T-Mobile left Java support out
of the ROM, so if you want to run Java midlets designed for phones you
need to install a Java virtual machine. I'm not interested, so I don't
bother.

> So do you use Bluetooth to "connect" your cell phone to
> your PPC?

Verizon and Sprint tend to cripple BT connection functionality, so it's
likely Larry can't connect his PDA to his phone without a cable. T-Mo
and Cingular don't, so you could connect a PDA to one of their phones,
but both carriers offer the Wizard (Cingular calls it an 8125.)

> And....what model PPC would you advise buying? have
> thumb keyboard as well?

The Wizard has a slide-out keyboard, which makes the device thicker, But
keeps the screen fairly large considering.



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Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:

>I use a T-Mobile MDA (a rebranded HTC Wizard.) It's not in any way

My concern with NOT getting a converged device is that
I wont carry two devices and NOT having the PDA side
with me at all times would make it useless cause if I
wont use it what good is it?

Whereas a converged device I am likely to carry it all
the time as its my phone.....and therefore would have
the utility of the PDA side all the time.

Agree? Disagree?

At 31 Oct 2006 09:30:20 -0600 me@privacy.net wrote:

> My concern with NOT getting a converged device is that
> I wont carry two devices and NOT having the PDA side
> with me at all times would make it useless cause if I
> wont use it what good is it?
I carried two devices for years- you get used to it. I saw convergence
devices as a way to get down to one, but waited for a convergence device
that had the features I wanted.
>
> Whereas a converged device I am likely to carry it all
> the time as its my phone.....and therefore would have
> the utility of the PDA side all the time.
>
> Agree? Disagree?

Frankly, my last PDA was a better PDA, and my last phone a better phone,
IMO. But the advantage of only carrying one device let's me put up wit
the shortcomings.


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me@privacy.net wrote in news:ji6dk2hbs38bvfosicnm3iac9j818c8idl@4ax.com:

> So do you use Bluetooth to "connect" your cell phone to
> your PPC?

Nope. Too expensive and too many restrictions. I was listening to Radio
Eviva in Zurich during dinner on the Axim. That's forbidden on a
cellphone internet. The wifi was free with dinner.
>
> And..... what brand/model cell phone do you happen to
> have?

Motorola's latest technology, the V60i trimode. Works great as a PHONE.

>
> And....what model PPC would you advise buying? have
> thumb keyboard as well?
>
>
I bought the Dell Axim X51v, 624 Mhz Intel PXA270, 64MB RAM, 256 MB ROM,
Windows Mobile 5.1.195 build 14957.2.3.1 with auto speed switching to
conserve battery power. Watching a movie play at 30 fps while Skype
doesn't skip or hang is very nice. It's plenty of processor power for
this level of computing.....well, for now at least. $374 direct from
Dell, so there's no finger pointing during the warranty period. You do
have to hack it to get BT headsets to work. M$ lacks a BT audio driver,
me thinks. The hackers have great support and software like TCPMP media
player that plays everything I have, from the 4GB ($68 at newegg.com)
RiData X150 SD card. I'm loading some new movies on it Xnews got today
off alt.binaries.movies.divx while I was in the bilge of a yacht
servicing the batteries and electrical systems. This card was PnP in
both the PPC and XP card slot of my Emachines box. It's warrantied for
life!

No thumb keyboard, I'm happy to say. The character recognition seems to
work ok, as does the touchscreen's virtual keyboard. I'd much rather
have a big screen I can watch in full screen mode than a tiny, useless
screen with a fixed keyboard in the same sized package. I want to see
this one working:
http://www.virtual-laser-keyboard.com/
I don't type walking down the street very often, for which the stylus
keyboard or character recognizer works great. No, what I need is a
compactly stored, full sized keyboard for on a table or desk in a
restaurant or office. Though I think kinda pricey, this one looks really
interesting, just typing on a virtual image of a keyboard with the laser
reading your fingers. It even makes the clicking sounds...(c;

me@privacy.net wrote in news:9sqek2pu387shkfp6o91bnbffoku2is9v8@4ax.com:

> Whereas a converged device I am likely to carry it all
> the time as its my phone.....and therefore would have
> the utility of the PDA side all the time.
>
> Agree? Disagree?
>
>

Borrow someone's small PDA. Make believe it's your cellphone. See how it
fits making calls where you make them.

Everyone I know that has a PDA phone regrets giving up their toyphone's
portability, now that they have to hold their PDA up to their ear to have a
private conversation on the phone.....

It's a personal issue. You need to virtual reality check it for yourself
to see if you'll tolerate it. Of course, you can BT headset the converged
phone, making it like any other BT headset phone. I can't stand wearing
something on my ear for long....

I'll keep my V60i and use the larger, much-more-powerful Dell Axim X51v for
my unhobbled PDA...

Larry <noone@home.com> wrote:

>I'll keep my V60i and use the larger, much-more-powerful Dell Axim X51v for
>my unhobbled PDA...

On the Axim....

Do you miss not having a built in keyboard on it like
some of the iPaqs have?

And....ever use Fitaly on your Axim?

Larry <noone@home.com> wrote:

>No thumb keyboard, I'm happy to say.

Oops...disregard my other message