More and more disillusioned...

[leeraff]

Overall, love my PPC (HP 2215) and the potential. This thing, literally, acts as my contact manager, MP3 player, voice recorder, storage device of funny movies and pictures for customers, etc, etc.

But, I do find there to be tremendous shortcomings and wonder when I will keep feeling this way.

Yes, many will have "get over it" types of responses but some of these just seem like ANY programmer with any common sense would say, "Hey guys, don't ya think...."

1) Locating files: The standard search method of *.wav does nothing. How do you search for a file that is not in the standard (and very limited) drop-down selection box. I'll now go research some of these better file managers but don't understand why I should have to?!?

2) Relationships between relevant programs. Contacts and related events in Calendar ought to better link. This is CLEARLY a Microsoft philosophy problem as Outlook really lacks in this area. But why do almost every other Contact Manager companies see the benefits and include this? (For clarification, the ability to link "lunch meeting" in Calendar with "Jones" in contacts and so much more. All ACT! users will know exactly what I mean. And PocketInformant.... And....) When looking at a contact, isn't it useful to be able to see, upcoming "Lunch appt" and "Birthday" for that contact? Apparently not for Microsoft! Wouldn't it be nice when in Calendar looking at your lunch appointment to be able to one-touch link to that Contact to let them know you're 10 minutes late?

3) Finally, for me, and this is a VERY LIMITED post, some boxes that are CLEARLY calling for numbers ONLY even allowing letters to be mistakenly recognized. I USE TRANSCRIBER. How does one chose "1 hour" in "Remind Me" when the stroke for 1 (one) gives you the letter I. Why shouldn't, couldn't this box be restricted to NUMBERS ONLY???? Don't know about you, but I have NEVER wanted an alarm to occur in I hours or A minutes or IO days (as in letter i, letter o). Brainless!!!!!

Assume there have been plenty of posts on frustrations and suggestions. Perhaps this is old news, but...

[Badandy]

I agree with one, part of two, but not three.


I dont use transcriber :)


I have been very happy with MessagEase. www.messagease.com

[Stephen Beesley]

...

3) Finally, for me, and this is a VERY LIMITED post, some boxes that are CLEARLY calling for numbers ONLY even allowing letters to be mistakenly recognized. I USE TRANSCRIBER. How does one chose "1 hour" in "Remind Me" when the stroke for 1 (one) gives you the letter I. Why shouldn't, couldn't this box be restricted to NUMBERS ONLY???? Don't know about you, but I have NEVER wanted an alarm to occur in I hours or A minutes or IO days (as in letter i, letter o). Brainless!!!!!

I agree wholeheartedly with you on this one - this is something that the Newton HWR got right all those years ago. But do not get me started on that.... :D

[Kevin Remhof]

3) Finally, for me, and this is a VERY LIMITED post, some boxes that are CLEARLY calling for numbers ONLY even allowing letters to be mistakenly recognized. I USE TRANSCRIBER. How does one chose "1 hour" in "Remind Me" when the stroke for 1 (one) gives you the letter I. Why shouldn't, couldn't this box be restricted to NUMBERS ONLY???? Don't know about you, but I have NEVER wanted an alarm to occur in I hours or A minutes or IO days (as in letter i, letter o). Brainless!!!!!


There is a way you can do this now. It won't remember which fields are what though. In the Transcriber Iconbar, change the Recognition Mode to '12' (numberals and some letters allowed). This works pretty well.

It would be pretty slick if a developer could tag a field as numeric and have this automatically work. This would have to be a change in the OS.

[Stephen Beesley]

3) Finally, for me, and this is a VERY LIMITED post, some boxes that are CLEARLY calling for numbers ONLY even allowing letters to be mistakenly recognized. I USE TRANSCRIBER. How does one chose "1 hour" in "Remind Me" when the stroke for 1 (one) gives you the letter I. Why shouldn't, couldn't this box be restricted to NUMBERS ONLY???? Don't know about you, but I have NEVER wanted an alarm to occur in I hours or A minutes or IO days (as in letter i, letter o). Brainless!!!!!


There is a way you can do this now. It won't remember which fields are what though. In the Transcriber Iconbar, change the Recognition Mode to '12' (numberals and some letters allowed). This works pretty well.

It would be pretty slick if a developer could tag a field as numeric and have this automatically work. This would have to be a change in the OS.

Exactly - we shouldn't have to remember to click on an icon to change recognition modes for something as fundamental as this IMHO

[ppcsurfr]

<snip>
1) Locating files: The standard search method of *.wav does nothing. How do you search for a file that is not in the standard (and very limited) drop-down selection box. I'll now go research some of these better file managers but don't understand why I should have to?!?

This may be bad for you but may also prove to be a good thing to other people.

The File Explorer is a very dangerous tool for those who are not so familiar with it. Even with the standard one that comes with the Pocket PC... I know several people who have rendered their PPCs useless or have lost data because of this.

The Find function limits access to user files and folders only... except for files located in databases and help files...

If you are an advanced user, then a more powerful File Explorer is better for your needs... one that comes to mind is Resco Explorer 2003 v5.0 from www.resco-net.com

2) Relationships between relevant programs. Contacts and related events in Calendar ought to better link. This is CLEARLY a Microsoft philosophy problem as Outlook really lacks in this area. But why do almost every other Contact Manager companies see the benefits and include this? (For clarification, the ability to link "lunch meeting" in Calendar with "Jones" in contacts and so much more. All ACT! users will know exactly what I mean. And PocketInformant.... And....) When looking at a contact, isn't it useful to be able to see, upcoming "Lunch appt" and "Birthday" for that contact? Apparently not for Microsoft! Wouldn't it be nice when in Calendar looking at your lunch appointment to be able to one-touch link to that Contact to let them know you're 10 minutes late?

If you use email to do schedule appointments, you can use meting requests to set appointments with people in your contacts list...

You may not see any appointment linked to the person in the Contacts list, but their names will surely appear in the Calendar... and if you modify the appointment, it will ask you if you want to send out a new email noting the change that you made.


3) Finally, for me, and this is a VERY LIMITED post, some boxes that are CLEARLY calling for numbers ONLY even allowing letters to be mistakenly recognized. I USE TRANSCRIBER. How does one chose "1 hour" in "Remind Me" when the stroke for 1 (one) gives you the letter I. Why shouldn't, couldn't this box be restricted to NUMBERS ONLY???? Don't know about you, but I have NEVER wanted an alarm to occur in I hours or A minutes or IO days (as in letter i, letter o). Brainless!!!!!

You may be able to enter A Z or whatever... but as soon as you tap on another field... it will go back to what was originally there... It will not save the letter in that field... In short... it does not support letters and you will not be able to save letters in that field. At least that's how it is in my WM2003 Pocket PCs...

Mabuhay! ~ Carlo