Digital Camera -> Pocket PC -> Internet

[colnago]

I have a real world problem I'm trying to address and I'm looking for some answers to a couple aspects. Here is the goal:

Send a field worker to Bangkok with a standard digital camera to take photos and have them sent back to a server in the US. I am assuming there will be a wireless connection available to the field worker, but the user will NOT have access to a private computer and thus, cannot connect the digital camera to a networked PC.

The process has to be relatively simple because the field worker will be of minimal technical capability. I am envisioning the solution to be as follows:
1- take photos with digital camera using SD memory card
2- remove card from camera and insert into pocket PC
3- connect to wireless hotspot
4- go to pre-designed website and upload photos from sd card

I had a few questions (sorry, I keep making lists..)
1- can you just put the sd memory card from the camera into a pocket PC and be able to access the photographic files? The Pocket PC does not need to be able to view the images, simply send them to the server which will deal with the formatting.
2- is the web browser on a pocket PC able to upload files over HTTP? As in, can it support input type=file (http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/forms/_INPUT_TYPE_FILE.html)? Is there a better way than this? (remember, the user will be of very limited technical capability)
3- Is a Dell Axim x30 with built-in WIFI a smart choice for the Pocket PC? Should I be considering an entirely differnt option?

Thanks for any help. If it makes any difference, this is for a non-profit health organization. :)

[Ryan Joseph]

What you're trying to do sounds cool. Can we go to the site and see the pictures when they're done? :)

I've never tried to do HTTP uploading with a PPC, but I'd assume it would work. The memory card part, however, I have tried.

I have a digital camera that uses SD cards and I will often take the card out of the camera and put it into the PPC to view the pictures on a large screen...or email them to friends.

So, yes, the PPC can read pictures right off of a memory card without any special software or drivers.

Good luck with your project!

[Kacey Green]

my understanding is PIE cannot upload files, but you can get an ftp program and do things that way.

[OSUKid7]

I'm a little iffy on the uploading from PIE (Pocket Internet Explorer)...I think I remember that there's a problem doing that. You might be better emailing them, but I'm not sure. There may be an easy way to upload files in PIE.

[colnago]

Hey, thanks for the quick replies. I think it is a pretty cool application of technology myself. I'll be happy to share the site with you if I can pull this off.

I'm aiming for utter simplicity, so maybe emailing might be an option. If I had extra development time, I would write some sort of application that would simply ask for the photo directory and have a [go] button or something, but given that I have to get this together this week, that is not an option. I was doing some research and it looks like there might be some ftp programs available, but I am a little concerned about their usability and possibly their compatibility with open WIFI hotpots (port blocking and the like)

Additionally, you know how digital cameras are these days- each photo is high detail and usually at least 1MB in size. 50 of these would overload most mailboxes (except google's beta gmail I suppose) I know I'm taxing the limit of current available technilogy and it might be real painful for the field worker in terms of upload time.

So I'm not completely stuck on my plan. I would be open to any other solutions to get these photos from a pocket pc to a server (or email box, or whatever..)

Thanks for the confirmation on sd cards working. That's a big help to start with. :)

[OSUKid7]

If you go the emailing route, you might want to use PocketRAR to make a RAR archive of the files to compress them.