From
The Editor
Rich Hall
I had an exhausting but fun week in Las Vegas last
November 15-19, attending one of the computer industry's biggest trade
shows ¡ COMDEX. I heard Bill Gates talk about the future of Web-center
computing, and I saw the latest James Bond movie where HP's Jornada
430se Palm-size PC was used in an attempt to disarm a nuclear warhead
(see my COMDEX report in newsBYTES). I also got to see quite a bit of
Windows CE hardware and software, including most of the products
discussed in this issue.
We look at three Handheld PC Pros in this issue. Vadem
has released an improved version of its unique Clio. It's faster, has
more memory, but still incorporates its folding-hinge design. NEC has
just announced the new MobilePro 780 and 880, faster versions of its 770
and 800 MobilePros. Finally, we review Hitachi's ePlate H/PC
Pro. It's
one of the few H/PCs entirely without a keyboard.
You may notice that our "At A Glance" table
of Windows CE devices shrank a little this issue. We list discontinued
PC Companions as long as I can still find them for sale somewhere. The
beginning of the new year was the perfect time to removed some of the
older Handheld PCs and a few Palm-size PCs that were no longer being
sold on the manufacturer's Web site.
Chris De Herrera reviews Primer, a PDF Viewer for
Windows CE devices. PDF files are an industry-standard way of
distributing documents, but until Primer was released, there was no way
to view PDF documents on a PC Companion. This has the potential of being
a very important application.
Handheld PC Magazine's Medical Editor, Ed
Zabrek, takes an in-depth look at some medical applications that save a
doctor's time and simplify patient care. And in the same section, a
young man with asthma describes how he uses his H/PC and a PC Card
"spirometer" to monitor the condition of his lungs. David
Shier takes a look at database solutions for the Enterprise, and Andy
Seybold looks to the future of Windows CE and sees the horizontal
turning vertical.
Of course we've got our New PC Companion Products
section (over 80 this time), Jim Christian's Quick Tips and PC Companion
Tricks, and Tom Gibson's PC Companion ONLINE (The best CE Web sites of
the last 1,000 years!).
We're particularly happy to have Steve Seroshek's
article on the ins and outs of connecting a PC Companion to an Internet
Service Provider. This is the first of a regular column by Microsoft
Technical Support on using Windows CE devices. What do you want them to
cover? E-mail me at rich@thaddeus.com.
My favorite article in this issue is a short, fluffy
one titled "Hailing a Taxi ¡ and the Internet!" It seems the
City of San Francisco, in conjunction with the Luxor Cab Company, NEC,
and the Metricom wireless service, is experimenting with the future of
taxicab service. In San Francisco it's now possible to hail a
Web-enabled taxicab.
