New to PocketPCs, many questions

dukeofurl · 06-16-09, 06:38 PM

I just got my Axim x50v yesterday, and I'm pretty new to the world of PocketPCs. I have many questions. I am an IT professional, so I am comfortable with pretty much anything.

How do I Move the start menu from the top left to the lower left?

Is there any version of Firefox that will run on this thing? (WM 2003se)

What is the biggest memory card that I can put in? Does it have to be SD, CF, either?

Are they both for personal external storage, or is one reserved for something specific?

Does this thing read SDHC cards, or only SD?

A lot of things I'm finding are only for Windows Mobile 5 or newer. Would I want to upgrade? What are the pros/cons of doing so? How would I go about it anyhow?

How do I change the desktop background? Get rid of all the unread message, tasks and upcoming appointments stuff? In other words, make it look more like XP.

How do I switch between running apps? Or can I?

Thank you

JakeRich · 06-16-09, 07:07 PM

Originally Posted by dukeofurl

I just got my Axim x50v yesterday, and I'm pretty new to the world of PocketPCs. I have many questions. I am an IT professional, so I am comfortable with pretty much anything.

How do I Move the start menu from the top left to the lower left?

I don't think that can be done, but maybe someone else can help you with that.

Quote:

Is there any version of Firefox that will run on this thing? (WM 2003se)

No, sadly.

Quote:

What is the biggest memory card that I can put in? Does it have to be SD, CF, either?

I've seen folks with 32Gig working in CF, but SD is limited to 4gig because the larger cards are SDHC, which is not supported.

Quote:

Are they both for personal external storage, or is one reserved for something specific?

Just storage. Make sure you put a My Documents folder on each card or it will be slow in startup because it has to inventory the card every time. Having a My Documents folder somehow avoids that inventory.

Quote:

Does this thing read SDHC cards, or only SD?

SD only, not SDHC. There is a driver for SDHC somewhere, but I don't think it's for WM2003, just WM5/6. Search for it if you want to pursue it.

Quote:

A lot of things I'm finding are only for Windows Mobile 5 or newer. Would I want to upgrade? What are the pros/cons of doing so? How would I go about it anyhow?

There are threads on flashing the ROM on this site. As for pros, you would get to run those programs you mentioned. The con is that the X50v doesn't have the same kind of memory chip as the X51 series, so the benefits are not fully realized. As for whether or not it's worth it, that's a personal call.

Quote:

How do I change the desktop background? Get rid of all the unread message, tasks and upcoming appointments stuff? In other words, make it look more like XP.

Settings/Today/Items is where to customize the items on the desktop, Settings/Today is where you can set the theme. The theme has the background information. There are other themes available on the web. I used Expea Ext VGA for a long time, but there are a lot of themes out there, some free, some cost money.

Quote:

How do I switch between running apps? Or can I?

The easiest way is to just tap the icon for the app you want. The "X" doesn't actually shut down the app, it just gets pushed into the background. Tapping the icon again doesn't start a new copy, it just brings the background to the foreground. Of course, with everything running you consume a LOT of memory, so there are limits. To fully stop an application, Start/Settings/System/Memory/Running programs, select and tap stop to fully kill it. Or you can get a third party utility to let the X do that for you. Again, there are several available and a little reading here should find them for you.

Welcome to Aximsite and to the PDA community!

Quote:

Thank you

johnhu_2005 · 06-16-09, 08:19 PM

Welcome to Aximsite/Mobilitysite!

I have a bit of a followup to JakeRich's informative post.

WM6.1 allows some new capabilities to be unlocked for an x50v. It allows the full use of SDHC (I have got it to work up to 32GB). It is a bit faster and more responsive than WM2003SE.

If you are willing to upgrade, I can assist you in that process. Take in mind that it will void your Dell warranty, if you still have any.
~~~~~~~~~~
The start button cannot be moved, unfortunately.

We all wish there is a Firefox mobile... You might want to look at Opera Mobile/Mini. Those are the equivalent for a Pocket PC.

CF is "unlimited" because the largest CF I have seen is 64 GB. And that works...

AKAJohnDoe · 06-16-09, 08:43 PM

There is a alpha of Fennec for WM. I run PocketIE, NetFront V3.3, and Iris. Don't much like the way Opera takes over.

dukeofurl · 06-16-09, 08:54 PM

Thank you both for your replies. After doing some exploring, I have discovered Minimo, a Firefox-engine browser that will work in WM5 and later.

I think I do want to upgrade it to WM 6.1, but I'll do it later this week or maybe next week. 2003 seems to be more limited as time goes on...

Thanks

Julie · 06-16-09, 09:49 PM

Originally Posted by dukeofurl

Thank you both for your replies. After doing some exploring, I have discovered Minimo, a Firefox-engine browser that will work in WM5 and later.

I think I do want to upgrade it to WM 6.1, but I'll do it later this week or maybe next week. 2003 seems to be more limited as time goes on...

Thanks

Minimo is a waste of time. It is so slow and no longer supported. Try Opera Mobile browser instead. For pocket pcs, it really is the best browser around.

dukeofurl · 06-16-09, 09:58 PM

Hmm, good to know. Unfortunate though.

How do you get rid of the places on the desktop where it says No unread messages, no tasks, no upcoming appointments?

How do you uninstall applications?

How do you move the date from the top line to a click on the clock, like regular windows?

thanks

Julie · 06-16-09, 10:30 PM

Originally Posted by dukeofurl

Hmm, good to know. Unfortunate though.

How do you get rid of the places on the desktop where it says No unread messages, no tasks, no upcoming appointments?

How do you uninstall applications?

How do you move the date from the top line to a click on the clock, like regular windows?

thanks

To remove the items on your today screen (unread messages, tasks & upcoming appointments), tap Start > Settings > Today icon > Items tab > remove checkmarks next to Messaging, Tasks, Calendar (these things are called today screen plug-ins.

You cannot uninstall applications that come on the device out-of-the-box because they are installed in the device's ROM. Even if you could remove these applications, you would not get any real benefit by doing so since that type of memory is not user accessible - so you would not be able to use any of that "freed" memory. Any devices that are installed after it is in someone's possession can be removed by tapping Start > Settings > System tab > Remove programs icon.

You cannot change the data on the top line with the software that is factory installed on the device, but there are utility applications that you could use for this. SKTools is one such software that you might want to check out.

dukeofurl · 06-16-09, 11:42 PM

Are the 50 and 51 the same physical size? (because I saw this nice leather belt holster for the 51 on ebay, but I have a 50...)

johnhu_2005 · 06-17-09, 06:20 AM

Yes .

KimChee · 06-17-09, 06:43 AM

The newest version of opera you can run on 2003 is 8.65, if you upgrade your rom you can run newer software. Skyfire also works really well and is one of my fav browsers, so is opera mini and opera mini will run on 2003se..For me the alpha of Fennec was unusable. There are many browsers out there Iris, Mach5, Fennec, so there are lots of choices, though I think skyfire,opera mini, and regular opera are the best ones out there.