ikehiker

First, you should read the FAQ linked from the first post in this thread - especially the question about "Can anyone suggest a CF card for my Axim? " before you buy the Dell card.

Some of the other answers are there, too, but I will point out that a wireless network requires two pieces of WiFi equipment to function. As for ways to do it, these are answered in the FAQ and the How-to.

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-Ike-

soy power

I'll tell you what I suggest...
Go to your nearest Circuit City and look for a card that has a rebate. Preferably one that has expired. If they have left the item marked down beyond the life of the rebate you can get them to "pricematch" the cost down to that of the rebate. I just got a Netgear CF 802.11b card for $25 like this!
Whatever you choose, I would keep the hardware consistent within a namebrand. It makes setting it all up a bit more painless. (i.e. - I bought all Netgear products; router, PC card, etc.)

p.s. Wifi is much faster than usb for just about any concievable activity.

ikehiker

Since there have been quite a few questions lately about an Internet connection while away from home, I've added another Q&A to the FAQ (near the bottom). As always, suggestions/critisms are appreciated.

__________________
-Ike-

alom

Hi, all. excuse me if I'm being a little on the 'dumb' side but I tried to follow the instructions on the wireless networking and syncing. I'm pretty new to wireless networking (my woreless router/ap came yesterday!)

I was looking at the Wireless sync section on the guide and Step 3 seems to not make any sense, maybe because I'm using Pocket PC 2003? These options aren't on it! If I go to Tools > Options on ActiveSync from my Axim I get: PC Synchronisation.

'When syncing remotely with a PC. Use this PC: [Now there is a drop down menu with the name of my PC there, underneath, there are two check boxes: 1. Use mobile schedule to sync with this PC, 2. Sync with this PC during manual sync. I also have a button called 'Options'.]

The network card that I hace on my Axim is set to connect as Internet not Work, is that the possible culprit? If I set it to work, I find that I need all these usernames and passwords that I do not have.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated,

Alom

neo256mb

Hi,

i read the Wireless how-to's and unfortunately the section you point to doesn't really give clear guidelines for a complete Wireless set-up in a Dell Axim with Pocket PC 2003 which has confusing options.

If you look in the PC 2003 you will see that Microsoft unfortunatly dumbed down the options so that they are incomprehensible. Basically you can choose between "My ISP" and "My Work Network" and elsewhere there are choices for Work or connect to "Internet" but "Work" actually means when you are trying to connect to any private network which is what I am trying to do at home.

so anyway, it is completely confusing and the directions from the PC 2003 help pages are horrible AND some are outright incorrect. They say do a, b, and c, but sometimes there is no "b".

If anyone has succsefully set up a wireless AP router and home and has a private Lan at home AND has Pocet PC 2003, I would love to see the details of your set-up.

I currently set it up to be all "My Work" because that seems to be what Microsoft says are the correct settings for a private network. I guess they didn't think people would have a private network at home. Anyway, my hardware is Dell Axim X5 with a Dell TrueMobile wireless CF card. My desktop is Windows 2000 running the newest Activesync 3.7, pocket pc 2003.

In the wireless-how-to I did see where it says to do Setting, Conections, etc. but my wireless connection still doesnt work. It sees other Wireless Ap's but it cant seem to get internet access.

ikehiker

neo,

You are essentially correct the way I understand these things. The "My ISP" settings (listed as "Internet" on PPC02) are really designed for dial-up connections while the "Work" settings are for a LAN. It would have been much simplier if they had just said that, but M$ apparently likes to be cryptic. My guess is, the people that wrote the programs for PPC and now WM03 have little or no experience using M$ networks. I don't know, maybe they were originally Palm users?

Anyway, I, unfortunately, do not have WM03 so I'm not going to be too much help. I did add a note in the WiFi How-to just before the "Networking your Axim" section about the work settings for WM03 that esperdiv posted on a thread that might be some help. There are a couple of threads about it in the WiFi forum that may be some more help.

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-Ike-

aximer

Anybody know is there any thread that is talking about how to set up bluetooth for Axim? Basically I am looking for how to configure my Axim to access internet through Home network and through mobile phone(GPRS).

Thanks.

ikehiker

aximer,

I don't use BT so I haven't been paying too close of attention to those threads. A search of the site came up with several on using it to sync with your PC, including this one. There were a lot of 'hits' with bluetooth as a keyword. You might try it in combination with your phone's name/model and see what you come up with.

Also, I want to announce on this thread that Chris (AximSiteAdmin) has provided space on AximSite for the wireless information pages. As soon as I finish this post, I'll edit the links in the first post of this thread and I've also changed them in my signature.

Thanks again to everyone that's helped with those documents and now, of course, to Chris for the webspace.

The url is wifi.aximsite.com

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-Ike-

MyUncle

GREAT THREAD AND TUTORIAL!

Thanks to all for their time and effort! This has been profoundly helpful! It instills a little more confidence to counter act the fear of the unknown. It is a testament to the site and everyone involved with posting to it. Again...Great Job Chris. {applause}Thanks Ike {more applause}

wulfers

OK, great posting, but... Some of us novice WIFI Syncers are still sunk....

I can get my Dell Axim WM2003 to get a connection to my Dell laptop wirelessly using it as an ad-hoc connection type, but... When I do connect I connect as Guest... I have references to both the PC and the PDA in the host files on each device. I can ping either device from either device. When I sync using the USB cable all is well, sync with wireless... PC see me as guest. This sounds like an issue resolving who is connecting, but since the activesync 3.7 doesn't log much (I looked) I am clueless as to why the PC sees my pda as a guest. What should I look into now??? Thanks...

ikehiker

I'm still using PPC02 so I won't be able to give you any definite solutions but I'd first make sure any firewalls you are running either give unlimited access to WCESCOMM.exe or have the proper ports open (do a seach for firewall and you should find some hints).

I'm not sure if PocketHosts works with WM03 but if it does, you can use it to associate the PC's IP number with the host name.

Finally, if you haven't changed the Axim's name to remove the underscore or any other unusual characters, I'd also do that. Making this final change will require making an new partnership via the USB cable before trying the WiFi connection.

__________________
-Ike-

NOSTROVIA

I have a laptop running XP and and Axim with Pocket PC 2002.
I set up an Ad Hoc network using a Linksys wireless B card in the laptop and an Ambicom CF card in the Ax.
They are talking to each other but the best I can do is to copy and paste files from the laptop to the PDA and wirelessly synchronize. I want to be able to use the Ax to open files that are on the laptop and see them on my PDA. I have tried NETOPWIN, VNC (the files on thePDA say "this is not a pocket PC application) and Terminal Services Client hoping to do what they say is possible. ie: control laptop with my PDA. I believe I accurately followed IKEHEIMER's suggestions, tried various things Microsoft suggested in articles on the web. I've changed the TCP/IP settings back and forth and up and down. I have changed my settings to share files. No luck.
Although I am not a newcomer to fussing with settings I feel that there may be some fundamental piece of info that I'm lacking.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

PS: This is my first post to any forum in 7 years on the internet so if my format or protocol is lacking, please excuse me.

ikehiker

First, welcome to the site. Second, who's this Ikeheimer you are talking about :) (Just joking)

If you are sure your folders are shared on the PC, you should be able to map to it from the Axim and open any file that you have an appropriate application for. While there are 'cheaper ways,' I think the easiest would be for you to use Resco Explorer. The WiFi How-to describes it in some detail but essentially, it lets you map the shared folder so then it just looks like another folder on the Axim. If you double tap on a file, it should open (again, though, only if there is a suitable application for it).

__________________
-Ike-

NOSTROVIA

Ike,
I could not determine how to map a network drive from the Axim so I followed your advice and dowloaded a trial version of Resco Explorer. It was a snap to map to any folder on my laptop. I'm now able to run files from the laptop on the Ax. Thanks for the tip.
It seems well worth the 20 bucks to get the complete version of this program. My one broad complaint. There are no box stores in my area that sell this kind of software. We have CompUSA, the dreaded Best Buy, Circuit City, Babbages but what little PDA software they sell is mostly games and mapping stuff. Anyone else notice this "problem"? I live near Pgh and would appreciate any recomendations for box stores that sell PDA software. Thaks again.

ikehiker

NOSTROVIA,

I'm glad you got it working. I'm afraid I don't know of any brick & mortar stores that handle PDA software. I've never even looked for any that way - always using online places for everything I've bought. I looked on Resco's site and they only mention Handango as a source so I'm not sure it's even sold other than online.

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-Ike-