Has anyone seen an official statement about this feature being dropped? I recall reading something in either the WM5 developer SDK or the ActiveSync 4 helpfile where it clearly says they are investigating ways to address the security concern of syncing over WiFi. I'm not sure they would have put that statement in their docs, and worded it the way they did if it was definitely gone. I would post the actual statement if I could, but I'm not at work. I think the SDK is officially released, so if any of you have Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2005 and an MSDN subscription, you can download it.
I just wanted to have a first had look at WM5, which I think is the bigger story: so far its unimpressive to me. Besides the new WMP 10, which I have with the X50v, I'm not seeing much new. Setting up connections is still intimidating and confusing. One interesting feature for me is that it has a built-in GPS manager (not a GPS mapping application) that allows multiple programs to access my GPS at the same time. Not a big deal, but interesting all the same. I assume there is a lot under the hood of WM5 that will make it a solid OS but that's a different post for a different thread. I still suspect we will see an updated ActiveSync at some point that will address the wireless issue.
As far as it's me concerned, Wifi Sync is a very important feature. I have a VPN from home to my office. I sometimes don't show up to work for 4-5 days and still need to sync. This saves me a trip or two at least every weekend.
I know its a pain in the A$$ to set it up this way, but if you need it (like i do) you need it.
B. Not buy a VPN router and just wirelessly sync via plan old wifi.
What option would most people choose? Hummmmm $100. See what I am getting at? Most people follow the money every time.
With all the flak MS has been taking over security lately I can hardly blame them. Look how many people were running PC's without a firewall before the free one that MS included with SP2. Even though you could download one free firewall before SP2.
Look how many people run their wifi's wide open without WEP WPA. One can say that "that's their problem not mine", then consider how worm viruses that spread from unprotected PC to unprotected PC and slowed down the net for all of us. You might want to reconsider. Is wifi Activesync capable of spreading a virus or worm through an unsecured wifi syncing? I am not a security expert so I can say it defintely can or cant.. but the poker player in me says yes.
They are really in a no-win situation... so given that, I think they went with making AS more secure.
Couldn't you run a VPN using software on your PC?
Microsoft, do realize that Bluetooth will become more popular as this happens until it's not secure anymore. Just allow WiFi syncing and make it automatically set up a VPN.
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Originally Posted by A friend of mine who has a Linux kernel named after his girlfriend.
If I was VirtualBox, I could load my virtualization module into Hannah and boot up another kernel in the same address space.
I use WIFI to sync all the time so it'll be a real nuisance to lose that feature.
But I thought I'd try and experience Bluetooth syncing to see how that goes instead. Went and bought myself a USB bluetooth dongle; installed all the software.
It seems my Bluetooth driver has insalled syncing on COM11 and COM12. When I go into activesnc->file->connection settings the highest COM port I can select is 9! Arrr, does anyone know how I can get past this problem ? ( The problem being that Activesync (ver 3.7.1) cannot select a COM Port high enough?)
I can see why this could be very annoying for some people but it won't bother me that much at all. All my syncing in the office is done via cradle which also keeps it charged up and out of the way off all the other junk on my desk.
At home if it's not left in my briefcase or I'm using it, then again it's stick the PDA in another cradle to keep it out of harms way and kept charged up.
The only thing I use WiFi for is to transfer files from my ebooks collection to the PDA!
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