We received an email announcement from Hand Held Products regarding the release of the Dolphin 7850.  This device is now available, although it has not been posted to the Hand Held Products website as of yet.  Please note that the 7850 is supported by ITScriptNet as of version 2.3a.

Are you planning to attend BlueStar's Vartech event next week in Nashville?  The registration system you will be using at the event was developed by us with our ITScriptNet data collection program development software.  The system integrates the scanning of your Vartech ticket, the confirming of your information, and the printing of your Vartech badge.  We hope you enjoy using the system.

Please stop by the Z-Space booth (#126) to see various applications running on Hand Held Products, Motorola, Unitech and Datalogic devices that were developed quickly and easily with ITScriptNet!  Register your thumb at our showcase demo to win prizes!

See you in Nashville!

Our phone system is down this morning.  If you need to contact us, please use email while we work to resolve the problem.  We apologize for the inconvenience.

If you are a reseller looking for more detailed information on all of the ITScriptNet editions, we have posted an updated Sales Package.  This document contains all of the details of features, applications, licensing, pricing, etc.

Last spring, we wrote several articles regarding the new Daylight Savings Time change, and how Windows Mobile and Windows CE were affected.  This weeks Windows Updates patches include a new update to the Daylight Savings Time rules for the PC.  From the linked article, the following updates were made:

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Updates from the previous cumulative Windows time zone update
The following changes have been made since the previous Windows cumulative time zone update, described in KB article 931836:
• Caucasus Standard Time
Changes display name to Caucasus Standard Time as cities in the previous display name have separate time zones, and removes DST settings.
• Armenian Standard Time
Creates a new time zone for Armenia to better align with different DST changes in the Caucasus region.
• New Zealand Standard Time
Adjusts DST start dates and end dates according to changes signed in to law after the prior cumulative time zone update was created (February 2007).
• GTB Standard Time
Corrects the display name for GTB Standard Time on Windows Server 2003 SP2 to include Bucharest.
• Jordan Standard Time
Adjusts DST start times, end times, and dates according to changes signed in to law after the prior cumulative time zone update was created (February 2007).

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Several years ago, when we started development of ITScriptNet's font support, one of the first things we noticed was that Windows CE and Windows Mobile devices have a different set of fonts than Windows on the desktop.  All versions of Windows since Windows 95 have included Arial and Time Roman, as far as I am aware.  However, enumerating the fonts on a Windows Mobile device shows a different story.

Instead of Arial and Times Roman, we get Tahoma and Courier.  Why is that?

I can't find any official information on this, but I believe I have a good idea of the reasoning.  First, let's start with Verdana, a font that is commonly used for Web design.  This font was specifically designed for readability in small sizes on screen.  You can read an interview with the designer here.

So why Tahoma and not Verdana for Windows Mobile?  Well, Tahoma is also a font designed for readability at small sizes on screen, but is a narrower font with slightly less space between characters.    I suspect this may be one reason.  With a 240 pixel wide screen, a narrow font saves valuable real estate.

There is also another reason that I suspect may be important.  In comparing the Wikipedia entries on Verdana

 and Tahoma, I discovered the mention of the Combining Characters Bug, and that Tahoma has better Unicode support.  Since Windows Mobile is entirely Unicode-based, it makes sense that a font with good Unicode support would have been chosen.

So, although I can't find any documentation to prove it, I believe that Tahoma was chosen for Windows Mobile because:

1. It is highly readable on screen and at small sizes
2. It has good Unicode support
3. It does not have the Combining Characters bug.

Recently, we've discussed support for some of the new Windows Mobile screen sizes that have been added with the release  of Windows Mobile 5 and 6.  If you've ever wondered why these screen sizes were chosen, you might find this article interesting.  Although it's an old article, we are finally starting to see some of the screen sizes discussed become available.  No devices with 480x480 screens yet, though.

Where did 240 come from?

We've received an Intermec CN2B from a customer, and we are working on a client for it.  This device runs PocketPC 2003.  We'll have the client available in our next release of ITScriptNet.  In the meantime, if you have an application that will be using the CN2B, please contact Support if you would like to try a pre-release client.

If your Windows Mobile device has a GPRS radio, and you use it for more than just data collection, you might want to check out Windows Live Search.  Version 2 has just been released, which adds more support for local data, caching of maps to a Storage Card, better GPS integration, and more.  We've used it while travelling, and have been impressed with the routing and mapping features.

HandHeld Products now produces Dolphin 9500 series mobile computers with Windows Mobile 5.  ITScriptNet supports this device in version 2.3a with the Dolphin Windows Mobile 5 client. 

If you are using Dolphin 9500s with the older PocketPC 2003 Second Edition operating system, use the Dolphin 9500 client.

Happy July 4th!  We are closed today to celebrate the holiday, but we'll be back Thursday.

We've published the July edition of ITScriptNet News.  You may have received this in your email box as well.  This months new includes information about the 2.3a release, new Ready To Go apps, upcoming features, and more.

It was a long time in coming, but the latest ITScriptNet release is finally here.  Version 2.3a adds support for Hand Held Products Dolphin mobile computers running Windows Mobile 5, as well as Unitech HT660 and PA600 devices.  There are some new features and a few bug fixes as well.  You can see all of the detail in the Knowledge Base article Updates in ITScriptNet V2.3a(6).

We are very excited about this new release, and we hope you will download a demo and check it out for yourself!

If you have a Windows Mobile based portable device with a keyboard that contains function keys, you may have noticed that not all of the keys are available to be used as Hot Keys by ITScriptNet.  This happens because Windows Mobile has hard coded some function keys to system features.  You can see the list of keys here.  Although this article refers specifically to the Stand Alone emulator, some device manufacturers also follow it. 

Our experience is that Hand Held Products devices make all function keys available to applications, while Symbol devices do not.  You should test on your device to see which keys are available.

We have added a Knowledge Base article on this topic:
INFO: Not all function keys are available to ITScriptNet on Windows Mobile devices