We noted in March that Honeywell was retiring the Image Kiosk and Transaction Terminal product line. June 15th was the last day that orders were accepted, according to the retirement announcement.

As we noted before, we will keep ITScriptNet support for these devices until our next release, at which point it will be removed. ITScriptNet 3.1c will be the last version that supports these devices.

Seagull Scientific has released Bartender 9.3. Bartender is label design and printing software for the PC. We like it because you can use a feature called Printer Code Templates to design labels for portable printers and print them with ITScriptNet's built-in printing support. This is a handy way to design your labels with a visual design tool, yet still integrate with ITScriptNet.

Microsoft has announced Windows Compact Edition (formerly known as Windows CE) version 7. This version will build on CE 6.0 R3.

We should expect to see data collection devices with CE 7 at some point. Hopefully the move of the Windows Mobile product (as opposed to Windows Phone) to the Embedded division will also result in a new Windows Mobile version built on this core.

Read the latest ITScriptNet News to learn about the release of ITScriptNet 3.1c, information about Voice Enabling your data collection programs, and more!

ITScriptNet 3.1c has been released. This is a maintenance update, which adds support for a few more devices. It also has some bug fixes and a few new features.

New clients include:

• Honeywell Dolphin 9700
• AML M7225
• Unitech HT680
• CipherLab 9300 and 9600

New features include:

• Added ResponseScan function to get the raw data from the last valid scan.
• Added the GlobalTimerInterval function to control the global Program Timer event interval.
• A handful of bug fixes and minor updates.

You can find all of the details in our Knowledge Base, and download the new version right now!

AIM has announced that they are reviewing a new 2-D symbology called the Han Xin Code. From the announcement, this code is described like this:

Han Xin Code is a unique, variable size, matrix symbology specifically optimized for two and four byte alphabets such as Chinese and other ideographic/pictographic alphabets. It is equally suitable for single byte ISO Code Pages such as English. Han Xin Code also includes an option for octet byte encoding for applications such as graphics and audio. Extended Channel Interpretation (ECIs) support is also included.

The review period extends until July 26th 2010. More information is available from AIM.

Intermec has announced an upgrade to the CN50 device, which now comes with 256MB of RAM. This should make the CN50 a good choice for voice-enabled applications, and for applications with large memory requirements.

If you are having trouble getting a mobile device to connect to your PC with ActiveSync, one of these articles might be helpful. I was especially surprised to see the note about Windows Live Once Care interferring with the USB connection.

Why isn't Windows Mobile connecting to my PC?
Note that Windows Live Once Care can interfere with the USB connection to your PC.

ActiveSync USB connection troubleshooting guide
This topic also applies to ActiveSync 4.5

We've discussed the new Windows Phone 7 and whether it was going to be an appropriate OS for a Data Collection device.

The latest information we have is that there is going to be a separation between Windows Phone 7 and the traditional Windows CE and Windows Mobile 6.5 line. Here is a post from Microsoft describing the changes.

The bottom line appears to be this:
Windows Phone 7 is based on the Windows CE 7 core, and is aimed at Consumer devices only.
Windows Mobile 6.5 will still be available, as will Windows CE, and will be used on Data Collection devices.

We have completed our move, with only about an hour of website downtime. If you experience any problems with registration from this point forward please let us know.

We are moving to a different unit within our building. As a result, our website will be down for a short period of time while we move the servers. The tentative plan is to move the servers on Friday night, after business hours (East Coast time).

We will strive to keep the downtime as short as possible. We apologize for any inconvienience this may cause.

Honeywell has announced that they are retiring the entire Dolphin 7900 line and the Windows CE version of the Dolphin 7600.

The Dolphin 7900 is being replaced by the new Dolphin 9700, and the Windows Mobile version of the Dolphin 7600 is still being produced. The End-of-life plans for these devices call for the Last Time To Buy in October 2010.

Intermec published the results of a survey of Fortune 300 companies where they find 67 percent are interested in replacing their consumer PDAs, cell phones and smartphones with ruggedized handheld devices. Of course 'Interested in' is not necessarily the same as 'has the budget for', so we will see if spending in this area increases. We also found it interesting that only 38% are paperless, with another 29% transitioning. This means there is a large market for conveting paper processes to mobile, almost 40% of the surveyed companies!

We are often asked about ITScriptNet OMNI communications, how best to provide security of the data. To address these questions, we have posted a whitepaper entitled Security Considerations for ITScriptNet OMNI Communications and posted it to the ITScriptNet Knowedge Base. The paper discusses topics such as Wireless security, WLANs, VPN, and ActiveSync.

Vartech Canada is coming up this spring, on June 7th and 8th in Montreal. If you are interested in attending, visit http://www.vartechcanada.com/ for all of the information.