December, 2003

The December meeting was held at the corporate offices of Eaton Electrical outside of downtown Pittsburgh.  We saw presentations on some great items to receive for Christmas.  Phillip made us aware of some must have applications like Pocket Informant, MameCE, etc..  Andy showed an all around gadget techie must have items to put on our Christmas list, great job!  Earl gave us some technologies to look for in the coming year.  Victor shared his perspective on CF slots or the lack thereof for future devices.  Wayne finished up by showing us the $600 and up gadgets.  Check out the Presentation.

November, 2003

The November meeting was held at the Sheraton Station Square.  The Microsoft Presentation was a great success!  We even had a surprise speaker (Dale Coffing !!!) 

Pittsburgh Pocket PC Club was the local sponsor for

The Microsoft Windows Mobile
North America 2003 User Group Tour

See EVENT Meeting News Archive link on right for more information.

October, 2003

October meeting was hosted in Monroeville at the offices of Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure.  Unfortunately, this will be the last time we can meet at this location due to the company changing the meeting room into office space :-(   This meeting brought us two new members.   We welcome them both (Branden and Frank)... especially Frank who drove in from Harrisburg !  We spent about 3/4 of the meeting discussing Synchronization.  Phillip demonstrated Active Sync and its more hidden functions/options and also the back-up functions, then Wayne covered the flip side with Palm synchronization and finally, Earl showed us what Nokia Phone syncing was all about.  We also had a review presentation of the Travel Case by Office on the go-go from George.  Look for the review to be posted here soon on the site.

We discussed next months meeting and will need everyone's help to get the word out.  Check out next months meeting notice for more information on the exciting event at Station Square.

September, 2003

Septembers Meeting was the first meeting we have had in the Robinson Town Center / Pittsburgh Airport Area.  Although we had a great turn out for the meeting which was held at the corporate headquarters of Cutler Hammer, we did not have more then two people out of the 15 in attendance that were from that area.  We did receive 2 emails from others who could not make it but live or work near there.  This month we had an excellent speaker (Danette O'Connell) CEO and Founder of Grok Technologies who discussed the issues of 802.11 and all the future standards such as 802.11 A/B/G and even discussed security concerns and what to look for such as 802.1X and securing your wireless network from your own employees causing problems by installing their own wireless access points.  She also talked about her view on 802.11 roaming and partnering for 802.11 access all across the US at places such as rest stops on the turnpike ...

August, 2003

August meeting was hosted in downtown Pittsburgh at the law offices of Eckert, Seamans, Cherin & Mellott, LLC, where our gracious host was also the presenter.  We learned from John Williams everything you wanted to know about GPS but did not know where to look.   We learned interesting information such as the fact that GPS satellites are NOT in a geo-synchronous orbit (they move in relationship the earth's surface !!!  and all about the different GPS units on the market and their strengths and limitations.  Afterward, we had a short presentation/video demo of the latest Bluetooth GPS unit from Socket by Earl Sarain!  This little unit packs a lot of punch in a small wireless receiver.  Same receiver as the Pharos Hardwire GPS but with a Bluetooth Base to make it completely wireless (rechargeable batteries).

July, 2003

For July, we met in Wexford at the Kings Restaurant where we set up a wireless network using their existing Internet Connection.  An excellent turnout was present for the speaker (Gary Phillips) from Executive Automation LLC.  He talked about the contact management program Act! for small devices. The program Act! has revolutionized the sales force of many companies as well providing an alternate to the native contacts and schedule programs from Microsoft. Act! software can utilize the resources of a single marketer to a companies work force to more effectively maintain close contact with outside resources over time.  Gary was also gracious enough to give away 5 copies of various software for both PALM and Pocket PC such as ACT! for handhelds.  Good Food, Good Conversation and Good Presenter made for a great meeting.  We had a few new faces which was always nice to see.  We had close to 20 people at this meeting !!!

June, 2003

The June meeting brought us back to Monroeville to the offices of Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure.  We had a good sized attendance including one new member.  Earl made a presentation on Bluetooth.  Talking about the definitions, security issues, and limitations of Bluetooth.  This involved handouts and a demonstration of using the Socket CF Bluetooth Kit to dial a Nokia Cell phone using Bluetooth from a Casio Pocket PC 2002 device.  After a little bit of trouble, we also saw using the same Nokia Cell phone used to connect up for Internet Exploring on the Pocket PC at 56k Speeds wirelessly thru ATT Wireless service.

May, 2003

May brought us back to Cutler-Hammer in Warrendale where we had an exciting presentations by Doug Luce of Telerama.  He spoke about the history and development of the Internet in Pittsburgh.  Later he went on to discuss Telerama's Wireless Hotspots all over Pittsburgh and discussions on Doug's thoughts on where wireless is heading in the near future.  Doug graciously offered to help the club out by hosting this website. 

April, 2003

April was our first meeting at the offices of Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure thanks to our Vice President Phillip.  The presentation was extremely interesting from a local office of Symbol Technologies.  We learned about their current handheld devices being tested in WalMart and Grocery stores currently.  These devices allow shoppers to scan their items while they shop and simply hand the scanner to a check out clerk and pay their bill.  We were able to see the units in practice and everyone left with a greater knowledge of bar code and bar code scanners.

March, 2003

Our March meeting was held at the offices of Cutler-Hammer in Warrendale, PA.  Unfortunately, our scheduled speaker could not make the meeting, so Victor gave a talk on the various news items he had located, and we had a lively discussion and Q&A session regarding wireless standards, PocketPC features, CF card prices, games, security measures, and all manner of interesting topics.  The highlight of the evening had to be when we set off the building alarms by holding the door open too long. 

February, 2003

January, 2003