With thanks to ZSX on the forums

After seven and a half years of telling new Windows CE users that "CE" was not in fact a shortening of Windows Compact Edition, Microsoft's Embedded Systems Group - or at least their marketing people - have decided to shake-up their product naming conventions and back-track to where most new users thought we were already! Confused?

This is not the first time that Microsoft have massaged the brand names for their embedded systems products; NT Embedded became XP Embedded, Pocket PC 2002 turned into Windows Mobile 2002 in the back-product catalogue over-night and Windows CE became Windows Embedded CE with the release of core version 6.0.
As of Windows "CE" 7.0, the line will become known as "Windows Embedded Compact". The change has been made to facilitate an integration strategy for all Embedded system products so that the old distinctions between XP embedded and CE are replaced with architectural marketing paradigms.

This means that with CE celebrating its twelfth birthday later this year, the name-lineage at least will come to an abrupt end, although the product itself continues to go from strength to strength. Microsoft have also announced the availability of a new processional certification exam for "CE", Exam 70-571 which will be available from the 5th May 2008 and is designed to certify budding developers in Microsoft Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Application Development.

Never an April fool, the April edition of the Handheld PC Newsletter has hit the cyber shelves and is ready for you to download from HPCNEC. In this month's edition John Ottini and Rich Hawley open up the archives and delve into some more Handheld PC gems, including:

• Mobipocket Reader Pro 4.8
• Tip for using Mobipocket Reader
• Capt XP Pro
• Internet websites for eBook lovers
• The Quest 1.03 Graphic adventure software

A PDF viewer and an unzip application are required to read the electronic redistributable such as Adobe Acrobat, FoxIT or Primer 3.1.

Today, after a wait of 3 years, 6 months, 8 days, 6 hours and 27 minutes the Handheld PC Community Forums here on HPC:Factor have (incorrigible spammers not withstanding)celebrated the successful arrival of the 100,000th post to be made to the board.

The milestone follows on from the landmark 10,000th thread being created on the 20th February of this year.

But who made the 100,000th post? Certainly HPC:Factor staff members have been vying for the position, however when it came down to it second year forum member ZXS was statistically blessed with being responsible for us reaching the milestone!

Congratulations ZXS!

Keep those posts coming!

In the beginning there was Windows CE 1.0... but that was quickly replaced with Windows CE 2.0, then subsequently H/PC Professional, but for all of these transitions - not a whole lot changed inside Pocket Office.

So before way back then, long before anyone had even heard the name "SoftMaker", one company took it upon themselves to change the way that we did spreadsheets on Windows CE; and that company was Bye Design Ltd.

SpreadCE was refreshed as recently as last October, and remains under development - offering a far broader set of mathematical capabilities over Pocket Excel and most significantly offers charting abilities - in a much lighter, much cheaper footprint compared to its rivals.

John Ottini delved into the numbers and tabulates his thoughts on the latest release of this H/PC Classic.

Let's hear it! Which operating system do you use the most when you are synchronising / communicating with your Handheld PC?

If you synchronise with many systems, please specify the one that you find yourself using the most; if you use a Virtual Machine, please state the Virtualised Operating System and not the host one.

Some of you may think that we could likely predict the results of this poll! We are fairly hopeful that we can as well, but in a legacy community, anything can happen! So don't be shy, let us know what you use, and if you would like to tell us why you should be using any given platform, please by all mean share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Beware the ides of March; as once was said. While you ponder how to defeat the steady rhythmic beat of time, do take a few moments to download the latest edition of the Handheld PC Newsletter.

In the third issue of the year, John Ottini continues in his quest to bring the community the best and brightest of what we have to offer. In this latest edition he covers:

• Total Commander 2.0
• Tips for using Total Commander
• Tax Time for the Handheld PC
• Warehouse Guy CE

John also ends on a bright note, with news of the newsletters circulation figures; and very healthy they are too!

Download your copy of the Handheld PC Newsletter 2008 issue 3 from HPCNEC. A PDF viewer and an unzip application are required to read the electronic redistributable such as Adobe Acrobat, FoxIT or Primer 3.1.

ClearView Technology have released to us the latest screenshot set for the forthcoming miPC Infinity all-in-one mobile PC/PDA and Entertainment centre.

The new screenshot set outlines the main software features of the device, and includes some new images of the new Opera Mobile 9 for Windows CE (complete with modern rendering engine and tabs) - licensed by Opera for the first time onto Windows CE 5.0 for the Infinity.

The new screenshots mark a ramping up in PR activity from Quebec based ClearView Technology as the release date for the self styled 'miPC' draws ever closer.

Let us know what you think of the Infinity's software suite in the comments or on the forum!

5 Years really is a long time in technology. 5 years ago we were in the final month in the life of Windows CE .net 4.1, Windows Mobile was a day dream inside Microsoft Mobile's marketing department and if Intel's Gordon E. Moore's famous constant is to stand true then processors must have become between 2.5 and 3.33 times faster since March 2003!

5 years later we have Windows Embedded CE 6.0, with 7.0 bubbling away in the Redmond caldron, Windows Mobile is now all encompassing and yes, indeed we are seeing processors 2.5 times faster than they were 5 years ago! As if all that was not mind boggling enough. 5 years ago on this day a small, newly renamed website popped onto your screens for the first time - this website in fact.

This day marks the 5th year of HPC:Factor, and our 9th year of bringing the community legacy Windows CE content. It makes us especially proud to still be here on the net after all this time, and that there is still a loyal, niche community out there interested in the site and the platform in general. So whether you are an old member, or a new one, we hope that you will celebrate with us and continue to visit us now and into the future.

Happy birthday HPC:Factor!

Clearview Technology introduces the miPC Infinity, an evolution in mobile computing; the smallest, most versatile and offering the longest lasting battery life in its class.

It has been quite some time since we last heard anything new from the ClearView team in Montreal on the progress of the Infinity - named here in a contest by the HPC:Factor community last year. It is welcome to see that the release hasn't died, and is in-fact still progressing well; be it a little later than expected.

With the release of the press information ClearView have finally enabled us to formally reveal the pricing structure for the miPC Infinity. The miPC will come in two flavours, a base model and a GPS enabled model with fully features North American navigation software. The base version will RRP for $699.00 USD while the GPS edition will RRP for $849.00 USD. ClearView have informed us that a European channel partner for GPS on the forthcoming European release has already been secured. More information on the European release will come after the Infinity is available in North America.

Importantly for those who have been following the Inifity's progress from idea to reality, there have been some significant changes in the device specification from when we last heard news of the release. The non-trivial specification changes have accounted for the slip in the expected release date, however it is clear that these changes are a direct reflection of ClearView's interest in listening to the feedback received from the HPC:Factor community and these changes are certainly a response to consumer feedback.

The largest criticism of the original specification was the excessive use of dongles for peripheral connectivity, come release the WiFi (802.11b/g) adapter is now motherboard integrated. There have been many other tweaks to the hardware specification, and some major tweaks to the software suite, making the Infinity one of the most feature rich Windows CE releases ever made with some top names in mobile application development featuring alongside some very new and innovative utilities and applications designed specifically for the Infinity hardware.

Currently no actual release date has been stated, however based upon current plans, ClearView expect to see the Infinity his shelves in the US before the summer.

View: ClearView miPC Infinity Press Release (in full)
View: miPC Infinity Specifications

This month's Newsletter contains reviews of Pocket dbExplorer 2.2 by Phatware Corporation and SpaceWatch 1.30 by Fong Chee Keat.

As a special treat, please be sure to check out Rich Hawley's (of HPCNEC.com) contribution on FTP - File Transfer Protocol Explained.

The newsletter can be downloaded in Adobe PDF format directly from HPCNEC and read on any Handheld PC equipped with a PDF reader.

The latest DVD Catalyst update is now available through the programs update manager for both trial and registered users of the product.

The new minor build update makes the following changes, fixes and enhancements :

• New Profile: Epson P2000/P4000
• New Profile: Creative Zen 4GB
• New Profile: Blackberry Curve
• New Feature: Convert to YouTube compatible FLV format (in addition to from FLV)
• Fix: Windows Explorer Popup anomaly
• Fix: Volume level issues with in-between files
• Fix: Video settings issues when no files are in the queue

The update is 913KB in size, and can be downloaded and applied immediately to any DVD Catalyst 3.x installation.