Database Users

A combined Desk/Car Cradle Solution I use

There are a limited number of mounting solutions available for the Wizard, particularly for mounting with the keyboard open.
I have found a flexible solution from Brodit which works for me for use in the car and on my desk with the device keyboard open (a keyboard closed solution is also available for those who prefer it).
Below are the pictures and links for the components I used.
They comprise of
1: A Screen mount (although a dashboard grill mount is also available for individual makes of cars I chose the screen mount because I did not like the idea of the device being to close to the heater vents).
2: A Horizontal cradle (although they also do a Vertical one).
3. A pack of what they call 'Move Clips'.
The move clip pack comes with 3 parts - 2 Male and 1 female - as seen in the first picture and here http://www.dsldevelopments.com/moveclips.html
The male is attached to the back of the cradle, and one female is attached to the Screenmount.
When the screenmount is placed in the car, the cradle can now be attached and removed from it very quickly and easily.
The second female clip I have attached to a moveable block on my desk, so when I am not in the car I can mount the cradle on the block for desktop use. I could have just stuck the second clip to my desk, but chose to mount it on a block so I could move it about easily.
Althought they have a cradle option with USB car charger included (Active Mount), I chose the 'Passive' holder and use it with the charge/sync cable that came with the device as I don't have anywhere to connect a cigarette lighter charger in my office.
To see the mount options go here http://www.dsldevelopments.com/pdaholdersearch.asp and search for HTC Wizard, and here is direct link to the screenmount http://www.dsldevelopments.com/suctionmount.html - shown with an example cradle attached
I understand from various posts that this solution is not available everywhere at the moment but this company will ship overseas for those who can't locate the parts in their own country. Postage is reasonable, but e-mail them for a quote.
NOTE: I have no association with the site at the links above - I just used them and found them very helpful.

Handnav also provide a excellent Suction Mount unit that works really well with the Brodit equipment.

How did you place the move clip into the back of the screen mount??

Both the screen mount and moveclip have very strong double sided tape already fitted which seems to adhere very well.
However if ever necessary the tape can be cleaned off with spirit and super glue could be used to attach the clip.

Handnav also provide a excellent Suction Mount unit
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They do two, one that is the same mount shown above - it is made by Brodit, and a second which is a Dashboard mount and is shorter but does not have a flat mount plate from what I can see.

Here are some update pics.

Using an external GPS w/X7501

Is anyone using an external gps with their X7501?
My internal seems so hit or miss - works sometimes, then not at all. And usually slow to acquire a position.
I would be using a Garmin RINO gps as the external receiver and haven't found a male mini B to male mini B USB cable yet to connect them.
Any thoughts are appreciated.
Ron

ron-powell said:
Is anyone using an external gps with their X7501?
My internal seems so hit or miss - works sometimes, then not at all. And usually slow to acquire a position.
I would be using a Garmin RINO gps as the external receiver and haven't found a male mini B to male mini B USB cable yet to connect them.
Any thoughts are appreciated.
Ron
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well can't help with cable but would think the 4 in 1 would let you
access USB port,I use a BT332 receiver with 7501 occasionally and it works
well,possibly a bluetooth off Ebay would be simpler.

I've been thinking of doing the same with a USB GPS I have which I know is extremely sensitive, and fast. I just don't have a 4-in-1 to test. I would leave it in the car for road trips and use the internal (and pray) when on foot.
If it helps, you aren't the only one. Many people have had problems. One person opened his up and claims that messing with the internal antenna fixed his problem, so it might be a manufacturing issue. Others have tried various ports and baud speeds and found solutions that way.

OK, I bought the 4 in 1 cable.
I tried a program called "VisualGPSce" to see if the receiver was passing on a position. I tried selecting any/all of the various serial ports available in the program, but none were getting any information from the receiver.
The Garmin interface is set to NMEA.
Any ideas?

Did you set up the port in the Connections > External GPS?

techntrek Did you set up the port in the Connections > External GPS?
I finally got around to playing with the ports but was never able to figure out which port the 4 in 1 cable USB was supposed to be.
I also thought I might have a bad cable since it would not "see" a brand-x thumb drive. Plugged in a friend's Kingston drive and it was immediately recognized. (learned all this from another thread here)
Last night the internal GPS was working but I had to remove the 7501 from the metal case. Perhaps this is part of the intermittent reception problems, although if I remove the device from the case, acquire a position and then put it back in the case, signal strength drops but it will still provide position data. That case has saved my bacon a couple of times, having dropped the device from desktop height twice. No damage whatsoever to the unit.
Anyone have any idea where the GPS antenna is in the 7501 case (edge?) I could modify the metal case somewhat to give it a clearer field of view and go back to working the internal GPS.

On the back of the 7501 there are 2 small rubber pop outs.
One of those is connection for an external gps antenna,
it's located closest to the camera lens.
http://member.america.htc.com/downl...vantage X7501/HTC_Advantage7501_Manual_US.pdf

If you look around the net you can find the Athena service manuals, which may describe where the antennas are. Only from memory, I believe the person that opened his up and played with the internal antenna said it was along the top near where the antenna ports are (which makes sense since antenna ports usually plug in at the base of internal antennas).
Keep in mind those antenna ports are for external antennas, and not external GPS receivers. As you look at the back, the one on the left is for cellular, the one on the right is for GPS.

I guess it's again not necessary to allow for a clear view of the sky for the internal GPS antenna because it stopped working again. No amount of settings tweaks have gotten it going again.
I'm still interested to see if an external GPS receiver will provide position data for loaded software, but when I connect the Garmin RINO to the 4in1 cable, the Advantage asks for a "driver name" for the receiver. I doubt Garmin has such a thing.
I looked for a generically named driver in the /windows folder onboard and was unable to ID anything.

Windows MOBILE 7 Dream Phone

Lets make a thread to Show Microsoft we want a Windows Mobile 7 Phone, which operates in Windowed mode, like Windows mobile 6, and comes with a Microsoft-made or HTC-made custom phone specifically for the Windows Moblie 7 Platform
talk about what it might include, what features we'd like, etc..
The Windows Mobile 7 OS would operate similarly to Windows 7 on Desktop PCs, basically a slightly modified version of Windows 7 with flick-panning ability & touch zooming
The Hardware Configuration on the phone should be:
- Quad-core 2Ghz CPU
- 256-512 MB GPU
- 2GB RAM
- 1280x768 4" or 5" Screen Resolution.. 1080p is preferred
- My Display Port (MyDP) with cables & converters included
- 64 GB internal Memory as a Dedicated C:\ Drive
- Dual or Quad Internal (Under the back case) Micro SD Card slots, to hold 2 to 4 Micro SDs which function as removable Disk Drives
- Dual External Micro SD Card Slots, which function as Portable Disk Drives or removable USB Drives
- Each SD Card Slot is Dedicated D:\, E:\, F:\, G:\, H:\, I:\ etc..
- Minimum of 12 external hardware buttons
- Internally Retractable Cable-Attached Full-width telescoping Stylus with 2 hardware buttons and a scroll dial..
- Native Bluetooth External AAA battery-operated Mini Mouse & Foldable Keyboard
- Able to boot any OS, with each separate OS able to boot from each SD card Slot
- Bios Set up for setting default Boot Drive, Memory Settings, etc
- Ability to run x86 Windows 7 Programs..
- Ability to zoom out to full desktop view, eventhough it be small.. we dont need to read ever icon text on the desktop, thats what the icons are for..
- Dedicated 3.5 Video-in & Audio Line-In jacks, as well as a standard headphone jack
- Full-sized USB port for attaching peripherals & USB Hubs
- Rugged, water-resistant, & Shock-proof
- Gorilla Glass
- Bluetooth 4
- 4G
- GPS
- 12 Megapixel Camera pureview quality, with Carl Zeiss Lens
- 2 MP front camera
Now add to this list..
or create your own Windows Mobile 7 Dream Phone

The 12 hardware Buttons could switch back & forth between F1-F12 functionality, or to a set of user-defined other phone assignments
maybe F1-F12 functionality when the phone is docked to a Cradle, Docked into a Tablet Screen, or switched from App Mode to "Windowed Mode" or "Desktop Mode"
the 2 external micro SD Card slots would make it more easy for transferring files between various devices & users, while the internal SD Card Slots would remain protected from possible virus infection from external use
the MyDP connection would be at the bottom left, USB would be at the bottom right.. The Docking Cradle would have Both MyDP & USB Male Ports..
The Docking Cradle would have Common Display Ports VGA, DVI, HDMI, etc.. as well as a 4-port USB hub
Docking the cradle would attach both MyDP & USB, and allow connection from Cradle to HD Display, and use with USB mouse & Keyboard
How Awesome is that?

actually, phones now have 1920x1080 screens, i see...
and I guess 8-core processors may become the new thing as well
we need powerful programs that utilize these upcoming hardware configurations
and I'd like to view the entire Windows 7 desktop at 1920x1080, on my 5 or 6" ACTUALLY smarterphone's screen
yes, i dont care if you cant see it or read it.. I can, i assure you..
and no i dont care if it'd hurt your eyes or make you feel grumpy.. I want it
Has anyone tried installing XP in one of these phones yet?
how far off are we on that?
but we'd need an OS which is made for zooming from full desktop mode to panning mode or something better which takes us from full resolution desktop to multi- application windows
which is where Android should really be putting all of their resources
or Microsoft could take the market with a Windows MOBILE 8 made for this exact purpose
or, Apple, may even suddenly appear on the market with it, making their iPad as useful & functional as the macbooks, and their phones equally as functional & useful as well.. if they can ever stop milking technology & bleeding their customers dry for every last cent they may spend on something before offering the next decades late piece of technology
or we can all sit around gawking at each others swiping methods..

Touchscreen Addon Kit For 15.6" Laptop

I'm in the process of upgrading my Windows 8 Toshiba Satellite C660-15R Laptop, bought a new battery, wireless card and spare charger for when I'm away from home as the original is hidden behind the desk, and was thinking about adding Touchscreen capability via a Touchscreen addon Kit, but I've not seen any plug and play ones that are 15.6", I've only seen 1 15.6" one on ebay but it looks like a bit of a big project, so I wandered if there was any plug and play addon Kits that don't require the lid to be opende to rewire a kit to the screen?
Roland

Suggestions on headunits for open top kit car?

Hi everyone, I basically have an ongoing project at the moment where I'd like to have a headunit in the open top kit car me and a friend are building. Everything is full on stripped down back to basics, no ABS, no powersteering but we're keen to have a bit of fimiliarities with the headunit. I'm struggling a little bit on exactly what to get, I don't know if an off the shelf solution exists or if I'd have to go down something like the rasperry pi route but effectively here's what I'm after from the unit. Don't mind the idea of a tablet of sorts as well, but it would need multiple USB slots (see below).
Android OS is probably best for what we're after however open to suggestions/other ideas
Multiple USB slots 3 minimum - 1 for ODB/ Diagnostic connection, 1 for Apple CarPlay and the other for DAB radio if required
Resistive touch screen - there's no roof on the kit car we'll do our best to weatherproof it but we'd like for the screen to be not effected by droplets of water if it does start raining
Something that's not incredible slow
The monitor and the OS can be two separate devices if required e.g Resistive monitor and then trailing a HDMI/USB to the computer which would be in a dry wiring tray.
Has anyone done this? Seen anything that'd suit? We're really open to suggestions and looking to find a solution asap.