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Paqqin' Heat: Start/Settings - Part 1
Written by Upton Au  [author's bio]  [read 21417 times]
Edited by Derek

      

Page 1 

Reminiscing back to the day I first received my Compaq iPAQ H3650 - July 13 of 2000 to be exact- nothing comes to mind as readily as my refusal to settle for the cardboard cut-out of a silver slab that was my Pocket PC, and my zealous desire to truly make it my own. Among the most obvious methods of customization reside in my Preferences/ Settings, and of course, 3rd party software.

In this first column of Paqqin' Heat, I would like to discuss some of the minor but effective modifications to the Settings I've come across that have made my iPAQ even more of a pleasure to use. I concede that this article, as well as some of those to follow, will apply mostly to iPAQ users, as I myself am one. With a little imagination however, I'm sure users of other devices may be able to adapt some of my ideas to their own lives and Pocket PC's, which is what customization is really all about.

The fact that the iPAQ was never designed specifically for one-handed operation and lacks features such as the numerous side buttons and scrolling devices of the Cassiopeia and Jornada PDA's in no way means that it can't be used as such. This was done to accommodate the Expansion Sleeve system, which in my opinion, should really be backpacks that clip-on at specific areas of the case leaving the sides free for buttons and such - but that's meat and potatoes for a 'soapbox rant' column (another article entirely).

Making the iPAQ as one-handed friendly as possible has to do with making the most of the buttons we do have. On my device, I've left the Calendar, Contacts, and Voice Recorder buttons alone, keeping their factory default settings. I then accessed Start/ Settings/ Personal/ Buttons to reassign the Q-Menu button to activate the Start Menu and the Q-Start button to Tasks. As I find that a running list of Tasks to be favorable for day-to-day matters, having a hot button assigned to this app facilitates keeping it current. Why is each button assigned to that specific location you may ask? As a right-handed user, I cradle my iPAQ with my fingers, with my thumb lying across the hot buttons and Joypad. The tip of my thumb rests most naturally on the Q-Menu and Q-Start buttons, with instant access to both the Start Menu and Tasks.

By simply pressing the Q-Menu button, I power on and have access to my Start Menu, all in one touch - works great for me. The Q-Start button for Tasks, as well as those for Calendar and Contacts, not only start their respective applications, but will bring you to the dialog box to make a new entry if you press and hold them, very much like the whole Tap and Hold concept with the stylus. For example, if I press and hold the Contacts button, the information form for a new Contact will be displayed.

Windows Media Player, be it 7.1 or the ROM's default, is one application I use often. Key-mapping is a great feature, one that should be used to its fullest. Through Tools/ Options, I mapped my Calendar and Contact buttons to Play and Pause respectively. I left my Q-Menu button alone, so I'll always have access to my Start Menu. The Screen Toggle feature was moved from the Action button (pushing the Joypad in) to the Q-Start button to avoid turning off the screen rather than closing dialog boxes. I initially set Volume Up/ Down to the Up and Down positions of the Joypad, only to find that instead of scrolling to see the next paragraph in Avantgo, I was blasting my eardrums with deafening music- read: anything higher than the lowest volume setting on the iPAQ. A simple fix turned out to be mapping Volume Up/ Down to the right and left buttons on the Joypad.

Several things to keep in mind: first, your hot buttons, i.e. Calendar, Contacts, etc. are disabled if you have them mapped to other functions in Windows Media Player; for this reason, I left my Q-Menu/ Start Menu button alone. Also, I've been unable to remap the Voice Recorder button to Next Track, so it simply opens the Notes application when pressed. Quite a pity it doesn't pause playback and record a voice memo, even when pressed and held down…

That's it for this inaugural article, stay tuned for the next Paqqin' Heat, in which I'll address the rest of the minor Settings tweaks I've implemented, as well as the all-important Start Menu.

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