[General Topics] Menneisyys:
1.3.2 TCP/IP connectivity

As far as "full" TCP/IP connections are concerned, there are two main connectivity types you'll want to consider using: Bluetooth (BT) Personal Area Network (PAN for short) and Wi-Fi. The latter can use both p2p (peer-to-peer) and infrastructure mode (via a traditional access point anywhere in your house). Let's take a look at the (dis)advantages of each solution.

1.3.2.1 Bluetooth PAN, when compared to Wi-Fi, has the following advantages:

It, generally, consumes far less power than Wi-Fi, meaning much better handheld battery life

It uses at least an order of magnitude less radio power, which may be an issue if you constantly keep your PDA in your hand and you're afraid of the effects of the constant radiation

On the other hand,

it is not compatible with some major Windows Mobile Bluetooth implementations; most importantly, that of Microsoft. This is because the MS BT stack doesn't really support true BT PAN, not even in WM5 AKU3 / WM6, as has also been explained in the AKU3 Networking Bible. This means you can only make use of BT PAN on, say, a current Windows Mobile phone (which, generally, except for some rare exceptions like the, in this regard, excellent Fujitsu-Siemens T830, run the Microsoft BT stack as opposed to that of the much superior and BT PAN-capable Widcomm/ Broadcom) if and only if you manually install the Widcomm BT stack on it and disable the original Microsoft one. This is not likely what you really want to do in some cases, particularly if you plan to use your phone with an external Bluetooth headset and / or as a Bluetooth modem, because, as of now, no "hacked" Windows Mobile phone models have decent support for external headsets or dial-up modems. If the Widcomm BT stack runs on them at all, that is - for example, currently, it doesn't run on the HTC Trinity (P3600), "only" on the Universal, Wizard and TyTN, as far as the most common models are concerned.

while Wi-Fi supports auto reconnection (when you power up your Windows Mobile automatically reconnects to the last access point or, in p2p mode, other computer it was connected to), BT PAN must be manually reconnected. The latter may require several screen taps.

as it requires a direct connection between the desktop PC and the Windows Mobile device, it has much more limited range. Effectively, you'll be only able to remote control your media desktop in the same room. With Wi-Fi, particularly when you control your desktop with a Windows Mobile device connected to the Internet via an Access Point, you can control your desktop from anywhere, even several rooms away from your desktop (remember the example of the kitchen?)

1.3.2.2 Wi-Fi

Finally, Wi-Fi. In our case, there are two kinds of Wi-Fi connections you can consider: a direct (peer-to-peer) connection between the desktop and your Windows Mobile device (this is a bit more complicated to set up at first, requires native Wi-Fi support in the desktop (which, particularly with desktop - non-notebook - computers, not always the case) and has less range) and full infrastructure-based connections (without a direct Wi-Fi p2p connection between your desktop and Windows Mobile device). This means you may want to prefer infrastructure-based connections in most cases, particularly when range is an issue. (An access point is closer to you and your Windows Mobile device than the desktop in your particular remote control setup.)

Please note that I've thoroughly elaborated on all of these questions in the Windows Mobile Multiplayer Games Bible. It's also there that I've linked in my BT PAN, Wi-Fi P2P and BT serial tutorials - please make sure you DO read them if you want to use any of these three techniques to get your Windows Mobile device connected to your desktop.

1.4 Two main types of control: Web-based access and native Windows Mobile clients

There are two main kinds of MMRC apps. The first group offers Web-based access from, in general, any Web browser running on almost any kind of the client (which, therefore, can even be a "dumb", albeit still Web-capable client like a low-end mobile phone); the second uses a native, dedicated Windows Mobile client running on the client device.

Let’s see the advantages / disadvantages of the Web-based solution compared to the native one! The advantages:

You can use it without installing anything on your Windows Mobile device (if you hate installing anything on your device OR it's restricted / blocked in some way)

It's platform-independent. This means it can be used from any kind of a Web-capable client device. Furthermore, this also means the user interface on these different clients will exactly be the same (except for some platform-specific skins applied by the server). The latter has several advantages: most importantly, it'll be sufficient to learn how the GUI must be operated (for example, how desktop-side playlists can be accessed / edited etc) only once; after that, you don't need to learn a completely different GUI because you, for example, need to switch to a completely different MMRC product when you switch client platforms (from Windows Mobile to, say, Symbian, Palm, Linux or even a UMPC) - you can keep using the old, already-familiar one because it supports clients running on any client platforms.

The disadvantages:

They are, generally, considerably slower than native solutions. In some cases (see for example the commercial PlayerPal) this isn't really a problem, in some other cases (see for example the speed difference between the Xlobby clients), it is.

Even more importantly, because of the restricted and non-dynamic standard HTML controls (widgets), you can't for example have a simple volume slider to control the volume. You'll most likely have two buttons or a drop-down volume list to control your volume. The same stands for quickly seeking into a song - with some Web-based clients, it's plain impossible, while it's supported by most (but not all) native clients.

As there are several factors to consider when decidin between the two types of architectures, it's up to you to decide which way to go. Because of the severe restrictions and, generally, lower speed of Web-based MMRC applications, I'd go with native ones, but YOUR decision is up to you.

Note that there are MMRC apps that belong to both categories; that is, they have both a Web-based client and a native one (I recommend the latter for the greatly enhanced speed). Now, the only example of this is the free, excellent Xlobby; this may change in the future.

1.5 What multimedia remote applications are there?

Note that this section is pretty short - it's in the Comparison Chart (and in the explanations it's followed by) that you find most information on all titles. In here, I only give a very short introduction (except for the hard-to-configure and two-mode Xlobby) and link in Windows Mobile-related user forums, articles and reviews that may be worth checking out for more information (in addition to the information contained in the Comparison Chart, that is). In addition to the app-specific thread links, I also recommend these comparisons and this thread.

Note that I don't give you ANY definite "pick" - that is, there is no "most recommended" MMRC application. While there are some very nice titles (1-2-Remote, NetRemote2, Salling Clicker, Xlobby, PPCTablet (if you also need the additional functionality and prefer an all-in-one app) etc.), you have to thoroughly compare the advantages and disadvantages of each application yourself, using my feature / comparison chart and make a decision based strictly on your particular needs. It's just not possible to answer the question "which one is the best" without knowing your needs; for example, whether you need lyrics support or not. There is no "best" application that would have all the features all the alternative MMRC apps have, unfortunately - you'll need to make compromises.

1.5.1 Salling Clicker 3.0.1

This title is pretty remarkable in that it not only allows for controlling Windows, but also Mac-based desktops. Also, it's one of the few titles to support PowerPoint and a number of other desktop-side multimedia players and is also scriptable.

More user reviews here; note that early versions did have problems with BT reactivation; with the current one, I haven't run into problems like these.