One tool I am
always interested to hear people say they want is a way to control their
PDA from their desktop PC. One tool I think that IT trainers and
professionals would want is a way to better train their staff on how to
use a PDA. Long time remote computer control company LapLink has
introduced a solution to fit both of these needs and more with a product
called Controller. LapLink Controller gives you complete control over
your device, allowing you to use a keyboard and mouse as input. It
does not matter if your PDA is right next to your computer or still at
your office. As long as the device is on, Controller can connect to it.
The screen updates in real-time so what is on the device is on your
screen. Additionally to can take screen captures as well as movies, and
you can even create macros to perform repetitive tasks.
Controller
is not a complex application. Almost all the functions are immediately
available through the tool bars when you start the application, though
before you can use the functions, you have to install the Controller application
on your device. Instead of making you use ActiveSync?s Add/Remove
function by hand to install it, you can simply choose Install Device
Software from Controller. This makes it incredibly easy to deploy
Controller to a device. I tested Controller with the Pocket PC version,
and interestingly, it will run on Smartphone devices as well. Once the
device application is installed to the device, you can connect to it via
Controller. Most often I would think users would be connecting to a
local device, though it is possible to set it up to be accessible over a
wired or wireless network. This means that technically, if you left your
device on and connected to a network connection as your work, you could
access the device from your home computer and use it as if you had it in
your hand.
While the
response time is not exactly the same as if you were using your device
via the touch screen, it is pretty close to real-time when connected
locally. Longer range connections vary, but that is expected. The
device is still useable and most animations play fairly well over a
local connection and do not lag the connection so you can?t use the
device. The mouse click functions as a stylus tap. The mouse does not
appear on the device screen, but clicks (taps) function just as they
would on screen. It is possible to use transcriber, though this is
difficult because it is a mouse and not a stylus. But with a keyboard
there is no real reason to use standard input methods.
Screenshots
are a required piece of functionality for an application like this, and of course with Controller you
can click a screenshot. Controller also lets you take a series of
screenshots in a row. You can make a video just by the click of the
button and can even set the frame rate and the codec used to encode it.
By default, Controller takes video at four frames per second which makes
a decent training video. The mouse stays in the video so users can see
where is clicked, though clicks (taps) are not specifically
highlighted. You can see an example of a video encoded in DivX
here.
(Note that for better quality, full frames can be recorded, but I just
wanted a small example so I encoded with DivX, which makes the quality
not quite as good.) You willl notice in one point of the video the mouse
changes to a pen. When holding down the control key the mouse will mark
the screen until the control key is released. This is another nice piece
of functionality for training. You not only can record the video of what
happens on the screen, but macros can also be created. I am not exactly
sure in what situation a macro would be useful, but maybe if you wanted
to configure device without having to do each one by hand.
One thing I am
glad was not left out is synchronized clipboards. That means that
whatever you copy on your desktop will be available in the devices
clipboard, and what is copied on your device will be available on your
desktop. A number of utilities were also included to aid in the more
advanced requirements of some users. For instance, you can peer into the
device and see what is running, and even kill processes. On top of that,
you can monitor system resources including memory and battery life. You
can also manage files, but this is nothing different from ActiveSync
except that you do not need ActiveSync to do it and can do it over a
variety of connections. LapLink also chose to include a DOS interface
for using your device. This was an interesting choice because I am
really unsure how this would be useful. I suppose you could use it to
run scripts, but for the most part it is just a basic DOS emulator for
using your device. I do not know may people who use applications like
Pocket DOS on their devices so I am not really sure this would be useful
to most users. I am very surprised not to see a registry editor.
Actually, I was really hoping for that to be included since I don?t like
using a registry editor on my device and don?t really want to have to
install a development suite to access it from my desktop PC.
Controller definitely has presentational functionality
as well. It is possible to zoom in on the devices screen up to 300%,
though the quality of the image becomes worse as the zoom gets further
from 100% (up or down). VGA devices will better support a larger
viewable range on screen, but most devices are not VGA yet. For
landscape devices, Controller can turn the screen so you do not have to
turn your head. You can also draw on the screen with an overlay pen
(which I talked about earlier) and you can put up a black background
around Controller for presentations. And if you feel to far removed from
the look of your device, Controller allows you to download skins to make
Controller look more like your device. Buttons will even be mapped so
you can pretend to press the quick launch buttons on the device (though
sadly not all the buttons are always emulated because it is based on the
skin). The skins do not quite do it for me because they seem to lack
quality. Also I do not like that the skins have to be downloaded (even
for older devices like the X5) and some skins are not available (like
the Garmin iQue M5).
LapLink is not a new comer to developing software that
allows remote connectivity to devices. LapLink has put a lot of
work into Controller to make it an application that many different users
can use it for different things. Controller can be a remote
control tool, a training creation tool, or even a development support.
There are a couple things I personally would have liked to have seen in
Controller and some areas for improvement, but overall it is a strong
application. It is priced at $30 for the Windows Mobile version or
the Palm OS version and is well worth the cost if you need any of
Controller's functionality.
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