Vehicle Tracking, Road Sanding, GPS & PDAs


Our team in the UK has developed a very interesting vehicle tracking system using Pocket PCs, GPS and PTO sensors for the local motorway department. When roads become slippery due to snow and ice, these "grit" or "sanding" trucks drive out to a pre-determined territory and begin gritting/sanding the motorways. When the PTO is turned on to begin distributing the sand/grit, it sends data to the Pocket PC, and the Pocket PC activates the GPS device to begin recording coordinates. When the PTO is turned off, the Pocket PC notifies the GPS device and stops recording. This information is synchronized back to the central GIS and motorway management system so all areas that have been gritted/sanded are recorded.

The value of this system is that the motorway management has a database and a visual record of where grit/sand was applied. This is useful if an accident occurs and the accident victims take the motorway management to court. They can also easily respond to reports of ungritted motorways and rapidly dispatch gritting/sanding trucks to those locations.

The power of convergent devices like a Pocket PC with powerful database centric mobile software solutions that can integrate multiple data input devices is amazing. PTO sensors? Who would have thought?

Thick or Thin Clients on PDAs?

What is a client in the context of a PDA? A client is a name for a Pocket PC PDA application on a wired or wireless network. Clients come in two varieties, Thick and Thin. "Thick clients" are generally the full Pocket PC operating system with a database application on it which is fully functional offline.

A "thin client" is a network device (Pocket PC) that relies on servers for applications, data storage, and administration. In other words, it most often uses a web browser on the Pocket PC to connect to the data source.

Which of these architectures are better? I believe having a database on the Pocket PC is best for most situations. Why? If you have no connection or a bad wireless connection, your software application can continue to function normally and later you can synchronize. This allows you to continue working and documenting your work on your Pocket PC with or without a good wireless connection.

If you are using a "thin client" or web browser interface into your database back at the office, then if you lose that connection you have no application. Without your online application, you risk not being able to do your job, provide poor customer service, and wasted time and expenses.

Intel, on their Mobilized Software website strongly advocates an architecture that allows you to continue working with or without a connection to a server.

In addition to the connectivity issues, a Pocket PC user often wants their software application to interface with many different hardware add-ons such as GPS, RFID, Bar code scanners, automobile black boxes, digital thermometers, surveying equipment, and much more. These add-on accessories can easily be integrated with a "thick client" that has a framework that supports third party data capture accessories. A thin client browser is not set-up to handled this environment and limits your ability to take advantage of these convergent devices.

Cingular 8100 Pocket PC - White Collar Dream


Most of our work here at MobileDataforce involves implementing software on rugged handheld computers, but we also have many projects in the healthcare industry and other "white collar" industries that would be well suited to this new Pocket PC from Cingular.

"Cingular Wireless today expanded its Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 portfolio with the introduction of the EDGE- enabled Cingular 8100 series Pocket PC with integrated Wi-Fi. The Cingular 8100 series Pocket PCs are fully featured yet cost-effective converged communications devices that provide end-users with dual high-speed wireless data capabilities on a global scale.

Pocket PC Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

I have not used it personally, but the concept is right on. The ability to have a slide out keyboard with a landscaped screen for reading large email messages is very nice. Combine the Pocket PC, Phone and wireless data connection and you are ready for business anywhere.

The quad-band means I can use it when I am traveling to our Den Bosch office in Europe as well. A great added bonus.

The National Park Service & Handheld PDAs


The National Park Service has been a customer of MobileDataforce for over a year. They are using TDS's handheld computers running on the Pocket PC operating system and the Intercue Mobility Suite software to do asset management in the National Parks. Not just the standard buildings, equipment and other common assets, but also national treasures in the form of archeological sites. In New Mexico and Texas they are capturing data on the locations and the inventory of relics found at archeological sites of native American Indians. This data is synchronized to a central database at the National Park Service.

I love examples of how handheld computers can be used on the side of a cliff, in the dust, sand and under a hot desert sun. Traditionally this was done with a dusty clipboard and faded paper forms that were filed in a drawer at the end of each day. Now this data can be automatically synchronized to a central database where students, scholars and the curious can have access to this historical information.

Hooters & Handheld PDAs for Customer Satisfaction

Several months back we were contacted by a company that owns a large number of Hooter's franchises. Hooters is a restaurant chain known for their marketing flare, understanding of their customer demographics, and undersized uniforms. They wanted to develop handheld PDA applications that would allow their servers to survey customers and gather information on customer preferences using Pocket PCs. They wanted the results of these surveys to be immediately synchronized with a central database so management could analyze the customers feedback and improve their business processes and customer's experiences as a result of this information.

During internal meetings, my engineers fought over who would get assigned to this project and be involved in the onsite user meetings. The good news is that our Intercue Mobility Suite is very easy to use for creating data collection forms. The bad news is the Intercue Mobility Suite is so easy they did not need our engineers. Sorry team, better luck next time.

Cattle Tracking Systems, RFID & Handheld PDAs


A very interesting company called Micro Beef, just announced an addition to their ACCU-TRAC® Systems Suite solution for tracking and managing cattle called ACCU-TRAC® Mobile. This solution includes RFID, Psion Teklogix handheld computers and MobileDataforce's PointSync software. The press release discusses the purpose of this solution:
  • animal identification
  • traceback
  • compliance
  • management
  • simplifying data collection processes so that farmers and ranchers can unlock the value of animal identification and tracking
  • designed to safeguard the health of the U.S. national herd, protect America’s producer interests, and meet the 48-hour traceback requirements of state and federal health officials in the currently voluntary National Animal Identification System.

My team is excited to be working with Micro Beef on this solution. This is one of those projects that can have a major impact on an entire industry.

Project Management & Mobile Solutions

Several years ago I took a week long course in software project management. I remember the instructor talking about the phases of a project.
  1. Everyone is excited about the project
  2. Hard work begins with a great deal of enthusiasm
  3. People begin to tire - the work is hard and tedious
  4. Frustration sets in - will we ever finish?
  5. There is light at the end of the tunnel, they see progress.
  6. A smile crosses everyone's face again - there are still some bugs and changes needed
  7. The project is cleaned up and polished off - everyone is celebrating

The instructor taught us that this is a natural software development project cycle. You know what, the instructor was right! Software projects are difficult, hard and tedious. Changing business processes and the way things have always been done is uncomfortable.

Sales people (myself included) often stress the ease and simplicity of a software project, but in truth our software consultants and engineers must put in long and hard hours developing a solution that meets the customer's expectations and needs. Technical issues without easy answers arise, people get sick or go on vacation, hardware does not get delivered on time or is dead on arrival, project timelines get missed, and unexpected issues emerge.

How do you avoid these issues? You don't completely. Experienced Project Managers simply anticipate them, build time into the project for them, prepare their clients for these issues, communicate them as they happen, and keep the client updated on project progress, and when it is all done. Everyone is celebrating!

Medical Use of Handheld PDAs for Children


My team is working on a very satisfying project right now. The project involves providing about 500 children, that have a serious disease, Pocket PCs that include an integrated phone and digital camera with our software to help monitor their condition at home. These children will report when they take their medicine, how much and share how they feel with their remote care givers via the Pocket PC. Any minor injuries suffered during the course of the day can be photographed and shared remotely with their care giver.

The data gathered on the children's Pocket PCs is synchronized remotely to a central database for the care givers. This allows a care giver to remotely monitor their patients through a browser based interface.

We used our PointSync software to develop the graphically rich interface so the applications can be easy and appealing to the children. We also created the management website for the care givers. It will be very interesting as we roll this project out to hear from the children and gather their feedback on usability issues.

Handheld PDAs, Hurricane Katrina & Automotive

It was just before 8 AM and I received a very interesting call from a large engineering firm asking for our expertise. Seems they were bidding on an urgent project to locate and remove 150,000 abandoned cars in Louisiana following hurricane Katrina and they needed our help.

The requirements were for data collection software and handheld computers with integrated GPS and bar code scanners to enable the tow truck drivers to quickly identify abandoned cars by their VIN numbers, record the location of pick-up, and then document the location where the vehicles were towed. This information would be synchronized to a central web-based database.

Luckily, we were prepared for this opportunity since we had recently completed a vehicle inspection application using our PointSync solution. This enabled us to quickly respond to the emergency inquiry and commit to achieving their very short deliverable timeline.

The Sync Log

For the technically inclined reader who wants to learn the details of synchronizing mobile devices to enterprise databases check out this blog written by Dave Wasden The Sync Log.

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