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Here’s an interesting challenge. You are often out of the office, and your office manager will use your Calendar in Outlook to schedule appointments for you while you are away. At the same time, you are setting up new appointments in your iPAQ. This leads to scheduling and sync conflicts.
To get around this, you have the option of setting up your iPAQ to sync with your server over your wireless connection. To do this, you need to have added Microsoft Mobile Information Server to The Rules are important for determining how to resolve sync conflicts, perform file conversions, and access the Internet while connected to a desktop. your server. It will allow you to dial in with your wireless modem and synchronize your Inbox, Calendar, and Contacts.
If you are syncing data with a server through MS Mobile Information Server, you cannot also sync it with a desktop PC. You can only use one or the other. To enable syncing with a server, select Options in the Tools menu in ActiveSync to open the Options dialog box. From here, select the Enable Synchronization With Server check box, and click the Configure button to go to a dialog box where you will enter the information for the server you will be synchronizing with.

The Rules tab of the ActiveSync Options dialog box allows you to set three critical elements:
how to resolve sync conflicts, how to do file conversions, and how to access the Internet. For conflicts in synchronization, you can choose to have a manual resolution (in which case you are prompted about what to do with the information), or you can set it to always favor the desktop over the iPAQ, or the iPAQ over the desktop.
The Conversion Settings button will enable you to specify whether files are to be converted when moved between the Pocket PC and the desktop. You can choose to not convert files such as Word documents (or any other file type). This feature enables your Pocket PC to act as a mobile hard drive as you move among different computers, but to access the file on your Pocket PC, it will need to be converted by the relevant program.
The Pass Through setting specifies how this device will be able to connect to synchronize IMAP4 e-mail services and browse the Web. The selection you make in the Connection box is generally some type of Internet connection.

The Sync Mode tab of the ActiveSync Options dialog box, enables you to alter how frequently the data from your iPAQ is synchronized with your desktop. By default, your iPAQ will synchronize with your desktop continuously. Every time a piece of information is changed in a desktop or Pocket PC application, the relevant record is synchronized on the other device. If this is not the behavior you desire, you can set ActiveSync to only replicate when your device is first connected to your PC, or you can set it to be manual and only synchronize when you click the Sync button in ActiveSync.

At any point you can tap the ? icon on the toolbar to go to the help area and learn more about the options on the toolbar. Tapping the OK button will close the correction window, returning you to the document with your modifications in place. Tapping the X button will close the window without making your modifications to the document.
In the correction window, you can correct erroneous words and add words to Transcriber’s dictionary. Transcriber has a built-in calculator that will solve simple equations simply by writing them on the screen. For example, if you need to know the answer to 4 × 3, simply write 4 × 3 = on the screen, leaving the answer blank. Transcriber will fill in the answer in the results that it transcribes into the application, as shown here:

If a word has been entered poorly or was recognized incorrectly by Transcriber, you can go to the Transcriber correction window to fix the problem. First, select the word that was incorrectly recognized (the fastest way is to double-tap it). Then open the correction window by drawing the Correction gesture, as shown previously; by drawing the Quick Correct gesture and then selecting Go To Corrector from the menu; or by tapping the correction icon on the Transcriber toolbar (which appears as a red check mark over a page of writing).The correction window will display a larger version of the word that you selected. You can correct an incorrect word by inputting directly over the letter or letters to change them. Alternatively, you can select an entire word and tap the alternates icon (appears as an uppercase A with a bar underneath it) in the new toolbar that is at the top of the screen.
The Alternates menu that pops up when you double-tap the word is shown in the following illustration. In this menu you can select a replacement for the wrong word from a list of dictionary words, add this word to the dictionary, change the case of the selected letter, add a space, or cancel to close the menu.The fourth icon from the left on the top toolbar allows you to switch the correction window from full-screen mode to partial screen. In partial screen you can still see your whole document while the correction window floats in the front.

Selecting text that you have already written is a bit tricky with Transcriber. When you move the stylus on the screen to select a letter or word, Transcriber will assume that you are now entering a word and begin drawing a line. You can select text three ways. In the first method, you tap and hold the desired text until the text is selected (usually about two seconds). The text will appear highlighted to show that it is selected. The tap and hold method doesn’t work very well if the application you are in has a tap and hold shortcut menu. For example, in Notes, if you tap and hold a word, a shortcut menu appears in which you are given options to insert a date, paste, or look for alternate words. The second method to select text is to tap your stylus to the left of the text and drag it (drawing a line) across all the text that you want to select. Then, without lifting the stylus from the screen, hold the stylus in place at the end of the selection.
The third method for selecting text is to suspend Transcriber temporarily by tapping the hand icon in the bottom right of the screen. The box and white background around the hand will disappear.This means you can now use the stylus to interact with the screen without Transcriber. To return to Transcriber, simply tap the hand icon again. Suspending Transcriber enables you to drag and drop, select, and carry out other stylus activity that can be difficult with Transcriber active.

The way that Transcriber recognizes your handwriting can be adapted to your unique way of forming letters. For example, if you find that Transcriber regularly misinterprets a particular letter, you can train it using the Letter Shapes Selector. You open the Letter Shapes Selector by tapping the icon in the toolbar that looks like a cursive letter a (fourth icon from the left). The Block Recognizer allows you to use Palm Graffiti to enter text into your iPAQ.

The Letter Shapes Selector window gives you all the characters of the alphabet as well as the most commonly used punctuation and special characters at the bottom of the screen. To select the character you want to train, tap it in the list (the arrows at the bottom right will move you to the next or previous character). In the top portion of the screen, you will see a series of characters displaying the different Transcriber allows you to write words anywhere on the screen and have them translated into text. The Letter Shapes Selector allows you to train Transcriber to recognize the way that you write letters. ways that Transcriber will expect to see the upper- and lowercase versions of the letter. You can select each variation and tag it as being one that is often, rarely, or never used by you. Any letter you select as rarely used will appear with one slash through the letter, and any that you mark as never used will appear with an x marked through the letter. Doing this serves two purposes: By eliminating letters that you never write, Transcriber has fewer letters to search through each time to find a match and can thus recognize text more quickly.

The second purpose is that letters that look similar to other characters can be difficult to interpret. For example, a cursive Q looks very much like the number 2. If you never use the cursive Q style, then you can increase the chances of the number 2 being correctly interpreted.While in the Letter Shapes Selector, you can see a demo of how any of the shapes is drawn by tapping it. This will cause it to draw itself for your observation. If you are concerned that by tweaking your Transcriber letter shape settings, you might make your iPAQ unusable for someone that you share the device with, you don’t need to worry. The Letter Shapes Selector also allows you to set one of two profiles: Master or Guest. By default, it assumes you are editing the Master profile; however, if you lend your iPAQ to someone, you can set it to the Guest profile, so they can use standard recognition or customize the settings for their own handwriting without affecting your settings. You can select the profile in the File menu, as shown in the illustration that follows. If many people are using the same iPAQ, you can save and load profiles from this menu as well. At any point, you can revert to the default setting by selecting Use Original Settings from this menu.

Transcriber is our favorite way of entering text into the iPAQ, particularly when writing e-mail messages or documents. Transcriber allows you to write anywhere on the screen and then, when you pause, have your written text interpreted into words and phrases. You can print, use cursive writing, or mix it up, and Transcriber can still interpret what you are doing. When using Transcriber, don’t write too small. The larger your text, the easier it is to interpret. On the other extreme, don’t write so large that you can’t fit your text on the screen. Also, remember that you can write anywhere, so use the full screen. Don’t worry about writing over whatever is currently displayed; what is shown on the screen will not affect your Transcriber input. Try not to rest your palm on, or allow anything else to come into contact with, the screen.
Another advantage to Transcriber is that it works with any Pocket PC application, but doesn’t take up screen space, giving you the maximum view of your application.

The Block Recognizer is similar to the Letter Recognizer in that you write letters on the SIP one character at a time. This method, however, uses the Graffiti language that is standard with Palm hand-held devices. If you are migrating to your iPAQ from a Palm, this option makes it easy to use the same input method that you are used to on the Palm. The SIP is divided into two entry sections. The left section is for letters (both upper- and lowercase). The right section is set up for numerical entry, the keys on the right side of the SIP do the same as they do in the Letter Recognizer. If at any time you need help figuring out what strokes to use to make a character, tap the ? button on the right.
It will enable you to launch a Demo that will show you how to draw any strokes you require.

The Letter Recognizer uses the area at the bottom of the screen called the soft input panel (SIP).
This area is divided into three sections where you will draw your characters. The left third of the SIP is reserved for drawing uppercase characters. The middle section is for lowercase letters, and the right third is for numbers. The far right of the SIP contains buttons for Backspace, Cursor Left, Cursor Right, Return, Space, Help, and Special Characters.
The Letter Recognizer will interpret any characters that you write in the SIP area and put the translated characters into the currently running program wherever the cursor is, just as if you were typing on a keyboard. The dashed line through the middle of the SIP is used to ensure letters can be correctly interpreted. For example, because the uppercase and lowercase forms of some letters look the same when handwritten, to write a lowercase o or c, you should write them below the dashed line Characters with parts that descend below the normal printed line are called descenders. Letters such as lowercase p and q are examples. You should draw them below the dashed line, with the descending part extending below the solid line, Similarly, letters with parts that extend above the dashed line, like b and d, are called ascenders. These should be drawn with the body below the dashed line and the ascender above the line Punctuation can also be entered anywhere in the SIP Letter Recognizer, but it seems to be more effective to use the Special Characters button on the right of the SIP. This button shows three symbols as its icon: @, *, and $. When you tap this button, the SIP changes to show a number of special characters, as shown in the next illustration. You can select the character you want to insert by tapping it with the stylus. As soon as you have selected your character, the panel returns to normal Letter Recognizer mode.
The odd thing that you will need to get used to is that when you are using the Letter Recognizer, you always enter letters as lowercase, even if you want an uppercase letter. To get an uppercase A, you enter a lowercase a in the leftmost section of the SIP. This is counterintuitive and can make the Letter Recognizer a little difficult for new users. It is not our preferred method of input. You can configure some settings to change the way Letter Recognizer behaves and tweak them for your own uses. These settings can be accessed by tapping Options in the input method pop-up menu. (To open this menu, tap the up arrow in the lower-right corner.) The first option is Quick Stroke. Turning this on allows you to write letters with a single stroke of the stylus. This is different from the Graffiti language that is used on the Palm and requires you to learn new ways of writing letters.
The second option is Right To Left Crossbar. You will turn this option on if you are in the habit of putting the horizontal line in letters like t and f from right to left instead of left to right. The third option is Allow Accented Characters. This will allow you to enter characters that use accents such as è (e with a grave accent) in French.