Yes, I’m back after a long absence; things have been really busy between work and a book I’m working on, but I’m going to try to keep up on blogging again. Some of the projects I’ve been working on are getting to a stage where I can start talking about them, so stay tuned...

For now, though, I wanted to brag about my new Windows Mobile 6.0 smartphone- an HTC S710; you can see details on it here. It’s a pretty slick phone; it’s not an iPhone, but I consider that a plus.

Setting it up for Direct Push against Exchange was pretty easy; in Windows Vista, I just plugged it in and clicked on a couple of selections and entered my OWA server name in Windows Mobile Device Center and I was good to go. It was more complicated getting my GPRS settings for my carrier; the information was not readily accessible on their site- it took a fair amount of digging to come up with it.

I got the phone set up just in time for a trip out of town, so I had a chance to see how it performed for roaming. One behaviour I’ve found is that it doesn’t do Direct Push email when you’re roaming, and when you do a manual synch it comes up with a warning that you’re roaming and a dialog you have to confirm before it will synch. I suspect this roaming warning is related to Direct Push not working as well, but I haven’t worked out how to get around it yet.

The phone has built-in wi-fi as well, but I’ve found it to be cranky so far. I got it to work against a public access point in an airport by disabling the wi-fi power conservation, but I still haven’t successfully connected it to my home network, or our WAP at work. When I get that worked out, I’ll post an update.

One feature I haven’t managed to get working yet, though, is the RMS integration; Windows Mobile Device Center gives me the option to set it up, but when I enter my AD username & password it tells me it’s unable to confirm them. I’ve followed the instructions at http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/93ec088e-9056-4c3c-bd97-1173fb1945781033.mspx?mfr=true, but I still can’t get it to work. I’ve done a network trace, and it’s showing it failing on an authentication to the web page /_wmcs/certification/MobileDeviceCertification.asmx, but I can browse & authenticate to that page successfully from both my laptop and the browser on the phone, so I’m stymied for now. I’ll keep plugging away at it, but if anyone else has encountered this and figured it out I’d like to hear from you.