• Configuring Your PocketPC PDA For PDAudio
• PDAudio Expansion Packs

Configuring Your PocketPC PDA For PDAudio

(Revised January 2, 2005)

PDAudio turns your PocketPC PDA into a high-resolution digital audio recorder. Before recording, it's wise to turn off any PDA functions that might interrupt your recording.

Here's how to do that!

Activating the Settings Program

1. At the opening screen, select the "Start" menu by selecting the Windows icon in the upper left corner. A menu will drop down. Select "Settings". The "Settings/Personal" screen icons will appear.
2. (Note that there are three tabs down at the bottom of the "Settings" screen. These three tabs select one of three pages that control settings. You are currently on the "Personal" page.)

Disabling Sounds and Notifications

1. Select the "Sounds & Notifications" icon. The "Sounds & Notifications" setting screen will appear.
2. Disable all sounds by unchecking all boxes on this screen.
3. Select the "Notifications" tab at the bottom of the screen. The "Notifications" setting screen will appear.
4. Disable all notifications by selecting an event and unchecking all notification boxes including sounds, messages and flashing lights. Repeat for all events.
5. Select the "OK" icon in the upper right corner. The "Sounds & Notifications" setting screen will close.

Disabling Today Screen Re-Display

1. Select the "Today" icon. The Today setting screen will appear.
2. Select the "Items" tab at the bottom of the screen. The "Today Items" setting screen will appear.
3. Uncheck the box labelled "Display Today screen if device is not used for X hours".
4. Select the "OK" icon in the upper right corner. The "Today Items" setting screen will close.

Disabling Backlight Power Savings Features

1. Select the "System" tab at the bottom of the "Settings" screen. The "Settings/System" icon screen will appear.
2. Select the Brightness (or Backlight) icon. Set the "On Battery" brightness level to one above minimum.
3. Uncheck all boxes on this page.
4. Select the "Battery Power" tab at the bottom of the page. The "Backlight/On battery power" setting screen will appear.
5. Uncheck all boxes on this page.
6. Select the "External Power" tab at the bottom of the page. The "Backlight/On external power" setting screen will appear.
7. Uncheck all boxes on this page.
8. Select the "OK" icon in the upper right corner. The "Backlight/Brightness level" setting screen will close.

Disabling Other Power Savings Features

1. Select the "Power" icon. The "Power" setting screen will appear.
2. If options to turn off the PDA on battery and external power are present, uncheck all boxes. (Not all PDAs will have these options on this screen.)
3. Select the "Standby" tab at the bottom of the screen. The "Power/Standby" setting screen will appear.
4. Select the shortest standby period available.
5. If an "Advanced" tab is displayed at the bottom of the screen, select it. The "Power/Advanced" setting screen will appear.
6. Uncheck all boxes on this screen.
7. Select the "OK" icon in the upper right corner. The "Power" setting screen will close.

Disabling Alarms

1. Select the "Clock" icon. The "Clock" settings screen will appear.
2. While you're on this screen, confirm that the time and date are correct. If not, correct them.
3. Select the "Alarms" tab at the bottom of the screen. The "Alarms" screen will appear.
4. Uncheck all boxes on this page.
5. Select the "OK" icon in the upper right corner. The "Clock" setting screen will close.

Disabling Beam

1. Select the "Connections" tab at the bottom of the screen. The "Settings/Connections" icon screen will appear.
2. Select the "Beam" icon. The "Beam" setting screen will appear.
3. Uncheck the box on this page.
4. Select the "OK" icon in the upper right corner. The "Beam" setting screen will close.

Disabling Bluetooth

1. If your PDA has Bluetooth wireless capability, select the "Bluetooth" icon. The "Bluetooth" setting screen will appear. (Note: Not all PDAs have a Bluetooth function.)
2. Select the box labelled "Turn off".
3. Select the "OK" icon in the upper right corner. The "Bluetooth" setting screen will close.

Disconnect PDA From PC

1. If your PDA is connected to your PC, disconnect it. If it's sitting in a cradle attached to your PC via USB or serial cable, remove it from the cradle. If it's attached to your PC via a USB cable, detach the cable.

Expansion Pack Caution

We've found that the HP Dual PC Card Expansion Pack can deliver large voltage spikes to the devices in their card slots when connecting and disconnecting the battery charger. These voltage spikes can damage PDAudio-CF.

Caution: Remove PDAudio-CF from your PDA or (expansion pack) before connecting or disconnecting the battery charger.

PDAudio Expansion Packs

Note: As of August, 2005, HP has discontinued the expansion packs described here below. They may be available from HP dealers and through Ebay, but not from HP directly any longer.

PDAudio runs on PDAs that have a CF slot for the PDAudio-CF card and another slot for a memory card. Many current PDAs offer one CF slot and one SD slot. If that's what you have, you won't need anything else to run PDAudio.

But if you want to record to a CF flash memory card, Microdrive, PCMCIA hard drive or external hard drive, you'll usually need to use a PDA that either has two internal CF or PCMCIA slots -- unfortunately no commercial PDAs of this type are currently available -- or a PDA that can accept a CF or PCMCIA expansion pack. These PDAs include the HP iPAQ h5100-, h5500- and older h3800-, 3700-, h3600- and h3100-series iPAQs. (The one exception is that you can use external USB hard drives with Toshiba PDAs that offer a USB host interface; no CF or PCMCIA expansion pack is necessary.)

There are currently four manufacturers of dual card expansion packs for the iPAQ: HP, Portable Innovation Technology, Seidio and Nexian. At the moment, we can only recommend the expansion packs from HP.

HP

HP offers (formerly offered) their Dual Slot PC Card Expansion Pack. It provides two PC Card slots and two 1000 mAh non-removable/rechargeable batteries. In one slot you'd use a CF card adapter to hold the PDAudio-CF interface. In the other slot would go either a PC Card hard disk drive, a CF memory card (mounted in another CF card adapter), PCMCIA hard drive or PCMCIA interfaced to an external hard drive. It's the largest and most expensive of the four expansion packs but it also has the highest battery capacity, is the most reliable, and accommodates two PC cards (larger than CF cards). Each of the two batteries can be replaced with aftermarket batteries as large as 2200 mAh giving very, very long operating times.

If you want to use PDAudio-CF to record to an SD card slot in your 3800-, 5100- or 5500-series iPAQ, HP also offer (formerly offered) their Single-Slot CF Expansion Pack. It is a very compact and cost-effective way to expand your iPAQ.

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