Monday, December 15, 2003
Stowaway XT Keyboard Review
Posted by Don Tolson in "HARDWARE" @ 12:00 PM
Software Installation
The Fellowes keyboard I purchased came with the drivers on a CD. Just to see what would happen, I tried installing them on my iPAQ 2215. The CD said the drivers were for Pocket PC 2002 and they installed without a hitch. However, when I tried to use them, nothing worked at all. I was expecting this though, so I went to Think Outside's Web site. After downloading the drivers for Pocket Mobile 2003 (approximately 1.25M), you receive a application which you run from the desktop to complete the install on the Pocket PC, using the normal ActiveSync installation routines. I would strongly recommend you install the drivers to the default, main memory locations, since they only take about 244K of memory.
Keyboard Setup
So, once you've got hardware attached and the software installed, it's time to actually start using the keyboard. Think Outside has made this relatively simple, by creating drivers to let the keyboard become another input method and provided a shortcut for it from the Today screen. You can also access the configuration program from a Keyboard icon in Start/Programs.
Figure 5: Stowaway XT shortcut
By tapping on this shortcut, you are presented with the Stowaway Keyboard Config screen.
Figure 6: XT Keyboard Config screen
From here, you enable or disable the keyboard, and configure the various keyboard settings. Once you tap the Enable button, you are presented with a screen to choose the type of keyboard you are using.
Figure 7: XT Keyboard setup screen
For the plugged in version tested here, you select the 'Connected serial keyboard' option, then tap the Setup button. This then takes you to the Serial screen of the Stowaway Keyboard software.
Figure 8: XT Keyboard serial screen
From here, you can tap OK, and you're ready to roll. There is also a Hot Key Configuration screen, shown below.
Figure 9: Configuring Hot Keys on the Stowaway XT
This function allows you to launch whatever programs you wish from the keyboard, using a ALT+FN+number key combination.
