Dell Axim x51v works with Windows 7

After doing a Google search and finding that most people seem to have had no luck in getting their Dell Axim x51v to work with Windows 7, I was really reluctant to try it and almost didn’t.  But today I decided to try and it worked. 

At first I was discouraged because I got a driver not installed correctly message.  I decided to try to manually add a device through the Devices & Printers in the Control Panel.  Not sure if that is what triggered to Windows Mobile Device Center to finally start and recognize it or it just took that long, because after it installed correctly the add a device box was still looking for devices. 

Anyway, it installed correctly and it syncs what I need to right now.  I ditched Outlook when I upgraded to Windows 7 because I only had Office XP/2002 which isn’t supposed to work with “7” and I rarely used it when I had Vista anyway.

Extracting Pocket Outlook recordings

I found this and it works great for me using Audacity.

(1) Copy .pwi (Note) file to PC

(2) Open Audacity

(3) Get the Note audio into Audacity by:

Project menu
Import as raw data

(4) Select all of the audio by clicking below its file name at left of the graphic of the file

(5) Click on dropdown menu (arrow next to file name)

Set Rate to 11025 Hz

(6) Convert to WAV by:

File menu
Export as wav

First Impressions of Vista

I was planning on using Microsoft XP Professional for many years to come. But a few weeks ago after my computer motherboard went bad I felt I really didn't have a choice and I needed to get a computer fast. I couldn't wait to figure out which new components I would need to build a new one, let alone wait to have it shipped, so I went to the local Best Buy and found two Gateway models that seemed like they may work. So I came back home and did some research on the particular model numbers and found that the one model seemed to have people reporting cooling problems and that it restarting all the time after 3 weeks, so that one was out. So then I looked around at Circuit City's web site and found similar Gateways there and finally decided on one and brought it home.

I was not very enthusiastic about Vista. Only one person has it at work which is the only one I previously had any experience with. What I previously saw of it, it didn't seem very user friendly. After I got it home and turned on and worked with it a little there is alot I like about it. I did get the Home Premium version knowing that the Vist Basic was worthless for what I use a computer for.

So far I am very impressed with the media center capability. Navigating windows explorer is alot easier in some ways and others it is a little harder, I guess I have to just adjust my habits to work with the new OS. Renaming is pretty cool. You don't have to worry about the 3 letter extension anymore, when renaming it only highlights the actual name of the file. New folders open after renaming. The folder structure automatically centers it self. I am anxious to try the speech recognition. I have used Dragon Naturally Speaking previously and want to see how Vista's built in version compares.

I was disappointed that I had a problem of Outlook 2002 remembering e-mail passwords, which I found is a known problem that there probably won't be a fix for being that that version of Outlook is out of Microsofts regular support cycle. I did find a work around that works for me that I will write about in a future blog entry.

As I continue to work with and learn more about Vista I will detail my experience here.