A cameo of a tall, dark, remarkably handsome, devilishly clever koolade-drinking and bacon sandwich loving low vision gentleman sitting quietly in a doctor’s waiting room. 

Reaching for his wireless device, equipped with an onboard GPS software solution, which he used to navigate to his current location, he launches the phone’s frequently misunderstood and often underutilized world-class media management application in order to listen to a new album he purchased only a few moments before walking to the doctor’s office.

With a few simple finger movements and hardly noticeable hand gestures, the sweet soothing sounds of 70’s classic soul swirl softly through his spirit spreading a satisfied smile across his Swiss milk chocolate colored countenance.

Listening to his music, through his Bluetooth stereo hands free headset, he decides to send a quick text message to the popular social networking site, Twitter, so as to update those who may be interested in his current activity.  While continuing to listen to his music, he launches the wireless devices’ onboard messaging client and enters a text message that reads, “I’m waiting to see my doctor while enjoying my music and texting, all at the same time.”  After sending it, he enters, “And you know what the best part is?  I do not need to use iTunes or anything Apple.” 

As he taps the “Send” key to submit the text, he thinks back to how easy and convenient it had been to simply dock the phone and have its media contents automatically synchronized with his Desktop computers media library.

Hello Everyone, 

With all due respect to the success and popularity of the iTunes Store, the iPod and of course, the I-Phone, as a visually impaired individual, when it comes to Apple products, I feel like a second class consumer in so far that Apple has clearly not found it profitable enough to make its innately accessible hardware, comfortably accessible to those of us who are either blind or low vision.

Frankly, I refuse to be treated as a second-class consumer and so I choose not to do business with Apple until such time as it begins to provide consistent and reliable accessibility for all, not just those with deep pockets and good vision.

The opening paragraphs of this article shows how anyone, sighted and non sighted, alike can achieve the same, and in many situations, surpass the functionality of Apple wireless mobile products at a fraction of the hardware cost.

Question:  How can this be done? 

Answer:  By using Windows Media Player 11 or later on your PC in conjunction with your Windows Mobile 6.x Smartphone or wireless device. 

The best part is that, unlike iTunes, the Desktop Windows Media Player in combination with Pocket Media Player has none of the seemingly endless synchronization restrictions of iTunes.

For example, currently, I use a Guest Partnership to sync my Samsung Epix SGH-i907 Smartphone to my Desktop PC Windows Media Player Library and I use a Standard Partnership to sync the exact same device with my Notebook Windows Media Player Library.  I can do this as a means of syncing all three devices without fear of accidentally erasing files or I can mix-and-match Playlists, Folders, and Auto-Playlists as I choose. 

Be it good or bad, Apple generally provides one way to do a task.  While I have to admit that limiting an interface so severely provides for a more consistent experience, I prefer to be allowed to discover my own favorite way of accomplishing a goal. 

Having said this, please understand that the remainder of this piece in no way attempts to describe all of the possible scenarios one may use to synchronize a Windows Mobile device to a PC.

In short, when I wish to synchronize either my Samsung Epix SGH-i907 touch-screen Smartphone, my Motorola Q9C, or Samsung Blackjack II non touch-screen Smartphones (all three being Windows Mobile 6.x devices) depending upon the type of Partnership configuration, I dock the phone, launch Windows Media Player on the PC, and synchronization automatically commences.

The following information, by Adam Z Lein, will help you discover the awesome power and flexibility of Microsoft’s Windows Media Player 11 when used with Windows Mobile 6.x devices.

Don’t’ worry; even though I am not an Apple iTunes fan, tomorrow, I will post some helpful Tips & Tricks for those of you who are.  (Smile) 

Enjoy,

Mark
 
INTRODUCTION
Windows Media Player for Windows Mobile has been around for a while. Many people have problems using Windows Media Player since it often has issues with playing certain content, memory leaks, and syncing album art. Here’s a few tips to help make the Windows Mobile Media Player experience a little more friendly

SETTING UP THE SYNC
If you’re on Windows XP with ActiveSync 4.x, do not turn on “Media” syncing. This will launch a wmplayer.exe process every time you connect the device to ActiveSync. In some cases you will get two wmplayer.exe processes and Windows Media Player 11 on your desktop may stop working. Furthermore, ActiveSync will continually launch and check Media Player 11 for changes in the syncing set-up (thus tying up your CPU).

Instead, we will set up the sync from Windows Media Player 11 so that it only automatically syncs when you specifically launch Windows Media Player.

1.
First unplug your Windows Mobile Device from the USB port. Then launch Windows Media Player 11. Create a new playlist for which you’ll use to manage the music that you would like to sync. I name mine according to the size of my storage card.

2.
Make sure on the Windows Mobile device that Windows Media Player is not currently running. End this task from the Memory control panel or task manager. Windows Media Player has problems syncing Album art when it is running on the Windows Mobile device.
3.
Plug the Windows Mobile device into your computer while Windows Media Player 11 is running and it will ask you if you want to set up an automatic sync partnership. Cancel this option for now, but give your storage card a name. If you do not cancel this option, Windows Media Player will attempt to sync your entire media library to the device using all of it’s default settings. You do not want this!

4.
From the Sync Tab menu choose “More Options.” The resulting dialog will list the Media Player compatible devices connected to your computer.

5.
Select the Storage Card, and click “Properties”

6.
Make sure the file conversion option is turned on, and select your own custom quality levels. I set my music quality to the smallest file size to save room on the storage card. Click OK to close these dialogs.

7.
Now from the Sync Tab menu, select your storage card and choose “Set Up Sync” from the sub-menu.

8.
Turn on the “Sync this device automatically” option.

9.
Remove all of the playlists listed under “Playlists to sync” except for the playlists that you want to sync with the device. You can also choose some automatic playlists from the “Available playlists” menu if you want to sync playlists that change as your listening preference changes. You can even add TV show playlists if you’re on Media Center which will sync the latest TV shows of your preference as they are recorded.

10.
Click Finish. Media Player 11 will now start converting and copying the selected media to your device. The Playlists themselves will also transfer so that you can listen to the music in the order that you specified. The media library on your mobile device will also be updated to include all the media that was synced. You do not need to use the “Update library” command.

Once you’ve got it set up, this method is by far the easiest way to manage music on your Windows Mobile device. Since you’ve got only specific playlists automatically syncing, all you have to do is edit those playlists when you want to change the music. So say I’ve got a few new MP3s that I like, all I have to do is add them to my “Mobile 6Gb” playlist and they’ll automatically get converted to space-saving WMA formats and copied to my 6Gb MicroSD card the next time I plug in my Windows Mobile device. If I get sick of certain songs, all I have to do is remove them from the playlist that’s synced and Windows Media Player will remove them from the device automatically. There’s no need to go digging through the File Explorer.

TIPS

1.
Do not use the “Update Library” function in Windows Media Player on your Windows Mobile Device. This will add all sorts of audio files and sound effects to your media library from both your main device and storage card. If you have a GPS navigation program that uses WAV files, you’ll see what a mess this becomes.

2.
By letting Windows Media Player convert files to WMA/WMV, you know that the Mobile Media Player will be able to handle the file formats. This way there’s no guessing involved as to whether your MP3’s bitrate encoding is going to play.

3.
Mobile Windows Media Player, when launched, defaults to showing the “My Device” library. You probably want it to open the “Storage Card” library by default. You can remove the “My Device” library listing option completely by deleting the following file: “Mobile Device\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player\XMEMediaLibrary.mlb.”  This way, only the files in your Storage Card library will show up in Windows Media Player Mobile.

4.
If you notice a significant slow-down or persistent memory leaks when using Windows Media Player Mobile, you may have a corrupt library. On the storage card, delete the following file “\Storage Card\MSMETADATA\XMEMediaLibrary.mlb”. You may have to tap & hold in the File Manager window on a blank area and choose “Show All Files” in order to see this folder. Once you delete that file, you will have to set up the sync again in Windows Media Player 11 on the desktop using the steps listed above.

5.
Your storage card’s partnership identification information is stored in the hidden “WMPInfo.xml” file in the storage card’s root directory. If you want to start over in creating a new library and sync partnership, you can delete that file.

6.
The following folder contains the digital rights management information for your storage card: “\Storage Card\WMDRM.” If you have problems playing protected content, you may want to delete the contents of that folder and re-sync.

7.
If Windows Media Player 11 does not recognize your device while connected, open the Windows Task Manager (Right click task bar and choose Task Manager). Then look at the processes tab for two wmplayer.exe processes.  End both of these tasks and relaunch Windows Media Player 11.

ALBUM ART
In most cases, if you make sure that Media Player is not running on your device before beginning a sync, the album art will be transferred automatically. If your music’s album art does not transfer, and assuming you do have album art associated with the music in Media Player 11 on your desktop, you can copy it over manually:

1.
Right click on the song in Windows Media Player 11’s Library or Now Playing view.

2.
Choose “Open File Location”

3.
Windows Explorer will open, showing the location of the song you selected.

4.
Make sure “Show hidden files and folders” is turned on in Tools>Folder Options>View Tab.

5.
Select the file called “Folder.jpg” and do Ctrl+C to copy it.

6.
Navigate to the folder on your storage card where the same song is located.

7.
Paste “Folder.jpg” into the folder where the song is located on your storage card.

Windows Media Player 11 is less likely to successfully download and apply album art to your songs using “Find Album Info” than Windows Media Player 10 was. Even if the “Find Album Info” does correctly find and display the correct album art, the chance of it actually downloading the art and saving the proper JPGs to the correct folder are hit or miss. If the “Find Album Info” feature does not work, you can always search for the album cover manually in your web browser. Right click the image once you find it and choose “Copy”. Then in the Windows Media Player library, right click the song’s blank album art icon and choose “Paste Album Art”.  Now Windows Media Player will convert your pasted image into the proper JPG images in the folder where the songs are located.

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