Wednesday, June 20, 2007
File Ho! -- File Management with Resco Explorer 2007
Posted by Don Tolson in "SOFTWARE" @ 08:00 AM
Recycle Bin
The Recycle Bin works much the same way as on the desktop version of Windows, providing a final 'Are you sure?' place for files to be stored before they are permanently deleted. Resco has implemented this through the creation of a folder called 'Recycled' in (I assume) a default location. On my unit, it selected the SD/MMC card. When you run Resco Explorer though, it shows up as 'Recycle Bin' on the mobile device's desktop.
Figure 6: The Recycle Bin on the device hierarchy. Note that you can also access the Recycle Bin through the little icon at the top of the screen.
Through the Options, it is possible to enable/disable the Recycle Bin and its overall size, but I couldn't find anywhere to specify its location.
Figure 7: Setting the size of the Recycle Bin.
Today Plugin
There are so many features available from the Today Plugin provided with Resco Explorer 2007 that it's tough to figure out where to start. Well, to paraphrase Resco's own PR material, “...from the Today plugin, you can:
It's almost bewildering the number of options available for configuring what the plugin does for you. Certainly, most of these features are available from a number of other Today Plugins from other developers and vendors but integration is what makes the whole package work so well.
Figure 8: Display of Resco's Today Plug-In with most of the features turned on.
One of the features I find most useful is the ability to review and stop currently running tasks directly from the Today screen. There are two ways to enable this feature – either through a separate icon at the left of the Resco Today plug in (just below the Search icon) or as an option after tapping the Program Memory icon (dual memory chips icon).
Figure 9: Managing the currently running programs from the Today screen.
Resco also provides three different downloadable skins for the Today Plugin on its website plus information for developers on how to build their own.
Figure 10: Today Plugin Skins available from Resco.
File Encryption
As with most of the other functions within Resco Explorer on the Pocket PC, encryption or decryption is accessed via the menu displayed when you tap and hold on a displayed file.
Figure 11: Encrypting a file on the PPC.
There are a significant number of encryption routines available from the dropdown lists, including RC2 (40bit), RC2 (128bit), RC5 (128bit), DES (56bit), 3DES (168bit), 3DES TWO KEY (112bit), AES 128, 192 and 256. In all cases, the user must supply a password, which I suspect is used as the key for the encryption/decryption routines. The encryption routine is the same one that is used on the desktop (as long as you know the password :-)), so files transferred between the two are usable on either system.
When you encrypt a file, you get the option to delete the original file or to simply create an encrypted copy. The former would provide the maximum amount of security, while the latter is for those of us who are more cautious and not quite willing to trust the decryption routines completely. :devilboy:
