Don't miss the next round of the great PPCW.Net Hardware Raffle - powered by Socket Communications - which starts next week (for the January raffle) and all registered Forum members participate automatically if they signed up for the Forum as well as the PPCW.Net raffle(s).
If you are still not a PPCW.Net Forum member, hurry up and sign in!

Just to make sure you don't miss me and I don't miss you; like the years before I will also attending this year's 3GSM World Congress in Cannes next month! I will stay there two full days so I still have some time slots available to meet with you!
If you want to meet me, please drop me an E-Mail. Users, enthusiasts and companies are welcome! :-)
Oh yes, I will be in Cannes on Wednesday and Thursday and I hope I can manage all this stuff. I will arrive the weekend before from

You might noticed that the Pocket PC version of PPCW.Net still not working proper and I have to excuse this! Doesn't matter if you access through Mazingo or mobile.ppcw.net, you get outdated pages or even error messages.
This is because we still work on the Wireless version of PPCW.Net and I hope we can launch it during this weekend. The reason is pretty simple: I've decided to completely integrate PPCW.Net into the mobile version which means for you that doesn't matter if you will access PPCW.Net from your Desktop, Pocket PC or Smartphone - you will get the same and full access to all pages incl. previous stories, Search, Archive and even the Forum!

So far, the tests looks pretty good on the Pocket PC and Smartphone:

Some of you asked me during the past days and weeks if I can be hired for projects and sure I can! :-)
Currently I'm self-employed as consultant for Wireless VAS Product/Business Development and Project Management as well as a freelancing author and journalist.

So if you need any support in the Value Added Services area, doesn't matter if you are an 2.5/3G operator or device related, drop me a line.
This year I'm celebrating my 10th anniversary in working in the GSM industry, so my background is that longtime experience in the Marketing area.

Cheers ~ Arne

I've just scanned the database and compiled an overview for myself how the typical PPCW.Net visitor looks like and it's pretty interesting to see that you guys seems to be real wireless geeks too! :-)

Here are some charts I want to share with you:

Congratulations to:

• Developer One CodeWallet Pro (6 Languages available): Steve
• Burr Oak Software Conversions In Hand: laura
• Data Becker Das große Buch Pocket PC 2002: Otelker

If you wasn't drawn yesterday don't worry - the next round is going on today! Also don't forget to register if you haven't done so far!

Congratulations to:

• comaqguy, he won a copy BVRP's GPRS Manager
• crisspera, he won an IA Style product he can choose from
• chapter, he won a copy of KSE's Truefax

If you wasn't drawn yesterday don't worry - the next round is going on today! Also don't forget to register if you haven't done so far!

So far we managed to upgrade the users database, so now all of you that wanted to register with PPCW.Net Forum and Raffle can do it again. Because the high traffic we had on 8 January 2003 (150.000+ unique visits and 840 MB traffic within 6 hours) the databases mixed up and resulted in loosing parts of the records or entire records. This will never happens again because the new database has a modular layout which means that even a connection is lost to one database, the other databases share the load. Thanks to Calin for this solution!
Now we are working to improve site performance which already looks good (we changed some database interactions which improved the site speed 10 times) and I hope that all these problems will be solved later today!

Because of this improvements, posting Story comments or Forum messages doesn't work right now but later for sure!

Please try to login to your account you've registered yesterday or the day before and check within the options (link from the Forum page), if you are registered to the raffle. If you can login and don't see a "subscribe to raffle" link,

Wow, what a day. I've reached a critical mass of site access which cracked the server environment - from time to time. Some of you might noticed this problems.
So what's up? While the code worked great, the server and the MySQL database goes down from time to time. Unfortunately if this happened while you are registering you might receive an E-Mail that you are registered successful but your account wasn't stored on the database. :-(

Right now my developer is working on this and he is rebuilding the database to a more modular one. This fix should be online at least this afternoon (CET). So please try again later to login, if it doesn't work, please reregister! Sorry for the inconvenience! :-(

Wow, finally it happened, I've relaunched PPCW.Net with a complete new interface and backend on my dedicated server. It was a long way from MobileNet.de (which was my first Windows CE related website in 1997) to PPCW.Net V3. It started as a hobby and it is still a hobby but a little bit more intensive...

However, it was also a long way to PPCW.Net 3.0 which I wouldn't be able to release today without the help of Calin Brandabur. While I have some thoughts how the new PPCW.Net should looks like and which functions should be included, he had the magic fingers and the knowledge how to develop it in PHP - so my biggest thanks goes to Calin!
BTW: This was a pure interactive, teleworking based, cooperation. I've never seen Calin in reality nor I've had a voice call with him; everything worked with E-Mail and MSN Messenger! :-)

On January, the 8th - PPCW.Net Version 3 was launched and to celebrate this, PPCW.Net is holding the "Great PPCW.Net Relaunch Raffle". While versions 1 and 2 were built on existing Content Management Systems, like PHPNuke or phpweblog, version 3 is completely self-developed by PPCW.Net. The new website (I wouldn't call it portal ;-) includes many new features and improved or new features than the previous versions.

• Forum is completely intergraded
• More customization throughout the site
• User preferences (Saved in your cookies)
• Faster loading through optimized code
• A fully integrated and redesigned Poll (coming soon)
• A complete new Pocket Internet Explorer friendly site with full access to all PPCW.Net stories, comments and the complete Forum with the possibility to comment stories or posting to the Forum (coming soon)

These features allow PPCW.Net to be cleaner and more personal because you decide what's up on your screen and what's not!

To celebrate the relaunch of PPCW.Net - some of the finest Pocket PC software developers have donated their hard work to be given away in the Great PPCW.Net Relaunch Raffle. This includes software for Pocket PC, Pocket PC 2002, Pocket PC Phone Edition as well as Smartphone 2002.

• All you have to do is become a member of the Pocket PC Forum and complete the raffle form (see the privacy notice).
• Select the device category you are using and for which device you want to win, that's it!

Every day for the next 4 weeks several prizes with an overall value of more than US$ 2.000 will be raffled!

Prizes
Here's the list of "Award Winning" applications that will be raffled off:

The December winner of the great PPCW.Net Raffle - powered by Socket was drawn last weekend:

Brian from Dublin is the lucky winner who is pretty interested in wireless communication too and chose the Socket Bluetooth Connection Kit.

The next round is ongoing. Every registered user (see more information here) have the chance to win every