July 5th, 2008An Annoying Blank Screen
This has certainly been a bit of a week when it has come to email. My server has been down for about 12 hours this week for reasons I can’t get answers for. I’ve made the leap from Microsoft Outlook to a web-based application called RoundCube. And, if this wasn’t enough, my HP iPaq decided to give me a blank screen whenever I would check my email with the device. Fun? Wow!
Seriously, though … having a semi-functional PDA is a real piss-off. The device is now my primary computer, as it’s always with me. Not being able to check my messages throughout the day is like walking around without underwear. Yeah, it can be done … but it’s not recommended.
A Problem With Language
In order to find a solution to this problem, I wound up wasting (what felt like) two and a half hours on the Microsoft support website. For a company that wants to take on Google, you’d think they could develop a half-decent search algorithm. That said, I managed to find a forum thread that talks about this issue happening mainly on HTC mobile phones running Windows Mobile 6. Turns out the problem isn’t really with the machine itself, but with a piece of software that was installed a few weeks back.
In order to display and work with Japanese characters on my iPaq, I’ve been using a program called “CE Star“. It’s a great little application that lets us work with Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese characters on non-Asian PDAs. The advantage to this is that we can both display and “type” the characters, and there is a minimal impact on system performance. That said, there seems to be a small problem when the application’s free trial period (which seems to be an unadvertised “two weeks”) comes up. It’s no longer possible to read email or SMS messages, and some people complain that Pocket Excel will not load. While I haven’t yet had a problem with Pocket Excel, having any application work less than perfectly on the mobile computer is just downright unacceptable.
Luckily, there are two solutions to this problem. We can either buy the CE Star software for $43 USD and enter the registration code, or we can uninstall the software and go through a soft-boot of the system. Either way, once this is done, our applications will begin to work just as we expect. Since I no longer have a credit card to buy CE Star with, I was forced to uninstall the application. Perhaps when they start taking PayPal (like every other web company on Earth), I’ll be able to pay these people for the wonderful ability of using asian characters on the PDA.
Have you had any issues with Windows Mobile suddenly displaying blank screens or otherwise changing it’s behaviour without warning?
Update: It appears that CE Star can be bought with PayPal on this page. This is great news, as it means I can still use my iPaq to study Japanese.
Well, that’s not something I see myself needing to worry about any time soon because I can’t read those funky characters
I’m glad you found a solution to your problem…too bad it cost $43 though :S
Hi Jason,
I have the same problem… As I do not want to pay for this application, I decided to uninstall it.
But the problem is that I cannot find the way to uninstall it…It does not appear in the “Add/remove” window.
Do you know how to uninstall it?
Hi Say,
To uninstall CE Star, you’ll need to use the uninstall software that came with the package. This should be in the Programs/CE Star menu, and it’ll have the kanji character for CE Star (中) and will read “uninstall”.
If you don’t see this, you’ll need to re-install CE Star again, which should restore the menu items.
Let me know if you have any problems. I can post screen pics if you’d like.