Periscope

• by CreativityCorp
• 
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Periscope enables professional display of the screen of a Pocket PC onto a nearby PC or laptop for projection, remote control of a PowerPoint presentation, and remote management of files, device registry and tasks on smartphones, and provision of assistance to users. Periscope is excellent for training clients and colleagues on the new mobile solutions for business. Version 3 introduces new device management and control functions for remote smartphones.

Periscope Features

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Latest Reviews

easy to install and to use

by Fadi   from Liverpool, United Kingdom
on Feb 29, 2004

It does what it say on the tin

With Periscope your PPC can become a handy presentation gadget.

by Dwayne Lamb   from Visual Byte
on Dec 10, 2002

If you are looking for a way to improve your presentation tool chest, you may want to take a look at Periscope. This program offers two slightly different, but valuable, types of functionality to a group presenter with the properly configured gear. First off, Periscope gives you a way to control your Power Point presentation from your Pocket PC. Secondly, Periscope gives you the ability to display whatever other application is on your Pocket PC onto the screen via the PC that you are using for your presentation, which is great for giving demos of different Pocket PC software applications.

Setting up this application is a little more complicated than your average Pocket PC application, but not much. The two things that complicate the process a little are that you need to install this software onto both your Pocket PC and the PC that you are using for your presentation and, secondly, to get the most out of using this software you will want to connect those two devices via wireless, so a little networking know-how will prove helpful. The download includes the software for both the Pocket PC and the presentation machine. To install them, you just have to make sure that you understand that Pocket PC is going to be considered the server and the presentation machine is the client in Periscope parlance. How quick and easy it is to set up the wireless connection will depend on the wireless network cards and network-operating mode you choose for your wireless configuration.

As the meeting coordinator for our local Pocket PC user group, I gave this program a test run during our meeting. I found I could easily control what slide to show and when. Periscope allows the user not only to advance to the next or previous Power Point slide but you can also configure it to allow you to pick and jump to any slide in your slide deck from a list of slides on your Pocket PC. A number of the questions that I received during the meeting related to the location of the Power Point presentation files and where Power Point was running. With this product, both Power Point and the presentation files run on the laptop, not the Pocket PC. The server portion of Periscope that I installed on my PPC device simply talks to or orchestrates the Power Point application running on my laptop through the small client version of Periscope that I installed there. The laptop is connected to the projector as it would be in any regular presentation and I can still control the presentation by using the mouse or keys on the laptop. However, being able to walk around and control your presentation remotely with your Pocket PC is both convenient and an attention grabber. Periscope supports the ability to draw on the current slide by using the stylus on your Pocket PC but I found the responsiveness a little poor, which made drawing a somewhat impractical. I would also like to have seen the ability to control the pen type attributes from the Pocket PC so that you could change colors while drawing or do highlighting of information on your slides from your Pocket PC.

Perhaps as useful to some presenters as the ability to control Power Point, is Periscope?s ability to show a live screen capture of what is on your Pocket PC on the presentation PC. As a developer of Pocket PC applications myself, I found this a great way to show an audience one of our applications in action. Periscope allowed me to project what I was seeing on my Pocket PC onto the screen for the whole audience to see. This makes demonstrations of Pocket PC applications a breeze and does not require you to buy a separate special video output adapter for your Pocket PC. I was able to hold my Pocket PC in hand as I walked around the room while demonstrating our applications. I found this feature was surprisingly responsive and a very practical way to walk an audience through a Pocket PC application, while literally walking through the audience . Now, you will want to be careful that the battery on your PPC can handle the drain of your wireless card for the entire length of your presentation time or you may find yourself hurrying back to your laptop.

Periscope is fun to use and provides real utility when you need to make a group presentation.

Score

Install & Go 7.5 Ease of use 8 Bullet Proof 7 Built-in Help 7.5 Follows Conventions 7 Support Response 7.5 Support Quality 7.5 App Usefulness 8.5 Feature Rich 7 Fun-Factor 8.5 ======= 76/100

Exclent Product. Don't even worry that there is no demo - this program is worth it.

by Jim Seaboldt   from Denver, Colorado - USA
on Jan 20, 2002

I use "Periscope" on a Hewlett Packard "Jornada" 567 Pocket PC and with a Sony "VAIO" PCG-XG18 Laptop and a Generic Windows Desktop PC. Periscope has worked very good with each of these machines. My primary reason for trying "Periscope" was for PowerPoint presentations, that can be controlled with the Pocket PC running Periscope. However, I there is a great deal of utility with the other feature of "Periscope", that being the ability to display the Pocket PC screen on the desktop or laptop computer. "Periscope" connects to the laptop or desktop computer via "ActiveSync", so if "ActiveSync" can connect, "Periscope" can run. I have used "Periscope" (via "ActiveSync") through a USB connection, serial connection, and InfraRed connection with no problems (within the constraints of the connection type. The only thing that I would recommend, as an upgrade to "Periscope" would be the ability to scribble or write on the Pocket PC screen and have that appear on the desktop or laptop screen. This would be great to highlight points on PowerPoint slides or as use as an "overhead projector". Finally, I sent an e-mail to the company, "CreativityCorp". My e-mail was responded to promptly with the information I requested. This suggests strong customer support. Overall, this is well worth the price eventhough there is no demo product.