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WIRELESS POCKET PC TOUR
Download
Pocket PC Client
Download the Pocket PC Client.
Introduction
Percevia™ Mobile accesses and
searches databases from a Pocket PC connected to the Internet either over a
802.11 or cellular phone network. A Pocket PC is a popular PDA or Personal
Digital Assistant that contains much of the power of the Windows desktop in a
form factor the size of a small pocket book. The following is
a step by step guide on how to use Percevia™ Mobile on the Pocket PC to view and search
databases. We will use the Field Guide to the Birds of Western North America as
our example. As you follow this demo keep
in mind that the database could just as well be flowers, stamps, parts,
student records, books, people in a dating service or basically anything that
neatly fits into a collection where the items in the collection have similar
attributes.
In this demo we will assume that a user
in California has spotted
a small bird that looks something like an Owl but only recognized a few of its
characteristics. As you follow this
demo imagine using a paper based book to accomplish the task. We begin by opening the Field Guide
to the Birds of Western North America database.
Select a Bird
Category
When the database opens you will see
the screen below. The main scrolling window contains the attributes
for the database, which are the characteristics you will be searching on, such
as length, eye color, etc. You can scroll this window to see the other
attributes. The Match tab contains a list of all the birds in the database
and the Criteria tab presents a window that keeps track of the attributes and values you
have chosen and allows you to change or remove them at any time. Our user begins by selecting
Bird Category, since he believes the bird was an Owl of some kind. The red arrow
in the screen below shows this icon.
Select the
True Owls Value
After selecting the Bird Category
attribute a list of "values" for this attribute are displayed in the Values window.
Percevia™ Mobile has two types of attributes: text and numbers. In this case the values are
text and the user selects the
True Owl as shown in the screen below. Note that before the search there are 380 birds in the
database. Now click the Continue button.
Select a
Location
As you can see the number of Matches has narrowed
from 380 to just 18 which means that there are only 18 Owls in the Western
United States. Notice that some attributes have disappeared from the list; specifically Bird Category
(we already know its all Owls), Bill Shape (all Owls have hooked bills) and Bird Family. This is one of the unique features of the
Percevia™ product, it eliminates attributes and values that are no longer
relevant in the search. Since we are in California, we can use the Where Found
attribute to further narrow the search to just those Owls in California. Select
Where Found as shown below.
The values for
the Where Found attribute are presented as a collection of text values representing
States of the Western USA. What may not be apparent is that only those states
that contain Owls are in this list, the smart value elimination feature removes
those states that are no longer relevant.
Select California and click on Continue.
Select an Eye
Color
We are now down to 9 possible Owls
out of the 380 we started with, and its taken only a few seconds. Our user noticed that the Owl had yellow eyes. So they
select the
Eye Color attribute, which produces the eye color values below. Note there are only two
colors, yellow and brown, even though we know birds have many more eye colors than this.
This shows again how Percevia™ knows that the Owls in California only have two eye
colors and so removes all the unnecessary colors from the list.
Select Ear
Tufts
Now the number of Matches is down to
7, which means that out of the 9 possible Owls in California there are 7 with
yellow eyes. Our user remembers that the bird had what appeared to be ear tufts
on its head, so he selects
the Ear Tufts attribute, which displays two possible values, as shown below.
Select Size
After selecting Ear Tufts the search
is narrowed to just the 4 Owls as shown in the Match tab. At any time the
user can click on one
of the bird images in the Match window and see more details about the bird. The
Owl they saw was small, so they select the Size attribute and then select the Small-sized
bird value.
Eureka Found
It
The last selection narrowed the list
of 4 Owls to just one, the Western Screech Owl. The program automatically
displays the information page for that bird as shown below. The information on the page is accessed
through a set of menus on the top of the page. The menus contain
specific attributes from the database. For example, here it contains an
illustration of the bird, specifications like weight, size, etc, the voice and
call of the bird, web links to more information, full size portraits, field
information, and much more.
Other Features
There are other features to
Percevia™. Here is an example.
Search Criteria. If the user
did not think that this bird was the one they had spotted, they can select any of
the attributes in the Search Criteria window which will take them to the window
for entering a new criteria. For example, suppose the user felt that the bird they saw was
larger than the Western Screech Owl. In that case they could select the Size
item the Criteria window, which would take them back to the bird size
values. There they would change the size to large. After this selection the
Great Horned Owl information page would be displayed.
Advanced Search and Find. Note that the current
version of Percevia Mobile lacks the Find and Advanced Search features.
Download
Pocket PC Client
Download the Pocket PC Client.
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