Getting up and running with AvantGo Server
The AvantGo Server is a service that runs on Windows NT Server 4.0 and Internet Information Server 4.0, Microsoft's Web server platform. Installation is simple, at least as simple as setting up an NT server can get. Once you've set up a PC server running Windows NT 4.0 Server, and installed the NT 4.0 Option Pack and Service Pack 4 with Internet Explorer Service Pack 1, you run the AvantGo Server setup program from the CD-ROM. This program copies files and starts the AvantGo service in NT.

Once the AvantGo service on Windows NT is running, you can connect to the server from any client PC using the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser, with either the Palm Desktop or Microsoft Windows CE Services loaded for synchronizing your mobile device. The default URL is http://yourserver/avantgoserver.

FIGURE B

You can log into the AvantGo server by filling out a simple form. (Please note that the URL for avantgo.windowscepower.com shown is for demonstration purposes only and is not implemented at Windows CE Power). Click picture for a larger image.

By clicking on the Install AvantGo Connect link, your browser will download the client software to your PC. The AvantGo Connect setup program asks if you have a Palm Organizer or Windows CE device, and installs the client files accordingly. In our evaluation, we used a Philips Nino 300 with 4MB of RAM, with Windows CE Services 2.2. The browser on both PDA platforms takes up about 200K of memory; however at this time, AvantGo 2.1 doesn't support loading the software on CompactFlash storage devices, so be sure to load it using its default installation path when using the Windows CE software installer.

Creating AvantGo channels
AvantGo channels are simply Web sites that are cached into the AvantGo server's database. They can be static Web pages, or they can even be dynamic, forms-based applications. When a new channel is created, the Web site data can be refreshed either on a scheduled basis (such as daily, hourly or one time only) or every time you sync your mobile device.

After the client software is installed on both your PC and your mobile device, you can connect again to the server to set up your personal AvantGo channels. There's some corporate client/server action going on here. While there are users who will download information to their mobile devices, there's also an administration role. Prior to having an end-user log into the server, the AvantGo server administrator would connect to the server and create a user account, and pre-configure channels (such as the corporate intranet Web site, premier content or a Web-enabled application) for the user. Figure C shows a list of the channels I've used.

FIGURE C

Here are some of my AvantGo channels. (Please note that the URL for avantgo.windowscepower.com shown is for demonstration purposes only and is not implemented at Windows CE Power). Click picture for a larger image.

While the AvantGo browser on the mobile device is capable of displaying any HTML 3.2 compliant Web page (without frames), AvantGo has published a set of guidelines on their web site for authoring pages so they display well on a palm-sized form factor. In our February 1999 issue of PalmPower, Marty Kacin, Director of Professional Services at AvantGo, wrote an excellent summary of these guidelines. While this piece was written with the Palm Organizer version of the AvantGo browser in mind, any Web site designed according to these guidelines should display equally well on both the Windows CE and Palm platform.