Using an HPC for remote access to a desktop

Before leaving home for the office, Pat uses her handheld PC (HPC) to retrieve the day's meeting schedule from her desktop PC, where her calendar is maintained on the office network. Next, Pat scans her email in-basket for new messages marked "Urgent" and finds one from her boss, asking her to prepare a report for the meeting he called for 10:00 a.m. Pat forwards the message and its attached file to her home fax and begins drafting her report en-route to work in the car-pool.

Salutation Behind the Scenes

1. Using the modem on her HPC, Pat dials the remote access number for her desktop PC and enters her name and security PIN. The desktop PC and the HPC use Salutation protocol to exchange capabilities, providing the PC applications with information about the HPC's pen/key input options, display screen size, on-board memory, operating system, and data format. With this information, the PC can send the HPC an image of Pat's current calendar in a format that the HPC can display.

2. Although there is no preinstalled synchronization software linking these two devices, Salutation tells the PC on-the-fly whether to set up user dialogs on the HPC using graphical commands or text strings. Salutation also guides the format used to send Pat's commands to her desktop PC.

3. A Salutation protocol transaction between the desktop PC and Pats home fax machine formats the email message and attached file to take full advantage of the fax machine's photo output rendering capability.