802.11g on HTC Wizard/Universal?

Found this bit over at Pocket PC Addict:

Are you dying to get every last drop of speed from your device? Are you always looking for ways to unlock the full potential of your device? Well, if you have an HTC Wizard (Qtek 9100/i-mate K-JAM/T-Mobile MDA) or HTC Universal (Orange SPV M5000, i-mate JASJAR) then you are in luck.

Check out the full post...

Bleezer

Trying out Bleezer - a open-source blogging client written in Java. This post was written using it - pretty neat, but I can't seem to get it to work with WordPress.

Technorati: Bleezer Blogging Client

More Excellent Web 2.0 Examples!

These services below are a great example of how the Web 2.0 world will look and work. Fully online, no local client needed, multiple browser support, AJAX interfaces, innovative, and FAST. These are a great example of what the future of not just computing, consuming news, but an indication of what all services and interfaces will work.

I've been testing out the Clipmarks web service for the past week, and have found it very easy to clip & save web snippets of information. I've even had a chance to go back and look something up - it only took a few seconds, instead of looking for some incorrectly named Bookmark/Favorite, or re-searching Google trying to find the same informaton. Can't wait to see how it helps me find those technical articles for work as well!

Another service I just found today was launched a little over a month ago, called News Alloy. This service is an online, AJAX News Agregator for RSS & ATOM feeds. So far, it is quite interesting - and fast! I'll keep tabs on these to see how well they work out over time. Thanks to TechMemeorandum for the NewsAlloy link!

Reviews of Verizon XV6700 & Treo 700w

Over at Pocket PC Thoughts, Janak Parekh has posted on reviews of these devices at Mobile TechReview. He gives his thoughts on the devices as well.

Check out the Verizon XV6700 review here!
Check out the Treo 700w review here!

ABCs of WPA2 Article

Mobile Pipeline has an article covering "The ABCs of WPA2 Wireless LAN Security". Looks like a good read for understanding and using WP2.

HP Unofficially Confims hw6900?

It may be true - Brighthand has an article about the elusive new HP iPaq phone! Lets hope this is true, as the iPaq 6500/6900 follows the form factor of the Palm Treo line of PDA Phones, including a very useful QWERTY keyboard below the screen and many data-centric items.

Corporate Blogging

I was quite surprised today when an IT Mgmt staff member asked a few of us about blogging! This is really interesting, as there are many reasons for our company to set up both an external blogging presence, and an internal one as well. There are many simple Mgmt --> employee communications that could be done through a short blog post. There are many things employees can communicate to each other and different departments instead of mass emails that many don't read. Notifications from HR or IT could be done in this fasion as well for non-critical items. Blogging in general is simply one more way for people and companies to communicate. With the use of XML feed technologies such as RSS and ATOM, any user can have a constant stream of news being fed to their computer so they don't have to go surf the 'Net for it.

Can't wait to see if anything comes of this - its an interesting year at my company, lots of opportunity for new things.

T-Mobile MDA & SDA Pricing

Well I'm looking forward to the release of the T-Mobile MDA & SDA in February. Just so everyone knows, Engadget has dug up pricing on the two new models and the scheduled release dates.

World Wide Release of Opera Mini!

Check out the article at Geekzone on the release of Opera Mini! Mini is a Java based version of their excellent browser, designed for the small screen on your average mobile phone. All the phone needs to support Mini is to run Java applets. And the best part is - its free!

Visit the Opera Mini page here!

Investigating Blogging...

Well now that Naked Conversations is available, I'm getting motivated to investigate WordPress a bit more. Its more powerful for blogging than just about any other blogging software that I'm aware of, but I'm not certain how it would benefit me over Blogger at this time.

I've moved from MSN Spaces, which I still think is interesting, to Blogger - but wonder if WordPress would allow me to create the blogging experience that I'm after. Blogger has captured most of it, but more flexibility would be nice.

Anyway, the book mentioned above is written by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, and really is making a case for business blogging - check out the reviews at Amazon for more information on why people are thinking its important. I think I'll order the book, I've been reading Robert's blog for about a year and find it interesting. Congratulations to both on their latest achievement!

Opera Web Browser for Pocket PC!

It seems Opera has made the beta version of their Opera 8.5 Browser available for download! Mobile Gadget News is reporting many details including support for Windows Mobile 2003 and 5.0!

T-Mobile MDA & SDA Pre-Registration!

Smartphone Thoughts is reporting the availability to pre-register with T-Mobile on the MDA & SDA avaialability!

T-Mobile is finally going to release a modern Windows Mobile Smartphone and Pocket PC Phone! Hell has indeed frozen over.

Check out the registration page at T-Mobile

Long Week

Its been a long week at work, I've been so busy that I have not even kept up on any news events since the weekend. Couple of projects and the workload to support them is taking up a LOT of my time this week. Along with needing to follow up on some work other people are doing that is vital to my project, it makes for little time to do anything else.

Hopefully I'll be able to catch up a bit tonight! We'll see.

Cingular Fights Sale Of Customer Records

Mobile Burn has an article about Cingular's battle against people illegally obtaining their customer call records.

My issues with news like this is that Cingular should have systems in place to prevent the ability of these records from getting out in the first place. Fine, procecute the people who have crossed the law, but the carriers also need to be held accountable for the leak in the first place.

Home Network

Well tonight I finally got down to the business of drawing out the overview of my current and future home network infrastructure. I've got plans for the obvious network attached storage, audio/video services, and wireless. Going into the future, I'm planning an offsite network with VPN connectivity to the home network. The offsite network would be used for backup purposes and remote access at that site.

I'd forgotten what other items I had planned for the network, but now I've got a nice Visio drawing of the basic architecture, and will supplement that with more detailed drawings as I rebuild each portion. The fun part will be the re-design with newer components that were not available when I first started my home network.

Anyway, there are so many new products out there, and new ways of doing things that I had to "invent" previously - it should be much simpler this time around!

SDIO TV Tuner Available

Pocket PC Thoughts has a post on a new SDIO TV Tuner available for PDAs. It supports NTSC & PAL, and should be publicly available in March. It supports Windows Mobile versions from 2002 to 5.0, so it should be compatible with most PPCs. Looks kind of interesting!

Verizon Limiting Bluetooth Again

An article over at Mobile Pipeline talks about Verizon not supporting bluetooth tethering of PDAs and Laptops to take advantage of EVDO in the new Palm Treo 700w. When will they learn?

Palm Treo 700w Review at InfoSync World

InfoSync World has posted a review of the new Palm Treo 700w. Don't miss reading this one as their reviews are usually quite detailed.

Busy Week

Its been a busy this week, and I've not been able to post as much as I'd like. There's been a small bit of news in the mobile industry - nothing like CES a week or so ago though, so I've not missed much. However, its dissapointing when a person can't keep up on their favorite topics. I'll be working to catch up today on some news and such though, and will be working on some more personal technical projects this weekend. Lots to do for a 'slow' January!

WISE Package Studio

We purchased WISE Package Studio 6 at work last month and I'm finally getting a chance to install and use it. Big product, with lots of options and new things to learn but It'll be fun.

IT Meeting at Work

Well,
We spent the 1st half of the day in a departmental meeting at work, brought all the remote staff in and went over the usual departmental items for the quarter. Boring. Sometimes I wonder if the information presented at meetings like this is worthwhile. At any rate, there goes 4 hours that I'll never get back.

Back at work

Well, vacation is over and I'm back at work. We've lots to do, projects taking up a lot of time so I've not posted the last day or so. Hopefully I'll have a few minutes to go over some news and highlights before too long.

Price Cuts at WebIS now Permenant

Pocket PC Thoughts is reporting that WebIS has permanently cut its product pricing. This is interesting news along with the recent purchase of the FlexWallet 2006 assets from Two Peaks. It seems WebIS is positioning itself to provide a full range of software enhancement products targeting Pocket PC and Smartphones.

PocketWeather 1.2.4 Now Available!

SBSH Software has released PocketWeather 1.2.4 which is mainly a bug fix to all 1.2.x releases.

The list of fixes includes:

• Removed "Display" tab from setup - moved location rotation to general setup tab
• Corrected issue where today screen was not drawing/redrawing under certain conditions
• Removed startup notification service which was causing errors on WM2005 devices when the OS was attempting to run pwcmstub.exe too early.
• Added better shutdown handling so that in future, if installing while an updating process is taking place should cause the updater to terminate to avoid the "in-use" warning/error
• Update/refresh process now handled by smaller pwupdater.exe
• Corrected 1st January current condition bug
• Added earthquake details
• Corrected earthquake map calibration to better position reporting quakes
• More translation work for setup pages

Verizon Wireless Introduces V CAST Music

Today, Verizon Wireless announced it is launching the V CAST Music service. Described as "the world’s most comprehensive music service", V CAST will offer customers the ability to download music directly to their phones "over the air" using the Verizon network. On January 16th, Verizon will give customers immediate access to a wide range of popular titles. The new service will apparently be available as a one-month trial, with a subscription required after that. Below are two phones that will support V CAST Music right away, the LG VX8100 on the left and the Samsung a950 on the right.

Trio of Next-Gen Windows Portable Media Centers Unveiled

InfoSync World has an article covering 3 new Windows Portable Media Center devices that were announced today at CES 2006. The Toshiba gigabeat S, LG PM70, and Tatung V620 are covered along with InfoSync World's always-fantastic hi-res pics to along with them - check it out!

Treo 700w - No MSFP!

According to Jason Landridge, the Treo 700w does not include the Messaging and Security Feature Pack (aka AKU v2.0) in it's shipping form right now. The current configuration does however connect with Exchange Server for Always Up To Date (AUTD) synchronization. It also should support the original Exchange 2003 "push-mail" solution, where the Exchange server would send an SMS message to the device to trigger an AUTD sync that would pull any new email to the device.

Of course, since the device is Windows Mobile, Verizon could at any time release an AKU 2.0 update for the Treo 700w that would include the MSFP functionality.

FlexWallet Purchased by WebIS

Wow - didn't see this one coming. Pocket PC Thoughts has scooped the story on this one! Check out the press release at WebIS as well.

CES 2006 & Microsoft

Looks like there will be a number of extremely interesting product announcements coming out of CES 2006 this week. I've been watching the Bill Gates keynote, and there has already been a number of details that I had been unaware of a few hours ago. Neat stuff! More details to come during the next few days.

Intel Unveils New Brand Identity

With the coming launch of new product brands, Intel is launching a new brand identity that they believe will better represent the company as they position themselves as a market-driven platform solutions company.

“‘Intel. Leap ahead.’ is a simple expression that declares who we are and what we do,” said Eric Kim, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Sales and Marketing Group. “This is part of our heritage. Our mission at Intel has always been to find and drive the next leap ahead – in technology, in education, social responsibility, manufacturing and more – to continuously challenge the status quo. It’s about using Intel technology to make life better, richer and more convenient for everyone.”

There is also a "Brand Architecture" PDF as well, which details the new product brand lines coming up in the near future.

Verizon Announces the Pocket PC XV6700

In another press release, Verizon Wireless is announcing the Pocket PC XV6700! This device is based off the HTC Apache reference design which supports EVDO, WiFi, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, Windows Mobile 5, Exchange 2003 connectivity, bluetooth, and a 416MHz Intel xScale processor.

It is similar in most ways to the HTC Wizard that most people will have read about, with the exception of CDMA/EVDO radios instead of GSM/GPRS/EDGE and the Intel chipset instead of the TI one.

I've seen a version of this device (also available on Sprint) in person and have to admit that the EVDO speeds bring an entirely new usefulness to the device.

The Pocket PC XV6700 will be available starting on January 19th, 2006 for $300 after $100 rebate, 2 year contract and qualifying data plan.

Official Verizon Info on Samsung SCH-i830

Verizon today issued a press release about the new Samsung SCH-i830 Windows Mobile Smartphone! The device will be available to enterprise customers on January 10th with consumer availablility on January 24th.

The SCH-i830 Windows Mobile 5 based Smartphone combines a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, EVDO services, dual mode CDMA/GSM functionality, and many more unique features. The SCH-i830 will be exclusive to Verizon Wireless, and incorporates international support (i.e. GSM).

The SCH-i830 is based on the Pocket PC stack of the Windows Mobile operating system. Though the device lacks a camera, the EVDO network, international support via GSM, Windows Media Player 10, Wireless Sync, and new push-mail support will be big selling points to highly mobile professionals.

New Version of Papyrus for MS Smartphone!

If you are a MS Smartphone user, head on over to SBSH Software and check out the latest release of their Papyrus product! This software is a full-function PIM replacement for the MS Smartphone platform. New features of Papyrus 1.2:

• Windows Mobile 5 Support
• QVGA (240x320) resolutions
• Unlimited MyTexts fields support
• New Tasks View redesign, and optional preview pane
• Enahnced Scrolling on item view dialogs

I've been using SBSH products on my Pocket PC for the last 18 mos. now, and I have been extremely satisfied. SBSH has great support, and a fantastic relationship with its customers. Also check out their excellent forums where you can interact with other users of their software.

Highly recommended!

Samsung i830 Compared with Treo 700w

While at CES this week, Gizmodo has an article comparing the Samsung i830 to the Treo 700w. Both devices are due out on the Verizon network 1Q of this year, both leverage EVDO, both have a QWERTY keyboard, good amount of RAM, decent processor, etc... It'll be interesting to see these devices in action! Read Gizmodo's article for a first-hand impression of the Samsung i830.

PhatWare Software Sale

PhatWare is wishing everyone a Happy New Year with a sale on all their software products! You can pick up your product of choice for $12.95 each, the sales ends January 4th, 2006 at 12:01am (EST). This is a fantastic opportunity to pick up the software you've been putting off - CalliGrapher, PhatNotes, and PhatPad are just a few of the products you can get during this sale.

US Spectrum Auction in 2006

An article over at Mobile Pipeline is reporting that there will be a 'large-scale auction of wireless spectrum' for the US mobile carriers to participate in. This will allow the carriers to expand both footprint, and bandwidth in thier ongoing "high-speed" data offerings. Personally, I believe this will prove to enhance the carriers ability to continue rolling out fast data services for reasonable prices.