Pocket PC Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

WebIS has relased Pocket Informant 8.1, an incremental upgrade to one of the most popular super-PIMs on the market for any device. New or improved features include:

• 12 Key Search for Pocket PC - this is like T9 for search
• Contacts rewritten so that it now is very fast
• Improved Events view and Journal view with groupings and more options
• Improved Touch mode
• Major improvements to Smartphone all over the place, including linking support

It is a free upgrade for 8.0 users. Just launch the WebIS Update icon in your Programs menu to download and install. If you have an earlier version or a competitive product, see the website for upgrade eligibility and pricing.

"See what it's come to Bluetooth SIG? Headset-to-cellphone pairing is so utterly baffling to average consumers that they are now handing over a Hamilton at Best Buys in California (in support of the new hands-free calling law) just to avoid the procedure. Eight years after the launch of the world's first Bluetooth headset from Ericsson, this is where we're at."

This comes as no shock to me. A few days ago, my BT headset inexplicably stopped working with my phone and I had to delete and recreate the partnership. I hope Best Buy is offering a 90 day guarantee on the pairing or consumers will have to fork over $10 everytime the headset profile decides to puke and lose your settings. A fellow MVP asked why MS didn't hire the Windows Mobile MVPs to help with this. My response is, at $10 a pairing, I would work at McDonalds and average more dollars per hour with less stress.

I did finally figure out what SIG stands for. It is Latin for Servitas Infinitus Gravatus, which roughly translates into "Service that is forever ill."

"eWallet 6.1, released in July 2008, is the latest version of eWallet for Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Windows PCs, UMPCs and U3 Smart Drives."

This actually came out about a week or so ago and I have been so busy at work I neglected to post on it. I've been using it for about 2 months in various beta stages and as always, Ilium's betas are as stable or more stable than some released products. Nothing earth-shattering in this release, but a lot of niceties added that keep eWallet at the top of my list of apps to install on my desktop and Pocket PC. This is a free upgrade for 6.0 users. If you have 5.x or an earlier release, see the information on their web site for upgrade eligibility.



Some of the new features include:

• Personalize your card fields to work best for you: assign a type to any field in a card. Set multiple hidden fields, phone numbers, live email or web links, choose which fields to use with AutoPass - any type of data you want!
• Get quick access to your most-used cards: create card shortcuts and build a Favorites folder for the info you want to open fast.
• Search smarter: the Find feature now gives you a list of all possible cards that match what you're looking for. This is my favorite new feature. It really helps when your eWallet file has well over 100 cards in it.
• Work faster on a non-touch screen device: Windows Mobile Standard (Smartphone) users can now enjoy easier card editing on their devices.

"Opera brings you the best Internet experience on any device, from computers and cell phones to portable media players and game consoles. Opera Mobile, first launched in 2000, and with over 100 million installations since 2004, was the first to bring the full Web to the small mobile screen. Opera Mobile for feature phones and smartphones has pioneered and set the standard in mobile browsing, supporting the latest technologies and receiving industry acclaim. Today, Opera continues to provide the best mobile Web experience with the first beta of Opera Mobile 9.5. Opera Mobile is the answer to the demands of Web fans everywhere. The first beta of Opera Mobile 9.5 comes outfitted with added performance, faster speed, a new UI, and Oper Dragonfly, and is ready and waiting to bring users the Web everywhere."

It's finally here! The public beta of Opera Mobile 9.5 is now available for Windows Mobile Classic/Professional (Pocket PC) devices (sorry, Standard (Smartphone) users). There are plenty of new features such as pan and zoom, a new UI, improved performance, improved standards support, AJAX support, tabbed browsing, offline browsing, auto-complete, a password manager, and Opera Dragonfly. Of course, 9.5 is not without its issues - be sure to digest them before installing. Happy browsing!

Microsoft has opened up their Live Mesh service to the general public in the form of a "tech preview" which is a nicer way of saying "mostly still beta". I've been using Live Mesh for a couple of months now, and it's a pretty cool service. You set a folder to be "Live Meshed" and not only will it be kept in sync between multiple computers, the contents of the folder will be kept in the cloud (where you have 5 GB of storage). I think there's a lot of potential here, especially since they've stated they'll be targeting mobile devices. I've been dreaming of having my FlexWallet file be pushed to my device when there's a change in it, because connecting my device with my desktop computer is something I just don't do anymore. I was hoping for years that the FolderShare team would release a Windows Mobile client, but they're still struggling to get the service stable, so no joy there. If you have a desktop and a laptop, and haven't checked out Live Mesh yet, you should.

"Samsung Electronics unveiled its 3G HSDPA smartphone 'BlackJack III(model: SCH-M480)' dubbed as 'Ultra Messaging 2' in Korea market. It will be available in the mid of July through SK Telecom for around 600,000 won. Running on Windows Mobile 6 Professional, the SCH-M480...adopts a 2.6-inch touchscreen display with 320x320 pixel resolution, a BlackBerry style keypad and finger mouse. Other features included a 2M camera for video calling, MP3/MPEG4, WMV files support, and micro SD card slot."

This appears to be a close variant of the i780 that's currently in Europe (and with a slated Fall release in North America).

"Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a leading mobile phone manufacturer announced the launch of Omnia, Samsung’s all-in-one mobile phone in the Italian market on July 22. Starting from Italy, Omnia will be available through major European mobile operators and in most of GSM supporting open markets during July and August.  Omnia meaning ‘everything’ in Latin and ‘wish’ in Arabic, goes beyond the current top-of-the-line features available in today’s mobile phones. As the first market in Europe, Samsung had pre-order promotion for Italian consumers in cooperation with Media world, the electronics stores in Europe. The consumers who made the reservation for Omnia from July 14 will receive Xbox 360 Arcade gaming systems when  will be available. The price will be at 499 Euro (8GB) without subsidy."

In just under a week, the Omnia will make its long-awaited debut in Italy. Other European markets can expect to see it later this month or next month in two versions - an 8GB and a 16GB; the former will sell for €499 ($793.7 USD) outright. Anyone here planning on picking one up when released?

"If you read my blog then you'll probably realise that I can be a little nuts at times. Every now and then I like to do some weird things with my Windows Mobile... Yesterday I decided to do something a bit more bizarre and plonked my HTC phone onto the carriage of a toy train set. "What?" I hear you cry. Well, I was helping my nephew with his train-set while Emily gave our son a bath, so I decided to film it because it was, quite possibly, the longest track we'd ever made... Yes, it's a little nuts, but this is what happens when you have kids ;)"

Tired of sitting around and twiddling your thumbs while we all patiently wait for the release of Windows Mobile 7? Well here is a little something to pass the time and maybe even give you a chuckle. Gears from CoolSmartPhone.com has attached his Windows Mobile HTC handset to a electronic train set and has sent it down one of the longest toy train tracks I have ever seen constructed. It just goes on and on and on. You can see one of the videos above. To see the second clip point your browsers this way.

"Sure, the Samsung i760 may be getting a bit long in the tooth, but there’s nothing like a little OS refresh and added functionality to breathe new life into an aging dinosaur. Originally scheduled for a June launch, Verizon has officially released the Windows Mobile 6.1 update for is i760 handset. There’s nothing as sexy as EV-DO Rev. A support in there, but if the following list of improvements don’t get you excited about your oddly-shaped slide out QWERTY mobile companion, then we’re pretty sure there’s no hope left for you"

ROM Updates are always exciting times. If you're feeling like a change (and a re-setup of your phone), download the update for the i760 and enjoy the new features outlined in this Boy Genius article!

"SmartTweaker provides dozens of tweaks and software solutions for improving the functionality of your Windows Mobile Smartphone. An extremely popular application for its low price and the broad range of useful modifications it offers...SmartTweaker has over 60 original tweaks! It will automatically soft-reset device if tweak needs this and user agrees! It is easy to use with a simple user interface Every tweak has an on-screen info box Helps you increase your battery standby time significantly! Safe tweaking feature, it will block tweaks that are not for your Mobile operating system!"

SmartTweaker looks pretty smart from the material I've seen, and it's discounted to less than $10 if ordered before July 15. Demo version is available, so if you're really into tweaking, perhaps give it a shot and let us know how it works!