MobileViews Blog

The Belkin iPod TuneBase FM has been out for more than a year. But, I just picked one up today. It has a lot of advantages over the Belkin TuneCast that I used a couple of years ago.

The TuneBase (pictured to the left) plugs into a car power adapter (AKA cigarette lighter) while the TuneCast used an AAA battery. One of the problems I had with the TuneCast is that the battery would rapidly die while driving. The TuneBase also charges a connected iPod which means that both the iPod and the TuneBase are powered and ready to go all the time.

The TuneBase can tune into arbitary frequencies while the TuneCast is limited to four fixed frequencies. This can be a problem if none of those four stations provide a clear signal to the car radio. The FM radio frequency is displayed on the iPod’s screen when configuring the unit. This makes it pretty easy to quickly configure the system with your car radio.

The sturdy looking flexible arm can be adjusted to get it out of the way of other dashboard controls. I am kind of concerned about how much pressure it puts on the cigarette lighter though. I think the best thing to do is to use two hands to insert and remove an iPod from the TuneBase.

I’m pretty satisfied sending photos and videos from my phone to Flickr, Microsoft Live Spaces, and Blip.tv. Nakama sounded interesting so I signed up for this free web service.

Nakama.ca

But, I never felt the urge to use it. The site describes itself like this: Set your phone free! Take pictures or videos from your phone and publish them straight to your blog, Flickr gallery, even your MySpace or MSN Spaces page. You can also look at your friends’ stuff on your phone… so you don’t have to wait to get home to check out what everyone’s up to… their pics and videos are always there waiting for you.

I obviously don’t get it yet. But, if you do, please clue me in.

Most people seem to pan across a landscape and stitch photos horizontally (as shown in my O’Reilly example a few blogs ago). However, you can create some satisfying stitched photos by taking a series of photos down-to-up (which I find easier than up-to-down) with a cameraphone. I took three photos with a Nokia 3650 cameraphone a couple of years ago. The vertically stitched result can be seen to the left. It didn’t make the cut for the Digital Photography Hacks book. But, you can see the result here.

Microsoft sometimes releases stable but unsupported utilities for Microsoft Windows on your desktop or notebook. They sometimes do the same thing for Windows Mobile devices. One Windows Mobile PowerToy that was released just last month is…

Windows Mobile Network Analyzer PowerToy

Microsoft describes it as: Network Analyzer for Windows Mobile runs network utilities, for example ping and ipconfig, on a Windows Mobile powered device. Network Analyzer for Windows Mobile facilitates the troubleshooting of network connectivity issues. You can extend the harness. You can add user-defined tests (DLLs) to the list of tests to be executed. An xml input file defines the list of tests to execute. You can use Network Analyzer to send information about network traffic to a .cap file. You can then view the .cap file with the Network Monitor tool or the Ethereal tool.

As a supporter of the Open Source paradigm, I was pleasantly amused to note that the output is intended for use with the Open Source Ethereal network protocol analyzer.

It looks like the Mozilla Minimo browser project for mobile devices has gone dormant. Its last release, 0.016, was made on June 16 (more than 6 months ago). Doug Turner himself notes in his blog that he has not been doing much development on Minimo and invites interested developers to step up to contribute to the project.

Minimo has a long way to go (as its release number indicates) before it is a useful tool for end-users. And, I hope interested talented developers join in the development effort to deliver a good Open Source browser for mobile devices.

So, you just got a new shiny cameraphone to replace the, uh, old shiny cameraphone. Don’t take the same old 1 or 2  megapixel photos with it. Try stitching a couple of photos together on your desktop or notebook and create a panoramic photo. I wrote a litte hack for Derrick Story’s…

Digital Photography Hacks

…book in the popular O’Reilly Hacks series back in 2004 that tells you how to create panoramic photos using a cameraphone. And, they have provided it as a free hack available on the web. You can find the full hack linked at…

Get the Big Picture with a Little Camera Phone

I haven’t tried this myself. But, it looks interesting with a beta-level of support for Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PCs and Smartphones.

Total Commander

Version 2.0 is freeware. There is also a shareware version 6.55a. Total Commander provides a rich set of file handling features, a text editor, and ftp client (among other features).

The calculator software that Microsoft puts in every Pocket PCs’ firmware is amazing. It is amazing that after generations of Palm-size PC and Pocket PC releases it is has not been enhanced one single bit since its release years ago. Thank goodness for the freeware calculator…

Calc98 for Pocket PC

This powerful calculator is a great app for anyone who needs more than Microsoft’s 4 function calculator delivers. Although Calc98’s list of supported devices doesn’t mention Windows Mobile 5 based Pocket PCs, I’m running it without any problems on my K-JAM Pocket PC Phone Edition.

Here’s another freeware offering from Ilium Software…

Ilium Software Screen Capture

This free utility works on both Windows Mobile Pocket PC and Smartphone devices. It lets you take a snapshot of your screen either in real time or using a timer (for those apps that take control of the buttons). This is very useful for creating screenshots for documentation or bug reporting.

Microsoft is offering OmegaOne’s Invaders games (based on the classic Space Invaders from the 1970s) for free (with registration). You can find it at:

Entertainment Applications: Invaders

It is available for both the Pocket and Smartphone Windows Mobile platforms.

One of the oldest and most difficult to master board games is Go (AKA Weiqi). Vieka ported the Open Source GNU Go to the Windows Mobile Pocket PC and Smartphone.

Pocket GNU Go

I’m not sure how much of a challenge it is for Go expert. But, for the rest of us it is a nice to have mobile port of a classic game.

Today’s mobile freebie is a video service (in beta) for mobile devices…

MyWaves

The service works sign-up indicates it works on all four of the largest mobile carriers in the US (AT&T Wireless/Cingular, Sprint PCS, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless).

Here comes my caveat: Part of the sign-up process requires providing your mobile phone number. That makes sense. But, I’m wary of handing over a mobile phone number to a company I don’t know much about. However, according to their press release, 20,000 people per week have been signing up since October. So, perhaps, my reservation is a minority opinion.

If you’ve been using it, let me know how it is working for you.