Monthly Archives: February 2008

WiFi Shirt

WiFi Shirt

Someone I know won one of those WiFi detecctor t-shirts as a door prize the other day. The plate on the front of the shirt (the detector itself is a little box connected via cables to the front plate) actually works. It went all blue (no WiFi) in a known dead-spot and lit up (four bars out of five in the photo above) where there was a WiFi signal. I wouldn’t buy one myself. But, it is a great gag gift.

US-CERT: WinCE/InfoJack Trojan

Hmm… US-CERT has an advisory about a Windows CE Trojan. Here’s the list of things it is said to do on a Windows CE device:

  • spreads via seemingly legitimate application installation files
  • installs as an autorun program on the memory card
  • installs itself to the device when an infected memory card is inserted
  • protects itself from deletion by copying itself back to disk
  • replaces the browser’s homepage
  • allows unsigned applications to install without warning

The US-CERT alert does not name it. However, BetaNews says it is called WinCE/InfoJack Trojan and provides its history.

Ubuntu Mobile

Ubuntu announced their mobile version of Ubuntu Linux

Ubuntu Mobile

…targetted at the UMPC sized devices with flash storage (instead of spinning hard drives) that started to gain popularity with the release of Asus Eee PC and OLPC XO last year. Microsoft needs much lighter weight version of Windows Vista if they intend to stay in the ultraportable game. They basically need a Windows Vista Core with a non-Aero lightweight GUI and a much much faster file system.

If Microsoft Buys Yahoo!, Yahoo! Go Must Go Away

Yahoo! Go

Yahoo!’s mobile sites are great. But, for some odd reason, its Yahoo! Go Mobile client for Windows Mobile is just awful. Its navigation is non-intuitive and it is unbelievably slow when it actually works. If Microsoft acquires Yahoo!, I sure hope they keep its mobile-friendly websites which are more content rich than Microsoft’s sites. But, I hope the Yahoo! Go mobile client goes somewhere far away never to return.

Linkedin Mobile Looks So Much Better on an iPhone/iPod touch

Linkedin Mobile on iPod touch and T-Mobile Dash

Linkedin is the latest big social network site to mobile enable itself. You can find the mobile friendly site at…

mobile.linkedin.com

It would have been nice if they adopted the “m.” prefix to reduce the amount of tapping on a small keyboard or screen. But, oh well…

The real story here though is that once again the barebones display designed for WAP-ish devices like Windows Mobile that can’t deal with a rich web site design looks horrible compared to the much richer iPhone/iPod touch version. You can probably figure out which is which in the photo above. One is an iPod touch. The other is a T-Mobile Dash Windows Mobile 6 smartphone (amateur edition).

Motorola T305 Bluetooth Hands Free Speaker

Motorola T305 Bluetooth Speaker

I really don’t like using phone headsets. I’ve bought a couple of and have used them sparingly. But, they are just plain uncomfortable in warm weather environments. And, I can’t hear my podcasts clearly when listening to them in the car with one ear blocked. So, I finally got around to buying the Motorola T305 Bluetooth Speaker from a local Costco (under $50). It came with both a car charger as well as an A/C adapter. Best of all, it has a standard mini-USB jack for charging. So, my portable charger should work fine with it.

I tested it with a T-Mobile Dash (Windows Mobile 6 Standard Edition) and it seems to work fine. It has a metal clip to clip it to the visor. Here’s hoping it is loud enough to use for those rare times I need to make or receive a phone call while in the car.