All Things Mobile and Wireless
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{ Monthly Archives }
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.
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:
The US-CERT alert does not name it. However, BetaNews says it is called WinCE/InfoJack Trojan and provides its history.
Ubuntu announced their mobile version of Ubuntu Linux
…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.
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 is the latest big social network site to mobile enable itself. You can find the mobile friendly site at…
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).
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.
Just found this in Business Week…
The Secrets of Microsoft’s Sync
Sync is is a Microsoft car product found in Ford cars that lets you control the stereo and your phone (via Bluetooth) using voice commands. Microsoft tried this several years ago with their Windows CE Automotive products that never really caught on. Given Ford’s slipping sales, Sync might have more traction if it were available in cars from other manufacturers.
If you’ve been looking some info about scmdm (System Center Mobile Device Manager) 2008, Microsoft TechNet has a 23 minute video interview about it at…
While reading a PC World blog entry about Apple’s upcoming iPhone SDK, I learned about the Tiny-Code.com site for people interested in unofficial iPhone installers. When I tried to visit the site, I was redirected to Apple’s official Developer Connection…
It (the official site) only has information about Webkit (browser) development now. But, we can probably safely assume that the SDK information will be housed there after its release.
I bought this little Vibez speaker from iFrogz on a whim during their post-holiday sale period. It listed for $34.99. I bought it for $19.99. And, it currently lists on their site for $24.95. This thing is not going to give your high-end or even decent portable speakers any competition. However, despite its relatively low-fidelity, it sounds ok for what it is: A tiny speaker that works with anything that has a mini-plug headphone jack. I often use it to listen to podcasts when I am roaming around a room (I hate wearing headphones or earphones). The USB plug is used to charge the integrated rechargeable batteries. The charge seems to last darn near forever. I think the last time I charged it was sometime in mid-January. You can squeeze it down in size for carrying around. But, I don’t want to stress that plastic pleated mid-area. And, it is small enough to easily carry around even in the expanded state you see in the photo. Personally, I think music sounds ok on it too. It obviously has no bass range to speak of. But, it is fine for un-nuanced music. A mobile thumbs up for this little speaker.
Engadget points out the limits of the new Verizon Wireless Unlimited Plans. It looks like the way to read the three offerings are: Somewhat unlimited, sort of unlimited, and unlimited but pricey. These plans can also have two-person and three-person family plans (Sprint and T-Mobile family plans include up to 5 phones if I recall correctly. Not sure what the AT&T Wireless family plans look like).
Addendum: It looks like everyone else is joining the Unlimited Club. AT&T Wireless and T-Mobile announced similar plans at the same price ($99). And, Sprint PCS’ existing plans are so close that you might was well call it unlimited. Does anyone really need more that 2000 minutes per month plus free nights and weekends? That’s like 1.5+ hours of talking per weekend (remember nights and weekends are free).
Saw a reference to this on the AppleInsider site and followed the link to…
Google homes in on revenue to phones
…The key quote from the article that AppleInsider pointed out is: Google on Wednesday said it had seen 50 times more searches on Apple‘s iPhone than any other mobile handset, adding weight to the group’s confidence at being able to generate significant revenues from the mobile internet. I guess this means we’ll see even more cool web services and sites designed specifically for the iPhone (and as a side effect the iPod touch) while Windows Mobile and other smartphone platforms will have to be happy with WAP text sites and CSS-ed reformatted pages.
You know, I think it was around 11 years ago that Charles Fitzgerald told Bill Gates that Microsoft needed to focus on the web (I was a contractor for MSN at the time, btw). I hope there is someone like that over at Microsoft now pointing out that they need to focus on the mobile web now.