February 2006 - Posts
If you’ve been following Pocket PC news and support forums for awhile, the name Bev Howard should ring a bell. Bev must love weather, just like me. Check out the PocketPC Radar Finder Bev has put up.
http://bevhoward.com/storm/ppcrad.htm
Note! Windows Mobile 2003 or above required for image animation.
From the website:
This is your Windows Mobile Training resource center. In addition to courses, this site offers sales support tools and mobile device news.
*This site was developed specifically for use by retail sales professionals who sell Windows Mobile devices at a retail location.
Courses include Windows Mobile 5.0 Level 1 and Level 2, Windows Mobile vs. the Competition, Portable Media Center, Wi-Fi, ActiveSync Level 1 and Level 2, Microsoft Office Programs for Windows Mobile, Pocket MSN, and others.
Check it out!
http://www.windowsmobiletraining.com
Microsoft has a technology preview site up here:
http://preview.local.live.com/
Take a drive through Seattle or San Francisco.
What a concept!
http://lilypadusa.org/find.html
A unique partnership in the city of Cincinnati has begun to deliver Wi-Fi that is not only free of cost, but also free of pop-up and banner ads.
Called Lily Pad, the partnership combines efforts from the City of Cincinnati, Time Warner Cable, and the Lily Pad non-profit organization. The endeavor has already resulted in the establishment of more than 20 Lily Pads or "pods," each with numerous hotspots and still more access points. Another 55 or more are slated to be established in the coming weeks.
"We looked at other national (Wi-Fi) attempts," said Ryan Rybolt, a businessman who co-founded Lily Pad. "We thought other approaches were too expensive and we didn't want to ask for taxpayer or city money."
From Project Lily Pad’s website:
Imagine a region where people have wireless Internet access and information can be easily retrieved and sent on demand. Using a PC or a PDA, users can access information while sitting on a bench in the park, walking down the street or while dining at a local restaurant. All for Free…no strings attached!
Imagine having wireless capability throughout the Tri-State region and being able to log in to your data provider from Hamilton, Ohio, to Covington, Kentucky, to Lawrenceburg, Indiana.
Imagine providing a local community officer access to key information by simply driving into a park, eliminating the need to visit headquarters. Critical, life-saving information, on demand.
Imagine being part of the realization of such a project and helping enhance the quality of life in the Greater Cincinnati region and in your community.
According to a blog over at CNET:
BlackBerry maker Research in Motion may have scored a minor victory its ongoing patent spat with holding company NTP.
In a six-line order filed on Tuesday afternoon and obtained by CNET News.com, U.S. District Judge James Spencer denied NTP's request to introduce new documents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Those documents, which reportedly attempted to show evidence of shady dealings with RIM, were filed just before the companies' hearing last week.
NTP did not respond to requests for a copy of its motion. Last week, however, the company released a lengthy statement that described several examples of what it called "irregularities" in the Patent Office's reexamination of disputed patents in the case.
Your Google personalized homepage puts the information you care about on one web page -- and now you can access that page on your mobile phone or device, in a phone-friendly format that's easy to read and navigate.
- Preview your latest Gmail messages
- See headlines from top news sources
- Get weather forecasts, stock quotes, and movie showtimes
- Choose from a variety of popular RSS and Atom feeds.
You'll need to use the PC version of Google personalized home to choose which content to add to your phone's homepage. If you haven't done this yet, click the 'Personalized Home' link in the upper-right-hand corner of Google.com (or, just click here).
- Access the mobile web browser on your phone or mobile device (note: this device must support XHTML)
- Type www.google.com in the URL field (if you get an error message, type www.google.com/xhtml)
- Select the 'Personalized Home' link, then sign in with your username and password. You'll see the same customized content modules you've chosen on the web.
Google News for mobile devices keeps you updated on current news articles when you're on the go. You can access top headlines, browse through news categories, or search for exactly the stories you want — all in a phone-friendly format that's easy to read and navigate. All you need is a web-enabled phone.
- Go to google.com on your mobile phone's browser and click the link to "News"
- Browse top headlines, or news in categories
- Search for the news you want
BlackBerry founder Mike Lazaridis is preparing to add cameras and music players to the most popular hand-held computer to match Palm Inc.'s Treo and Motorola Inc.'s Q phone.
While Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry, is negotiating to settle a five-year patent battle that might shut the service, a bigger threat may be competition.
"There's a lot of room for new stuff" in the BlackBerry, Lazaridis said Monday. "Adding multimedia technology is inevitable."
More than 602,000 Treos were sold last quarter, compared with 645,000 BlackBerries, narrowing a gap that stood at 150,000 in the previous quarter. Competition may erode BlackBerry's market share to 50 percent in 2010 from 71 percent now, said FTN Midwest Research analyst Ben Bollin.
Camera’s and music players to Blackberry’s…oh my…
To get Microsoft’s “push email” directly from Exchange 2003, you not only need a Windows Mobile 5 device, you need the Messaging and Security Feature Pack. Is it about to be released? This posting appeared on Microsoft’s UK Windows Mobile website:
We are working on bringing new features and updates to your Windows Mobile device. The latest version due soon is the version required to get your email 'pushed' direct from the latest version of Exchange 2003. The new version will be available from mid March for existing devices and on all new devices from April.
The best place to get the latest software is from your mobile operator. The upgrade requires a download which depending on the operator's chosen method can be completed via a cable attached to your PC, or over the mobile network direct to your device. We will add links to the relevant mobile operator resources as soon as they become available.
Let’s wait and see. According to Gizmodo, it could be as early as next week.
Judge James Spencer, who as most are aware is overseeing the RIM/NTP case, said in the hearing on Feb. 24 that he expects to rule shortly on whether to impose an injunction. After saying how surprised he was that the two sides hadn't reached a settlement, he warned them that neither would be happy if he had the final say.
"You let this be a court decision and you're going to get a court decision," he said. "A court-imposed decision will be imperfect."
Didn’t know there was such a thing, but it’s not like me to pass up free food. Do you like pancakes? Is there an IHOP near by? From IHOP’s website:
FREE PANCAKES! NO STRINGS ATTACHED!
On February 28, 2006 from 7 AM to 2 PM IHOPs across the country will celebrate National Pancake Day (also known as Shrove Tuesday) by offering our guests a free short stack of pancakes*. This is going to be our biggest one day celebration in our history.
National Pancake Day has a rich history that stretches back centuries and has always been a time of celebration. National Pancake Day always falls on Fat Tuesday and this year it will be a celebration at IHOP.
So gather your friends, family and neighbors and come to your local IHOP and enjoy a short stack of pancakes on us. All we ask is that you consider making a donation to a great charity like First Book or other local, worthy cause. Where else would you celebrate National Pancake Day than IHOP? See you there.
The Mobile Malware Researchers Association (MARA) has found what is believed to be the first malware to cross-infect a handheld PDA from a binary on the desktop PC.
The malware, a Trojan dubbed “crossover”, spreads from a Win32 desktop machine to a Windows Mobile Pocket PC handheld.
Detailed analysis and the malware binary are available to antivirus companies and security experts who qualify for MARA membership, which is free.
This proof of concept virus spreads from a desktop PC to a Windows CE or Windows Mobile device by running on every startup through an entry in the the registry, proceeding to wait for an Activesync connection to be detected. In every boot the virus recreates itself and again add new startup commands to the registry, which could over time lead to performance degradation on the host PC.
More information: http://www.mobileav.org/
It’s such a shame. I see that Don Knotts died today at the age of 81. Talk about a guy I grew up with. From Andy Griffith to Three’s Company, Don was a regular in our house. ABC News called him the “lovable nerd”. Apparently Don died last night night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills.
Barney Fife will go down in history with me, no doubt about it. I have many favorite episodes from Andy Griffith Show. Henry Limpet from The Incredible Mr. Limpet is also one of my favorites, but I have a ton from Don Knotts. The Shakiest Gun in the West, The Reluctant Astronaut, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, No Time For Sergeants, they’re all in my collection.
Rest In Peace Mr. Knotts.
Lisa Gade over at
MoibleTechReview takes a look at the Cingular 8125, and does a nice job of it.
Yes, even the Treo 700w users are complaining.
Judging by the emails I've been receiving and the discussion thread on yesterday's blog (see Treo 700w, Windows Mobile 5.0 marred by flaws), I guess I'm not alone in feeling as though the device isn't ready for primetime. Via email, MobileTrax's Gerry Purdy forwarded me a copy of his own review in which he draws the same conclusions that I did about the questionable usage of "OK" (both in hardware and software) while also writing:
If Palm had introduced the Treo 700w first and then introduced the Treo 650 later, most people would conclude that the Treo 650 was a significant improvement over the 700w.
But looking at the Talkbacks to my blog, I'm not so sure that the PalmOS-based Treo 650 users would agree. Apparently, Treo 650 users are having similar problems; particularly when it comes to the device locking up. There are stories of multiple daily reboots and data loss.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Friday issued a second final rejection of an NTP-held patent at the heart of the long-running BlackBerry dispute.
Two days ago, NTP received its first final notice on one of the five patents at issue in the case. RIM announced Friday's Patent Office decision in a press release, and a Patent Office representative confirmed the decision.
Anyone else guess what RIM’s strategy is?
The flurry of security issues involving Apple’s Mac OS X over the past few days once again hammers home the fact that no technology platform is invulnerable to attacks, whatever the perception might otherwise be, security analysts said.
All it takes is a certain level of interest on the part of hackers and security researchers to increase the threats associated with any platform, they said.
“All software has bugs, and a certain percentage of those bugs will be security vulnerabilities,” said Ira Winkler, an independent security analyst and author of the book Spies Among Us.
Many have already stated the obvious.
The judge considering whether to shut down BlackBerry service in the United States made it clear during a Feb. 24 court hearing that he doesn't think this case belongs in court anymore, and he wishes the two sides would just settle.
But even after being scolded in court, executives at BlackBerry maker Research In Motion say that settlement is not an option, claiming that plaintiff NTP has yet to propose a reasonable resolution.
"Settlement has never been an option to date," said Jim Balsillie, chairman and co-CEO of RIM on Feb. 24.
"The issue is that they've been disingenuous with the court and with the public," Balsillie said.
A judge spared millions of users from an immediate shutdown of the BlackBerry portable e-mail devices on Friday. Wrapping up nearly four hours of arguments in a district court in Richmond, Va., Judge James Spencer said he would not impose an immediate injunction against BlackBerry maker Research in Motion.
However…
Judge Spencer said there was no escaping that RIM had been found to be infringing on NTP Inc.'s patents and he would issue a decision on an injunction "as soon as reasonably possible," according to Reuters.
Over 93.5 million text messages are sent every day but all this digit action has lead to an explosion in people reporting cases of repetitive strain injury (RSI).
Thirty-eight percent more people suffer from sore wrists and thumbs due to texting than five years ago and 3.8 million people now complain of text-related injuries every year.
The survey for Virgin Mobile found the texting phenomenon shows no sign of slowing. Over 12 percent of the population admit to sending 20 texts per day and 10 percent confess to sending up to 100 texts every day.
Fess up. How many text messages do you send?
For those interested, Microsoft has
posted documents related to its defense in the European Commission suit.
US District Court Judge James Spencer will hear arguments later today regarding RIM and NTP. What will he decide?
In the latest news…
"NTP believes that RIM has utilized its money, power and political influence to overcome its complete defeat in the court system and to inappropriately influence the U.S. Patent Office process," Arlington-based NTP said in a statement Thursday.
Experts have uncovered a serious security bug in the way Apple software handles downloaded files.
The flaw could give malicious attackers a back door into Mac computers if users visit carefully crafted websites and download booby-trapped files.
Although no attackers were known to be exploiting the bug, experts said it was easy to write code to take advantage of the flaw.
At the same time three more viruses for Apple computers have been discovered.
Several have asked for a registry editor tool for the Pocket PC. I use the free tool
PHM Registry Editor. So far, it works on all the devices, including WM5.
Interesting ruling in the RIM/NTP case.
A federal judge on Tuesday denied the Justice Department's request for further discovery and a hearing in the patent case involving BlackBerry wireless e-mail service.
But U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer said the government can appear at a hearing later this week as he considers an injunction against on U.S. BlackBerry sales and service, as well as damages.
Awhile ago I blogged about memory issues with the 6515. It won’t recognize storage cards to save attachments to for email so you’re left using internal storage on the device. Anyway, if your comfortable hacking the registry, here’s the trick to use your storage cards for email attachment storage. By the way, if you hard reset the device, you’ll have to hack the registry again.
Registry key paths for SD card:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\StorageManager\Profiles\SD
Registry key paths for Mini SD:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\StorageManager\Profiles\MiniSD)
From each of the above paths, there is a value name called "Folder". By default, the data for this "Folder" value is "CF Card", or "SD Card" for the appropriate memory storage being used. This value is where you need to change to "Storage Card". Note: This is case sensitive. Soft reset the device, or take the storage card out and reinsert it, and you should be good to go.
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