Microsoft launches Total Access website for Windows Mobile device owners

Microsoft recently launched a new Windows Mobile site to replace Windows Mobile Owners Circle. Renamed Total Access, the site is the result of the feedback provided by users. More tips and free stuff are available.

Benefits are as follows:

More ringtones, extras, and add-ons

When you want to personalize your phone, there are simple things you can do for maximum impact. Total Access helps you make your phone uniquely your own..

How: Free, exclusive and limited ring tones, themes wallpapers and detailed but instructions on how to find, set and use these assets

Tips, premium help & how-to (for FREE!)

Total Access helps familiarize you with all the things your Windows Mobile phone can do, plus gives you access to premium help and support from user forums and other experts when you have questions.

How: Customized and premium help and how to content from Microsoft and 3^rd parties; help forums seeded and moderated by Microsoft MVPs

Software, service & more

Your Windows Mobile phone does a lot—and can be even further enhanced. Total Access offers free games and is your guide to the software and services that help you get even more from your phone.

How: Free, exclusive and limited interactive games, Media Applications (Viigo, Zumboi), Software (e.g.Photo contacts) and access to Microsoft mobile services and offers

Check it out: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/totalaccess/default.mspx

Opera Mobile 9.5 first beta to be released on July 15

I've been a longtime user of Opera Mobile and it is my number one browser on my device. Presently, version 8.65 can be downloaded/purchased from www.opera,com/products/mobile/products/. Version 9.5 promises to be even better and I've been eagerly looking for a release date. Finally I've got one, the 15th of July. Note that Opera Mobile 9.5 is already running on devices like the HTC Diamond Touch and Advantage.
You can read the announcement titled "The wait is (almost) over" at http://my.opera.com/operamobile/blog/2008/06/26/the-wait-is-almost-over

Posted using my Windows Mobile phone.

Press-Release. Spb Software Collaborates with Toshiba to Create the Ultimate User Experience

Spb Software, the leading Windows Mobile applications vendor, is partnering with Toshiba Information Systems (UK) Ltd - Mobile Communications Division, to deliver the ultimate mobile device experience through the recently launched Toshiba Portege G810. The Portege G810 features the Spb Mobile Shell-based Toshiba Touch Interface, a customized version of Spb Full Screen Keyboard, the Spb Pocket Plus smart scrolling component, and other Windows Mobile customization enhancements. The strong combination of a powerful platform and functional hardware, complemented by a set of usability tools from Spb, make Toshiba's Portege G810 a very fast and intuitive smartphone.
"We designed the Portege G810 as a stylish touch screen Windows Mobile phone, ideal for both mobile-working and socializing, as it combines a powerful operating system with an incredibly user-friendly interface," says Bertrand Issard, Head of Product Planning & Strategy, Toshiba Information Systems (UK) Ltd. "We turned to Spb Software, with their extensive Windows Mobile software and usability expertise, to support us in creating a highly intuitive user interface for our Portege G810," he concludes. "Microsoft is committed to support a vibrant partner ecosystem and always delivers opportunities to create solutions that meet a wide range of Windows Mobile customers' needs," comments Fabio Falzea, acting as Mobile Communications Business Lead, Microsoft Central & Eastern Europe Area. "The Toshiba - Spb synergy is one good example of the rich benefits the Microsoft ecosystem secures to the market, where partners are able to complement each other's strengths and deliver new innovative and rich experiences on Windows Mobile platform". The Toshiba Touch Interface has been localized into 13 languages, has been skillfully embedded into the operating system, and is incredibly stable. "Toshiba's Portege G810 has a very fast and responsive screen, with outstanding color quality," - says Yaroslav Goncharov, Spb Software CTO - "the Spb Mobile Shell gestures and animation are especially striking, emphasizing the pure beauty of this finger-friendly mobile device."

AOL releases AIM beta for Windows Mobile

If your device does not come loaded with any Instant Messaging software, you might want to try AIM for Windows Mobile by AOL. With this software loaded, you will be able to communicate wherever you are, manage your buddy list and more. AIM works on almost every Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices out there. AIM can be downloaded from Http://beta.aol.com/projects.php?project=aimwinmobile Posted using my Windows Mobile phone.

Iambic Summer sales: 50% Off

Iambic is offering 4 titles at discounted prices on their website. These applications are: Health & Diet Manager, Vehicle Manager, TravelTalk and EQuote. Of course the offer applies to both touchscreen and non-touchscreen devices. Note the offer will end on Wednesday 25, 2008.

Website: www.iambic.com

Posted using my Windows Mobile phone.

Yahoo Go 3.0 for WM touchscreen devices released

Previously Yahoo Go! 3.0 was available for non-Touchscreen devices only. Now the software has been ported to Pocket PCs and it's free. This new version has a nice interface and allows for uploading and managing a FlickR account right from the device. To download Yahoo Go! 3.0 directly on your device. Point your web browser to get.go.yahoo.com.

Posted using my Windows Mobile phone.

Microsoft Videos Beta

Check out Microsoft Videos which, as its name implies, contains videos about various Microsoft products including Windows Mobile. The site requires that you download Silverlight to watch the videos. Those can easily be shared with friends or linked to on a blog. For now, contents have been provided by Microsoft U.S. Subsidiaries will add their own later. Get a preview of the site and watch some videos at http://preview.microsoft.com/video/

Tips: When I connect to PC, device goes into slideshow mode

Q: I have a HTC device. Whenever I connect to my PC to sync, the phone goes into slideshow mode. Does anyone know how i can disable this?

A: Open Pictures and Videos on your device. To do that, go to Start > Programs. Click Menu > Options and click the slideshow tab. Uncheck "Play screensaver when conected to my PC and idle for 2 minutes.

Source: Windows Mobile Owners Circle forum.

Posted using my Windows Mobile phone.

New: Astraware releases Bubble Babble for Windows Mobile

I'm a fan of Astraware games. So when they release a new game, you can be sure I'll download it and add it to my game collection on my Windows Mobile gaming device. Now, before anyone asks if this is a new device, the answer is no. It's just that I set aside one of my PDAs, a Dell Axim, for playing games only. Oops, nearly forgot about the subject of this post.

Astraware released Bubble Babble today. "Challenge your word power with this undersea bubble-bursting brain teaser! Link together letter bubbles to form words and impress Wordsworth Smartygills - your friendly fishy host! Bubble Babble includes a fun interactive tutorial to teach you how to play with the bubbles and make words from them. Score points for each word you make. Impress Wordsworth with more complex or unusual words and he'll reward you with shiny shells for your collection!"

I strongly recommend you get this one. It's being sold at $9.95. The normal price is $19.95. Swim over to http://www.astraware.com/ppc/bubblebabble/?link=1/spin/0 to download a trial.

SMS-Chat upgrade supports animated emoticons

Here's another update for SMS-Chat released by Vito Technology and what an update some are going to say because it adds one of the basic functionalities you would expect to find in any SMS software: Animated Smilies. This is a nice addition. However, on reading the press release I thought Vito Technology added a new menu where to pick the desired emoticon, but I still have to manually type the signs ":" and ")" to insert a smile. Unless I'm missing something, SMS-Chat 1.1 only renders back an animated smily to make reading a sms more enjoyable and fun. Of course, your recipients will see them only if they also use SMS-Chat.

This new version also includes "feature that everybody really likes in the previous version of SMS-Chat is the ability to click hyperlinks to open in browser, to click phone number to place a call and e-mail to send a letter. Now this feature has become even cooler. In previous version you were to click the SMS to call out menu buttons afterward choose the needed action. As far as the new version you only need to click the highlighted text and SMS-Chat will automatically detect whether it should give a ring, e-mail or open the link in the browser".

SMS-Chat is available for $14.95 at http://iwindowsmobile.com. SMS-Chat supports English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese, and Russian.

SPB Backup 2.0 released

We all know that keeping a backup of data is of paramount importance in the enterprise and even outside in case disaster strikes. Backup software does not only apply to computers and servers, our beloved devices also need some safeguard. Enter SPB Backup 2.0.

Released yesterday by SPB Software House, SPB Backup 2.0 not only lets you restore your data in case of data loss. Not only does it restore your contacts, Calendar etc; you will not need to re-install your applications or ROM image. Better yet, SPB Backup 2.0 lets you restore to another device even the latter is using another ROM.

Want to know more about SPB Backup 2.0. The link takes you to SPB's press release:

http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/about/pressreleases/2008/jun10.html

Sync Vista Contacts and Calendar to your Pocket PC/Smartphone

I'm often asked whether it's possible to sync Vista Contacts and Calendar to a Windows Mobile device and obviously the answer is no. Microsoft does not support this feature and therefore Outlook 2003 or 2007 is required on the computer for a complete and successful sync. Well, this is until I read about Sybase XTNDConnect from Sybase. According to the product page, Windows Vista Calendar, Contact and Tasks sync are supported. What else to say, a trial version can be downloaded from www.sybase.com/download_xtndconnect_pc.

Updated version of Zumobi released

The new version of Zumobi now offers better performance for faster downloads of applications and a "smaller on-phone footprint".
The new on-phone gallery allows you to select and upload tiles directly on the phone. This new feature comes in handy while on the go.
Probably the coolest addition to Zumobi is the ability to create your own tiles with the Tile Wizard. You can then share your tiles and even go back to edit your customized tiles.

To download the update, point your device browser to http://get.zumobi.com

Posted using my Windows Mobile phone.

Softmaker releases Office 2008 for Pocket PCs

The default Office Mobile on your touch screen device does not suit your needs or lacks much needed functionalities while on the go, then consider SoftMaker Office 2008 for Pocket PCs. SoftMaker can boast about delivering a fullifledge software. SM Office 2008 abilities that makes Office Mobile a shame in comparison.
SoftMaker bundles the following applications:

TextMaker: The equivalent of MS Word. With TextMaker you can easily insert pictures in your documents, insert tables and pages, track changes and it has its own multi language spell checker.

PlanMaker: The equivalent of MS Excel has over 300 builtin functions and supports complex number and array calculation.

Presentations: The equivalent of MS Powerpoint. A large collection of template is available as well as slide transitions and animations.

SoftMaker Office 2008 is available for a 30 days trial from www.softmaker.com/english/ofpdemo_en.htm

Posted using my Windows Mobile phone.

HTC announces the HTC Touch Pro

When HTC released the Diamond Touch, I complained about the lack of keyboard and the poor battery capacity. Well, it seems that they had other plans with the Touch Pro which is similar to the Diamond except that it carries a slide out keyboard and a better 1340 mAh battery. On the other hand, HTC Touch Pro has only 512MB of ROM and 288MB of RAM compared to the Diamond's 4GB. That alone makes the Touch Pro a near perfect device. The Touch Pro is beautiful and HTC did a fantastic job by adding a 5 row QWERTY keyboard to bring the experience closer to a desktop keyboard. However, The Touch Pro is quite a dilemma for me. I already have a device running Wm6.1 and two others running WM6. The question is: Do I shell out money to buy it or keep saving for a Windows Mobile 7 device?

Until I figure that question out, I suggest you come and visit the HTC website to leran more about the device - http://www.htc.com/www/product.aspx?id=49524

Preview: Windows Sideshow for Windows Mobile.

Windows(r) SideShow(tm) for Windows Mobile(r) is an application for Windows Mobile 5 and Windows Mobile 6 Pocket PCs and Smartphones that allows you to use your Windows Mobile device as a Bluetooth SideShow-compatible device. This enables you to use your phone as an extra window into your PC. You can both access your computer's information from your Pocket PC or Smartphone, and control the computer through a gadget interface. While the phone is out of range, or when your computer is off, you can continue to view content sent to the phone previously. This makes it easy to send information to the phone that you'll need later on.

The developer preview is an English-only release

Download from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=79f19684-f862-4e02-a2b0-0003b4565f34&displaylang=en

Posted using my Windows Mobile phone.

Customizing the Sliding Panel Homescreen

This is a nice article from Jorge Peraza, developer on the Windows Mobile Team, explaining how to further customize the sliding Panel homescreen found in Windows Mobile 6.1. As many of you are probably aware, the homescreen on a Standard Windows Mobile device are stored in the \Application Data\Home folder. The fact that the file uses the XML format makes it quite easy to customize the homescreen and add or remove features to it.
In this article, Jorge Peraza explains how to modify the file to move the photo plugin to the first position. There are a couple of other tips as well. Definitely worth reading.

http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2008/06/03/customizing-the-sliding-panel-homescreen.aspx

Posted using my Windows Mobile phone.

E-ten announces four new Glofiish

The Unwired reports that E-ten has announced four new exciting devices during Computex 2008; the DX900, the V900, the X900 and the X610. The DX900 is the first Windows Mobile powered device to offer dual SIM capability. The V900 for its part offers mobile digital TV for watching your favorite shows or the Euro 2008 on the go.
Read more on http://www.theunwired.net/?item=official-e-ten-announces-four-new-glofiish-windows-mobile-smartphones

Posted using my Windows Mobile phone.

New: Pocket Tunes for Windows Mobile

What about throwing away your iPod and carry your PDA or Smartphone only? With Pocket Tunes, you will be able to free up one of your pockets s it supports synchronizing your Windows Mobile device to your iTunes playlists. Of course, Pocket Tunes has other features as well including the ability to play hundreds of Internet radio stations. Definitely worth a try - www.pocket-tunes.com/?page=overview

Posted using my Windows Mobile phone.