About Windows Mobile licensing.

A few years back I purchased what I think is the best Smartphone ever, the HTC S620. With it came a companion CD that contained sync software, some third party apps, a user manual and a ROM image. The ROM image was particularly useful when I messed up with the device. Now it appears that HTC does not ship the image anymore and I find this to be unacceptable.

During the week, I messed up with my HTC Advantage x7510 and I contacted HTC to provide me a ROM image since they do not bundle it on the companion CD anymore. Unfortunately, the support desk was unable to help. They came up with all sort of baseless reasons to not give a ROM image which I think is mine. I always thought that by purchasing a Windows Mobile phone, that the price included the OS licensing. Therefore, they should include the image on the CD. Apparently, I’m wrong. HTC has made it clear that they will not give the ROM image. Isn't that scandalous?

What are your thoughts?

My first Windows 7 RTM BSOD

As I’m writing this on my Asus netbook, my desktop PC is continuously rebooting. I got two blue screen of death tonight and I’m unable to determine why because the screen just appears too fast for me to see the reason. The first time it occurred was when I was writing the previous article about Microsoft opening a tech corner in Mauritius. Duh, I may be the first to report a Windows 7 RTM BSOD. I will report back once I determine the cause.

Update: After multiple reboots, the startup repair is doing its thing.

further update: screen is pitch-black. I think it’s a memory problem.

Microsoft to open first tech corner in Mauritius. Not permanent though.

Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands (MS IOI) has had a presence, if I’m not wrong, in Mauritius since 2001 and they never had a direct communication with the Mauritian public, except through partners. This is something I’ve always complained about and this is about to change. I’ve learnt during the week that Microsoft will open a corner in a trendy mall in order to promote and educate Mauritians on their products; specifically and unsurprisingly on the upcoming Windows 7 operating system. This is good for consumers.

Microsoft competitors are being quite aggressive on the market with a few iShop here and there. Recently, Google has started luring local developers towards its platform. Is the corner a way for Microsoft to counter attack? Yes and no. No because the corner is not permanent. According to the deal, its existence will last for a year only at a trend that still needs to be determine. I expect to see the corner manned by a “product ambassador” mostly during the weekends. That is when most Mauritians go to the malls. The “ambassadors” job will be to promote, educate users, and get feedbacks on Microsoft products. But is a week end enough? I doubt that. At least Microsoft is doing customer oriented projects other than just enterprise business via partners.

The latter will still have a role in this corner business with product demos. By the way, I may myself, as a Microsoft MVP for Windows Mobile, do some Windows Mobile demos. The mobile OS is still unknown in Mauritius as opposed to the iPhone. So I’m quite excited at the idea to educate my country men to a more open and robust system.

I definitely believe that Microsoft will benefit by establishing a direct communication with the population. Not only Mauritians will get to know more about MS products, it will also make fighting piracy more efficient. Kudos to the MS team. I also expect to see Microsoft going well beyond just a corner. A Microsoft store would be the next logical step.

Ask a Mauritian where in Mauritius is Microsoft office located and, most often, the answer is “ Microsoft has an office in Mauritius???”. The Microsoft corner is just the beginning of a great relationship between the software giant and paradise. Or so I hope.

Free translator

Do you need to tool that will translate over 20 languages on your device? FreeTranslator is the software that you need. I have not tried yet, so do not hesitate to post comments to share your experience.

www.nicolaottomano.it/freetranslator.htm

Technorati Tags: FreeTranslator

Press Release: Nokia Booklet 3G brings all day mobility to the PC world

Interesting to see Nokia releasing a netbook running Windows 7. I assume the later is the Starter edition. Anyway, Nokia’s netbook is the first to run Windows 7.

Powered by the efficient Intel Atom processor, the Nokia Booklet 3G delivers impressive performance with up to 12 hours of battery life, enabling people to leave their power cable behind and still be connected and productive. Delivering the rich experience of a full-function PC inside an ultra-portable aluminum chassis, the new mini-laptop weighs 1.25 kilograms, measures slightly more than two centimeters thin, and has the features one would expect from the world's leading mobile device manufacturer. A broad range of connectivity options - including 3G/ HSPA and Wi-Fi - gives consumers high speed access to the Internet, including Nokia's broad suite of Ovi services, and allows them to make the most of every moment and every opportunity.

Read more here.
Pricing and availability will be announced at Nokia World on September 2.

Contacts generated with Outlook won’t sync and lead to Support Code 0X8503001C

Technorati Tags: Support Code 0X8503001C

I answered to this thread on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile forums and thought I’d post a link to it here. Might be useful if you ever encounter this problem. Hopefully you won’t.

http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsmobileactivesync/thread/7030ce5b-ba61-4d9e-beb4-d91281c0b211

What a week

Indeed, what a week. On one side, Microsoft and Nokia partnering to take over mobility in the enterprise; on another Mr J. gold announcing the end of Windows Mobile. No to mention that most specialized sites see the Microsoft/Nokia partnership as the last move of the giants to combat the smaller Blackberrys and Apples or Androids. Notice here that I did not name Google since Android is an open source mobile operating system.

As I write this, Windows Mobile is still in the game; same for Nokia. The iPhone has exploded in the face of two kids in France and UK; HTC has announced that they sold a million Android device; Dell is to launch an Android-based device in China (go figure why in China only). What else? Oh yes, the Zune HD will reach the market in September. I have nothing much to say here. No new cool apps to announce, no new phones or OS; Microsoft still silent about Windows Mobile in Mauritius despite the fact that HTC, Samsung and Palm have a presence on the island. As an announcement, I’ll just say that no iPhone has exploded in Mauritius and another friend of mine has purchased a fruit phone. Yes there are a few Apple store in Mauritius.

If you are planning vacation in Mauritius and hoping to buy some Microsoft stuff, then you are out of luck. Even the Zune is not available here. Hopefully that will change with the Zune HD. I will ask my Microsoft friends about Zune HD availability. So stay tune. But…

For those of you following this blog, you know that I’ve been testing Windows 7 and that I’m now using the RTM version. Before you ask, I’m not aware yet of what Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands plans to do on the 22nd of October. I can only guess that there will be an impressive launch. Just like Vista...

To whom it may concern: Windows Mobile is, after all, an enterprise-based mobile OS.

Good Week end to all.

News: Microsoft and Nokia announce collaboration.

It is now official, Nokia and Microsoft will work together and the latter will bring Office Mobile to selected Nokia phones, namely the E series. Not only that, Nokia phones will also be able to access intranet and extranet portals built on SharePoint server. Office Collaborator is also part of the deal.

Learn more at www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/aug09/08-12pixipr.mspx

Sent from my Windows® Phone.

Mr. Gold has it all wrong; Microsoft will not drop WM.

Mr. Gold is the founder of J. Gold Associates, an IT analyst firm. In his latest publication for BusinessWeek, he stated that Microsoft should hang up on Windows Mobile as it is “losing support of many of its leading device makers”. He adds that HTC is “making a major commitment to Android. So is Motorola”. As a refresher here, HTC also made a major and firm commitment to Windows Mobile and has done that for years. HTC did indeed allocate some of its resources to Android development, the same way it did for Palm.  I admit that Windows Mobile has some catch-up to do, but that is no reason to kill it Mr Gold.

Windows 7 RTM is up and running.

I’ve just finished installing Windows 7 RTM on my desktop. It took me about 20 minutes to get it up and running and the first thing I did was to connect my HTC S620- after installing Office 2007 of course. Windows 7 immediately recognized my device, installed the drivers for it and also installed Windows Mobile Device Center(WMDC). So yes, WMDC is built into the OS.

Synchronization was fast and flawless. Not that I’d anticipated trouble, but I thought it was worth mentioning. I did not notice any change with WMDC itself. Looks pretty much the same.

Ok, I must admit I expected to see some kind of errors pop up. That is why I connected my Prophet to sync immediately after the S620. Here again, no errors. I did get some errors when testing Windows 7 RC though, but nothing dramatic.

Overall the system is stable and fast. Ciao Vista.

Resco audio Recorder 4.60 Beta 1 released

Do you have a need to record your phone conversation? If yes, then Resco Audio Recorder is probably what you need.

Changes and new features in Resco Audio Recorder version 4.60:

• Improved core of the application

• Improvements were necessary to make the application launch faster, especially with call recording. The modifications also brought less system load.

• Support for more devices

• Problems with call recording have been fixed and troubleshooting devices are finally good to go. These include Touch HD, Touch Pro 2 and other.

• Recorded file is saved as caller’s name

• There are many ways how recorded file can be saved. Although, this option has already been available, in most cases it didn’t work well. This problem is now fixed.

Plans for the near future

• Compatibility with Resco Contact Manager

• You are able to mark contacts whose calls are to be recorded automatically. On the other hand, when someone’s calling you, you get an option to choose whether to record the call or not yet before answering the call.

Learn more here.

Free chrome themes

Do you use Google Chrome? I used to. I did for a short while and was not at all impressed. Chrome looks like a retro toy to me and not so funny to use. It has to do with the looks of it I guess, because Chrome has a lot of great features. Before anybody asks, I have IE8 and Safari installed on my Windows 7 netbook.

For the Chrome users out there, 29 Chrome themes are available free of charge from https://tools.google.com/chrome/intl/en/themes/index.html.

Communicator Mobile updated

This new update contains a feature that lets you join conferences with a single click. A new “ Join Conference” option has thus been added into the Menu.

http://communicatorteam.com/archive/2009/08/02/864.aspx

Palm coming to Mauritius.

I saw an ad in l’Express yesterday (P.73) showing the Palm Pre, Treo Pro and Centro that will be available soon in Mauritius. This is great to see more mobile players coming here. Recently, MauriSystems released the Google phone (HTC Hero) for Rs19,900. A bit expensive for an open source OS. But that is nothing compared to the HTC Snap which is being offered at the same exaggerated price. If you are wondering what’s my point here, well it’s quite simple: The HTC Snap runs Windows Mobile Standard, a non-touchscreen device. Those devices generally cost much less than touchscreen phones for obvious reasons. Glad I can get it for a good price on Amazon or Expansys. Add shipping and taxes, you’re well behind the Rs19900 + VAT asked by MauriSystems.

Enough of the rant. Palm’s reseller does not have a website yet(neither does MauriSystems.), hopefully we’ll get to learn more about prices and store location soon.