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.
Category: Apple
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iPhone Searches on Google 50x More Than Other Phones
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.
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OEDb: 100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better
I don’t know anything about the OEDb (Online Education Database) site. But, someone associated with them pointed out this useful looking iPod resource…
100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better
I thought it looked useful enough to spread the word. The resources are categorized as study guides, podcasts, tutorials, applications, tools ad sites, iTunes U, and other groupings that make it easy to hunt around the long list.
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Apple Bumps iPhone to 16GB and iPod touch to 32GB
Just read an MSNBC article that Apple increased the iPhone to 16GB ($499) and the iPod touch to 32GB (also $499). I wonder: (1) Why didn’t they announce this during Macworld? It might have prevented some of their dramatic stock price drop since then. (and) (2) Shouldn’t the iPod touch price be down around $449 or $399 to offset its lack of a phone radio, Bluetooth radio, microphone, and camera (despite the increased RAM)?
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iZoho: Zoho Web Office Suite for the iPhone/iPod touch
Cool sites designed specifically for the iPhone (and by side effect the iPod touch) just keep on coming. I’ve been using the Zoho Creator web database product for almost a month now because it works well both on the desktop as well as mobile devices (not just the iPhone). However, Zoho created a very nice iPhone specific interface found at:
As you can see above, it looks and works fine on an iPod touch too. I hope that new Microsoft VP for Windows Mobile marketing is paying attention to all of this. Designers for major websites essentially do not care if their mobile specific site works on a Windows Mobile smartphone at all. All the focus is on the iPhone. And, soon, the Google Android platform will probably draw from what little attention is left to Windows Mobile. Attention Redmond, it’s time to pay attention to the rest of the world, not just the carriers and large enterprises.
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Sync Windows Mobile with a Mac?
I installed Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac this weekend and have been giving some thought to syncing my Windows Mobile smartphone with a Mac instead of Windows XP (I have Vista running but don’t want to use WMDC). Unfortunately, all of the solutions have issues. Here are my options.
Sync my smartphone with Mac OS X’s iCal (calendar) and Address Book (contacts) using Missing Sync for Windows Mobile ($39.95 download). I believe I lose the ability to sync notes and tasks. And, I definitely can’t sync OneNote Mobile.
Sync my smartphone with Microsoft Entourage 2008 using,again, Missing Sync for Windows Mobile. Mark/Space said that Microsoft doesn’t provide a conduit/plug-in to work with Apple Sync Services. The effect of this is that all category information is lost (all categories are consolidated to the category “Entourage”). I use categories a lot. So, hmm. Everything except for OneNote Mobile should sync minus the category information.
Install Windows XP a virtualized Guest OS using either Parallels Desktop for Mac or VMware Fusion. This means I could install Microsoft Office for Windows along with OneNote Mobile. Unfortunately, VM virtual disk drives can take up a lot of disk space. Do, I really want to dedicate a VM and its associated disk space just for syncing a smartphone?
The last alternative is to dump Windows Mobile and buy a phone supported by Apple’s iSync. It is an interesting idea. But, I really like what Windows Mobile has to offer me (despite my disdain for ActiveSync and WMDC). So, that is not a reasonable alternative for me (although it seems to be a valid one for many other people).
If you are syncing a Windows Mobile 6 smartphone with a Mac, please let me know how your solution is working for you. Thanks in advance!