Did you know that there is an Encarta encyclopedia bot that you can talk to on Windows Live Messenger? That’s just one of the tips I wrote about in this new article on Microsoft.com’s Windows Mobile website area.
Introduction to Connected Applications: Applications That Plug You in to the Wireless World
Here’s another article of mine that is now live in Microsoft.com’s Windows Mobile area…
Transform Your Day with Top Spreadsheet Tips
In addition to some basic and tips, I spent a bit of time to discuss the differences between the versions of Excel Mobile available on Windows Mobile 6 Standard Edition and Professional/Classic Edition devices.
One of the articles I wrote for the Microsoft.com Windows Mobile site just went live. This one has tips and information about Word Mobile for Windows Mobile 6.
Write Down Great Thoughts While They Are Fresh
Let me know if there are other aspects of Word Mobile you’d like expanded on for a future article.
CNET’s Mobile Gadgeteer Matthew Miller posted an informative video demo of the Redfly Windows Mobile Smartphone Companion at…
Can the REDFLY Windows Mobile Smartphone Companion succeed where the Foleo couldn’t?
The Redfly is actually LESS than what the never-launched Palm Foleo was supposed to be. The Redfly does not have any internal functions. It is just an external keyboard and display connected to a WiMo smartphone. The Foleo had some standalone functionality. The downfall of the Redfly is its dependency on the WiMo device for all functions including web browsing. It looks like it has a decent screen and keyboard and would be good for that function. However, since the WiMo Internet Explorer web browsing experience is so broken, this means that this same broken experience would simply be extended to the Redfly’s 800×400 display. At $500, the Redfly is a non-starter. There are a bunch of fully functional devices including the Asus Eee PC and the Nokia N810 that provide a much better mobile browsing experience.
According to CNET… A new exploit will either lock up your iPhone or iPod Touch or crash your Safari browser on your PC or Mac OS desktop if you simply visit a maliciously coded Web site.
Web code locks up iPhones and iPod Touch
The current workaround is to disable Javascript in the Safari brower. Yuck. CNET’s article provides the 4-step process to disable JavaScript.
The Zune 2 firmware upgrade turned my 1st generation Zune from a moderately useful MP3/video player to a decent media player with a screen I prefer to my iPod video’s screen (though nothing can touch the iPod touch’s display – pun intended). With its 30GB hard drive (compared to my iPod touch’s 16GB) and the new firmware’s ability to deal with podcasts, I thought it would make a great device to store and watch a bunch of video podcasts. Viewing video podcasts on the Zune (1st generation) is a good experience. The problem lies in actually getting those video podcasts from a PC to the Zune. From what I can tell video podcasts are store in a hodge-podge of file formats in the Zune marketplace. However, it looks like many (maybe most) of these file formats are not Zune ready video formats and requires transcoding that takes place during the sync process with the Zune. A half-dozen or so video podcasts can sometimes take up to an hour for this transcoding process. This is a far cry from the few minutes it takes for a similar batch of video podcasts to be synced to an iPod using iTunes.
So, after trying this idea (using the Zune as my main video podcast device) for a number of months (since the 2.0 firmware came out), I deleted the video podcasts feeds for the Zune. This is really too bad since it really does have a good LCD display and is a good video playback device.
The Zune’s awful video sync process ruined an otherwise good user experience like Windows Mobile’s ActiveSync/WMDC sync process often ruins a good WiMo experience. With the iPhone gaining a lot of traction and entering the enterprise space with its own Exchange Server ActiveSync and Google’s Android arriving soon, one can only hope that Microsoft will take pity on its existing customers and fix their awful sync experience for the Zune and Windows Mobile.