India government wants access to your BlackBerry emails

India government has been well known for their strict rules on public’s privacy, another controversial move is now aimed at BlackBerry messaging service which used by India’s wireless mobile operators (such as Tata Teleservices & Vodafone Essar). The three parties will meet up on Friday to discuss this matter; RIM (Research in Motion) hasn’t provided any comments so far and likely the result of the meeting. The India government believes that terrorists are using wireless messaging for their communication, this is the same argument the FBI (USA) has been using to push the law to tap on your mobile phone conversations. Read the whole news here. On the other hand; it’ll be another endless debate whether to allow government to spy on your privacy in order to protect the nation, essentially your way of life.(blogged with my Treo 750v)

MacBook Air got tossed away

I'm affraid this is not another giveaway prize from Sammy, instead Steven Levy from Newsweek has realised that his MacBook Air that was given to him by Apple Corp. for review; got tossed along with old newspapers stack. After searched the whole office and turn up side down every last places he has been to, he had to admit that the thin device discarded by mistake. "By the way, NEWSWEEK is going to pony up the $1,800 for the loss," said Levy. I also believes there'll be another funny story like this to come, just like what Sammy has posted before here, MacBook Air surely is drawing more & more attention like it or not. Just hope that the joke is not on you too next time around... ;-D

(blogged with my Treo 750v)

Not everybody want 3G mobile phone

Texas Instrument (TI) has just announced the reduction of its revenue forecast for the first quarter from its original guidance, which basically caused by the lack of demand for higher-end mobile phones chips; specially 3G chips. Ron Slaymaker, TI vice president expressed his concern of wireless mobile phones. Because this could means people in general don't need 3G mobile phones. Another concern perhaps that the 3G technology will stay for quite sometimes now before replaced with newer one: 4G, although the 4G technology is already being tested in several countries like Japan; vendors like TI will stall the release based on low market demands.
This is indeed a sad news for technology & gadgets geek, like me. Let's us hope this news doesn't effect on the iPhone 3G, that's rumoured set to be release this year. PC World has the whole complete story right here.
(blogged with my Treo 750v)

Mobile blogging for curing my insomnia

I can't sleep! And it's already 3:02 AM in the morning here, even though I had a busy day yesterday from fixing a broken workstation computer to the installment of our new store; I'm just not tired enough to sleep. I know I have to over-exhausts myself.
So I fired up the RSS agregators app in my Treo and read some interesting news, an urge to write blogs came suddenly and next thing I realized my eyes are getting heavy. I managed to share some infos for PA readers here, but I had to sent the other one as email to Sammy ;-)
So that's how moblogging (mobile blogging) act as a cure for my insomnia today, hope it'll work on you too...
(blogged with my Treo 750v)

Unified & integrated communication

Corporate business users must've feel very excited when Steve Jobs announced the availability of Microsoft Exchange Server support in iPhone v2.0 firmware update, this will open up a new path of unification between Apple & Microsoft. The flashy iPhone can bring more cheer & colours into business mobile phones market, iPhone is definetely going to set another standard in meaning of convergence device (work & play); like it did with the user interface for mobile phone.
But maybe you also remembered that IBM was the first to announced to bring it's Lotus system into iPhone, when the SDK kit released. So far, there hasn't been much to hear from the "blue company" (IBM) anymore about that. But there's another announcement from IBM, covered by PC World article here, that they're ramping up to $1 Billion investment in products such as Lotus Sametime to provide unified communications to the largest business customers. Which means IBM is for large corporates who have 1,000 or more employees, said Steve Mills - the senior vice president of IBM's software group. IBM intends to secure their position in high-end business market from Microsoft attacks, the Office Communication Server is boasted by Microsoft as the most used messaging system in corporate environments. Both sides have pledged to integrate their new platform into existing system, this could boost the eficiency for whole business communications (who addopted each system, but not both).
The fight of these two giants software are giving more advantages for end users like us, it's going to be very interesting to see how the iPhone SDK kit provide us with vast availabilty of 3rd party softwares. Business messaging integration into mobile smartphones has never been better!
(blogged with my Treo 750v)

Pimp-up your Treo 750 battery gauge

Almost missed this great freeware for Windows Mobile devices, it's called Vista Battery Gauge. It's a very small sized program that doesn't need to be installed, just download & run it on your Treo 750. The original post came from 'ins0mniaque' at xda-developers forum, but the better version (v1.1.1) is available at Freeware Pocket PC here. Many users who've tried are suggesting to put the program into the WinMob's Startup menu, or you could simply paste a shortcut in there. Otherwise the progam will not launch by itself after you do a soft-reset, but this is simply your choice whether to start it up manually or automatically. Download this great program directly to your Treo with this site.

Switch & close

Multi-tasking is a great feature that Windows Mobile has, and with the "ok" button in Treo; the opened apps are stored & running on the background. It's an endless argument why Palm didn't use "close (x)" instead, or perhaps that's how Windows Mobile is made. I've done many soft-reset because of this multi-tasking habit, and tired to keep on opening the Memory management in WinMob Settings; I decided to search for Task Manager app that can save my time (& my Treo as well). ;-)
Found this app made by DinarSoft©, called HandySwitcher® that do exactly what I've been looking for. Unlike others same apps, HandySwitcher v3.0 is very light and run simultenously in WinMob system, it doesn't take up too many of Treo's resources. You also can put HandySwitcher on the Today screen, this really shorten the time you need to close any apps in order to release memory that's been taken up. Another feature I like is that it can force to close all the apps running on the background, and if you want to you could keep the one that currently in use/active. There are others small features such as informations on CPU & memory performance available in your Treo, read on their website here to find out more about this application.
I recommend HandySwitcher for those who use their Treo 750 for heavy multi-tasking, this is how a Task Manager app should be made.
(blogged with my Treo 750v)

The Copy-Cat devices

The news about Meizu booth at CeBIT closed down by German authority has brought a little bit of sparks on law debate of copy-cat devices that are happening in the mobile market ever since long ago. Even though the Meizu closed booth was temporary and actually caused by its MP3 player patent infringement, read on the story here. These counterfeits products that are clearly copying the original devices can’t be denied as a mere small product anymore. It starts with Chinese manufacturers were trying to make a quick and sure money by copy the design from the well known brands of mobile vendors, even the colors and shape are strikingly very similar. It all seems like the manufacturers in China who got orders from mobile vendors, are making their own brand with the designs given to them (many of the well known world mobile vendors have already made all of their devices in China’s factories, because of the low labor wage and cheap export policies there).
Yes, it’s cheesy and breaks many international patent laws; but the Chinese governments are closing their eyes on such case and looks like they’re giving them enough support to do so. But you’ll be surprise on how well these copy-cat devices are made, not only the exterior shell but also the OS is almost reach the same level with the original ones. Like Meizu’s miniOne (M8) that has little different designs from famous Apple’s iPhone, this is a fine example on how knock-off devices are finding their way to legal acknowledgement. There hasn’t been any official complain neither from Apple, nor from US FCC yet.
Here are some fine examples that you can see from PhoneArena article, there are good pictures to show how the Chinese manufacturers even didn’t bothered to change the designs and the name! Like the picture on the left where you can see the Nokia N73 is copied and they only changed the Nokir letter… Even the concept model: Nokia Aeon is copied and sold in the black market, it’s merged on eBay auction and caused a lot of confusion whether the device is really from Nokia or not.If just those Chinese manufacturers try to create their own brand, I’m sure it’ll be no problem for them to compete with other world mobile vendors. Because they already have the technology and all they need is a new design and marketing campaign. And perhaps a better packaging as well, I once had a gift from China and the package was awfully modest; made me felt less want to use the device. How long all of these counterfeits going to last, or maybe the exact line is how long until we finally use them instead of the original ones?

Conversions in your palm

There's always a time when we needed an easy conversions as we're faced with unusual units, and nobody around us know. It's such a small thing, yet a quite irritating experience I'll say. Like when I was in the field to install a heavy glass door into a door frame, the manual is written in English and uses pounds unit instead of kilogram (kg); we had to delayed the installment until we know it. Or like when you faced with the conversions that are common in computer world: how many are there from bytes to kilobytes, to megabytes & to gigabytes? I found a perfect solution for all of those kind of troubles, it's an app called Conversions in Hand (CiH) by Burr Oak Software.

With complete units conversions tab & those tabs view layout can be customized according to your need, you won't have any trouble to search the conversions tab you want. If you're worried about new units, Burr Oak Software also provide a quick update in the app. There's also a built-in calculator in the app, so you don't need to swap between the app to the embedded calculator; although the square screen of Treo 750 is a little bit crowded when you use it. The CiH is currently in v3.6.1, and available for Windows Mobile only. I really recommend this app, it's small and fast plus you'll never know when you need a converter; with it ready inside your Treo you'll never have to make a guess anymore.

(blogged with my Treo 750v)

iPhone news recap of the weekend

For all of you who have missed important news on the new iPhone SDK kit, don't forget to catch up with Sammy’s & Paul Biba's summaries here. But I want to underlined again the grieve news about that new SDK kit for iPhone, please find it out here. It's about the limitation for iPhone 3rd party apps that can't be run on the background, based on the current released SDK kit. So no more up to date RSS news feeds while you're doing something else, and you can't accept calls when you're chatting on-line with instant messaging app. It's quite sad news for those who love to do multi-tasking apps with their device, including me. Another great editorial came from PC World, it's iPhone Software FAQ, very complete with answers for almost possible questions that are surrounding the new SDK kit.
There’s also a debate whether Microsoft’s Silverlight is going to be available for iPhone or not, Steve Balmer-MS CEO has hinted that way during his interviews. Silverlight is the new web platform made by Microsoft, aimed to compete with Adobe Flash. So far Apple refused to put Adobe Flash into iPhone, Microsoft has the chance to push their Silverlight into mobile market through iPhone popularity.
(blogged with my Treo 750v)

IM+ updated to v4.55

For those who love to chat on-line with your smartphone, you must've known IM+ from Shape Services. It's a great on-line instant messaging application that supports every major smartphones' OS, Palm OS 5 (above) & Windows Mobile 6 are included. Right now the latest version for Windows Mobile has been upgraded into v4.55, and works very well with Treo 750v of mine. The squarish screen (240x240) is not too shabby to display all the chats with IM+, and with 3G network can really fasten up the messages I sent & received.
What I really like is with IM+ I can accustomized it's alert sounds, the options are placed at the Notifications settings of Windows Mobile. For more infos & trial download, check it out here.
(blogged with my Treo 750v)

No multi-tasking for iPhone!

There's a very good editorial at Gizmodo; it's about how Apple actually allow only one application run on the iPhone. Yes, you read that right. It seems the iPhone engineers believe that making iPhone to do multi-tasking & run various apps on the background can make it unstable, most notable is those apps could slow down iPhone performance in general. These scenarios often occur on Windows Mobile devices, just like what happened with Treo of mine. Read on the whole story here.
(blogged with my Treo 750v)