The Windows Phone Guy

Again I am going to report on another Windows Mobile device I am currently using: the Toshiba Portégé G810.

The G810 is a very interesting device with very good specs:

• Processor: Qualcom MSM7200 400Mhz
• Memory: 256/128 MB
• Battery: 1530 mAh
• Camera: 3MP, and VGA
• Band: up to 3.6Mbps HSDPA and 2Mbps for HSUPA
• GPS: A-GPS
• OS: Windows Mobile 6.1
• Wifi and Bluetooth
• FM Radio

As for what I have noticed so far:

• Clearly fast device;
• Great screen, great color depth and brilliance, very crisp;
• External housing is rubberized and very nice to touch, and easy grip;
• SPB Shell included, very cool!;
• Power button not very cleverly positioned;
• The whole face buttons looks very cool but is not practical at all;
• The pen is an intelligent approach, but fails in what comes to quality since its very plastic. Oh, and if you loose you loose part of the device's aesthetics;

To see more images click here, if you have any questions about the device feel free to ask.

This is not a very divulged feature but I assume it might be very useful for some people: you can take advantage of the great direct push e-mail technology without having to invest on an exchange hosted e-mail service.

Windows Live Mail allows you to use Push E-mail with your Hotmail or Live e-mail accounts. You can also benefit of the fetch e-mail technology that allows you to get only the desired e-mail or attachments without having to call a full send/receive.

Fetch e-mail does come enabled by default, however to use Push-email you must:

On Smartphone's:

Start - Windows Live, Menu - Options - Sync Schedule. The select "As items arrive";

On Pocket PC (touchscreen):

Start - Programs - Windows Live, Menu - Options - Sync Schedule. The select "As items arrive";

The PocketPT.net team has had access to the new Touch 3G device code named the Jade.

This device made by HTC is very similar to the very popular Touch, only much better: from the better processor to more memory, 3g connection, a 3.2MP camera, Windows Mobile 6.1 and of course, Touch FLO 2D.

To see more images and the translated article click here.

Another great day spent with community peers, techies and regular public.

Last Thursday I went to Portucalense University where I gave a presentation about Windows Mobile 6.1 both Professional and Standard, showcasing the sliding panels and discussed the benefits of using a mobile platform with over 9 years of existence.

We also had some great workshops involving Geocaching, Bluetooth, device maintenance and customization.

More than 70 attendees had the opportunity to win one of three Windows Mobile devices raffled: one HTC P3600, one NDrive S300 and a Toshiba G810.

If you think your community/company/customers could use a seminar like this let me know.

WinPlay an on-line games and themes shop as a gift for Windows Mobile user:

"Get the FREE Windows Mobile version of Magmic’s hit game Ka-Glom!

To get the FREE Ka-Glom! game, simply provide permission for Winplay/Magmic Games to include you when sending information regarding new Windows Mobile games, themes and other entertainment products from Winplay.com."

 

Grab your copy now here.

Guys at Celiocorp are pushing Redfly sales by crunching the price as low as $199.

They say that:

"Celio has found that a REDFLY device in the hands of media, developers or mobile enthusiasts has tremendous viral marketing benefit.  Therefore, we have budgeted a limited amount* of REDFLY devices for placement at $199 until October 31, 2008.
*Offer subject to limited quantity.  Celio reserves the right to end the program at any time.  There is no 30 Day Guarantee or Free Trial Period for Seed Program Pricing.  Standard warranty still applies."

If you are interested in one of these, you can get it from Celio here.

Just wanted to share this interesting photo comparison:

Although from different OEM's these devices look very much alike, don't you think so?

Are hardware makers running out of imagination, or is this just a great concept?

You can learn more on the Motorola Q11 here, and see the full review of the iPAQ 910 Messenger from Pocketnow.com.

The Q11 is close to release has pictures of the new Moto arise.

With new lines the new Motorola  seems quite stylish.

Mobility Today has al the info and more pictures of this great looking device.

I have been using for the past days a Redfly, which is a really great concept for those who need a way to dramatically improve text entry and document and web page viewing.

With an 8" screen and up to 8 hours of work time this laptop alike device connects to both Windows Mobile Standard and Professional Smartphone's and really opens a whole new world.

You can also connect and use a USB mouse, keyboard or even a USB Flash disk.

The connection to the host device is quite easy and can be made via USB allowing the host device to charge, or via Bluetooth enabling you to have your Smartphone well protected in your pocket or briefcase and freely work on the Redfly.

One of my fears on using this type of solution was the speed of the screen refreshment, but I soon realized I could work quite fast just as if I was working with my i780 with the only difference of 5" more of screen and a reasonably sized keyboard.

In order to use the Redfly you must first install a small CAB file on the device, which can be installed Over The Air from CelioCorp's website.

After the first time connection it is able to pair the device via Bluetooth with the Redfly in quite a simple manner: one stroke of a key (the Redfly key) and then a tap on the screen - the Authorize button.

The Redfly then creates a partnership with the device that can be activated straight from the Redfly with the device on standby and up to 10 meters from the Smartphone.

It can also save multiple partnerships for user convenience. I now find myself using the Redfly when sitting at café or snack-bar without getting my i780 out of my pocket. I then use the 780's Wifi built in capabilities to connect to a nearby hotspot to browse the web and check my e-mail on 800x480 pixel resolution screen.

Given I am also a trainer and give several public presentations, the VGA-out is a plus that makes this a great combination.

The process of connecting to a screen or projector is quite straight forward and common to most notebook PC's.

Image gets displayed in perfection, though you cant really play with resolution unless you use a program like RealVGA in the case of the Samsung SGH-i780, and again refreshing is very fast.

While web browsing can sometimes be a pain with Internet Explorer Mobile, when used through the Redfly PIE really shines, believe me!

Another great aspect of having one of these things is remote controlling: with RDP and an 8" screen you can really get that server desktop fit in the screen!

One of the interesting things I found is that the right mouse button is supported and works great for common copy, cut, paste operations and can be used with either a USB mouse or from the included mouse pad.

Being light, small and stylish the Redfly came between me and my HTC X7510, which I will be retiring soon because overall the Redfly has more arguments that make the difference to me in some day-by-day actions and really improves the way I work and communicate.

You can find out more on Redfly from CelioCorp's Website.

Traveling to Portugal in the next days? Want to spend a nice day learning about Windows Mobile and have the chance to win a device?

If so then come to Portucalense University in Oporto where I will be with my team from 10:00am until 18:00pm GMT.

For more information don't hesitate to contact me.

I just saw this post over at Jason's Blog and wanted to share with you this great product for SCMDM:

AetherPal is a complementary solution for Microsoft Mobile Device Manager (MSMDM). AetherPal addresses specific user needs, thereby, enhancing enterprise’s ROI on Microsoft MDM deployment. Through the Remote Control/Virtual Display capability, AetherPal enables support staff to remotely view, manage and control the user’s devices for troubleshooting, remote installation, device training and application demonstrations. Banner/Message Notification feature allows instant delivery of customizable messages to group of mobile users.  The Mobile Desktop of AetherPal allows customizable UI and streaming content delivery to mobile devices.

In case your company doesn't have MDM yet, but has a System Center Configuration Manager, you can get Athena from Odissey that will help manage and control Windows Mobile Devices Remotely.

Windows Mobile devices equipped with an accelerometer, especially the new generation of HTC devices, can now be converted into air mouse's.

The objective is to control a PC via Bluetooth with the device that doesn't need to touch anything. The movement of the hand and degree variation is enough to control the pointer.

To get this amazing and free software click here.

Remote Desktop Mobile is coming with some great new features on select Windows Mobile 6.1 devices.

One of the features I really enjoy using is the possibility to map a drive that is no more no less than your windows mobile device's memory.

This is very useful if you need a fast and secure way to share files and documents between a PC or server and your Windows Mobile Device.

After a while using WMDC whenever I connected or disconnected my device to the PC WMDC would open opens the folder c:\Windows\System32\.

This started to get annoying so I googled the problem and here is the solution:

All you have to do is delete a registry value under the following keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows CE Services\AutoStartOnConnect]
and

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows CE Services\AutoStartOnDisconnect]

I had the same issue, that was related to a SQL CE start and stop function.

Credits of the findings to ErikEJ

The Widgets that come with the Samsung Omnia are now available to be used on the i780.

Ricardo at PocketPT has made a small tutorial on how to do it.

Read more here.

Since the HTC Diamond SDK accelerometer was uncovered there have been developed a number of great applications that take advantage of this hardware feature some nice examples are: Caver, BubbleLevel, Lunar Tilt, Teeter , GSEN, and others.

Now its the Samsung Omnia's time to get some very nice applications that use the accelerometer:

A dice game that is part of a Omnia ROM has been discovered. This game is very simple and detects if the device has been shaken and selects a random number.

While not impressive it might open the door to accelerometer games on the Omnia.

More on the game and the download here.

Its Windows Live Betas time!

Among the various Betas avaliable there is also a new homepage for Windows Live for Mobile:

• New mobile homepage, which provides our users one place to go to get an overview of what is new in Windows Live for them, e.g. unread email, what’s new feed and ability to update personal message.

To access from your mobile device insert the following link: http://www.live.mobile.com

Ever wanted to know your Smartphone’s battery status, and had to dig deep into settings to find out?

Well there is a very cool, great looking and simple application that makes Windows Mobile show at all times the battery status.

It’s called Batti and best of all, its free!

Get it here.

Asus has just released on their support pages the firmware update for the P750 that will take it to the next level of Windows Mobile.

The update is available in several languages including Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Polish, and Danish.

No word on a WWE version, but it might arise in the near future.

To access the download click here.

A Portuguese retailer and other European as well are announcing the availability of TV-out cable for the Samsung Omnia.

This is quite an interesting surprise since no information about TV-out capabilities was ever disclosed by Samsung.

It also seems that the i780 and other devices could be compatible with this cable although this is still to be confirmed.

The cable is now for sale costing only 14,90€.