DevTools - by Diego Samuilov

Bloatware And Malware In Your Android Smartphone?

2010-07-30T21:38:16Z

History has a way of repeating itself… some people (and by extension, some companies) are not willing to learn from this industry’s mistakes. We have all dealt in one form or another of bloatware. For those of you who don’t know what bloatware is about; it’s software that you never requested but comes bundled along with your computer, some of it is useful, some of it is just crap. Even if you specifically don’t want to have that software installed, it somehow comes bundled with your computer. Early examples are AOL and other ISPs client connection applications, and more recently, software for special effects with your webcam that adds “cute effects” to the images being captured on your webcam while you are video conferencing. Like all bloatware, it may just be cute as a novelty, but its usefulness is questionable at best and can be catalogued as the shiny object or the smoke and mirrors needed to get you to either purchase the “full version” or some kind of subscription for a service you probably didn’t need in the first place. This software is normally tough to get rid of and is most likely residing in memory at all times, putting a strain in its resources and making your computer slower. Even if you successfully remove the software, there are good chances that a few running components may have been left. In the mean time, the computer manufacturer gets paid for pushing a particular piece of software per computer sold; all at the expense of the consumer.

Enter Android, this is a great technical implementation of a general purpose OS that happens to run on smartphones. I describe Android as a general purpose OS because it is essentially being used in multiple devices, not only smartphones, but tablets, netbooks and other devices such as Google TV, etc. This has several pros and cons; in the case of smartphones and some tablets and netbooks, the carrier providing connectivity to the web is also bundling lots and los of bloatware that supposedly “help the consumer”, but admittedly by the carriers is aimed at increasing their bottom line by enticing the consumer to purchase more software for the device. As it reported earlier, some of these applications are not even full versions and need a license purchased or require a subscription to a paid service. Android being a general purpose OS has to expose multiple services and calls, in a sense the same way Windows Mobile was up until Windows Phone 7, this poses several risks. Because of this applications can eat up most of the memory needed to run basic services as voice and data communications, rendering the device essentially useless. On top of this, applications running in the background that do not act according to basic programming rules keep consuming juice even when deep in the background, which kills battery life also turning your phone in nothing but a useless brick in a few hours of pretty much standby and zero activity.

While it is mostly the carriers that add bloatware to smartphones, the manufacturers are just as guilty when they add their UI overlay of choice. Some of the many examples are HTC, Motorola and Samsung which make great phones but add UI overlays such as TouchFlo 3D, Sense UI, Motoblur, Droid and TouchWiz overlays, etc. This seemingly innocuous “UI enhancement” usually affects the performance making it noticeable slower, something never intended by Google; the creator of the OS. These overlays offer what seems to be “better customization”, but at the cost of severely crippling performance. Obviously if you were aware of these pros and cons you may have chosen differently, and at least make it YOUR decision whether you really want to add the newest shiny object at the expense of actual functionality.

On top of this there is also a considerable number of applications readily available on the Android Market, some of them even being reported as malware. One of them is the wallpaper application by a company called “Jackeey Wallpaper”. The applications affected could be “Star Wars”, “Gundam” or “My Little Pony” or all of them. The software in question extracted personal information from about 1.1 million to 4.6 million users and it was sent to a website located in China. I would stay away from all of them, even the ones I have not mentioned, just in case. If one positive can be extracted of this story is that kill-switch in the Android Market that so many complained about, it turns out to be a handy tool with these cases.

Fortunately, the Android crowd is not taking this lightly and “themes” are being offered (as opposed to full UI replacements), but the OS still has a few items that are not completely customizable.

In any case, it does seem that Android is at a turning point and has one of two different paths to choose. The smarter option is to tighten up restrictions, iOS, Blackberry OS, Windows Phone 7, Symbian are all going in that direction albeit with some restrictions being different. The other option may not be completely dumb, but keeping services, hooks and calls available will require of a resource pool larger than current devices can provide. What path will they choose? One can only infer that a smart choice will be made, but history has a way of repeating itself…

Barnes & Noble Releases Nook for Android – Free eReader For Android

2010-07-24T05:27:50Z

It was about time… now there is an eReader software for installing on your Android device. More specifically, there is Nook for Android. If you have an Android powered mobile device, you can now go to the Android Market and get (free of charge) the Nook reader. For other platforms like iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, Mac and Windows it is called the eReader [here]. The Nook eReader device can be found [here] The process is simple, after you installed the software, either create an account with Barnes & Noble or login to your existing account, and you can start enjoying your ebooks. This software has the ability to “lend” books to your friends, something that Nook eReader owners were able to do already. You will also notice that the software automatically syncs the page where you were reading last. For example; if you were reading on your phone on the subway, when you get home, you can continue reading on your home computer, without having to search for the exact page where you left off. This is a great feature that helps you avoid the typical hassles of reading digital media on different devices. The software also syncs your bookmarks, what can come handy if you are taking notes or make comments about the content you read. One of the many features that come in handy if you are a student or member of a reader group.

I am surprised that it took Barnes & Noble this long to get to release this version for Android because the Nook (device) is powered by the Android OS. I assume that one reason may be that the Nook (device) has a considerably different software architecture when it comes to handling screen events and features. It has two screens, one black and white and the other color; the color one being the only screen that handles touch gestures. The only restriction listed is that Android needs to be version v1.6 or newer, which is extremely likely to be the case for most devices out there right now.

As reported before, you can access a free “classics library”, that will keep growing over the weeks. Barnes & Noble is committed to providing a very rich reading experience, and that includes giving access to reading the classics. They have started adding about 8 to 12 classics every week. The list is going to be increased as time goes by. Additionally, both the Nook device and the Nook software supports generic formats such as PDFs and ePub. The latter is quickly being adopted as a universal standard for ebooks on the web. The software allows for selecting from 8 different fonts and 5 text sizes; allowing for younger and eager to read more per page as well as older, but eager to at least read in large font as well.

The company eReader.com [here] already had an eReader software for Android. This is a company that is owned by Barnes & Noble, and has been in the eBook business for over a decade, but their software was not allowed to purchase from the B&N site unless you purchased from eReader. The Nook software as well as the Nook device allows to read the file formats supported by the eReader company, so if you happen to change your reader software, you should be able to transfer your ebooks.

Nokia, RIM Respond To Apple’s Claims

2010-07-21T03:17:04Z

After last week’s “they do it too” from Apple regarding the iPhone 4’s signal problems; Nokia and Research In Motion have responded to Apple’s claim. The Antennagate seems to continue forever. Had Apple resisted the urge to hit back, with childish justifications for what is clearly a hardware design flaw and replaced the faulty units; this would have been water under the bridge by now. Instead, now Nokia and Research In Motion (makers of BlackBerry smartphones) are hitting back hard defending themselves for an unjustified attack from Apple.

First was Nokia’s rebuttal, then RIM’s but both have pretty good points to make. Additionally, it’s worth mentioning that none of the smartphones mentioned actually lose enough signal to the point of dropping a call or broadband connection altogether. You can certainly hold all other devices from any side without the drastic loss of signal you would experience in an iPhone 4. Both rebuttals have been strong punches back. While getting to the point, they are both classy moves that show Apple’s errors while trying to give the whole issue a PR spin.

Nokia has officially responded with a long but milder statement: “Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict. In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That's why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design.”

RIM’s co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have issued a statement that was quite stronger: “Apple's attempt to draw RIM into Apple's self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple's claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public's understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple's difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM's customers don't need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple.”

Both companies point fingers at Apple’s “form over function” choices, while stating clearly that their products are backed by both R&D tests and market proven products measured in multiple decades. They also make a point of highlighting the audacity of creating a “shiny object effect” that can lead consumers to selecting a product that has not been thoroughly tested so it could be brought to market faster whose sole objective is to round up as many dollars as possible.

Free SPB TV For Watching IP TV Without Subscription

2010-07-17T15:04:03Z

I just received an email from our friends at SPB Software House; you can visit their website [here]. They announced that their software SPB TV version 2.0 is available for FREE. The software is available free of charge for Windows Mobile Pro (touchscreens), Windows Mobile (standard), iPhone and webOS. The versions for Symbian, Android and BlackBerry are paid. A new version for Maemo is announced to be released “soon”. SPB TV is used for watching TV over your web connection (IP TV) without the need to pay a subscription fee to anyone (except your data charges if you are using your cell carrier broadband), over WiFi, it is 100% free. If you want to download it from MS Windows Mobile Marketplace straight to your device, it is available for download (search for SPB TV), or if you want to install it with the PC Windows installer, you can download it [here]. The software even has access to free video on demand (as shown in the first image). In the case of the first image, you are watching full screen while you select the video you may want to watch. Image is showing stand up comedy.

Overall image quality can be selected as high- and low-bandwidth, high bandwidth uses about 350 kbps and on a 800x480 device looks great. Pixel size is larger on lower resolution devices, so a lower quality image could be displayed, but the documentation does not say if in this case, it would use a lower-bandwidth setting.

Here is the main screen, it shows a snapshot of the program playing at the time, and if available you will see part of the day’s schedule, plus the logos for the channels that are selected to display per your options/settings. When you want to start watching the currently selected channel, you can tap the snapshot or the “play button”. When a schedule is available, touching on it will take you to the full schedule for the next few days.

Once you are watching TV, you can access the picture-in-picture (PIP) feature and watch two channels at once. This feature lets you select the new channel while watching the already selected channel in full screen. The PIP feature and the full screen channels can be switched back and forth.

Once in full screen mode, you can access the on-screen control panel that will give you quick access to the battery indicator, estimated viewing time, current time, channel switching panel, video quality switcher, volume level controller, backlight level controller, and exit (from full screen) control.

The TV Guide screen will show you the current channel’s schedule, both in advance and part. This feature is only available for channels that provide this information. Not all channels have a schedule feature since it depends on the content being streamed from the source. A day of the week and from a calendar can be selected in order to see the schedule for that particular day as well as the channel in case you want to check the schedule for multiple channels. You can use this screen to setup an Outlook reminder from here. The application will create an appointment in Outlook so that you get reminded of a particular show starting at that particular time.

Some free video on demand is available in SPB TV. In this example the source is standup comedy and each item is a video clip. Each tile represents one clip that can be independently selected . The tiles show a snapshot, a title, a one-line-description, when it was posted online and its length.

You cannot specifically select a category of video on demand, but when you select a channel that has video on demand, you just enter this selection screen instead of just watching whatever they are broadcasting at the time.

Because video on demand is a pre-recorded clip and is not live TV, it can be paused, restarted, con continued from pause. One nice feature to have would be to pause regular live TV channels, this way SPB TV would behave somewhat like a DVR/Tivo device. Of course, this feature would be dependent on how much memory is at your disposal, but it would be great to have such feature.

Here is the volume level control, it display your volume adjustment on screen while you are making volume adjustments with the device’s volume buttons. Even if your device would normally go to a temporary screen to show your volume adjustment; if you are using SPB TV, you would see this volume adjustment overlay so you won’t miss video content while adjusting the volume. You could also adjust volume by tapping at the right level on the volume overlay on screen.

The brightness level control works the same way the volume level control, however you need to access it from your on-screen controls since there are no Windows Mobile devices that have brightness adjustment via hardware buttons (unless you selected other hardware buttons to adjust this setting). Overall it works the same way as volume level controls.

When you setup an Outlook reminder, an Outlook New Appointment pops up with the name of the TV show, the date and the starting and ending time, everything else appears with your Outlook default settings.

The Options screen is divided into two tabs: Channels allows you to select out of all the channels available, which ones to show in the scrollable channel selector. It also lets you sort the channels into whatever order you want. The Orientation tab lets you setup video to display in full-screen-landscape mode, which uses best the aspect ratio of your devices’ screen resolution. If you have a running application that will do the automatic rotation for you or if your device already came with it, then you don’t need to worry about the full screen orientation.

Overall SPB TV v2.0 is a great application with good quality TV. Please have in mind that image quality, frequency of caching and speed of acquiring the cache stream is always dependent of your connection speed. I have made many tests and have concluded that even if you have less than 3G broadband speeds such as EDGE (E) it will still be good enough to watch a show without interruptions as long as you have a minimum of 3/4 bars showing.

Steve Jobs: "All Phones Have Weak Spots"

2010-07-17T03:30:47Z

Apple had a press conference to attempt to give it a positive spin to the multiple problems facing the iPhone 4. Antenna hardware placement, flaky communications, calls dropped, etc; all of these reportedly to be fixed with a software fix that does not address all issues. If the particular problem you are facing is not fixed with this software patch; then you can either be reimbursed the case you purchased or get a new one from Apple for free. If you are still unsatisfied; you can return your iPhone 4 for a full refund.

Steve Jobs has indicated in today's press conference that all phones have weak spots... he carried on to demo with video (not live) how several competing smartphones experience a drop in the number of bars when held in a particular "weak spot". None of them dropped the call (as the iPhone 4 does).

I am sorry, but trying to excuse oneself by claiming everyone else does it too is just not going to cut it for me. For the millions of iPhone 4 users that purchased the device, Apple should be giving them two simple options: replacement or full refund.

Also a software solution for a hardware design flaw is just not enough, and even more insulting trying to cover with a case that would just prevent conductivity to the antenna, but still reduce the signal via induction. Apple should have recalled the phones and replaced them altogether with ones that work as advertised.

On top of everything, I am still wondering if the "low bandwidth" issue that iPhone users have experienced forever isn't related to poor signal gain from the iPhone itself. They seem to be the only AT&T users complaining. I have been using smartphones on the AT&T network since 2007 and I have not experienced low bandwidth except when underground or behind thick concrete building walls, which would be expected due to the way the microwaves behave in those particular scenarios.

Free eBooks Available This Week In Barnes & Noble's Nook Store

2010-07-17T03:29:39Z

Available starting this week, Barnes & Noble is adding 10 classic ebooks per week. While you could already do this by using other sources, download them into the Nook on your own, this option will be much more straightforward and easier for readers that are technically challenged.
One note to all B&N eReader software for devices (other than Nook), this offer is also available to you, since you access the same library than Nook users. So hop into B&N [here] and download away the books that made us love reading in the first place.
I love spending $0.

Steve Ballmer: The Tablets Are Coming Soon

2010-07-16T02:24:18Z

Steve Ballmer; Microsoft CEO indicated a few days back at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference while addressing a crowd of 14,000 people that major partners would be releasing Windows 7 Tablets (slates as he calls them) really soon. He said that Microsoft was “all in” with the slate form factor. Additionally, he also mentioned being prepared for the release of Windows Phone 7 and the many devices that will be using it, although he didn’t go into further details that what’s already out in public.

The slates mentioned will cover many different price points and many different configurations. His announcement mentioned that they would come with keyboards (as in Tablet PCs), plain slates (only screen), dockable slates, accepting digital ink, touch, multi-touch, etc. He specifically stressed the usefulness of these devices in the corporate world, a world that that the iPad has not been able to get into yet.

Microsoft’s strategy seems to be split into two almost opposite moves. On one hand Microsoft is pushing the upcoming slates into the corporate world, while at the same time Windows Phone 7 is going to be pushed into the consumer market. This seems to me risky business, but if it works it will be genius. If this dual-strategy happens to work, we will see a rebirth of Microsoft in the consumer world while at the same time a further strengthen of Microsoft in corporations.

During the presentation one particular slide was presented that pretty much sums it up: It lists 21 partner companies announced to be working on Slates and 7 partners working on Windows Phone 7.

Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of . . . Broadband

2010-07-14T03:56:08Z

Yes, it may sound a bit awkward, but broadband has become a legal right, at least in Finland. Now, us geeks already can’t live without broadband access to the web. This doesn’t really come as a surprise, we knew this was going to happen sooner or later, although we were hoping sooner rather than later. Finland took civilization a few steps forward by becoming the first country to officially and legally guaranteeing the right to broadband for all its citizens.

The minimum broadband that they are guaranteeing is currently set to 1 Mbit, not much by current standards; however, it is promising to be about 100 Mbits around the year 2015. The Finnish government took about 9 months to make this happen. From idea to law, to right and with plans for expansion for the future… Now, not all is good news; the government is not actually paying for the broadband service. Instead it is forcing all broadband companies to assure anyone who requires a broadband connection be guaranteed to have such a connection of at least 1 Mbit upon request.

More progress with Chrome OS

2010-07-14T01:38:30Z

The open source project Chromium OS is showing some considerable progress. Graphically, the look is simpler, cleaner and most likely even less process intensive as the previous reviews. Additionally, the team working on Chrome OS is likely to be close to completion either on the Fall or later. The main focus at this point is whether to support file compression (more specifically, zip files). Additionally, it is most likely going to allow users to browse without having to login to Google services, which initially was assumed not to be allowed.

We were able to grab some screenshots. A description is provided after each screenshot:

Browsing in Chrome OS: the top bar containing the tabs goes away in favor of a side tab bar. At the bottom of the tab bar there is a mini system-status bar that indicates wireless signal, battery charge remaining and time. The first icon seems to be a smiley, but we are not sure what it means. It could be some sort of notification service, but we could not confirm.

We are not sure if the tab bar hides after a particular amount of time, but personally I think that it takes too much screen real estate uselessly when it is not being heavily used. On the other hand, if you happen to be browsing 25 – 35 pages at once (with as many tabs open) you could read most titles from all of them. Still, it seems overkill to take about about 15%-16% of the screen just for showing tabs… let’s just hope it automatically hides after a set period of time.

Google Chrome OS Options: this is what the settings form is looking like at this point. I am saying “at this point”, because as you know Chrome OS is still work in progress, and in the next few months, the look and feel of this configuration form may see substantial changes.

This particular form does not show much about the user interface as one would expect… according to this one screenshot, it could perfectly be a configuration form from Windows, Mac OS, Linux… it’s nothing revolutionary, just plain cookie-cutter form design.

User Selection and Login Screen: Simple, no-borders or heavy delimiters to the user interface. this means that it should perform faster on slower (cheaper) hardware. Should we bring our hopes up for the sub-$100 Chrome OS Netbook? Who knows at this point… As long as screens take less and less computing power to render, the better it will run in the cloud. The simpler the screens are, it means that there may be less information to transmit from the cloud back to the device and a consequence of that will be that it will be less complicated to process and display the resulting screen on the device. In my book, simple is always better; especially with OS design. The login screen is also shown here where you can enter your credentials. You’ll be able to notice that these are two very slightly different versions of the same screens. They are not very different, but if the team is looking at these tiny differences, they very likely closing in on the final look and feel for this particular screen.

Session-less Browsing: It looks like you will not need to login into the OS in order to do basic browsing. Please have in mind that this particular screenshot is showing what we believe to be the old tabbed browsing user interface, so we are not sure if this will still be a feature or not in the final version.

The implications are that you could take a computer with Chrome OS, make it look and configure it however you want it to be configured and use it for (at least) browsing. Obviously, after you shutdown, you will lose any changes you have made to your settings, but that will only be because you never logged in in the first place. Will this give you some sort of “anonymous browsing” capabilities? Remember the servers know who you are when you log in because you are using an OS that lives in the cloud – on the servers- and not your computer as it is with the current generation of devices where you can remain anonymous by staying off line. In a cloud based OS, like Chrome OS is, this is not an option… because very little exists on your computer and most of it exists in the cloud.

Google seems to be testing Chrome OS pretty heavily in low level devices. A particular reference was made to sub-par hardware. Maybe even hardware commoditized to a point that would be extremely cheap to come by. How cheap or how commoditized it would be is a matter of speculation.

Chromium OS does not support zipping and unzipping files right now, but there seems to be two clearly divided camps. Some don’t believe it to be necessary while others seem to believe it is absolutely needed. This is a hot topic of discussion for the developers right now.

The OS will provide features for a screensaver and a lock-screen in case you step away from your computer. These are basic features, so no big news here.

Overall, Chrome OS seems to be making great progress, so let’s wait a few more months to see what comes out of this project… Who knows, maybe we’ll see the first products featuring the OS for the holiday season.

Flash Content on iPads, iPhones and most likely all other Mobile Devices!!!

2010-06-01T22:29:45Z

Smokescreen, this is a great name for a tool that allows iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users run Flash content. On top of that it is a great name considering the developer behind it is actually called Chris Smoak. For their website you can click (here).

Smokescreen is essentially a flash player completely coded in JavaScript. This means that Flash files (movies, files with extension SWF, etc) can be played in Safari on Apple mobile devices without any problem. The website has a few demos that show how an SWF Flash file plays within this “SmokeScreen” player.

Most demo links on the website show side-by-side flash content with and without the smokescreen player so you can compare performance on your desktop browser. Right after seeing it work on your PC/Mac run the same page on your iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch and you will be able to see Flash content playing through the SmokeScreen player.

There are some unresolved issues with the more complex Flash applications (they take some time longer than they would take on a desktop) but the tool passes the initial hurdle of not being able to play SWF content on Apple's devices. Please beware that this is a working version of the code and it may not always work on all different browsers. The JavaScript has more than 8000 lines of code (yes, eight thousand), so it definitely takes a while to load and run the very first time you load it. Be patient... after that, you can expect quick execution times, but not as fast as native Flash. The JavaScript files take up a whopping 175 Kbytes. The code is already announced to become open source in the near future. This means that all the bright minds out there will be able to enhance and optimize it for showtime.

According to the developer: "It runs entirely in the browser, reads the SWF binaries, unzips them (in native JS), extracts images, and embedded audio and turns them into base64 encoded data:uris, then stitches the vector graphics back together as an animated SVG."

Now, I don't have an iPad or any Apple products, but this jewel of JavaScript coding is surely going to benefit all browsers on all mobile devices, as long as they can use JavaScript and play SVG files, regardless of the platform.

Let's just hope that Apple doesn't block this type of JavaScript from running on Safari out of spite...

Oops! Serious iPhone OS Data Protection Flaw

2010-05-31T21:23:17Z

It’s been reported in several blogs that two security experts (Bernd Marienfeldt and Jim Herbeck) have uncovered a way to gain access to the iPhone 3GS file system and potentially make modifications to files leaving no trace of it, even with file system encryption security active. The data protection vulnerability included several different instances of non-jailbroken iPhones.

The security exercise was completed with Ubuntu Lucid Lynx. Here is the abstract from their report:

“I uncovered a data protection vulnerability, which I could reproduce on 3 other non jail broken 3GS iPhones (MC 131B, MC132B) with different iPhone OS versions installed (3.1.3-7E18 modem firmware 05.12.01 and version 3.1.2 -7D11, modem 05.11.07), all PIN code protected which means the vulnerability bypasses authentication for various data where people most likely rely on data protection through encryption and do not expect that authentication is not in place. [...] [It is] in my opinion the quickest compromising read/write access discovered so far, without leaving any track record by the attacker. It’s about to imagine how many enterprises (e.g. Fortune 100) actually do rely on the expectation that their iPhone 3GS’s whole content is protected by encryption with an PIN code based authentication in place to unlock it.”

The data protection flaw exposes music, photos, videos, podcasts, voice recordings, Google safe browsing database, game contents, etc.

Bernd Marienfeldt and Jim Herbeck have notified Apple of this flaw. They have confirmed that Apple was able to easily reproduce the security break-in and seems to understand why this is happening. However, they also confirmed that Apple would not provide timing or further details about a fix or even if this fix would be included with iPhone OS 4.0

Considering how many iPhone users are out there, I’m really concerned about how much corporate and personal information these users are exposing to anyone with enough knowledge on these hacks.

Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP Refresh!

2010-04-30T02:19:49Z

I am repeating here a post from the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 official blog. Please read in full before you install… so you don’t have to fix anything afterwards.

Enjoy!

Beginning today you can download the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP Refresh (WPDT CTP) from http://developer.windowsphone.com, which means you can now build Windows Phone 7 apps on the final release of Visual Studio 2010 (VS2010). While this update is primarily intended to enable development using the final release of VS2010 there are a few new things here too.

Examples of what’s new & changed include:

This release has been tested to work with the final release of Visual Studio 2010.
An updated Windows Phone 7 OS image for the Windows Phone Emulator.
A few APIs in the frameworks have been added and or changed. See this MSDN page for more details.
The documentation has been updated with new and expanded topics. See this MSDN page for more details.
We’ve provided limited support for launchers and choosers. In cases where the underlying built-in experience is not present launchers and choosers are still not available (i.e. the email chooser asks you to select a contact, but there are no contacts in the emulator and no way to add one).
Pause/Resume events are now supported.
If the tools are installed as the admin user, non-admin users are now able to deploy to the emulator.
A problem with incremental deployment of projects has been fixed.
A problem resulting in the error "Connection failed because of invalid command-line arguments" being displayed during project creation has been fixed.
A problem where the Windows Phone node was not appearing in VS 2010 on non-system drives has been fixed.
Design time skin refresh issues have been addressed.

Please read the release notes before installing this refresh. A few tips:

Uninstall the previous CTP first (the item in Add/Remove programs to uninstall is “Microsoft Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP-ENU”)
If you have the RC of VS2010 installed, uninstall it first and then install the final release.
You can install Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP even if you do not have Visual Studio already installed.
We’ve introduced a few ‘breaking changes’ with this release. The one that will impact almost everyone who used the existing release is a requirement that all WMAppManifest.xml files have a filled out <CAPABILITIES> section. The release notes describe this in more detail and the tools will warn you when you open an existing project.

Documentation links include Developing Windows Phone Games and Silverlight for Windows Phone as a part of the XNA Game Studio 4.0 and Silverlight 4 RC documentation sets, respectively. If you have feedback about our documentation, join the discussion in the Windows Phone forums or use the ratings control in the upper right-hand side of the pages on MSDN.

As noted above this refresh is intended primarily to ensure compatibility with the RTM version of Visual Studio 2010. We are working additional releases that we will make available through the launch of Windows Phone 7 in the fall. So please keep sending us your feedback, as we take it all to heart and want to get you what you need in the final product which we can only do with your continued partnership. We can’t wait to see the apps you’re building!

Added bonus: In case you missed it, check out this cool post from Andre Vrignaud about the 3 pillars of Xbox Live on Windows Phone.

Update [4/29 1:30PM PST]: We’ve identified an issue in this release with regard to the loading of signed precompiled assemblies in the context of your application. If, when you try to run your application in the emulator you get a ‘System.IO.FileLoadException’ error, please see Brandon Watson’s blog for a workaround.

HP Buys Palm

2010-04-30T02:13:29Z

After all the names thrown out for potential buyers of Palm Inc. it was announced that HP would be the one to actually complete the purchase. Hewlett Packard confirmed late last night that they will be purchasing Palm, Inc. for about $1 billion in cash. The purchase completes at $5.70 per share, which is more than 20% higher than Palm's price per share previous to the announcement.
Palm, Inc. had about 80% of the PDA mobile market share about a decade ago and it has been declining since then. Today's smartphone market and the increase in strong competitors such as Microsoft's Windows Mobile initially and more recently with Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and RIM's Blackberry smartphones have crippled Palm's latest effort to take a hold with consumers. Palm's WebOS operating system and their Pre and Pixi devices have been acclaimed technically but they are seen as too little too late of an effort. Palm has been relegated to a merely 1.5% market share (according to research firm IDC). Furthermore, Palm's estimated revenue for the current quarter are expected to decline to about $100 million from an intially forecast of $150 million.
Additionally, Palm is quickly burning through cash left from better times at about $200 million per quarter leaving them enough cash for another 2 - 3 more quarters at the current spending level. Some key executives have already left Palm in the past months.
This move from HP comes as a strong gamble to position itself ahead of the pack of computer manufacturers by acquiring an OS that could be used (confirmed by HP) in tablets and (potentially) more low-end netbooks.

Mobile Blogging: Diarist v2.1 (UPDATE)

2010-04-22T22:19:37Z

After posting my last article about Diarist here, I had a quick email exchange with Kevin Daly; the brain behind the application for mobile blogging. Thanks, Kevin for taking the time to writing back to me. In his email, Kevin gave me a rather detailed update of where he is with his blogging app, what his plans are for the future and what he is spending the most time on right now.

I had the chance to ask Kevin if he would give me an update and he mentioned that he is very thankful for the interest we've taken in the tool he has developed. He has also mentioned that there will be a Windows Phone 7 version of Diarist (woohoo!), as well as a port of Diarist for iPhone and iPad.

In his comments, he also mentioned that right now he is working on getting up to date with WP7 development tools, interface details, etc. He is planning on creating a proper WP7 application. He indicated that he will attempt to integrate Diarist to the Hub system and operating system services among other things. By making Diarist a proper WP7 version as opposed to a hastily converted WM6.x, he will attempt to increase the chances of having the application approved once it is submitted. Even though he made no promises, he indicated that it would most likely be ready by the time the first wave of WP7 hardware becomes available.

Even though the current version of Diarist is free, he has also made a comment about charging a small fee for the new version. In all fairness, he also stated that he would release the new version along with a companion trial version, so that potential users would be able to determine whether they like it or if it works out for them.

Because of all this work he has been doing, the versions for iPhone and iPad of Diarist have suffered a bit of a delay, but he will soon be working on those as well.

He also finished his comments by stating that he was not planning to stop at Diarist. He said he would be writing a variety of different apps for the new WP7 platform in the near future.

Keep up the great work, Kevin!

Mobile Blogging: Diarist v2.1

2010-04-15T04:52:40Z

I am testing an application for blogging from my Windows Phone. A reader (ProfJulie from PocketPrimer.com, Thanks BTW!) recommended to me after posting my "Do almost everything with your smartphone..." series (click here). It's called Diarist v2.1. It was developed by Kevin Daly from New Zealand. You can download it here.

I know that not all our readers have their own blogs, but this little (FREE) tool is great and I would like to share it with you. Diarist is not new, it was released in 2008, but it’s the most complete solution for posting from my phone… I have been using it for a few weeks now; mostly experimenting on test blogs with different blog servers and it’s the most flexible tool you will find. I find it very useful.

Setting up Diarist is very straightforward. You select your server type from a list and indicate the address of your blogging server, your username and password and you are pretty much set to go. In general terms, you use it as if it were a word processor only instead of saving to your device, you post to the blog server. If you wanted you can also keep draft copies on your device.

Here you can see a screenshot of the general looks Diarist has. This is the main form where you type the title, the content of your article, etc. Additionally, this form has a dropdown where you can also select the blog to which you can post the article. I find this particular feature very convenient as I write my articles and post them on several blogs. Sometimes, the content is exactly the same, but other times I make several changes based on the target audience of the blog. For example, my audience in DevTools is more technical, so I may add certain comments that may be of interest to developers. This article in particular will be left exactly the same on both blogs. The “Update” button will post the article to the selected blog.

Please be aware that every time you change from one blog to another using the dropdown; all categories are retrieved from the server and depending on your connection bandwidth and how many categories, it may take a few more seconds than usual.

File Menu

The menu option expands into several items: “File” lets you create new articles, save your current article to the device. It also allows you to retrieve or delete articles saved in your dev. Two interesting features not found on the other tools for blogging from your smartphone are categories and tags.You can access these features from this menu from the category and “entry properties” menu items. The categories are pulled from the existing categories your blog already has on the server. The properties form allows you to overwrite the server post time and provide the date you want the article to display. It also lets you enter any tags you may want your articles to be cataloged with. You can also ping services such as Technorati, Yahoo, Weblogs.com or Feedster.

Edit Menu

Your blog already has a specific “look and feel” that meets a specific template with matching colors, backgrounds, etc. The “Edit” menu item allows you not only to cut, copy, paste, select all text in the article, or bold, italics or underline your selected text without breaking the template you chose on your blog. This way, every article remains consistent with the design interface. Additionally you can also set separate paragraphs, so that they have the appropriate indentation and separation. A set of features that the other blog editors for Windows Phone don’t even come close to having are listed there to insert a link (create a hyper link to another web site), create a link to an image either uploaded by you or simply hosted somewhere else. It also lets you upload and link to an image provided the image is already on your phone. While posting the article, Diarist will also upload the image you selected and link into it automatically.

Weblog Menu

This menu allows you to add, edit or remove accounts into your blogs (or blog servers). Additionally you can also trigger your browser with the selected address for your blog already typed in, although this option always triggers your Pocket Internet Explorer instead of pulling your default browser (which could be any other browser) and I find it a bit annoying that my version of Opera is not triggered or that I cannot select what browser to open up by selecting this option.

Adding new weblogs means entering the address where the API is located, your login and password plus your blog’s address. The API is the file that tells Diarist how to contact the blog server for posting your content. Different blog servers have different format files. For example:

CommunityServer: http://YourBlogAddress.com/blogs/metablog.ashx
WordPress: http://yourblogaddress.wordpress.com/xmlrpc.php

If you have no idea how or what to enter under API, simply do Menu::Find API after having entered the 3 other fields. Diarist will attempt to find the right type of file under the appropriate folder on the server. This will also be based on the type of blog server you selected to create this weblog initially. The information that goes into the fields under the “Extra” tab will be pulled from the server by default, but you can override them if you want. The Blog Title field will be used as the text that will show in the dropdown that allows you to choose where to post each article.

About and Confirm Publish Menu

About displays the version information and the developer name and address allowing you to go back when you hit OK.

Confirm Publish is a menu item that can be checked or unchecked when you select it. This means that when you hit “Publish” it will pop a message box for you to confirm whether you want to post the article or not giving you a last-option-out if you hit Publish by mistake.

Exit

Lets you close the application.

Mobile Blogging

2010-04-14T02:53:08Z

I am testing an application that a reader recommended to me after posting my "Do almost everything with your smartphone..." series (click here) on MobilitySite.com. It's called Diarist v2. It was developed by Kevin Daly from New Zealand.

If you see this comment, it means it worked fine. I will post all about the experience when I get up and running with the rest of the details. I also have MoBlog and I am waiting for Writer for Windows Mobile which promises to be great. Unfortunately, they have not released a new beta since June 2009! I am giving up hope on it at this point... if it gets released I will decide if it makes any sense moving into it or keeping one of the other two tools.

I am not sure which one of the two I will end up using in the end... stay tuned.

Google to Purchase Apple? What?

2010-04-01T04:06:46Z

A few days ago several pictures were posted at the Gizmodo.com blog [here]. In these pictures Steve Jobs (Apple) and Eric Schmidt (Google) are having a conversation at a public coffee shop. I confirmed that these pictures were taken recently. They are not fake or manufactured in any way shape or form. Having seen these pictures, I knew there would be a large number of scenarios, assumptions and rumored stories that would come out of them. What would this meeting be about?

Unfortunately, when I started asking my sources about it, I found myself with a story that would have big implications in the mobile arena. First it was only one of my sources that commented on it, but soon enough I was able to get the cooperation of several other sources that not only knew what was going on, but also were willing to provide with some of their input on it.

Since then, I have learned about several meetings held between Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt in the last few days... and I know what they were talking about. Everybody seems to be very quiet about it… obviously because they work for Apple and Google… but others such as competitors and analysts were willing to provide some interesting points of view about it.

My sources confirmed that these meetings are not only happening but are part of a plan much larger than anyone would ever expect. One of them, who requested not to be identified but is a high executive at Google disclosed that Google is under talks after their pending purchase of a controlling percentage of Apple's stock.

The SEC will start the review of the terms for the transaction next week. The amount to be paid for the stock purchase has not been disclosed. I assume that this amount will be disclosed eventually. It is still not clear whether this is a "friendly sale" of Apple (as one of our sources put it) or if it's a "hostile takeover" (as one of the analysts commented).

Additional sources at Apple have even suggested that all Apple products Mac, MacOS/X, iPhones, iPod/iPod Touch and iPad products will undergo a series of changes to gradually adapt them to an open platform, more in line with Google's principles. This will be a very gradual pace so that the market will not be rattled by it. I am not sure what the real intention after this actions really are, so here are some of the questions I still have:

Is Google trying to crush the competition in the mobile world by purchasing them?
Is the rumored iAd, the latest of Apple's rumored competitor service to Google's AdWords too much of a threat to Google's dominance in the Search arena? Especially now that Google's income in China is at least questionable...
Is the impending iPad launch too much of a strain to the open development initiatives at Google that grants these actions?
Will this takeover ultimately benefit the consumer in the short term?
How will this takeover affect the consumer in the long run?

Official PR sources from the Microsoft camp have declined to make any comments, but technical and business resources in Redmond have reacted with mixed comments, both for and against the said deal. Contacts who are in favor, indicated that it would create an opening for Microsoft in terms of opportunity . Those against it said that the market would react negatively to these actions and would affect all competitors in it.

Independent analysts that I consulted insist that although this is a bold move by Google it will certainly work in all the mentioned scenarios. They also mentioned that it is a stunt that could backfire and flip their "do no evil" image into the "Dr. Evil of the Tech world". Analysts have also commented that it is expected that all Apple products will not be rebranded in order to retain the market appeal they currently have.

In my humble opinion, what I think will happen is that Apple's brand will be diluted and lose some of the appeal it has to some of their followers. Whether this affects all competitors in the market… who knows!

Also, why didn't they meet in a more private place???

It should also be noted that this article is... probably... most likely... almost certainly... an April Fool's Day joke.

Have fun reposting, twittering, linking and sending us your comments below.

Do almost everything with your smartphone (Final Part)

2010-03-22T01:55:57Z

Recap: I am trying to do almost all my work with my phone and I am slowly getting there. This is the fifth and final part with my comments about this process.

Entertainment
What's entertainment? Entertainment means something different to everyone. This is why I would probably get the least agreement from you on this section. In very broad terms, we could agree that as long as you can take your entertainment with you, you should consider this section covered. That sounds about right, but it makes for too short and not too informative writing… so I'd rather have you disagree than give you the short story. What I'll try to do is say how I can mobilize my entertainment so that you can make the most out of it in your own way.

This section will cover how or what tools to use to enjoy the most out of your music, eBooks, video and gaming in your smartphone. While at some point, all these items could only be enjoyed separately on their own dedicated devices, it is about time that they had all converged into entertainment units that can handle most if not all of them. People that come from using PDAs are used to having some form of convergence prior to our status quo. PDAs have supported playing audio and video since 1998 to say the least, eBooks have been available for reading in PDAs since about that time as well… and gaming is no stranger to PDAs although the graphics engines and processing have gotten extremely efficient if we compare them to what they were over a decade ago. Lets also agree that as long as you can browse the web, you can at the very least, read and play online if nothing else, giving you a little bit of entertainment.

Audio/Music
Like I said, playing music in digital form has been around for a long time. Windows CE was able to do it back in the 1990s. Storage was very expensive at that time, especially flash memory, that was just being successfully commercialized. Now memory is cheap and you can either get your music stored locally or you can simply stream music to your smartphone with just as good quality as you would on a regular digital player. You don't need to have large amounts of storage if you are assured to have a good constant connection. If you prefer to keep music with you, storage is cheap enough that you can carry your whole music collection with you. In the past I never owned an MP3 player, not because I don't enjoy music, but simply because I always had a PDA… so when I made the transition between PDA + cell phone to a smartphone, playing music on it was already assumed and a matter of deciding how I wanted to sync music between the smartphone and my PC. If you never had a PDA, but you had a cell phone and a digital music player; by now you also realized of this convergence and simply moved to playing from your smartphone or streaming if you enjoy a great connection. Why carry another device when you can do just as well on your smartphone with no additional work? Now, because I use a Windows Phone I am used to Windows Media Player… I know that there are people that cannot stand it, but there are other tools out there and you can listen to the same formats you would on any other device or desktop no matter what obscure platform you choose.

eBook Reading
I read a lot of eBooks. Would you be surprised if I told you that I've never owned an eBook reader device? eBooks and the eBook reader market are a very hot topic right now. But if you always carry a smartphone why would you carry another device to do the reading which can also double as yet another music player? This is just nonsense to me… you've already spent some decent amount of money in your smartphone which can help you read eBooks for free (plus the price of each eBook obviously). Well, some people will obviously highlight the outdoors readability of such devices. I am not convinced that I would spend more than $250 for an eBook reader just to be able to read outdoors. I am also OK with reading from a small 3 or 3.5 inch screen, so font size is not an issue for me. I am currently using the eReader software from eReader.com that supports multiple platforms, it is owned by Barnes & Noble and is an evolution of the original eBook formats used in Palm devices in the early 2000s (download the free reader [here]). The greatest thing about this eBook reader is that I still carry my whole eBook collection that I started while I had a Palm PDA, their eBooks are compatible even with the Nook from Barnes & Noble and while I will most likely not buy any reader device I am just grateful that they are continuing to support other devices in order to grow their customer base. If Amazon had their Kindle reader software out for my smartphone, I would definitely have it installed so that I would just compare prices and get the book I want from the most convenient source (being B&N and Amazon the largest sources for commercial eBooks). Storage being cheap, like I said before, I really don't care carrying around more eBooks… after all it's not like I will have a heavier smartphone for that.

Video
I have converted and streamed full movies on my device before, I really do not need a portable video player for doing this… on the other hand I really don't use my smartphone for all that much video viewing. I watch the occasional movie preview on the Skyfire browser when I want to. Again, Windows Media Player does the job for me with the occasional help from Skyfire . The one client I would like to have in the future is the Sling Player; simply because I would be able to not find anything to watch while I am out of the house the same as when I am in the house. All joking aside, I think that the only tool I am missing out on for my video mobile experience I the Sling player mobile (and of course the Slingbox device for home). The idea of place shifting is very interesting to me, more as a curiosity than anyth ing else, but not life changing… as I would probably not watch all that much more TV than I already do. DVRs already let me watch TV in my schedule… so I am wondering how much more convenient would it be to place shift as opposed to time shift. This is obviously not a device that is high on my list or that I would plan to use all the time, so it normally gets relegated when budgeting for my next gadget purchase. You can find more information about the Slingbox and Sling player mobile at the Slingmedia website [here].

Gaming
From the old Nintendo LCD games from the 1980s until now, there's been so many changes that it would be impossible to list them all here. One thing that I can say for sure is that mobile gaming is still a strong force of change for electronics. However, most of the gaming you can do on standalone devices you can actually do also on a smartphone with better and higher resolution screens. Mobile gaming on your smartphone is no longer a matter of what board-game or simple graphics to purchase, but a matter of 3D engines and custom polygon rendering techniques that allow you to play games as visually complex as the current generation of game consoles, only on a 3 inch screen. I will leave this section left for you to fill in the blanks and choose that games you like… whether that is action games, board games, short games or any other. There is definitely a game out there to entertain you on your spare time.

Conclusion
In my opinion, moments of inspiration and sudden realizations do not happen while we are in an extremely structured environment. We may have great ideas while at the office, but those really genius ideas may come whenever and wherever. This is why I keep my mobile tools around. A great idea for an application, a great line of code to fix that bug that's been bothering you, an awesomely performing query to minimize wait time, writing some article or any other article for that matter… these are things that can happen anywhere anytime. Why tie yourself to a desk or even a hotspot? Having the right tools for facilitating these tasks makes a huge difference. The mind can wander, but when that old trusty light bulb lights up, I am ready for documenting the event.

How about you? Is there anything you have found doing on your phone makes just as much sense as doing on your PC? Post your comments and opinions here.

Do almost everything with your smartphone (Part 4/5)

2010-03-22T00:04:35Z

Recap: I am trying to do almost all my work with my phone and I am slowly getting there. This series of articles (this is the fourth part) is intended to document my findings and opinions about the process.

Here is where I am with my little project.

VOIP / International Long Distance
I live in Palm Beach, FL with my wife and son… but the rest of my family is in abroad, 6000 miles away. Long distance is expensive if you go with the regular phone company long distance services. I could go with a long distance card for more affordable international long distance rate, but the killer application for my particular situation is Skype (click [here]). My calling rates are less than $0.02 per minute… yes, there are other VOIP services… but Skype is the all- in-one solution for my particular situation. I use Skype on the PC while I am working, I use Skype over the air when I am with my phone. Additionally, I can chat with my contacts, or if I cannot find them online, I can call their phone numbers from right where I am. I like the ability to also be able to have absolutely free conversations from Skype to Skype when they are on their computer and I am either on the phone or my computer. There are lots of services that allow some variation of this type of VOIP service, but call quality has never been an issue for me so I am happy to keep the service. You can get a phone number and use Skype as your always with you phone number or simply a Skype account and use it to call out… heck, you could even use it for calling Skype to Skype only if you wanted… but I think that the feature rich environment that Skype has to offer is exactly what I need for my VOIP needs… Installing Skype is simple, if you have an account already created it takes a second and the application will remember your credentials, so you don't need to type in your password every time (although you could if you wanted to sign out every time you exit the application).

Skype is available for Blackberry, Android, iPhone, Symbian, Sony PSP, custom hardware such as the Skype WiFi Phone and some feature cordless phones (get them [here]). Unfortunately, the latest version of Skype for Windows Phone is not available from Skype itself. You can either find a vendor that still has a downloadable copy of Skype Lite or use an existing copy. The service is still available throughout 2010, but Skype Lite will be disconnected at the end of the year… the official explanation is that Skype Lite cannot offer the same experience that the other versions have to offer. A lot has been speculated about why Skype Lite is not being offered and some people assume that the cell carriers preventing the service from working. However, what has not been announced yet is that before the end of the year, we will have a Skype for Windows Phone. This release will come in with the same features offered in the other mobile platforms and will come in right in time for Windows Phones coming to the market at that point.

Writing Code
Part of my work is to write code. I need to do this on my desktop. I found no way around it. Testing and compiling is just part of what I do when I write code and there is no way around it… or is there? I've been using a tool to write simple code snippets in multiple programming languages. This tool is called CEdit v4.0 by Callisto Systems (you can see it [here]). This tool is just a few steps short of a full development IDE for Windows Phone. They support from the early versions of Pocket PC to Windows Mobile 6.x. You can edit code in this tool in multiple languages: C#, VB .Net, Java, ASP, C++, C and PHP. It also supports editing HTML and XML files. If you are used to using Visual Studio, it also lets you open Project files that group several code files. The tool does a fine job highlighting the code with the appropriate colors just as Visual Studio (or any other current IDE) would. CEdit will not compile your code as your smartphone lacks the CPU power needed for that. Just have in mind that the actual goal for this tool is to help you write your code on the go and not have to wait till you are back in front of your computer. This is a great stop-gap measure for writing code. It is very hard to replace a full blown sit-down-and-code experience that can produce applications, but this tool makes it pretty close. I do find myself fixing the unexpected web page, JavaScript or bug if I find one and I am able to upload it on the spot. Web pages can be uploaded immediately because they don't require being compiled, any other code that needs to be compiled, can be fixed on the spot, but it obviously needs to be sent to the desktop in order to be compiled.

Now with the help of CEdit and RDP for a remote session to the desktop can allow you to code in mobile mode, send to the desktop, remote to it, compile and release. Even though I still feel this is somewhat closer to cheating when saying that this would be all mobile work; the truth is that you still need to have a desk-bound computer while being mobile. That is not the 100% mobile solution I was shooting for.

Do almost everything with your smartphone (Part 3/5)

2010-03-21T23:34:49Z

Recap: I am trying to do almost all my work with my phone and I am slowly getting there. This is the third part with my findings and opinions about the process.

Here is where I am with my little project.

I already mentioned that my work revolves around application development. I still have not found a tool that would do everything for me in that arena but I am currently using a remote session with Remote Desktop, which ultimately would allow me to do anything I want just as if I had a full blown computer in front of me. In all fairness that would be "sort of cheating" even though I would certainly be able to complete all my tasks just as long as I have a decent web connection. I will continue my search on this particular set of features. In the mean time, I will move on to other tasks.

Reading Blog Articles
I have to admit that I do a lot of reading. In fact, I do read several thousand articles a week, I get world, regional and national news, technical, industry and mobile related, and many other feeds daily. Sometimes, keeping track of what one reads is a chore. While on my PC, I do all my blog reading on Google Reader (see [here]). It is simple, yet functional and works no matter what computer I am using. On my HTC Touch HD, I was using the RSS reader that came in bundled with the device originally, it is a custom version of an app available for purchase. I never liked Google Reader's mobile version… it seems lacking substance and functionality when you compare it with native readers for smartphones. It offers no customization options. I also tried using Skyfire to browse into Google Reader a few times and while it worked when I was using my Celio RedFly, the behavior is so desktop-like that I cannot take advantage of reading for example while waiting for a doctor's appointment or at lunchtime at work. Additionally; at some point, when the number of feeds started to get a bit unmanageable, I just couldn't keep wasting my time remembering which articles I had already read on my PC and mark them read on my smartphone, and vise versa. I needed an application that would connect to the Google Reader service and just keep it in sync for me, so what I read on my smartphone, would be marked read on my PC and what I read on my PC would not show up unread on my phone.

Enter Speeed Reader (it is not a typo, it's actually spelled with 3 e's). I downloaded it from the Windows Mobile Marketplace as a trial and within a few hours I had already purchased and registered. I enjoy the simplicity and functionality it provides while keeping all my feeds synced with Google Reader. I am using the latest version available on the Marketplace (v1.12) although the latest version available outside of the Marketplace is v1.13 and has some minor fixes. The next major functional and UI review (v1.2) has already been announced and will be coming shortly. You can find more information [here]. A few specific features have been announced, and if they work as expected, this should be a great enhancement to an already excellent product. I highly recommend this tool if you are an avid RSS reader. The combination between Speeed Reader on my Windows Phone and Google Reader on the PC works like a charm.

Writing Blog Articles
Now, realistically speaking, not everyone writes their own blog or enjoys writing for blogs such as MobilitySite. I wouldn't expect everyone to do so, but blogging and micro-blogging is becoming very commonplace. In my case well, you are obviously reading this article, so there is not much more to say. My intention is to help others learn about the tools and technologies I am most passionate about. In other cases, for example my wife, writes a personal blog for helping our families stay in touch since we live about 6000 miles away from most of them. She started her blog in part at some point in her first pregnancy, so our families would have some participation on all that was happening in our lives even though they were far away. After a while we also realized that it worked as a great way to keep a diary of sorts that can later on be passed on to our children.

My next task is writing articles for MobilitySite and my blog for developers (click [here]). I am surprised to say that there are very few decent blog editing tools for mobile devices (no matter what platform). On my PC I use Windows Live Writer (and I am very, very happy with it). I found Windows Writer for Windows Phones about a year ago [here] but it is in a very early beta stage and I am sad to say that there has been no visible activity since June 2009 when Beta 2 was released and Beta 3 was promised. For now I can certainly get away with writing my articles in the web editors provided by the blogging engines of each of the blogs I am listed as a contributor, but I would probably do much better if I had one tool to do all the writing with. Since I am using Skyfire, my use of these web tools is seamless, but I like the experience of WLW and unfortunately I haven't been able to find anything I can match it on the Windows Phone side... There are a million and one tools for twittering but unfortunately, there are very few for blogging. On the other hand, microblogging (twittering) is not something that I would do as a writer, even though I am a follower of some of the feeds out there. I tend to be on the longer-article side of things and just a few characters doesn't cut it for me.

Along with writing articles for my blogs, comes the need to capture screenshots, do some basic image editing and cropping. So my next search was an image editing application. This section, I'll split it in two: one for capturing screenshots and another for editing images.

Image Capturing/Screenshot
The tool I use the most for screen captures on my device is available for free. Oddly enough, the product is called "Screen Capture" from Ilium Software and using it is a snap (I'm sure you never heard that one). You can download this application from their website [here] select your device platform, then search under free software. I am currently using their latest version (v1.2.1018), it is a small application that doesn't need to be running on your device's background, so you only start it when you need it, take a snapshot and close it. You can set it to take a snapshot by pressing a particular button (you'll hear a camera shutter when the process is done). You can choose the button to use on your first use and then it remains that way. You can also choose to use it in "timer mode", so that you set the timer and it waits a given amount of time, then it takes that snapshot by itself. In some cases, this comes handy as you may want to capture multiple forms all appearing on your screen at once (such as a message box plus whatever remains visible from the other form/s). This being a tool I use for work and writing my blog articles, I would have been glad to pay for this product, but this one does what it was intended for and happens to be free. Additional bells and whistles on this type of product don't necessarily add much more value.

Image Editor
I use a simple image editor to do minor tweaks, cropping and leveling some of the pictures and screenshots I take while on the go. I do not use Adobe's Mobile Photoshop (although I technically could). The product I use is called PocketBrush v1.3 from Gold Vision Mobile Solutions (click [here]). With this tool I can do the basic tasks I require from an image editor and then some: Brightness/contrast, hue/saturation, gamma correction, invert, convert to grayscale, rotate, change size and about 30 different image filters grouped in 7 different categories. This tool is the equivalent of Paint.Net but for the smartphone. The UI is common to almost all existing image editors and comes with no surprises. It can handle BMPs, GIFs, JPGs and PNGs… that's all the formats I need to handle on a smartphone.

Do almost everything with your smartphone (Part 2/5)

2010-03-21T23:00:14Z

Recap: I am trying to do almost all my work with my smartphone and I am slowly getting there... this series of articles (this is the second part) is intended to document my findings and opinions about the process.

Here is where I am with my little project, and how successful (or unsuccessful) I've been so far.

Web Browsing
For the casual browsing, any browser that comes with your device is pretty good. There are always some limitations in your browsing experience when you use a mobile device... you would think. But my thoughts are that if I use my mobile device most of the time, it better do browsing well, otherwise I am going to have a rough time. In any case, there are many third party browsers to choose from.

Since my device already came with two browsers: Internet Explorer and Opera 9.7 I decided to go for a while with these two. It was good enough, but good enough sometimes doesn't cut it... You see, I had to install Flash Player 3 on top of Opera and was able to see websites that had their menus and minor animations with no problems, but video websites (such as YouTube or Hulu) would take too long to load, and then video quality would be too jumpy. That was when I decided to install a third browser that can handle most of what is out there just like your desktop browser. Enter Skyfire v1.5. This little giant can do wonders... it behaves and reacts just like any of the major browsers on your desktop. You can download it [here]

Email
Having resolved the web browsing issue, I can access my email using webmail, but I usually don't like webmail interfaces, they are clunky and some of the features are not always available, so I put to the test Messaging from Windows Phone. This will be no news, but since Windows Mobile 6, you can see HTML emails formatted in HTML as they are intended to be seen. This makes it work just like the desktop and the major features are just the same as in my PC.

All I need to do is make sure that I can connect to my email accounts and have them setup so that what I do on my Windows Phone also shows up in my PC where I keep a permanent copy of my emails. Windows Phone Messaging is a pretty good solution and I decided that after evaluating other options I will stay with the default. After all, the extended features offered by other tools don't really justify the hassle of installing and using another user interface.

OK, with browsing and email covered, now I am doing about 60% of what any average user uses a Netbook for... let's see what else can be done in these little devices. If I can use it for a few more things, I will be able to reach a comfort level high enough to go around without lugging my desknote around.

Do almost everything with your smartphone (Part 1 of 5)

2010-03-21T22:14:19Z

Could you do almost everything with your smartphone?

I am trying to do almost all my work with my phone. I really am. I haven't succeeded yet, but I am slowly getting there. A short time ago I decided that my desknote was not worth taking everywhere... therefore I either needed a Netbook or a larger keyboard for my Windows Phone. I decided for the latter and in the process I ended up finding what I consider to be a much better solution. You can see my conclusions on that decision in my article about the RedFly [here]. After that, I would have to find whatever tools I needed in order to achieve my goals. For every tool I use in my PC, I would have to find a replacement tool for my phone.

This article ended up being too long so I decided to split it into 5 parts. I will be releasing the next 4 following this one later today.

Hardware-wise, I went with what now is a run-of-the-mill Windows Mobile 6.1 phone and a Celio Corp RedFly C8N. You could do the same with different hardware available out there. While the particular software may be different; most major platforms can do what I am about to describe in this article. Windows Phone is my personal favorite, but you can do the same with Android and BlackBerry. The iPhone and Nokia smartphones cannot be included in this group because you cannot extend the size of their screens onto another device. This is not a hardware limitation, it just happens to be a limitation that the OS vendors themselves decide to put on their products. The iPad, for example, makes this obvious since it uses the same OS as the iPhone and has a much higher resolution screen than the iPhone. It proves beyond any doubt that the iPhone technically could be extended to a higher resolution and use a physical keyboard. Companies such as Celio Corp are not allowed to extend the iPhone because then, the iPhone and the iPad would pretty much be competing with each other. These limitations are mostly imposed arbitrarily by the Apples and Nokias of the world, they limit what software can or cannot be developed on their platforms as an excuse to protect themselves against competing products (both software and hardware), but I believe that they are only harming themselves.

You may argue that all the tablets popping out here and there are in a completely different category than smartphones, they obviously are. On the other hand, I am not about to ditch my trusty old notebook to get another device that pretty much will do the same for me. You see, the issue here is not what these devices will be able to do for me, but that I will use them for. So; if I am planning to keep my notebook on a desk and use my smartphone as a mobile replacement for it, I am not really looking at lugging around yet another device that is not converged with all the features I want and all the tasks I want to do on the run.

Some say that a killer feature for these devices is eBook readers, but I have been reading ebooks for over 10 years, first on Windows CE, Pocket PCs and Windows Phone. While in a short stint with Palm devices I was also able to read eBooks in them too. I can resize the font to any size I want and I normally don't lay in the sun to read books, so readability outdoors is not a real issue for me. The killer feature would have to be something else (other than eBook readers) for me to see some attractive in tablets. I consider that new features does not necessarily equate the devices being used in a different way, but they certainly help.

Now, in reality, I know I will not be able to do absolutely everything with my Windows Phone. For someone who does application and web development, this would be a completely unrealistic goal. So, what I'll do is leave programming out of my little project and keep using my other devices for development work. The idea is that this way, I will be able to complete 80% of what I normally do online by carrying 20% of the weight. How happy would you be if this were possible for you?

I will do the work, research, compare software, analyze different options and report back to you as soon as I come to some of the conclusions.

Development Tools for Windows Phone 7 series to be announced

2010-02-20T18:56:42Z

I just had a short conversation with a friend of mine that happens to work at Microsoft and he unofficially dropped a bit about the development tools. He said that

"[...] we're not ready to mention it [...]" and "[...] we will reveal most of it in the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco and MIX 10 in Vegas."

Aside from the questions it raises on the development tools, SDKs, etc, I am very pleased with the fact that the announcement will be made in a game developer conference. This means that Microsoft's push on Windows Phone 7 is aimed at regaining some serious consumer credibility on the smartphone arena. Consumer cred is much more difficult to regain than corporate since most of the corporate customers are still using Windows and are now looking into migrating their systems to Windows 7 if they have not already done so.

I know this is not much information, but I have received too many questions regarding the future of the development platforms not to mention this bit.

If you are developing applications for Windows Mobile 6.x, my suggestion is that you stick to patterns and practices because that's how you will assure a smooth transition with no (or few) glitches.

Manage Your Browser's Favorites From The Cloud

2010-01-19T02:41:35Z

I use my mobile phone all the time... I also use a personal Notebook, a work Notebook, a desktop and a few other computers here and there. I probably wouldn't say anything new if I told you that I use information off the web all the time. Duh! However, one thing that's been bothering me lately is that something as simple as having all my favorites should be something simple to manage. Well it hasn't, not until I recently discovered Xmarks (click here)...

When one uses IE and syncs their Windows phone to their Windows PC it's easy... but add a few more platforms to the mix, a few more (different) browsers per platform, and what was a simple sync task now becomes a major undertaking.

You may ask yourself why on earth would someone have these many different ways to browse the web? Most of the time I have to make sure that what works and looks nice on one device, also does on the next device. The application in question also needs to offer the exact same experience to consumers. Even within the same device, there are so many different browsers people may end up using that I need to make sure that the experience is consistent across most browsers. Currently, what will cover almost all web users is MSIE 6, 7, 8, Firefox 3.x, Opera 9.x, 10, Chrome and Safari in whatever platforms they exist (Windows, Mac, Linux and depending on the application, I also test Windows Mobile, iPhone, Android and Blackberry).

Because of the complexities involved, I even considered the idea of developing a solution myself so that I would be able to have my favorites/bookmarks/links with me at all times. That was until I found Xmarks. This tool has been around for a while, formerly known as FoxMarks (it originally existed only as a Firefox add-on).

This tool exists as an add-on for Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Microsoft Internet Explorer, there's a web version for the browsers/platforms that are not supported yet and yes, there is a stripped down web version of it for mobile devices. A version for Opera has not been announced yet but what I would like to highlight is that there is a way to use it in any and all mobile devices.

While the add-on version is great when you are using a Windows PC, Mac or Linux, the most important thing about this nifty little tool is that no matter what I am using now, I can still have access to all my favorite links.

The first time you install this tool, you get to create an account, provide with some information (user name, password, email address -to verify the account-). This process happens within the wizard itself. Then the tool reads your favorites and syncs them to the web. If you only have your computer and your mobile device that's about it. If you have like I do, multiple computers that you do your work on, then the process repeats in all computers (and all browsers you want to keep in sync) but you keep using the same credentials you created in the first environment you installed. From that point on, you simply forget that the tool is installed and it just does its job. It works seamlessly and you don't need to change the way you do your work, you use your links the same way you've always used them, and the tool syncs as long as you have a connection to the web. I have used it for a while now and with y links, I have created, deleted, updated, moved from one folder to the other and save for a few minutes lag time, it basically keeps everything in sync.

Whenever I am not using a supported platform, or I am on someone else's computer, I simply use their online version. It simply has the same features I have in all my supported browsers. Plus I know that whatever changes I make to this online version will get synched to all my browsers.

The mobile version is nothing more than simple web pages (almost bare HTML) that can be browsed in most browsers, even the simplest WAP versions. Making this site your top favorite in your mobile browser simply makes your favorites available in that platform. This stripped down version, however is a bit too stripped down and only offers you the ability to browse through your folders and links. The ability to add, change, delete links is just not there yet. My guess is that this is so that the most mobile platforms are supported.

In Opera Mobile, I use the mobile version, but in other mobile browsers such as Skyfire, I just use the regular online version, so that I can also add, edit and remove links.

So far the features provided are great and for most regular users that would be it, but you can also take advantage of profiles. This is an extra feature that I find particularly convenient. Profiles work so that you decide out of your universe of links, which ones link up to what profiles. You can use the provided profiles for "mobile", "work" and "home" or you can add as many profiles as you want. Maybe you want to keep some of your personal links out of your work computers, or you may want to keep some of your work links out of your personal computers. You can do all this by adding a particular browser to a particular profile so that only the links to the profile in question will be synced to the browser in question.

Finally, there are two "side effect" uses for this tool. You can use Xmarks as a "backup to the cloud" for your favorites and you can use it whenever you are moving from one PC to its replacement, all you need to do is sync it up and you are done.

Overall, Xmarks is a great tool that provides what is being promised while assuring you that your favorites will be safely kept in the cloud for your use whenever you need them most.

Barnes and Noble’s Global eBook Strategy

2010-01-01T23:45:00Z

It’s no news that the ebook arena has been heating up for the last 6 months. First with the hype prior to the launch of the Nook, then the actual launch. In the last week or so, I have received a series of emails from ebook vendors hinting at what could be seen as the Barnes & Noble global ebook strategy. Even though my sources have requested to remain anonymous, what they have mentioned to me is also supported by information out in the open. So, knowing that their comments to me can be easily...(read more)

Celio RedFly in Action

2009-11-08T05:25:00Z

A few days ago I commented about the Celio Redfly adding support for BlackBerrys. I came across that bit of information first while researching to purchase a Celio RedFly myself and then while I’ve been using it with my Windows phone. It certainly extends the usefulness of my HTC Touch HD, and it should do the same for you if you have a Blackberry. In this review I will tell you, my thoughts and experiences with this product. While my review was using a Windows phone, the device features are the...(read more)

Celio Corp Redfly now Supports Blackberry

2009-11-04T04:17:00Z

Just as they promised a few months back, Celio Corp has released software that allows their RedFly to be used with Blackberry in addition to a few more Windows Mobile devices. The RedFly is a device that extends smartphone functionality. It allows the use of smartphones with a larger resolution/larger sized screen and a larger physical keyboard. This brings all supported smartphones into a similar feature set and size than current Netbooks in the market while keeping its price point lower than most...(read more)

Celio RedFly to support BlackBerry by mid-October

2009-09-19T19:18:00Z

Celio Corp , the company that produces the RedFly device announced last week that their current products will support BlackBerry smartphones by simply installing a new “BlackBerry aware” firmware. All products shipped after launch will already support connection to BlackBerry smartphones. Their product line is based on extending the functionality of smartphones by adding a laptop-type-device that provides a keyboard, large screen, and a 5 or 8 hour battery (depending on the device). The device has...(read more)

Barnes & Noble catching up to Amazon

2009-08-15T19:14:00Z

This bit of news went right by us back in March of this year. However, we can see the results of some hard work right now and can only imagine what is to come. B&N has been rumored to be preparing its own standalone reader a la Kindle. Instead of waiting until they have the competing device ready, their strategy includes software for existing mobile devices that could give them an immediate market leading position. This is where the purchase of Fictionwise and their eReader software comes in...(read more)

Skyfire Releases Version 1.0

2009-05-27T15:11:00Z

“There’s no way a mobile device will ever browse like a desktop” said a friend of mine not too long ago… Well, this has just changed today. Skyfire, a web browser for mobile devices has been out in the wild for quite some time in the the form of a beta, has just been released as a version 1. This final release now supports Flash, Silverlight, Quicktime and full AJAX on multiple phone devices (not just Windows Mobile devices). Some of the latest updates to the beta versions that were out there...(read more)