My Digital Life

The week of March 10th in My Digital Life

We only have 3 months to wait until Exchange ActiveSync is available on iPhone. There are a few lucky Apple partners that are apparently using it now in beta form. But what's 3 months, I have been waiting for T-Mobile's 3G network for over a year now...All that said I am still happy with my unlocked AT&T Tilt running on T-Mobile. Today I will be loading SPB Mobile Shell 2.0 (pocketnow review) on the Tilt.

It looks like T-Mobile has made some additional upgrade to the [email protected] service. The call drops seem to have dissapeared, although I have noticed some conversation pause, but the call does not disconnect. Although still annoying I would rather have a pause in the conversation, then a dropped call.

All of my Verizon SMT5800 video reviews segments have now been posted on pocketnow.com, this week I will post the summary review. If you are looking for a Verizon Windows Mobile Standard device, I would take a hard look at this one, it is a solid performer.

My review of Altec Lansing's SoundBlade Bluetooth speaker should get posted this week on pocketnow.com. This is a good sounding Bluetooth speaker that doubles a full featured speakerphone.

I still need to update my iPhone to 1.1.4, hopefully I will have time this week. The problem with firmware updates is not the time it takes to perform the upgrade but the time you have to schedule in to deal with issues...

This week:

• Work on trapster.com article.

What happened to JETware?

JETware Hands-free Bluetooth extension for Windows Mobile has been an invaluable piece of software to synchronize my device with my BMW in car ULF Bluetooth system. It allows me to synchronize my address book by category, view text and email headers on my navigation screen, display caller id information, and provide the appropriate status information for no signal and roaming. The software license is locked to your IMEI. I have been using it since my T-Mobile MDA and have switched phones several times. Each time I would send an email to support with my new IMEI and within 7 days I would receive a new activation code. In December I did the same for my new Tilt, however I never received a response. JETware did create an automated system to switch IMEI but for some reason I am not in the system (probably because I was an early adopter) and since support won't answer I am stuck. Watching the JETware forums, it seems I am not the only one having support issues ignored. What happened to the developer? He was offering a great application at a very reasonable price, maybe he was not making enough to invest the time required to properly support the product, just a hunch since selling Windows Mobile software is a tough and not necessarily a money making business. If that is the case he should say so and maybe offer his software to the open source community (xda-developers) so everyone can benefit.

My 30 day trial is now up and I to continue using it I have to purchase another license. In the end I don't have that big of a problem spending $14.95 (I need it), however that was not the deal when I originally purchased the product. I think JETware owes users an explanation of what happened. If anyone knows please comment.

My CES 2008 wrap up

As the press frenzy of the International Consumer Electronics Show CES 2008 winds down, it is time to review what I saw during those few days, and write up my thoughts and opinions of my first visit. I tried to see a bit of everything and will report on more than Windows Mobile. It was quite a week, so much to see and so little time with 140,000 of my closest friends ...I was definitely on information overload but in the end I concluded that all of the technology on display was evolutionary and there was nothing revolutionary, that said there were areas of the shows that were very interesting. I have whittled the interesting technologies into the following areas:

• GPS devices and associated applications
• Touch and Gesture user interface paradigm
• HD DVD and Blu-ray
• Wireless audio and video component connectivity
• Bluetooth
• Smartphones

Read my thoughts on pocketnow here.

Walt Mossberg reviews Ford SYNC power by Microsoft Windows CE Automotive

Walt Mossberg reviews Microsoft latest in car entertainment system built on top of Windows CE Automotive platform (link). I agree 100% with his comment about the auto industry being in the dark ages when it comes to in car entertainment systems. BMW not included, my 2002 X5 does most of it. Ford and Fiat are only two major players I know of that have signed up for this Microsoft platform. The bottom line is that it works quite well, however Walt has a misconception about Bluetooth. He states:

"SYNC can even stream music wirelessly, over Bluetooth, from the cellphones that support this feature. However, due to limitations in Bluetooth, it doesn't transfer song selection controls, or the song information display, to the dashboard in this scenario."

Bluetooth does have an Audio Video Remote Control profile (AVCRP) to control volume, Play, Pause, Forward and Reverse (both within a track and between tracks). It does not support going to a specific track and the transfer of song information so it has a ways to go for full integration, but it will provide basic remote control functionality.

The week of November 5th in My Digital Life

Last week I installed my Sirius receiver in my BMW, it is a credit to BMW's I-Bus architecture that I can have factory integrated Bluetooth, Sirius and a DVD based navigation in a vehicle built in 2002. Off course BMW won't admit it or support it since they want to sell new vehicles with these capabilities. I can thank the folks on the x5forum and Tom at European Auto Source for the parts and support. The Sirius Terk antenna is tucked away in the X5's spoiler, no external antenna which keeps the clean exterior look. I have had no issues with reception, although I am missing channels 185 - 197 which is were the majority of the Canadian channels are. Even though I probably won't listen to those channels much, I am paying for them so I should receive them. Sirius has tried to send out a new activation/programming signal several times to no avail. I have read some forum posts that you need the latest Sirius chip set to get these channels. Since I bought the latest generation receiver (3rd) from BMW, I would expect those channels would work. I have emails out on this issue, but I will try to send the re-activation signal from the Sirius web site today to see if that works...

This weekend one my desktop Seagate hard drives failed (the system no longer sees the drive) and I did something stupid, I reset the BIOS (to see if the system would see the drive) and forgot the turn on the RAID option. Since my Intel D865 PERL RAID chipset does not officially support Vista, the RAID driver needs to load before Vista, which means it has to be part of the Master Boot Record (MBR) and is tied to the BIOS setting. Unfortunately when Vista boots, if it does not see the BIOS setting, it will automatically rebuilds the MBR and you loose any ability to boot the RAID driver which means you loose all RAID capabilities associated with the disks. The Vista repair function does not work. I had to reinstall Vista and restore from my Acronis backup. What a pain but everything is finally up and running this morning.

This week:

• Finish and post part 2 and 3 of my video review of the SCH-i760.
• My review of the iqua BHS-303 Bluetooth headset should post on pocketnow.com this week.  This is a very good headset for $35 (Internet price)

The week of October 29th in My Digital Life

Last Saturday, I received a Verizon Samsung SCH-i760 Windows Mobile phone to review for pocketnow.com. This phone has an interesting form factor with a numeric phone keypad on the front and a sliding qwerty keyboard. It has a 400MHZ processor and will be an interesting comparison to my T-Mobile Wing's 260MHZ overclocked processor. This will be my first video review. The video reviews are usually made up of 6 clips lasting about 3 minutes. They detail the aspects and operation of the device. I posted the  first in the series (the unboxing) today at pocketnow.com. This is an interesting medium, which requires more practice on my part...I am using my Sony DSC-W70 7.2 MP still camera to shoot the videos. I am consistently amazed at the quality of the videos it takes.

I finally finished my comparison of Windows Live Search 2.5 and Google Maps applications for Windows Mobile. During the process, I was amazed how much better Windows Live Search was than Google Maps. The article should get posted shortly on pocketnow.com.

These days it seems Apple makes news every couple of days. Today, the Wall Street Journal had article about Apple's new policy on the sale of iPhones. They will no longer accept cash and are limiting purchases to 2 units per person (the previous limit was 5). They are trying to stem the flow of sales to resellers. Tim Cook, Apple's COO mentioned in a conference call with analysts last week that Apple estimates that out of the 1.4 Million iPhone solds, 250,000 were purchased by customers intending to hack them (a fairly significant number). The iPhone dev team has finally put together a simple method to jailbreak version 1.1.1. Instructions can be found here. I may restore via iTunes this week and try it.

This week:

• Work on part 1 and 2 of my video review of the SCH-i760.
• Finnish a review of the iqua BHS-303 Bluetooth headset. Bluetooth headset are getting better and better, this one is quite impressive so far
• I am also adding a Sirius satellite receiver to my BMW. After my navigation computer and radio tuner upgrade, this should be plug and play. The real work will be installing the antenna inside the X5's rear spoiler, but the X5world instructions are excellent.

Etymotic Research ety8 Bluetooth Stereo Earphones review

The world of Bluetooth is here stay, at least for phone headsets. What about Bluetooth stereo earphones? Etymotic Research has moved into the Bluetooth arena with the ety8 stereo earphones and the 8Mate adapter for iPod. They have just released an updated version of the 8Mate iPod adapter which supports the newly iPods and the iPhone. pocketnow.com takes a look at this updated unit. Read on to see how it performed!

The Etymotic ety8 earphones and 8Mate iPod adapter.

BlueAnt Supertooth Light Bluetooth Hands-free Speakerphone

The use of a hands free headset or speakerphone while driving has not been proven to make us better drivers, however I personally believe that it enhances the driving experience by allowing us to keep both hands on the steering wheel. There are currently 25 countries, 2 US states (NY and NJ) and the District of Columbia which require the use of a hands free cellular phone headset or speakerphone while driving. There are four technologies choices available; corded headsets, Bluetooth headsets, Bluetooth speakerphones, or built in hands free systems. BlueAnt Wireless, an Australian company specializing in Bluetooth accessories, sells a Bluetooth hands-free speakerphone solution, the BlueAnt Supertooth Light. Read on for the review!

Overall Rating:is





The Good

Loud and clear speaker output

Excellent microphone pickup

Great talk time of 15 hours

The Bad

No replaceable battery

No Bluetooth discovery mode

Visor mount can make permanent indentation

This is an excellent product and the first I have given the pocketnow.com Editor's Choice.

T-Mobile - [email protected] - Day 3

Last Thursday T-Mobile USA quietly (tough not to be quiet with all the iPhone buzz) announced the national roll out of their UMA based [email protected] service. Unfortunately they are not currently providing a radio stack for Windows Mobile devices, even though Microsoft and BT announced the availability of a Windows Mobile UMA compatible device in early 2007. All T-Mobile Windows Mobile users, please call customer support (611) to request the feature. Maybe this will prod T-Mobile...

I looks the company behind the UMA software used by T-Mobile and BT is called Kineto. Wireless. Here is a diagram (courtesy of Kineto Wireless) depicting how UMA works.

The Kineto Wireless UMA diagram (link to larger diagram).

Last week I received a promotional email from T-Mobile which is currently offering the service for $9.99 a month or $19.99 for a family plan. This is a great deal. I have always viewed this technology as the holy grail of telephony convergence; one phone, one number and cheap VOIP calls. I had to try it.

Currently, T-Mobile has two UMA compatible phones. the Nokia 6086 and Samsung t409. Both range from $49.99 to $179.99 based on contract terms. Although you can use your own home router, T-Mobile provides two routers (D-Link and Linksys) with enhanced UMA functionality. They are currently free with a $50 mail in rebate. I opted for the Samsung t409 which is tri band vs the Nokia quad band, but I have heard that the Samsung pulls in a stronger signals. I also chose the Linksys WRT54G-TM router even though I already own Linksys Access Points (for free you can't pass it up).

For novice users the setup is actually very simple. A wizard on your PC will setup the router and a wizard on the phone will setup the WIFI link to the router. Once the WIFI link is setup it works magically. I made a call in my family room using WIFI, walked out to the back of my yard, the call was handed off to the cell network seamlessly. The technology is amazing and it works. Everybody is buzzing about the innovation of the iPhone, but I think this technology has the opportunity to revolutionize the way we use cell phones. Today, only a fragment of the population use cell phones as their primary phone. UMA can change that, this is the true beginning of the death of the Plain Old Telephone System (POTS or land line). I think this is a great play for T-Mobile. As a $9.99 add on it allows them to compete head on with the Triple play bundling ($33 x 3 phone, cable, internet) from the cable and phone companies.

On the router front, I tried both my Linksys Access Point and the Linksys/T-Mobile Router. The sound quality on the Linksys/T-Mobile Router is noticeably better, so I replaced one of my Access Point for the router.

In the upper left hand corner of the display, a blue dot with red signal strength bars along with the SSID name of the WIFI network are displayed to let you know that you are connected via [email protected] The default WIFI SSID network name is @HomeXXXX, XXXX are the four last hexadecimal numbers in the router's MAC address. I changed it to match the SSID I use with my other Access Points (AP) around the house. The phone does not seem to want to roam from router to AP, so I may have to purchase another Linksys/T-Mobile router to ensure I have adequate coverage throughout the entire house. I also turned off the firewall and DHCP on the router, since my D-Link DFL-210 performs those functions.

The cellular signal strength along with the carrier is displayed when you are connected to the cellular network.

The family has now used the phone for 2 and 1/2 days and 81 minutes. Everyone is impressed with the sound quality. My wife is even thinking of dumping her Razor for the flexibility of using one phone. She currently uses our Sunrocket VOIP line to make outgoing calls from home to save our minutes.

The only thing that is missing is a VOIP adapter that would allow us to use the telephone sets around the house...With Bluetooth we could use our Phone Labs Dock-N-Talk, however it is an early version and the sound quality is just ok. Phonelabs has upgraded their firmware, I will check to see if I can get an upgrade.

Next up testing at Starbucks with T-Mobile HotSpot...

The week of July 2nd in My Digital Life

It has now been over a week since I changed the page pool on my T-Moblie Wing. Along with the scheduled nightly reboots via Sunnysoft's Backup Manager, the usability factor has gone up exponentially. I no longer have to worry about the amount of memory left to run things like the camera or SlingPlayer.

With all the iPhone buzz, it is interesting to note all of the functionality that is missing (gathered from ipodlounge.com iphone forum):

• No Bluetooth file transfer
• No Bluetooth A2DP support
• Music files can't be used as ringtones
• No MMS support
• No video capture
• No Java support
• Email/Internet/Passwords cannot be saved
• No third party application (no SDK available for application development)
• Recessed headphone jack won't accept standard 3.5mm headphone plug.

It is incredible that they bungled the headphone jack, well we sort of have the same problem with the Wing (mini USB headphone jack) but at least I am able to use my Bluetooth A2DP headphones. Granted this is version 1 of the product and none of these are product killers, but it does show that Apple has a long way to go before matching the functionality available in Windows Mobile 6. Bottom line, cool industrial design and iTunes does not come close to justifying a switch from Windows Mobile.

On the Bluetooth A2DP front, I have not had a skip in many hours of listening to Windows Media Player Mobile using my Motorola HT820 headphones. I finally figured out that I needed to use the USB cable for WMP 11 on Vista to recognize the Storage Card as a sync device. This is really too bad since syncing with Bluetooth is so easy. I did get WMP 11 to play unprotected AAC content from my iTunes library with the Orban AAC/aacPlus plug in. Unfortunately WMP 11 won't add native unprotected AAC content to its library. It looks like I can create playlists with AAC content which I should then be able to sync with the Wing. More testing required...

This week:

• Post my Today screen updates.
• Time to update my Wing tweaks
• Windows Media Player syncing with the Wing