August 12th, 2008

Mobile software Monday: Astraware's GTS Racing Challenge for the Apple iPhone

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 2:14 am

Categories: Apple, Mobile software, Mobile software Monday, Review, iPhone

Tags: Software, Apple iPhone, Mobile, Apple Inc., Gameplay, Games, Advertising & Promotion, Personal Technology, Marketing, Matthew Miller

It is good to take a break from a heavy workday and play a game or two. I have been playing Astraware’s games on my Palm and Windows Mobile devices for years and they are my favorite mobile game developer. BTW, they just released Insaniquarium Deluxe for Pocket PCs that looks absolutely fantastic on the high resolution display of the HTC Touch Diamond. Astraware recently expanded their lineup with support for S60 devices and just launched their first iPhone game with GTS World Racing. I’ve been playing it for much of the weekend and posted several screenshots in my image gallery along with a YouTube video below.

	Image Gallery:GTS World Racing is a very fun game that lets you use the accelerometers to accelerate, decelerate, and turn.

The Apple iPhone is a very good mobile device and an excellent mobile gaming machine that can compete with the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. The functionality that makes the iPhone even more interesting is the usage of accelerometers and a few of the games in the iPhone App Store are already available that take advantage of them. GTS World Racing also uses this technology to control the entire game. You tilt the iPhone forward for acceleration, but don’t go too far forward or the red screen will tell you to slow down. You pull it back to brake or go backwards. Tilting the iPhone left or right steers your selected car too. Check out the video below to see a sample of my playing the game, as well as a quick look at the game on the HTC Touch Diamond.

You can select from 16 different countries to race in with 3 different types of cars and 4 difficult levels so there are plenty of options for racing on your iPhone. There are also 64 different tracks so you can enjoy quite a variety of road races on your iPhone. The gameplay is smooth and enjoyable, but it isn’t yet on par with some of the racing games I play on my Sony PSP. The graphics and landscape appear to be better than what is seen on other mobile platforms (Palm and Windows Mobile) and they are pretty dang good for a mobile phone.

There are some soundtracks loaded by default, but you can actually turn off the sound from the game and listen to your own tunes stored on your iPhone. This is a cool feature for those that prefer to rock out to their own tunes and race.

You cannot change your view in the game or look behind you, but the game is pretty simple so there doesn’t appear to be a real need for this type of functionality. GTS World Racing for the iPhone is priced at only US$7.99, which is a real bargain compared to the standard US$19.95 price of the Palm and Windows Mobile versions. There is no trial available, a limitation of the iPhone App Store, but the video should give you a good idea of the gameplay to help with your decision on whether to try it out or not.

July 14th, 2008

Mobile software Monday: My top 10 iPhone applications

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 8:00 am

Categories: Apple, Mobile software, Mobile software Monday, iPhone, mobile services

Tags: Software, Apple iPhone, Application, Mobile, eReader, Twitterific, E-books, Advertising & Promotion, Personal Technology, Marketing

I have now been trying out 3rd party applications on my upgraded original iPhone for just over 3 days and even though there are something over 550 applications in the iPhone App Store, there are a few select applications that stand out above the rest and I have several that now occupy a place on my main display. In today’s Mobile software Monday, I am presenting thoughts on my top 10 and a few others that are close to cracking my top 10 with a bit more refinement.

#1: eReader FREE - I am an ebook fan and have a Sony Reader that I think now may see a bit less usage with actual support for offline reading on the iPhone. I have been a Mobipocket user for years due to its ability to work across all mobile platforms, but eReader also has this support and it looks like I am now making the transition. This was made possible mostly by the fact that Fictionwise purchased eReader and now I can access all the books I have purchased over the years in eReader format at Fictionwise and any books I have purchased through eReader. You simply login on your iPhone with your username and password from either website to view your bookshelf and download the titles you want on your iPhone. Unfortunately, you can only download one title at a time so if you have a large library this may take a while.

To read a book you simply tap on the title in your Bookshelf and then flick across the page from right to left to turn the page or the other way to turn it back. You can also tap on the display to bring up four bottom icons for the Table of Contents, search function (two icons for this?), and font settings (3 fonts and 4 sizes). I hope to see more functionality brought to the iPhone such as bookmarks and auto scrolling. If you have a dictionary loaded you can also tap and hold on a word to look it up. Landscape mode is also supported by simply rotating your iPhone.

Unfortunately, you cannot yet access the eReader or Fictionwise store with the application, but you should be able to purchase books using Safari and then sign in on eReader to download the books. I would also like to figure out how to get free books I downloaded in eReader format elsewhere onto my iPhone and I can’t wait to see how this application evolves as more people start using it.

#2: Super Monkey Ball US$9.95 - Gaming is not a huge part of what I do on my mobile devices, but then again I enjoy a good game as much as the next person. Super Monkey Ball is probably one of the most talked about games for the iPhone and it is simply stunning. The graphics, accelerometer-controlled gameplay, and number of levels available is incredible and I think the $10 price tag is definitely worth it. If you buy a game for your DS or PSP you will usually pay US$30 or more. The ability to have a game like this always available on my phone can be very convenient when you or your kids need to pass the time waiting somewhere.

#3: Evernote FREE and subscription available - Evernote is an incredible application that I have written about a few times. It lets you capture text, photo, and audio notes on the iPhone that are synced to the server. The real power is in the recognition engine they use that can even find text in photos you capture so you will never forget anything again (thus the elephant icon). A free account will let you upload 40MB of data a month while a premium account (US$45/year or US$5/month) Read the rest of this entry »

June 30th, 2008

Mobile software Monday: Spb Backup 2.0 for Windows Mobile

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 8:29 am

Categories: HTC, Mobile software, Mobile software Monday, On the road, Review, Windows Mobile

Tags: Software, Device, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Microsoft Windows, Spb Backup 2.0, Backups, Matthew Miller

Some mobile software is flashy and fun while others just get the job done. Spb Backup 2.0 is one of those software solutions that is essential to Windows Mobile and gets the job done.

One of the first utilities I look for on Windows Mobile is a backup utility so that I can rest assured when I am out and about that I will be able to recover from a problem. Most issues occur on my Windows Mobile devices because of the large number of 3rd party applications that I try out on the device, otherwise the devices are very stable and since my essential data is synced via a hosted Exchange solution I can get back what I need for the most part. You may also need a backup/restore tool if you upgrade your device, switch to a new device, or have hardware issues that require a hard reset.

Spb Backup 2.0 is a major improvement over the version 1.x software with backup speeds almost twice as fast as before. The previous version supported touch screen Windows Mobile devices and now Spb Backup 2.0 works on non-touch screen devices as well. Another major feature upgrade in this new version is the desktop Spb Backup Unpack tool that lets you extract files, registry, and database info from your backup file so you will be able to always get to your data.

I tested out Spb Backup 2.0 on the Read the rest of this entry »

June 16th, 2008

Mobile software Monday: SMS-Chat from VITO Technology

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 7:58 am

Categories: HTC, Mobile software, Mobile software Monday, Review, Windows Mobile

Tags: Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Text Messaging, SMS, Chat, Text Messaging/SMS/MMS, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Handhelds, Cellular Phones

While you have companies like HTC and Samsung pushing the limits of the hardware and operating system level software integration on Windows Mobile, there are also several companies providing software applications to enhance your Windows Mobile experience. As readers know, I have been testing out the HTC Touch Diamond and since this device has Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional it supports threaded SMS out of the box. Joel Evans from Geek.com recommended I try out SMS-Chat on the Diamond because it offers a much richer threaded SMS experience. I loaded it up immediately and have to say that while it is nice to see a basic implementation of threaded SMS in the operating system, something like SMS-Chat is a much better solution for text messaging fans.

Having a conversation in SMS-Chat

VITO Technology has always developed cool utilities for Windows Mobile devices and their fairly new iWindowsMobile site highlights several applications that enhance and improve your Windows Mobile experience and you may want to check out a few of the trial versions. I downloaded the .CAB file for SMS-Chat version 1.1 and installed it on the Touch Diamond internal Flash storage partition.

Main display options

You can choose from a default (black) skin or a gray skin and Read the rest of this entry »

June 2nd, 2008

Mobile software Monday: eWallet 6 for Windows Mobile; bonus Ilium Software 11th birthday contests too

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 9:25 am

Categories: BlackBerry, HTC, Mobile software, Mobile software Monday, Nseries, On the road, Review, S60, Windows Mobile, iPhone

Tags: Card, Device, Password, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Data, eWallet 6, Advantage, eWallet, eWallet 6 Data

This edition of Mobile software Monday couldn’t have been timed any better as the next piece of software on my list was Ilium Software’s eWallet 6.0 for Windows Mobile devices. You see, today is also the kick-off of Ilium Software’s 11th anniversary celebration where they will be giving away Amazon gif cards and copies of their software. Check out their blog page each day from now until Friday for the daily contest. I see that the first contest is a MadLibs type of contest where the best and funniest entry will win a US$121 Amazon gift certificate. They are also offering a 55% discount of the regular price on ALL of their software.

eWallet 6 is an essential tool for keeping your passwords and vital data secure and protected on your mobile devices, while also being readily accessible for your own use. In this day and age when everything seems to require a password and/or PIN it is getting to be almost impossible to remember them all unless you set them all to be the same, which is not a good idea in case one is compromised. The mobile version of eWallet 6 is compatible with Windows Mobile and Palm OS devices with a Windows PC companion product available too. You can easily create your secure data cards on your PC and sync the data across multiple devices. You can check out lots of screenshots in my image gallery.

	Image Gallery: There are several screenshots of the HanDBase and Nokia Podcasting applications in my image gallery.

While eWallet 6 is designed for Windows Mobile and Palm devices I tested it out on the HTC Advantage and T-Mobile Shadow devices for this evaluation. The Advantage is a perfect device for an application like this because the large display and keyboard make creation of secure data cards quite easy. I think the preferred method for creating your initial collection of cards is to use the desktop version of the software. After that then you can easily sync that data to all of your devices.

eWallet is setup for you to create virtual wallets and in each wallet you will use categories to organize your cards. You can completely customize your categories (with icons for easily distinguishing them) for home, work, banks, credit cards, etc. The cards you create store specific information that you enter in the fields. There are 31 pre-made card types in eWallet, but you can easily step through the new card creation tabs and modify the existing ones or create your own. You can also delete the ones you will never use if you want to reduce the size of the template list.

After selecting a new card (either using a template or creating your own), you can then personalize the card with colors, borders, icons, and more. The fields that you enter data into can also be modified in case the template fields do not match what type of data you are attempting to enter. If you do modify the fields, then you may want to save this as a new card template too for future usage.

One option I don’t remember seeing before Read the rest of this entry »

May 26th, 2008

Mobile software Monday: 4Smartphone hosted Exchange with mobile device clients

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 6:35 am

Categories: Apple, HTC, Mobile software, Mobile software Monday, Nokia, Nseries, On the road, S60, UMPC, Windows Mobile, iPhone, mobile services

Tags: Microsoft Outlook, Device, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Server, Mobile Device, E-mail, 4Smartphone, Exchange, S60

While my focus in the Mobile software Monday articles is on software for your mobile phones I wanted to branch out just a bit to include a service that I use in conjuction with software on my devices that I find absolutely essential to my usage of mobile devices. Jason Dunn runs the Thoughts Media sites and preached to me for a couple of years about the benefits of a hosted Exchange solution. I finally decided to give it a try just over a year ago and now I can never go back to syncing my PIM data via cables again. I subscribe to 4Smartphone (part of Jason’s recommendation) with their Mobile level plan subscription (US$12.95/month) and sync my Windows Mobile, S60, Windows, and Mac devices to the service, with hopes to soon sync my iPhone when the 2.0 update is released.

What is hosted Exhange and do you need it?: Many companies have Exchange, BlackBerry, or Novell servers that work to provide email and data synchronization to their employees. However, there are many small businesses and those, like me, who have personal data we don’t want managed on our work servers. For these people, the ability to sync their calendar, contacts, tasks, and email wirelessly across various platforms and devices can be invaluable.

I know that I am in the minority, but with today’s mobile workforce there are a number of people who have multiple mobile devices that they want to keep in sync. I switch my devices quite often and with a hosted Exchange service I can be up and running with all of my personal data in just a few minutes after unboxing a new device. Windows Mobile and S60 don’t play that well with Apple computers, unless you use some outstanding 3rd party applicatons, so having the ability to keep my MacBook Pro in sync with the same data stored on these devices is essential and I personally never cable these devices to my MBP.

ActiveSync on Windows Mobile: Windows Mobile devices all come with ActiveSync preloaded in the operating system. Most people use this ActiveSync client to sync to their PC via a USB cable, but if you tap/select the right menu then you will see there is an option to Configure Server… and setup your device to sync to an Exchange server. Configuration is fairly straight forward and you start by entering the server address, then your username, password, and domain. The final step is to Read the rest of this entry »

May 19th, 2008

Mobile software Monday: Opera Mobile 9.5

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 5:07 am

Categories: HTC, Mobile software, Mobile software Monday, On the road, Review, Windows Mobile, iPhone

Tags: Software, Opera Software, Mobile, Web Browser, Password Manager, Advertising & Promotion, Web Browsers, Marketing, Internet, Matthew Miller

One of the primary functions I perform on my mobile devices is web browsing, but until now there have always been limitations with these browsers. The iPhone had the best current browser for strictly browsing, but didn’t allow you to do much else (copy, paste, save, etc.) so it was limited for my use. We are seeing more powerful browsers than ever before though so things are getting interesting. Windows Mobile’s default Pocket Internet Explorer/Internet Explorer Mobile is a rather outdated web browser and is quite limiting on Windows Mobile devices. There is a new version coming later in 2008 that will provide real Internet Explorer 6 functionality. However, until that time users who want a great browsing experience will have to look elsewhere. I was given a new HTC Advantage X7510 device that came with the Opera Mobile 9.5 browser preloaded in the ROM. Opera announced Opera Mobile 9.5 back in February and we have all been waiting anxiously for its release. It is still not available for download, but is coming out on some mobile devices. After using Opera Mobile 9.5 for several days on the HTC Advantage, I have to say it is the new standard for web browsing on a mobile device and the large VGA display on the Advantage helps make that experience even better. Check out screenshots of Opera Mobile 9.5 in my image gallery and my video of it in action below. I ended up showing the original Advantage with Opera Mobile 9.5 since the auto-rotation on the new Advantage isn’t working as well with the current test ROM on the device (a new final ROM is coming soon). The screenshot utility was unable to capture the touch and hold functions that I tried to show in the video.

	Image Gallery:Opera Mobile 9.5 works extremely well on the HTC Advantage X7510.

I first saw Opera Mobile 9.5 at Mobile World Congress in Spain earlier this year and took a short video of it in action on the Sony Ericsson P1 UIQ device. Up until now I haven’t seen it running on a Windows Mobile devices. Opera Mobile version 8.65 was included on the HTC Advantage X7501 and it was a decent browser that let me access most of the sites I tried. However, Opera Mobile 9.5 takes that experience to the next level with quick context-sensitive zooming (called Opera Zoom), fluid finger scrolling and panning, multiple tabbed browsing, ability to save pages for offline viewing, fast page loading, Flash Lite 3 support, and more.

IMHO, Opera Mobile 9.5 is even better than the iPhone’s Safari browser because I can perform functions like text selection, copy and paste, manage passwords, and save or send images from a web page. The only pages that found incompatible so far are Google Docs. I was able to view spreadsheets in Google Docs, but not word processing documents. I could not edit either though, but since I don’t use Google Docs very much it isn’t a concern for me. One major improvement is that I can now access the custom WordPress ZDNet blog management page. With Opera Mobile 9.5 and the HTC Advantage I can perform blogging on the go with a single ultra mobile device.

The new Google Reader version optimized for the Apple iPhone performs fantastically in Opera Mobile 9.5. You can visit this optimized page by going to www.google.com/reader/i.

When a page loads in full view you simply double-tap on the area you want to view in closer detail and Opera Mobile 9.5 dynamically zooms into the area at a level that fits the area selected onto your display and this will be at different levels depending on what you are trying to zoom into.

I love the way it quickly lets you select URLs you entered in the past so you don’t have to type everything over and over. The password manager seems quite powerful and is saving me lots of time as well. Security is a priority in Opera Mobile 9.5 and you can check to make sure a page is secure by viewing the security lock icon in the address bar.

Opera Mobile 9.5 supports Widgets so you will be able to go to this Opera Widgets page to find Widgets for your mobile device. Unfortunately, it seems that these Widgets are not yet supported in Opera Mobile 9.5 for mobile devices since none of the ones I tried would load or run. The idea is interesting and I do look forward to using these small applications based on the Opera browser, but Opera needs to allow people to filter the Widgets by the type of system they run on (desktop, mobile, or TV/Wii).

The current version of Opera Mobile costs US$24 and I imagine this upgraded version will be similarly priced. I would easily pay this for a browser as powerful as this and look forward to the full release.

May 12th, 2008

Mobile software Monday: HanDBase 4.0 and Nokia Podcasting

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 9:36 am

Categories: Mobile software, Mobile software Monday, Nokia, Nseries, Palm, Review, S60, Smartphone, Symbian, Windows Mobile

Tags: Application, Device, Nokia Corp., Mobile, Podcasting, S60, Nokia Podcasting Application, Submissions, Podcasts, Storage

My plan was to post software reviews here every Monday, but at times my schedule and life doesn’t allow me to give a full test of a software package and write up my thoughts so I missed last week. Thus, I am posting a double review this week on Mobile software Monday. The first application is HanDBase 4.0 from DDH Software and I tested it on Windows Mobile touch and non-touch screen devices. The second application is a free one for S60 devices that actually comes preloaded on some devices and it is call Nokia Podcasting. It is actually one of my most used applications so I wanted to share some thoughts with you on my experiences. You can view screenshots for both applications in my image gallery.

	Image Gallery: There are several screenshots of the HanDBase and Nokia Podcasting applications in my image gallery.

HanDBase 4.0: DDH Software has been selling its very popular HanDBase application now for 10 years and there are versions available for Windows Mobile, Palm, and S60 devices. This latest version, 4.0, has lots of new features, including new security features, sync improvements and improvements across all platforms. There are some differences in functionality in the different versions and the screenshots in my image gallery are from my T-Mobile Shadow (non-touch screen Windows Mobile device). On my T-Mobile Shadow, I cannot create new databases on the device while touch screen users can create new databases right from the device. This makes sense since people use non-touch screen devices more for simple, quick text entry rather than heavy text entry.

I have a few custom databases that I created for project tracking, paid time off tracking, prayer lists, and more. You can sync ODBC/Access databases from your desktop to your mobile devices using the desktop application to setup the sync options. If you want help getting started you can also visit the database gallery where there are over 2,000 HanDBase databases that people have created and elected to share with everyone to use and then customize for their own usage.

You can import data in .CSV (comma-seperated value) format using the HanDBase desktop client, but keep in mind there is a 30 fields per record limit and a maximum of 65,000 records in a database. Further down the File menu (below the Import option) you will find options to Import from Access to an existing database or a new database so there is a simple utility for getting your Access databases into HanDBase format. You can also Export to .CSV, .XLS, .DOC, .HTML, and .XML formats.

After you have created a database on your Read the rest of this entry »

April 28th, 2008

Mobile software Monday: SplashMoney for Windows Mobile

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 9:55 am

Categories: HTC, Mobile software, Mobile software Monday, On the road, Windows Mobile

Tags: Bank, Desktop, Device, Financial, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Mobile, Data, SplashMoney, Currency Converter, Microsoft Windows

I load up quite a few 3rd party applications on my mobile devices and a few stick around and appear on all of my devices because I find them essential for my daily life. One application that I tried several years ago on my Palm Treo was SplashMoney from SplashData. It has been a few years since I used a Palm OS device as a primary device, so I was quite pleased to hear of the recent launch of SplashMoney version 4.0 for Windows Mobile devices. My T-Mobile Shadow is found in my pocket most of the time so I quickly loaded it up with SplashMoney’s non-touch screen version. I also loaded the desktop client on my Fujitsu U810 and the touch screen client on the HTC Advantage. They also now have a Mac desktop version, but that does not sync to Windows Mobile devices. You can see just over 20 screenshots of SplashMoney on my two Windows Mobile devices and a PC in my image gallery.

	Image Gallery: These screenshots show SplashMoney on a T-Mobile Shadow and HTC Advantage.

I conduct 99% of my banking online so having access to that data is important to me to make sure the transactions that appear are valid, I have funds available to make purchases, and I know where my money is being spent. In the past I looked for web browsers on my devices that would allow me to access my bank via the internet and there are actually very few browsers that allow this and when they do most actually are hardly usable because the website is not optimized for the small screen. SplashMoney is an application that allows you to go online whenever you desire and retrieve your banking data wirelessly. The great thing is that SplashMoney is optimized for your Windows Mobile device display and all data appears in an easy-to-use format with many more functions than you can get via online access of your bank via a web browser.

I first loaded up SplashMoney on my preferred T-Mobile Shadow and at first I did experience an error, but after visiting the SplashData forums I was quickly informed of what the error meant and discovered I was missing a couple of leading numbers in my bank account number. You may actually need to call up your financial institution to activate online banking, if it is not already activated or available. After I had the right account information, Read the rest of this entry »