[MobileRatty] tag: desktop

ZYB - Sync your Cell Phones contacts to the Web

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:19:04 +0000

Think about it for just 1 second - you don’t remember any phone numbers any more, do you? Yup, neither do I. Problem is that many of those numbers I need are only stored in my cell phone. I’ve got a Palm and even now, I fail to sync it to the Palm desktop software on a regular basis. What would be easier is if I could just hit a button on my phone and get it backed up immediately. Enter zyb.com.

ZYB is an online service (go Web!) that works with most major mobile handsets and without any additional software in most cases. Naturally, ZYB promises that your contacts will be stored securely.

So that’s great, but is that it? Nope. ZYB thought about that and realized that in this day of Facebook, MySpace and a thousand other social websites, that they shouldn’t forget that component. You can share your contacts, or a subset of them with your friends and family. ZYB also sports a little Twitter-like feature called ‘Shouts’ where you can post a small message to your account that gets sent to your friends as text messages.

Bookmark/e-Mail

AT&T iPhone 3G data tethering plan could be in the works

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:40:04 +0000

Apple may just be working on an official solution that would allow iPhone 3G users to use their 3G connection on their laptop or desktop. Apple recently pulled the NetShare application from the AppStore. The iPhone app allowed users to tether their iPhone to their computers, but once AT&T realized they were losing out on potential revenue, the application disappeared from the AppStore.

The app-killing move angered one iPhone 3G customer so much that he wrote Apple-head Steve Jobs an email complaining that a data-tethering option was not available for the iPhone or iPhone 3G. Steve Jobs reportedly wrote back, saying that Apple was working with AT&T to roll out an official iPhone data tethering plan add-on. To be clear, you can tether your jailbroken iPhone to your laptop with a bit of elbow-grease and technical know-how. But, without an official, point-and-click solution, many iPhone users will be left in want of a tethering plan.

The alleged email from Steve Jobs looks to be legit, but hasn’t been confirmed as authentic. Still, the launch of an iPhone tethering plan makes sense. It would allow AT&T to cash in on mobile road warriors with iPhone 3G’s in tow, and would allow Apple to appease the iPhone 3G-toting masses with a tethering option.

[Via: Gizmodo]

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Free File Extension Association & Viewing Utility for Windows Mobile File Explorer

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:32:46 +0000

File Explorer Extension is a freeware application that enhances the context menu options and allows you to perform file extensions and attributes related operations in the standard File Explorer of Windows Mobile.

Key features of File Explorer Extension utility for Windows Mobile include:

# Resizable header for easily sorting by file name, date of last modification or size
# Tree view of folders to jump easily from one location to another in one step
# View the extension of a file
# Icon view that enables the display of files as icons similar to your desktop computer
# Real time image preview
# “Open with Program” allows you select an application to open the specific file you select
# File property context menu for easy renaming and attribute changing
# Open all executables with Parameters in case you need a special parameter when launching an application
# Sending shortcut to Programs for instant shortcut creation of executables placed directly in Programs folder in Start Menu.

Click here to download File Explorer Extension for Windows Mobile devices.

An official launch of Nokia Ovi

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:17:00 +0000

The company Nokia launched a portal Ovi worldwide. On the home page service, you can access the navigational service Nokia Maps, games N-Gage, Share on Ovi (photo sharing) and Files on Ovi (storing files). In addition, the new service was launched - Sync on Ovi. It is currently available for Nokia phones based on the S40 platform and S60-smartphones and allows synchronize contacts, tasks and notes on a mobile device with your account Nokia. You can even edit the contacts or calendar events through a browser on the desktop PC, then synchronize them with your phone or smartphone.

Moreover, through Sync on Ovi can synchronize information on two mobile phones, for example, workplace and personal. At the moment the possibility of service do not provide for automatic synchronization, ie, it must be run manually. Using Sync on Ovi available for free

HTC Touch Pro Bridges Mobile Work With Mobile Play

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:27:15 +0000

Advanced 3D Touch User Interface, Desktop-like browsing, 5-row sliding QWERTY Keyboard and Windows Mobile® 6.1 create hybrid business phone

Singapore – HTC Corp. (TAIEX: 2498; “HTC”), a global leader in mobile phone innovation and design, unveiled its advanced next generation business phone, the HTC Touch Pro™. Bringing a beautiful new angle to mobile business productivity, the HTC Touch Pro utilizes similar styling and functionality of the highly anticipated Touch Diamond™ and introduces a variety of business-focused enhancements that make getting work done on the go quick and easy.

“The HTC Touch Pro and Touch Diamond have created a new generation of HTC touch devices that make the promise of the one-hand, one-touch mobile Internet a reality,” said Jack Tong, VP of HTC Asia. “HTC Touch Pro is for those customers that demand the ease of use and enjoyment of TouchFLO™ 3D and want the styling of the Touch Diamond but also need the powerful mobile business experience that HTC delivers.”

A New Dimension To Touch – One hand, one touch
HTC has taken a great leap forward in touch screen innovation with its 3D touch interface called TouchFLO 3D. TouchFLO 3D provides a stunningly intuitive way to zip through common tasks like messaging, calendar appointments or making calls with just one touch. Delve a little deeper to find that your music, photos, contacts and surfing the web are also responsive to the touch. In addition, the Touch Pro includes a new innovative touch-sensitive control for device interaction.

Making The Mobile Internet Useful and Fun
With the introduction of Touch Diamond and Touch Pro, HTC delivers an entirely new mobile Internet experience that utilizes broadband-like speeds with HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and wireless connectivity. Committed to improving Web browsing, HTC provides a new customized mobile Web browser that enables easy viewing and effortless navigation of Websites in the way they are designed to be viewed on a PC. As part of this browsing experience users can zoom and pan Websites with one-hand and automatically view optimized content that has been specially created to fit the display. Turning the device sideways automatically rotates the web page view from a portrait to landscape view.

In addition to Web browsing, the Touch Pro includes an HTC-developed, YouTube application for watching a variety of user generated video content.

Unmatched Style With Complete Productivity
Like the Touch Diamond, Touch Pro is crafted with precision to fit comfortably in a user’s hand and brings together elegant touch screen response with the direct precision of HTC’s trademark sliding keyboard design. Introducing a new five-row QWERTY keyboard layout that makes typing-intensive tasks like composing email or working on Microsoft Office® documents quick and easy. Built-in TV-out functionality means users can deliver the perfect PowerPoint® presentation from the Touch Pro.

Bursting with Innovation
The Touch Pro delivers an unrivalled combination of features and functionality. The 2.8 inch display provides near-print quality viewing that enables beautiful Web browsing and viewing of photographs. The built-in camera includes an auto-focus lens that ensures the photos you take will be clear and consistent. Advanced wireless and auto sensor screen pivoting are just a few of the features that make the Touch Pro experience a stand out.

O2 Internet in a pocket: Discover the amazing Internet opportunities within your phone

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:27:14 +0000

O2 in Slovakia brings Internet in a pocket to its customers with a special version of the popular Opera Mini Internet browser. With the Internet in a pocket browser, O2 customers have the entire web within their mobile phone.

“O2 customers can forget sluggish download of pages, expensive phones and high bills for transferred data. O2 brings its customers information which is always at hand. O2 Internet in a pocket means that not only is the latest news, weather forecasts, sports and timetables available on the Internet, but all Web sites worldwide,” said René Parák, the spokesman of Telefónica O2 Slovakia.

“Slovaks are joining a worldwide mobile Internet movement. Millions of people across the world are using Opera Mini to access all their favorite Web sites, due to its speed, affordability and easy of use. Best of all, they can get online with the phone they have today and enjoy the Web on O2’s worldclass network,” says Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software.

With the popular Opera Mini application adapted specially for O2, customers get:

•Full-value Internet browser for most mobile phones
The Internet in a pocket browser supports hundreds of types of mobile phones. The only prerequisite is the support of Java and GPRS, a technology supported by vast majority of the mobile phones on the market. Thereby, Internet in a pocket can be utilized by customers without an expensive phone as well.

•Access to real Web sites, just as they know them from the PC
Now O2 customers have the whole Web on their mobile phones. This includes the latest news, weather forecast and timetables. Now they can look up and find anything in the huge source of information being offered by the Internet — anytime and anywhere they need it.

•Prompt loading and display of pages, saving on transferred data
With the O2 Internet in a pocket browser, O2 customers can forget about the lengthy download of pages. The browser is specially adapted for the conditions of the mobile network. It is not only fast, it also transfers much less data, so the O2 customers pay less.

Other functions The Internet in a pocket browser offers many functions the customers are used to from their PC. Among them are the mouse and the cursor, bookmarks with favourite pages and the RSS functionality.

How can I download my O2 Internet in a pocket?
The procedure is very simple. Open the following Web address in the WAP browser of his mobile phone: http://wap.o2active.sk/internet, then:

1.Select the option “Download browser”
2.Confirm installation
3.Run the Internet in a pocket browser from the menu
About Opera Mini
Opera Mini brings the full Web experience to mobile phones. People can enjoy instant access to Web sites anywhere, anytime. Users of Opera Mini will benefit from a desktop-like browsing experience that displays Web pages as they are meant to be seen. In addition, Opera Mini utilizes Opera’s compression technology to pre-process Web pages by up to 90 percent before sending them to phones, resulting in faster page downloads without compromising end-user experience. As a result, download costs are kept to a minimum.

About Opera Software ASA
Opera Software ASA has redefined Web browsing for PCs, mobile phones and other networked devices. Opera's cross-platform Web browser technology is renowned for its performance, standards compliance and small size, while giving users a faster, safer and more dynamic online experience. Opera Software is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with offices around the world. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol OPERA. Learn more about Opera at http://www.opera.com/.

New Shuttle mini-desktop to be only $189

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:16:41 +0000

Shuttle's latest miniature desktop computer is even more miniature than usual — and that goes for price, too.

The X27 mini-PC is a little larger than genre mainstays like the Mac Mini, but slashes the tag to $189, which is $60 cheaper than the recent Eee Box from Asus. Inside lurks an Atom CPU, GMA 950 video and a gigabit ethernet controller. It has 4 USB ports.

Uses? Heart of a MAME cabinet; carputer; NAS with extras like reliable web and music serving; monolith to awaken nascent gerbil civilization.

Shuttle's Atom-powered mini desktop gets a price: $189 [CNET]

BBG: the official blank desktop

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:52:09 +0000

In honor of Microsoft's latest update to Windows Genuine Validation, which removes the desktop wallpaper of hacked or illegal copies of Windows and replaces it with an ever-fashionable black background and a warning, BBG presents its official desktop wallpaper for Friday, August 29.

Use in close proximity to the Large Hadron Collider at one's own risk — and that of the known universe.

This 1600x1200 image is also available at 1024x768 and 1920x1200

8+ Hour iPhone Sync Timelapse Video (AKA Be Thankful For Your "Short" Two Hour Sync) [IPhone]

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:00:00 +0000

When I complained on Twitter about a 2 hour iPhone sync, Giz reader Brandon Lusk told me I was lucky. He had a much longer sync, sometimes over 6 hours. I called bullshit. And so, he provided me with two videos, time-lapsed; this one is over 8 hours. That's a full night of sleep. That's a full day of high school. That's longer than it takes to fly cross country, or drive from SF to Los Angeles. After seeing this video, I stopped complaining and tried to figure out what caused Brandon's problem with him.

To troubleshoot the problem, he restored his phone from scratch, but even after reinstalling 7.7.1 iTunes and 2.0.2 firmware in his never-jailbreaked iPhone 3G, the sync is unbearably long. We even tried syncing on an Air and an iMac and used another cable. The only outstanding set of data Brandon had is that he loads 74 apps to his phone. And he says that by adding apps one at a time, his sync/backup time slowly goes up—so it's not a single buggy app ruining the process.

Now, I'm sure Brandon's case is an exceptionally complicated problem. He still has an iTunes error message pop up when he syncs, for example. His backup is an astounding 848.1 GB in size. And even when we both load up 50 apps on our phones, his sync is much longer at 4 hours. This is clearly not a normal example, but that doesn't mean it's not real, and it doesn't mean it isn't related to the big problem many have been suffering from since firmware 2.00 hit. Maybe Brandon can be our poster boy for the eternal sync/backup problem. Or, until Apple fixes it, we can watch this video every time we complain about the iPhone's sync times and we can feel like it could have been worse. Like 8 hours' worth of worse. But damn if that video doesn't make you happy when it's finally done with the transfer.

The song in the video is Foreplay/Long Time, by Boston, FWIW. [Brandon's blog, Foreplay/Long Time Amazon, iTunes]

His setup:

Both machines running 10.5.4 and iTunes 7.7.1 (but again, this started on 7.7)
Air is a day 1 1.6GHZ, 80GB and the iMac is a 2.8GHZ 4GB RAM 320GB HDD

When I started, I had

997.1 MB of music (163 songs, all .m4a files, except 27 .m4p)
5 playlists
93.6 MB of photos
27 ringtones
No movies or TV shows
47 MB video (all video podcasts)
Contacts, calendar synced to MobileMe
3 other IMAP email accounts
74 apps (a lot, I know, but certainly not as many as you could possibly have)

The sync added

No music
No playlists
No photos
No ringtones
No movies or TV shows
3.5 GB of video (99 podcasts, and this part only took about 10 minutes, as you can see in the video)
6 app updates (2 of which were not installed because of an error)
No new apps

The backup folder produced this time weighs in at 9,771 items and 848.1 GB

My observations:
It doesn't matter if the app updates error or not, my last sync was 6:49 with 4 app updates, all of which were successful.
Since 2.0, backup and sync has been very long, but not to this extent. Usually 1.5 - 2 hours.
It started getting this bad about a month ago, right before iTunes 7.7.1 came out, an app crashed mid install via Wi-Fi app store, crashing the phone to the Apple logo but not booting all the way.
When it crashed like that, I put it in DFU mode and restored from backup, immediately had the same problem.
Back to DFU mode and restored with fresh firmware—instead of crashing daily, it did it every few days, requiring DFU mode and fresh download of firmware.
Did a complete wipe from within the phone, installed fresh firmware again, and started from scratch. New iTunes installation (removing support files first, empty trash, reboot, then reinstall) new firmware download.
Since then, no more Apple logo of death, and very few app crashes in general, but still excruciating backup/sync times.
If I skip the backup (I'm inclined to do that these days, since they are usually corrupted, even with a fresh copy on the desktop) it still takes at least 2-3 hours to sync.

It's been such a long time
I think I should be goin', yeah
And time doesn't wait for me, it keeps on rollin'
Sail on, on a distant highway
I've got to keep on chasin' a dream
I've gotta be on my way
Wish there was something I could say.

Well I'm takin' my time, I'm just movin' along
You'll forget about me after I've been gone
And I take what I find, I don't want no more
It's just outside of your front door.

It's been such a long time. It's been such a long time.

Well I get so lonely when I am without you
But in my mind, deep in my mind,
I can't forget about you
Good times, and faces that remind me
I'm tryin' to forget your name and leave it all behind me
You're comin' back to find me.

Samsung kicks out SyncMaster 2243Hz and 2233Hz desktop LCDs

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:43:00 +0000

Filed under: Displays

Just when you thought manufacturers couldn't possibly manage another refresh of 22-inch LCDs, Samsung shows up at IFA with two of them. The 2233Hz (pictured) and the 2243Hz (after the break) SyncMaster desktop LCDs share a screen size, 1680 x 1050 resolutions, 300 nits of brightness and 5ms typical response times. Both displays also feature Samsung's new Enhanced MPAII to drop Motion Picture Response time from 27ms to a mere 9ms, which should give ghosting-phobics some relief. Sadly, there's no mention of DisplayLink, but of course there are DVI plugs with HDCP. The only differences we can find between the displays is four USB plugs (instead of two) on the 2243Hz, plus MagicRotation for pivoting the display. No word on when these will be available or for how much.

Continue reading Samsung kicks out SyncMaster 2243Hz and 2233Hz desktop LCDs

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