PDA Surfing -- Link a Day -- MobilePlanet Shopping

The purpose of PDA Surfing -- Link a Day is to provide readers with at least one PDA friendly web link per day that they can surf on their SmartPhone or Pocket PC.
Over time, there will be a long list of useful links with reviews to sites that are specially formatted to work on tiny screens.
Today's Link is:

MobilePlanet Shopping
Rating 7/10
Category: Palm/Pocket PC
Description: MobilePlanet (aka PocketGear) gives you the ability to browse products and make purchases with your Palm or Windows CE powered device. You can browse and buy hardware, software and accessories. It gives you descriptions and allows you to preview product images. I'm not sure how this would work for buying except as a convenience if you already know what you want. The images are too small for much detail and the descriptions too short. However, it could prove handy for doing comparison shopping and pricing while you're in a bricks and mortar store. Of course, you need to have a wireless internet connection. I wonder how it works on a smartphone? Anyone willing to try and report back here in the comments?

Read more!

Screen shots of Windows Mobile 2005 (codename Magneto)!

Find out what Microsoft is up to for it's next generation Mobile OS.
Screen shots of Windows Mobile 2005

Read more!

Major Mobile Virus Attack Called 'Matter Of Time'

It will take a serious malicious attack against smartphones or other mobile devices before users take protection seriously, a study released Thursday predicted.
Major Mobile Virus Attack

Read more!

Myst for Pocket PC

"Cyan Worlds, Inc., the makers of the Myst and Riven series of photo-realistic completely immersive adventure games, together with Mean Hamster Software, brings you all of the rich detail, sounds, music and challenging puzzles found in the original release version of Myst, but now in a very portable form designed especially for the Pocket PC."
Myst for PPC Details

Read more!

Spring '05 Consumer Survey at PocketGear

Get 10 percent off your next purchase at PocketGear when you complete their survey at: Spring '05 Consumer Survey

Read more!

PDA Surfing -- Link a Day -- Yahoo Sports

The purpose of PDA Surfing -- Link a Day is to provide readers with at least one PDA friendly web link per day that they can surf on their SmartPhone or Pocket PC.
Over time, there will be a long list of useful links with reviews to sites that are specially formatted to work on tiny screens.
Today's link is:



Yahoo Sports
Rating 8.5 /10
Category: Palm/Pocket PC/SmartPhone
Description: Check the American Sports scores from your SmartPhone or Pocket PC.Y! Sports is a nicely formatted PDA portal for the sports news on your cellphone or PDA. It contains news for the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, PGA, Nascar, College Sports and more. You'll need a Yahoo ID to login which is free at Yahoo.com.

Read more!

Wired News: Cell Phones Put to Novel Use

Reading books on cellphones is catching on in Japan. Get the low-down here:
Wired News: Cell Phones Put to Novel Use: "TOKYO -- Your eyes probably hurt just thinking about it: Tens of thousands of Japanese cell-phone owners are poring over full-length novels on their tiny screens.
In this technology-enamored nation, the mobile phone has become so widespread as an entertainment and communication device that reading e-mail, news headlines and weather forecasts -- rather advanced mobile features by global standards -- is routine. "

Read more!

Yahoo! News - Top Five Online Scams

Protect Yourself! Although most Internet users are honest, a few are trying their best to empty your wallet. Find out how by reading this news article.
Yahoo! News - Top Five Online Scams: "After years of trying to recover from the dot-com hangover, the Internet is booming again. Online retail sales increased by 26 percent in 2004, according to comScore Networks. In September 2004, the number of domain name registrations hit 64.5 million--an all-time high. You know what else is on the rise? Internet crime.
Complaints about online fraud nearly doubled from 2003 to 2004, according to a December 2004 report by the FBI (news - web sites) and the National White Collar Crime Center. Research firm Gartner estimates that nearly 10 million Americans were hit by online fraudsters last year--largely due to a wave of phishing e-mails seeking to steal users' identities.
In fact, phishing attacks seem to be the new, hot scam. Scammers send you an e-mail that tries to lure you to a legitimate-looking Web site where you'll be asked to enter personal information. The thing is, it's all fake; and if you fall for it, someone is ready to take your Social Security (news - web sites) Number and start opening credit card accounts."

Read more!

Yahoo! News - Users To Blame For Spam

Here's something everyone should read if they're really serious about canning the spam. Get the full story here.
Yahoo! News - Users To Blame For Spam: "Eighteen percent of users admitted that they'd clicked on the 'unsubscribe' link in spam, another behavior that's exploited by spammers, who then know the address, and perhaps the entire domain, are active and so potential targets for follow-on spam campaigns. Even worse, spammers sell and trade lists with virus writers eager to accumulate bots, so by telling a spammer they're 'live,' users increase their risk of later receiving worms and viruses"

Read more!

MultiIE -- Multiple Windows for Pocket IE and More

Just found this great software that allows Pocket Internet Explorer to open multiple windows and adds a lot of extra functionality to the browser. It's won a couple of awards and looks pretty good.
I haven't tried it yet but I will and I'll report the results here later.
Check it out at:
MultiIE
Does anyone have any experience with this product? If so, add your comments and share your personal experience with it.
--Steve

Read more!

CellPhone Porn and WorkPlace Time Wasters

According to a recent Information Week article, people downloading nude pictures to their cellphones and PDA's represented a $400 million market last year.
Strategy Analytics, a web market research firm, says the market is expected to grow to $5 billion by the year 2010.
Read the whole article here...
InformationWeek March 21, 2005
--Steve

Read more!

PDA Today Now Available On Your Mobile Device

You can now read PDA Today on your wireless PDA, Pocket PC or SmartPhone.
Try it out on your device at:

PDA Today Mobile

Let us know how it works on your platform and if you experience any problems or not.

Thanks to Skweezer.net for allowing this blog to be formatted for small screen devices.

--Steve

Read more!

PDA Surfing -- Link a Day -- TV Guide

The purpose of PDA Surfing -- Link a Day is to provide readers with at least one PDA friendly web link per day that they can surf on their SmartPhone or Pocket PC.
Over time, there will be a long list of useful links with reviews to sites that are specially formatted to work on tiny screens.

Today's link is:



TV Guide Wireless Edition

Rating 7.5 /10
Category: Palm/Pocket PC/SmartPhone
Description: Want to check the U.S. TV listings from your SmartPhone or Pocket PC? TV Guide Wireless edition gives you what you've come to expect from the paper version that has adorned coffee tables at home for years. This is a good attempt by TV Guide to port that information so that you can have it handy on your phone. The screen formatting is good for any device. The only thing I didn't like was the advertising that is displayed before you read your listing. It adds a step that interferes with the speed of the results. TV Guide should learn from Google and try to find a way to keep the ads out of the way of performance. I docked it a point on the overall score for that reason.
--Steve

Read more!

PDA Surfing -- Link a Day -- Weather Underground

The purpose of PDA Surfing -- Link a Day is to provide readers with at least one PDA friendly web link per day that they can surf on their SmartPhone or Pocket PC.
Over time, there will be a long list of useful links with reviews to sites that are specially formatted to work on tiny screens.
Today's link is:
Weather Underground
Rating 6.5 /10
Category: Palm/Pocket PC
Description: If you like to get weather information on your mobile Pocket PC this is an okay place to get it. It's nicely formatted for Pocket PC's but probably isn't well suited for a SmartPhones or Cellphones. If you're a U.S. user, it has a search option to input your Zip to retrieve weather data and forecasts. If you're from other areas of the world you can get your forecast too. Just follow the links until you find your country and local area. One feature of the weather info I liked was the radar maps of the U.S. This site should add more international weather and a choice of language options would be nice to see too. It's only for Pocket PC and because of that I rated it a little lower. All-in-all not bad though and worth a look-see.
--Steve

Read more!

Pocket PC Community iPaq-h5450

If you're looking for a community support forum for your iPaq, this is a great email discussion forum on Yahoo. It's been around for awhile and has a searchable message database. Can't find the answer? Just join and ask the forum members. Worth a visit at:

Yahoo! Groups : iPaq-h5450

--Steve

Read more!

Microsoft ActiveSync, ActiveStinks...

Why is it that ActiveSync currently at Version 3.8 is the source of so many problems for mobile users?
To be fair, Microsoft has some really great products. But every once in a while they really let users down by not tightening up their software. ActiveSync is one of those products.
Every couple of days I visit Pocket PC support forums and it amazes me that so many people are still asking for help with ActiveSync problems.
ActiveSync is finicky and sometimes users are forced to disconnect, reboot, soft-reset and pull out their hair. A user can be working away and all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, activesync will decide to disconnect and refuse all attempts at reconnection. It's as if a gremlin has taken over your system.
To be sure Microsoft has its hands full with so many desktops, operating systems and device configurations it makes you dizzy thinking about it. And besides, nothing is perfect.
Still they're almost on version 4.o and you would think they'd have most of these issues sorted out by now.
I'm not sure what the problem is, but if they don't address this issue they'll open the door for a third-party to one-up them with a new and better device syncing program.
In the meantime, if you need help with ActiveSync issues, here are a couple of links that can help you overcome the ActiveSync Blues...

Chris De Herrera's ActiveSync Troubleshooting Guide

Beverly Howard's Solving ActiveSync Issues

BTW, if anyone knows of any ActiveSync software replacements or better support resources, feel free to add your comments here.

--Steve

Read more!

PDA Surfing -- Link a Day -- Google

The purpose of PDA Surfing -- Link a Day is to provide readers with at least one PDA friendly web link per day that they can surf on their SmartPhone or Pocket PC.
Over time, there will be a long list of useful links with reviews to sites that are specially formatted to work on tiny screens.

Today's link is:
Google for Devices
Rating 7 /10
Category: Palm/SmartPhone/Pocket PC
Description: For people who do a lot of Googling (and who doesn't these days) this a great link. The search is fast and pretty much what you've come to expect from Google on your desktop. One thing I really like is the lack of Google ads in the results. Nothing against their ads in any way, it's just that you see them everywhere on the Internet and it's nice to find some ad-free space for a change. The pages format well on any screen. The only thing I'd like to see from this type of mobile search is an option to filter the search for PDA formatted web pages and PDA related listings. That would make it just about perfect in my opinion.
-- Steve

Read more!