Pharos Trips & Pics

Here’s a great combo application that has so many possible uses that it is only limited by your imagination. Have you ever wished that you could identify some of those pictures you took years ago and never got around to labeling?

With Trips & Pics, you can snap away to your heart’s content and the device creates a GPS log and time stamp of your photos so that with supplied software you can pinpoint each shot on Google Maps or Microsoft Streets and Trips.

I certainly wish I had this incredible tool was I doing archaeological surveys in jungles, deserts, and mountains around the world. Now I will be content to log photos on my trips and share them with friends and family.

There are many commercial applications possible too that relate to fleet management, law enforcement, surveying, legal work, real estate, conservation, wildlife management, and all kinds of outdoor activities such as hiking, biking, and camping.

The package comes with both hardware and software. You get a CD with the program to install on your computer that integrates the GPS and photo data with a mapping source to plot a trip and pinpoint the location of photos snapped along the way. You also get a iPGS500 receiver, a USB cable, a battery dock, and a charger.

A typical scenario would be that you would charge the battery dock. Connect the receiver to the USB dongle, insert it into your computer to activate it for a trip. Synchronize your camera’s clock with the receiver while connected to the computer. Then remove the receiver from the dongle and insert into the battery pack, which lasts 24 hours between charges. Allow the GPS unit to lock onto the satellites and begin your trip. Every time you take a photo, push the button on the side of the battery pack to record the time and location of the event.

When you get home, connect the receiver to the computer using the dongle again and run the software program to tag the photos so that you can locate them on a map program and share them with others.

What a great little tool, and I do mean little, for the receiver is about an inch square. Coupled with the battery pack, the package measures 1 7/8 x 2 ¾ inches and weighs only slightly over two ounces, so it doesn’t represent much of an extra burden. But don’t let its size deceive you, for it may be small, but it is also a powerful device with myriad uses. I would be fascinated to hear from some of you and the uses to which you put this tool to work.

Of course, you can use this device as a standard GPS receiver if you wish as well.

Sorry, but it won’t be available until next month sometime. Be looking for an announcement. Then you can go to www.pharosgps.com and check it out. I’m not sure how much it will cost, but I’m betting in the hundred dollar range.

Netwasp Releases FlashThemes Player for WM SmartPhone

With the new release of FlashThemes Player for SmartPhone every Windows Mobile SmartPhone owner can now run animated themes on their Home Screen regardless of the device or screen layout! Click here for more information: http://www.netwasp.com

FlashThemes Player for SmartPhone supports any Windows Mobile SmartPhone device, running on WM2003, WM5.0 and WM6.0! FlashThemes unique ‘Scale Management System’ ensures that the SmartPhone themes you get work seamlessly on any of the current screen layouts (Portrait and even switches dynamically for Landscape; and even rotating Screens). Built into the heart of the player is a power management feature that ensures no significant loss of battery power, leaving you free to show-off these cool animations!

 

FlashThemes Player for SmartPhone comes with ten high quality SmartPhone themes with something in there for everyone; of course there are also many more FlashThemes SmartPhone themes for you to choose from right here on Netwasp.com.  

Poll : Mobilitysite Commenting - What do you want?

Underneath the Wordpress powered front end of Mobilitysite, is a forum community of 200,000+ members. This is a fairly active community that evolved from Aximsite and Mobilitysite (formerly iPaqHQ) members. That said, the current system is in place to keep the community aspect that I promote and believe is the backbone of the site in the loop.

What happens is that one of our writers makes a post. This post is placed into the Wordpress database and a plugin talks with the forum software and creates a post replicating the Wordpress post. Data is passed back and forth to allow the forum comments from those that choose to reply in the forums to the single post page of the Wordpress front end.

Like I said, this was put in place to allow the 200k forum members to comment without having to read the frontpage and find what they want to comment on.

The problem I am running into is that I have gotten emails in the past and one recently telling me that they don’t like this system and that it would be better for us to just enable normal blog-like commenting for the Mobilitysite posts. We allow normal blog commenting as well as the forum commenting, but maybe it’s too intimidating.

With this subject coming up again today, I thought I would solicit opinions on how to proceed. I feel like we are doing a great job on content and I want to make sure that the readers have the tools they want to make the site easier for them to read, comment, etc… I am including a poll with the post, so make sure to share your vote and I really would love to have any comments on the subject either in the blog or forum comments. Thanks!

To add a little info. If I were to eliminate forum commenting, I would still have the plugin make a post in the forums to alert the forum community. Please give me some feedback if you have a chance.

Sansa Clip available in Pink and Red just in time for Valentine’s Day!

Sandisk gets into the Valentine’s Day spirit too. Instead of offering a Red Version like Microsoft with the Zune or a Pink iPod Nano like Apple, they are offering their Sansa Clip in both Pink and Red.

This should make a great, inexpensive Valentine’s Day gift.

It’s tiny, it stores 2GB with 15 hours of battery life playback, holds500-1,000 songs–and it is less than $60 and calorie free!. A perfect gift to ensure the giver is remembered fondly for months to come. Preload your sweetheart’s favorite songs, and personally pre-record a poem or love letter.

Get more info at Sandisk.

Amtek U560 UMPC review at UMPCPortal.com

For some reason my RSS feed from UMPCPortal is not working any more and as result I missed this wonderful review shot and written by Steve “Chippy”

This is the first time I’ve used XP on a Stealey CPU for any length of time and I have to say that, in combination with the GMA950 it’s a great performer. Not as fast as my Q1P but faster than the 1.2Ghz WiBrain I’m also testing at the moment. In terms of video playback performance I was incredibly impressed…and then I noticed that the device was in 600Mhz battery saving mode. When I switched it into full-power mode, increasing the cpu speed by 30%, it was really impressive and handled about every video I threw at it. Right up to a 7Mbps WMV HD video. Even games were running well. Call of Duty (see video) a demo installed on the test device, worked impressively smoothly. Take a look at the videos below which were done with the device locked at 600Mhz.

Which one is for you … the Asus Eee PC or the Everex Cloudbook?

Are you looking for a mobile solution?  Have the Asus Eee PC or the Everex Cloudbook caught your eye?  Well, there is a very good comparison over at jkkmobile that just might help you in making a decision.  So what was the bottom line so you can start making a decision on which one to buy?

To be fair, you really need to check out the article but here are a few items:

If you need more storage and you can live with that mouse, the Cloudbook could be better..

If you want durable SSD and you are ok using SD for storage ( or paying 499 for 8G ) you should choose Eee PC

If you are thinking having XP on it (without any tweeking), choose Cloudbook or Eee PC 8G.

If you don’t care about storage and just wan’t small and cheap, Asus Eee 2g is the cheapest. ( $299 )

But in the final analysis, whatever one you do choose, you will “enjoy the new feeling of mobile computing, without paying a lot!”

Gmail and Windows Mobile - Working Now!

I don’t use gmail, so I really didn’t know that you folks were having having issues. Well, if you have been, Google says they’ve worked with Microsoft and now they have Gmail playing nice with Windows Mobile.

Since we added IMAP access to Gmail in October, we’ve heard from a number of Windows Mobile users that their Gmail IMAP experience wasn’t great — some were receiving blank messages and others could read headers but not entire messages. There are a lot of email clients out there, each with its own quirks, so making IMAP work across all of them can be tricky. We’ve worked with Microsoft engineers to debug the incompatibilities with Windows Mobile and made some tweaks to our code. As some people have already noticed, these fixes went out last week, so you should now have a better experience reading and sending Gmail messages using IMAP from your Windows Mobile device. If you haven’t yet set up IMAP, just follow the configuration instructions to get started.

Click on the configuration instructions to get started.

Source: Gmail Blog

Alltel has the Red BlackBerry Pearl 8130

Alltel Wireless announced that it is now offering, for the first time, the BlackBerry Pearl 8130 in red.  A complete multi-media powerhouse, the red BlackBerry Pearl 8130 is now available in Alltel retail stores and online at shopalltel.com. With its email browser, 2MP camera with flash and video, GPS and mapping, Bluetooth technology, Web browser and expandable memory, the eye-catching, red Pearl provides customers with an exceptional mobile experience. The red BlackBerry Pearl 8130 for $149.99 after a $100 mail-in-rebate to new customers who sign-up for a two-year service agreement as well as existing eligible customers on qualifying rate plans. With this stylish smartphone, you can multi-task like a pro and look good while doing it.

For more info, visit Alltel…

Piel Frama iPaq 200 Case Available

We had to know that Piel Frama would be all over this one, right? I did. Ruben and his crew do such a good job outfitting the coolest devices.

If you have never used a Piel Frama case, let me tell you that these are hand stitched and are made from some of the best leather available.

Find a color to match your personility too!

HP iPAQ 200 series

• High quality cowskin leather.
• Snap closure system.
• Sync through travel cable.
• Rotable and completely removable belt clip (the knob is also removable).
• 2 Memory Cards slots.
• 3 Credit Cards Slots.
• Money Pocket.
• Soft leather lining.
• ABS inserted protection.

The user price is 65 € (Worldwide shipping cost is included in the price). Delivery time: 3 days.  Available colors: Black, Tan, Black/Tan, Red, Green and Blue color.

Dell and Android… I don’t care, do you?

I might later, but for now, my mouth has a bad taste in it from Dell’s business ways. You see, I have been a customer and supporter of Dell for quite a while. Just like with Geico (been with them since 1991), I have been using them since before they were even cool. Dell becomes successful in the Pocket PC Market, they quit. Dell started seeing success in their 2nd gen Dell DJ MP3 players, they quit. Dell comes with a Tablet PC 2 years too late, it’s overpriced. I just have no enthusiasm about Dell anymore.

Now the rumormill is buzzing that Dell and Google will be announcing that Dell is going produce one of these “gPhones”. 

Speculation is mounting that Google is plotting the launch of a mobile phone in partnership with computer giant Dell.

Senior industry sources claim the two companies will reveal their plans at next months 3GSM telecoms conference in Barcelona, al-though Google insiders deny an announcement is due in the near future.

But the rumours will once again throw the spotlight on Google’s mobile strategy, which has been the subject of much conjecture over the last year.

What ever happened to the simple Windows Mobile Smartphone that Dell was rumored to be working on last year? You see what I am talking about. Nothing but disappointments from Dell in the last couple years.

Oh by the way… Not sure how much stock I am taking in all this considering this comment…

Dell already produces personal digital assistants (PDAs) and strategy analytics director Neil Mawston says: It makes sense for Dell to have a high-profile entry back into the market because its last effort with PDAs pretty much flopped.�

Dell’s PDAs pretty much flopped? What the hell is this guy smoking? Sure, they quit, but they surely didn’t flop. Oh well.

Photo Credit: Engadget / Source: Marketing Week via Engadget

More on the Garmin Nuviphone

Susan posted some early info in the form of a press release last night. Today I have grabbed some photos and wanted to share a few links related to the Garmin Nuviphone.

Ok, click the photos to make them larger. Take a look, I know that these are just renderings, but man does it look similar to the iPhone…

What do you think? Can it give the iPhone a run?

[Read more]

HyperOffice, an interesting tool for iPhone users

HyperOffice today launched the public beta of business collaboration tools that connect the Apple iPhone to corporate email, contacts, calendars, tasks and notes.

The collaboration tools are built into HyperOffice and operate as an alternative to Microsoft Exchange, the corporate messaging platform that the iPhone does not support. HyperOffice synchronizes the iPhone email client with Microsoft Outlook, giving business users wireless access to secure corporate messaging and collaboration services from work, from home, and while traveling.

The public beta also includes a 30-day free trial of HyperOffice, the award-winning webware that makes it easier for owners, employees, clients, partners and suppliers of growing businesses to collaborate, communicate, plan projects, share and edit documents, schedule meetings, and manage information, anytime, from any Internet connection.

Click here to begin the trial: http://www.hyperoffice.com/hypermain/highlights/iphone.cfm

[Read more]

My Journey with Windows Mobile 6 Standard (SmartPhone) constant reboots

I’ve been a proud owner of a T-Mobile Dash (a Windows Mobile SmartPhone) since they first came out in late 2006.  However, once I upgraded the phone to Windows Mobile 6 last year, I began having a problem that has been nothing less than almost continually annoying.  Whenever I restart the Dash, there is the high probability that it will go into endless reboot loop unless I remove the microSD card.  This anomaly does not just occur on the Dash, it has been reported on a number of WM6 devices.

1. When I initially updated to WM6, here’s what happened:
   1. I Flashed to WM6 with no microSD card in place
   2. after one successful boot, I replaced the card and tried to reboot.
   3. the Dash would not stop rebooting unless I removed the battery and the microSD card.
   4. placing the card in place after a boot allowed the card to function properly.
   5. after backing up the MicroSD card, I reformatted it in FAT32, place the card in the Dash and it rebooted properly exactly one time. Thereafter the rebooting resumed.

My primary microSD card was a Sandisk 2GB MicroSD, but the problem was the same with an off brand 512MB MicroSD.

When I reported the situation to T-Mobile Customer Care, I was advised to re-flash with the microSD card in place.  It made no difference.

I called T-Mobile Customer Care back and they offered to ship me a replacement phone. I had two choices: $10 for ground shipping or $15 for expedited shipping.  I chose the latter even though I didn’t think that the problem was a hardware related as my device ran perfectly with WM5.  However, my Dash was one of the very first devices released in December 2006.  Hmmmm… 

I surmised that the problem was not a device issue or a microSD (TransFlash) card problem, but rather a software issue with WM6.  As I learned much later , that’s exactly what it was–it is a device driver problem.

When I received the replacement phone, it came with WM5. I flashed it to WM6 (without the microSD card in place) and the endless reboots occurred on the replacement phone too.  I tried re-flashing with the microSD card in place and got the same results.  This was getting old and I contemplated going back to WM5, however I stuck with it. 

After a lot of trial-and-error experimentation, I thought I’d solved the problem–no thanks to T-Mobile Customer Care.  I began successfully running WM6 without the constant rebooting with a microSD card in the slot.  Here’s the procedure that worked (at least for a while) for me:

1. turn the device off.
2. remove any microSD card.
3. follow the Dash hard reset instructions here.

PLEASE NOTE CAREFULLY that simply clearing the memory using the Start/Accessories/Clear Storage application is NOT the same as a "hard reset" for the Dash.

The above solution worked for a while, but the problem came back. Since I had the replacement Dash from T-Mobile, the solution worked as long as I did not replace my SIM card (I had put it in the other device during my testing). As soon as I inserted the SIM card and tried to boot the device, the endless reboots resumed.

I then tried using the SIM card from another T-Mobile phone and the problem went completely away!  Putting back my SIM card made the reboots resume. In short, the two phones exhibited the exact same conditions:
1. old SIM card with either of 2 different microSD cards caused the endless reboots.
2. new SIM card with either of the microSD cards in either of the phones, no reboots.

I did not re-flash or master reset either phone between switching the SIM cards.  Seemed like an OS problem that got triggered differently when making contact with the T-Mobile networks.

I went to a local T-Mobile Company store, explained the situation, got a replacement SIM card and the problem went away again.  The rep at the store verified both my problem and that the replacement SIM card fix worked.  I did not get charged for the SIM card replacement at the store, bit would have if I got it from Customer Care. 

Since I got the replacement SIM, the problem has recurred periodically, but not consistently.  One reason was that I usually try to put the device in "flight mode" before powering it off and resetting the phone. 

That was until the past couple of weeks.  I had left the country on vacation, but had forgotten to put the phone in "flight mode" before I turned off the phone on the plane.  When I landed, I could not get out of the constant rebooting in any way at all!  I tried removing the SIM card, then the MicroSD card, then both–nothing worked at all, even after I returned home!  After a couple of days, I took the plunge to do the hard reset again.  I had procrastinated making that choice since there were a few data changes on the phone since its last full backup.  The hard reset worked again!  Restoring my most recent Sprite backup got me up and going PDQ with just a few data losses.  However, I’m still looking for a permanent solution as I really do like the T-Mobile Dash for so many other reasons.

My research in the last few days has turned up a non-T-Mobile ROM for the Dash directly from HTC that is available here.  Comments that I’ve read about the ROM say it fully supports SDHC MicroSD cards (currently available up to 8GB) and that the reboot problem has been solved with this new WM6 ROM. 

I skeptical, but may take the plunge.  If I do, I’ll report back.

Garmin nuvifone Takes Personal Navigation and Communication to the Next Level

Garmin today announced its entrance into the mobile phone market
with the nuvifone, an all-in-one, sleek and slim, touchscreen device that
combines a premium phone, mobile web-browser, and cutting-edge personal navigator. The nuvifone is a work of art in features, design and
functionality and is destined to transform how individuals connect,
communicate and navigate their life.

“The nuvifone is an all-in-one device offering unmatched integration of
utility and function in a single mobile device,” said Cliff Pemble,
Garmin’s president and COO. “This is the breakthrough product that cell
phone and GPS users around the world have been longing for — a single
device that does it all.”

The nuvifone is an innovative mobile phone that has a wide range of
advanced yet easy-to-use features. The all touchscreen device is the first
of its kind to integrate premium 3.5G mobile phone capability with an
internet browser, data connectivity, personal messaging, and personal
navigation functions in one device. When powered on, the 3.5-inch
touchscreen display reveals three primary icons — “Call,” “Search,” and
“View Map” which allow the user to effortlessly master the nüvifone’s
functions.

 

[Read more]

Windows XP Availabilty Extended

Mac users quickly jumped on the latest Mac OS, but the same can’t be said for Windows users, as many have become averse to Vista.  Thus MicroSoft decided to extend XP’s shelf life by six months and they are offering an unprecedented downgrade on certain SKUs.

June 30, 2008 will be the cutoff date for XP sales.  Consumer support on XP ends 4/14/09.

Source: Engadget