Winterface version 1.2 now available

It seems Vito Technology never rests, and as a reviewer I have a difficult time keeping up with their updates and innovations. Not long ago I wrote a review of Winterface when it first appeared. Most of the operational and layout features are the same in the new version. For a detailed discussion of the features, I refer you to my previous review.

Here are the new features, improvements, and bug fixes reported by Vito in a recent press release:

• Today plug-in
• add favorite web sites
• Portrait\landscape mode icon switch
• Screens rotation with joystick
• “Close All” button in “Running”
• Clock icon shows indicator when the alarm is on
• SMS-Chat icon shows number of new text messages
• Bluetooth status icon toggles Bluetooth on/off with one press
• Battery icon shows when there is low charge
• Alphabetic ruler for quick scrolling when adding a file

• Bug with notification not visible under the lock screen
• Bug with power icon on HTC Touch HD/ PalmTreo Pro/ Samsung i900
• Winterface lock screen no longer interferes with the default lock screen
• Day of the week is displayed below the date on Calendar icon and the indicator of upcoming events doesn’t close the date

I installed Winterface on two WM 6.1 devices to test it: Palm 800w and WMg Zinc II. On neither device could I get the Lock Screen to appear. That is an opening page that is supposed to appear when you turn on the device; it displays the day, time, date, with a padlock that you must slide to the right to unlock the screen. It appears in the screen shot above, but, it didn’t appear for me. [Read more]

           

SoftMaker Office for Pocket PCs

SoftMaker Office is an absolute favorite of mine so I wanted to give you a quick reminder that SoftMaker’s Black Friday/Saturday/Sunday sale ends today. For the rest of this Sunday, you can still purchase all SoftMaker products with a 20% discount.

Find out more:  http://www.softmaker.com

           

Black Friday Goes Global

The following ad is a portion of one that began running on the website of Israeli tech vendor BUG middle of last week, and has been accompanied by a full range of support ads in the print media and in the store.

Big deal, right? Black Friday deal news is all over the tech blogs and store ads. People have even died in this year’s mania for fair to middling bargains following Thanksgiving but before the Christmas rush get fully in gear. Black Friday has become a tradition alongside Thanksgiving and Christmas. just like the Macy’s Parade and Bowl Games, a sure sign the holidays fever is upon America. Ho Ho Ho.

That’s just the point…neither Thanksgiving nor Christmas are celebrated by the mainstream in Israel and Hanukkah has never had the gift giving pressure that old Kris Kringle stuffs down the chimneys of the Goyim. Black Friday has leapt the Atlantic due to it’s primacy in tech blogs and American marketing culture and for no other reason. The holidays themselves are meaningless, just the sale remains.

Food for thought…and I got a great deal on DVD-RW blank media. WOOT!

           

HTC Touch HD - The Manliest Phone!

Just saw that HTC Touch HD - probably one of the most fascinating Windows Mobile devices today - is one of the 3 manliest gadgets of 2008.

What’s a manliest gadget? I guess it has to be big, fast, great looking, probably not something that looks like HTC Touch Diamond… but according to my special sources (Google) the Polish TV channel TVN Turbo is running this kind of contest every year, in order to find the most masculine products of the year.

144 products have already been whittled down to just 12, and the HD is one of the 3 finalists in the gadget section. Cewooool.

The other two products are the Pentax Optio W60 and Sony Vaio series laptops.

I heard that T-Mobile G1 (HTC’s Android phone) was also a candidate but the voters thought it looks too old to really exist in 2008…

           

NEW Samsung Omnia Case from Vaja

Here is a holiday gift that you can get for yourself if you have a Samsung Omnia!

Vaja has a NEW  ivolution leather case for the Samsung Omnia.  This new case allows either outside and inside color customization.  ivolution Leather case MSRP $ 75

Check out this new addition to Vaja Leather Products here!

           

10 Reason Why the Zune is Better Than the iPod

Here is another of those lists… Yep. Another. This time the list favors the Zune. Before I share the list from Jeff Blankenburg, I will share my personal Top 2…

1. The Zune is not made by Apple. (Just a fanboy comment here)
2. Zune Pass and Zune Store > iTunes

Here is Jeff’s Top 10. Head over to his article for his explanations of each bullet item. Off to the right, will be my comments.

1. The Zune Pass (Agree 100%)
2. No Generational Gaps (Players are disposable these days, I don’t care)
3. Price (6 one way, 1/2 dozen the other)
4. Wireless Sharing (at this point, this is trivial)
5. Wireless Sync (This is slow, but great if you don’t want to connect all the time and have the time to wait)
6. Wireless Shopping (The newest Zune Software release allows for flagging to buy, it’s nice)
7. Customization (iPod has name engraving, but Zune’s have “Originals”)
8. FM Radio (I concur)
9. Xbox 360 Compatibility (I don’t use it, but it’s cool)
10. You can create your own games for it.(I don’t want to create a game)

Read the complete article here.

           

Velocity Mobile 111 Gets FCC Approval

I’ve been pretty excited to see this new Windows Mobile OEM get into the game. Lately, I was beginning to get worried that they would just flop though. Earlier this year they announced a couple phones coming and we’ve still not seen them hit the streets. Now things are looking up though, we saw the 103 hit the FCC earlier this year and now the 111. Come on Velocity, bring something hard hitting to the arena. Thanks.

Read more at the FCC (via Engadget)

           

HTC Fuze Registry Hacks Galore

If you read the XDA Dev Forums, you probably won’t see anything new here, but in case you don’t, Pocket Hacks has compiled a little list of hacks for the HTC Fuze. Here are just a couple to get you started. These 3 are to help make TouchFlo 3D run faster. I am going to try these tonight if I have a charge on my loaner Fuze.

• Boost TFL3D Performance –> Using Advanced Config, change File system cache to 8mb and file system filter cache to 131072
  Tested and works a treat. TF3D is sluggish and prone to long pauses before tweak, much faster afterwards
• Boost TFL3D Performance –> HKLM\System\Storagemanager\Fatfs and change key Cachesize from 16384 to 32768
  Much quicker than number 1 on it’s own, now stonkingly fast.
  Boost TFL3D Scrolling Speed –> - HKLM\SYSTEM\GDI\GLYPHCACHE\limit = 16384 or 32768 (DWORD decimal)
  - To change it back to the default: - HKLM\SYSTEM\GDI\GLYPHCACHE\limit = 8192 (DWORD decimal)
  Did this using schaps advanced config and it does not seem to make any difference whatsoever.

There are more to sink your teeth into as well, head to Pocket Hacks for those.
Source: Pocket Now

           

E-Trade Mobile Pro for the Blackberry Bold

Day traders everywhere can rejoice…

E-Trade has their Mobile Pro version ready for download for Blackberry users right now. In addition, they also have some deals to actually get a Blackberry Bold (or other phones too) from E-Trade.

As part of the release celebration, E*trade also partnered with Wirefly to offer account holders a new Bold for $99 with a 2-year contract.

Etrade via BGR

           

World of Warcraft iPhone Apps

Does anyone play World of Warcraft? I know that 11 Million people do, do you? I have dabbled a bit in low level PVP in World of Warcraft. Some new applications for WoW have hit the app store lately…

The 1st one is Warcraft Characters. This is an application that queries the World of Warcraft Armory and displays vital info on your characters or others characters. You can check out all the info you can get from the armory on your iPhone.

The other app is one that seems pretty silly, but let’s say that the servers are down and you are out having coffee and want to see if your server is back up, you can with Warcraftstat. (via Wowinsider)

           

Do you Black Friday?

First off, I didn’t post a bunch of Black Friday info here leading up to today. The reason why is that there are great sites that cover Black Friday in obscene depth. I’ll leave that to them.

I had to work on Black Friday, so I didn’t get out there. Even if I didn’t, I don’t think I would have done it anyhow. Do you get out there an get the deals early?

If scored on Black Friday, tell us about it, what did you get? What was your best savings? I hear that someone had a $99 Wii today.

           

Tweaks2k2 Black Friday Event

A picture says more than 1000 words, the price has been reduced from $15.50 to $5 on the ultimate registry hacking tool for Windows Mobile Devices: Tweaks2k2. Here is the direct link to discount page.

           

Cases.com Black Friday Deals!

Cases.com has some Black Friday Goodness for you!

• 10% OFF - ON ALL PURCHASES UP TO $50
• 15% OFF - ON ALL PURCHASES FROM $50 TO $75
• 20% OFF - ON ALL PURCHASES FROM $75 TO $150
• 25% OFF - ON ALL PURCHASES FROM $150 TO $300
• 30% OFF - ON ALL PURCHASES ABOVE $300

Discounts are Applied Automatically at Checkout*

Head over to Cases.com for more info!

           

Happy Thanksgiving

Before we delve into pumpkin pies, turkey, and football, I want to take this chance to thank 1st and foremost the readers of my sites. All the way back to Aximsite’s early days, it’s been a wild ride and I am personally VERY THANKFUL for the opportunity to help others. I am very fortunate that so many readers enjoy what we have to share these days. Now that the Axim is fading, most of you are growing with us. Thanks very much for this opportunity.

Next, I want to give my thanks to the 2nd most important set of people here. This would be the moderators and editors. These guys have done such a good job over the past five years. I don’t think I could have ever done this without them. I could thank each of them individually, but that would take a ream of paper. We have a couple mods that have been with us 5 years this coming December, shortly after the site turns 5 (Stay tuned for a huge contest too). Thanks guys for all you do!

I want to thank the sponsors that have keep the servers running through the rough times and even when they were running smooth. For the longest time, Aximsite was funded almost entirely by a small group of advertisers. Cases.com, PocketPC Techs, BuyGPSnow.com, Applian, and many others. Since I am not "a Business", the pressure of making sure the servers were paid for was lifted by these sponsors and I truly appreciate this.

Last but not least, I want to thank my family. If not for their unselfish support of my hobby, I wouldn’t be typing this right now. Now that my kids are getting older, Brittney is 15 now and Brett is 6, I am trying to spend more time with them. I am very thankful for my family.

I am sure this goes without question when I say, "Happy Thanksgiving" from all of us at Aximsite/Mobilitysite!

What are you thankful for?

           

Twitter drops SMS service in Canada

Ouch!  I have recently been getting into Twitter and was using SMS to update my status and receive updates but it looks like Twitter has had to put the brakes on the service.  You can still send messages to Twitter but will not receive updates.

Unexpected changes in our billing have forced us into a difficult situation with our Canadian SMS service. We can’t afford to support this service given our current arrangement with our providers (where costs have been doubling for the past several months.) As a result, effective today we are no longer delivering outbound SMS over our Canadian shortcode (21212).

The ability to update Twitter over SMS will still be supported over 21212. But we know that this is only part of the experience and we want to make Twitter work in the way folks want … regardless of where they live.

There is a realistic, scalable SMS solution for Canada (and the rest of the world.) We’re working on that and will post more details on the Twitter blog as we make progress

My guess (knowing Canadian carriers) is that they sent a WHOMPING bill to Twitter.  They just don’t seem to get the fact that by making "tweeting" accessible and unrestricted they are promoting the need for more expensive texting add-ons. /shrug

If anyone is interested you can follow my tweets here.

Source: twitter status