Sometimes, you get a real laugher when you take the time to read the license agreements for software installs. Although in this case, it doesn’t take too long at all to read…

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So, I took the plunge and installed the new ROM for my Cingular 8525 (a ROM is like an OS upgrade for your computer). Although the ROM install went smoothly (thank you HTC), due to the inherent nature of the upgrade, all of my apps got deleted and needed to be reinstalled. In a way, this is a good thing, since it made me go through the list of what I used to have installed, and choose only the ones that I really use to reinstall. So, here’s my new/current list of apps for my PPC (kind of in order of how I would recommend to install):

• HTweakC — install this first, run it, and choose Security->Allow unsigned apps before you install the rest of your apps. It will save you many minutes of responding to install prompts, since most/all of the apps you will install are unsigned…
• Magic Button - although the new ROM has added functionality to change the behavior of the “X” button (it used to just minimize, now you can set it to close apps), Magic Button is still a must-have for me because it shows all of the open apps you have running, overlaying the title bar with mini app-icons. It also adds a Home icon so you can always jump back to the Today screen.
• Batti — still the best battery meter around, given it’s size and usefulness. The new ROM supposedly increases battery time, so we shall see…
• SK Tools — this is one of the 2 apps that I have actually purchased for my device (with so much good stuff as freeware, pay programs have to be excellent). It gives you a ton of options for optimizing, cleaning, and performance testing your device. If you’re a geek like I am, this is definately worth a look. You can get a 15 day trial to test it for yourself.
• Spb Diary — this is the other app that I have purchased. It’s my current Today screen, and shows me my Mail, Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, etc. Download it and get a full feature trial to see if you like it too. (NOTE: I also tested Spb Backup and Spb Phone Suite, but chose not to purchase those [SK Tools will do backups, and I didn't use the functionality in the Phone Suite app], although I recommend Spb Software House as a great place to look for apps for your PPC phone.
• WiFiFoFum — it’s a WiFi hotspot scanner for your PPC. I never got MiniStumbler going, but this works a treat.
• vxUtil — a swiss-army-knife networking utility. ping, nslookup, tracert, ipconfig, etc.
• Total Commander — a File Manager replacement that also handles zip/rar files.
• TCPMP — a replacement video player for your PPC. I like this better than WMP, but ymmv. Both seem to work with Orb.
• MortPlayer — a replacement music player for the PPC. Lot’s of skins available, and a lot easier to use than WMP. I also like how it locks the screen when you’re playing music, so you can use your PPC like an MP3 player.
• Google Maps — Hey, it’s Google Maps on your mobile. Lifesaver.
• Windows Live Search — Maps are good, local info is better than Google maps.
• StopTime and Ephemeris — a stop watch and a sun/moon thinger. Trust me, it’s good stuff.
• Kevtris — Tetris for your PPC. Fun stuff!

Whew! I think that’s it. Of course, please let me know if you have any must-have apps too. I’m always looking for new toys…

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I retired my Audiovox SMT5600 right before Thanksgiving in favor of the shiny new Cingular 8525 (aka HTC TyTn / Hermes). It’s got all the neat bells and whistles, and also marks my migration from Windows Smartphone to Windows PocketPC platform.

Things I like:

• Speed - I am showing 500-800kbps in speed tests, occasionally busting over 1000. Not too shabby, and now that Cingular looks close to launching a new rev of HSDPA in Seattle, it will get even faster. Plus, it’s got WiFi b/g…
• Flexibility - it’s a good phone, a good web browser, a solid OS (although it, like all MSFT devices, needs a reboot every now and then), and lots of software available.
• Sync - now that the phone supports push email, I get all of my email, calendar items synced from the Exchange server to my phone instantly. Nothing new there from the 5600, but I’m also getting my Tasks and Notes synced over the air too, which required me to do a USB sync on my 5600.

Things I don’t like:

• Web connect latency - it was taking me ~10 seconds to “Locate” web sites that I wanted to go to. After troubleshooting with Cingular and reading the many support forums, I ended up changing my DNS servers to point to those at OpenDNS.com. So far so good…
• No Profile Manager - my 5600 gave me the options to set the phone to “Meeting” or “Silent” or “Normal” or “Outdoor”, etc. The PPC doesn’t have such a beast. It’s either ring or no-ring. Grrr…
• No Ringer, No Music - I found this out the first day when trying to set up my phone to only vibrate on incoming calls. If you set the phone volume to “Vibrate”, it does that fine, but it also cuts off all volume from the music player. Frustrating.

However, I’ve gotten past those issues now, and I’m digging the phone. Here is my quick list of software that I’ve found to be key on my 8525:

• SPB PocketDiary - this replaces the home screen, and shows you all meetings, tasks, contacts, notes, etc etc. You can also control/access all elements from the home screen - no need to flip between different apps. Very nice.
• Batti - Neat little battery gauge that sits at the very top of the title bar (a couple of pixels high). This allowed me to remove the standard battery icon on the home screen using…
• fit4cat Hermes Tweaker - a solid utility that allows you to edit many hidden registry settings (turn of SMS sent notification, remove battery tray icon, etc.)
• Total Commander - File Manager on steroids. Also a Registry editor.
• vxUtil - all the network tools you want and need - ping, telnet, ipconfig, etc.
• Kevtris - a free Tetris clone for the PPC (and SmartPhone). Great game, and did I mention that it is free?
• Ephemeris - this might be an app that I use very infrequently, but it has some great applications. It basically calculates the phases of the moon and sunrise/sunset based on your location, but it has a cool compass to show you which way is North based on your current location relative to the sun/moon. Neat.
• StopTime - from the same author as Ephemeris, a very handy timer/stopwatch utility.
• Windows Live Search - it’s in Beta, and I admit I’m Google-biased, but this app kicks Google Maps’ butt. Much quicker, cleaner, and more fully-functioned than Google Maps for Mobile
  (which was my prior fave in this area and saved my bacon a couple of times when I was lost).
• 1-Calc Lite - super simple calculator that has functions for splitting the bill and calculating tip.
• MortPlayer - my music player. I’m not super-pumped on this, but it is better than the built-in Windows Media Player…

I think that’s it. I’ll add if anything jumps to mind. Now all I need is to find a solid pair of (reasonably priced) stereo Bluetooth headphones, and I’m golden. Until then, the wired headset that came with the phone (retrofitted with my Jabra EarGels) works just fine to turn my phone into a MP3 player. Add in a 1GB microSD card and a bookmark for the RadioParadise MP3 stream, and we’ve got MUSIC!

Enjoy - Noah

P.S. For hardware accessories for the 8525 (and your phone too), I recommend Boxwave. I like their VersaChargers that can use the existing USB cable to charge from the wall, car, or airplane. Neat!

Technorati Tags: cingular 8525 windows smartphones pocketpc ppc htc hermes tytn

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…for starting your holiday wishlist. Last year I looked all around for a good online wishlist tool, and didn’t find any I really liked. My criteria included:

• ability to import my Amazon.com wishlist
• ease-of-use (when I found something I liked, I want to be able to add to my wishlist with a click, and then get back to the page I was viewing — no copy/paste form stuff…)
• shareable (make some items easy to share with family and friends)
• private (keep other items to myself or limit who could see them)
• respect (respect for my time, as well as the privacy of those who I shared my list with - I did NOT want everyone who I shared my stuff with to have to register with the service)
• flexibility (wishlists are good, and is the main driver in my list, but a service should also be able to manage other info for me)

I think I’ve found all of that at Kaboodle (thank you again Ask MeFi).  The ones I tried last year are MetaWishlist.com and TheThingsIWant.com.  I also looked at Wists.com, but will stick with Kaboodle for now (even though it has a silly name).

(p.s. in case you wanted to get me a present, you can see my wish list here.  They also have an RSS feed in case you’re into that stuff…

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I asked my SD card vendor (Transcend) what I should use to do a total low-level format on my 1GB SD card, since the low-level format option on my Canon SD400 seemed to be overly “quick”. They suggested this download, which I was able to install and run successfully.

Let’s hope it worked to really format the card (and blow away any integrity issues). I don’t ever want to repeat the shock and horror I felt when I saw the “No data on card” message as I was trying to download Alex’s first Talent Night video. In the future, if that happens again, I will try this first, and then scream…

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When I last blogged about reFeed/reBlog, I (sorta) bemoaned the fact that there was no way to splice two feeds together (e.g. my Feedburner feed for MT and Flickr, and my reFeed feed). Enter FEEDblendr (thanks Lifehacker!). Very easy to use, and now I have a new feed!

Please update your feeds for this blog (pick one, unless you care about the difference, there is no difference –

http://feedblendr.com/rss/1979 (RSS 2.0 Format Feed)
http://feedblendr.com/atom/1979 (Atom Format Feed)

btw, I’m LOVING reFeed. Very quick and easy to scan through hundreds of feed items; I’m spending 3 minutes to get through everything instead of much more in the past (and I ended up having to “Mark All as Read” before I got to everything…we discussed this very problem at MindCamp 1.0). Try it (or mail me and you can try my install).

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Another app that I use a bunch is the EULAlyzer. The name is a mouthful, but it does a great job analyzing the EULAs (End User License Agreements) and Privacy Policies that you have to agree to in order to determine if there are high-risk terms. This saves you time, and (in more than one situation) your butt. I used to be a “Click-and-Agree” type of guy, but I’ve backed off of a bunch of stuff that I was investigating on the net due to EULAlyzer. Good stuff, and you can’t beat the price (free baby).

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Random musings from the inaugural Seattle Mind Camp…

• Good stuff all over the place.
• I got lost too, same as Scoble. Been in that area before, knew where I thought I was going, but it still took a couple of wrong turns before I found the place. I actually used Google maps on my SMT5600 to find the place.
• Non-geeks don’t really get it - my wife called it my “geek-end” - but it was a great experience for me.
• I had a great time - not just listening and looking and lurking and contributing, but meeting a bunch of very cool/smart people.
• I even co-hosted a session on “Dealing with The Information Glut” with Ario. Carlos has a good writeup here.
• It’s great to see what people are talking about now that it’s over, and some of the pictures, the links, and (best of all) the OPML.
• As a result of adding in the OPML to my feedreader, I have learned about all sorts of cool stuff - social networking with a group gatekeeper!

Looking forward to the next one - thanks Andru for putting this together (and all of the sponsors for making it free).

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It’s all about getting the right ads in front of eyeballs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not a big fan of ads, and I’d rather have ad-free anyday. However, if I’m going to accept advertising (and I certainly might if my sub fees were waived as Russell Shaw mentions), it might as well be ads about stuff that’s meaningful to me. I mean, I have to agree with Eric Schmidt as quoted by David Utter - I want to see ads that I care about.

Fr’instance, I could be sitting here watching the Sonics on TV, Googling some pizza deals, and the next commerical on the tube could be for a local pie-maker. With some additional ads on my laptop for the other local competitors. Make it easy for me. Once you grok where I am, and what I’m looking at, you can tailor ads that are more likely to be interesting to me. Google already knows what I’m looking at online (if you login), and, with a potential addition of TiVo to their portfolio, they would know where I’m at, and what I’m looking at on the TV. Correlate my physical location (via my TiVo address), and my online location (via the IP of where I’m active on Google), and you can provide me personalized advertising in the above scenario. Kinda scary, kinda Big Brother, but at least I don’t have to watch ads that are absolutely no interest to me…

The Motley Fool via Tech.Memeorandum

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So, I started my quest to build a PVR. My VCR is starting to work less often (tapes get stuck, won’t record, etc.) and, well, a digital PVR setup is cooler.
Step one was to get a MediaMVP unit (on clearance from Radio Shack for $40). Hooked that up to the Ethernet hub in the living room, plugged it into the TV, loaded the Hauppauge software on the computer in the den, and we were watching AVI movies on the TV. Very slick, and very easy. Now I can go ahead and get the GB-PVR software loaded up, and look for a good deal on a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 150 at dealnews.

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