Microsoft must hate developers…that’s what I’m seeing lots of today.  The crux of the issue being that it’s been confirmed that Windows Mobile x (we’ll come to that) applications don’t run on Windows Phone 7 Series devices.  Well I have two words for that “Thank you Microsoft” followed by “thank you, thank you ,thank you,thank you, thank you !”

This folks is a good thing, for everyone, even developers and here’s why:

Developing for mobile is about developing for the use experience

If you think you’re developing something for another reason (other than money and for that see below) then you need your eyes tested!  The user experience for Windows Phone 7 is wildly different from Windows Mobile and different from other platforms.  No one is gonna want that cruddy app that you need a stylus for, no one wants to look at a UI developed in the 90’s that’s evolved like a snail. 

From experience, developing an application for mobile is about getting the user experience right, everything else is limited by what you can do with your finger and a small screen.  Of course it’s not at all limited because there’s such a rich sensor environment going on, but that requires some innovation and that requires stepping back and looking at the big picture.  In Windows Mobile there was a need to build things to a minimum spec and that spec was basically set back in the 90’s.

We have a new spec, a new UI and a new experience and

Customers want a congruent experience

Doesn’t it feel nice when stuff just works together?  We love it when stuff looks like Media Center when we launch it from there, when it behaves in the same, predictable way.  We get cool stuff that pushes us forward like Media Browser but at it’s core it’s still “on message” with the user experience of Media Center.  It’s the same with iPhone, buttons look similar between apps and everything looks nice.  Hey it’s the same with books, they look slightly different – that’s down the editor and designer and writer – but they have the same basic way of working.

Windows Mobile lost it.  Sense UI on a HD2 is lovely, really cool, until you drop back to Windows Mobile.  Then it feels disjointed.  This cannot be allowed with Windows Phone 7 Series or it’s bye bye.

Microsoft wants tons of developers

And it’s not doing anything to push them away, other than say, “go do it better” and that’s what customers want.  Microsoft has the best developer community on the planet!  They offer a true, multi-dimensional platform that covers everything you need using a set of core principles that transcends the tools, the language and by extension most barriers to entry into the platform.

Tons of developers = tons of ideas = tons of innovation = cool stuff!

Customers and Microsoft want innovation

I left Windows Mobile because the developers did – at least the ones that matter did.  All the cool stuff went to iPhone…it’s now beginning to go to Android.  They were new platforms.  The cool dev’s will be back because those other areas now have millions of apps and

Developers want to make money

Or they want fame, they want kudos, recognition something – I wanted eyeballs.  By operating in saturated markets (iPhone, Android soon) new developers don’t really get a look in…you need to start with a business plan and then an idea to make money there now.  Don’t get me wrong, people do still make it, but it’s hard.  For a while Windows Phone 7 Series apps will be easy pickings. 

Yes that will deliver some dross – wobbly boobies apps probably – but hey at least it’s using the accelerometer and who’s to say that the student who develops it won’t take it into an app at that makes your driving safer (idea there if someone wants to run with it).  The real question though is one that’s been bugging me for a while.

Who do you trust?

There have been cases of phishing apps in the Android market place.  Their open model isn’t working there.  Apple actually have this right, and it annoys developers massively.  They test everything, on an Apple device you can be 90% sure that the app will work and won’t do something naughty like steal your info.  On Windows Mobile right now you can’t.

I could, I won’t and I’ve not, right now write an application that would steal your stuff.  Do I need to access every nook and cranny on your phone to do it?  No.

Windows Phone 7 Series is all about the cloud, like Steve B said yesterday.  As a result your identity is in the cloud, all I need is to write an application that asks for your Facebook username and password, or your Twitter username and password, or something and then sends it back to me.  Simples.  On Windows Mobile anyone could just get it and install the CAB file.  They’d have to trust where they got it from, and frankly some are good and some are bad sources.

Trust is absent, it needs to come back.

Epilogue

So do you still think not being able to use TwitterMyFlicker on your Windows Phone 7 Series phone is a bad thing?  I don’t.  Giving developers a fresh start, a new competitive field where they can innovate and be damned is critical here.  Giving customers the best experience is critical to the developer experience and I’m gonna embrace this new challenge…when I find the time.

  The number one reason I moved to iPhone from Windows Mobile was for the applications.  The developers on the WinMo circuit had stopped innovating in my opinion (I was one of them) and we were just churning out app after app that looked like an copy of an iPhone app.  This news then is highly encouraging news for a platform that I love and that really needs some TLC right now.

Microsoft have, through their developer network MSDN, released a case study on how to port an application from iPhone to Windows Mobile, the actual target device is a HTC Touch Pro.  The case study makes an interesting read, particularly for iPhone devs who want to make money through the Windows Mobile Marketplace that Microsoft are releasing very soon.  I really like this direct quote from the developer, it’s something that I’m sure everyone who writes C# already knows but there you go:

“What I’m finding is that it’s harder to mess up with C# than in Objective-C, which is used for iPhone application development. This makes any extra effort needed to customize the classes I want worthwhile,” commented Luke Thompson, Gripwire software engineer porting the Amplitude application.

So hopefully it won’t be long before those innovative iPhone apps become innovative WinMo apps and when porting becommes de rigeure hopefully  the fantastic WinMo developers can concentrate on function over form.

I picked up on this from twitter from the @Microsoft_gov account and Computer World which has an excellent article on the subject.

I’ve just moved over to iPhone, as you’ll see if you browse about abit, but obviously I had a great phone before that, a Samsung i780 and before that a t-mobile touch plus (aka HTC Touch Dual) and before that an m3100 from orange (HTC Hermes) and before that an Orange c550 and before that … you get the drift.

And I still have all those phones, or at least I did until we decided we needed to declutter, we’ve been selling stuff for months on eBay! Checking out the prices for all those mobiles on eBay and it seemed a bit hit or miss so I decided to look at the mobile recycling companies. Just as an aside here worth noting it’s taken me a while to come to terms with actually getting rid of gadgets (I kept the i780), I say this only in case some thinks I’ve lost the plot, or a portion of my mind a least. The final decider, apart from the clutter was the cash.

I opted to use Mazuma mobile. The reasons behind this choice were many but mainly based on a first hand endorsment from a colleague and my being overly inflenced by the TV! So how was it?

On their website you fill details in about the phone and you don’t really even need to know much about it since they have a huge catalogue to choose from. Next you enter the IMEI number of the phone and they go off and check that the phones not been stolen (or at least not stolen and put on the register). Finally they give you a valuation. The touch dual and Hermes fetched £45 a piece and the older phones abou £15 each. The price is based on the condition of the phone; either working or not working. The definition is happily very loose too. “Working” basically means it turns on and you can, therefore, guess what the “not working” deffinition is too. The m3100 I sent had a button missing, but I still got full price and none of the Windows Mobile devices had propper firmware on, but that was no problem either. Anyway back to the process because I didn’t have money in my pocket at this point.

Having submitted the “order” through the web site I got a little pack in the post a couple of days later that contained instructions, a plastic ( and unpadded) postage paid returns bag and a certificate of postage for the post office clerk to sign. All I had to do was pop the phones in the bag and put it in the post box at the post office. A day or two later I recieved an email to tell me the phones had been recieved, then hours later I was told that a check was in the post. Full price for each!

And so a day or two later I have a cheque waiting for me to make it to the bank and I’m writing a review of a company that is actually more based on low tech postage methods than a digital lifestyle. It’s a superb service though, worthy of recommendation and in my oppinion it could be improved only by allowing an option like me getting my cash though paypal. If you don’t fancy using Mazuma then there are some alternatives listed below.

Ok, it is time to admit it.  All is not well in the geeky home.  There are little niggles, everythings working but it’s not slick and it’s not well integrated enough.  It’s time to start finding some solutions.  Here are the snags, if you know a way I can overcome any of them, then let me know in a comment on this post, email me, or twitter me.

• There’s an annoying .net framework error popping up on the Media Center every so often.
• My Harmony remote isn’t quite set up well enough.  It doesn’t work well when the Media Center is already on.  The problem is that I’ve installed a standby saving power bar, which I want to keep, but it doesn’t play nice with the remote.
• I need to find a way to ARM the Y-CAM when we leave the house and disarm it when we return.  Or I need to move it to an area with slightly less traffic, i.e. where we don’t walk all the time so that my mailbox doesn’t fillup!
• I need to be able to view the Y-CAM stream on my Windows Mobile device, or at least be able to see the latest image.  That might mean configuring FTP, which means finding a secure FTP server on the net.
• I want to workout the overall power consumption of the kit in the house.  I might be scared.
• The TV Arial just doesn’t seem to be quite right, it’s a few degrees off!  Time for cable?
• My Windows Home Server is using a bit too much power, 40kwh in standby – that needs to come down.

Technorati Tags: y-cam,media center

For a while now I’ve been looking at some home monitoring systems and how I can best integrate them into my digital experience.  Previously I’ve used Yawcam with some pretty great results but currently I’m trying to reduce my carbon foot print and I want to make everything that has to run as low power consumption a possible.  For that reason I really wanted an IP Webcam that didn’t need a PC powered on all the time.

Having done loads of looking about the only really good thing I could find was from Y-CAM.  It’s now been delivered and it’s installed.  I picked the Y-CAM Black and bought from ebuyer, since it was about £30 cheaper than everywhere else.

Having installed it, at first it really wasn’t a great experience, it didn’t like my router and it brought down the whole network…I’ve done a firmware update now and all seems to work well.  Very well.

This camera sees really well in the dark with its knight vision, and the management software is pretty good.  Actually it’s a breeze to setup.  It can do motion alerts to email, which again was simple to setup and allows me to select 4 regions of the picture to watch for motion.

Two I need to work through at the moment:

• I need to setup FTP publishing to somewhere so that I can view the camera at work since I can’t see the active X control
• I need to get an app for my WinMo phone that allows me to view mp4 encoded RTSP…unfortunately HTC Streaming media won’t cut it.

Finally I’ve also emailed the manufacturer to find out if they have an API, so that I can develop something to easily arm the motion detection.

Tonight I’ve had a bit of a geekout and got two really cool things done.  Both are on my Windows Mobile.  Firstly I’ve just installed Manilla 2D from XDA_Team over at XDA Developers.  Its superb, it’s an amazingly good home screen for Windows mobile,

just like you get on the new Diamond devices, it look amazing, everything scrolls beautifully.  The weather is a big improvement, the browser integration with Opera is great and the settings screen is good too.  The best thing is the cool blue colour though.

The other thing I did was to setup the RC of the Media Center SideShow gadget.  That involved putting some sideshow software onto my Windows Mobile phone too.  The install was simple enough, but a gotcha was doing it using RDP, it threw a dialogue up on my sesson 0 (yes I know that Vista doesn’t really have one but its a nice way to describe it) which was on my TV.  The RC is available on Connect, but I’ve not read the agreement enough to know what can be talked about at the moment…..A good night of Geeking!

Finally I’m launching TwitterMyFlickr, it’s a neat little app that posts a picture to Flickr and Links to it on Twitter.  Give it a go!

I wrote this app because I like to share on Flickr and on Twitter and it was fun.  The really tricky stuff is done using the FlickrNet API. 

Obviously there is AppToDate Support.

Let me know what you think, comment on the TwitterMyFlickr page.

I’ve been re-writing HelloTwitFace for some time, to include some cool new features and to redesign the interface and make it less messy.  One of the things I’ve been really keen to introduce, because I want to use it (that’s why I develop this app by the way) is the ability to post pictures. 

To test the functionality I will soon be releasing the fist of these applications as a preview of what will become integrated into HelloTwitFace.  If you want to be notified of the release as soon as it’s available simply subscribe to the RSS feed or follow me on twitter.

When I was in the states a few weeks ago I picked up the new Jawbone from an At&T store.  A small sleek black unit, with hidden buttons, leather bound ear loop and the killer feature “Noise Assassin” technology.  Well I’ve been using this device for lots of phone calls, from both my BlackBerry pearl and my T-Mobile Touch Plus (HTC Touch Dual) and I’m now ready to talk about using the device on a day to day basis.

You can read the full review at Mobile Tech Addicts…

I’ve just posted the following article on MobileTechAddicts 

Vito software, a Russian mobile software development house has recently updated to of their applications SMS-Chat and Fun Contact.  Both applications make SMS and Contacts on your Windows Mobile device far more finger friendly.  I’ve been using them every day for a while and after the jump you’ll find some more details on these excellent applications, available for sub £10 each.

Click here to go to the full post

For the past week I’ve been toiling away on integrating Summize into HelloTwitFace.  Summize replaces TweetScan as HelloTwitFace’s replies and search tabs.  This was a challenge as I’d already built in RSS reading capabilities to read the TweetScan results, but Summize works with ATOM.  I did some diggining and finally got it working…and I have the start of a Summize .NET API.

I think this is the first Windows Mobile app out there to include Summize capabilities.  Summize rocks by the way, it is SUPER FAST!

Deets on how to use what’s new after the jump.

So how do those new features work then?  Simple, you click on “@” to see all replies sent to you, including those that just mention you with an “@” in there and thoser replies that come back when people have responded to many people at once.

Search is simple too, click the “Summize” tab and enter the search criteria.  All your searches are cached locally on your device.  Note not the actual results but the search criteria, I did that ‘cos like the rest of the app, I find it useful.

The final change is also one that’s under the hood, but it won’t crash now when TweetScan goes down.

Final comment, when you download me, follow me, @simonster , on twitter.  I release HelloTwitFace about 24 to 48 hours in advance on twitter and to AppToDate users.

[EDIT: Linked it up

]

A few sources are today talking about facebook opening up their chat application to jabber capable clients. I’ve talked about this before and I can see this being the killer thing for the fb chat platform, which to be fair has been lack luster in its growth.

I see this as being a kin to to twitter opening their api, just like most tweets come from other app’s that’s what will happen to the fb chat platform.

Notice that I’m calling it a chat platform.

Opening it up in this way is going to encourage some really cool app developers to come out with cool things! On the mobile front apps like palringo are gonna sky rocket in their use, any kind me identity aggregation will take off with high use of the elements the combine. The very widespread and diverse user case of fb will lead up to more people chatting. I think we will also see some asynchronous methods me using fb chat popping up, like sms to chat services.

This space is gonna get very cool, very quick, mark my words!

Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile

Via: Paul’s blog, techcrunch

Over the weekend I had some time to catch up and found that PointUI has been updated to version 2.5 and with that it’s seen quite a major overhaul of the UI.  It now looks kinda WinMo 7 ish in a way.  They’ve split the Applications button and built in a really pretty contacts manager.  This has always been one of my favourites since it came out but I’d recommend this to anyone looking to make their WinMo device more friendly.

In other news HTC are due to announce their “Manilla” or “Touchflo 2″ interface today, so we’ll see how that pans out.

Ok. That caught me out. I think twitter updated their xml format on Tuesday. On Wednesday hellotwitface stopped working, it wasn’t immediately obvious but they added an extra tag inbefore the user tags on the friends timeline.

It’s now fixed and an update is available through apptodate.

I’ve also included a sneak peak at the next release, with is using http://tweetscan.com to fine all your replies. hellotwitface is moving into a phase me becoming a mobile mashup for twitter and related services.

If there’s a feature you’d like comment on this post!

Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile

It’s taken me a couple of weeks but here is version 2.0 of HelloTwitFace!

This was quite a major update, the main portion of which was moving away from using m.twitter.com to using the API and the great new tweets display that includes the image of the person twittering.  There’s what’s new:

• Nice twitter interface
• New De-Scobleizer tab – the ability to move one of your contacts into a separate tab
• New Icon 
• Automatic refresh at user set interval up to 10 minutes

Go get it from here!

Another hard night of geeking out and I’m almost there. There are a few ui changes to make and I still have to work out how to create a cab that doesn’t overwrite all files but its getting there.

The new version has a nice new twitter tab.

Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile

This weekend was purposed to see the launch of some additional features in hellotwitface , unfortunately that wasn’t to be. The reason, the resulting 37mb cab file!

It was that big because I used an API I found on the net to do the twitter stuff. to get pound that I started to write my own code to interact with the twitter api.

Hopefully then a release is imminent. I’ll be staying with hellotxt for posting, and I have some more stuff. o do before I move the facebook tab to Api.

Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile

I said I’d write this up eventually, well after using the device for a while about my experience with it.  I could do it in two words, but that would be a short post, “Really Great!”.  To put it simply this is the best Windows Mobile I’ve ever used, better than the Hermes – and that’s saying something!

Lets start with the form factor of the device.  It’s a slider, like lots of other mobiles these days, and that’s probably one of the reasons it’s such a good phone.  Now I’m using Slide Actions it really works like a slide phone.  If I slide up the screen it will unlock s2u2, if I slide down it locks the screen with s2u2.  If it’s ringing and I slide it up, which I actually do much more than use the answer button, it answers the call.  Similarly if I slide it closed when in a call it hangs up.  I find I actually never use the call and end buttons.  The next fantastic thing about the form factor is the “proper” phone key-pad, by proper I mean it’s a 12 key keyboard just like most phones.  Why are these two things the most important thing about this phone for me?  Because I can now use this just like a phone, like everyone else.  It’s also great because it’s slick and thin and soft and rubbery in the hand.

Next, it’s the interface.  T-Mobile, who I’m still really impressed with, haven’t over customised the interface.  It’s fast and responsive and the touch cube is a great replacement for most of the physical buttons.  I find it works best if I just use the small area over the T-Mobile logo to start it.  I also find the D-Pad really nice to use, just like the keyboard it’s fast and responsive.

With all the mod’s I’ve made I don’t have to use the stylus all that much, but that again is a good little tool, it’s nice and solid and feels nice to hold too.

The camera suffers from the normal rubbish lens, but it’s a convenient little snapper and the newer software, version 5 of camera, is really good.  Out of the box the finger friendly Camera Album is really cool too – often makes people I show it to go “ooooh”.

All in all, this is really the best phone I’ve had for about 3 years now.

One of my favourite shops for gadgets in England is a chain called Pound Land!  They’re really great at bringing in some basic technology really cheaply, actually for £1 gbp!

Previously I’ve bought a USB hub, a retracting USB cable with multiple phone adapters for charging, Cat5 cables and other stuff.  On Monday I picked up a USB to cigarette converter for charging anything USB in the car – actually this was a second one of these, they are just so useful when I saw they had them back in I had to get one.  I also bought a second retractable USB cable, not for the cable but for an adapter.  A micro USB to normal USB adapter.

Two quid well spent !

I’m planning on updating HelloTwitFace at the weekend, probably late on Saturday with new feature I’ve been working on.  I’m going to move the twitter tab away from simply using http://m.twitter.com to using the twitteroo 1.4 API to build my own twitter stream.  I’m planning on including an interesting feature in that too.  The option to keep the mobile page will be there still too.

For now, as they’ve been requested and I need to upload them, here are two screenshots.

I’ve just spent this evening on a bit of a GeekOut quest.  I’ve just put the finishing touches on HelloTwitFace.  It’s a really simple app that combines three of my favourite mobile sites, hellotxt, twitter and facebook.

I think this is the first app to include hellotxt in any way, let me know on that one.

It’s a very simple Windows Mobile app that draws the mobile versions of the above into a tabbed environment and uses hellotxt to do the updates.  I’ve been using it for a week and it seems to work really well.  I’ve also built in MoDaCo AppToDate support and it works just great!

Now to tell people about it!  Oh and sorry about the rubbish Icon!

It’s quite interesting watching the various feeds and streams of news on the Internet, I’m getting quite good at things now and have started to notice a definite reporting curve.  One source I watch is Channel10, a Microsoft channel for enthusiasts.  These guys are “on the tail”, they wait a few days and help to continue to generate buzz.

They’ve published their “top” (or all 10?) new features of WinMo 6.1 just here.  My favourite is:

3. Threaded SMS – threaded text messages make it easy to follow the conversation

By the way, channel10 is one for your TVtonic or BigScreen headlines subscription, their videos are great.  I got into them with their CES coverage.

Well CTIA has kicked off and msmobiles are reporting that lots of devices have Windows Mobile 6.1 installed, that’s in line with what I heard about the launch dates.  There is a full review of WinMo 6.1 here.  The interesting thing is having played with it it is important…hopefully the carriers won’t be far off in releasing ROM updates.  It’s important because it adds the functionality required to make System Center Mobile Device Manager work.  For enterprises this functionality is a killer feature. 

From a usability viewpoint there is threaded SMS in 6.1 and PocketIE (PIE) can zoom out, so it’s better for big pages.  And some phone and security enhancements.

Also at CTIA there is news, and this could be a hoax given the date, that Nokia are going to produce a WinMo device – I’d like to see that.

One final note for the day, I agree with Jason on this, we shouldn’t be able to use mobile phones at 30,000 feet….Data would be nice though…but some would probably say getting there with your bags would be nicer!

Finally after 18 months with Orange and my Hermes I’ve moved on.  I’ve picked up a touch Dual, a.k.a Niki, a.k.a Touch Plus.  I’ve also moved to T-Mobile to get the best value package, after 5 years with Orange.  I have to say T-Mobile customer services have been superior in every way so far.

So the first thing I do when I get a new device is get it set up right.  That means getting extra software on to it to make it work just right.  The two best places for that are Modaco and XDA-Developers.

More detail after the jump.

What have loaded so far?  The obvious one is TomTom, but that’s a given really.  This what’s on there so far:

lokemup IE Slow Scroll Fix – by default IE on the phone doesn’t scroll at all right

Schap’s RSS Hub – Great software, I use this to download podcasts on the go

M&M wait cursor skin – makes the wait cursor look nice and slick

inigma barcode reader – reads barcodes, like the logo for this site

PPCSoft psShutXP – Nice on screen way to shutdown the phone

Oxios Memory – Lets you reclaim memory from leaky apps.

Gmobile Sync – lets me sync my calendar to my google cal

moBlog – nice little mobile blogging tool

FindMe – Updates my Facebook status with locations that I’ve told it about

Google Maps and Search – rather obvious

Windows Live – to sync my hotmail and to use messenger

Ionwerks SlideActions – now this one is fantastic, it adds actions to the slide action – something that should have been there in the first place, now I can hang up by sliding close and lock by sliding closed.

Q Inbox Extender – Adds “mark all as read” and “Delete all” options to mail boxes

Modaco Touch Dual “a” to “c” fix – fixes a really annoying bug, the XT9 keeps defaulting to c instead of the far more useful a, so you get sentences like “I would like to see c movie”!!!

TCPMP – Great media player for the phone

s2u2 by A_C – great locking software, makes it look like an iPhone in that respect – he’s got a great new project s2p, slide to play – looks great, won’t work on the Dual yet.

PointUi – Great UI!

So far I’m loving the phone, it’s actually a phone!  I’ll post a usability review in about a week.

Ok, so this is going to be a short one, but I’ve got a new phone.  It’s T-Mobile Touch Plus, aka the Touch Dual, aka the HTC Niki.

So far I’ve installed the usual bits on it and some fixes, I’ll post a whole load more detail when I have some time.  Busy weekend.

I’ve posted in the past about what’s on my phone, what’s on my Media Center, and what my Media Center hardware is.  In the same theme this post is about the killer web services that I use. 

First up I should explain how I use these services, firstly I’m very mobile, typically I don’t do two days running in the same office and I’m all over the country and I travel by train…you might see frustration in my twitter or my FB status.  Every day I use a personal laptop, a work laptop, my personal Hermes phone and my work BlackBerry Pearl.  I need my stuff to stay in sync.

Google Reader (Greader) – this is a great online reader, I use it to aggregate all my RSS.  I can access it from every device it’s totally web based and always in sync.  Why don’t I use something like News Gator?  Simple I can’t install it on my work laptop or BlackBerry.  The items I share in Google Reader appear in my FriendFeed and my Shared items.

FaceBook – rather obviously it’s a brilliant social site.  I update my status regularly and automatically with FBMCE and with FindMe and using the mobile version of the site.  When I finally get a code for HelloTxt that will be brill, I’ll be able to update my twitter status too, making HelloTxt a killer app…especially with an API!

National Rail Enquiries Wap Site – Lame I know, but the wap site is the most useful thing that National Rail do.

del.icio.us – Great social bookmarking, took me a while to get into it but now I use it exclusively and can see friends and colleagues bookmarks too.  Tagging makes it semantic and yes it’s part of my FriendFeed and you can find my shared bookmarks.

Google Browser Sync and Foxmarks- I use Firefox 2 for all my browsing and wherever I am, my Firefox stays in sync.  I use Firefox as a portable app too.  Foxmarks also keeps things in sync, but normally I use del.icio.us for bookmarks.

WordPress – That’s where you’re reading this.  I moved here from Live Spaces because it’s more flexible.  I get quite a few hits from the WordPress community, and WordPress tags.  I use the mobile version to view my stats and occasionally to post from my phones.  I have two blogs, this one and one for my house renovation.

Sharp Cast – I currently use Sharp Cast to hold all my photo’s, I moved there from Picasa, it’s great ‘cos it just keeps things in sync.  I think I’m going to move away though because I like idea of the Windows Live Gallery and Flikr hookups and because Flikr is much more customisable and semantic than Sharp Cast.

iGoogle – My homepage is iGoogle, I tried Live but I just prefer iGoogle.  I have a number of gadgets, including my stock portfolio (not as grand as it sounds) my scheduled recordings on Media Center,  my Gmail,  and Google Reader.  I’ve just added the FriendFeed gadget too.  What I really love, and what really suits my mobility is the PDA version, here I have BBC news, stock quotes and Google Reader items all in one place.

Hotmail – Obvious to all, but using Windows Live Mobile it sync’s with my Hermes.

I think that’s about it for now, but speaking of mobility, I’m currently on a train, writing this on Windows Live Writer packaged as a portable app, writing off line, and I’ll have to setup the vast array of links later.

A number of announcements came out of FaceBook yesterday, one of the most interesting is FaceBook chat.  They will be placing a chat window at the bottom of your browser and you’ll be able to chat with anyone online, and I guess we’ll be able to send messages to those who aren’t through it too.

Given the FaceBook platform I’m tipping this to be one of the most developed apps on FB in the coming months.  I can really see this functionality coming to Fring or Palringo very quickly and that’s really cool!  Not many of my friends sign on to Live Messenger that often, but about half of my friends on FB are active, so I’ll be able to contact them more…and them me.  We’re obviously going to see lots of desktop clients too.  FB have 67 Million active users, that’s huge, this is going to be huge.

Also announced, better privacy based on social proximity (i.e. friends, friends of friends, randoms etc.).  Chat is coming in two weeks.  [via inside facebook]

It’s fair to say there are a number of projects I want to do ggua year and I intend to post about each of them as I do them.

cctv: I want to be able to remotely monitor the house while we are away from home. By that I mean being able to monitor the front door and have it capture the face of all visitors. I also want it to alert on approach to the house.

Media Center setup: I want to change the setup so that the current MC box becommes a WHS box. We’ll buy a new PC which will becomme the media center. In the master bedroom I want to have a v2 extender, or possibly an X360. In the kitchen I want a squeezebox to pull music down from the WHS.

The Phone: I’m currently thinking about upgrading to the Touch Plus on T-mobile, unless Orange an beat the deal! I’ll be moving to a normal data package, so I’ll be able to use it to blog during the day, to check the home cctv and setup and anything else good.

Home automation: I want the lounge to be on IR remote control from the Harmony remote. I want the rest of the house to be on HomeEasy and for all that gear to be controlled by the Media Center! Need to work out a way to control the loung on that…perhaps I should re think the IR control in the lounge?

Security: I want an alarm for the house that notifies us about all sorts of household alerts, doors / windows left open, smoke, motion etc. I also want some of the house lights to turn on on approach to the house.

I think thats all the tech projects covered…they may be changed a little with our trip to Seattle in May.

Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile

There have been a number of blogs out there, including this one – which by the way is excellent – talking about the fall of WinMo becuase of the iPhone’s SDK release and the fact that MS have licensed the ActiveSync protocol to Apple.

I really need to say something about this.

What these posts all seem to have missed is that WinMo is mainly targeted at the enterprise customer. Enterprise customers have hundreds of devices to manage…who want’s to manage hundreds of iPhones with no management software? No over the air activation? No policy enforcement? Your top exec running an iPhone, and not being able to fix his issues when your in England and he’s in Dubai?

Have a look at http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/mobile/default.mspx management is what REALLY maters to big Enterprise. Jason Langridge intrduced me to this at the last MMUG meeting.

Just spotted this courtesy of PocketPC Freeware

There are lots of these launchers, UI’s, locking and contacts tools sprouting up at the moment. I like the look of this one, FreeStylWM.com . There’s a nice soap box vid talking all about it. Looks good but for now I’ll be sticking with PointUI for now.

Here is a list of my favorite apps on my WinMo phone.  Thought it would be useful and was sparked off from what Jason Langridge said about Communicator (as in OCS) being the first thing he always loads.

PointUI - I love this, it totally takes over the device and makes it very finger friendly.
TCMP – I don’t use CorePlayer, mainly because I’m tight, but this works perfectly.
HTC Audio Manager – Much friendlier on the fingers than MediaPlayer
TomTom 6 – I’ve tried other stuff but this is my current favorite SatNav
CMP - Comm manager pro, this does location based profile switching – I bought it
S2u2 – Really nice locker app
moBlog – Great application for blogging on the go!
FTouchFlo – TouchFlo for devices like mine that don’t have it.

I’ve also installed countless little fixes from my two favorite and probably the best WinMo sites, www.modaco.com and www.xda-developers.com

Well its installed on my device and its immediatley picked up a free mapped hotspot on my street. Somehow I doubt thats a real one. My guess is that it works off of the name of the spot and its been insatlled with the default name.

I’ll try this properly tomorrow…with a real free public hotspot very near my house.

Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile

Wow, this looks rather cool.  I was just bouncing around www.mashable.com and found this new tool.  WeFi it looks quite similar to Navizion but it’s got a social aspect to it too and they’re going to be doing a Facebook app.  It seems to be that you pickup the spot with your laptop or mobile device then select the location using a Google Maps interface. 

I’ve just downloaded the CAB so we’ll have to see what it does…

Wefi

I want this really badly.  I moved over to WinMo from a series of SE phones, and I have to say the only real reason I remember for doing that was that the joy stick was rubbish on the thing I had.  That was years ago and this looks like it could be the sexiest device ever for WinMo…

Sony Ericsson To Offer Windows Mobile Device? – Pocket PC Addict Forums

Just a quick test from the excellent moblog to check that its working. If it is it might be time to let blogging get regular…

Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile