PDA

I’m really liking the idea of this (if not the price!)

A projector for the HTC Touch Pro, it plugs straight into the TV-Out socket and you can be viewing photo’s or presentation anywhere!

Now if I could just work out how to convert video onto there I might not be debating an Archos 5 or Archos 7!

I think I’ve found the perfect phone from me, The HTC Touch Pro (which I talked about a while back) looks like it does everything I want or need! Take a look at it here:

HTC Touch Pro

But I have a minor problem, Orange aren’t being forthcoming in offering it Whilst on it’s own this isn’t unusual, they are generally last to market with new handsets after they’ve Orange Simplified (read “rebranded and Orange Software’d”) it, the mixed messages that I’m getting from Orange ARE unusual.

• On a recent shopping trip I popped into the Orange Shop at Cabot Circus, and whilst my wife was looking at handsets I asked once of the loitering assistants if there was any news on the Touch Pro?
  A couple of weeks I was assured, pop in here then!

  Great, I thought – I still hadn’t even seen one in the flesh, but looking at the feature list I’d be daft not to go to it!

• I rang Orange Business Support the following week, who did a quick search for me… No nothing of that name on the system… hmmm… No news is good news right, it’s still in test probably?
• On Saturday I popped into Vodafone, and just picked up the fake plastic version to show it to Emma – who immediately said “That’s the phone for you”.So I ring Orange Business Support again… “No we have no phone by that name”, great ok – no news is still good news right? “I’ll just do a search for you, no can’t see a Touch Pro – the Touch HD and S740 are coming soon if that means anything to you?”.

It does mean something, it means they’re releasing later handsets and might possibly skip the Touch Pro altogether

• The HTC Touch HD has a better screen, but no keyboard I believe?
• The HTC S740 is a candybar phone *with* a slide out keyboard, but not a big enough screen to warrant it in my opinion!

So it’s:

1. Wait it out on Orange – I’ve been with them a long time, have multiple handsets with them and know the system!
2. Switch to Vodafone – Port my number, not sure about getting the whole account over there!
3. Buy it off conract/SIM free for circa £500 – but then any faults and it won’t be back to the network!

I simply can’t decide!!

At least I’m not the only one looking for this handset (see below) maybe if we make enough noise we’ll get noticed?

• MobileTechAddicts – See Joshua White’s comment that this will not be released.
• CoolSmartPhone (and forum) -Appears to rumour it’s still coming… But Joshua White (I assume) again says no to the pro!
• XDA Developers
• Expansys – Someone appears to be getting mixed messages as well!

Update 28/10/08:

I dropped Orange Business Support a mail after writing this post, and whilst it appears the HTC Touch HD is now available on Orange (or coming soon – November), Business Support still aren’t officially saying so – see below:

Our information is that the HD and the S740 are under review, but we have no
information at all regarding the Touch Pro.

Even handsets that are listed as “coming soon” can be pulled at the last
minute so, personally, I wouldn’t hold out for a handset that isn’t even at
that stage yet.

Sorry we can’t be more specific.

Fortunately, I may have found one….. I’ll update you soon

The Blackberry has dominated the business world for some years now, as the number one push email system for enterprise users.

But it seems that reign might just be coming to an end as HSBC becomes one of the first to switch to the iPhone for 200,000 of their staff!

[via omio]

Shadowheart psp

photo credit: elisfanclub

Catch and Release divx

Major Payne

I’ve always had problems with data entry on my Pocket PC.

Not problems as such, I just find the stylus cumbersome sometimes, and don’t really want a device with a full keyboard (my next handset was going to be the HTC Touch Diamond, until I read about the HTC Touch Pro yesterday on CoolSmartPhone.com).

I want a couple of input methods really:

• Stylus / Writing – I find the Block Recogniser quite adequate for this.
• One handed – Something I can type with one handed whilst walking down the street.
• Full on – A keyboard when I’ve got a whole page of data to write and can just hammer away at it.

I tried ThumbKey last week, I haven’t really got to grips with it – but the same as any new input method it requires:

• Time
• Patience
• More patience
• A willingness to make mistakes
• More patience

Does anyone recommend any input method for their Pocket PC?

photo credit: billjacobus1 buy Last Hour

I love my phone, it does everything I want it to, meaning I can run the business, play games and even find where I am when I’m lost with TomTom. I do however have a few annoyances so have gone on the hunt for fixes or software that will help me with those.

The first annoyance is that the phone always vibrates when it sends an SMS. It probably makes a noise as well if you have the sound on (but I don’t normally have sound on), after a quick scan on The XDA-Developers Forum, where Tinity Hacks is suggested, a great little tool with allsorts of little extra’s that saves you going into the registry to play with them!

Backups, I’m on a bit of a backups binge at the minute both at work and at home – PPC PIM Backup
can backup your SMS as well (a failing of most phones now solved!).

MyMobiler, I’ve been looking for something that means I can control my PDA from my desktop for a long while, all the old software I had for my SPV M2000 / HTC BlueAngel wouldn’t work. This didn’t initially – my first thoughts were – here we go again… After a little (read that as a lot!) of digging I found the way to get it working was this:
Start -> Settings -> Connections -> USB to PC, if you have enabled advanced network functionality then untick the box!

I installed SPB Keyboard a while back on a trial – didn’t get on with it as well as I’d hoped and deleted it, but ever since I’ve not been able to set a new keyboard other than the built in ones! I quite liked the look of one of the skinnable ones in this thread – so installed HappyTappingKeyboard and still it didn’t work. So reading through this mile long thread I found out for WM5 I might need IM Selector (also to be found deep in the depths of this thread), this seemed to solve the problem and I can get a different keyboard now! Now I need to find a skin I like!

When I get more time I’ll explore some more apps!

Those of you who spend enough time with me by now will know that I’m a bit of a fan of Mozilla and in particular like most of the world at the moment – Firefox.

I’d love to switch to all Mozilla products, but until now have been unable to do so… Why I hear you ask?

The answer is simple, my PDA – admittedly I don’t use it as much as I should – maybe I would if it was a little more stable, it’s certainly more stable since I upgraded the ROM on it to WM5. Apparently there are even faster ROMs out there now I may download one later today (when I’ve charged the damned thing up due to lack of use!).

I need my documents and my contacts to be able to sync with the PDA, now I’m going to make the challenge just a little bit harder, it needs to sync with Outlook at work and Mozilla at home (alright, I’ll accept Mozilla at both ends if needs be!).

Looks like FinchSync may be the way forward (at least from a tasks/contacts/calendar point of view)?