TuneWiki for BlackBerry

I’ve had enough of iPhone this and iPhone that.  Let’s talk cool apps for your BlackBerry, shall we?  Gear Diary reported that TuneWiki is available for the BlackBerry.  What is TuneWiki?  It’s a website that plays music of your choice and displays lyrics.  It’s a community forum.  It displays maps that show what other users are listening to.  It may still be a beta, but it’s pretty darn cool!  Now they have an app available in the BlackBerry App Store (yes, we have one too).  It’s a free download, but you can upgrade to the Pro version for $4.99.  Supposedly the free version is ad-supported, but I didn’t see any.  So let’s give it a quick walk through…

App of the Day: Copy and Paste Made Way, Way Better!

A couple days ago I presented a software program called, CopyPaste Tool, a utility that allows you to copy multiple clips of information before pasting.  I liked it, but it had some issues.  As you know, the Windows Clipboard only allows you to copy one item at a time.  If you find yourself copying then pasting over and over, then a program like CopyPaste Tool or the new one I will present, will allow you to copy many items before pasting.

Clipomatic is a free, and excellent copy and paste utility.  It blows away CopyPaste Tool.  How?  check it out.

App of the Day: Copy and Paste Made Better

Don’t you often find yourself going back and forth, copying things from two or more sources to paste them into one?  My work database is separate from my contacts database, so I have to copy the name, then paste it into my contacts database, then copy the address, then the zip, and phone numbers.  It’s time consuming and tedious.  But I found a cool, free software that will change all that!

Pocket Informant for Blackberry V. Agendus for Blackberry

PI icon top right, Agendus icon middle right

I recently received a Blackberry 8350i for work, and like Windows Mobile, the built in Contact Manager is inadequate.  There are separate modules for each function.  If you want to make an appointment you must open the calendar.  To view contacts you must open contacts.  These two suites I am reviewing combine all the functions into one program.  Open a contact and you can make an appointment, send an email, assign a task and so on.  So I am putting both Pocket Informant  for Blackberry v1.6 and Agendus for Blackberry v1.21 through a rigorous testing process.  Both have features that enhance contact management, though they go about it in very different ways.  And both versions are relatively new and will likely see enhancements and improvements in the months to come.

Agendus uses the built in databases to perform its duties.  Pocket Informant (PI) feels that the built in databases are too limiting, thus they have their own databases.  There are many other differences as well.  I will attempt to illustrate them in this head to head comparison.

Supercharge Your Outlook with Agendus for Outlook v5.41

I’ve had a Windows Mobile device since 2000.  But recently my work gave me a Blackberry 8350i to replace my aging Nextel phone.  I had the opportunity to reduce my load from two devices to one.  I had to make a lot of changes in order to accomplish my goals of continuing to carry my important business information and integrating the Blackberry into my business routine.  One big switch I made was moving from Act! Contact Manager to Outlook.  I suppose I could’ve kept Act! if I used the excellent CompanionLink software to sync my device, but I want a more direct solution.

Outlook excels at email, but is not a great contact manager.  Act! is a great contact manager but does not excel at email.  Hmmmm.  If I downloaded the Business Contact Manager for Outlook add-on, I’d have to use CompanionLink, so I felt stuck.  That is, until I demo’d Agendus for Outlook.

Windows Utilities You Need – 2 Apps of the Day

Last night I was trying to figure out what was taking up so much memory in my pocket pc and my laptop hard-drive.  I used Windows Explorer and searched through all the files and folders for the culprits.  But it was very tedious because folders don’t show their size in the Windows Explorer columns.  Check out the screen shot below:

Find my solution after the break.

Allocate Screen Space for Widgets Free

I love Widgets.  They are so cool.  Widgets are mini-programs that are always on your desktop and do handy things.  I have a calendar, To-Do list, weather and a few others.  Yahoo! even provides a dock to hold your widgets (see the right side of the screenshot above).  But unless you feel like resizing every window you have open, you won’t have easy access to your widgets.  You can choose the “always on top” option, but then you’ll cover up your other windows.  Bummer.  But today I think I found a solution that will let me have easy access to widgets while not impeding my open windows.

18 Months is a Lifetime

When I wrote the article, “Divergence and Death” last August, I said in regards to Windows Mobile (WM), “Windows Mobile is Dead.  Read on to find out why your next device will not have a Windows Mobile OS…It’s grown old.  And boring.  I’m thinking of kicking my excitement level up by taking up Bocce Ball or Bowling.  All the devices are the same.  They are no better than what we had four years ago.  They’re just getting bloated with compromised add-ons.”  ZDnet just did an interview with Andy Lees, Microsoft’s top WM guy, and he admitted, “We aimed to go for a lower common denominator…We started out when we were in PDAs (personal digital assistants) and then a phone got strapped to the back of the PDA,” Lees said. The company also failed to recognize that phones–even those that were used for business–were still as much personal as they were professional.”

There were 38 responses to that article, such as,

“Another anti-Windows Mobile rant. Why don’t you write about how cameras have not really changed in 10 years, or laptops? They still sell like hotcakes, much like Windows Mobile. 90% YoY growth is not to be sneezed at, and WM gained market share on Nokia in Europe recently.

People who have used WM for 10 years are understandably bored. They should really just move on without this traditional “slamming the door on the way out” rant.”

and

despite ANYTHING that is said here, WinMo is NOT, I repeat NOT dead or on life support. As I recall, this was a hardware based rant. Which, was right… I’m not certain why we are still using devices with speeds and capabilities we had 3+ years ago…

and on the opposite end,

“The big culprit here is the Windows Mobile OS with the lack of innovation and effort from Microsoft over the past several years. Honestly, the devices are good in terms of hardware but the core is lacking significantly.”

and this:

I’ve been having this conversation with Chris Gavula and the rest of the Team over at Gear Diary for more than a year. While this rant is right on when it comes to the hardware, in many cases, its not about can’t…its about don’t or won’t.

We had wildly divergent opinions to the article.  But the bottom line, at least to me, was that WM phones and PDAs made today are using the same hardware as almost five years ago, and WM looks like DOS next to next gen OS’s such as the iPhone, Symbian, BlackBerry, Android and the upcoming Palm Pre.  Is all hope lost?  Can Microsoft regain the confidence of users?  Andy Lees thinks so.  He said, “Microsoft embarked on a new strategy some time ago that will come to fruition over the next 18 months.”  Wow, 18 months is forever in the world of technology.  Time seems to have stopped for WM.  With incremental upgrades to the OS, Microsoft is making a half-assed effort at pleasing customers.  If they come out with an OS with a major WOW factor, if it’s not delayed, if it is not buggy, are you going to wait 18 months for it?  Are their competitors?  Apple has made significant improvements to the iPhone, RIM is cranking up the heat, Android is new and exciting and Palm really is putting forth a huge effort with the Pre.  I don’t see any of them falling to the wayside.  Chances are that over the next 18 months your cell contract will be up.  Will you pay hundreds of dollars for a WM device that is no better than what you have today or will you look at the competition?  I believe many people will think twice before going to the same old same old.  And once you change trains, it is that much harder for WM to win you back.  18 months can turn into a lifetime.

Source: ZDnet via Pocket PC Thoughts

DoInventory Software Review

There’s a plethora of list making software for Windows Mobile available, and DoInventory by WakefieldSoft is one such program.  What sets it apart from its competitors is the ability to filter out unwanted information to find what you are looking for.  Most other programs limit you to organizing your information by sorting one field.  Not so with DoInventory.  In addition, it’s highly customizable.  Let’s take a closer look.

Convert DVDs for the iPod for Free

There are many ways to convert DVDs for use on your iPod.  I will illustrate one of them here.  Download and install two software programs, DVD43 and Handbrake.  DVD43 runs in the background and decrypts, or removes copy protection, from the movie.  It works with Windows 2000, XP and Vista.

In the taskbar pictured above you can see the green smiling face on the left.  When a DVD is in your drive, the smiley face signifies that DVD43 is ready to work.  A yellow unhappy face (on the right) means there is no DVD in the drive.  You don’t have to do anything with this program after it’s installed.  It runs automatically.