Everything you wanted to know about Windows Phone 7
February 18th, 2010
Matt Coddington
Here is a great writeup from Engadget, which summarizes just about everything known about Windows Phone 7 at this point in time.
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February 18th, 2010
Matt Coddington
Here is a great writeup from Engadget, which summarizes just about everything known about Windows Phone 7 at this point in time.
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February 15th, 2010
Matt Coddington
You know it’s a significant software change when you go from version 3.5 right to version 5.x!
Unlike all the previous versions of SPB Mobile Shell available exclusively for Windows Mobile smartphones with touchscreens, version 5.0 is to be released for Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian. Thanks to the new portable SPB UI Engine, SPB Mobile Shell is planned to be spread to more mobile platforms.
Major updates to the new version include a new 3D engine and an improved social networking integration. The former means support for new types of eye candy effects such as 3D Media Player, 3D Photo Viewer, 3D Weather, dynamic 3D widgets and more, while the latter involves message, contacts, photo and status sync with popular services, namely Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
One important innovation in SPB Mobile Shell 5.0 is the Natural Interaction Engine which includes support for G-sensor and multitouch, a dedicated Feedback Engine providing realistic visual and haptic responses, and a Physics Engine responsible for the real-world behavior of all objects.
Can’t wait to see it!
February 12th, 2010
Matt Coddington
I really love the Skyfire browser. The browser itself gets an “A”.
But Skyfire’s registration process for the browser gets a big fat “F” in my book.
Ever since I first tried Skyfire a few years ago, I have had horrible experiences with trying to stay registered. Perhaps that is due to the frequent change of devices I have had, but still, I should be able to correct the problem without much trouble. I have even registered with various email addresses in the past, and when trying to reset the password for any of them, it just does not work.
I attempted to log in with my Gmail account, and it said I had the incorrect password (which I had recorded in my Spb Wallet). From the browser, I chose “Reset My Password” and received the usual reset email:
I then was taken to Skyfire browser and entered in a new password:
And here we go again - “Your account is currently unavailable”.
In an attempt to get to the bottom of this, I went to their forum, and get the following message:
Important: Only Skyfire users can post to these forums. To start using Skyfire, go to the Get Skyfire page. Establish a Skyfire account from the Skyfire Start Page. Use the username and password to sign in to the forums.
So, I can’t get to the forum to ask a question about my account because I need access to my account to access the forum! Incredible! And emails to support have gone unanswered, which in a way, I can totally understand, because email can be overwhelming.
UPDATE: I received a response, acknowledging there is an issue: “The ops team is currently looking into some problems such as you describe: users are unable to properly reset their passwords and access their accounts.”
That’s a start. Thing is, I’ve experienced this very thing with Skyfire for years. They need to resolve this issue which apparently keeps rearing it’s ugly head…
February 12th, 2010
Matt Coddington
Slacker is finally coming to Windows phones - sort of. There is a CAB file available for download at XDA-Developers (scan the Microsoft Tag below to get the CAB file directly to your device), and yesterday, people were elated to have Slacker working on their Windows phones. By evening, people were seeing an “Oops” error screen (including me), and the app won’t play at all.
Hopefully this will be resolved soon - heck, Slacker hasn’t even acknowledged that the app (which is supposed to be the real McCoy from Slacker) is available on their site! They might be waiting for next week to officially announce it at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, particularly since it’s anticipated to be a HUGE event for Windows phone announcements!

Scan the Microsoft Tag to automatically download the CAB file. Hopefully it will be working soon!

February 10th, 2010
Matt Coddington
The internets are a-buzz about Google Buzz! Buzz shows that Google is very serious about social media, and is going for the juggler with Facebook and Twitter. If you have Gmail, you will see a link to Buzz show up just beneath Inbox. If you don’t see it, expect it to show up soon.
There is an app for the iPhone and Android (available by going to Buzz.Google.com) and soon, for Windows phones, Symbian and Blackberry devices. In the meanwhile, Google Maps for Windows phones has been updated to version 4.0 and now contains a Buzz layer.

When you Buzz from your desktop PC, you have the option of choosing if the update will be available to the public or just to select people in your contacts. It appears that is not an option if you Buzz via Google Maps. I’ll bet the app on the iPhone and Android has a lot more such capabilities, including the ability to post images.
In the few minutes I have been playing with the Buzz layer, it quickly became obvious that I could see Buzzes of all sorts around the city! Check it out - this is just a random guy Buzzing out in the East End!

Here is the detail of his Buzz:

This has literally just come out of the gate, so expect to see and hear a lot more about this latest Google release!
February 9th, 2010
JohnBecker
Do you enjoy flashing your Windows Phones with updated ROMs? If so, I’m sure you’ve experienced the need to reinstall all of your applications and setting up the device the way you want it. Ugh! It’s a time-consuming experience and most of us don’t want to go through the headaches. There are helpful tools out there to lessen the pain and make it much easier to handle.
Some of the ROM developers are using UC, which stands for User Customization. All of the cellular providers use that tool built into the system to install their customizing software, so why can’t you? What it does is automatically install some of the applications onto the device when it’s been hard reset. I have used it in the past, but it had some limitations. I had to write scripts to copy files where I wanted them put and it wasn’t easy. I then checked out Sashimi.
February 6th, 2010
Matt Coddington
This article was written by Mighty Mike, creator of the MightyROM’s. He posted it over at PPC Geeks earlier today. To all those naysayers who think Windows phones are fading away, I’ll borrow from a great Monty Python quote:
With the Mobile World Congress event making its way around the corner, we can all be for certain that it is inevitable for Windows Phone 7 to make its long-awaited debut. That being said, there have been rumours floating about on what Windows Phone 7 might actually be? For months, almost a year, we have seen images being leaked all over the interwebs and although we can all admit we were quite excited, the chances of it looking so or even being real for that matter were highly unlikely. Wait no more! PPCGeeks has some truly amazing information on what the Windows Phone 7 platform will deliver to our beloved handheld devices. All information detailed within may not be entirely official, although it is definitely the closest information we have heard on actually being real. Without wasting anymore time, lets jump into the nitty gritty.
There is a plethora of details to go through, although listed above are the biggest impact points of Windows Phone 7.This is a lot of information to consume in one shot and there could very well be the possibility of it being once again another rumor, although one thing stands true. This is the most detailed promising information we’ve seen to date in a while. We will continue to update you as we find out more information.
January 27th, 2010
Matt Coddington
Resco has been hard at work tweaking and improving their popular app Explorer.
Changes they’ve made in the 2010 version have been influenced mainly by their last big project, Resco Photo Manager. They’ve enriched Explorer with a bunch of ways to upload images to places like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Picasa & Photobucket. They’ve also added a thumbnail view mode, so you can easily find the exact image you’re looking for (the thumbnail loading is faster if you install both Explorer and Photo Manager). There is also an enhanced list of supported image formats.
List of Main New Features in Explorer 2010:

Get it here
