Fennec - alpha 1 for Windows Mobile (Video Tour)

Walkthrough of the alpha 1 version of Fennec (Mobile Firefox) for Windows Mobile, running on an HTC Touch Pro. For more information on Fennec.

Fennec is Firefox for phones - will it succeed?

TechRadar UK reports: "Fennec has finally escaped into the wild. Mozilla's mobile browser is currently in beta for Nokia Internet tablets, with a beta for Windows Mobile due later this year. It looks gorgeous, but there's more to it than a nice interface."

I really hope that this browser will succeed where Mozilla's Minomo failed. The Windows Mobile platform, needs a good web browser. Skyfire browser is good, but is but slow and eventually will be fee based. The Opera mini browser is great, but is very bloated.

HTC Touch Pro - Getting Started Video

Personally I am excited about the HTC Touch Pro, this looks like the best Windows Mobile phone released so far. HTC continues to improve its TouchFLO 3D interface, its looks liked it borrowed some functionality from the iPhone. If you don't know about the HTC Touch Pro, here is some product information.

Here is a getting started video from HTC for the new Touch Pro (aka AT&T Fuze, and a few other re-branded variants from other carriers). Personally if I buy this one, I think I will spend the extra money and buy it from HTC, and not from the carrier. The carriers tend to remove functionality that I want, and installed a whole bunch of "crapware" that I don't want (and sometimes won't allow you to uninstall). Plus being locked into a two year contract is also unappealing to me.

Two major problems I see with the Fuze is AT&T removed the front video camera, and changed the 5th row of keys (HTC has numbers, and AT&T put symbols).

Mobile Standards Wars (The Next Generation)

In the 90's we saw the OS, browser, and a few other standards wars. Then in early 2000 we also saw the first generation cellular mobile browsers. In my humble opinion the early mobile browsers were horrible. They were glorified text browsers in some cases, but there was a lot of fanfare about it by companies creating the technology. It really never caught on, and company's put the technology on the back burner.

Now as more and more powerful mobile devices are coming out, we have seen a huge resurgence of this technology. We are also seeing some amazing applications being developed. New more powerful mobile devices are being created all the time, and programmers are doing some amazing things with that technology.

It use to be Symbian, Palm and Blackberry ruled the mobile OS market place. Symbian, and Blackberry still have a huge market share, but they have lost a lot ground to Windows Mobile, and the iPhone.

Again, in my humble opinion, the iPhone is a great device but its too much glitz for me. I still like my AT&T Tilt, which when compared to the original iPhone it won hands down when comparing features. As soon as HTC releases the Touch Pro available, it will surpass the iPhone 3G in features.

People will argue about how great the OS is on the iPhone, but I find the whole architecture too restrictive. Apple's greatest mistake with that platform, is that they only allow you to do what they want. For example, you can only run applications that they approve you running. You could 'JailBreak' the phone to do what you want, but there is always the possibility that you can brick the device (basically makes it unusable).

I need to make myself clear I do not advocate the bypassing of any form of copy protection. My only reason for talking about this subject is to point out the extremes that a person has to go through to customize the device.

Now the point I really want to make, which there is a new mobile OS player in town and its Google with its Android OS (which is based on Linux). T-Mobile recently introduced the G1, the first Android based phone (watch the announcement).

So now we have the desktop OS wars brought to the mobile phone platform, followed by the mobile browser war which has been in process for several month since the introduction of the iPhone. Basically the way I see it, is there are going to be several mobile OS camps, Windows Mobile, iPhone, and now Android (not to exclude Sybian and Blackberry).

I want to play with an Android based device, but I am not sure I would ever really own one. There is nothing compelling enough on the platform to draw me to it. I really like, and need the Windows Mobile integration with Exchange.

3M Micro Projector MPro110

I heard lots of hype about the new micro projectors several months back, so its good to see them finally hitting the market. 3M has their Micro Professional Projector MPro110. Its a battery operated hand held projector, and it can connect to most digital video devices.

Note: If you want to use this device with your smart-phone, its needs to output VGA or composite video signal. More information available in this article.

Software: SplashNews (News Reader)

I like keeping up with the latest news on my AT&T Tilt, especially recently. I am currently checking out a new program that I found on Microsoft's Total Access site for Windows Mobile.

Here is the description from the site: "Get the latest news, sports, technology updates, and blog feeds right on your Windows Mobile phone, anytime and anywhere! Add your favorite feeds and then sync to download the latest content on the go. SplashNews is a free, ad-supported mobile application that automatically downloads and displays feeds from your favorite news sources. Advertising in SplashNews stays in an unobtrusive banner space at the top of the application screen. There are no pop-up ads, and no personally identifiable information is collected."

This program is free, but its not freeware or open source. It's ad-supported, so if you don't like this type of software then don't download it.

Your phone may be under attack

MSN Money reports: "Increasingly sophisticated scammers are finding ways to use your phone to invade your privacy and steal your personal data. Here's what you need to know to protect yourself."

Here are some tips to help protect your personal identity and finances from scammers.