Ever heard of “Silent Mode” for your phone?

Ever embarrassed yourself at a big meeting, or church, or any where else that you really should have turned your phone off, or at least to silent or vibrate? What about at a White House press conference?

I have [not at a White House press conference] on more than one occasion, and it brings a point to mind. “Are we so dependant on our mobile devices [phones] that we disregard some basic etiquette concerning their use, or is it just absent mindedness?”.

Of course many of us go through our daily routine with an always on mobile, face facts, we need to be connected, but consider the  ramifications in some situations.

Think about this, if you were a press secretary for the president of the US, your reaction to the first interruption was reasonable, the second really deserved a secret service takedown!

Consider how, where and why you use your mobile in relation to the situation you are in, I implore you!

 

White House confiscates hack’s handset " Register Hardware

Most Mobile, Beat Boxing!

My friend Jason over at his blog, highlighted for fun this video of beat boxing, and seriously this is one of the best examples of mobile technology I could think of, and it’s fun as well. How mobile is it, it is a human based form of emulation that rocks! Watch the Video and enjoy your weekend!

Fring WeFi

The Fring client is a social networking client for WinMo and PC, and it already provides access to lots of popular services,

you can interact with friends on all your favourite social networks including Skype®, MSN Messenger®, Google Talk™, ICQ, SIP, Twitter, Yahoo!™ and AIM®. You can listen to music with your Last.fm friends, check out what each other are up to on Facebook, receive alerts of new Google Mail™ and tailor make your very own fring by adding more cool experiences from fringAdd-ons™

Fring may have just become a useful service, for one reason, a way to connect to  any available wifi network,

Of course the vid actually meets my geek rating as well!

check out Fring

T-Mobile Faves enable parental support!

This may seem a bit off topic, but advertising is the spice of life at the moment for me.  I find myself keeping track of lot’s of clever video that advertise everything from blenders to mobile phone plans, and they are getting better and better.

Luckily enough I’ve not been burdened with the legacy of children, but I know that if I had, I’d be as protective as all get out, to the point of psycho as the dad in this T – Mobile ad!

An old concept but still funny, and I’m sure a lot of Dads out there will relate!

Advertising: Mac versus PC, gotta love it!

You have to love the way Mac and PC users are loyal, to their OS and hardware of choice. Although I’ve never actually seen a beat down between users, although I would liken it to jelly wrestling, it would have the same sort of morbid appeal.

Apple’s Mac v PC ads set a standard, and of late MS have been taking a marketing tack to counter, Apples efforts to humiliate their OS. There have been some likeable inclusions in the  PC Hunter series of ads from MS, but even more amusing are the independent responses to the campaign.

Considering that I work with people like this on a daily basis this struck a chord with me!

A beautifully satirical comeback to the campaign, although, it lacks the concentrated design efforts of Steve Jobs, it’s well done, and should really make us all think about how seriously we take ourselves!

WinMo get’s its own Flatulence Application!

Tell me something, in real life, is someone passing wind funny? Why do applications like this proliferate for iPhone, and now it’s started for Windows Mobile. Puerile and useless applications have seemed to  be  confined to the Apple App store until this point. In a way I can understand people exploring SDK’s and seeing what they can do, as far as programming for a new device.  So when someone goes out of their way to emulate the sound, that signals the degradation of the ozone layer, or a complete disintegration of personal space, and of course the expected olfactory assault, you have to wonder, What’s the point?

OK, so I know lot’s of people use their mobile devices to play games, really though, your mobile is your window/portal to the world, and apps like this, are targeting a market that has the attention span of a twelve year year old.

Somehow, applications like this are an insult  to the serious mobile user, and probably should be ignored, but for some reason they take up a lot of bandwidth!

I propose a boycott of any digitally enhanced bodily function emulators, and of course any analogue versions as well.

I just don’t get it, it’s like the magic eightball, or a ougi board, “I  want to hear fart sounds @ random intervals”

There is absolutely no reason for applications like this to exist, unless I’ve missed a trend that indicates a burgeoning demand. Crapware like this actually diverts WinMo users from the power that they have in their hands!

Psst, hey buddy, wanna buy a phone, it fell off the back of a Telstra Employee!

I really had a good laugh today when I saw this article, but it probably just says something about the Australian, relaxed point of view, and any Telstra employee’s bravado and pride at knowing they now have the Biggest, fastest 3G network in the world. We know it’s all about size, packet size don’t we? Sorry, it’s very hard to not be gauche and distasteful, when talking about Australian customs. It’s customary to  brag, and Telstra’s got a big Win and a big Fail to deal with all at once.

“Telstra today launched the world’s fastest mobile broadband service, ushering in a new era in real-time mobile communications that will bring major benefits to customers, innovation and business productivity. The CEOs of Telstra, Ericsson, Qualcomm and Sierra Wireless jointly announced a new 21Mbps peak rated mobile broadband modem, Telstra Turbo 21, would be available to customers on Telstra’s supercharged HSPA+ network, the Next G network, on 23 February. Peak network speeds will increase to 42Mbps later this year.”

Even greater than the network speeds are the speed that telstra employees can be pick pocketed, and not Just any employee, and I’m sorry but only Gizmodo have given it the stick it deserves,

Apparently Telstra’s CEO, Sol Trujillo, was swinging it with the boys at MWC today when his protoype HTC Windows Mobile phone was pickpocketed. Way to leave all the company secrets out like that, dude.

The stolen HTC device (either the new Touch Diamond2 or the Touch Pro2) was sporting an early build of Windows Mobile 6.5. The Touch Diamond2 or the Touch Pro2 will not be running Windows Mobile 6.5 when it is released, but will be running Windows Mobile 6.1 instead. [Herald Sun]

You know in Oz when you get a cheap deal on something you say “It fell off the back of a truck”, but this is just tragic, I wonder if I can find the phone on Ebay???

Phone with Windows Mobile beta reported stolen | Microsoft – CNET News

Mr Obama, Your Blackberry erhmm!

There have been a plethora of posts and wide speculation as to whether the newly inaugurated President, would be able to keep his beloved BlackBerry. In fact the idea that he even embraced modern technology endeared him to me before I even thought about what it meant for Obama to win office. Hey, any geek is a good geek right?

Quad Core iPhone and Firmware 3.0, The Rumour Mill.

Whilst we’ve all been astounded by the Palm news today, even the larger sites are praising Palm, and of course we are all overloaded by everything flooding out of CES. We seem to be forgetting, that quietly, in another corner of the United States, MacWorld is spinning quietly on its axis.

MacWorld hasn’t provided any stunning surprises, except for one jaw dropping rumour. A Quad Core processor for the iPhone. Somehow that makes me think of something like this

At the same time last year

Please Don’t Call It A Netbook, Psion!

As I type this on my Eee PC, I really think it’s time to say,  Netbook, Netbook, Netbook, cause that name for the little laptops we’ve come to love, is not ours to use. Well that’s not exactly correct, we are not allowed to profit from the use of the term. This is probably one of the  most bizarre turns of events in internet glossary editing I’ve ever come across.  The range of little notebook/laptop devices that have come under the “netbook” label recently is enormous.  Many hardware developers, from Asus to Dell to Acer to MSI, Lenovo, to name a very small few, have picked up the form factor that we’ve been called “netbook” for quite a while now.

Apparently though, long time hand held device manufacturer Psion, actually coined the phrase/name, a long time ago, and are taking umbrage at the use of the term, a little late. I mean, that netbook was not made famous by Psion, I actually believe that the advent of full featured itty bitty laptop devices, focused on the main functions utilised by everyday PC users, brought the name to a globally recognised term.  Before that. I hadn’t heard of a netbook. Had you? The legal ramifications of something like this are, well, Psion are telling people to “Cease and Desist” but it’s evolved since then, and it seems you are not allowed to gain profit from using the term netbook.