One thing, I’ve moved, here’s the URL

Peters Kitchen

For  the first time this year, the Columbia, High Road Sports team, is also sporting the HTC logo. HTC are  the largest supplier of Windows Mobile devices, *cough Android cough* worldwide. So bringing the brand to a high exposure sporting event like the Tour seems like a smart move. Have a look at the Team Columbia – HTC website!

Notably, Team Columbia – HTC have already taken out stage 2 and 3 of this years Tour. Notably, Mark Cavendish the team sprinter, and stage winner for the day, is on the phone and pointing to the HTC logo on his jersey.

So beyond that how can you keep yourself informed of stage details on your Windows Mobile phone, well this  little free app can help. Le Tour 2009 is not the most sophisticated program for WinMo, but it will give you enough, to get you through your work day anticipation of the stage highlights.

Not the most graphically pleasing application but the Tour info you want is in there. You can check a map of any stage of the tour, and see who’s who on the various teams.

The app is optimised for portrait mode, so it’s a little bit funky graphically, importantly though it does have all the race information, that’s what you want, right?

You can download it here

With this latest update I’ve decided to go a bit deeper into the application, so let’s see how it goes.

Skyfire is one of those browsers that is not completely dependent on your device, but uses cloud technology to serve you a compressed version of the web through their own third party servers. Much like Opera Mini, and recently, the Opera Mobile 9.7 Beta.

First up I’d mention that this will work equally as well from a storage card as installed to your device, so if you are being miserly with storage space [like me] you’ll already appreciate this. You may also notice, from the screenshot above, that since Skyfire came out of beta, it’s received even more update love. Every tweak helps right? It’s good to know that this is a well supported application,

The first screen or option you’ll be presented with is a choice to make Skyfire the default browser, I chose no for now, knowing I can change that later, to test with other apps. First up though, I want to see how it performs on it’s own. One of the most striking things about Skyfire is what it comes with/ the default bookmarks, that give you access to all sorts of services with no set up at all.

There’s also a today screen plug in included in this iteration, a nice touch. One of my little negatives with Skyfire has always been the fact that you cannot import bookmarks to the browser in any way. Well unless it’s a very elusive option. You will have to manually enter the URL of all of your most read sites, something that may be off putting to a lot of users.

BUT, and it’s a big but, for usability and intuitiveness, Skyfire goes all the way up to eleven for me. The amount of settings/options you have to configure are as minimalistic as I’ve seen

Everything else is configured through the browser interface and shortcuts, and it’s really self explanatory. All of the menu shortcuts go no deeper than two levels, keeping with the simplicity of the program. Performance though is what everyone is going to judge this app on, so I.ve done a screen cap video that gives a relative speed comparison for you to look at.

Overall, performance is the key, Skyfire plays video, is really quick to load and even runs JAMM 3.0 with it’s animated home page, no other WinMo browser does all of that. Another performance not here is that it’s doing all of that on my Tilt/HTC Kaiser. If you are looking for a better internet experience on Windows Mobile you have to give this a try

Skyfire is available for free, for Windows Mobile and Symbian devices

Passed away, is not the right description, and I feel some conflicting emotions over the decision I had to make. Diva has been my family, for the whole of that time, and today I said goodbye to her. Something went wrong with her earlier this week, From a Dog that was lively and alert for her age, she became distant, unaware. She wouldn’t eat or drink, and she wouldn’t walk.

I took her to the vet this morning, and I had to carry her there. He asked me some questions, and checked her out, and he just said to me, “I think it’s her time”.

She went to sleep at about 11.30, this morning, July 3, 2009.

One thing that becomes evident though, especially after the woes over Toodle-Do’s Toodle-Down, that Doug posted, are you completely happy to commit your Data to the Cloud?

If you are not completely secure, or at all doubtful about  sending your data out into the never never, without a local backup, Missing Sync software has been offering alternatives for cross platform data sync for ages, specifically Windows Mobile to Mac OS initially, but now the missing sync offers an option for most smartphones out there.  Significantly, and quickly, they have added an option for the Palm Pre.

Although it’s still a Beta, this is going to make a lot of Pre users happy. They are also working on a version for Windows, Bring it on I say!

Keep your life in sync with The Missing Sync for Palm Pre from MarkSpace

So this starts off with a question, who still has a car with a cassette player, and wants a way to play their digital music in the car?

It might seem like old tech, but I remember a time before the cassette tape. You can all stop laughing now!

The combination of old and new is perfectly demonstrated here, with this adapter from
MaxiMobileShop, [Translated Site is here].

Some of you may remember similair devices which allowed you to plug a CD Walkman into your cassette deck, when CD’s first became popular.

This is an iPod to cassette player adapter, that is functional for  your iPhone, iPod and Nano.

This piece of ingenuity, which allows you to keep your retro cool, will set you back 45 Euros, approximately 63 US dollars. Although it may be a device directed a niche market, I still think they’ll move heaps of these, as car enthusiasts want to keep or restore their drives to all original condition.

Via Jason Langridge’s Mr Mobile Blog

1,382% year-over-year growth in February 2009.

Total unique visitors grew from 475,000 in February 2008 to seven million last month.

Twitter is the fastest growing member community site for the month of February.

Twitter is not for everyone, and the aversion to it with some, is as powerful as the addiction to it is for others. Let’s face it though, it’s an instant messaging service, and you can control, who and what you read, your Twitter network can be as large or intimate as you like, as with any other instant messenger.

One of the  things though, that people object to is signal versus noise. Signal is said to useful communication from a likewise interested group of people that you follow, and noise is something like the spam you get on your email or blog, from people trying to market, all sorts of things, from Viagra to watches, and the occasional Nigerian prince.

There is a proliferation of marketers, of all persuasions, flocking to Twitter, to see what they can exploit from users, and it creates a model for people to use, actually a lot of the marketing is focused on teaching people how to leverage Twitter to make money.  So, if your a software developer, with a Windows Mobile client, like Trinket Software, it might make sense that you would use some of the same methods to make your application go “viral”, that are used on the service that your application services!

Trinket have come up with a maniacally impressive way to promote the release of this latest version of Twikini, which is now a paid software application.

Version 1.1 of Twikini will cost you Money Now! for now though, your earlier free version will still suffice.

Trinket Software have some package deals and a rather higher priced deal that I don’t understand, you can check it out here!

•  First Place – Checkthrough Brief (MSRP $139.95)
•  Second Place – Checkthrough Messenger (MSRP $129.95)
•  Third Place – Skooba Skin (MSRP $29.95

It’s pretty simple fill in the blanks sort of contest, work out what device the celebrity is carrying and list it in your reply. As a contest, it also provides a look at how the famous and infamous utilise mobile devices in their everyday lives. Hey what have you got to lose? Hit the link below to go to the contest.

Guess the Celebrity Device and Win! | Gear Diary

Whilst the web portal still seems problematic, I always find it takes an interminable amount of time to log on to the site, where I can manage my synced info, I seem to be syncing successfully from the phone.

The mobile app is now fully functional, syncing storage cards as well as phone PIM info. One thing to note here is the settings for storage card sync are pre defined in the app, it looks for media of any kind to sync. Therefore, any thing on the storage card that is perceived as media by the app is synced.

I install a lot of applications on the storage card on my Tilt, and lots of those apps have libraries of icons and sounds. So My Phone wants to sync them all, all 1700 plus, and then there are application notification sounds, sheesh. The initial sync when selecting storage card in sync options, timed out. I had to do it incrementally, but the need to delineate between media you want to sync and media you don’t want to sync, will hopefully eventuate.

Anyway, give it a try, and let me know what you think?

PS: I’ve had the web portal log on process running whilst I’m writing this, 15 minutes, still not logged on. I know it’s still a beta, but Microsoft should be able to host a server for this service that works!

Via Engadget

It may seem a bit complicated to enter, but it’s really not that hard..

Grand prize is a package which allows you to “see Kevin Garnett and the Celtics play a home game in Boston and an away game in a West Coast city.” The package will include “VIP tickets, airfare, hotel and great HP gear.” Winning this would be amazing!

What really makes this a great prize, Judie intimated, that if you win through Gear Diary you will be able to accompany the inimitable Wayne Schulz from Gear Diary to the game, for  a special, personal, individualised commentary on the game itself. [Well Maybe?]

Don’t be put off by the entry process,

Here is how to enter to win one of the ten regulation basketballs signed by the active player of your choice or one of two trips to the 2010 NBA ALL-Star Game in Dallas (maybe with me!):

1. Enter the HP-Microsoft NBA Sweepstakes here.

2. Join Twitter

3. Follow Gear Diary on Twitter.

4. Tweet the phrase inside these brackets: [ I am entered to win an NBA / HP prize package @geardiarysite http://is.gd/Ab1m ]

5. Post a comment to this thread with a permalink to your tweet.

And that’s it!

So come on you know you want to, Click the link below and put your entry in!

Take All the Action With You: HP Offering an NBA Dream Package | Gear Diary