Those of us not completely absorbed by the iPhone 3G (uh-hem…), will be excited to know that HTC and AT&T have FINALLY released the WM 6.1 Pro Upgrade for the AT&T Tilt!  The file can be downloaded from HTC Club.

Details and the download link, can be found after the break…

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I got a personal note from E-TEN Corporation the other day, and I am glad to say that they have released a couple of new devices.  The X610 and V900 were announced a while back, but have finally come to market.

The X610 is similar to the X600, an entry level device, but sporting a 2.8″ VGA screen, 400mHz processor, quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE radio, 256MB ROM and 64MB of RAM.  The big upgrade here is that E-TEN has created a custom interface for the device using Spb Mobile Shell 2.1. The X610 is reminiscent of the HTC Touch, with its Cube interface.

The V900 is a bit more beefie, with a 2.8″ VGA screen, 533mhz Processor, quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE/ and 3G/3.5G (HSDPA), 256 MB Flash ROM, 128 MB SDRAM.  It’s claim to fame is an antenna for its FM radio and a TV out cable.  Both devices come with WM 6.1 Professional, have a 1530 mAh battery and sport internal GPS chipsets for turn-by-turn navigation (application not included).

Both of these devices will be coming to Gear Diary for review, so stay tuned, and watch the site for their unboxings and their reviews!

Well, so far, I’ve failed the No-Reboot Challenge.

I’ve got just 2 apps on my Tilt right now, AT&T Navigator and PTVL (Pocket TV Listings). I’m having one heck of a time getting AT&T Navigator to work right now, and have had to hard AND soft reset a number of times to clear out some problems. I blame this on the applicatino and not anything else, as there were times when I bumpedinto problems with it before i had a chance to put PTVL back on the device.

This has not been a completely fun time, but I think I’ve got things working correctly now, and things update and function the way they are supposed to…I think. With everything functioning the way I want it, I’m going to see how long I can go before I jab my Tilt again and have to reboot. If I do, I may take one, the other, or both apps off to see how things run.

Stay tuned…!

Over the past few years, I’ve done a lot with Exchange ActiveSync, OTA Synching, and mobile devices.  In fact, I wrote a HUGE piece a couple of years ago when the Treo 700w first hit the streets on OTA Synching, the errors you bump into, their possible causes, etc.  It was published at pocketnow.com, and unfortunately, they’ve taken most of the article(s) down. What’s left is patchy, and very confusing (so if you Google my name and OTA Sync, and you come up with links that point to pocketnow.com, and you get 404 errors, don’t say I didn’t warn you.)  Not to fear though, I am working on getting the information updated and  ported over here to Gear Diary.

IN THE MEANTIME, you simply MUST take a look at Chris De Herrera’s Pocket PC FAQ. It’s one of the resources that I cite in the article(s) I mentioned, and was a huge help when I was working with Microsoft in trying to get some of my problems resolved, worked out and fixed. Chris has got a huge page on Exchange ActiveSync Errors and Solutions that is a MUST read for everyone that syncs a WM Device OTA.

This is one of the best resources you can find on the internet when it comes to WM devices.  Chris has just updated the Exchange ActiveSync Errors and Solutions page, so if you’re having problems synching OTA, then you need to head over there and give it a quick look.

FYI - Unfortunately, this does NOT cover the iPhone 2.0 software, as it doesn’t offer any kind of interface, like ActiveSync on a WM device.  There’s no way to actually catch any error code that it may throw, though I’m certain that if it did, this site would be able to help you figure out what the problem is.

One of the best perks of this “job” is getting to know all of the other people in the user and enthusiast community. I must admit, that I’ve gotten to meet some really cool people that have turned me on to some really cool stuff over the years.

Case in point - my good friend and fellow WM enthusiast, Clinton Fitch has posted a really GREAT review of the MWg Zinc II over at ClintonFitch (dot) com.

Clinton does a great job of looking at this device.  If you’ve never seen the device, he’s got some great pictures of it as well.  If you’ve got the time, it’s a great read. Head on over and check it out!

Link love: MWg Zinc II

It’s a different world when you have an iPhone 3G with a battery that doesn’t suck (I’ll be saying that, at least to myself, for the next couple of days.  Wow!  What a difference a working battery makes!). Anyway, the internet is buzzing today with a number of different rumors leaked by Kevin Rose.  He’s had his lips locked around the Apple Kool-Aid pitcher over the weekend and he has some interesting items, that while still rumor and speculation, could be very interesting news if they turn out to be true.

Without any further ado, here’s the straight poop from Mr. Rose:

• * A new iPod nano will ship before the end of  September 2008; and it will sport an “everything old is new again” design. The nano fatty is gone, to be replaced by a somewhat redesigned Gen2 nano, but with a bit thicker body, rounded edges, and video capable, wide screen.
• * The iPod Touch will see a minor revision in design, and will get the new 2.1 software before the iPhone will.
• * iPod prices will drop, and will cover the entire nano and Touch lines.  The idea here is to compete with the $199 iPhone.  This is where the rumor mill starts to lose molecular cohesion.  The iPhone is subsidized by AT&T. I’m not certain we’ll see the new music players priced below $199; but it would be cool if we did.
• * iTunes 8.0 is due out before October 2008 and will include new subscription and jukebox features.
• * OSX 10.5.6 is a bit “further down the road;” but will include Blu-Ray support, leading Rose to speculate that a MBP Blu-Ray drive is due in the future as well.

 

 

I’ve been having one heck of a time with my iPhone 3G.   I really have…and YES, over and above the problems that everyone and their brother have been documenting all over the Internet.  I’ve been tweeting up a storm lately about how my iPhone 3G has been dropping calls, crashing, and more importantly, had the worst battery life known to man. At best, my battery would last about 90 minutes between charges, at the outside, 120 minutes; but that’s only if I had the thing in front of an air conditioning vent, keeping the battery cool.

I took my iPhone to the Oak Brook, IL Apple Store today, and had resident Genius Extrodinaire, Pat take a quick look at it. Yep… Totally defective.  He said the battery had the worst standby time he has EVER seen in an iPhone/iPhone 3G; and it was likely the first defective iPhone 3G that he has seen.  To make a long story short, he swapped it out without any other questions.  I got the very LAST white replacement model they had in stock.  I then watched him as he totally wiped my old iPhone of all content so that my “top secret” information wouldn’t fall into “enemy” hands.

I am in the process of restoring this new iPhone from a backup, and we’ll see how things go from here on in. It did NOT come with the 2.0.2 update on it. I had to update the device to that version before the restore would work.  Then I’m gonna sync it, and see how things go…

I’m planning on giving it a full charge and then leaving it off the battery until I go to bed tonight, or it dies, which ever comes first.  I need to give the battery a bit of exercise, and see how long it will last after a full charge…ESPECIALLY with the 2.0.2 software, now that I have a device with a (supposedly/hopefully) non-defective battery.

This has been an interesting week… Lots going on at the Spera house, lots going on with Apple, and lots going on here at Gear Diary.  One of the reviews I just posted, Diskeeper 2008 Pro Premier, is generating a lot of e-mail traffic for me behind the scenes.  Please watch the site for a review on another defrag product, PerfectDisk…there’s a whole lot of defragging going on!

…and speaking of which, you may remember that I mentioned that I purchased a WD MyBook World II 1TB NAS on eBay last month, and installed it on my home network.  When the network is up (don’t ask…I’m not sure why my network is so fragile), it works like a charm, and the included Access Anywhere software from MioNet is truly awesome. However, I’ve run into an interesting problem…

While its not a huge issue just yet, with all of the defragging that I’ve been doing, I thought I’d check the fragmentation level of the NAS just to make certain that all of the backing up and file copying that I’ve been doing to it doesn’t skew all the data.  While this isn’t a huge problem in a 1TB drive now, (I’ve only used about 180GB so far), it might be an issue later. I’ve got over 800GB of contiguous space, so there shouldn’t be much fragmentation on it for a while.

Interestingly enough, the device shows up in My Computer as an NT Server UNC; but the Computer Management Console can’t see it. I’ve got a call out to Diskeeper Corporation to address this and will get back to everyone in Comments with the solution, if they have one…

There’s been a big push by Microsoft to get everyone to cross over to the 64bit version of Vista. Are you and your hardware ready for it?

I’ve got a MacBook Pro. I purchased the notebook in December of 2006. It’s the low end unit, with a 2.16 GHz C2D processor, 4GB of RAM (yes, Leopard will see and use all 4GB of RAM, despite what you might think, or are told), and a 120GB hard drive. It’s not a bad unit; and has treated me well in the almost 20 months that I’ve been using it.

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My good friend Mike Temporale of Mobile Jaw has thrown down the gauntlet. He says, Windows Mobile is a stable OS.  And he’s so adamant about that, that he’s challenged the entire WM community!  Take the No Reboot Challenge!

Mike’s point is that the OS is stable, and like the iPhone 3G, its all of the third party apps that users install that make the device flaky and unstable.  In order to prove his point, Mike has hard reset his BlackJack II, set it up to sync his PIM data, and installed four, yes just four applications on it and has vowed to NOT soft reset or kill any of the programs with the task manager for any reason, unless the device locks up completely, necessitating a reboot.

Mike asked me to take the challenge with him, and I’ve agreed. I’ve hard reset my AT&T Tilt, synchronized it with my Exchange Server, installed AT&T Navigator and Pocket TV Listings, and that’s it!  I’m not putting anything else on the device. Over the next few weeks, the device is going to do what its gong to do, and I’m not going to reset it unless it completely locks up.

Like Mikey T., I will be making updates to this (or similar) post and will keep everyone updated on how the device is performing. 

I challenge YOU Gear Diary Readers!  Come help me help Mike prove that WM by itself is stable!  Take the No Reboot Challenge!