Devoted to hardware, software, IT issues, and information technology management

Thumbplay just got another $15 million in venture capital for expanding its business of being an online retailer of mobile entertainment content. Thumbplay also said that Ajay Agarwal, managing director of Bain Capital Ventures, will join its board of directors.

"With this new round of funding, Thumbplay will accelerate and expand its marketing efforts, while continuing to build the best consumer experience and mobile entertainment catalog available," said Are Traasdahl, CEO of Thumbplay. "Thumbplay is positioned to widen the lead we have established as the top retailer of mobile content and one of the fastest-growing sites on the Web."

source

This messenger style bags is a one-in-all solution for people who just have too much stuff to take everywhere they go. It has one large interior storage area which is great for file, papers and magazines. There are also 7 pockets to fill. It can hold items such as pens, pencils, sunglass clips, wallet, PDA. It is made of lined black vinyl, so no worries using this bag to protect your stuff. It will not get wet and your gadgets stay dry.

Chrome Citizen Messenger Bag

Freetube - This site lets you watch real television shows online, as well as live TV. Judging by the other submissions, you'll be impressed by this one - it has about 200 channels, and a huge listing of videos on demand of various movies, television shows, documentaries and sports videos. By far one of the best TV sites and it's completely FREE! I love the simple interface on the left sidebar.

Its incredible how Jesse D'Aguanno of Praetorian Global has managed to hid malicious software code into a game on the BlackBerry mobile device that attacks the underlying connected network. IT security admins must give more consideration to mobile devices like cellphones and mobile devices as the tendency to use them as cracking gateways become more prevalent in the weeks to come.

Another interesting attack highlighted by D'Aguanno was "blackjacking," or hijacking legitimate users' BlackBerry devices and replacing them on the network with rogue devices.

The devices, made by Research In Motion in Canada, would then act as doorways that let hackers slip behind fire walls and seek out unprotected computers in a company's network, according to D'Aguanno.

Jesse D'Aguanno of Praetorian Global made a "BlackBerry Attack Toolkit" demonstration available for download at the company's website along with "BBProxy" software that exploits the vulnerability. D'Aguanno hid attacker software code in a tic-tac-toe game that, if downloaded and played on a BlackBerry, secretly invaded the network linked to the handled device.

SafeBoot Device Encryption is a cool new software that enables corporations manage the security functions of their staff's Windows Mobile devices and it has superb password recovery functions.

SafeBoot combines strong user authentication and transparent, on-the-fly encryption to protect confidential information on Smartphones and Pocket PCs running the Microsoft Windows Mobile platform.

SafeBoot Device Encryption for Windows Mobile offers transparent encryption of data on Smartphones and Pocket PCs. Once the user has authenticated using a password or pin, the encryption and decryption on the device is carried out on-the-fly.

SafeBoot Device Encryption can safely recover protected systems without using an unsafe master password as a "backdoor" if a user forgets a password, loses a token, or leaves the organization.

Dell’s Q1 '06 shipments of PDAs drop by nearly 34% due to the prevalence of new Smartphones that do away with the need of separate bulky PDAs. It seems the overall market for PDAs has been on the decline as far back as Q2 of 2005 and shrank by 19% in Q1 '06.

DigiTimes reports that Dell has stopped its PDA development altogether and has diverted the funding to its notebook division. Dell’s last all-new model was introduced in 2004 in the form of the Windows Mobile 2003 based Axim X50 series which my wife has one of it. The company then released a minor update in the form of the Axim X51 series which basically added the Windows Mobile 2005 operating system.

According to the sources, Dell's TDC switched all PDA-related R&D resources to the notebook segment in the middle of 2005, following the company's plan of reducing the number of its R&D staff at its handheld device division at the end of 2004. Dell has not announced new PDAs for almost a year and PDA products that it currently offers are old models that were introduced in 2004, indicated the sources. In addition, the PC vendor has not shown any moves in the PDA phone and GPS-enable PDA segments, the sources noted.

 
Microsoft's Zune portable music player will let people share and sample tracks via wi-fi and owners will be able to buy tracks that are downloaded direct to the device. The first Zune player will appear in late 2006.
 
Zune is the term for the hardware player, the software on it and the download service it will be tied into. Music tracks, movies and other content will be available via this service. The Zune project is aimed at toppling Apple which has a 50% share of the global portable music player market with its iPod and a 70% share of the music download market via iTunes.

Microsoft changes tune with Zune source

Want to know how Nokia leverage's their own technology on its internal structures and operations ? Find in this paper about Nokia's quest to merge People, Processes, and Mobile Technology together. See how they integrate mobile capabilities into it's daily business activities.

Nokia's own practical experience developing and implementing internal solutions that leverage mobile capabilities. The most important thing that we have learned, and what we hope to communicate in this white paper, is that mobility is a powerful business solution-but only by addressing people, processes, and technology in a balanced way can you realize significant business benefits.

Integrating mobile capabilities into Nokia's Daily Business Activities source

Mobile operators like Vodafone in the EU are not going to like the move by the European Commission to cut their roaming charges for users by up to 70 percent. EU Mobile Operators will now only be allowed to earn a maximum of 30 per cent roaming charge profit from consumers and lets hope that does not translate into terrible customer service by having them outsource even more.

This, according to the Commission, will save business users a fortune when using a mobile abroad as they make up the majority of roaming users. Across the continent 147 million Europeans are thought to use roaming, 110 million of whom are business users.

Cheaper Roaming Charges for EU Mobile Users source

You could be using Skype to connect with millions of users when you board an airplane in the near future. Apart from that, blogging or doing a banking transaction while skyborne is also another great Flying feature on your airline’s brochure thanks to AC BidCo LLC.

One of my Amercian bosses just came down to Malaysia last Friday and told us that hurricane season has just begun in the good old USA.

I hope the bad old Katrina situation does not happen again this year.
That's going to be a real costly affair and would meanthat IT operations for a lot of companies around the Florida and Texas area will be affected. So check out the interesting Hurricane Tracking Map for the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico powered by Google. Its pretty useful to get updated news on the Category 1 - Category 5 hurricane situation using Google Map technology.

Wonder when Microsoft's Windows Live Virtual Earth will be that dandy ?

Google Hurricane Tracking Map site

The new Orb VideoMail for users of Mozilla Thunderbird and Microsoft Outlook will make sending videos via email pretty much easier and its a good viral marketing tool for online campaigns too. No more just boring old animated jpgs, now you have VideoMails. The videomails stream to recipients in the right media formats, bitrates, and screen resolutions for the devices on which they open the videomails. Easy peezy as they say.

“Combining Orb VideoMail with a Creative Web camera is the perfect way to make video-based e-mail as simple and as universal as text-based e-mail,” said Dr. Jeff Stoen, general manager for cameras at Creative. “From right within the email application you use daily, Orb integrates with Creative Web cameras - such as the new Live! Cam Voice - to provide a seamless way to communicate with personalized, high-quality video messages.”

Orb VideoMail for users of Mozilla Thunderbird and Microsoft Outlook source

Here's a nice TechRepublic article that Brien Posey wrote that explains how a to develop an effective PDA usage policy. PDAs present a very special security challenge for companies, and this article will help you to meet those challenges. I find it quite interesting as companies will need to look into this area since PDA users are getting more prevalent.

Today you need to remember tons of passwords. You need a password for your office Windows/Linux network logon, your e-mail account, your homepage's ftp password, online passwords (like CodeProject member account), etc. etc. etc. The list is endless like the Great Wall of China. Also, you should use different passwords for each account. Because if you use only one password everywhere and someone gets this password you have a problem... A serious problem. The thief would have access to your e-mail account, homepage, etc. Unimaginable. You might want to get a Biometric thumbprint reader but figure the price is not affordable enough.

KeePass Password Safe is a free/open-source password safe or manager which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key-disk. So you only have to remember one single master password or insert the key-disk to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish).

Download KeePass Password Safe 1.05 site

Charles Sterling aka "Chuck" , a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft Australia living on the Gold Coast, Australia gets to play with 3 notebooks (2 Toshiba's and 1 Samsung one) to max out Windows Vista...Read his blog post here.

1.       Asus Lamborghini
2.       Toshiba  A 7
3.       Toshiba M400 Tablet
4.       Samsung  X60

So last week when two Toshiba’s (A7 and a M400) and a Samsung x60 show up at my desk I couldn’t believe it!    (Unfortunately the Asus Lamborghini won’t be available until June 2006).

So would did I do with them to test them?   Since this was for my Vista training I installed the following software:

1.       Windows Vista build 5382.1
2.       Windows WinFX SDK
3.       Visual Studio 2005
4.       Visual Studio WinFX Extensions
5.       Expression Interactive Designer
6.       Office 12 Beta 2

Birdsoft Contact-ing Version 2.00 for Contact Management was just released on 24 April 2006. Its the most advanced and efficient way to organize, view and call contacts using your Windows Mobile device. This powerful, yet easy-to-use application runs directly from your Today Screen and you can click on pictures of your contacts to make a mobile call.

Quickly lookup your contacts using one of two interface modes, using Contact Photos or using the intuitive List Mode. Filter by Category or Company and use Alpha Search to quickly find the contacts you are looking for. Directly access their website, email or phone numbers. Display upcoming Birthdays and Anniversaries without the need for a dedicated today plug-in. All this from the convenience of your Today Screen.

Birdsoft Contact-ing Version 2.00 was designed to work great for non-phone based PDAs as well as Phone Devices. Extended phone features are included to make your user experience even better. Dial directly from the Today Screen or use the program's Speed Dial. It will allow you to use your Pocket PC phone with greater ease. You have a highly advanced Mobile Phone. Why not get a contact dialing interface to match!

Birdsoft Contact-ing Version 2.00 source

If you are paranoid and think that the CIA and Big Brother is capturing all your SMS messages, then you should check out Kryptext for Business.

Kryptext's SMS solution enables businesses to send and receive encrypted mobile phone SMS messages quickly to and from remote employees. Get peace of mind if you are worried about industrial espionage. Nothing is free though as it retails at 6.99 pounds and only a few Series 60 handsets work with Kryptext like the Nokia 3600, Nokia 3620, Nokia 3650, Nokia 3660. So I suspect you'll need to email them for a full list of phones that work.

In a real incident, the Marks and Spencer's chairman became the victim of a third party attempting to steal his mobile phone records. So with Kryptext, the message is unreadable until a correct password is entered.


Encrypted SMS with Kryptext for Business site

  GoToMyPC 5.0 is the faster, easier way to access your PC from anywhere. Up to 2 times faster than the previous version, GoToMyPC 5.0 enables you to remotely access your PC from any Internet-connected computer and most wireless devices. Work on files, programs, email and your network faster than ever.

There's also now an innovative alliance between Alltel, owner of America's largest wireless network, and Citrix Systems, Inc. where every Alltelcustomer who purchases a wireless PC data card will receive offers for Citrix(R) GoToMeeting(TM) and Citrix(R) GoToMyPC(R) on the installation CD or with a download from alltel.com.

Recently updated to version 5.0, Citrix’s popular, web-based remote access solution, Gotomypc, now boasts many new features, including faster performance, drag-and-drop file transfer and multi-monitor support.

 

Wifi known as Wireless Fidelity allows a user to connect to the internet without using network cabling. Whether it’s from your bedroom, couch, indoors or outdoors data can be sent and received within the range of a wireless base station. Wifi uses 802.11a, 802.11b or 802.11g technologies to provide a very reliable connection that is also fast and secure.