Pocket Informant and Handango "Free App Friday"

I discovered this last week that handango has this "Free App Friday". Put simply, every friday (considered in Central Standard Time), they will offer for free a mobile application from their (huge) catalog.

This last Friday the chosen app was Pocket Informant 2007, a very good time management application for Windows Mobile. I downloaded it, now it's running on my mobile, and I'm really happy with it.

Some time ago I bought Agenda Fusion 8, so I can try a comparison between the two.

And after my first two days of Pocket Informant, I can say that PI2007 is faster than AF8, both in terms of first load and using it (for example I can access my long contact list in a fraction of time, and this is really a good thing).

Maybe AF8 wins in terms of graphical details and rendering, but PI2007 views are effective and clear. There are a couple of functionalities that are present only in AF8 (the project view is not present in PI2007, or at least until now I did not find anything of the like), but what is needed is there, and works.

AF8 is a good product, don't take me wrong; but on my device (not a cutting edge one, WM5 with a lot of installed software) PI2007 works better... and I'm happy with it!

Squace beta - mobile content in a new, squared, way

Squace. Beta. (what else?!?!?)

It's a new way to collect contents, coming from different sources, on your mobile (java-enabled) device.

I'm trying it on my WM5 pocket pc (an "old" i-mate k-jam), and I have to say that it works without any problem.

The idea here is that you have a grid of little squares, each representing a link to a site, an rss feed, a post, whatever. You will collect all your contents in a page named "My Stuff"; in the following screenshot you can see my initial page, on it I clicked on a particular square:

That particular square represents a link to a "site" I created. This site is simply a container to a couple of blogs I write; obviously you can reach a very big array of content already present, searching in it thru keywords or navigating tags that other squace users gave to content pages.

Here below I'm clicking on a square representing a post in the blog you're reading:

 

And here is the post:

I have mixed feelings on this app. I like the idea, I think it is actually new and from a mobile user perspective it's also easy to use; I have still to make an opinion on its future, but I think I still need to use it for some time before I understand this... :-)

hulu.com - private beta, but... where do I live?

Ok, I've been invited in the new hulu.com private beta. I'm really interested in this new ways to deliver contents to the (web) public, so on my pc I have both joost and babelgum clients, and also Miro.

Enter Hulu: in this case I don't need any new client, everything is delivered thru the standard browser. The layout and dynamics of the interface is quite cool, I like this site.

Ok then, let's go and try to access some content. I see an episode from "The Simpsons" highlighted in the first page, I click on it.

Uhm... the player returns a message stating that: "Unfortunately this video is not currently available in your country or region".

Ok, I'll try with some other clip. House? ok, let's give it a try.

...same message. And also the same message pops up with every single choice I try.

Now I'm asking: is it caused by the fact that I live in Italy? and probably they cannot "broadcast" those content due to a DRM problem or something of the like? The support pages tell me that "For now, Hulu is a U.S. service only."

Ok, fine. But in this precise moment I could be anywhere in the world, I'm in the "internet" country... or I could be a US citizen, living temporarily in Italy, or again I could be an italian citizen, temporarily living in Iceland, or Morocco, or even USA.

So please explain this to me: I know I could simply go on YouTube and look for that Simpsons episode, and probably I'll find it; and there are many other way to access that video, but... but yes, I liked the Hulu idea, site, and contents, and I was excited to use it.

Annoying.

p.s.: no, I cannot modify my profile, the site doesn't permit this at the moment... I already checked ;-)

GMaps for Windows Mobile

It's amazing: the new version of Google Maps for Mobile is able to determine your position based not on GPS signal, but using the relative position of GSM cells around you.

And it works!

Here is a screenshot of "me" in my office, in Milan:

It's a really good program, until now I found only a minor problem: during setup, even if you ask to install GMaps on your memory card, the setup will install the app on the main memory; so that you then have to move everything by hand and recreate the shortcuts... then it works.

ClearContext IMS

If you use Microsoft Outlook and like me receive a huge load of emails during your work day, give a look to ClearContext - it's not free, but it's really a great software, helps a lot in clearing and sorting tour inbox, and "getting things done".

I'm in the 30 days trial period, but I think that I will buy this one.

What you get after setup is a new Outlook toolbar that will help you categorize your email and file single mails or threads to folders (that ClearContext will create for you), and give you shortcut to new functions like prioritizing your contacts (so that email from high priority contact will display with greater emphasis), or turn off email notifications for - say - 30 minutes or an hour... but actually the things that ClearContext can do for you are many, and you will get e netter service :-) if you jump to their site and give a look to some of the very good video tutorials offered!

Palringo - IM for mobile and desktop

Today I read this post on LifeHacker and I decided to give Palringo a try: it's an IM app that runs on Windows Mobile - powered devices and on Symbian (but Palringo has also a desktop Windows version, and if I understand well a java mobile version is planned), and I find it really good.

In order to work you need to register on palring's own site, and then use those credentials on your mobile device to login; then you start adding your identities on the various protocols and networks Palring knows about: Msn/Live, GTalk, ICQ, Yahoo, AIM. And its proprietary network too.

I used it and I find Palringo fast and reliable... A little screenshot here:

NetMeeting on Vista?

yes, I already know: NetMeeting is obsolete, vulnerable, no more cool, and whatever. But, you know, life is strange, and a customer needs me to connect with him thru NetMeeting... but I moved to Vista, and NetMeeting (the good old "conf.exe" in other windows flavours) is no more available. But to my surprise I discovered that a hotfix is available (with many big different disclaimers) in order to bring NetMeeting back to me!

Find it on http://thehotfixshare.net/ (a site that's really amazing, but this is another story), register there and then make a search for NetMeeting.

Hope this helps!

If Outlook doesn't open web links anymore...

On Windows Vista, open Control Panel, click "Programs", then "Default Programs".

There, click "Set program access and computer defaults", open the "Custom" section. You should then choose "Internet Explorer", then close everything , Control Panel, Outlook, Internet Explorer... this worked for me.

Hope this helps!

Rush Hour!

After I sent the link to the download of this game, a friend of mine told me that now I owe him some... hours of life that he lost after the traffic jams of this tiny but really addictive game.

Your task is to let the red "car" move outside the diagram, just like it was locked in a parking and you're in charge of solving the problem...

Go and download it - but this time don't tell that I didn't warn you!!!

It's for Windows Mobile.

http://www.fredvonk.eu/downloads.htm

Did I mention that's also free?

PowerLabs!

At last I have an account on Powerlabs!!! Great, I'll keep you informed... :-) For now I'm still trying to understand how to "move" in Powerlabs and how to use this (great) site!!!

Until now I'm simply trying the demos, in which i'm asked to compare the results from PowerLabs vs. "The Other Guys". Then you can "vote" on who gave the better results.

The query are something like "What did ____ write?". You complete filling in the blanks, launch the query, then compare the results. Queries in the demo are launched against Wikipedia.

Ok, I'll go on trying, then I'll tell you! Bye.

Planning Poker anyone?

I stumbled upon ;-) this "Planning Poker" tool.

I think that it could be used, it can be seen as a mean to a better effort estimation, that runs through a group discussion; each member "plays" her/his estimation (picking a card from a deck) and when everybody has played you can start discussing the result - probably you will notice some sensible differences between various estimations, and so people will start talking and eventually correcting...

It can also be funny. I read that there are also real card deck sold somewhere, but the web version is simple and quite good.

What do you think of it?

MSN Messenger - the credit card message

I'm stealing this from a dozen web sites around the web, but I need this hint periodically, so I put it also here.

When you start a chat in MSN Messenger a warning is shown that says
"Never give out your password or credit card number in an instant message conversation"
This tweak allows you to customize this message for example to display your company chat policy
Open your registry and find or create the key below:
[HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MessengerService\Policies]
Create a new String value, or modify the existing value, called "IMWarning" and set it according to text you want to display
You may need to restart or log out of Windows for the change to take effect.

Gps Speed Sentry - windows mobile app

I'm having a lot of fun using this "Gps Speed Sentry" app, that you can download from http://www.tchartdev.com/

This app features a series of screen showing, for the trip you're having:

- a graph on you speed

- a graph on altitude

- a compass

- some general information on actual speed, average speed, top speed, trip duration

- data on GPS satellite in sight

I find it really funny: try it if you have a gps-enabled windows mobile (or and external bluetooth gps antenna like me). The app will cost you $10, the trial version will disconnect from GPS monitoring every 10 minutes (not losing data, anyway).

Here's a screenshot, but please visit the developer's site for many other.

Flickr4Writer

This blog post will benefit of a Flickr photo taken from a LiveWriter Plugin, Flickr4Writer.

The plugin allows to choose an image from Flickr, given a subject, a tag set, a flickr photo album...

A step towards something I'd like, that is having the blog system choose a random photo for me every time, using the post's tag set to query Flickr.

If I only had some time... :-)

BrowserShots - Test your web design in different browsers

Ever wondered how will your site render on browsers like Galeon 2.0 or SeaMonkey 1.1? Or on Safari 1.3? Or maybe on GranParadiso 3.0 (does such a thing really exists?) ?

Well, you can, even not installing the browsers. Visit http://v04.browsershots.org/ and submit the site URL, choose between 44 different browsers... and then after some time (even more than 30 minutes for some browsers) you'll obtain all the screenshots related to all the selected browser's rendering of your site.

Really useful, isn't it?

Human Brain Cloud

You know, I'm a big fan of this kind of things... this Human Brain Cloud "game" is really funny.

Quoting from the site: "The idea is that given a word, a player types in the first thing that comes to mind and the results are combined into a giant network".

Powerset and PowerLabs

Uhm.... this is promising; www.powerset.com is going to go live after summer with a sarch engine capable to "understand" natural language queries.

Have a look to this Flickr image collection, and read the Powerset's blog entries to understand something more.

PowerLabs will be a sort of web app built "over" powerset's search engine.

This blog (from Steve Newcomb, powerset's founder) is also really interesting for it shows an "internal" point of view on the "making of" this new search engine. 

Texter - a text substitution app

On Lifehacker I found some weeks ago this little app, Texter.

It's a text substitution application; in other words you configure some shortcut that, when typed, are substituted in longer strings (commands, scripts, and so on). It's still "young" (release 0.3) but quite stable.

For example you could tell texter that when you type "zgg" you want him to replace that string with http://www.google.com/search?q=

Or you could use it to avoid typing everytime your mail address, something like "zem" that turns in someone@domain.com

The possibility are endless; the blog post on lifehacker shows some clever ways to use Texter.

TimeSnapper - "Your Life: The Movie" :-)

TimeSnapper (www.timesnapper.com) is self described in this way:

"TimeSnapper is an Automatic Screenshot Journal - It runs in the background of your computer, taking screenshots of your desktop every few seconds all week long."

Then it can "replay" (like a movie) the screenshots sequence, and the result is impressive. I'm trying this app in these days and it's really useful to "fill in the blanks" when I have to compile my work timesheet...

SpaceTime 3D Browser

This is really a beautiful app. SpaceTime is a "3D" web browser, that shows search results or pages in a 3D way that's really amazing.

It's better if I simply give you the URL, thre you can find every information or screenshot, go and see... www.spacetime.com