The AnderNaut

It would appear that albeit limited, consumers have now gained an ever so slight toehold under fair use again. It is nothing ground shattering as being able to make legal copies of audio and/or video works you already own for personal use. But a win never the less. These new exemption will begin November 27th, 2006 running though November 26th 2009.

These exemptions will go into effect upon publication in the Federal Register on November 27, 2006 and will remain in effect through October 27, 2009.

Item 5 is of the most interest to those of us dealing with phones, and mainly GSM phones (Cingular and T-mobile) at that.

5. Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network.

 This allows for circumvention of a phones software, or firmware, to use that device on another network. Meaning that phones for one carrier cannot be “locked” for use only on that specific carriers network. This does not say however that another carrier has to allow that phone to activated on there network. (i.e Transferring a phone between Sprint and Verizon.) It also does not affect the cost of having said device “unlocked”.

However small, it is a step in the direction of Consumer Rights that as of late we have seen being out weighted by that of the entertainment and media industries over the last several years. As always I encourage you to contact your State and Federal Representatives when ever an issue of Consumer Rights arises and let your voice be known. It can be these little victories that can trigger or build to a larger victory allowing for a balance in use by the consumer and copywrite holder.

Source:
Ruling on Anticircumvention - US Copyright Office
U.S. Copyright Office issues new rights - Yahoo News

Resource:
Copyright Office rules… can legally unlock cellphones - Engadget Mobile
Freedom Rings: Cellphones Must Be Unlocked - Gizmodo
Cell phone unlocking legal (for three years) - arstechnica

Over at GPS Passion they have a sneak peak at the upcoming Crossbow Phone edition. They have some great screenshots revealing some very interesting new features to Windows Mobile (WM) Smartphone. WM Smartphone is getting Mobile Office and Voice Command look to be the biggest items, they also have a Live Search Today plug-in.

A lot of “convergence” has happened…, with PocketPCs having had GPS and GSM/CDMA modules grafted on and Smartphones acquiring more power and the higher resolution screens of the PocketPCs. Today, the main differences are the touchscreen that remains a PDA exclusive and a more limited number of applications running on Smartphones, notably Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and GPS related.

Reference:
Windows Mobile “Crossbow” Preview! - Smartphone Thoughts

Resource:
Windows… “Crossbow” on Smartphone - GPS Passion

It would appear no matter how careful you are search caching will store something. News of the new Windows Mobile OSes “Crossbow” due out first half 2007 and “Photon” due out first half 2008 the next full release. Photon is to include a new modular system and the new “Yamazaki” CE Kernel.

Google cache caught a leaked presentation which told us that Crossbow will be released to manufacturer in Q4 2006 ready for release in Q1/Q2 of 2007 and that the next operating system (codenamed “Photon”) will be released to manufacturers in Q4 2007 ready for release in Q1/Q2 2008 (Photon is set to include a new, flexible shell with modular containers and utilise the “Yamazaki” CE kernel).

Source: New Windows Mobile OS “Crossbow” shows its face - MSMobileNews.com
Resource: Smartphone Thoughts

Well I can say I am liking what I have seen so far with Windows Vista, RC1. I had been running Beta 2 in VM since it became available via the CPP (Customer Preview Program). For those of you who signed up for Vista Beta 2 in June for the CPP you should have received an e-mail allowing to download Vista RC1. For those who did not sign-up or get to sign-up they will be opening up to new participants in the next couple of weeks.

Now for for the rest of the story. I down loaded Vista RC1 last Thursday and have rebuilt my laptop with it as the my main OS. The last couple of days I have finally been able to get my laptop to some semblance of order and to a point of being able to use it as my primary machine. So between work, family, and computer building my time has been totally consumed, sleep being a bit lacking initially. So that is where I had disappeared off to, and contrary to popular belief I had not taken holiday to Pluto.

I have been using Spb Diary for about a year now and have found it quite useful. Spb has done a very superb job of maximizing Today screen’s real estate, for your PIM experience. Diary uses a horizontal tabs arrangement for Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, Notes, and Messaging allowing for more information to be displayed in a single glance.  

• NEW! Photo contacts and handy dialing
• NEW! Stylus-free navigation (one hand using)
• NEW! Special Events tab (birthdays and more)
• NEW! Easy document management with Notes tab
• NEW! Skin support
• NEW! Integration with Spb Weather, Spb Finance and PhatNotes
• Tabs for Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, Notes, Messages and Special Events
• Integration with all popular PIMs
• Windows Mobile 5 support

 I have been trying the Beta for about week now and am liking the tweaks and new additions. My favorite is the Stylus free navigation, a boost to the one handed nature of my i-mate JAMin. This extends the function of the JAMin as a phone and making it easier to call from contracts, from the Today screen. I highly recommend giving Spb Diary a try, also try out the other Spb products

Source: Press Releases - Press Information - Spb Software House

Here is the new version of Skype for all you PocketPC users out there, version 2.1.0.53 beta. They’ve made some changes and bugfixes. I like what they have done with the interface, before I could not find a place to make changes to my Profile, now there is a button on the main screen to do just that.

• Multi-chat support
• SkypeIn
• Voicemail
• Call forwarding
• Profile editing
• Detailed search  
• Animated emoticons
• GSM and Sky call management
• Larger Dial Pad and delete button in Dial Pad
• One click launch from Today Plug-in

I have not had a chance to try it, but they are requiring WiFi or 3G data service. I bought a bluetooth headset for my phone a couple week ago and hope that I can use it with Skype also. They were kind enough to offer a .cab file direct download to allow for a direct install from your PocketPC device.

Well know software package Spybot Search & Destroy has been migrated to Windows Mobile platform. Having a version available for both PocketPCs and Smartphones, It is using and a version for the Symbian platform also. The mobile Spybot-S&D uses a light weight version of the detection engine used in the Windows Spybot-S&D detection engine. The application version is at 0.3, the scanning engine is currently 1.5.

While viruses for Symbian and Windows Mobile currently seem more like proof-of-concept studies, the Windows Mobile platform offers malware writers who already know Windows a very similar environment. Some may call it a hype, but that’s what people said about spyware 5 years ago as well, and our opinion is that it’s better to protect yourself before something happens than to do it afterwards.

I have installed it both on my i-mate JAMin and my iPAQ hx4705. It is a manual scan process, the scans took 5 minutes and 3.5 minutes respectively. It has an update option, but says there are no updates available, so we’ll have to see if it is automated update process or not. I will be interesting to keep an eye on it’s progress and see what the product develops into. (Source: PocketPC Thoughts - Spybot-S&D for Windows Mobile)

OK this is most definantly nothing more than geeking out. Running a Quake3 server on you PDA, at 520MHz and 128MB RAM I must say that is full on geek-atude.

Acer N50 Premium ( 520 Mhz Intel ARM Processor, 128 mb RAM, no 3D dedicated chip)and yes, I know, Dell Axim has 3D chip and it will run better the game, but… i have not this PocketPC and the video shows with some more tweaks (and low detail xD), Quake 3 is playable on the Acer N50 Premium, well, and to show we can play Q3 in a subway station with other PocketPCs or notebooks xDDDD

(Source: PocketPC Thoughts - Quake3 Server on PPC)

Beta 2 Participation:
The Windows Vista Public Beta 2 is no longer available. They have reached the number of participants need for the “public” beta testing.

Thank you for your interest in Windows Vista. The Customer Preview Program is now closed. We have reached our program capacity and no new orders are being accepted. We apologize for any inconvenience.

For registered customers who have received a Product Key the download sites will remain open until Friday, July 14.

The information on this page is intended for Customer Preview Program participants. Participants will receive an e-mail message with additional information when Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is available later this year. Thank you for testing Windows Vista.

DVD Burn issue:
There also appears to be issues when burring the DVD for Vista Beta download at max speed. Microsoft is recommending that you use 1x or 2x speed for the “highest quality” burn of the disk from the Public Beta site.

Using a DVD burner and software, burn the ISO image of Windows Vista Beta 2 to a new blank DVD. We recommend burning at the lowest speed supported by your DVD burner (1X or 2X) to ensure the highest quality. Most DVD burning software will recognize an ISO file. If your software does not automatically recognize this format, refer to the software’s “Help” section for instructions.

It is also a good idea to run a CRC check as specified in the latest release notes for the latest build, 5456.5.

When burning your DVDs please do so at 1x or 2x and CRC them when done using the CRC utility posted on the Connect site. The customer experience improvement telemetry that we’ve been getting back on Beta 2 shows that not quite three quarters of setup failures are the result of a failure to read from the media. Testing shows that burning at slower speeds greatly increases the chances of a good burn.

So there you go, keep that in mind when burring the Vista Beta DVD , there is a three in four chance that it will fail. Or, you can just use VM which just mounts the ISO downloaded and skips the whole burning process.

Microsoft has released version 4.2 of it’s Active Sync software. It allows a PC to sync via USB Cable, Bluetooth, or Infrared connections with Windows Mobile devices. Mainly it fixes bugs that have shown up.

Changes in ActiveSync 4.2 help resolve connectivity related issues with Microsoft Outlook, proxies, partnerships, and connectivity.

• Microsoft Outlook Improvements: Resolves issues relating to error code 85010014
• Proxy/DTPT interaction Improvements: Improved auto configuration of device Connection Manager settings when desktop has no proxy path to the internet.
• Improved Desktop Pass Thru behavior with ISA proxy failures
• Partnership improvements: Better resolution of multiple devices with the same name syncing with the same desktop
• Connectivity Improvements: Better handling of VPN clients (resolve unbinding of protocols from our RNDIS adapter). New auto detection of connectivity failure with user diagnostic alerts