Sony NW-HD5 20GB Network Walkman

See Engadget here. Also check out a comparison with the iPod here:



Sony claim this has a 40 hour battery life. Amazon.co.uk originally listed this at £170 with a May release date.







Check out a 3D view. Looks pretty cool, but I'm not tempted... Same old SonicStage software pushing just ATRAC and mp3. No WMA or OGG. However, they are getting closer.

Update: Here are some more photos, including the NW-HD5H 30GB version. Even the battery looks cool. I'm having second thoughts about this player. It looks so good (in my opinion) that I may be tempted to choose form over function.

Google Maps adds satellite view

Google Maps now includes a satellite view. See this tour.

To get the satellite view by default, append "&t=k" to the URL. So, for a map view, use:

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.870358,-77.055767&spn=0.005955,0.007693&hl=en

and for a satellite view use:

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.870358,-77.055767&spn=0.005955,0.007693&hl=en&t=k

John Carmack and mobile gaming

John Carmack has recently added an entry on his cell phone adventures. His use of J2ME seemed fairly frustrating, but he points out that Qualcomm's BREW looks promising. It would be interesting to find out if he's tried the .NET Compact Framework which I believe has support for the 3D graphics accelerator found in HTC's Feeler (marketed as O2 Xphone II - similar to HTC's Typhoon, aka Orange SPV C500, but targetted for gaming). From what I understand, unlike J2ME, the .NET Compact Framework does act as a WORA platform.

Amongst other things, he discusses a problem for multi-player games - long thought to be a "killer app" for 3G phones. Firstly he points out one problem: 2" screens limit the immersive experience. Secondly he describes the problems that will arise due to the high latency of packet communication technologies including current 3G infrastructure. Basically, unless you want to play some turn-based game, low latency circuit-switched communications is necessary even though the throughput can be very low. This could be very expensive if the game lasts several hours. This will remain true for some time. However, there is some hope. Many US operators (including this recent Verizon timetable) plan VoIP across EV-DO Revision A: 2008 or 2009 for Verizon, early 2007 for Sprint. Using some of the protocols including QoS specification in Rev. A, these network upgrades should be capable of providing the desired low latency.

Skype 1.2 update includes SkypeIn

Skype have just released Skype 1.2. This release features SkypeIn support in addition to many other features (see a list of changes: Skype for Windows Change Log).

Download here (for Windows).

Updated "Longhorn" screenshots

Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows has some updated "Longhorn" information in The Road to Windows "Longhorn" 2005.

Note the program hang! Doh!

Windows Mobile 2005 screenshots

Engadget have some new screenshots of Windows Mobile 2005.

The scoop on the Super Shuffle

See here.

Microsoft delays Visual Studio 2005 to end of year

Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 is now delayed to some time in April (see here) with the full release due in September 2005. With only three months to go to 2006 it would seem prudent for Microsoft to rename it to Visual Studio 2006 if they want to avoid looking very silly.

So what's the point of 3G?

Interesting BBC News article: So what's the point of 3G?.

Makes you think!

Quote for the Day from Terry Wogan (via Gavin Esler's Newsnight e-mail):

"Amid all the tumult and the shouting over the soaring price of oil, has it not gone unnoticed that, even at a pound a pint, petrol is still cheaper than a bottle of water in most London restaurants?"

It's not just London, of course. There are similar high prices in Cardiff and most other cities in the UK.

Ajax

Here's an interesting post: Ajax: a new approach to web applications. It's not a new technique but is interesting since it gives a formal "definition" (a pattern) to an approach that reduces latency and improves the user experience.

Grand Slam

Wales beat Ireland to claim Six Nations Grand Slam. (Wales Under-21s also completed the Under-21s Grand Slam yesterday.)

Phalanger

Phalanger: PHP .NET compiler revealed

WiMAX and 3G technology comparison

Here's an interesting paper from Intel. It makes a technical comparison between WiMAX/OFDMA and 3G technologies. It concludes that WiMAX has a distinct advantage for data-centric applications. It would be interesting to understand the impact of the greater use of VoIP over the wireless network. I wonder if VoIP skews the results in favour of WCDMA/EV-DO since it would require higher QoS guarantees.

Qualcomm abandons cdma2000 EV-DV

There are several reports (RCR Wireless News, TheFeature) suggesting that Qualcomm have abandoned their EV-DV chipset development in favour of VoIP across the EV-DO Revision A standard.

Update: Sprint also commit to EV-DO with a future VoIP network and officially discarding EV-DV (see here for more information). Sprint are accelerating their plans with network trials early 2006 with the possibility of rollout late 2006. Sprint Vice President of Technology Development Oliver Valente said "voice capabilities of Rev. A make it applicable to Sprint's entire footprint".

World Wind updates

World Wind 1.3 is available here, World Wind Central is here and there is a blog here.

Also take a look at the Geocoder here.

iRiver H10 Junior

iRiver seem to be planning a smaller version of the H10 (see above next to the new Apple iPod Mini). It has a colour screen, FM radio and up to 4GB of one of these Toshiba 2cm mobile phone drives:



Doesn't say if it plays video, but then you probably wouldn't want to watch anything on such a small screen.

Update: this will only contain a 1GB drive.

Doves: Some Cities

The first quality album this year: Doves' Some Cities.

Macintosh Stories

I'm fascinated by computing history, especially the development of the personal computer. So it was wonderful to come across (via Don Box's blog) Folklore.org. It's full of anecdotes about the development of the Macintosh, and the people who created it. I've just spent two inspiring hours reading the articles (most are by Andy Hertzfeld) and would recommend it to everyone.

Nextel invests in Florida

Nextel plan to build 500 new cell sites (which equates to 20 percent of the total sites the company built nationwide in 2004) while adding a further 12,000 radios to the Florida market during 2005.

MSF for Agile Software Development update

Randy Miller has an overview of MSF for Agile Software Development within Visual Studio 2005 Team System: Delivering the MSF Agile Mindset.

There are a few things to note such as the cool reporting of remaining tasks and one of his comments that states that MSF Agile will be included in Beta 2.

Overview of Branching, Merging, and Shelving

Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation's WebLog contains a good Overview of Branching, Merging, and Shelving.

Process Explorer updated to version 9.01

Download here

Google Toolbar 3 beta

Google Toolbar 3 beta

MSF Agile reaches Beta

Download here.

C++ on .NET attacked

Java creator James Gosling called Microsoft's decision to support C and C++ in the CLR the "biggest and most offensive mistakes that they could have made".

Scary stuff? Not really. Just some FUD:

    Low-level language + JNI + Java = Doh!

Update... Ignore my feeble effort to dispell Gosling's FUD. Don Box already has this covered: "Huge Security Hole in Solaris and JVM"

Cool Commands for Whidbey

Gaston Milano has added some more cool functionality to "Whidbey". Check out these new additions ("Copy File" and "Send by Mail") via his Cool Commands for Whidbey post.

Google Maps

Google Maps is interesting (US only for the moment).

Update: See Joel Webber's analysis for some technical details.

Herb Sutter on Channel 9

Download here.

iriverter

Use iriverter to convert your DVDs for use on the iRiver H3xx or H10. These movies also work well with the Orange SPV C500 (although it can go to a higher frame rate so you may want to do that some other way).

Microsoft Internal Coding Guidelines

Internal Coding Guidelines.

HOWTO: Hack iPod into iPod Shuffle

Step 4: delete all but 240 songs! :)

(From Gizmodo.)

Andrew Corp. aquire Xenicom

Xenicom have just been bought by Andrew Corporation. For more information see here.

Microsoft ActiveSync 3.8 released

Download here.

CDs/2004: Air — ­­Talkie Walkie

Zoom
Talkie Walkie is Air's fourth album (not counting their soundtrack to Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicide) and a more natural descendent of 1998's Moon Safari. Trademark layers of melodic synthesizer and strings (arranged by Michel Colombier - sadly one of his last collaborations) compliment Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin's soft vocal harmonies. If I were only allowed to choose one album from 2004, this would be it.

Released: January 26, 2004
Singles: Cherry Blossom Girl, Surfing on a Rocket, Alpha Beta Gaga
Adverts: Alpha Beta Gaga (Orange), Alone in Kyoto (BT)
Film: Alone in Kyoto (Lost in Translation)
Web: http://www.intairnet.org/

CDs/2004: Favourites

I thought, over the next few days, I'd list some of my favourite CDs of 2004.

Overall, 2004 has been a poor year for music, but there have been one or two quality releases. Hopefully 2005 will be much better.

Windows XP SP2: The Inside Story

Paul Thurrott has published an interesting article on the development of Windows XP Service Pack 2: The Inside Story.

Visual Studio 2005 Team System CTP on MSDN

The December 2004 CTP of Visual Studio 2005 Team System has been released on MSDN Subscriber Downloads.

For an installation guide see here.

Whidbey Commands for Visual Studio 2003

I mentioned Gaston Milano in a recent "Avalon" post. Prior to his XamlViewer for Visual Studio 2005 he developed an excellent little utility called WhidbeyCommands for Visual Studio 2003. This installed three extra commands onto each tab:



It turns out that Gaston released two further updates this year. The first, WhidbeyCommands 2.0 for Visual Studio 2003, adds the following to the Solution Explorer context menu:



The "Collapse All Projects" is something I've wanted for a long time and, on its own, is worth the download.

While the second update, WhidbeyCommands 2.1 for Visual Studio 2003, adds the following to the Text Editor context menu:



Demo Font swaps the editor font to a larger, clearer font. This is useful when you have a bunch of developers crowded around your desk trying to help debug some nasty crash.

Wheel Font Sizing is really good if you regularly connect to your machine from several monitors with different resolution (i.e. using Remote Desktop). By pressing Ctrl while rolling the mouse wheel, you can enlarge or reduce the font size.

Download WhidbeyCommands 2.1 for Visual Studio 2003. Before installing, download and install the Microsoft Interop Assemblies.

Outlook 2003 Integration API

Microsoft release a reference guide for the Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Integration APIs. Download here.

How to cluster virtual machines

Virtual PC Guy recently pointed out an article on creating two-node Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Cluster using Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. How did we ever cope in the dark ages before virtualization...?

Motorola Announces 3 year deal for iDEN Technology

Just to prove that iDEN is not going to die out anytime soon, Motorola Announces Next Generation Push to Talk Platform for iDEN Technology and announce a 3 year deal with Nextel.

More good news for Nextel...

Nextel Nets Spectrum Credit

Get podcasts and videos on Windows Mobile Smartphones

Engadget show how to get podcasts onto Windows Mobile Smartphones.

Mac OS X 10.3.7 Update

Apple release the Mac OS X 10.3.7 Update.

How Stuff Works

How Stuff Works give clear explanations of things around us such as computers, DVDs etc.

Google for Microsoft

I didn't know this, but Google provide a search engine dedicated to Microsoft-related sites:

http://www.google.com/microsoft.html

MSN Toolbar Suite shortcut:

@gms,http://www.google.com/microsoft?q=$w&hq=microsoft

MSN Toolbar Suite tips

Here are a few tips I use with MSN Toolbar Suite:

First I get rid of the extra buttons on either side of the textbox of the MSN Deskbar. To do this you need to start regedit and browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MSN Apps\DB. Then add a DWORD with the name Buttons and value = 1.

Second I change the default hotkey to SHIFT+S. This means you can use WindowsKey+S to change focus to the Deskbar textbox (I don't know why Shift works). To do this select Option and select Deskbar in the treeview and press SHIFT and S in the textbox.

I'm happy using MSN Search for Web queries, but News and Groups (which is not suplied by MSN Search at the moment) are better handled by Google. So add shortcuts from the Deskbar textbox:

Google Groups:
@gg,http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=$w

Google News
@gn,http://news.google.com/news?tab=gn&q=$w&hl=en&

Another shortcut I like:

@msdn2,http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/$w

which lets you search by typing "msdn2 System.IO.File" to go directly to a description of the File class in the .NET Framework.

Unstrung

Unstrung seem to have some good wireless telecoms articles/news. No sign of an RSS feed at the moment.

Microsoft release a Christmas Theme for Windows

Microsoft have released a Christmas Theme that includes "new wallpaper, animated cursors, new icons, new sounds and a 3D screensaver".

Sprint Nextel deal confirmed

Sprint to Buy Nextel in $35 Billion Deal. If regulatory approval follows the same nine month path as the Cingular/AT&T Wireless deal, the buyout should close in the second half of 2005.

This solves Nextel's 3G deliberations with them almost certain to move their 15.3 million subscribers to Sprint's future 1xEV-DO network. This will be at the expense of Flarion Technologies' Flash-OFDM. Sprint have already begun their 3G rollout in the hope that this is completed by 2007.

In the shorter-term Motorola agree to make dual-mode phones to bridge Sprint Nextel's incompatible CDMA/iDEN networks.

More details regarding their plans:

http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3448181

Note the following timetable:

Co-location work to start in 2005, but little will change as they await approval – they’ll concentrate on making Sprint’s 1.9GHz network interoperable with Nextel’s 800 MHz, “as well as drafting up site-sharing arrangements”. Co-location work will continue in 2006 with Nextel pushing the plans to move iDEN over to CDMA. This will continue through 2007. Sprint Nextel will then develop VoIP across the cdma2000 1xEV-DO network during 2008. Sprint Nextel expect 14,000 Nextel cell sites will host CDMA equipment by 2008.

Sprint Nextel have an official merger site:

http://sprintnextel.mergerannouncement.com/

Of particular interest is the Investor briefing and page 13 in particular.

MSN Toolbar Suite

Microsoft have released a beta of MSN Toolbar Suite.

ETSI adopt DVB-H standard

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is to adopt the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast - Handheld) standard for mobile TV services. (See official deliverable.)

Nokia have issued a press release welcoming this news and promising handsets by 2006.

This could slow the rate of 3G adoption. For example, 3G services currently offer the download of all the goals scored in the Premier League at an expensive per-MB download rate (roughly £1 per minute). O2 are already planning to use DVB-H next year despite having paid £4-billion for their 3G license. It is likely that they'll be offering a service around £8 per month for 16 channels. Premium content is likely to cost more, and is likely to be offered on a pay-per-view basis. Assuming they price this right, it will be difficult to imagine anyone prepared to pay to download a few 10 second clips of the top goals through the expensive mobile network when they can watch the entire match.

The UK is likely to be a good match for DVB-H transmissions since it is based on the system used to transmit the Freeview digital TV service.

For more information see this New Scientist article and this article from Wireless Week. Note the incredible bargain Crown Castle's 5MHz US spectrum deal could be in the future.

Sprint to buy Nextel for $36-billion

According to many reports (e.g. Sprint in talks to buy Nextel for $36B and Sprint, Nextel close to merger) Sprint and Nextel have tentatively agreed on key terms for Sprint to buy Nextel for $36-billion

Regulatory hurdles are expected to be low since federal regulators recently approved the $41-billion acquisition of AT&T Wireless by Cingular.

This makes a lot of sense. Sprint are able to consolidate their No. 3 position behind Cingular and Verizon. Spectrally, such a deal offers many synergies. Sprint’s spectrum in the PCS band is adjacent to the band Nextel are expected to receive through the FCC’s 800MHz rebanding requirement. Furthermore, Nextel have been investigating CDMA technologies to replace their existing iDEN systems.

Amazon.co.uk -- Rent This DVD

Amazon.co.uk have introduced a new service called DVD Rental by Post. For £9.99 a month, you can rent up to 6 DVDs with free postage to and from your home. You also get 10% off all DVD purchases.

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 Released

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0

Process Explorer 8.6

Download here.

New in this release:

• Multi-row tabs on process properties dialog
• Image signing verification on process image properties dialog
• Mini-CPU usage graph on toolbar
• Command-line option for specifying Process Explorer priority
• Manual refresh (F5) forces recheck of job and .NET process status
• Single-clicking on tray icon minimizes and restores main window

Winter Fun Pack 2004 for Windows XP

Winter Fun Pack 2004 for Windows XP

MSN Spaces

MSN Spaces is Microsoft's entry into the world of blogging. Shame they've missed this opportunity and produced something so poor. Hopefully, over time, things will improve.

This is my MSN Spaces blog:

http://spaces.msn.com/members/simonchapman.

There is nothing there yet, and I'll not use it in the foreseeable future. It's just a placeholder just in case this does get interesting.

MSN Messenger 7.0 Beta

Download MSN Messenger Beta

iRiver H300 Series Firmware 1.25

The new firmware release improves the usability of video playback. Download here.

Konfabulator 1.8.1

Konfabulator 1.8.1 is now available.

Fixes include:

• Reduced memory footprint in Task Manager
• Upgraded the URL object to support POSTing, outputting to a file and returning the HTTP response code
• Made the Below window level stick to the desktop when choosing Show Desktop from the Task Bar
• Now reacts properly to monitor configuration changes and move widgets appropriately
• Now stores unzipped widgets in the local app data folder, not the system's temporary folder
• Fixed problem where click-through was not working
• Redid CPU monitoring code to avoid issues with performance counters
• Attempted to solve the occasional spontaneous unregistering issue
• Added automatic check for updates, with ability to 'skip' a version

Cingular announce its 3G plans

Cingular Wireless have announced their 3G plans and award Lucent Technologies the contract for its nationwide 3G UMTS deployment.

The network will use a new evolution of UMTS -- High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), which will ultimately support theoretical peak data rates of up to 14.4 Mbps and is necessary to combat Verizon's EV-DO rollout.

Visual Studio 2005 hits ZBB for beta 2

S. Somasegar blogs that Visual Studio 2005 has hit the Zero Bug Bounce milestone for Beta 2.

Beta 2 is due for release in Q1 2005.

Maxthon

I've been using Firefox on my home machine on and off for the last year. In general it's fast and works very well, but there are times that I have to go back to Internet Explorer (due to compatibility issues). So I still find myself using Internet Explorer on a daily basis with the downside that I no longer have any tabbed windows.

Luckily there is a browser that uses the Internet Explorer rendering engine and wraps it in a tabbed dialog. "Maxthon is a powerful web browser with a highly customizable interface. It is based on the Internet Explorer engine which means that what works in IE, works the same in Maxthon but with many additional efficient features". I can easily see myself permanently switching to Maxthon very soon.

How to run Virtual Server 2004 under Windows XP

I thought that Virtual Server 2005 only worked on Windows Server 2003. However, John Howard (no, not that John Howard) blogs: How to run Virtual Server under XP.

"Avalon" for Windows XP

The Avalon November 2004 Community Technical Preview for Windows XP has been released on MSDN Subscriptions as part of the WinFX SDK.

"Avalon" requires a Beta 1 build of .NET Framework 2.0 to be installed.

Update: Chris Anderson has a demo application -- XamlPad. Note that he is using ClickOnce to deploy updates (this is the first time I've seen that technology working).

Gaston Milano (the WhidbeyCommands for Visual Studio 2003 developer) has released a Xaml Viewer for Visual Studio 2005 which has been updated recently.

blinkx and Smart Folders

blinkx 2.0 has a cool Smart Folder feature.

"Smart folders are intelligent folders that automatically and persistently update their content as new information becomes available. Smart folders build over time and can be based on the actual ideas contained within the content of those files, and not on select keywords.

"Smart folders within blinkx have been applied to all data types, including: pictures, music, video, text and Web pages. blinkx enables fast automatic indexing and linking of desktop documents, including: Microsoft Word, PowerPoint presentations, Excel worksheets, Adobe Acrobat PDFs, contact information from Outlook, Outlook Express, and Eudora, HTML pages and text documents, as well as Web and news content. blinkx 2.0 also extends the range of formats that blinkx can understand to include all popular multimedia formats such as: MP3, AAC (iTunes), WMV, MPEG, Real, AVI, QuickTime MOV, TIFF, GIF, JPEG, Zip files and BMP.

"You can set smart folders to check for new content on the Web, TV or news and trickle download them unnoticed into your smart folders. You can then view them even when you are off line."

.NET Rocks! - Java, .NET, and the future

One of the best .NET Rocks! yet: Mark Pollack, Ted Neward, and Don Box on Java, .NET, and the future.

"This show was originally intended to be a discussion about Java and Spring.NET with Mark Pollack. Then Ted was invited, and he invited Don. The result is an almost two hour discussion of Java and .NET."

MSN Web Messenger

MSN Web Messenger has been updated. It looks more and more like the standard desktop version.

Koders - Source Code Search Engine

"Koders is a search engine for source code. It enables developers to easily search and browse source code in thousands of projects hosted at hundreds of open source repositories."

I've done a couple of "reference searches" and have had good results without the normal Google "noise".

Microsoft developer guidelines

This is a really good set of guidelines that "encourage consistency and predictability" during software development. These guidelines are specifically for library developers but I think they offer useful advice for all development tasks.

While we are on the subject, I've been enjoying the latest Larry Osterman series of blogs on code style. Here they are:

What does style look like, part 1
What does style look like, part 2 (structure)
What does style look like, part 3 (indentation)
What does style look like, part 4 (documenting)
What does style look like, part 5 (headers)
What does style look like, part 6 (naming conventions)
What does style look like, part 7 (language specific style)
What does style look like, part 8 (the end)
Larry's Coding Conventions

Another convert to the HTC Typhoon cause

Steve Makofsky wrote an article saying how he did not like the HTC Typhoon (Orange SPV C500, AudioVox SMT 5600, etc.). However, having used it for two weeks, he now considers it to be "pretty damn good". I could not agree more. Even though there will be many phones in the near future that will beat it, there is no phone out there today that can come close.

MSN Toolbar Suite

Neowin.net have an exclusive article on the new MSN Toolbar Suite. I'm a big fan of Lookout -- using it on a daily basis -- so I'm looking forward to testing out the Outlook Toolbar.

YouSendIt

Use YouSendIt if you need to securely exchange large files without sharing passwords (à la FTP). Each exchange remains "shareable" for seven days.

There is a 1GB limit per exchange, but you can send larger files by splitting the transmission.

MapPoint, SmartPhone and C#

The Code Project has an interesting series of articles on "MapPoint, SmartPhones and C#". Here is Part 1 and Part 2.

What amazes me is how much can be done with such little code.

iRiver H320/340 Firmware 1.20

The updated video playback firmware is here. I'll write a follow-up post that describes how to prepare video for playback on this device at a later date.

Handtops

The OQO is not the only handtop computer (small computers that run full versions of Microsoft Windows XP) out there today. Here is a list of alternatives.

Here is the FlipStart:



The Sony U50 (in Japanese):



Although this is reportedly dropped to make way for the Sony U750.

Here is the Antelope:



And this is the Tiqit:



Finally here's a product comparison from Handtops.com.

10x10

From Scoble: 10x10.

Konfabulator for Windows released

Download it here.

iPodder 1.1 released

iPodder 1.1 is now available for Windows and Mac. The Linux version is currently postponed.

Create Well-Formed XML with JavaScript

Here's some cool JavaScript from O'Reilly's XML Hacks: Create Well-Formed XML with JavaScript (also available as PDF).

Kumite

Following on from my Eclipse post, Alien Invention also have Kumite. This is a Street Fighter clone exclusively for Microsoft Smartphones. One of the cooler features is a Bluetooth multiplayer mode. I'm not sure when it'll get released, but I hope it is sooner rather than later.

Konfabulator for Windows

Konfabulator for Windows is due Monday, November 8.

HP Pavilion zd8000

Could the HP Pavilion zd8000 be the coolest notebook yet? Notebook Review have some screenshots here. It features a 17" BriteView widescreen, full keyboard, multicard reader, DVD burner, docking cradle and remote control:



Remote control? It needs it since it has a dual TV Tuner (pictured on the right):



I'm assuming it'll come with Windows Media Center Edition 2005 pre-installed (notice the remote looks to have the green Windows Media Centre "seal of approval" so it must be have it or at least be compatible with it). The rumours are that it'll be out in December.

Scoble's linkblog

Scoble's linkblog is worth checking out. It's basically a companion to his main blog, but does not contain as much descriptive text -- think of it as a jumping point to other blogs. I've gotten lots of great links from it.

The Future of Wi-Fi

Good summary on The Future of Wi-Fi.

Eclipse

No, this post is not about IBM's IDE by the same name. It's about a more serious application: Eclipse for the Microsoft Smartphone by Alien Invention.

Eclipse has been installed on my Orange SPV C500 (the HTC Typhoon -- aka i-mate SP3, aka Audiovox SMT5600) for nearly two months and I've been addicted ever since. I really love retro games and Smartphones are a perfect platform.

By the way, could this phone be any cooler? Messenger, Internet Explorer, Media Player (I have a 512 MB miniSD card so use it as an "emergency" MP3/WMA player), easy synchronization, Pocket Streets 2005 and last, but not least, the .NET Compact Framework to play with (for example, see Chandu Thota's blog on the Joy of Location with MapPoint Location Server).

Hush E-Series

While I waited for the Nanode, I thought about getting the Hush Mini-ITX:




It now seems that Hush are making a Windows Media Center Edition 2005 compatible device -- the Hush E-Series:

Nanode

The delay of the VIA Nano-ITX motherboards (the EPIA N-Series) and Eden-N processors has meant that I have been waiting for nearly six months for the release of Hoojum Design's Nanode. However, there now seems to be some movement with the Nanode due within the next month or two.

iCruze

Monster make high-quality audio cables and will soon release iCruze -- a device to allow drivers to connect an iPod through a factory-fitted or aftermarker car audio system. Since this is a direct connection, it does not suffer the loss of fidelity seen in FM transmitters such as the iTrip or TuneCast.

How to Build a Complete Citrix MetaFrame Lab with VMware Workstation

Brian Madden has an interesting article about Building a Complete Citrix MetaFrame Lab with VMware Workstation.

palmOne to make Microsoft Windows Mobile Treo?

Engadget have an interesting article suggesting that palmOne could soon make a Microsoft Windows Mobile Treo. This will be an amazing turn of affairs if true.

Apple iTunes 4.7

A new version of Apple iTunes for Windows is available here. This is the first version to support the new Apple iPod Photo.

.NET Architecture Center: Software Factories

Microsoft's .NET Architecture Center have collected together some articles on Software Factories.

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Migration Toolkit

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Migration Toolkit has been released.

Hello BloggerBot

Hello has been around for a while, but I was unaware that it could be used to host pictures directly on a Blogspot blog. See Hello BloggerBot for more information.

The primary function of Hello - a sort of P2P for photos - is also pretty cool and worth checking out.