MS Office on smartphones

Folks you might wanna pay a bit closer attention to this one and why I say Windows Mobile is bit of a warning lable if you expect to make good use of your smartphone. Thats right! I said it: its a warning label!

When buying a smartphone, users often presume that getting a Windows Mobile based phone means they would get better usage and support for their MS Office files. Its probably one of the worst myths in the world of smartphones. You cant entirely blame them for this faulse assumption. One would expect "Windows" based smartphone to give better functionality for Word documents, Excel sheets and Power Point presentations. Unfortunately, it doesnt work that way. If only people could google a bit more before investing in a smartphone or better still... read my blog!

Most people would find it strange or might even be reluctant to believe that the first generation of ESeries smartphones came with Nokias own application, Documents, for accessing MS Office files, was so good that not only it was better than any 3rd party software, it was actually better than Microsoft's own devices! Its not just Mobile Review who declared Nokia's MS Office capabilities to be superior to Microsoft's proposition, others have been expressing their frusration with even with just document viewing on Windows Mobile. funny huh? well if you use Microsoft Windows (and most likely you do), its not that hard to believe.

But come on! how hard is it to have a quick browse on the net to find out the most suitable software or using MS files on any smart phone? to figure that Quick Office is probably currently the most popular solution. Until recently, Office 2007 files were not supported by any smartphones, and yes not even for Windows Mobile. But now finally this has been fixed and solutions are availble for most devices. QuickOffice has also just released Premier 5.0 now supports Office 2007 on Symbian smartphones.

Better than that! the ESeries phones like E61 and E62 both come with excellent and comprehensive a built- in full Office suite which allows you to view, edit and create Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. For both these devices, contacts, calendar, tasks and notes, all of them easily sync to Microsoft Outlook using the included PC Suite. And if you're a power user, you probably already own or at least eyeing the E90.

E61 Screens

The lesson learned? Windows Mobile does not mean it gives better support for MS Office, in fact you might even wanna treat "Windows Mobile" as a warning lable (indulge me a little), specially if you wanna use your Windows Mobile device with Vista.


Bilal
http://elanist.com/bilal

Controlling your PC with your phone

thats right! if you didnt know this before now you do. You can not only use your mobile phone as a TV remote (since ages ago), you can use your regular mobile phone to control sotware applications on your PC (or Mac). Specially if your phone is based on Symbian S60, and even better if you have an E-series phone. In fact the new Salling Clicker software is actually native for E-series phones like the E61. And it uses WiFi or Blue Tooth for connecting to your PC, and does all the detection for you. PRETTY cool!

thats all there's to it. you can control software and send and recieve data and sort of be able to see whats happening on the PC as well.

there's are a lot of possibilities here folks! all depends on how far can your evil mind think. Look at what people were doing with a simple infrared control 10 years ago! consider this: when Palm Pilot was still the rage, car thieves actually used Pilot's infrared port to pick up frequencies of car locks from a distance. then used their Palm Pilot to unlock and steal the cars. this became quite a problem in the UK if I remember correctly.

and I'm not even going to mention what people did with the zero lux infrared capability of the olddd Soney handycams (my blog is PG13 remember?). Point is, we give you the stuff, your devilish mind should do the rest, and there's a LOT of devilish stuff you can do with a kickass smartphone like the E61 and its siblings.

Bilal
http://buzzzword.blogspot.com/

BOOHOO For You!

found this interesting little jap cartoon at Engadget Mobile. its actually about the japanese smartphone makers making fun of western (american in particular) about how backward their phones are. it comes with this "[Warning: Psychedelic video could induce epilepsy]":



so did you get epilepsitic? epileptic? elliptical? episeptic?

boohooforyou.com



Bilal
http://elanist.com/bilal

how to make S60 browse like iPhone

if you wanna get more out of browsing from your smartphone, there's this guy Harri Salminen who's come up with a pretty cool way to make websites think your S60 phone (come on, its about time you found out your phone is running Symbian (or it should!)) is actually an iPhone. and why the h*ll does that matter? well like Harri says, thanks to all the marketing buzz behind iPhone, many major websites have special optimized pages for browsing on the iPhone, when your S60 phone can render pages just as well, or better.

The screen shots give a general idea about the difference between a standard webpage on the phone screen compared with iPhone optimized:

normal S60 browsing

with the iPhone hack

So your Nokia or any other phone running S60 (depending on what model you have) can do just the same with this little hack. You can download the hack from Harri's website below:

S60 to iPhone hack

Harri had actually encountered a little bug which wasn't letting his N95 make the most of this phone, but thanks to another genius, Robin Jewsbury, there's a fix for that little bug too:

S60 to iPhone bug fix


happy browsing!


Bilal
http://elanist.com/bilal/

New grid comparison of smartphones

I was going through some message boards and came across a posting from someone about this really cool grid that calculate the scores of smartphones based on your own preferences.

http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/grid.htm

ok it may not be REALLY cool, cuz of some of the models *you* would want to be see in there may not be there. but think again! there may be a reason why such a model was not put in there in the first place!

I'm not surprised at all about the winner and runner-up in that grid if all criterie are set to preference.

Bilal
http://elanist.com/bilal/

Snakes in Singapore?!

yes I know there are plenty of fork-tongued snakes in singapore, but I mean the slithery crawling reptiles, the real deal. Didnt know they can still be found near homes, and definitely never expect a black cobra to be crawling around in the backyard (not many backyards in singapore to begin with). Yet, while I was getting ready for work this morning, I heard my russian housemate screaming. "She can't be at it with her bf, its way too early for that sort of thing", I thought. I was right, moments later I heard Marcus (her bf) yelling "bilal do you know anything about cobras?!" and I was like "yea, supposed to stay away from them". Apparantly they had seen a black cobra in the backyard. Somehow they figured out the snake is a she (aren't they always?). good guess there roomies!

I quickly grabbed my bokken (graciously given to me by lovely model Carrol), clad in nothing but my shorts and bedroom slippers, Marcus was holding a broom clad only in a sarong ("the semi-nudist cobra hunt", I should have brought my camera downstairs). and there was a really cute cat sitting and watching intently, close to where the lady cobra was now hiding under the thick vegetation. Exciting stuff.

Alas, after a lot of probing and prodding, I couldnt get the cobra to show its head. It seems that the cobra found the earlier screams of my lovely russian housemate too terrifying and high-tailed out of there before we could get acquainted. Hmm... or maybe the poor snake was too terrified of two blokes coming after it in their skimpy sleepwear. Hey I'ld be scared too if I was in it's place.

Cash Prizes for Flash Lite developers

well if you are into developing for Flash, now there is better and more interesting incentives for you to flex your expertise a bit: Ca$h. The upcoming games portal playyoo.com has just offered a prize fund of $25,000 for Flash Lite games.

They also have setup a a sneak preview currently on offer section on their website to download some of their current cool stuff directly onto your smartphone. I've read that this game "Dawn of the Fly" is rather addictive but I havent tried it myself yet.


Flash Lite is already available on all the major smartphone OSs, but majority of the smartphone models supporting Flash Lite at the moment are running S60 on Symbian.

You can get basic information on Flash Lite on Adobe's website and for tools, SDKs and detailed stuff, Nokia has setup a forum for Flash Lite developers.

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal

Making love to a plastic doll

Ok check this, touch screen is expected to be a prominent feature in most mobile phones by 2011 with upto 200 million units. Well that doesnt work for me unless it comes with tactile feedback (or haptics as they call it). Ever tried writing email or sms with touch screen? or played any games using touch screen? eugggghhh!! thats like making love to a plastic doll! I'm sure lot of you guys know how that feels like right? no feedback no response, no "feel'! sounds like someone you know?

No, if you want touch screen it BETTER come with tactile feedback so that at least you know what you're touching! As far as I know, so far only Symbian S60 has the capability for mobile phones, as demonstrated by Nokia last month. And hopefully we should be able get our hands on some of these feedback babies in the coming spring. Lets see when the rest can catch up.



I know what most of you are thinking now, "if only someone could make plastic dolls with tactile feedback".

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal/

Web Browser Short-Cuts for S60

Here are some handy web browser short cut for S60 smartphones posted by Mark Guim:

• Press 1 to open your bookmarks.
  
• Press 2 to search for keywords in the current page.
  
• Press 3 to return to the previous page.
  
• Press 5 to list all open windows.
  
• Press 8 to show the page overview of the current page.
  
• Press 8 again to zoom in and view the desired section of the page.
  
• Press 9 to enter a new web address.
  
• Press 0 to go to the Start Page.
  
• Press * or to zoom the page in or out.

Qwerty still rules... even with touchscreens

lot of people often look for a good comparison of which OS based smartphones are better, even though everyone already knows which OS has the largest market share for a long time to come.

Anyway, this one of the better comparisons of three different phones, all three really good ones and all three having a different OS: Nokia E61i, Treo 750 and HTC S620



Litchfield has given a pretty clear comparison chart and E61i evidently comes out on the top. But much of the credit for E61i's edge over its competitors comes from its Symbian OS and the features that come with it like the best battery life, 3G and Wi-Fi, the best camera, arguably the best applications and plenty of free/bundled add-ons.


Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal

A dream girl!

So you came here to read about a dream girl or see some pics of her... Hello? dude! wake up! there is no such thing as a dream girl. Dont you know that?
remember the following law of nature when considering girls:

pretty_outside = ugly_inside ¦¦ beautiful_character = ugly_frame

Butttttt... I have always believed, felt, practiced and preached that the most beautiful girl in the world, is no match for a beautiful car. Sure you can draw parrallels between girls and cars in your dirty little mind, and compare the pros and cons, but I want to keep my posting at least PG13. You just cant disagree with me on it, cuz I know beautiful girls alright? do you? I photograph them for a living!

And there is no car more beautiful than Lamborghini Countach (arguably of course).



And now Lamborghini has just launched the super exclusive, just 20 cars in the world, super expensive, $1.4 million, ultrapowerul 650-hoursepower supercar Reventón! design inspired by F-22 stealth fighter, the two tonne car goes 0 to 60 mph in 3.4 secs! WOOHOO! an interesting article on it from Popular Science mag... PopSci Test Drive: Lamborghini Reventón. Most notably this dialogue between the writer/test driver and his car expert friend:

Snyder: I'm heading to drive the new Lamborghini for a day soon. You've driven a couple before, right?
JB: Yeah, they're pretty easy to drive. Why are you going?
Snyder: PopSci called yesterday and needs a review of the new Reventón.
JB: Holy ****! You're gonna drive the Reventón?!
JB: It's a really powerful car and might not be all that easy to drive. A big mid-engine means it can get loose in turns if you’re hitting them hard, so you need to be careful.
Snyder: Well, i've been mastering Opels and Fiats here in Spain all summer.
JB: Please don't die.
Snyder: I'll probably just roll around in first gear, and then if I get too worried I'll break it and get out
JB: No. Speed. But remember, don’t die.

still thinking about your dream girl ?

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal

Symbian is ripe for developers

all of a sudden things seem to have started falling in place for developers to pay attention to Symbian. So many little things that add up to a lot, and hard to cover in one posting. But the end results will certainly be exciting.

First off, the smartphones are actually selling much faster. Faster in fact, than laptops! According to In-Stat, "sales of smartphones will grow at more than a 30% compound annual growth rate for the next five years." and smartphone operating systems will grow at double digits each year until at least 2012. The devices will very much become the work and infotainment companions in the next few years. In May this year, Gartner predicts, nearly half a billion phone subscribers for mobile TV alone, by 2010. Still more staggering is the figure is that of WiFi phone sales whichi s expected to top $145 billion in 2010.


The numbers alone represent how big a market this is about to become for developers. But the platforms themselves have now become more sophisticated and ripe for developers with tools and supporting framework.

Symbian already has the largest smartphone OS market share by far. So developers would definitely be hungry for more options, tools and framework for writing software for Symbian.
Like the recently announced Symbian60 Touch UI, Sensor Framework and UI Accelerator Toolkit. You can find plenty of detail on this framework on this artcile by Rafe Blandford.


Red Five Labs has just released Net60 (beta 1) for immediate download. Net60 enables managed Windows Mobile applications to run unchanged on S60 devices. So developers can now use C# and Visual Basic .NET in Visual Studio, and use the .NET Compact Framework environment to build applications for Symbian devices.

PHP and mySQL are going to be available for S60 devices in early 2008, with full LAMP stack.

Even Linux developers will now have their greatest opportunity on Symbian OS.

and to top it all, Symbian has just bought over Beijing Genesis Interactive Technology Co. Ltd. (‘MoGenesis’), lock stock and barrel! It does show some serious development ambitions on part of Symbiam. I have not been able to find yet what this company specificially develop, but its certainly one of the leading developer of smart OS mobile applications for the fastest growing smartphone market. Interestingly, before founding this company, it's CEO Dennis Kung held two senior management positions at Microsoft Corporation where he worked for eleven years.

The time is ripe for developers to take this platform seriously, because Symbian is sure to become one of the most lucrative OS's to develop for in the coming years.


Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal

Smartphones showdown

any of you read Wired magazine? well... neither do I. well on occasion. but its probably the best known technology magazine, specially in terms of culture and economics.

Anyway! The good old Wired magazine had a smartphone show down last week. To be frank I would not really have guessed who came on top, with so many models coming out nowadays and its not so easy to pick a "winner". But from the best of the lot, Wired Mag has picked Nokia E61i. most notably for its fast and effiecient Symbian OS, which according to the mag "puts Windows Mobile to shame by loading apps almost instantly". Actually the phone comes on top in terms of internet connectivity, collection of business and media apps, and 11 hours, thats right ELEVEN hours of talk time!... on a smartphone!



There is some interesing stuff to read about the other smarphones too, and why they didnt take the spot from Nokia, including BlackBerry. My favourite quote from all the reviews there would be "All work and no play makes a phone a BlackBerry", haha! you said it Rick!

Interestingly but not surprisingly, the magazine has noted Windows Mobile 6 and its sluggishness, and cumbersomeness wherever used.

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal/

Notebooks and iPhone for sale

well guys a friend of mine is selling some notebooks and an unlocked iphone at below market price. if any of you is interested you can call Wahab at +65 98552210 (singapore) or email him at abdu6839@yahoo.com
The items and prices are listed below in Singapore dollars:

- HP 6510B Business Notebook (New) @1650 Market price 1999
- Compaq B1971TU Notebook (New) @1550 Market price 1799
- Sony Fusion PC VGC-LA38G (New) @2250 Market price 2599
- Lenovo G400M (New) @950 Market Price 1099
- Acer Extensa 4620Z (New) @850 Market price 929
- Sony Vaio VGN-C15GP/W (Used but condition like new) @1550
- Apple iPhone 8GB Unlocked @850


Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal

The next big thing!

ok actually I dont really know what the next big thing would be, but I think ScreenPlay on Symbian phones is just about to bring it to ya. Waite... you gotta read this one!

ScreenPlay demo from Symbian's website

What made me eternally fall in love with Commodore 64 beyond anything else was its graphics and sound experience long before home computers became main stream. The good old 64 is probably the UGLIEST little computer ever built, but it had the graphics and sound chip made in heaven! thats what made it the biggest selling computer of ALL times.

Yes my fellow romantics, love is all about the experience. Ask Lucy Liu why she keeps coming back to me for more!
Well... smartphones have finally matured to a level where they really can go beyond functionality (sorry blackberry lovers) or cool factor (sorry iPhone lovers) and actually provide a real "experience"!

What the hell am I talking about? well it would be hard to say in words, because you've got to experience it yourself. And you will definitely be able to do that in the next couple of months when the upcoming Symbian60 based smartphones with ScreenPlay and FreeWay hit the market shortly. Seriously, I wouldnt buy any phone right now and rather save my money for these new phones to come out. The whole smartphone scene is about to get transformed in the next two quarters for good. The experience that ScreenPlay based smartphone displays will be able to prodive to users just doesnt exist right now. Combine that with much faster richer broad-band like experience of FreeWay, and you've got yourself something really... beautiful!

Guys... I think its time to fall in love again. Nothing will replace my beloved old Commodore 64 in my heart, but I think in the next couple of months I can finally get a smartphone that can really be my companion. And you guys thought I am not romantic??

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal

Symbian not impressed by Google

Well... not that its surprising, but Symbian is expressively not impressed by Google's mobile OS. Yep not surprising, considering Symbian just sold another 20.4 million lincenses in the last quarter alone! But... what IS interesting, at least to me, is the fact that Nokia is in talks with Google to use Android. Sounds like one very cool alliance, specially for open source mobile OS market.

the Android is finally here

Less than a month ago I had posted about the upcoming, so called "iPod killer", from Google. Which infact is a software and not a device. Well its just had its debut! Yep, Google has finally launched its open source mobile phone OS and Google's CEO Eric Schmidt is really making some big claims about it. Thats great news for smartphone users (and I hope some day for PC users!) and certainly not good news for properietry OSs... well... Windows Mobile. The SDK will be out later this month and phones supporting Android wont be out till late next year. Google had actually bought over Android over two years ago, the interesting thing is, the founder of Android, had also started a company which made its own smartphone device with full email, browsing and messenger capabilities. Hiptop has its quite a few limitations of its own of course.
Did you know that Starhub had its own Hiptop device? its not a suprise they discontinued it though. The version pictured below is the T-mobile's Sidekick II.


So you think Google might still come out with its own "iPhone" or Windows Mobile killer device just yet? The smartphone scene is getting more and more interesting.

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal

Gown shoot

had an interesting shoot on sunday at Peridot studio with a 5D and some outdoor shots. my fashion designer friend Sulaimi will be doing a label in england, and he wanted to do some shots for couple of his gowns before flying off.

The girls were quite new but very cute. They're going to be great with just a bit of experience. Here's a pic of Zoey, a british girl living here in Singapore. She does look like a doll doesnt she?

Might upoload couple of more pics of her here, so watch this space! oh yea, got to upload another shot of Mischa here too. Remind me guys!

Bilal Zaheer

http://elanist.com/bilal

N95 Vs iPhone (seriously!)

few days back I had posted a video clip from CNet giving a comparison betweenNokia N95 and the iPhone. It looked like a pretty close call. But there is this guy named Steve Litchfield who is considered some sort of an online legend when it comes to testing mobile phones. And I gotta say, his recent comparison of the two smartphones is quite detailed with some really interesting preceding discussion on the comparison as well. In Steve's own words "Nokia N95 8GB is simply awesome as a piece of technology, winning by a landslide (over the iPod) on data connectivity, camera, video camera, GPS and application openness".

In a nuttshell, in his comparison it does seem like that the iPhone sure is a pretty cool device... but not really for a smartphone user. Its not as useful or even convenient compared to a serious smartphone like the N95 in terms of functionality and interface. I am sure once the SDK is launched in february there could be a lot of cool software available for the iPhone, but that still may not help alot because that is something already quite elementry and should have been available from the start and yet would not around for another 2 quarters. Secondly, without the tactile feedback (or "hetptics" as they are being called), the iPod is really not as user friendly for any serious smartphone user. Cant waite to see what sort of phones Nokia would come out with the new heptic Symbian 60 phones! Windows Mobile phones are not even on the scene yet. Imagine comparing an upgrade to the N95 with touch screen and heptics with the iPhone or any other smartphone. Now THAT would be totally kick ass!

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal

Buying a smartphone - battery life

one of the things that can be a pretty important factor in choosing the right smartphone could be the battery life. Specially for someone who is not a light user or travels a lot. I had heard before that windows mobile phones do have some battery life issues, which is not a surprise considering they can be quite resource hungry even on standby. But I did wonder how symbian phones would generally fare in a test of battery consumption. I am sure other people must have tried testing too, but I came across this comparison which seems kinda popular amongst the msg board junkies. The guy had compared battery stand by time for K-Jam (Windows Mobile 5) and Nokia 9500 (Symbian OS 9), with all comms distabled for both phones (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth)

Nokia 9500

K-Jam

	K-JAM (Windows Mobile 5)	Nokia 9500 (Symbian OS 8)
After 12 hours	94%	7 bars (out of 7)
After 24 hours	78%	7 bars
After 36 hours	72%	7 bars
After 48 hours (2 days)	62%	7 bars
After 72 hours (3 days)	50%	7 bars
After 96 hours (4 days)	40%	7 bars
After 120 hours (5 days)	15%	6 bars (phew, a change at last!)

I think the difference is really marked! But I wonder how significant is the difference in battery life in recent models. Anyone wanna share their experience with their device?

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal

Smartphones for "smart" users?

yeeeaah... not really, they are just users, smart or not. like before the web made internet ubiquitous (thats a smart word for "being everywhere"), like 10-12 years ago, computer users were expected to be smart people. Now computers are as commonly used by everyone as the TV (a.k.a the Idiot Box). Get the picture?

At the moment, what matters is, what would you use your smart phone for. Until now users choose smartphones for their "needs". But it will very rapidly become a "want". Remember a time when nobody thought they really need a mobile phone? Well by year 2010, analysts are expecting 250 million smartphones to be in the market. I think the number would be higher, probably much higher. Analysts often underestimate the irrationality of the mindset of general consumers when it comes to such gadgets.

So there is no doubt smartphones are quickly going to become mainstream. The real interesting thing for me would be, what sort of smartphones would become ubiquitous? The OS would be the key differential here. Eventually it comes down to the market penetration of the OS, the ease of use, the features, as I had been saying in my previous postings. Already Symbian has such high penetration that the common user doesnt know and doesnt care what OS their phone is running on. Why should they? they never have to install it, they never have to reformat their phone because it "crashed" again, they dont have to constantly keep it upgraded with patches, they dont have to keep worrying that their current version of Windows is so outdated or that their new Windows is still so buggy and unstable. They replace their phones long before they have to worry about its OS or utilities get outdated. And even if they dont replace it, it still works just fine for years even! Thats how comfortable the general Symbian users have been all this while, such that they didnt need to bother what OS they are on.

Actually its kinda funny that a good friend of mine (Alec Ee) has been using Treo for a couple of years (for the "non-smart" users, Treo uses Palm OS), simply because he had so many problems with their phones they always had to replace it for him within the warranty period, so he kept going with it. Until finally he had so many problems with Treo he recently bought himself an O². Today he just told me that he is so frustrated with the O², he has been checking out mobile phone shops to trade it in!

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal

tried out the 40D

I tried the Canon 40D yesterday for some portraits and a private event (the Philips Aurea launch, the super TV for super elites eh?. Used the 24-70 2.8L. Well the lens I have used before, and its just awesome, no surprises there (see picture below).

The experience with the camera itself was pretty cool and its loaded with features. Obviously live view was quite helpful specially for the event and the screen is really big! like really big. The shutter sound is quite muffled, in fact the "click" actually sounds pretty sophisticated with the two way motorized mechanism for the mirror. I was using it with the battery grip so not sure how it would feel with just the camera itself. But overall I think it was a much better experience in terms of usage AND for image quality out of 350D, 400D, 20D and 5D so far. Yep I do prefer it over 5D. The noise level is better than 5D even at ISO 800! I think its the Digic III which is giving 40D the slight edge in noise level. Will be uploading more later in the week.

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6563518

Oh yea, the girl with THE eyes is Mischa, she's french Canadian. Really cute and silly! The granulated affect on the skin and the "eye-bag effect" is from bit dramatic light and sharpening. I know chicks like to have their skin look smooth, but as photographer, i dunno, I like the effect it gives with the texture (well in pictures of course! as in to see not to touch, you know what i mean?)

Bilal Zaheer

http://elanist.com/bilal

Feedback Touch Screens ...and Nokia N95 Vs. Apple iPhone

Hey anyone tried a feedback touchscreen before? like anyone wanna share their experience of the iPhone interface yet? Looks like Symbian is "touch sensitive" too now. Nokia is has already come up with their own touchscreen interface, but they've taken a step further: Tactile Feedback. What the #&*$ is that? well thats the reason why touch screen never really caught up in 25 years! On touch screens, you cant feel what you're touching, which is what even iPhone is sort of "suffering" from. But the touch screen on Nokia not only gives feedback, but each "button" or touch could feel different! so your hand knows what its doing with the phone! haha. Certainly looking forward to check it out!

There is an interesting comparison from CNet between the Nokia N95 and the Apple iPhone. I would say its a pretty close call. I guess its more about how a person wants to use their smartphone.



Anyone heard of any plans for Windows phones coming up with feedback touchscreen?

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal/

Superbad!

Now here's a movie that really lives up to its name! whatever kind of movies you like, you gotta watch this one, its bloody hilarious! The performance of the three boys is just awesome. You definitely know at least one guy in real life who is just like one of these three (or maybe like yourself!). This one's even better than 40 Year Old Virgin.

WARNING: Do not eat or drink too much before this movie. Cuz this is one movie which would make you laught so hard and long, your stomach will hurt!

--

Bilal Zaheer

http://elanist.com/bilal

Apple taking notes from industry leaders?

Looks like even Steve Jobs has to take ques from industry leaders now and then. Like he is doing now citing Nokia and Palm? (Apple loosens grip on iPhone software)

Smart of him to open up iPhone to third-party developers, but perhaps they should have done it in the first place. Now its going to take them till February to come out with an SDK! but I suppose at least this delay is justifiable to make their phones more safe from viruses:

"... While this makes such a phone less than 'totally open,' we believe it is a step in the right direction," Jobs wrote of Nokia's stance. " - CNN, 17 October 2007.

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal

Metasploit: Cracking the iPhone (part 2.1)

for iPhone cracks and other useful stuff for it you might wanna check out this:

Metasploit: Cracking the iPhone (part 2.1)


bilal
http://elanist.com/bilal

Mobile Wars!

Well actually its mobile OS wars.
Anyone heard the news about Google mobile OS? apparantly its supposed to tackle Windows Mobile and not Apple because its a software project not a mobile phone. http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/10/08/google.phone.os.vs.win.mob/

I think its still too early say, firstly cuz the software is not out yet. Secondly, yes Apple has had a great start with iPhone but its still a start (keep in mind, iPhone sales were expected to be three times higher than they actually were in the first 30 hours). Sure its a great product, but its not quite anything revolutionary enough to start a new genere of mobile/portable devices. Apple's Newton was supposed to be just that, long ago, but failed miserably, instead Palm succeeded in its place and now it has more or less disappeared into the crowd.

It sure is very interesting news. But is there room for more mobile OSs in the long run? in the mid-eighties (I'm not old! i just got into computers way too early!) there used to be a whole forest of great home and personal computers, all with different OSs and own breed of software. You dont know any of them? yeah, thats how comprehensively they were wiped out! Mobile OS's case may be a bit different, because content/software is much more platform independant now, but like I said in my previous post (go read it!) for smartphones, its all about market share and ease of use. Ok Symbian has the largest market share by far and its the oldest and most mature mobile phone OS too, so Symbian is not going anywhere. The interesting thing would be to see how the rest of the mobile OS's battle it out!

--
Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal

Symbian or Windows Mobile?

So iPhone is a run-away success. Now who didn't see this coming? And what is to be learned from it? It’s been in the making for like 4 years. This could be a long discussion by itself. But one thing that is sure about any smart pocket devices, most of all smartphones, is that the only way to lead in them is through innovation and ease of use.

How Microsoft has been successful in the PC world, by hook or by crook, is a different matter altogether. I often wonder, if Gary Kildall had accepted IBM’s offer to write DOS for PC, the world definitely would be a very different place today, at least the cyber world.

Thankfully, at least the mobile world already is a different place... Let’s face it, Microsoft has never come up with one original idea for software. Every piece of software written by their developers is a hastily put together pile of code copied from someone else’s products. Is anyone keeping count of how many times they’ve been sued for this? Well here lies the good news for the smartphone users: Microsoft did not copy Symbian! Their smartphone OS is loosely based on their own sluggish and bug infested Windows. So not only Windows Mobile has no unfair advantage in the smartphone world, its inherent design will never let it surpass its competition.

A fellow software engineer friend of mine, who was then working at Microsoft, sent me the source code for Windows XP (most geeks out there have already seen this code I am sure). Windows Mobile cannot be much different from its parent. Allow me to share its source code, though I cannot share the entire source, here is main code:

/* Windows Mobile */


#include "win95.h"
#include "win98.h"
#include "winXP.h"
#include "somethingMobile.h"
#include "longErrorList.h"
#include "oldStuff.h"
#include "finguresCrossed.h"
#define INSTALL_HARD

char make_prog_look_big 1600000 ;
void main()
{
while(!CRASHED)
{
display_copyright_message();
display_start_button();
do_nothing_loop();


if (first_time_installation)
{
make_50_megabyte_swapfile();
do_nothing_loop();
random(hang_system);
}

/* printf("Welcome to Windows 95"); */
/* printf("Welcome to Windows 98"); */
/* printf("Welcome to Windows XP");*/
printf("Welcome to Windows Mobile");
if (system_ok())
random(hang_system);
else
system_memory = open("a:\swp0001.swp", O_CREATE);
while(something)
{
sleep(5);
get_user_input();
sleep(5);
act_on_user_input();
sleep(5);
}
create_general_protection_fault();
}


In the long run, the clunky, resource hungry Windows Mobile has an uphill task ahead of it in the long run compared to its purpose built mobile OS's like Symbian.In the last couple of years, Symbian has out-sold both Microsoft and Palm put. Even in Japan Symbian having a virtual monopoly with its ties to NTT DoCoMo, the leading player in the world's most advanced mobile market. Symbian already has a market share 72% in smartphones. The question is really not of who’s winning the competition, right now its more like, is there really any competition?

--
Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal