Mobility Site » Ryan

Google Maps 2.2 is available for Windows Mobile

Ryan — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 07:12:00 +0000

Back in June, Google released Google Maps Mobile 2.2 for BlackBerry devices only. This week, Google finally released the same update for Windows Mobile and Symbian. This update adds the ability to search for directions using public transit.

They also included the same feature addons in this Windows Mobile release that they included in the BlackBerry release:

You’ll find a number of other features in this new version of Google Maps for mobile for WinMo and S60: star-ratings for businesses will help you get a feel for what other people think, your search results show up faster than ever, and user-generated content will now surface in your search results — opening up a whole new world of geo content on your phone. Look for the blue result markers when you search for "ruins in london," for example.

Even though Google Maps is one of the best free programs for Windows Mobile it doesn’t seem like Google really cares about the Windows Mobile market that much. Back in July Google added the ability to give voice commands to the program rather than needing to type your search queries, but they only released this feature for BlackBerry. Is anyone else starting to see a pattern here?

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More TiltSite Theme files!

Ryan — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:52:48 +0000

Last week we posted the Official TiltSite Theme file; made in the spirit of the HTC theme files it was all black with our logo. Today I have two more theme files for you, a blue and a red.

Last time there was a little bit of confusion due to the screen shots we posted so I will clarify on what exactly it is that we are posting. A theme file is essentially a file, with a .tsk extension, that contains an image AND a color scheme; nothing more, nothing less. When you download it, you will not see the same objects on your today screen as pictured above (or as pictured last week)

Click below for download links and instructions

(...) Read the rest of More TiltSite Theme files! (176 words)

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Change up your themes with ShantzTodayChanger

Ryan — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:49:00 +0000

Theme files allow you to change the look and feel of your Windows Mobile device’s interface. They are really a great idea, a image and color scheme in one file, but there is one thing Microsoft never thought of, people get sick of looking at the same theme all the time and many people dont have the time to change it when they get sick of looking at the same one. Luckily there is a program that fixes this problem, ShantzTodayChanger.

ShantzTodayChanger is a free program that will automatically change your background image or even the entire theme. It also has the ability to do more than just change backgrounds such as running a program every X seconds.

I have been using it for quite some time and I love this application. I run my phone with about 30 “Windows Mobile Theme” (.tsk) files in my “My Themes” folder and ShantzTodayChanger scrolls through them, switching to a new one every hour.

You may think that this is not a big deal, but this is a very unique program. One comment on the developer’s blog said, “I searched high and low for software that could do this and found only one or two other inferior versions…This does exactly what I wanted…and it works 100% without fail.” So why does it work so well? Rather than running 24/7, this program works by adding itself to Windows’s notification system similar to the way alarm clock programs work. This saves your device’s resources and while some programs may get closed by Windows Mobile at random, this program only runs for a few seconds at a specified interval. When the device clock gets to the right time the program launches and changes to the next theme file, then it closes to save your resources.

This program has been around for over a year and still hardly anyone knows about it. It constantly being improved on and future updates will include true randomization, a registry tracker feature that could do things such as change a weather forecast icon, and several commands that could be used in user-scripts.

Its a free piece of software so so check it out! http://tech.shantanugoel.com/projects/windows-mobile/shantztodaychanger

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Opera Mobile Beta has bugs :(

Ryan — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:54:00 +0000

Last month, we reported that Opera Mobile’s 9.5 beta is going to be released tomorrow, July 15. As we all know, the more highly anticipated something is, the longer you have to wait for it. Apparently they have found some kind of bug with their software. I would have assumed it is pretty stable since it has already been shipping on new HTC Touch Diamond devices but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

…Even though our release is a beta, we’d rather spend the extra time to fix them, thus giving you a better experience. The fixes are almost complete now, but we need two more days to run the build through our quality assurance testing. The new launch date is now set for the 17th.

We’re disappointed to delay, but fixing these bugs will improve the experience with our beta and let you fully test the browser.

Well I suppose if we wait two more days, the soon-to-be best Windows Mobile browser can only get better. I for one would have preferred to see a beta release on time and an updated version after it got it fixed.

Check out the official Opera Mobile blog: http://my.opera.com/operamobile/blog/

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Opera Mobile 9.5 First Impression

Ryan — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 05:02:03 +0000

In case you missed it, there is a copy of Opera Mobile 9.5 on xda-developers.com. Having heard about the new HTC Touch Diamond’s Opera Mobile 9.5, which comes with Opera Mobile 9.5 pre-installed, I have been anxiously awaiting a release of Opera Mobile 9.5. Obviously this is not the official release; its merely a copy and paste (with a few edits) of the software that comes with the HTC Touch Diamond. It is great to test it out, but you must keep in mind this was made for a specific device (which isn’t the one we are using) and it is quite unstable for the tilt at this point. Having said that, I now have a good idea what Opera Mobile will be like when it is officially released.

At last we see a true browser for the Windows Mobile platform. First off, zooming is similar to all those darn iPhone commercials you see, double tap to zoom in, again to zoom closer, and again to zoom out. Just like the iPhone, full websites can be viewed properly, no ugly “mobile versions”. As pictured below, NY Times and iGoogle both display properly unlike most (if not all) other mobile browsers I have tried. Also, tabbed browsing has been perfected to the way it should be on a mobile device. The menu bars, both top and bottom disappear after about 3 seconds to give a full screen view and optimize webpage viewing space on the small screen. To bring back the menu just tap the little button in the lower right hand corner and poof they are back, no noticeable lag.

(...) Read the rest of Opera Mobile 9.5 First Impression (263 words)

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TiltSite Tip: Locate the Cheapest gas around

Ryan — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:21:33 +0000

Gas prices are only getting higher these days, how can I find the cheapest gas around? There has to be a cheap easy way to find the cheapest gas around using my phone’s internet connection.

A nifty little program that was released by Microsoft’s “Windows Live Search” for Windows Mobile lets you search for a number of things in your area, most importantly gas prices. To get the program go to wls.live.com on your tilt and click the link to download and install.

Open the program by going to programs and selecting “Live Search” . Once open set your location to “Current GPS Location” by selecting “Choose a new location…” and “Current GPS Location”. One of my favorite features is Voice Commands, after clicking “Choose a new location…” try pressing your left softkey and saying “current gps position.” There are plenty of commands to try and its lots fun to experiment with these commands if you’ve got time to waste. Now when you select “Gas Prices” it will list the 25 cheapest stations near your tilt starting with the cheapest. You can then click on one of the stations listed and bring up a map/directions.

Live Search is a handy little program sometimes and other times it is just a pain (its free from Microsoft what can you expect?). It could definitely use more options and easier ways to filter through results and I would probably complain a lot more if it was not free.

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Increase your storage by 50,000% for $32!

Ryan — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:24:38 +0000

Ever want to expand your Tilt’s storage to the same as an iPhone? Now you can for the lowest price ever! Amazon.com is selling 8GB MicroSD cards for $32. Thirty Two US Dollars! To put this in perspective, in December I spent $120 on this very 8GB MicroSD card. This is a great memory card, SanDisk sells some of the best flash memory devices on the market. I have never seen one of their devices fail. If my opinion isn’t enough, it is backed by a 5 year warranty.

The Tilt normally has about 100mb or less of storage after windows mobile and any other programs you have are installed, not much room for videos and music. This expansion is over 50 times more than what you got when your phone came out of the box. If you still carry around an mp3/video player AND a cell phone, those days are over. Now you can expand your cell phone for an amazingly low price.

It also comes with a coupon for a free card reader, probably not the best card reader in the world but its free.

Check out this great deal, I imagine its only for a limited time:
Amazon.com: SanDisk 8GB microSDHC Card (SDSDQ-8192, Bulk Package): Electronics

Thanks to TiltSite user rboyer224 for bringing it up! What a great deal you spotted!

UPDATE: The price as been raised to $37.

UPDATE 2: Removed the link that was to the wrong card, thanks to you guys for the comments, I never would have noticed otherwise

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Running Opera Mini 4.1 on Windows Mobile

Ryan — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:30:31 +0000

As many of you may already know, Opera Mini is one of the best browsers out there for mobile devices. For us Tilt users there is one problem, the Tilt/TyTN II is not officially supported. But don’t let that get you down, it actually works fine on the Tilt/TyTN II and many other Windows Mobile devices that are not listed on Opera’s site.

If you go to Opera Mini’s forums you will find that plenty of people post asking for help running it on a Windows Mobile device. There is even a guide called The Symbian/Windows Mobile MIDlet (Java) Bible, but many find that this is too technical and very hard to understand. The following guide is meant for the average, everyday phone user.

If you do not use Opera Mini I would recommend you give it a try, its free and works great. If you are still using Pocket Internet Explorer, you don’t know what your missing out on! For those of you who want something like the iPhone browser, this is the closest you are going to get for a while.

(...) Read the rest of Running Opera Mini 4.1 on Windows Mobile (468 words)

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