07:07 PM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Astraware is an outstanding developer of games for mobile devices. They have many big successes, including the famous Bejeweled and Bejeweled 2 games which have addicted many fans like myself.

They have recently picked up on the Sodoku craze and published some very slick versions available in a PalmOS version and a PocketPC version.

There are other programs out there, but the Astraware software seems to be the top of the line versions. They are intended to be appropriate for a wide audience from novice beginner to advanced expert. There are tons of free puzzle packs available, and they support multiple languages. Looks like a very nice title.

(Thanks to Alison at Astraware for the news.)

06:47 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Now your PalmOS device can serve as a musician's tool. MiniMusic is offering the following software for PalmOS devices. Package deals are also available. The software looks very cool. If only I had the musical skills to use them!

* NotePad ($29.95)
"NotePad is the perfect sketchbook for composers on the road or an effective introduction to writing and reading music. With three ways to see your songs on screen, it's easy to enter music and edit your ideas. Tools include chords, key signatures, time signatures, tied notes, triplets, inversion, retrograde, and full cut/copy/paste editing."

* BugBand ($14.95)
"BugBand helps you practice sight reading, letter names of notes, piano, guitar and brass instruments. With a practice level for the complete beginner and ten levels of difficulty, BugBand can help anyone improve their sight reading skills. Great for teaching kids the basics of music, helping students get through music classes at school, or anyone learn to play an instrument."

* SoundPad ($19.95)
"SoundPad lets you design sounds for the Krikit Audio Engine (or "Krikit Synth"), our new software synthesizer that can generate rich polyphonic, multitimbral sound on most handheld computers."

* BeatPad ($29.95)
"BeatPad is a pattern based sequencer. It provides a simple yet powerful interface for creating musical patterns of various instruments or drum kits, layering these patterns, and performing them on any standard MIDI hardware. Using the Palm Platform's large touch sensitive screen, it is easy to see every aspect of a pattern at once and manipulate it with the stylus."

* EarTrain ($11.95)
"Learn to recognize musical intervals with this educational game. A great introduction to ear training or a fun drill for the experienced musician. Work your way through all of the intervals from the minor 2nd through the perfect octave, or choose just the intervals you want to focus on."

It also looks like more titles are in beta or coming soon... SpinPad, SynthPad, AxisPad. If you're a musician with a pda, this is sure to make you drool. You can find more information at the MiniMusic site.

(Thanks to Chad from MiniMusic for the information.)

05:37 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The 2005 awards have been announced by Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine (formerly Pocket PC Magazine). It's not just another set of awards, but a wonderfully comprehensive list of software for Pocket PCs and Smartphones, as well as some developer software titles.

Last year's information and software nominees have been a great resource, and this years results also look quite useful for anyone looking for Pocket PC software.

You can find all the information on the Pocket PC magazine Best Software Awards 2005 home page.

As a subscriber to Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine, I'm looking forward to receiving the upcoming 2006 Buyers Guide, which is sure to have even more in-depth reviews and information. The judges are made up of an 80 member board of experts, who are volunteers rather than employees of the magazine.

(Via JKOnTheRun)

06:48 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Skweezer has won the 2005 Mobile Village Gold Star Award in the Personal Software: Mobile Web Content Utility category of the 2005 Mobile Star Awards™.

"The fourth annual Mobile Star Awards honor and promote the best companies, products, deployments, and leaders in mobile and wireless technology. Award winners were chosen by subscribers to Go Mobile®, MobileVillage’s free online newsletter sent to technology executives, mobile users, buyers, IT managers, developers, and top technology journalists. "The Mobile Star Awards are unique in that the judges are Go Mobile readers—these people have a great knowledge of the industry and eager to tell the world which mobile products deserve recognition," said Gary Thayer, MobileVillage Editor.

Skweezer is a free Web portal/browsing service that optimizes Web pages, searches, and e-mail for use on PDAs and cell phones. Mobile Internet users access Skweezer by visiting www.skweezer.net, then use the portal as a "wireless gateway" to browse and search the Web. Skweezer compresses and reformats content being downloaded, so that it loads faster, looks better, and is easier to navigate. Skweezer includes an e-mail client, RSS reader, address book, online translation, and other useful features designed specifically for the mobile environment. Skweezer is also completely platform independent and can be accessed from Pocket PC, Palm, MS Smartphone, XHTML-based cell phone, and WebTV devices."

I'm a happy user of Skweezer myself, and it works well with my Treo 650, It saves a lot of bandwidth and makes it easy to get site content from my favorite sites and a nice preset directory of handy sites. And there's more features such as e-mail, RSS, etc that I still haven't looked at yet. If you browse the web with a mobile device, it's worth a visit to check it out. There's both a free and pay version, and the free version is quite valuable by itself.

You can find the full press release at here.

(From Monica at Greenlight Wireless)

06:01 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

Mark from Sysinternals is a genius in the way he digs beneath the surface when things go wrong on a MS Windows system. In his latest blog entry he unveils Sony's dirty tricks of implementing malicious and buggy software to enforce their DRM licenses on audio CDs. Some interesting discoveries:

• Sony uses DRM technology from a 3rd party ("Aries.sys" driver)
• The DRM is automatically installed without giving you explicit notice
• Sony tries to hide the fact that any software is installed (using various "cloaking" techniques)
• You cannot uninstall the DRM (unless you're Mark and a computer genious)
• The software is poorly written and continuously uses CPU resources even if unused.

Bottom line: The price you have to pay for being an honest customer is to live with restrictive and buggy DRM which renders your PC unstable and slows it down.

Related: Microsoft Windows Internals by Mark E. Russinovich

04:36 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

I am delighted to announce that effective immediately Evan Light has joined our team. Evan loves to carry the power of a PC in his Pocket. He is a software engineer going for a Master's degree in computer science and also a passionate blogger who loves to discuss the latest trends in mobile technology. If you'd like a look at some of his work, make sure to visit his personal blog, Gadget Fetish.

You can contact Evan at any time directly by e-mail ( evan [at] mobileread [dot] com ).

Again, welcome Evan to the team!!

03:50 PM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

Students at a Scottish university are soon to have the luxury of spending most of their time off-campus and yet be able to pass exams with lecture notes received through their cell phones. The school participates in the AmbieSense project, a system of context tags linked with digital content. Placed at strategic locations such as universities and tourist areas, the tags communicate information to users relevant to their surroundings remotely from a content provider via Bluetooth or WLAN. This is one step closer to the intelligent handheld we have been talking about recently.

[more in Scotsman News via Textually]

03:08 PM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

Teleread's Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti continues to amaze us with her ability to accurately describe how reading e-books differs from reading paper books. In her latest editorial she stresses the importance of keeping sentences and paragraphs short in order for e-books to be easier on the eye and easier to read. An audio podcast is also available.

This is, ideally, what we want when writing for the Internet, an easy sort of read so that our eyes don't cross as we try to get into a book. After all, what use is the Internet or an e-book if you have to print it out to read it? In the final account we come full circle, converting our e-books finally into p-books, the very thing we had said we were trying to get away from in the first place.