This weekend I learned an important lesson: don’t try to make a double phone switch moments before leaving home for the weekend. The call to Sprint went well enough and she assured me the changes would take effect within 4 hours. They didn’t, of course, because the agent had skipped the important part where I need to reprogram my phone with the new number. She said it wasn’t necessary, so I went along…doh, big mistake. Coming home late Sunday night I discovered the next surprise: Sprint customer service is not open 24/7. On Sundays, for example, they’re only online from…
If you are out and about tonight and want to get the latest California election results on your mobile PDA or phone, bookmark this link: http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/sff/Returns.htm After 8:00pm PDT, this site will have returns updated every 10 minutes for all the statewide elections in California today.
If you want to run a simulated Windows Mobile device, installing the Windows Mobile 5.0 SDK can be a challenge. For starters, the SDK is about 175MB, then there’s the fact that it only works with Visual Studio 2005. If you’re developing software, you’ll obviously need to go the SDK route, but if you just want to try some applications, play with the UI, or check how your site looks in a small screen browser, the Windows Mobile Device Emulator is a great alternative. It’s under 60MB and is standalone, not requiring Visual Studio at all. The Windows Mobile Team…
Ask has just launched a mobile version of their site at m.ask.com. I played with it for a bit on my Treo 600 and it seems to work pretty well. They’ve kept things simple, not trying to do too much on any page. Results are all filtered through Skweezer technology, just like Mobile Bloglines recently added. Maps are servicable and in a pinch would probably help you find something. On my 600 at least, the map size was really small, so it was of limited usefulness. Google Maps is going to be tough to beat now. See the SearchEngineWatch page…
This week Google released a downloadable mobile Google Maps application for Treo smartphones. Perhaps proving that Palm OS is not dead yet, this is a great example of an application that can provide a better experience than a web browser. Overall the application is pretty quick, even on my poor old Treo 600. Local business integration and traffic are great. The Satellite view is kind of cool, but I’m guessing most users would stick with the street view. Bonus points for over the air install (i.e. no need to install from desktop and HotSync to the device). How to make…