I’ll be at Google I/O in San Francisco tomorrow and Thursday. Mostly I’ll be haunting the mobile sessions, although I want to take in a some of the App Engine and AJAX ones too. It looks like the mobile track is all Android, which is great. With the slew of recent Android device announcements and project head Andy Rubin recently saying that Android is “revolutionary“, I’m hoping for some major Android news out of I/O this year. I also want … Continue reading
This morning when I refreshed the Download application on my Nokia N95-3 (NAM) I was greeted by the new Ovi Store icon. Clicking it launched the browser and took me to store.ovi.mobi. Initially the site was very slow and timed out a couple of times but now two hours later it seems fine with snappy page loads and quick searches. The desktop version of the store at store.ovi.com still seems to be suffering from first day overload with frequent hangs … Continue reading
There’s one handheld device electronic device that I use quite a bit that’s not a mobile phone, it’s a circa 2003 Sharp Zaurus C860 (image below). This Japanese market-only device was sold as a PDA but is in fact a mini-notebook. It runs a Linux kernel with a QT user interface. Easily converted to English it’s also a hacker’s dream with wide open hardware and software. I use mine for mobile blogging at events and while traveling. The Zaurus has … Continue reading
Reports are starting to appear on the web of users seeing the new Ovi app, themes and ringtones store on their phones. So far it’s been sighted in Australia, Ireland and Singapore. Early reports indicate that there is only a small selection of apps available so far. Nokia promises that the store will have over 2000 items when it fully launches. The launch was confirmed on Nokia’s Conversations blog in a story that was later pulled but is still visible … Continue reading
Found on the Mobile Web is a weekly WAP Review feature listing newly added and updated sites on the YesWAP.com mobile portal and WapReview mobile site directory. With these latest additions the directory and portal now list 1685 mobile sites. Entertainment/Life Style/Fashion and Style The Lily Review lily.co.ke Mobile edition of a blog targeted at Kenyan women and offering relationship advice and beauty tips. Mobile version created with the Mobile Pack WordPress plugin. Source: Oh! Mobile Directory. Content: Usability: Weather … Continue reading
I apologize to all my readers for the extended downtime. Apparently there was a massive hardware failure early Wednesday at 1and1, my hosting provider. According to an email I received from them; “The web server that your site is hosted on has been offline due to an apc power failure of 3 server racks. While all the other affected servers came back online, this web server did not recognize its RAID subsystem. RAID stands for “Redundant Array of Independent Disks” … Continue reading
Destination Hotels and Resorts is a 30 property U.S. chain with hotels on the east and west coasts and in Colorado and Hawaii. Their recently launched mobile site is a simple directory of properties with several pages of information, a map and photos for each one. There is no online booking or availability information but direct click to call numbers are provided for each hotel. I can understand not providing online booking given the complexity of handling of mobile credit … Continue reading
Webtel.mobi offers low cost international calling and texts. For calls, webtel uses a callback system similar to competitors Rebtel and JaJah. You enter the party you’re calling’s number on the the mobile site and webtel calls you back with the call connected. Calling rates start at 3 cents/minute (plus a 5 cent connection fee). Rates vary among the three services depending on the country pairs involved so you might want to do a little comparison shopping before you pick one. … Continue reading