Windows Mobile 7 device specifications

Believe or not believe? I tend to believe, seeing that HTC HD2 is made to satisfy these specifications and that it was promised that HD2 will get upgrade to WM7. And just to put those specs into perspective, my Raon Everun UMPC ran Windows XP with just 6GB SSD and 600MHz CPU. Just asked Eldar if so high requirements may mean that Windows Mobile 7 is a some kind of light weight rehash of Windows XP, and he replied that it really looks so.

So will we get XP compatibility in new Windows Mobile 7 phones? Not 100% I think, but with some UI adjustments, recompiling existing XP code might be an option.

Playing Steam games on Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala)

Installation of Wine 1.31 amd64 went ok, but Steam client failed after installation and self update. Had to switch to 1.3 amd64 deb and also make sure that Windows version=XP in wine configuration tool. Now Steam works and I am downloading my games. Quickly tried Ricochet Infinity and it work well, in full screen, in windowed mode and downloading extension packs from internet works too.

Ubuntu + Compiz + Virtual Box

Friday fun: Guy Kawasaki tortures Steve Ballmer on stage

This week's "geek fun" crown definitely goes to the Guy vs. Steveb@microsoft.com (or stevenb@microsoft.com , was it?)

The video is long. In fact is, it is one hour long, but I found it worth every minute of it. They touch on Bill's departure, Yahoo bid, Xbox, Facebook, Vista failure in the marketplace, Macbook Air, Silverlight2, Firefox vs IE8, etc.

via  Guys' blog How to Change the World

UPDATE: would you believe, Guy himself visited a trackback link to this blog, and pointed out a spelling mistake. Fixed now. Danke, Guy.

Foxmarks for Firefox3

Firefox 3 is coming. I keep testing its builds about once a month since at least December. And the recent beta is really a mature and fast product. (Being FAST really counts when you run it on 600MHz AMD Geode UMPC as I do). The only reason keeping me from fully switching to it, was absence Foxmarks plugin compatibility with it. Not anymore. Foxmarks blog announced limited beta enrollment yesterday. I signed up. Countdown to jump over to new Firefox begins...

Who is the real winner in HD wars?

Below is the cut out from a respected online hardware guide.

I believe that they miss the point here. The guys that will grow their business on the HD wave, will be likes of Nvidia and Seagate, rather than any physical disc player company.

Get a mac?

Some friends of mine like to bitch about Windows and say that if not due to (company policy, historical reasons, lack of time, etc) they would definitely switch to mac. Right...

Get a mac... is a very broad advise. Like "get a Nokia". Which one? Desktop? UMPC? :)) Laptop? Well, taking into account that apple is still not in the ultra portable and ultra mobile league, I assume that people meant a desktop. Mmkay... Below is my desktop.

To make it clear - it is not a working tool for me anyway. It is an enterainment and gaming center for my 40" LCD. It is a place to watch HD torrents and play DX10 games. And it plays nicely with my other Windows XP and WinMobile and Symbian computers. I remotely access it from laptop and UMPC, I sync my work files among those 3 devices, I access my movie/mp3 library, etc. Yes, yes, it all can be done on Apple. Maybe. With some dual booting tricks to run Vista to play games.

I just somehow do not have incentive to learn another OS. Why should I?

My Worst Mobile Experience :(

Surprisingly enough, I can easily identify my worst mobile experience and unfortunately, it is same for all mobile devices that I ever worked with.

On all devices from Sony Ericsson, Nokia, HP and Raon (and actually all other laptops I used, mostly Lenovo Thinkpads) Bluetooth stack just crashes after some period of use. It takes longer on some devices, or considerably less on others, but anyway, Bluetooth inevitably crashes leading to the need to restart, reboot, sometimes even take out a battery from a frozen device.

Pocket PCs before WM5 were notorios for lack of system drivers memory, and after half a dozen of BT On/Off cycles, BT drivers would fail to load to memory.

Sony Ericsson phones would hang if phone call came during BT connection (file transmission, dialup, syncing)

Nokia handles well under load, but after several cycles of using it with Everun as dialup modem, there comes a moment when it stops connecting to UMPC, until rebooted.

Raon, just as any other XP or Vista computer, doesn't handle well going through several cycles of sleep or hibernation and guess what, at some moment when you need to get online, BT either doesn't start, or connects but doesn't load anything from the phone.

It is my biggest disappointment, that despite being a very old technology, BT stack implementation still remains buggy across various manufacturers. One day I will switch to built in HSDPA or WiMax just because of this.

QTTabBar adds tabs to File Explorer in Vista and XP

QTTabBar from QuizoApps is the best little software surprise this year for me. It adds tabs to Vista and (!) XP folders. It adds customized buttons to the toolbar. It is a huge usability boost to file management. And it is free. recommend it for everybody.

But wait, it is not over, QTAddressBar adds Vista style Folder path navigation to XP machines. Since I still have XP on my UMPC and corporate laptop, this is a very welcome extra too.

Here are some screen shots of other useful features that it adds.

1) Folder preview tip in file pane and 2) on tab bar and 3) the highlighted gridlines in details view.