Dave Sobel, cohost of the SBS Show, wants to know.

Dave is putting together some content around virtualization with the SMB focus and is taking on all advice you wish to pass on.

Seems like Nextel-Sprint just keeps on finding ways to tie more stones around its ankles as it sinks further and further into the ocean of companies not to work with. Betanews is talking about Sprint’s upcoming implementation of a 5GB cap, effectively killing any sort of mobile multimedia experience you may have dreamed of in the future. This is not particularly bothersome today because the state of 3G networks in USA can at times rival the speeds of modems in the late 90’s… You have to try damn hard to get 5GB of data transferred over a 3G card.

So, why is Sprint going to do this? Why are they implementing a software cap that 99% of the customer base cannot hit today? Because WiMAX 4G networks that are getting built right now make all sorts of media things possible, and when WiFi can replace your broadband cable/DSL connection Sprint does not want to have to deal with the issues of network caps, bandwidth throttling, crippling applications and then some.

Establish the precedent early is the name of the game.

Ironic, this being announced on a day that Roku announces the Netflix device, allowing you to get this $100 box and play 100,000 movies from your Netflix subscription for $9 a month.

What we are seeing here is a ton of people all of which want a cut not off the services they deliver, but from the companies actually making money. It’s like me going out to my ExchangeDefender customer, all pissed off that they are making more money than me, and asking them for some extra money! Except the people asking are government organizations (State tax revenues from Internet sales), phone and television companies (free phone calls, free TV) and the list goes on.

What I hope someone points out is that the growth everyone is seeing is due to the things being open and as more interesting things show up online more people part with their hard earned money for the service - a scenario in which everyone makes more money. But as the greater fool theory crashes with the first participant trying to change the rules of the game to capture higher percentage of the transactions, their growth goes away. In this case, Sprint wants to make its network more profitable, but in doing so it will sacrifice any opportunity to grow. 3G is still a premium service, and premium services don’t succeed if you’re indistinguishable from the alternatives yet crippled….

It is no longer a surprise that iPhone absolutely destroyed Windows Mobile in nearly all categories, or that Blackberry has reincarnated from their lawsuit to become the most demanded business communications solution around. It is far less surprising to those of us that actually use, or rather put up with, the dinosaur that is Windows Mobile 6. I recently got two of the latest Windows Mobile 6 phones from AT&T and just how pathetic they are for some of what I would consider the most basic of mobile functions. No messenger, no ability to customize start menus, no ability to even set a homepage. No, I am not joking. And yes, a year from now when Windows Mobile 6.1 becomes commonplace, Microsoft will claim innovation and huge leaps in the software usability (in stealing the Cardfile UI that has been provided by Samsung for over a year on i600).  So frustrating.

However, this week is the MVP Summit and I’m always asked about how this and that gets done on the WM device so here are top three tricks to WM6 Standard:

Changing the homepage

If you didn’t purchase your phone directly from the manufacturer or Expansys, it was likely riddled with garbage links your carrier has put in to make Pocket Internet Explorer even more useless. I always change my homepage to Google not just because the search is terrific, but because Google will make browsing on your PocketPC a little more tollerable. You know that Cached feature where they will show you the latest cached page even if the server is down? Well, Google for Windows Mobile has a way of stripping out extra content and presenting easilly readable text on the Windows Mobile device.

Problem: You cannot change your homepage on WM6.

Solution: First, download this registry editor. Navigate to “HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\AboutURLs” and change the value of the home registry key to the URL you want your Pocket Internet Explorer to start with.

Customizing the start menu

If your carrier is anything like mine, useful WM6 applications are buried three levels deep while all the garbage you will never use is front page. If you attempt to delete it from the Start menu, you will receive a note that the file manager could not delete or move the files.

Problem: When you attempt to delete or move programs on the devices start menu your access is denied. Your phone is Application Locked.

Solution: First, you need to application unlock your WM6 device. You will need to download this software. Copy SDA_ApplicationUnlock.exe to your Windows Mobile phone and execute it. After the unlock you will be prompted to reboot your phone and will now be able to nuke carrier trash apps.

You also might want to snag Total Commander, which helps get to the areas the built in file explorer just does not seem to want to go into like \Windows\Start Menu

Messenger

Aside from the basic $3 phone functionality, the only useful thing on a Windows Mobile device is Pocket Outlook. Virtually every carrier has stripped Windows Mobile 6 of the Messenger application and they all try to push you through their broken IM implementations or sell you Goodlink (which is the exact opposite of the title, neither a link nor good).

Problem: Give me Windows Live Messenger!!!!

Solution: Thank you for reading Vladville, here you go.

The overall problem

Microsoft doesn’t now, nor does it appear in the forseeable future, have a way of getting a reliable Windows Mobile experience into the hands of the potential Windows Mobile users. I have been using Windows Mobile since WindowsCE 2.1 and Cassiopedia A20. In all this time, Windows Mobile 6 is by far, uncontested, worst release of Windows Mobile ever. Although technologically superior to WindowsCE 2.1, the carrier neutering of the phone and flood of junk applications, multiple device/app/system locks, lack of software upgrades (did you know your Windows Mobile device has a Windows Update application on it?) and obvious lack of innovation by all indications make Windows Mobile.. well, neither.

I hope that the links and tips provided here make your WM experience a little less painful and you can count on me to express the above sentiment which I have been getting from many of you at the Microsoft MVP Summit next week.

Interesting conversation over at Techmeme about the Engaget coverage of the upcoming HP 2133 ultra portable laptop looking to take on the popular Asus Eee. Asus has definitely done for UMPC with Linux what Microsoft, Samsung, Ogo and others combined could not with XP/Vista - a commercially successful ultra mobile PC.

Here is what HP is bringing to market, at $599 retail:

Now before you dismiss it on size, price, power, processor, resolution, memory or any individual component that fails in comparison to your average entry level laptop, remember that this is meant to be ultra portable and dare I say, ultra affordable. HP sports a Via C7-M 1.2 - 1.6 Ghz processor which is an equivalent of an Intel Celeron at similar speeds. For about $200-$300 more you can get a faster processor, more hard drive space, Vista Business, bigger battery. So there are options to make this fit different needs, but at $600 for the portable Vista system with a webcam, wireless and a 2lb PC just slightly longer an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, this can fit a lot of mobility and portability needs.

Does this trend obsolete Microsoft Windows Mobile? In my opinion, yes. Windows Mobile experience, in both use and development, is not where it needs to be and is at least a generation or two behind where iPhone is in terms of user experience. Development for a device of this type will also be far more attractive than compiling Windows Mobile packages for different architectures, obtaining CAB signatures from the Windows Mobile marketplace, worrying about UI layout (Standard rectangle, Pro, Pro square) and not to mention the components and extensions that make Visual Studio a true RAD.

Oh, and it’s cheaper than a PocketPC device, far far cheaper than the UMPC-like Windows Mobile solutions such as HTC Advantage. Full specs below:

So what do you think? Is there a market between an entry level laptop and a PocketPC? I am not sure if this device will come with a VGA-out which would easilly make it a realistic replacement for office information workers that can quickly take it to meetings and dock to the larger monitor, mouse and keyboard at their desk.

Blackberry global network takes a monumental dump again, leaving millions of heroin addicts blackberry users without their email for several hours.

But you know who I feel for? Microsoft! Yeah, an underdog yet again. Blackberry follows up its 14 hour outage with a four hour outage and BB customers hug their little devices like a weed junkie hugs his bag of weed and a bag of chips. Apple outright rapes their iPhone early adopters, first by crippling the device, then by doing a $200 discount a month into the sales and discontinuing their 4GB model, then by crippling third party applications, then by setting the app cost to $6 and iTunes only barring the users from any decent software and locking it down to a crappy carrier… and Mactards hug their devices too.

Though it may not be nice to make fun of addicts, they are such because they love the products even given the insurmountable lack of reliability and functionality others percieve. I sure hope Microsoft is paying attention to this and responding so it doesn’t again have to dig billions into its wealth to buy a distant second competitor long after the war has already been lost (in this case, search).

And as to our gentle neighbors to the north.. Any chance you guys can either fire Jag Shokar from his position of Blackberry SP Alliance Manager or perhaps find some other H1–B reject in your monkey bucket that can process partner applications? Clocking on a month now of waiting for an update to a partner app that was submitted six months ago…. Does Canada take a 6 month vacation to scate around and chase penguins or are you just completely incompetent as evidenced by your network / staff response?

Let’s face it, web browsing on a Pocket PC has been one huge disappointment after another. Not to just fault Microsoft, all other contenders have not come even close to a desktop browser in your pocket. Not Opera. Not Minimo. Not Deepfish.

Then enter iPhone with Safari with full AJAX and suddenly the Windows Mobile enthusiast is reduced from a human being to the gorilla banging the bones in front of the monolith during the 21st century odyssey.

But if you really want to browse the web on your PocketPC there is a glimer of hope, Skyfire:

It sounds ok, until you come to the part explaining that in order to get these cool features you also must run a server-side component in order to browse the web on your phone. If thats not a dealbreaker for you, here is the Youtube video.

Not very elegant, but a small price to pay for a useful web in your pocket.

Well, well, well. The Windows Mobile 6 that Cingular has been promising since this device shipped, and almost a year after devices start popping up with WM6 on the market, Samsung & AT&T deliver… yawn.

To boot, there are some interesting gotchas according to Chris..

Frankly, EAS on iPhone would be a little more exciting.

Is what you see below Windows Mobile 7? More pictures here.

Get your rom flashed, from AT&T:

http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/treo750update/att.html

After the millionth time of watching my mobile phone choking on loading quarter meg of Javascript of Shockey Monkey’s new mobile rich interface I finally remembered the pain while searching for my lost Blackjack earlier this afternoon. Not only did Katie find it (love yooou honey!) but I also sat down to finally put the pesky Javascript static-code reloads to a grave.

Here is an article on how to use Apache’s mod_expires to enforce selective caching of javascript files.

http://www.vladville.com/using-apache-mod_expires-for-faster-ajax-sites

That sounded like a mouthfull. Here is what it means: I telll your browser how long it needs to cache my Javascript code. One day? One month? One year? My call. By telling it which Javascript libraries do not change often I can force it to cache them and not have to download them every single time. Faster load times, less bandwidth, more efficient experience. And hopefully less need for a phone warranty as you watch that GPRS ghettonet connection struggling with the last few K worse than a fat man with the 26th mile of the marathon.

P.S. Yes, of course I am still working on Shockey Monkey! Lack of hype does not translate into lack of development, there are over 4,000 people using, you didn’t think I’d just let that slide did you? Geez.