Can't Grok, Won't Grok

I am a massive user/lover of the Google Products especially Mail , Google Reader and Calendar . As with most online services, I am always looking for ways to get them connected to my Xda . The last time I looked however (which was pretty much when I got the device), there was no great way to sync with my Google Calendar. I ended up going with a third party application called OggSync , which up until now has served me very well. The only downside was that there was not decent scheduling option. So I ended up having a daily reminder to fire off a sync. Then it all changed.. Introducing Google Sync Now, this may have been out a while, but I never heard anything about it (is it just me or are Google terrible at marketing their products?). But anyway, I was listening to an episode of the StartupDaddy podcast (which is a great podcast by the way – thanks Ian !) where Google Sync was mentioned. Now, I almost dismissed it straight away, but then Ian said something like (can’t rememb...

I decided to upgrade my previous phone to a PocketPC/Smartphone/SomeOtherNamePhone. I ended up with the O2 -branded HTC Touch “Diamond” . Overall I have been happy with the phone, but let’s be under no illusions, Windows Mobile Really Does Suck . I have noticed that the UI will get sluggish, programs take too long to load and generally the system just falls apart. This is often a sign of poor garbage collection and memory just being zapped due to things not being tidied up properly. This is pretty much proven by a soft (switching off-and-on) reset fixing the issue. So, I began the hunt for a free utility to help free up some RAM. And boy did I find one! It gives me pleasure to introduce CleanRAM (the site is in Hebrew so the link points to Google Translate). What Does CleanRAM Do? CleanRAM basically goes through and cleans out the crap on our poor memory-starved device. It has three levels of cleaning (1 being the quickest but least efficient, 3 being the slowest and most eff...

In case you haven’t heard – Microsoft Tag has been released as a public Beta. What is Microsoft Tag? Well, in a nutshell, is basically a barcode generation application. I know what you are thinking - “Well I get barcodes on my baked beans? BORING!” but wait. What is different about Microsoft Tag is that it uses a system designed to store much larger amounts of information. This means that you can actually make the “barcode” much more useful. You can insert full URLs & create vCards . This doesn’t sound like much, but read the first again.. full URLs . Full URLs? Big Whoop, Wanna Fight About It? Easy tiger! Now think about what URLs you use every day that could become scanned while on the move and be useful.. Event listings for a gig. Timetables/schedules for trains/planes and automobiles. Contact information for people/businesses. Product offers etc. Now, apply some geek knowledge.. What else could we do? Hook in to services like Amazon 1-click ...

As you may have guessed from my previous post where quickly  cover Live mesh being released for Windows Mobile devices – I have recently upgraded my phone from a Sony Ericsson K800i * to a O2 Xda “Ignito” which is a O2 branded version of the HTC Touch Diamond . The Ignito is currently the latest Xda available from O2. I will spare you the details of the specs of the phone, which can be reviewed on the HTC site here . The purpose of this post is you to give you guys my honest thoughts on it, not sell it. Why an Ignito? First off, what compelled me to get the Ignito rather than another Xda offering from O2? I compared it to others available, and it has the best hardware. I am typically pretty demanding of my machines so I will always aim to get a good CPU speed and memory since I tend to multitask a lot. It also comes with Windows Mobile 6.1 which seems to have some great improvements over Windows Mobile 6 (although this is purely based on basic comparative reading – I ha...