If you use a Blackberry Smartphone and wish you could be like the cool Windows Mobile folks who have access to Live services well… there’s some good news for you - Microsoft and RIM announced Windows Live Services for Blackberry.

This brings both Instant Messenger capabilities as well as access to Hotmail via Blackerry’s familiar push technology to keep you in touch with personal as well as business contacts on the go.

This adds to the existing Live Search capabilities already available for Blackberry.

Just because you use a Blackberry doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of Live services

FrankArr pointed out it was Star Wars day, and Clone Wars are coming soon… but watching it projected from R2D2s head would be just perfect

I so want one! Shame it doesn’t work as a Media Center Extender ;)

Check out Nikko America for more info.

Sorry. couldn’t resist. It’s actually a TyTN II and you’d not want to clash with this heavyweight in the smartphone arena.

It’s not that my mobile phone addiction has finally got out of control, but the last few weeks I’ve been lucky enough to have got my hands on a number of new toys to play with (sadly apart from my Shadow they all have to go back eventually).

It’s been interesting to compare the BlackJack II (smartphone – non-touch device) to the less powerful Shadow (also a smartphone) and see how they stack up to my previous touch based device (the Wizard) and the fully loaded TyTN II (a “Windows Mobile Professional” – i.e. Touchscreen - device).

Aside the most obvious feature – the tilting screen when you slide the keyboard out (probably why the AT&T branded version is called the “Tilt”!) – this really is a phone with everything. 3MP camera, front facing video conferencing camera, 2.5 and 3G data, 802.11b and g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, Assisted GPS, a scroll wheel (should be mandatory on any device where I have to read lists) … everything bar the kitchen sink (Frank has a nice post with the specs).

Side by side it’s actually no bigger than my old Wizard, but it’s certainly packed with state of the art hardware. The processor is the same as the BJ II so it’s fast (the only thing I’ve noticed it slow down on is rotating the screen from landscape to portrait, but it’s over in a moment) and the memory capacity means it multi-tasks quite happily. There’s a full suite of apps on the device by default, and of course there are many, many Windows Mobile applications out there to solve most problems.

I’ve been using this beastie as my everyday phone and I really like it. But I don’t love it. Some people say it’s too large, but I got used to the Wizard. Some people say it’s overkill, but I love the features. The real reason is that I’ve been spoilt by the slowest and probably least capable of the devices. My Shadow.

On paper everything about the TyTN II is better. As a PDA or even a PC replacement I’d not argue for a moment (heck it’s almost as easy to do email and read Word documents on this thing as on my UMPC)… but as a phone I find a touch device that needs a stylus just doesn’t work as well for me. I know I can mash a finger on the screen but it just doesn’t feel right. I like the tactile feedback I get on the Shadow. HTC have done a great job of the interface – in fact I’ll happily continue using it until it goes back – but not enough to get me past like.

Comparing the BJ II and the TyTN II I think the smartphone wouldn’t come out on top. The keypad is just a little too fiddly, the lack of WiFi and a non standard charge/sync cable certainly don’t count in it’s favor (and needing to hack the WiFi to get it to work – thanks AT&T for crippling it). Comparing Shadow to BJ II (just to round it out), if the former had GPS there would be no question. As it stands – for me – the Shadow wins (I can always get a Bluetooth GPS device)… slide out 20 key keypad, mini USB charger, great form factor and WiFi.

Luckily HTC have shown that they know what the answer is… the HTC Touch Dual. Sadly in it’s current version the specs don’t match up to the Tytn II (in fact in some areas the Shadow beats it) but it gives me hope for the future…

In the meantime the TyTN II stays on my hip with the Shadow as “backup”. When the Tytn II goes back, the Shadow will be my primary device with the BlackJack II as backup….. until I get another device and have to rate them all over again ;)

If you’re thinking about a TyTN II check out some of the user sites for an unbiased view. TiltSite, HTCTilt and XDA_Developers are great community sites. TiltDepot is the place to go for accessories. If, like me, you can’t resist tweaking there’s a great tool for the Tytn II to get you started ;)

Did you know that 5 of the 10 top selling ‘Smart Phones’ in the US run on Windows Mobile (yes, even more than the iPhone)?

Have you always wondered what it takes to write something like ‘Bubble breaker’ and how you can get started on an applications that could get used by millions of people around the world

If so, then the Mobility Fire Starter Events are for you!

The Mobility Fire Starter events are either a 1-day seminar or a 3  day lab with in-depth coverage of building applications on the Windows Mobile platform.

You will be introduced to the nitty gritty of writing applications on the Windows Mobile platform. In a typical Fire Starter fashion, the day begins with something really simple and build to more complex applications by the end of the day.

The following seven areas will be discussed in detail:

· All About Windows Mobile
· Windows Mobile for Line of Business
· The Tools
· Managed Development
· Data Management Strategies
· Performance and Optimization
· A Whole New Level

All you need some basic level of understanding of the .NET platform. The event uses familiar tools such as Visual Studio, the .NET Compact Framework, SQL Server Compact Edition and more.

There are only a few events left in the US and they’re filling up fast (I’ve got my place in Redmond booked!)

Thanks to Jason for the heads up and Loke for an insight into the sort of things the event contains.

If you’re a developer looking to get a headstart on the most open smartphone development on the market you really need to be there…

One of my bad habits is to “file” stuff in my inbox. A lot of it is project related that I read and forget to file (often on a mobile device the triage is a little hard remember when you’re quickly flitting through email), a lot is stuff I read and think I should delete… but forget to.

Well, enter Auto-Mate from Pergenex Software. It’s one of a suite of Outlook add-ins that they have to make life easier and extend the product you probably use every day to make you more productive.

Within a few minutes of installing it I had some rules set up to find and file away a bunch of project related emails that frankly I’d been too lazy to sort out… and my mailbox is starting to feel more responsive and well behaved with each new rule.

It’s not just about filing old messages though. With careful use you can create a rule to handle just about any situation and have it react as mails come in (for instance letting you create customized Out Of Office messages for different projects or clients).

It has a standard and pro version and both come with a free 30 day trial so you can take the rules for a test drive before committing. I think I’m sold ;)

A while ago I got myself a Samsung Q1U Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) which I’ve really enjoyed using for RSS reading, basic browsing, and as a glorified remote control for my SlimServer. I’ve been lucky enough to be using the Origami Experience v2 which you can read about here which really rocks (though I must get it set up for speech so I can yell “next” at it when I’m on the elliptical!)

One problem though is that the UMPC devices are, by their very nature, a little underpowered. With an 800Mhz Intel A110 processor and only 1GB of RAM trying to do a lot of things was a bit painful.

Luckily Hugo Ortega (who I’d been lucky enough to get some advice from before buying my Q1U) had posted some very clear instructions on doubling the RAM in the Q1U to 2GB.

With a couple of hours free on Sunday I headed down to Frys and grabbed a Crucial 2GB 667Mhz 200 pin SoDIMM (less than $50 from Amazon or your local electronics store). As it turned out it took longer to get to Frys and back than it did to actually complete the installation!

The machine certainly feels a lot quicker and more stable. The HDD is spending less time thrashing which in turn I hope will help battery life. The addition of a 2GB Readyboost SD card will also help keep things smooth and fun.

The lesson I’ve learnt from this … along with last weeks flattening of my day-to-day Vaio to install a slipstreamed SP1 build and get rid of all the cruft … RAM *really* matters to Vista. Even on a low power processor it can be the difference between usable and painful for anything other than really simple tasks.

I’ve played with speech recognition in Vista on and off since it was released and while I like it I do get funny looks – at work I share and office and at home the dog thinks I’m talking to him. But sometimes when it’s just me I turn it back on and play (it’s particularly good on my UMPC which has a very small keyboard)

But it’s not that quick to do some thing. As a user who grew up with keyboard shortcuts (I started using computers before mice were common so cut me some slack) I still hit Ctrl-V instead of right-click, select paste. So having to go through the somewhat laborious process of talking my computer through navigating menus in Outlook is occasionally frustrating.

So I was really pleased to see the arrival of Speech Macros – or more properly “Windows Speech Recognition Macros tool” aka WSRMacros. It means I can now create a macro that is triggered by a spoken comment. The macros can be a single action (eg “insert signature”) or more complex (eg selecting a particular playlist and playing it)

<speechMacros>

<!-- Play Artist Command -->

<command>

<listenFor>play ?the ?artist [Artists]</listenFor>

<listenFor>play ?the band [Artists]</listenFor>

<listenFor>play ?the group [Artists]</listenFor>

<disambiguate title="Which artist do you want to play?" prompt="Choose an Artist" timeout="25" propname="Artist"/>

<wmpMediaControl command="pause"/>

<speak>Playing Artist {[Artist]}</speak>

<wmpMediaPlay attrname="WM/AlbumArtist" attrvalue="{[Artist]}"/>

</command>

</speechMacros>

So go on… next time you’re alone in your office give it a try. Fire up Vista speech recognition and give it a go. If your accent is like mine be prepared to spend a little while on training but you can work with the WSRMacros with minimal preparation.

While it’s great on a desktop or laptop, try it out on a UMPC with constrained keyboard to really see the power of being able to talk to your computer.

Now all we need is a Live Gallery to share macros….

Have you ever wanted to be able to take a snapshot of your phone. Or better yet, a video to show something working. Or maybe use a real keyboard to edit a phone number or someone’s address?

Maybe it’s a side effect of my job, but I find it becoming more and more important as my phone becomes more useful to me that I can interact with it in more ways. Dashwire for instance is a great way to ensure I have a backup before I do something silly (like cross the road in the rain – can end up with a handset dead in a puddle).

My latest new best friend is MyMobileR. A desktop application that let’s me connect to my phone (via ActiveSync, Wifi and even Bluetooth) where you then have full remote control.

You can drag’n’drop files to the device, or you can scroll through your contacts and make a change. If you want to show someone else how to do something then you can take a screenshot or record a video.

This looks like one of those really simple apps that does it’s job so well you’ll wonder how you did without it. And when you check the price (free!) you’ll agree it’s a bargain!

I’m off to explore the limits of what it can record and how much control I have (there’s one physical key on my Shadow I can’t find yet… but I’m sure it’s there!)

If you need more functionality then check out Soti for their device management and remote control solutions, but for a quick and easy every day solution MyMobileR has a place on my desktop.

“Huge Web hack attack infects 500,000 pages - Microsoft's IIS Web server may be to blame, says researcher” read the headlines today.

But it looks like he’s jumped the gun with his finger pointing…  This particular attack like so many before it (but admittedly at a much higher scale than many previous attempts) is due to a compromise known as a SQL Injection Attack.

The vulnerability is due to poorly-written SQL code that does not properly examine user input from a Web page form and allows commands to be “injected” and execute directly against the database with the same privileges as the sites own code.

What scares the heck out of me though is it’s spread to half a million pages already (though one attack targeted at, say, a shopping site with 10,000 pages would rack up a pretty big number very quickly!) because it implies a lot of fairly sloppy code is in production and not being maintained very well.

This attack – typical symptoms include pages with the code <script src=http://www.nihaorr1.com/1.js> embedded somewhere on them – is particularly neat because it’s self contained… the server is hit with a modified URL, the code is injected and updates the server all in one hit (so very hard to look out for and track). Older injection attacks normally looked for a vulnerability and then came back to exploit it.

The researcher in question seems to have jumped to a conclusion looking for some sensational PR coverage – which does make me a little skeptical about any claims they make around the level of protection they can offer ;) SQL Injection attacks are equally likely for MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server or any other database if the queries you feed to them are not sanitized. It’s not a new problem, and there has been good advice around for a long time to help developers avoid the problem.

The Register has a good write-up outlining the scale of the problem, and how hard it’s going to be to clean up…

One thing that it does go to prove though is that for users you can’t really trust anywhere you visit on the web – there’s always a risk than an attack will find a way to compromise a page you think is safe. If you don’t keep your system up to date with security patches for your client operating system, and run current anti-virus / anti-malware / anti-spyware (call it what you will) then you’re taking more risks than you need to. Personally I’m a fan of OneCare but NOD32 is another really good package. If you don’t want to pay a few bucks for insurance AVG Free does a really good job.

Update Apr 27: Read the update from the Microsoft Security Response Center on this issue, some recommendations on how to avoid SQL Injection attacks and some more handy tips from Bill Staples (the head of the IIS team, so he should know what he’s talking about). Also if you want a good background on why security matters and should be part of the initial design, not some random after thought you should read this blog.

So, your plans for world domination didn’t quite go as you hoped. You clone army didn’t stand up to repeated photo-copying and so it’s back to the drawing board.

Rather than mope around in your hidden lair of darkness (or your bedroom) why not get back into the fray… but this time you could focus your efforts on creating a virtual army of smart robots to do battle – or at least compete in a series of challenges to determine the winner.

While most mad scientists have to assemble their robots from a scrap-yard of parts using plans downloaded from some of the weirder parts of the internet you have an advantage…

You only have to develop the control package for the robot which will compete inside a virtual environment. To get started you’ll need to install and set up the Microsoft Robotics Studio (a free add-on that works with trial and express versions of Visual Studio) and you can develop using your favorite .Net language. Once tested and ready to rumble you upload the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008 playback file (.PLB) and some supporting documentation and … may the best robot win!

Vista sidebar gadgets and embeddable BotCards will let you stake out a claim and keep track of your progress – but if you do well and are one of the finalists… well, you’ll just have to read the clues from the RoboChamps League Commissioner to find out…