I know there are hundreds, if not thousands of list of Windows “free software” on the web. But every time I read one of those lists, I usually find one or two applications which I wasn’t aware of previously. So I figured that one more list couldn’t hurt. People like lists. There will obviously be a lot of things that you have seen before, but I’m sure some of you will find some new gems to try. This is by no means a complete list of Freeware. I am only adding software to this list that I’ve used and determined to be worthwhile. Many of these applications may fall on the “geeky” side, as I mainly do IT consulting.
Review: Skyfire Browser for Windows Mobile
I finally got my invite to the Skyfire Beta after a long wait for an invite. It was well worth the wait. Skyfire is a new web browser for the Windows Mobile platform that allows you to view “full” web pages. This includes the ability to watch streaming video, flash based content, and full Javascript support. All of the “Web 2.0″ style sites that I’ve tested Skyfire on have worked for the most part. This includes personal favorites such as Netvibes and Hulu. I was really surprised that Hulu works. A major feature of the browser is that you can watch Youtube videos, which is cool and all, but I’ve been able to do that for quite some time with the FlashVideoBundle “hack” for Windows Mobile. I was very surprised that Hulu works.
The streaming video portion of the browser is cool. Its a tad choppy on my Verizon EVDO setup, but the audio is clear. I hear it works better on a WIFI connection, but I don’t have WIFI to test it on at the moment. The current version of Skyfire is 0.6 Beta. I am treating this version as more “proof of concept” versus what the final product will look/function like. That may be wishful thinking, but I can’t pass final judgment yet.
UPDATE: I am testing video streaming via WIFI at the moment, and it is indeed much smoother over the WIFI versus EVDO.
Some of the navigation/zooming features are cool on Skyfire, some are not so cool. I believe they will work out some of the bugs in future releases. I think some of the limitations may just be due to the small screens on Windows Mobile based phones. Any of the performance related issues I’ve experienced with Skyfire are probably because of the limited processing power and memory available on Windows Mobile handsets.
Overall, Skyfire looks very promising and is worth signing up for the beta. It will not replace PocketIE for text browsing just yet, but has a lot of potential, especially on future mobile devices.
A long awaited feature of Meebo is finally a reality. Cross-network file transfers. You can now send and receive files from contacts using any service through Meebo. Now there is no reason not to use Meebo as your primary Instant Messaging client.
Meebo has also done a great job updating its interface over the last few weeks. I had been waiting a long time for a ‘black’ colored theme, and now they have one. Good work team Meebo!
Its been a bad month so far for mobile fans. Treo users got screwed with a bad update from Palm, and now Six Apart is closing my favorite photo blog site, Splashblog. I’ve been using Splashblog for almost 2 years now. It is/was a great photo blogging platform. There wasn’t anything too special about it, except for the fact that it WORKED. Unlike the alternatives, Splashblog was very simple, just photos, a titile, and a description. I liked the way Splashblog handled RSS feeds… very simple and customizable. I used my Splashblog to export the photos from my cell phone to several different websites I run.
Now you can access Netvibes from your cell phone or other mobile device. For those not familiar with Netvibes it is a Personalized Start Page. Think of it as your personal web dashboard. To give Netvibes mobile a try create a tab called “mobile” on your Netvibes account. Drag rss, email, calendar, and other supported modules into your “mobile” tab. Point your mobile device’s browser to: http://m.netvibes.com/ and enjoy Netvibes content on your phone. I’ve tried it on my Treo 700w and it works. I might even use it instead of the mobile version of Google Reader.
Looks like Google is taking mobile devices a little more seriously now that the iPhone has been released. The mobile versions of Google’s services are working better and better. I use the Treo 700w Windows Mobile device as my main cell phone. I’ve set my home page to Google’s mobile product line at http://www.google.com/m/products. I’ve tried every email and rss reader application for my Treo that is available, none of them were that good. Google’s Mobile RSS Reader works great. I imported my OPML and can read all of my favorite feeds from my phone. Google’s mobile version of gMail is awesome too. I don’t even bother using the built in outlook client anymore. A mobile version of YouTube exists for your video viewing pleasure. You can even view your Picasa photo albums on your mobile device. Other options include: personalized mobile start page, maps, blogger, news, calendar, and sms. So if you have an unlimited internet plan, give Google’s new service offerings a try…I’m using them and loving them.
There have been quite a few people bashing Twitter over the past few months. While I do find that the “public” time-line traffic is mostly a bunch of garbage, I think many people are missing one of the major points of Twitter. Within a “real life” social network, Twitter can be a very useful tool to coordinate and mass update people in a group. Friends can form a network within Twitter (by subscribing to eachother) and subscribe to SMS updates via their cell phones. If a group is networked via Twitter the members may send updates to the entire network via their cell phones. This feature can come in handy when making plans that involve large groups of people. Having an SMS conversation to coordinate groups of people becomes very easy.
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