adir1

I just couldn’t resist the title, it’s just too funny. But on a serious note, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform is in serious trouble. Rumors flamed up again about Microsoft making their own MS branded hardware device, presumably with Zune functionality built in.

In my opinion Microsoft really can’t blame the OEM’s this time (like they tried with the Media Player Plays-for-sure fiasco) and “Come Out with their own Phone-Done-Right device”. I think OEM’s tried as hard as they could, over the last few years, to Make Windows Mobile Work. They developed their own additions and enhancements to the Windows Mobile, trying desperately to “prop-up” the ailing platform. But, no luck thus far – Today I can’t recommend any of the Windows Mobile smartphones, after experiencing the iPhone and RIM’s offerings…

I think it is really a combination of issues, from the slow display drivers/response (bad for UI overall, especially video and navigation), to seriously lacking Internet browser (where is their Deepfish?). But the biggest issue of all, ironically, is their openness, allowing problematic plugins (that consume CPU and Memory) to run on the Phone’s front page and allowing the many programs to run in the background, slowing phone down to a crawl. I say Ironically, because this is the biggest thing that iPhone disallows – only single running application and very controlled “3rd party software”. Of course it is also biggest complaint about the iPhone, since we can’t have our “gTalk” running in the background for people to reach us, which seriously cripples the usefulness of the whole “Unlimited Data Plan”.

Meanwhile, Android to the Rescue! Yea, more on that to come, stay tuned!

I signed up for Plaxo account today, following a little reminder of their existence. I have been watching their progress for a while, and looks like they are on the right path and have stamina needed to survive rough startup waters. The core functionality that they were always about is maintaining a type of ‘self-updating’ Address book on the web. It’s great, because even if your friends change phone numbers (new job, new home, new phone provider, etc.) The idea that if I update my phone number, it will automatically update address book of all my friends. This is something I have been waiting for a while. But I never wanted to work hard to migrate my address book into ‘yet another web site’, but their latest auto-sync with Yahoo! and Google features have finally convinced me.

The sign up and Sync with Yahoo! and Outlook all went without a hitch. There were some duplicates, but I easily cleaned them in Outlook, and it auto re-synced everything soon thereafter. PLUS my Windows Mobile phone contacts are auto-synchronized with Outlook, resulting in a perfect Trifecta. Now, I can go online and update/add/lookup contacts. Use them in my Outlook when sending email, or calling them (or emailing) from my phone. And all with self-updating contact information! Wow, I just noticed that somehow my Skype got updated with all my contacts from Yahoo also, nirvana.

In other news, in case you missed it in my shared links, here’s a little tip on how to get your Windows XP to look like Vista. This is just look and feel, mind you, and none of the fancy features (like SuperFetch). But you can also get the very handy quick-type style Start Menu via little free Launchy utility. With it, just start typing what you are trying to launch or find, and it finds it! Make sure to remember to click Ctrl-Space after starting it, otherwise it stays hidden.

Finally, I leave you today with little video of Windows Vista Ultimate Dreamscape effects, augmented with some good 3rd party views. Notice that this is actual desktop background, on top of which you can run programs and other videos, good ones