Thoughts on Pointui

If you own a Windows Mobile phone, you know the pain and ugliness that is... well, Windows Mobile.

If you have felt even a twinge of iPhone envy, you can do the poseur thing with a nifty little app called Pointui. This little app will run on both smartphones and touchscreen phones that run either Windows Mobile 5 or Windows Mobile 6. Even cooler is that they have a version that will run on Windows Mobile 2003. I tried installing it on my now decrepit Toshiba e800 PDA, and it did look nice, though it ran a bit slow.

On my more recent HTC Excalibur smartphone, however, the UI was clean, pretty and snappy. Clearly it has its shortcomings (i.e., dialing, access to contacts), but it made me feel a little bad that I paid for software in the past that deliver Pointui's functionality with a little less pizazz. Fizzweather all of a sudden doesn't seem like that great a buy. There are plenty of Youtube videos that show the GUI in action. I picked one of a recent build below.



It's quite amazing to see a responsive, snappy and attractive app on Windows Mobile. Most of the apps out there truly suck ass, for a lack of a better expression.

Pointui is still in beta, but it definitely is a promising replacement for the Windows Mobile Today Screen. Best of all, Pointui is free.

Jabra SP5050 Bluetooth Speakerphone Review

I'm not a big fan of using my cel phone while driving, and I definitely don't want to be that annoying guy with the bluetooth headset that you always see. Besides, I've tried doing the bluetooth headset thing and found myself fumbling with it just a little too much.

Enter the Jabra SP5050 bluetooth speakerphone. I've been using this for a little over a month now, so I've gotten a little perspective.



The Jabra SP5050 is an elegantly designed speakerphone that easily clips onto your visor. The sound quality easily exceeded my expectations, and the usability is quite good, though not perfect. It is rated for 12 hours of talk time, and since I have had it, I haven't really found myself in battery jeopardy yet. Since the device is simple, there really isn't a whole lot to say in a review about it, other than the fact that it is really easy to use while you're driving.

Full disclosure: I use this more for receiving calls than making calls, so I never really set myself up with the voice dial feature, and I probably won't.

In a nutshell, it's a great little device, whether you're in the car, or in a boardroom.

Pros

• Slick design


• Great sound quality


• One tap usability


• Good battery life


• Auto shut-off

Cons

• Recharger is for the car only. I sidestepped this limitation by buying a car-to-AC adapter from Deal Extreme for a few bucks. I shouldn't have to do this, so it was a tad annoying.


• Volume control uses awkwardly positioned buttons. I would have preferred a jog dial here. Very annoying and can require fumbling, especially if you can't remember which button turns up the volume and which one turns it down.


• A little spendy at $100 bucks

Rating: Highly Recommended

Mac Media Streamers for the PS3

Mac users don't really have a lot of options in terms of serving DivX media to their PS3s... at least not like on Windows. Windows has the awesome and free TVersity application, which can send all sorts of movies to your PS3 using DLNA.

So far, it seems that there aren't many apps that do a good job of transcoding. Yeah, there are players out there like Twonky and EyeConnect, but I haven't really seen anything that follows the "it just works" mantra of Mac software.

A little shop in Burlington, Ontario named NullRiver has its own solution called MediaLink that is a fairly easy-to-use prefpane for a low price of 20 bucks. Granted, it's still a little flaky, but it's really easy to use and cheap.

If they can improve the stability of the app, and add broader codec support (MKV anyone?), I tend to think that NullRiver will have a killer app for those Mac users who also have a PS3.

Daily Dose of Imagery

Sam Javanrouh's Daily Dose of Imagery is one of the best photography sites around. Focusing on images of his (and my) hometown of Toronto, Canada, his photographic eye is world class.

Server Side No More

Well, hopefully this is the final platform change in the neverending effort that is the web site of Steven Ng. With a life that is as busy as it is, the blog format really isn't working.

I think the best way to approach such an infrequently updated web site is to keep it down to the basics and focus on a few key areas that are of interest to me:

• Tips for Mac Switchers
  
• Handy Lifehacking Tips
  
• Music I'm Listening To
  
• My Movie Watchlist
  
• Recent Good Reads
  
• Handy Tech Cheatsheets
  
• Any Nifty Tools I've Written
  
• Game Reviews
  
• Media Serving in the Home
  

I've never really been able to truly recover from leaving Blogger several years ago, being the control freak that I am. I haven't found that any server-based solution has really worked for me since. I've tried GeekLog, WordPress and MediaWiki. While great tools, they just weren't what I needed or was looking for. In the end, most of my posts were done on my iMac, so why not go back to the fat client?

Since I had an unused license for RapidWeaver from MacHeist 1, I figured I'd finally give it a shot. Of course, I had to pay to upgrade to the latest version, but it was well worth it. (And who says that Heist users don't pay for upgrades, eh, Gruber?)

In all fairness, I don't think RapidWeaver will be the only tool I'll be using for this site - it will probably be a combination of RapidWeaver (content and publishing), Coda (template coding) and CSSEdit (stylesheets). CSSEdit was a fortuitous acquisition from MacHeist 2. Image editing will be done via Pixelmator and iStockPhoto.

If you haven't noticed a trend, I'm a big supporter of independent software for the Macintosh. The greatest thing about indie software for the Mac is that you get fully functioned, polished software at a very reasonable price.

The template is not set yet, but I hope you keep coming back and enjoy what you see.

Cheers!