TamsBlackBerry – the BlackBerry blog

When set up against the job of making an ad for a motor saw manufacturer, most of us will probably think of lightly-clad girls, muscular men and the jungle.

According to DirectDaily, the folks at the chainsaw manufacturer STIHL went a different way. They created a self-updating paper calendar, which is pictured below:

Not much to add here…

The iPhone’s lack of stylus was praised when the unit first came out – unfortunately, having no stylus makes using the unit with gloves difficult.

Koreans discovered that a popular type of snack sausage could be used as stylus – and an innovative vendor has now capitalized on their findings. His “sausage” is non-edible, but can be used as a stylus for long times without fear of “degeneration”:

Those of you who feel like taking a stab can do so for the acceptable price of 1 USD – further information is at the URL below:
http://www.casecrown.com/iphone/accessories/iphone-1g-3g-3gs-sausage-screen-stylus

Dr. Schaffer’s Mobile Computing facility at the Austrian FH Hagenberg has produced quite a few really amazing projects (think Shaker Racer) in the last years; the knowledge of their faculty staff is top-notch and contains loads of Forum Nokia champions. Cutting a long story short: the price (free) is more than right – I am there for about 18 months now and am happy overall.

In case anyone of you feels like adding a Bachelor of Science in Mobile Computing to his business card, definitely consider these boys. As tuition is free and living in Linz is dirt cheap (900E/month max), interested German-speakers are well advised to visit their open-house day to find out more about how to get great education for a very low price…which is held on Friday:

FH Hagenberg Campus
Softwarepark 11
4232 Hagenberg/Austria

Open: 9h to 18h local time

Yours truly will not be around this time. However, it would be too cool to have a group of Tamoggemon Content Network heads at this university…

Mobile Business Briefing reports the following:

The European Commission announced yesterday new moves intended to protect consumers from building up large bills when roaming in other EU countries. Mobile operators are now obliged to offer their customers a monthly cut-off limit of EUR50, and can also offer any other limit. Users will receive a warning when they hit 80 percent of the chosen limit. Until 1 July, customers need to make a deliberate choice in order to benefit from a cut-off limit. But if they don’t make a choice by July 1, the cut-off will be set at EUR50 by default from that date.

…

From my point of view, this definitely is a good step. However, it IMHO won’t really do much – the party will start only when one of the big networks declares itself as “one”. Hutchison 3G does that for some time, but is too small (7 countries) to have meaningful impact.

On the other hand, former governmental operators like A1 (who have since joined the VodaFone network) could do this to protect themselves from competition by cheaper, small operators – forcing others to follow suite…

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Lars Aronsson

Dear Readers,
file this straight into the “we love our editor” folder. Yours truly will be talking about Symbian application distribution on the Nokia Mobile Developers forum on the 6th of the month:

My presentation will be held in English, and will be added to the web site shortly. Hit the link below to find out more:
http://www.nokiaappforum.com/conference/

P.S. The current schedule is in this PDF…

Dear Readers,
just in case anyone of you is wondering what the hell happened to TamsPPC and TamsS60: these sites were renamed. The URL’s and the content remain the same.

However, TamsPPC is now known as “the Windows Phone blog”, while TamsS60 now carries the tagline “the Symbian blog”. Once again, this has nothing to do with the content or editorial line – it remains the same.

The reason for this renaming was that the terms PocketPC and S60 are starting to get less and less popular. In order to make the TCN more visible for new readers, this renaming had to be performed.

If anyone of you has any questions or issues, please leave a comment here!

All the best
Tam Hanna

As quite a few of you are visiting the Tamoggemon Content network from a Windows-powered desktop or notebook, I felt like sharing this with all of you.

Microsoft has just warned that the End-of-Support time for Windows XP SP2 and the initial release of Windows Vista is nearing:

If you currently use one of the above-mentioned operating systems, you will no longer receive updates and patches after the specified dates. Fortunately, the solution is easy: install the latest service pack…

P.S. Windows 2000 heads: your EOL time is in July…irregardless of the service pack you use!

Microsoft has traditionally used the Catalonia Plaza hotel in Barcelona as its “base” during the congress – it offers better logistics and cleaner, better-managed venues. This year, they really overdid it though – and transformed the entire hotel into a huge Windows Mobile 7 ad.

During the day, the clock was always set to Seven:

And at night, it got really funny. Not much to add to the shot below:

When it comes to booking stuff for the Mobile World Congress, earlier is better. This has led to a large variety of weird date speculation on Facebook and other social networks.

At Tamoggemon’s, we are proud to bring you the more-less official dates for the next issue of the MWC; as When it comes to booking stuff for the Mobile World Congress, earlier is better. This has led to a large variety of weird date speculation on Facebook and other social networks.

At Tamoggemon’s, we are proud to bring you the more-less official dates for the next issue of the MWC; as displayed at the venue:

Of course, this can still change – but it should make for a pretty good estimate. Get booking .

Dear Readers,
just in case anyone of you is wondering why its so goddamn silent here today.

The Vienniese TCN team is packing for Barcelona!

Yes, we are on our way, and expect to bring you loads of live coverage and thousands of shots by tomorrow. Stay tuned!

P.S. In case anyone of you wants to meet up: SMS me at 0043 676 7886431!

I guess that everybody who frequents the Tamoggemon Content Network is well aware that cell phone providers always know where your cell phone is. You lot probably also know that this data is often logged, and can theoretically be used for all kinds of data-mining processes.

So far, the common assumption was that cell phones will not be tracked without a court order. Unfortunately, this is untrue. CNet News reports the following:

In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their–or at least their cell phones’–whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that “a customer’s Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records” that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

The message is short and sweet here: if your phone is on in the USA, the US government knows where you are. Do with that what you want to, and don’t hold us liable…

When it comes to stopping smokers, governments get creative – no idea is weird enough…

The CNN brings us the latest anti-smoking campaign: free BlackBerry handsets:

As of now, not much is known on how to claim your “free BB” – but if I would be living closeby, I (being a non-smoker) would definitely light up a smoke for a new device to add to my collection…

For most of us, GPS is a no-brainer – if we need to know where we are, we fire up that transmitter and are good to go. Unfortunately, this could change in the not-so-far future.

The British BBC reports the following:

The Sun’s irregular activity can wreak havoc with the weak sat-nav signals we use.

The last time the Sun reached a peak in activity, satellite navigation was barely a consumer product.

But the Sun is on its way to another solar maximum, which could generate large and unpredictable sat-nav errors.

…

Even though many of us distrust large media services when it comes to tech, their story looks very ok to me. The image below is from the NASA, and shows the earth’s magnetic field.

If the sun now emits a magnetic cloud of its own, the fields get distorted – which confuses the system. Of course, we don’t quite know how strong this will really become…

Coming from Austria, yours truly has a healthy dislike of government agencies – wherever the government gets involved, idiocy and bloat usually follow suite.

Travelers and gadget heads in the USA will soon enjoy even more of the above-mentioned. PCWorld reports the following:

Buying your next laptop computer or smartphone online could suddenly get a lot more expensive if a little-known U.S. Department of Transportation proposal to tighten rules around the shipment of small, battery-powered devices by air goes through, says an industry group opposing the move.

Airline passengers would be affected too, as rules banning spare lithium-ion batteries in checked-in luggage would also be extended to alkaline and nickel metal-hydride batteries, argues George Kerchner, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Portable Rechargeable Battery Association.

…

For air travelers, this means that you are no longer allowed to put batteries or accumulators into checked luggage – which is just insane. More on that can be had at the URL above.

P.S. This is a non-political blog. However, I think that the Terrorists have already won their “war” with us – air travel is such a hassle nowadays that many evaluate taking the train more and more. One can always circumvent security measures if one really wants to.