If there is one single area of parental concern that I hear often from parents, it would have to be that of the use of teens and IM. Well, it looks like there is one solution out there on the mobile front at last.

Instant messengers are like the second mobile phone for kids and young adults. Studies confirmed what we already know, and the IM penetration in other categories of population is increasing as IMs one by one go mobile.

And as scammers and/or sexual predators hang out on MySpace, both those trouble people tease kids on IM. One month, Windows Live Messenger has softly introduced a anti-pedophilia button both on its Live and MSN messengers….

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It’s close for Pocket PC users in Linux, but only up to Windows Mobile 2003 it seems. Oh well, it looked pretty cool, though.

The full title for this article is “The Holy Grail of Synchronization: How to synchronize Microsoft Outlook (multiple locations), Google Calendar, Gmail, iPod, and mobile phone with Funambol / ScheduleWorld”, and that title sums up nicely what this article is about. Synchronization is always a dark art, and while it’s pretty simple when you have one computer running Outlook and one Windows Mobile device, things get rapidly more complex when you add in more devices and services. This article covers a whole array of services - it’s unlikely that many of you are using exactly that same services as he is, but perhaps you can adapt the same basic principles to your own scenarios.

Myself, I’ve found that using a combination of 4smartphone [affiliate], Foldershare, FeedDemon, and the Google Browser Sync Tool has let me hit about 90% bliss when it comes to synchronization. I wish some other things would synchronize across all my PCs - like my ActiveWords data file, but for the most part I’m quite pleased with the way I’m able to keep my life in sync. What about you? How “in sync” are you?

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Even in the mobile space, content is king. However do the mobile companies have a firm enough understanding that they are ready to start providing content in a store front just yet?

Sony Ericsson will take its first step into standalone retailing when it opens a Carphone Warehouse-managed mobile phone store in London’s Kensington district this November.

The move comes as Nokia prepared to add a new flagship UK store to its existing portfolio of Nokia-branded stores run by Carphone Warehouse and other local providers….

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BenQ has some pretty big decisions to make it would seem. Apparently, closing the former Siemens unit has not totally been ruled out of the equation.

PARIS The largest maker of mobile phones in Taiwan, BenQ, said mounting losses might prompt it to file for insolvency protection for its German unit, less than a year after taking over the operation from Siemens.

BenQ has estimated that its mobile phone division has had losses of about €600 million, or $762 million, since it took over the Siemens business in October 2005….

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People who listen to demo scene radio stations like Nectarine probably know the MOD format. A mod file is basically a midi file that brings its samples along and thus sounds the same everywhere (German readers probably still remember T.W.Geuting’s Treo 600 experience).

Movemento is a demo of the Modula game engine developed and marketed by indus3.

Playing MOD files works well, however, you can’t move forward in files. Also, file playback can’t be paused.

Different playlists can be created easily.

The files are selected with a dialogue that works like the Windows Common Dialogue. However, you can’t select more than one file at a time.

The player supports background action. 0n our T3, the speedy rating reduced by about 50 Mhz - much less than an average mp3 file.

We reviewed version 0.1 on a Palm Tungsten T3. The program’s homepage is .

Overall, MOD playback for the Palm OS now is a reality. Movemento works, and MODs sound nice. However, the program still feels like a proof of concept rather than a mediaplayer suitable for sale due to a few quirks in control…

Want to see what we’re talking about? Visit !

is a great source for reviews, exclusive screenshots, and updates on all the new, 21st Century mobile technology as soon as it’s news to us!

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Mobile ESPN, do we really need this? I tend to lean with not so much myself, but that is just me.

Unable to attract enough customers, Mobile ESPN said yesterday that it would shut its mobile phone service aimed at sports fans at the end of the year. The company said it would focus instead on selling its real-time scores and video to existing cellular providers.

The shift in strategy is a sign of the difficulty in attracting new cellular customers at a time when more than 70 percent of consumers already have an existing plan. Despite carrying exclusive material, Mobile ESPN was unable to compete with Cingular Wireless and other national carriers that offer customers the option of paying as little as $10 a month to join family plans….

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As PalmOS handhelds get more and more connected to the Internet, the idea of using them as mobile HTML editors gets more and more feasible. DragonEdit is the only dedicated HTML editor for PalmOS - let’s see what it can do.

DragonEdit is an editor that seems to be based on a technology similar to Tejp writers. DragonEdit lets you open multiple files simultaneously; you can switch between them with the arrow at the top.

DragonEdit has very powerful search/replace options. Regular expression searching is a feature I never saw before on a PalmOS editor.

The various HTML wizards make entering common tags easier.

You can easily access the most common HTML tags and can even create snippets of your own.

JavaScript gets managed in snippet shape too - DragonEdit ships with about 20 general purpose ones preinstalled.

You can look at the files with your handheld’s browser to ‘preview’ them.

DragonEdit can open remote files and can also upload via FTP - the notebook can really stay at home now.

DragonEdit does not support syntax highlighting, however, I have been told that this is in the works. Also, the smallest font offered on my Treo 600 was way too big for my taste. On a HiRes/HiRes+ device, though, you get ample font choices!

The product makes an excellent plain text editor, too - so, editing non-html files is no problem either.

This review looked at version 1.0 of DragonEdit on a Palm Tungsten T3, a WristPDA, and a Palm Treo 600. DragonEdit costs $16.95 and needs about 500k of RAM.

Overall, DragonEdit is a huge step in the right direction - if you want to do HTML on your handheld, you absolutely must try this out. Many of the features found here are similar to the ones of high-end desktop editors - The lack of syntax highlighting remains a nuisance though…

Want to see DragonEdit? Visit and have fun!

is a great source for reviews, exclusive screenshots, and updates on all the new, 21st Century mobile technology as soon as it’s news to us!

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Using Skype to transfer files to and from a PC seems to be a really silly substitution for a good cable, but it is a good alternative to Bluetooth perhaps?

Have a Skype-certified mobile device but no appropriate USB cable handy? You might be able to transfer files to the device using Skype’s file transfer feature. Skype Blogs has a post about a reviewer who managed to transfer music files to a Sony Mylo media player and wireless Skype VoIP phone via file transfer. (Sony didn’t send him an USB cable.)
You can also use this feature to transfer files between two of your own computers. Really, that’s no different than if you were just sharing files with someone else. I work daily on both my laptop and desktop computers for overlapping purposes and have two different Skype accounts, and two different Google Talk and GMail accounts. (Google Talk recently got the file transfer feature.)

I suppose I could just as well use either of my wired or wireless networks and Windows Explorer for a file transfer, but this is easier because I don’t have to expose my directories to sharing, and then unshare them each time. My home network stays secure. BTW, here’s a link if you want a quick overview of various Skype features…..

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Well, if you have been looking at buying a Blackberry, it might be time to rethink that decision based on what I have been hearing…

Blackberry is facing demotion to the list of pioneering devices that failed to survive, according to analyst firm IDC.
The firm’s analysts claims that Nokia and Motorola are finally getting their acts together and have come out with formidable mobile email devices. Mix in the fact that both companies sell millions of mobile phones and have marketing budgets the size of RIM’s total revenues, and you understand that it doesn’t take a psychic to see a major battle evolving….

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