The Portal

Design of the Month

Top Applications for Windows Mobile January 10, 2010

I’ve had a windows mobile 6 phone for a few years now, and over that time I’ve collected a nice combination of applications to which I use on a daily basis. All of these applications will help improve your windows mobile experience. Please note that I have only tested this setup on Windows Mobile 6.1 – on my AT&T Tilt.

S2U2 (Download)

S2U2 is a simple lock/unlock application which has the iPhone style slide unlocking. It can be used as a screensaver while you don’t use your device. It has CallerID function (but it may not work on some devices, so try it before daily use); S2P control plugin; and volume control. S2U2 shows many system information even without unlocking and highly customizable.

Batii (Download)

Batti is a small application which shows you remaining power of your battery and sends you notifications. It places a small 1 to 3 pixel colored bar at the top of the screen which indicates the current charge level.

Palringo (Download)

Palringo is the ultimate Instant Messaging client for mobile phones and computers. It’s like the Trillian and Pidgin for the Mobile world.

Opera Mobile (Download)

The best free (or paid) browser for windows mobile. Syncronized bookmarks, speedy browsing, tabs, and speed dial. And of course, it’s really smooth, sliding around the screen, and zomming in on the pages.

GRemote (Downl0ad)

One of my favorite applications for my phone, this allows you to turn your windows mobile phone into a remote control for your desktop. Using this to control my Hulu desktop on my computer (with the nice screen of course) is just like having a TV. You’ll need Wifi or a really long USB cable to get the real experience.

BT Audio (Download)

Nice little utility allows you to turn your bluetooth headset into a wireless headphone (mom sound of course). It’s great for listening to talk radio or internet radio while on the go.

Resco Radio (Download / Buy)

By far the best internet radio application for windows mobile, instant music. You can bookmark stations, and add custom ones, volume control and turn off the screen when not needed.

SPB Mobile Shell (Download / Buy)

This is the best home screen replacement application for windows mobile, and soon on the Android as well. It runs on top of everything else and seamlessly integrates with your phone. You will fall in love with the ability to easily access and customize your phone.

Uptime Monitoring Script and Load Notifier December 15, 2009

Over the years of owning my own dedicated servers, I often find myself logging into the server just to check the load, the logs, and if there was any downtime. And eventually, I ended up creating a network of servers talking and checking each other, and sending the results (if necessary) to me and logging the rest. It’s always important to keep track of the health of your server, in both uptime, storage space, and load average, here are some great scripts I’ve created and have worked perfectly.

Each of these bash scripts should be copied into a file and run using a cron job every few minutes for optimal use. You’ll want to have these scripts setup on each of your servers, and have them monitor each other for best results. You can set it to send the notification to anywhere you want. Personally, I send it as a text message to my phone, and carbon copy it to my email. This way, I’m always connected with my servers, and I know what’s going on when I need to know, and not after there’s already a problem. If you’re getting too many notifications, try changing the check count(s) or load average limits.

– Read the rest of this post..

Sync Pidgin Chat Logs Across Multiple Platforms November 18, 2009

If you’re like me, you have multiple desktops, laptops and work stations. And there’s a point where it becomes very difficult to not be constrained to one computer based on the task you want to complete, such as email, or instant messaging. I wanted a way to keep my chat logs synchronized across all of my computers. The solution? DropBox.

But there’s one problem with just installing DropBox, it can only sync what’s in it’s folder. We can’t move the chat logs folder of pidgin, so we need to create symbolic links, and junctions between the folders on each computer. The process of doing this may vary depending on the platform you’re using.
– Read the rest of this post..