08:39 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Announcements

I did some tweaks to our RSS feeds to reduce the server strain. If you experience any weird changes or bugs, please be so kind and inform us!

And, of course, a Happy New Year to everyone!

Alex

12:04 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Just before year's end Tom's Hardware has published an in-depth review of the Dell Axim X50v, which I consider the nicest PDA out there right now (relax, my opinion may be slightly biased ). Quote from the conclusion:

To just who is the Axim X50v aimed at? Well, just about everyone - consumers and businesspeople alike - who want to buy a fully loaded, relatively reasonably priced PDA with VGA display right now. Die-hards like that won't be deterred by the fact that the device's dedicated graphics accelerator is useless at present, except for the occasional gaming title.

To everyone else, such as folks who only recently bought a fast and well-equipped PDA like the X30i, our advice is: sit tight and wait for the price reductions that are sure to come.

10:11 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Sunrise

Our friend Laurens never sleeps, it seems! He has just released Sunrise 0.40 pre3 which contains some important bug fixes (freeze at startup, documents stuck at "Generating 100%", AutoUpdate issues, and more).

The enhanced conduit will follow in the next prerelease.

You can click here to download Sunrise 0.40 pre3.

08:55 AM by Mobipocket in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

Mobipocket has a Holiday Special Sale with a selection of 200 e-books offered for USD 4.99$ each.

Offer lasts until 1st Jan, 2005 - hurry up!

07:27 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Font Collector by Alexander Pruss is an easy-to-use companion program to Fonts4OS5, FontSubst, eReader, iSilo, Mobipocket, FontHackV, FontHack123, Palm Bible+ and Plucker, allowing you to convert fonts from many other formats - including fonts within applications you may have sitting around on your PDA - to formats for these applications.

The following input font formats are supported: FontHack123, eReader, Fonts4OS5 (not for conversion to other formats), FontSubst (not for conversion to other formats), FontHackV, fonts inside all applications' main .prc files, Plucker, iSilo, PalmBible+, VersaMail fonts, FontBucket, vuilt-in Sony NX fonts, built-in Palm OS fonts on many devices.

It's free when used to convert fonts to PalmBible+ and Plucker. For other output formats, Font Collector is shareware ($5.00/USD; free trial with slightly uglified output font).

11:47 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

Archos will showcase its first "fourth generation" personal video player (PVP) at the Consumer Electronics Show next week in Las Vegas. The Pocket Media Assistant PMA400, which runs embedded Linux, boasts wireless Internet access and "a host of additional new features," (touch screen, PIM, ...) according to an Archos spokesperson.

Before you buy a product from Archos, make sure you are aware of screen defects here and here that were experienced by some users with the Archos AV420, an earlier incarnation of the PMA400.

[via LinuxDevices.com]

11:27 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

If you are looking for a good discount on e-books, you should check out Fictionwise, who is still running a holiday special through December 31st: get 20% off the purchase of any unencrypted MultiFormat title, and get a 20% Micropay Rebate on any Secure title in their store.

10:44 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The source-code of Cabir, a Symbian OS and Series 60 UI-targeting worm, appears to have slipped out and been brought to a wider audience. According to F-Secure,

"First of all, these new variants [of the Cabir worm] seem to be recompiled versions based on original Cabir source code. Which means that the Cabir source code is floating around in the underground. Which is bad news. We didn't know the sources were out there, and we've never seen them."

The worm was original written by the virus-writing group 29A Labs and Security firms believe that the group planned to release the source code in their next virus tech magazine.

Some phones that are known to be vulnerable: Nokia N-Gage/N-Gage, Nokia 3230/3650/3600/6260/6600/6620/6670/7610/7650, Panasonic X700, Samsung SGH D700/D710, Sendo X, Siemens SX1.

So better be careful next time when you upload software to your cell phone. Also, don't leave your phone's Bluetooth set to discoverable, and confirm any file you receive over Bluetooth (Cabir replicates via Bluetooth)!