Fun with Smiley’s and the Windows Phone Messaging Live Tile
One of the great things about Live Tiles on Windows Phone is that they can be updated to reflect information about the application. Tiles for FourSquare updates to show your point totals, Twitter apps update to show how many replies and direct messages you have, and even email tiles update to show how many unread messages you have received. But have you ever paid attention to the messaging live tile? It updates to show how many text messages you have received, as one would expect, but it also does a little more than just show the number. When there are no new text messages, the face is a standard smiley. :-) But get your first new text and it changes to a winky smiley. ;-) Let the number of messages rise to 4 unread or more, and now you have a new surprise smiley. :-o Yes, it's not a huge feature, but it's a cute little extra that makes it fun to look at every day. I wonder if the smiley changes at some point after the :-o I've had up to 12 messages unread and didn't … [--Read More--]
How To Use Speech to Control your Windows Phone
An often overlooked feature in Windows Phone (Mango) is the powerful speech engine. This comes built into the phone, and can do some really great things. You can quickly call contacts, launch installed applications, search Bing, or even compose and send text messages. In some ways, I consider it to be better than Apple's Siri, but at the same time, it doesn't have the "personality" that Siri does. Let's start with how to turn on the speech feature. All you need to do, is open Settings and scroll down until you find "speech", and tap on it. This is where you can configure the speech engine for use. The first check box will enable the speech engine to work over the internet. This is important if you want to dictate text messages, as it needs to off load the processing of that audio to the powerful servers on the internet. They can rip through the audio and return accurate results quickly. If you're are not going to send text messages, then you could leave this off. … [--Read More--]
How To Setup Custom Ringtones on Windows Phone
Who doesn't want to customize the ringtones on their smartphone? It's always among the top things on my list when I pick up a new device - check the sounds that come with it, and get my favorites on it. In November of 2011, Microsoft released the Mango update for Windows Phone, which included this very functionality. If you purchased a device after that point, it should already have the Mango version on it. If you have an original Windows Phone, you'll want to run it through the upgrade procedure in order to get this new feature. There are a couple things you need to know before you can start loading your device with custom ringtones. First, the audio file must be 39 seconds long or less. So there's no putting a 3 minute long clip as your ringtone. 39 seconds and then it will loop around and start over. Next, the total size of this file must not be larger than 1MB in size. This is to ensure fast and responsive phone. If the file was too large, it could significantly slow the … [--Read More--]
CES 2012: The Amazing Everyday with Nokia
There’s been a lot of talk about Nokia’s large budget for marketing their new Lumia smartphones. CES was the first major marketing push for the Lumia in the US. Given the announcement around the 710, 800, and 900 models, what could be a better time? The first hint that Nokia was looking to change things up, came when you land in McCarran International Airport. After picking up your bags and on the way to the cab line, it was pretty hard to miss the Nokia kiosk and the free ride they were offering CES attendees to select hotels. Boarding the double decker bus, they passed around some smartphones for you to check out on the drive. How cool is that? But the promotion didn’t stop there. Each day of the show, from 8:30 – 11:00 at each of the monorail stops, Nokia had some entertainment for passengers waiting to board the train. The dancers were taking turns showing off their moves as the crowd clapped and cheered them on. What I found most interesting with this campaign, … [--Read More--]
CES 2012: Smoked By Windows Phone
Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph, also known on Twitter as @BenThePCGuy, hit CES with a fun challenge. Win, and you take away $100 cash – Loss, and you have to admit that your phone just got smoked by a Windows Phone. The challenge is actually pretty simple, just beat Ben on his Windows Phone at a common task. Think you’re fast at tweeting? What about posting to Facebook or sharing images? In the end of the 2 days, Windows Phone walked away with a pretty nice record of 30 Wins / 3 Loss / 1 Draw. The 3 losses are against an iPhone 4s, Galaxy Nexus (both on posting a picture to Twitter, and lost by a second or so), and a Droid Bionic (on sending an SMS to a friend). But to get all the details, head over to the Windows Phone YouTube channel and watch the video’s yourself. Or, if you just want the summary, the recap of Day 2 is below for your enjoyment. … [--Read More--]
CES 2012: Nokia Brings Lumia 710 & 800 to Canada
Nokia has announced that the Lumia 710 and 800 will in fact be coming to Canada. The 710 will be carried by Rogers and the 800 will be on the Telus network. Availability of the 800 with Telus is still just a "coming soon" and the price is much of the same. The 710 with Rogers will be available in February and have a price of $49.99 with a 3 year contract. I expect the full, non-subsidized price will be $349.99, but there is no confirmation of that at this point. If you're not familiar with the specs of the 710 and 800 models, you can check them out here. Basically the 710 is an entry level device that offers Nokia's exceptional quality at an affordable price. The 800 takes it up a notch by adding a more unique design, and better camera optics with the Carl Ziess lens. At this time Nokia had nothing to say in regards to the Lumia 900 device coming to Canada. This is the device that many are after as it has a larger screen and runs on the faster LTE network. Currently that is still … [--Read More--]
CES 2012: Lenovo Offers A Tablet-Laptop Option for Windows 8
CES always brings lots of weird and wonderful things to see. With Windows 8 around the corner, and the potential game changer it may become, I was hoping to see lots of Windows 8 enabled hardware. There was some, but not as much as I had hoped for, and must of it was another tablet or laptop, but not with Lenovo. While roaming the floor at ShowStoppers, I caught a glimpse of the kind of hardware I was hoping to see more of. Lenovo has a truly innovative design that allows you to have both a laptop and a tablet. The model I saw, I think its being referred to as "Yoga", was just 17mm thick with a touch screen. When you're looking to use the keyboard, just pop open the device as you normally would. Thanks to a special dual-hinge, when you want a tablet experience, you can swing that screen back and fold it over onto itself. You're bending the screen over so the back of the screen touches the bottom of the laptop. Once the screen goes past 180 degrees the keyboard and trackpad are … [--Read More--]
CES 2012: Nokia Lumia 900 LTE Coming to AT&T
Nokia has made it official at CES 2012 that the long rumored Lumia Ace smartphone will be coming to the US as the Lumia 900 on AT&T's network. The 900 offers the same stunning design as the 800, but in a larger footprint. Mainly due to the larger, 4.3 inch screen. It will also run on AT&T's LTE network. The only other addition is the front facing camera. So, bigger and faster than the 800 - and we like big and fast, and with an extra camera. :-) Price and availability are still unknowns at this time. Given the larger screen and faster network support, I would expect this will on the more expensive side compared to the current Lumia line of devices. … [--Read More--]
CES 2012: Samsung Announces Galaxy Note Coming to Canada
Samsung has made officially announced the Galaxy Note will be coming to Canada soon. The Canadian version will be exactly the same as the version released in the US, including support for LTE networks. The massive 5.3 inch Super AMOLED screen is powered by a 1.5 Ghz dual core processor, with 16 GB of onboard memory. A huge 2500 mAh battery will ensure a full days worth of use. It also features an 8MP rear facing camera and a 2MP front facing camera. Even with these large off the chart specs, the device fits very nicely in your hand. The Note also features a "S Pen" that allows you to jot down notes or even draw and paint. Samsung has a small army of artists at CES that are drawing caricatures of people using the Galaxy Note, that you could choose to have printed on a T-shirt if your interested. The long and short of it is, this S Pen is not the same as your Dads old stylus. There is no price or availability dates provided, but word on the street is that it will be out really … [--Read More--]
CES 2012: Nokia Brings Unlocked Lumia 800 to Microsoft Stores and Online
Nokia's Lumia 800 launched in the UK back in November (2011) to great reviews. Now, Nokia has announced that they will be bringing the 800 to the US market in an unlocked fashion, via Microsoft's retail stores. The 800 will carry the North America 3G bands, allowing it to work on AT&T, or up here in Canada with Bell, Rogers, Telus, and Fido. At this point there is no word on pricing for the phone, however I would imagine that it would cost about the same as any premium unlocked device. Nokia mentioned that this will be part of a "bundle", but they wouldn't say anymore about what that bundle may contain. This is Nokia's carrier free device in North America, so I would guess that they are going to toss some extras in the box that the carriers don't want to include in your subsidized phone. Maybe a dock, maybe a second battery, maybe a case or two? As soon as we learn price and availability information, we'll be posting it. So stay tuned. … [--Read More--]
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