Towards the end of my post about Exchange last week, I mentioned that there was one other thing that made the whole setup all the more sweet. I was talking about my new T-Mobile MDA, a PocketPC phone.

My last phone, as some of you know, was a Symbian Series60-based Nokia 3650 smartphone, and when the time came to upgrade, I was looking for either another newer Symbian device or a WM5 smartphone. Then T-Mo launched the MDA here in the U.S., and I fell in love. :)

The MDA (also known as the MDA Vario, HTC Wizard, i-Mate K-Jam, Qtek 9100, or Cingular 8125) runs the new Windows Mobile 5.0 OS, and features a 200MHz TI OMAP850 processor, 64MB of RAM and a 128MB ROM, with a MiniSD flash memory expansion slot. Being a PocketPC, input is primarily stylus-based, but there's also a nicely hidden, full QWERTY keyboard that slides out from the side. And at the back, is a 1.3MP camera with a tiny little flash.

Now, since the phone runs WM5, the Exchange Server integration is nothing short of amazing. Contacts, tasks, calendar events and emails sync over-the-air with ActiveSync using WiFi (yes, it has a 802.11b/g radio) or the carrier's data plan. I actually find myself reading and responding to emails between classes because it all just works so damn well. And the handwriting recognition is great, so I almost never have to slide the keyboard out either.

The 2.8" 240x320 QVGA display is bright, vivid and crisp, and automatically switches to landscape mode when you slide out the keyboard or turn on the camera. The form-factor is surprisingly compact for such a powerful device. Granted, it's not RAZR-thin, but it's small enough to fit in my palm when the keyboard is tucked away.

There are just so many cool things about this device that one post simply doesn't do it justice. I've been scouring the web, looking for interesting third-party apps built for the Windows Mobile platform. After all, it's the apps that truly set smartphones and PocketPCs apart from regular cellphones. I'll share my thoughts on some of the best ones I've found in future posts.

As expected, ABC has launched a new site offering free, ad-supported streaming episodes of popular TV shows, including everyone's favorite, Lost.

The UI, including the video itself, is all Flash. On one hand, that means the "pre-show" interface is pretty slick, but the downside is that you can't watch the videos in full-screen mode! The quality of the videos is actually pretty good though.

This is supposed to be an initial test-drive that's going to last until the end of June. There are no details about future plans yet. I'm not sure how popular this is going to be without the ability to watch the episodes in full-screen, but considering the fact that it's the first time something like this is being offered, it's a good start. For now, I'll just stick to using my DVR. :)

For almost two years now, I've been trying to set up a seamless way to access my email, contact list and calendar wherever I go. When I built my desktop machine towards the end of last year, having such a system that would keep everything synchronized became all the more necessary. I tried a couple of approaches involving Gmail forwarding, Remote Desktop, and some other tools for a few months, but each "solution" was a kludge and simply wasn't cutting it.

Then about a month ago, I decided I was tired of all the hacks and makeshift solutions, so I took the plunge and set up an Exchange server. Now I can really see how Outlook and Exchange were made for each other. And Outlook Web Access, as I might have mentioned several times before, is a killer product. I can send emails and add/modify calendar events on any computer with a browser and internet connection, and the changes get propagated immediately to Outlook on both my laptop and desktop via Exchange.

As an added bonus, I also came to realize that the Intelligent Message Filter (IMF) in Exchange 2003 SP2 is a gem for server-side junk mail filtering. It was a breeze to set up, and it's amazingly effective. I used the performance counter to collect some stats recently, and out of 334 emails received (I believe this was over the last few days), about 26% of them (86 emails) were spam, and every single one of them was blocked.



Moreover, since junk mail gets archived on the server, it doesn't appear in my "Junk Mail" folder in Outlook, so I don't even have to see it until I remotely access the server and purge it all once a week, in one fell swoop. :D

I was impressed enough that I stopped using POP3/IMAP to access my UCLA mail account and configured it to forward all incoming emails to the Exchange server too. Now I get literally no spam, and all my email, contacts and calendar data is consolidated in one place for anywhere, anytime access. The search for the perfect solution has ended.

In my next post, I'll write about a recent "acquisition" of mine that's made all of this even more worthwhile. ;)

Frank Gruber over at TechCrunch has posted an article comparing the major online mapping services from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask and MapQuest. Frank puts the Yahoo! Maps Beta at the front of the pack, but clearly acknowledges the unique and interesting features that each of the others contenders bring to the table.

I, too, have been using the Y! Maps Beta as my mapping service of choice ever since it was released in November last year. You can go back and read my initial opinions on it here and here. While satellite imagery was missing from the initial release, the multi-point driving directions and live traffic reports were much more useful on a daily basis. Surprisingly, neither Google nor Microsoft have incorporated multi-point directions into their services yet, even though it's an invaluable feature, especially when planning longer trips with multiple stops along the way.

That's not to say that Y! wins across the board though, and there's always room for improvement. I prefer the way Windows Live Local handles local searches, for example - the ability to add different types of "points of interest" to the map simultaneously is a very useful feature that's still unique to Microsoft's service. Moreover, Bird's Eye (Aerial) view is less gimmicky compared to the regular satellite imagery, since it actually lets you see what the area looks like rather than giving you a rather useless look at roof-tops. And of course, we have Google to thank for initially kicking off the whole next-generation mapping revolution, but interestingly, I don't find anything compelling enough in the service anymore that the competition doesn't also have now. I'm sure the folks at the Goog aren't sitting quiet though, and I suspect we'll see some interesting new developments from them in the coming months too.

And that's the beauty of the online mapping space - all the major players are doing excellent work in an attempt to win new users and hold on to existing ones. There's good, solid, healthy competition, and we, as users, get a slew of great services to pick and choose from.

So what's your preferred online mapping service?

Quite often, it's the little things that make quite a difference.

As most of you know by now, Google Calendar (Beta!) was launched last week after months of speculation, leaked screenshots and so on. Now if you've tried 30 Boxes, which I mentioned a couple of months ago, you'll notice quite a number of similarities, including the "quick add" feature that uses natural language parsing. Yes, Google Calendar has a notably cleaner look-and-feel, but there's one feature that really caught by attention, and that has to do with Gmail integration. Check this out.


I sent an email to myself, with the line: "ACM General Body meeting this Thursday at 6:00PM in Boelter 4760." Gmail parsed the message, automatically discovered that the email body contained a reference to an event, and offered to add it to my Google Calendar. As you can see, it's not perfect yet and it misses some things at this point, but it's still very neat.

Outlook 2003 has some top-notch calendaring and scheduling capabilities, but this is one feature I'd love to have!