FCC has just approved ASUS P505, Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 for PocketPC Phone Edition device which somewhat resembles Sony Ericsson P900. The same phone was one of the winners of "Best Computex Awards" from Computex Taipei 2004 International Information Technology show. Read More . . .

Camera-enabled wireless phones are a great way to capture memories on the fly. Unfortunately, because most phones have low-resolution cameras, the photos sometimes turn out grainy or have lighting problems. Another common problem is noise, which you see as stray colored pixels in an area of solid color, for instance, bright blue pixels on a person's forehead. The new Reduce Noise filter in Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 3.0 reduces graininess and smooths away noisy areas without making the photo blurry. Read More . . .

Have you ever wondered how to run ASP.NET against Apache Web Server? Although it is not recommended, you might try it using the ways Digging .NET has introduced.

TEHRAN, December 29 (RIA Novosti's Nikolai Terekhov) - Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi has said that the National Geographic magazine offered a written apology to Iran and expressed its readiness to correct the mistake made in one of its issues.

Papyrus is a great advance for Microsoft SmartPhone Calendar which can be downloaded here. What's more, it is FREE!

Thanks to Nauman Leghari for putting all these great articles in chapters. Worth reading them all!

Now BK600 got drivers for Microsoft SmartPhones.

I have been using my phone more than a month I think, and have been really happy with it's T9 future since it learns my key phrases which are typed in Persian-English and in the times I have to send text messages, I don't face any issue typing them all. But Deep Shift is pointing to some of it's lacks.

Paschal L, is in Thailand and has taken some photos from the disaster himself. You might take a look here.

30,000 people died last year in Bam around the same day, now same thing has happened after a year in southern Asia...
BBC: "More than 10,000 people have been killed across southern Asia in massive sea surges triggered by the strongest earthquake in the world for 40 years. The 8.9 magnitude quake struck under the sea near Aceh in north Indonesia, generating a wall of water that sped across thousands of kilometres of sea. More than 4,100 died in Indonesia, 3,500 in Sri Lanka and 2,000 in India."

BBC, and pictures from Bam.

BBC: Thousands of people have gathered in Bam to remember some 30,000 victims of the earthquake that flattened the historic Iranian city a year ago. A large cemetery played host to around 5,000 survivors from the region as they visited the graves of loved ones at the end of a 12-month period of mourning.

Develop precise, efficient, and reliable GPS software in record time with this multithreaded component for desktop and mobile devices, including Pocket PC and now Smartphone! Read More . . .

This was the first post I made, since the time of the server was not functioning correctly those days, it has a wrong date/time post. It was around 12pm of the deadly Friday...

Paul Wilson's guide on how to setup SSL correctly with IIS & ASP.NET.

Take a look at Scoble's predictions for 2005.
I like this one:

"7) Three things will join: cell phones. Hard drives. Skype. That convergence will get everyone to question whether the iPod has a future. Of course, if Steve Jobs has anything to say about it we'll probably be talking about the iPhone instead."

Skype has already tried joining SmartPhones. But about Hard Drives... Only 1GB MiniSDCards are available for the moment. Lets see what will happen!

Michele Leroux Bustamante shows that security in ASP.NET is more than just authentication and authorization. This article shows how to use process identity, trust levels, strong naming, and permission demands to create a security strategy for your ASP.NET applications.

Oslo - Dec. 22, 2004 - Opera Software today released a technical preview (TP) of the Opera browser for Windows Mobile. Smartphone 2003 users can now enjoy the benefits of a faster and better Internet experience from their mobile phones. This development supports operators' need for choice in OS distribution, meeting their customers' demands for an exceptional full Web browser on their mobile phones. Read More . . .

Orange UK was the first cellular network operator, that launched Microsoft Smartphone phones 2 years ago. While 2 years ago it was just one smartphone: Orange SPV - now the palette of Microsoft powered cell phones offered by Orange is much bigger and Orange even scored some major recognition for the latest model . . .

Babak talking about our restriction on the 'net. Restriction for those who living in Iran though.

An article by Keith Brown on security enhancments in .NET Framework 2.0.

The Computer Security Lab of Rice University has found that the Google Desktop Search (GDS) engine contained a serious security flaw that would allow a third party to read the search result summaries that are embedded in normal Google web searches by the local search engine. Read More . . .

TEHRAN, Iran Dec 19, 2004 — Iran unveiled a collection of historical maps on Sunday in a bid to prove the legitimacy of calling its neighboring sea the Persian Gulf instead of the "Arabian Gulf" as it also is listed in the new world atlas by National Geographic. Last month, Iran banned the sale of National Geographic Society publications to protest the "Arabian Gulf" inclusion. The issue also has caused widespread protests by intellectuals, historians, students across Iran, formerly Persia.

My Windows Mobile Site and its new layout.

As you all might know, Podcasting is 2nd Internet revolution after blogs... Take a look see how you can do it using MS SmartPhones.

The .NET Compact Framework version 2.0 Beta extends the .NET Compact Framework version 1.0 with new features, improvements to existing features, and expanded support of classes in the full .NET Framework. This section provides information about some of the key additions and modifications to the .NET Compact Framework.

Microsoft has released former "internal only" APIs for developing applications that work with Microsoft Outlook. The APIs include account management, connection state, free/busy, MAPI-MIME conversion, and the Outlook store. The documentation of the APIs are supported for Outlook 2003 SP 1 only. Read More . . .

Special thanks to Robert Scoble trying to solve the issue I had with registration in PDC 2005 site. He has told me to email the person in charge of it, Steve Cellini. I hope this helps.

ATLANTA (CNN) - The old library card catalogue took a step further into cyberspace Tuesday, with Google and the libraries of four universities and the city of New York announcing a partnership with the potential to make millions of books available and searchable online.

The Planet just rocks, Server Matrix as the leader of entry level servers of it, and now the other satellite of The Planet is called insomnia365. Try them...

Netcraft: "It's been a dynamic year for the web hosting industry, as the Internet has added more than 10.9 million hostnames in 2004. The list of the year's most successful hosting companies is populated with familiar names. Notably, the five hosting providers that gained more than 100K active sites during 2004 did so entirely through organic growth, rather than acquisitions. Leading the pack was German giant 1&1 Internet, which expanded into the American market even as it continued to gain customers in Europe. Next is The Planet, which experienced a huge year as it found a product positioning sweet spot with its customizable menus of managed services atop dedicated servers."

In this article Steve Johnson will explain the classes and code necessary to put encryption to work in your applications. He will also explain the basic principles of operation of these classes and point out several pitfalls to avoid.

.netcpu, A startup company has created a small CPU that includes a version of .NET Embedded directly on the chip. This tiny device is based on Microsoft's Small Personal Objects Technology which is also being used in the MSN Wristwatch. .netcpu is offering a developer's kit which includes the .netcpu module and a carrier board along with all of the software needed to develop very small apps.

Yahoo has slashed its domain name pricing to $4.98 a year through Dec. 31, continuing a pricing war among major hosting companies. The aggressive move comes just just four months after Yahoo dropped its price to $9.95 a year as part of a major push to expand its share of the shared hosting market. Read More . . .

Mobile Run has given Motorola MPx a review. It sounds coming out within one or two months.

Have you ever asked yourself, why does all the cool stuff come out in asia first?

An open source Registry Editor for Microsoft SmartPhones licensed under GPL is available and you can get it here.

Microsoft is soliciting more testers for another, broader beta in the first half of 2005. October 2005 is the final R2 release target, testers say. Read More . . .

Anders Noras shows us how to get ASP.NET 2.0 used to create a Google Suggest like feature in our web sites.

Yahoo! Desktop Search and comparison with Google Desktop Search from Stefano.

I was going to register for PDC 2005 and get updates on it, but unlucky my country is not listed in Country/Region :(

Microsoft ASP.NET v1.1 Membership Management Component Prototype is a collection of classes and sample scripts that allows a developer to more easily authenticate users, authorize users, and store per-user property data in a user profile. Via Scott Watermasysk.

Google Suggest: This new web search service suggests queries as a user types what he or she is looking for into the search box. By offering more refined searches up front, Google Suggest can make searching more convenient and efficient, because it eliminates the need to type the entire text of a query. In addition, the service can connect users with new query suggestions that are useful, intriguing, and fun.

The FeedBurner Mobile FeedReader is a great tool for getting the latest changes in your favorite news sites or weblogs. Supports feeds in all major formats (RSS, RDF, and Atom) Smart "If-Modified-Since" content retrieval conserves your wireless bandwdith Adjustable content retrieval count (i.e., retrieve only the 5 most recent items to save time/bandwidth) cuts download time and clutter Opens content links in your handset's default web browser Updates feeds manually or on a set schedule Displays content in several font sizes The trial version allows for unlimited use of feeds from FeedBurner.com, and up to 4 feeds from other sources. The licensed version allows for unlimited use of RSS/Atom feeds from all sources. Read More . . .

So this is my first ever blog entry and seeing as how I'm a senior member of the PSS Security Incident Response team, you may think I've stopped taking my medication by opening with a title like the one above! Medication issues notwithstanding, it's true - you should NOT be using passwords of any kind. Why? For starters, passwords are ridiculously easy to guess or crack. Worms like Agobot / Phatbot / Polybot / SDBot / RBot (no I didn't write this one) all ship with dictionaries of passwords numbering in the hundreds and they can easily replicate to a system that has a password in this word list, and the miscreants are really good at keeping these wordlists up to date with passwords that they've cracked from other systems. Read More . . .

Hsueh-Hung Wang builds Dopod brand in cooperation with High Tech Computer Corp. ( HTC ) and by the way Cho, Huo-Tu - the boss of HTC, says about his HTC corporation this: "there is no phone manufactures in the present market that has the power to compete with it". There is also very clear and open talk about challenging Symbian camp ! Read More . . .

This was a toughie - everyone's got their favourites when it comes to mobiles and one man's top spec, top notch phone is another girl's ugly cumbersome brick. In then end, though, the winner was pretty obvious to all of us. The Orange SPV C500 was a surprise when it was first announced - after all those big, ugly handsets we were expecting more of the same, but the C500 defied all expectation with its tiny size and some rather nice styling. A phone this size that let's you send emails, sychronise with Outlook and browse the Internet - and looks good while it's doing it - is truly indispensable. Nokia's 7610 was our runner up. It may look a bit funny, but the screen and the 1.3mp camera got the judges vote. Via TechDigestUK.

Reuters: Iran forward Ali Karimi was crowned Asian player of the year on Wednesday, edging out fellow nominees A'ala Hubail of Bahrain and Japan's Shunsuke Nakamura. It was the fourth time a player from Iran has won the award since it was introduced by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in 1994. "This award is the result of years of hard work," said Karimi, who plays for United Arab Emirates club Al Ahli. "I want to dedicate this to the people of Iran."

Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET. Via Wally.

BBC: Iranian students have interrupted a speech by President Mohammad Khatami to mark Student Day at Tehran university. Students chanted "Shame on you" and "Where are your promised freedoms?" to express their frustration with the failure of Iran's reform movement.

Get the latest user manual of Motorola MPx finding what it is and what it is not here. Via MSMobiles.

Arabcom group & HiTEK Magazine are proud to present The 1st Middle East WiFi & WiMAX and the 2nd PDA, Smartphones, 3GGSM, Summit, in Dubai, U.A.E this 5 - 6 December 2004. Featuring cutting edge innovators in the mobility and wireless industries. Read More . . .

Sometimes good things do come in small packages. Witness the SMT5600 which is a superbly compact Windows Mobile Smartphone. It's downright petite by smartphone standards and is about the same size as other small candy bar cell phones on the market. The phone is made by HTC, the same folks who brought you the unit's predecessor the SPV E200, as well as several classic iPAQs like the iPAQ 5555, 4150 and the extremely popular XDA II Pocket PC Phone Edition model. Several carriers and vendors sell the device, so it's known by many names. In the US, it's the Audiovox SMT5600 sold by AT&T Wireless which is the unit we're reviewing. Once stock of the AT&T phones runs out, you should be able to get one from Cingular in Q1 of 2005. In Europe Orange offers it as the C500, and in Europe, the Middle East and Asia iMate and Carrier Devices offer it as the SP3. HTC's code name for the device is "Typhoon". Other than a few firmware differences resulting from carrier customizations and band support, they're the same unit. Read More . . .

Homescreen Designer is a WYSIWYG-Application for creating powerful Homescreens for Smartphone 2003! Read More . . .

According to MSMobiles, Motorola MPx will be released first in SE Asia this year and in 2005, it will be released in EU and USA. MPx will be my next phone :)

Read more about it on: http://www.msmobiles.com/news.php/3371.html
I am configuring one right now for myself.

I bought a 512MB MiniSDCard just two weeks ago and pleased with it. Right now, 1GB MiniSDCards are released and priced as 149. You might buy it online from MoDaCo.

Peter Foot: "XcrossOne Studio have just released a new v1.2 release of their incredible looking GDI+ library for .NETCF. A key change in this release is a switch to a Shared Source license, similar to what we use with our OpenNETCF projects."

Definition and differences between QA/QC and Validation/Verification.

BBC: Iran has stepped up its campaign to ensure the body of water between Iran and the Arabian peninsula is known as the Persian, not the Arabian, Gulf. It is said to have withdrawn an invitation to National Geographic magazine to attend a festival because they refer to the Gulf as both. Iranian bloggers also launched a web action on the Google search engine. The words "Arabian Gulf" elicit a spoof message: "The Gulf you are looking for does not exist. Try Persian Gulf." The practice, known as "Google bombing", has been used in the past against George W Bush, who comes up under "miserable failure". The message parodies the text which usually appears when a web page does not exist, and goes on to recommend that users should read "some history books". It is the second time Iranian bloggers have united to make a political point. Earlier this year, they used their weblogs to direct users to pro-reformist websites and online newspapers that had been closed down by the Iranian authorities.

Top 10 things to be thanksful for in .NET.