Microsoft has just launched a new developer portal for Windows Mobile to help advertise upcoming events, showcase applications, and introduce you to a number of team members and MVPs. And, of course, there's no shortage of guides showing you how to turn that idea in your head into a working Windows Mobile application.

Product Category: Clothing
Manufacturer: SCOTTEVEST
Where to Buy: SeV Store
Price: $340 USD ($250 for Quantum Jacket; $140 for Fleece 5.0)
System Requirements: Body ranging from XS to XXXL Sizes
Specifications: 52 pockets, cable management through channels / pocket passthroughs, removable hood (Quantum Jacket), removable sleeves (Fleece 5.0), various specially designed features such as key holders, bottle holders, and pockets accessible from the interior or exterior.

Pros:

• Be an unabashed geek without having to look like a nerd;
  
• Attention to detail and usability;
• Eliminates the need for a separate bag (some days).
  

Cons:

• Price (for some), Sizes (for others);
  
• Does not connect (as in previous SCOTTEVEST systems);
• Lack of color options.

Summary:
The first SCOTTEVEST product I ever purchased was the 4.0 Tactical system, the closest thing to a predecessor to the Scott Jordan Signature Series. I was blown away and since then have reviewed many other SeV products. The direction foreshadowed by last year's "Evolution" jacket has now come to pass with the release of the Fleece 5.0 and Quantum Jackets (together they make up the series). But with any new thing, old favorite features can be lost or changed - and new features added can somewhat make you forget about the old. How does this system stack up to its past, and pave the way to the future? Read on!

What's New
The Signature Series has many new features as well as SCOTTEVEST classic options. The most apparent new feature is the change in fabrics in the jacket. The Tactical 4.0 jacket was, well, tactical - it felt like something I'd wear if I was a secret service agent or SWAT officer. The material was a bit coarse, with a nylon base.


Figure 1: SCOTTEVEST branding in the velcro section used to tighten the sleeves around the wrist. Notice the material has a grain, yet feels smooth.

The new material used in the Quantum jacket is very similar to shell of the Evolution jacket. While the material has a grain to it, it feels very soft to the touch, likely due to the Teflon fabric protector used. In the rain, the jacket does not soak up water but rather promotes beading and flowing of the water off - keeping the occupant drier than the alternative.

The Fleece 5.0 also gets a subtle change in fabric. On the inside the fabric mesh is more accented, allowing you to easily see where pockets lie and where your gear is going. On the outside, the material feels a bit more plush and soft compared to the 4.0 fleece. At least it did to me, my wife insists that it's closer to the 4.0. In any event, we both agree it's nice and cozy.

Figure 2: Exterior of the 5.0 fleece.

Another new feature to the 5.0 fleece and Quantum jacket is the introduction of Clear Touch fabric. Clear Touch is designed to replace those awful hard clear pieces that clothing manufacturers sometimes place on their products to let you "see" what's inside a pocket. The plastic is always rigid, and feels like, well, hard plastic! Clear Touch pockets on both the Quantum and Fleece are clear, but feel like fabric. Or at least best approximation of fabric that plastic can get to.

Figure 3: A Clear Touch pocket in the Fleece 5.0. Both jackets feature two Clear Touch pockets. Notice the red piping also present on the interior.

Clear Touch is a winner when it comes to controlling a touch sensitive device while it is safely stowed. Lastly, a very pronounced difference in both jackets is the red piping around the interior pockets, similar to what was done on the Evolution jacket. It sounds really strange, but I was always able to 'lose' pockets in my Tactical jacket. Trying to remember where they opened or where they hung so I could see if I had something in them. With the red piping, it's easier to find the pockets, and the overall pocket design has been streamlined substantially.

What's Gone
SCOTTEVEST has been careful not to call this the direct update to the 4.0 line because some of the 4.0 series nuances are missing in the 5.0 Signature series. For example, on the jacket, a front right breast pocket with ID card window has been removed. The new version in the 5.0 line is a internal lower-left pouch specifically to hold your ID and provide quick access. Yet you can't be wearing your ID here and have others see it, a potential problem for those of us who must wear visible ID.

Here are some other quick differences I've observed:

• The hood on the jacket, while still removable, does not roll up and tuck away like previous versions.
• The sleeves on the jacket are not removable. Scott Jordan told me this in a phone call earlier this year when I told him about the zippers breaking on my Tactical 4.0. Apparently this was a feature only of use to a few, and since it had issues, it was removed.
• The jacket used to have two small pockets below the right and left "hand" pockets that weren't very deep and sometimes hard to open. I used to keep my gloves in those pockets but alas they are now gone. They do allow the other pockets that you normally throw your hands into to be deeper.
• There is only one key-chain holder on the jacket, in the front right pocket (unlike the tactical 4.0 that had a key chain holder in both the front right and front left - two different styles). This holder is the better of the two styles, with a retractable rubber chain.
• At least one of the deep pockets on the jacket has been removed (on my Tactical I have a deep pocket on the inside of both sides, the pocket on the right side has been removed on the Quantum). Given the fact that I once used both deep pockets to carry (on one side) a large bag of potato chips, package of cookies, and on the other side two 2 liters of soda, I guess I'll have to cut back during grocery trips!
  
• The fleece shows only minor changes over the 4.0 version, such as the red piping and clearview pockets.
  

Overall while things have changed, the core features remain the same. I'm not sure which jacket I'll end up using this winter more - the 5.0 or the 4.0 - so check in with me in the spring to see if the above changes proved to be dealbreakers.

Finally a note about sizing. Anyone who has met me in person knows I'm on the large side (some would even say Scary Large). The 4.0 series XXXLT fit me just fine, however with the removal of the tall sizes in the 5.0 line, the XXXL jacket is a bit snug (like the Evolution jacket that I reviewed last October). The 5.0 fleece fits just like the 4.0 did. While I could wear the 4.0 Fleece and Tactical Jacket at the same time, I doubt I'd be able to do that with the 5.0 series. Then again they were not meant to go together like their predecessor, so I doubt many will try to do this (e.g. the 5.0 fleece does not zip into the 5.0 jacket). If you're a "big" man wondering how you may compare to me and if the XXXL will be big enough, feel free to drop me an e-mail with any questions if you'd like to be discrete and not post them here.

What's Missing
Scott and his team have done a wonderful job with the Signature series, something I know Scott takes great pride in. I do have a few suggestions though, some easier to implement than others:

• A padded compartment (possibly removable) for a sub-notebook or netbook. I travel with a 14 inch Lenovo Tablet (the x60s), and it fits nicely into both the deep pockets on the 4.0 and the 5.0. However a bit more protection would be nice.
• Similar to the above suggestion, a removable accessory pouch that would connect up within the jacket. This way I can keep my AC adapter, mouse, and other computer accessories with the computer and completly get rid of the bag.
• Pre-wired "Options". While wiring up a SCOTTEVEST isn't terribly difficult to do, it may interest some to have pre-wired options available straight from the factory. iPod owners could order the "iPod version" which would come wired with headphones, and an iPod charger connected to an external battery safely stowed (such as a Proporta or Pocket PC Techs extended battery). GPS enthusiasts could order a "GPS version", etc... Of course these would cost extra, but may appeal to some who would love something tailored to their needs.
  
• SCOTTEVEST is able to embroider logos onto corporate orders, but why not offer custom embroidery to individuals? I'd be very tempted to embroider my name discretely on my SeV fleece, if for no other reason than to wear it to parties where everyone's already forgetting each other's names!
  
• I'm a lover of basic black (I own many, many black shirts, much to my wife's dismay). However when it comes to jackets and fleeces, colors can be very nice - and the Signature series has only black as of this writing. Perhaps one or two other colors might be a nice addition.

Some of you may be wondering if the first two bullets above would really be prudent to implement. Surely you can't carry all your gear (including a laptop) in a SCOTTEVEST, can you? Well let me share a story:

Last April I was in a hotel room in Seattle the first night of the MVP Summit when my roommate asked me a question. He'd seen my SCOTTEVEST in the closet and asked "Is that one of those technology vests?". Being from Australia, he was aware of SCOTTEVEST but hadn't seen one in person. I told him it was and gave him a brief tour of its pockets. In the process I realized that it was pointless for me to take my messenger bag with me to the Microsoft campus the next two days when I had a SCOTTEVEST with me. I quickly took stock of what I had to transport (Lenovo laptop, adapter, a few cords, a small camera, 2 or 3 Windows Mobile devices, proporta battery, and a few other things) and realized that I could put them all in the vest. I loaded up and over the next two days fellow MVPs were amazed as I walked into a conference room and within 2 minutes had "unloaded" my mobile workstation for the day! So yes, you can in some cases ditch a computer bag for a SCOTTEVEST.

Conclusion
As I write this, I sit in my office (a converted attached garage) wearing my 5.0 fleece. It's keeping me nicely warm as I wait for a FedEx truck to bring me a few gadgets for my latest geek project. Tomorrow I'll probably wear it as I walk to my office in Toledo - switching proverbial hats as I go from Geek to Doctoral Candidate in Psychology. While my work today is tinkering with VoIP codecs and tomorrow will be proofreading decision making problems, my SCOTTEVEST keeps me warm, connected, and fairly stylish. No matter how geeky you are, part or full time, you don't have to look like Goofy with bulging pockets and bulky bags. After all, no self respecting geek could ever stand being called a Nerd!

Jon Westfall is a Microsoft MVP for Windows Mobile devices, contributor to the Thoughts Media network of sites, and full time academic, currently finishing is PhD in Experimental Psychology. He studies decision making and interhemispheric interaction while teaching undergraduates a variety of things they didn't know! Want to know more about him? Visit JonWestfall.Com

The concept has inspired numerous similar investment funds, and is now spreading around the globe, with a firm called Morpheus Venture Partners providing seed capital and mentoring to startups in India.

Today, MVP is announcing the 11 recipients of its first round of investments. Similar to YCombinator, the investments range from $15,000-$25,000. Unlike YCombinator, who has a geographic focus on Boston and San Francisco, MVP’s investments are all over India. Additionally, for the moment investments come directly from MVP’s partners as opposed to the fund, which is currently in the process of raising $5M from investors.

Nandini Hirianniah, the founding partner of MVP – which is based in Bangalore - explains the differences: “In case of the MVP portfolio companies so far, most of them have existed for about 6-9 months with team sizes of 5-7. Therefore, relocation is not the best operating model. We work closely, yet remotely with these companies and spend a minimum of 5 working days in a month face-to-face with companies located outside Bangalore.”

However, Hirianniah says the firm may require its second batch of startups to re-locate to Bangalore. Of the firms previously announced investments, 2 of the 4 (Instablogs and Commonfloor) have raised a Series A, while one is already profitable (Foodathome.in). The other, Moblf, was recently reviewed here on Mashable. Meanwhile, here are the 7 new companies that complete MVPs first round of investments, with descriptions provided by MVP:

Call Graph is a service to record, track, monitor, share and transcribe your calls. It is designed for distributed teams who use services such as Skype for their meetings, conference calls etc and for individuals who use such VoIP services for interviews, taking lessons etc. Currently, Call Graph provides a recording client for Skype for free along with 1 GB of storage space and 1 sample transcript.

Crederity is a new service that applies sophisticated technologies and programs to helping people and businesses easily establish trust on the Internet. As the Web’s first guaranteed trust builder, Crederity enables people and businesses to certify their own integrity and that of others. Crederity has developed proprietary fact verification technologies enabling people to verify identity and credentials including background, education, and employment history.

DeskAway “simplifies teamwork.” DeskAway is a subscription-based online team and project collaboration service that enables small businesses & teams to organize, manage & track their work online. With the growing number of small businesses/ distributed teams, increased broadband penetration, and 24×7 mobile work culture, DeskAway is rightly poised to give teams an accurate view of how their projects are doing and help eliminate common problems that occur when multiple people are collaborating: email spam, multiple file versions, lost files, task accountability issues, lack of clarity & work transparency.

dhanaX is an online/offline person-to-person lending platform that lets Indians to lend and borrow money from fellow Indians. Both borrowers, who get quicker and cheaper loans, and lenders, who will receive competitive returns on their investments will benefit. dhanaX is inspired by the idea of an online community’s ability to come together and help each other. dhanaX works within the ambit of Social Business or Social Enterprise. Successful experiments worldwide in micro-credit have shown how low income people can also aspire for financial and social advancement.

Fachak is a concept that will redefine Social Content Sharing. A platform where you can share any form of content from a document to a video. Fachak is in its pre-release stage right now.

LifeMojo’s focus is on creating a platform for delivery of preventive health care services and partner with renowned health experts for their consultation. For health care service providers, LifeMojo has a hosted CRM (Software as a Service or SaaS). The company already has Dr. Shikha Sharma, renowned weight management and health expert, as a customer for this offering and is in talks with several other individual health care experts and organizations. For people looking to live a fitter / healthier life, LifeMojo is a one-stop shop for expert consultation and fitness products. LifeMojo (www.lifemojo.com) will be available for public use in early October.

Sutra HR is a full service People Consulting firm which has a unique partnering model with Digital, Mobile and Internet startups and entrepreneurial companies in India, to find retain assess and train talent to take them to the next level and beyond. Based on the Success of its offline services, Sutra HR is launching SutraJobs.com an endeavor designed specifically for startups and Emerging companies in the new age media space who are venture funded or are too cash-strapped to afford the services of a consultant to find the right talent.

---
Related Articles at Mashable - All That's New on the Web:

YouTube to Launch Video Site for India
Dow Report Shows 166% Increase In India Venture Funding
MySpace India: Original TV Content and Open Platform
AOL Goes Local In India
Yahoo India Lays Off 40 R&D Workers
Google and Yahoo Looking to Acquire India-Based Rediff
Hovr Goes to India with Free Mobile Gaming Network

Rock the vote!

No, I'm not talking about race for President of the United States. I'm talking about the slightly less controversial contest currently in swing over at The WinVistaClub for choosing the BEST Windows Vista Website (besides this one!). The contest is designed to highlight community websites that offer extensive and interesting Windows Vista content.

Folks were able to submit what website they thought was the best Windows Vista Website. Then a panel of judges consisting of Steve Sinchak MVP of TweakVista.com , John Barnett MVP of VistaSupport.mvps.org, Steven Bink of Bink.nu, Kerry Brown MVP of VistaHelp.ca, Aryeh Goretsky MVP of Eset.com, James Stables of WindowsVistaMagazine.com, Emil Protalinski of Arstechnica.com, Barney Tormey of Neowin.net, and Anand Khanse of The WinVistaClub voted on the Top 10 Finalists for the Best Windows Vista Website. Now *you* get to choose THE Best Windows Vista out of the Top 10 Finalists. Here they are (in no particular order):

• MintyWhite Windows Guides
• Vista Revisited
• Windows Vista Update
• Windows Vista For Beginners
• Tweaking With Vishal
• MAXIMUMpcguides
• Windows Vista

"See what it's come to Bluetooth SIG? Headset-to-cellphone pairing is so utterly baffling to average consumers that they are now handing over a Hamilton at Best Buys in California (in support of the new hands-free calling law) just to avoid the procedure. Eight years after the launch of the world's first Bluetooth headset from Ericsson, this is where we're at."

This comes as no shock to me. A few days ago, my BT headset inexplicably stopped working with my phone and I had to delete and recreate the partnership. I hope Best Buy is offering a 90 day guarantee on the pairing or consumers will have to fork over $10 everytime the headset profile decides to puke and lose your settings. A fellow MVP asked why MS didn't hire the Windows Mobile MVPs to help with this. My response is, at $10 a pairing, I would work at McDonalds and average more dollars per hour with less stress.

I did finally figure out what SIG stands for. It is Latin for Servitas Infinitus Gravatus, which roughly translates into "Service that is forever ill."

• Simple and small to install;
• Gesture support is intuitive and responsive;
• Favorites is integrated with Mobile Favorites in Activesync and PIE.

• A little expensive for just a browser;
• Response time to gestures sometimes dragged;
• History limited to last 10 URLs
• Limited number of gestures supported and some functions require going back to the stylus.

Summary:
Envious of all your friends walking around with iPhones? Wish you could show off the same web browsing with a flick of the finger? (Yea, I know. There's a lot more to the iPhone than just web browsing but...) Well, look no further! TouchBrowser offers a gesture-based replacement for Pocket IE which promises to let you flick your way through the internet with the best of them. While TouchBrowser does a good job of the basic capabilities, but you'll need the stylus for some things.

Read on for the full review!

Introduction
You know, I never thought I'd ever have to apologize for living in Canada, but apparently we have been relegated to third-world status by our cellular service providers. Imagine, almost a year now, and we STILL don't have the iPhone available -- nor unlimited data plans (at least for GSM PDAs). Sooooooo unfortunately, my only experience with iPhones has been what I've read in books or seen from afar, in the hands of American and European friends. In the meantime however, developers for the Windows Mobile have been hard at work building gesture-based interfaces into their applications and the Microsoft MVPs have been hinting very broadly that WM7 will have iPhone-like gesture capability built into the O/S. So, we were intrigued when Makayama contacted us and asked if we'd like to review an application which brings iPhone-type browsing to Windows Mobile. Whether TouchBrowser faithfully mimics how Apple's iPhone browser works, I can't tell you. But let's explore what TouchBrowser can do...

Installation
TouchBrowser is distributed from Makayama as a CAB file only. I guess we, as a Windows Mobile community, are getting more technologically savvy, since more developers are providing this more direct installation method, rather than the Activesync-based versions. It probably also has something to do with the growth in internet connectivity, since you can directly download and install these on your Pocket PC, without having to use a PC as an intermediary. The CAB file is fairly small, at 440kb. For WM6 units, that's all that's required. For WM5, you'll need to also install the .NET framework (2.2 Mb). Similarly for PPC2003, the required .NET framework is 5.5Mb. Once you've installed the application from the CAB file, just tap on the icon installed in your Programs folder and off you go!

A full function demo version is available from the Makayama web site, but it will shut down after 5 minutes of use and you'll have to restart it. Once purchased, activation is quick and simple -- consisting of inputing an activation key provided by Makayama.


Figure 1: TouchBrowser's initial screen. Note that, unlike the defaults in IE, TB's Home Page is set to Makayama's URL (which looks suspiciously like MSN Mobile), so TB will immediately attempt to connect to the internet. Watch out, if you don't have a data plan with your cellular provider!

Unfortunately for Makayama my current phone of choice is an HTC TyTNII (Tilt) running WM6.1 which has HTC TouchFlo installed. TouchFlo is HTC's version of embedding basic gesture-based support across multiple applications, such as Pocket IE, their media browser and some others. In earlier versions of TouchBrowser, having TouchFlo installed and operational caused clashing of the two gesture-reading applications. Typically, it would show up as sluggish response in TouchBrowser, or gestures causing unexpected results. In this latest version of TouchBrowser (1.1.3), a parameter setting has been provided to disable TouchFlo. It's not dynamic, so If you do this, you need to soft reset the unit before it takes effect.

Using the Browser
TouchBrowser is, for all intents and purposes, a replacement for Pocket IE. You run it like any other program – from either a menu selection or from the Programs folder on the device (where it loads by default). Like IE, it opens up on the home page, which comes preset to a news page (similar to MSN.com) on Makayama's web server. The default home page can be adjusted via the settings (see above), which is accessible from the Toolbar icon at the top of the screen. Normally, TouchBrowser opens up in 'desktop' viewing mode, which means that each web page is displayed at full size and you manipulate a virtual window which hovers over a portion of the page. As you'd expect, this window can be dragged around using your finger or you can flick to move to directly to any one of the edges. Automatic scrolling only appears to work vertically however, but it goes at a reasonable pace and is easily stopped with a tap of the finger on the screen. In this desktop mode there are navigation aids available (by pushing the centre button on the D-pad) to show you where you are on the page. These consist of small grey bars at the right side and bottom of the screen.


Figure 2: Navigation aids for Desktop display mode.

These grey bars move up and down (at the right side of the screen) and left and right (at the bottom of the screen), kind of like the indicators in scroll bars. I found these a little difficult to understand at first, but after a couple of minutes playing, I got the hang of them. There is also a mobile mode available, which basically does the same thing as Single Column view in PIE, reformatting the page to one long column the width of the screen. Page rendering and navigation speed seemed pretty similar to PIE. At the bottom of TB's screen is status bar, which provides information on page loading, navigation, etc. via text. I miss having PIE's progress bar though, since it at least lets you know that things haven't frozen. Unfortunately, most web pages are not yet designed for gesture-based navigation, so my fat fingers kept activating links when all I wanted to do was look further down the page. Mobile news sites with list of links to other stories were especially bad.

If you touch and hold on the screen, a pop-up menu is presented which provides a number of functions for manipulating the display, including selecting all the text on the page; refreshing the page; and zooming the page in and out by changing the relative font size of the text (note: this feature is only available under Windows Mobile 6.1).


Figure 3: The pop-up menu activated by tapping and holding on the browser screen.

Selections from this menu also let you access and manage your Favorites. One of the neat integration features Makayama has included is that TouchBrowser and PIE share their Favorites list so that changes made in either are reflected in the other.

]]> Sat, 07 Jun 2008 08:12:00 +0000 page web page touchbrowser home page windows mobile web iphone news page default home page iPhone Browsing on Windows Mobile? Sure can...with TouchBrowser 1.1.3! http://www.softratty.com/article/b52befc5c8847ce51692dc1d67a1ba5d http://www.softratty.com/article/b52befc5c8847ce51692dc1d67a1ba5d http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...&DisplayLang=en

We had some awesome talks on the future of Group Policy and I would really like to share it with you, but because of Non-Disclosure Agreements 'n' stuff I can't really say anything - yet.

Seattle is a very interesting city with a lot of great restaurants, nice architecture and friendly people. I had 2½ day to spend after the summit and even though I was missing my family Seattle took great care of me :)

Anyway, I hope to go back there next year - better prepared for jetlag (which basically means I'll travel a few days before the event next time) - but, that all depends on how much time I get to share information with you guys/girls out there... No sharing, no MVP award - that's the rule ya' know ;-)

Thanx to the GP team and the other MVPs for a great experience!

.

We had some awesome talks on the future of Group Policy and I would really like to share it with you, but because of Non-Disclosure Agreements 'n' stuff I can't really say anything - yet.

Seattle is a very interesting city with a lot of great restaurants, nice architecture and friendly people. I had 2½ day to spend after the summit and even though I was missing my family Seattle took great care of me :)

Anyway, I hope to go back there next year - better prepared for jetlag (which basically means I'll travel a few days before the event next time) - but, that all depends on how much time I get to share information with you guys/girls out there... No sharing, no MVP award - that's the rule ya' know ;-)

Thanx to the GP team and the other MVPs for a great experience!

.

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