First of all, there are some quick and easy options built right into Twitter.  The site recently underwent some structural changes and one of those included the removal of some custom elements.  At first I was distraught about this, but now I really like the new layout and their new options have definitely made up for it.  For instance, you can now go into the Settings/Design tab of your profile and edit much of the page’s look and feel.

The easiest thing to do is to pick one of 12 prefab wallpapers that all look like Threadless t-shirts (not a bad match for Twitter, actually).  If you want to add your own wallpaper, hold your horses, we’ll get to that in a bit.

To match up your fancy new background with the general page elements, simply click “Change design colors” and you can pick each element’s color from a palette.

Getting back to custom backgrounds as promised, there are a couple of options for you.  Some people find really fantastic photographs to use as their backgrounds.  Usually they are epic landscapes that will do well even when you scroll down a ways.  Also, it doesn’t hurt to just have something neat in the upper left-hand corner.  Personally, I am artistically inept, so I use services like TwitterPatterns and BgPatterns to find new backgrounds.  The former is interesting because the designs are specifically for Twitter profile pages.

If you’re not feeling like a fabric-backed Twitter is right for you, look into BgPatterns.  They focus on a single shape or object and tile it over and over for an attractive, uniform look.  Personally I found a nifty little star pattern that I use for my own page and it has served me well.  With the new layout, though, I may play around with my element colors here and there until I find something new and snazzy.

Once you have a new background picked out, click the “Change background image” link and browse to your image.  If it is like one of the above, make sure “tile background” is checked (if you went that way) or you’ll only get one lonely iteration of your background.  Click “save changes” and you’re all ready to go!

Once you’re done configuring the layout, there is still one more thing you can do to jazz up your Tweets.  In fact, your Tweets are specifically applicable to this next service.  It’s called TwitPic and I can’t believe we haven’t mentioned it before here on MakeUseOf.  While it probably deserves an entire article unto itself, TwitPic will essentially allow you to upload images and associate individual Tweets with them.  It’s kind of like a micro-Flickr for microblogging.

Because seeing is believing, I made up a little sample:

The process of uploading is essentially two steps (choose and customize) once you’ve signed into your Twitter account through the API.  The service has mobile options and works through several clients as well, so definitely take a closer look when you get a chance.

Lastly, Epic-Fu just dedicated an entire podcast to Twitter, so be sure to check it out, as they mentioned a lot of services I’d never heard of before.

P.S. - If you’re wondering about the first graphic in this article, it comes from Ben Walker, who wrote “The Twitter Song.” Here’s a quirky little video to inspire your future Twitterings:

If you make a particularly spectacular profile page share it with us and describe how you made it better!

(By) Jimmy Rogers is a biology major at George Mason University and an avid freelance tech blogger. Check out his blog, Mason Tech Beat.

New subscriber? Get your freebies at MakeUseOf Downloads. Enjoy!

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Last week our post about Premier Week and Hulu drew a lot of comments from fans of another service, Fancast.  While at first glance it looks like a clone of Hulu, it offers a great deal more than meets the eye.

The most significant difference between Fancast and other video streaming services is its all-encompassing nature.  Hulu makes specific deals with providers in order to bring in content.  Fancast isn’t as concerned with specific partnerships and brings in legal video from wherever it can.  On top of this, Fancast learns your location and preferences in order to sync up with what you normally watch on TV.  In a sense, the site tries to amplify your current usage habits instead of making you switch over to digital completely.

Normally I would try and walk you through the process of using Fancast, but it’s really much too vast for that approach.  Each user will have different features they like the best, so I’ll try to point out the most important ones here:

Show Listings and Access Options

The thing I’ll probably be using the most is the TV listings guide.  While these are easily obtainable at TVGuide and the like, Fancast will remember your location permanently (as it is tied to your account), and always bring up the television schedule according to your local channels.  Also, from your preferences and your ratings of individual shows, it brings up a likely nightly schedule for quick access.

Another rather innovative thing about Fancast is its access options.  Each episode specifically displays tags for the different ways you can access it.  If it is a current show, it tells you the next time it will be on TV (along with channel info).  If it is part of their strong streaming video library, there’s a link to it.  It’s also possible to find the show on DVD or On Demand through their paid download service.

Streaming Video

As I said, the number of streaming videos they have is pretty staggering.  Many of the newer shows are directly from the networks or other similar sources.  The older shows, like the Highlander episodes I’m working my way though, are simply ports from Hulu.  The interface for the player is fairly simple.  The slider is fairly blocky for some reason, the volume controls are incredibly basic, and generally it’s very hard to switch away from the awesomeness that is the Hulu player.

One episode that I watched and then returned to later did ask me if I wanted to start from the beginning or pick up where I left off.  This scored some points with me as I’ve had browser windows crash on me frequently during streaming.

Movies and Trailers

Another interesting aspect of Fancast is the movies section.  Their list of full-length movies isn’t incredibly small, but it probably won’t replace your Netflix subscription any time soon.  The player is essentially the same and will remember your place.  I would say more about the video viewing itself, but 1984 decided it wasn’t going to play any video for me at all, only the sound track.  Clearly there are some bugs to be worked out.

I do like the fact that they have trailers on the site because it might help with their community building.  While full-length movies don’t generate much discussion, trailers provide a lot of fodder for bloggers and users alike.

Fan News and Blogs

The blogs that live on Fancast are pretty decent reading.  They clearly have a staff of dedicated fans.  In fact, it’s evident in the way the site is designed.  Instead of locking everything down from the start and slowly expanding, Fancast has tried to give you everything and will hopefully improve their quality over time.  The blogs are few in number, but I assume that will grow over time.

Gripes

There were some things about Fancast that I didn’t particularly like.  First of all, the service not only prompts you for your location to customize it, but also because it wants to limit you to the content you’re already able to receive from your provider.  In fact, if you’re outside the United States, you’re not allowed to view the videos on Fancast.

Another gripe for me was the video player and the way it was formatted.  The player is simply too basic to compete with its competitors.  It’s obvious that they either wrote their own player and didn’t put a lot of time into it, or they bought one that was pre-constructed.  Either way, it is generally very short on features and the playback didn’t seem very stable at all.  In fact, the player even does that irritating thing where the slider bar will jump back to the beginning if you pull it too far to the right.

My last gripe is the overall page layout.  It is a fairly attractive website, but it has too many elements on the page and it is consequently very slow to load.  The page architecture is simply too complex and even the simplest flashblocker or adblocker completely breaks the functionality.

Overall, I think Fancast has a ton of potential.  They already have the content, the channel integration, and the seeds of a community base.  The main areas for them to work on are the player and the page layout.  While it’s a nice design, it’s always a mistake to choose form over function.

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What do you think?  It was you, the commenters, who suggested Fancast, so please defend or defile it as you see fit!

(By) Jimmy Rogers is a biology major at George Mason University and an avid freelance tech blogger. Check out his blog, Mason Tech Beat.

New subscriber? Get your freebies at MakeUseOf Downloads. Enjoy!

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First of all, you’ll need to identify which shows you want to watch.  If you’re still reading this article, I’m going to assume that you at least already know what you’re missing.  Even if you’re not aware of every new show, we’ll get to how you can find new ones in a little bit.

Once you know what you want to watch, you might do some research.  The best place for this is The Internet Movie Database or IMDB.  Contrary to the name, the IMDB has expanded its scope to encompass just about anything to grace big or small screens.  For our purposes you might want to use it to look up which shows are on which networks.  The benefit to using IMDB is that it will also clue you in to show stats like who’s playing who and the concept behind the show.  Another reason to use the database is that they are fairly good about keeping spoilers out of their listings.

If you have determined the network that owns your shows, you can move on to the process of finding them online.  Of course there are less than legal methods of doing this, but nowadays there are fewer reasons to because most of the major shows are already available for free from the networks themselves.  Finding them on their flash-heavy websites can be tricky, so I’ve compiled a handy list that should (fingers crossed) take you through the fog and straight to the steaming goodness.  [Note: Some of these sites heavily divide the videos so that each show has its own page.  The links as close to the videos as possible.]

• NBC
• CBS
• FOX
• ABC
• USA
• Sci Fi

Of course not every show will be encompassed by this list because there are a number of really great shows on the smaller networks.  Unfortunately these are a little harder to track down because the digital rights agreements may not have been drawn up for them beyond DVD sales and the like.

There is another option at your disposal.  If all the flash menus are starting to get to you, you can switch over to Hulu, which has largely the same content as the network site, but also has a wide range of other agreements, including entire catalogs of older shows. In fact, here’s the direct link to their alphabetical television listings.

Personally, I love Hulu.  Their player is fantastic, with several notable features and neat style choices.  First is the interface.  With a translucent simplicity, the player is soft on the eye and doesn’t clash with the video.  Once you’ve got the show started, there is a “lower lights” button that casts a dark filter over the rest of the window.  This little add-on, which probably required three lines of code, makes the entire experience a lot better and reduces eye strain.

Even the ads, dreadful as ads are, remain fairly unobtrusive.  They stay within the original box, tell you exactly how long they are going to last (so you might grab something in another room if it is a long one) and they are clearly experimenting with new ad models.  Whenever an ad comes up, you can actually rate whether or not you like it.  Also, occasionally Hulu will prompt you as to whether you want to see one long ad (usually a movie trailer) at the beginning or the normal intermittent ads. Unfortunately the latter option tends to show the same ad over and over throughout the show.

Hopefully one of the above options was able to help you find that new sitcom or the season premier of The Office.  If it didn’t work out, you’re one of many, struggling to find an easy way to access television online.  At this point, rips on YouTube and torrents are the only technological option and they are usually illegal.  Even so, keep your hopes up, because sooner or later every network will get on board with online distribution sites like Hulu.

You might also want to check out the MANY past posts on Make Use Of covering online television.   Here are a selection :

Watch Television on your Desktop with Livestation

Internet TV: A Closer Look at JOOST

Socialize Your Television Experience With TIOTI

Ditch Your Cable Company With Free, Legal Alternatives

The only TV and Movie Websites you Need

What are your favourite methods of watching television online?   Are you a Hulu fan?   A Joost watcher?   What shows do you watch?

[Images from papermag.com, NBC, and Hulu]

(By) Jimmy Rogers is a biology major at George Mason University and an avid freelance tech blogger. Check out his blog, Mason Tech Beat.

New subscriber? Get your freebies at MakeUseOf Downloads. Enjoy!

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It’s incredible how many different URL shortening services have cropped up in the last few years.  With the rise of microblogging, any way to save characters really makes a difference.  In fact, without services like TinyURL, there wouldn’t be any way to put most URL’s in a single tweet, let alone add text to describe the link.

Despite the diversity of URL shorteners out there, none of them are quite like tr.im.  The easiest way to explain tr.im is to walk you through the process of shortening a URL with it.  First of all, take any URL you like.  For my example I’m going to use the front page of MakeUseOf.

Obviously if you want to send your link to a friend or post it on Twitter, you’re going to need to condense it into a smaller package.  Heading over to tr.im will present you with a text box for your URL.

Notice at the bottom there is a check box for whether you want tr.im to compose this link into a Twitter post.  This is because tr.im allows you to either make a separate tr.im account or simply use your pre-existing Twitter account.  If you choose the latter, you’ll have all the same user benefits of having an account, but tr.im will also send your links on to Twitter, per your preferences.  Tr.im also accepts Identi.ca accounts as well.

When you’ve put in your URL, there is a little box available to you for extra options.  You can try to select a unique identifier for your tr.im link.  For ours I went with “MUO.”  Fortunately it was available.  Next you can select a privacy code.  I couldn’t figure out what that was supposed to be for the life of me, but it completely disabled the first demo I tried to use it with.  The instructions fail to come up when clicked, so no help there.  Lastly, you can add some search terms to your link, but this is another mystery option.

Finally, when you click the “tr.im!” button, your link will be trimmed according to your selections and from there you can post it wherever.  The story doesn’t end there, though.  As I mentioned before, the link can then be made into a tweet for Twitter or Identi.ca.  There are several sets of preferences that allow you to adjust how that works.  Also, you can choose whether the link will go directly to the target address or go to an intermediary page so your friends can be sure it’s not a dangerous link.

The last and most interesting feature of tr.im is the stats tracking for each link.  As you can see, each of my tr.im links has been clicked a different number of times and has a date attached to it for easy categorization.  It looks like the link that has been clicked the most is http://tr.im/3ii, a link for contributing to the two charities I am trying to raise funds for.  I love the ability to track the links you make because largely when you make a link you actually want people to click it (whereas many links are just for reference).  Tr.im also includes a handy pie chart to display where the clicks are coming from.

Overall I plan on using tr.im in a limited capacity.  All the microblogging tools I use already include link shortening, so that characteristic isn’t lacking in my digital life.  The main thing I want from tr.im is the link tracking.  Often I put up a link on Twitter and I want to know how many people actually clicked through to see what it was.  Not only does this help me structure my teasers on Twitter more effectively the next time, but it is yet another metric to see where my traffic is coming from.

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(By) Jimmy Rogers is a biology major at George Mason University and an avid freelance tech blogger. Check out his blog, Mason Tech Beat.

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Technology/Science Podcasts

Obviously there are a million tech podcasts out there, but here a just a few that didn’t make it up onto the site in last week’s article.

They also happen to be a few of my personal favorites.

Buzz Out Loud

(iTunes Link)

“Buzz Out Loud” is probably one of the first podcasts I subscribed to way back when I got my first iPod (a 20GB black and white one, if memory serves - the click wheel was a new feature).  Back then it was called “CNET’s podcast of indeterminate length” because it gradually increased from 5 minute episodes to 30 minute episodes in the first couple months.  While it still has that tag line, generally the shows are always 20 to 30 minutes and have a pretty standard line-up.

Tom Merritt, Molly Wood, and Jason Howell (who mans the sound board) come together every week day to deliver the hottest tech news off the web and provide their frequently hilarious commentary about the internet, DRM, and the new ways we can use technology in our everyday lives.  If you haven’t discovered the show at this point, definitely give it a listen!

NPR: Science Friday

(iTunes Link)

“NPR : Science Friday” takes a look at the biggest people and topics in science today.  Host Ira Flatow interviews just about everybody who matters with a style that agrees with specialists and laymen alike.

Topics vary between the science disciplines, but if it’s important, you’ll almost certainly hear about it on Science Friday.  The show is one of many interesting transcripts from NPR’s shows (on iTunes).

The Nature Podcast

(iTunes Link)

“The Nature Podcast” is a little more of a hardcore science show for the true science geek.  Taken right from the pages of the prestigious journal Nature, the podcast covers some of the more detailed experiments and scientific quandaries around.

While the content is certainly more sophisticated, the hosts do a good job presenting all the facts and asking the questions you want answered.  Best of all, most of the interviewers have British accents, which will add a little linguistic variety to your podcast collection.

Web Culture Podcasts

Sometimes, amid all of the ways we use the internet, we overlook the fact that the network itself is the world’s largest community.  Here are a few shows dedicated to the way humans interact with one another.

Epic Fu

(iTunes Link)

“Epic Fu” broadcasts a little taste of the indie world right to your iPod.  Of course the term “indie” is pretty subjective, but basically independent artists, creative protesters, and DIY fanatics are all par for the course at Epic Fu.  Features, skillfully connected by the lovely Zadi Diaz, include stellar music videos, interviews with innovators in literature, and clever commentary on current events relevant to the citizens of the internet.

Another reason I love Epic Fu is that they recently brought Sarah Atwood on board, who you might remember as a top contender on Mahalo Vlog Idol.  She’s definitely one of my favorite internet people.

Rocketboom

(iTunes Link)

“Rocketboom” has been around for about as long as video podcasting has been popular.  They’re a bit of an institution.  That being said, I am constantly astounded at how they have been able to maintain the quality of the show while still keeping their quirky, deadpan method of reporting the news.

Unlike most news shows where the host simply states an opinion, Joanne Colan presents the news in a unique way every day.  Sometimes it is an enormous play on words.  Other days, props or camera tricks play a role.  A large number of episodes break away from the “anchor desk” style and go straight to wherever the news is out in the world.  African and Middle Eastern correspondents are regular features.  I think I like the show mostly because it reports news that the mainstream networks often overlook or consider unimportant.

Entertaining Podcasts

Sometimes you need to blow off some steam.  Why not do it in a geeky way?

Ask A Ninja

(iTunes Link)

“Ask A Ninja” is pretty straightforward.  People ask a ninja questions.  He answers the people.  Then he promises to kill them.  Any questions?  Now you know where to send them.

All silliness aside though, Ask A Ninja is a very funny show where a low-budget ninja describes the ninja underworld as can only be done in front of a blue photography screen.

Tiki Bar TV

(iTunes Link)

This one is a bit harder to explain.  Unlike the above podcast, which is about as geeky as you can get, you might wonder how Tiki Bar got on this list.  Well while it’s a show about mixing drinks and the drama that usually ensues, there is a more obvious reason for its inclusion.  The show frequently features internet superstars like Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht from Diggnation, just to name a few.  As one of the first video podcasts, it’s stood the test of time.  Or at least staggered the test of time after a couple shots.

If you like hearing about great podcasts, TELL US in the comments.  We want to cover what you’re interested in so let your voice be heard!

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(By) Jimmy Rogers is a biology major at George Mason University and an avid freelance tech blogger. Check out his blog, Mason Tech Beat.

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One of the biggest gripes about the iPhone is the lack of voice dialing.  Almost every other phone I have ever owned, even the cheezy flip-phone, has had some kind of voice command feature.  I’ll be honest, I was never a huge user of this feature, but sometimes it was nice to be able to say “home” and call my parents while driving somewhere.

Here’s an App that attempts to rectify the iPhone’s lack of voice dialing capability.  It’s called Cactus Voice Dialer (iTunes Link) and it’s free in the App Store.  To put it simply, Cactus listens to your commands, interprets them intuitively, and tries to find the right number in your contact list.  The neat thing about it is that there’s almost no set-up whatsoever.

Many built-in voice calling systems require you to record a keyword for each contact or “train” the speech algorithm.  Cactus uses a speech recognition system that doesn’t require any training at all.  That system is PocketSphinx, a mobile version of the Sphinx recognition system developed at Carnegie Mellon University.

When you first bring up the App, it has a quick cheat sheet for command entries, a settings button, and a “Speak” key (visible on the right).  Holding down that last key while giving your command should bring up the desired contact.  For instance, If you say “Call John Doe” and John Doe is a contact on your phone, their name should appear immediately after that.  If they have more than one phone number, Cactus will automatically click through and show you all of them.  You can specify “Call John Doe’s Mobile” as well if you solely want to bring up your contact’s mobile number.

There are a number of options to choose from in the settings that relate directly to how much you trust the App to get the right person.  The first setting allows Cactus to begin the call as soon as it determines the contact you want.  I would recommend holding off on this option until you are more comfortable with the App.  Next is the option to allow multiple results after a query.  This is handy if you simply want to use Cactus to quickly find contacts.  Last, there is an option to only bring up the primary number for each result (which could save some click-throughs).

Of course the key to any voice recognition system is accuracy.  How well does it work?  Well, after testing it with a number of different types of names, it seems to respond with a fair amount of accuracy.  The settings let you meter your level of trust, so you can use it as voice calling or simply a voice-based contact book (which is mostly how I use it).

Cactus is a little on the “heavy” side for a free App.  If you download a lot of Apps, you’ll notice that very few are above 1MB in size.  Cactus Voice Dialer is 4.9MB.  Presumably the voice recognition software is what takes up most of the space.

Tip: One little trick I’ve found helpful is to alter my voice commands slightly.  The App suggests saying “Call” next to each contact’s name, but this seems to be completely unnecessary.  Also, if you just want to quickly jump to a small group of names, you can say “John,” and all the Johns on your phone will appear.  This is by far the most reliable way to call up names because as long as you don’t rush your pronunciation, which might be tempting for shorter names, you’ll almost always get your desired contact up on the results list.

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The main question I leave you with is this:  Is voice dialing really necessary on the iPhone?  If the recognition isn’t perfect and you just use it as a shortcut for your address book, is it really any faster than double-clicking the home button (presumably taking you to your favorite contacts)?  I’m still not sure if I’m going to use this much in the long run.

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(By) Jimmy Rogers is a biology major at George Mason University and an avid freelance tech blogger. Check out his blog, Mason Tech Beat.

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Pros:

• Beautiful, huge VGA screen;
• Huge (16Gb) flash drive included;
• Reasonable battery life (compared to a laptop);
• Full accessory pack.

Cons:

• Interface really doesn't make good use of VGA real estate;
• Phone really isn't integrated with the rest of the package;
• Keyboard has limited tactile feedback;
• Card (SIM and mini-SD) slot is very difficult to access.

Summary:
The 7510 is HTC's third version of the Advantage product line, which it bills as a Mobile Office, rather than a PDA or Pocket Phone. Originally introduced in 2007, it targets mobile professionals who want to keep in touch with the office, email, etc. but want something more than a handheld PDA, without the weight and 'wait' (boot up) associated with a laptop. Jason originally received a demo 7510 while at the Mobius conference back in December, but at the time there were a number of problems with the unit. HTC promised an upgrade to the firmware to address these, so we thought it best to put the review on hold until we had the new version. Well, it arrived about a month ago, so we installed it and put the Advantage through its paces – using it as a laptop replacement in an office (project management) environment for about two weeks. Let's see how it did...

Presentation
First off, everything about the packaging and design of the Advantage says this is geared to the executive professional. From the black-on-black presentation box, to the sleek contours of the two-piece design of the main unit and keyboard, and the included leather carrying case, this thing is designed to look at home in the executive suite. It is a totally different design from other PDAs and is definitely meant for putting down on a flat surface to work. For those that may have missed it earlier, here's a quick tour around the unit.

Figure 1: The Advantage 7510 comes as two pieces -- the display unit, shown in the top half of the case, and a detachable keyboard. The display unit is fully functional as a touch-screen PDA/Smartphone, but when you want to use them together, they are held together by strong magnets at the base of the display unit (see picture at the top of the article.)

Figure 2: When all closed up, the clear plastic window in the top of the keyboard and the leather case allows for viewing a summary display of the current status of the unit (radios, emails, messages, sound, battery, and time) without having to open the case.

Figure 3: Here's the left side of the main unit. From left to right is a) volume slider, b) speaker, c) the proprietary video out port, d) mini-USB port for power and connection to PC; and e) a 3.5mm stereo headphone/mic jack.

Figure 4: It's pretty sparse here on the right side of the unit, with a) Power switch, b) speaker, c) Camera button, and d) stylus holder.

Figure 5: The front panel is pretty spartan as well, with three LEDs in the top right corner for GSM (phone), Bluetooth/WiFi, and messages. Our unit came with a front facing VGA video camera for video calls (which worked here in Canada on the Rogers network, BTW) and the Home button in the bottom right.

Figure 6: There's not much at the back of the unit. Just the 3 megapixel camera in the top right corner, the stylus slot in the top left and a reset in the middle bottom.

Figure 7: Here's a shot of the bottom of the unit, with access to the mini-SD and SIM card slots. You access this by flipping down that door you see in front. The SIM card fits in by moving that white carriage (2) out of the way, then sliding in. To insert the mini-SD card, you have to hold the door out of the way, then slide in the card around it (under the 1). It's a very tight fit, and not easy. For a SIM card, that's OK, since you're not likely to change that often, but for the SD card, it doesn't really support frequent swaps.

Figure 8: A side-by-side comparison between the 7510 and my TyTN II (Kaiser).

Figure 9: Here's a comparison of the screens between the 7510 and the Kaiser/TyTNII. At five inches and VGA, the 7510 sports almost 8 times the screen real estate!

As you can see from the size comparison, this is not a unit that is easily pocketable. Not only is it big, but it's heavy as well! Kudos to HTC for making a case which feels like metal, but it adds considerable weight to the display unit. Together with the keyboard, they weigh just over 13oz (375g), which is just too much for most suit or pants pockets. It is, however, a good size for a purse, backpack or briefcase. And it would be ideal for those tiny little trays in the economy section of the plane.

For those who may have seen the earlier 7500 and 7501 versions of the Advantage, they will find quite a few differences here. As mentioned before, HTC is clearly targeting the mobile professional with the Advantage line and the 7510 version shows significant movement away from the PDA mode of operation – moving more toward a mini-desktop environment. The layout of logos and labels on the display unit clearly expect use of the unit primarily in landscape mode (although the display itself can be rotated to portrait mode) and most of the buttons which supported the unit as a PDA are gone. The 5-way navigation button, the Communication Manager button, Start and OK buttons, and the left and right user function buttons have all been eliminated from the 7510. Instead, many of these functions have been replaced by keys on the keyboard.

The keyboard itself is mostly the same as the one which came with earlier versions of the Advantage. HTC has responded to complaints about tactile response though, by adding slightly raised borders around each of the keys and a short, gentle vibration feedback when a key is pressed.

Figure 10: The 7510's new keyboard. You can just barely see the raised ridges around each of the keys, and if you look really closely, you can spot access keys for most of the functions which originally had buttons on the unit.

It's better than typing on a flat surface, but it doesn't really work for touch typists. The keys are too close together and very sensitive, so you can't rest your fingers on them at all.

In terms of accessories, HTC has done an excellent job of including everything a mobile professional needs.

Figure 11: The contents of the Advantage 7510's package. Running clockwise from the top left, there is the VGA/SVideo output cable, Wall charger with mini-USB connector, ear-bud headset with built-in microphone, earbud foam covers, extra stylus (clear plastic), and a USB power/sync connector cable.

Figure 12: HTC even provides a cloth zippered accessories bag for all of the above. Note the velcro closures and elastics to hold everything securely in place so things don't rattle around.

There truly seems to be nothing else to buy. My only complaint is the stylus. Who thought that a short, light, transparent piece of plastic fit in with the executive look and feel? A sleek metal unit would have been a better choice and while it would add more weight, at this stage it wouldn't really be noticed.

The only thing missing from our demo unit was the 'Getting Started' brochure and the User's Manual, but these are also available for download from HTC's website. Unfortunately, the manual is for the 7500 and 7501 models and hence, doesn't reflect the changes introduced in the 7510.

So what is different with the 7510? The biggest difference is the replacement of the 8G micro-drive with a huge 16Gb flash memory module. This storage area is not included in program or storage memory managed by the CE O/S, but rather as a completely separate drive – much like having a big flash memory card installed.

The 7510 runs Windows Mobile Professional 6.1, the latest version available of the O/S. There are lots of descriptions available of the changes included in 6.1, but suffice to say that it's mostly tweaks to various parts of WM6, rather than whole new functionality.

Applications
The package of applications supplied with the Advantage is equally impressive and reflects the focus on the mobile professional. Included:

• Adobe Reader LE
• Audio Booster (bass booster for headphones only)
• HTC's Audio Manager (Windows Media Replacement, but audio only)
• ClearVuePresenter 5 (PowerPoint through the video port)
• Google Maps
• Java
• Jetcet Print 5 (print directly from the PDA)
  
• Opera 9.5 (beta version of browser replacement)
• SIM Manager (update contact information on your SIM card)
• Voice Speed Dial
• World Card Mobile (take a picture of a business card, then transfer the information to your Contacts list)
• ZIP

As with the hardware accessories, HTC has included software to take full advantage of the features of the 7510. For those professionals doing presentations on the go, ClearVuePresenter did a very good job driving all the projectors I tried it with. The big plus on HTC's video output cable was the inclusion of both VGA, composite Video, and S-Video output.

Figure 13: Here are the composite and S-video output jacks on the included video output cable. The standard VGA output is located on the left end.

Figure 14: On the other side of the output end of the cable, there's even a USB output jack.

Content on the slides were as clear as any VGA output from a laptop, and the animations were relatively smooth. I suspect that moving around a lot of bigger graphics might get a bit chunky, but I generally keep mine simple and small.

Google Maps was disappointing in that I couldn't get it to work with the imbedded GPS unit at all. (More on this in the Radios section of the review). Unfortunately, due to a lack of cell towers in my area, triangulation via GSM connections placed me either in a lagoon 4 miles away or in the middle of the Juan de Fuca Strait!

Likewise, the Opera 9.5 browser was not really ready for primetime. Granted, this was a beta version, and I'm not a regular Opera user, so there was a bit of a learning curve for me as I tried to figure out the intricacies of the interface. But there were a lot of frozen screens and a couple of crashes (soft resets) as I was browsing my usual set of favorite websites.

World Card Mobile is an interesting concept. The idea is to take a picture of someone's business card with the camera, then use the software to identify the parts where contact information is located. It then uses Optical Character Recognition to transfer the info into an entry in the Contacts database. For me though, there was just too much fiddling required to get it to read anything on the cards. It's much faster for me to just type the stuff into a new Contacts entry.

The version of Office Mobile provided included the usual suspects -- Excel, PowerPoint and Word -- but also included OneNote Mobile, which we don't often see included in an OEM package.

The 16Gb Flash Drive on our demo unit came with garbage in the MyDocuments folder and a demo copy of ExtremeAgenda, which wouldn't install properly. I'm not sure if the production version of the 7510 comes with ExtremeAgenda, but I did look it up. It's available from Birdsoft , and is a pretty interesting looking PIM replacement.

Wanting to clean things up a bit for Jason, I eventually found the formatting utility for the flash drive, but it was a little counter-intuitive for those of us used to HTC devices. It's a new function in the ClearStorage utility provided by HTC. Normally, this application does a hard reset of your device, but HTC has modified it to provide a format utility for the flash drive only.

Figure 15: A screenshot of the updated Clear Storage utility provided by HTC for the Advantage 7510. The dropdown list provides options for clearing the entire unit (a hard reset) or just formatting the Flash Drive.

The phone... yes, there is a fully functioning quad-band GSM phone in the 7510, but it's not really integrated into the design. There's no earpiece on the display unit, which is way too big to hold up to the side of your head anyway. The only way to listen to incoming calls is by plugging in the headset/mic, through a bluetooth headset, or via the loudspeaker built into the front panel. If you're using this in a cubicle, a bluetooth headset is almost a necessity, unless you're one of those types who likes to show off their executive status by conducting all your conversations via speakerphone. It's almost as if HTC added the phone functionality to provide connectivity, rather than communication (i.e. a way to stay connected to the Internet, rather than actually use the phone as a phone). There is a vibrate function available (to avoid disturbing a meeting, etc.) but this is only available through the keyboard, so it has to be attached to make this work.

Performance
The 7510 is powered by a PXA270 CPU running at 624 Mhz on a 32-bit data bus, and sports an ATI Graphic Chip W2284 as well.

Figure 16: The Device Info screen from the Advantage 7510.

That's a pretty powerful processing package and that, coupled with 128Mb of RAM and 256Mb of Flash Memory (in addition to the 16Gb discussed earlier) you'd expect snappy performance. Well, not exactly. While the Advantage worked reasonably well, screen-to-screen transitions weren't always as quick as I've come to expect on smaller PDAs and the 7510 really dragged when it had five or six applications running simultaneously. I suspect a lot of the CPU power and the graphics chip are taken up in managing the large VGA display. Unfortunately, the Spb Benchmarks bear out these observations.

Figure 17: Overall benchmark results for the 7510. It's probably not fair to compare to the original iPAQ 3600, since there have been significant changes in the O/S since this was started, but if you look at the comparisons to the other VGA-based units (M700, X51v), it doesn't do too bad.

Figure 18: Here, you can clearly see the advantage of the more powerful CPU. The separate graphics processor in the 7510 may have also helped out here.


Figure 19: Hmmm, not exactly sure what happened here. I would have expected better performance with the graphics processor, but this reflects what I saw when I tested viewing of various videos on the 7510.

Figure 20: Wow... what difference! Clearly, this is where the dedicated graphics processor took over.

Figure 21: Compressing a file, using mainly the CPU, the 7510 did relatively well, but not stellar, especially when its processor is much faster than the X51v and the TyTNII.

Figure 22: Similar to the compression test, here we kind of expect better performance from the 7510's faster processor.

Figure 23: Again, ignoring the iPAQ comparison because of O/S changes, the 7510 doesn't do too badly compared to similar units.

Figure 24: Again, a real surprise here. I certainly would not have expected the TyTNII to come out on top, especially considering all the controversy surrounding imbedded graphics chips with no (or disabled) drivers. Maybe it came out on top because it's only QVGA? I would have expected a much better result from the 7510.

My overall feeling was that the Advantage 'lagged' a bit. It wasn't quite as snappy as my TyTNII (Kaiser), but then again, I'm running a custom-built ROM (thanks, XDA Developers!).

The unit comes with a graphics chip/accelerator, which should improve the display, especially when viewing videos. I tested it (very unscientifically) by viewing trailers from various sources, such as VideoDetective.com and compared the results to my TyTNII (Kaiser). Visually, the Advantage had a better look to the video (bigger screen helps) but the frame-by-frame flow looked the same, if not a bit blockier than the TyTNII. As you can see above, this is confirmed by the Spb Benchmark tests.

The 7510 is powered by a massive 2100 mAh Li-ion polymer battery which should give amazing usage right? Again, not quite. It takes about 4 hours to fully recharge the battery on a wall charger from absolutely dead, which isn't too bad – roughly the same as many of the laptop batteries. I tried running the unit in what I thought would be a fairly normal operating mode for someone working away from the office. I put the screen on continuously at low to medium intensity, made 2 or 3 phone calls, turned off the bluetooth and GPS and ran the basic PIM (Calendar, Contacts, To Do's, etc.) functions on and off during the day. After about 6 hours, the battery was a 20% and the O/S was reminding me to do something about it. Not exactly the 5 to 6 hours of talk time and 300 hours standby claimed by HTC, but to be fair, their times are with the screen off. And 6 hours of screen on access to email, etc. is still a good deal longer than you'll get from most laptop batteries.

User Interface
One of the big selling (and price) points of the 7510 is the 5 inch VGA screen. Not only does this make the display area physically twice the size of a Pocket PC or Smartphone screen, but the higher resolution provides an additional quadrupling of available screen real estate for applications. Unfortunately, it appears the screen drivers written for the 7510 don't take advantage (sorry) of this. Instead, HTC seems to have simply taken the existing QVGA drivers and told them to fill the screen. The result, as seen in the screenshots below, is to create screens with huge icons. It's certainly finger friendly, but not very efficient. Nor do the drivers seem to be telling applications that they have a VGA screen available to them.

Figure 25: The Advantage running the Today screen of Spb Menu. Note that instead of making use of the increased space available on the VGA screen, the HTC simply makes all the images/icons bigger. That's OK for finger friendliness, but it's still a bit of a waste of screen real estate.

Figure 26: Here, Agenda One does a bit better job, but there is no difference in displayed information that that provided by running in Landscape mode on a QVGA screen. Unfortunately, I no longer own a VGA device, so I can't show you a comparison shot of what it should look like in VGA.

Figure 27: As can be seen here, everything has been scaled up to fill the available space, instead of making use of the real estate available to display more info.

Figure 28: Even the phone pad interface has expanded buttons.

Figure 29: Here's HTC's own Today plug in.

Figure 30: HTC has included a good looking keyboard replacement for the standard one provided by Windows Mobile, but it takes up over half of the available screen. I also noticed that applications which would normally reconfigure their screen to make room for the keyboard and keep their buttons visible, don't here. There were a number of times I needed to close down the keyboard to get access to Next or Continue buttons.

Figure 31: While Spb Mobile Shell recognized it was in Landscape mode, there's no evidence here it knew it had VGA resolution available.

Radios
Radios are not something we normally talk a lot about when discussing the technical capabilities of a Windows Mobile phone. The radio is the firmware which runs the various telecommunications chips (Bluetooth, WIFI, GPS, Cellular) contained within the phone and defines how they operate with the rest of the software and hardware. On HTC units, the radio also controls the functionality of the camera(s). In most units, manufacturers simply include this as part of the O/S and hide the fact that the radio can be changed separately. HTC, however, displays the radio version separately from the operating system (visible whenever you soft-reset the unit or from the Settings/System/Device Information screen) and those of us working with developers who are cooking new ROMS for the units happily swap new radios in and out to compare performance.

The radio in our new firmware was still version 1.58.0.0, so I don't believe HTC has spent any additional time working on this part of the unit. In general, the radio worked pretty well. The cellular radio is quad band, so it will work anywhere in the world, and it comes with HSPDA/UTMA data transfer capability. Sensitivity and reception of cellular signals was very good, with 4 to 5 bars consistently in the city and full 3G/H coverage. In the country (away from major cell tower clusters), I was still able to get 1 or 2 bars and complete calls and data transfers from anywhere a regular phone would work.

Bluetooth appears to have better range than most PDAs and phones I've tested, but sometimes the audio in my headset was a little scratchy. This turned out to be a problem with the headset. WiFi reception was slightly better than other units in my home, running an 802.11N network.

GPS performance was disappointing. It took approximately 18 minutes to get a GPS lock from a cold start (I.e. with no satellite info) which is pretty long, compared to my TyTNII. Warm starts (after it has an initial satellite lock) were better, but still took 2 to 4 minutes in most cases. I wasn't able to get Google Maps to work consistently at all, whereas it works just fine on the TyTNII and the Eten X500. I'm not realy sure how one would use the 7510 as a car navigation system. The screen is certainly clear, bright and big, but where would you put the display unit? It's too big and heavy for most windshield mounts. Earlier versions of the Advantage had ports for a car and GPS antenna, but these are not available on the 7510. There are rubber inserts on the back where the jacks are supposed to be (according to the documentation), but these are very difficult to get out, and after you do get them out, there's no jack underneath.

Conclusions
So, is the Advantage 7510 ready to take over? As a phone replacement, no. It's just to big, too heavy, and lacks the integration of a true Smartphone. Could it be a laptop replacement? Maybe. For most functions of a mobile professional -- email, Internet access, simple documents & spreadsheet, presentations -- all the pieces are there and work relatively well. The biggest advantage is the 'instant on' features of Windows CE and the huge flashdrive HTC has bolted on. I'd expect better overall performance and VGA support, and the imbedded GPS needs an overhaul. With all that done, it would provide a very credible alternative to lugging the laptop around.

And when all is said and done, the form factor does have that certain 'cool' factor about it.

Don is an Associate Director with Fujitsu Consulting, responsible for the Enterprise Mobility practice. Funny, I remember when a laptop was the mobile traveller's holy grail. "Take the office with you!" Now, we're complaining they're too big and bulky....

Do you ever feel limited by traditional microblogging services?  I understand that part of their appeal is the 140 character restriction but sometimes a thing needs more than a line or two.  Isn’t that what blogs are for?  Well, not really.  If you want to keep a decent blog, little blurbs about a fleeting thought will eventually wear on your audience.  There needs to be a middle ground.  I think I might have found it.

Posterous is a new message posting service that resembles a microblog like Twitter or Plurk but never explicitly labels itself as one.  It’s just as well, because in all fairness, it isn’t.  Posterous has blog-like attributes and microblog-like attributes, both of which have made it into a more versatile service.

First of all, there are several ways to connect with Posterous.  If you want to treat the service like a blog, you can to go the web and create a new post, complete with a WYSIWYG editor that allows for editing of the HTML.  The posts can be as long as you like too.  If you want to use Posterous like a microblog, then you can update via text message or email account.  The text messaging works exactly as you would expect it to, but you are limited to 110 characters after the keyword “POST.”

A more interesting route is the email. Instead of a “private” email address which would normally consist of some alpha-numeric sequence, Posterous lets you send all your messages to post@posterous.com.  From there the service checks to see if your email came from an address that is registered with a user account.  If it isn’t, Posterous creates a unique address for that post and emails the URL back to the sender.  For those who don’t like to leave a footprint, this is a great feature.  That URL (which is in a “http://*name_code*.posterous.com” format) is then shareable with others who will also be able to see your post.

If you play around with Posterous for a while and decide to create an account, the system will automatically take all of the old posts tied to your newly registered address and merge them with your new account.  Never fear though, all of the old URLs will redirect to your new Posterous account.  Pretty neat, huh?

One of the big draws for me is the ability to share all kinds of media on Posterous.  According to their FAQ, Posterous allows you to post .doc, .ppt, and .pdf document formats; .jpg, .png, and .gif image formats; and .mp3, .avi, and .mpg audio/video formats.  While that isn’t everything, the selection will probably cover all of the sharing you need to do.  In order to attach a file to your post, simply attach it to the email you are sending.  If you are texting or editing via the web, it doesn’t look like you can directly upload content so keep that in mind.

Above is a sample of what you can do with audio clips.  I attached two sound files to my post and Posterous generated a player for each.  If you upload a video, it creates a video player for it. If you attach a document, it tries to convert it into iPaper. I made an attempt at attaching a Word document (it’s not a perfect system…the document should fit on one page).

There is a simple management system for all of your posts.  If you just want to view them, going to your general URL (”http://username.posterous.com”) will show your posts blog-style.  If you need to change them, clicking the “manage” link will take you to this interface:

Aside from a standard edit/delete option, the management screen also shows you the number of views and comments each post has received, as well as how many people have favorited it.  Also, there is definitely an opportunity to use Posterous as a social network, since you can favorite or follow other users’ posts.  I haven’t found it to be terribly compelling, but it’s nice to know its there in case the community grows.

To quote any of The Middleman’s villains, Posterous is “sheer elegance in its simplicity.”  Getting started is completely automatic, user accounts are useful but not mandatory, many useful media formats are supported, and to top it all off, it’s a social network too.  While I don’t think I’ll use Posterous every day, I certainly intend to share media through it (probably by firing the URL through Ping.fm).

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Do you think you’ll use Posterous for anything?  If you have any clever ideas, post them in the comments!

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(By) Jimmy Rogers is a biology major at George Mason University and an avid freelance tech blogger. Check out his blog, Mason Tech Beat.

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