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Review–Overboard Waterproof case for Medium sized devices

Cases No Responses »

May 012012

Before beginning this review, we must clarify that the definition for the small, medium and large phones has changed since the launch of the Galaxy Note. Those that were considered large are now medium.

We received an Overboard Waterproof case, courtesy of MobileFun iPad Accessories. Let us begin.

The case comes nicely packed and looks nice and shiny in the first go. Though Overboard has mentioned the case to be for small phones, We deem a device like the N8 not to fit the category. Rather, we term it as a medium sized device.

Review–Overboard Waterproof case for Medium sized devices

Upon opening, the contents of the package include the case, a hook, a lanyard. And No, the phone does not come inside the package Smile with tongue out

Review–Overboard Waterproof case for Medium sized devices

The case is made up of waterproof material that feels soft yet strong. We had to open these locks to get a look inside the case.

Review–Overboard Waterproof case for Medium sized devices

The phone can be slid through once the locks are open. These locks act a sealing barrier once the phone is inside.

Review–Overboard Waterproof case for Medium sized devices

Once securely locked, nothing can enter or exit the case save light Smile with tongue out

Review–Overboard Waterproof case for Medium sized devices

The case did not prove to be any hindrance while operating the phone. The phone responded as snappily as it did outside the case.

Overboard have made sure that the phone’s camera is not missed out. While the front has a larger transparent are to operate the phone to it’s fullest, the rear of the case makes sure that the camera is not covered.

Review–Overboard Waterproof case for Medium sized devices

A sample of the camera functioning inside the case

Review–Overboard Waterproof case for Medium sized devices

You can use the hook and and the lanyard to secure the phone while you are on the move.

Review–Overboard Waterproof case for Medium sized devices

In my opinion, the case is one of the best in it’s class. It can keep you phone safe from water damage. We definitely recommend this case if you device is small to medium in size. But if you have a Galaxy Note, then this case is not a choice as the Note would not fit in.

Acer M310 / Acer Allegro preliminary review – physical, size

Hardware Reviews No Responses »

Dec 122011

The NY Times was right after all – its prognosis that Microsoft would limit the number of Windows Mobile devices became true when Windows Phone 7 hit the market. Of course, Acer is so large a manufacturer that it can press Microsoft into service – let’s look at the Allegro in some detail.

This review is based on a preliminary version of the device I got into my hands at DroidCon.nl. However, the rep told me that the device is largely ready – so the results can IMHO be taken at face value.

First of all: the Allegro will be available in two different colors: black and white:

It will also have a size-similar Android sibling which could be useful if you want to take a look at the size yourself:

Next up, two shots showing it next to the Samsung Galaxy SII:

Outdoors, the white model can show its full beauty. On the front, the three sensor keys are visible. One can also see that the screen sadly gets washed out in the sun:

Next up, the usual four-side views:

Sadly, the back cover is of a similarily soft and flimsy type to the one we saw on the Galaxy SII and Galaxy Note, This, however, it but a minor niggle:

Cutting a long story short: the Acer Allegro is a small, well-built WP7 with no major weaknesses except for a relatively bad LCD screen. Tune in soon – next, we’ll look at a few system specs.

Comparing Media Systems – the review

Books No Responses »

Oct 192011

One thing is constant among most countries: public broadcast annoying everyone who owns a TV, extorting a tax for their usually very mediocre produce. But why is this so?

This book, published by the University of Cambridge, starts by looking at the media landscape of the past, breaking it into three distinct models.

Model number one is dubbed the “Polarized Pluralist Model”, and describes the media systems seen in mediterranean states such as Italy. Next up is the “Democratic Corporatist Model”, which is prevalent in most of continental Europe. Finally, the US “liberal” model is introduced.

After this introduction, the book moves on to differentiating the models in dimensions such as political influence, government subsidies and amount of unionization of staff. Even though these chapters do get a bit repetitive, they contain loads of interesting anecdotes which give extra food for thought.

A final chapter “rounds off” the tome by looking at what the future will hold for the various European media systems discussed.

From a text point of view, the book is – like most universitarian literature – too long for my taste. Nevertheless, it remains readable even for non-native speakers and contains quite a few interesting tables:

This book is ideal for all those who ever had to deal with public broadcasting and/or wonder how the news gets to their doorstep (and live in Canada, the USA or Western Europe) – the price of 30$ is ok.

P.S. The introduction is available in PDF form for free…

Designed for Use – the review

Books No Responses »

Oct 042011

In today’s mobile market, little is as important as a good user interface design. Unfortunately, most books on the topic tend to take one “way” and then ride it home – can Lukas Mathis’s book provide a broader overview of the GUI design field?

Designed for Use is split up into three parts, which each are made up of chapters explaining techniques and ideas used to accomplish user interface design.

Part 1 starts out with the design of applications – topics covered here are not directly related to the layout of forms, but rather to things like deciding which features are needed and how they should be grouped.

Part 2 looks at the layout of the individual forms, and also covers “new-age” things like animation and the design of mobile user interfaces.

Finally, Part 3 looks at things to do after the first version of the app has been released. In this part of the book, expect coverage of concepts like dealing with customer requests, adding and removing features, and so on.

As with almost all O’Reilly-published books, a number of images are included to make the text easier to read and understand. Paper quality was high as always; a huge amount of web references makes “further reading” easy:

In the end, it is hard not to like Designed for Use. The book presents a plethora of design methods which are sure to inspire everybody – the price of 30$ is more than justified.

Windows Phone 7 Recipes – the review

Books No Responses »

Sep 232011

Traditionally, programming books were built to emulate teaching courses. This made them well suited for people who wanted to learn the whole platform on a step by step basis, but made finding specific content difficult.

Cookbooks like the one which is subject off this review take a different approach. They provide groups of recipies which provide worked solutions for.common problems faced by developers.

The authors courses to start their book by looking at the basics of Windows Phone Seven development. This group of record intensives the platform as whole, and also explains the xaml used for generating a basic page.

After that, Silverlight GUI programming is explained in considerable detail. The authors also cover Expression blend in some detail.

The chapters 5 and 6 look at sensors and the interpretation of touchscreen gestures. After rhat, the multimedia facilities of the OS are explained in a group of recipies, as is the isolated syorage subsystem.

The two final chapters look at networking and testing. Even though no Mango-specific features are treated, the book does a good gob at explaining the features.

Finally, a single recipe explains the MVVM pattern. Unit testing is handled in another.

Unfortunately, it looks like the editing process for this book was cut short for some reason. While the first three chapters were use well readable, later chapters were missing words and sometimes fealty unedited. However, the text remains understandable even for non native speakers.

In the end, thjs tome is ideal for all those who tend to be in the learning-by-doing camp. The multitude of recipies ensures that most of the features of WP7 get covered – the price of 28USD is justified.

Beginning Windows Phone 7 Development – the review

Books No Responses »

Sep 182011

A variety of books have been published on Windows Phone 7 – so far, I have not found one which is well-suited to beginners. Can APress’s Beginner’s book stack up?

The book is divided into two large blocks: block one provides a rough overview of the platform, while the second block knocks out some topics for more detailed treatment.

The introduction of the actual development process takes place in the chapters two and three. The authors chose a relatively complex example which used Azure, but barely cover XAML – this leads to a lot of not so useful information floating round your head. Debugging and distributing also get covered in the first block.

After that, the first detailled topic covered is the accelerometer. It is followed by two chapters looking at application bars and the web browser control.

Themes, Localization and integrating your app into the OS get covered too. Other topics include the Isolated Storage system, media and the GPS service. Finally, a few short chapters on reactive extensions and security were included, leading to the following TOC:

Introducing Windows Phone 7 and the Windows Phone Platform
Building Windows Phone 7 Applications
Using Cloud Services As Data Stores
Catching and Debugging Errors
Packaging, Publishing, and Managing Applications
Working with the Accelerometer
Application Bar
WebBrowser Control
Working with Controls and Themes
Integrating Applications with the Windows Phone OS
Creating Trial Applications
Internationalization
Isolated Storage
Using Location Services
Media
Working with the Camera and Photos
Push Notifications
Reactive Extensions for .NET
Security

In general, APress’s books have been excellently edited. Unfortunately, this book was not too satisfying – some code blocks are missing, and some sentences are unclear. Nevertheles, the book contains an ample amount of images and remains understandable even for non-native speakers.

Cutting a long story short: if you want to buy but one book on WP7, take the sister book on Recipies. If you, on the other hand, are looking for a more classic tutorial type of tome, buying this one will serve you well. The price of 24$ is ok.

MobileFun StuckBuddy review

Cradles / Cables No Responses »

May 152011

The UK retailer MobileFun is well known for selling all kinds of brand and self-sourced products at competitive prices. Their recent introduction of the StuckBuddy left more than one individual scratching his head…what’s the fuzz all about?

First of all, the usual. MobileFun’s products ship in a padded envelope from the UK:

The blister of the StuckBuddy got a nice beating during the mailing.

Nevertheless, the contents were a-OK:

The whole idea of the device is that you stick it onto the back of a phone or tablet – like our unfortunate Samsung Wave:

Then, the whole thing is turned around for a cradle-like effect:

In my tests, the sticking effect worked well on devices which had a ‘flat’ area on the back where the StuckBuddy can attach. The Samsung Wave is a bad example – if its removable battery cover is partially under the suction cup, the sticking effect ends after approximately two minutes…

This device clearly plays in the useless, but so adorable category. It obviously won’t replace a kick stand or cradle, but hey – its better than nothing. Given the price of 5 GBP (and the money back guarantee), I don’t know much more to write here…

3D Graphics with XNA Game Studio 4 – the review

Books No Responses »

Apr 122011

Traditionally, creating a 3D game for a mobile device required the developer to write a full engine of his own. Microsoft’s XNA originally was intended for the XBOX, but was mobilized with Windows Phone 7. Can the PackT book stack up?

As usual for PackT, the book is organized in a “workshop-style” fashion. This means that the book should be read from A to Z, following the steps of the developer on your workstation.

The first chapter starts out with a look at the process of 3D rendering in XNA. Do not expect any mathematical explanations of the rendering process anywhere in the book – but do expect your spaceship model flying across the screen after Chapter 1.

After that, the author dedicates multiple chapters to shaders. He starts out with an introduction to HLSL, and goes on to show various shader applications ranging from coloring to shadows and terrain effects.

The chapters six and seven look at techniques like billboards and terrain generation. Reading these chapters will allow you to understand how a 3D game is implemented if you see it in action – definitely a worthwhile read. The final chapters of the book look at various effects like post processors, and at animation of models using the XNA framework.

Unfortunately, Windows Phone 7 is not mentioned in the book. As it supports but a subset of the full XNA standard, developers should expect some “porting effort” when trying to mobilize the algorithms shown here.

PackT produces its books in a JIT fashion. Thus, the picture quality is a bit less than what one can expect from offset printing – but the difference is in no way significant.

In the end, Rahul Sood’s book is ideally suited for developers who want to create a 3D game, and are not interested in the mathematical processes of 3D rendering. For them, this book and about 30 hours of time is all it takes for a decent-looking XNA game. The price of 40$ is ok…

MobileFun Dot Gloves for capacitive screens – review

Hardware Reviews No Responses »

Apr 022011

Capacitive screens have brought us all kinds of funny input tools for use in winter: in Korea, some users even resorted to sausages in order to keep in touch with their friends without freezing their hands. MobileFun now plans to help out with its Dot Gloves – can they stack up?

MobileFun’s products ship in well-padded envelopes from the UK. I haven’t had any issues with them so far, as the contents have always arrived safely so far:
MobileFun Dot Gloves for capacitive screens review

The gloves themselves ship in a small plastic bags. Mine were marked as Large – a size I almost never need with actual gloves:
MobileFun Dot Gloves for capacitive screens review

Nevertheless, the fit of the wool gloves was relatively tight:
MobileFun Dot Gloves for capacitive screens review

Finally, a look at the actual product. The gray tips on top of the three fingers are the active areas. You must use these to touch the screen – the black areas do not conduct:
MobileFun Dot Gloves for capacitive screens review

We performed tests on a variety of devices with a capacitive screen, and had no issue with any of them. The devices remain usable with your hands in the gloves – and this is all you need.

Given the price of 18 UK pounds, there is not much one can expect from the gloves. They will obviously not verse your leather gloves in terms of looks and workmanship, and they will probably also do a bad job at impressing possible mating partners. Nevertheless, they serve their purpose perfectly – if you are willing to trade wearing slightly weird-looking wool gloves for more work time (and have small hands), they are perfect.

Expect to see them on Austrian roads next year…

Samsung Omnia 7 review – physical

Hardware Reviews No Responses »

Mar 242011

Our loaner of the Omnia 7 was provided to us by Hutchison Austria. Big thanks to them!
With apologies for the somewhat large delay, it’s time to continue our review of the Samsung Omnia 7 by looking at its build quality.

Looking at the front of the device, one immediately sees the huge SuperAMOLED screen:

This being a Windows Phone 7, the three buttons are around. Two of them were realized as soft buttons, the home button feels very solid:

The back is made of a metal not dissimilar to the one used on the Wave and Wave II:

Taking off the rear cover reveals the battery:

A headphone jack and a MicroUSB port can be found at the top. Amusingly, the MicroUSB slot is under a little door:

A tray is at the bottom:

Looking at the sides, one sees the usual array of buttons. Their physical feel is excellent:

In the end, the Omnia 7 is excellently built, feels VERY solid and is a delight to use. This leaves us with one important issue: the screen. Tune in soon to find out more on that…

Learning ActionScript 3.0 – the review

Books No Responses »

Mar 192011

Before the PlayBook tablet by Research in Motion, ActionScript was a language mainly used by Flash designers for adding a bit of “brains” to their animations. Unfortunately, the BlackBerry tablet changed that – ActionScript now is interesting for classic programmers, too. Can O’Reilly’s classic satisfy the needs of this clientele?

The first chapters are best described as Programming for Dummies – not only do they show the syntax of AS, they also explain the concepts behind the idioms in painstaking detail. Seasoned IT vets will have issues not falling asleep here…

Part 2 focuses onh all things graphics: topics like pixel graphics, vector graphics and motion are explained in considerable detail. This treatise is very interesting, and contains many examples. However, it suffers from two weaknesses: first of all, it is focused on people programming games or graphic demos. The second and more significant weakness is the dependency on Flash CS – if you use Flash Builder, many of the examples can not be used.

Text, Sound and video get one chapter each. The same is valid for file IO and XML processing.

Our review is based on the second edition of the book. As usual for O’Reilly, it is well-written and contains loads of images. This time, the book is printed in color:

All in all, the book provides a great overview of the possibilities of ActionScript. Unfortunately, it is not perfectly suited for PlayBook developers – it does not explain the QNX controls or the Flash Builder IDE. However, developers who need to create a PlayBook app ASAP should invest the 32$ the book costs at Amazon’s – there is no better way to get up to speed with ActionScript quickly…

Samsung Omnia 7 review – size

Hardware Reviews No Responses »

Dec 242010

As so often, our sample was provided by Hutchison Austria. Big thanks to them for being our sample source and reliable Internet provider for the last three years!

In Austria, the governmental carrier A1 is the “headquarter of all things Windows Phone 7″ – their stores are full of HTC phones and XBox 360 packages. Nevertheless, our friends at Hutchison’s decided to provide us with a sample of their very own WP7 phone – the Omnia 7.

This review is made with a device which was ripped out of the hands of a product manager – so there will be no unboxing. Instead, let’s start out with a size comparison next to the Treo 680:

The device appears huge when put next to a few contemporary Windows Mobile machines:

The Samsung Wave can best be described as smaller brother of the Omnia 7:

The Android-powered Galaxy S is of similar size, but is built significantly worse:

Both the Nokia N96 and Nokia N97 mini have an edge over the Omnia 7 in terms of size:

The same can be said of the Symbian^3-powered Nokia C7 and Nokia N8:

Even the N900 is a bit smaller:

Finally, a few shots next to a first-gen iPod touch:

In the end, the Samsung Omnia 7 is a surprisingly large device. However, it feels less large than it is due to its sleekness – people who dislike large phones are advised to steer clear.

So much for that. Tune in soon to find out more about build quality – our review continues shortly.

App Savvy – the review

Books No Responses »

Nov 182010

Tons of books have been written on the topic of selling desktop apps – when it comes to mobile, the bookshelves remain mostly empty. O’Reilly’s latest work is focused on mobile apps in general and the App Store in specific – does it make sense?

Ken Yarmosh starts out by looking at the process for creating an app. For him, this starts out at processing the idea – and finding out whether pursuing it actually makes sense.

When the idea is workable, the next step involves design and UI. Even though the tools shown are focused on the iPhone, the lessons learned here are valid on all platforms.

The next chapter looks at managing the development process. If you do the development yourself, the value of that is limited – but one never knows when scaling up is due. The chapter after that looks at the publishing process in iTunes.

chapters eight and nine are very interesting. Chapter 8 looks at the marketing process, while Chapter 9 analyzes various ways to keep a product line alive after its initial launch.

Finally, one or two interviews with prominent iPhone developers are at the end of each chapter.

As usual for O’Reilly, the book is well written and is made up of decent quality paper. The only issue I had was the permanent cross-referencing to the marketing chapter at the end – it seriously disturbed reading flow for me.

In the end, a seasoned and experienced developer who is interested in PR will probably find little new in this book. Rookies, on the other hand, must buy this book irregardless of which platform they end up targeting. If you are inexperienced in handling the iTunes store, the book also is worth its price…

The Productive Programmer – book review

Books No Responses »

Sep 192010

Neither technology nor management books are new – we have reviewed loads of both types on the Tamoggemon Content Network over the years. O’Reilly’s “the productive programmer” wants to change the genre – can it stack up?

Neal Ford chose to subdivide the book into two parts. Part number one looks at various interesting tools which make your work easier. Think about things like virtual desktops, multiple clipboards and so on – even though the small things may not make too much of a difference at first glance, the long-term effects of a minute a day have been documented here in the past.

Part two looks at things which programmers can do to make their lives simpler. This is the part of the tome which I didn’t really like – very little of the information is applicable for C and C++ – most of it is for dynamic languages like Ruby, with an occasional comment about Java.

As usual for O’Reilly, the book is easy to read and has a decently high paper quality.

In the end, the book contains a lot of small yet interesting hints – but unfortunately does not leave me 100% satisfied. If you expected a huge performance increase, forget it – on the other hand, the current price of about 35$ is not that steep…

The magic BlackBerry – the review

Books No Responses »

Jul 032010

Whenever yours truly gets a book pitch on “social impacts of handheld computing”, experience has told me to just blacklist the publisher – in 99.9% of the cases, the content is written by an organization who wants to leech money off mobile users by talking them into believing some kind of nonsense and paying for a “cure”. However, Marshall Cavendish is a reputable printing house…which is why I gave their book the benefit of the doubt.

David Thompson is a well-known author for self-help books. The intention of this work is to make you communicate more effectively using mobile email.

He achieves this by telling the fictive story of an employee working at an airline. He gets a “magic BlackBerry”, which then makes him think about the way he has communicated with his peers and managers in the past.

Topics covered include things like relationship flexibility, when to call rather than reply and the ever-famous “waiting-before-replying”.

As already said above, the book is very easy to read. Its layout furthermore emphasizes key passages:

If you do a lot of mobile email, definitely slip this book into your next Amazon order. Even though it won’t tell you much new, the 10$ are a small price for overthinking your messaging habits…

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