Most Mac users are familiar with MarkSpace‘s Missing Sync for mobile devices, namely Windows Mobile ones, for getting information to and fro their Mac to their device. Only thing is, what Microsoft gives for free with ActiveSync for PC users, MarkSpace charges $39.99 for. It’s not to say the price is not worth it, it’s just a steep price for syncing your data is all.

Until just recently, MarkSpace was your only solution if you lived in an unequally yoked world. But now there’s SyncMate for Mac by Eltima Software. Like Missing Sync, it will install applications to your mobile phone, synchronize Favorites, Contacts, Calendar and Notes from Address Book, iCal and even Stickies. You can track SMS messages and “Get Info” on the device itself. All from the Mac. All for free. Yes, free.

SyncMate for Mac works with Windows Mobile 5 or 6 (Standard, Classic, and Professional) on OS X 10.4 or higher. And yes, it really is free!

[Via downloadsquad]

I was going to hold off on any details about my thoughts on the iPhone until I used it for a few more days, but Shane has gone out and told everyone that I did a review, so now I’m forced to give something.

Regular readers of SvenOnTech will know that at first, I was very let down by the lack of features such as 3G data network support, no Exchange Direct Push, and no true third-party developer support. As time drew closer to the release of the phone, I started to warm to the iPhone. Finally, the 29th of June came and I wanted one. I lined up at a Manteca AT&T store (still with its Cingular sign out front) and three hours later, I had one. I was stoked!

First, let me tell you what led me to change my mind on getting one. I have been a Windows Mobile user all the way back to Windows CE. Yes, when it was black-and-white and actually had a Start menu on it. I’ve seen it grow and I’ve seen it fail. Over and over again, fail. The stability of the pocket operating system has never been one to feel secure with. I guess that’s why a back up application was the first thing I installed with each device I purchased. But the nagging thing was the applications I use daily on the Pocket PC that I needed to have were absent in every way from the iPhone. I looked to get HTC’s latest device from AT&T and I was close to purchasing it. VERY close. But my current HTC device, the XV 6700 kept dying on me. I finally got so fed up with it, I realized an unreliable device with a ton of features was not better than one with less features that was very reliable. So I held out for the iPhone.

How do I know the iPhone is more reliable? I don’t. But based on historical evidence of Apple hardware, I’m fairly confident the iPhone in it’s premiere form is far more superior than Microsoft’s decade of trial. I have a Rev. A MacBook Pro and have no issues with it. I have had talked to others with first run Apple hardware and have heard the same. Since the iPhone is based on OS X, I know that’s stable enough in its five year run. I have more confidence in Apple than I ever have had in Microsoft.

Another issue I should bring up is the fact of service. I left Verizon for AT&T. I LOVE Verizon. It has the best signal I have seen. I have been everywhere from Chico, California to Tucson, Arizona and everywhere in-between. I never had a dead phone. Ever. Too bad Verizon passed on the iPhone as it would have been the perfect combo.

Lining up for the iPhone was great. Like the days of lining up for the Smashing Pumpkins or Summer Jam while in college. This time, I brought my family (my wife showed up just in time to get in the store with us) and we waited nearly three hours to be luck 19. I got it. Boy, was I excited! Even the kids where into it! What an event. (See my Flikr album for some pix.)

Okay, the phone. How is it? Well in a nutshell, this skeptic is impressed. I figured the Exchange mail would be the most bitter pill to swallow but guess what I found in the Mail settings of the phone? An Exchange button! While it’s not pure Exchange but rather an insecure IMAP connection, it does the job. In fact, it does the job better than my XV6700 did! One of the ongoing problems I had with it was the constant disabling of Direct Push by itself for some reason. When it was working and grabbing mail as it came, the XV6700 wouldn’t notify me of new mail. The iPhone can be set to automatically retrieve mail every 15 minutes and when there’s something new in my Inbox, the familiar Mail.app new mail sound chimes along with a quick vibrate of the iPhone. I was so not use to this feature working that I kept pulling out my iPhone all through church thinking I had a phone call! Read the rest of this entry »

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the release of Adobe(R) Digital Editions 1.0, a new software application built from the ground up for acquiring, managing and reading eBooks, digital newspapers, and other digital publications. Available as a free download for Microsoft(R) Windows(R) and Macintosh systems, Adobe Digital Editions software transforms the digital reading experience and offers new creative possibilities for publishers.

Leading publishers, online retailers and channel partners have announced their support for Adobe Digital Editions today. By using a new export feature built into Adobe InDesign(R) CS3, publishers can easily create new Adobe Digital Editions-ready content, helping to significantly reduce cost and conversion time. In addition, with versions for mobile platforms and reading devices also planned, Sony has committed to embed Adobe Digital Editions technology into its portable reader product line.

“Adobe Digital Editions will revolutionize how publishers deliver eBooks and other digital content and how consumers experience it,” said Rob Tarkoff, senior vice president, Corporate Development at Adobe. “The combination of Adobe Digital Editions, InDesign CS3 and a new generation of hardware from innovators like Sony shows that digital publishing is front and center for content owners — and millions of readers who are looking forward to innovations in the delivery of their favorite works.”

“We’re excited to work with Adobe to pioneer new applications for eBooks and other digital documents,” said Ron Hawkins, vice president of portable reader systems marketing at Sony Electronics, Inc. “This collaboration will give us the opportunity to expand our offerings to a larger audience and new markets, allowing individual consumers, businesses, and other customers to take advantage of the portability and ease of use of Sony’s Reader products with a wider spectrum of content.”

With native support for Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) and XML-based publications, Adobe Digital Editions already works seamlessly with more than 150,000 commercially published titles. Using Adobe Digital Editions 1.0 readers will find that content automatically re-flows, adapting to different screen sizes and support for Adobe Flash(R) software promises to enhance digital publications through the integration of rich audio and video.

Features and Enhancements
The public beta of Adobe Digital Editions generated more than 300,000 downloads in less than six months and user feedback influenced the feature set. Adobe Digital Editions now enables users to annotate content through bookmarks, highlights and text notes. The library view offers advanced organization with multiple bookshelves. A slick new user interface enhances zooming and the overall reading experience, while support for the new IDPF Open Publication Standard (OPS) for XHTML-based re-flowable eBooks, guarantees a seamless viewing experience.

The Adobe Digital Editions 1.0 download is less than 3MB and leverages Adobe Flash Player technology to enable quick installation as part of the content download. The integration with Adobe Acrobat(R) 8 and Adobe Reader(R) 8 applications allows users to install and launch Adobe Digital Editions automatically within these industry standard products. Read the rest of this entry »

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. today announced the availability of ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7.1 for the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. ZoneAlarm Antivirus and the free ZoneAlarm firewall were also made available today for Vista.

Check Point is the first major security vendor to utilize the next generation Windows Filtering Platform application programming interface (API) for Microsoft Vista. This also marks the first time that ZoneAlarm’s exclusive Operating System Firewall protection has been made available for Microsoft Vista. By leveraging these and other leading technologies, ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite delivers superior levels of protection and reliability.

“By utilizing Vista’s new API and providing a deeper OS-layer firewall, ZoneAlarm can provide consumers with greater protection and stability on the Vista operating system,” said Charles Kolodgy, research director at IDC. “As hackers innovate, security vendors can not rely purely on old methods and old technologies — it’s good to see ZoneAlarm lead the way.”

With comprehensive multi-layer protection, including best-of-breed antivirus, anti-spyware, and the renowned ZoneAlarm firewall, ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7.1 safeguards PC users against today’s most complex online threats. Through its exclusive operating system firewall, ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite employs the deepest levels of integration with the Vista operating system to proactively prevent threats that basic, traditional firewalls and signature-based systems miss.

“Today’s complex and dynamic Internet threat environment commands security solutions that use the latest and most innovative technologies to stay one step ahead of the bad guys,” said Laura Yecies, vice president and general manager of Check Point’s ZoneAlarm consumer division. “By supporting Microsoft’s new Vista operating system with the latest technologies available, ZoneAlarm continues its longstanding tradition of offering users the highest levels of security without infringing on the user’s experience.”

Pricing and Availability
ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7.1 is available immediately in retail stores and online at http://www.zonealarm.com (single user list: $49.95, special promotion rate: $39.95; 3-user family pack: list $69.95, special promotion rate: $49.95). Existing customers can update to version 7.1 for free if their subscription is current, and will receive a notification within two weeks of availability. The basic ZoneAlarm firewall continues to be free for personal and non-profit use.

It did it again. Apple has released yet another software product that was only available on the Mac for Windows. Today at WWDC, the hardware developer conference for Apple products, Steve Jobs announced the beta of Safari 3.0 for Windows. Featuring movable tabs (a feature found in Firefox for over a year and in Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer 6.0), inline find (highlights found search words on the web page), resizable text fields, Snapback, and higher security, including a feature called private browsing, Apple hopes to do to Microsoft what it did to Netscape.

Experience the web, Apple style, with Safari: the fastest, easiest-to-use web browser in the world. With its simple, elegant interface, Safari gets out of your way and lets you enjoy the web — up to 2 times faster than Internet Explorer.

Having the most popular music manager for Windows, iTunes, Apple may irk Microsoft at least and maybe take a large of the browser pie at best from Internet Explorer. While I am a Firefox fan and really don’t find anything on Safari compelling enough for me to use on my Mac, maybe 3.0 will offer some incentive for some Windows users. Who knows.

Not to be left behind, HTC, a very popular PDA Smartphone maker for Windows Mobile (aka PocketPC) devices, has brought to the world its version of the iPhone. And it’s available today. In Europe. Like the iPhone to Europe, the States can expect the Touch at the end of the year.

The Touch uses many of the iPhone “flick” and “scroll” techniques Apple’s phone has but “pinch” couldn’t be found and HTC unfortunately didn’t think it prudent to put in its own SIP (Soft Input) large keys keyboard. So you’re stuck with…yup, using a stylus. Since the Touch is so small, that makes the stylus small and very difficult to use. HTC did do a worthy job on the camera, music player, and the phone dialer as well as the speed dialer. All quickly remind you of the iPhone in the way you navigate. Other than the main menu, though, the rest of Microsoft’s operating system lies beneth and navigating it can be difficult at time even with the “flick” and “scroll” of your finger.

In short, it looks like the Touch doesn’t quite have that iPhone touch. But, if you desire to be killed, my cat, let your curiosity head over to Phone Scoop for a full video presentation of the HTC Touch.

You know, it’s a bit of a laugh to remember Steve Jobs introducing iTunes for Windows with his smug banner of “the best thing ever made for Windows” line. Truth was, iTunes had it’s share of problems from the start and never really has lived up to that banner Jobs raised so high years ago. Now with the added capability of video playing, things have just become worse.

Ever since iTunes incorporated video playing, my speedy Windows XP Professional box, equipped with a Pentium 4 3.00 GHz CPU, accompanied with 4.0 GB of DDR RAM, and an ATI video card with 128 MB of video RAM, has struggled to play anything. If I play Windows Media files, DiVX movies, or Xvid stuff, no problem. My box doesn’t even bat an eye. But the minute I try using iTunes, or the heart of its movie playing, QuickTime, bring on the slug. Kinda like that slug in the old Apple add against the Pentium way back in the day. Irony. Select a video Podcast and that alone “freezes” up iTunes for a good ten seconds. Click the play button and, well, get a coffee. Once the video starts rolling, you’ll be lucky to get fluid frames. Breaking it out into it’s own window does help immensely, I’ve noticed, though. Still, though, it’s just not worth even watching in the end.

I don’t quite get the problem. Maybe it’s a Microsoft thing like with Java and Redmond is doing something to prevent good video playing for QuickTime. Maybe it’s an Apple thing and it just can’t code a good video player for Windows. I don’t know. I do know my Macs have no problem with the same files on either a PPC or Intel-based Mac. Why can’t we spread the same love to the Windows box?

I’m sure I’m missing something and there is a tweak to fix this annoying issue, but fact is fact, out of the box, iTunes sucks when it comes to playing videos on Windows and it’s something that needs to be fixed if Apple doesn’t want to ignore a market share tens of times larger than its own operating system market.

Some new switchers may be a bit upset when they discover that all their star ratings and play counts will be completely missing when they migrate their iTunes library from their PC to their new Mac (*if their library exceeds the size of their iPods density.) Certainly, not all those waking from the Dark Side will have this issue; however, the few that do will not be happy when they install iTunes 7.1.1 (5). Why? Because the great trick of corrupting your iTunes Library.itl and changing the path information in your iTunes Music Library.xml file no longer works for easy migration. After attempting this trick myself and it failing, I spent the last three nights looking for a fix or even an ITL editor. I found neither. I then called AppleCare and stumped Ben. I pleaded with him to find someone that knew if there was an ITL editor “or something,” and he put me on hold. He came back five minutes later after speaking to someone “that works on this stuff” and told me that all my tricks I had attempted where the only ones this high-up guy could suggest. He acknowledged that my 140 GB Library would not transfer via the official Apple way. Ugh.

Apple really needs to stop breaking things. The “trick” was a wonderful way of moving libraries around, but for some reason, Apple thought it wise to stop that from happening. Now I’m seriously considering keeping my stupid PC around just for maintaining my iTunes library until a fix for the transfer comes around. I mean, is that lame or what? But what’s an anal guy to do who likes those stars? I’m sure there’s some copyright issue Apple is trying to avoid here and it probably figures using the iPod as a transfer device keeps them legal, but come on, at least let us use an external hard drive if you won’t let us simply say “Hey, I no longer use this path but now use this path for my music files”. Makes no sense why I can’t just change my path, but I guess there’s some deeper reason for that (or just a lame one.)

Now, if you let iTunes organize your library and keep it order, moving the iTunes folder from one OS to another may work though I have not confirmed this. Ben at AppleCare told me that OSX can understand Windows paths for conversion and it should work; however, I think he meant local paths (if that) as it did not understand my network path when I attempted this. If the music was local to the drive, again, maybe it would work but I haven’t found any other forum or blog posts to indicate this.

So, now why doesn’t Apple support network storage of music? Nearly every one that I know stores all of their music files on a network drive. I have mine on a NAS RAID5 set-up. It just makes more sense to put all of your valuable assets on such a set-up and I can’t understand why Apple won’t code into iTunes the ability to import and make changes to the settings file (ITL). Then to go one more step and break the ITL corruption trick is even worse!

I really hope there is a way around this problem because I’m dying to get my iTunes on my soon-to-be purchased Mac Pro. I want to keep all my music on the NAS for back-up purposes (I also use Amazon S3 for off-site protection.) Maybe one of you know of a fix? Tell us about it then in the comments.

Remember all the Mac users giving Windows users flack over Vista’s delay last summer? How everyone said Microsoft promised this and promised that and it once again was slipping? Well, where are all these same people now that Apple quietly announced that it would be slipping it’s next OS X release, Leopard, until October? Not a peep! In fact, some are sticking up for Apple! Please.

Two weeks ago on April 12th, Apple announced to the world that the iPhone had but a slight burden on the Cupertino-based computer company and that it had to “borrow” some engineers from the OS department. The statement read:

iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS® X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard’s features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us.

If you haven’t taken a drive through Infinite Loop in Cupertino lately, you may have missed the ten huge buildings on Apple’s campus. Now, last I remembered, when I read Andy’s great book, Steve Jobs had little problem churning out the Apple II updates while creating a new department for the Mac back when it was still a dinky company. By Hertzfeld’s accounts, their working space was small and isolated from the rest of corporation.

So why now does Apple with all its millions of dollars for R&D and its claimed work of four years on the iPhone have to steal engineers from one of those ten large buildings? Well, because it doesn’t have to. It’s called the “we never were going to release Leopard in June and now we have a great excuse as to why.” Using the very same tactic Bill Gates and his borgs used in Redmond, Apple now is making statements of delay without remorse. Heck, Apple had even told Michael Gartenberg, analyst for Jupiter Research, a week before its statement of delay that everything was right on schedule. Errg.

After hyping up Leopard and telling Redmond to start its photocopiers, it appears upper-Washington can cool down the toner in those machines and maybe even get its first Service Pack release for Vista out before Leopard makes its prowl onto Macs. Microsoft may have more time than it — we — think.

You know, I don’t have problems with delays and such, things happen, I know that from my day job. But a company of Apple’s caliber doesn’t slip six months due to the development of a phone. Yes, I remember Steve saying the iPhone runs OS X; however, Vista wasn’t delayed due to the release of Window Mobile 5, the CE (Compact Edition) of Windows, was it? Microsoft may in fact be kicking itself now not realizing it could have used that excuse, too. No my compliant is that this is a blatant lie. Curious in light of Steve Woz’s comments in his book iWoz and how his dad instilled that lying was the worst thing you could do. I guess that attribute didn’t rub off on his friend and co-founder of Apple, Jobs, huh?

I’m sorry, after churning out updates in such a quick fashion since the release of 10.0, I just don’t buy the iPhone bit. With the limited amount of features of Leopard we do know about (as I wrote about last year,) this OS should have been in beta when the iPhone was sprung on us in January. Again, at Keynote, Jobs told the world that they had been working on this phone for years. How Tiger ever make it out the door, I’ll never know.

I hope, first, Mac supporters aren’t so quick to point the finger at Microsoft for its delays next time. Ya, ya, ya, I understand that this Leopard first slip; however, it’s the principal of the matter, not the quantity of slip. Second, Jobs should sit down with his old high school buddy and have Woz personally tell him the story about his dad and ethics. Jobs needs a little refresh. Third, Leopard better be amazing or, well, there may be a few pissed off people in the Apple boot camp.