Jakub Anderwald

I currently use HTC Touch Pro. It’s small, nice, easy to write on, functional. However, I bouyght it 1,5 years ago and since then there have been newer phones, bigger, faster, with more features.

I usually upgrade my phone every year or two, so I thought – it’s the time.

However, there is no good replacement for Touch Pro. There’s a thing called Touch Pro 2, but it’s just a minor refinement. Moreover, I had a look through HTC’s leaked plans for 2010, they don’t have anything with bigger screen and much better CPU and hardware keyboard. I would love to buy “HD2 Pro”, but it seems it’s not going to happen.

So I decided to do a software upgrade instead, to get the new features. However, it’s a pain in the back. If I don’t want to spend weeks tweaking and building my new mobile OS, I have to download one of the “custom built” ROMs, e.g. from XDA Developers. But they do have issues. They hang, they’re not as stable as the original OS, they miss some features, draw weird things on the screen etc.

How come Apple gives you the newest software, no matter if you have 3-year old iPhone or the new and shiny 3GS, and HTC / Microsoft don’t? Do they fear I won’t buy I new phone? Hell, I will buy, just make me a device with WVGA, Snapdragon CPU and hardware keyboad and I will gladly pay whatever ridiculous price you put on it.

If not, just let me upgrade my phone, don’t make me feel like I’m stuck with whatever I have because I bought it a year ago.

Almost like daily WTF

Microsoft has recently made their Live Mesh Beta availble to all countries. I couldn’t help myself, I had to test it.

It seems it’s a fancy and reliable feature. You can store up to 5 gig of files on a virtual file store with desktop-like interface. You can make those files sync between your computers (only on desktop right now, full sync is yet to come).

However, the best thing about Live Mesh is the ability to create a remote desktop session to any of your computers currently connected to the Internet. You don’t have to install any VNC / RDP server, you don’t need to have a public IP address or an open port. You just have to install the client software (available for 32/64 bit Windows XP and Vista or MacOS) and make sure the other computer is powered up – Mesh installs itself as a service so you don’t have to be logged on.

It seems to be secure – you have to login to your Live account, then to your computer with your local account there.

Also, you can transfer files from/to that remote host by simply copying and pasting them between two computers.

What’s even more – a Windows Mobile client is supposed to be released to the whole world soon.

OK, I know all of you heard this once or twice. Or even said that sometimes, maybe to cover up some bug, maybe because it was true. But I think there should be some border, after which you don’t say that maic phrase anymore. The “IT-guy” inside you (AKA conscience in the real world) should start screaming that this is not right. And that it went too far. But he didn’t, at least for the ones designing and supporting FireWire.

See – FireWire allows DMA from one device to another. Which of course can be used to do some bad things, like bypassing authentication or getting BIOS passwords. Which was reported to Microsoft 2 years ago (other OSes are affected too, but it’s always better seen to bash Microsoft than Open Source). Who, in turn, said the famous words “It’s a feature, it’s not a bug” and did nothing.

Well… when you can just unlock a working desktop without a password, I would say this is far behind the border. I would feel this in my guts. But the Microsoft guys must be thick-skined.