A number of forum users are strong advocates of the particular OS that they use while others claim to be 'device agnostic'. Today's question, then is Are you wedded to your OS or do you regularly chop and change device OS?

I used to be fairly Palm dependant but use WM almost exclusively now. I'd still say I'm OS independant but I am VERY application dependant so I'll only use an OS that supports the type of apps I need.

A Question of the Day last week asked whether your phone is "a good phone". Unhappily, this coincided with my realisation that despite my best intentions and my desire to love all of my Toshiba G900, it just can't be described as a "good phone". I've only ever had the one smartphone so maybe I simply picked a bad device, but from reading Shaun's multiple hardware reviews over the last couple of years I'm not too sure.

The call quality of the G900 is one of its known problems and has been discussed to death in a number of other places on the web. I know about the problems of hearing a caller while walking along a busy road and the odd system crash or unexpected button behaviour when receiving a call (mostly fixed now). I just never used to worry about them.

Recently, however, this has become an issue because I've been using the phone a lot more. I even bought a contract type 'free minutes' plan last month and at that point my phone ceased to be an 'emergencies only' communication device and became my main voice interface with the rest of the world. Since then things I could live with on an 'occasional use' basis have become much more annoying. It reached the point at the weekend where I was even considering using my Motorola F3 as my main phone in place of the G900 and carrying both with me. In the end, though, I couldn't bear to live with the F3 SMS display interface for more than a day at a time.

My problems are largely volume related, both in-call and with the ringer. Personally, I believe that these stem more from the marriage of PDA and phone than the design of any specific device. For instance, by choice I would have my phone volume much higher then I would ever set my PDA volume but with a converged device this isn't possible (e.g. phone and PDA notifications are both managed with a single control with only the ringer separate)

More important is the fact that outside, I simply can't hear the thing ringing and even with it's vibration mode enabled can't feel it moving in my pocket. Inside it's better but it still isn't great...but then I do turn it down. Hmmm. Maybe I shouldn't! Aside from that, I think the problem lies with pumping a phone function through what is essentially a PDA speaker. Do WM Smartphone edition devices have this problem? (By that arguement, the in call volume is simply inexcusable since this is a phone function pure and simple.)

Of course I've just made this all worse by putting the phone in a case that I'm reviewing. While offering device protection, it doesn't do a lot for device audability where the G900 is concerned. Maybe I'll remove it and try with 'the phone on its own' again.

So is this just a Toshiba G900 problem or is it common to all Windows Mobile Smartphones? Does it affect PalmOS phones too? Answers in the comments thread please.

From iambic- "We are happy to announce the availability of our third title for BlackBerry phones: EzQuote.

EzQuote is a complete and straightforward solution allowing anyone on the go to track their favorite stock quotes. It offers an organized interface where to easily add / edit and remove stocks as well as get a quick overview of their current market prices. In-depth information is provided for each stock upon selection through its "details" screen. Compatible with any recent BlackBerry phone, including Pearl, Curve, and 8800."

Symbian and Windows Mobile users can now take advantage of two useful plug-ins from Google- "A few weeks ago, we launched a plug-in for Symbian devices that put a Google search shortcut onto the phone's home screen. This shortcut reduces the time it takes for you to get answers from Google by eliminating the initial search steps (e.g. finding the browser application, opening it, and navigating to Google.com before entering your query). The same plug-in has been available for BlackBerry devices since last December. Today, we're making this available for Windows Mobile devices too.

If you're a Windows Mobile user, browse to mobile.google.com on your device to download the plug-in and start searching faster than ever. Once you do, we think you'll find it so much faster and easier that you'll start conducting more mobile web searches than you ever had before. How do we know this? Well, when we look at the combined usage numbers for BlackBerry and Symbian versions of this plug-in, we see that users are able to get Google search results up to 40 percent faster. And, BlackBerry and Symbian users with the plug-in installed search 20 percent more than those without it.

PDair has released a new Leather case for the Apple MacBook 13"-

Special Offering : "EXPRESS DELIVERY SERVICE for MacBook Leather Case "

Crocodile Pattern.
Contains 4 business card slot.
Opens and closes with magnetic,for ease of use.
Black stitch finishing,making this case look more beautiful.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nokia (NOK1V.HE) said on Thursday that growth in the European mobile phone market fell to 3 percent in 2007 compared with a growth rate of 16 percent the year before.
 
The estimates from the world's biggest mobile phone maker, in a document filed with U.S. regulators, came a day after smaller rival Sony Ericsson cited slowing growth in Europe as it issued a warning that its current quarter profit could fall by half.

Sony Ericsson is a venture of Sony Corp (6758.T) and Ericsson (ERICb.ST).

Nokia also said that growth had slowed in the Middle East and Africa mobile phone market to 19 percent from 68 percent in 2006. Growth in North American unit sales fell to 6 percent in 2007 from 13 percent in 2006, Nokia said.

Phone sales in Latin America fell to 10 percent from 15 percent, according to Nokia's estimates.

The slowing growth in these regions was offset by a boost in sales expansion in China and in Asia-Pacific countries, according to Nokia. It said phone sales in emerging markets accounted for almost 60 percent of industry sales volume in 2007 compared with a 55 percent share of sales in 2006. More at Yahoo.

Today's free eBook is Tonino and the Captive Girl by Jennifer Pelland- "In the choreographed chaos of space, she searches for patterns that do not fit. She listens to the hiss and murmur of the interstellar winds; she peers into the visible spectrum and beyond. Whistling particles stream by, and her mind sizes them up, then discards them as harmless background radiation. Just flotsam on the solar winds. Wait, that light— No, it's just a weather satellite catching a glint of sun. Too close, anyway. She does not let anything approach the planet without scrutiny.

Motion.

She zooms in, listening hard.

"A-s-t-e-r-o-i-d," she types out. "Possible collision course."

There is a scroll across the very bottom of her vast vision. "We see it. Calculating now."

She looks away. The team is on it. This asteroid could simply be a distraction, and she does not want to be caught unawares. There will be no repeat of last time. Not on her watch.

"It's a miss," the scroll says. "Shift's over. Come on back."

And her mind contracts, sinking down, down, plummeting back to the surface of the planet, past the colony domes, into the bunkers, deep underground.

Alice gasps through her chest tube as she crashes back into her body.

Mittened hands grope at the metal mask welded to her face, and she's shocked to realize that they're hers. She sags forward onto her walker, resting the mask on the padded bar that rings her. She is too tired to call up any video, any audio, and surrenders her overextended senses to nothingness. She struggles to walk forward a few steps, but the seat/body interface chafes, and she works her mouth in a silent gasp behind the metal."