Become a Fan of Facebook Pages With a Text Message | GroupHelp.NET - Easy everything!

Become a Fan of Facebook Pages With a Text Message | GroupHelp.NET - Easy everything!

TECH ZONE: Mobile Marketing and Mobile Advertising At The Click of a Mouse

TECH ZONE: Mobile Marketing and Mobile Advertising At The Click of a Mouse

Use Your Windows Mobile Device for Forex Trading to Make Serious Money in a Tanking Economy

With economic doom and gloom surrounding us and the world’s economy going down the drain, let me share with you a surefire method of making serious money using your Windows Mobile device. Forex trading or the foreign exchange money market will make you money whether it goes up or down.

I have been playing around with it now for a couple of months. At first there can be a steep learning curve with some costly lessons if you make mistakes through manual placing of orders. You have to know when to get in and when to get out. You can lose your shirt very quickly if you don’t know what you’re doing.

However, it doesn’t have to be like that. Let me share with you an amazing little secret that you will thank me for the rest of your life. It involves what are called Expert Advisors or EAs. These are automated trading programs that do all the trading for you. They are little robots that make money for you while you sleep. They recognize profit opportunities, place orders, whether long or short, place stops for safety, and exit almost always with a profit.

The good news is that you can use your little pocket pal to place and track orders. Mostly all you have to do is check up on your robot to see how your profits are doing.

Note that the markets are open 24 hours a day Monday through Friday so you can relax on the weekends and enjoy your profits for the week.

This past week I made $1837.40 on a $5000 account in five days of trading. On another $5000 account, I cleared $1560.11. Friday I opened another $5000 account and made $351.51 for the day before the markets closed in just 8 hours of trading. Projected over 5 days, that would be $1757.55 for the five day week. So, the total profit would be over $5000 for the week or $20,000 for the month on a $15,000 investment. You can do the math for a year. Not bad in a sagging economy.

Let me tell you what you need to get started. First you must find a Forex trading brokerage to work with so you can open an account. There are oodles of them available. Just Google Forex. Firms I have used include I-Trade Forex, Forex.com, and lotusbrokerage.com.

Next you will need to sign up for an account. I strongly recommend that you sign up for a demo account first. Trade for at least a month before you go live or wait until you are confident and know what you are doing.

Then you must download the trading software. There may be several choices depending on the broker you select, but you should select MetaTrader 4. In my opinion, it is the most sophisticated yet easiest to use. Besides, it is the only one that offers a Windows Mobile version so you can conduct this business on your PDA.

Download and install both the desktop and handheld versions.

Now comes the magic. I strongly recommend that you download Maestro. This is an expert advisor that will completely automate your trading. Just plug it in, let it run on autopilot, and watch your profits soar. It will cost you $167, which is the best investment you’ll ever make. There is similar software out there that costs much more but is not nearly as effective. This EA really works like magic.

Another hugely important consideration in my opinion is not only that the software works, it is all set up and optimized for you right out of the box. You do not have to tweak the settings, which can be a continual bother. Just follow the simple installation instructions, and you will be making money in no time. It’s truly amazing.

You have nothing to lose because there is a 60 day money back guarantee. If you are not satisfied, and I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t be, you can ask for a full refund no questions asked.

To get your copy, go to Maestro where you can pay, download, and be in business in a matter of minutes.

You can forget about the wimpy stock market, tanking real estate, and every other pathetic form of investment. If you’ve been wondering where to put your money that will give you a decent return and recover your losses, the Forex market with Maestro is the place. And what’s really great, is that you can do it with your little pocket pal from anywhere in the world. It doesn’t cost a fortune to get involved either. Start with a little as $300 and watch it grow to $3000 before your eyes, in your hand, on your Windows Mobile cachinger.

Don’t Buy FAPTurbo Forex Trading System: Giant Rip Off! Total Scam!

This is a warning. Be aware of a Forex Trading system called FAPTurbo that is being hyped all over the Internet, which is supposed to double your money every month. It doesn’t! I could never even get it to work. After tweaking and tweaking, I got a couple of trades out of it, never made a profit, and then it just quit working altogether. I religiously followed the instructions and set all the parameters perfectly as recommended in the manual.

In the sales hype, they tout the excellent customer support. Well, let me tell you, it’s non-existent. They do not respond, leave you high and dry, and keep your money.

There is supposed to be a 60 day guarantee no questions asked money back refund. Well fergetabout it. No one answers the phone. The voice mailbox on the answering machine is always full. No one ever returns calls. No one ever responds to email.

I have been trying to get a refund for weeks without any success. In desperation, I spent the money to send a registered refund demand letter to the New York City address listed in the Website. The post office returned my letter as undeliverable. Someone wrote on the envelope “The person and company have never been at this location.”

All I can conclude is that the entire operation is a flim flam Internet scam. Do not invest in this software. It did not work for me, and I doubt if it will work for you. There is no customer support. They do not honor their guarantees, and they do not exist at the address listed on the Website. Do not get involved as an affiliate either, for you will only be perpetuating the scam and will probably never see any compensation for your efforts.

Spread the word: FAPTurbo is a scam and a rip off. Steve, Mike, and Ulrich the supposed geniuses behind this fraud should all be in prison. Maybe the law will catch up with them, and you can help.

E-mail marketing + more: The ASPCA uses SMS text message marketing to increase donations

E-mail marketing + more: The ASPCA uses SMS text message marketing to increase donations

Find Friends Fast in MySpace with FriendBlasterPro

If you are into social networking for its powerful marketing potential, then the more friends you have, the greater your market reach. The trick is to attract a circle of followers who are kindred spirits who share interests similar to yours. Finding friends one by one could take a considerable amount of time before you have a decent group.

Enter FriendBlasterPro a brilliant friend-finding application to save the day. This program more or less automates the process and takes all the headaches out of it for you.

Here’s how it works. After installing, run the program, and log into your MySpace account from within FriendBlasterPro. Locate groups, forums, and classified ads that are related to your area of interest. Alternatively, conduct a search on the topic you wish. When the results page appears, click on the Gather ID’s [sic]. You can then instruct the program to collect just from the current page or all pages. Normally, you would want to harvest all the pages. By the way, you can gather friends from a Google search as well.

 

Depending on the size of the group, this operation could take a few minutes. The result will be a list of names displayed in the center panel of the FBP screen. You should save these data to a file for future reference. These files can be 10, 20, 30 thousand depending on the size of the interest group.

Next you will want to start requesting friends from this list of potentials you have just generated. Click on the Friend Requester tab. There are a couple of settings you will want to adjust. First is the Friends per day box. I recommend that you set it for 200 per day. Any more than this and you will risk having your account suspended by MySpace because they tend to frown on wholesale friend prospecting on a mass basis. This conservative setting will keep you well under the radar.

The second setting is important too, and that is the time delay. I recommend that you set it for 12 seconds so that it doesn’t appear as if you are blasting away like a machine gun. This will keep you under the radar as well.

There are many other powerful features in FriendBlasterPro. You can send out bulletins at a set time to a list. You can invite a list of friends to an event. You can accept friends automatically. You can send out comments and messages to a list. You can even filter your list for people, bands, comedy, film, gender, age range, last login, and location or multiple locations. The filters can be turned on or off for gathering or for sending. Are you beginning to see the power of this program? Just imagine what you can do with this amazing tool.

While this application is designed to be an autobot running happily along on its own steam, MySpace has thrown up some road blocks. Every once in a while the routine will halt and wait for you to input a Captcha code just to make sure you are a human and not a bot. There is no set number of records before this appears; you just have to live with it. If it weren’t for this minor annoyance, it would be a close to perfect program for putting your home business on autopilot.

I only wish that the developers would create a FriendBlasterPro for all the other social networks out there. We are fortunate to have it for MySpace at least, and you should be taking advantage of it to improve your marketing outreach.

Here’s the deal: You can download it and try it free for a limited time. You can purchase it for one MySpace account for $29.95. Unlimited MySpace accounts usage is $59.95. Upgrades from one to unlimited accounts is $30.00. To get your copy go to <a href="http://tinyurl.com/b9fzol. ">FriendBlasterPro</a>.

How to forward text messages to your email inbox

When I was asked to review TxtForward, I had to stop and think about why I would want my text messages forwarded to my email inbox. Isn’t text messaging handy enough without cluttering up an already overburdened email inbox?

TxtForward is an application that will automatically forward your text messages to any email address you specify. You can determine if you want inbound, outbound or both forwarded.

Scratching my head, I began to ponder the possible benefits of forwarded text messages to an email address. The more I thought about it, the more benefits I conceived. Let me share with you the results and invite your comments if you see other uses.

First and foremost, I think the major benefit would be as a backup record to important texting exchanges as in the case of a legal transaction for business arrangements or travel plans. There is a log of text messages created in the Windows folder, but it can only be read in the client that created it. Having an email backup is more useful and makes more sense.

I’m playing around with the idea of creating a novel or a play based almost entirely on text message exchanges. I think it would be a hoot. Can you imagine a play that would have two people texting back and forth never saying an audible word to one another? The scenes would change from home to office to car to restaurant and so forth throughout the day, but texting would be the only interaction. The audience would be treated to two huge screens each representing the actors’ cell phones.

The problem my collaborator and I discovered was that some of the messages had been inadvertently erased. Some of the dates were screwed up and out of sequence when the machine was reset unwittingly and the date not adjusted. An email backup would have saved the day.

Besides backup, this utility could have a whole range of stealth applications. For instance, what about cheating spouses? The program could be surreptitiously installed in the unsuspecting suspected spouse’s phone and programmed to route an email to your lawyer, private eye, or perhaps to the other guilty party’s email. It’s also a way to make sure your kids are where they are supposed to be and with whom they’re supposed to be. When I was young, I used to go to the library a lot, or at least that’s what I told my parents. I wonder if kids still do that. Parents would probably just tell them to look it up online.

I must say that when I’m sitting in front of my computer working, it’s nice to have my text messages streamed in with my email so that I don’t have to deal with my phone. I use a program called True Connect from raspberry software.com the places a tool bar on your Outlook ribbon that allows you to create and answer SMS messages. This brings up a wish list item for TxtForward, and that is to be able to reply to messages from an email client.

Another nice feature of TxtForward concerns those of us who have a whole stable of phones. As a writer/reviewer, I am always juggling several phones at any given moment. Some people have a private phone and a work phone. Wouldn’t it be nice if all your SMS messages could be directed to one depository, your email. Of course, with TxtForward this is no problem.

Another plus is that if you change phone numbers or get a new phone or SIM card, with TxtForward, your SMS records remain intact.

Now let’s look at security issues. Unfortunately, email clients that I’m familiar with do not allow the encryption of folders, files, and messages, so if your communications are sensitive, you are at risk. About the best you can do is password protect your whole email program, but this is a bother and isn’t really all that secure. Another suggestion is to create an obscure email account that you can password protect and use that for your messages with security issues.

I have another approach. First you will need to get a copy of Resco Explorer, which is an amazing program in itself basically for Windows Mobile devices. It’s actually a whole suite of useful utilities. But of interest here is the fact that it places an item on your desktop right click menu button for encryption of files and folders. With this application installed on your desktop, you can then create a page in Word and simply drag your text message email over to the Word page taking care to keep them in order. You can annotate them and organize them. After you have saved the page you can encrypt it and password protect it. How’s that for a creative solution?

By the way, you have the choice of forward messages from the developer’s server or directly from you phone. Note that some services such as Gmail will not show messages sent to yourself. In this case, you would want to use Electric Pocket’s server or send them to another email account. Electric Pocket swears that you can have complete confidence and that they do not log, monitor or record messages on their server.

In conclusion, it seems that the usefulness of this application is only limited by your imagination. It should have a premium edition capable of sending to multiple email addresses. It would be nice if Electric Pocket addressed the issue of security too. TxtForward would be even more useful if you could respond to messages directly from the email program.

Take it for a trail run or make it yours for a mere $7.95. It’s available from www.electricpocket.com.

If you can think of any more helpful uses of this application, please share.

Sprint and Palm Announce Upcoming Availability of Treo Pro on 3G Network

Sprint and Palm Announce Upcoming Availability of Treo Pro on America’s Most Dependable 3G Network

Elegant Windows Smartphone Supports Blazing-Fast 3G Data Speeds, First Palm Phone to Offer Internet Explorer Mobile 6

SUNNYVALE, Calif. and OVERLAND PARK, Kan., March 4, 2009 – Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) and Sprint (NYSE:S) today announced the upcoming availability of the Treo™ Pro smartphone for the Sprint Mobile Broadband Network on March 15.

Treo Pro will be available through all Sprint retail channels, including www.sprint.com/treopro, 1-800-SPRINT1 and Sprint retail stores, for $199.99 with a two-year subscriber agreement (after a $100 instant rebate and $100 mail-in rebate, with an Everything plan with data or a $30 per month or higher data add-on). It also will be available through the Palm Store (www.palm.com/store) and Palm’s B2B sales organization beginning March 16.

Treo Pro is a sleek, full-function smartphone offering users the ease of use and robust features they demand while providing the reliability and manageability IT departments require. With the EV-DO Rev. A speeds of Sprint’s Mobile Broadband Network, Wi-Fi, GPS and Windows Mobile 6.1 capabilities, Treo Pro helps busy professionals stay connected on the go so they can structure their lives around their priorities without sacrificing work productivity.(1)

“Business decision makers require a product that not only integrates seamlessly into their existing IT infrastructures, but one that’s also cost-effective,” said John Traynor, vice president, business products, Palm, Inc. “Treo Pro delivers just that – a feature set that IT managers need to support their mobile work force.”

Treo Pro is the first Palm phone available with Internet Explorer Mobile 6, with options for either a mobile-optimized or desktop-like Internet browsing experience on America’s most dependable 3G network.(2) It blends a high-resolution color touch screen and a full QWERTY keyboard with a removable battery that packs up to five hours of talk time and enough strength for the business user’s needs, offering a powerful yet effortless mobile experience. Palm’s Wi-Fi hardware and software innovations on Treo Pro make it easy to get online fast and manage network connections and power usage. The one-touch Wi-Fi button provides a clean, uncluttered Wi-Fi experience that gets Treo Pro users rapidly connected at home, in the office or in Wi-Fi hotspots.

“The combination of Sprint Mobile Broadband with EV-DO (Evolution - Data Optimized) Revision (Rev.) A technology and Windows Mobile 6.1 on a Palm smartphone creates a mobile solution that meets the needs of today’s mobile professionals,” said Kevin Packingham, senior vice president of product & technology development for Sprint. “For years, Sprint, Microsoft and Palm have worked together to provide businesses large and small with an affordable mobile experience that is second to none, and Treo Pro continues that collaborative tradition.”

Sprint EV-DO Rev. A, Exclusive Content and Services

In 2008, Sprint revolutionized unlimited pricing in the wireless industry by moving beyond its competitors to deliver more features for a flat monthly rate of $99.99. Sprint’s Simply Everything(SM) plan is ideal for smartphones that can extensively leverage wireless data applications and provides unlimited nationwide calling, messaging, email, Web browsing, GPS navigation and much more – all for the monthly rate of only $99.99.(3)

Treo Pro offers integrated GPS, enabling Sprint Navigation with turn-by-turn directions, maps and point-of-interest searches for locations such as restaurants or stores. Additional Sprint-exclusive content available on Treo Pro(4) includes:

• Sprint TV® – Allows Treo Pro users to watch TV or video-on-demand or catch the latest news, sports, weather, entertainment and movie trailers on the go.

• Sprint Music – Enables users to wirelessly download digital music tracks to Treo Pro and choose from hundreds of thousands of full-length songs from virtually every genre.

• Pocket Express – Retrieves customized, up-to-date Web content such as sports, weather, news, money and movie information with the push of a button.

Treo Pro users can easily stay in touch with family and friends using Sprint Messaging, offering threaded SMS, and the ability to share pictures and video with MMS seamlessly in one application. It also offers Sprint IM with access to Yahoo! Messenger, AOL’s AIM® service and MSN Messenger.

With an open network platform, Sprint is able to offer customers new business applications created through Sprint’s Professional Developer Program. A robust community of application developers that previously focused on desktop services is now finding it easier to generate services that can perform on both the desktop and mobile devices.

The Palm Experience on Windows Mobile 6.1

Treo Pro supports Microsoft Direct Push Technology(5) for up-to-date email, contacts and calendars. With the deployment of Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008, Treo Pro can deliver increased security, easier smartphone management, and access to information on the corporate network. IT professionals can confidently manage large Treo Pro deployments the same way they manage PCs.

With Internet Explorer Mobile 6, Treo Pro brings users a new, full-featured, high-quality browsing experience. Users can choose to browse in a mobile-optimized mode or in a desktop browser mode. Microsoft brings a mobile Web-browsing experience on par with what end users and developers have come to expect from their desktops – the ability to easily view Web pages and multimedia on the Web and best-in-class capability to complete transactions, from banking to checking in for a flight. Treo Pro helps optimize business processes by mobilizing users with several Palm specific enhancements to the Windows platform, including:

• One-touch Wi-Fi button -- Easy, fast Wi-Fi connection experience (802.11b/g).(1)

• Ringer switch – Silences the device immediately.

• Clock and date screen saver – Lets users know at a glance – without turning on the device – what date and time it is and whether they’ve missed a call or have a new SMS/MMS message.

• New voicemail indicator – The center button flashes to let users know that a voicemail is waiting.

• Dedicated email and calendar buttons – Fast one-button access.

Sprint also launched Ready Now, a revolution in the wireless retail experience, in all company-owned Sprint stores last fall. With Ready Now, Sprint has trained and committed its retail associates to work one-on-one with customers to personalize phones, set up features and demonstrate how phones work – before customers leave the store. Treo Pro customers can work with Sprint retail associates to learn more about how they can fully leverage the strengths of their device on Sprint’s Mobile Broadband Network.

Pricing and Availability

Treo Pro will be available March 15 through all Sprint retail channels, including www.sprint.com/treopro, 1-800-SPRINT1 and Sprint retail stores, for $199.99 with a two-year subscriber agreement (after a $100 instant rebate and $100 mail-in rebate, with an Everything plan with data or a $30 per month or higher data add-on). It will be available through the Palm Store (www.palm.com/store) and Palm’s B2B sales organization beginning March 16.

NOTE: Photos of the Treo Pro smartphone for the Sprint Mobile Broadband Network are available from Business Wire (http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=5909453) and Palm’s Multimedia Library (www.palm.com/mml).

About Sprint Nextel

Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two wireless networks serving more than 49 million customers at the end of the fourth quarter 2008; industry-leading mobile data services; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. For more information, visit www.sprint.com.

About Palm, Inc.

Palm, Inc. is a leading mobile products company, creating instinctive yet powerful mobile products that enable people to better manage their lives on the go. The company’s products for consumers, mobile professionals and businesses include Palm® Treo™, Pre™ and Centro™ phones, as well as software, services and accessories.

Palm products are sold through select Internet, retail, reseller and wireless operator channels throughout the world, and at Palm online stores (http://www.palm.com/store).

More information about Palm, Inc. is available at http://www.palm.com.

iPhone eBook Readers Still Stone Tablets

Zealot’s interesting iBook article published on the Mobility Site has compelled me to make a few observations about iPhone eBook readers. While I am pleased that eBooks are a growing and popular download item, I am disappointed with the iPhone platform. I have been a long-time champion of eBooks and have developed some strict requirements for a decent eBook reader. I am afraid that there simply is not a decent eBook reader for iPhone yet. Sadly, iPhone users do not even seem to know the difference. It appears that as long as you can turn the page with your nose-mining finger, that’s all that’s required. The Earth’s flat, and that’s that.

By all measures, Stanza is by far the best, preferred, and most downloaded eBook reader for iPhone and iPod. It receives good marks for being able to handle a wide variety of eBook platforms and even convert them for iPhone consumption. But, it apparently loses formatting in some cases. It has a nice interface for finger-friendly page turning, but it lacks an autoscroll feature for faster and lazier readers. It also earns points for its ability to change fonts, font sizes, font colors and page background colors. This all contributes positively to the eBook reading experience.

However, the eBook reading experience can be so much more powerful. What turned me on to eBooks and won me over instantly way back before the turn of the century was being able to tap on a word in any language and having the definition pop up on the screen. That was way cool and converted me to eBook reading and abandoning treebooks forever. Can’t do that on Stanza on an iPhone. What a pity. But then, maybe iPhone readers have such extensive vocabularies and are such polyglots that this feature is simply not necessary and is beneath their dignity.

Other features lacking in even the best iPhone reader as exemplified in Stanza include the ability to annotate text, index the annotations, and search them. Speaking of searching, apparently Stanza will only allow searching within chapters, not globally.

What about the ability to make drawings, sketches, and handwritten notes in your choice of colors on pages without destroying the book as you would with a treebook. Nope, not on an iBook.

What about highlighting text in your choice of color coding? No can do on an iPhone.

What if you want to copy and paste text from an eBook into another application for research purposes? Sorry, iPhone is anti-academic on this issue. Wouldn’t it be nice too if it automatically referenced the source? Actually, as I understand it, you can’t copy and paste anything on an iPhone, so it’s not surprising that this feature is lacking in eBooks as well.

Another problem is that there is a lack of up-to-date material on the iTunes site. You cannot download any New York Times best sellers for example. None of the popular authors are represented. Clearly, it must be a matter of digital rights issues that Apple has not yet resolved. Of course the same thing applies to audiobooks and the lack thereof for this platform.

It is sad that iPhone and iPod users cannot take advantage of the marvelous free eBook and audiobook download programs available at almost all public libraries these days because of DRM issues and incompatible formats.

Ebook reading remains a far superior experience on Windows Mobile devices. However, I am pleased that iPhone people are discovering eBooks. Perhaps when they learn the difference they will demand that developers bring readers up to speed. EBook reading and readers will benefit greatly, and that is what matters. Maybe, if the demand justifies it, there will even be some decent material available to read on iPhones that still has a copyright.

National Public Radio (NPR) goes mobile

I’ve had a love/annoyance relationship with NPR over the years. There’s lots to like about NPR, for it has some great content and unique programming along with being one of the few sources of classical music. I like Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor, and Car Talk with those zany brothers. I appreciate Fresh Air, All Things Considered, and the news.

On the other hand, NPR has some serious negative features in my opinion. On the weekends, it has that awful Celtic music, which is repetitive, boring, and banal. Who would choose to listen to that stuff? And yet it goes on and on, year after year. There must be some heavy-duty, deluded sponsor who keeps it going. Certainly there could be far better, more creative programming to fill that slot. For a supposedly commercial-free platform, I grow weary hearing about their sponsors incessantly, and solicitations for more sponsors.

An improvement I would suggest is broadcasting scrolling text for the music being played and the composer/artist. I certainly appreciate this feature when listening to satellite radio and many other AM/FM stations. News can be broadcast this way as well while multi-tasking with other programming. I suppose it could also be used for mentioning sponsors. Perhaps this will change when stations begin HD broadcasting. But then how many people will have radios capable of receiving HD signals?

Another problem with NPR is that it seems every time I turn it on there is a fundraiser going on and on and on. While it bugs me, I usually fork over a donation every year because I want to support what I do like. However, it is usually a major inconvenience to make a contribution. I would be much more inclined to do so and more regularly if it were possible to do on my mobile phone or with PayPal instead of having to write a check, find a stamp/envelope, go to post office—fergetaboutit. Dropping everything to call on the phone and digging out a credit card isn’t much better. Get with it NPR—go mobile.

Actually, NPR has gone mobile with a truncated version of its full Website. You can access it at www.mobile.npr.org. You’d think they would have used www.npr.mobi instead. There is a decent array of offerings there including “Local” News, Most Popular Stories, Story of the Day, Music, Politics, Business, Health and Science, Movies, Books, Interviews, Commentary, Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me! Quiz. Opening each of these headings brings up mostly text stories, but if the word “call” is next to a story, you can get a recording.

There are some 35 “local” stations representing only the larger markets. If you want to listen to one of these stations, you can place a “call” to connect. This could cost serious money if don’t have the right data plan. Hasn’t NPR ever heard of Wi-Fi? You can search for a station in your area by zip code or city name, but chances are it will not be online if it’s in a smaller market. There is also an opportunity to donate to your “local” station. But, again, it’s only the large market stations. The joke is that they give you a phone number to call. NPR just doesn’t get it and is losing out on the power of mobile phones as a tool for charitable contributions.

I think they need to retool their entire money-raising machine. It’s outmoded and annoying. I recently sent our regional NPR fundraising representative a proposal for an innovative approach to fundraising that would have generated a sustainable residual income. She didn’t even have the courtesy to respond. It’s a good thing she doesn’t work for me; she would be looking for another job without a recommendation.

What amuses me is that the mobile version does not even mention RSS feeds, Podcasts, links for iPhone/Blackberry, text only site, API archives, Newsletters, MobiRadio, or Mspot. What about Windows Mobile?

NPR seems to be totally unencumbered with any knowledge of the interactive possibilities of mobile technology. There isn’t even an opinion section on the mobile version, nor are there any blogs. NPR needs to hire someone knowledgeable in Web 2.0. NPR is missing so many opportunities. It should have a presence on all the social networks. It should be Twittering away with timely Tweets. It should be texting and allowing its sponsors to have contests, sales, promotions, conducting surveys, texting coupons, sending out optimized mobile sites, and MMS messages as well. What an incredible waste not to be building an opt-in subscriber base for fundraising and communication purposes. Shame on NPR. Does NPR stand for Neo-Paleolithic Radio?

I suppose congratulations should be extended to NPR for offering a mobile version, but it is so lacking in mobile technology features that it is pathetic. One does wonder in what century the mobile site was built. While it is certainly a start in the right direction, there is much room for improvement, which I hope will be forthcoming before the next ice age. Meanwhile I shall restrict my NPR experience to listening via satellite radio over Wi-Fi.

ASUS Raises the Bar for Mobile Web Surfing and Multimedia Enjoyment with P835 WVGA PDA Phone

Taipei, Taiwan, February 27, 2009 – ASUS, a leading producer of innovative handhelds, today launched the P835, a PDA phone that delivers an Internet browsing and multimedia viewing experience without equal. Designed for business-savvy professionals who appreciate a screen as big as their ambitions, the P835 is equipped with a large 3.5” touchscreen that runs at WVGA resolution—offering five times the number of pixels of most phones and delivering the best document, photo, movie and website viewing experience possible. Apart from being able to display more of a webpage onscreen, the P835 boasts features that greatly enrich users’ online experience, including blazing fast HSUPA 7.2Mbps download speeds, a responsive trackball that makes scrolling effortless and Opera Mobile, a user-friendly and full-featured Web browser. It wraps all of its impressive functionality in an elegant touch-optimized interface which is intuitive, interactive and attractive.

Unparalleled Internet Browsing Experience
The ASUS P835 is designed to help users get the most out of the Internet. It is embedded with Opera Mobile, a fast, user-friendly and rich-featured browser that brings a complete Web experience to the P835. Users will be able to perform the full breadth of online tasks—from hopping onto their social networking sites and updating their blogs, to checking email and viewing streaming video. The P835 also enables users to switch between 12-key, half-Qwerty and full-Qwerty virtual keyboard modes, allowing them to choose an input method that best suits their current task. A responsive tracking ball significantly improves scrolling, and the phone’s large 3.5” display ensures every webpage is displayed crisply and vividly.

Crystal Clear 3.5” WVGA Touchscreen
The P835 is equipped with a large 3.5” touchscreen that runs at WVGA (800 x 480 pixels) resolution—offering five times the number of pixels of most phones—thus rendering the P835 capable of delivering unprecedented clarity and screen real estate. Regardless of whether it is used for watching movies in full screen, browsing through photos, perusing documents or surfing the Internet, the P835 will provide visual enjoyment on the mobile platform like never before.

New Glide: The Best Mobile Interface, Now Even Better
The P835 features an updated, streamlined and enhanced iteration of ASUS’ exclusive Glide—the most innovative, intuitive and interactive mobile user interface available today. New Glide has been given a significant facelift over its predecessor, boasting new icons that take the beauty and interactivity of the interface up a notch—making the best even better. Subtle, bold, modern, swanky or sweet—the P835 has a theme that will appeal to everyone.

Doubles as a Wi-Fi Access Point
The P835 has the additional ability to function as a Wi-Fi Access Point. It can share its high-speed HSPA cellular data or Internet connection over Wi-Fi with up to 10 devices, such as laptops or other PDA phones. Connecting devices is a simple affair thanks to the P835’s user-friendly interface, and dropped connections are automatically restored.

Specifications

Networks
HSPA (DL: 7.2Mbps, UL: 2Mbps), UMTS 900/1900/2100
EDGE/GPRS/GSM 850/900/1800/1900, Class 12

Operating System
Microsoft Windows® Mobile 6.1™ Professional

Color
Black

Form factor
Bar type

Dimensions
115mm x 59mm x 13.8mm

Weight
148g (with battery)

Standby Time
350hrs with 3G and 300hrs with 2G*

Talk Time
6hrs with 3G and 7hrs with 2G*

Display
3.5” TFT, 65K-color Touchscreen, WVGA (800 x 480 pixels)

Processor
Qualcomm 7201A 528MHz

Memory
4GB Internal Storage + 288MB SDRAM + 256MB ROM

Expansion Slot
MicroSD with SDHC support

Connectivity
WLAN 802.11b+g , USB v2.0, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR

WAP Browser
HTTP / WAP 1.2.1/2.0

Messaging
SMS / MMS / Email / MSN / Push Email

Battery
1100mAh Lithium

GPS
Yes (AGPS supported)

Business Applications

PIM
Word (editor), Excel (editor), PowerPoint (viewer), Adobe Reader, Windows® Live, MSN, Voice Commander** and Push Email (Exchange Server).

Other Features
Opera browser, Wi-Fi Access Point, YouTube, Flickr, ASUS Virtual Keyboard, Anytime Launcher, ASUS Today, EziMusic, EziPhoto, Google search and RSS Reader.

Multimedia and Entertainment

Camera
5 Megapixel Auto Focus

Video
Record: MPEG4/H.263
Playback: MPEG4/H.264/H.263/WMV
Video Call, Audio/Video Streaming

Picture Format
JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP

Audio Format
MP3, WMA, WAV, AMR, AAC and AAC+

Ringtone
Polyphonic (MIDI, 128CH), MP3, WMA and WAV

JAVA
J2ME (CLDC 1.1 + MIDP2.0)

* Talk and standby time are dependent on the network environment and on phone usage.
** Subject to region availability.
Specifications are subject to change without prior notice. Please visit www.asus.com for more details.

Back

ASUS is a leading company in the new digital era. With a global staff of more than ten thousand and a world-class R&D design team, the company’s revenue for 2008 was 8.1 billion U.S. dollars. ASUS ranks among the top 10 IT companies in BusinessWeek’s “InfoTech 100”, and has been on the listing for 11 consecutive years.