Archive for August, 2008

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Shadow programming for a public service announcement. =D

Over the last few months, we’ve had some software piracy issues to deal with in our forums, meaning – people were posting about ways to get software for free that usually costs money.

AllShadow.com doesn’t support or condone piracy for the following reasons:

1. There’s already a plethora of free applications out there, many of which we post about
2. The “premium” software that does cost money costs about $10-20 – that’s like the cost of two lunches
3. Piracy can lead to legal action against AllShadow.com (it’s true, and we’ve already been threatened)
4. Pirating software discourages innovation by forcing developers to go out of business
5. One of the ways that you can support this site is to use our fantastic software store

The moderators have been given the power to ban anyone who participates in software pirating.

Many thanks to everyone for their understanding about this; it’s a really important issue. And back to our regularly scheduled programming!

One more thing: We do not consider modifying/posting ROMs to be software piracy. And by ROM, we’re referring to the batch of files which make up an operating system (like the Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM, for example.)

While Vista SideShow is mostly ignored and underdeveloped it can still be useful and slightly entertaining. We’ve mentioned controlling your PC before with Salling Clicker and Ikanos’ Go Gadgets (it can even be done with Remote Desktop). We even gave a little notice about the developer preview. Well the developer preview is here and touts the ability to control your computer’s basic functions, inbox, Windows Media Player and more. For more details keep on reading… More >

So far we have around 250 posts here on the main site and almost 3,000 threads in the forum that contains 19,000 of your posts. That’s an insane amount of content, and the Shadow II hasn’t even come out yet! =D

Anyhow, there are a few ways to find information on AllShadow.com. We have two search functions – one, which is located in the upper right corner of the site and forums, uses Google Custom Search to query the main site, forum, and store, all in one shot.

Second, once you get into a forum or a thread, you can use the search field next to the “New Topic” or “Post Reply” button to search more specifically within that thread or forum.

Now we have a new way to navigate through the plethora of posts and content on this site. jsmccabe78 has put together an incredibly comprehensive index that’s not only categorized, but sorted alphabetically within each category. Nice. A huge thanks to jsmccabe78 for taking the time to do this, and hopefully he’ll add to the index further as the site continues to grow.

If you watched the movie ‘21′ and always wanted to try your hand at counting cards and winning at Blackjack then you will want to take a look at Aces Blackjack. In addition to being able to reference a strategy card (Good!), you can also play up to ten decks at a time. This really sets Aces Blackjack apart from other Blackjack games for Windows Mobile as most just generate a random number for a card. Keep reading for the full monty… More >

Google added Public Transit Directions for most major cities to Google Maps Mobile. So if you take the Bus/Train/Blimp a lot (or are traveling to a city that eats subway cars for dinner) then you might consider upgrading your Google Maps. If you don’t have Google Maps yet then what are you waiting for? In addition to the ever familiar map it also supports an external Bluetooth GPS (which we have in the store…ahem). Google Maps also has a My Location feature which is handy if you only kind of need to know where you are. Sometimes it is accurate to within 1000 meters and at othertimes 5000 meters. You will need to App Unlock your Shadow to get the My Location feature working, which can be easily accomplished by installing the AllShadow.com Performance Enhancements.

Transit Directions are pretty neat. You simply add your start point, end point and choose a Depart By or Arrive By time and let Google do the rest!

To get Google Maps Mobile point any browser to google.com/gmm. Enjoy!

While there are extended batteries available to give you two to three times as much power most of the time you can extend your battery life significantly with simple conservation. Here are some simple settings you can use to make sure you have battery life at the end of the day.

1. Turn off WiFi when you are not using it. Scanning for and staying connected to a Wireless Access Point takes a lot of juice.
2. Turn off Bluetooth when not in use.
3. Avoid using Vibrate. Vibrate is a physical motion that requires a lot of energy.
4. If you send and receive a lot of text messages, turn off the ring tone for text messages.
5. Under Start > Settings > Power Management change your settings for backlight on battery and display off to the same amount of time. 20 seconds should be a reasonable amount of idle time.

Extra Tip: If you’re not hard of hearing, turn the ring volume down on your phone. This is can be set under Start > Settings > Profiles > Highlight Normal, press Menu > Edit > change the Ring Volume to something lower (3 is plenty loud for me) and press done.

One more: Check out our other post, Better Battery Life in 5 Minutes.