After downloading the free application and loading it my BlackJack II, I found the interface to be nice and smooth, and exaclty what you’d expect from a Facebook application on your mobile device.  The only problem I found was that the subtle different shades of blue used throughout the menu areas make it difficult to determine which menu item you’re currently viewing. There’s no easy way to get back to the HOME screen for the application. Regardless of this minor flaw, this application is a welcome addition

Here’s the link: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/downloads/facebook.mspx

• Go to Start > Programs> Voice Command
• Change Voice Enabled to “YES”
  If you are using Bluetooth, you can change Announcement Routing to “Bluetooth if Available” if you like. What this means is that when the phone wants to make a voice announcement like “your battery is low” , it will try to send it out over Bluetooth.
• The announcements setting will change when you want to hear announcements. You can choose to only hear them when your calendar is “Free” if you like.
• Call Confirmations Setting will let you choose to hear a short vocal confirmation of the intended dialing target. So, when you say “call home”, it will say, “Call home?” to verify.
• Dial confirmation will do the same as above, but for voice number dialing. So if you say “Dial 5-5-5-1-2-1-2″ it will repeat it back to you.
• Announce Calls, when turned on, will announce all incoming calls to you.
• Announce Messaging will announce incoming messages. You can further choose on ly to hear high priority messages announced.
• Calendar Reminders will announce your appointments for you.
• Media Selections will try to announce the name of the song that’s coming up.
• Once you’ve got all the settings the way you want, hit Done.

If you’ve got a compatible bluetooth headset, you can simply tap your button and start using voice commands. Voice Command automatically understands entries in your contacts and many other useful words. So you can simply say things like “Call Home” or “Call wife mobile” or “when is my next appointment” and it will understand.

Here’s the biggest gotcha if you dont’ have a bluetooth headset. The Help feature tells you to use the Voice Command button. interestingly, it doesn’t tell you which button this is on the phone. To activate Voice Command on the BlackJack II keypad, hold down the Att-Globe looking key next to Caps/Shift.

Now, let’s be careful out there.

Installing XBMC Sirius Script

You’ll need an original Xbox running Xbox Media Center for this. I haven’t tested this on any other XBMC platforms.

• Download the python script here:
• In the Sirius folder, edit RunSirius.py. Look for this snippet of code and enter your Sirius username and password in quotes:

# SET ME!  SET ME!  SET ME!
USERNAME = “USERNAME”
PASSWORD = “PASSWORD”

Save the file.

• If you’ve got Xbox Media Center running on your modded Xbox, I assume you already know how to initiate an FTP connection to your Xbox.  Go ahead and connect and upload the entire Sirius directory to your SCRIPTS directory. On my Xbox this is on the Q: drive.
• Back in the XBMC gui, navigate to Scripts, and run the RunSirius.py script. If you like you can rename this file later to default.py, and then when you click on the Sirius Folder it will run automatically.
• If all goes well, you should be greeted by a list of categories. Work your way through the menu and click on the station you want to stream. You should see the media player kick in and give you a message about caching the content.  Then your sweet digital music should begin to play.

A few notes:

1. You can pay a few Sirius a few bucks more a month and increase your bitrate to 128 mb/s, which sounds as good as the satellite receiver.  Supposedly they are changing this pricing structure in the near future, so its possible this script may break.
2. If the caching is taking too long before your tunes start playing, go into your XBMC center settings and decrease the cache size for “Unknown type Cache – Internet”. You can drop this down to 256K or whatever figure works best for you.
3. Since it’s caching audio and the song title lookup is live, often it will display the next song’s title

Installing SiriusWM5 on Windows Mobile

• Install TCPMP for for your device. Here’s a link to smartphone edition for Windows Mobile 6.1. This works on the BlackJackII. Download the file, transfer it over to your device via ActiveSync.  In file explorer on your mobile device, click on the cab file to install it.
• Download the wmv9 codecs for TCPMP here
• Unzip the files and place both .DLLs and copy them to your /WINDOWS folder on your mobile device via ActiveSync.
• Download and install via ActiveSync SiriusWm5 cab file here
• Open SiriusWM5 on your Windows Mobile Device
• Go to File > Settings.
• Enter your Sirius Account information. Check USE TCPMP and, if its installed to your memory card, choose “TCPMP on MemCard”. Additionally, if you’ve anted up for higher quality stream, select “CD Quality Stream”. (CD Quality works great over Wifi or 3G, but will probably fail on Edge or lower). Save your settings.
• Choose your station, and click Connect. You should be prompted to enter some CAPTCHA info, then TCPMP should start playing your stream.

note: Song Titles won’t display.

1. One of the great and sometimes not-so-great features of WinMo is true multitasking. You can have several applications running simultaneously. This can sometimes be a battery killer, but for better or worse, it’s nice to be able to stream music while checking google maps, switch to your web browser and back.
2. There are a TON of applications available for Windows Mobile. It’s been around for years and there is a strong developer base creating all kinds of applications.  Sure Apple has the App Store, but there are real robust enterprise productivity and business applications developed for WinMo – including Office. Most of the apps I’ve seen for the iPhone look fun or useful for about 5 minutes. If you do just want fun on your BlackJack2 or other device, there are apps like TCPMP (plays all those DIVX movies, mp3’s, etc.,) Opera, Google Maps, Live Search, Pandora, Last FM, Skyfire (which includes real FLASH support))…
3. GPS – Apple touts it’s GPS functionality like no one has ever used a GPS before. I use  Garmin software on my BlackJackII and it gives me turn-by-turn directions, gas prices, etc., Microsoft Live Search does Turn-by-turn text for free.
4. Exchange ActiveSync. Now, I know the iPhone  has this, but if you’re running an Exchange environment, its the best sync system out there. It works great, and it works best on a Windows Mobile device. Raise your hand if your Blackberry went down last year along with RIM?  Exchange ActiveSync leaves it in your (admin’s) hands.  Unless you bring the servers down it keeps running. Push Email to the masses. Not to mention Enterprise class features including AD management, remote Wipe, corporate policy restrictions for free.
5. Works with all types of form factors – Over the last several years, I’ve tried models with touchscreens, keyboards,  flip phone, candybars, Ruggedized. The OS adapts very well to multiple hardware designs.
6. Works with different manufacturers-One of the things I look forward to with Android is that multiple manufacturer’s will be producing handsets with it running.  I’ve used WinMo on devices from the likes of Samsung, HTC, Motorola, Pantech, HP and others. Although WinMo offers consistency among the devices, it leaves room for each OEM to tweak it to their liking. I think the compettion among them has pushed MS and them forward in the development of the Mobile OS.  If y you like the iPhone, for better or worse, you’re stuck with Apple.
7. Bluetooth Stereo (A2DP) – I love washing the car or riding my bike  listening to my Motorola-S9 bluetooth headphones
8. Tethering – I can tether my laptop via USB or bluetooth without any crazy hacks. This has been a lifesaver many times.
9. Familiar Windows Interface – Theres something nice and familiar, however boring it may be, to have that little old start button there to get you going.  Additionally, I like being able to simply drag and drop files onto the device once I’m synced.
10. Skype – Although there are 3rd Party apps to make this work on the iPhone, as far as I know, WinMo is still the only mobile OS that supports a true Skype Client.

I could just as easily write another article about 10 things I hate bout Windows Mobile, but we’ll leave  that for another day. Sure, the iPhone and Android have some of the features above, and do many of them even better; but neither of them have all of them. Hopefully Apple and Google have lit a fire under Microsoft’s ass and the next version of WinMo will rock.