GetMobio is an all-on-one application that works on most mobile phones and smartphones. This morning I took it for a quick spin, and found it to be a handy source of information, as well as a great way to pass the time.

Included in GetMobio are 9 different applications; Cheap Gas, local events calendar, Kaboodle (an online shopping community), a movie guide, recipes, an RSS reader, a neat trivia game, mobile Twitter access and a weather forecast.

It’s a colorful application, and on my Blackberry I found things really easy to navigate. Pages loaded a little slower than I would have wanted (but then again, I’m on slow T-mobile EDGE).

To try GetMobio yourself (free), simply point your mobile device to getmobio.com and download the application (or use their WAP version).

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Owners of an Asus Eee 900 will be glad to hear that Proporta have several accessories for their new machine. Even though the Eee 900 has only just started selling, you can already order a leather case and screen protector.

The leather case features a magnetic clasp and cutouts that offer full access to all the ports. It costs $44.95 and is available here.

The screen protector is removable (and washable!) and reduces glare. It also improves the "stylus feel" if you were brave enough to upgrade your Eee with a touch screen. It costs $9.95 and is available here.

The Proporta Advanced Screen Protector even comes with a money back guarantee and a lifetime warranty.

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Ever look out your office window and get the feeling you are missing something? Then check out these awesome screen savers from Idle Time Software called "Holding Pattern".

Holding Pattern coach class is free, and comes with 15 different aerial views (looking out of a coach class window of course).

Holding Pattern 2.0 ($17.50) has 57 different views, as well as soothing engine noises and these other awesome features:

World Travel
Sit back and enjoy the visual splendor of 57 fresh photographic locations—from the majestic American West to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia.
Browse screen shot gallery.

Time Zones
Watch time change as your screen saver plays: bright daytime, warm sunset, jeweled midnight, delicate colors of morning.
View video previews.

Flight Path
Soar over mountains, cities, or clouds—even choose a bird’s eye view! Eight unique flight paths in all.

Realistic Sound
Audio options include relaxing engine hum and more…

Customize Your Flight
Adapt the flight to your needs with tons of user-settable options. Tweak plane population, flight speed, and more. Multiple monitor feature lets you coordinate more than one screen.

Both screen savers are available for the Mac and PC.

Idle Time Software (Thanks Emma!)

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Remember yesterday, when I showed you how you can trick your browser into pretending it’s an iPhone?

Well, it turns out that it’s a handy trick for more than just getting free access to Playboy.

If you are on a really slow connection, switching your browser to "iPhone mode" tricks quite a few sites into serving up mobile versions of their content.

Everything from Gmail to MSNBC.com has a mobile version, and when you are pretending to be an iPhone, you don’t need to remember the mobile URL for them, simply set your user agent to "iPhone" and surf as you normally would. You’d be amazed how many sites have content optimized for mobile users.

As a reminder; to change your "user agent" in Firefox, simply install this add-on, then manually add the iPhone user agent:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543a Safari/419.3

Be sure to paste it on ONE line, or it won’t work.

Found any really good mobile sites for your desktop/laptop? Drop me a comment!

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In the world of external mice for a laptop, there is a very fine line between too bulky to justify making room for in the laptop bag and too small to be functional.  The MoGo mouse clearly is the slimest and lightest option on the market, and I’ve been using one for about a year now, so I’ve grown accustomed to its lighter than air feel.  Still, there are times when I want something a bit more substantive to use, particularly when I’m deskbound for a few days at a time.  And thanks to Kensington, I have found a winner: the Ci75m Wireless Notebook Mouse.

The Ci75m stands 0.65″ off the desk.  It is huge compared to the MoGo while folded up, but it is actually the same height as the MoGo when active.  And you can actually put weight on the Ci75m without worrying about accidentally closing it and disconnecting.  It also includes a clickable scroll wheel which is very nice to have.

Like most of the wireless mice on the market it uses a proprietary wireless transmitter rather than BlueTooth.  This is a pet peeve of mine and I cannot figure out how the cost of producing a dedicated transmitter is less than buying a BlueTooth chipset, but that is the only reason I can come up with for why vendors continue in this direction.  The wireless is reliable and I’ve had no range issues nor have I had reception issues of any sort.  At least the dongle stores in the bottom of the device without adding to the size at all.  The wireless runs on a pair of AAA batteries, so easy to replace as necessary, though I haven’t managed to wear mine out yet after a relatively busy week of use.

One unique feature that the Ci75m has is the ability to work in a wired mode, in addition to wireless.  The USB receiver has both the radio in it as well as a Mini-USB connector to receive the cable from the mouse.  As soon as you go wired the radio shuts off.  This is great for working on an airplane, assuming you can find room to use an external mouse.  The cable is just over two feet long, providing plenty of range of motion.  And in an impressive feat of industrial design, the cable remains stored inside the device while not in use, wrapped up around the outside of the body with the plug safely secured.  The top is secured via magnets, so even an incessant fidgeter like me cannot break the plastic catch that is holding the top onto the base.

I love the form-factor of this device, especially compared to the many “travel” mice that seem to be shaped more like a racquetball than anything particularly ergonomic.  And I’m willing to cut them some slack on the proprietary wireless connection since the same dongle also adds the wired support for the mouse.  Overall, the Ci75m is a keeper.  I still like my MoGo for ulta-portability, but this is a great compromise, especially for those with big hands who are worried about “crushing” the little MoGo.

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WorldMate has been featured here on TravelTechTalk in the past, and has always been an impressive app, but now MobiMate have taken things to the next level with a new version of WorldMate Live.

Some of the new features include:

• A new Outlook plugin for seamless itinerary exports to the online WorldMate Live service
• One-click forwarding of itineraries through email
• Connections feature that shows the location of (approved) friends and colleagues and their itinerary.
• Automatic synchronization of all itineraries onto your mobile device (Blackberry and Windows Smartphone)
• Realtime delay and flight status notifications

I’ll try and get a full review of this posted next week, but in the meantime, why not take it for a spin yourself. The basic application is free and the "gold" version (which adds flight schedules, notifications and customer support) is $9.95 a month (or $99.95 a year).

Product page: WorldMate Live

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Here is a nice and simple way of getting 30 free days of T-mobile Hotspot access, without any kind of commitment.

Signup for their "pay as you go" plan, and you’ll get to try it out for a month, and after that it will convert to a pay as you use plan without any monthly fee. Pay as you go costs $6 per hour/login.

The promotion is officially intended for users of a Kodak Wi-Fi digital camera, but is open to anyone.

Product page: T-mobile Hotspot promotion (via Fatwallet)

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Right on cue, the AT&T pro-rated Early Termination Fee’s are here.

The only thing is, it isn’t actually pro-rated. For every month you’ve been with AT&T, they take $5 off your $175 ETF. Simple math shows that after half of your contract (12 months) the ETF is still a whopping $115.

Of course, it’s better than the system Sprint and T-mobile currently have (nothing).

And to top things off, these new rules still don’t apply to current customers.

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BestBuy isn’t exactly known for its vast assortment of cutting edge technology, so the announcement that they plan to sell the Newest HTC Touch smartphone is a bit of a surprise.

The Touch Dual is built upon the same size as all other HTC Touch devices (and others like the Sprint Touch and the Verizon XV6900), but adds a nice sliding numeric keypad.

The reason I ask "why" is because the Touch Dual is "so last week" and the internal 3G frequencies won’t even work in the US. It’s almost like HTC are trying to get rid of them so they can start selling something better.

BestBuy HTC Touch Dual

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If you thought that the new laptop search rules were baloney, then this new proposal will really anger you.

Members of the G8 plan to meet in Tokyo in July to discuss a new measure that will turn customs agents into copyright inspectors/police who’ll have the authority to take a closer look at your iPod or other electronic device.

The proposal is dubbed the "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement" (ACTA) and will give customs agents the power to levy fines and seize equipment.

I’m not entirely sure how a customs agent plans to determine that the content on my iPod is illegal, but I can’t say I care for the direction this is heading, as more big brother tactics at the airport won’t help anyone.

Source: 9to5mac

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