Beta Buzz has move

Beta buzz has moved to Wordpress. Visit betabuzz.wordpress.com

New Zune Players

Its great that Microsoft products always get leaked. No need for a special announcement like Apple. The new Zune player is to be available November 13 according to amazon.com. The new version will sport an 80 GB version, and also 30 GB. Also new this time 4GB, 8GB flash drive Zune (smaller version of the 80GB).

Centro available Oct 14!

AnySim iPhone Unlocking Guide

AnySim iPhone Unlocking Guide (with images coming shortly)

WARNING: THIS GUIDE SHOULD BE USED AT YOUR OWN RISK. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE THIS MAY CAUSE THE IPHONE. UNLOCKING THE IPHONE WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY. THIS PROCEDURE IS INTENDED FOR ADVANCE COMPUTER USERS. IF YOU DON’T LIKE COMPUTERS DO NOT TRY UNLOCKING YOUR PHONE.

Files Needed:

iBrickr – Client to break activation (www.iBrickr.com)

anysim – PXL file to install on iPhone (google anysim)

PACAY – used to enable YouTube support. (google PACAY)

All files should be downloaded and extracted in iBrickr folder. I placed them on my desktop.

Before you begin: it is assumed you have unboxed the iPhone and has been charged

1. Open iBrickr
2. Connect iPhone to PC
3. iBrickr will check if the iPhone has right version of firmware
4. Follow the on screen instructions
5. If that fails do this:
a. Plug your phone in / dock it, and turn it off
b. Power it on
c. While the grey apple appears, press and hold both the power and home buttons until a Yellow triangle sign appears and says "Please connect to iTunes"
d. iTunes will pop up talking about restoring your phone. Select restore, and once it starts downloading unplug the phone, then press and hold power and home buttons again, until the phone restarts
e. Wait for the restore to fail in iTunes, and then start up iBrickr again.
6. Once you get this down, iBrickr will walk you through the next steps
7. Once Completed. Exit iBrickr
8. Go to the PACAY folder within iBrickr folder and run the "(CLICK HERE) activate.bat" file. This will enable YouTube. Follow the on screen instructions.
9. Once you complete PACAY make sure you follow the instructions and have restarted.
10. Open iBrickr click applications and let it install the PXL service. Follow onscreen instructions in the iBrickr program.
11. After you have rebooted the phone one final time, select Check PXL. This will verify the installation of PXL.
12. Close iBrickr and reopen it. Click Application -> Install from PXL or Browse Application (Browsing is the best way use the latest version of anysim – the first release of anysim had a bug – but still successfully unlocked the phone)
13. If you selected install from file, select th anysim.pxl file. If you selected browse, select AnySim
14. The installation will be quick.
15. Navigate on you iPhone and go to Settings -> General -> auto lock. Set the setting to never.
16. Hit the home key. Click on the AnySim icon to start the unlock.
17. Agree to the disclaimer. (Again stating use at your own risk)
18. AnySim will take 15-20 minutes to unlock the phone.
19. I used the first release of anysim which had the bug. It will successfully patch the phone but state it failed to unlock. Insert a sim card and place a call. If you can successful place a class that means the unlock worked.
20. Many people have asked about removing the AnySim program. You can do that from iBrickr

Treo 500v Released for Vodafone

Platform: Windows Mobile 6
Display: 320 x 240 Pixel
Band: GSM
Bluetooth 2.0
256MB Memory
2.0 megapixels with 2.5 digital zoom
10 day standby
4.5 hrs talk time
MicroSD Expansion slot

Software included: ActiveSync®, Alarm Clock, Bluetooth®, Bubble Breaker, Calculator, Camera, eBay, File Explorer, Google Maps, Internet Connect Sharing, Internet Explorer® Mobile, Messaging, Microsoft® Notes, Microsoft Office (including Excel®, Outlook®, PowerPoint®, and Word), Phone, Picture and Video, Solitaire, Task Manager, Vodafone Mobile Windows® Live™, Windows Media® Player Mobile

Palm Centro Announced Tomorrow?

Sources across the internet have said Palm Centro will be announced on Sept 12. The phone looks a lot smaller then most treo's the U.S has seen. I do look forward to getting my hands on it once it is released. I was one of the first ones to get Motorola Q, which was a big disappointment. I am a former user of the Palm Treo 650 which i was extremely satisfied with. Hopefully Centro is as impressive as it looks.

Some speculated features

• Touch Screen
• Qwerty Keyboard
• EVDO Network
• 1.3 Megapixels
• Sprint TV
  

More Treo 500 Images

New Treo 500 Images surface

New images of the new Palm Treo 500 phone has surfaced. The phone looks very similar to the Centro phone. This phone will be only offered for now overseas. This phone isn't too exciting no touch screen but does use the familiar 320x240 format for Windows Mobile. Basically similar to the Moto Q and BlackJack running Windows Mobile. Should be announced tomorrow at Palm scheduled presentation. Centro will also be announced.

(Image credit to WMExpert.com)

Greatings Readers

As you know this blog has been idle for over 3 months now. Thinking that it was the summer I thought I would get more posts up but I didn't. I hope to start blogging once again. If I am able to blog at least a few post a day, I will look at other resources to improve the blog. But as it stands now posts will continue to be limited.

Palm Foleo

Palm announced on May 30th that they will be releasing a laptop. They claim it is a companion for your palm. It will be offered for only 499 and will run its own simplified OS. It will have limited functionality and its true purpose will be to assist your palm. I think do we really need another laptop? This is great idea but it should probably be packaged with the palm if it really wants to be seller. You will be able to do everything you are able to do on your phone basically. Release date has not been announced but you can join their mailing list.

It's Official Google and Apple join forces

It was really up in the air what Google would do with YouTube. Yesterday Apple announce that YouTube will be available on Apple TV. Apple will use its new technology to support the hottest website. Questions arise what does this mean for Microsoft its future on the Digital world.

Windows Home Server 2007

Windows Home Server is available in beta testing right now. I got a version running on a virtual machine - it is very similar to windows 2003 server. It actually says its windows 2003 in the lower right corner.

MacBook Specs updated

Apple released upgraded specs for their Macbook Line up
echnical Specifications
Apple Remote
In the box

* MacBook
* Apple Remote
* 60W MagSafe Power Adapter, AC wall plug, and power cord
* Lithium-polymer battery
* Install/restore DVDs
* Printed and electronic documentation

Intel core 2 Duo
Processor and memory

* 2.0GHz or 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
* 4MB shared L2 cache running at full processor speed
* 667MHz frontside bus
* 1GB (two 512MB SO-DIMMs) of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300); two SO-DIMM slots support up to 2GB

Storage

* 80GB, 120GB, or 160GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard disk drive; optional 120GB or 160GB 5400-rpm drive or 200GB 4200-rpm drive1
* One of the following optical drives:
o 24x slot-loading Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
+ Reads DVDs at up to 8x speed
+ Writes CD-R discs at up to 24x speed
+ Writes CD-RW discs at up to 16x speed
+ Reads CDs at up to 24x speed
o 8x slot-loading SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
+ Writes DVD+R DL (double layer) discs at up to 4x speed
+ Writes DVD-R and DVD+R discs at up to 8x speed
+ Writes DVD-RW and DVD+RW discs at up to 4x speed
+ Reads DVDs at up to 8x speed
+ Writes CD-R discs at up to 24x speed
+ Writes CD-RW discs at up to 10x speed
+ Reads CDs at up to 24x speed
Battery and power

* 55-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery (with integrated charge indicator LEDs) providing up to 6 hours of battery life
* 60W MagSafe Power Adapter with cable management system
* MagSafe power adapter port

Display

* 13.3-inch (diagonal) glossy widescreen TFT display with support for millions of Graphics and video support

* Intel GMA 950 graphics processor with 64MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory (Can handle Windows Vista Areo)
* Extended desktop and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 1920 by 1200 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors
* iSightBuilt-in iSight camera
* Mini-DVI port
* DVI output using mini-DVI to DVI adapter (sold separately)
* VGA output using mini-DVI to VGA adapter (sold separately)
* Composite and S-video output using mini-DVI to video adapter (sold separately)

Communications
USB Modem

* Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45 connector)
* Built-in AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi (based on IEEE 802.11n draft specification)4
* Built-in Bluetooth 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate (EDR)
* Optional external Apple USB Modem

Audio

* Built-in stereo speakers
* Built-in omnidirectional microphone
* Combined optical digital audio input/audio line in (minijack)
* Combined optical digital audio output/headphone out (minijack)

Peripheral connections

* One FireWire 400 port (up to 400 Mbps)
* Two USB 2.0 ports (up to 480 Mbps)


So great machine but now only missing the software upgrade - Leopard, iLife 07

Apple store down again...

Looks like Apple store is making a few changes. What we do know is macbook lineup got an upgrade. Processors starting from 2.0GHz and Hard drive from 80 GB.

Gmail Available to anyone now!

Gmail now is available to anyone. Just go to Gmail.com and you can sign up. Now you dont have to be invited to use gmail.

Sprint Motorola Q

I was able to get my hand on the new motorola q for Sprint. Here are images. In depth review coming soon.

Flash Slideshow

Outlook 2007 Will not use IE for HTML

MSDN reported that it will be using Word 2007 rendering engine for HTML in MS Outlook 07. It will support HTML and CSS validation. The schema used by multiple Microsoft Products. Read more here.

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2

Microsoft release Virtual Server 2005 R2 beta version was release a while back. It has a nice web interface which allows to access all your virtual systems on the server. You can test drive it yourself at Microsoft. Virtual Server is more flexible then Virtual PC 2004. You have the ability to create a larger virtual hard disk up to 127 GB. A big upgrade from the 16 GB that was offered in VPC 2004. A new addition to the Virtual Server website is downloading virtual Hard drives from their website. This will save the time of creating a virtual machine from scratch. There is also the addition of creating virtual network enabling you to put virtual machines on that network. Virtual server is great addition to the Microsoft Line up and should work well with a Windows server 2003. This is an important release for me while majority of my tested beta version are done on a virtual PC. I really like the web server interface and allowing me to take remote control right from the site. But even with my 2 GB's of ram I felt Virtual Server lag a bit more then using VMServer. Which is available for free.


Verdict: Definitely worth testing out Virtual Server since the recent addition of down-loadable virtual hard disks.

Sprint Motorola Q Available

Sprint has finally released the Motorola Q. It is posted on the Sprint PCS website. You can get the phone for 199.99 after rebates and with a new contract or purchase it for your current plan for a whopping 449. I say wait a month should be on Ebay for around 200 soon. Or should you wait till the iPhone comes out with Cingular. I highly doubt any rebates will be offered for that phone.

Cingular Post iPhone Information

Cingular also has updated their homepage to display the new Apple iPhone. You have the ability join their mailing list. They will email you once more information becomes available.