windows

Good news, good news! At CTIA, smartphone manufacturer HTC announced that it will offer the HTC Touch Dual through Best Buy stores this quarter. And the news gets even better, as the unlocked quad-band smartphone will ship with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition and wait for it...it will include support for U.S. 3G bands.

Already available in Europe and Asia (of course), the HTC Touch Dual is the next-generation of the HTC Touch, and alleviates some of the text entry pains of the original Touch by providing a slide-out SureType-like keypad. You'll also still get the … Read more

I'm pretty excited about Vringo's new Facebook app for a number of reasons. First, I'm a big fan of Vringo's video caller ID service, which lets users choose a video ringtone (vringo) that plays on their friends' phone when they initiate a call to said friend. Second, this new app carries Vringo's concept of personalizing the moment of phone-to-phone contact by syncing your address book with your friends' Facebook profile photos.

It takes about 5 minutes and quite a few steps to set up the service, but the directions are clear and fairly straightforward. You … Read more

Google does April Fools’: ‘Custom time’ and a Mars trip http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9907571-36.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Microsoft, Yahoo agree on buyout price http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/01/14FE-april-fool-microsoft-yahoo_1.html

April Fools Day Spam Invades Google http://www.searchenginejournal.com/april-fools-joke-spam-invades-google-news/6637/

No foolin’–Storm worm is back http://www.news.com/8301-10789_3-9906880-57.html?tag=nefd.only

Windows: A Monopoly Shakes http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/operating_systems/windows_a_monopoly_shakes.html

FORTUNE: Apple 2.0 Analyst: Apple's U.S. consumer market share now 21 percent http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/04/01/analyst-apples-us-consumer-market-share-now-21-percent/… Read more

On the first day of the new quarter, it's a good time to take a look back at the first three months of 2008 and expose some of the coolest software downloads that you might not know about. From innovative new games for your PC or mobile devices to creative accounting tools and invaluable utilities for Windows Vista 64-bit users, there's something in this list for all of you friendly PC users.

Onto the six best new downloads of 2008 ...

Wait For It

Tired of multiplayer first-person shooter games that reward 14-year-old punks with itchy trigger fingers? Put … Read more

Of the four major mobile operating systems (Palm, Symbian, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry), we hear plenty of complaints from users that Windows Mobile devices are the hardest to use because of the laborious navigation. And we certainly agree. Seriously, do you really need to go through several steps just to open or close an application? To be fair, Microsoft has heard the cries and made some headway in making its smartphones easier to use with Windows Mobile 6. But there's plenty of room for improvement, and the company is hoping its latest build will solve some of the problems.

At … Read more

The last time Windows' System Restore failed on me, I didn't blink an eye. I gave up trusting Microsoft's own Registry safety net a long time ago. And considering the quality Registry freeware available, there's no reason you should rely on Windows to repair and recover from Registry-related problems. These four freebies will keep the Windows engine purring like a kitten.

Clear out the clutter with CCleaner Piriform's popular Windows-optimization utility includes a Registry-scrubbing component that clears out old application paths, ActiveX controls, shared DLLs, fonts, icons, and other Registry detritus. The program gives you the … Read more

Last but not least of today's Verizon smartphone news is the Verizon Wireless XV6900.

In a nutshell, the XV6900 is the carrier's version of the HTC Touch, which has been available in GSM and Sprint flavors for a little while now.

The XV6900 does get a fresh coat of paint, stepping out in a vibrant white, but it seems everything is pretty much the same under the hood. You still get the TouchFLO interface that lets you navigate the phone's menus with the swipe of your finger; a 2.8-inch touch screen; Windows Mobile 6 Professional Edition; … Read more

Verizon Wireless opened the floodgates today, introducing a number of additions to its cell phone and smartphone lineup, including the Motorola Q9c shown here.

Unlike the multimedia-centric Motorola Q9m, the Q9c goes after the road warriors with its integrated GPS and VZ Navigator support. In addition, it offers Windows Mobile 6 Standard Edition with the Documents to Go suite, Bluetooth 2.0, a 1.3-megapixel camera, and 128MB Flash memory.

Being a more business-centric device, Verizon will not offer the more flashy lime-green version, which was announced for U.S. Cellular and Alltel. The Motorola Q9c for Verizon will be … Read more

Hardly a day goes by when we don't hear some news item about everyone's favorite mini-notebook, the Asus Eee PC. While the current $399 Eee PC runs Linux and comes preloaded with most of the software you'll need for day to day computing (FireFox, OpenOffice, etc.), Asus has always talked up that fact that this little machine could handle Windows XP with no problem.

We've seen a handful of XP Eee PC samples around, but now it's getting a more formal release via big-box retailer Best Buy, according to Laptop magazine. Purportedly starting April 9, … Read more