Battery Life

I use my Shadow mostly for going online when I'm in places that its either impractical or impossible to use anything but a smartphone to connect to the web. When I first got the Shadow I was very pleased with the phone itself, but very disappointed with its battery life.

After a few days of using the Shadow to its fullest capabilities, I was hooked. Even if it meant carrying around a power cord and plugging my Shadow in constantly.

So I've started looking for ways to make my Shadow's Battery last longer.

Full Post Here

T-Mobile Shadow First Look

Quick overview of the shadow and its capabilities.

Smartss.cab Screen Capture working link.

Smart SS a screen capture utility for Windows Mobile smartphones. The program has been reviewed elsewhere.

The download link on the creator's site has been broken for some time.

After a bit of searching for an alternative download link, I found one here.

http://mymits.korea.com/zboard/zboard.php?id=pds&page=10&category=17&no=1861

The page is in Korean, but the link to smartss.cab is prominently displayed in English in the center of the page.

Also featured is pocketsnapit.cab, another smartphone screen recorder.

These .cab files will install directly when clicked on from your Shadow, or other windows mobile smartphone browser.

Enjoy.

Post submitted from a T-mobile Shadow.

Jb5 Browser Screen Shots.

These are screenshots of the Jb5 Browser in action, taken off of my Shadow with Smart Screen Capture and sent with Shozu.

http://tmobileshadowfiles.blogspot.com/2008/04/ss000.html

http://tmobileshadowfiles.blogspot.com/2008/04/ss001.html

http://media.shozu.com/cache/portal/media/9e05c2/33554444

http://media.shozu.com/cache/portal/media/9e05c2/33554442

http://tmobileshadowfiles.blogspot.com/2008/04/ss004.html

finally updated my shadow.

When I first found out about the Shadow update from T-mobile I was pretty excited and I immediately pulled up the update site on my Shadow's browser.

After about twenty minutes of futzing around, I realized that the only way to get the update was to plug the Shadow in to a desktop computer and install it from there.

I have to say I was disappointed by this. Its reasonable to expect a smartphone to sync with a pc to back up files and reconcile email inboxes and whatnot. But to have to hook your phone up to a pc for a critical update sort of defeats the purpose of having a smartphone, mobility.

So I put the update on the back burner for a while. Choosing to live with no alarm clock and having to plug my phone in every twenty minutes to keep the battery charged.
the other night I crashed at a friends house, and I happened to have my shadow's usb cable with me so I pulled up t-mobile's upgrade site and downloaded the update.

Updating was fairly painless, though I needed to have my phone plugged in for an hour.

I didn't back up any of my files but most of the things I use, TCMP, jb5, Google Maps, are easy enough to download again.

I did lose some contacts that weren't saved to my sim card, so you might want to back up your contacts if you have a lot of numbers card to your shadow.

The verdict; the update is worth it just for the improvement in battery life alone, its only a 1/4 to 1/3 improvement but it allows me to leave home and use all of my shadow's features without the battery dying on me prematurely during my commute, a huge improvement.

The accuracy of text input on the Shadow is also vastly improved with this update.

Windows Live driving directions have been added; I already am using google maps but its a nice feature for those unwilling to go with google. A feature called Audio Postcards was added as well; it seems like a glorified mms program to me, but it could be fun.

Get the update here;

http://www.t-mobileshadow.com/update.asp

Mike at allshadow.com has a lot more info on the shadow update.

http://www.allshadow.com/

How to run a Blogger blog from a shadow.

Most Blogger users know that Blogger allows users to post content from their mobile phones by way of mms, but not everyone knows how easy it is to create a fully functioning blog post complete with working links by using mms to send your posts to blogger.

First off, register your phone with blogger by following the instructions provided here.

http://www.blogger.com/mobile-start.g

Got web content that you need to link to in your post? Simply browse to the content in Pocket Internet Explorer and bookmark it.

Now when you go to edit your mms blog post all you need you do is insert your link by pressing, menu>insertfavorite. Your pocket ie bookmarks will pop up automatically, simply choose the link to your content and press the select button.

Presto! Instant link insertion without any tedious typing.

What about sending multiple pics or videos to Blogger at one time?

Shozu is an excellent app that allows you to batch send your pics and videos right to Blogger.
As an added feature it lets you rotate your pics before you send them.
This is something that can't be done from inside blogger later, so having this app is a must for serious phone bloggers.
Get it here.

http://www.shozu.com/portal/

What if you have more than one blog to maintain? Don't worry, you can change the blog that your phone posts to at any time but pulling up your blogger settings in your mobile browser.

Happy blogging!

Post created with a Shadow

A better flash player

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=344274

TCPMP is a pretty good movie player in that its one of the only free options available for playing flash, youtube, videos on the Shadow.

The major problem I have with TCPMP is that I've never been able to fast forward or rewind a video using that player.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=344274

Mplayer, a freeware flash player has no problem rewinding or fastforwarding flash files, therefore its a much better option for Shadow users who are in the same boat as me.

I kept TCMP installed, but now when I download a .flv, flash, file I use Mplayer to view it.

Mplayer's options are pretty sparse, system volume is controlled with the Shadow's main volume controls and adjusting the volume pauses your movie until you hit play again, but unlike TCPMP, you dont seem to need to make a lot of adjustments for a file to play properly.

Streaming is supported through manually entering links. I haven't found a way to make Mplayer my standard app for opening flv, flash files yet, this would make things much easier.

I feel that this file in conjunction with a good copy/paste utility would be a great replacement for TCPMP.

this is my first full post on the Shadow, hope it works!