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Link: http://www.sling.com

I just recently bought Slingbox just to tryout and I'm hook on it in just 5 days. I'm an Orb believer, never a fan of Sony Location Free or Slingbox. But I just got tired of the problem I'm having with Media Center and Orb working together simultaneously. So I dumped it.

Beside, Sling has made their slingplayer available for Blackberry devices that has WiFi or 3G. That's one reason why I got the slingbox, it was because the availability of the player for the Blackberry. If you have a Blackberry that is EDGE only, the video will have a lot of drops in frames, sometime briefs pauses. I tried on the Blackberry 8310 and it wasn't doing well. Kind of useless if you are at home using your wifi at home, might as well watch it on the big screen tv. So it's better if you have 3G Blackberry phones so you can be mobile while watching tv.

Sling Pros:
1. Quality is good
2. Remote control is intuitive; for example, if you select the remote control, and you use your trackball to view the guide, slingbox will send the signal to the IR making your guide selection easier. If you scroll up, it will instantly move up on the guide.
3. You can access your favorites right away instead of memorizing what channel is what.
4. Just enter the channel number on your keypad and it will change right away.

Sling Cons:
1. Sometimes there's a delay when changing channels or going through the guide with the trackball.
2. Quality will not drop, but will drop frames while driving. Best to watch while you are in stand still.
3. Favorites has to be done by the PC for it to be available on your Blackberry.
4. You have to manually adjust setting for slower connection on PC rather than on your Blackberry. Best to set it at manual of 120kbps so when you are in EDGE only area, you can still watch in decent quality with no drops in frames.

Overall, Sling has come a long ways since it started. Just recently, they launched a web browser based application so you can watch tv without installing an application. Sling has finally catch Orb, but without the computer.

The quality of the slingplayer is as good as Orb. But with Orb, it will auto adjust your bandwidth settings in case you are in an EDGE area only.

Orb Pros:
1. No application to be installed. You just use your Blackberry browser to go through the guide and change channels.
2. You can set your bandwidth speed on the fly through their web site.
3. You can use orb as a file manager to upload or download your files.
4. You can use orb to play your mp3 music that you store on your pc hard drive or network drive.
5. You can play your home videos streamed to your phone.
6. Compatible with any phones, not necessarily for Blackberry or Windows Mobile Phone. Even a proprietary phone such as Samsung SGH-707 flip phone can stream through orb as long as you have the data plan.
7. Orb will detect what kind of phones you have, and will select the format in either:
3gp, sdp, asx, flv, ram/rm, qt.

Orb Cons:
1. You need to have a computer and tv tuner. Your computer has to be on whenever you want to watch tv through Orb.
2. If you have lots of channels on your guide, you have to scroll to lots of pages on orb website.
3. Changing Channels can be as quick as entering the number below the guides, but in some cases, you might find it hard to find it.
4. Problem working together with Media Center.

Overall, even if you don't use orb to watch tv, you can still use it to stream music or home videos. That would cut a lot of space on your phones memory.

If I don't use Media Center on my PC, Orb is more than good enough for me.

Ref: http://www.sling.com and http://www.orb.com

I've been using Opera Mobile for two years now on my Windows Mobile Phone Dopod 9000 and AT&T Tilt. The two, Opera Mini and Opera Mobile, can do Javascript very well. iFrames also works great. It has come to be my default browser on my Blackberry Bold as well as Blackberry Curve for Opera Mini.

Opera did a good job on the free version. It's fast and looks very nice. Only if the default browser on the BB or Pocket IE would follow the path of Opera. *sigh*

Link: http://www.amazon.com

Amazon MP3 has music that is cheaper or equivalent price as the apple store iTunes. On top of that, Amazon's format is MP3. Not protected and you can still put it in your iPod. I use Amazon MP3 so I can transfer the music files onto my Blackberry. I hate carrying more than one device, don't you?

So why do I still have an iPod if I have an all in one device with 16Gb MicroSD card on my Blackberry Bold? I use my iPod on both of my cars as a CD Changer. Beats changing CD's while driving. Beside, what do I do with two 20Gb second generation iPod? Paper weight?

Both my iPod and my Blackberry has the same music sync. But I'm never with my iPod when I travel. But my trusty Blackberry is always on my side for all my needs.

Give Amazon MP3 a try, the selection is as much as iTunes, the quality of the bitrate is the same, unless if you are picky about the quality differences between mp3 and aac, your ears is as good as mine.

Link: http://www.rdmplus.com

Log Me In at www.logmein.com compared to RDM+ at www.rdmplus.com. The Free version of LogMeIn is just fine if you would like to control a computer behind a firewall or a computer that is VPN to another Network. RDM+ is not free, but at a one time fee of $29.99, you are as good as LogMeIn Pro version. But with LogMeIn Pro, it's a monthly cost of $20 for 5 computers, while RDM+ has no limit as to how many computers you can access.

With RDM+, you can transfer files (Download/Upload). You can access your files in a Tree View.

In either case, both are better than VNC or Terminal Service since they work behind a firewall.

With RDM+, you can purchase an additional software for your Smartphones, such as Blackberry, Windows Mobile or Symbian Phone. I personally have used my Blackberry Bold to upload files, download files, all within the client software on my Blackberry.

For the PC, you don't need a client. You use your browser to get into your PC. Each PC is assigned a unique number for which you have to add to RDM+ Website at www.rdmplus.com/rdmweb/.

Be sure to try both and see which one fits your need, but financially, it makes sense to purchase the RDM+ if you are behind a firewall or VPN into a network.

But if you just want to control a computer, VNC works just fine such as RealVNC or UltraVNC software client for the PC. Even LogMeIn Free version works behind a firewall.

The drawbacks between VNC and LogMeIn or RDM+ is that VNC is so much faster in response to your mouse click and mouse movements. It feels like as if you are on the computer at home, while RDM+ or LogMeIn, there is a little delay, though not so bad, but sometimes, if you are used to VNC, such as I am, it could be frustrating sometime.

Give all three a try first, give it a week to try each of them before jumping the gun on purchasing.

I have left out some of the GPS Tracking Software previously. I was testing them to see what the results were.

BBTracker - www.bbtracker.org
If you want to store your tracks on your device but not upload them, bbtracker works the best. I have tested that program since it was on version .01 and I use it when I go biking to see the total distance.

Instamapper have their own API that you can build for your own website, or use their website. They have a mobile version as well, and best of all, it's free. It doesn't have an auto-restart or auto-run, so when you have to reboot, the program won't restart automatically, not like Accutracking. Their mobile version use Google Maps, it even displays traces of where you've been on their mobile website. The cons is, it's not optimized for Battery Life. It drains my battery in half a day, compare to Accutracking, which is a whole day.

Moostrax works great too, there's always update. I would recommend trying this and instamapper. With Moostrax, it's simple, turn it on and that's it. The thing will auto-restart, and it won't display an icon on your BB homepage, instead, it's on your Option. It's like as if it's built-in to the BB Operating System. It's pretty covert.

That's an update from me for now.