Mobile Computing News, Reviews, & Tips

Tip: Listening to Voice E-Mail Attachments on a Treo

Receiving voice messages as e-mail attachments is extremely convenient, as I mentioned in this week's feature. But what happens when you receive the voice mail attached as a .wav file to e-mail on your smart phone?

Palm Treo 650, 600, 700w, and LifeDrive owners can use Motion Apps' mVoiceMail, a utility that lets you listen to .wav files attached to e-mails. In my brief tests on a Treo 650, I found mVoiceMail Pro easy to install and use. The program costs $20, and there's a free trial. Download mVoiceMail for Palm or Windows Mobile from the Motion Apps site.

Notebook News: Gateway Returns to Ultraportables

Gateway's 3.2-pound E-100M is the company's first ultraportable in four years. The $1399 notebook has a 12-inch wide-screen display, an Intel Core Solo processor, integrated 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi networking, and your choice of a three-, six-, or nine-cell battery for up to 8 hours of use, according to the company. You'll need to connect an external drive to watch DVDs, however.

Portable Entertainment: Cingular's New Video Service

Cingular Wireless' new Cingular Video service feeds the mobile TV junkie with snippets of The Sopranos, Lost, and other shows. The video service costs $20 per month, in addition to a Cingular voice plan. Clips of HBO shows cost an extra $5 per month. Is the cost worth it? PC World Contributing Editor Grace Aquino says the service would be nice to have, but she'd rather put her money toward watching HBO the old-fashioned way--on TV.

Suggestion Box

Is there a particularly cool mobile computing product or service I've missed? Got a spare story idea in your back pocket? Tell me about it. However, I regret that I'm unable to respond to tech-support questions, due to the volume of e-mail I receive.

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