Fring is the only “really” mobile Skype client (except the Windows Mobile version of Skype) to me. And this official Skype Java mobile version is just another similar approach of third party mobile Java IM/VoIP softwares that supporting Skype like EQO, Nimbuzz and so on. The reason is that this official Skype Java mobile client only can transmit TXT chat via wireless data link. It is almost impossible to transmit voice by this mobile client due to the limitation of J2ME application’s performance. Moreover, there is report mentioning that making 20 minutes call per day with the official Skype Java mobile client will use only 1M byte traffic, which is too little for voice.

Then why Skype claims that this Skype Java mobile client can receive Skype call and make Skype/SkypeOut calls in some country? In fact, it will be clear by reading the explanation of cost: To receive Skype call will use SkypeOut credit and users have to input their mobile number to login the Java mobile client. In other words, it is the same as to set call forwarding when you are offline, your SkypeOut credit was used to call you mobile phone and the voice is transmitted over traditional PSTN. And this Java mobile client uses Skype To Go function to make Skype/SkypeOut calls in some countries, which means via access number.

In general, this official Skype Java mobile client is almost nothing new comparing to third party Java mobile VoIP/IM client. If your mobile phone is supported by Fring, it will be a better choice.

Translated from Skype网络电话的移动Java手机版如何工作？

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I started this blog 7 months ago to share some information about mobile applications and VoIP. But since I had less and less time, I think a Digg system is more suitable for my original idea — digg what I/you find and let other judge whether it is valuable.

I submitted what I found first. I guess it will be easier to become most active contributer at beginning So start digging your favorite mobile applications to get free voip credit now

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The first poll on this blog is that “How frequently do you use VoIP”. As VoIP is one of main topics of this blog, I guess most visitors have used VoIP more or less. But as far as I see, more people don’t trust VoIP. Every among users of VoIP, there are different attitude. For example, I relies on VoIP very much now and use it more than half hour per day. But when I was suggested to use VoIP at very beginning, I didn’t accept it as I am not satisfied with its quality.

This poll will how many people use VoIP as their main communication channel? or additional option? or want to have a try? or haven’t used it at all?

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On May 12th, 2008, a devastating earthquake measured 7.8 (7.9 according to U.S. Geological Survey) on the Richter scale struck Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province in Southwest China. The energy released in this earthquake is more than 30 times of the massive earthquake hit Los Angeles in 1994 and approximately 362 atom bombs in 1945.

By Friday, May 16th, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs has reported 22,069 casualties (the final figure may be more than 50k) from the earthquake, which affected eight provinces and municipalities, an area approximately the size from Nebraska to Texas in longitude, and from Indiana to Alabama in latitude in the U.S. The number of casualties are still rising. The quake happened in the early afternoon on a weekday, many schools and kindergartens collapsed and buried thousands of school kids alive.

Rescue has been unprecedentedly difficult due to geographical and weather conditions. Roads to the most devastated area are smashed by mountain collapses and landslides. Efforts to send airborne team were hampered by heavy rain throughout the entire affected region. In such a race against time to save life, rescuers had to push forward on foot! The team sent to Wenchuan County, the epicenter, hiked 40km (25 miles) in 4 hours, in the dark under pouring rain. Despite all kinds of dangers and casualties among
themselves, rescuers are trying their best to reach those lives under concrete debris.

With help from many local and international organizations, the Red Cross of China are providing emergency relief assistance in the area. Food, water, tents and medical supports have been distributed but are far from meeting the immediate demands.

To help those whose life has been greatly impacted by this earthquake, I would like to call on your kindly donation through one of non-profit charityorganizations:

1, International Red Cross:
http://www.ifrc.org/

2, American Red Cross:

http://www.redcross.org/news/in/profiles/Intl_profile_ChinaEarthquake.html
tel:800-435-7669

2, MercyCorps China Earth Quake relief
http://www.mercycorps.org/chinaearthquake/?source=1062

4, Red Cross Hongkong:
www.redcross.org.hk

I also found a website with valuable information of matching gift:
http://www.mercycorps.org/donate/somanywaystogive/680

A DOLLAR FROM YOU MAY MEAN A HOPE OF A LIFE!

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Since this week, Skype has extended the pay monthly calling plan. There are 3 options:

unlimited country: €2.95/month excl. VAT. It is more or less the same product as original Skype pro, the difference is that users can make unlimited calls to landlines one of 20 European countries.

unlimited Europe: €3.95/month excl. VAT. The difference with unlimited country is that users can make unlimited calls to landlines in all the 20 European countries.

unlimited World: €8.95/month excl. VAT. With this option, users can make unlimited calls to landlines (also mobile numbers in some countries) in 34 countries around the world.

The subscribes also can have a SkypeIn numbers (3 for unlimited World) and Skype To Go service. To promote their new calling plans, Skype now offers 3 months for the price of 2 on all 3 or 12 month calling subscriptions from Skype until 1st June.

Compare to other “free” VoIP calls services from Jajah, BetaMax, Raketu and so on, Skype’s fair usage policy allow users to make up to 10,000 calling minutes per month. This is much more than its competitors. So I guess Skype’s new pay monthly calling plans will attract more users.

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According to 93free, here is the dialing rule of Skype under Linux:

Don’t select country/region to call, and use +99008668080 as country for China.

For example, the original number is +86－13579246800, then the number to dial for Skype under Linux should be +99008668080-13579246800.

The questions is that I am not sure how this rule can be applied to other countries. Anyhow, though Skype is not an open VoIP standard as SIP, its ability to make video VoIP calls with proxy makes it unique…

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http://dictionary.reference.com/wml

Dictionary.com is one the most popular free online dictionary and its WAP version also seems to be quite nice. It offers two options: “look up” and “translator”. “look up” gives the definition of a word of English. “Translator” can translate different languages between English. The problem is that the WAP version of dictionary.com is written in WML and has some problem on some handsets/mobile browsers.

The two WAP dictionaries below are only providing Chinese-English translation

http://www.tigernt.com/w.php

http://wap.dict.cn

Inspired by http://izeaz.cn/

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The administer of BerryMail developed a software to emulate TrackWheel according to the suggestion of a user in BerryMail forum

According to the instruction of the developer of QuickWheel, users have to change the permission of Keystroke Injection to make QuickWheel work.

Things to be noticed:

1. It is not useful to 7200 series as 7200 series don’t have shortcut key. On 7100 and 8700 series, it works fine. However it needs the only shortcut key, which is needed by many applications.

2. Whether the application can work on 7100 with OS 4.1 depends on the “It Policy” of users’ handsets. It is also possible to have problem on 7130 and 8700 but in general it is more problematic on 7100. On many 7100, the only option for Keystroke Injection is deny, thus, users cannot run QuickWheel without change this. It may be changed with BES.

The way to use it:

QuickWheel needs activation code, which is www.berrymail.cn, for the first running. Then users can map shortcut key to QuickWheel in option–Screen/Display, after that, the menu can be invoked by pressing shortcut key.

The idea is given by trobics, who also made the icon and tested it.

The download address is below:

BerryMail_QuickWheel.rar (6 KB)
You need to be a registered user of BerryMail to download this file.

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One major market strategy of Betamax is that they start new VoIP companies every few months. Nonoh.net, justvoip.com, voipbuster.com and voipcheap.com are most well known VoIP products from Betamax. However, the regular way to register VoIP products from Betamax is via their client softwares, which frequently fails due to error. VoIPGuides suggested to turn off firewall and anti-virus software, but I guess it is more likely due to the same computer/IP has already been used to register another Betamax VoIP product. Delete relevant key in registry is another possible but risky solution.

In fact, now there is an alternative way to solve registration errors of Betamax VoIP products. Except register via client softwares, Betamax also offer web registration for Linux and Mac as they don’t have clients softwares under Linux and Mac. Of course, it may be necessary to clear cookie or use proxy to register multiple accounts from the same computer/IP. One problem is that users register via web have less payment option, another thing is that whether users registering via web will have same free time offer.

BTW, the free time offer from Nonoh becomes less and less which its rate becomes higher and higher. I am not sure whether other Betamax VoIP products will be better. Anyhow, don’t choose VoIPBusterPro as it is not cost efficient at all comparing with other Betamax VoIP products.

Translated 解决VoIPRaider或其它BetaMax网络电话注册错误的破解之道

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VoIP services become more and more popular due to lower cost (even free in some cases). But sometime companies install firewalls for security reason and have VoIP ports blocked. And sometime telecom operators block VoIP ports to protect their own profit. Then users will find that they cannot not make VoIP calls. In these case, GTalk2VoIP can help. The VoIP sound quality of Google Talk is pretty good, but it only can be used to make calls to other GTalk users. GTalk2VoIP provides a gateway between GTalk and SIP as well as other IM networks.

As shown in the picture above, GTalk2VoIP acts like a bridge among different voice commcuniction networks. Though GTalk cannot make VoIP calls to normal phones directly, as soon as you add GTalk2VoIP robot to your buddy list, this robot can call your GTalk account and the distention number/SIP address/IM account according to the command you type in the chat window. GTalk2VoIP will connect your call in between. To call ordinary phone numbers, you have to buy credit first or set your own SIP account in your GTalk2VoIP configuration.

In normal case, to make VoIP calls with GTalk2VoIP is not so convenient and the quality is also not perfect. However, its advantage is that GTalk2VoIP can be used to make VoIP calls behind firewalls, which block most VoIP software. In general, use the same proxy as for web browsers in Google Talk, then GTalk can make VoIP calls through firewalls. Thus, even firewalls block SIP ports, by using GTalk2VoIP as a bridge, you can still make VoIP cause with your favorite SIP providers. Moreover, the basic service of GTalk2VoIP is free.

Translated from 利用GTalk2VoIP绕过防火墙使用网络电话

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Yesterday, I was reading the news about of Talkonaut Symbian S60 release, I still didn’t take their claim that the new Talkonaut 4.0 can work with GPRS/EDGE serious. However, one friend told me that Fring had ready been able to work with GPRS/EDGE though there is some delay. Even though I was convinced as I thought the necessary traffic was quite costly. When I read from another blog that the the traffic of Fring is less then 100K per minutes, I was really surprised.

If it is true, the mobile VoIP is already much cheaper than traditional mobile service now. Now there are some MVNOs (Mobile Virtual NetworkOperator) providing quite cheap services for international calls. But by choosing correct wireless data plans, the mobile VoIP can be even cheaper. For example, subscribers of Tempo Music from Mobistar (Belgium) only have to pay 0.25 euro for each session (less than 1 hour or 1 MB traffic). If Fring or Talkonaut only uses less than 100KB traffic, it means users can talk to more than 10 minutes for 0.25 euro. And for users with “unlimited” data plan, the average price can be even cheaper.

The question is that whether mobile operators will block VoIP port to protect their profit. It seems to be very possible for SIP based VoIP applications. I am not sure whether Jingl extension of XMPP will be better.

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The theory is that people can hear sound ranges from 20 to 20k Hz. And there is a slight difference between the hearing of teenage and adult — most people lost the ability to hear high frequency sound while becoming older.

In Britain, a company uses this theory to make a special sound effect target to young people. According to measurement, the frequency of this so called “HighRing” sound effect is 14.4k Hz, which is very close to the threshold of the upper limit of that human’s hearing, so that adult cannot hear it. This security company developed this sound effect to drive teenage away. However it turns to be a very popular ringtone among young people. It cannot be heard by adult in some locations forbidden to use ringtone, for example, in classroom and cause a lot of headache to schools.

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1) Sudoku: The graphics of this game is not so fancy but it really challenges your brain.

2) Sudoku from magmic: Developed by magmic is a guarantee of its quality, which may be the best on Blackberry. The number of matrix is limited for free version, but they will already cost your a lot of time to solve them. The graphics is excellent.

3) Puzzle Bobble: Simple but classic

4) Sketcher: A very innovative game with excellent graphics.

5) Infection: A very challenging game and the hard level is not ideal for people without enough patience. LOL！

6) PokerBlast: Combination of Poker and Blaster? Free game from magmic that you should not miss.

7) pac-man: Do you remember the classic game on Mac/PC? If you can bear its weird operation on Blackberry, just give it a try.

Diamond: No more words for operation and graphics

9) Disco bowling: Work from magic, look at the screen shot

10) Inchville: This game reminds me a puzzle game on Nokia QD.

There are more without screen shot and they are also excellent. Just have a look by your self.

Translated from 10+黑莓游戏推荐！

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A lot of VoIP providers developed their Firefox extensions, such as Skype, Jajah, Wengo and so on. But Firefox extensions like what developed by Skype and Jajah only are used to recognize digits on web pages that look like phone numbers, they only provide a convenient way to make calls. Firefox extension developed by Wengo is a complete VoIP client, but it doesn’t support VoIP providers other than Wengo. Abbeyphone Firefox extension is an open SIP client. Except pre-defined VoIP provides including Abbeyphone, FWD, Gizmo, VoIPCheap, VoIPStunt, users can add their own favorite VoIP providers based on SIP.

First install extension from MozillaVoIP.com according to your operations system — there are Windows、Linux and Mac OS to choose.

After installation, restart Firefox, there will be a windows to set SIP account.

Then you can make VoIP calls via tool bar at status bar or navigation bar.

This extension will highlight the digits on web pages that look like phone numbers. When cursor is pointed to those digits, there will pops up option to make call. Or when you choose a digits or strings and click the right button, there will be a new option to make calls on the menu.

Abbeyphone also has Thunderbird extension. Both of these extensions have been out for a while. I tested Abbeyphone Firefox VoIP extension and the quality seems to be OK, there is no problem to make or receive calls. There is also option of video, but it seems that this option only works with Abbeyphone account. People doubt about the target market of this kind extension, I guess it will be attractive to users want to do all jobs with Firefox anyhow

Translated from Abbeyphone Firefox SIP网络电话插件

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Although this feature is currently under test and is scheduled to be commercially released by February end, it’s available for you to try it. Please note that you will need to sign up at TringMe with a gmail ID so that TringMe can associate a TringMe account when you make a call from Gtalk (signup with TringMe using same email id as Gtalk). As you may already know, worldwide calling rates offered by TringMe are very competitive and almost half than Skype or other VoIP providers.

To make a call, all you need to do is send a message to tringme@gmail.com from Gtalk. Please note that you would have added tringme to the list of friends in Gtalk already.

• To make a call to a number, merely send a message - call <number> - to tringme@gmail.com. For e.g. call 18585551212 would initiate a call to 1-858-555-1212.
• You can also call other TringMe users by merely using their email address. For e.g., call abc@xyz.com would connect user abc@xyz.com to whatever destination the user has chosen to terminate upon.
• You can reach more than 40 million worldwide SIP users using Gtalk just by typing their SIP URI. For e.g call greg@somesipserver.com will connect you to Greg’s SIP server.

In all cases, you will get an inbound call from TringMe and once you answer, the call to the intended party will be initiated. This also opens a new way for developers to integrate core TringMe functionalities using Google or Jabber APIs.

TringMe also demonstrated MobileVoIP at an even in India last month – some details are here http://blog.tringme.com/tringme-at-headstart-2008 . Some more ideas and thoughts are captures at http://blog.tringme.com

Quote  from TringMe’s newsletter

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By upgrading to Oigaa’s paid service, you can get a virtual local number from 24 counties and has optional virtual local numbers from 39 countries and unlimited extensions. You can also make VoIP calls from Oigaa’s ActiveX web based VoIP soft phone or from VoIP hardware phones. Oigaa has different dialing options — 4.95 USD per month for 120 minutes plus 0.03 USD per minute for calls beyond 120 minutes or 29.95 USD per month for unlimited calls. More details from their web site are as below:

OIGAA is a web activated communication service which provides advanced PBX features and resides on the network. As a leading hosted VoIP centrex application, its innovation resides at the operator’s premises and the end users runs it through a web based application called OIGAA ME from PC, IP Phone or mobile.

No limit of extensions

OIGAA essentially works as any traditional PBX does. It provides phone extensions to each user for internal communications and external lines for concurrent calls to other networks. Incoming calls from telephony networks go into local numbers, and are routed to the required destination. Local numbers can be mapped to any extension. the auto attendant or hunt groups.

Features to connect people

Advanced communication features like presence, instant messaging, file transfer, video calls and much more are available only through OIGAA ME. It enables complete end user communication and service management without any software download or installation.

Talk trough your IP Phone

For backward telephony compatibility, OIGAA extensions can be mapped into any IP phone or adaptor, providing old telephony experience to end user as well. Additionally, OIGAA can be integrated with any conventional PBX by enabling call transfers between any OIGAA user and PBX extensions.

Integrates with your mobile

When the user is on the mobile, OIGAA can attend his/her calls and deliver to mobile handsets easily. Both 2G and 3G terminals are supported. For a better experience, a Windows Mobile handset is recommended to run the OIGAA application on it.

Sound interesting, doesn’t it? As Oigaa is still in beta stage, sometime you have to figure out how to make it work by yourself or seek help via their forum. Anyhow, you can play with Oigaa’s virtual PBX service around as long as their free trial lasts.

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Now Jaiku is part of Google’s products line, it may be integrated with Zingku, the mobile social networking startup just acquired by Google, to build Google’s complete mobile solution. At this moment, Jaiku only accepts new registrations via invitation. I still has several invitations that can be sent. If somebody is interested in, please just leave a comment.

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• Cleanness (Range from 1 — 5, the higher the clean, and icon of toilet paper is used to show the rate )
• Whether users have to pay for the toilet or it only can be used by internal customer
• Whether there is facility for disable
• Whether there is facility for changing diaper
• Reviews by other users
• Write or read toilet works

This service also combines with some advertisements, such as restaurants, clothes shops and so on. It sounds very reasonable, as normally people will feel excellent after relaxing and want to work around

It is a quite innovative idea? After all, it seems to be targeting in female market as it will be less possible for male to surf while using toilet

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At the beginning of year 2008, many people will have new objects and new plans. Then how to stick to your plans to finish them, especially you want to do exercise or reading everyday, but sometime you may forget it or have other things to do. As long as you have a mobile phone, you can make some settings to get free SMS reminder via Google Calender.

First, you need a Google account, then active the Google Calender service. After you login the Google Calender, click the “settings” option on the right upper and add your mobile number in the “Mobile setup” tab. As soon as your mobile number has been verified, you can create event. After all items are correct set, you can save the event, then every day at the time you have chosen a free SMS reminder from Google Calender will be sent to your registered mobile number.

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The difference is that FeedM8 will display full text of your post even you set to output summary via seed while Mofuse will only display summary. It seems that FeedM8 puts advertisement from AdMob and mobile Google Adsense of their own account and they share the revenue with you. With Mofuse, you need to use your own AdMob or mobile Google Adsense ID. You share the revenue with Mofuse unless you pay 6 USD monthly fee.

Recently, Mofuse releases a wordpress plug-in, which can detect browser types visitors are using and redirect users with mobile browsers to your Mofuse site. It seems that Mofuse implemented the same function before by providing some code to insert into your wordpress template, which is also the way of FeedM8 does. The advantage is that you can active, deactive or change the setting without touching the code. However, it seems that the plug-in cannot correct detect some built-in mobile Opera versions while it can detect Opera mini correctly.

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The registration of FeedM8 is very simple, just provide your website and email address, then a temporary password will be sent to your email address。

After  login  FeedM8, you can set the domain name of your website at FeedM8 and other settings. For example, the address of this blog at FeedM8 is http://www.feedm8.com/FreeMobileApplicaitons

FeedM8 provides three very useful integration features for your website:

1. HTML header, add the code provided by FeedM8 will make your website easier to be accessed by mobile users and search engines.

2. Automatic Device Detection，which is a piece of PHP code, it can detect whether users are using mobile devices to visit your blog, if yes, it will redirect them to your FeedM8 address

3. Using Your own Domain, if you have your own domain, it’s easy to setup a mobile subdomain. It’s common to use a subdomain such as m.yourdomain.com for a mobile site. Setup your subdomain to redirect to your FeedM8 URL, it makes it easy for your readers to remember.which is a piece of PHP code, it can detect whether users are using mobile devices to visit your blog, if yes, it will redirect them to your FeedM8 address.

There are more useful features that you can find on the FeedM8 website. You can also make money via FeedM8, as FeedM8 put some advertisements on your mobile website, and the revenue with be shared with you. Now, it also has affiliate plan. If somebody registers FeedM8 via your referral and makes 20 USD revenue, then you can have 10 USD bonus. And if he/she makes 100 USD in 180 days, you can have 50 USD extra bonus.

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The registration procedure is the same as everywhere, the funny part is that you have to choose a phone between two bananas Then you need to upgrade to VoIP account for free. Then you will have a pull down list to choose the DID number. Select the city from which you want to have the number, then you can make choice of the number you want.

Except the free UK virtual incoming number, another attractive fact of Localphone is that it provide very cheap rate to call India. The rate to call land lines and mobile phones is only 1.45 p, which is bloody cheap (almost the same as Betamax including VAT). You can use Localphone from a hardware/software SIP VoIP phone or from your land line/mobile phones via local access numbers, which is very convenient.

Does the VoIP service from Localphone sound interesting? At least you can get a free UK virtual incoming number for free.

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When I just bought HP iPAQ 2210, Mdict was one of the most useful software on it. Mdict is a powerful dictionary software on PPC/Windows Mobile Platform developed by Rayman Zhang from China. It comes with tool to make dictionary files instead of providing dictionary data directly. Now there are hundreds of dictionary files for MDict (with .mdx extension) made by third party.

Features

• It is free for personal non-commercial use

• Support multiple languages

• Support multiple dictionary files and dictionary files can be made by users themselves

• Support PPC/HPC/Smartphone system

• Dictionary files are compressed

• The speed is fast

• Support online words pick up

Drawbacks

• Don’t support full text indexing;
• Don’t support in page jump
• It is difficult switch among dictionary files when the number exceeds 10
• Dictionary files cannot be categorized

Some users even made off-line wikipedia for Mdict.

Contents above based on http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mdict 

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Mobile VoIP based on callback

Mobile VoIP based direct wireless data network requires handsets with powerful hardware and a lot of bandwidth. Most mobile phones are not capable for that. Callback mode are used to bypass these two difficulties. So called “callback mode” is also a phone2phone VoIP service, both parties is answering. The call center will send a request to the VoIP gateway closest to the source number, and this VoIP gateway will connect this call to the source number via PSTN network. After the source number answered, the call center will request the VoIP gateway closest to the destination number to connect this call to PSTN network. The call center will be a bridge. In the callback mode, the codec/compressing of voice signal will be performed by VoIP gateways and connections between VoIP gateways and phone number of calling parties are traditional circuit switching network, so there is no special requirement for handsets of calling parties and bandwidth. However, there is also a disadvantage, in callback mode, both side have to pay connection fee to PSTN operators.

All VoIP services have web callback option call be used on internet-enabled mobile phones, for example, Jajah, Nonoh and RakWeb as well as many products from Betamax. Except that, many mobile VoIP providers developed Java client on mobile phones to make it easy to dial via GPRS/3G network. Here are some of them

Mig33（www.mig33.com）

MINO（http://www.minowireless.com/mino/）

Tokiva（www.tokiva.com）

Vyke（www.vyke.com)

And MoTalk from Morange. In Talkonaut, You can define SIP service providers to DIY mobile VoIP.

But not all phones have internet, so some mobile VoIP provider also provide option to initial calls via SMS, for example Vyke and Morodo.

Translated from 能在手机上使用的网络电话汇总（2）

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To me, Java client of Google maps on mobile phones is more useful, because mostly when I need to check maps I am always on road with access to PC.

Mobile GMaps is the free Java client of Google maps I often used. The main reason is that my E680i doesn’t support proxy configuration at the system level, so most free Java client of Google maps including the one released by Google itself cannot work on it with the WAP connection. Mobile GMaps was the only Java application I found that had option to set proxy. Mobile GMaps was really helpful I was lost somewhere.   Mobile GMaps provides the option to use map data cached in advance, but I am not sure how to make it work. So I used the data downloaded on fly via GPRS/3G, which will be very costly for users without data plan. MGMaps also can be connected with GPS module, which I didn’t try yet.

More information can be found on the official website of MGMaps.

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Numbuzz is a totally free mobile IM/VoIP software. If you have a cell phone with internet access, you can keep contact with your friends and family online with Nimbuzz. You can also make VoIP calls via access number.Latest Nimbuzz also supports VoIP calls from PC to mobile phones or mobile phones to PC. You can make VoIP calls to your Gtalk buddies (I am not sure whether you can make voice calls to Skype contacts). Except the cost to access numbers charged by mobile operator, the rest is free.

Make VoIP calls:
The quality of making receiving VoIP calls is pretty good. After Nimbuzz installed on your mobile phone, choose the contact you want to call and dial. Then the application will ask you whether you want to dial the access number, answer “yes” and Nimbuzz will tell the connection is setting up. Meanwhile, the person you want to call will receive a text message noticing him/her there is a call from you and promote he/she to dial the access number. After he/she answered yes, you can start to talk. Sound like Rebtel, isn’t it?

Text messaging:

You can chat with buddies on Gtalk, Yahoo!, MSN, ICQ and Skype.

The Java mobile client of Nimbuzz should also support WAP connections, but it always fails to login on my handset. Anyhow, it also has WAP version, which includes basic feature s of Java version (The WAP version has problem to support Unicode and it always requires me re-login due to time out. But it may be the problem of my handset).

Considering support of Skype and other feautres, Nimbuzz is a free mobile IM/VoIP Java client that worth to try.

Translated from Nimbuzz——支持Skype的免费即时通信/VoIP网络电话手机客户端（1）

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Mobivox has been know as a Skype on go solution. After registration, you will receive an local access number. By dialing this number, you can call your Skype buddies. What impressed me was that you just need to speak the ID of the Skype buddy you want to call then Mobivox will make connection. An interesting feature, isn’t it? But I am not sure this is enough to attract customers.

Now Mobivox provide 0.25 USD free trial credit to each new registered user. And you can get 1 USD for each successful referral. Calls to Skype buddies are free, but to call normal fixed lines or mobile phones, you will need this credit.

However, similar to Jajah, phone to phone calls between active Mobivox users in free zone is free (strange sentence :-P). And while Jajah reduced free minutes to 150 minutes per week, free minutes provided by Mobivox is still (didn’t check by myself) 250 minutes per week.

Sound interesting? I feel it is worth to try Mobivox’s free VoIP service, as other than access numbers, Mobivox also provides web call method like Jajah. You can find it in your address book.

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It is too slow to surf with built-in HTML browsers of cell phones and it is too costly, as images on each web have 100KB to 1MB size. It is not a wise way to browser them with cell phone in this way.

How about WAP? There is few images, mostly links and the new WAP 2.0 supports XHTML, the speed and the content can be guaranteed. But it is compromised standard, there are too many features not supported by WAP (such as cookie and so on), which make HTML a better choice.

Now, we have Opera mini, I installed 3 different versions on my mobile phone. It is based on Java and about 100KB. You can visit HTML with Opera mini directly while the speed is amazing.

Because Opera mini re-renders pages at caching proxies and adapt the content to fit the screen size of mobile phones, while it only downloads text and parts of images/forms, Opera mini can keep the integration of the content with a small size. For example, the homepage of Sohu is only 46KB on Opera mini (Why Sohu, as it sucks).

Before that, I always use the WAP version of Baidu, because Baidu adapts the search results into WAP format. No, it is not necessary anymore, I can visit Google in full version directly.

Surf HTML pages with the traffic similar to WAP, so I said WAP is meaning less now. Want to try? Just visit http://mini.opera.com to have a look.

p.s. Websites designers work with XHTML standard to make migration easy, but now they only to follow basic standard without considering the conversion to WAP, because this job is done by browsers like Opera mini and mobile phones can view normal HTML/XHTML with them.

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Flurry is one of the most popular email clients on mobile phones, the user interface is clean and easy to control. There are two version to choose, both of them are about 100KB. Since its first release in 2006, there are more than 2,550,000 downloads from Getjar and it keeps on increasing with about 20,000 per week.

It has a lot of advantages, most impressive two are the speed and the small data traffic. Basic features include Mob social networking, push email for multiple accounts and RSS subscribe. The most important feature is push email. It supports Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, AOL, and Mac.com accounts by default, which means for these five email service providers, you only have to input username and password without complicate steps to set server, port and so on. Of course, it also can work with other email accounts supporting POP3 and IMAP.

It is very simly to sign up, you can either sign up with the software on your mobile phone or do it via http://www.flurry.com and login from your mobile phone later. You need to provide your mobile number for verification SMS.

If you add multiple email account, you can choose the “From” address from them. You can also import address book from outlook, Gmail, Yahoo! or input manually via their website.

It also have some limitations: You cannot add attachments, save draft or review sent emails. After all, it will adds text like “Sent from my phone using flurry - Get free mobile email and news at: http://www.flurry.com” at the end of each email.

If you want to try the free group messageing, push email and RSS of flurry, you can download it from Getjar or visit http://wap.getjar.com with your mobile browser, input 4839 for normal version or 17629 for advance version in the Quick Download option.

Technorati : Flurry, Free, Java, Mobile, Push email

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