I’ve been getting email alerts from Ticketmaster for years. In fact, just this morning I was alerted that Nickelback an unoriginal-catering-to-the-lowest-common-denominator rock band are going on tour again. Thanks to the Ticketmaster App for BlackBerry (which is now supported for all devices on all carriers) I can now instantly find concert alternatives that won’t make my ears plead for mercy.

$83 to see Nickelback?

Let’s review the PR gobbledygook, shall we:

With the Ticketmaster app, you can easily browse ticket information for concerts, sporting events and special events, view venue and seating information and make purchases right from your device.

Well if that just isn’t the bees knees. Download the app for free and check it out for yourself. And if you dare, spend some time with Canada’s most horrific export before deciding if you’re going to buy tickets to their next show. If you make it past the first 9 seconds of this video … you’re a stronger person than I.

Via: CrackBerry

Take a walk down Windows Mobile (Pocket PC and now Windows Phone) memory lane with me, please.  The guys at Microsoft have come a long way, but what happened if this was the start….

Pocket Outlook – a personal information manager (PIM) with calendar, contacts, inbox, tasks and notes which was an ideal companion to the Microsoft Outlook messaging and collaboration client and a full version of Outlook 2000 shipped in the box of every sold Pocket PC.

Pocket Internet Explorer – Love it or hate it but back in 2000, Pocket Internet Explorer provided the most full-functioning Web browser software available for handheld devices of this type at that date.

Pocket Word and Excel – The pocket versions of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel provided the most functional and flexible office companion delivered on a PDA at that time.

Windows Media Player – Long time before the iPod hit the market, the Windows Media Player was the first portable media player that played the Windows Media audio format (later enhanced with video support) and MP3.

Pocket Streets – Long time before Pocket PCs got inbuilt GPS receivers and Google launched  Google Maps, Pocket Streets allowed you take maps with you and includes pushpins for marking favorite locations for easy access.

They where first out of the gate chuck full of what we have become accustomed to as basic software while Apple was releasing the first gen. iPod with a greyscale screen that could only play mp3’s.   It seems though, that Microsoft might have missed something in the span of that 10 years.  We won’t fault them too much because they may be making a comeback with Windows Phone.  Only time will tell if they can make it another 10 years.

Maybe they can even become the trend setters again with some completely new ideas?

What new technology would you like to see in mobile’s in the next 10 years?

Check out the full history here.

[pocketnow]

Techticker.co.uk published a summary of the seminar held by Microsoft to introduce developers to their new OS.

Some of the things that we weren’t aware of before are that the applications on the device will only be able to access 2 GB of storage no matter what size the actual storage is, and also that the device is targeted at career people that want to balance their work and personal lives.

Hopefully the fact that the XNA is most likely to be hacked, the 2 GB issue should not be one for too long.  Otherwise there may be problems with how much media your third party player and GPS etc. will be able to access.

They also elude to 30 something’s as a target audience. I don’t agree because I am not 30 yet and the kin(that is supposed to be targeted at me) has no appeal to me.  I guess that’s why they call it target.  Also third party apps will only be able to use soft keys and will not have access to the keys on the bottom of the phone.

What other surprises do you think they have in store for us before the release?

[wmpoweruser]

Today’s JAMM Store Deal of the Day is WCI Language Translator for Windows Mobile.  You can register the program for half the regular price today.  Check out the details below or download a trial / register here.

The WCI Language Translator is a true free-form sentence translator. Translate words, phrases and full sentences between any of the following languages: English, French, German and Spanish. The WCI translation technology produces high quality translation that is useful for most any language translation situations. A user inputs a sentence just as it would be spoken. The WCI software analyzes the sentence, translates it, then rearranges the words in the translated sentence to conform to the grammatical structure of the target language. The WCI foreign language translation technology supports a very large and comprehensive vocabulary. The WCI Translator is one of the only, if not the only, free-form translator for mobile devices that does NOT require an Internet connection. Features: - Fast, high quality translations of free form text sentences. - No Internet connection required. - Text areas auto size to fit screen for efficient use of screen space. - Up to 250 characters or 76 words can be translated at a time. - Save/Recall the Source and/or Target translation text. - Copy/Paste the Source or Target translation text. - Set your preferred language for all menus and Help. - Set the font size of the Source and Target text. - View the Help subsystem presented in HTML format.

Minimum Requirements: Operating System: Windows Mobile 6.x Professional edition (touch screen) Storage: 17.8 MB Display Dimensions 240×240, 240×320, 240×400, 320×240, 320×320, 400×240, 480×480, 480×640, 480×800, 640×480, 800×480 Operating System WM6, WM6.1, WM6.5

The other day, my sister-in-law sent me a bit of a challenge.  She had recorded a video get well message for my son (who is still in the hospital recovering from emergency surgery).  The video had been uploaded to Photobucket where it was stored as a Flash video.  My mission, she said, was to show this video to my son.  Of course, she said this knowing I would only have my iPad with me in the hospital.  And well, as you all know, the iPad is not currently on speaking terms with Flash videos. 

Of course, I tried the easy way out first, clicking the link to the video from the email.  No surprise when I received nothing more than an error message.  I had pretty much been expecting that.  But that got the gears grinding in my head.  How could I show this to my son without dragging my laptop into the hospital for him to watch a two minute video.

The first thing I would need to do was download the video to my computer.  A quick Internet search revealed All Video Downloads.  Just type the URL from Photobucket and download the video absolutely free. 

Now that the video was stored on my computer, however, I still had to find a way to get it into a format which could be viewed by my iPad.  For that, I turned to my old reliable option for video conversions, Aimersoft, and quickly turned that Flash Video into a format more compatible with the iPad.

Once the file was converted, all I had to do was load it onto my online storage account at Box.net (I normally prefer SugarSync, but while SugarSync could store my videos, it could not replay them).  A few minutes of waiting later, and I was able to view the uploaded video, in its entirety from my iPad using the Box.net iPad app. 

so…there you have it.  This is admittedly not ideal, but in just under half an hour, I was able to download, convert, and view a 2 minute Flash video on my iPad.  Since much of this time was spent researching my options, I would expect it to take even less time now that I have found and assembled all of the tools.  Kids, please try this at home…and if you have alternate options for this process, please let us know in the comments.