The HP WiFi Mobile Mouse retails for $49. 99 and is available starting today from HP.

Connection Process

Instead of figuring out how your notebook’s specific version of Bluetooth pairing software works, or messing around with a dongle and multiple connect buttons, the HP WiFi Mobile mouse is a set it and forget it mouse. HP was able to make the WiFi pairing process simple to set up and best of all, once we set it up, we didn’t have to do it over and over again, like you do with many Bluetooth mice.

When you hear WiFi mouse, you might be worried you can’t use the mouse when you aren’t connected to the Internet, but don’t. The mouse connects directly to the WiFi card on your notebook, so you can use it anywhere as long as you have your notebook WiFi card turned on.

Design

The HP WiFi Mobile Mouse fits nicely in the palm of a standard size hand for comfortable use. You wouldn’t want to use it for 8 hours every day, but it is just right for use on the go.

The mouse has more buttons than we normally see on a mobile mouse with a total of 5, including dedicated forward and back buttons on the left and right now.

Usability

The HP WiFi Mobile Mouse handled well in our monthly of testing with several notebooks. The mouse is accurate and if you need to make a change, you can increase the resolution of the sensor to handle different surfaces and sensitivity needs.

The buttons can be customized to handle numerous tasks. You can’t set button customizations on a per program basis, but there are plenty of options to set the button actions to.

The scroll wheel is also decent and customizable in terms of how many lines each movement should scroll on screen.

Conclusion

The HP WiFi Mobile Mouse is a great choice for users sick of pairing and repairing Bluetooth mice and dealing with lost dongles on their portable mice. The connection process is straightforward and unlike Bluetooth, it’s hard to find a notebook without built in WiFi.

The HP WiFi Mobile mouse may be more expensive than some Bluetooth competition, but the easy setup, pairing that doesn’t quit, small comfortable size and 5 mouse buttons make it well worth the premium.

Pros:

• Long battery life
• WiFi connection means no dongles
• No need to re-pair on each connection
• Comfortable size

Cons:

• Pricier than entry level mice

HP WiFi Mobile Mouse Gallery

HP WiFi Mobile Mouse Review: No Dongles or Re-Pairing Needed is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

Notebooks are getting thinner and lighter every month, but they still require something to rest the notebook on. And while notebook keyboards have improved over the years, it’s still impossible to find a completely silent keyboard, especially if you want to type with any semblance of speed.

The iPad 2's Virtual Keyboard Makes it Great for Mobile and Quiet Use

We ran into both of these settings over the past few days and, while we had a MacBook Air with us, we chose to use our iPad to type thousands of words.

First, we spent most of Friday standing in line for the iPad 2 at our local Apple store. Without a chair or a podium, it was difficult to use the MacBook Air, but easy to hold the iPad in portrait mode and type up our iMovie Trailer Tutorial while standing outside the Apple store. We did need to use the MacBook Air to put finishing touches on the post that either can’t be done or take too much time on the WordPress iPad app, but for the bulk of our work the iPad was better than the notebook.

Next up, we were helping deliver a standardized test on Saturday morning. While the test takers spent 2 hours answering questions about Art and Phys Ed, I was able to type up a portion of our iPad 2 Review on the iPad. While the MacBook Air has a relatively quiet keyboard, the click and clack of each key resounded like a snare drum from GarageBand. Rather than slow our typing to a quiet speed, we switched over to the iPad 2 and Pages to type.

The virtual keyboard on the iPad is perfect for settings like these. Because there are no keys to push you can type almost silently, without slowing down your typing. Many people would prefer a Bluetooth keyboard for typing as much as we did on the iPad 2, but we’ve found that like with any keyboard the iPad 2′s virtual keyboard can be mastered the same way a new notebook’s might be.

In both of these settings we also appreciated the limited multitasking capabilities. While we could switch over to any of our other apps, the deliberate need to stop, double tap and tap again, kept us focused and on task. If needed, we could jump over to one fo the 7 apps that turns the iPad into a notebook, but we didn’t run into that need in either setting.

The lesson learned, isn’t that the iPad 2 can replace a notebook or that the tablet is inherently superior to notebooks and laptops, but that every device has strengths and weaknesses. If we recognize what those are, we can more easily pick the best tech tool for the task at hand and in turn be more productive.

The iPad and iPad 2 Beat Notebooks in Quiet and Mobile Settings is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

To use Norton Mobile Utilities, users will need an Android handset running at least Android 2.0 or better. The software is available as a free beta download direct from Android Market.

Norton Mobile Utilities Helps Mobile Users Stay Within Their Plan Caps is a post by Chuong Nguyen from Notebooks.com.

Symantec says that Norton DNS is free to users of PCs, Macs, tablets, and smartphones using Android, iOS, and Windows Mobile. Users can go to http://nortondns.com/ to download the latest version.

An extension to Norton DNS that I suggested Symantec examine would be to extend the company’s experience with Norton Safe Web technology and website monitoring technologies to guard against phishing, malware and spyware and extend it to apps. With some Android apps having made the news recently by sending information about the user to an external server without the knowledge nor consent of the user. Beyond the mobile web, apps will be the next big thing that security firms will need to tackle on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices.

Norton DNS Helps to Protect Kids on the Mobile Web is a post by Chuong Nguyen from Notebooks.com.

Norton Mobile Security 1.5 offers users some enterprise-grade security, including the ability to remote wipe or lock the handset if it’s misplaced or lost. With a simple text message to the phone to activate geo-location, Norton Mobile Security can send back its location coordinates to the user in the event of loss or theft. According to Symantec, 36% of cell phone owners have experienced loss or theft of their device, and this is a very real risk.

Additionally, the security suite also allows phone owners some protection and detection against websites with anti-malware protection, warning users of bad sites, such as phishing sites, like on the desktop. Moreover, users can set up block lists for unsolicited or unwanted phone calls and SMS text messages.

Smartphone and tablet users of Google’s Android platform can head over to Android Market to download Norton Mobile Security 1.5.

In my conference call with Symantec, the company had hinted that a future version is forthcoming, that would provide additional features and protection. Although the company was not able to reveal what features will be coming, an aspect that Norton should look into is detecting bad apps–in addition to phishing websites, a future version of Mobile Security suite could also detect phishing apps to truly be useful.

The company also says that it expects Norton Mobile Security to be available through select partner as a one-year subscription. For now, though, a free beta trial is available through Android Market. Here are some of the partners that have signed on with Norton:

·         Best Buy Canada Ltd. – Canada’s fastest-growing specialty retailer and e-tailer of consumer electronics plans to offer Norton Mobile Security online, in stores and through their Geek Squad services.

·         Dixons Retail plc – Europe’s leading specialist electrical retailing and services Group, with retail and online brands including Currys, PC World, Elkjop, Kotsovolos, Electro Word, Pixmania and others spanning 28 European countries, plans to offer Norton Mobile Security along with Android phones, tablets and tablet phones.

·         Kingston Digital, Inc. – The Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Co., Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, has selected Norton as the security provider for their USB Flash drives containing Kingston’s urDrive, a free pre-loaded application for organizing, discovering and acquiring content such as games and music. urDrive transforms ‘passive’ USB drives used to store and share data into an ‘active storage’ experience.

·         UOL Inc. S.A. - Brazil’s largest Internet Service and Content Provider with 2.5 million subscribers and more than 4.3 billion page views monthly is already offering Norton mobile solutions to its members.

The company is also looking into deals to pre-load Norton Mobile Security onto smartphones. The move would have to be made with phone-makers. In a hypothetical example, a device-maker such as HTC could potentially pre-load Norton Mobile Security onto its Android smartphones, providing users added value. The downside, however, is that users may not respond favorably. Like the backlash on the desktop market against bloatware and trialware, there is a concern that smartphone users may view Norton Mobile Security suite to be the same on a smartphone. As Norton Mobile Security is a subscription-based program, it will provide no value and will occupy space and computing resources running in the background of a phone after the subscription ends or the user lets the subscription lapse.  In discussing this with Norton, Symanetc says that it hopes the security software provides enough value to users that when pre-loaded by a manufacturer, users would want to use it.

Here are the top 20 cities for phone loss/theft, according to Norton:

1.      Miami – 52%

2.      New York – 49%

3.      Los Angeles – 44%

4.      Phoenix – 41%

5.      Sacramento – 41%

6.      Chicago – 40%

7.      Dallas – 39%

8.      Houston – 37%

9.      Philadelphia – 36%

10.  Tampa – 36%

11.  Cleveland – 36%

12.  Boston – 35%

13.  San Francisco – 35%

14.  Atlanta – 34%

15.  Orlando – 34%

16.  Denver – 34%

17.  Washington DC – 31%

18.  Seattle – 31%

19.  Detroit – 31%

20.  Minneapolis – 29%

Symantec Announces Norton Mobile Security 1.5 for Android is a post by Chuong Nguyen from Notebooks.com.

Once the updates finish rolling out, users will be able to tap the edit button in the upper right hand corner and edit the Google Docs on the go. We haven’t had our accounts updated yet, but given the amount of work we o on the go these days we can’t wait. Expect to see this rolling out over the next few days.

Now that you can use Google Docs on the iPad, you have to wonder if the sales of the Pages app will slow down a bit as users turn towards this free solution that makes it easy to keep documents available in multiple devices. Especially since you can see the edits others make to the document.

The update will allow Android users with Froyo 2.2 installed and iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users with iOS 3.0 or greater to edit documents on the go by visiting docs.google.com in their device’s mobile browser.

Edit Google Docs on the iPad, iPhone, Android and other Mobile Devices is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

Trend Micro SafeSync works on Windows, Mac and Linux and can be installed on up to 3 computers and synced to multiple computers, much like Dropbox does.

SafeSync provides continuous backup service and a virtual hard drive for offline access to synced files. There is also web access allowing for streaming of video and music online as well as a recycle bin and versioning. Versioning allows users to restore  previous version of a file if they accidentally delete a portion of a document. Web streaming also works on your mobile devices and the company states that there are apps on the way for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices.

SafeSync also comes with some sharing options that allow you to share slideshows, links to specific files and more. The service also allows for collaboration with more multiple users editing the same document at the same time and provides the ability to embed video or slideshows on your blog or webpage.

SafeSync is available starting today for $59.95 for an annual subscription for unlimited storage space. According to Trend Micro, the unlimited plan is a promotion for a limited time only. The price is comparable to Mozy and Carbonite who both offer unlimited plans for around $60. Stay tuned as we will be reviewing SafeSync and comparing it to the competition.

Trend Micro SafeSync Online Backup Announced is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

When the original Peek was first introduced, it only offered email. What sweetened the deal was the lifetime of data for one reasonable fee. This proved to be an option for those who wanted to keep their “dumbphones” but still have access to their personal or work email.

The most recent edition, the Peek 9, touts a few new features. Now, in addition to real-time push email, Peek 9 users have access to Twitter, Facebook, PeekMaps and weather, and the ability to send and receive texts for no additional charge . Also built-in is a streaming RSS reader, the ability to view Word, PDF, and spreadsheet attachments, as well as Microsoft Outlook Exchange ActiveSync technology.

The Peek 9 is virtually identical to the Peek Pronto, as far as aesthetics go. The main differences are the speed boost, improved reception, and the addition of pre-installed applications. Other pros of this device include no overages, a rugged design, and a battery that supposedly lasts for days, not hours.

The Peek 9 is currently available in red or black for $69.99. For $30 more, you can get the Peek 9 and two months of service, which is a 25% savings. Though prior versions of the Peek device had an optional lifetime data offering, the Peek 9 does not. However, the pricing is still pretty attractive when you compare it to the data and text message pricing from most cell phone providers. Below are the monthly rates.

• $19.95/month for 1 month
• $14.95/month for 12 months
• $9.95/month for 24 months

Peek claims that this could help you save $100′s on your mobile messaging plan. The company provides the following graphic comparing the savings over a 2 year contract, but there is little context in how they arrive at these numbers. The $10 a month Peek Plan is cheaper than the data plans on smartphones, but if you are only checking email, you could get away with a $15 a month data package, which is the same as purchasing one year of Peek service.

For those of you who haven’t jumped on the smartphone bandwagon just quite yet, the Peek 9 may be something to look into a bit further, though you’ll want to run your own numbers for having a “dumbphone” and a Peek device and consider the fact that you’ll need to carry around two devices.

Peek 9 Brings Social Networking and Maps to the Dedicated Email Device is a post by Carter Sprunger from Notebooks.com.

The ad runs for about two minutes and gives users a quick glimpse at several of the tablet device’s features. As you can see in the below video, the Galaxy Tab can be used for checking email,  navigation, web browsing, video chat, social networking, playing video games and streaming video to an external display. The Samsung Galaxy Tab can of course be used for any number of things with Android apps.

In the video, the Galaxy Tab is repeatedly shown being stowed in users’ back pockets. Due to the tablet’s size, this probably won’t fly out in the real world.

Samsung claims the Galaxy Tab will last for up to seven hours on a single charge.

There’s still now word on pricing from any of the U.S. carriers, which are expected to subsidize the cost of the Galaxy Tab for those signing up for a mobile broadband contract.

Samsung Galaxy Tab Ad Shows Features, Use Cases is a post by Xavier Lanier from Notebooks.com.

Jesse Thomas is the head of JESS3, an award-winning creative agency that specializes in social media, branding and data visualization. After aggregating data from Compete, about pages of platforms like Friendster, official company blog posts from platforms like Facebook, and corroboration of all data via most recent news stories from reputable outlets JESS3 was able to create a relatively accurate depiction of the popularity of each of the top Geo Social applications. The Geo Social applications included in this study are Gowalla, Brightkite, Foursquare, Google Latitude, Loopt, LinkedIn, Twitter, Friendster, MySpace, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Hotmail, Facebook, and Skype.

To see a larger image of The Geosocial Universe, click here.

On the graphic, the large orange circle in the center represents mobile use of the 4.6 billion mobile devices globally. The smaller circles, and the numbers inside them, represent the total number of users of that specific Geo Social application. The section of those circles that overlaps with the orange circle represents how many of the total users access the application using their mobile device. For example, Facebook has roughly 500 million users. Less than half of those 500 million users are accessing Facebook with their mobile device.

Via JESS3

[Thanks Simon]

The Geosocial Universe is a post by Carter Sprunger from Notebooks.com.