Learn the essentials for developing mobile applications for any device. Focusing on proven techniques and practices, this guide addresses the real-world needs of experienced Microsoft Windows mobile developers. It also covers mobile applications that use Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 2.0, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Everywhere Edition, and Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0, running on devices such as Pocket PCs and Windows Mobile Smartphones. In addition, it includes extensive code samples in Microsoft Visual C#, with additional code sample in Microsoft Visual Basic on the book’s companion Web site.

Paragon Software has released a new Palm OS weather application, called Handy Weather. Handy Weather joins an increasingly crowded list of smartphone weather software, but brings some of its own unique features to set it apart. It has the usual weather information with support for up to 30 locations, and has three different 5-day views. It also includes animated icons, a multilingual interface and manual and automatic updating. It also includes an interesting feature that will append the 5-day forecast to your Treo keyguard screen if you wish.

Palm has made the Sprint Treo 700p maintenance release updater available again. According to Palm only the SD card updater version is being made available at this time, as the Windows Installer’s issues are still being investigated. Still no word on the timing for a Verizon release.

The U.S. International Trade Commission has denied a request by Qualcomm to stay an ITC ban on the importation of some Qualcomm chips and cell phones into the U.S. while the company continues its appeal in a patent infringement case filed against it by Broadcom Corp.

The ITC found in an eight-page ruling issued Thursday that Qualcomm failed to meet a “four-prong test” applied in courts trying to determine whether to grant preliminary injunctions. The test was also used in this particular case by a U.S. federal court and requires that Qualcomm prove: a likelihood its appeal will succeed; that irreparable harm will be done to it if the stay is not imposed; that “issuance of a stay would not substantially harm other parties”; and “that the public interest favors a stay.”

In what seems to be a bid to compete with the iPhone’s snazzy feature set–the touchscreen, photo management and iPod apps you’ve seen in those ubiquitous TV ads–some manufacturers are building new features on their own handsets.

Competing for touchscreen sexiness are LG’s sleek Prada Phone and HTC’s Touch, both of which use preprogrammed finger motions to allow users to manage functions. And Samsung Electronics has introduced several new mobile phones with touch navigation, allowing you to navigate menus, scroll through music playlists, surf the Web and control settings via the “drag and drop” method.

MonkeyByte.com announced the release of their very first iPhone applications to the Web. In anticipation of the upcoming iPhone release, MonkeyByte.com has teamed with the San Leandro Times and the Castro Valley Forum newspapers in offering up to the moment news updates with the latest local columns streamed right to your iPhone.

Many freelancers, smaller firms, and even medium-sized companies would like to enjoy the advantages of a BlackBerry Enterprise Server, but do not have the resources to operate it themselves. As a solution to this, Cortado now offers a hosted solution enabling fast and easy access to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

The BlackBerry Enterprise Server can be activated for use with BlackBerry smartphones. In addition to the renowned BlackBerry push services for messages, applications, address book, calendar, tasks and memos, this new hosted BlackBerry Enterprise Server offering from Cortado also includes the Cortado Business Plus Exchange Email package with a 2GB mailbox, comprehensive virus protection and professional spam filter. Users are also able to continue using their existing email address, as with all Cortado mailbox packages.

We have a problem. Ok, maybe not you personally, but we, the users of Outlook, collectively have a problem. That problem is how to maintain access to our Outlook data when we’re mobile. Outlook Mobile Service (OMS) is one possible solution to that problem. It’s an inexpensive, low-bandwidth way to get access to crucial Outlook data on virtually any mobile phone that can send and receive text (SMS) messages.

Read this Computing Unplugged article.

Microsoft launched a redesigned MSN portal optimized for mobile phones on Sunday, stepping up its offering at a time when more powerful devices increase the demand for richer content on handsets.

U.S. mobile Internet use still represents only a fraction of computer-based Web usage, but technology heavyweights like Microsoft see increasingly powerful mobile phones and faster networks opening the door for new services and content.

Toshiba’s Digital Product Division announced that the Satellite P205, Satellite X205 and Qosmio F45 will be the company’s first mainstream mobile solutions to incorporate HD DVD drives, while the Qosmio G45 will be the first U.S. notebook computer with a writable HD DVD optical drive, and will be available to consumers in time for the back-to-school season.