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With Google Sync it’s possible to synchronize a Windows Mobile phone with Google services. (Currently, Gmail, Google Contacts, and Google Calendar are supported)

To setup Google Sync on Windows Mobile follow the steps:

1. Open Active Sync from your phone.
2. Click on the “Menu” soft-key, and select “Configure Server…”.
   Enter m.google.com as the server address, check the SSL option, and click “Next”.
   

   Configure server

3. Enter your Google account information with you full Gmail address for the “User name”, and Gmail account password for “Password”. Leave the “Domain” field blank, and click “Next”.
   

   Google Account Settings

4. Check the data which you want to sync e.g. Contacts, Calendar, E-mail. Please note that currently Tasks does NOT work, and the synchronization will fail if it’s checked.
   

   Data to be Synchronize

5. Click the “Finish” soft-key and you are done.  Your data with Google will be sync’d next time you synchronize your phone.
   

More information about Google Sync for Windows Mobile.

Nowadays the TouchFlo 2D/3D code named Manila is probably the most common interface you’ll find on a Windows Mobile 6 phone.  However, since it works as a Today component, then you can no longer have other Today components on your Today screen which makes me wish that I can have 2 Today screens available.  SecondToday is a program which allows you to have 2 Today screens on your Windows Mobile device and can be download at http://www.chi-tai.info/cs_wm_tools_im_cs.htm#SecondToday.

The HTC Diamond Touch has been getting a lot of hype; with a sleek external design combined with a VGA screen, and 4GB internal storage, it’s currently one of the best Windows Mobile phone available.

The hardware specification is not the only thing appealing about the HTC Diamond, but the newly introduced TouchFlo 3D software gives you a cool way to navigate over the phone with touch control and finger gestures.

The phone is definitely very appealing, but I’m pretty sure the price won’t be. Luckily there is a much cheaper way to get a HTC Diamond like phone. The developers from XDA-Developers.com managed to get their hands on the Windows Moble 6.1 ROM from the HTC Diamond Touch, and then ported it to work for the HTC Prophet a.k.a Dopod 818 Pro. I downloaded the ROM known as the Throttle IV Diamond 5.2.19213 and flashed my phone with it. The results was a bit disappointing as the ROM was a bit buggy and worked very sluggish on my Dopod phone.

Since I only cared about the TouchFlo 3D features, and not the other HTC Diamond applications, there were two alternative solutions available that worked a lot better.

The Throttle Launcher application which is also bundled with the Throttle IV Diamond 5.2.19213 can be installed individually and provide TouchFlo 3D like features without making my phone sluggish.

A more stable alternative is to install the HTC Diamond SPB MS2.1 Theme v1.1, which works on top of the Spb Mobile Shell 2.1. However, with this theme you only get a similar look to the HTC Diamond, the finger control gestures are based on the Spb Mobile Shell. Another issue is the Spb Mobile Shell is not free.

Until there is a better ROM available, I’ll be sticking with these alternatives and pretend that I’m using the HTC Diamond for now.

After installing the PDAViet 4.0.0.6 Touch ROM for a couple of months, several times I had to hard reset my Dopod. The reason was that once in a while when I did a soft reset Windows Mobile wouldn’t boot up anymore and will just freeze in the start the screen. I do not know the root cause of this problem however, I suspect is because of the HTC Home component.

I decided to seek a newer WM6 ROM hoping that I’ll have better luck. My choice was the PDAViet Transformer 1.1. I didn’t have any reason why I decided to choose this ROM other than feeling the graphics were pretty nice. I figure if this gave me problems as well I still have a couple of more options. <grin>

Check out the screenshots for the Transformer ROM:

Transformer ROM Touch Style

Transformer ROM Cross Style

The link on Transformer 1.1 site was broken, thus I got my copy from http://www.4shared.com/file/25016426/85b0b3a8/Transformer_11.html. To do the actually upgrade you can refer to my blog Upgrading Dopod 818 Pro to Windows Mobile 6.

In my first attempts to flash my Dopod 818 Pro with the Windows Mobile 6 ROM, the process hung during the middle of the upgrade, (or it was me not waiting long enough =P). I ended up having to unplug my phone from my PC before the flashing completed. As expected, my phone couldn’t boot up anymore and all I got was a white screen. Lucky for me there was a way to recover from this:

1. Get a copy of your phone’s factory ROM. For the Dopod 818 Pro, the factory ROM can be found at the HTC Website when you sign in as a member.
2. With the phone unplug, start the phone into the Bootloader mode, by holding the camera button, and soft reseting the phone with the stylus. When you see multi-color screen, then you have successfully entered Bootloader mode.
3. Inside ActiveSync DISABLE the connect through USB by navigating to File -> Connection Settings and uncheck Allow USB connection.
4. Connect the phone back to the PC using a USB connection.
5. Install the factory ROM for your phone, and everything should be back to normal.