Windows Phone 7.8 has been released and most of us with first and second generation Windows Phone 7 devices are able to upgrade.  If you didn't receive the upgrade automatically, there are ways to install it manually.  Some have been waiting for this for a long time since it brings a few new features including the new start screen with resizable live tiles.  Of course Windows Phone 8 has been available for a bit longer, and it offers many dozens more improvements over the 7.8 update for older devices, but it turns out there are a few areas where Windows Phone 7.8 is still a little ...

Yesterday the tech news world was up in arms about the news regarding how much free space would be available on the Surface Pro's 64Gb and 128Gb solid state drives upon first boot.  Many articles suggested that the used disk space was "unusable", which of course is not true. The 64Gb model will have 23Gb of free space, and the 128Gb model will have 83Gb of free space.  Yes it is kind of unfair that so much should be pre-loaded on the devices, but if you've ever used Windows you might know that there are ways to delete things that you don't want or need.  Some have been able to get ...

Jaime posted an article yesterday pointing out a few reasons why he is no longer excited about the Microsoft Surface Pro.  I'm a different type of person though, and I was very excited to hear that the Surface Pro would be available on February 9th.  Sure it's a couple weeks later than originally expected due to retailer refresh cycle scheduling, but I fully intend to line up to buy one that weekend. The reason I consider myself different from most of the other tech journalists out there is that this isn't my only job.  I have other jobs that require other skills that make use of ...

This week Microsoft announced a new Windows Phone Photo Challenge for holiday themed photos taken with your Windows Phone.  I've been taking a lot this month with my Windows Phone already, so we thought it would be fun to share some tips to help you get more interesting holiday photos. Use Fingerprint smears on the lens Usually, fingerprint grease on the lens makes for blurry or distorted images, but it's not always noticeable.  When you take pictures of bright lights however, you can certainly get some interesting streaks out of those lights.  So why not use some of that fingerprint ...

There's a lot of people out there hoping to see a Notifications Center come to Windows Phone 8 in order to make it exactly like Apple's iOS, Android, and every other smartphone operating system out there.  There are rumors that Microsoft is actually working on this, it's just that they didn't have time to add it into the initial release of Windows Phone 8, but it will probably come in an over-the-air update.  That's great, but why do you need it?  The whole idea behind Windows Phone is to be different and innovative.  Doing things the same way as everyone else isn't innovative at all. ...

Today we learned from Google's Blog that they are dropping support for push personal information management data syncing via the Exchange ActiveSync protocol.  After January 30, 2013, you will not be able to set up new devices using Google Sync and Exchange ActiveSync for your Google accounts.  Accounts that have already been set up will continue to work, as will accounts that are part of Google Apps for Business, Government and Education.  Instead, Google will offer sync services via IMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV.  These protocols are already supported on a iOS devices and of course ...

One of the Google Voice applications available for Windows Phone was recently updated with some very welcome features that are specific to Windows Phone 8.  MetroTalk 3.0 by Pitsi now includes lock screen notification integration which means you can set one of the 6 notification icons on your lock screen to represent MetroTalk's Google Voice notification count.  All you have to do is go to your Lock screen settings, tap one of the "quick status" notification icons, and choose "MetroTalk" from the list (after you've installed the app, of course.)  There are a few other notable ...

Some of the Windows Phone 7 users out there are kind of upset that their current phones will not be upgradable to the new Windows Phone 8 operating system.  They will be upgradable to Windows Phone 7.8 though, which will look a lot like Windows Phone 8 except it won't support certain things.  Oh hey, that sounds a lot like what Apple does with their iOS upgrades, except Apple still calls the latest version iOS 6 even though you may not have all of the same features as iOS 6 might include depending on which device you've actually got it installed on. Would it have made you feel better if ...