Microsoft’s Bing search engine is starting to make noise among mobile enthusiast as more people are trying it out.  But before we forget, aside from web version of Bing Search, Microsoft is also launching a mobile version of Bing. In fact, Bing mobile search has just gone public and you can visit the site by pointing your mobile phone’s browser to http://m.bing.com.   Microsoft also created a Blackberry App for its Bing engine that seems pretty slick. I tried using Bing mobile using my Blackberry Curve 8310 and I would have to say that it loads fast and the main search page is sleek and clean, although I can’t help notice it’s striking resemblance to Google Mobile Search. In fact, it’s even cleaner and has a better UI than Google Mobile.

Comparing Google Mobile Search Results for “search engine journal” against the Bing SERP however yield two different first results. Google Mobile is more accurate by virtue of the fact that is displayed SEJ’s main page as the first result while Bing displayed a specific SEJ page.

Like Google Mobile Search, Bing Mobile also displays various vertical search areas including images and news streams. Although generally Google Mobile Search is more organized when presenting these vertical search areas, displaying them on top of the page. For navigation purposes, Google Mobile Search beats Microsoft Bing on this one.

Also, Comparing the Map features, they both have pros and cons.  Google maps offers the “My location” features and if you have your gps turned on it automatically loads your map to your location.

Bing loads its map on New York for some reason.  However, their get direction interface is alot sleeker.

Google Map however, has better navigation keys on the maps app where you can toggle between text directions to the map view easily.

Overall though, Bing Mobile Search is a tough competitor for Google Mobile Search. But after all, all we want is a search engine that works.  I feel that Microsoft might be covering up their functionality flaws with alot of bells and whistles.

Let me know what you think.

Download Bing Mobile app: http://m.bing.com/

Download Google app: http://www.google.com/mobile/

Popularity: 100% [?]

As most of my friends know, I’m always on my blackberry emailing and rexting away. I probably use my blackberry for 90% of the time to contact friends and colleagues.
After using the blackberry for a couple of months, I found the texting process very annoying of how I first had to go to my phone book, then select contact and from the menu choose text. Since I am a power user, I started looking around for an application that would ease and shoten this process. I came accross Qsms. Very simple and to the point tool. Basically what Qsms does is that it makes your “q” key on your keyboard the shortcut to the texting menu. Once u download the app, all you have to do is press “q” from your home screen and you are directly taken to your address book where you can pick the person you want to text and your on your way. I actually timed this and it took 2 second less than the conventional way.

Hope you find it as usefull as I do.

Popularity: 8% [?]

With AutoText, you can actually insert Macros or shortcuts for other functions such as display the current time and date, your PIN number, owner information or even simulate pressing the backspace or delete keys. Here is how:

1. Create a new autotext entry by going to Options > AutoText > Menu > New. Under Replace, use “ts” (“Time Stamp”).
2. Scroll down to With and press the MENU key and select “Insert Macro”. TIP: All macros start with the percent sign (%).
3. Now, just scroll up or down and select the macro you want. In this case, we want a short date (%d) which is the “mm/dd/yy” format.
4. Type a SPACE and “-“ then SPACE, then insert the short time (%t). The field should now read “%d – %t”.

Now whenever you want to put the current date and time, just type your new entry: “ts” and press SPACE. You will now see something like 1/31/2009 – 9:25a whenever you type “ts” then SPACE

By the way, you can perform the above operations to create your self many more macros or short keys.

Since I use email alot, I created a short key of “sig” which will be replaces by “Best Regards, My name”.

This comes very handy for the power user.

Popularity: 8% [?]