It’s happened to me and, sadly, if it hasn't happened to you it may just be a matter of time. I'm not just talking about a strange pause, or the spinny beach ball. These can be handled by a typical soft reset -- just pull the battery (or hold down the End key) to shut'er down and then boot it up again. Sometimes, though, often after installing some software that's not technically compatible, a reboot doesn't fix things. Your phone is seriously busted up. Now what?

The first thing is to hook it up to a computer and see if you can uninstall the offending software via Active Sync or Mobile Device Manager. The second thing: the dreaded hard reset. "Dreaded" because, if you haven't properly prepared for this moment, your data is going to be lost forever.

Read on to find out how to deal with this stuck situation.

» Read the rest of "How to: Prepare for and do a Hard Reset"

Oh sure, most people in the ROM cookign community know about this little story as there have been many,many variations with some form of WM 6.1 for a few months now. But it's a slow news day, so why not?

Word is this ROM (3.49, radio 3.39.10) for Sprint is indeed the "almost official, but still technically beta" WM 6.1 update that many are expecting this summer from Sprint.

Not too much in the way of changes though you get:

• WM 6.1 (latest test build for this device)
• HTC Large Start Menu
• Sprint TV
• Slightly faster

Plus all that RevA and GPS goodness from the earlier update.

The inside joke on this one is that Sprint "leaks" these updates now officially so the community can test out and fix the bugs for them. Either way, these "leaks" are becoming more frequent and I don't hear any complaints, so lets keep at it.

One important rumor: June 1st

That's the reported "official" release date for this ROM, but like always...don't hold yer breath. Unfortunately, no word yet on the other devices (Touch, Q9c, Ace).

Read: New "Official" Sprint ROM (3.49, radio 3.39.10)

One feature I have always enjoyed with GPS units is the digital compass, speedometer, and trip functions (calculating travel time, average speed, etc.). GoogleMaps and LiveView are probably the two most popular mapping program for smartphones but while they can show you were you’re at, where you need to go, there are very few utilities (if any?) on these programs. Efficasoft Software has come up with the solution for those of us who miss those utilities when using GPS with out Smartphone.

Read on for the full review of Efficasoft GPS Utilities for Smartphone v2.0 ($17.95)

» Read the rest of "Review: Efficasoft GPS Utilities (Smartphone Edition)"

Let us list the things we didn't expect to see while attending the Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2008 (aka WES 2008. aka The Center of the BlackBerry Universe) along with Kevin Michaluk of CrackBerry.com.

• Dieter defending the BlackBerry Browser against the attacks of BlackBerry fanatics during the special edition of the CrackBerry.com Podcast. (Yes, it sucks, but even a sucky browser does better with more pixels).
• An HTC Touch Diamond
• ...sitting next to an Xperia X1

Wait! What? That's right, it wasn't just BlackBerry Bold at WES. On the show floor was a booth for BlackBerry Connect and, lo and behold, sitting there was an HTC Touch Diamond and an X1. Sadly: the Touch Diamond was very very much pre-production; powering it on yielded nothing more than a message telling us that it was a demo unit and non-functional. The Xperia was pretty much exactly how I remembered it in my First Look Xperia X1 Review. The Touch Diamond was all new to me.

But the two next to each other? How would they stack up? Why on earth did I allow that reflection of me taking a photo onto this site? Read on!

» Read the rest of "HTC Touch Diamond vs. Xperia X1, Hands-on"

Sure, no sign that any carrier here in the States will even touch an i-mate device, leaving that company to abandon their US team of engineers, QA and technical writing departments.

But there is still some life in that Ultimate line as the 8502 recently got clearance from the FCC gate-keepers. To refresh your failing memory, the 8502 (pictured above) has:

• HSPA (HSDPA & HSUPA)
• TV out
• GPS
• QWERTY kb
• 2.6" qvga (320x240)
• Qualcomm MSM 7200 400 MHz processor
• 256 MB ROM, 128 MB RAM
• Wifi
• 2mp camera
• 1530mah battery (nice)

Huh.

For some reason the Ultimate line doesn't feel so ultimate in mid 2008 as it did back in early 2007 (!)

Anyways, it's looks decent enough though it would have been more amazing in 2007.

In the biz of "smarthphones", 2007 and 2008 has really shored up competition. Word is MS has set a goal to have 40% of that market by 2012, which is...uhhh... very ambitious since at last count they have about 13%.

Sure, why not? Shoot, lets just set any number, it's not like companies actually have to live up to such goals. As long as MS moves up from 13% to anything higher, it'll be seen as a success.

Of course I've always had problems with such statements, namely what defines "smartphone" is often left out. Does MS even bother to consider the iPhone to be a smartphone (we know that debate has raged in the forums for quite some time)? What about how RIM's market share is exploding, Android is warming up at bat and last I checked Symbian is actually fairing quite well (except in the States)? Then you have those pseudo-smartphones e.g. Sprint Instinct, which only blurs the distinction.

RIM Stock (1 yr)

Then there's that whole fractionation of the market into consumer (low end and high end) and business devices. MS has certainly taking aim at enterprise but only occasionally dipped their toe into the consumer market, something which WM7 will supposedly change. At least MS has HTC in their pocket to help things along--their market performance shouldn't be discounted either.

So which phones and which market segment are we talking about exactly?

Lets check back in 2012 and see if any of this came to be, but personally I'm not betting on anything--hey, who knows, "Nova" could be absolutely amazing ; -)

Thoughts?

Are you one who still drives with holding your cell phone to your ear? Do you still pick up your phone to dial a number while driving? If so, depending on where you are, then you may be a hardened criminal or may soon become one! Mandatory hands free cell phone use laws have already been established in several states (Washington, D.C., New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut) with several states following suite. Now California and Washington state are going to join the growing ranks and have a mandatory hands free cell phone law taking effect on July 1...mark it on your calendar. Oregon is soon to follow this trend. There are several states that will probably have similar laws coming in the next year or so as well. Anyone willing to enter a pool on when this might become a federal law?

A study released on Monday claims that over 300 lives will be saved in California alone after this law takes effect. But studies of this kind have ranged all the way across the board from no effect at all, to only increasing lives saved during bad driving conditions, to saving thousands of lives yearly.

This MSNBC article also made an interesting point with the opposition against this law from the cell phone providers. That even though every wireless provider "published brochures for their customers that said don’t talk on your cell phones while driving", Verizon was the only one who did not initially oppose this law. Sprint was the last to oppose it, but finally dropped it and said it will not oppose this law in any other state.

So, if you live in any of the 7 states listed above and are not interested in starting a your criminal career by illegally using your cell phone driving and you haven't found that perfect Bluetooth headset or car speakerphone for your phone yet, now might be a great time to browse the countless reviews we have here at WMExperts to find that perfect one just for you!

So as Dieter is n/a today (hanging with some RIM geeks), it pains me to have to take the reigns and write more bad Sprint news articles--but who can ignore such a calamity?

Evidently, to help stem the loss of all that revenue and subscribers, Sprint is doing what every corporation does in that situation: fire..err..layoff people, usually the bottom tier of course (don't get me started on labor issues).

More precisely, they are planning to

• cut 4,000 jobs
• close stores
• lower wireless phone plans

Everything must go! We will not be undersold!

That lowering of price-plans sounds nifty. Then again, if you're sly enough to be on SERO or are another carrier, you probably already noticed Sprint's "other plans" and have decided for other reasons not to sign up (phone lineup, coverage, customer service)--lets be clear, Sprint already has some of the most competitive plans on the block, so it seems odd that lowering them even more will help.

Yikes. Please pull through Sprint as personally I can't take the "other" guys.

Oh when will the HTC Diamond hype stop? Luckily it's a slow news day so this will fill the gap nicely. As Dieter last week called the Diamond properly an "iPhone killer", it's only fair that some snaps of it next to said phone should appear.

This is all well and good, but what happens on that fateful day in June when that new 3g iPhone drops? Oh well, this will keep the fanboys on both sides happy a bit. Head over to Engadget Chinese for some more shots.

In more tangible news, a nice shot of the Diamond's charger base/dock (extra, not included) has popped up. Sure it's nothing great--USB sync plus headphones, but you have to admit it makes one slick package and would look awesome next to your lava lamp. Expected price is a pretty high $49--guess they really are competing with Apple.

Actually, if you want really cool...check out the quick vid of the Diamond's fantabulous LED notification system. Now that is something some of us have been wanting for a long time. Nice HTC, nice.

While it's not the crown jewel of Opera's Browser offerings -- said title belongs to the as-yet unreleased Opera Mobile 9.5 -- Opera Mini 4.1 is still plenty good. We liked it when it was released in Beta and we like it now that it's a full release, with great features:

• Opera is now up to 50% faster
• Find text within a Web page
• Auto-completion of URLs
• Download and upload files
• Save pages for offline viewing

Opera Mini, sadly, is Java-based, meaning that on Windows Mobile you're going to need a Java Virtual Machine. I can't speak for all WM devices, but on my Moto Q9h it installed very cleanly and it created a shortcut on my Start Menu so I didn't have to go digging through my JVM. Opera Mini is probably the only app that makes me wish that Windows Mobile had Java more deeply integrated, otherwise you can keep it off, thanks.

Grab Opera Mini at http://www.operamini.com.