UPDATE - The Vodafone 360 service will be terminated on December 31st, 2011. After this time Vodafone will not provide an SMTP service to customers. It is advised, if the below description applies to you, to switch to a free Google or Hotmail email account and use the SMTP settings for that service. Alternately there are paid SMTP relay services available, such as www.smtpauth.com

When you set up a POP or IMAP-based email account on your phone, to send email you need to also specify an outgoing SMTP mail server. Due to security concerns, most ISPs require that you use their Internet service in order to be able to use their outgoing mail server. Therefore, if setting up a Tiscali email account for example, whereas your incoming mail server would be Tiscali's, your outgoing mail server may vary depending on how you're connecting to the Internet. In the case of Vodafone UK, the outgoing mail server to use would have been "send.vodafone.net" - an SMTP server provided by Vodafone to allow their subscribers to send email messages when connected to the Vodafone data network.

This server now appears to have been retired, but it is still possible to send email via SMTP on the Vodafone UK network.

You will first need to sign up for a free Vodafone 360 account. This only takes a few moments and can be done online by browsing to www.vodafone360.com

DLNA is the Digital Living Network Alliance, an open community of manufacturers in the mobile and consumer electronics space that aims to standardise the mechanisms by which connected devices can interoperate with each other in areas such as media playback and image transfer: for instance a DLNA-certified camera would be able to transfer images to a DLNA-certified PC which would in turn be able to display those pictures on a DLNA-certified TV without the need for any additional hardware or software - you get the idea.

When choosing a remote email solution there are a number of approaches that you can take: you may have decided on a client device type and wish to know what solutions are compatible; you may have a specific feature set you need to be available to your users; or similarly a set of features you don't want to be available. You may have specific security concerns or may have a policy regarding which manufacturers you are able to consider.

Currently in version 2.3.4 at the time of writing, Android offers high levels of user-customisation, social networking integration and a 'desktop-like' mobile browsing experience. The platform is very attractive to consumers...but is the operating system ready for the Enterprise?

What is meant by an 'Enterprise-ready' operating system? Ideally the platform should offer the features required by a mobile user as well as conform to the security policy defined by the IT department.

Augmented Reality (AR) is the term for technology that presents the user with a 'mixed' view of the physical world combining a video image of a location together with an overlaid computer-generated view providing information about that location.

A simple example would be the practice of artificially defining pitch lines during sports television broadcasts to enable the viewer to better appreciate team territory possession or possible penalty offences.

I have written before about troubleshooting VPN connections from mobile devices should you experience problems (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/troubleshooting-mobile-vpn-connections), but it has cropped up a number of times recently so I thought another post might help to better understand what the options are in terms of operator services and which is right for you based on your VPN infrastructure.

The GSM encryption algorithm A5/1, the code used to secure mobile phone communications, has been cracked by a German cryptographer, Karsten Nohl. Much has been made of this feat, which was done by capturing large amounts of encrypted signals and then subjecting them to a sustained attack (trying one key after another until one eventually worked) enlisting the help of members of the public throughout the world who ‘leant’ him the processing power of their PCs and games consoles!

The world's first test public LTE networks have been deployed by the Scandinavians in Oslo and Stockholm (by TeliaSonera) offering up to 80Mbps download speeds (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/14/lte_deployment/) which gives rise to the question: what on Earth is LTE?

As you will no doubt have heard rumblings about, the 900MHz spectrum is being opened up globally for 3G use and some manufacturers are already shipping devices that are able to take advantage of this. But what does that actually mean?

Currently, mobile devices are typically referred to as either ‘tri-band’ or ‘quad-band’ and either ‘single mode’ or ‘dual mode’.
The terms tri-band and quad-band refer only to the bands which the device is able to use for GSM/GPRS service: tri-band = 900/1800/1900 MHz and quad-band=850/900/1800/1900 MHz.

I have blogged about the terminal services capabilities of Microsoft Server 2008 on previous, now defunct, blog sites and as it came up in a support call today I thought it was worth resurrecting my old article.