Crave

(Credit: WB)

While today's Golden Globe announcements were a bit underwhelming, we were thrilled to see "The Hangover" get a nomination in the Best Picture: Comedy or Musical category. To coincide with the film's release on Blu-ray and DVD today we're giving away copies of the movie! Just send us an e-mail at the404 [at] cnet [dot] com telling us your best (or worst) hangover story. Everyone's got at least one, so send us yours for a chance to win!

In Justin and Wilson's absence, Natali Del Conte and Mark "MTI" Licea rush to fill their spots and discuss all the day's news. Should your company be able to check text messages you send out on work cell phones? Actually, don't answer that question--we debate the pros and cons and decide.

Most guys can't remember what shirt they wore yesterday, but apparently most women can recall the first pair of shoes they ever bought--more so than the first boy they ever kissed! What is it about the female obsession with shoes? We ask Natali to clear the air--because, well, she's the only woman who'll talk to us.

All this plus the location of 22 million missing e-mails from the Bush Administration on today's episode!

EPISODE 487

Whenever you hear "Wah-wah-wah," you know you've got mail from Dave.

You've already got individual ringtones set up for your boss, your spouse, and other important people. MailTones brings that same concept to e-mail, playing custom sounds when you receive messages from those certain special senders.

Using the $2.99 app [iTunes link] requires two things: That your iPhone is configured for push e-mail (fetched automatically, not manually) and that your e-mail server has the option of forwarding copies of new messages to another address.

Gmail, for example, makes this a snap, as does MobileMe. As for other services and servers, well, you'll have to find out if forwarding is an option. If not, this isn't the app for you.

With that single step completed, however, all that remains is to configure MailTones' alerts, which offer three options.

Friend Matching works like call-based ringtones: You get an alert when you receive mail from a specific person. (However, you can't just enter someone's e-mail address; you have to choose someone already in your address book. Minor gripe.)

Subject Matching sounds an alert when the subject line contains one or more keywords. And Domain Matching targets mail from specific domains (like, say, the office).

For each match you set up, you can choose from 25 available tones, which range from short, simple "dingtones" (my word) to boisterous cowbells, ship horns, and fire sirens.

Suffice it to say, most people get a lot more e-mail than they do phone calls, and it's easy to experience alert overload. Consequently, you'll almost certainly want to set the New Mail tone to "Ignore" so you don't get interrupted every 10 seconds.

At the same time, turn on Show Alerts, which provides a text message-like pop-up (with the sender's name and subject line) along with the audio alert. That way you'll know if the message is important enough to warrant a full-on visit to Mail.

MailTones is an idea whose time has come. If you're tired of pulling out your iPhone every five minutes to see if that new message is something important, now you've got an audio-cue alternative. Indeed, for anyone inundated by e-mail, MailTones is $2.99 well spent.

We couldn't record today's Podcast without spending a little time on Gizmodo's big unveiling of Microsoft's secret tablet PC. The blog is reporting that even though our first inclination is to call it a tablet, it's really more of a booklet, with two 7-inch(ish) screens with multitouch, a 3MP camera on the back, and a fancy stylus for clicking, writing, dragging, and drawing. In typical 404 fashion, we have to poke fun at the fact that while a long plastic pen is very innovative, we wish it had fully functioning voice recognition, but as we've seen from the Google iPhone app, that technology will likely never be perfected. In the meantime, it looks like the Microsoft booklet will materialize before the fabled Apple tablet.

Speaking of Apple, Wilson and I are very psyched for Google to finally release push e-mail support on Google Sync for the iPhone. This means there will always be a connection to Google's servers to keep your mailbox up to date. There's no additional application necessary, just head to m.google.com/sync from your computer and follow these instructions.

If you're a long-time 404 listener, you'll remember a few months back when my iPhone camera stopped working and the Apple Genius at the store told me that my phone had somehow been submerged in water, judging by the indication on the external water sensor. Well as it turns out, that liquid sensor is a filthy liar. There are actually two liquid sensors on the phone, an internal and an external, which more often than not, tell contradicting stories. If a Genius sees the external one is triggered, the official Apple protocol tells them to report that the warranty is now void and Apple is no longer responsible for fixing the damaged phone. More importantly, the protocol says not to open iPhones and check the internal sensor. If you've had a similar experience, we want to hear about it, but you should also head back to the Apple store and ask them to open up the phone and double-check it. Who knows, you might leave with a brand-new iPhone.

Updated 5:45 p.m. PDT with more details about e-mail push.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

Some of you who have been restlessly awaiting the arrival of Google's official Gmail push solution for mobile phones can relax now. On Tuesday, Google expanded the over-the-air syncing capabilities in its Google Sync service to include Google's e-mail--but only for the iPhone and iPod Touch (version 3.0), and for Windows Mobile phones.

Google Sync began as a beta service to sync Google calendar items and contacts to iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Symbian Series 60 phones. Owners of iPhones, iPod Touches, and Windows Mobile phones can now set it up to include Gmail messages as well.

The phones will receive Google Sync messages through their native e-mail, calendar, and address book apps. Depending on your settings, your phone could vibrate and/or chime to let you know that a new message has come in. Note that Google Sync will not push visual notification boxes to iPhone and iPod Touch interfaces. For that, you'll need third party apps like GPush for iPhone. Instead, it pushes e-mail from the server to the phone, rather than pulls in a list of e-mail messages, a request that the phone's e-mail client makes of the server. Push e-mail is often preferred over "pulled" e-mail for its real-time updates and its lower toll on battery life.

BlackBerry and Nokia Symbian Series 60 users won't have access to pushed Gmail yet, but they can still sync calendar and contact events to the phone's built-in address book and calendar.

To get started, visit m.google.com/sync from your desktop or mobile browser. The step-by-step setup process is best navigated from your computer, and will require you to ultimately configure your phone to sync over the Microsoft Exchange Server.

Related story: Gmail push on iPhone? Meet GPush

Tom and Rafe answer questions about networking, e-mail clients, and breaking into online video.

The original Peek e-mail handheld

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)

Despite the many accolades the Peek received last year, we ragged on it for offering too little for too much, and we still stand by that original claim. Twenty dollars a month for only e-mail just did not seem worth it.

However, Peek has now released the Peek Pronto, which offers way more than just e-mail. Not only do you get push e-mail delivery, you also get Microsoft Exchange support, texting, PDF, and Word doc support, Search, and e-mail apps like weather, news, and maps. Other improvements include a larger font set and faster software speed. It also now allows up to five accounts. The device itself is also slightly retooled with a better keyboard.

Perhaps the feature that truly makes this worth the money is the support for texting--a lot of people use their phones only for texting these days, and having to pay for an exorbitant texting plan on top of a voice plan can be costly. The Peek Pronto is $79, and you only pay $16.67 a month (if you're on the quarterly plan) with no contract. Oh, and it's unlimited texting, too. If you don't have a need for a cell phone, or maybe if you only have a really cheap phone, this could be worth it in the long run.

The Peek Pronto is now available on Amazon from March 24 until March 31, and then available from getpeek.com on April 1, and in Radio Shack stores starting April 8. We've got a review unit in for testing, and as soon as we have our full review, we'll let you know.

The Peek is like a BlackBerry without the phone. It's built for one function only: e-mail. And right now, Amazon is offering a pretty sweet two-for-one deal: Buy one Peek for $79.99 and get a second one free.

Keep in mind that you'll have to pay $19.95 per month, per unit, for service, but at least there's no contract; you can cancel anytime you want. Doing so would leave you with a fairly useless chunk of hardware--two chunks, actually--but there you go.

Actually, that's a big part of the Peek's appeal. Another is that it's way cheaper than most smartphones for folks who just want e-mail on the go (and even around the house). Plus, it's significantly less complicated than, say, a BlackBerry.

Would I buy one? Heavens, no. But I'm not the target audience for this gizmo. And I can't argue with the glowing user reviews on CNET and Amazon.

As with Netbooks, people just seem to love this thing--logic be damned! The twofer deal probably won't last long, so if you want in, act fast.

It was supposed to start selling at Target stores on Monday, but Peek decided to get things started a little early. The e-mail-only device, called the Peek, appeared Thursday on the start-up's Web site.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)

And it looks like it was a smart idea. Silicon Alley Insider notes that two of the three colors already appear to be sold out. (That would be black cherry, and aqua blue, though boring old gray, er, "charcoal gray," looks like it's still in stock.)

We've already gone over what we think the limitations of the Peek are (see CNET Reviews' Nicole Lee's take here). But David Pogue of The New York Times says today that the Peek's "simplicity and elegance" will win over non-techies easily.

He writes, "It will follow the usual cycle of simple, elegant tech products: 1) universal scorn by feature-listers online; 2) quiet, gradual popular acceptance by normal people; 3) bafflement on the part of the feature-listers."

You know how we feel. What do you think, will this be a smashing success among the less technologically savvy among us?

Via Silicon Alley Insider

Peek is a device that does e-mail and only e-mail.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

Last Thursday, I took a look at Peek, a handheld device that does e-mail, and only e-mail. And by the end of the review, I was left wondering if I was missing something. Do people really want an e-mail-only device? Are there people out there who have cell phones, but want another gadget just for checking e-mail?

And it's not like the Peek has an Internet browser, or an instant-messaging client, or a personal organizer. No, all it does is e-mail. That's it. It's not even compatible with Microsoft Exchange, so we can't say it'd be good for corporate use.

And if that doesn't make you skeptical about it, the Peek costs a whopping $100. plus it has a $20 monthly fee. Sure there are no pesky cell phone contracts involved, but what good is having an unlocked device if it isn't a phone?

Now, this is not to say the device itself is bad. On the contrary, we like the Peek's ease of use, and the QWERTY keyboard is a joy to type on. I also really like the jog dial on the side, which lets you scroll through messages quickly and easily. Importing your e-mail account is as easy as entering in your e-mail address and password (do note that it uses POP and not IMAP, so you'll end up deleting e-mail from both in-boxes, which is a pain). The battery life is also pretty good, lasting about two or three days with a typical day's usage.

But, well, that's about it. Peek claims that its value is its simplicity, and we can't fault them for that. But for such a simple device, shouldn't it be cheaper?