I did a video for GottaBeMobile this evening to show the general procedure for wiping personal data off a Windows Phone. In doing that, I decided to also show how to do a hardware hard reset of the HTC Titan followed by a quick demo of Reinstaller.

To perform a software reset of a Windows Phone

1. Head to settings
2. Tap on “about”
3. Tap on “reset your phone”
4. Tap yes on both of the warnings
5. You are done, wait for reboot

To perform a hardware hard reset of the HTC Titan

1. Completely turn off the HTC Titan by holding down the power button and sliding the screen down
2. Pull battery for 10 seconds
3. Hold down the up and down volume buttons at the same time, then hold down power
4. Now follow the instructions on the screen. Scroll using the volume buttons

Reinstaller to aid in reinstalling apps after a hard reset or when you get a new Windows Phone

1. After the reset is complete, download Reinstaller
2. You have to use the same Windows Live ID that you’ve purchased apps with previously.
3. Log in, let the app discover your downloaded/purchased apps
4. Select the apps you want to reinstall
5. Follow on screen instructions

Here’s the video that demonstrates all of the tasks above, and more.

Any Questions?

The price is $4.99 instead of the $6.99 price tag initially announced. Here’s a preview of the game from WP Central.

The price makes me wonder, is it worth that price? I know some premium games are in that price range, but I am pretty sure Apple set the app/game market price bar a little lower than $5. Would you pay $4.99 for a game?

If you are a Windows Phone Developer on the West Coast, you might be able to snag a free Windows Phone.

I want to be clear on a couple of things.

1. I am getting these phones to developers that are writing applications for the marketplace
2. I have a limited supply (First ones to get me the info I need)
3. You must live on the West Coast of the US

Droid Rage is one of the campaigns that @BenThePCGuy has been pushing on Twitter. He’s gone out with tweets like these:

“More malware on Android! Been hit? Share yr #droidrage story to win a #windowsphone upgrade. 5 best (worst?) win!”

“Been nailed with Android malware and have #Droidrage? Share [your] story with me … you might win an upgrade to a #windowsphone!”

Today, he held another contest where he gave people 3 hours to tell him the best story why they want a new Nokia 710. Two winners were selected.

The contest prizes were proudly displayed in this box that he shared with followers last night. Where are the AT&T Windows Phones?

Last year, he gave 25 phones out to Blackberry users too. It seems his pulse is with the times. If I recall correctly, this contest dropped around the time RIM had an outage. In addition, the Droid Rage contest popped up about the time news of Android Malware was circling the blogosphere.

Smoked by Windows Phone is another Microsoft Promotion where Ben is the front man. He was at CES challenging users with non-Windows Phones to a game. He was at CES offering $100 if you could be him and his Windows Phone in a speed test. Not a download or upload “speed test”, a test where you have to snap a photo and get it to Facebook faster than him. There are tons of videos that they have uploaded to YouTube available, you can check out a handful of them here. This promotion has been a wild success and according to the Seattle Times, it’s going to become an online campaign now.

If you want to get into some of his contests, follow BenThePCGuy on Twitter.

Who is Ben Rudolph? 

I will let him tell you courtesy of Linkedin:

I’ve spent the last 9 years in technology (software and biotech), and during that time I’ve established myself as a leading force in B2B and B2C branding, creative marketing and high-visibility communications. My strong relationships with dozens of top-tier media outlets and analysts have helped secure thousands of features and speaking opportunities, exponentially grow sales, and raise millions of dollars of venture capital funding. 

I’m also a total tech nerd. I love tinkering with gadgets, hardware and software, and I would rate myself a 9/10 on the technical know-how scale. My love of technology has been very helpful in my role as an evangelist, since it means I can talk shop with the gearheads, or give the “tech 101″ overview to someone who doesn’t know a USB port from a tawny port.

With him and Nokia throwing some viral love towards Windows Phone, Microsoft could see some market share increase this year for sure.

It’s easy to multitask between apps on Windows Phone.

1. Hold down the back arrow key to see applications you are currently running.
2. Flick right, then just tap the app you want and seamlessly switch without going to the Start screen.

If you don’t want to power up the phone just to wipe it, or if you have fallen victim to an unfortunate circumstance and the phone will no longer finish booting, you can still force a hard reset from the hardware buttons. To do this, start with the phone powered off and follow these simple steps:

1. Press and hold the volume down, power, and camera keys
2. When the phone vibrates, release the power key but continue to press the camera and power down buttons
3. After about 5 seconds, release the camera and volume buttons and the phone will then reset and automatically restart

You now have a device that’s clean and fresh.

Hello all. As you know, we are just getting started here at Aximsite. Some of you already know that this site was a pocket pc site when Chris owned it before. Obviously it’s a Windows Phone site now.

We are gearing up for providing coverage with a different spin. Soon, we should see some of the other authors get more involved and once that happens, things should get interesting. Chris has also teased about a contest for a couple phones but that is on hold waiting for the sponsor to provide details and rules for the contests.

I am writing tonight to ask you all to help us get the word out there about the new site. What can you do to help?

• Tweet, Retweet, and follow us on Twitter
• Like us on Facebook
• Circle us on Google Plus
• Subscribe to our RSS feed.

Thank you and please be patient, we are ramping up.

Here is some required reading about Aximsite: Welcome to Aximsite, A New Windows Phone Community!

The 1st tip is a simple one that has been covered by Mike on Mobile Jaw and Chris on GottaBeMobile, but the more tips the merrier. The video was very brief but strait to the point, something Chris won’t be in his videos that he has planned for Aximsite.

You can subscribe to this video series here.

Thanks to the Windows Phone Team blog for the tip.

The lead text for the resources post at InspriationFeed even includes a nice endorsement of the Windows Phone 7 platform…

Today we collected 20+ prototyping, sketching, mockup and wireframing resources for Windows phone 7. With the steady growth of Windows phone, we strongly believe Microsoft will be the strongest third player in the smart-phone business. Their operating system has great features and is capable of hanging with the big boys; Apple and Google. We hope Windows Phone designers and developers will find this useful!

There are links to all kinds of resources here, including PSD templates, Visio files and icons. If you are looking for resources to get you started with designing a Windows Phone application or are looking for resources to help add a bit more “graphical polish”, be sure to give this list a good look.

For me, there are a couple of features that are important:

• Live tiles with push notifications
• Ability to retweet with comments
• Ability to customize text size

There are 3 Twitter clients that meet most of my needs out there right now. I am sure some others would suffice, but these are the three I have narrowed it down to. Rowi, Mehdoh, and Carbon. Carbon and Rowi offer threaded Direct Messages too. Not having this feature isn’t a breaking point for me, but I do like threaded conversations. Something I really like about Carbon is the conversation view.

I decided to do a video that showcases all three of these clients showing the basics of their operation to help readers get an idea of the pros and cons of each. The video is 24 minutes long and I just skimmed the surface of each of them. The video was done on an HTC Titan running Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. I was running the most current version (available on the Windows Phone Marketplace) of each of these apps.

Like I said, I am sure to have missed a killer feature or two for each of the apps, but I wanted to show the basics for the most part.

Here are the Twitter Clients that I have tried so far:

MehDoh - This one is one of the crowd favorites right now. It has live tile support as well as toast notifications. It doesn’t provide an option for multiple accounts though. It does remember where you left off and that’s something earlier Twitter clients couldn’t do. There is no push for the live tiles, but it does go out every 30 minutes and brings back data for the live tiles.

• Price: Free
• My Rating: 8/10

The Official Twitter App- This one works well, but I find it slow. It’s definitely a far cry from the official apps for Android and iOS. No Live Tile support, no notifications at all that someone has sent you a DM or @ reply.

• Price: FREE
• My Rating: 6/10

MoTweets - MoTweets was a great client on Windows Mobile prior to Windows Phone’s release. Today, the app is still very solid. You can added multiple accounts and it has Facebook support. I purchased the pro version to support the developers before I found that there were so many capable apps available now. The biggest thing I do not like about MoTweets is that you have to keep tapping more to load more tweets. It’s also a little slow to refresh. It is very customization though. The description says that it has live tile support, but it’s not working for me.

• Price: $1.99
• My Rating: 6/10

Seesmic - Seesmic is one of the bigger brand names in Twitter clients. It should be good right? This one is free too. It’s good, offers multiple accounts, and did I mention… free? Seesmic has live tile support as well. The live tiles appear to work, but they don’t always update from what I can see.

• Price: FREE
• My Rating: 7/10

Beezz - This one had a ton of promise, but appears to have no support now. They were supposed to have notifications now, but I haven’t been able to get it to work. This worked fine on my Samsung Focus last fall.

• Price: FREE
• My Rating: 2/10

Birdsong - Live tile and push notifications aren’t working for me with this app. This was a bummer because the customization and speed of this one is great. Bing integration. Multiple Accounts. Low Price. This app is primed to be good, but I just couldn’t get notifications to work.

• Price: $0.99
• My Rating: 7/10

The Verdict is…

Rowi for me. The main reason I choose Rowi is push notifications. If not for the notifications, it would be a 3 way tie. Rowi, Carbon, and Mehdoh are all quality Twitter clients, each with their own killer feature. It would be a toss up for me if they all didn’t have push notifications. I really like Mehdoh and Rowi most though. Carbon is poised to be awesome, but they are the new guys on the block.

Screenshot Gallery

What do you use on your Windows Phone?