The SEVEN Beta setup is an interesting one.

As a company, Seven (enough capitalising already!) sell their excellent push e-mail products only via mobile operator channels, however their Beta program is an excellent way for users on unsupported carriers (that's likely you and I) to enjoy their software.

Available in a variety of editions on a variety of platforms, Seven's software allows you to receive push mail on your device from a variety of services - Exchange, Yahoo, GMail, AOL Mail, HoTMaiL and standard POP and IMAP services are all supported. A Beta release it might be (with the usual associated disclaimers), but the application is a supremely useful piece of software that i've been using for many years to push synchronise GMail with my Windows Mobile devices.

I happened to visit the Seven Beta site earlier today to download the latest Windows Mobile client and I was intrigued to notice that an Android download option had appeared. Obviously I had to download the application and take a look!

As expected, it's a Seven client for the Android OS that includes all of the goodness that i'm used to - push mail across a host of platforms, 'quiet times' when push can be automatically disabled, multiple accounts, server contact search, customisable notifications and more! Although the currently version of the software is missing a few features i'd like to see (primarily HTML mail), for Android users it can often be a trying task getting mail set up and working as desired if you are using something other than GMail, and Seven is making that story easier. I've been pushing an additional e-mail account and a HoTMaiL account all day without any issues!

If you'd like to try out Seven on Android (or indeed any of their other support platforms, which include WinMo Standard / Professional, Symbian S60, Palm OS and even J2ME!) then head on over to the Seven Community Forum to sign up for an account.

It's amazing how expensive cradles are for mobile devices. Most users realize that there is a big premium being charged for what amounts to a formed piece of plastic, and it makes them less likely to pony up the big bucks for a device that holds their phone. Luckily, this is an area where a little DIY creativity can help.

A Download Squad tipster pointed us to their YouTube video describing how to take a cardboard coffee cup sleeve and with a few careful cuts, turn it into a perfectly serviceable cradle for holding a mobile device in landscape orientation. The video could have been shorter, but it is very well put together. I've embedded the video after the jump at the end of this post.

Alternatively, there is an iPhone dock papercraft project that Lifehacker pointed to that is a little more complicated, but results in a cradle that can hold an iPhone in landscape or portrait orientation, and allows you to plug in your iPhone's sync cable while in portrait orientation.

Is it worth skimping on a cradle and trying to make it yourself, or are you willing to pay the premium that hardware makers charge for their sturdier versions? Do you know of a different set of DIY cradle plans? Let us know in the comments.

Gmail on the BlackBerry has come a long way in a short while. When I first starting using the Java app (as opposed to the site in BB's rather crummy browser on my 8800) it was pretty limited. Only one draft email at a time, limited support for some of Gmail's best features, etc. Now, however, it works... better. You can star items, check archives, move things around a bit, work in offline mode and create multiple drafts. I'm not saying it is perfect, but mobile users are conditioned to being second-class netizens when it comes to application features. But this may change.

Google is experimenting with an enhanced Gmail plug-in that will supposedly bring conversations, labels, stars and so forth available on lesser beasts than the iPhone. Speaking of iPhone, I'm still amazed there's no native Gmail app seeing as how Apple's Mail tool doesn't "do" much with Gmail's features (stars, labels, etc.) and the mobile Safari version is superior in almost every way to Apple's Mail. Perhaps Google will release a proper iPhone app around the time they release this now-beta plug-in. We'll keep you posted on both fronts.

In the meanwhile, if you're a power user who likes to try new things, you can sign up for the RIM Beta program and see if they let you play with new stuff.

[via Engadget and BerryReview]

Chanpory Rith at LifeClever has published a list of 17 powerful bookmarklets for your iPhone, containing some truly useful stuff beyond the typical web app launchers that are quickly becoming a dime a dozen. At the top of my list are 'marklets like movie times and Wikipedia, which offer one-click popup access to search for local movie times or articles on Wikipedia (respectively). Other really useful ones are 'Find in this page' which is pretty straightforward, as well as 'Open links in new window,' which will reload the current page you're viewing on your iPhone and edit all the links on the page to, well, open in a new window. This is particularly useful since the iPhone doesn't seem to cache pages well (or it possibly uses a caching system that most sites simply haven't accounted for yet), but MobileSafari (the new name many are using for the iPhone's Safari browser) does tabbed browsing like a champ. In fact, it even remembers opened tabs after you power down and restart the phone, making a bookmarklet like this very handy to those like to truly explore the 6 degrees of the world wide web on their iPhone.

To get set up with these bookmarks, visit the LifeClever site in either Safari or Internet Explorer and add them to a folder of bookmarks you're synching with the iPhone. Perform a sync and you're ready to go.