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Of the first generation Windows Phones, the Samsung Focus was the only one that had a readably accessible MicroSD slot for memory expansion.  The problem of course is that neither Microsoft or Samsung necessarily encouraged users to add memory to these phones and the results were mixed at best.

Having done some serious working on this over the course of the past few months I have come to some conclusions that I hope will help you if you decide to try to use the MicroSD expansion.  I’ve classified this post as a How To but it is really more For Your Information than anything else.

The first thing in all of this is the MicroSD card itself.  I’ve tested Kingston, Parrot and a generic card so brand isn’t really an issue.  The key is the Class of the card which needs to be a Class 4 in this case.  Every test I did with a Class 2, Class 6 or Class 10 failed.  The phone never recognized the card.  Every Class 4 card I tried worked.

The team over at WPCentral have posted that Windows Phone users can expect the popular dance game Dance Central 2 to be coming to a phone near you in the coming weeks.  According to their post, it is unclear if Dance Central 2 for Windows Phone will be a companion app – like that we are expecting to see today from Microsoft (Xbox Companion) – or a Kinect-linked app like Kinectimals.

Dance Central 2 for Windows Phone (Image from WPCentral)

No word on when this will hit the Marketplace but hopefully it will be soon.  These are the types of titles that need to come to Windows Phone to complete the Microsoft ecosystem as well as show that there are big time developers out there on the platform.

More information at WPCentral

Earlier this morning I posted the Press Release from Microsoft on the Xbox 360 update that is coming tomorrow.  In that announcement was a brief mention of a new app for Windows Phone, Xbox Companion.  I did a little searching and found a great article over at WPCentral and the original content over at Major Nelson.

Basically, here is a brief run down as Major Nelson stated on his site:

Xbox Companion search powered by Bing. Search the unified Xbox catalog for movies, TV shows, music, games and apps using the Windows phone. View a detailed unified results page across all content providers. You can see recently played games and apps and browse the Zune video catalog

He has also posted several screenshots from the app so you can get an idea of what it will do and how it will look.  Over at WPCentral they have a video of things in action as well so be sure to check both sites out.

Check the Marketplace tomorrow for this app while your Xbox is updating!

As the holiday season kicks into full swing, the chances of you needing recipes for anything from cookies to making a killer smoked turkey have likely increased.  One of the best apps out there for this is Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List for Windows Phone.  The app, brought to you by Epicurious.com, gives you not only holiday related recipes but great meal, desert and cocktail ideas throughout the year.  If you are not familiar with the website, Epicurious brings you recipes and cooking ideas from fellow “foodies”.  It is a great site and is essentially driven by users and their feedback.  If you haven’t check it out you need to do so as this app is simply an extension of the site.

To use the Epicurious app you will need to make sure you have about 6MB of storage space available on your Windows Phone.  You do not necessarily have to be running Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) to use this app.  To use the app you will also need data access via 3G or WiFi as this app is essentially a wrapper for the Epicurious website.  The app itself is free and in the Marketplace.  Once you start the app you will first be brought to the recipes type page.  Here you will see a listing of the various categories of recipes that are in the app.  Since I’m doing this review in December you will see a lot of recipes that are holiday – both Christmas and Hanukkah – related but as you scroll down this list you will see non-holiday meal types from sides to entrees.  It is a complete app in this since and given that it is continually being updated on the web, you can expect the content to change as we pass through the seasons.