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As a Windows Phone user I’m a big fan of the built in Bing search functionality.  It is rich, powerful and you get that great daily wallpaper on your phone (which you can save to your Windows Phone via the Insider app).  But even I have a need now and again to go to Google to do a search for something that I can’t find on Bing (become a more rare need).  Now you can do that Google search quick and easy on your Windows Phone.

Before you leave this article however and go diving into Marketplace to find an app, hold on just one second.  There is no app them in the store.  No, Google has made this available to you in Internet Explorer on your Windows Phone and I have to say, they have done a pretty darn good job.

If you browse to Google on your phone you will get a Windows Phone specific page for searching.  What is even more cool is that Google has made this an item that you can pin to your Start screen if you want to do so.  It is a slick little trick!  Think of it as a “web app” much like what you can do with an iPhone and Safari.

So head on over to Google.com on your Windows Phone and check it out!

If you have holiday parties to cook for and plan this year, let your Windows Phone help you out with some great apps that are available in the MarketPlace.  The Windows Phone Blog has outlined some of these apps in a blog post today that range from food planning and cooking to drinks and even entertainment.  It is a great and timely posting and really reflects some of the great apps that are in the Marketplace.

Along with the ones that the post mentions, there are plenty of other apps in the Marketplace to help you with your holiday party planning.  And don’t forget the great and powerful Bing maps that is built into Windows Phone to get you safely to and from those parties.

Check out the blog post at the Windows Phone Blog

There has been a lot of press today regarding CircuitIQ, the application that runs in the background on Android and Blackberry devices that provides carriers (Verizon has been identified here in the US) information on how the phone in question is being used.  The principle, while benign enough, is to provide information to the carriers about phone and network performance.  The problem is that it captures a tremendous amount of information about how, were and what you do on your phone.  To say that it is a privacy issue is likely a big understatement.

The good news for Windows Phone users is that it isn’t there on these devices and it never has been.  Joe Belfiore, the Windows Phone Program Management Director stated on Twitter today that Windows Phone doesn’t have it.

That is about as direct an answer as you can get.

CircuitIQ represents the latest challenge of consumers versus carriers.  To be fair, carriers need to know how their networks are performing and the devices on them so they can make improvements.  But this type of thing should be an “opt-in” option and not on by default.

It also appears that the US Congress is going to investigate this which will really bring to light all that CircuitIQ does and what the carriers have been doing with this treasure trove of information on their users.

Stay tuned.  This story is just getting started.

Let me make a statement that I’m sure many of you will agree with me on:  The official Twitter app for Windows Phone is lacking.

Even though it has been updated to support Mango, there are still a lot of things it does not do like pinning to the Start screen and Live tiles.  It feels very halfway done.

Fortunately there is a great solution that I’ve been trying out the last couple of weeks and the team over at All About Windows Phone has reviewed.  The app is Rowi from Hidden Pineapple.  It allows you to do all of the things you would expect in a Mango-ready app that the official Twitter app can’t do.  The AAWP review covers all of the aspects of Rowi and provides plenty of screenshots to guide you along on the look and feel of the app.

You can read the full review over at AAWP

If you want to give Rowi a try yourself, you can check out the free version, Rowi Lite in the Marketplace (it does not support Live tile updates) or the full version is $2.99.