This is usually the season for door-busting sales, but I think this one has to do with reducing inventory more than anything. MSI is touting a new online promotion in India, the UK, Australia and Italy, and although I’m not near any of those parts, I checked it out. The promotional link took me to a deal for a free MSI Wind netbook with the purchase of an X600 notebook. The free netbook is the same U100 model I purchased in 2008 and is worth roughly $350. To get the deal, you actually have to print out the online coupon and take it to specific vendors.

Purchasing the X600 gets you a skinny 15.6″ notebook with 1366 x 768 resolution running on an Intel ULV chip and ATI Radeon HD 4330 graphics processor. The 2.1-kilogram notebook with 6-cell battery should run for nearly a full workday, and of course, you can always migrate over to your free netbook if you run out of juice.

Sony’s old PRS-500 eBook reader gains a new trick with the addition of ePub format support, says MobileRead. Oh, but it’s quite a trick to get the support. While one would expect this to be a simple firmware update, it isn’t. Well, it’s either that or it’s a way for you to get a new model — you be the judge. To get ePub support, you’ll need to send in your PRS-500 to a Sony Service Center. Sony will “update the firmware” — so it is just a firmware update, yes? — and return your reader to you within 14 days. Plan B is to trade up. Sony will give you $50 off of the $199 Reader Pocket Edition or $75 off the $299 Reader Touch Edition if you trade in your older device. Both of the newer models already support ePub, so you gain the new format as well as a newer device if you go the trade-in route. Don’t wait too long to decide — Sony is migrating its eBook platform and store to ePub before the end of the year.

Early adopters of the PRS-500 might be on the fence here, but if it were me and I had the money, I’d probably take advantage of the upgrade for a little cost savings. The newer devices have a faster refresh rate, 8-level grey scale and, in the case of the Touch Edition, offers a touchscreen display. Nice to see Sony give a little something to the first Reader customers.

Many moons ago I used SPB Wallet on my Pocket PC. And by many moons, I mean not long after Y2K — you kids will have to look that one up on Wikipedia. The application stores passwords, credit card numbers and other personal data in a virtual wallet. There was also a Windows desktop companion program, which made it easier to access and edit information. At long last, SPB announces support for Mac OS X, and it looks pretty slick and just as functional as its venerable Windows counterpart.

“The desktop component, previously available exclusively for Windows, is created to enable Wallet users to easily manage and arrange their sensitive data in a more convenient way, on a bigger screen and with a bigger keyboard. The Mac version of this software provides users with capabilities of editing data, syncing it with an iPhone or an iPod touch over Wi-Fi, as well as syncing every wallet with Google mailbox. It can also be synchronized with Windows Mobile and Symbian versions of SPB Wallet if the devices are connected via USB in Mass Storage mode.”

The OS X version of SPB Wallet is $14.95, but like most all SPB products can be used for a 15-day free trial. This is a bit of software that I used to install on every one of my devices, much like eReader and a few other utilities. If you’re looking for a place to securely store and carry personal info, I recommend taking a look at SPB Wallet.

Microsoft just released Windows Mobile 6.5 last month, but already, there’s talk of testing Windows Mobile 7. That might explain why 6.5 is more of a minor bump after all the time between it and the prior version. WMPowerUser caught wind of the “Maldives” WinMo 7 tester program, allegedly slated for the first quarter of 2010. Now by “tester program” I mean testing by handset manufacturers, not for average Joes and Janes. And there’s no indication that Windows Mobile 7 will hit any earlier than the third quarter of 2010. But it’s a positive sign as other mobile operating systems have caught up to, and in many ways passed, Windows Mobile over the last two years alone.

The big question in my mind isn’t where Windows Mobile 7 will be when it arrives, but rather, where will all of its competitors be at that time. Apple appears to be on a major release schedule each June or July with updated handsets and new operating system features. Google is proving that it can press the gas pedal with Android updates, too — not long after version 1.6 hit the air, we saw a flashier version 2.0 arrive. Nokia’s first Maemo phone is now shipping, but updates for that platform have no history to form a basis. BlackBerry also continues to move forward and, of course, some of us are still waiting for more great things from Palm.

Three quarters of a year can be a lifetime for mobile devices, so my hope is that Microsoft debuts something that’s ahead of its time with Windows Mobile 7.

Say what you will about Palm Pre owners, they are by and large an innovative lot. An enterprising (and electrically savvy) Pre owner has extended the homebrew scene from apps to the physical and built a car mount for his Pre using the Touchstone charger.

The enterprising individual has detailed the process and explained the whys and wherefores of the components chosen for the project. The Pre sits on the Touchstone charger by magnetic connection, and according to the hobbyist, the phone sits firmly on the mount. If you decide to tackle such a project yourself, bear in mind that tinkering with the car’s electrical system can be dangerous, and you could have horrific consequences if proper care is not exercised. Pretty cool, though.

The folks behind Firefox are still hard at work on Fennec, the mobile version of the popular browser. A new beta version 1.0b5, known officially as Firefox for Maemo, is out for the Nokia N810 and N900, and our buddy Matt Miller is taking it for a test spin. It sounds like the most significant change with this beta is it now has official Firefox branding, hinting that the full version can’t be far behind.

Matt found the browser to be a little “slow and buggy,” but that’s to be expected from a beta version. The Mozilla Fennec team has added lots of tweaks as development progresses, including:

• Enabled official branding, with Firefox name and logo
• Support for localizations, currently including Spanish, German, French, Italian, Dutch and Russian
• Enabled plugins
• Viewport meta tag support
• Fixed a number of sites that resize their content after the page is loaded
• Added a form assistant to make filling forms easier
• Improved panning performance and behavior
• Zooming doesn’t jump around anymore
• Numerous other bugs and polish issues addressed

Kevin and I have been using Dropbox for a long time, primarily to exchange large files. The service provides great file-sharing and syncing features to keep all your devices up to date. One of the confusing things about Dropbox has been the web home. Due to a domain problem, the service has always been found at getdropbox.com. We received word today that it has resolved this issue, and the new home is dropbox.com, as you would expect.

The news didn’t end there, as Dropbox also announced the new iPhone app. The app lets you access files in the Dropbox cloud, download files for viewing later, sync iPhone photos and videos to your Dropbox, and share files with friends via links to the Dropbox location. There are free and paid versions of Dropbox, depending on the amount of storage needed.

Did you pre-order a Nokia N900? You’ll want to check your mail for a tracking number today because Nokia confirmed that the first shipments of its Maemo phone are on the way. SlashGear got the official word at a Nokia event earlier today and also got a sneak peek at the latest new features and functions. Check out the video presentation they captured, which is actually most impressive — the on-screen presentation is done with a Nokia N900 using the included video-out cable.

In the demo, you’ll see how the N900 pulls down contact pics from Twitter and Facebook so that your Address Book has a nice photo of your fave friends. There’s also a quick look at the podcatching application, although all of the examples were YouTube video feeds. I suspect that the app will grab audio-only podcasts as well. All in all, the N900 hardware is looking pretty polished and offers a unique user interface. But is that enough for widespread success? In some cases, it’s close, but not guaranteed.

The holiday season is rapidly approaching, and it’s always a delight when companies give back to us in the spirit of the season. Our friends at GottaBeMobile are pointing out not one company giving back, but three. It seems that Google is filling up 47 airports in the U.S. and flights on Virgin Air with free Wi-Fi through Jan. 15. Yahoo is lighting up Times Square all year in NYC with Wi-Fi action, and Microsoft is partnering with JiWire to give Wi-Fi in airports, as long as users make at least one search with Bing. ‘Tis the season to stay connected.

Looks like you can add Toshiba to the ranks of netbook brands going the subsidy route. Over the weekend, jkOTR reader Hector Gomez and I both saw the deal in this week’s Best Buy circular — which is actually square, not circular at all. The standard $399 price for a Toshiba NB-205 looks like it got jacked up by $100 because the netbook alone is advertised at $499. I suspect that’s simply to make the subsidy deal look more attractive, because this configuration is routinely $399. In any case, you can nab the NB-205 for $299 with integrated HSPA service through AT&T for the next two years. If you’d rather go with integrated EVDO on the Verizon or Sprint network, you’ll pay $229. In either case, you’ll be paying $1,440 over the next two years for your service, so don’t overlook that budgetary point.

More interesting is the netbook’s configuration because it’s the same as what I bought in August of this year. This is the Windows XP Home version of the NB-205 with the 1.66GHz Intel Atom and 160 GB hard drive. Now that Windows 7 is available, I would have expected this deal to come with Microsoft’s latest operating system. Of course, that would likely be the Starter Edition, which does have a few limitations.  Does anyone else find it odd that this deal features Windows XP and not Windows 7?