Tam Hanna's Palm OS Blog

We finally did it..outta here

2005-11-04T10:11:00.000+01:00

Dear readers,
this is the famous last call! We have now moved over to
http://tamspalm.tamoggemon.com
This clog will still stay online, but we will move the content over to its new home in this week! Please visit us there for a scoop on the TE2, a new author and many more TamsPalm articles!!
Best regards
Tam Hanna

TamsPalm will move soon

2005-11-03T21:02:00.000+01:00

Dear readers,
this is a message just in case you were wondering. TamsPalm will move to WordPress hosting directly on Tamoggemon.com in order to avoid many of the blogspot-related problems that we currently have!
You can check the current state of the procedures here:

http://tamspalm.tamoggemon.com

New articles will no longer appear here, but from now on, at the new site. Please leavwe comments here or on the new site to notify us about comments wishes,....
Best regards and thanks
The TamsPalm team

Vending machines for Ipods and mobile phones are a good idea

2005-11-01T14:23:00.000+01:00

When Apple first deployed its ipod vending machines(Gizmondo has the scoop and images), most people beleived that this would not be specially useful because the ipods simply didnt contain any music and also werent charged. Vodafone now follows suite and sells pre-paid cell phones in another vending machine.
Vodafone's idea is a steap forward, as the phones can immediately be used out of the box. There is cash on the card, you have a number, you just need to charge the phone a bit(if it isnt already charged like my T630i was) and go. It dfinitely is a good choice for people who want to stear away from high roaming costs IMHO.

Anyways, there is one company I realy miss here: Palm. Palm-lets ignore their sometimes horrid device quality and customer care for now-has everything it needs to power such a shop. It has cheap, simple-to-use handhelds that can be sold easily-and it has NVFS technology. Due to NVFS, the handhelds could survive longer in the vending machines as they needed less current to stay active. The "shelf life" would be limited by the batteries self discharge rate, which is pretty low. If such a handheld is packed up with DocumentsToGo, VersaMail, Blazer and a few games/apps in thr NVFS area, it can be used right out of the box just like a cellphone can.

This would IMHO appeal to many users and would be a very effectuive way to sell the "low-end" boxen. I dont mean LifeDrives and Tungsten X's here, but rather a Tungsten E2, a Z22, a Z31 and such stuff. As long as the device isnt DOA when you take it out of the machine, it may lead to a satified customer(simplifies impulse buying). Palm would bcome independant of tzhe expensive human-operated stores, and thus could rach even "remote areas" with their handhelds. Usually, people are OS loyal-so if someone once has a PalmOS handheld, there is a high chance that he will stick to it. So, PalmSource could maybe make a buck and some market share here as well-buy a bunch of Palms, and offer it to the manufacturer of the ipod vending machines,.... .

Do you think this is a good idea?

Mini's WiFi patch for Clies

2005-10-31T12:51:00.000+01:00

A 1src member named Mini recently posted something very interesting. They put up a WiFi patch that they say enables any Clies with a CF slot to work with any CF WiFi adapter. I have no way to know if it works, but if you have the right handheld, but were never able to find the Sony branded WiFi cards (my local CC still carries them), then this is the patch for you. Here is a link to the 1src post with the info.

TamsPalm.de: New summary online!

2005-10-30T20:37:00.000+01:00

It's Sunday again and the new summary is available. Just take a look at TamsPalm.de!

The AquaPac small reviewed

2005-10-28T20:32:00.000+02:00

Proporta.com recently provided TamsPalm with a few samples of their products. The first reviewing candidate is the AquaPac. I received a small version. The envelope was pretty stuffed(click all images for bigger versions):

Some of the packages were slightly dented, but the contents all were in good state. This is the AquqPac's shipping package:

The AquaPac itself is blue and ships with a multi-language manual that explains that one should check the pack before using and that one shouldnt use it in hot water or leave it in the sun:

An Aquapac has a transparent and a nontransparent side. The handheld can be used in the pack if the screen points to the transparent side:

The pack is locked with the two yellow handles on the clip. You have to rotate them upwards and click them in at the top in order to open the case . If you dont click them in, the case doesnt open:

The mechanics revealed look unstable, but they work better than one may beleive. I really liked the creative design and the reliability. And, you have two years of warranty anyways!

We tested the case with a Palm Vii:

a Palm V

and a Tungsten T3:

Each of the three units floated on the water and had to be pressed in order to push the pack under the water. The transparent front allows operating the handheld even under the water, the digitizers of all units worked well. However, my T3's softcase didnt fit in:

The carrying band is useful, but gets soaked and thus transfers water/gets wet. A synthetic band would have worked better...

Overall, the AquaPac is useful and sturdily built. It protected the gadgets reliably in the tests, but the problem is if the handheld is in the pack when it meets water. I prefer to keep my handhelds outside of the October/thaaquapac if there is no apparent risk of soaking. Accidents-thats why they are called accidents-usually happen when one is not prepared. So, this thing is not designed to transform a stock PDA into a ruggerdized handheld tank like the Acceca Meazura. However, if you need to temprorarily protect your handheld from water and dust, this is guranteed to satisfy your needs!

Palm OS Virii-the definitve list

2005-10-28T17:02:00.000+02:00

We wrote about the uselessness of PalmOS antivirus programs on TamsPalm quite some time ago. Anyways, here is a list from F-Secure that contains all virii known to them. Just click the links for more details about these mostly harmless companions:

PalmOS/Vapor

Palm/MTX_II.A, Palm_MTX, SABiA_II, I-Worm.Sabia Palm component

PalmOS/Phage

PalmOS/Liberty

By the way, to cut a long story short, I have not yet been able to get hold of any of those programs. if someone has them, please inform me!

Avvenu Review

2005-10-27T15:33:00.000+02:00

Avvenu is a free service which enables you to access your desktop computer's files from anywhere in the world - you just need a broadband connection (you don't need, but it is recommended as ou need an active internet connection) and your computer with installed Avvenu running. Then you can access every file on your computer from every internet-enabled device in the world. You can download files, view pictures, and upload files.

Getting started

First, you need to download an application that enables your computer to Avvenu. You must browse to http://www.avvenu.com and click on "Sign up". Then you can download it. After the installation assistant has completed, you can sign up. It needs you real name, your mail address, a username and a password:

That's it, you just need to choose a name for that computer (you can use more than one computer with your account, and you must know which computer you mean, so choose a clear name ;-)) and you need to enter your proxy setting (if availible).

Accessing your desktop

Now, Avvenu is active on that computer. So, if your computer is turned on and connected to the internet you can access your files, from anywhere in the world, by browsing to http://share.avvenu.com. There you've to enter your login data, then you see your files:

You can browse your file system, download and upload files. A good feature is downloading a whole folder. Avvenu compresses it to a ZIP file. Images can be directly viewed, without downloading.

You can share files, if you want to, with others. They just need a mail address and a browser. :

There is a mobile version of Avvenu availible for Palm OS and mobile phones. It's small and doesn't take much traffic. I made several screenshots on NetFront, PicselBrowser, Web Browser and Web Pro:

NetFront: folders, login, files, file, download

PicselBrowser: start page, folders

WebPro login, folders; Web Browser login, folders

Picsel Browser seems to be the only browser that displays the "full" page, all others show the "light" page. The light page is, on the one hand, small, but on the other hand it lacks some features: you can't download a whole folder as a ZIP file, and it doesn't support uploading files. On a mobile device perhaps you don't need whole folders every day, but uploading files can be useful. And, as you can see on the pictures, the light version shows only 6 objects a page, so you have to load the next page a lot.

My results: I won't need it as I don't want my computer to run 24 hours a day, but people who have an own server will be glad to download important files that aren't on their handheld or mobile phone. I don't think that the service is bad, although there aren't many features. I miss: file info with size, type, ..., perhaps a reader for MS Word, ... files as there aren't so many mobile phones that can open MS Word files. And I'm missing file operations: no copy, no delete, ... This isn't SO important, but it isn't difficult to make such a feature availible, so, why not? And Avvenu shows that it has good ideas, just look at the feature to download a whole folder. This about the full version (although they could add a reader and file infos to the light version, too). The light version: another good idea because the full version uses a lot of pictures. This costs money on mobile phones or smartphones. The lite version has few pictures and almost only plain text. But, why shows it only six files every page? Perhaps some mobile phones aren't able to load bigger pages (I don't think so), but then the user should be able to define how many files should be shown. So, Avvenu, good work, but I'm still missing some features.

What would you like to see in Avvenu?

Blazer 1.x, 2.x shut down

2005-10-27T15:14:00.000+02:00

Palm apperently wants to kill old Treo/PalmOS smartphone installations. About one year after eliminating the Palm.net service(the mobitex network still is up, just as info for you all), Palm secretly posted a message on its knowledge base saying that the proxy server needed for Blazer 1.x and 2.x is going to be turned off. Read the alert here:

http://kb.palmone.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE?New,Kb=PalmSupportKB,ts=Palm_External2001,Case=obj(40527)
Palm offers users to upgrade to Novarra's nweb for free until the 31 October of this month. You can either access the portal via your handheld, or just use the form below:

http://web.palm.com/support/blazer/sprint.jhtml
The file actually works on my T3(Treo 300, Sprint), but it didnt work in the Simulator. However, the T3 cannot use its extended screen, the grafitti area always is displayed. Anyone who needs a decent browser can get one for free now...

Last but not least, I wonder why Palm didnt announce this openly?

The return of the DSP

2005-10-26T22:02:00.000+02:00

Apperently, ther DSP wasnt such a stupid idea after all. Anyways, it would have been-if Palm would have been able to release the documentation for the Tungsten T series DSP. Anyways, those days are gone-but BroadCom now targets mobile phones with a new multimedia processor(that essentially is a DSP).
The BCM27xx fasmily recently got new members that can do the following:

H.264 CIF video encoding/decoding at 30 frames per second and TV output
Support 5mpixel cameras
Do VGA MPEG4 video
All members of the family are software compatible

Do you beleive that DSP's have a future? Or do you beleive that rising CPU performance and lack of SDK's will kill those cores on the long run?

First 'official' native PDF viewer - for free - update

2005-10-26T13:21:00.000+02:00

The nexave member "MetaView", head developer of MetaView Software has published "PalmPDF", an early alpha version of his native PDF viewer today. It's a port of XPDF. I tried it a few days ago and today again, but it crashes on my Tungsten|C, I think that I have not enough RAM. But other people say it would work fine! The program and the installation instructions can be found here:

http://www.metaviewsoft.de/en/Software/PalmOS/Freeware/Other/index.html

Adobe's Reader could never open native PDF files - they had to be converted, and no other company released a PDF reader for a long time. Then Picsel Technologies released Picsel Viewer and later Picsel Browser - but it was only part of Sony CLIÉs and a Chinese smartphone. If I get it working, I'll update this post.

Does it work on your Palm?

UPDATE: Now it isn't in alpha state anymore. The onscreen buttons work, you can scroll and zoom very fast (on a T|C), you can use the stylus for scrolling, and now it seems to work better on low-memory devices. Does it now work properly?

The next version will include landscape mode and better memory management. If you own a Tungsten T or T2, you could also try out Fargo Heap resizer!

Palm Treo 650 advertising in Time Magazine

2005-10-26T11:17:00.000+02:00

Apperently, Palm is really serious about combatting the ipod video/using the PR it gets for its own products. According to 1src users, a full-page ad was placed in the whats next issue of the TIME magazine.
See an image of the ad here:
http://www.1src.com/forums/showthread.php?p=863905&posted=1
What do you think about it? Does Palm do enough advertising?

Softick Commander - file manager with Bluetooth file transfer

2005-10-26T10:46:00.000+02:00

Softick (also developer of Card Export II e. g.) has just released "Bluetooth Commander", a file manager which can access other Bluetooth-enabled devices and their shared files (like mobile phones, desktop computers, other Palms with installed "Softick Blue Files").

Although its main feature is the Bluetooth file transfer capability, it seems to be a good file manager, too. So look and "Discover the world of the wireless file exchange!" (like Softick says), at http://www.softick.com/commander/.
What do you think?

VFSi review

2005-10-25T20:30:00.000+02:00

VFSi - the VFS information viewer is a free and very special file manager for Palm OS: It can't access RAM or ROM (FileZ, GentleMan, FileProg, FileCaddy etc. can) but it can open several file types (FileZ etc. can't): plain text (TXT), bitmaps (BMP), jpeg images (JPG) and gzip archives (GZ). So it can be used as a text editor or image viewer. It supports 320x480 px screens (HiRes+).

Getting started

The main program + text, jpeg and bitmap plugins take 168 KB RAM. After installing you can start and use it directly. By default it starts in "/Palm/Programs/VFSi" (You can change this in the menu "Options" -> "Preferences).

The interface

The interface is very simple. There is a list with two icons (one shows whether the file is selected, another shows the file type), the file name and (if you wish) the file size. You can navigate through the folders and open files with both the stylus and the 5-way-navigator, also on old devices without one-hand navigation (Tungsten|T, T|C, ...).

One icon shows a house. You can switch to your start folder. The "B" button means switching to bookmarks (more about that later), the "F" button means switching to the file system.

The "Info" dialogue shows file name, size, type and "last modified" date.

Image viewing

When the plugins for bitmaps and JPEGs are installed, you can view such images with VFSi.

With the first button you can open a menu (you can also open it with the center button) and switch to the next or previous picture, zoom and rotate. The second icon returns to the file browser and the third button sets the zoom to fit the screen.

The text editor

With the editor you can view and edit plain text files. To create new text files you have to open the "Plugins" menu. VFSi has also a plugin to use "KaniEdit" as text editor. If you have problems with the character set and you see "strange icons", you can remove CRs (carriage returns).

In this screenshot, you see four selected files. This feature lets you copy, delete, ... multiple pictures.

Bookmarks

VFSi is the only file manager I know which lets you define bookmarks. Bookmarks can help you to find important files fast. Every bookmark can have a memo.

Plugins, Extension Manager, ...

For example, the text plugin links TXT files to itself. With the extension manager, you can set up other file types to a plugin (for example the text plugin can open CSV and HTM files as they are plain text, too). Unfortuanely you can't open external applications (like DocumentsToGo).

My results

Yes, VFSi is a special file manager. It has special features, like image viewing or bookmarks but I miss some features - like opening external applications: Bookmarks and the file browser can be useful to access important documents - but VFSi can't open documents (PDF, HTM, DOC) although they are apps that can. The image viewer is useful, too: it can rotate and zoom pictures (but not save) and switch to the next. It seems that development is discontinued because the latest version is old.

You can download it at: http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-PaloAlto/7022/oldcontents/vfsi.htm

Symbian Series 60 market share is bloated/hyped/misestimated

2005-10-25T09:45:00.000+02:00

Whenever people discuss OS market shares, they usually state that Symbian Series 60 owns the smartphone market. This is true at the first glance-but if you think about how Series 60 phones are used, it quickly becomes void:
Series 60 is mostly used as proprietary OS replacement for dumb phones
Face it, people. My SX1 is damn cool-but I never use any of its features except phone and camera. Many of my friends own Symbian Series 60 powered phones and dont even know what they run. They do install the occasional app or game-but none of them uses the machine as a supplement to their PC or notebook.
A stock T68i ran on some kind of Erricson IOS that was extended to do java and 16bit color later on-it could do almost everything Series 60 does now. Thus, the main benefit this OS offers to handset makers is a faster time to market. Instead of developing your own dumb phone OS, you license it from Symbian.
Sony Erricson owns part of the Symbian corporation-and most of their touchscreen-less boxen don't run on Symbian. They actually run on the very IOS that powered the T68. Sagem behaves similar... . Ridiculously, the IOS powered phones don’t exhibit mayor deficiencies when compared to a Series 60 phone!

Now, these dumb phones are sold to users. These users don't realize what they are running. They don’t buy the phone for its OS, but rather for price and integrated features.

So, to cut a long story short. Series 60 has an insane market share if you define market share only via the amount of devices sold. If you look at the user community, however, you will soon realize that most Series 60 users don't consider their devices as smartphones! Thus, many of the devices sold don't contribute to the 3 party developers.

What do you think? Is the market share justified?

Fitaly finale

2005-10-24T05:11:00.000+02:00

Textware solutions has now discontinued Fitaly For Palm OS. They were sick of palm changing the DIA code and not telling them what they changed. There will be no Fitaly updates from now on.

I'm a graffiti person myself, but will anybody here miss Fitaly?

-Mitch

TamsPalm.de: New summary online!

2005-10-23T23:23:00.000+02:00

It's Sunday again and the new summary is available. Just take a look at TamsPalm.de!

MobileOffice 7 Professional review

2005-10-23T14:31:00.000+02:00

When people think about office suites for PalmOS, DocumentsToGo and QuickOffice are typical thoughts. However, MobiSystems recently completed version 7 of its OfficeSuite-and it indeed is an impressive tool. This review of OfficeSuite Professional concentrates on the two core programs for Excel and Word-the powerpoint module is average but lacks native file support; database is OK and Paint is excellent!
The first thing one notes about these programs is the lovely VFS integration. The main screen mirrors the tree view of popular file managers, and the dialogs allow you to choose where a file should be stored. It is possible to use an FTP directory for storage, and the company even grants you comfortable four megabytes of remote storage on their server. Anyways, this part of the program feels way better than DocumentsToGo 7(click images for bigger versions, the gradients are due to GIF compression):

However, this impression changes blazingly fast when you start to edit a document in landscape mode using onscreen grafitti. I am decent at the program, but my T3 never gets the i right. Disabling the spellchecker and the word completion did not fix this problem. But the lovely software keyboard compensates this deficiency:

The font rendering works well. You can adjust colors, font sizes, font faces and attributes. Fonts can be mobilized on the desktop using a special program. Flexible zooming is also possible, however, the fonts loose sharpness as the zoom factor gets smaller(it looks as if they use a sort of ClearType, which is bad for my eyes). Documents To Go fonts look 'sharper', but Mobisystems is more accurate. Hyperlinks, page settings et al can be adjusted as well, however, style sheets aren't supported.

The program has very good support for tables, images and numbering. You can actually integrate images into documents on the handheld. Most objects hide their details behind a context menu which can be opened by clicking onto an object for about a second:

The program even includes a paste special tool that allows you to paste data selectively.

Each of the functions has a small help text-this can come in handy at times:

Finally, Sheet 7 has a good charting module that produces good charts. Sorting data, inserting comments,.. is not a problem either:

However, the program lacks a few of the funky functions Docs has. For example, there is no print previewing option. Also, images don't appear to be supported. Sheet also has a desktop component btw.

Overall, MobiSystems is a good mobile excel/word processor. It definitely is slower and way bigger(2-3x) than DocsToGo, but has loads of extra functions that really are worth it. The program displays documents in an incredibly accurate way. All popular file formats are supported, and the good VFS integration helps when managing more than just a few files. This is not an office suite for everyone, but it will for sure satisfy demanding users who are willing to invest a bit of time into learning and configuring the program. An evaluation version is available- try it out before buying!

Free "WiFile light" upgrade for TX and LifeDrive (and other Palms)

2005-10-22T14:24:00.000+02:00

"WiFile light" is a tool for accessing folders and files on a desktop computer from a handheld, and is included with TX and LifeDrive handhelds on a CD. As it's a light version, it can only download a few file types to the Palm and can't upload anything. Before there was WiFile, there was SMBMate, a free tool with the same idea, but the full version of WiFile isn't free anymore. You can download SMBMate from the German site "PalmWiki", although it is a few years old, it supports HiRes+ and seems to work perfectly on a TX:

http://palm.projekt-base.de/wiki/upload/SmbMate1.0.a.8.zip

Of course, it works on other handhelds, like on T|C.

The TX taken apart

2005-10-21T17:09:00.000+02:00

Soon after the TX was released, 1src members began to think about ways to make it run faster. Of course, overclocking was one of the first things planned and actually is said to work decently well.

Soon, people began to wonder if Palm actually used a 312MHZ version of the CPU or if it was really selling a 400MhZ CPU clocked down to 312. This would have been entirely possible-but it is wrong.

The PalmInsider boys have managed to take apart a TX and posted images online here:
http://palminsider.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/10/17/naked-pictures-of-palm-tx.html
One of the images designates the CPU as an Intel PXA270C5C312. Thus, it is now pretty clear that we are dealing with a 31w2 MhZ CPU and thus probably wont reach the values that we had on our T5's.

Last but not least, I have an old 2004 set card from Silica-a semiconductor distributor. They state a per-CPU price of 21.40€ for the 312, 24.25€ for 416MhZ and 33.95 for the 520 MhZ version. These prices are valid for 10k units!

What do you think?

This is your Palm speaking

2005-10-20T10:40:00.000+02:00

"Speak" is a small program, that speaks out the contents of the clipboard, using "PSpeak", a TTS (text-to-speak) engine. You just have to copy the text you want to be read - from a memo, from a web page, from a mail, ... - and then to activate Speak, and your Palm "speaks". You can download the app from http://www.freewarepalm.com/utilities/speak.shtml. Install the three files onto your handheld, and start "Speak" from the launcher.

You can choose how to activate Speak, the volume and the speed of the voice. I recommend "activating using command bar". Then do a graffiti stroke -

- into your graffiti area, and a pop up menu shows itself, with commands to copy, paste, delete, ... If activated, Speak is in this menu, too. It's icon looks like the paste icon, but is always at the right.

Now, what does your Palm speak?

Fargo Heap Resizer-more heap space for Tungsten T and T2

2005-10-20T07:23:00.000+02:00

Frantisek Dufka has a Tungsten T and a T2. However, he is permanentely low on dynamic memory, just like I was when I had mine. Thus, he now has created a heap extender called Fargo Heap Resizer.

This program will extend the Tungsten T or T2's heap to a total of 1.8MB. This may not be enough for Quake, but definitely helps out with regular programs!
This somrehow sounds similar to UDMH, but the big difference is the price. The program is freeware for all kinds of use!

The author claims that it works in a different wy than UDMH. While UDMH uses Storage Memory for dynamic RAM and switches banks around,..., this program really expands the dynamic heap! So, there is less risk involved for the storage heap.

Visit the homepage for further information and instructions. The program curently does not suport anything but a TT and a T2, but Frantisek Dufka has information on his homepage about what needs to be done if one wants his device supported!
http://fanoush.webpark.cz/palm/fhr.html

We have archived the release version that was current as of today, the 20th October 2005 on Tamoggemon.com. It can be downloaded here.

Please keep in mind that I have not yet tested the application! Please post here if it works on your box!

Give your T|X (or Z22) an internal drive

2005-10-19T17:36:00.000+02:00

Some people say "the T|X is the T|T5 with Wireless LAN". Not really. The T5 had an "internal drive" with 160 MB , "normal" RAM about 60 MB. On the internal drive could be videos, music files, folders, in a file system like on a desktop. A useful application was "Drive Mode" which made the T5 acting as an USB mass storage unit. The T|X has 100 MB RAM availible for the user, but no internal drive, no Drive Mode, so you can't download "unknown" files, you can't use it at any mass storage-compatible desktop, ... Some people are angry because of this, especially those who had a T5 and now have T|X are missing the features.

Creating an internal drive

Dmitry Grinberg developed a small tool which creates an internal drive like on the T5. Originally it was for the T|E2 (it is called "E2InternalDrive"), but it works on the Treo 650, probably on the Z22 - and on the T|X. You can download it at http://www.palmpowerups.com ( -> Downloads -> Experiments) for free.

Drive Mode

This isn't as easy as creating an internal drive. There are several applications for that:

Softick Card Export II (http://www.softick.com, it seems as it doesn't work on T|X yet)
MobileStream Card Reader (http://www.mobile-stream.com)
Palm File Browser (http://www.pmrogan.de, but no "real" Drive-Mode)
Drive Mode application from T|T5 or Life Drive

For the Drive Mode app you need a Life Drive or T|T5 (or a friend with such a device). Install "FileZ" (http://www.nosleep.net) on it and select

DriveModeApp-PDM1 + localization file(s)
DriveModeLib-PDM2

and transfer them to your T|X, via MMC/SD card, via Bluetooth or Infrarot, via mail, ... but not via HotSync, it won't work.

Camera Companion

That's an app on the Life Drive. It copies your image folder (/DCIM) from an inserted SD/MMC card to your internal memory. On the Life Drive it was useful - it had a hard disk with 4 GB, enough for thousands of photos. On the T|X it could be useful for a few small-sized photos. You need "CameraCompanion-ccmP" + localization file(s) from Life Drive.

File management tool

If you have an internal drive, you need a file manager of course. Examples for such apps are:

Resco Explorer (very powerful file manager, http://www.resco.net)
UniCMD (very powerful, too, and free: http://www.unicmd.de)
FileZ (basic tool: http://www.nosleep.net)
FileBrowser 1.0 (basic, from Tungsten T5)
FileBrowser 2.0 (from LifeDrive, same as FileBrowser 1.0 + multiple file choice)

Resco Explorer and UniCMD are the most powerful file management tools. They support backups, zipping files, unzipping files, you can view JPG files, TXT files, and UniCMD can open WAV and HTML files. If you prefer the PalmOne tools, you need

FileBrowser + localization file(s)
FileBrowserLib

from Tungsten T5 or LifeDrive.

This should work on a Z22, too. On this device there is no "Card Info". You can get it from almost any Palm device. The required files are CardInfo_cinf (on a Life Drive e. g.) or CardInfo (on a Tungsten C e. g.) + localization file(s).

Now your new Palm is almost perfect. What do you think about this? And please, give me a feedback and tell me the size of your InternalDrive

Web Browsing on a Palm - Picsel Browser review

2005-10-18T00:04:00.000+02:00

Introduction

First, Picsel Viewer is one of the best programs for Palm OS. It is not only a browser but a viewer for MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, PDF files, HTML files, images and TXT-files. It is not buyable or downloadable but integrated in some CLIÉs from Sony. This year a Chinese company released a smartphone – with Picsel Browser, it seems to be the same. As it’s Chinese the whole program is Chinese, but there are English language packs availible. Someone put Picsel Browser into the internet – and it worked on PalmOne’s devices !! You have to find both the program and the language packs by yourself – we cannot give any links. It is used as a native PDF viewer – for the moment the only one for Palm OS – but not so often as a web browser. Is that a mistake?

I don’t review Picsel Viewer but Picsel Browser. I don’t know the difference between them. Picsel Viewer was integrated in some Sony CLIÉs, and Picsel Browser was integrated in a Chinese smartphone.

Getting started

It’s not easy to install – you cannot install it via HotSync, not from a card with the launcher, not from a card with Filez, … The only file manager (and launcher) that can copy it into RAM is “ZLauncher”, and perhaps “McFile”. So I copied it with Zlauncher

BrowserHelpPages
EnglishLanguage Pack
PCRP
PicselBrowser
PicselBrowserCore
SMPT

into my RAM. Then I tapped on the “Picsel Browser” icon in the launcher. It showed the startup screen:

and then the menu:

Browsing the web

For browsing the web, you have to tap on the world icon, then you can enter the URL:

With my wireless broadband connection, it isn’t as fast as a desktop browser, but faster than WebPro e.g. After a few seconds it displays the page in “real” layout, like it would look on a “real” browser. But if the whole page shall fit the screen, the font has to be *very* small. To zoom, you must tap twice somewhere on the screen, then hold the stylus und “scratch” up – for zooming in - and down – for zooming out. To follow a link, you have to tap it twice. You can fill in forms, too, but in multiline-text forms, it only supports 80 letters, so there is no use for webmail or boards. Unfortuanely you cannot download any file type – but you can open these files it can display (MS Word, Excel. PowerPoint). Perhaps it is more a viewer than browser (although the name) – it displays the page (viewing) correctly, but browsing capabilities like downloads, forms etc. aren’t very good. Now you see two pictures of 1src.com. One contains almost the whole site (zoom out), another one is zoomed in much:

Like every other browser, Picsel Browser can reload pages (see menu picture), but there is no “Back”-button. Use the “navigation panel” (see menu picture) for getting back.

Most pages are displayed correctly, but on some pages it has problems with tables:

It is the German site “Winfuture”. It should be look like this:

Small screen rendering

It’s nice to see pages like on desktop, but desktop browsers show them in 800 and more pixels width, but a Palm only in 320 or 480 (landscape). That means scrolling left and right, up and down, or the font gets so small that you can’t read anything. So if you switch to small screen rendering, it renders the page that it fits the screen widh – you have only to scroll up and down:

Text without small-screen-rendering

Text with small screen rendering

Offline files

Every file type it “understands” you can read both online and offline – the most important might be PDF and MS Word. For the moment Picsel Browser is the only app for Palm OS that offers you native PDF support (but there might be some other solutions in the future) – and that is very important today in the internet. Files can be both in the RAM and on a flash card. To open an offline file, it shows an open dialog which is very similar to the Windows Explorer:

Most MS Word, Excel and other files are displayed as naturally as HTML files are.

Bookmarks, settings, ...

To create a bookmark, just tap on the icon in the menu (see menu picture above). To open saved bookmarks, there is another icon. Bookmarks can be both online and offline documents. When you open a bookmark it doesn’t jump to the last position but to the beginning.

Possible settings are: turn pictures on / off, font size, homepage, user agent, proxy server, cache clearing, history clearing, cookies on/off.

My results

On the one hand, it isn’t legal to upload, download or use it if you don’t have a device with Picsel Browser in ROM, on the other hand it is a very good browser with singularly features, especially rendering pages and speed. And no other program can display native PDF files, no other browser show non-HTML documents without changing the app (except WebToGo IMHO) – you can return browsing when you’ve read the document. Other browsers would open DocumentsToGo for example and if you start them again they return to the start page and you have to find your last page again.

For me it isn’t the only browser on my Tungsten|C because sometimes I need downloads – and it can’t download ZIP files e. g. – or I need to save the page offline (NetFront can) or writing mails, Picsel Browser can only write 80 letters. So read the next part of “Web Browsing on a Palm” – maybe I’ll review NetFront then – and you know which second browser you need, too.

What do you think about Picsel's work?

TX Status bars, the problem of getting home...

2005-10-16T21:52:00.000+02:00

Well, you went and bought a TX, charged it up, turned it on, and opened a program. You want to leave the program, so naturally, you hit the bottom left corner of the screen. But what is this? The "Find" dialogue pops up. You look down, and see that in fact that is a find icon down there. You look closer, and see that the first hard button is configured as home. This isnt good!

Dont worry, because we have a solution. Tyler Faux (Sharky on the 1src boards) has developed a program that makes the find button act like the home button when you tap it, but acts like find if you swipe up from the button. Better yet, with a little skinning help from yours truly, we were able to get the home icon onto it also, so now it looks just like the LifeDrive status bar. The app is called SharkTXFix, and it comes in two pieces. There is the main program, which changes what the button does, and the status bar resource file, which reskins the button to look like the home button. It is optional, and is a little large (though it is compressed) because it replaces the entire skin file, and not just that bitmap (which is somewhat unavoidable).

You can download this program at Sharkys homepage LudusTech.com

TamsPalm.de: New summary online!

2005-10-16T21:19:00.000+02:00

It's Sunday again and the new summary is available. Just take a look at TamsPalm.de!

Garnet is in bad hands if purchased by Palm

2005-10-16T19:37:00.000+02:00

Recently, a few analysts rumoured that Access is planning to sell Palm Os Garnet aka Palm OS 5 to Palm Inc. While I personally believe that this is mainly an attempt to get some attention to their sites, it would be a very bad idea anyways.

Whenever thinking of Palm powered handhelds, you really need to look at more companies than just Palm. Yes, I know, most of us can only see Palm in the retail store, but there still is Qool, GSPDA and possibly also Fossil, Garmin, Symbol and Aceeca! These all make decent devices running on Garnet or even on some older versions of the OS. Imagine their reaction if they hear that the OS they depend on went to a competitor? A swap would likely follow... .

Now, some of you will say that this is a good thing as they would move over to Cobalt. However, I believe that this is not true for a simple reason. Cobalt is an intermediary OS that will die a fast death in the moment Palm OS for Linux materializes. So, all the cash that went into customizing Cobalt will be lost on both developers and licensees ends. Thus, many of the licensees will then be motivated to look at Windows CE, and some of them actually already have.

Last but not least, the Cobalt device would have a hard stand in the market. Many developers will not optimize their apps for Cobalt as it doesn’t pay out on a financial standpoint. Thus, users will be dissatisfied with it and will eventually swap brands-which is not a good thing to happen.

So, I personally believe that Garnet is in the best hands where it currently is-at Access Co's headquarters. However, I am always open for suggestions. Where do you believe that Garnet should be at home?

Most Palm Inc ads archived

2005-10-16T11:17:00.000+02:00

A smart reader just found this resource:
http://oas.imageg.net/O/a/Creatives/Palm_Home/
It contains loadas and loads of old and new ads by Palm. Inc or PalmOne. Look at it if you feel like having a flash-back! and if the stuff you see in this directory isnt enough yet, there are hundreds of other ads by different companies(more Palm,...) in the directory above the one shown above!

Linux for mobile devices-its getting faster

2005-10-15T11:39:00.000+02:00

Recently, Linux devices seem to seriously cut into established Palm OS and Windows Mobile markets. Now, even the PSP gerts a Linux counterpart. The unit currently called GP2x will be a linux based oportable gamer console that somehow resembles the Zodiac produced by Tapwave:

Anyways, the specs of the unit look nice. The GP2x will be capable to:

Show jpg and bmp images
Play mp3, ogg and DivX stuff
Support MAME, SNES, Genesis, PC Engine etc
Work on 2 AA cells
Do USB2 connections
Support SDL
...

The hardware also looks nice. It it powerede by two ARM cores(Nintendo Ds anyone??), has 64 MB of RAM and a TFT QVGA screen.
Further information is available at the manufacturers website:
http://gp2x.com/
BTW, this blends in nicely to the OSDL announcement that they will now invest more time and effort ito getting Linux to mobile phones.

Some TX and Z22 reviews

2005-10-15T10:54:00.000+02:00

The TX is out for a few days now-and a few pages already have reviews. This thread is intended to gather reviews, so if you find one we havent listed yet, please leave us a comment!

Palm TX
BargainPDA Palm TX review
CNET Palm TX review
InfoSync Palm TX review
MobileTechReview(PdaBuyersGuide) Palm TX review
PalmInfoCenter Palm TX review
PC Magazine Palm TX review

Palm Z22
BargainPDA reviews Palm Z22
MobileTechReview(PdaBuyersGuide) Z22 review/a>
PC Magazine Palm Z22 review

Palm Z22 - Software Review

2005-10-14T13:58:00.000+02:00

I just downloaded the device-specific simulator of the Z22 from PluggedIn. As these simulators are very similar to the device's software, I decided to review it. The simulator "says" that the codename of the Z22 was "Tigga".

Download, unzip, start.

I downloaded the zip file (6,19 MB). It's part of Palm SDK 5.1. When I started the simulator the first thing I noticed was that there is no Palm logo when it starts / after a hardreset. After a while it showed the following pop-up:

It says that you can set brightness *and* contrast. The launcher doesn't show very much icons - no VersaMail, no Blazer. This is because the Z22 isn't a professional Palm, of course.

Nothing new or special. Some programs have a new version - but I couldn't find any extensions:

Calc 1.01 (scientific calculator)
Calendar 1.25
Contacts 1.25
Expense 1.25
Memos 1.25
Note Pad 2.32
Tasks 1.25
Launcher 4.52P
World Clock 2.02

Something interesting is that FATFS is in the ROM - so you can install a RAM drive - like Softick RAM Drive, Palm RAM Disk, Disk Manager. Maybe even E2InternalDrive runs - then DriveMode from T5 / LD runs, too!

Another thing is interesting, too: the Photos-application: there is no "Media", like on T5, LD, ... And Photos isn't the version from T|C, Zire71 or Tungsten T: It is from SplashData - this could mean that it's a lite version of SplashPhoto. It has more options than the old photo app, for example it can run a slideshow automatically while it is loading (that says the preferences dialogue).On some pictures you see the blue border around some controls - that means it supports 5-way-navigation in apps.

That's everything the simulator "says" to me. If you own a Z22 and if you can correct something, post a feedback!

The new PIMs on old Palms - part 3

2005-10-14T12:32:00.000+02:00

In the probably the last post about "the new PIMs on old Palms" (part 2 - part 1) you can read how to hide the old applications (Date Book, To Do List, Address Book, Memo Pad) and how to hotsync your data.

Hiding the old applications

Now that you've installed the new applications (Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Memos) on your handheld, there are now both the new and the old apps in the launcher. To hide the old apps, you need the following files from a device with the new apps (Tungsten T3, E work fine):

DateBook *and* localization file(s) (Date Book_deDE for German, Date Book_enUS for English, ...)
Address Book and localization file(s)
Memo Pad and localization file(s)
To Do List and localization file(s)

Read part 2 how to get files from another device's ROM.

Syncing your data

The new PIMs run on your Palm - but you can't hotsync anymore? It seems that you have an old version of Palm Desktop / Pocket Mirror / ... which doesn't understand the new data format. So you need a new version of Palm Desktop, I recommend version 4.1.4. It includes several languages, MS-Outlook and VersaMail conduits. It keeps your old data but you should backup your files before.

Do you like the new apps?

Palm Easy-Carrying case for Palm III(and most other) handhelds

2005-10-13T20:17:00.000+02:00

Proporta.com recently provided TamsPalm with a few samples of their products. Today, we will look at the Palm Easy-Carrying case for Palm III handhelds. Don't let the name fool you though, it works well with a herd of other boxen. I received a pink one, but green, blue and khaki versions are available as well. The envelope with all the stuff was pretty stuffed:

Some of the packages were slightly dented, but the contents all were in good state. This is the cases shipping package:

Indeed, this case belongs to a special case family which seems almost dead nowadays-it is a softcase. Softcases are of built of "fluffy" matereals which are usually elastic and gum-like up to some degree. This makes them comfortable to touch-but since these cases are strenghtened somehow, they protect a PDA as good/better than a thin hardcase. The empty case is a bit bigger than an a T3:

A Tungsten T3 fit into the case nicely-without needing to compact it! All cases I saw so far did not allow this-a disqualification criterium if you ask me.

Our Palm V also fit in:

Of course, this weren't TamsPalm if we wouldnt have a dealbreaker. A Palm Vii prototype almost fit in-but one couldnt close the zip.

The case has a few pouches for credit cards, papers and even a replacement stylus(good for 2-player games/brainstorming/foo on a single handheld). Handhelds are attached to the case with a regular Velcro fastener as we know it from clothes. The case is closed with a zip:

However, each product has weaknesses. The seams are starting to break up in one point and the zip's handle sometimes "goes astray". But-please keep this in mind-if this weren't a review, I probably wouldnt have bothered as I don't baby-treat my gadgets(btw-these photos were made with Brando lenses which will be reviewed soon):

This is the first "case" that really won my interest. It is the only solution I know that allows to protect a T3 without compacting it. The case is a bit thick and doesn't fit into a trouser pocket easily. However, its extra pouches for a replacement stylus and a few credit cards/cash. Since this accecory isn't designed for a special kind of handheld, its usability isnt limited to one series/type of box. Overall, I whole-heartedly suggest the case for everyone who wants to protect his handheld well and doesn't mind about the extra size!

Avvenu!!!

2005-10-13T16:24:00.000+02:00

This is for you Jeff, since you say it isnt getting enough press, here is some. (If your name isnt Jeff Kirvin, ignore this line)

There is a certain PC program called Avvenu that has been out a while. It lets you access the entire content of your hard drive from any browser. However, this program has done a great job of hiding in the shadows. The reason, the ONLY reason, why we are seeing it mentioned now, is all because of Palm. At the release of the TX, there was a small piece of software (Avvenu) sitting on the Palm install disc. Users tried it out, and were amazed. There was a mention of it in the TX pages on Palms site, and I installed it. I was amazed. This program allows you to access every file on every PC you own that has the software installed. Because it runs from a web browser, there is almost no configuration involved, it just works. The only downside is that you cant just upload any file to the computer back, but this is absolutely the best program I have seen to remotely access files on a computer. It is free, and you can download the software from www.avvenu.com

Any comments/questions? Direct them to the comments section.

Treos with Linux and Symbian?

2005-10-12T15:54:00.000+02:00

Some weeks ago Palm announced the Treo 700w. And some users still don't want to believe that Palm now uses WindowsMobile, too. But the Treo 700w just seems to be the forerunner of a whole fleet of non-Palm OS devices produced by Palm.

As reported by LinuxDevices.com there soon could be a Treo running Linux:

Palm will ship Linux-powered mobile phones this year, say sources claiming to be close to the company. The devices will be powered by Wind River Linux, and pending carrier reaction, may well be the first Linux-powered handsets distributed widely within the US.

And "Gadgets on the go" tells us that Palm even plans to bring out a Smartphone running Symbian OS:

Ijust heard from a ***very reliable source*** that there is indeed a new Palm Treo and a Symbian Treo in the works for both CDMA and GSM networks.

What do you think about this roumors? Is it a whise decision to support 4 different operating systems and platforms? And which effect will this have on the Palm OS and on PalmSource?

TX and Z22 are out!

2005-10-12T07:22:00.001+02:00

They are out!

http://www.palm.com/us/products/handhelds/tx/
http://www.palm.com/us/products/handhelds/z22/

It seems that there aren't the names "Zire" or "Tungsten" anymore. The TX costs 300 USD, the Z22 99 USD.

Today, is a day, which will live in infamy...

2005-10-12T05:49:00.000+02:00

The iPod video is coming out!!!

Just kidding, though it is expected to be announced, this is a Palm blog, and we have better things to talk about, mainly the release of the Z22, and the Tungsten X. Both of these are expected to be announced today (boy am I up late), stealing all of the thunder from Apple's announcement (or the other way around). The Zire will have a color screen, and almost definitely an NVFS storage system. It looks a little like a mix between an iPod and a Lifedrive as far as the design is concerned. The TX needs no real introduction. It will have WiFi, and its MAIN feature (as if WiFi isnt enough), is that it will cost $300.00. Thats right, 300 dollars. The Zire will be $100. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up. For your enjoyment, here are some banner ads pulled from Palm's server by a couple avid 1src'ers. (mainly edeab220)

The Return of Palm to Retail, and MS cards that are cheaper than SD, not to mention Sony cards cheaper than Sandisk!

2005-10-11T04:01:00.000+02:00

Most people know what this is, a PalmOne LifeDrive. It is sitting on a counter in my local Best Buy. Now, some probably think this isnt something to talk about, but in reality, this is a good step. You see, up until now, CompUSA is the ONLY store I had seen newer Palm devices in, as well as Tapwave devices. This time, I saw the device in a Best Buy. I think to myself, "Whats up with that?". Is Palm getting themselves back into retail fullscale? This is definitely possible, and a good thing to do since Palm will soon be releasing new devices.

On another note, at this same store, I noticed some interesting pricing on the memory cards. MS cards were cheaper than equivalent SD cards, and the Sony cards were the cheaper of the bunch. Take a look!

What would make me buy the Tungsten T|X

2005-10-10T23:11:00.000+02:00

Everyone who knows me on 1src, or other Palm forums knows that I love my TH. I tell everyone about it, and I believe it is the best PDA out right now, even though it is no longer in production. Besides the incredible battery life, it has onboard WiFi, integrated audio and video chips, and a low speed processor (which contributes to the battery life). There really isnt anything like it. The LifeDrive has Wifi, and so good connectivity, but its battery life doesnt close to measure up to the TH, and it cant handle audio quite as well, due to the lack of playing time, as well as hard drive lag when accessing media. The Treo has internet access, and though it can be used almost anywhere, it doesnt quite measure up to the speeds of wifi, and isnt as good at accessing local networks quickly (IE, for file operations). It has a smaller screen, and some of the same problems with battery life, though its nvfs system certainly helps the battery life. We then have the T5, which has BlueTooth, and can access networks (with some accessories), but has limited connectivity out of the box.

Now, all of these are good PDAs. The Treo is a great smartphone, the LifeDrive has alot of storage, and the T5, well...., it was a fairly good all around PDA. But now we have something a little different, called the Tungsten X. Now, the T|X is not going to be revolutionary. As it says on the box, it is "Affordable WiFi". It isnt a budget PDA either, in any respect. It will clearly be the successor to the T5. It will have a slower processor to offset the lower battery life from WiFi use, but it still should be fast enough to do even processor intensive tasks. Now here is where we get to the point of this article.

What could get me to buy it? At the moment, my TH can play fullscreen video at fairly good quality. As I have said, it can play audio for long amounts of time. This is something the TX will have to do. In addition, the main determining factor will be the battery life. I cant get over how good the battery life is, and though I know the TX will not have battery life as good as the TX, I can accept lower battery life, as long as it is good. Dmitry Grinberg is working on a dynamic clocking app which should increase battery life dramatically on devices with this type of processor, so I should not be too worried about battery life. This in mind, I may consider the TX as a replacement for my TH, and, if for whatever reason my TH died it looks like this would be the device that replaces it.

Please direct all comments and questions to the comments section.

The TX was spotted

2005-10-10T22:28:00.000+02:00

Now it all is confirmed-a TX has been spotted in a retail shop in the USA. HJere is a link to the 1src thread with the pictures!
http://www.1src.com/forums/showthread.php?p=859042&posted=1#post859042
If Palm finally gets quality control working on this box, it may just void my rant 50 lines below. Lets see if they manage it this time!
What do you think?

Palm Inc customer care revisited

2005-10-10T21:21:00.000+02:00

Update: Now that my mind is cooling off, I feel that this update is needed. My T3 works-the problerms mentioned below aside-really really well. The thing that annoys me is that apperently at Palms the one hand doesnt know what the other one is doing-a state that should be fixed ASAP IMHO.

!!!This is a rant. Please take it with a grain of salt!!!

Most of you will still remember PalmOnes attempt to advance exchange my hizzing T3 against another one that now hizzes again. I was originally awed abvout how the unit would have been picked up for free-but that offer apperently had an edge. The shipping company wanted me to stay at the same location from 8.00am to 5.00pm as the driver would come pick up the unit at some random point of time-without calling me in advance.

So, that sounds lovely. Impossible for a mobile person like me. I-of course-emailed the rep and heard nothing back from her for a few days. Because I saw little use in the T3, I opened an extra support case in order to get the company the T3 shipped. If I had had a postal address, I would have shipped it myself-but they didnt even give me that!

Now, a rep answered my enquiry telling me that I sould sacrifice a Saturday or bug a relative for the deliver. A whole day of my life for a friggin handheld that is meant to mobilize me?

Also, Palm Inc is not capable to refund me the shipping fee. Damnit? Is the company too ???? to get the shipment cheque and refund it to me? Please dont say that I am arrogant or anything_I dont care about the S&H fee and would even pay it on my own-but where should I ship the damn friggin box to???

Actually, the first comment poster inspired me. Instead of bickering around, lets close this story with a request fotr comments. Tell me what your experience is. Which manufacturer satisfies you, which one sucks? Please use the anonymous comment facility, it is free of charge...

The TX-unofficially confirmed

2005-10-09T12:28:00.000+02:00

Almost every regular TamsPalm reader knows that Pam Inc is due to release a few new handfhelds in the next few days. However, we now have received multiple confirmations that make me beleive that the release is really really close.
The first thing is this comment posted by an anonymous TamsPalm reader:

The T/X was just released. It is on sale at Office Depot. It has WiFi (311.b), Blue Tooth, portrait and landscape views, compatibility with MS Outlook, etc, MP 3 player, no camera.

So, it apperently is already standing in the store and is waiting for the beginning of sales! You may wonder whya this comment was posted just a few hours ago(on sunday). I personally beleive that the store had to redesign the customer area in order to integrate the TX into the existing lineup-doing this while customers around is pretty sure to piss off Palm Inc.

Second, we have a nice load of new images of the box here:
http://www.mobile01.com/topicdetail.php?f=62&t=105957&last=754306
These images are self-explaining. I am pretty sure that they arent faked.

And-last but not least, the images already were submitted to Palm Info Center-and the site didnt find them worthy of publishing! We all know that PIC and Brighthand usually have access to devices before release for creating a review-the NDA that accompanies those boxen silences these portals for the last few hours before release. We had this with the T3, the TE2(I experienced it myself),... .

So, it looks as if it is finally confirmed. The TX is here. Will you get one?

Motorola or Access-who is the better home for Palm OS

2005-10-08T17:38:00.000+02:00

Recently, Motorola went to court because it got outbid in the PalmOS buyout. PalmSource apperently promised the company a termination fee if the deal would bust-and inded, as we know now, the deal busted and the PalmOS went to Access. Now, one has to pose the quiestion where the Palm OS would have fared better!
Indeed, Palm OS going to Motorola would probably have produced a few lively PalmOs powered boxen-but at what expense? Palm originally split up in order to give all licencees equal rights to the Palm OS. This benefit would be gone if the Palm Os would be owned by Motorola. I am pretty sure that the company would not be interested in having competition-cancelling licencee contracts would have been a logcial step for them on the long run.
So, Palm OS going to Motorola would IMHO have led to a few decent devices-and to consolidation of the PalmOS economy into one company: Motorola.
Access, on the other side, does not have any in-house hardware business. Thus, all hardware partners are equal for Access-and thus, licencees dont need to fear being left behind because the OS owner feels that they get too dangerous to their own devices(symbian Treo, anyone?). However, the problem that Access has is finding hardware licencees. With the PalmOS licencee count dwindling, device variety gets less and less as well.
So, Palm OS with Access is a bit riskier. If access manages to find a few new licencees, the PalmOs future looks bright IMHO. However, if they dont find any new licencees soon, the Palm OS will eventually fall out of the market!
What do you beleive?

The vienniese Palm User Group met yesterday

2005-10-07T21:49:00.000+02:00

The vienniese Palm User Group met yesterday in the Salzberg pub. Here are a few impressions made with an SX1

Manfred got himself an ipod nano. there is little I can say except that it is really thin! The screen is very bright and clear, and the controls are decent too (I never quite got the scrolling right).

Thomas couldnt quite understand whats so great about an ipod-his TT3 can play MP3 files too!

Alex purchased an ibook. Here you see him and Boris discussing various sick hacks for the box. The availability of free Wi-Fi motivated surfing around...

The Brando lenses for mobile phones also were a topic. Indeed, the product works better than its reputation is said to be(see review which will come soon).
Overall, this was another interesting meeting! Anyone of you visiting his local PUG?

The AccuPower AccuSafe-the hardcase for your batteries/memory cards

2005-10-06T22:12:00.000+02:00

Most of you never heard of the austrian company AccuPower before-but they recently introduced a really funky acceccoire for their usually excellent(once got a depth discharged AAA and was helped immediately with fixing as I didnt want to have it exchanged 100% free-the rest were perfect...) batteries-the AccuSafe. It is really useful for all people who

have more than one SD/MMC/CF/... card

have a vintage handheld that uses AAA batteries

The AccuSafe is a storage box for up to four AA/AAA batteries-and it can also be used as a container for SD and maybe even CF cards. Look at these images for some details:

AA batteries are stored perpendicular to the AAA batteries shown below. So, you can store either 1-4 AA or 1-4 AAA and 1AA battery:

You can also use the box for memory cards. My 64MB Hama SD card even fits into the box if there are two or four AAA batteries inside:

This configuration is really comfortable. It allows me to keep two NiMH AAA spares for my VII prototype and also lets me store bogus memory cards safely.
The device itself is sturdy-I quicktested 100 opening-closing cycles. The hinges didnt degenerate-I beleive it will survive a thousand cycles. AccuPower really stuck to its tradition of solid products here. The box is smaller than a Palm Tungsten T3-see the images for size comparisons.
An AccuSafe can be purchased in many configurations-I got mine bundled with four DigitalPower AAA 1000mAH rechargeables which may be tested soon:

This really makes a dream packet-2-batteries in the handheld, two spares and the box for the memory cards for 16.96€. People who dont need the batteries can get a plain Accusafe for 1.96€.(prices from the german sites http://www.accushop.at/ and http://www.akkushop.de/)
I know that there are hard cases with SD slots-but I never particularily liked cases/lids as they add an extra step to using the PDA. An AccuSafe, however, lets you transport your batteries and cards comfortably in the pocket of your trouser without affecting the PDA. This is an accessoire that will stay with me...
Disclosure: I am a former contract worker of AccuPower-however, this did not affect the quality of the review. The unit could not be returned as the blister, hinges,... were damaged in the reviewing process.

Device hacks-qui bono

2005-10-05T19:58:00.000+02:00

This is all speculation. I dont have access to apple insider data or anything! This is just, I repeat just, a bunch of thoughts emerging in my brain-feel free to comment your point of view

Recently, a cool user modded his ipod nano so that it would use a harddisk. Ownage! Ownmage, yes, but who is the one who actually benefits from this. Users: maybe. A nice MAX727 can fix mostpower-related problems, and a 200GB ipod. Manufacturer? Definitely!

Generating publicity for a product is difficult, as it costs money and requires loads of know-how. Newspaper ads can be clearly identified as such and are ignored by most readers. Same thing is valid for banner ads and TV commercials. However, product hacks and other such stuff are usually not connected to the manufacturer of the device. They generate loads of buzz that nobody associates with the PR department of the company!

Thus, such buzz is extremely effective! Hundreds of sites will link to the page that has the hack, and most of those reviews will also link to the manufacturer(something we did not do, note that please). The effect of this is immediately visible: the product gets loads of attention AND the manufacturers web site gets a huge Pagerank boost. Last but not least, the hack might also get into the editorial content of newspapers-a place where it is very difficult to get in by waving $$$.

So, the manufacturer of a gadget has huge benefits from having his product "hacked" or "owned". Implementing such a hacking posibility is not difficult (if it really gets hard, use a few jumpers/resistors like Palm did with the V) for the OEM, and leaking data out to the public is also relatively easy due to the anonymous nature of an internet cafe! What do you think?

Sick ipod tricks-the 200GB Ipod Nano

2005-10-04T16:07:00.000+02:00

Some people love ipods soo much that they even mod their hardware. A pretty sick mod is the harddisk-enabled ipod nano!
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Ipod_Nano_200gb_Instructions/Page_1

This is really bonkers. the ipod nano is attached top the harddisk-and it actually works well without needing to update the firmware. The main problems are that you void your warranty, thatr the player becomes difficult to carry and-last but not least-that the battery life decreases to about 6 minutes! One desirable mod!

Anyways, tune back tomorrow for an analysis of whom such hacks benefit! Will you mod your Nano?

Windows ware that lives off an USB stick

2005-10-04T15:55:00.000+02:00

Our Palms can handle almost everything one needs while on the go. However, one sometimes gets to a free PC, connectes the handheld to it with DriveMode or Softick and...bummer, the programs one needs arent available.
Anyways, this site has a lovely selectrion of free windows programs-and their common outstanding feature is that they are portable. Portable-in this case(I know it has another meaning as well)-means that they live off an USB stick without any need for extra harddisk storage on the box!
There are web browsers, email clients and much more-just check it out:
http://nedwolf.com/Freeware-Portable.htm
Did one of these programs make it to your SD card?

How to always have a reset pin for your Palm handheld

2005-10-02T17:23:00.000+02:00

A PalmOS handheld lover usually looses his stylus after some time. Most aftermarket styli dont have a reset pin integrated. If you beleive in Murphy's Law, you will soon understand that everything bad usually happens when it does the most damage. So, a reset will always occur if your battery is low and there is no paper clip,.. nearby.

However, there is a really funky way to carry a paperclip with you all the time. Just clip it into your jeans-the images below show how:

After that, the next softreset can come!

Captchas are enabled on TamsPalm

2005-10-01T16:27:00.000+02:00

Dear Readers,
due to increased amount of comment spam, we are forced to enable the so-called captchas for comments. A captcha is a small image showing some text which must be typed into a text box before the comment will be accepted.

Read more here:
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=1203

Please comment/email me at Tamog@gmx.at if you have problems with this procedure!

Best regards and have fun reading
The TamsPalm Team

The TCG now wants your mobile

2005-09-30T19:25:00.000+02:00

The EFF has just uncovered a pretty crazy announcement made by the TCG (Trusted computing group, those DRM people behind the TPM) at the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment Conference.
Actually, the TCP wants tzo spin off a "working group" called MMobile Phone Work Group, whos task is to adapt TCG technologies to mobile phones. As if that doesnt sound bad, here are a few of the so-called "use cases" that they envision:

The primary goal is to ensure that a mobile device remains locked to a particular network (or network subset, service provider, corporation or (U)SIM) until it is unlocked in an authorized manner.
Read: make it really difficult to overcome SIM locks. Since most (Austrian) carriers dont give you unlock codes for free even after your current contract ends, this sounds really really good! Or, maybe a provider even wants to forbid you that you pass the phone on to somebody else on the same network. If this isnt the death blow for used device sales, what is?

The user wants to securely use an application. I.e., the platform enforces predefined software use policies.
........
Read: Non-TCG certifierd software cannot run all functions of the OS,... . Read the PDF available at their homepage for more alarming details!

Mobile payment is to use mobile Devices to make payment transaction.
This can already be done! Just a little thing to make the TCG easier to accept for the average customer!

And there is even more online! What do you think? Isn't DRM starting to go too far? I personally beleive that this thing is slowly but surely starting to get dangerous for free speech et al. Someone needs to slow the TCG down-after all, it is still us who buys the stuff!

More information is available online. Find the EFF post here:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_09.php#004014
You can find the information published by the TCG here:
https://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/groups/mobile

Halo for mobile phones-why unadapted desktop FPS don't work well on handhelds

2005-09-30T12:21:00.000+02:00

Recently, Microsoft announced plans to port their FPS Halo to mobile phones. Users immediately went bonkers about the news-hoping that ports of Quake 3 and Counterstrike would follow. ZDoom is comfortable without a touchscreen-so why not try Halo?
In order to understand my concerns you need to look at how the typical FPS is controlled. You use the keyboard to control the figure's movement and actions. The other hand is on the mouse, controlling the field of vision and the crosshair.
This topology works well on a PC or Notebook-but not on a handheld. Handhelds usually don't have enough hardkeys for example(use, zoom, buy, anyone?). Touchscreenless handhelds now disqualify themselves due to the lack of a mouse. Touchscreened boxen arent off much better though. When using the touchscreen for controlling the crosshair, your hand covers parts of the screen allowing enemies to "hide". So, a PC player has a small advantage over a handheld man.
Last but not least, dont forget that a handheld can not store as much map data as a PC...
Halo will probably sell well and can probably also be fun. However, the current FPS control principle is not ideally suited for handhelds - so PC gamers always have advantages over handheld users in multiplayer games. Thus, cross-plattform multiplaying is probably not possible...

Keyboard sounds-they can give away what you type

2005-09-28T22:04:00.000+02:00

People know me from far away if I am working at a computer because I tend to slam the keyboard like an ancient typewriter! While this has already led to loads of people making silly jokes, those keyboard sounds can really be dangerous for your data according to Doug Tygar, a berkeley UC professor!
His gang developed a program that just "listened" to a user pressing the different keys on his keyboard for 10 mintes-and then could automatically identify which key was pressed!
This-of course-opens up an all-new facette of attacks on users. Imagine a devious administrator of an internet cafe identifying all his keyboards and then regenerating data! Or imagine a third party just gathering the sound of a keyboard on a public internet terminal. I am pretty sure that they would have an impressive amount of information pretty fast. Anyways, as of now, there is no countermeasure known. I do not beleive that listening to loud techno or other music will greatly help you out here, as one could theoretically filter the keyboard sounds out. Taking your own keyboard with you is not possible anywhere,... .
What do you think?

Read more here!

Apple Ipod nano-how to handle product flaws

2005-09-28T21:55:00.000+02:00

Most of you tend to know my oppinion about ipods-I beleive them to be overpriced and hyped beyond reality! So, I was amazed when the first reports of ipod nanos with imploding screens began to surface. Anyways, the claims were gathered on homepages, and Apple now decided to make a move!
The company announced that it will fix all ipods with such a problem and pushed the blame on the vendor of the screen. A cheap, but working way to keep your own back clean!
Anyways, compare that to Palm Inc's handling of flaws. We had the IIIc, the V series power buttons, T3s with drifting digitizers, all sorts of OS5 stuff with hizzing screens,... . And no reaction!
Lets hope that the hard Windiows Mobile competition(typical PPC quality problem: paint going off, how bad) will teach them better!

Read more here

UniCMD - now it's freeware

2005-09-27T19:15:00.000+02:00

UniCMD, one of the best file managers for Palm OS is now freeware:

It supports RAM, ROM, VFS, launching applications, viewing many file types, f. e. JPEG/exif, HTML with the internal viewer, viewing every file a viewer is installed for (file associations), backup (manual or scheduled), encryption, editing TXT, ZIP-compression, and much more.

Homepage & download: http://www.unicmd.de

The Treo with Windows is coming - 2006

2005-09-27T19:09:00.000+02:00

Few minutes ago I received an anonymous mail with the newsletter from PluggedIn, the development ressource of PalmOne as attachment (this person doesn't want its name to be published as his PluggedIn account could be suspended):

Dear Developer,

Today, Palm and Microsoft. announced a powerful, strategic alliance to bring the Palm experience to the Windows Mobile. platform, aimed at growing the smartphone marketplace. This is exciting news for the Palm developer community because were now offering our customers a choice of two great platforms.

If youd like to take advantage of this collaboration, to expand your solution to Windows Mobile, please log into PluggedIn, and go to My Account to modify your existing user profile. You can indicate your interest in the Windows Mobile platform, as well as update your company details, contact, and other development-related information. Current user profiles enable PluggedIn to better meet the needs of Palm's developer community.

Development resources for the Treo on Windows Mobile will be posted to PluggedIn once the product is commercially available, in early calendar 2006.

We look forward to our continuing partnership.

Sincerely,

Paul D. Leeper
Director, Developer Relations

Palm and Microsoft Join to Bring the Palm Experience to Windows Mobile; Verizon Wireless First to Market with New Treo Smartphone

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 26, 2005 - Mobile-computing pioneer Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) and software pioneer Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) today announced a strategic alliance to accelerate the smartphone market segment with a new device for mobile professionals and businesses. Palm has licensed the Microsoft. Windows Mobile. operating system for an expanded line of Treo smartphones, the first of which will be available on Verizon Wireless' national wireless broadband network. The news was revealed in a press conference with Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer of Palm, Inc.; Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft Corp.; and Denny Strigl, president and chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless.

The collaboration gives customers more choices and marks a dedicated effort to deliver one of the world's most innovative smartphone solutions on the software platform favored by many businesses. Treo smartphones combine the hallmark Palm experience of a full-featured mobile phone with email, messaging, web access9 and organizational software -- in an attractive, compact design. The new Treo smartphone takes advantage of the Windows Mobile 5.0 platform in multiple ways, offering Outlook Mobile, Office Mobile and Internet Explorer Mobile built into the smartphone, as well as direct access to Exchange Server 2003 for mobile access to information.2 In addition, the new Treo will operate with Verizon Wireless' BroadbandAccess service, the largest high-speed wireless broadband network in the United States. Verizon Wireless expects the new Treo smartphone to be available to its customers in early 2006.

"We've long believed that the future of personal computing is mobile computing, and our collaboration with Microsoft is a historic step in delivering that vision to a larger market," said Colligan. "We're confident customers will see a differentiated smartphone that delivers our world-class usability on Microsoft's flexible and robust Windows Mobile operating system. We collaborated with Verizon Wireless first because of its high-speed wireless network and growing footprint of BroadbandAccess cities."

"This is a landmark alliance that will help businesses remain on the cutting edge of competitiveness," Gates said. "Demand for accessing information on mobile devices is soaring, and businesses want a low-cost, scalable solution. We're excited to team with Palm and Verizon Wireless to deliver a winning Windows Mobile solution that connects professionals to their critical information while on the go."

The Treo smartphone on Windows Mobile is a CDMA-based phone targeted for the U.S. market and takes advantage of Verizon Wireless' BroadbandAccess service on its EV-DO network with download speeds averaging 400-700 kilobits per second. Today, about half the U.S. population, in more than 84 metropolitan areas and in hundreds of airports across the nation, can access download speeds comparable to DSL or cable-modem connections. Verizon Wireless has been expanding its BroadbandAccess service area steadily since its debut in the fall of 2003.

"The new Treo smartphone running Windows Mobile will highlight the speed and power of our BroadbandAccess service," said Strigl. "The Treo will deliver fast downloading of email and attachments as well as quick access to critical-business information, providing businesses with a great return on investment. Our strong relationships with Microsoft and Palm continue to provide real value for our customers."

The new Treo smartphone is powered by an Intel processor and joins Palm's award-winning family of Treo smartphones, which includes the Treo 600 and Treo 650, both offered today to Verizon Wireless customers.

The Palm Experience on Windows Mobile

During the press conference, the companies demonstrated the Palm experience now brought to life on Windows Mobile. The audience saw a sampling of Palm's award-winning hardware design integrated thoughtfully with a rich Palm software suite, including the ability to:
Contact someone quickly from the Today Screen and choose between home, office or mobile numbers, or select email or SMS. With only two letters entered, a customer can find a record from among thousands of contacts;
Reach people most often called via photo speed dials visible as a band of images on the Today Screen;
Decline a call with a friendly SMS, signaling "In a meeting" or "Talking with the boss" instead of simply ignoring the call; and
Rewind, delete or fast-forward through work or cell phone voicemail with familiar and consistent on-screen icons.
About Palm, Inc.

Palm, Inc., a leader in mobile computing, strives to put the power of computing in people's hands so they can access and share their most important information. The company's products for consumers, mobile professionals and businesses include Palm. handheld computers, Palm Treo smartphones, Palm LifeDrive mobile managers, as well as software, services and accessories.

Palm products are sold through select Internet, retail, reseller and wireless operator channels throughout the world, and at Palm Retail Stores and Palm online stores (www.palm.com/store).

More information about Palm, Inc. is available at www.palm.com.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their potential.

About Verizon Wireless

Verizon Wireless owns and operates the nation's most reliable wireless network, serving 47.4 million voice and data customers. Headquartered in Bedminster, NJ, Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) and Vodafone (NYSE and LSE: VOD). Find more information on the Web at www.verizonwireless.com. To preview and request broadcast-quality video footage and high-resolution stills of Verizon Wireless operations, log on to the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.

###

) 2005 Palm, Inc. All rights reserved. | palm.com| PluggedIn Web Site

What do you think about this?

Mobile phone virii now attack the desktop

2005-09-26T18:05:00.000+02:00

Symbian users already know and loath them-virii for Series 60. Up to now, the damage they caused was limited(a few MMS and data loss AFAIK), the desktop PC was not affected. I actually saw Commwarior in action(asleep on a Nokia), but didn't have an MMC card to "capture" it and offer it here for people who are interested! However, this has now changed with Sybos/Cardtrap.A acording to ITworld.
This trojan horse is a pack of different virii that spread themselves around to other Symbian devices. However, the main danger is that it installs onto memory cards and then attempts to attack PC's where the memory card is mounted(launches a worm).
Well, my defence is simple. I keep Bluetooth on my SX1 off or at least in invisible mode and I dont acceopt and files beamed ovwer to me in an unmotivied fashion. People owning a Treo or other PalmOS smartphone can however sleep in peace-we still dont have a real PalmOS virus!
Did you ever see one of these things in action? Do you have a copy to share?

New summary on TamsPalm.de

2005-09-25T22:28:00.000+02:00

It's Sunday again and the new article is available. Just take a look at TamsPalm.de!

The Treo 700w-why I beleive that it will have a hard time

2005-09-23T12:16:00.000+02:00

Engadget just announced the first real images of a Treo 700w. Immediately, PalmOS users fired off rants about how this would kill our OS.

Anyways, lets stop bickering for a moment. Lets recapitulate what made the Treo family big-the simplicity of use and the OS. Treos were the only boxen that ran Palm OS and were readily available! Thus, almost all PalmOS users wanting a smart phone went for the Treo. Eventually, a cult began to develop similar to what we currently see over at the ipods.

Now compare that to the WinMobile section. WinMobile phones are available in a variety of styles and sizes, running different versions of WinCE and covering an extreme range of prices(from HTC magician to whatever). The HTC retails for 50€ oer in Europe-and has better specs than the Treo. It is sturdily built(I had one in my hand recently). The Treo 700w will cost at least 400€-and I am sure that HTC already has the contracts with carriers to keep them aboard...

Palm always got away with quality issues as they were the only PalmOS stuff maker and since platform switching is extremely expensive due to all the registered software. But-switching from one PocketPC to another is easy. So, a dissatisfied user simply discards the device, but can keep all the infrastructure.
Overall, I beleive that Palm will have a hard time beeing succesful with the 700w using its old strategies due to fierce competition. Ther main danger I see is that Palm may loose a lot of money on their Windows expedition-money better invested into the PalmOS line!

What do you think?

Treo 700w!!!

2005-09-23T01:10:00.000+02:00

Well, the name was a little off, but it turns out that the new Windows Mobile Treo is indeed real. Engadget has pictures and some insight on its capabilities.

Will this be the end of Palm? I dont think so. I have heard there may be a Palm OS version of this device with slighty better hardware. Save the best hardware for the best OS, way to go Palm.

High color resolution screens-what the Windows Mobile team has to say

2005-09-21T19:37:00.000+02:00

Recently, LCDs became available that can do 18bit color. Of course, some handset makers implemented such screens into their products, however, many of them ignored the new technology.
The Windows Mobile team has a nice summary of the problems with high color resolutions in general and the 18bit color resolution in specific. While there is a lot of blah-blah in the M$-sponsored article, it sitll brings over its message very well.
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/09/07/462187.aspx
How do you feel about 18bit color screens?

Palm sued over quality problems

2005-09-21T08:22:00.000+02:00

Recently, Palm(One) was target of quite a few lawsuits over badly designed/manufactured products which weren't repaired. Now, Palms Treo linegot under fire too-I was pretty sure that that would have to happen eventually, but that is a different story!
Anyways, I loved the following part of the lawsuit document:

Replacement of defective Treo 600 phones with defective and/or “refurbished” Treo 600 phones - creating a cycle of defective product - whereby owners continue to receive defective products until either they tire of the process or their warranty runs out.

This reminds me of my IIIc, which was replaced with a box that failed right out of the box(as if that isnt perfect leetspeak;))! This one was replaced by another fuxated machine, and another one, ..... . And this is where I see a problem. The problem is not returning repaired units(I wanted my original T3 to be repaired instead of exchanged as it had a Sony screen), but the problem is just returning a somehow repaired unit to any customer.
I understand that Palm must work efficiently, but if they want to save cash on customer care, they should create quality products that don't need service after all! We had power button problems since the V series, humming screens since the TT(altough mine was silent), cases falling apart on the IIIc, instabile software on the german IIIxe,... .
If a PalmOS freak and developer seriously evaluates a Windows Mobile handheld and Visual Studio, something must be wrong. Doesn't the company ever learn its lesson?

A fleet of new Windows Mobile boxen

2005-09-20T06:44:00.000+02:00

As if Brad's announcement didn't taste bad enough-the German c't now reports about a herd of new WM5 boxen. Since little is known about these, this article has a more-less tabular style:

Asus MyPal A632
The FCC was the news leak here. This MyPal runs Windows Mobile 5 PocketPC edition on a 416Mhz PXA272. It has 64MB of RAM, 128MB of Flash and an integrated GPS unit.
Asus MyPal A636
This essentially is an A632 with Bluetooth 1.2 and WiFi. Price and release date of these machines isn’t known yet!
XDA Mini S
This essentially is a re-branded HTC device for the German carrier O2. It will run WM5 on a 200Mhz OMAP850. It has 64MB of RAM, 128MB of Flash, a miniSD slot, a keyboard, WiFi, a 1.3MP camera with flash and an integrated GSM radio. It will ship for 600€ in October.
XDA phone
The XDA phone runs Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone(read:no touchscreen) on a 200Mhz OMAP850. It has 64MB of RAM, 64MB of Flash, a miniSD slot, a 1.3MP camera and an integrated GSM radio. It will ship for 500€ in October.

It looks like WM5 is getting fatter and fatter. Garmin won't like the new GPS MyPals, while the XDA's will go for Treos and other smartphones. Will the PalmOS survive? If you posed this question a week ago, I would have said for sure. But now, who knows what will happen. If GSPDA/Hagenuk, Qool and the rest of the pack don't get carriers on-board, the show could be over soon.

Treo 670 confirmed!!!

2005-09-19T03:12:00.000+02:00

The Treo 670 has been confirmed by an anonymous source, and from the info I received, I am inclined to believe it is true. This device will run WM 5.0, and will have 64MB of onboard memory. Hopefully there will be an announcement by Palm regarding this soon, so there are no doubts in your minds about its existence.

This news coming soon after the Access announcement is actually a good time. Had this device been released before the announcement, it would have only taken away more hope for the future of the PalmOS, but with Access now in control, we know that this great mobile OS will live on.

Any comments and questions can be directed to the comments section below.

Note, Tam's warning on speculation applies here, as I have not seen the device, but I trust in the validity of the source.

TamsPalm.de: New summary online!

2005-09-18T21:36:00.000+02:00

As every week a short information for our German-speaking readers: The last week's articles have been summarized and translated. Just take a look at TamsPalm.de!

Tungsten X and Zire 22-more news from an insider

2005-09-17T13:30:00.000+02:00

TamsPalm just received the following specifications off a trusted source that wants to stay anonymous:
TamsPalm has not seen any of the two devices and wasn’t able to verify the specifications! So, please treat all analysis below as SPECULATION

I just heard from a reliable source that the TX's specs will be:

128MB NVFS, SD Card, USB 2.0, no camera, no voice record, no vibrate alarms, 320x480, 312Mhz PXA 272, WiFi, BT, Wifi and BT can be used at the same time.

Battery Life: max brightness. wifi connected. bt connected and music playing and warfare inc running (processor intensive app) and proc at 312 MHz is 2hrs and 30minutes!!!

The name TX might not be TX.

The Z22's specs will be:
160 x 160. Garnet. No SD. No Sound Output. No Vibrate. No LED alarm. No camera. No voice record. 200 MHz PXA 255 (processor info is questionable). 32 MB NVFS. The battery life w/ full brightness is 13 hours.

Lets have that sink in for a moment. The Zire 22 doesn’t have a camera, and now, what will happen to the Zire 31? Actually, I dare to say nothing! The Zire 31 and the 22 seem to target entirely different markets!
Now, we’ll start off by looking at the battery life of the two units side-to-side. A Zire 31 survived about 3.5 h in a CNET torture test-this may lead to about 5h of average usage time. However, the Zire 22 reaches 13 h if the information above is rue-ah, the old IIIc days!
Now, who needs such a long run time? The answer is easy: businesses. I have heard of many companies still sticking to fleets of monochrome Visors or other handhelds just for the long battery life that these boxen offer! Of course, the Acceca Meazura is an alternative-but look at the price! 400$ is a lot for a small company-if you have to buy such a box 11 times, that’s 4k bucks! So, the Zire 22 IMHO is not targeted at end consumers but rather at businesses-I wouldn’t be surprised if it had an m5xx st6yle reflective screen that is visible in sunlight... .
The Tungsten X-little to say here! Actually, we knew almost all of this already before. The lack of vibrating alarms, voice record,.. Probably is due to the T5 case and form factor requirements-however, I never quite understood how the TT could have all the stuff integrated and stay so small according to Peter Strobel. The battery life is pretty decent for dual wireless operation-please keep in mind that you will usually not use both radios in connected mode(transmitting data) and that you usually don’t have the screen set to more than half brightness!
What do you think? Which of the two will you get?

New Rumor about Tungsten X and Zire 22

2005-09-16T18:28:00.000+02:00

A few days ago Palm published its new desktop version Palm Desktop 4.2 for Windows. It contains also a reference how to do a hardreset at Palm devices. There are two "unknown" files: TX.HTML and Z22.HTML. This means: yes, Zire 22 and Tungsten X exist !! Two images contain further information: they show where to put the reset pin in, and of course the back side of those Palms. Now Palm has removed the new desktop version from its server.

Specifications:

(Zire 22)

160x160 px color screen
32 MB RAM
no SD slot
99 USD

(Tungsten X, confirmed in the German Palm board "Nexave")

320x480 px color screen
128 MB RAM
no internal drive
Bluetooth
Wireless LAN
299 USD
Palm OS 5.4.9 Garnet

Download "How To Reset Zire 22 / Tungsten X": http://www.tamoggemon.com/blog/contents/2005/September/agrumor_tx_z22/rumor.zip

Podcasts of the week

2005-09-16T12:46:00.000+02:00

Over the week there are a number of PDA related podcasts. I listen to the 1src and Palmaddict casts regularly, but I also frequent many of the other sites. Alan Grassia has a great podcast over at Grassnet, and a great list of all of the available Palm podcasts here.

Of course, their is a special occasion for me mentioning podcasts, and that is this weeks PalmAddict podcast. I was again a guest on the podcast, but this not being horribly special in itself, I must say that it was a group panel podcast. We had Tyler, Jeff Kirvin, Alan Grassia, myself, and JAmerican from the 1src forums. As you will see if you take a listen, we managed to stay on topic fairly well. We talked about things from Access to SkinUI, and received many good insights on the current events. Take a listen and a look at the shownotes here if you want to know more.

As a sidenote, Jeff was bashing Clies in the post podcast chat. Any Clies owners wishing to bash, maim, or otherwise disfigure Jeff can feel free to do so.

Note: The above statement and its charges can be taken literally or figuratively. I hold no responsibility in the event that any Jeffs get bashed or maimed, but please remember this is Jeff Kirvin. I would not want to cause mass Jeff hate around the world and end up with a number of dead Jeffs on the streets.

Return of the Palm Tungsten T|X, and a new Zire?

2005-09-14T23:04:00.000+02:00

PalmInfoCenter is reporting that Palm is discontinuing the T5, and also seems to be on the verge of releasing a replacement for this device. Rumor has it that this will be the Tunsten X, as some have termed the device, rumors of which have been spreading across the internet for a couple months now. The article also mentions that a new Zire, the Zire 22, may be ready for release.

You can read the full article here.

Thoughts, Questions, Comments? Head for the link to the comments section below.

BlackBerry 8870 specs leaked

2005-09-13T19:47:00.000+02:00

A T-Mobile austria representative has just confirmed that a new BlackBerry is indeed expected very soon! However, she didnt know number, date of arrival or more about the features!

Dont ask me if this is true or not. I never ever used a BlackBerry and doint really plan to either. However, a member of BlackBerryForums.org called athreya has just released the following information:

The new BB 8700 series will be out soon. Highlights are:

1. EVDO +BB and EDGE + BB device for Verizon (Sprint) and Cingular respectively.
2. GPS and IM builtin (Carrier fee applies)
3. faster processor + 64MB RAM
4. Better - more native - attachment viewing
5. No camera, no wifi, no VOIP.
6. Classic form factor + sleeker design, speakerphone
7. In testing now: Due out in Oct/ Nov from Verizon, Cingular and Sprint/Nextel. (I will have one in hand in about two weeks from now)

Like the 7290, dont forget you heard it from me, first. I have shared everything i know.

-find the info here
Overall, these specs look realistic for me from a Palm man's point of view! What really confuses me is the integrated GPS-if it really works like on the new IPAQ phone, Garmin seems to have a problem! The machine not having a touchscreen-however-is still the main deal breaker for me.
Do you beleive that this device is gonna come soon? RIM recently started to give away BlackBerries for free in some promo actions-who knows if they arent trying to clear stock...

It really cant hurt!

2005-09-12T22:54:00.000+02:00

"An editorial on the PalmSource acquisition by Access" (Its a long one, so if you dont like long, skip over this)

The past few days there have been many stories, as well as much speculation floating around regarding this acquisition. Some people are praising the move, and a few (though not many at all) do not think it is a great idea. The naysayers are probably more concerned with the fact that Access bought PalmSource at an 83% premium, which I would be most people would think is alot. I would have to agree. At the heart of this matter though is the question, "What does this mean to the Palm community?". I will try to explore the motivations for the acquisition, the current state of PalmSource, what could happen, as well as my personal opinion regarding the sale of the company.

Access is a fairly large company. Their product line before buying PalmSource was mainly limited to the highly successful Netfront browser, as well as some imbedded software that ran on mostly mobile devices. For this reason I would title them a primarily mobile company. Our good friend Jeff Kirvin believes that the Netfront web browser may in fact be on more devices than Firefox, which certainly means that the company is making alot of money somewhere. Obviously they would also need this much money to buy PalmSource for the 300+ million they paid. That said, many people have spoken of Access as having "always wanted an OS". Being the mobile company that they are, this makes alot of sense, because by buying PalmSource, they dont just give themselves a PDA operating system, but also two different smartphone operating systems, if they decide to pursue Cobalt. I have no doubt they will continue to sell Netfront to PPC owners and manufacturers, because they already dominate this section of the market, and would not want to lose that revenue. Well, Access has their OS, and now the most important thing is that they treat it well.

The current state of PalmSource is not something that most would want to hear. If anyone had looked lately, it would seem that they had taken their focus off of Cobalt, the next generation Os that should succeed Garnet, and put their sights towards Palm on Linux. What this means to the user is precisely nothing. When I say that I dont mean what that sounds like. When I say nothing, I mean that users have not seen a handheld running a new PalmSource OS on any handhelds. We have seen nothing. Its like Willy Wonkas chocolate factory, for many years nothing came out. For a little background, all new versions of the PalmOS since 5.4 have really been developed by Palm inc. Palm INC has taken over development of Garnet entirely, leaving PalmSource in the dust. With the list of PalmSource licensees dwindling (after Sony and Tapwave dropped out), there was very little hope that the company would be able to pull themselves from the hole they were digging.

Onto the future state of the OS (This section should be a little brighter). Access has bought PalmSource, and they have done a couple intelligent things. The first was letting the programmers generally go about their business. They announced publicly that they were going to continue POL (Palm on Linux) development, and they have also said that Cobalt development is not out of the question. With these two OSs being developed, and most importantly backed, we have assurance that we may once again see our favorite OS on a better device someday. If I was Access, I would have them release something to hardware companies in the near future. Either a cleaned up version of Garnet with some new features, or a separate OS such as Cobalt. They really need something to compete with current WM OSs.

Now, to the point of this article, which is essentially that "It really cant hurt". After seeing what PalmSource currently was doing, and the fact that it seemed they were heading nowhere, I have to come to this conclusion. The acquisition gives them backing by a stabile company, as well as a company with some good programmers who may be able to give better leadership and support. Although some dont like it, I really dont see how this could hurt PalmSource or the Palm community, because frankly, the situation couldnt have been much worse.

What do you think? Direct comments and questions to the comments section.

Web Browsing on a Palm - Opera Review

2005-09-12T18:51:00.000+02:00

Today I review Opera Mini - the J2ME version for mobile phones. J2ME means it has some restrictions - no downloads, no support for local HTML pages on cards, ... But more about that later. There are two versions - one for LoRes and one for HiRes. I test the HiRes version.

The interface

This is the start page which can NOT be changed. There are some hyperlinks from TV2, a TV channel in Norway which provides Opera Mini, a web search and a history of visited pages. In the menu are commands for entering an URL, viewing and editing bookmarks, settings, submitting a bug to Opera Software and a help. The help is, like the whole program, availible in English and Norwegian. There are not much settings to configure: For example, you can choose whether to load images and the quality of images, font smoothing and the language. Font smoothing makes the font smaller - but it will get VERY, VERY slow.

Using Opera

I tested it intensive a week ago, it worked well and fast - today is very slow, but this should be my fault because the wireless access point that connects me to the internet isn't very near and I had to do a hardreset. In my test it could display all web pages I opened. I didn't try flash pages (and they won't work I think) or pages that are *very* difficult to display but all pages I normally go to.

Long pages are no problems, Opera (or the proxy server) splits them into small parts. Images are no problems, but tables or frames aren't shown. Opera has "SSR" (small screen rendering). With this technology you haven't to scroll horizontally because all pages are as broad as the screen. Even forms are availible and so I could post answers on boards.

One thing I liked especially: The Java VM had full support for the 5-way-navigator (also known as D-pad) like Treo 600, 650 or Tungsten T5 f. e. You don't need a stylus because you can handle almost ALL functions with the 5-way-navigator - dialogues, links, buttons, checkboxes, ... For me (Tungsten C) it's something special.

Although there are some good functions - it is J2ME - a language for mobile phones, and this language has restrictions on mobile phones: it doesn't support cards, flash memory, bluetooth, internal databases like contacts or SMS. So this version of Opera doesn't support downloads, uploads or HTML files on cards. There aren't much J2ME applications that support cards or file sysytems, but I think they are NOT impossible. IBM WebSphere Environment supports card operations.

My results

This ís a good idea - for owners of mobile phones and Palms, but there could still be a "true" version for Palm OS. The Opera CEO says that they don't know if there will be a version for Palm OS. So we have to wait and use Opera Mini. It isn't bad and displays many pages better and faster than Web Browser or Web Pro. Nevertheless it isn't the only browser I use - think about NetFront or Picsel Browser - they have SSR, are fast(er than Web Pro), too, support downloads, uploads, ...

Download: http://www.nexave.de/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=2623
J2ME Runtime: http://www.palm.com/us/support/jvm/download.html

Web Browsing on a Palm - UPDATE

2005-09-12T17:27:00.000+02:00

"The current Web browser situation for the Palm is a catastrophe", says Tam Hanna, I say "there is no real legal way to get a usable web browser". All browsers I know have problems here and problems there. There are some free or buyable browsers like Eudora, PocketLink, Palmscape, Xiino - nothing special.

In the next weeks, I'll use several browsers, every browser for a week or so and review them here. After all tests I'll compare them and post the results. I'm going to test:

Web Browser 2.0
Web Pro 1.0
Web Pro 3.5
Blazer 4.x
NetFront 3.1
Picsel Browser 1.0
Opera (Mini) 1.0
Xiino

Do you know other browsers I could test?

UPDATE: I think that I'll test another, not so famous browser called "iPanel". It seems that it doesn't support HiRes because it's already two years old. But it is fast, faster than some other, new browsers.

Zodiac DAA cracked?

2005-09-12T12:56:00.000+02:00

A great Zodiac blog, ZodAttack, is reporting that the DAA has been cracked, and now all users can download the patched version and run unsigned programs. What this means in actuality is that if this gets widespread, it will make it alot easier for developers to create programs that run on the Zodiac hardware, as they wont have to get them signed, and they wont have to find a way to bypass the DAA themselves. All around, this is a good development.

Please note that TamsPalm doesnt support breaking DRMed content. The DAA is merely the key to using the Zodiac hardware with unsigned applications. Not many new Zodiac apps will be signed in the future.

I wont link directly to the download, but here is a link to the article at ZodAttack.

Media Players for the Palm, Hands on Review!

2005-09-12T07:09:00.000+02:00

You may have read my first look on Media Players for the Palm OS. I was not able to get a review copy of MMPlayer, and so this will be a comparison of Kinoma and TCPMP. Its a little late, mainly because I have been putting it off. The information is pretty much up to date though, as neither of the programs have really changed.

What will follow is a hands on review of each program, its true purpose, and then my overall pick for the best media player. I will start with TCPMP.

The Core Pocket Media Player (TCPMP)
TCPMP is thee newcomer in the world of media on the Palm. It has been around for a little more than three months. The Palm version is based on the same core as the PPC version (originally called Betaplayer), and so it came out as a fast and heavily optimized player. Fortunately for us, it didnt stop there. It can handle most major audio and video codecs, with the exception of WMA. Because of licensing problems, the AAC plugin cannot be stored on Corecodecs servers, but it is available (on servers in countries where it is legal) through links in a couple threads on their website.

The user interface of this player is very basic. It has a play button, fast forward and rewind buttons, a fullscreen button, a prefs button, and a slider. The beauty of the UI is that everything is below the hood, so to speak. Underneath that prefs button are all of the options for functionality. In the prefs menu are options to control speed, a/v sync, video controls, and many other things.

In any benchmark possible, you would find that this program is fast. I must say that it is faster than Kinoma or MMPlayer in respects to playing media at high bitrates. Again, I have to push the fact that this player is very good for video and audio, and does nothing else.

Kinoma Media Player
Kinoma Media Player is a different type of player than TCPMP. It has been around for many years, and has gone through many major revisions. Until the release of TCPMP, it was almost unrivaled in media with its latest version. Some of its features include media organization, an inviting interface, and a large selection of methods to get media onto your handheld.

One you get your hands on this player you realize that it offers more than meets the eye. One of the things that did this for me was the album art that showed up when I started listening to an audio clip available on their website. In addition to this, it is the only media player that can play 3 unique types of media. These types of media are 3D objects, panoramas, and interactive guides. All of these were developed from the ground up by Kinoma, and they have worked to get their media formats up on the net. There are numerous videos in their format, as well as smaller numbers of the other types of media.

Overall, they are both really great players. Kinomas player, along with their separate converter, can handle high quality video with faster handhelds. As I have said, its biggest benefits are in its other media capacilities, as well as its music support with album pictures. TCPMP is the king of all dedicated video players. A dedicated developer, and a very dedicated fan base create a great program that can handle most modern video formats.

I have both of these programs on my device, and can definitely see how they are used for very different things.

Comments and questions can be directed to the comments section.

News from TamsPalm.de

2005-09-11T22:38:00.000+02:00

Just a short message for all German-speaking readers: The new summary is available at TamsPalm.de!

The big demoscene FAQ

2005-09-10T18:11:00.000+02:00

Just in case anyone ever wondered about the demoscene:
http://tomaes.32x.de/text/faq.php
This page has loads of interesting information about how the demo scene developed, about important groups, web sites and many more! Definitely a worthwile read!
By the way, there is a nice load of PalmOS demos-some younger, some older. It really is time that Palm/some other company would host another demo making competition!

Access spokesman speaks up

2005-09-10T10:48:00.000+02:00

Recently, PalmSource was aquired by Access Corporation. Now, a spokesman of the new mother company has spoken up over at CNET's-here is a link to the article:
http://news.com.com/PalmSource+sale+wont+kill+Palm+OS/2100-1041_3-5857082.html?part=rss&tag=5857082&subj=news
To cut a long story short, the spokesman did not say much new, but a lot of good stuff. First of all, the PalmOS is not dead! Access will continue working on PalmOS on Linux and even plans to revisit Cobalt in some way or the other.
And, last but not least, Netfront will be integrated into Garnet-whatever that means! So, maybe Access is starting to see the need of current PalmOS device owners and wants to do something against them leaving the platform, which is a good step into the right direction if you ask me! Also, NetFront will be the default browser for Cobalt and POS on Linux. What that means for PalmSource's current, very nice Cobalt web browser cannot be determined currently. Lets just hope NetFront will be better!
How do you feel after this statement?

PalmSource aquired by Access Co(Netfront dudes)

2005-09-09T14:26:00.000+02:00

PalmSource has been aquired by Access-for an incredible price. Indeed, the rumor mill was hard at work quite some time, but the mentioned company was wrong.
Now this came as a surprise. A software company that produces portable applications purchasing an OS maker? Indeed, it is difficult to see a benefit for Access-unless you look at their software portfolio. The company does more than just NetFront. It also has a ready menu application for interactive handsets. And this is where PalmOS will come in!
Currently, each product needs to be ported from platform to platform for each licencee. Now, Palm OS for Linux allows Access to offer licencees a complete solution. Why get an OS at A, a web browser at B and a game at C, if you can have all the stuff from one vendor. Less compatibility issues, less problems... . PalmSource provides an everywhere OS(which the Linux core of PalmOS makes it-I beleive that porting away from ARM is not really a problem if the Linux kernel already runs on the platform). Access provides communications programs(PalmSource has a few nice preograms for cobalt already, they could be enhanced with Access's technologies).
So, Access and PalmSource definitely make a good team. Both companies work in the handset sector, and both have their individual licencees. Access has loads of PalmOS experience, so the company already knows the OS they're buying. Also, the company worked together with Sony while the Clies were going big. Thus, they know a lot about the way the Clie concept was designed. Overall, if PalmOS on Linux ships(I am pretty sure about this), we should be prepared to see Access and PalmSource running fast!
What do you think?

Newsflash!!!!! PalmSource will be bought by ACCESS

2005-09-09T12:44:00.000+02:00

Wow, this is a surprise. In a world where everything is predicted, this sure came quick, and nobody saw it coming. It is official though, PalmSource, the company that makes the PalmOS, will be aquired by ACCESS, a PalmOS software company that makes the Netfront browsers, as well as the core for the browser found on many newer Palms.

I woke up with this sitting on the front page of 1src and many other sites, so I wont try to decide who broke the story. It is found on PalmSources own website here.

What will this mean for Palm users? In my personal opinion, I believe this is a good move. Access already had a small stake in the Palm world, and now they have a larger one. They are further rooted in the handheld market by their work in the WM sector. I believe the combination of a strongly backed company with a steady revenue from multiple sources will help development as they continue to work on the new Palm on Linux variant.

PalmSource home page
Access home page

Any questions or comments can be put in the comments section, and as always, thanks for reading TamsPalm.

P.S. Dont expect this to be our only article on the issue.

The Fossil Wrist Watch goes to the internet

2005-09-08T14:13:00.000+02:00

Ever since David Zucker bought himself a WristPDA, I was planning to get it connected to the network by porting over libraries from, my old Palm V running OS 4.1. The PalmOS network files are optional, and can be excluded if a licencee beleives it to be a good idea. Since those files-however-are created by PalmSource and not Fossil, backporting them may be successful.
Indeed, a 1src user now succeeded at the idea of moving the TCP stack and accompanying files over. Look here:
http://www.1src.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95842
It looks as if his handheld works well. However, he has not yet tested any communication apps. I personally beleive that the files he used are not enough though, and ripped the following files of my Palm V with OS 4.1:
I dont own a WristPDA-so test this on your own responsibility! A hard reset is possible, so better have a good backup!

Cmd-nettrace.prc
Cmd-ping.prc
Connection.prc
Connection_enUS.prc
DefConnection2DBVSeries_enUS.pdb
DefConnection2DB_enUS.pdb
ExgLocal Library-locl.prc
ExgLocal Library-locl_enUS.prc
Loopback NetIF.prc
Lz77 Library.prc
Mail.prc
Mail_enUS.prc
Net Library.prc
NetSync.prc
NetSync_enUS.prc
Network.prc
Network_enUS.prc
PADHTAL Library.prc
Pdi Library.prc
Pdi Library_enUS.prc
PPP NetIF.prc
PPP NetIF_enUS.prc
SLIP NetIF.prc
SLIP NetIF_enUS.prc

AFAIK, installing all these files at once(beam them over if necceccary) should equip the Fossil with a fully-fledged TCP/IP stack! Please keep me posted if the files work for you!

"Ringo Pro": Review, part 2

2005-09-07T20:05:00.000+02:00

In part 1 of my review I told you about all the functions that "Ringo Pro" offers. Now let's see if the program works properly.

The big testing
Thank God we have an ISDN-telephone at home. That means: I have 3 different phone numbers to call the Treo. I tested "Ringo Pro" with these 3 numbers, let's call them NR1, NR2 and NR3.

I added NR1 as a "Ringo Friend". As ringtone I selected "Outcast-Hey Ya" and I picked a picture, let's call it Pic1.
NR2 is in no special group and no "friend". The default ringtone is "Gritty Shaker" from the Ocean's 11 soundtrack. Default picture is Pic2
NR3 is in the "Private" Group. For this group I selected "U2-Vertigo" as ringtone and used Pic3.

Now I took the 3 phones we have and called the Treo from each phone.

Call from NR1: The Treo plays "Hey Ya" and shows the right picture
Call from NR2: Treo plays "Gritty Shaker", shows Pic2.
Call from NR3: Treo plays "Vertigo" and shows Pic3.

So far, "Ringo" does it's work very well. Now I wanted to test the "Don't disturb"-functionality. I activated the corresponding checkbox for NR1 ("Ringo Friend") and NR3 ("Ringo Group"). And I did some calls again:

Call from NR1: The Treo rings, playing the polyphonic tone selected in the built-in ringtone application. The right picture is shown.
Call from NR2: Treo plays "Gritty Shaker", shows Pic2.
Call from NR3: Treo again plays the polyphonic ringtone, shows Pic3.

Result: Something is wrong with the "Don't disturb" function. The Treo rings, but it shouldn't! As a last test, I set the ringtone for the "friend" and for the "Ringo Group" to default. Perhaps the Treo doesn't ring now. Testing again:

Call from NR1: No sound comes out of the Treo
Call from NR2: Treo plays "Gritty Shaker".
Call from NR3: Treo doesn't ring

As you can see, the "Don't disturb" option only works if no individual ringtone is selected for "Ringo Friends" or "Ringo Groups". But this is the only bug I found.

Conclusion
"Ringo Pro" offers a lot of options to make your Treo ring the way you like. Depending on the size of your MP3-collection you can choose from hundreds or thousands of different ringtones. By using "Ringo Friends" and "Ringo Groups" you can assign an individual ringtone to every person and/or group of your address book. The only negative thing I found is the problem with the "Don't disturb" option.
I don't know if all these functions are worth 29,95 USD. Some other ringtone programs are cheaper. But they need additional MP3-player software like PocketTunes or AeroPlayer. So the price of "Ringo Pro" is not exorbitant high.
I would give "Ringo Pro" 4 points out of 5. One point is missing because the "Don't disturb" option and the "Ringtone Mixer" do not work perfectly. But I can recommend the programm to all Treo users who want more than just the built-in tones.

BugMe-the enhanced note pad

2005-09-07T13:45:00.000+02:00

Since the arrival of the m505, I always wished that Palm's note pad app would support multiple colors. A dedicated drawing program usually was too cumbersome to use for a quick sketch. Electric Pocket seems to have the solution for me-BugMe+.
The program starts up in a list view displaying tiny thumbnails of all the notes currently on the handheld(click all images for 480x320 versions):

Category filters are available, the 5way navigator works flawlessly on my T3. Creating notes is easy-hit the new button or the hardkey assigned to BugMe+. The note editing view is really simple:

But-do not let the easy user interface confuse you. The program has loads of different drawing tools and supports up to 24 colors and 6 line widths. The icon at the top of the app enables you to return to the program used before.
The note drawing works at an acceptable speed-I believe Note Pad to be a tiny bit faster. BugMe contains a few predefined symbols that can be inserted easily:

JPEG importing didnt work on my T3. However, the program also contains a screengrabber that can be triggered via the command bar. Since notes are VGA sized, the grabs come out nice. Your doodles can be exported and sent as jpg files. The individual notes can have alarms assigned.
Overall, this is a funky app. It worked reliably on my T3 and adds value to the regular Note Pad. However, the program is very big(1 meg), since it cannot be stored on external memory without loss of functionality. So, the installation/purchase should be evaluated on a case per case basis-graphics people may prefer a full drawing app while easy users may not want to invest the money and memory. Note Pad junkies will definitely like BugMe+ for its features and the ease of use.

"Ringo Pro": Review, part 1

2005-09-06T20:15:00.000+02:00

Introduction
When your Treo comes out-of-the-box, it's not able to use mp3-files as ringtone. You only can use the built-in polyphonic ones. The only way to make music or other sounds a ringtone, is to record them via the Treo's microphone. But the quality of this sound is not very great. If you want your Treo to play "real" music, you need 3rd party software, such as "mRing", "LightWav", "mp3Ringer", "PhoneTechnician", "TreoGuard" or "Ringo Pro".

I had a look at "Ringo Pro for Treo 600 & Treo 650 4.4" by Electric Pocket (Price: 29,95 USD)

Installation
The *.zip file contains the "Ringo-installer.prc". After the transfer via HotSync the software extracts and installs itself on the Treo. While the installer.prc has a size of 918KB, the installed program only uses about 400KB of RAM.

First look and overview
The program offers three different views: "Ringo Ringtones", "Ringo Friends" and "Ringo Groups". You can switch from one view to the other by tapping the corresponding symbol at the lower right corner of the screen.

On the "Ringo Ringtones" screen you can choose the default sounds for incomming calls and text messages. And you can pick a picture to be showed when somebody calls you.

For important persons you can use "Ringo Friends" to assign each "friend" an individual ringtone and/or picture.

The "Ringo Groups"-screen offers the same functions for the different categories of your contact database.

The "Ringo Ringtones" screen
There are 4 different ways to choose a ringtone or a SMS tone:

You can select a MP3 tune from any directory of your storage card. Ringo comes along with 5 tunes which are stored at the /audio directory. Before you definitely pick a MP3 tune you can listen to it by tapping the "Play" button.
The second possibility is to browse the Ringo ringtone store. After choosing this option the web browser is started and connects to the ringtone-website on electricpocket.com. I did not download any file from the website just because using a GPRS-connection is too expensive for that.
Of course you can also use the built-in polyphonic ringtones. Additional MIDI tones can be imported over the menue Tones>Import Tones
Last but not least you can create your own unique ringtone when you tap the button "New". You can choose from different drums, melodies and instruments to mix the ringtone you like most. This is really great fun. I spent hours with trying all the different sounds. There's only one thing I don't like about the "Ringtone Mixer": When I choose a drum pattern and a lead pattern they are played simultaniously until the lead pattern is repeated. Then the lead pattern sets in too early and the rhythm of the drum and the rhythm of the lead voice don't fit together any more. This means it sounds quite horrible. You can avoid this problem when you only use the drum or the lead voice.

As you can see, you have a lot of options to select the ringtone you like. At the next step you can decide if you want a picture to be shown at an incomming call or not. You can use the pictures taken with the Treo's camera or the ones that are on your storage card (in the directory /DCIM).

The "Ringo Friends" screen
This is the screen for important callers. A "friend" is added by tapping the "New" button. You can pick a person from your address book or create a new entry. For each "friend" you can choose an individual ringtone, SMS tone and picture. And you can select the "don't disturb" option which means that the Treo won't ring when this person is calling.

The "Ringo Groups" screen
On this screen the categories from your address book are listed. For each category you can again pick a ringtone, SMS tone and picture. And of course select the "Do not disturb" option.

The value of beeing called a market leader

2005-09-05T17:24:00.000+02:00

Recently, Gartner began to fire out studies saying how the PalmOS is behind Windows Mobile in sales. This post should not discuss these studies(we all know that the Treos are excluded...)-but it should rather discuss the value that they have for Microsoft!
Many magazines carried these reports, and many people read them. If they didn't consult a second news source, they would have the impression that Palm is a dying platform(what it isnt if you ask me). And this is the place where M$ comes into the equasion.
People dont like to buy discontinued/doomed products. Ever saw a software developer officially announcing a dead product's discontinuation if there is no successor ready? Nope, there arent many people whop have the honesty to declare the intents of killing a product that sells well... . There always is a chance that some people still want to buy it hoping for further development. A big fat discontinued sign usually kills such hopes.
Now, what shall somebody do who wants a PDA? If he beleives that Garnet/PalmOS is dead, he will usually want to get something that has a bright future. So, he will choose a PocketPC, as there is nothing else available(forget PocketViewers from Casio and the Linux PDA's). Each new PocketPC user helps spreading word about the platform to his friends and coworkers.
I am not intending to accuse anyone of ordering fake studies. However, Gartner also attacks Linux every now and then-so it may just be possible that Microsoft has a hand involved. They definitely would benefit from it... .
What do you think?

TamsPalm.de: New summary online!

2005-09-05T15:56:00.000+02:00

For our German-speaking readers: The last week's articles have been summarized and translated. Just take a look at TamsPalm.de!

LifeDrive headphone problem fix

2005-09-04T16:57:00.000+02:00

Many LifeDrive users report various contacting problems with their headphones. The user Mike Chicago has found a cheap way to fix most contact related issues-a RadioShack headphone extender that plugs into the LifeDrive and into the headphones, thus eliminating contact problems(it fits the LifeDrive, and the other end is standard).
Read more in the 1src thread:
http://www.1src.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89218
Also, you get a subtle way to control the volume of the music without taking the LifeDrive out of your pocket-this can be dangerous in subways,... . Solving such a problem for just 6.59$ is great if you ask me.
Did you ever have a problem with your LifeDrive up to now?

PODS does not find every error

2005-09-03T21:47:00.000+02:00

Sometimes, PODS cancels the compiling process with an error message like this shown in the problems tab of the graphical environment:


*** [Project] Error 1 Project   3. September 2005 21:38:22

There is very little information accompanying such an error-at least for people who didnt discover the console tab of Eclipse yet. Well, no problem. There is a lot of tabs at the bottom of eclipse under the editor-and one of them reads console. If not, add it using (Window-Show View->Console) Clicking it leads to more-less random text garbage. Now, rebuild the project from scratch(Project->Clean...). The compiling process now be shown in the Console tab-and you can usually find an error message like this one here:



src/VfsSelect.o(.text+0x1e0):VfsSelect.c: undefined reference to `VFSOpenFile'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [BinaryClock] Error 1

And indeed, the error is now easy to find. It is a typo in the module VfsSelect.c-the call is VFSFileOpen and not VFSOpenFile. Fixing the call let the program work once again!
Altough PODS is a graphical development environment, it still pays out to look at the console sometimes... . Did you ever have such a problem? Do you use the console view?

A lovely stress toy when people ask stupid questions

2005-09-03T12:59:00.000+02:00

If somebody ever annoys you asking stuff that can easily be found on google, dont scream at him anymore! Just craft a web site with a link to one of the pages below, change the displayed name for the link and have the user click it. The lesson will be taught for sure!

http://www.fuckinggoogleit.com
The classic site, with an image of Bart Simpson writing...
http://www.googleityoumoron.com/
Can generate HTML code and even PHPBB code for bulletin boards

In case the person is too lazy to google even after visiting such a site, you can set them up to autoforward the user to Google after a delay!
Do you know another such service?

Palm Desktop 4.2 for Windows, Tungsten X and Zire 22

2005-09-03T12:35:00.000+02:00

Three days ago, PalmOne posted Palm Desktop, version 4.2 for Windows on their US page. The download includes Palm Desktop, HotSync Manager and Conduits for Outlook and VersaMail - for free. See Palm, Inc. - Palm Desktop 4.2 for Windows. It seems to contain several languages.

There are help pages how to do a hard reset on palm devices included, too. Two pages tell how to to do a hard reset on "Z22" and "TX". What could that be?

The PUG Vienna met yesterday

2005-09-02T23:09:00.000+02:00

The Vienniese Palm user group met yesterday. Yet again, a new site was chosen which was almost impossible to reach, but offered free WLAN. Lovely for a T3 owner... . Anyways, the meeting was very interesting. Find a few images below(sorry for the bad quality, but the SX1 gets bad if it is dark):

Sabine finally got herself a Zire 72-her son ruined the 71 a short time ago!

We have two new faces. The two people pictured above are a couple(sorry, I forgot the names). The man on the left side owns a Treo 650 and works at a helicopter company. The woman on the right side is called Tori and does Kinesiology-she owns a Tungsten C.

Here we have Boris comparing a Stowaway prototype for Vii with his IR keyboard. This is indeed a generation clash...

Boris and Alex-of course-had lots of stuff to discuss!

The Treo 650's screen beats the T3's to smithereens...... .

A happy Sabine-and Herwig in the back. While he is pretty friendly at the beginning of meetings(teaches lots of interesting stuff about Macs and Photoshop, just gotta listen to him) he can get annoying towards the end;).

And here-last but not least-we have Boris lecturing about the Jaguar console's rendering system and the MIDI standard. Did you know that one can reproduce voices using MIDI and the sampler integrated into most SoundBlaster cards? And-did you know that the Jaguar can beat an X800 in some rendering benchmarks?
Overall, this was another interesting meeting! Come on, tell me if there is a Palm User Group in your area!

The ipod moves in a PDAesque direction

2005-08-31T12:36:00.000+02:00

My mind still contains a few faint memories of the PUG Vienna discussing how the ipod was moving into a PDAesque direction when the ipod photo came out. I never beleived that this could happen due to the lack of touchscreen and input possibilities(I could live with just a keyboard somehow). But indeed, it happened.
After the Doom port(which is pointless IMHO), a new service has been launched by users that use their ipod to store subway maps.
http://www.ipodsubwaymaps.com/ works by slicing the map into tiny pieces that exactly fit on the ipods screen. These can thern be shown somehow-but dont ask me how they naviage the maps... . Not owning an ipod definitely makes revieweing such stuff difficult, especially if there is no ipod simulator available for download.
Overall, I do not beleive that this threatens PalmOS apps-Metro and the other map serices simply benefit from the touchscreen and the 5way nav for zooming and panning. But, this shows that there is demandf for a converged device that does everything: media, movies and organization! So, the LifeDrive idea isnt even that bad after all. Altough the current device has some deficits for sure(no real RAM, doing everything with the HDD is slow and costs battery,..)-keep in mind that it is a first generation unit and that it will still take some time to mature. Apple once had PDA's-so it is entirely possible that they decide to whack a touchscreen on the ipod and cite Bruno Kreisky(austrian president):

One can get smarter over night!

I am pretty sure such a device would be quite successful, as the ipod name would drive it forward... .

TamsPalm becomes international?

2005-08-30T19:55:00.000+02:00

For all German readers, the blog member "Bubu" opened the German version of TamsPalm. Every week he collects all posts here and translates them.

URL: http://tamspalm-de.blogspot.com

If other languages will follow, TamsPalm becomes international!

The tinyest web servers of the world

2005-08-30T17:38:00.000+02:00

Some of the readers on this page do electronics-and already have experimented with MicroChips PIC line of controllers. Yes, I know that Freescale's Nitrons are cheaper, I know it for a year-but Microchip seems to keep itself alive by:

Offering many models

Community, already installed uwer base

Anyways, some freaks always have to implement web servers on these tiny controllers. This web site has a lovely project, and also offers an overview of other people who try to create the "tinyest web server of the world".
http://ccs.cs.umass.edu/~shri/iPic.html
Ever tried something like this yourself?

Tamoggemon AutoSync

2005-08-30T15:19:00.000+02:00

Editorial content begins below this post!
Tamoggemon Software has released a new product that is intended to "mirror" the behaviour of ActiveSync and other features of a Pocket PC that can make life easier for a person who docks his handheld often!

Did you ever want to adjust brightness/contrast automatically when docked to a device?
Did you ever want to have different sound settings for docked and wireless modes?
Do you want to have IR receive fixed to on when docked?

If you answer any of these questions with yes, Tamoggemon AutoSync is the program for you!
Find out more at:
http://www.tamoggemon.com/products/autosync/index.htm
The 14day evaluation version can be registered for 7-99$ at PalmGear's:
http://www.palmgear.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=software.showsoftware&PartnerREF=&siteid=1&prodID=105188

Australia planning SMS spam to find new recruits

2005-08-30T12:16:00.000+02:00

The australian army is said to evaluate a new way to find recruits.
The german press agency recently reported that the australian army is planning to send out SMS messages to teenagers advertising the benefits of working for the ADF. Australia has one of the best spam laws in the world currently, however, it looks as if a leak was introduced to allow political communications in paragraph 44.
Another problem with the australian plan is the obtaining of mobile phone numbers. The information is said to be purchased from address agencies-the same businesses spammers use to find potential new targets.
If the ADF is allowed to start the campaign, this will have desasterous effects on SMS spam. While I already get a spam SMS/week, this would move the spammer's attention to mobile phones. Pricing for SMS still imposes costs, but it overall might pay out for some(callback spams).
Do you beleive this is a good idea?

The dictionary of algorithms

2005-08-29T14:07:00.000+02:00

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has created an awsome portal that lists explanations for all kinds of algorithms and data structures.
Its Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures, DADS for short, contains a few hundred explanations for about everything you weill see in a coder's life. Some of the algorithms even come with implementations or graphics.
If you need information about FIFO, LIFO, stacks-find mathematical notations,... here:
http://www.nist.gov/dads/
Thats US tax payer's bucks at work....

D&M Holdings pulls the plug on the Rio line

2005-08-28T17:46:00.000+02:00

This is not a joke!!!
As if Sony and Tapwave retreating werent enough-yet anothe company falls victim to a market leader. This time, it is not in the PalmOS sector, but rather in the portable media player area. D&M holdings, the japanese mother company of the Reio series has decided that the market is too competitive and that they stop producing RIO's player lineup at the end of september!
Ther only good news is that D&M has announced that they will retain the rights to the Rio line and will provide customer care and retailler support.
Read more here:
http://news.com.com/The+day+Rios+music+died/2100-1047_3-5843561.html?tag=nefd.top
Overall, this is bad news. The Ipod moves on and on...
via Lockergnome

Why PalmSource had to cut the line on garnet

2005-08-28T16:36:00.000+02:00

PalmSource recently announced the halting of all PalmOS Garnet/Cobalt based development efforts. Immediately, users and analysts began to bicker about how PalmSource has just become irrelevant,... ! This is true at the first glance-but not if you look at it in a detailled fashion.
Palm OS Cobalt never made it out to the licencees-not because it isnt finished(runs in the Simulator well enough)-but rather because Garnet did almost everything needed. Now look at Microsoft. When Windows 98 was introduced, it didnt really do much more than Windows 95 OSR2 or OSR3. We already had FAT32, USB, the new IE desktop,... . However, it caught on really fast because Microsoft tried to end 95 sales!
PalmSource nwas in a similar situation with Cobalt-but it didnt take the same steps! If PalmSource had stopped licencing Garnet for new device projects, licencees would automatically force-move to Cobalt, developers and eventually users would follow. PalmOne would never have gone so far in their Garnet pimping mania, the LifeDrive would run Cobalt and could multitask in a true way! Developers would be rid of the segmentation problem(I beleive this is one of the main reasons why many opensource projects port over to PocketPC but not to Palm OS) and could create true ARM applications without the 68k glue!
Now, it looks as if PalmSource finally learned the lesson. Licencees wont move on their own, you gotta force-move them if you want progress. With Garnet and Cobalt development discontinued, new hardware/software protocols will simply not work with Garnet or Cobalt anymore. Licencees wanting to use these technologies to create devices capable of competing with PocketPC's will have to use PalmOS for Linux-or do all the dirtwork themselves.
So, PalmSource is not becoming irrelevant if you ask me. Instead, it is finally learning from its past... .

Domain name scam-domain owners, beware

2005-08-26T01:24:00.000+02:00

Daniel Gray just reports that there is an ongoing domain scam.
A company is busily sending out letters to domain owners about how their domain will expire soon. It then proceeds to ask them to renew their subscription-for an incredibly high price.
Find more about it at his website:
http://www.geekbooks.com/blog/archives/000416.html
Did you ever find something like that in your mail box? I didnt find it, yet!