CNET has a nice assortment of news and history in Palm’s 10th anniversary. Get the full scoop here:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11304_7-6474897-1.html?tag=txt
Mar 282006
Mar 282006
Sometimes, taking a look at the past can be a great experience. Here are a few images of classic handhelds:
The Palm V
The Palm V is a classic handheld. Its sleek shape and metal housing have insipred generations of industry designers, and the machine’s price and its accompanying advertising campaign(featuring naked women) caused loads of controversy. The power button and the digitizer broke down regularily, but the machine still introduced a few legendary features like the electronically adjustable contrast. In fact, a Palm V can even be upgraded to OS4 to run Tamoggemon BinaryClock as a desk clock…
The Palm IIIc
The Palm IIIc basically was a rehash of the III chassis(in black) with a color screen and a rechargeable battery. The machine was ridiculed for the bigger size, but the battery stamina was incredible:
The color screen was a topic of discussion. It was a TFT, slowed the procesor down and had just 8bit color resolution. Thus, it was difficult to use outdoors and was bad at displaying photos. However, the indoor contrast was incredible, one of the best screns I ever saw and used. By the way, the IIIc could also be updated to OS4:
The Palm Vii
The Palm Vii…was nothing short than a legendary machine. Basically yet another rehash of the trusty III chassis, a model was created with transparent housing for distribution at the DevCon:
The big innovation was the radiotransmitter, it was powered by an internal NiMH battery. A flatrate was offered for the data only service very soon, something that still didnt make it to Europe:
The style of the Vii is unparalelled, too bad that Palm killed off the .net service…
Miscellaneous stuff
The classical Palm Portable keyboard(a prototype) acompanied he Vii. The keyboard was great, much better than the average notebook keyboard. Nobody knows why Palm discontinued it…
These badges were distributed at the DevCons in the USA…
Do you have something to add? Send your photos to Tamog AT gmx DOT at to get them published!
Mar 272006
Palm currently celebrates its 10th anniversary. We gathered a few nice retrospectives and other stuff to make you nostalgic:
Pilot 1000 Retrospective
Here are a few images of the original Palm Pilot 1000 that started it all. Find pictures of the case, the hardware and even a copy of the original press release.
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/8492/happy-10th-anniversary-palm-computing/
PalmInfoCenter also has a nice timeline graph and a few mockup images of PalmOS handhelds.
Archive.org has a few archived scoops of www.palm.com here:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.palm.com
Palm itself currently offers free shipping on all orders in the Palm store btw!
BTW; stay tuned. A few images of classic handhelds(V, Vii, IIIc) will follow soon!
Recently, in one of the programs I betatested, a very ridiculous error ocurred. The application had a setting that allowed a toolbar to be displayed on the top of the screen. After changing the toolbar setting, the program behaved ridiculously until one restarted it.
The developer immediately jumped to start fixing the bug. Apperently, his pride was hurt, and so he went after the bug instead of adding a new feature that many users were waiting for. This is how it should be, isn’t it?
Actually, I believe that this is not the right thing to do in a “commercial” environment. The reason for this is simple-if users don’t note the bug, it is no bug. So, if the bug can be “fixed” by forcing the user to restart the app after such a change, then why not do it? Users change the settings once a year or so-the effort that goes into bug fixing simply isnt worth it if cheaper solution is available.
So, when fixing the next bug, think about other alternatives to a straight and huge-effort fix. Sometimes, a bandaid will work well too…
How do you feel about this?
SuperNote is a enhanced note program with text and free note capabililites. You will be surprised because of the features.
Now the developer decided to publish it as Public Domain (Open Source). You can download the app for Microsoft Windows, Palm OS and the sourcecode at http://www.handtop.com/SuperNote.html.
What do you think?
According to the news service of the german email provider GMX, Microsoft now changes its staff in response to the Vista delay debacle.
Steven Sinovsky is moved to the Windows Live and Windows department, and leaves the Microsoft Office department. Jim Allchin, the current CEO of the Microsoft Windows section, has already received his last task-he must getr Vista out of the door together with Brian Valentine. Also, the managers of the security area will be replaced by the manager of storage systems.
According to GMX, Microsoft internally sees Vista as the biggest technology catastrophe ever…
Mar 272006
We all know the Palm OS simulator. It usually works(that is, unless you use PODS 1.2) and lets you test Palm OS 5 applications that dont use ARMLets. However, the simulator can go mad too(click for bigger images):
Don’t ask me how I got that done-but it looked funky enough to warrant a post 
.
Mar 272006
There are many password managers for the PalmOS. Keyring is a good choice, because it is free and stores the passwords in a well encrypted database. Further development of the opensource program has slowed down(but still is running!!!), but I had no problems running it on a Tungsten E2.
Anyways, when Keyring starts up the first time, you need to set up a master password. The image above should give you a basic idea of the process; however, we recommend you to choose a very long password as this one saveguards all of the other passwords in KeyRing:
Keyrings main UI is very similar to the memo pad. The lock button at the top indicates KeyRings ‘lock state’. You can see the headers(name fields) of the entries without entering your password btw:
Clicking one of the entries forces you to enter the master password. By the way, the voiding option is optional, so if you are sure that nobody looks over your neck, feel free to disable it:
Each entry has four fields and a category. The name field is the text that will be displayed in the list above, it obviously isn’t encrypted. The account field contains your login data, the password field is obvious. The note field allows you to add remarks, and the changed field lets you remember when you last changed that password.
The passwords can be autogenerated with a password generator that generally works very well:
Keyring can auto-lock itself after a few seconds of inactivity:
In addition, Keyring lets you search for the name field with the global find facility of your handheld. In addition, you can search the full database by unlocking KeyRing and then clicking the global find icon.
This review covered version 1.2.3, the program’s web site is here. The distribution file was archived on Tamoggemon.com for your convenience. KeyRing consists of three files that take up about 100KB of RAM, it is recommended to leave them in RAM.
Overall, KeyRing is a great password manager that does what you need and leaves out the fluff. It stores your passwords in an encrypted database, so stealing that will not help. The password generator can come in handy if you want to create a safe password, global find can be helpful. Last but not least, rock-solid stability, 100kb of file size and a prize of 0.00$ are pretty obvious arguments…
Mar 262006
This is not a joke. AutoSync is available for 33% less from PalmGear with the discount code 64857808.
In case you don’t yet know AutoSync, it can automatically adjust brightness, sound and infrared settings whenever you dock your handheld. In addition, you handheld can automatically hotsync when you dock it!
Feel free to find out more here:
http://www.tamoggemon.com/products/autosync/index.htm
The third part of my review will compare the multimedia features of both devices.
The “media” programm of the TX is quite simple. It can show photos and videos, send them via email or bluetooth and you can paint on them. Photos and videos can be imported into PalmDesktop and synchronised with the handheld. Or they are moved to the extension card directly (therefore you need a card reader or software like CardExport). Music can be played with the built-in PocketTunes. It provides basic functionality, too. Songs can be sorted in playlists and the program can be controled with the 5-way navigator (start/stop, jump forward/backward, volume up/down). But you can not synchronise anything with your desktop. Wether playlists nor songs. You have to create and manage playlists on the TX. And you have to move your mp3s manually to the SD-card.
That’s the point where iPod and iTunes come in. Especially the “intelligent playlist” feature makes it easy to create playlists. You don’t have to select every single song, it’s all done automatically! Just enter some keywords, and iTunes does the work for you. And if you want to to it yourself: Just drag&drop the songs to a playlist. Trust me, that’s more comfortable than on the Palm. Pictures are also moved to the iPod via iTunes. But you only can select a whole folder to be syncronised with your iPod.
Videos on the iPod are a litte bit tricky. It converted one video via iTunes and moved it to the iPod. But when I wanted to watch it there, I saw it but could not hear it. I tried different software and finally found VLC. This programm is the only that converts videos the right way (out of the programs I tested). Now I have both picture and sound.
Navigating through the media libary on the iPod is very easy. Via the Clickwheel you can sroll through houndreds or thousands of songs very fast. With one hand.
At all, the easy synchronisation with iTunes, easy and fast navigation, and the high capacity of the built-in harddisc make the iPod an excellent multimedia device. The TX has basic media functions, which may be enough for most Palm users. But you need a SD card with enough space to make your Palm a multimedia device.
Mar 262006
I have been keeping in touch with the MantraGroup developers as they continue to work on the MobiVoIP software which will allow Palm OS users to make VoIP calls. See the full beta review here.
Also, your can review the product yourself and become one of the beta testers! Click here! All calls are completely free for beta testers, but please give MantraGroup as much feedback as possible using their forums here.
Here’s the responses regarding the status of the software:
Brock: What is the status of MobiVoIP?
MobiVoIP: “There was an update on mobiVoIP from the development team which sniffs new incoming calls in the background ie. when you are in Contacts, Browser etc. QA is still working on it”
Brock: What is the news regarding the upcoming release?
MobiVoIP: “MobiVoIP is fairly a very big app which took us over an year to develop and we are just giving it a little more time to check its stability before we release it. We want all our apps to be rock solid at least when they go out (released).”
“As a side note, we have beta released mobiLock and there is one more app coming up built on VoIP architecture. However, you will not see any action till mobiVoIP is released and dust settled.”
MantraGroup has a number of great applications under their sleeves that we should see very soon. I have been blown away by how professional this company is regarding its quality of software, and its excellent communication.
**MantraGroup also has a very nice messenging program out named Causerie Messenger I will be doing a full review of this product very soon.
-Brock
Mar 262006
Symbian virii-unlike Palm OS ones-are a very real threat that users face every day. Now, the swiss department of Orange decided to gang up with F-Secure to distribute their antivirus app.
Users are allowed to download the application for free(transfer charges only afaik) from a swiss server, and get free updates for a month. After that, the updates cost about 2.5 dollars per month. While this price may look a bit steep, it is much cheaper than having a Redbrowser infection(one SMS costs you 5$ then).
Personally, I believe that this is a good thing to do. Once a well-functioning antivirus-net is in place, new virii will spread less fast. Thus, virus authors will move away to other places where boxen are less protected…
Mar 262006
Sometimes, beeing a Linux vendor is really, really hard.
Apperently, someone in Tuttle, Oklahoma was not capable to uncderstand the default page that a newly-installed apache serves up. So he sent the following email to the vendor of the OS:
Who gave you permission to invade my website and block me and anyone else from accessing it???
Please remove your software immediately before I report it to government officials!!
I am the City Manager of Tuttle, Oklahoma.
The show went on and on..the funky thing was that CentOS didn’t even administer the server where the problem occurred.
If you want to get a good laugh, find the full communication here:
http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=127
TheRegister has some background news:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/24/tuttle_centos/
If you ask me, um, better don’t ask me what I would have done to this guy if I was the company….
After more than 11 years in duty, Sony pulls the plug on the PlayStation 1 knockoff PSone. This means that the architecture of the PlayStation One is dead when you consider living hardware to be hardware in production.
However, similar to the Revolution, Sony plans to release an emulator for the PSP soon, and PlayStation games work well in the Playstation 2 anyways. That looks a bit Nintendoish, doesnt it?
Get the full scoop at Engadget’s:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/24/sony-pulls-plug-on-psone-production/
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