I found a very interesting post in this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists:
Barry Welford looks at how one can use a blog to create PR. He also cites Nokia as a popular example – little to add:
http://blog.cre8asite.net/bwelford/2006/08/word-of-blog-marketing/
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Advertising
Blog marketing
PR
Public relations
Palm OS handhelds like my Palm Tungsten T3 could run Doom and even Quake for quite some time. Now that I have my Treo 600, I can report the following:
Doom works on a Treo 600 – even without UDMH
Here are a few evidence pictures:
And here is a 6 MB Video showing 20 seconds of Quake action.
Getting Quake to run on a Treo is simple. Just do the following:
Seeing Doom run on a Palm Treo 600 is really, really cool – I made it to level two without a single low memory warning. However, the practical value of this hack is rather low – the low resolution screen makes seeing numbers and far-away enemies difficult; and the DSTN technology looses quite a bit of contrast.
Nevetheless, if you want to impress your friends or something like that:
Doom runs on a Treo 600!
While reading the current edition of the carnival of mobilists, I stumbled upon this very interesting post by David Beers:
Top 10 things to love about ALP
I can agree to ebverything except the point he makes about how you need to have Linux to develop ALP apps. Many developers currently run Windows machines, and switching OS is not easy. Actually; this is a deal breaker for me – no Windows development environment, no ALP apps from Tamoggemon.
I had Linux more than once and never liked it – sorry, bu Windows simply is easier to use!
RSS feeds are an interesting alternative to (mobile optimized) news sites, especially when you’re on-the-go. The RSS reader downloads headlines and articles of your favourite channels, which contain plain-text, a link (to the full HTML page), and sometimes an image. After that, you can read the feed offline. It saves time and money – because in the most cases there are no ad banners like on web pages, not many images and only the content you wish. Today we’ll have a look at Quick News, a RSS reader for Palm OS.
You find the product page here. My first positive comment goes to the download page: there are ZIP, SIT, EXE, OTA (over-the-air = self extracting prc file) and normal PRC downloads. I can’t use EXE files on my Palm (some developers have only EXE files), and ZIP is more difficult than just PRC. If I were on the go and had a data plan, I probably would have prefered the OTA version. So everyone can download the file type he likes. And the EXE file additionaly has a Quick News conduit, if you want to get your News by HotSync.
After installing and starting, there are some pre-defined feeds (1src, BBC, …), but of course you can define own ones, and there is also a search for feeds. There are two ways to update: wireless, using your mobile phone, Treo, Wireless LAN etc., or using HotSync. Then you have to install an own conduit on your desktop computer.
After you have downloaded your feed, you can expand and collapse articles like in the tree view of the Windows Explorer. Quick News shows images, links and of course supports small fonts. Pictures can even be downloaded. A global search function which searches through all feeds finds terms you’ve entered and has some extra options.
A special feature of QuickNews is that it supports podcast feeds. I tried it with the 1src podcast, and it works! It shows the link and is able to download and then to open it with TCPMP and AeroPlayer, and even to stream it with Pocket Tunes, MMPlayer and RealOne!
Here are some screenshots of preferences pages. Interesting, for example, are automatic updates, storage management, and the number of programs it works together with (on their homepage they write about Blazer, NetFront, Vagabond, Novarra, and Xiino, but I can confirm that it works together with PalmSource’s Web Browser 2.0, too, and also it supports many mail clients including SnapperMail and VersaMail, and the MP3 players above). There is also a plugin for 2day.
Decide whether you prefer huge news sites or small RSS feeds. I’d prefer RSS feeds. And with a good RSS viewer like QuickNews, you’ll like RSS on your Palm!
Sometimes, good old fast-food eating Tam gets cooking – usually, its Arabic stuff or “heavy meat” which usually turns out very edible. When cooking some Arabic dish that needed garlic, I found these thingies in the kitchen(the WristPDA image is more-less proportional):
Eek? Garlic sized the size of an onion? Obviously, the garlic looks cool and probably costs ten times as much as regular garlic(look at the tiny, fancy shipping package) – but is it really useful?
For me, it was hell on earth. Getting this garlic pressed was hell on earth. Cut up, press, cut up, press ad nausea. So, it obviously failed the usability test – lets look at how it could fare in the market.
If the product manages to become ‘cool’ or ‘hip’(Crazy Frog, some lifestyle junk); it obviously will sell like hell. But this “hip” calculation is very dangerous – for each product that manages to get hip, then die on the street. Binary Clock for Palm OS is such a product – it scores excellent reviews everywhere, but sales are below expectations.
For a company with foo(bigger than a few) successful products, taking this gamble is no real risk. The rest of the projects can pay for the costs of the misdevelopment easily… . However, for a small shack with a single product, taking this gamble is a bad idea 99% of the time…
What do you think?
Update – they got a few more glasses
I was at the McDonalds in Vomp a few hours ago – I had to get a decent dinner somewhere in this village… . Anyways, the McDonalds was full of ads for free coke glasses which would be given away along with each menu. Beeing the coke glass freak that I am(want to make me happy? send me a coke glass…), I immediately ordered a menu and wanted a pink glass – only to be told that the glasses were out. But why was the damn McDonalds full of ads like the one below(made with Palm Treo 600 due to no pictures policy):
Basically, the McDonalds designer shot himself in the foot heavily. He created a bad impression with me – I felt a$$ed out of my cash. I went there to buy a glass, and only found out that the glasses were out when I had already placed my order.
When starting a blowout sale, make sure that there is enough of the stuff available. If the stuff runs out, put up a big shield telling customers that the stuff ran out and that you apologize; and pull the ads… .
What do you think?
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Advertising
PR
Public relations
Palm hardcases exist in two tradidional variants – aluminium and leather. Recently, silicon sleeves hit the market – we recently reviewed one for a Zire 72, and now Proporta sent us a sample for the Palm Treo 600.
Proporta products ship in regular envelopes with standard mail:
The case itself is packed into a blister:
The silicone case contains a filling substance. A wriststrap is contained, too – this could be useful for people who tend to loose their devices often(wear it round the neck):
The case is not much bigger than a Treo:
Getting the Treo into the case is simple. You shove the top of the Treo into the silicon case from the keyboard cutout – and that essentially is it:
On the front, you have a cutout for the keyboard, the screen and the speaker. The hardkeys are covered, but pressing them was no problem.
At the back, you have a cutout for the main speaker, the reset hole, the stylus and the camera:
At the top, you have cutouts for all neccecary Treo 600 parts. However, the power and volume buttons weren’t perfectly aligned – looks funky, but is no serious problem:
At the bottom, you have a cutout for the sync port and the headset:
The side of the Treo contains the volume buttons which can be pressed easily.
Overall, the protective silicone case is excellent if you need a case that offers scratch protection. It doesn’t add a lot of size or bulk to the Treo, doesn’t interfere with Treo operations, but doesn’t offer as much protection as a dedicated case. The case costs 19.95$ and is available from Proporta.
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Palm
Proporta
Palm Treo
Silicone case
Palm OS fields are strange dogs – undrstanding the memory management concepts behind them can take a bit of time. Anyway, some developers(I am guilty, too) sometimes forget about freeing the old handle when changing a field’s text because of the rather ugly code invoved. Anyways, I looked at the API documentation…and (proudly) present this bit of code:
FldFreeMemory(getObjectPtr(pForm, FldTime));
Basically, what it does is exactly what we needed above. It frees a field’s handle and can be called even when the field is still beeing displayed(as long as you set a new handle fast). From now on, this particlar source of memory leaks is dead and gone…
Further reading:
Palm OS Reference on FldFreeMemory
When buying a cheap LED torch, I stumbled upon this:
No words here…just funny!
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Funny
Most of you probably still recall Art Lebedev’s OLED keyboards. Anyways, I just spotted this on ThinkGeek:
Important Note
The Optimus Mini Three is not vaporware and we do have a working final production sample. However, these units will not be in stock until around mid-September. Use the Email me when available link below and we will notify you the second the Optimus Mini hits our warehouse.
from http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/88ee/
As you can probably see, it looks as if Art Lebedev will finally ship… . However, I am still waiting for the big Optimus!
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Art lebedev
OLED
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This is just a clarification post – I chose the two names mentioned in the title as examples for very successful siftware shacks, not to say that they are the only ones!
Some books cover a definite topic. Others contain an assortment of essays loosely related to one another. Others contain ‘stabs’ at various, non-related things(sort of like the famous Delta In-Flight magazine). No Fluff Just Stuff 2006 belongs to the last category – lets look at what it offers us!
The book contains “speaker notes” to a variety of presentations held at the No Fluff Just Stuff developer conference in the year 2006. The topics range from Java to development processes, and each of the texts can(and should) be read independent from the others.
Java seems to be a main topic of the book; for a Palm OS developer, almost everything said is rather useless. Some of the articles were understandable, while others contained way to much Java specific jargon for me to grasp(I can’t do Java).
Some of the other chapters were pretty interesting though. For example, a chapter covers continuous integration systems, and another one covers agile methodologies. These chapters were very easy to read and presented a god overview of the topic.
Overall, it is hard for me to rate this book. If you are interested in web services and like the style of many short articles not related to one another, get it. However, if you are more like myself, other books will suit you better IMHO…
The Palm Tungsten T3 is a strange beast from a hardware manufacturer’s point of view. It can get bigger and smaller, and so does its stylus. While Palm never had problems getting the mechanics to work reliably, third parties never did a good job here. Now, someone at Brando’s invested a bit of thinking time into avoiding the mechanics – let’s see what he came up with.
I received my sample from Brando’s. Brando ships its products from Hong Kong via regular mail. Customs seem to leave the parcels alone, and I never received anything damaged yet:
The stylus itself was packed up in a small blister:
The stylus fits into a Palm Tungsten T3 well. Pulling it out is a bit different, you need to pull the top out with your fingernails – this is no problem for me though. My fingernails are very short even for a male, but I still always got the stylus out of my Palm Tungsten T3 easily.
When expanding the stylus, it becomes way longer than the original stylus. One can say that it is the longest stylus ever seen on a PDA:
The pen is hidden underneath the plastic back. Pulling it off allows you to write on paper. Output quality is very good, no need to mention anything negative here.
Writing with this stylus feels very well, both on paper and on-screen. The length makes longer email sessions more comfortable and ergonomic!
Overall, this is the best replacement stylus for the Palm Tungsten T3 I ever saw. If you need a replacement stylus, this is the most comfortable way to go even if you don’t really need the pen. The price of 10$ is a steal for such a product…
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Palm
Palm OS
Replacement stylus
Tungsten T3
People who know me know that I hate cheeky waiters more than just about everything else. Anyways, I was in a small inn in Tyrol and sat at a table where it was raining slightly. The waitress immediately began to bicker about how this wasn’t funny, about how we would sit in the dry while she had to run, etc.
I pulled a few jokes that made everyone in the inn laugh about her – so the bill is evened out. However, the bad impression created by her stuck…this is not an inn that would gain an award for customer care.
Actually, the gal who served there is a nice critter(I know her) – but to a customer who doesn’t, this could be the final straw that lays the camel flat.
So, motivating your clerks is definitely a good idea – if you want to learn more about it, you may be interested in these articles, too:
http://tamspalm.tamoggemon.com/2006/06/24/i-dont-want-your-money-buddy/
http://tamspalm.tamoggemon.com/2006/08/06/on-empowerment/
Any experiences?
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Customer service
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