TamsPalm – the Palm OS / web OS Blog

The Palm Linux boys from HackNDev have played Whac-a-mole with our very own Alexander Gratz recently. Their page is up, down, up, down, staying down for maintenance…and now the page has risen from the dead with the following announcement:

Bringing H&D website up
Submitted by Farcaller on 29 September, 2007 – 11:25.

Unfortunately old hnd website is unrestorable in the accepted time period. That’s why I’ve decided to reinstall Drupal from scratch (we had to update it anyway). Sorry for making you register again but user table format has changed to the point where I can’t port it

If you find any bug or mistake on this site, please email me directly (farcaller at gmail).

I wish them well and hope that the new installation proves itself stable. If not, changing CMS to WordPress could maybe be an useful idea…

Just in case anyone of you still considers the 150$ laptop announced some time ago legit, here’s a blog containing all kinds of information on why the Madison Celebrity is nothing but a scam by a madman(:-)):
http://www.medisonscam.info/

In case anyone of you actually receives a Celebrity, please contact us immediately at Tamog@gmx.at. But, honestly, I am not holding my breath. Ah, and owners of the “rebranded” Clevo notebook don’t need to apply…

The PalmInfoCenter managed to snap a few shots of a Centro at the introduction show. Get the images here:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9506/palm-centro-photo-gallery/

The folks at Resco’s have been really busy recently, updating many of their excellent Palm OS wares. Here’s a short list of new features for your information:

Resco Backup Pro v1.12

• Important fix to DriveHQ users – solves the inability to login since DHQ upgrade on Sep-26.
• FTP secure login has 3 modes: If Available, Always, Never
• Several minor fixes

Resco Viewer v2.51

• Improved fax loader (more formats, better readibility)
• Improved BMP loader (some exotic formats added)
• New option for opened image: Auto Off After 10 min (user request)
• Nicer progress bar in the opened image
• When used as external viewer (Resco Explorer, ZLauncher etc.) Resco Viewer allows for browsing the current folder. I.e. after an image tap (in ZLauncher) the image opens (in Resco Viewer) and you can swap to other images in the same folder.
• Treo: Shift key toggles multi-selection
• FIX:Search by typing a letter works also backwards
• FIX:Sending images larger than 60K via Messaging used to crash due to Messaging specifics.

Resco users – please head out to get the latest version of your apps asap. Resco Backup Pro users – an extra PSA call just for you – UPDATE NOW!

Now that the Centro is released, what about purchasing some cool software for your Palm OS device? If you ever choose to change your device, most developers will let you port the license along – and if you don’t feel like upgrading, why not give your box an extra bit of oomph!

The discount code 20OFFCENTRO is valid in the TamsShop until the 31st for all kinds of software(for all platforms) – if you are at a loss for ideas, look at our Software reviews pages or look at the list of team favorites below:

Communication
Agendus Mail – great email program. Get rid of VersaMail.

Mundu IM – MSN, ICQ, whatever…keep in touch!

Resco Neeews – want News? Get them with style – use Resco Neeews!

Cool stuff
DailyQuote – Daily Quote for Palm Os allows you to display interesting quotes whenever your handheld starts up. It also makes a nice plug-in for ShSh’s 2day!

DialByPhoto – getting bored with your phone screen? DialByPhoto fixes that!

TreoWeather – weather apps are dime a dozen. But weather apps that display a cool landscape…

Games
AcidSpider – spider solitaire. Tam was on the beta team. Any more questions?

Productivity
Agendus for Palm OS – the PIM pro. Calendar, Contacts, Task list – plays nicely with Agendus mail!

Documents To Go 10 – DataViz brings Office 2007 files to Palm OS with Documents To Go 10. This gem of a title doesn’t only contain Word, Excel and PowerPoint, but also contains the only PDF viewer for Palm OS that works on all handhelds – without UDMH!

After months of various rumors about the Centro, Sprint and Palm have finally released a press release officially announcing the Centro(read it here).

First of all, the device comes in two colors(red and black) pictured below:

Sprint states that the machine will cost 99$ with a 2year contract after claiming a mail-in rebate(so you pay more than 99$ initially, and then get the cash back later). It operates on Sprint’s CDMA-EVDO network(3G) and will be available exclusively via Sprint for 90 days. Sprint expects that the device will become available in mid-October…

Specs-wise, the machine has a HiRes screen, 64MB of memory and uses MicroSD cards sized up to 4GB. The camera has a resolution of 1.,3 megapixels, but lacks flash and autofocus. The bluetooth version is still 1.2, and the connector seems to be the Athena Multiconnector we already know from the Treos…

The Sprint press release further states that the Centro is able to “sideload” MP3 files in the background – this could mean some sort of background downloading capability which could possibly be extended to files later on.

P.S. Sorry for lack of images. However, Palm’s Multimedia service feels that I am unworthy of access to their Multimedia library containing product images. It is very strange why other companies like HP and Sprint have no problems providing images WITHOUT registration.

Google’s AdWords is a very interesting, altough a bit mysterious service. Most books for Micro ISV’s recommend it, but many Palm OS developers have had bad experiences.

Anyways, I just received an AdWords coupon at the Austrian MedienMesse. The coupon can be used when creating a new account and gives you 30€€ worth of ad clicks – however, adding it to an existing account will NOT work.

As said, I didn’t test this code myself – but trying AdWords out for free is a great opportunity that IMHO shouldn’t be missed!

So, send those emails to Tamog@gmx.at if you are interested!

P.s. O’Reilly has a nice book on AdWords(TamsPalm review here)…

When I was viewing TealPoint’s beta page, I found an interesting new application: TealWeb. At the moment it’s an offline HTML viewer without any additional support for online activities or images (at least not here?). But it could turn into a powerful web browser if TealPoint continued the development. TealPoint writes that development has been stopped because of the lack of CSS and JavaScript ressources. Nevertheless, development could continue if there is enough interest.

Right now we can use TealWeb as an offline HTML document reader. It has “Back”, “Forward”, “Cancel” and “Reload” buttons. There is also a line with 10 buttons which could be taps. At the moment they have no function. There is also no menu yet. To open a file, you have to tap the line on the button in the left bottom line. In the right part of the bottom, you can choose the font size (small, medium and large).

Files can be stored in RAM or on a memory card. Rendering is a little bit slow, especially on big sites (1src, …), but also very clear. One of the main aims is a good table support (“It has better table layout capabilities than any browser we’ve seen under PalmOS.”). Links are not supported yet. Below there are some screenshots of famous pages rendered by TealWeb (in different font sizes):

1src

eBay

TealPoint homepage

If TealPoint will continue its development on TealWeb, it could become a good browsing solution for Palm OS. There is Blazer, preinstalled on all Palm devices, which has many problems. NetFront and PicselBrowser may not be seen as a legal alternative and also aren’t compatible with every handheld (same thing for Opera). Universe is one of the new projects to create a new Palm OS browser, developed by Donald C. Kirker, who also wants to port the KHTML engine for it. And now there is TealWeb, a very interesting idea of a browser which – according to TealWeb – does not try to change the layout of the page, but render it like your desktop browser. So let’s hope that TealWeb will continue development.

TamsPPC recently managed to get a hold of Thomas Kritsch from Microsoft’s. Thomas gave a little interview covering interesting questions like the future of the Zune(and how it will fare next to the PocketPC), what to do with your XBOX 360 and what one must do to bring a Microsoft game to a mobile device.

Head over to our sister site TamsPPC for the full interview:
http://tamsppc.tamoggemon.com/2007/09/24/microsoft-interview/

Just hours after TamsPalm published a report about Peter Thorstenson’s latest creation tapBoardDA, an updated version hit our inboxes.

Beta 4 of tapBoardDA fixes an issue with font changing – beta 3 got stuck at the last font after cycling the font list once.

As usual, Beta 4 can be downloaded from TamsPalm exclusively.

As always, please keep us posted if you find a bug or have a feature request!

When your PC crashes, PODS may show you an alert containing the text “Workspace in use, choose a different one”. This is very annoying, as PODS refuses to start under such circumstances.

Luckily, fixing the problem is easy. Navigate to the path shown in the dialog, and go into the .metadata folder. Delete the .lock file there – and voila, PODS will work again(after a system reboot)!

Peter Thorstenson(known for tejpWriter and thumbboardDA) has provided us with yet another open-source tool. As usual, it is centered around text entry…and replaces Palm’s classic keyboard dialog with a significantly improved one offering a bigger clipboard, capitalization support and even macro support:

Peter himself describes the application as following:

Release Notes
tapboardDA 1.00

This is the first release of tapboardDA. It’s an attempt to not only to give you “just a keyboard”, but a complete editor environment packed into a DA.

Features:

• User configurable key layout.
• 39 macros of max 45 characters each.
• Enhanced mode.
• Ergonomic key click on key down.
• Display showing character position, words, field size, time, and battery.
• Automatic field focus
• Smart Word Select
• 32kb Clipboard with Undo
• Scrollbar
• Toolbar with clipboard functions, case functions and exit.
• Four Built-in fonts.

A quick test of tapBoardDA on a Treo 680 and a Palm TX showed no anomalies – the program seems to work well.

tapBoardDA can be downloaded here – please let us know about any issues you encounter!

The introduction of bluetooth keyboards was hailed by handheld enthusiasts wide and far – finally, we can keep our keyboards when upgrading or changing our handheld. Freedom input has made this freedom its company name..but fails in the most pathetic fashion of them all…

Freedom’s keyboards ship with a tiny little manual that nobody looks at – but it unfortunately contains an activation code. Without that code, the installed driver refuses to work.

The driver should be downloaded from Freedom’s OTA service and then is activated on a web page…but the activation works exactly once and for only one bluetooth MAC.

Essentially, this means that a breakdown of your handheld(leading to replacement of the BT chip) may cause you to loose keyboard functionality for approximately as long as Freedom feels fit – if the company feels like never dispatching an unlock code….well, so be it.

The freedom of the customer truly shows up when swapping device(irregardless of Palm-Palm or to a different platform). Bluetooth MAC changes…no more keyboard for you…

Yes, I do understand that Freedom input needs to protect its trade secrets – and an online activation is somewhat understandable. However, why not tie it to the keyboard’s serial number and give sufficient activations?

Also, if DRM is the reason…why is the activation hotline charged at premium rates?

Overall, until Freedom Input has completely rectified the situation, I urge my readers to keep their fingers off their keyboards by all means(and I would also be happy to see stockists discontinue the stuff in order to express disagreement). The keyboards are nice and all – but the utter unwillingness and incapability to provide drivers to customers is appalling.

P.s. Belkin’s infrared keyboard is an always-ready and merry replacement…without the driver activation woes.

This is what the admin of Hackndev posted in his forum:

I’ve been rethinking H&D again last time. Our gallery is dead and forums are being attacked by spambots every often. Either we do something or we don’t (and this means we don’t care about H&D future anymore).

We have several ways to go from here.
CMH. Seems that it will be on site when it’s done, but I bet we will be playing Duke Nukem Forever earlier..
New Drupal. Same thing as we have now, but somewhat better. Bad point is that hnd would be reinstalled from scratch due to DB incompatibilities (this one would be moved to old.hackndev.com). We start from a clean&shiny drupal.. then it would be not so clean and not so shiny but anyways..
Forum-based solution. We move H&D to some forum engine and base everything around it (I still think that forums are main part of H&D). Personally I know only one forum that is good enough – IPB. Bad point – it’s commercial piece of software.
other?.. Haven’t got any more ideas now. What do you all think?

To see other comments of his post or join the discussion, go here:
http://hackndev.com/node/912