Take a look at this page, you might find it intersting.
Brad Green
Mar 312006
Well, it finally happened, SkinUI has been commercially released. Version 1.1.0.0 contains some skin color enhancements, as well as better support for imported skins. Currently, SkinUI can use any skin made for SkinUI as well as most made for PalmRevolt. The price of this release version is $10.95, and I believe all future updates are free (as is the case with the rest of Dmitrys apps).
You can get it at Palmpowerups
Feb 242006
Today I have two new apps I would like to talk about. The first was made by Tyler Faux, and is called SharkLinks. Does anybody here use the feature in the favorites launcher that lets you create URL shortcuts to webpages on the launcher? Well, Sharklinks does this, but it works in any launcher, and on any PDA with Blazer.
The second app is UnCache by Dmitry Grinberg. If any of you have heard of SharkCache, this does the opposite. Let me explain. At every reset, the PalmOS loads all programs through the cache, and locks some of them there in weird positions. This causes lots of fragmentation, a slower boot, and overall worse system performance. This program UnCache will keep these apps from loading into the cache at reset, and will solve alot of these programs. I currently have it, and I can say it does work qreat.
You may download the current version of Sharklinks here, and talk about it on the 1src forums.
UnCache is NOT currently available to the general public, but will soon be out, so keep an eye out on PalmPowerups.com.
For a while now, Zakai Hamilton has been working by himself on a project called Screens. It is an environment that runs on top of the PalmOS, and allows developers to write special Screens programs, that can extend beyond the normal limits of the PalmOS. It will be fully free and open source, but at the moment, the developer needs some help with coding and management. If there is anyone with some programming experience who thinks they can join his team, take a look here, and contact him at zhamilton1@yahoo.co.uk
Its finally out! Version 1.0 of PalmPDF has been released, and can now be found on Metaview’s website.
For those who have been in the dark lately, PalmPDF is the only free native PDF viewer for the Palm OS. Other available viewers are Docs To Go, which is alot slower, and less feature filled, and PicselViewer (or Picsel ProViewer), which also really arent available on a wide scale. I should mention ProViewer is definitely not free, but quite expensive.
Jan 142006
Dmitry Grinberg has written a good article on the problems with NVFS. If you have had problems with your NVFS device, and want to know why, you may want to read this article. You can find it here.
Well, a long while ago, probably over a year ago, I wrote an article describing some technology seen in the last couple CES shows. It was about quantum optical memory. It seems Mobileread has written an article about the technology this year.
Take a look:
My old article
The Mobileread article
What do you think? (Note: I am not trying to insinuate Mobileread stole my article or anything like that 
)
Jan 072006
I recently installed a new thing from Google called the Google Pack. You can get it here. After installing, I clicked on a link in the program, and this is what I saw.
So, it appears the rumors are ALL TRUE, and Google is opening a video store some time in the near future. What do you think? Respond in the comments.
Jan 042006
How much pain can an app cause? Let me tell you a story about the TX. Even after a hard reset, the TX has its dynamic heap fragmented with the biggest free chunk just 2MB. An application causes this. An application by itself loathed by many and that will likely be loathed for this by even more. The application is Blazer. After installing MemUnfragment by Dmitry Grinberg, the ram is no longer fragmented
–Dmitry Grinberg–
Because of Blazer, there have been alot of problems with various programs, because alot of them require large blocks of contiguous (unfragmented) Heap to run well. This program should fix the program. You can get it here.
Das neueste Programm von Dmitry Grinberg ist für T|X-Besizer gedacht. Da der Webbrowser “Blazer” viel Dynamic-Heap-Speicher braucht, führte dies zu Problemen und Instabilität. Dieses Programm verspricht dieses Problem zu lösen, indem der RAM defragmentiert wird.
For a long time there was a browser on Palm devices called Blazer. Contrary to the name, it was not very fast. Sometime in the last couple years, Palm did something smart. They licensed the Netfront core from Access to use for their browser. Then came something we did not expect. People loaded up the browsers on the new devices, and they were not that much faster. In fact, they looked just like the old browsers. Something must have been wrong! Anyone who had had one of the newer Clies has seen Netfront, and knows what it can do; how fast it is. This was not Netfront. In alot of ways they were right. Palm took the Netfront core, and added and tweaked it to give people the “Blazer experience”. Palm, we have to tell you, the Blazer experience is not that great. For these reasons, I am making a move, and trying to get something started. I will call it the “Straight Netfront Petition”. All I ask of Palm is that they give us Netfront. Access now owns PalmSource, and so they certainly have the resources to make a great Palm version of Netfront. They have no excuses, only angry customers.
Palm, you have to compete against Windows Mobile. Im sorry to say that I think Blazer is just about at the level of IE on Windows Mobile. They arent your competition. People dont compare your browser to the worst browser on another platform. You are competing against Opera and Mozilla, who both have very impressive offerings, not to mention Netfront on WM which is lightyears ahead of Blazer. All we ask is that you give us something a little better. Something that we know you can deliver, but just aren’t. Give your customers something back. We are sticking around because we expect this much from you. Dont show us we are wrong.
To “sign” the petition, click this link and sign up!
Jan 022006
This is a short guide on how to get Netfront onto the T5 or TX. The procedure should be the same for both, but I only have a TX for testing, and it is only certified to work on a TX, though I have been told it may work on both. If you follow these directions and it doesn’t work, I can’t help you. If you dont follow the directions, do not ask me whats wrong. Look again. That said, here is the guide.
Files you will need:
Get a copy of either ZLauncher or UDMH (I recommend both) to move the files. The Netfront program cannot be moved over with a normal file manager without UDMH, though ZLauncher can handle it. ZLauncher is very good at moving files.
First, you have to install MaxX. Don’t hotsync to the handheld. If you have no other method to transfer files, hotsync it to the card. Get your filemanager and move it over to the handheld. RESET your handheld (soft reset of course)
After that, we move to the small fonts. These are a little trickier, but hopefully they will work on first try. Get them on your card (again, dont hotsync to the handheld), and then move them to the handheld. Just for kicks, do another reset here. The names of these files are: HalfFontExtn, HDDHalfFonts, HRFontSel, and HRLib.
Lastly is the Netfront file. This is very particular. You MUST use either ZLauncher or a file manager with UDMH. Dont ask me why, just do it. Get it on your card. To do that, a direct transfer is preferable over a hotsync. Once on your card, move it over. Again, I recommend ZLauncher for this. Once that is done, one last reset, and run Netfront.
There you go. Thats what I did, I hope it works for you.
Comments, questions? Please fell free to put them in the comments section.
Now, this was true at one time, but at the point when Palm started integrating dual wireless into handhelds, IE, the LifeDrive and Treo 650, things changed. Palm wrote multithreaded netlibs and drivers to allow multiple types of wireless to run at the same time. The end result is that not only is the OS capable of running dual wireless, the TX can in fact have both WiFi and BT running at full power at the same time.
So, unfortunately for someone, Palm may have to admit lying/misstating some facts to the FCC. (I dont want to pin lying on them, since it may have been an uninformed rep making the statements) I dont know what this may mean to Palm, but it is certainly interesting. The PDF with this info (its really short) is located here.
Das war einmal richtig, aber als Palm begann mehrere Funkadapter in einen Handheld zu bauen, z. B. LifeDrive oder Treo 650, änderten sich die Dinge. Palm entwickelte eine Multithread-fähige NetLib und Treiber und ermöglichte damit mehrere Funkverbindungen gleichzeitig zu betreiben. Das Ergebnis ist nicht nur dass das System zwei Verbinungen gleichzeitig aktivieren kann, sondern auch dass der T|X tatsächlich sowohl Bluetooth als auch Wi-Fi mit voller Stärke gleichzeitig betreiben kann.
Also könnte Palm zugelassen haben, dass einige Fakten gegenüber FCC verfälscht oder missverständlich überbracht wurden. (Ich will sie als Lügner darstellen, da es vielleicht ein unwissender Mitarbeiter war, der die Informationen gab.) Ich weiß nicht was das für Palm bedeutet, aber dennoch ist es interessant. Sehen Sie sich dieses PDF (sehr kurz) an.
Dec 152005
This week Tyler is interviewing Dan Marlin, the CEO of Corecodec, the makers of TCPMP. I havent finished listening yet, but I have the interview question list, and I know its going to be a great podcast. I won’t try to elaborate on it. Im not going to link to PalmAddict today, because there is nothing in the shownotes. I might as well give you the question list…
1. How did TCPMP and CoreCodec start? Where did you get the names?
2. TCPMP has been an amazing success for every platform you’ve released on so far. It’s literally been mentioned wherever anyone talks about handheld media. Was this something you expected or did the explosive popularity of your application come as a bit of a surprise to you?
3. Version 1.0 has been widely anticipated for the past year or so… how big a milestone is this for CoreCodec, and how would you describe this release?
4. The title of the post you made on the TCPMP forums concerning v1.0 is “TCPMP, set to change the way others think….” Want to elaborate a bit on that?
5. One of your main goals for v1 seems to be to create a software player that’s on par with hardware devices in terms of usability and media management. How are you planning on taking on this big task?
6. You mention briefly in your post that TCPMP will become a dual license software platform, consisting of a GPL piece (open-source) and a closed source piece for licensees. How will this affect the end-user?
7. Any hints on licensees? Is TCPMP something that will be shipping on smartphones and handhelds, or are you going to take a different approach?
8. What about operating systems? In addition to Symbian development, which obviously fits in well with the goal of making TCPMP a universal mobile media player, you also plan to support Linux and Windows. Will this be part of TCPMP, or TCP, your desktop program?
9. You describe CoreTheque in the post as a large backend database… what functions does it serve in the overall life of TCPMP?
10. Media streaming is a very important component of v1. Why do you consider it to be such a big differentiating point, putting you in a group of world-class media players? Would you say it’s the most important advancement of v1.0?
11. With all these improvements in the works and the amazing progression of TCPMP in only two years, it would see like you must have an amazing coding team! Does picard handle it by himself?
12. With all that we’ve heard, I can hardly wait for the official first version release! Do you have an estimated release date?
13. Would you like to add anything about what’s been going on with TCPMP or in general at CoreCodec?
14. Finally, and I try to ask this of everyone I talk to, what Palm device do you use and why did you choose it?
I cant guarantee all of those are answered, but most are, so listen in. (Direct link)
Dec 112005
Ok, some may have heard, but for those who haven’t, I am getting one for Christmas this year. There are a couple good reasons why I am retiring my trusty TH to get this new device. Ill give the top two here.
Firstly, my TH is dying. It is old, and is falling apart. Besides the numerous scratches on the screen cover, the paint rubbed off of the scroll buttons, and the battery that doesnt work quite like it used to, the plastic around the hinge for the screen cover is cracking. I can’t bear to see it go like this, and I know it isn’t going to last another year. For that reason, I know I am going to have to get a new PDA. This was the easy part. Choosing the new PDA was a little harder.
Well, already knowing I was going to have to find a replacement, I just have to decide which. I could get a Treo, though I am not really into smartphones. I love the large screen on my TH, and so I pretty much resolved myself to getting a PDA with a HiRes+ screen. In the past, I had considered that a future Tapwave device could be my new device, but Tapwave closed that avenue when they closed. With Sony currently also out of the market, I would either have to get a Palm, or cross to the dark side. Even though WM devices are more powerful, I just prefer the simplicity of the Palm. So, this means I have to choose a Palm device. The Palm devices that fall into my specs are the LifeDrive and the TX. They are the only devices with both HiRes+ screens, as well as dual wireless. In the end, I made the decision for the TX because I like that is smaller, and doesn”t have any lag issues. The speed doesnt bother me.
Now you know, feel free to ask questions. Expect a full review when I get it!
-Brad Green
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