TamsPalm - the Palm OS Blog

The accessory market for Palm OS handhelds has traditionally been dominated by a triumvirate made up of Proporta, Brando and - to a lesser extent - Boxwave. Sir Rohr’s Fortte is a new player and plans to topple the market over by offering exclusive color options and various new form factors. Can their offering for the Centro stack up?

Fortte’s products ship via FedEx from the United States. Unfortunately, the Austrian Customs catch the parcels from time to time…

A small blister protects the case during transportation:

Our case was ordered with belt clip (as it is intended to be given away). The belt clip thus ships in a small satchel along the case. People who dislike belt clips can order their cases without one - the screw in the back is then omitted:

Getting the Centro into the case is easy. The device is slid in, and a clip in the back is then closed. Fortte’s method is more secure than the friction locking systems found in other manufacturer’s offerings:

The device remains perfectly usable while in the case:

Fortte did a great job at keeping the keyboard usable:

The controls at the top and the bottom remain fully functional:

A cutout on the left side keeps the volume buttons accessible:

The Centro’s memory card door is badly designed and requires you to remove the battery door when swapping memory cards. Thus, Fortte chose to cover up the “slot” - no functionality lost.

Finally, here are a few shots showing the Centro next to a QTek 8500 in a pink case. Of course, the case color can be chosen from dozens - the list is available at Fortte’s web site.

In the end, Fortte’s case for the Palm Centro is excellent. People who wish to be able to design their case from the ground up can now do so - but have to accept a higher price. The case we reviewed here costs about 80$…but is worth every penny…

Stephen Johnson is considered an absolute authority on all things related digital photography - his book scored a rave review on TamsPalm a few months ago. Now, he wrote the foreword for another O’Reilly book with the bold title “The Creative Digital darkroom”: is it as good as his own?

Katrin Eismann and Sean Duggan divided their book into ten chapters that each look at a typical problem that plagues images. For example, two chapters focus on color, while another takes a detailed look at file management(see the freely available TOC for further info).

Each chapter is subdivided into a few ‘recipes’ that cover specific workflows. Usually, more than one approach is provided for each “topic” - fans of choice will definitely enjoy browsing the book…

Like most O’Reilly books, The Creative Digital Darkroom is well-written and easy to read. The processes are described in extreme detail and focus on Photoshop. Adapting them to GIMP IMHO is possible, although some things take a bit of time to figure out. As for the sample images - they alone make owning this book worthwhile.

In the end, this book is NOT intended for people who want to learn photo editing from zero upwards. Instead, it is a excellent ‘dictionary’ of image editing techniques: if you have a bit of free time and feel like spiffing an image up up, leafing through this tome is likely to uncover a bunch of gems. If you are looking for ‘cookbook/trick tome’ and already know how to handle your image editor, get this by all means. The price of 31$ is acceptable…

Neither of the two devices can compete with a run-of-the-mill digital camera(except maybe with these horrible Olympus E520 sample images on TamsPalm). This article does not assume highly professional intentions,l but rather considers “for-kicks” photography…

Austrians currently suffer under the strain of the European Soccer Championship. Vienna is one of the host cities and this has a so-called fan zone where fans are herded together to be a$$ed out of 6$/pint of beer.

Yours truly decided to use this unique opportunity(loads of light and folks) for a shootout between two completely different devices. On the left side, we have the Palm Centro(1.3MP camera without autofocus). On the right side, we have Nokia’s now-dethroned camera phone king aka the N95 8GB. Who will get out on top(click images for full versions)?

The first motive was a batch of merry cops. The Centro suffers from blown-out highlights, whereas thje Nokia N95 8GB manages to deliver a superior image after a few seconds(which, ironically, was enough time for a cheeky fan to run into my frame):

Photographing the stage was more fun with the Centro(as it worked faster). The N95 8GB’s long focusing time makes spontaneous photography difficult:

Photographing fans is easy with both devices - the Centro handles better, though:

“Aerial” photography from the press tower is one of the things the N95 8GB does really well. As there is little movement, the long focusing delay is no issue - and the 5MP resolution definitely makes a difference(look at the trees in the second image):

Indoors, the Centro did a better job keeping a somewhat sane color balance(the N95’s image is too light). Noise-wise, neither of the two performed honorable:

Finally, a shot of yours truly after all the carnage. The N95 8GB excels here - look at a big version of the image to see what I mean(look at the shirt):

In the end, the Nokia N95 8GB delivers superior images: they are sharper, less noisy, have more detail and generally look much better. However, its slow “modus vivendi” sometimes made me feel warm about the Centro - its images are usable for small prints, and can be generated “on the fly” without any focusing delays…

Every time I have to travel somewhere I need two cases: A small bag for my clothes and a big one for power supplies, chargers and cables. Working with power-hungry devices that can only hold a charge for a few days or sometimes only for a few hours you’re doomed if you forget the charger for that device. And since all chargers look the same, it’s very likely that you forget at least one of them.

With the introduction of the mobile device charger, Proporta finally put an end to that misery. Now, we’re looking at a new version of this charger, called “Ted’s Six Pack”. Designed by the UK designer label Ted Baker, the well known charger comes in a nice two-tone brown with an abundance of accessories.

Even the box got a new design. No shrink-wrap and no need of scissors. The box is kept shut by 4 magnets in every corner. Very uniqe.

Opened, it reveals a velvet bag full of small parts, the mobile charger itself and a wall-charger.

Everything unpacked we have the small lightweight charger itself, a wall charger (with four plugs suitable for most countries in the world), a 12-volts car power supply, two cables (one for charging the mobile charger and a retractable one) and seven plugs for different devices (Mini-USB, Micro-USB, Nokia, 4.0DC, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Ipod/Iphone) and the velvet bag for convenient storage.

The charger itself is very small (smaller than my Treo 680) and holds 3400mAh of power – enough to recharge several devices in one go or put one device back to business for 3-5 times (depending on the charged device, of course).

Using the charger is completely fail-safe; there’s only one button and two USB-jacks marked “in” and “out”. Just plug the retractable cable in the large USB-jack, choose one of the seven includes plugs, plug it into your device and press the button. That’s it. The charger will fill the battery of the attached device and shut itself off, when no more power is drawn from it.

The really great thing about this charger is the USB-plug – so everything that can be charged with an USB-cable can be charged with Proporta’s Ted Baker mobile charger.

Here I’ve attached a retractable sync-cable to my Treo – works like a charm.

Conclusion:

When you travel a lot and carry a bunch of gadgets around, this is definitely a must-have. Forget about black chargers that all look the same. On your next trip you just have to remember that brown bag with the “Ted Baker” print on it – everything you need to keep your gadgets going is in there. And best of all, it works everywhere in the world – like we do…

The Ted Baker Six Pack can be purchased from Proporta for $ 59.95 (29.95 GBP or 36.95 Euros).

After having received a new E520 from my Olympus dealer of choice(congratulations to the team at Foto Sobotka for their professional handling of the issue), it’s time to redo the sample images posted here a few days ago. As always, click on a small image to get the unmodified one!

All of these images have been made with the out-of-the-box defaults. The external FL36R flash has been disabled in all shots(except the flash ones); image stabilization was enabled on the non-tripod shots.

EZ 1442 - tripod shots
The EZ1442 kit lens is a F3.5 lens that has a focal range of 14-42mm. Here are five small sample shots ranging from ISO 100 to ISO 1600(on the right). Click on the shots to see the full JPEG as it was produced by the E520:

ISO Level	Sample image
ISO 100
ISO 200
ISO 400
ISO 800
ISO 1600

Here is the same sequence made at full zoom:

ISO Level	Sample image
ISO 100
ISO 200
ISO 400
ISO 800
ISO 1600

EZ 4015-2 - tripod shots
The second kit lens is a mediocre zoom: its focal length is from 40mm to 150mm(multiply x2 because of the FourThirds sensor). I tortured it with a few day time shots which turned out great. Look at the magnification of the click below to see how raising ISO levels turn out - ISO1600 images look a bit noisy and loose a bit of details, but remain perfectly usable:

ISO Level	Sample image
ISO 100
ISO 200
ISO 400
ISO 800
ISO 1600

Zoomed in images turn out a little soft, but can easily be fixed with the Unsharp Mask filter found in GIMP:

ISO Level	Sample image
ISO 100
ISO 200
ISO 400
ISO 800
ISO 1600

Handheld night shots - shutter time less than 1sec
A few commenters wanted me to test the IS functionality of the E520. The sample images below have been made at night with shutter times greater than 1/2secs, and turned out surprisingly sharp. They definitely won’t make a 2m poster print - but the local rag I sometimes write for would definitely be able to use them:

ISO 1600 torture image
No TamsPalm review would be complete without a torture test. The Olympus E520 was tortured by having to capture a single frame of a video screened at a recent MetaLab presentation. The sample image below shows the result: running Noise Ninja over it yields a perfectly usable picture.

FL36R - leisure shot
Finally, a leisure shot courtesy of my FL36(r) flash. The guy pictured is a really cool staff member of the UEFA Euro Fan Zone in Vienna; he celebrates having found an abandoned hoodie bearing the Spanish flag:

Conclusion
Cutting a long story short: the Olympus E520 delivers good (albeit slightly “unsharp”) JPG images at its factory settings. Tweaking the parameters around a bit would probably lead to even better photos: however, this is IMHO better achieved by shooting in RAW and processing the files on the desktop.

The bundle I currently use has cost less than 1000€(including the FL36(R) flash that doubles as an autofocus light source). I am very happy with the camera - stay tuned for an unboxing video, a somewhat detailed review and real-world usage experiences…

THE CAMERA HAS BEEN DEFECTIVE! IT HAS BEEN REPLACED BY AN OLYMPUS REPRESENTATIVE!

The replacement camera has been on a press conference with me and provided me with lovely images in all kinds of suroundings. I will post samples of these later on(as soon as the DDOS attack by
some a$$ ends)!

Sample images from the new Olympus E520 can be found here…

A friendly photography shop close to my house sold me an Olympus E520 today - yes, not an E510, but the newly-announced E520. I currently work on a complete review of the camera - meanwhile, here are a few indoor sample shots.

Our Olympus EVOLT E520 is running the 1.0 version of the firmware; the included German manual seems to be the production one(the whole camera seems to be a production-grade model).

EZ 1442
The EZ1442 kit lens is a F3.5 lens that has a focal range of 14-42mm. Here are five small sample shots ranging from ISO 100 to ISO 1600(on the right). click on the shots to see the full JPEG as it was produced by the E520(sharpening and noise reduction disabled):

Here are a few crops(1:1) resolution - once again, the images are from all ISO settings available. I see slight noise starting to pop up at ISO 400; however, even the ISO1600 shot seems to be somewhat usable. However, the completely fuxated focusing voids further discussion - the images are unacceptable with out-of-the-box settings:

Zooming in didn’t do much in regards to sharpness(detail shots below, click thumbnails for native picture)):

EZ 4015-2
The second kit lens is a mediocre zoom - its focal length is from 40mm to 150mm. I tortured it with a few night shots of a closeby railway station(on a stand) - none of the shots was focused properly:

These detail shots show the true extent of the focus catastrophy:

Zooming in made the situation even worse - the images turned out completely unusable.

The detail shots can be considered Pixel Soup at the very best - a 100€ camera can produce significantly better results than the E520.

THIS CAMERA HAS BEEN DEFECTIVE! THE CONCLUSION BELOW IS VOID! A FULL REVIEW IS UPCOMING!!

Olympus aimed for the moon while designing the E520 - unfortunately, the actual projectile went into outer space. The autofocus system of the E520 is the worst I have ever seen on a digital camera: if you value sharp and well-focused shots, look at the sample images above and stay FAR away from the Olympus EVOLT E520.

My camera heads back to the shop tomorrow(for further analysis) - stay tuned.

P.S. This is one of the cases where purchasing a device at a specialist store helps. I am pretty sure that the folks will either find a solution for me(which I hope) or take the camera back tomorrow…

The world-wide Sudoku craze is starting to ebb off - unfortunately, Mr. Lee’s book has been laying around in our labs for quite some time. So far so good: is it still worth buying?

Programming Sudoku is divided into seven chapters. The first looks at the rules of the game and can serve as an excellent introduction to the game for beginners and people who never cared about Sudoku puzzles(e.g. yours truly).

The second chapter looks at Visual Basic.NET and at designing applications for Windows. A nice load of basics are transported in the process: people who can program in C or VB6 will be able to pick the ball with ease.

The next three chapters look at various algorithmic tricks that can be used to tackle Sudoku puzzles. Even though Sudoku itself is straightforward, solving “difficult” puzzles can require extremely sophisticated and interesting algorithms…

Chapter six is especially interesting: it looks at methods for generating puzzles. Toppling around solving algorithms generally is a very interesting approach: this tome takes it to the max.

Finally, an appendix looks at a soduku derivative called Kakuro…

Wei-Meng Lee did an excellent job clarifying key concepts. The sample code is easy to understand, images are deployed wherever they are useful:

In the end, Programming Sudoku is an excellent read for people who feel like reading up on methods for solving puzzles with a PC. The methods learned here probably can be applied to other games easily… However, the book has an additional positive effect: it serves as a quick introduction into Visual Basic.NET. If you currently develop Palm apps and plan to move over to .NET CF, getting this book will pay out. As for the price: at 17$@Amazon’s , it’s a total bargain!

Proporta’s Aluminum-Leather cases have become a classic add-on for mobile devices. The latest incarnation aims to protect Palm’s Centro…but can it stack up?

As usual, Proporta’s products ship in cushioned envelopes via regular mail. The envelopes originate in England and can be delivered to post boxes when you’re not at home:

The case itself drops in a special blister for extra protection.

Getting the Centro into the case is easy: just shove it into the clamps from above. Even though they may not look particularly trustworthy, they provide excellent security and manage to hold the device well even when toppled around/shaken:

Proporta did a great job at keeping the device usable even when in the case - the keyboard is not obstructed at all.

A cutout at the back allows you to access all important functions - camera and speaker are not obstructed:

The volume keys and the infrared port at the sides of the machine can be accessed. One of the clamps blocks the memory card slot: while this prevents loss, it also makes the already obscenely difficult memory card swap procedure even more annoying:

Finally, here’s a picture of the Centro in its case. The Proporta logo is cut out of thin steel and glued on btw:

In the end, Proporta’s Centro case is like almost all other Proporta products: excellent. There’s little not to like here - the price of 35$ is low compared to other manufacturers offerings…

Apologies to all of you for the delay in book reviews - however, the office movage left me without a scanner for some time…

Ever wondered how a dating web site manages to generate automatic “matches”? Ever wanted to find out how to group elements programatically? Ever looked for ways to predict stuff? If you answered any of the questions above with a Yes, Toby Segaran’s book should be for you. But can it stack up?

Programming Collective Intelligence is subdivided into multiple, loosely connected chapters. usually, you can start reading any part of the book without issues - this is definitely not a structured text book.

Toby Segaran did a good job with the choice of topics - things like classification, matching and optimization are covered in significant detail. However, the book also covers more “exotic” topics like genetic programming: in case anyone of you ever wanted to write a “self-modifying” program, this definitely is very interesting.

Each subject is treated thoroughly, although useful things sometimes are spread out upon multiple, not-connected chapters of the book. Generally, the tome presents at least two different approaches for each problem - it is very likely that one of the algorithms given is well-suited for your application idea.

An appendix covers all algorithms in a somewhat structured fashion - I am puzzled why the book itself was not arranged in a similar form.

The author did an excellent job describing the different algorithms and problems and even added graphs where necessary. Unfortunately, non-Python folk are hit hard with understanding the examples(folks - this is NOT a C/Java or C/VB style difference).

For me, the Python examples manage to completely and effortlessly destroy an otherwise well-written book. Yes, there are many people who can do Python, but (especially in the Palm OS world), there are many who cannot. Of course, I can always reconstruct the algorithm if I need to…but this is an unnecessary step that the author could have spared his readers. People with a faible/need for the algorithms and problems covered in this tome (and who have no problems with Python) will find the 27$ a good investment - everybody else is recommended to stay far away…

After a few delays, the editorial part of our Centro review has finally come to an end. In case anyone of you missed any parts, here’s a quick overview:
Centro unlocked GSM review - unboxing
Centro unlocked GSM review - physical
Centro unlocked GSM review - size
Centro unlocked GSM review - screen
Centro unlocked GSM review - system and performance
Centro unlocked GSM review - camera

The overall review was rather negative…even though the box is said to sell by the cartload. How does that go together?

I personally thank everyone who talked back about how he was happy with his Centro - comments are what keeps sites such as this one alive. However, I still stick don’t like the box…read on to find out more.

Palm’s Centro sells very well…to teenagers, soccer moms and other people who aren’t interested in the technology behind phones. For them, the Centro is interesting because of the keyboard that speeds up typing - any everything else is in the lands of dragons.

For them, the Centro is ideal. However, for people who really stress their handheld with things like video playback, spreadsheets, PDF’s,.. - the device IMHO is too small. People who currently have a Treo should carefully evaluate the Centro’s size - as sweet as the small size may appear, as annoying it becomes when using the box for an extended period of time.

The Centro definitely is a great device - but it’s not a great device for a power user like me. And this is what I tried to express in the review…not more, not less…

But this isn’t the end of our Centro coverage - stay tuned for a bunch of interviews with leading developers!

Over the years, two types of screen protectors have been developed: reflecting and non-reflecting ones. Like with laptop screens, reflecting(glossy) screens offer better contrast, while matte screens are better outdoors. Unlike most other manufacturers, Proporta never entered the market for glossy screen protectors - can their matte offering stack up?

The screen protector ships in a huge blister inside of Proporta’s standard envelope:

Proporta included a special screen cleaning cloth, the protector and an application card:

Applying the screen protector is rather easy: first, the the old protector is removed. After that, the screen is given a good rubbing with the orange side of the cloth - the final step involves gluing the protector onto the screen and hoping that no dust was captured(I didn’t have such luck).

Once the protector is on the device, the screen’s reflecting properties change. Reflections are gone for good;the maximum contrast and brightness sink by approximately 5 to 10%. However, the lack of reflections significantly improves outdoor usability - look at the images below for a quick comparison:

In the end, the Proporta Advanced Screen Protector definitely is worth having; as it significantly improves the outdoor readability of the Treo’s screen(less glare). If you have a Treo and use it outdoors, definitely get this 10$ thingy….you’ll not regret it!

Sorry, had a specs slip-up here. The Centro’s cam is 1.3MP, not 2MP. Thanks for all who pointed this out!
Palm’s phones never were famous for their imaging capabilities - in fact, the Treo 600 was almost universally loathed due to its gruesomely bad VGA “noiseograph”…but nobody really cares about the camera on a business smartphone anyways. Palm’s Centro is targeted at consumers who do care about cams…is it worth it?

The Centro’s camera has a native resolution of 1.3MP, which leads to 1200×1024 images. The lens is a classic fixed one(no autofocus here); and don’t even ask about a flash LED.

Here are a few sample images from the Centro’s cam - click on the icons to see them in their native size.

As for the 2x digital zoom - its effect is illustrated in these indoor pictures:

In the end, the image quality of the Centro’s cam won’t make anybody happy - Palm definitely wasted money on the ad in the JPG photography magazine. Yep…the Centro does make better pictures than a 680…but other boxen remain miles ahead.

Stay tuned for your final verdict and an interview series with leading developers!

After having looked at the Centro’s hardware, it’s now time to move over to the device’s interior… . Do we see a completely overhauled box, or just a tiny incremental upgrade?

Looking at the Centro’s launcher, one can see that little has changed. The Camcorder app known from the Treo 650 is back, and PocketTunes was upgraded to the DeLuxe edition.

Unfortunately, Palm rehashed the Treo 680’s phone app on the GSM Centro:

Also, Palm’s Voice Dialing Software is included for free:

Performance-wise, the Centro is very much on par with the Treo 680 - which is unsurprising, as they are all based on the same 312MhZ iPXA processor. The images below show its Speedy results:

Interestingly, the Centro writes to memory cards very quickly - the ratings achieved with the stock SanDisk card from my Qtek 8500 is the best I have ever seen on a Palm device:

Here’s a shot of the memory sizes - as one can see, the device has plenty of RAM and DBCache:

In the end, the Palm Centro is little more than a Treo 680 with PocketTunes Deluxe in ROM. The device’s performance matches the Treo’s almost 1:1 except for the significantly faster memory card access - tune in soon for a look at the device’s camera…

When Palm introduced its first model with a reflective(aka outdoor-readable) screen, users were disappointed with the weak colors. By the time the Treo 680 hit the market, the company had improved its technology far enough to verse TFT’s. Usually, consumer smartphone screens are the best-of-breed - can the Centro stack up?

First of all, a Palm Treo 500 versed the Centro. The 500 won. BTW, the Centro’s keyboard backlighting is extremely weak - this is not an optical distortion.

The Treo 680 had no issues dispatching the Centro either:

The rx4240’s TFT screen literally ripped the Centro’s screen to pieces - total ownage:

Last but not least, here are a few more Centro-vs-Treo shots. Please note how the Treo’s screen reflects light a lot better:

In the end, the Centro’s tiny screen renders all further discussion futile as it simply is too small to be comfortable to use for longer duration. The reddish hue, average contrast and weak reflectivity are annoying - but are minor issues compared to the screen size. People coming from a 680 should look elsewhere…

P.S. Yep - the white border around the screen seems to be gone!