TamsPalm - the Palm OS Blog

I don’t know what kind of drugs the boys at the FH Hagenberg’s Mobile Computing department use, but I want them too. Today’s top story comes hot off Andreas Jakl’s and Stephan Selinger’s hands - everybody who loves RC cars will be more than delighted to see what they have in store for us.

The pictures above show DI Stephan Selinger handling a stock RC car which was modified with a custom PCB that adds remote-control support via Bluetooth.

Further information can be found at our sister site TamsS60.

Selling two million Centro’s definitely proved that there is some sort of merit in the idea and form factor of the box. Good ideas get ripped off (in Asia) - which has just happened:

The image above shows a device called “OQO 900″ (NOT related to OQO, the tablet PC maker). The machine runs Windows Mobile 6.1 professional on a PXA310 CPU clocked at 624MhZ (double the Centro’s speed). Unlike its Palm OS-powered archetype, the device is said to include a WiFi radio…

Daring folks can purchase the device at 139yes’s…

When the Cambodian PM banned 3G headsets because his wife was concerned about porn(no joke), many of our German and Sri Lanka-based readers laughed their hide off at the stupidity of the idea. However, Cambodians can now return the favor - here is the latest update on idiotic laws:

Germany: Using GPS on your phone while driving is prohibited - normal GPS boxen unaffected
PocketGPSWorld reports that Germans are no longer allowed to use GPS systems on cell phones while driving. Amusingly, dedicated GPS systems can still be used…

Sri Lanka: carry your certificate of ownership at all times, sire!
Should the German law above sound funny: wait until you hear what’s in store for Sri-Lanka-based folks. Their government is said to gear up legislation that will force all cell phone owners to bear a “certificate of ownership” whenever using the phone. The reason: terrorism…

With idiocies such as these getting transformed to laws, it IMHO is only a question of time until egoshooters and other oh-so-violent games will be banned in Germany over youth crime concerns. Even though everybody with half a brain can see that leaving juvenile offenders go unscathed is the problem - try to tell that to the average, overpaid psychologist who advises a mentally and morally degenerated politician looking for the next visible anti-crime stunt..

If you now think that the Tamoggemon editorial team has finally gone bonkers: think twice. Palm User Groups are commonly known as PUGs - but the majority of the world thinks that pugs are something else.

For them, a pug is a small dog that can be dressed up. Michelle and Allen from UltimatePug provided the following images of pug dogs - enjoy:

P.s. Anyone of you has such a dog? A shot of a pug at a PUG meeting would be too cool ;).

When one of you has a problem with a technical device, he tells the manufacturer the system specifications right away. Hell, some of my customers have even included a full list of all files in RAM into their bug/CS requests. However, asking customers for system specs can go very wrong…feast your eyes on the true story below (anonymized to protect the guilty):

I work as an IT guy for an upscale Austrian ***** company. So far, all has went well - until yesterday. Our CEO called the customer support hotline of a major software manufacturer, described her problem and suddenly started screaming at the support rep as if he/she had been gravely insulted.

After interrogating her to see what the problem was, I found out the following mind.boggling truth:

The CS guy asked her: “what computer do you have”?

Our CEO didn’t understand that this information was needed to actually find and fix the bug. Instead, she thought that the manufacturer was trying to blame her holy (Apple) device - and became pissed as sh*t.

For me, this story once again proves my basic assumption: what is clear to us, isn’t clear to others. Tell customers WHY you ask them for data - it might cost you a bit of extra voice, but will pay out in the long run…

Feel like telling us your worst-ever CS experience?

Usually, the EFF’s newsletter is a rather boring, legalese thing that one reads to stay current. However, their last issue contained the gem below:

A bit of explanation: in Austria, a weird sect called Watchtower Society/Jehova’s Witnesses has plastered the streets with critters who hand out weird free “newspapers” called Watchtower and Wake Up! The funny thing(and where UMG gets into the picture) is that these peddlers always try to talk you into holding onto such a paper forever and never throwing it away(as if it were a handheld ;)):

In a brief filed in federal court, Universal Music Group
(UMG) states that, when it comes to the millions of promotional CDs (”promo CDs”) that it has sent out to music reviewers, radio stations, DJs, and other music industry insiders, throwing them away is “an unauthorized distribution” that violates copyright law. Yes, you read that right — if you’ve ever received a promo CD from UMG, and you don’t still have it, UMG thinks you’re a pirate.

This revelation came in a brief for summary judgment filed by UMG against Troy Augusto. Augusto buys collectible promo CDs at used record stores around Los Angeles and resells them on eBay. UMG sued him last year, claiming that the “promotional use only” labels on the CDs mean that UMG owns them forever and that any resale infringes copyright. EFF took Augusto’s case to fight for the proposition that a copyright owner can’t take away a consumer’s first sale rights just by putting a label on a CD. In other words, EFF believes that if you bought it, or if someone gave it to you, you own it.

For EFF’s legal perspective on the issue of “promo CDs” in UMG v. Augusto:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/umg_v_augusto/AugustoMSJBrief.pdf

For this complete post by EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred Von Lohmann:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/04/umg-says-throwing-away-promo-cds-illegal

Nice to know that the UMG now adopts sect-like marketing techniques. I guess that Gong! now has an entirely new meaning…

I have had my fair share of standoffs with Palm’s customer care myself; but this story trumps it all - here’s the best excerpt from it:

…
So I asked employee C11329 to be transfered to her manager. She told me she was the most senior person at Palm. I asked her again politely to transfer me to her manager. She told me she had none. I asked to be transfered to the person that was reviewing her work, giving her assignments, etc.. I was told she had none. I told her I felt that was odd as, apart from the chairman and CEO, I didn’t know of anyone in a company not having a manager. She told me she was the CEO.

For a second, I paused. “You’re the CEO of Palm, Inc.?” I asked again, not really believing what I was hearing. “Yes, I am” she replied, now with a defiant tone. “So you’re telling me you’re Ed Colligan?” I asked. “I am the CEO and that’s all you need to know.”

Well, turns out I was now in a very odd situation. I had been at several industry events where Ed Colligan spoke (including a number of product launches from Palm) and, as far as my memory was concerned, his voice was neither feminine nor did it sound south-Asian in its inflection. My memory might have been playing games on me but I was pretty sure I was not talking to the CEO of Palm.
…

Head on over to tnl.com for the full scoop…hope this helps all those of you frustrated with Palm’s Customer care to a good laugh…

P.S. Wonder how I found this? I was actually looking for horror stories on a courier service…more about that on request!

Apparently, things are very rotten in the state of T-Mobile - after the weird stories reported by TamsPalm readers some time ago, the company now decided to attack Engadget…

The reason for the bad blood is simple: the Engadget Mobile logo is magenta, just like T-Mobile’s logo. Someone in T-Mobile’s legal department decided to fight boredom by sending a letter requesting a name chgange(does that remind anyone of OZ Communications???).

As of now, nobody knows if T-Mobile plans to actually sue Engadget - if they do, the backlash could IMHO turn out to be extremely painful for the carrier…

Get the full scoop at Engadget’s - let’s stay tuned how it all turns out…

The Pakistani lethal mobile phone virus is no longer the funniest cell phone related story coming out of the east - I proudly present the following story straight from Kabul:

Taleban have recently begun to target cell phone towers, as they accuse them to support NATO/Afghan army troups. In order to prevent further attacks, all operators have now caved in to the demands, leaving Afghans blacked out. The government is attempting to “persuade operators to restore coverage”…but, as of now, Afghans are still offline…

For me, this is especially funny - in Austria, the police permanently bickers about how criminals use the cell phone networks to organize themselves. That’s how the priorities change…..

via the bbc

The PalmInfoCenter has just claimed that “a trusted source” has informed it that the internal name referring to Palm OS II is going to be Nova; and that the operating system is currently being tested on a new handheld codenamed Zeppelin.

Immediately, commenters began to bicker about how NoVa means won’t go in French - as a person who can read and write French a little, I can tell you that this is completely wrong. In France, negation always has two parts…which are usually ne and a second word, commonly pas. So, a negated French statement looks like this:

ne statementnegator word(pas, rien, plus..)

The grammar above leads us to ne va pas…so we are facing yet another urban legend.

However, NoVa means something else to Austrians: it is a type of tax that is to be paid when new cars are purchased. This so-called Normverbrauchsabgabe(average consumption fee) is calculated by the amount of Fuel needed by a car; and is intended to discourage people from purchasing cars that need loads of fuel.

Our German comrade b@tze(photo of b@tze at the PUM is here) has managed to sneak out a table cloth bearing “Palm” insignia from a pub in the Netherlands:

In case you wish for a link to the “source” pub, please visit his blog here:
http://www.baetze.com/wordpress/?p=159

Apparently, Apple’s latest iPhone ad(featuring a pilot who claims that the weather information provided by his iPhone is more accurate than the tower’s) has already begun to annoy pilots.

A plane’s takeoff was slightly delayed due to rain. An iPhone user checked the weather online and went on to ask the crew what really was the reason for the delay(as his iPhone indicated that there was no rain). The captain’s response was priceless:

“If the passenger with the IPhone would be kind enough to use it to check the weather at our alternate, calculate our fuel burn due to being rerouted around the storms, call the dispatcher to arrange our release, and then make a phone call to the nearest Air Traffic Control center to arrange our timely departure amongst the other aircraft carrying passengers with IPhones, then we will be more than happy to depart. Please ring your call button to advise the Flight Attendant and your fellow passengers when you deem it ready and responsible for this multi-million dollar aircraft and its passengers to safely leave.”

While the authenticity of the story can never be proven; I still got a good laugh out of it…enjoy!

via PlaneBuzz

This review has nothing to do with PalmOS but it makes just as much fun though it is not very useful: The Brando USB Misslie Launcher.
The device is shipped with a paper target, 3 missiles and the software for the PC. Once the launcher is plugged into an USB port, Windows recognizes it as a “Human Interface Device” and installs the needed drivers automatically. The software - which is Windows Vista ready - for controlling the launcher can also be installed onto an USB drive so that you can carry the device with you.

The size of the device can be seen in the image below:

How the device acts and how the controlling software works can be expressed the best way by a video:
USB Misslie Launcher video on youtube.com

After you have hit the “Fire!” button you will hear an audio warning for three times until the missile launches.
Instead of using the software + mouse to control your launcher you can use the keyboard for:
- moving (left-right-up-down): arrow keys
- fire: space
Even though the rockets are build out of foam plastic, please do not aim or shoot at humans or animals!

In my opinion this little toy is a great way to skip some time when it is getting boring - e.g. in your office

You can buy the launcher for 35 USD at the brando shop:
USB Misslile Launcher at the brando shop

This review is available in german, too.

EDIT: Oberhausen seems to be a pretty big city, having approx 220000 inhabitants and an active Palm community!

Apparently, Palm wasn’t the first company to have the idea to call a product Centro. Google AdSense has produced the following, pretty interesting URL:
http://www.centro.de/

Following this link leads you to a German shopping mall/entertainment center containing a variety of companies. The mall was opened 1996; and is located in a town called Oberhausen.

As of now, we don’t know if the CentrO folks know about Palm’s Centro phone - if the machine comes to Germany, we could expect a name change…