TamsPalm - the Palm OS Blog

Like every first Thursday, the PUG Vienna met tonight. Don’t ask why, but I found the time to attend. Due to our recent theft problems and a kleptomaniac member (whose identity will not be disclosed to protect the fat and stupid), everyone brought reduced amounts of hardware…but we managed a pretty impressive show nevertheless…

Fortte cases
Fortte’s customizable cases were passed around and demoed - even though the colors weren’t too popular, the general idea of customizable cases managed to raise heads and got people talking…

iPhone 3G
Herwig has always been our resident Apple nut…he unsurprisingly got himself an iPhone 3G:

Cutting a long story short: he is extremely dissatisfied. The machine had to be replaced two times due to software issues, and T-Mobile’s support is lackluster at best. However, the motion sensor can be used for some truly innovative things…like an app that simulates beer:

JayBird headset
JayBird’s excellent bluetooth headset was passed around - people were very impressed with it. Trial versions of Softick Audio Gateway were provided to interested third parties via Bluetooth…

Sony Clie TH55
Alexander (our organizer) tugged along a Sony Clie TH55 he purchased recently:

The device was passed around and caused a stream of nostalgia:

In the end, the downward trend of the PUG has stopped somewhat - 5 people wasn’t the top number, but wasn’t too low either.

How is the turn-up at your PUG?

It is a long-established tradition to bring along rare or otherwise interesting handhelds along to the PUM. Last year, we had a transparent Vii and a Palm Tungsten x420. This year, we were treated to a Dana Wireless and a – strangely non-working – Janam XP30:

Dana Wireless
The Dana Wireless is among the most boring handhelds ever – one picture says more than thousand words:

Janam XP30
Do not ask me where this box came from, but it was in the locker in the center of the room:

A Nexave employee gladly handet it out to me – unfortunately, the machine didn’t power up. Nevertheless, here are a few comparison images next to a Treo 680:

Traditionally, the German Nexave Palm Community holds a nationwide meeting of Palm OS users on the Friday of the CeBit fair. This meeting is called PUM – and always brings along a few surprises.

This year’s big surprise was brought along by vivomobile – a huge crate full of broken handhelds, planars, parts,.. – they all could be taken home for free(loads of toys for tinkers):

Clemens Schuchart from the PUG Neuss Podcast held a 30min talk on how to use a Palm(and what to use it for) – while most of this wasn’t really interesting for professionals, beginners still could learn a lot here:

After that, Palm’s Mr. Weiss had a short presentation and answered a few preprepared questions from the Nexave team. Generally, Mr. Weiss’s answers were rather bland and did not contain anything new or especially interesting:

As always, a load of German Palm freaks was around:

This year, yours truly also had a small booth demoing various handhelds not running on Palm OS. The devices attracted a huge load of onlookers(including some very prominent ones) – many used the opportunity to look at Windows Mobile(and a jailbroken iPod touch):

Of course, some StyleTap consulting was also needed:

In the end, it was a rather interesting evening – I’ll try to make it there again next year:

Stay tuned for extra stuff(and some surprises) soon!

Update, 12/1/08: The iPod in question has just been returned. /me has been lucky for a change!

This month’s PUG meet-up was delayed due to the new year’s eve celebrations; the PUG Vienna thus met yesterday. As always, we met in the Pizza Plus - here’s what we discussed:

GSPDA M70
Group Sense’s Treo competitor went round and round; and was generally well liked. However, the subjective size advantage was not perceived as big as I initially felt it was:

Alexander stuck his 8GB SDHC card into the M70 - the machine wasn’t able to identify it:

hp 314 navigator
HP’s 314 navigator(via TamsPPC) managed to impress because of its included games and the huge, highres screen:
Christian tortured the voice gateway feature of the box a bit - the 314 can act as a hands-free with most bluetooth phones(not with Palm OS Treos, though):

QTEK 8500
A QTEK 8500 smartphone also popped up at the show - all of us agreed that the Windows Mobile Smartphone launcher urgently needs an overhaul:

Apple iPod touch
I brought along an Apple iPod touch I purchased in anticipation of the SDK release, only to have it stolen while it was on the desk there. I have no ideas how this amazing feat was accomplished, but the device was gone by the time I left the table for the first time. The “insurance” purchased along with the device does NOT cover theft - although the sales clerk told me that it did…

Anyways, the machine was well liked by many except for the dedicated home button(a thing that managed to piss me off significantly in the short time I had the machine):

For me(as the owner of the iPod touch in question), this meeting was a bit dissatisfying - but it’s almost bitter irony to have a gadget stolen at a gadget user’s freak. Anyways, I had a bit of fun and got a few interesting opinions on the devices…

By good luck and ill fortune, I managed to visit the vienniese PalmUserGroup meeting last Thursday. As usual, it was held in the Pizza Plus in Alterlaa…good food at affordable prices. There were four of us at the meeting - here are the topics:

Flush
Flush - a small freeware application that flushes the DB cache at power-off, was beamed around. Our Treo 650-users seem to like the application very much…on my Treo 680, it did nothing except slowing down poweroff by approximately 40secs:

Freedom Bluetooth Keyboard
Freedom’s classic bluetooth keyboard has served me well so far(especially while my Laptop was at Acer’s for an insanely long repair cycle). However, Alex didn’t particularly like it - its response to typing was too slow for his liking(he is an extremely fast typist):

HP ipaq rx4240 and StyleTap
Martin took a detailed look at the TamsPPC rx4240 - and gave StyleTap and the Windows CE GUI a workout:

Mini Laptops
Asus eee and the OLPC XO were also discussed to some extent. There is an OLPC XO demo in Vienna every Wednesday(expect info soon)… . The main topic of controversy was about the XO’s display…luckily, an ipaq running NotePad makes an excellent conflict resolution tool:

Treo Torch
Martin, the fearless Treo 650 modder, struck once again. After bringing us , he now integrated a torch into his 650’s antenna:

Weather applications
Alex and I got into a little quarrel about the best weather app - he preferred KMeteo, while I preferred TreoWeather. While the latter looks better(available in the TamsShop), KMeteo is free and supports a 10day forecast.

Add in the regular chit-chat about Apple and remote-controlled helicopters and the classically-well-done Pizza Plus food, and you have one happy bunch of Palm OS users…
Overall, I really enjoyed this user meeting. The next one is on December the 6th…not sure if I will make it…

The 5th of June once again was the first Thursday of the month - thus, the vienniese Palm User Group met in the Pizza Plus pizzeria in the outer districts of Vienna. We chose this location once again after meeting in the Salzberg for a few times as the food is better and the staff is friendlier - the free WiFi no longer is an issue now that almost everyone of us has GPRS internet.

I arrived a bit late - and found the user group assembled around the table where we usually sit:

The Nokia N71 was passed around and examined - the main point of critique was that the lid couldn’t be opened with just one hand:

Apparently, photographing a Nokia device next to a Palm device isn’t too popular among Palm users - my attempts were sabotaged all the time(=|):

Our Treo modder improved his Treo 650 even more by adding bands of tissue to its back. These bands allow you to type on the Treo while it lays on a table without the machine toppling over; it additionally improves grip:

His wife’s Tungsten C wasn’t safe either - it got a MiniUSB jack for charging and syncing, and also received a reset hole that can be operated with the stylus tip:

A 8GB memory card was available, too - but my Palm TX wasn’t too impressed with it(no reaction):

Last but not least, a few gadgets(including a GPS mouse) were available “for sale” - more on that GPS mouse soon!

Overall, I definitely enjoyed staying at the Palm User Group, and will be there again in September! What about sending us a meeting report from your PUG?

Yesterday was the first Thursday of the month, and thus the Palm User Group Vienna met again. Since our former pub(the Salzberg)’s free Wifi wasn’t important any more(many of us now have GPRS), we decided to switch back to our former meeting point, the Pizza Plus…after all, nothing beats decent food :-).

I arrived a bit late and found the Palm User Group assembled almost completely. This came as a surprise, as we were just 4 last time:

Alex, the ‘PUM head’, played around with the ipaq rx4240 and was pretty impressed with it. The operating system worked surprisingly well, and the small size and great build quality didn’t fail to impress either.

Other visitors looked at the ipaq too - here’s a picture of the rx4240 in use in its Proporta leather case:

The real star of this meeting was a blue Treo 650. The 650 was airbrushed in a cool metallic color - and had a MiniUSB port added. That port allows its owner to leave the Athena USB cable at home - very handy, as he travels around a lot.

A wriststrap was integrated into the 650’s antenna to simplify handling and transportation:

Software was exchanged as usual, and various Palm related topics(GPS,..) were discussed. The sentiment has improved this time, people were less negative about the Palm platform’s future this week due to the Linux announcement:

Overall, this Palm User Meeting was very interesting. The visitor’s sentiment was much better than in the meetings before - I am sure that I will attend the PUG next time…

At the German Palm user meeting, many developers, hardcore freaks and web masters were present. Thus, the selection of freak boxen was pretty big - here’s a selection of everything that I found cool or weird:

Aceeca Meazura peripherals
The Aceeca Meazura supports GPS and RFID via the two modules shown below:

Both of the modules were completely operational at the PUM, although the case designs may still change a bit. Exchanging the modules is simple as usual - it was described a bit in the Meazura CF module review.

The fake iPhone
Someone “dressed” a tobacco bag up as a iPhone - confused me quite a bit at first:

The modding table
The Nexave organizers had a special “modding table” guarded by various Nexave administrators. The following devices were shown:

My see-through Palm Vii and the yellow Palm Tungsten E2

A WristPDA with a battery extension

A gold-plated, ancient Palm handheld

A Palm x420 - the prototype successor of the Palm Tungsten W. The device was fully operational, but well, touching someone else’s prototype usually is a bad idea =).

A Palm in a Lego case

The Palm Senior disposal site
Last but not least, the German enigma group Senior PUG, decided to declare a table their “gathering point”. So far so good, but the word Sammelstelle can be translated not only as gathering point, but also as waste disposal site. This made me giggle quite a bit and probably was intentional…

This is the last post on the german Palm user meeting - I hope that you enjoyed my reports!

Nexave’s Palm User Meeting was attended by many German Palm celebrities. I managed to snap a few photos of a few of them – they are posted here in no particular order:

Smutje – the maker of the Freaq’s cases

Thorsten - one of the meeting’s organizers

Oliver – TamsPalm author

MetaView – Palm OS celebrity, PalmPDF maker

AkkiMoto(member No1 and master-mind of the Senior PUG). Please forgive my weird facial expression(long story)

Andreas Voigt aka Vivo – independent Palm technician, Acceca distributor, really cool guy

B@tze – Nexave celebrity

Luxusjob – TamsPalm author

Goocy – TamsPalm author

Skybert – german Palm OS tip site webmaster, music industry a**kicker

Tapf – Senior PUG Mascot

Gojira – Senior Pug Member no1(there are three of those =))

Koermit – cool guy, SeniorPUG member, PDAchat chatter

There were a lot more people there, but I forgot to photograph them(and a few insisted on not being photographed or quoted…funnily, it were those who could have easily afforded a PR manager…but who cares). If you feel left out and want to make it on here, just send a picture of yourself to Tamog AT gmx DOT at – and I’ll add you immediately!

When the Freaqs pockets first hit the Palm OS market, they severely disrupted the heterogeneous case ecosystem with their modern design and cool looks. A Freaqs pocket recently scored a rave review on TamsPalm – and since Smutje(the creator of the Freaqs) was at the PUM, why not have a chat with him?

The picture above shows Smutje, the master of the Freaqs pockets. He creates and designs the different Freaqs models in his “spare time”. The production of a single pocket takes about 1.5 to 3 hours and happens in manual labor(not automatized). Freaqs has a few nice pockets for Palm’s Treo series – this definitely isn’t the last time you heard of this innovative company!

Do you have any questions about Freaqs Palm cases? Do you own one?

First Thursday of the month is PalmUserGroup Vienna day - and so we went out to the Salzberg pub for one last time(next time is in Pizza Plus again - finally!!!). I made photos for TamsPalm as usual - so here we go!

At first, Martin tried out my Palm TX’s WLAN connection. The Salzberg offered free WLAN - so why not try it out:

After that, the Aceeca Meazura was shown again - it never fails to impress people:

Suddenly, our Mac freak Herwig arrived, carrying a TV module for his MacBook. The antennae were attached to the central heating, and TV watching/recording could begin:

After that, we discussed a variety of topics ranging from the Apple iPhone to the new Palm clamshell rumor(stay tuned for a mockup by yours truly and some more info on what it will be). Generally, the feeling was that the Palm OS economy is dieing slowly but surely - let’s see how the sentiment is at the German PalmUserMeeting, which I will probably attend too!

While I didn’t receive any more information on the Hack’n'Dev summit planned sometime in March, the German Palm forum Nexave has completed the preparations for its german Palm User Meeting in Hannover, Germany.

German speakers can get more information here:
http://www.nexave.de/community/usermeeting/

I am not sure yet if anyone from TamsPalm will attend - maybe I can make it over, though!

It’s the second Thursday of the month(hey, we all still were on vacation on the first) - so its Palm User Group time once again! We met at the Salzberg, a pub with decent food and - most important - free wlan. I made a few photos(as usual)..enjoy!

Initially, only Alex(the organizer) and I were there. We looked at a few gadgets we aquired in the last month:

Alex showed me how Bejeweled for Palm OS affects his Zodiac’s screen protector - a new one has already been ordered!

Alex had a Sony Ericsson Walkman mobile phone with him - it has a dedicated Walkman key(!!!):

The player menu looks very similar to an ipod’s - here are a few shots(sorry, but german):

We talked a (tiny) bit about the iPhone - the lack of third party apps was a major party pooper for both of us. So, at least at the moment, we both stick to Palm OS… After that, Alexander joined us. He also is a Mac user, and so it was ‘win vs mac’ bicker/rant time:

Alexander’s dog is our Palm User Group’s mascot - here is a picture of him next to Alexander and one next to me:

Overall, I did enjoy the meeting - in fact, I enjoyed it very much and will attend the next one for sure. Are there Palm User Groups in your area? Why not send us a report?

Vienna has had a very active Palm User Group for quite some time. I didn’t have time to attend the last few meetings, but I made it today - here is my report.

Aceeca Meazura
My contact at Aceeca allowed me to take my Meazura out. The bar staff was already used to me and quickly produced a bucket full of water, in which the Meazura sat for a very long time… . The handheld also was kicked around and thrown on the floor once or twice - overall, everyone was impressed:

Documents To Go 9
Dataviz’s latest offering was discussed a bit:

Fossil WristPDA
The smallest Palm OS PDA of the world, the Fossil WristPDA also went around to all who didn’t see it before. Finding the stylus is a bit tricky though:

m600i
A m600i was available for looking, too. It looks extremely cool, but the keyboard system can’t compete against a Palm Treo 600 imho. Also, the processor seems to be very weak - lags everywhere:

TomTom
Palm GPS navigation and TomTom are recurring topics - here, you can see a little version comparison:

Universe 3
The latest Palm OS browser, Universe 3 was demoed a bit, too. We used my notebook as a router, and the T3 had a funky crash(very symmetrical):

Add in the usual dose of technical and non-technical chit-chat and you get a great dose of fun. Food was good too - I can’t complain about anything and will try to attend again next month.

How are the Palm User Meetings in your area? What about sharing a photo and a report?