TamsPalm – the Palm OS / web OS Blog

The Treo series has always had good phone interfaces. They never were too artsy, but always served their masters well…this was how a phone app for a smartphone should be. Phoney. The debut of Apple’s iPhone, however, shook up the rules given above. Suddenly, visuals were in and photos were cool – GX5′s DialByPhoto is such a GUI phone app for Palm OS. Can it stack up in everyday use?

DialByPhoto essentially has two modes of operation – contacts view mode and overview mode. The overview mode aims to ‘replace’ the phone home screen. It provides information about incoming email, appointments and also presents a few contacts. The possible styles are shown below:

Contacts view crams 9 contacts into view simultaneously, but omits some of the information found on the overview screen:

Creating a photo contact from an existing contact is easy – all you need to do is select the correct contact and set a few options:

Calling a contact works either by tapping the contact’s name or by clicking on it(this involves a confirmation screen). A dial pad is available, too! Placing a call opens Palm’s classic phone app….

DialByPhoto has its own contact list browser, too. Finding a contact there allows you to send an SMS directly – but it doesn’t allow the editing of contact info:

The web integration is pretty nifty, as the app allows you to jump directly to search results. However, as of this review, the Google jumping didn’t work on my Treo…

The real zinger behind DialByPhoto is the customizeability. You can set a screen background of choice, and then add a color ‘overlay’ for even more styling options:

Contacts can have images or vector icons as ‘picture tag’. Icons can be downloaded on the go right from the DialByPhoto UI – however, the app gets very slow when icon libraries are opened.

The only real weakness I found is the preferences dialog. Finding the correct option is a bit difficult for a beginner though:

This review focussed on version 1.4005 of the program. It takes about 1.5MB of RAM, and worked stably on my Palm Treo 680.

Overall, DialByPhoto is an interesting take on the ever-constant business phone app market. DialByPhoto isn’t the most efficient app on the market – but that’s not what it should be. Instead, it is a cool-looking and customizable app that is fun to use and look at! If you like a cool-looking phone app, definitely make use of the free trial period!

Use the discount code DIALME to get 20% off at the TamsShop!

Hotsync…To some it is a glorious process filled with love and happiness and pink flowers. Others cringe at hearing the word, thinking of the slow transfer speeds and various hotsync oddnesses, and blood comes out of their eyes when they are forced to do it. For that second group a nice backup utility is a must have, since we all know the pains of a hard reset with an old backup on the PC.

There are many backup titles out on the market, and today we’ll look at Resco Backup. If you have never heard of the company before, be sure to check out their products! Resco creates a variety of other quality Palm OS titles that scored rave reviews on TamsPalm(Resco Explorer, Resco PhotoView, Resco Neews)!

This review is based on a preview release of the just-released version 2.01, which adds a number of new features including:

• Basic interface for novice users
• New options in Restore
• Easy predefined projects (Images, Contacts, phone, preferences)
• More possibilities in the scheduler

When you fire it up you have the choice between two interfaces: advanced mode (the default mode), and the new Basic Mode, which is designed for ease of use. Below are advanced mode (Left) and Basic Mode (Right)

The restore interface has also received a nice facelift. One of the cooler features is a new per app restoration, useful for rolling back to an old version in case of a bad installation. The main restore screen allows you to choose how you would like to restore (all databases, per app, or by choosing exactly which databases to restore)

There are also new scheduling options. A nice one is the option to backup on power-off. You could use this to keep your preferences up to date or save important documents just by turning off your device for a moment.

Another new feature is the option to create Template backups. These are predefined projects that can allow a new user to easily set up new projects.

Resco Backup was designed with the new NVFS devices in mind. It has many options to keep your device from crashing. During the backup or restore it is likely that your DbCache can become fragmented. This absolutely kills your device’s performance, but Resco Backup can keep this fragmentation to a minimum and can completely clear your DbCache. However, this can lead to other icky problems when apps that were coded before NVFS’s release was put into use get cleared from the cache. RB solves this by allowing you to lock apps that could cause trouble into the DbCache.

The backup and restore themselves are hard to beat. They have superior speed, and great compression rates to boot. A detailed review of the speed is coming soon…

So, to wrap it up, Resco Backup is no longer an app just for freaks anymore: now it can easily picked up by someone new to the Palm and easily used. And it’s a must have at just $15!

The TamsShop runs a promotion on popular Resco titles. Use the discount code RESCO4ME to get 20% off Explorer, PhotoView, Neews and Backup for the next week or so…

Palm’s Treo smartphones all have a backlighted keyboard. With some, it’s brighter and with some its darker, but the backlight is there on all of them, eating up precious energy. Since my Treo’s battery isn’t exactly strong, killing useless power eaters is important…enter KB LightsOff.

Starting up LightsOff yields the screen shown below. The toggle on top controls activity(enable or disable the program). Auto mode will be explained later. The three selectors below enable/disable shortcuts that control the backlight settings(KBLights means as much as toggle). Last but not least, the toggle at the bottom allows you to modify the current backlight state.

The setting below allows you to turn on or off the backlight by pressing and holding Options, then pressing Alt. The toggle state remains stored even after a poweroff cycle…

The menu allows you to customize the ‘auto’ mode in a variety of fashions. I prefer the toggle mode, and didn’t quite figure it out either…so this is just fyi:

The only problem I encountered was that changing the backlight intensity automatically reenabled the screen backlight. Here is a little video showing the program in action:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3575750257991550290&hl=en

This review covered KB LightsOff version 1.2.1 on a Treo 680. The program needs about 25k of RAM and worked well during the testing period.

Use the code TURNTHELIGHTSOFF at checkout in the TamsPalm store to get 20% off your order!

Overall, if you want to save the power wasted by your keyboard backlight, this is the program of choice. The UI is slightly confusing, but the price of just 5$ makes this a must-have!

Many people know Resco Explorer as one of the best file management utilities for Palm OS. Resco sent us their most recent version 2.72.2, so let’s have a look at it:

The file browser supports two views which you probably know from the Windows explorer: a list and big icons. In the list view, also several columns with additional information (size, date, …) can be shown and files can be ordered by name, size and so on. You can also set a filter, which shows only some files (depends on size, date, name, etc.):

Of course standard file operations are supported, Resco Explorer deletes, renames, copies and moves files (selecting multiple files is possible). But it also can pack and extract .ZIP files (which works very fast) and open many files using the built-in viewer or external applications. For example, the built-in viewer shows images or other files in hex format. External applications mean, it opens DOC and XLS (Word / Excel) files in Documents To Go, MobiSystems Office or Picsel Browser, HTML files in NetFront and MP3 files in PocketTunes. Resco Explorer is able to access ROM, RAM and cards.

It also is a backup app, launcher and control panel: The launcher can show all apps together or order them into the standard launcher’s categories. The control panel allows you to view and edit safed and unsafed preferences, alarms, file associations. Safed Preferences on Palm OS is what you probably know as the registry on Microsoft Windows. Using the file associations feature, you can decide which file type is connected to which application – not only in Resco Explorer but also in the whole Palm OS.

Backups can be stored, restored and deleted. You also can choose which files you don’t want to (re)store. The backup feature is good for people who don’t often create backups, because it lacks a schedule feature. Many people will prefer backup programs which create backups automatically (at night when the Palm isn’t used).

In my opinion, Resco Explorer should be installed on every Palm. Almost everyone who does a little bit more with his Palm than viewing contacts and notes will need a file manager or preferences editor sometime. “Power users” will use it to keep their card + RAM clean, organize their documents and open them. Opening files in external apps is what I miss in many other file managers although it is one of the most important jobs of a file manager. You see, Resco Explorer can do almost everything you need for your Palm OS administration.