The BlueLounge SpaceStation is a desk organizer for laptop users that acts as a USB hub for all peripheral devices.

BlueLounge SpaceStation [ Photo courtesy of the manufacturer. ]

The photo I've chosen shows the bottom of the SpaceStation. The rubber feet set the SpaceStation 5mm above the surface of the desk. This allows the USB cables to pass underneath the organizer where they can be coiled and connected to the USB hub.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I used to love Palm Treo personal communicators like the Treo 755p. My wife and I had his and hers Treo 650s until June when I bought my iPhone.

However in 2008, I cannot recommend a Treo in good conscience to anyone who does not work in an industry where Palm or Windows Mobile applications are a work necessity (see Handhelds from Palm Still Make Sense in Medicine as an example).

I want to take a moment to salute Jamie Ledino of PC Magazine for telling readers in no uncertain terms to avoid buying the Treo 755p:

It's been eight months since Palm released the mildly updated Sprint Treo 755p. Now Palm and Verizon are selling the same two-year-old phone and even pricing it like a new handset. The 755p has plenty of virtues, which I'll get to in a moment. But look at all of the contemporary features this allegedly new-for-2008 smartphone is missing: multitasking, GPS, mobile TV, stereo Bluetooth for music, a light-sensing display, voice dialing over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi—and the list goes on....

In the end, Palm and its partners Verizon Wireless and Sprint are pricing this phone similar to state-of-the-art smartphones. You can't just say that the Treo 755p is a stable but feature-poor smartphone. The PalmOS isn't in the same league with any of the current versions of competing smartphone operating systems except in terms of selection of third party applications. Palm should focus on Windows Mobile devices until its next generation PalmOS is ready. (According to what I read, that's first quarter of 2009!)

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I got a Nokia N800 through the Nokia Blogger Relations Program several months ago. I found this device quite interesting, but I never had the opportunity to dig into it as deeply as I had wanted to. I started to think about it again about a week ago, when I was thinking about creating a webcam for our Christmas Tree at my house.

I started Googling around, and I found a three-part series of articles on IBM developerWorks that provide a detailed explanation of how to write your own webcam client for the N800.

Part one is called Developing for the N800 and talks about the environment you need to use to develop a maemo package. Maemo is a Linux-based development platform for Internet tablets such as the N770 and the N800. The article talks extensively about Scratchbox, a cross-compilation toolkit that most people use to make maemo package development easier.

Part two of the tutorial is Accessing the Nokia N800 camera which discusses the maemo Camera API and a multimedia application framework called GStreamer.

By the time I finished reading part two of the tutorial, I began to wonder how the editor of this site could consider this project to be "introductory level". If that's the case, then some of the stuff on this site must be ridiculously complex and/or technical in nature.

The third part of the tutorial is Auto-uploading Nokia N800 photos. This explains in detail how to best extend the on board software and services of the N800 with your own code in order to develop an automated uploading tool. When you combine this with previous code to access the camera and convert images that it outputs into an uploadable format, you end up with a webcam client.

I was really impressed with these articles, and I got a much better understanding of the N800's potential by reading it.

The thing that stopped me from building the webcam application according to the instructions is the prerequisites. I didn't have a machine that had enough free space to build up a Linux virtual machine that would be an appropriate build environment for a maemo package. It would have taken me time to free that space. I may end up waiting to do this until I get my MacBook Pro sometime in January.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last night I solved the syncing problem that had limited Kathleen's ability to use her Treo 650 with her new MacBook. I owe a lot of credit to the book Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition, which explained the details of the interaction between Palm Desktop for the Mac OS and iSync.

During the process of getting the Treo and the MacBook talking, I got another chance to play with ePocrates-- the medical software designed for PalmOS and Windows Mobile PDAs. ePocrates is a great set of vertical market software and services. ePocrates Rx makes my wife's job (as a pediatrician) lot easier. The key feature of it is dosing recommendations and drug interactions on over 3,000 commonly prescribed drugs.

These reference materials really need to be at a physician's fingertips when they move between exam rooms. There is a huge value to having this information physically stored on the PDA in hand. No doctor wants to slow the visit down to look up drug information via the wireless web.

This was the big reason why I said "no" when someone at work asked me, "Is your wife going to get an iPhone like yours?"

Just like I don't need a large quantity of reference information permanently stored on my iPhone, she doesn't need a high fidelity web experience in her pocket in order to do her job. At one time we had "his and hers" Treos, and everyone thought this was cute. However, now our needs are best met by two different devices.

I'm sure that there are other vertical markets where an iPhone SDK and locally-installed software will be needed before there is significant iPhone penetration. However, I think medicine is one of the biggest ones.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Nokia N93 produces DVD-quality video, has a
terrific MP3 player, and includes wireless
broadband and WiFi capability. It's great for people
who want a phone that can be used in relatively
serious video production. [ Photo: Dave Aiello ]
[ Check out my Nokia N93 photo set on Flickr. ]

A friend who works with Nokia chose me to be in the Nokia N-Series blogger program and has been sending me high end phones of all shapes and sizes for several months. The latest phone I've received is the Nokia N93, which I like to think of as the Swiss Army Knife of GSM / UMTS Multimedia Phones.

The N93 folds and unfolds in many different ways. Depending on which way you choose to hold it, it can be a video camera, a still image digital camera, an MP3 player, a wireless Internet access device, and a video phone. And I forgot to mention-- it can also be a plain old voice-oriented mobile phone.

The N93 has every feature I can think of for a state-of-the-art multimedia device:

• DVD-quality video with a 30 frame per second recording rate.
• 3.2-Megapixel primary camera with a 3x optical zoom and a Carl Zeiss glass lens. (0.3-Megapixel secondary camera for video calls.)
• 2.4-inch high definition color display.
• Adobe Premier Elements 2.0 video editing software.

On top of all of that it's a mobile phone with Bluetooth and WiFi. About all its missing is a full alphanumeric keyboard.

There are way too many features and dimensions to the Nokia N93 to cover in one article. I'm planning to do a small series of articles that will appear here on Operation Gadget, including as many samples of photos and videos as I think are necessary to demonstrate the features of this incredible device.

Technorati Tags: Nokia N93, N-Series, Adobe Premier Elements, UMTS, Bluetooth, WiFi, multimedia handsets, mobile phones

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the past couple of months I've noticed that my Treo 650 has more and more trouble opening the IMAP Inbox for my main email account. The reason for this is obvious: I'm an email pack rat.

At the height of my madness, I had over 25,000 messages in my main email account's Inbox. I was about as anti-Inbox Zero as you could get.

For the last year, I've read article after article touting the benefits of managing your Inbox and not letting it become a repository of last resort. Sites like 43 Folders and Lifehacker seem to do an article a week (or more) on the subject. But it wasn't until I hit the practical limit of my Treo's ability to manage my Inbox wirelessly that I gave in and started filing and purging.

Before you email me and ask, "What do you mean when you say your Treo had trouble opening your Inbox?", I'll describe the situation. I use Chatter Email, an alternative email client for the PalmOS that excels at managing IMAP accounts. As an IMAP mailbox grows, the mail server takes more time to respond to the initial connection request after you login. Whether you are using wireless access or not, you can tell that the mail client has to sync itself with the mailbox.

As my Inbox approached and surpassed 20,000 messages, the Treo began taking longer and longer to display the most recent messages after Chatter Email was launched. Sometimes it would take 45 minutes or more, which meant that I would leave the office to run some errands and my Treo would still not be in sync with my primary email account when I got back. That's unacceptable-- particularly when most of your friends and family know that you carry a wireless email device.

Little by little I'm reducing the size of my Inbox when I'm at a PC-based email client. I began by creating folders in my IMAP account for messages of lasting value. Folders seem to have a positive effect on Chatter Mail's responsiveness, since its sync time is impacted by the size of the Inbox folder. After that, I started at the oldest messages and started filing or deleting.

My goal is to whittle my Inbox down by about 1,000 messages a week. This is pretty achieveable, since a lot of email I receive is related to the status of things I manage that are connected to the Internet. This includes Linux servers in colocation which often kick out messages to me with the output of cron jobs, but also extends to things like Google Alerts.

Having said that, I've gotten rid of a lot of my Google Alerts for the moment. In the past I've used Google Alerts to monitor news sites for ideas for Operation Gadget articles. As you know, my posting frequency has fallen a lot since my son Jimmy was born in May. If I'm not posting much, I don't need the alerts cluttering my Inbox.

Some people in the Inbox Zero crowd (a philosophy that stresses empty inboxes the way some personal organization consultants stress a clean desk) apply a much more aggressive standard when they make file-versus-delete decisions on old email. I try to keep enough old emails around so I can remember the context of conversations that are important. In other words, I keep most emails I exchange with my family for continuity purposes, even if it means that some of the filed messages are no more than "Hi, how are you?" messages going back and forth. I've got so many other messages that I can delete because they are no longer relevant, the savings will still be huge.

If you administer Linux servers on the Internet as I do, Time Management for System Administrators by Tom Limoncelli has some great recommendations in terms of improving personal productivity. There are a lot of tips about how to manage an email account that I thought was interesting when I first read the book. Now I'm going back and implementing a lot of those ideas.

Hopefully I'll be down to less than 1,000 emails in my Inbox before too long. Then the performance of my Treo should be really snappy again. I hope that I can maintain Inbox management discipline when I get to that point.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday BusinessWeek published an article that provides a manufacturing cost comparison between the Motorola Q and BlackBerry 8700 handheld communicators. According to the article, the Motorola Q costs about $158 to make. Some of the key components in the Q are:

• LCD display, $25
• XScale microprocessor, $19
• Digital baseband processor, $14

The BlackBerry 8700c only costs Research in Motion about $123, however it lacks two key Smartphone features that would have increased the manufacturing costs: a media player for audio and video playback, and a camera.

A market research firm named iSupply provides these types of teardown analyses periodically to mainstream media for inclusion in stories. I think their main claim to fame is acting as a marketing consultant to electronics companies, and helping them determine which features should be included in their high style products.

Technorati Tags: mobile phones, Motorola Q, BlackBerry 8700, electronic gadgets.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Deepweb has fixed problems in
LeTour 2006 that made it incompatible
with the Treo 650 and 700p Datebook.
[ Image: Deepweb Internet Solutions ]

Our friend Ad de Vries and his coworkers at Deepweb in The Netherlands have released Version 2.0 of LeTour 2006. The major new feature of this release is the inclusion of team and rider lists. This was done by adding two small buttons to the upper left area of the map (not shown in our screen capture) labeled "Teams" and "Riders".

The riders lists are well designed in that they provide the race number, name, and home country of each rider organized by team. Deepweb has also included a tiny thumbnail image of each team's jersey on their riders list screen. All of this information would be very helpful to a first time spectator at the Tour who was in the Depart or Arivee area.

I would have loved to have a riders list on my phone at races I've covered in person in the past. It probably wouldn't be necessary for me to identify the riders on the top teams in this year's Tour because I've seen folks like George Hincapie and Jens Voigt at other races, but it would be great for identifying domestiques for teams like Bouygues Telecom.

The other key feature in this version of LeTour 2006 for me is the Treo Datebook bug fix. It turns out that there was a problem with the feature that let you add Tour de France stage information to your Palm Datebook, at least with respect to the Treo 650 and 700p. I first mentioned this possibility in the article Dutch Developer Releases PalmOS-based Guide to the 2006 Tour de France. I wasn't able to be any help at all during subsequent testing, but the guys at Deepweb found and fixed the problem.

This Palm app is highly recommended for Treo users who want to follow the Tour.

Technorati Tags: Tour de France, PalmOS, Treo 650.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Martin O'Donnell has been sending me reviews of the new T-Mobile Sidekick III, the long-awaited successor to the T-Mobile Sidekick II. Operation Gadget has covered the Sidekick II since it debuted in 2004, and we've always been pretty impressed with it. Martin uses a Sidekick II on an everyday basis, in the same way that I use a Treo 650.

The Sidekick III is the third generation of this integrated communicator. When I heard that T-Mobile was about to release the Sidekick III, my first reaction was one of concern: How can the Sidekick III top the Sidekick II? After all, the Sidekick II took America by storm, and lots of celebrities came to rely on it as much as some employees of Fortune 500 companies rely on Blackberry handhelds.

The reviews I've read so far indicate that expectations were quite high for the Sidekick III and, although the Sidekick III is an improvement over the Sidekick II, it's not quite as much of an improvement as some respected reviewers expected. Here are a couple of examples of what reviewers are saying:

• Sidekick 3 is better than ever, but still needs more by Tricia Duryee: "The T-Mobile Sidekick 3 is an improvement on what has been an already good thing. The new version maintains the features that made it popular, and new components make it more comparable to higher-end devices on the market today....

  "Although the device is a major improvement, there are a couple of things I found wanting....

  • "the device's form supposedly is sleeker and 20 percent less bulky than previous versions. But the size difference was hardly noticeable....
  • "when I went to send the slide show to a friend, it refused, saying I could only send 2 megabytes worth of data at one time....
  • "the camera doesn't take video, and it doesn't offer full-track music downloads or any other fancy new multimedia service."

• Trying Out the Latest Sidekick by By Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret: "...while our new gadget earned plenty of approving glances from those in the know, the Sidekick 3 isn't all it could be.

  • "The Sidekick 3's screen is generously sized at 2.62 inches diagonal, due in part to its horizontal layout. But the screen's resolution is the same as it was on the Sidekick 2: a mushy 240x160 pixels. Compared with screens on other devices that offer greater sharpness and brighter colors, the Sidekick 3's screen is a definite downer.
  • "While many of the latest smartphones use high-speed EV-DO data networks for zippy Web browsing, the Sidekick 3 only uses EDGE -- a much slower technology." [This probably has to do with T-Mobile USA's decision not to implement higher speed wireless data services as early as Cingular, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint]

I think it's instructive that the inclusion of Bluetooth, SD memory, and a 1.3-megapixel camera with flash in the next generation of a device as hot as the T-Mobile Sidekick was not enough for the reviewers to say they really like the Sidekick III. This shows how competitive the market for integrated communication devices is.

Technorati Tags: T-Mobile Sidekick III, Sidekick 3, handheld+gadgets.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Deepweb has released LeTour 2006
to help Palm users follow the
2006 Tour de France. [ Image:
Deepweb Internet Solutions ]

Frank Steele at TDFblog.com recently pointed out that Deepweb has published Le Tour 2006 a PalmOS application that provides stage profiles and distances, as well as intermediate Sprint and King-of-the-Mountains points. An update is planned to provide information about teams including rider lists.

I downloaded Version 1.0 on to my Treo 650 in order to see how well it works. The screens are written mostly in English, with the big exception being that the application uses the term "Etape" to refer to each stage. No big deal there.

The biggest glitch I've seen so far is that the Le Tour 2006 application is supposed to be able to insert information about each Etape (stage) into your Datebook. Whenever I try this, my Treo 650 does a soft reset. This may be because I run DateBk5 from Pimlico Software. I emailed Deepweb to report the problem and I'll let you know if I hear that they can repeat the problem.

I definitely think this software is worth having on my Treo, and I'd recommend it to any Tour fan who is aTreo user.

Update: According to Ad de Vries from Deepweb, "At this moment we have no complains about using LeTour on a Treo 650 (the same for our F1 program) but of course we will check it ASAP with the Treo 650 simulator (we don't have such a nice device overhere) and let you know if we know more about your problem."

This is a great response to receive from a Palm developer-- another reason you should download LeTour and give it a try.

Technorati Tags: Tour de France, PalmOS, Treo 650.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day, my brother Scott Aiello tipped me off to a device that can be used as a convenient one-stop place to charge all of your handheld devices. It's called the Personal Electronics Power Station and it's available from several vendors on Amazon.com.

The Personal Electronics Power Station is an outlet strip with a special housing that allows you to clamp your handheld devices to its body using adjustible dividers. The body has an internal space where the plug ends of your handhelds' charging cables go. When not in use, the Personal Electronics Powerstation sits on top of a table or a bookshelf with your charging cables neatly organized.

Some of the comments I've read about this unit say that the internal plugs for the charging cables are two-pronged only and that adapters won't fit inside. That's a fair point, so watch out for that. Another common complaint is that the Personal Electronics Power Station doesn't support USB. How many of your handhelds charge only through USB connections? I can't think of any of my devices that have this problem.

Technorati Tags: Personal Electronics Power Station, electronic gadgets.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Wall Street Journal reported that Palm saw marketshare growth for its Treo 650 and 700 series mobile phones as a result of the patent dispute between Research in Motion, the manufacturer of BlackBerry handheld devices, and NTP, Inc., a patent holding company based in Arlington, VA. According to the article:

... While the BlackBerry lawsuit is settled, corporations say the episode made them realize they need a contingency plan in case the BlackBerry is ever shut down. Palm, of Sunnyvale, Calif., has tripled its corporate sales force over the past year to work with carriers and to talk to more corporations about the Treo....

In the quarter ended in late November, Palm sold 602,000 Treos, nearing the 645,000 new subscriber accounts that RIM signed on in the same period. And when Palm reports fiscal third-quarter earnings today, analysts project the company will easily double its Treo sales from 279,000 in the year-earlier quarter. Internally, Palm executives say they believe that the Treo will outsell BlackBerrys by the end of this year.

The really amazing thing about large corporations continued support of BlackBerry is the amount of infrastructure on the back end of enterprise messaging systems that must be maintained in order to keep workers' BlackBerry handhelds running. BlackBerry Enterprise Server software must be co-located with Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino, and Novell Groupwise in order for users of the BlackBerry handhelds to receive the much touted "push email" features of the platform. Users of email platforms other than Exchange, Domino, and Groupwise are not likely to get the same benefit from having a BlackBerry.

The Palm OS based Treos, such as the 600 and 650, have much more flexibilty in terms of running a variety of email clients that offer enhanced features to a wider-range of mail servers. GoodLink from Good Technologies is very competitive with BlackBerry Enterprise Server for customers whose businesses use Exchange or Domino. Simpler email server environments receive advanced features from the Chatter Email Client which provides push email features for IMAP, and Snapper Mail which provides enhanced features mainly to users of POP mailboxes.

Here at Operation Gadget, my Kathleen and I use twin Treo 650s to access our IMAP mail accounts wirelessly. I'm connected to three separate IMAP accounts simultaneously when I'm out of the office. This is incredible power considering that we run a very simple, Open Source-based email infrastructure. Anyone could do this sort of thing for themselves, if they decided to rent a Linux virtual server and take the time to understand how to setup IMAP and any of a number of Mail Transfer Agents. We use UWimap and exim and they do a fine job for us at minimal cost. [ Subscription required to read most articles from The Wall Street Journal ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While researching my article on the White Screen of Death problem my Treo is having, I ran across a recent piece by Stewart Alsop where he asks "Do the vendors choose the color of the death screen intentionally?" He says that the screens of death for his favorite gadgets are:

• Blue for many flavors of Microsoft Windows
• Green for TiVo and DirecTiVo
• White for Treo 650Treo 650 handsets that work on the Cingular, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon mobile networks

Stewart and I both have each of these products. I feel fortunate to be able to say that I've only seen two of the three screens of death that Stewart has seen. (I own two TiVos, but I've never seen the Green Screen of Death.)

I told my friend Chris Nolan about Stewart's story. She laughed out loud when she heard it because she knows Stewart pretty well. Small world. Chris has a TiVo, but hasn't experienced the Green Screen of Death either. She has made other platform choices for her computer and her phone, so those two other colored screens don't apply to her.

Do you know of any screens of death that are notorious because of their telltale color? Let me know by posting a comment and I'll add them to the story.

Technorati Tags: Treo 650, TiVo, DirecTiVo, Microsoft Windows, BSOD, WSOD, GSOD

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the reasons you haven't seen many new articles on Operation Gadget in the past week is that I've been trying to identify an annoying problem with my Treo 650 that began after I upgraded it using the Cingular 1.17 Firmware Update. I had trouble upgrading my Treo by following the instructions provided by Cingular, so I only performed the Cingular 1.17 firmware update on my Treo and didn't do it to my wife's.

A couple of days after I ran the update on my Treo I experienced a White Screen of Death (known on many Treo-related discussion forums as a WSOD). This was the first such error that I ever experienced with this handset. My initial thought was that the problem had two potential causes:

• inheirent instability of the 1.17 firmware
• interaction problems between Chatter E-mail (my Treo email client) and the 1.17 firmware

I spent several days going through support and issue forums related to the Treo and to Chatter and concluded that I needed to rebuild my Treo application stack, from the core applications on up, and look for a third-party application or applications that were behaving badly. I did this four different times, and found nothing conclusive. The thing that pointed me back to Chatter was that the phone didn't crash or have a WSOD for hours when Chatter wasn't running.

I worked closely with Marc Blank, the author of Chatter Email, over a period of several days. I sent him a number of logs from the Chatter application after crashes or WSODs occurred and asked for his interpretation. He hasn't found any indication that the instability I'm experiencing is the Chatter application's fault, but he's given me some things to try that may have helped reduce the frequency of the instabilities.

A number of readers will probably ask why I didn't go back to Cingular immediately? After all, the problems I'm experiencing now are much more severe than anything I experienced prior to this firmware update. The reason I waited this long is because I depend on Chatter so much that I wanted to rule out problems with that application first. I don't think I've totally eliminated the possibility of a problem with Chatter, but I've done all I could.

What I'm planning to do tomorrow is contact Cingular and try to get routed to the Wireless Data Group. These folks are generally the only people in the Customer Service / Technical Support system who have a good handle on the issues with Treos, Blackberrys, and other high end handsets.

Technorati Tags: Treo 650, Cingular, Treo 650 firmware updates, WSOD, Chatter Email

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

After two days of trying, I finally figured out how to run the Treo 650 1.17 Update for Cingular Wireless on my Treo 650. I still have to repeat the process on Kathleen's Treo 650 before my upgrading is done. Here are a couple of things that would have really helped me streamline this process:

1. You need to have your IMEI and Serial Number recorded before you can download SplashShopper from Palm's website. I think it's best to shut your Treo 650 off, remove the battery, and write these numbers down at the beginning of the update process rather than the end.
2. Use the "hard reset" upgrade method from previous Treo updates. I tried to follow the instructions provided by Palm to update my Treo and this failed repeatedly. In retrospect, I probably had too little free memory or too many third party applications installed during the upgrade. The easiest way to do the upgrade is to:
   1. Hotsync your Treo in its normal configuration to your regular user profile.
   2. Perform a hard reset and re-hotsync the Treo in a new, blank user profile as suggested in the Treo 650 Updater 1.13 instructions.
   3. Run the appropriate Treo 650 Updater for your Cingular software version, following the included instructions.
   4. Once the update is successfully completed, perform another hard reset and re-hotsync the Treo to your original user profile.
3. The URL for downloading SplashShopper is only displayed at the end of the installation process. You won't want to repeat the installation even if you can get it to run through to conclusion twice. For the record, the URL is http://web.palm.com/support/cingular_treo650.

The Cingular 1.17 is out! thread on TreoCentral was very helpful in crafting this strategy, although I had to wade through a lot of meaningless posts.

Hopefully some Treo 650 users haven't done this update yet and will benefit from my experience.

Technorati Tags: Treo 650, Cingular, Treo 650 firmware updates

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

I missed this in the run up to Thanksgiving, but Palm released Treo 650 Updater 1.17 for Cingular Wireless customers on November 21. This update supercedes the one that was released in July and adds the following improvements:

• Includes Versamail 3.1c,
• Gmail attachment downloads,
• Optimizes Bluetooth performance for some Motorola headsets and other car kits. I have a Motorola HS850, so I'm hoping that this will help me.
• Voice quality enhancements,
• Optimizes memory handling,
• Correctly saves Auto-off power setting,
• Adds an audible beep when the phone can't initiate a call properly,
• Improves battery life by turning off the screen 30 seconds into a call. This was part of the previous update as well.

I will have more comments on the Treo 650 update after I have time to apply it to my Treo.

Technorati Tags: Treo 650, Cingular, Bluetooth, Motorola HS850, Versamail, Gmail

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just resolved a bizzare problem that kept me from using my Motorola HS850 Bluetooth Headset with my Palm Treo 650 for a while.

When my Motorola HS850 successfully connected with a Treo 650 to which it has already been paired, the HS850 would play a very quick set of three ascending tones that lasted for about 8/10ths of a second. However, recently when the HS850 tried to connect, the Treo 650 would play a four tone sequence that sounded like notes played on a piano and lasted for more than a second. After that, there would be no connection between the headset and the Treo.

Some aspect of the data pairing the two devices apparently got corrupted. I was able to resolve the problem by following the instructions in the Palm Knowledge Base that called for deleting and re-establing the Trusted Device pair.

I was surprised to see this work because I thought I had tried this before and not been successful. Nevertheless, I got the devices to re-pair with each other and I'll have a lot more productive use of my Treo 650 for voice calls as a result.

Technorati Tags: Treo 650, Motorola HS850, Bluetooth

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While I've been grinding away on my consulting projects, Palm has apparently put the final touches on a Windows Mobile-based Treo that will support Verizon Wireless's implementation of EV-DO.

The first solid indication of an announcement was Engadget's first look at the Palm Treo 700w, published on Thursday. This was followed an announcement from Palm investor relations that Palm, Microsoft, and Verizon Wireless would make a joint announcement on Monday, September 26 at 12:00 noon EDT. This press release came out at 4:05pm on Friday, minutes after the close of the regular trading on the NASDAQ.

Palm's advisory was followed by an article in The Wall Street Journal reporting that Palm is set to use Microsoft code on Treo Phones. In my opinion there's a big difference between speculation about a Windows Mobile-based Treo by gadget-related blogs is less significant than a news article in publications like the Wall Street Journal [ Subscription required. ].

I'm very optimistic about the market prospects for a Windows Mobile-based Treo. I think that Palm would not be releasing it if it didn't meet their high user-experience standards. The Windows Mobile platform has been in desperate need of a manufacturer like Palm who are committed to adding value instead of just rolling out a compatible handset.

As for the future of Treo's based on the PalmOS, we'll have to wait and see. I don't think that Palm will ever integrate Treo functionality into the PalmOS Cobalt operating system, but subsequent PalmOS implementations based on Linux resulting from PalmSource's acquisition of China MobileSoft may be more to their liking. My experience with the Treo 650 is that there are times when it's really obvious that the phone could use an operating system capable of multi-tasking, and PalmOS based on a Linux kernel may be a good solution.

Technorati Tags: Treo 700w, Treo 650, Windows Mobile

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In a joint announcement in Sunnyvale and Tokyo, PalmSource disclosed that it is becoming part of Access Company, Ltd., the developer of the NetFront browser and other Internet technology for mobile devices. The agreement is said to be a definitive, all cash deal valued at $324.3 million, approximately ¥35.9 billion, or $18.50 per share of PalmSource. Both boards of directors have already approved the transaction.

According to the announcement, "ACCESS' USD $18.50 per share offer represents an 83% premium for PalmSource stockholders based on the market closing price of USD $10.09 on September 8, 2005.... The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of 2005 calendar year, pending regulatory approval and the approval of PalmSource's shareholders."

More information about Access Company, Ltd., may be found at http://www.access-us-inc.com/. [ via The Wall Street Journal, registration required ]

Technorati Tags: PalmOS

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Amazon.com has started taking orders for Treo Essentials: Get the Most from Your Treo 650 by Michael Morrison and published by Que.

This is the first book I've seen that has come out with Treo 650-specific advice. Previous books like Now You Know Treo and to a lesser extent the Treo Fan Book were written for the Treo 600 with selected updates for new features of the Treo 650.

I'm hoping to get a copy of Treo Essentials soon to see how many useful tips it has about productive use of the Treo 650. [ via Palm Addict ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

VeloACE: An Open Source Bike
Computer System for PalmOS.
For when you absolutely
want to have your bike
speedometer be a PDA.
[ Image: Mark Hammerling ]

Sammy and the other folks over at PalmAddict don't normally scoop us on fitness gadget news, but you'll see why they did in a moment. One of their readers tipped them off to VeloACE, an open source bike computer software project for the PalmOS.

I think this is an interesting proof of concept, but I honestly have no idea what would motivate a cyclist to use this program unless he or she was also the biggest Palm geek in the world. I can't imagine mounting a Palm IIIx or Palm IIIxe to my bike handle bars as suggested, then installing a wired wheel sensor. The late model Palm's aren't water-resistant by any stretch of the imagination.

I think it's amazing that someone wrote a bike computer PalmOS application. It certainly illustrates the bredth of third-party software offerings for Palm handhelds, but a solution like this belongs in Make.

I realize that a program like this is going to intrigue some people. If you're interested in comparing VeloACE's feature set to the kind of technology available in gadgets designed from the outset to be used as bike computers, check out these devices:

• Polar S625x: more of a running computer than a bike computer. Includes a heart rate monitor wrist receiver and chest transmitter, training log software for a PC, and a weather-resistant foot pod for measuring running distances. Add a Polar Cycling Speed Sensor and a Polar Bike Mount Kit and you've got a computer suitable for running or biking.
• Garmin Forerunner 301: a GPS-based biking or running computer that includes a heart rate monitor. Great for creating maps of training runs and rides. Also includes training log software. Get the Garmin Forerunner 201 if you don't need/want the HRM.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

E-Health Insider reports that a study published in a journal called BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making indicates that handheld communicators helped surgeons at a London hospital respond to calls more quickly than they did with pagers. The study also indicated that communication between clinicians was improved. According to the article:

A team of surgeons at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, had their pagers replaced with Palm Tungsten W PDAs, with GPRS on the Vodafone network, for three alternate weeks out of six. Several reference textbooks were also loaded onto the devices, including the British National Formulary, as well as medical calculators.

If they were more productive with the Tungsten W, imagine what the surgeons would have accomplished with a more modern handheld like the Palm Treo 650.

My wife (Dr. Kathleen Aiello) has been using a Treo 650 since March and loves it. She uses it as a mobile phone, an IMAP email client, and a reference tool by running Palm medical software like Epocrates.

Since we got our his and hers Treos, Kathleen and I have wondered whether devices like her Treo would have as profound an effect on her fellow doctors as hers did on her. This study suggests that they certainly might. [ via PalmAddict ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

PalmAddict reported that a version of the Opera browser now works on the Treo 650 and other powerful PalmOS devices. Included in this group are the Palm LifeDrive, Treo 600, and the Tungsten T3.

The article refers to an Opera Mini Treo installation howto that explains system requirements (most significantly Java) and technical issues (the default language is Norwegian, but can be changed to English).

I keep thinking that I should try browsers like Opera Mini and Xiino but I haven't done it yet. Maybe I should try Opera Mini, since I recently installed Java on my Treo to test KMaps, a Treo 650-friendly client for Google Maps.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Marc Orchant published a great list of add-on software for his Treo 650 over on The Office Weblog a couple of days ago. He's suggested two or three Palm applications I'm trying out now:

• SplashID, part of Splash Wallet: I mentioned that I'm trying this out a little while ago here on Operation Gadget.
• Note Studio: a PalmOS-based wiki with a conduit and a desktop app for both Mac and PC. Definitely worth trying.
• Card Backup: a Palm app that backs up your PDAs main memory to a memory card. I bought an MMC card for this purpose before my trip to Chicago in April, but never used it to store a backup. I think there is a freeware and a more fully featured version of this.

These applications and the others mentioned in Marc's article are great ideas for Treo 650 users who are looking to improve their personal productivity.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Somewhere in the transition to my Treo 650 back in March, I lost a memo entry that contained a big list of passwords for websites and other applications. It was a bad idea to store that information in that manner in the first place, so I resolved to find a Palm application that did a better job.

I found one and so I've downloaded a trial version of SplashID from SplashData. According to the website:

SplashID safely and securely stores all of your personal identification information including user names, passwords, credit cards, calling cards, bank accounts, PINs, and more. Information is stored in a secure, encrypted format and is quickly accessible on a Palm OS handheld or Desktop computer with the included desktop software.

I'll load some of my passwords into SplashID and see how I like it. When I have some thoughts on its usefulness, I'll post them here on Operation Gadget.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Palm Infocenter reported yesterday that palmOne released an update for the Treo 650 on Sprint PCS that enables the Bluetooth Dial-Up Networking profile. This is a long soughtafter enhancement to the Treo that will make it possible for Sprint PCS uses to use their Treos as Bluetooth modems for their laptop or desktop computers.

I've been talking about the Treo 650 DUN profile issue since January (see Are You Sure That Cingular Really Wants to Deactivate the Treo 650 DUN Profile?), so I don't need to tell you that this officially turning this on is a big deal for Treo users. The Dial Up Networking profile obviously gives us much more latitude in terms of how we use wireless data service. I think that all subscribers should have the right to use the DUN profile when they need it, particularly if they subscribe to an unlimited data plan.

I could have used this capability when I was in Georgia covering the Dodge Tour de Georgia in April because I was having problems with my laptop's WiFi card. I hope that a similar firmware update is rolled out for Cingular subscribers soon.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I bought a palmOne Treo 650 after reviewing the RIM BlackBerry 7230 and the H-P iPAQ h6315 integrated communication devices. This doesn't make me a PalmOS zealot. In fact, I'd love to have a Pocket PC that I could recommend as strongly as I recommend the Treo 650.

I was hoping that the H-P iPAQ hw6515 was going to be that Pocket PC, but after reading Jorgen Sundgot's review of the iPAQ hw6515 on infoSync World, I'm not sure this will be it.

From looking at the photos on infoSync World, it looks like H-P integrated a keyboard similar to the snap-on keyboard for the h6315. I didn't like these keys as much as the keys on the Treo 650, because the iPAQ keys are smaller, spaced further apart, and don't appear to be backlit.

The 64k color screen has a resolution of 16-bit color screen is competitive with that of the Treo on a colors-displayed basis. The resolution is 240-by-240, which means that the screen only displays 56 percent of the information that the Treo's 320-by-320 does.

The hw6515 is also more expandable, with both an SDIO-compatible SD Card expansion slot and a miniSD expansion slot. This means you can have a memory card and a WiFi card in the iPAQ, if you can handle the battery drain. The iPAQ also has built-in GPS with TomTom navigation software (I'd really be interested in that). The Treo answers only with a single SDIO/SD/MMC card slot.

The iPAQ hw6515 scores points on the Treo in the memory department (44-Megabytes versus 23 for the Treo) and has a slight advantage in the weight department (it's almost half an ounce or 13 grams lighter). It's a draw in data networking: both support EDGE and Bluetooth. They have the exact same processor, an Intel PXA270 running at 312 mHz.

So where does the iPAQ 6515 come up short? According to infoSync World:

• "...the thumbboard is a bit of a disappointment.... What's the downside then, you ask? Somewhere along the way from pressing a button, something is pouring syrup in the machinery. In the vast majority of cases, a quick double-press will not be recognized, and despite tactile and audible feedback indicating a key has been pressed there's a modest chance it will not show up; absolutely marring for heavy thumbboard users."
• "...the exchangeable, rechargeable 1,200 mAh Lithium Ion battery will not allow for any extended use of an accessory such as a Wi-Fi card as it already struggles to provide sufficient battery life as is...." {The Treo has a removable, rechargeable 1,800 mAh Lithium Ion battery.}
• "...most functionality beyond simple PIM and messaging feels sluggish, and particularly so if one attempts to multitask when the GPS receiver is active." {I wouldn't have thought that the GPS feature would impact the overall performance in that fashion.}

This is a review of a pre-production, European unit, so the performance of the final product may be better. I'm going to stay on the lookout for other reviews and I'll point them out if they differ from this one.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As I mentioned on Monday, Beth Seliga, a freelance photographer who covers pro cycling, asked me which email client to use on her new palmOne Treo 650.

I had strong opinions ready when she asked this question, so I'm going to repeat them and enhance them with links for the benefit of everyone who reads Operation Gadget. In an attempt to keep it simple, I'm breaking the results down into two categories: what may work and what probably won't work:

• What May Work

  • Chatter Email: This is the email client that Kathleen and I both use. I chose Chatter Email because of:

    1. the Strong IMAP Support: I decided to standardize on IMAP-enabled mailboxes so that what we saw on the desktop we would also see on the Treos.
    2. my Selection of the Unlimited Data Plan: I was willing to pay $39.99 per month for unlimited data service for our two Treos.

    If you do not choose to go on an unlimited data plan with your Treo, that doesn't mean that Chatter Email would be a bad solution for you. However, you should realize that using the push email capability may cause you exceed your bucket of wireless data kilobytes.

  • SnapperMail: This email client appears to be aimed at the POP3 email users of the world, rather than IMAP users like me. If you use the Post Office Protocol for email, I would definitely give SnapperMail a try. I think it's clearly more stable than VersaMail.
    

• What Probably Won't Work
  
  
  
  • VersaMail: I realize that this is the email client that most Treo 650 users try first, mainly because palmOne installs it and puts part of it in ROM. There are a couple of issues with this program that are show stoppers for me:
    
    
    
    1. Instability: Versamail just crashes too often. It seems like Versamail crashes on people whenever they try to show me their Treos running it. Most of the time the demonstration starts like this: "Why does this program crash so often? Oh darn...."
       

    2. Faux IMAP Support: The folks at palmOne don't seem to understand the design philosophy behind IMAP-- specifically, that IMAP users are supposed to keep their email permanently on the mail server. If you need clarification on this point, refer to In Order to Understand Wireless Email, First Understand the Purposes of the Protocols.

       When you use Versamail to manage your IMAP mailbox, it loads copies of part of each email on to your Treo and keeps them there-- just like the way it handles email messages under POP3. The only thing is it doesn't discard those messages when you finish looking at each message. It also doesn't discard those messages if you choose to constrain the number of messages in your Inbox to those messages that arrived in the last "n" days.
       

    
    
  
  

Those are my opinions on the three biggest email clients for the Treo 600 and 650. I've had my Treo 650 for 11 weeks now and taken it on a two week business trip, so I think I can be reasonably confident that I'm not missing anything in the basic functionality of these three programs. However, if I receive new information, find out something new, or a serious competitor materializes to these three, I'll mention it here.

I'm intentionally leaving out clients that are specific to one mobile phone carrier. I know that Cingular has one. I don't think it is worth using because the number of users from whom you can learn will be so much smaller than if you chose a mainstream Treo email client.

If you have any alternatives that I haven't mentioned, feel free to post a comment and I will take a look at it.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As I mentioned in an earlier article, Sammarye Lewis, co-author of the new book Tour de France for Dummies asked me how to make her H-P iPAQ h6315 work smoothly with a Garmin GPS 10 Deluxe or another handheld GPS, so that she can get directions to places along the Tour de France stage routes.

I did some research on this, and here is a summary of my findings so far. I'm breaking the results down into two categories: what may work and what probably won't work:

• What May Work

  • Garmin GPS 10 Deluxe with Bluetooth and Garmin Que Pocket PC Software: This maybe the easiest solution to get working straight out of the box if it meets your needs. The bundle includes the GPS unit, Que software for Pocket PC, corresponding software for a Windows PC, and a CitySelect North America CD containing map data. The entire package is reviewed in considerable depth on PocketNow.com.

    The concern I have with this solution is that it doesn't provide maps of France out of the box. Maybe there is a bundle available that contains a Europe rather than North America CD?
    

  • CoPilot Live Pocket PC 5 from ALK Technologies: There are three separate North American offerings priced between $299 and $349. I know that there is also a European version with the same options, but the European site directs potential customers to authorized dealers.

    According to ALK's European site, the European map CD is available for £100. I don't know what the price is if you buy it in the USA.

    PocketGPSWorld.co.uk has a great review of CoPilot Live PPC 5 (which is continued in Part 2) that makes it look like a very good candidate for this job.
    

  
  
• What Probably Won't Work
  
  
  
  • Microsoft Pocket Streets 2005 plus a handheld GPS: This looked like a good solution at first, but if you read the feature set carefully, Pocket Streets does not support route planning.
    
  
  

I'm going to add information to this story if I find other solutions or further information about the solutions already mentioned.

If you have any suggestions that I haven't mentioned, feel free to post a comment and I will take a look at it.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

palmOne LifeDrive orders are
being taken by Amazon.com.
Initial deliveries may take up to two weeks.
[ Photo: Amazon.com ].

Congratulations to palmOne for finally taking the official wraps off the LifeDrive Mobile Manager. This is clearly an organizational tool for people who have a lot of media (digital files) that they want to carry around. In spite of this, I'm always a bit concerned when a see a device like the LifeDrive and I cannot visualize one or more applications for which I would use it.

I've been checking out the reviews that have been published already today. Everyone who reads gadget blogs knows that leaks about this product have been springing out from everywhere for weeks, but clearly a few of the handheld-oriented sites have gotten pre-release units in exchange for signing Non Disclosure Agreements.

One of the better reviews I've read so far is the PalmOne LifeDrive Review on BargainPDA.com by Adama Brown. I think it gives a well rounded view of the LifeDrive and I recommend that you read it whether you are interested in the product or not. Here are a couple of snippets that illustrate the review's depth:

To support its power hungry microdrive and WiFi radio, the Lifedrive packs in a 1660 milliamp-hour battery. While relatively large compared to the 1100 mAh battery in the T5, I would have liked to see an even larger capacity given the extremely draining nature of a spinning hard disk. This is doubly important for non-multimedia use....

The biggest feature of the Lifedrive, the 4 GB internal hard drive, is a mixed blessing. I love the huge storage capability, which offers a lot of different options. But the performance hit in both speed and battery life is disappointing. Still, if you want major storage, this is the only way to go on Palm OS....

Even if the LifeDrive turns out to be a slow seller in the market, this is a good step forward by palmOne in the sense that they are trying to add features that have only been widely available on the Pocket PC platform for some time.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've written a couple of stories about gadgets that I wish I had when I was covering the 2005 Dodge Tour de Georgia. One gadget that I'm proud to say I had with me for the all six stages was my palmOne Treo 650. The Treo 650 has quickly become the key component of my technology arsenal, and I would have been unable to file stories in a few really important situations without it.

I got my Treo 650 on March 31. I actually bought two Treos, the other one was for my wife. We had agreed to get his and hers Treos because we had both previously been heavy wireless email users and were in need of technology upgrades. The purchases were timed so that we would receive the Treos and have time to work any glitches out before I left on my trip to the Chicago Showcase Hockey Tournament. That took place right before the Tour de Georgia.

When I arrived at the Tour de Georgia opening press conference, a critical component of my laptop was not working. My WiFi network card was unable to maintain a connection to the hotel conference center's wireless network. For a moment I thought that I would be unable to publish a report on Lance Armstrong's retirement announcement, by far the biggest news story of the event. In a moment of panic, I pulled out my Treo 650, connected to my site's Movable Type backend using the built-in Blazer web browser, and published my story.

The palmOne Blazer Web Browser and the Treo 650 hardware provides the best handheld Internet experience I've ever seen, but that's only part of their appeal. These tools are also excellent for quick access to websites that have flexible page layouts and useful for emergency access to web-based business applications when your primary computer is unavailable or not working. The Blazer browser is helped immensely by the enhanced display (320 x 320), which has twice the resolution of the Treo 600 and most other PalmOS handhelds.

The Treo 650 is often compared to Research in Motion BlackBerry handhelds such as the BlackBerry 7230. After using both devices for long periods of time, I have to say that the Treo offers a superior web browsing experience both in terms of responsiveness and fidelity to the look and feel of the web page. When I used a BlackBerry, I found myself gravitating toward WAP-enabled sites, but the Treo gives me two different ways to look at HTML-based pages and the speed necessary to allow me to see them before I get frustrated. The Blazer Browser on the Treo 650 also implements a number of key JavaScript actions, Cascading Style Sheets, and other advanced features that make its browser far more likely to work with modern, full-featured websites than a Blackberry's browser.

Probably the most impressive feature of the Treo 650 is the integration between the PalmOS Contacts application and the Phone application. The Contacts application lets you do things like type a first and last initial and bring up a short list of people and their phone numbers. Using the 5-way navigator button, you can then choose the number you want to call. This part of the Treo User Interface is optimized for one-handed use, and it's a significant improvement over most mobile phones as well as first and second-generation Treos.

The Treo 650 has the potential to be a great mobile email platform if the right wireless email client is chosen. I tried Versamail, but found that it did not work well with my three primary IMAP email accounts. I then tried Chatter Email which bills itself as "the most powerful email client for Treo". This is a very well done, surprisingly mature mobile IMAP client that I recommend wholeheartedly. In my opinion, Chatter Email is the most BlackBerry-like email implementation on a non-BlackBerry device today, provided that your IMAP server supports the IMAP IDLE command.

Another email client that has been recommended to me by several people is SnapperMail. This appears to be aimed at the POP3 email users of the world, rather than IMAP users like me. If you use the Post Office Protocol for email, I would definitely give SnapperMail a try, although VersaMail might also be a good choice for you.

The Treo 650 is a much more stable, reliable handset than any of the Treo models I've used previously. Back in the days of the 180 and even during the heyday of the 600, I wondered if I'd ever see a palmOS-based mobile communicator that would run without crashing for days at a time unless the addition of third-party applications was blocked. After using a 650, I have to conclude that a number of features have come together in this device to improve its stability:

1. core application code maturity making third-party applications that leverage the key features of the Treo less likely to crash it,
2. CPU performance ensuring that the Treo keeps up with the data that it's receiving, and
3. non-volatile memory making data loss a thing of the past.

The true test of my Treo 650's reliability was when I went on my recent two week trip to Chicago and Georgia and didn't take the computer on which I have Palm Desktop installed. With previous Treo models, this would have meant that I ran the risk of losing the data on my Treo if a serious application crash occurred or if the device ran critically low on power. Thanks to the non-volatile memory and improved stability of the Treo 650, I got through the two week trip without any data loss. That would have been impossible on the Treo 180 and improbable on the 600.

I like many of the other features of the Treo 650 including Bluetooth support, the unsophisticated, VGA-resolution digital camera, and the Documents To Go 7 Professional Suite that lets me view Microsoft Office documents without being near my PC, but to be honest, I could do without any of these features and still be incredibly happy. The 650 is what I hoped all the previous Treos would be: a durable, stable, and highly usable mobile communication device where I can install my choice of a wide variety of third party software. When the chips were down, it helped me succeed at the Tour de Georgia. If you need capabilities like these, I'd definitely give the Treo 650 a try.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brighthand reports that PalmSource is developing new synchronisation tools for the PalmOS based on SyncML, an XML-based vendor-independent standard. This is a smart move by PalmSource because it:

1. begins the process of getting them out of the desktop organizer business,
2. gives the customer more personal information management application choices (including PC operating systems), and
3. aligns them more closely with the goals of the mobile phone hardware manufacturers.

The last point is critical because PalmSource sees itself competing with operating system vendors like Symbian, which makes the OS for Nokia smartphones, than it used to. This is particularly evident when you consider their acquisition of China Mobile Soft.

I welcome the fact that PalmSource is embracing SyncML. The sooner I can pick which address book, calendar, and to do list management applications I want to use on my desktop or laptop, the better I will like it.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

SplashBlog is a new photoblogging application for the palmOS that hit my RADAR screen a couple of days ago when Josh Rubin metioned it on Cool Hunting. It was mentioned again yesterday on PalmInfoCenter.

When I first looked at SplashBlog, I was concerned it was a "walled garden," meaning that the application only worked with SplashData's own photoblog hosting service. However, according to the PalmInfoCenter article, "SplashBlog is also compatible with the TypePad blogging service and support is planned for similar services such as Blogger, Flickr and Zoto."

Sounds like it's worth looking at.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CanalPDA.com, a Spanish-language PDA site, has developed this interesting list of the 10 wierdest palmOS programs available today. (The list is written in English.) Included are things like a virtual voodoo doll, a program that lets you create a fake call on a Treo so you can end an appointment early, and a Palm version of the Kama Sutra.

In my opinion, there are at least a couple of programs that could be useful in certain situations, I'm just not going to say which ones. [ via PalmInfoCenter.com ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Gizmodo pointed out that the American Cancer Society has released a PDA application suite called C-Tools 2.0. C-Tools provides reference materials and recent news about cancer in a PDA-delivered format that's compatible with PalmOS and Windows Mobile operating systems.

Many Operation Gadget readers know that my wife Kathleen is a pediatric resident at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ. She uses a PDA at work all the time, as do most doctors who are recent graduates of medical school. A number of high-quality reference applications already exist in PDA form, so this is an established software category.

The C-Tools application is free to medical personnel. If it's well done and doesn't take up too much memory, lots of doctors will load it on their PDAs. I'm not sure about the extent to which other medical practitioners (physician's assistants, nurses, and nurse practioners) have adopted PDAs, so I can't predict how widely they will use this application.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Treonauts pointed out two inexpensive utilities that help streamline keyboard use on the Treo 650. KeyCaps600 helps Treo 600 and 650 users to type faster by providing alternate ways to enter capital letters, punctuation, and symbols.

KBLightsOff provides a mechanism to toggle the keyboard backlight on and off. This is an important battery-saving technique when using a Treo 650 to watch video, read eBooks, or listen to MP3s.

Both of these programs are small and cheap. You can pick up licensed versions of each for $15.50, and help the developers of these utilities continue to support and enhance them.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

TreoCentral reported over the weekend that palmOne Updated their website to emphasize that the Treo 650 for GSM/GPRS is "coming soon". This is the the third hint that palmOne or Cingular has given that a release is imminent.

It can't come soon enough for many of us Treo fans.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dan Washburn of ShanghaiDiaries.com visited 18 Chinese provinces on a single trip recently. Now he's reported on how each of his electronic gadgets fared during the trip. Included in his report are evaluations of the:

• 40-Gigabyte iPod from Apple,
• Media Reader for iPod from Belkin,
• Backup Battery Pack for iPod from Belkin,
• iTalk iPod Voice Recorder from Griffin Technology,
• iPAQ h2215 Pocket PC from Hewlett-Packard,
• PM828C Compact Flash GPRS Mobile Internet Card from Panda,
• Foldable keyboard for iPAQ from HP,
• eTrex from Garmin,
• PowerShot S30 from Canon, and
• PowerShot A80 from Canon.

I particularly liked what Dan had to say about the PowerShot A80:

... this little camera saved my ass, and it does everything my PowerShot S30 did … and more.

With the S30, I was often forced to take more vertical shots than I would like to due to the way the camera focuses. The A80 fixed that issue, by adding focus hot spots throughout the field of view. The S30 only had three hot spots, left to right across a horizontal shot. The A80 has nine hot spots, located everywhere. So now, horizontal landscape shots can now have the sky and the land in focus and colored properly. What a concept.

The A80 also boasts a pull-out LCD monitor that swivels, rotates and turns. So the photographer doesn’t necessarily need to be pointed at the same thing the camera is. This is perfect for taking candid shots of people who think you’re busy looking at something else. Finally, the A80 uses four AA-batteries, not the Canon-only rechargables the S30 did. So, if you happen to be in a remote area, unable to access electricty, all you need to do is pack some extra batteries or buy some at a store.

The Powershot A80 is very similar to the Powershot A95 that I discussed yesterday. His findings sort of confirm my suspicions about why you might want an A95 if you were purchasing today, instead of an A75 or A85 (neither of which have the "Variangle" LCD (pull-out LCD monitor that swivels).

Kathleen and I visited Guilin, Yangshuo, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen in 1996, and our experience with use of technology was similar to Dan's. If you venture outside of major cities take your ruggedest, most flexible gear, otherwise you may be disappointed. I'm surprised that he tried to bring a Mac-formatted iPod with him. That seems unlikely to be useful, even eight years after my visit to China.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kent Pribbernow of PocketFactory gave a severe tongue-lashing to palmOne and palmSource in his editorial, The Sad State Of The Palm Economy, And Other PDA Ramblings. He argues that most of the current palmOne PDAs are poor competitors to Pocket PCs at the same price points. The Treo 650 is spared much of this criticism, since many analysts agree that it's the leading smartphone at the moment.

I'm focused entirely on the Treo 650 at the moment, since business has firmed up to a point now where I'm finally able to plan the purchase of a replacement for my late lamented Treo 180. A lot of the palmOne PDAs I've looked at recently (like the Tungsten T5) are hard for me to imagine using on a day-to-day basis.

I think the issue that Kent Pribbernow raises about the uneven quality of third party applications written for the PalmOS is an excellent observation. A lot of these programs are simply not well supported-- probably because developers often dosn't profit sufficiently from maintaining Palm OS software. Some of the most popular third-party apps are maintained on a shoestring and written to the lowest-common-denominator of PDA functionality.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brighthand does a wonderful job of reviewing the palmOne Tungsten T5-- the company's latest pure Personal Digital Assistant. Although there are several innovations in this device, including the incorporation of internal flash memory and a virtual disk capability that allows you to use 160 Megabytes of the built-in memory as a flash disk, the Tungsten T5 is criticized for not being an improvement over the Tungsten T3 in all areas. Brighthand rightly points out that this PDA is could more correctly be characterized as a second-generation Tungsten E.

It's helpful to compare the features of the palmOne PDAs in order to see where each is positioned. The Tungsten E looks like a killer deal for a lot of pure PDA applications. The biggest holes in its feature set are an expansion card slot and Bluetooth capability, which were never considered core PDA features anyway. For the people who need expandability and a relatively inexpensive wireless data option, the Zire 72 has an expansion slot, Bluetooth, and throws in a digital camera for about $50 less than the T3. You can combine that with a low cost Bluetooth mobile phone.

I should point out that I'm thinking about which Palm to buy because I need to replace my Treo 180. The Treo 600 is looking expensive to me, and I'm wondering whether the Treo 650 will seem like a better deal to me when it's formally announced. I've definitely been waiting to see what the 650 pricing will be, and how much the price of the 600 will be lowered. I can't sit on the sideline forever, because I'm carrying around a printed version of my calendar from Ximian Evolution, which represents a measurable personal productivity loss.

I agree with Brighthand, that the Tungsten T5 is a solid handheld that takes a step toward the future of the stand-alone PDA by adding flash memory drive capability. I'm hoping that palmOne steps up with firmware changes to isolate the content of the internal flash memory drive so that it isn't affected by a hard reset. I also hope that they come out with another PDA that Tungsten T3 users can call a complete upgrade.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Register reports that Taiwanese contract-manufacturer HTC will build the Treo 650 for palmOne and cites a Digitimes article indicating that shipments of a new PDA phone to palmOne began recently. This has led many sites to conclude that the Treo 650 will go on sale in North America in October.

Treonauts provides a side-by-side comparison of the Treo 600 and expected Treo 650 feature sets. Key improvements in the new model include:

• 312MHz ARM processor (over 2x current speed),
• 320x320 pixels screen resolution (2x current resolution),
• 1.2-megapixels camera with built-in digital zoom and video capture (4x current still image resolution), and
• Bluetooth built-in (new feature).

This is a significant leap forward, if the reported specifications are accurate.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Hexlet LLC just released HBlogger Version 2.0, a weblogging client for PalmOS version 3.5 and higher. The new version has come out quickly after the initial release, and includes the following new features.

• Support for weblogs based on TypePad, UJournal, DeadJournal, Blurty, NeedlessPanic, Plogs, Caledia, and GreatestJournal,
• Upload of images,
• Better error reporting,
• Better FTP server support, and
• Five-way navigation support on the Treo 600.

The new version is available for download on Hexlet's website for $9.99. [ via TreoCentral ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hexlet LLC recently announced HBlogger, a weblogging client for PalmOS version 3.5 and higher. HBlogger supports the following blogging tools:

• MovableType,
• LiveJournal, and
• Blogger.

I wish that my Treo 180 were working, because I'd love to download a product like this and give it a try. When I first started Operation Gadget, I tried a couple of posts using Movable Type web interface with the Blazer web browser. That wasn't an optimal way to blog.

A report I read on PalmInfocenter says that HBlogger provides an optimized blogging environment and supports a number of advanced features of each weblogging tool. It wouldn't surprise me if this application implements the using the MetaWeblog API. If it works well, it would be a major improvement over just using the browser.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The BrailleNote series of handheld computers, including the BrailleNote PK, are handhelds for the blind and visually impaired. The PK is Windows CE-based and includes:

• Bluetooth,
• USB,
• WiFi,
• Internet Explorer,
• POP3 email, and
• office productivity applications.

The unit is 6.8 x 3.6 x 1.3 inches, a bit larger than a large index card. It weighs one pound. The downside is that it costs $5000.

My sister's boss is a blind business executive. I'll try to find out if he has ever considered using a device like this. [ via Gizmodo ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hewlett-Packard has released a Bluetooth Security Driver for the iPAQ h1900 and 2200 series Pocket PCs, such as the H-P iPAQ 2215 on sale at Amazon.com. infoSync World says that the significance of this Bluetooth security upgrade is that it:

...adds support for Combination Key pairing with other Bluetooth devices, which is required by a small number of Bluetooth handsets - such as the Nokia 6820 - to enable pairing and carry out subsequent communications.

In its coverage, Brighthand provides details on the benefits of Bluetooth Combination Keys:

The Bluetooth SIG recommends that combination keys be used, as they prevent the wireless communication between two devices being intercepted by a third device that had been paired with one of the original two.

So, if you're serious about becoming a Bluetooth power user, I'd recommend shopping for devices that support Bluetooth Combination Keys.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brighthand published a very good retrospective of the PDA market describing everything from the early days of the Apple Newton to the recent announcement by Sony that it would withdraw its PDAs from the U.S. and European markets. This leaves the stand-alone PDA market with two major participants-- palmOne and Hewlett-Packard.

PDA fans are having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that their platform is being converged out of existence. I have always liked PalmOS devices, but it becomes more difficult every day for many people to justify carrying a separate organizer and mobile phone. There are many jobs where this is still not the case, like the medical field. But the total number of workers in such industires is still a relatively small percentage of the potential market for handheld electronics.

In light of recent market developments, Operation Gadget will devote more of its focus to smartphones than to PDAs. I see nothing on the horizon that is likely to change that.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CNET News.com reports that Sony intends to stop selling PDAs in the United States and Europe later this year as it re-evaluates its participation in the market. This is a large blow to PalmSource, the manufacturer of the PalmOS operating system, because Sony is the second largest seller of PalmOS devices.

This announcement is the second recent strategic shift Sony has taken in the consumer electronics business. In April, BusinessWeek reported that the President of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications said that Sony has ceded the low end of the digital camera market to camera phones. (For confirmation of this, read the last paragraph of the BusinessWeek article.) Both of the low end digital camera market and the stand-alone PDA market are shrinking in size, as the functionality of the devices in these markets is incorporated into other electronics products.

I don't expect Sony to return to the PDA market per se, because the PDA market is being subsumed into smartphone market. As such, products with functionality that first appeared in the Clie line of PDAs may reappear in the Sony Ericsson line of mobile phones.

In spite of the fact that Sony has pledged to honor Clie warranties, I would not purchase these PDAs anymore. A number of them have been successful in the U.S. market and customers have been quite satisfied with their performance. But, I don't like being one of the last people to buy a product before it goes out of production. When companies like Sony make an announcement like this before ceasing production, I can no longer recommend those products in good conscience.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Need a WiFi-enabled PDA? Tom's Networking compared four popular WiFi-enabled models:

• the Dell Axim X3 Advanced and
• the HP IPAQ H2210 Pocket PC

both of which require an SD WiFi card. The SanDisk Connect SD WiFi Card was the one used for the test.

Two PDAs with built in WiFi were also tested:

• the Asus MyPal A716 and
• the PalmOne Tungsten C.

The findings of this Need To Know yielded a surprise. The author says: "...some of the PXA255-based PDAs that I tested yielded WLAN transfer rates far below what you'd expect for such relatively fast raw bus speeds. So it would appear that there are some software or other issues at play that limit wireless throughput." The palmOne Tungsten C had the best throughput as measured by an FTP test, with 3 to 9 times the network performance of the other models.

I respect the findings of Tom's Networking. Related websites like Tom's Hardware have proven reliable over the long term.

So, if you are buying a WiFi-enabled PDA and your priority is high throughput, it appears that the palmOne Tungsten C is your best bet at this time.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brighthand reports that Hewlett-Packard has released a WiFi driver update for the iPAQ 5400 and 5500 series PDAs. The new driver includes support for WiFi Protected Access, LEAP authentication, and Cisco Compatible Extensions (CCX). These units also received an upgrade to Windows Mobile 2003.

One question I had about this announcement was, why roll out such a significant WiFi upgrade for older iPAQs like the 5400 and 5500? A big reason for this may be H-P customers who have standardized on these models. A good example is NASA. Two weeks ago, I reported on the features of the h5550 that made NASA choose this model for use on the International Space Station. These include a very large display, WiFi, Bluetooth, and most importantly, excellent reliability. A lot of products stay on the market past the time that they are eclipsed by smaller, more feature-filled models because they are tanks. The h5500/5555 looks like one of them.

By the way, H-P says that Windows Mobile 2003 upgrades will be available to current iPAQ owners for $29.95, unless you were offered and already submitted a free upgrade under the Technology Guarantee Program. Most iPAQ models qualify. The models that do not qualify for Windows Mobile 2003 upgrades are iPAQ Pocket PC h1910, h1915, and h1920 as well as all Jornada products.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week NASA announced that it had selected the HP iPAQ h5550 for use aboard its spacecraft and the International Space Station. According to a report on infoSync World, NASA chose this iPAQ because it was one of the few handhelds that could pass its flight certification tests with almost no modification.

I did some research into the iPAQ h5550 to see what its features are, and the results were pretty confusing. The h5550 has been available since mid 2003, but it's rather difficult to find from on-line merchants. infoSync World reviewed the h5550 and h5555 at the same time but focused on the h5550 and didn't really explain the relationship between the two. BargainPDA explained that the iPAQ 5550 and 5555 are "essentially the same unit" and mostly differ in terms of the software bundled with the unit for retail sale and possibly the reseller from which the PDA is purchased.

The iPAQ 5500 series have the same form factor as the original iPAQ's from Compaq. This means that they are huge: 5.43" long x 3.3" wide x 0.63" thick. The 5550 and 5555 both weigh in at 7.2 ounces. The advantage of this large size is that the display can be a bit larger than most PocketPC handhelds.

The 5550 and 5555 both have integrated WiFi (802.11b) and Bluetooth. It's not clear from my research whether the International Space Station has WiFi installed or not, but it's reasonable to conclude that it has, since this is one of the main features of the iPAQ that NASA chose.

The first iPAQs were launched into space on April 19, according to HP's press release. They are being used as "mobile productivity tools to record daily crew procedures, write personal memos and check e-mail and calendars. The space crew will also be able to listen to music, view photos from home and read e-books, allowing them to have some of the comforts of home on their journey." Apparently, two iPAQs will be kept permanently on the ISS, with two more being sent up on the next expedition.

If you are interested in getting a PocketPC that is so sturdily built that it is considered suitable for space travel by NASA's flight engineering people, I'd recommend the iPAQ h5555. It's much more widely available than the h5550, and is the same in terms of processor, OS build, display, and memory.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Amazon.com is running a sale on selected PalmOS PDAs through May 9, on a number of models from palmOne, Sony, and Garmin, including:

• palmOne Tungsten T3,
• palmOne Tungsten T2,
• palmOne Tungsten C,
• palmOne Tungsten E,
• palmOne Zire 21,
• Sony Clie PEG-UX50,
• Sony Clie PEG-TH55/U,
• Sony Clie PEG-TJ37/U,
• Sony Clie PEG-TJ27/U, and the
• Garmin iQue 3600 Bundle with an automotive mount.

There are some good deals here, and some of the newest models are involved. If you were planning to buy one of these PDAs soon, now may be the time.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You've read the headline PalmOS and Microsoft Windows CE Neck and Neck in Sales, but the story behind the story is Gartner, Inc.'s questionable methodology.

Does anyone other than the Gartner analyst think that you can get an accurate snapshot of the handheld OS market by excluding smartphones? Doing this gives people the impression that Microsoft is making more headway against PalmSource than they actually are. Not only that, but both company's unit sales fell versus the same period last year.

The other thing that made me scratch my head is the conclusion by some analysts that buyers are waiting for the Cobalt version of the PalmOS. Which buyers are waiting? None of the people who made the PalmOS the number one smartphone platform in the USA waited.

I don't doubt the suggestion that more enterprise applications are being developed for Windows CE than for the PalmOS. Segmenting that part of the handheld market from what I would call the "personal productivity market" makes more sense to me than separating smartphones from non-smartphone PDAs.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hey-- did you hear that palmOne shipped the Zire 72 today? Thought so. Here are the features, in case you didn't actually read them:

• bright, 320x320 transflective TFT color display supports more than 65,000 colors,
• 312 MHz Intel PXA270 processor, Palm OS v5.2.8, 32 MB RAM (24 MB actual storage),
• integrated 1.2 MP digital camera that also shoots video,
• expansion slot that supports MMC, SD, and SDIO memory cards, and
• Palm Desktop Software for Windows and Mac and Software Essentials CD included.

Here are the highlights from the sites that actually got review units:

• InfoSync World:

  The Zire 72 inherits almost everything we liked about the Zire 71, and improves in a number of areas. The software integration, especially of the multimedia features, is solid throughout. The inclusion of previously Tungsten-only features, such as Documents To Go, VersaMail, and the new PIM suite, is very welcome. Add to that the most well-rounded Bluetooth support we've seen on a Palm OS device and the Zire 72 adds up to one solid handheld.

• PCWorld:
  

  
  The 72 improves on the 71's built-in VGA still camera, which can capture images of up to about 0.3 megapixels, with a 1.2-megapixel, 2X digital-zoom camera that can capture short video clips.
  

• Brighthand:
  

  
  In the bad old days, getting your mobile phone and your handheld to work together was like trying to get a golden retriever and squirrel to cooperate. This certainly isn't the case with the Zire 72. Honestly, palmOne has made this about as simple as possible. There's a program that asks what country you're in, who your wireless service provider is (Verizon, T-Mobile, etc.) and what model of phone you are using. Once you have provided those three pieces of information, the rest of the process is automatic. I was connected with my AT&T Wireless account in less than 30 seconds. No fooling.
  

• TechTV:
  

  
  ... by far, palmOne does the best job integrating the PDA with your desktop. The Media tab in Palm Desktop keeps track of all your photos and videos. Voice memos are neatly organized in their own tab, too.
  

• BargainPDA:
  

  
  There are two things that hold me back from really letting go and raving about the Zire 72. The first is the lack of the Universal connector. I'd even feel less inclined to complain about this if PalmOne would just get it together and make a cradle for the mini-USB models. It isn't that hard, and it would eliminate one of the primary gripes about them. Beyond that, I may not be thrilled with the setup, but it looks like PalmOne is committed to using the mini-USB connectors on their mid and low-end units, so I'd better get used to them. The second is the quality problem with the camera. I hope, I really do, that my unit just has a random issue, because otherwise the 72 is a very fine unit, admirable not only as a Palm but as a very basic digital camera and camcorder.
  

• CNET:
  

  
  Armed with the 312MHz Intel PXA270 processor, the Zire 72 enjoys slick operation. In contrast, we encountered delays and "please wait" messages when switching between apps on the {Sony Clie} TJ37. The new Intel processor also features technology for enhanced multimedia performance; thus, videos ran smoothly, and MP3 playback was impressive, with clear sound and volume, even in noisy environments.
  

• PDA Buyer's Guide:
  

  
  Building on the remarkable success of the Zire 71 released a year ago, the Palm Zire 72 is all things that the 71 was and more. For the same original list price as the Zire 71 you get a much better 1.2 megapixel camera, 32 megs of RAM, Bluetooth, Documents To Go and a faster processor.
  

  
  

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Everybody and their brother in the gadget journalism business has reported that palmOne shipped the Zire 31 today. First a quick review of the features:

• 160x160 color display with contrast and brightness controls-- supports thousands of colors,
• 200 MHz Intel ARM-based processor, Palm OS v5.2.8, 16 MB RAM (14 MB user accessible),
• expansion slot supports MMC, SD, and SDIO memory cards,
• standard mini-USB connector, and
• comes with Palm Desktop Software for Windows and Mac and Software Essencials CD.

Now let's try to focus on the unique or at least interesting insights. Some of them are rather contradictory:

• InfoSyncWorld:

  {The 200 MHz Intel ARM} processor... does a number on battery life. In our usual AtomSmash burndown tests with the screen on maximum brightness, the Zire 31 lasted a mere 2 hours 14 minutes before giving its first warning, finally dying after only 2 hours, 38 minutes. Given that palmOne's previous handhelds in this price-range in some cases had double-digit battery life, that is very unfortunate.

• Brighthand:
  

  
  

  I'll have to get back to you about battery life. I've had it for over a week and the battery is still at 71 percent. I haven't even taken the charger out of the box yet. Not bad for a 200 MHz machine....

  With MP3 capability just a card-purchase away, I'm sure the Zire 31 will make an excellent companion for kids and parents alike, and it should hurt sales of single-purpose MP3 players whose storage is limited to the size of a card. After all, those devices don't have the ability to handle contacts, dates, photos, books, documents, email, and all the other myriad things people find to do with their handhelds.
  

• MSNBC:
  

  
  How do you make the 21 better? First, add color. The new Zire 31 has a 160 by 160 pixels STN display with contrast and brightness controls. Kick it up a notch with a 200Mhz Intel ARM processor and a boost to 16MB of memory. Then improve the PIM (Personal Information Management) software. Add an MP3 and photo viewing software, a SD/SDIO card expansion slot plus a stereo headphone jack and you start to understand that Pa1mOne is very serious about their lower-end devices.
  

• TechTV:
  

  
  

  I'm surprised at the display choice for the palmOne. The price may seem right and a worthwhile sacrifice, but I've seen better displays in CLIEs that cost the same. The color display palmOne chose for the Zire 31 takes a step back with antiquated STN technology. I found it much more readable in low-light conditions, but it falls short on color richness. I'm not demanding a high-resolution display, but something with more vibrant color reproduction....

  For entry-level users, the Zire 31 comes with an enticing price. But I'd recommend the palmOne Tungsten E for just $50 more. If you're going to go color, you might as well do it right.
  

• PC Magazine:
  

  
  The Zire 31 compares favorably with other affordable PDAs.... {With} its color screen, music-player features, and solid PIM apps, the Zire 31 is a good choice for anyone looking for an inexpensive PDA that goes beyond the basics.
  

• BargainPDA:
  

  
  {For} $150, it is capable of doing just about anything I can do with my higher end PDAs (T3 and Garmin ique 3600). In fact, the Zire 31 offers similar performance to my Tungsten T at half the cost. I did find a few minor problems with Zire 31 design that I will describe... in this review. But for those looking for their first PDA, or even us power users looking for a tough and dependable backup – I strongly recommend the Zire 31.
  

• CNET:
  

  
  For CNET Labs' tests, we installed Kinoma Video Player and looped a video clip, with screen brightness set at 50 percent. The battery called it quits after 2 hours, 50 minutes, which isn't great, but the Zire 31 isn't meant to be a full multimedia device. When playing MP3s, the unit's performance improved, clocking in at 3 hours, 20 minutes. The company says the... battery should last up to one week with normal use.
  

• PDA Buyer's Guide:
  

  
  The Zire 31 is the most affordable color PDA to hit the market and packs a lot of features in for a low price. This is the perfect entry level unit for those of you who have limited budgets, are first time buyers or aren't sure if you want to make a significant financial commitment to a PDA just yet.
  

  
  

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brighthand reports that palmOne sold three million Zire PDAs in less than 18 months. Many articles I've read say that this is a confirmation of the sub-branding strategy that was executed well before Palm acquired Handspring.

I want to go back to an article written in 2002 about the original Palm Zire and quote a friend of mine, Paul Coster, an analyst at JP Morgan Chase. He said, "We understand that [Palm has] gone back to the drawing board and designed [the Zire] from ground up to deliver strong gross margins at the outset." At the time, the thinking was that Palm's gross margins on the Zire were about 25 percent, while they made significantly higher gross margins on more sophisticated products.

From what Todd Bradley (palmOne President and CEO) said, I conclude the strategy is still working:

The Zire subbrand business strategy is working. Zire products are attracting new customers to the handheld category, increasing the palmOne market share, contributing to our handheld revenue and establishing a customer base for an upgrade business. And they've enabled palmOne to expand its sales channels worldwide.

The Brighthand article goes on to say that the Zire 71 was the best selling PDA in the U.S., until palmOne shipped the Tungsten E. This makes a lot of sense because the 71 has a very good digital camera and built-in color screen. It also comes with the RealOne Media Player application built in, which allows the PDA to be used as a very good digital music player.

palmOne kept the price of the unit low by leaving out wireless networking, an SD card slot, and flashable ROM. These features are nice-to-haves for more experienced users, but they would be overkill for many first-time PDA owners.

I think the Zire 71 is a terrific deal. It's a very good PDA to give as a gift, if you think that the recipient is likely to embrace the technology and want more than just a bare bones PDA once they become familiar with it.

It's very possible that the next set of product announcements from palmOne will include a unit to replace the 71. If that happens, the price of the Zire 71 may come down to an even more attractive level.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hands High Software has developed a $29.95 utility called WiFile that allows PalmOS users with wireless network support to access files on Windows, MacOS, and Samba-compatible file servers. WiFile makes use of the SMB/CIFS protocols to browse and manipulate shared directories.

This is a nifty little utility that apparently began life as SmbMate. SmbMate was mentioned by PalmInfocenter back in September 2003, was acquired by Hands High sometime between then and March, and had its name changed to WiFile.

I'm sure WiFile would be useful to users of the palmOne Tungsten C, or the Sony Clie UX50, TH55, or TJ37 PDAs, all of which have built-in WiFi. Other PalmOS PDAs with wireless capabilities could conceivably use this software as well, but are not as likely to be used in a fashion where sharing files from the network would be a tremendous advantage.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Fazal Majid asked an important question on Saturday in an entry on his weblog entitled Are Americans becoming second-class consumers? He cites several situations where manufacturers shipped products with the same name in two different markets, but the U.S. version had fewer features or lower quality components than the equivalent product destined for other markets. He cites:

• the Sony Clie PEG-TH55 Handheld, which ships without Bluetooth in the U.S. This was discussed on Operation Gadget on March 5.
• The Canon EOS Digital Rebel with 18-55mm Lens, which "has the smooth and fast USM ultrasonic motor in Japan, but uses the inferior AFD micro-motor in the US". That's news to me.
• The Epson Stylus Photo 2200 Inkjet Printer, which "does not include in the US the gray balancer, special software and calibration sheets used to improve the neutrality of black and white prints."

Majid also cites laptops and portable electronics imported by vendors like Dynamism that U.S. subsidiaries of international electronics companies consider poor fits for the largest single electronics market in the world.

These are all good points. But, when we discuss products that make it to the U.S. market late or not at all, how about GSM phones like the Nokia 6600 that's been out in Europe and Asia for months, but has only been made available in the USA by T-Mobile within the last week? This phone is hot and it's hard to understand why Nokia would not want to ship as many of these in this country as it could. I'd think this would be particularly important, considering Nokia's recent problems achieving predicted handset sales volumes.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Amazon.com and Audible announced a $100 instant rebate on Audible-ready portable audio players and PDAs for buyers willing to join Audible's AudibleListener program for 12 months.

The AudibleListener programs are monthly subscriptions that allow customers to choose two programs from Audible's collection of spoken word audio programming for a discounted price. If you select BasicListener, you can choose one audio magazine, newspaper, or radio program, plus one audiobook, each month for $14.95. The PremiumListener program costs $19.95 per month and allows you to choose two audiobooks.

If you are in the habit of listening to audiobooks while travelling or exercising, this is an excellent deal. Next time you are in a Borders or Barnes & Noble, take a look at the cost of audiobooks on cassette or CD, then compare it to the regular price charged by Audible for the same program, and you'll see that already there is a considerable savings.

The AudibleListener programs commit you to purchase programming on a set schedule, but, you may already be purchasing audiobooks at a rate of one or two a month anyway. If that's the case, joining this program will reduce your costs and you'll get a $100 discount on a new high capacity audio player like an iPod or an iPod mini in the bargain.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Daily Wireless put together an excellent article about RSS use on mobile devices. The article includes a list of RSS aggregators for platforms from the PC and Macintosh all the way down to the iPod. [ via MobileWhack ]

One suggestion that the author, Phillip Torreone, makes is Syndigator, a Perl-based RSS aggregator based on Gtk that he believes is a good choice for Linux users. I have been using Straw since I got Fedora Core 1 running on my laptop. I will have to try Syndigator and see how mature it is relative to Straw.

BTW, Phillip Torreone and I seem to have a lot of interests in common lately. The other day, I noticed his website about exercise technology called /run. Today, I found him writing for Daily Wireless. He's blogging as much as I am, if not more.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Amazon.com is currently offering a
$50 gift card with the purchase of a PDA valued at $299.99 or more. The offer expires on April 11, 2004. When you combine this with free shipping on all of these devices, it adds up to quite a good sale.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mark Long of the NewsFactor Network compared four mobile phone/PDA combo devices with wireless internet capability and picked his favorite for wireless web use. The devices he compared are:

• the palmOne Tungsten W,
• the Siemens SX56,
• the Samsung SPH-i700, and
• the Hitachi G1000 on Sprint PCS.

Mark's criteria in this evaluation are made clear in the review: " In the best of all possible worlds, the smartphone will come with a large display screen, a Qwerty-style keyboard, plenty of memory and a generous battery life." If this is the case, I wonder why he didn't compare some other models, like the palmOne Treo 600? Especially since the Treo 600 can be had on the same Sprint PCS network that Long likes so much. Oh well.

In the end, he chose the Hitatchi G1000, a phone I have talked about previously on Operation Gadget, but I haven't seen in people's hands much. His reasons were the speed of the Sprint's 1xRTT data network, the G1000's keyboard, relatively large screen, processor speed, and expandability.

It's too bad that he chose to include the palmOne Tungsten W. As far as I can tell, this device is either on the way out of production or in line for a major upgrade. The Tungsten W is really not competitive with its slow 33 mHz Dragonball CPU. I'm not sure if it will be sacrificed now that palmOne has the Treo 600, but, it wouldn't surprise me.

I have a little difficulty understanding why the review doesn't offer any information about devices operating on the Cingular Wireless network. They offer a GSM/GPRS network that is at least feature compatible with T-Mobile and AT&T Wireless' so-called Next Generation (GSM/GPRS) network. Cingular is also in the process of buying AT&T Wireless.

Given the devices that Mark was reviewing, it's hard for me to disagree with his analysis. I'd like to see a head-to-head comparison between the Treo 600 and the Hitachi G1000, but I haven't found one yet.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jenny Levine of theShiftedLibrarian.com has published a list called What's on My Treo 600 which lists the software and services that she typically uses on her Treo. This page has links to similar information on other's websites as well:

• Albert Bodamer of Bodamer.com,
• the author of but she's a girl...., (haven't figured out who this is yet),
• Michael Connick of The Connected PDA,
• Jeff Ray of JeffRaysBrain.com,
• Michael Seneadza of MoveTheCrowd
• the author of Shades of Gray, (figured out who this was and he didn't like it), and
• Vikram Pant of vikrampant.com

There's a ton of great information in the links above, so check them out. It took some work to figure out who some of these people are, but I will be in touch with as many of them as I can to see if I can get even more details about how their Treo 600's more productive.

Reading these lists has made me more motivated about replacing my current Treo with the Treo 600. We'll see if I figure out a way to do this within current budgetary constraints....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Kerry Lannert delivered a good review of the Sony Clie TH55 over at Palm Infocenter. The review is fairly long and full of decent quality pictures.

The review was very positive, with the TH55 winning 8.5 stars on a 10-point scale. The best features of this handheld are its size, battery life, jog dial, WiFi, and status lights. The review says that it doesn't do as well on application buttons, quality of its stylus, and Bluetooth support (said to be non-support in the U.S.).

I had an issue with this review, in that I can't really see the TH55's application buttons in any of the published photos. Is it me, or do these photos not show the buttons at all clearly? I think the review has to have at least one photo that shows the application buttons' size, relative placement, and appearance-- especially since many PalmOS-based PDAs are pushing the envelope in this part of their design.

This is another really hot product. Amazon.com rates the TH55 number one on their PDA and Handheld Products Early Adopter List. In fact, right now, the top three handhelds on the list are Sony products. That's surprising to me, but, I guess I don't quite fit purely in the PDA user community anymore, since I carry a Treo.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Sealie Software is developing pssh, an OpenSource SSH2 client for Palm OS 5. This is an important application for Linux system administrators on-the-move. Pssh is meant for fast Palm PDAs with high resolution screens, like the palmOne Tungsten C.

Pssh is not currently for devices like the palmOne Treo 600 (lower resolution screen) or the palmOne Tungsten W (slower processor). If you need support for those devices or for SSH1, the developer recommends TuSSH or Top Gun ssh. [ via MobileWhack ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brian Beeler published a Note to Dell and Sony yesterday in which he called on the vendors to ship their PDAs for the U.S. market with Bluetooth installed. He cites the Dell Axim X3i and the Sony Clie TH55 as PDAs that are available with Bluetooth in Europe, but do not have Bluetooth when sold in this country. Beeler says:

Dell came so close to releasing the X3i in the US with Bluetooth, the logo is imprinted on the current X3i antennas. At the last minute, they decided to pull the functionality because their focus groups indicated Bluetooth wasn't that important. Sony released the wildly popular TH55 just a week ago in the US with a WiFi only version. The odd thing is that Sony has released Bluetooth devices in the US before, but none have been very successful. palmOne has a good story to tell though. They've been selling integrated Bluetooth for almost a year and a half. The Tungsten line has been a fantastic seller for them. HP has also sold a few hundred thousand PDAs with integrated Bluetooth. While I can't be sure how many people actually use the Bluetooth option, at least it's there for those who want it.

He goes on to say that most Americans don't even know what Bluetooth is, but that veteran PDA users are more aware of its benefits. I agree with him. If Beeler is correct in his assertion that Bluetooth capability adds about $5.00 to the manufacturing cost of a PDA, it's hard to imagine why any manufacturer ships a PDA without it. I would make an exception for a product like the PalmOne Zire that's meant to sell for well under $100.

The Axim X3i and the Clie TH55 are great devices, but they would be even better if you could use them to dial your mobile phone or sync wirelessly with your laptop.

As Beeler said, users who want Bluetooth do have choices on both major PDA platforms: H-P ships many of their iPAQ models with Bluetooth, and palmOne's Tungsten models also support it.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Guideline Research released a report on the America's appetite for multifunction wireless devices. According to the news release, 49 percent of those surveyed have "no desire" for devices that allow them to multitask with their gadgets-- either make phone calls, in the case of mobile phone, or hold data, in the case of PDAs. James Belcher, co-administrator of the survey, said:

Multifunction devices don't reflect the consumers' preference for dedicated, simple devices. With the exception of the PC, most consumers just don't want to do multiple things with a single device.

In spite of the apparent sweeping conclusion, the article goes on to point out that 40 percent of survey respondents were "anxious to have a multifunctional device" and 10 percent already own a multifunction device. Last time I checked, 40 + 10 = 50. Isn't that just about even, 49 versus 50 percent?

I think that the survey underestimates the public's appetite for multifunction gadgets because it neglects some critical issues:

• knowledge of the features of specific handhelds versus hypothetical feature pairings,
• availability of third party software and services,
• pricing of handheld devices, and
• pricing of wireless services.

Operation Gadget readers are clearly in that 50 percent that either is anxious to have a multifunction device or already owns one. We know that our gadgets simplify our lives, even if they confuse some of our relatives and friends. We didn't buy our Blackberries and Treos for them, we bought them for us. [ via BargainPDA ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

infoSync World reported that an update has been released for the Hitachi G1000 PDA. The update allows the G1000 to read SDIO devices-- Secure Digital cards that have functionality beyond memory enhancement. Operation Gadget originally reported on the G1000 back in November.

Reportedly, the update is available on the Sprint PCS website, rather than Hitachi's own. Good thing because it was rather difficult to find information about the G1000 on Hitachi.com. The only way I could locate any product information was to use the "Search by Google" function on the global home page.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

palmOne recently released Tungsten C Update 2.0, a firmware update designed to address WiFi and DHCP interaction issues, as well as WiFi roaming problems. While they were at it, palmOne enhanced the power-up sequence and digitizer behavior, and upgraded the multimedia memory card (MMC) device driver.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Julie Strietelmeier of the-gadgeteer.com recently wrote a very detailed review of the Toshiba e805, a Pocket PC that runs Windows Mobile 2003 and has a four-inch TFT color display. This handheld has a 400 MHz Intel PXA263 processor, 128 megabytes of RAM, integrated WiFi, and two open card slots (one CompactFlash and one Secure Digital slot).

This review has a lot of pictures, including good size-comparison shots of the e805, palmOne Tungsten T, and HP iPAQ 2215. It would be a lot easier to make choices among cutting-edge PDAs if more product reviews were as photo rich as this one.

Some of the more interesting points in this review are:

• a thorough discussion of the e805's VGA video capabilities, including application support issues,
• a discussion of use of the e805 as an MP3 player, with the reviewer suggesting that its sound quality exceeds that of her iPod, and
• a side-by-side comparison of the brightness and contrast of the displays of the e805 and the iPAQ 2215.

The Toshiba e805 is clearly designed for Pocket PC power users. If you like PDAs without keyboards, this is one of the most powerful and feature-packed models I've seen on the market.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BargainPDA reported that palmOne cut the suggested retail price of the Tungsten T2 PDA by $50 and launched a $50 mail-in rebate program on the Zire 71. BargainPDA suggests that this may be palmOne's way of clearing out inventory of these models before new product introductions. They cite a report that palmOne is working on a Zire Z72 as part of the reason for these pricing moves.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I talked about the HP iPAQ 4355 Pocket PC in an article that appeared on Operation Gadget back in November. In it, I reported that the iPAQ 4355 was named one of PC Magazine's best products of Comdex, that it incorporated Bluetooth, WiFi, and a bright color display, and that it would begin shipping in January. Right on schedule, it's become available at Amazon.com.

Brighthand reviewed the iPAQ 4355 a couple of weeks ago. In the review, they pointed out that the keyboard is a welcomed edition to a Pocket PC device and that it has a directional keypad similar to that of the Treo 600. The display is bright but lower in resolution than some PDAs. The iPAQ 4355's WiFi works but has a range that is about 30 feet less than that of the Dell Axim X3i. Also, WiFi use consumes a lot of power, but this is the case with every device that uses it.

If you are interested in a product like this, I'd definitely recommend reading the review. It's well balanced, and provides some perspective on competing products. My conclusion after reading Brighthand's review is that I need to do some research into products like the PalmOne Tungsten C.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BargainPDA.com reported yesterday that Dell has cancelled a number of orders for Axim X3i PDAs that had been accepted previously because the price listed on Dell's website was incorrect. According to the article, the Axim X3i was priced at $79 for a period of time.

A previous article on BargainPDA.com indicates that the $79 price was listed for 12 to 18 hours on November 24, and briefly reappeared on November 25 before disappearing entirely. It is unclear how many orders were placed for the Axim X3i at that price

Customers who think that Dell should honor these prices reportedly complained to the Federal Trade Commission, the Better Business Bureau, and the Attorneys General of several states. Discussions of the situation on Dell's support website have been closed down, although many comments are still available.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

PC Magazine has named its Best of Comdex product list for the 2003 conference. The HP iPAQ 4355 was named a finalist in the Mobile Devices category. The 4355 is a Pocket PC with an integrated backlit keyboard, 802.11b and Bluetooth wireless networking, and a bright color display.

According to the article, this is the first iPAQ to have an integrated keyboard. I am sold on keyboards like this one on handheld devices, in light of my experiences with Handspring Treos and RIM Blackberry personal communication devices.

The iPAQ 4355 is not a mobile phone, it's a data centric PDA. It looks like a good choice for fans of the Pocket PC platform who need a powerful, flexible handheld, but don't need to use it to make phone calls or access wireless data applications when out of range of wireless LANs.

Amazon.com reports that the 4355 will not be released until January 4, 2004. You may want to place an order in advance. Demand for this iPAQ is likely to be high. [ via PDAlive.com ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)