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May
13
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A friend of mine pointed me to this brilliant post (via iPhone Central)
The concept is simple; Scan the front and back of all your barcoded membership cards, and carry them around in your iPhone.
To test it out I went to the local hardware store and asked the girl
behind the counter if she could scan the barcode from my phone. The
first look I got was pure amazement. To her the physical card was
transformed into a picture on a shiny device. On top of that the
barcode was scanned successfully. The result; a slightly confused girl
and a happy me.
My take: I’m going to try this on my library card and see if this works on my Palm Pilot T|X.
Sep
5
wiPod: the next big thing?
Filed Under News | 2 Comments
If you managed to catch the news today, the twitter-sphere was abuzz with it, Apple is freshening its product line in preparation for this upcoming holiday sales season.
As various pundits both at the Apple event and monitoring it remotely twittered away, it seemed that Steve Jobs was at his best, once again, in front of a crowd of the converted. Gotta love live blogging and twitter.
What’s new in the Apple catalogue for this season? How about an iPod Nano that includes video.
Or, how about this cool thing: the iPod Touch (or as some are calling it, the wiPod): an Apple iPhone without the phone.
It looks interesting; only the deluxe for me:
- 16gb on board memory
- 320 x 480 display
- 802.11 b/g wi-fi
- A bunch more stuff
- $399.00 USD
For me, the wiPod isn’t that big a deal. I’m able to do most everything it can with my trusty Palm T|X. Sure, Blazer, the default TX browser is dated and needs updating to handle AJAX, streaming video, etc. Also, an application that properly syncs to Google Calendar would be appreciated. But to dump this and get a wiPod now is not in my cards.
But, should the battery die or the system brick, you can bet I’d be considering the iPod Touch as a replacement.
*** UPDATE ***
I recently went through some of the pros/cons of upgrading from a Palm T|X to the Apple iPod Touch:
Downsides: Battery…replaceable by apple. TX has to be unscrewed to be opened and replaced.
No expansion cards…TX can take up to 2 GB. Swap music and files by using more cards.
iTunes: must use it to copy music and video to the unit. 16GB is not enough when you have lots of video and podcasts.
Price…have to buy one.Upsides: It’s an Apple. Stylish. Cool. Screen is same size as TX. Plays more video formats. New product at the beginning of it’s development lifecycle, TX is near it’s end.
Price…own one.
Aug
9
I’ve mentioned PhotoSynth before (from Microsoft Live Labs), but with the current space shuttle mission, this new gallery deserved a mention.
In collaboration between Microsoft’s Live Labs team in Seattle, Washington, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and NASA’s Ames Research Center, in Silicon Valley, these collections were created to allow people to see the shuttle Endeavour, and the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in a way never seen before.
Basically, you have hundreds of images geo-spatially located around the shuttle as it sits on it’s pad.
What PhotoSynth does is figure out where these shots overlap, and present you with an incredibly cool interface to navigate within the space, visually.
Another neat feature is the amount of detail present in the images. You can zoom, and zoom, and zoom, and on some very high rez images, you can reveal astonishing features.
And you don’t take a huge bandwidth hit either. I’ve very impressed by this, and am wondering where this technology will resurface in Microsoft’s world.
Post Script: This article was inspired by my good friend, Ranger-Bob and his awesome/leet technical ability. He is able to watch NASA TV, Live, on his Palm T|X, from his outhouse..now that’s dedication!
Jul
23
The essential Palm Pilot file manager — free!
Filed Under Doing | Comments Off
I like free. I also like great applications that work as expected, especially when they’re free. Suffice to say, I like Palm Commander.
Palm Commander used to be a commercial product, but the author has graciously decided to give it away…so you will need a registration code to activate it. Just follow the activation link and generate the appropriate code.
I’ve been a fan of the ‘Commander’ style file management system for years, both in the Linux environment and the PC, so I was rather pleased to find one for the Palm, especially as I was reorganizing my files on the little beastie, and it really doesn’t come with a tool that will do the job.
I’m not going to do a full review, but here’s a quick overview of the way Palm Commander works.
The screen is divided into two panels, left and right. Basically I can do things to a file on either side, or copy/move files between sides.
So, if I have some new text files or ebooks in a ‘download’ directory on the left, I can easily drag them to the right panel, which may be showing a view of a folder on the memory card.
Obviously, there are many more features (clipped from the website screenshot gallery):
Main Screen
I’ve only started working with this application, but so far, it does what I need it to do, and the price is right.
Technorati Tags: Palm Commander, Palm Pilot, Palm TX, Palm, Commander, Pocket PC, Software, File Manager, File Organizer, Freeware, Review, Tools, Utility
Jun
23
NOT an iPhone simulator
Filed Under Web | 2 Comments
An enterprising company has developed a handy little application that will aid website developers when creating sites for Apple’s upcoming iPhone.
But, to be clear, this is not an iPhone simulator:
iPhoney is not an iPhone simulator but instead is designed for web developers who want to create 320 by 480 (or 480 by 320) websites for use with iPhone. It gives you a canvas on which to test the visual quality of your designs.
…and yeah, they called it iPhoney. That’s the same name as a Palm hack / skin released shortly after the iPhone was unveiled.
Do you detect a bit of confusion on the horizion? Maybe a lawsuit by Apple?
Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPhoney, Blogging, Blog, Programming, Simulator, Web Developer, Development Environment
Jun
15
Why get an iPhone when your Windows Mobile can be just as swank?
Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off
Lifehacker has this cool article showing you how to pimp your Win Mobile to be all iPhoney.
…you can customize your Windows Mobile phone to emulate several of the iPhone’s more interesting features, like the iPhone’s home screen, flick-scroll contacts, and the fancy slide-to-unlock.
You’ll need an application - available here, and some free time to follow the directions.
If you’re on a Palm platform, check out my earlier item on the iPhoney skin for your Palm & Treo.
Jun
12
5 reasons I won’t get an iPhone
Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
- Cost. If the iPhone’s listed prices were converted to Canadian dollars, the iPhone would price out between $530 and $640 CAD. That’s way too much money for me to spend on a phone today. Yes it has other functionality, but I’ve got that covered; keep reading.
- Contract & add ons. In the US there’s a 2 year contract required. The base phone doesn’t (as far as I can tell) include a service contract. I can’t see that being any different north of the border. Now consider the type of data access you’d need. The iPhone offers many very cool online features that will quickly bite into your allocation. You have to add this. Basic service for this cool puppy would be silly so you’d want to have the full data packages. Pricing on this ’seems’ (Rogers plan pricing is kinda all over the place) to start at $50.00/month. I’m a heavy online user so my costs would be more.
- I already have an iPod. My Nano is perfect for music and podcasts. Why would I want to have my phone battery drained when I listen to music? How would this integrate into my existing iPod systems?
- I already have a PDA I’m happy with. My Palm T|X. Same battery drain issue. As well, my PDA is awesome for doing what I need it to. I have all the software bought and installed. It syncs nicely with work and home computers. To convert everything over would take Mucho $$$.
- New processes to learn. Integrating everything into one unit means I’d have to change the way I do things. My system works now for me. To use the iPhone I would have to delete and install new software for time management, and calendar integration. I have no idea how well it’ll sync up with Outlook (at work) and what I’d use to sync with at home. I run Windows PC’s and Ubuntu. Is there a Linux Calendaring app that will work with the iPhone, available now?? I’d need new methods to grab my podcasts (I don’t use iTunes). How would that work?
Too many unanswered questions. So, the way I figure things. I’d likely end up paying over $1000 CAD to learn how to use a new gizmo, when my existing gizmos all do what I need currently.
An iPhone isn’t in my immediate future. Though, I guess if I really want the look of one, I could use an iPhoney 
May
24
Earlier this morning I had despaired; my Palm Pilot had fallen and couldn’t get up. It had crashed. Hard. I had to force a Hard Reset to even get it back to the factory default condition.
I’d lost my ebooks, schedule, contacts, everything. Sure, it was backed up on my computer, in a backup folder, but a manual restore requries an hour or two of reinstalling.
I was bummed, until I remembered that in one of my ’smart’ moments, I ‘d installed a free ‘fire and forget’ backup utility to my SD Card: NVBackup.
This little sucker fired up, restored, and bam, I’m back in business. Everything was where it was supposed to be. A complete restore.
In five minutes.
Recommendation: if you do nothing else for your Palm Pilot today, read this review, then download and install NVBackup.
Then forget about it, until you need it.
Technorati Tags: Backup, Palm Pilot, Palm Pilot backup, restore, NVBackup, Utility, Free Backup Utility
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