Google take over pt231 -> Google maps + GPS styleeee!

Posted on December 19th, 2007 by thiswayup.
Categories: Gadgets, Palm,PDA's and other smartphones, cool stuff.

Read a nice piece from The Register which describes Google’s latest Google Maps being able to use the cellID to figure out where you are when you download maps from them.

It does’nt seem to be available for the Treo but I downloaded the google maps for treo anyways, bloody heck! Amazing! Finally I do not have to take out my A-Z :)

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Mrs Palm on Mr Nokia action – An overheard conversation

Posted on November 14th, 2007 by thiswayup.
Categories: Commentary, Palm,PDA's and other smartphones, humour.

Seeing this article on the Register and wondering about how this came about, I thought to perform a cross dimensional phase shift into an alternative universe (also known as a day dream) where there lived a entities called Mr Nokia, Mr Sony-Ericson and Mrs Palm….Lord and behold….I heard this conversation whilst having my morning coffee in said alternative universe:

Mr Nokia: Holy shit! Heard the news Mr Sony Ericson?

Mr Sony Ericson: What’s that bob?

Mr Nokia: Mr Nokia please, we may be good friends but this is business.

Mr Sony Ericson: Ok… Mr Nokia.

Mr Nokia: Better. Those do gooders google have shown off their Android platform. It’s erm…not bad.

Mr Sony Ericson: Ah crap. I heard. It’s really good hey?

Mr Nokia: Yes. Damage control time. We need to get some cool software, or any software for that fact, onto our system. We can’t be arsed to GIVE money away to help do this like them lot. We need a cheaper idea.

Mr Sony Ericson: Yeah. Cheap, I like cheap, like your 1000 series.

Mr Nokia: That’s what I gave my wife for our anniversary. I said the 1000 represented the number years our hearts will blossom together. Or some shit like that.

Mr Sony Ericson: Nice. So how we gonna get a loada software quick on our system to add value and not seem like there’s nothing in it? Build another system and actually be a bit more helpful in helping to build stuff for it?

Mr Nokia: No. Meet my rather tasty friend, Mrs Palm.

Mrs Palm: Hello boys. Hope you paying good. I was really worth it in my time.

Mr Nokia: Yes well…Ahem. Mrs Palm has lots of software under her erm…belt. Lots of people been working on Mrs Palm but she’s a piece of lovely and plenty of software to boot.

Mr Sony Ericson: Been around a bit hey? But I see your plan, have Palm run their stuff on Symbian. Genius! Bet no one has ever done this before.

Mr Nokia: Quite! Thought of it all by myself.

Mrs Palm: Actually…it’s not quite original

Mr Nokia: Oh shut up! Your sugar daddy has left the building for you missy, time to listen up to your new masters.

Mrs Palm: …

Mr Nokia: So should we finalise the details? Wanna see what’s this lump in my trousers is?

Mr Sony Ericson: You still got that piece of shit-awkward-as-hell 9500 Communicator then?

Mr Nokia: Errr… yes, but I meant…or never mind.

PLEASE NOTE: This is not necessarily based on real events or people and may skew from the actual truth…apart from maybe the bit about the coffee. I did drink some today.

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d bye T5/Nokia… hello Treo 680! – Part 2 – settled in and finding new toys

Posted on April 9th, 2007 by thiswayup.
Categories: Palm,PDA's and other smartphones.

Well it’s been over 2 months since the first installment of this series. I have good time to settle into using my new palm toy and overal it has been good experience, alot better then I would expect coming over to the world of smart phones. Here’s a quick run down on what I have been using and how I have migrated from my 2 device world.

Good apps

  • Butler - Basically a helper app that adds a load of REALLY helpful functionality that the stock palm preferencses/functionality should have had. It is a culmination of the useful bits covering Alarms, Attention Grabber, Navigation, Launching, LED, Keyguard and more from Butler that makes it an essential purchase!
    I persoanlly love the alarm system which is worth the price itself. Replacing my old 2playme mp3 alarm, the feature has loads more customisation on how the alarm is executed. I myself set 4 alarms to wake me up from a combination of buzzing alarms to a mp3 playing :)
    Another fantastic feature is the button launcher. On my T5, I used HBX to increase from using 4 button to launch apps to 16. Granted I don’t get to launch 16 apps now but I now only really use a handful of apps.
    The button lock is really useful as well. Bog standard, any button can light up the screen (but still in lock mode), this can drain your battery quite quickly. I like to set it so that non of the keyboard buttons lights up the screen, I also like the little slide to unlock ‘iphone’ stylee feature.
  • GooSynch - I’m a big fan of using google calendar. I had been trying to find a straight up and easy way to do this. Finally gooSynch came out. The whole solution revolves around a 3rd party reading your Gcal account then forwarding the information to your palm which is initiated by a client that resides on your PDA. Only real possible down point is that you have to give them your google credentials. That and the the way it seems to screw you desktop synch which I found can be fixed by doing this.
  • Shadowplan – Not completely relevant just for the Treo but a good task manager/outliner/project planner. It has some amazing features just to plan, organise ideas and can link to the Palm Task plus has a fairly decent desktop component that sunchs with the Palm. Nice. For example I like to pass by game stores and drop down in a games “to buy/rent” list or trying to organise my thoughts on the tasks for the DS gaming charity tournanment we had. Great stuff.

Going mobile!
Ofcourse the main reason for having a smartphone…mobility. Boy do I love it! Since I joined Tmobiles web and walk service (“unlimited” mobile internet – which isn’t unlimited btw) and using mobile bloglines I am now completely updated on the lastest news whether I’m on the bus, train, cafe or toilet :) The great thing about the mobile version of bloglines is that it uses a 3rd party proy server that squeezes the page file size down to a more mobile friendly form. I also find that for pages that I may read in more detail later, I tend to use the bloglines “email” button to email the link to myself and read it later when I have more time, a bigger screen or when there is video involved. Yes, the web addiciton is now truly completely over taken me! The only thing is that the stock Blazer web brwoser software needs updating with tabs and better large page size handling (it just goves up after the first MB). So I decided to check out any other alternatives such as Universe (open source in beta).

Here’s a small list of other useful mobile centric pages I have passed by:

  • t-mobile.tflwap.gov.uk -tfl have a wap site which includes a journey planner! Also very handy to preempt getting caught up in Tube delays.
  • o2.mytrains.kizoom.co.uk – Quicker way then the TFL to check train times
  • m.gmail.com – Gmail, mobile, nuff said.
  • wap2.bonfiremedia.com – Check your ebay in a simplefied form.

And the next step
Well, I say its been a mostly positive experience although I do have some things that need some further improvement. For one thing the GUI for the actual phone manager just feels clunky. Making phone calls just doesnt feel as smooth as my old nokia. I guess I just I need to find another phone manager of some sort.
Another slightly annoying feeling is the MP3 player, though Pocket tunes is great and all. I think it could improve things in its GUI plus ad faster playlist creation on the fly when listening to music, such as winamp’s add to playlist feature maybe?

Upgrades!
So I am now truly rooted in my setup. Everything is on my phone and I am quite impressed with this little toy. Now that I have a 8Gb SDHC card in the thing and now use it as my main music player. Sweet. However I had to also swap out the stock battery for a high capicty 2400mAh as it was a bit crap (wouldnt last over 2 days!). Apart from the fact the arse of the phone now looks a tiny bit out of place sticking out so much, it is handy not having to keep the thing constantly on charge. One thing that does annoy me is how the battery indicator goes downs so quickly but the actual battery can last a fair while after

That’s all folks
So all in all, good stuff. I have started reading a lot less books and playing DS because of my RSS addiciton on my Treo and it appears that moving over has been a good idea. No real big annoyances apart from the occasional random reset (5 times in since begin of Jan) and that sometimes there is a real lag to get the phone manager working when chaning from another app. The next thought is how now to make it even better?

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Good bye T5/Nokia… hello Treo 680! – Part 1 – Story of the migration and inital impressions

Posted on January 27th, 2007 by thiswayup.
Categories: Palm,PDA's and other smartphones.

Over the new year I had pretty much got to the point of being fed up with my Nokia 6270 starting to shows sign of failure (nav button not responding and tinny feedback when making calls!) I decided it was time to eat my words of staying away from smartphones…and trying one. After hearing very good reports of stability and less problems with the last few models of the Treo, I thought it was maybe time to pick up one. After having a pretty long standing relationship with Palm PDA’s, it seemed like the logical choice to keep with the same theme given that I use many applications specific to it and couldn’t be arsed or risk trying the real only other contender in the smartphone market currently, WinCE.

So why the change of heart? Well I envisioned that I would be doing alot more of the data stuff in the coming future such as mobile web browsing, RSS feeds, streaming radio (Somafm.com I love you!) plus just trying to keep on top of my email on the go (and moving away from piling 100’s msg’s in my inbox!), heck might even try IM again. Spying the Tmobile web n walk I figured it was now cheap enough to live the Mobile Connected lifestyle! But take note it is gonna be £11.50 not £7.50 as the standard service doesnt allow for data streaming.

I managed to nab a bargain from Ebay(where else?) and with 11 months on the warrenty, a rubber cover, brand new condition plus at a great price. On recieving it, I still had reservations but then after dunking in my O2 sim for a couple of days using the Treo in its fresh state (with none of my current Palm apps), it felt just right! I synched up my Treo with my existing Palm Desktop on my main PC and found that it went ahead with no problems, probably not the best idea and I should’ve cleaned up some of the apps before transferring it onto the Treo, but hell I  wanted to get stuck in! Most of the apps seemed to work ok so no worries. Except to my dismay Tom Tom! I find it unvaluable as a A-Z replacement with its A-B route finder showing the best driving AND walking routes :) I’m guessiing there would be a fix soon enough!

My biggest challenge was to try and port over my contact details from my Nokia 6270 to my Treo. Given that I had details on the phone itself (and not just the SIM) I had to find a way to move it across. After sifting through the net, it appeared that the simplest and easiest was just to use Outlook. So I synched up the address book on my Nokia with Outlook on my laptop(had built in Bluetooth), uploaded the details (no problems thus far). I then changed the Palm conduit from Palm Desktop to Outlook, so that it would synch the Treo contacts to the Outlook address book, this seemed to have worked a treat! I now had all my contact details in my Treo stored in one central location and backed up everytime I synched up!

So I been using it for almost 2 weeks solidly, whats it like? Here’s the summary thus far of humble opinions and a taster for the next part.
Good
+ Text input much better on a keyboard then crappy Graffiti2
+ The speaker is powerful and perfect for doing chores whilst playing some podcasts
+ Love the feeling of being to move from reading a ebook or my mobile bloglines online to texting and setting reminders for calls all in one place! ohhhhhh the power….sweeeeeeet!
+ MMS is taken to a new level, the flow is much more quicker from recording sounds/video to sending it to unsuspecting friends :)

Bad
- 2.5 stereo jack!
- Need to upgrade some key software (Zlauncher, backup, Tom Tom)
- Onscreen number dialing can bit irriatating
- Battery drain is quite bad (but investigating on the trick you can do)
- The pad lock seems a bit weak

Well, thats it for now. Time to play a bit more…

Whilst writing, I was listening to: Pandora.com – Louis Armstrong stream

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