NYPC PalmPilot SIG - May 2nd

NYPC PalmPilot SIG meetings are held the 1st Wednesday of the month and start at 6:30 PM. All user levels are welcome.

NYPC membership is not mandatory, but highly recommended to Palm SIG members.

Location: Meetings are held at NYPC's offices in the New Yorker/ Ramada Hotel, 8th Avenue & 34th Street, Suite 551. Take the A, E, or C trains to 34th Street.
(Map: http://tinyurl.com/yavrxj)

May meeting: Due to technical issues we are repeating April's topic -
which will be even better now!

It's Not your Father's PDA.

It's time to start thinking of our Palms as extensions of our PCs.
Software has advanced so that practically anything that can be read or
edited on a PC can be done on our Palms. At no cost to you. Nativity
is IN!

Programs on our Palms can read native files as is. Hotsyncing is not
only unnecessary but archaic for file use. Hotsyncing should be
relegated to backup and entering calendar entries or addresses. That's
it.

If you're accessing a file on your PC, just drag it to a folder on
your SD Card (via a card reader) and access it on your Palm; Word
(text), Excel, PDF, MP3s (audio), even video files.

Come to NYPC's Palm SIG as we start the journey towards truly
appreciating the capabilities of our Palms and the freedom it affords
us.

See you Wednesday!

Sincerely,
Ted and Grace
===================
NYPC PalmPilot SIG
Grace Lee & Ted Cohn, Co-Chairs
email: nypcpalmpilot@gmail.com
URL: http://nypc.org/palm.php

Gx-5 TreoWeather Updated

Gx-5 has updated their latest application, TreoWeather, to version 0.9.7.4.

TreoWeather is a new weather application for the Palm Treo 650, 680, and 700p that combines handy weather information, stunning visuals, and an easy to use interface into a single application.

TreoWeather is still in beta (the final stages of product development). I've been using TreoWeather for a few weeks now and things appear to be running smoothly. TreoWeather will be sold for $9.95 when it is released at version 1.0, however, if you purchase now, you can snatch up a copy for only $4.95.

The above screen shots where taken on my Treo 700p. The first image shows the 5-day weather forecast for Orlando, Florida. The second shows the current weather conditions at the time of the last update. For the weather obsessed, you can have as many cities entered into TreoWeather as you like. The trade off for having more cities is that the time needed to update all of your cities is longer than if you only had 2 or 3 cities to update. One nice feature is that you can configure TreoWeather to go out and update the forecast at pre-defined intervals.

For more information or to purchase a copy of TreoWeather, visit the Gx-5 website.

I've posted this week's 1SRC podcast. In show 126, I cover:

More Treo 755p rumors. (Do we really need to keep calling it a rumor?)

Bluefish Wireless has a new version of Getsportz available.

Palm speaks! Joe Fabris responds to customer comments on the Palm blog.

Gx-5's DialByPhoto is reviewed. (This app rocks!)

1SRC Editorial: What's Your "20".

Listen to show 126...

I have posted this week's 1SRC editorial, "What's Your 20."

Since the beginning of the year, I have been using this weekly column to point out some of the ways I believe Palm has been working to lay the foundation for new best in class solutions. In the editorials “The Year of the Internet”, “Palm, Inc 2.0”, and “More Than Just Plumbing”, I discussed how Palm will be leveraging the Internet, acquiring (in some cases reacquiring) the software to build a modern operating system and new applications, and how Palm should be focused on refreshing the Palm OS user interface. In this week’s editorial, I talk about a new feature I expect to see in future Palm products, Location Based Services (LBS).

Read more...

Rescue 911: Handspring Visor Prism

Many of you know that since I discovered Palm I've started collecting old handheld computers. This week, I rescued a Handspring Visor Prism (with cradle and charger) from the trash heap.

Released in 2000, this was the first Palm OS device to feature a color screen and an expansion slot. The Prism has 8MB of RAM, 16-bit color, and Palm OS 3.5.2H. (The "H" stands for Handspring.) You can read the Prism datasheet here.

With the addition of the Handspring Visor Prism to my collection, the official handheld count now rises to 30 units. For the complete list of devices, please see this thread.

Palm Treo 755p Giveaway

MyTreo.net and Gx5 (featured in this week's 1SRC podcast 125) are teaming up to give away two Palm Treo 755p smartphones (when they are released) and 10 copies of Gx5's DialByPhoto application. The creators of DialByPhoto want to find out who has the coooolest DialByPhoto setup.
To compete, all you need to do is download DialByPhoto, apply your background image, and then send in 3 screen shots to promos@gx-5.com.

This is an interesting contest, because as many of you know, Palm has not officially announced the Treo 755p or a product release date. However, popular mobile computing sites including Engadget have posted pictures of the Sprint edition of the Treo 755p out in the wild.

For more information, visit the Gx5 website.

More Than Just Plumbing

I've posted this week's 1SRC editorial, "More Than Just Plumbing."

Shouts of joy could be heard coming from the Palm user community last week with Palm’s revelation of a project to develop a Linux-based operating system, which I will refer to as “Palm OS II” from here out. While I believe that the Palm OS II project is critical part of Palm’s future, I also hope that Palm doesn’t skip over “the little stuff.”

Looks Good…

Many customers agree that Palm’s personal information manager (PIM) applications are designed well and are easy to use. The same goes for the Palm OS user interface (UI). For as easy as the Palm OS is to use, Palm should set aside some time in their project plan to freshen up the visuals.

Read more...

Tamoggemon Releases Binary Clock 4

Tamoggemon Software releases Binary Clock 4 Tamoggemon proudly announces the release of the latest update to the feature-richest and best-looking Palm OS Binary Clock.

Our product has a custom, adjustable drawing engine that allows you to make Binary Clock look like you want it to. Previous versions scored rave reviews for their flexibility, coolness and stability – version 4 improves the following:

IMPROVED LOOKS
The rendering engine of Binary Clock 4 received a variety of polishes leading to even more configuration choices. You can now make the text background transparent, choose the jump time for the date bar and even disable the seconds columns to get a calmer display!

TREO KEYGUARD AWARE
Binary Clock 4’s alarm clock is now aware of the Keyguard feature of the Treo 600/650/680/700p, and disables it when needed.

A free 14day trial can be downloaded from http://www.palmbinaryclock.com, registration costs 9.95$ at MobiHand’s.

Registered customers get access to the update for free.

Palm Talks About the Treo 700p MR

Steve Sinclair, Palm's Treo Product Manager, has posted a new entry on Palm's new corporate blog titled "Anatomy of a Software Update + 700p Maintenance Release Info."

In this article, Steve attempts to explain to us the internal process at Palm for determining when to release a software patch and when a full software maintenance release, or MR, is needed. A MR, as stated in the blog, "are big efforts" that usually try to address several issues rather than just one specific issue. MRs also require wireless carrier certification before the update can be released to customers.

Steve, in his article, informs us that the Treo 700p MR is in fact in carrier testing right now and that Palm is expecting to be able to release the update on or around May 28, 2007. The announcement of a potential release date had mixed reaction. I for one am looking forward to the release of the 700p MR. Knowing that Palm is working on it with their carrier partners and working out the bugs, to me, is a good thing. Others where very vocal in pointing out that May 28th is almost one year to the day of the Treo 700p's release and wondered aloud why it look Palm so long to get the update out.

You can read Steve Sinclair's blog post here.

1SRC Editorial: Palm, Inc 2.0

Palm, Inc 2.0 is my new editorial over on 1SRC.

For a long time it had looked as if Palm, Inc was standing still and losing marketshare to larger mobile phone companies Nokia and Motorola. When compared with Windows Mobile 5.0, Palm OS Garnet 5 looked as if it was in the Information Super Highway’s breakdown lane. Fear not Palm enthusiasts; for Palm is about change all of that. Allow me to welcome you to Palm, Inc 2.0.

Over the last two years, Palm executives have been quietly executing a plan that will revitalize the company. With a new Linux-based, backward compatible, multitasking operating system, Palm will be able to deliver features that are simply not possible on today’s devices. New software applications that will be pre-loaded into the device will mean that customers will be able to do more right out of the box without having to worry about finding, downloading, and installing software. (A large majority of Palm customers never load any third-party software on their handheld.) And with new Treo form factors available, people who haven’t given them a second look because of the cost or “frumpy” designs may make the plunge when they see a new trendy design.

Read more...

Palm Analyst Day

This morning Ed Colligan and his senior Palm management team are in New York City talking with analysts and the media about the future growth plans for the company.

There has already been a wealth of good information coming out of this meeting, not the least of which is a public confirmation that Palm has been working on a Linux based Palm OS operating system that will begin appearing on devices later this year. Long time listeners of the 1SRC podcast will recall that a Linux-based operating system (often referred to as "Palm OS II") has been a frequent discussion point on the show.

PalmAddict and TreoCentral will having running coverage of the event. Make sure to listen to this week's 1SRC podcast for additional news and commentary on today's events.

Palm fans should be very excited about today's developments. Today marks the first outwardly visible product deliverables of "Palm, Inc 2.0" and a return of the Palm, Inc that was such an innovator in the mobile computing market prior to the spin off of the PalmSource business back in 2003. I am really excited about the prospects for Palm's new products.

Palm is Focused on the Business

Bloomberg.com has a new interesting article posted today called 'Palm Chief Says He's Ignoring Takeover Calls, Focusing on Sales." Ville Heiskanen recently talked to Ed Colligan at the Palm headquaters.

The following are excerpts from the Bloomberg.com article:

April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Palm Inc. Chief Executive Officer Ed Colligan says he is ignoring calls to sell the phone maker and is focused on winning back sales lost to Research In Motion Ltd. and Nokia Oyj.

``I can't sit here and worry about that,'' he said in an interview at Palm's Sunnyvale, California, headquarters. ``I can only worry about how the business is performing and what can we do as a team to do better, to get our products out faster, to drive for higher reliability, to grab more market share.''

" Palm spent the past two years copying a design from larger rivals including Nokia that includes a standardized core to cut production costs and get handsets built faster. Using the same base in all its phones will let Palm create a new handset in nine months, down from as much as two years, Colligan said. New devices built this way go on sale this year, he said."

Read more...


I believe that we are looking at the visible results of "Palm 2.0", which started with Palm getting back down to business after having finally corrected the disastrous move of spinning of their software business arm, PalmSource. Palm has been working to cut their costs, develop new hardware solutions, and developing better software for their devices. This can only be good news for Palm's customers.

I Hate My Life(Drive)

I Hate My Life(Drive) is my new 1SRC editorial in which I talk about the two devices I love to hate: The Palm LifeDrive Mobile Manager and the Sony Clie PEG NZ90.

Some people love to hate “the bad guy” on their favorite TV show. Others love to hate rival sports teams. Me? I love to hate a match pair of Palm OS devices: the Palm LifeDrive and the Sony Clie NZ90.


Both the LifeDrive and the Clie NZ90 looked as if they were going to take the mobile computing world by storm. They both had cutting edge features. Well-regarded device manufacturers developed them. However, somewhere along the way, both devices ended up being a bust in the eyes of many enthusiasts.

Read more...

DataViz Documents To Go 10 Ships

DataViz's Documents To Go Is First to Support Microsoft Office 2007 Files on Mobile Devices

New Documents To Go Premium Edition 10 Empowers Palm OS Users to Open and View Word & Excel 2007 Files

Milford, CT, April 3, 2007 – DataViz®, Inc., the leading provider of Office compatibility solutions for over 23 years today announced the release of Documents To Go Premium Edition 10. The latest version of the #1 Office editing suite for Palm OS® devices is now the first and only mobile solution to enable users to open and view new Microsoft® Word and Excel Office 2007 files in their native format on their Palm OS device.

Microsoft Office 2007, commercially released on January 30, 2007 is the latest version of Microsoft’s productivity suite. It features a new Extensible Markup Language (XML) based file format, Open XML, which simplifies and facilitates universal data exchange between different information systems. Documents To Go Premium Edition 10 is a major upgrade which involves a redesign of the original software program to include support for the new .docx and .xlsx Open XML format in Microsoft Office 2007.

“Version 10 addresses our top customer request which is support for Word & Excel 2007 files,” said Kathleen McAneany, Documents To Go Business Manager, DataViz, Inc. “Our customers are our first priority and we are committed to satisfying their expectations in a timely manner while maintaining a best-of-breed solution.”

"With the addition of Word and Excel Office 2007 support, Documents To Go is truly an unsurpassed Office suite," said Mark Bercow, senior vice president of business development at Palm, Inc. “Now users of Palm OS based Treo™ smartphones and Palm® handhelds can leave the office with confidence knowing that they can continue to be productive even if they receive Word and Excel e-mail attachments in a Microsoft Office 2007 format.”

Pricing & Availability
A release to include full Office 2007 file editing support for Word, Excel and PowerPoint and support for Microsoft Windows Vista will be available later in the year. Customers who purchase Documents To Go Premium Edition 10 will receive the full Office editing and Windows Vista update at no additional cost. Documents To Go Premium Edition retails for $49.99 and is available directly from DataViz as well as many retail and online stores including CompUSA, Amazon.com and Handango.com. Upgrade pricing of $29.99 is available directly from DataViz ( www.dataviz.com ) for all previous Documents To Go customers, including those who received Documents To Go Professional Edition with their Palm branded device. For more information and to download a free evaluation visit www.dataviz.com/downloads .