Toshiba Portege G500

I’m pretty pleased with the windows mobile smartphone o/s and haven’t missed having a touchscreen nearly as much as I though I would. In effect then that’s quite good as it removes from my previous "essential" list one item which opens up a wider range of devices to choose from in the future.

Number one essential though remains some form of text entry distinct from a normal phone keypad. I have never managed to get anywhere near the hang of that T9 text entry system and I never want to be reduced to that "c u at 8" type of messaging, personally I hate that bastardising of the English language which has already been severely denuded in recent years of much of its pomp and grandeur.

I like the look of the Toshiba G500. It has windows mobile smartphone edition and I like this o/s, it also has 3G and HSDPA connectivity but it only has a normal phone keypad and I can’t see myself living with that for any sustained period. That fingerprint technology looks like little more than a gimmick to me, apparantly you can use it to navigate through menus and applications but have to have your finger over the sensor, which is on the back of the device, to work it. Sounds a bit awkward to me.

There don’t seem to be a lot of reviews of the phone around, the ones I have read are not overtly positive either. Some say the T9 text entry type thing Toshiba have on it doesn’t work very well. Still, it looks nice and chunky and those who have used it say it is very well built with a decent camera.

Tomorrow I will be unsuccessfully trying to…

…network my xbox 360 to my imac using my wireless router. I’ve got the gear…wireless router and xbox360 wireless adaptor but what I don’t have unfortunately, and this is quite important, is the know how to sort it out if it doesn’t connect first time…which it more than likely won’t.
If by some miracle it does work then I will be trying out Connect 360 to try and download itunes and photo stuff to the xbox via my imac.

StyleTap

I’ve been pretty desperate to give this a whirl on my HTC Vox but so far have been unsuccessful. Bob Chew from styletap has very kindly been giving me some assistance, for which I am very grateful. There seem to be one or two issues specific to the device that stop the app working properly at the moment.
Nevertheless, it is reassuring to know that a company like StyleTap are so responsive to addressing issues and for this they are to be commended.

Trying out some apps for pocket pc

One of which is Resco Pocket Radio….and very good it is too although I think you really need a 3G enabled device to utilise it properly. I have to admit I thought this would be all stop and starty but it connects very quickly and plays virtually skip free. Very impressive. Not so impressive is the amount of data it eats up. I was listening to various stations for about 15-20 minutes and it used up about 40mb of data…yikes. You’ll need a restriction free data plan for this one. The sound through headphones on my treo 750v was very good too.
I couldn’t work out how to get my own preferred channels such as Radio 5 Live but apparantly you can import channels as M3U files.
It also acts as a recorder too so is pretty versatile.

Foleo…

Well, here it is and it’s probably fair to say it’s not what we expected and probably not what we wanted to see as the next big palm thing. Jeff looks a trifle sheepish in this photo…as if he knows that most of us are going to be extremely disappointed in this new product announcement. It’s had a pretty mixed reception to date.

Shaun at pda247 seems positive..
"Despite the rambling
above my first impressions of the Foleo are very positive. On a
personal note this could be the device I have been wanting for a few
years now and the price is excellent"
User opinion in their forums, at times, is not quite so good though..
"
What does it do? bigger screen? get a different PDA. Bigger keyboard? Get a wireless one. What else? NOTHING"

From Palmaddicts…

"How will this vision fare? Who knows? The important thing is that
something different has been introduced by Palm for the first time in a
VERY long time. The Linux core, the aim to support every brand of
smartphone and the Opera browser throw a wide net, and will certainly
garner some interesting feedback from both the media and from Apple and
Redmond"

From Palm itself…

“With its 10-inch screen and full-size keyboard, the
Palm Foleo mobile companion connects wirelessly with your smartphone to
help you do more on the go. Unfold it, press a button, and it’s on
instantly—while just one touch brings your email to the big screen.1
Use your Foleo to view attachments, type longer emails, or to get a
bigger look at web pages and photos you’d normally view on your
smartphone.2 And with up to five hours of battery life packed into such
a compact design, you’ll do big things wherever you go.”

"Email—use
its big screen and keyboard to type longer emails and see more of
attachments. Connect wirelessly with your smartphone and sync email
with the touch of a button.

Attachments—edit and create Word and
Excel® compatible docs, view PDFs, and deliver PowerPoint®
presentations, all on its stunning 10-inch wide color screen. Plus,
open and view photos you receive from friends and family"

Hmmmm…some of that sounds quite useful. I think it needs to be remembered that this is not being marketed as a stand alone device, it seems to be meant to complement useage of your existing smartphone which will remain your main information manager. I’ve been thinking about the Foleo for a few hours or so now and the more I think about it the more useful I think it would be, particularly it’s features such as quick start up, wireless connection and the ability to continue where it left off. You wouldn’t need to lug it around 24 hours a day. I tend to do most of my heavy duty emailing and document stuff not when I’m out and about but rather when I’m at home and editing docs, catching up on reports for work. This would make this sort of device pretty useful for me then. It would also enable me to look at QWERTY keyboard less devices as more viable options now. It would also save me having to take home my awful windows laptop every 2nd night to do stuff on.

The browsing side of thing sounds very useful…set it up next to your treo at home and surf away on the big screen using the treo’s data connection. What about when you are away on holiday or in a hotel and have no access to the internet? This would be perfect. Yep, it’s got some good stuff going for it. With its email syncing ability it can act as backup facility too.  And it’s a mini lap-top that is NOT windows…we should all stand and up and cheer.

I’ve got to say…it looks rather cool and desirable…I like it and in fact, I want it now. Come on Jeff, cheer up..at least you’ve got one customer.

WM6 coming in June for Treo 750v

Hopefully this will be for unlocked treo 750v’s as well and will be in early June as opposed to late June…I’m very impatient, that is all.

Belkin G+MIMO wireless router and unsuccessful adventures

As part of my "new improved me" I have been trying to finally do some of the things I have meant to do for ages. One of these is to share my G5imac broadband internet connection with my son’s ageing G3 imac in his bedroom.
First stop PC World…I hear groans from the background and rightly so…what a nightmare that place is for mac lovers. Anyway, I went in looking for a wireless router and was soon accosted by one of their "experts". I told him what I wanted to do and he very quickly picked up the Belkin wireless router and USB wireless adaptor. The wireless router box very clearly had the Mac software logo on it and said that the cd in it was mac x compatible. This is going to be a piece of piss I thought as I headed home. All I’ll need to do is stick the cd in the imac and sit back and let it all happen.
So I did….sort of. I gets back home, sticks in the cd, opened the instruction leaflet which has a section titled "mac user". Mac users, it states, open the cd and click on the "start OSX" icon.

So I did…and nothing happens. Click again and then the error message comes up…"there is no application to open this..". Can you believe it!! Belkin have set the supposed "mac" installation up as a windows application…doh.

Forget it I thought…I’ll just plug everything in and hope for the best. Amazingly enough, 2 minutes later my imac, all of its accord, seems to have set up the network without any hinderance..I mean help….from bloody Belkin. Or I think it has anyway as the Airport bit in "Network" states that "airport is connected to the network Belkin"…sounds like a network to me anyway?? Probably not though….what computers should be doing is letting you know if something has bee done, for example, my imac should flash up an on-screen message:

"Well done Murray. Despite patently not having a clue what you were doing, you have successfully set up a Network. Now, go through to the other computer and stick in a wireless USB adaptor"

Stage one over. Stage two is to connect the G3 imac via the wireless USB adaptor to this new network. So I plugged in the  adaptor, which the PC World chap said was mac compatible, and nothing happened. Oh dear. I tried to download a driver from the Belkin website but they are for Windows only so I’m a bit stumped at the moment and will need to get a mac compatible, out of the box, USB adaptor from somewhere else. Mission aborted for the moment then.

Still, at least I tried. My next great unsuccessful adventure is going to be trying to connect my xbox 360 to the imac network…if there is a network of course…and for that I presume I need one of those xbox 360 network adaptor sort of things and that connect360 software for the mac.

Wish me luck.

GarageSale for mac

I’ve been using this application on my mac for a while now and it gets pretty frequent updates. It’s one of those ebay type apps that purports to make it easier for you to list, track and manage all your ebay auctions. I also considered iSale at the same time but went for GarageSale as it was cheaper and I found it a bit easier to set up and get running.
I use it now for any ebay auctions I’m running and it basically does everything from start to finish, you can choose from templates or make up your own and for new sales it’s just a matter of amending an existing template as most of the stuff I sell tends to be either xbox games or gadgets.
I suppose the sign of a great application is that once you start using it you wouldn’t dream of using any alternatives out there, no matter what and I suppose this pretty much applies to GarageSale. You can track your auctions from start to finish within the programme as it is all linked up to ebay. It has a useful "scheduler" where you start auctions at a later date and time and it links up nicely with iPhoto for your auction piccies.
Worth checking out if you have a mac and use ebay a bit.

Grand Theft Auto IV images galore

I
‘ve played a bit of these type of games before and could only get half into them but there are a lot of people who love them to bits so there must be something there.
Xbox360fanboy has a load of screen of the forthcoming 360 title, as named above, for your viewing pleasure.

my pda day

From pda 247

"A DAY IN THE LIFE

My Loox charges every night on my bedside table.  When I awake, I check my schedule for the day and the weather right from the Today screen using Spb Diary and Spb Weather).  If I have time, I also check my email.  I perform a wireless sync with my home computer.

I have a healthy breakfast, and track my weight watcher’s "points" with WWCalc for Palm OS via Style Tap)"

Goodness, I tend not to go near my pda for ages after I get up. It’s toilet time then coffee time then toast time then kiddies up time and then after that I’ll switch it on and download email, but that’s all. I certainly don’t do any of that early morning syncing with the home computer stuff. My imac doesn’t start working during the week until after 7pm.

The Hawk is about to land..

Hmmmm…a "new category" of mobile device they say. What can that mean? Actually, it sends alarm bells ringing for me. There is the countdown you can follow on the offical of sorts webpage if you are that way inclined.
Problem with these types of building up everyone’s expectation sort of announcements is that if it’s not absolutely shit-hot then they can end up looking a bit silly.
Perhaps it will be the first Linux palm device…now that would be interesting. The Hawk picture looks my TX pdair case. There’s a sort of nobbly bit on the right hand side, perhaps a scroll wheel?

No syncing with my imac

The Missing Sync, as yet, has not made its windows app version WM6 compatible. This is actually not a bad thing and I have got by pretty easily so far. Any apps that I need to try out I can normally get a CAB file off the website and then just send it via Bluetooth on my imac at home.

As I use a pc at work I do the rest of my syncing via Active Sync there. I downloaded the latest version for non-Vista users, 4.5, as this is needed for the HTC Vox and it works okay dokay although, very annoyingly, it is much slower and has barely finished a sync when it is starting another one. This would be okay if it were not for the fact that when it does start syncing, the whole system slows down.

Basically, I have to do a smash and grab raid…connect it via usb…start the sync and when it has finished, whip it out again otherwise it just starts syncing again…

Treo 750v and HSPDA “upgrade”

What do you people think of all these "unofficial" upgrades you can get off the internet for devices? I mean things like the WM6 upgrades from xda-developers for certain HTC devices and the treocentral HSPDA cab file for the treo 750v.

They are certainly tempting and you read through all the posts in the threads on these sites and they seem to work okay but I just tend to shy away from them as I’m a big scaredy cat at heart. The treo HSPDA cab file is available from here but what puts me off is that it was developed for US networks and one or two people who were initially using it and very positive ended up deleting it off their treos.

Smartphone software

I think part of the reason why I haven’t been delving much into the smartphone software market yet is that quite a bit of the inbuilt stuff is actually quite good. For instance, the task list and Notes applications are easy to use and although lacking a bit in features for most power-user types, they are perfectly suited to my limited needs.
The HTC Audio player is also good, it has a nice simple interface and is perfectly adequate  for the likes of me…someone who just wants to be be able to listen to music on the go without having to bother with graphic equalisers and the like.

I’m also happy enough with the Calendar application, again it is basic but it displays well and is easy to read and use. I’m also sure the File Browser is good enough to handle the less complicated nature of the o/s. Surprisingly, I was also quite impressed with the Pic viewer which loads up my pics quickly. Normally, one of the first apps to go on any new device for me is an enhanced pic viewer but I don’t think this will be needed here.

I have however splashed out on "upgrades" to get NewsBreak and ListPro as I need these two apps now on any new device, Ilium do a cross-platform discount upgrade which is good.

Sony Cybershot G1

Sony have launched one or two new cameras recently and it is interesting to note that the Cybershot G1 comes with 2GB of internal memory as opposed to the normally puny 64mb that most others seem to have. This would allow you to store 600 pics at the full mega pixel resolution.
This could well be the start of a trend setting thing and in a couple of years time we will see virtually all other camera manufacturers doing the same….hopefully. Other than that it a means of Sony to get round people avoiding buying their camera because of the proprietary Sony sticks.

Treo 680 back up and running

Over the weekend I fired up the 680 and pressed it back into action and it was a cinch to do…windows mobile please take note. Power it up…go through the calibration…stick in the sd…up pops Backup Man with the "do you wish to restore" rountine…press yes and two minutes later a fully functioning back to normal treo 680. It’s as if I never left it.

The first thing that struck me was how bright and lucid the screen is. Using screen protectors, as I always do, takes away some of that brightness and dulls it a bit. I’d love to be brave enough to go without a protector but I’m not and besides, I like to be able to put the treo into my trouser pocket case-less to reduce bulk and thus a screen protector is pretty vital.

I’d actually been dreading using the 680 again as I knew that the minute it was all working again I’d get that full time palm treo craving. Nothing wrong with that I hear you say and you’d be right but I’ve invested a fair bit into windows mobile of late and I really need to give it a fair go. Of course, if WM lets me down then that is another story….

Assassin’s Creed

Now this looks much more like my kind of game…a game which rewards the more skilful player, like myself, for patient and well planned gameplay styles. None of that silly and tiresome running around, chavv like, with a machine gun shooting everything that moves nonsense. No, this is a game that will appeal to the more sophisticated gamer with dollops of stealth and sneaking around to be done.
Can’t wait.

new devices coming out soon…

Well, the treo 755 is already out and that is currently number one in my list of most coveted new devices, but I can’t have it…boo hoo.

There are however one or two interesting new things coming out in the UK in the next few months that will be obtainable…of course obtainable is quite distinct from desirable.

First up we have the Toshiba Protege G900 which will be 3G/HSDPA (?) ready and boasts WM6. It looks quite tall in the hand but it does have that super looking VGA screen. There is also the HTC Kaiser to look forward too and some WM sites are already getting very moist at the prospect of this one. It also has 3G/HSDPA and is WM6 Professional ready and that has fancy slide up screen which could be just gimmiky or could be an absolute boon.

These sound like they will be two powerhouses.

PDAEssential Issue 62 now out in UK

Out and about and as usual there is quite a lot of good stuff in it. Of particular interest to me this month is a good article on Mobipocket Reader which I have previously downloaded and installed on my work PC and pda. However, I always thought it was just an ebook reader. Transpires though I have been well wrong as it can do lots more stuff.
For example, it can import and convert lots of text based documents, pdf’s and Office docs and it also can act as an RSS reader for offline content. And of course the best bit is that it’s free.

There are quite a few device reviews this month and a good group test involving the HTC P3600 and TyTn amongst others to try and find the best "connected" handheld.

Palmaddicts 8th Birthday

A hearty congrats is due to the venerable Samuel McLoughlin and his merry band over at PalmAddicts. It is hard to believe that the site was started 8 years ago, particularly as Sammy looks about 18 and therefore must have started it when he was 10…hmmmmm.
I have been known to add the odd post or two over there now and then and shall continue to do so. PA gave me my first break, so to speak, and have inspired me to do this site. I would love to say that I’ll still be going (the site that is) in 8 years time but it takes a lot of dedication and commitment…which ultimately I am well lacking in.