New Pocket PC Programming Tool - ForwardPass
I’ve written some Pocket PC and Palm applications over the years, primarily using NSBasic. It’s great, and you can do some limited development on your device if you so choose. Now Forward Pass Systems is announcing the availability of their new development environment called ForwardPass. You can get a 30-day free trial of the package so you can truly try before you buy - the final product is listed on Handango for only $39.95.
What’s nice about this is that you can create, edit and debug applications right on your Pocket PC wherever you happen to be. When you finally want to create a distributable package, you just need to dock your PC and run a desktop application that will do that job for you. The desktop app can also be used to edit applications on your PC to download to the Pocket PC.
I’m going to give it a try - hopefully it runs on the Toshiba e740 (it’s not listed on the compatibility list…).
Pronto Lite For Your Palm
Philips, the folks who brought the Pocket PC world such delightful products as the Velo a few years ago, have a really great product called the Pronto. It’s a universal remote that costs about $400. If you own a PalmOS device and want some of the functionality of the Pronto at a greatly reduced price, Philips has announced “Pronto Lite”. It’ll run on most PalmOS devices with version 3.5 of the OS or later. The range of the device is limited by the model of Palm device you’re installing Pronto Lite onto, so they recommend that you download a free 15-day trial version of the software before buying. The purchase price is a breath of fresh air compared to the full-fledged Pronto universal remotes - only $19.95!
Press Release: Kilmist releases Kilmist Keyboard XL Version 1.5
Kilmist Keyboard XL more than makes up for the lack of a comfortable keyboard for Pocket PC. It turns your Pocket PC screen into a slick, spacious and responsive keyboard to facilitate the fastest input method yet. With Kilmist Keyboard XL, the expensive and bulky add-on keyboards (thumb, folding etc) become practically redundant. With its small foot print of less than 150KB, Keyboard XL will be the lightest and fastest keyboard you will ever use. Accomplish all your typing tasks using Keyboard XL and
easily transfer the text into application of your choice (Word, Email etc)
Pocket PC 2000 & 2002 Compatible!!!
Keyboard XL is loaded with easy-to-use features such as:
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* Visual response for every key press increases your typing accuracy and speed.
* Repetition of keys on press and hold for keys that most need it (backspace, delete, left and right arrow - no frustrating multiple clicks). You can even set how fast the key should repeat.
* Move the cursor to any line/point in the text with a single touch and even select portions of the text to copy, cut or type over.
* Access or hide the keyboard with just a hardware button click.
* Turn the keyboard to the left or to the right - comes in handy for Pocket PC phone edition devices (with antenna).
* Intuitive placement and appearance of control keys to enhance usability.
* Easy access to all punctuation and umlaut characters (covering all Western European languages) using the control buttons on the bottom row.
Keyboard XL is extremely powerful due to these customizable options:
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* Customize the key placement on the keyboard to your liking (crest, trough or flat). You could have the keys placed as in the standard keyboard or in an ergonomic keyboard.
* The actions taken by Keyboard XL on start and on close can be customized according to your usage.
* The overall look of the keyboard can be customized by using various (free) skins that conform to your idea of fashion and cool. The skin files are small in size varying from a mere 6KB to 50KB.
* The font and size of the text on the keys and the edit area can be customized.
* Most importantly, the character mapping (what character a particular key press produces) can be customized, thus opening the door to support all languages covered under Unicode. New character maps can be created using Keyboard XL or downloaded as map files from Kilmist web site. The character maps for various languages will be provided free for download from the Kilmist web site shortly.
Please visit www.kilmist.com/KeyboardXL for more information.
E-mail Posting Is Working Again!
For some odd, unexplainable reason, the e-mail posting function of Blogger
Pro hasn’t worked for quite some time. I just tried it and as you can see,
it’s working now! I’m hanging out in the back yard with my Toshiba e740,
scrawling this note into a “GopherKing” e-mail window using Transcriber.
Too cool.
I thought I’d take this opportunity to write a short commentary about how
the cooling economy has had one very good side effect — we’re not seeing
really stupid PDA products any more! While this is bad from the standpoint
that I can’t make fun of them anymore, it is very nice that we don’t have
to put up with incredibly dumb products. The venture capitalists seem to
be getting a little parsimonious with their spendolas right now, so only
the better products appear to be getting funded.
Well, only a month and a half until I visit Redmond again! That should be
good for at least a week of posts from me, as I’m sure that I will see
some wonderful demonstrations. I am personally very interested in doing
hands-on work with two devices; the Smartphone 2002 “phones” and the
Tablet PCs. I’ve said it before; if a manufacturer can come out with a
decent pen/voice interface PC that is relatively light, has decent battery
life, built-in wireless LAN capabilities, and runs all standard Windows
software, I’d consider giving up a Pocket PC or Palm and just carry a REAL
computer everywhere.
Posted over wireless LAN.
That’s An Expensive Latte!
Starbucks and T-Mobile (the new name for VoiceStream since they were gobbled up by Deutsch Telekom) have partnered together to provide 802.11b hot spots at over 1200 locations throughout the US. Since I have an 802.11b-equipped Toshiba e740 and I like coffee, I thought I’d look into this. The result of my research? Well, if you’re going to sip a Frappucino and check your e-mail from the local Starbucks, you’d better bring your credit card along.
T-Mobile Hot Spots provides a couple of different service plans. First, if you stick just to your local area (great if you never travel) there’s a $29.99 monthly plan. Next, if you’re using a laptop to conduct your business within the confines of the local Starbucks, wherever that Starbucks may be, you can get a national plan that provides unlimited service for $49.99. Basically, that’s all you can eat wherever you can eat. Finally, if you don’t think you’ll use the service very often and you want to use it anywhere it’s available, you can sign up for a service plan that charges $2.99 per use for the first 15 minutes of use, then $0.25 for each additional minute after that point. That works out to $14.24 per hour. Kinda get the feeling that T-Mobile really wants to tie you into a monthly service plan?
For a limited time you can get 24 hours of free usage to try the service by signing up here. You have to choose a service plan to go to after you’re done with the trial, but that at least gives you a chance to try out the service.
T-Mobile seems to be trying to make a big impact in the USA lately. As you can see on their website, they are selling a Pocket PC Phone Edition device and service that runs on the T-Mobile GPRS network. At $549.99 plus service, this is not a cheap solution…
No Oslo
A couple of weeks ago I was getting inundated with e-mails from folks who had found pictures of Palm devices code-named “Oslo” on the web. These devices had such interesting features as a hi-res color screen (which hopefully would display 16-bit color!), a directional input pad, and even a collapsible Graffiti area. Some readers stated that they were sure this was the long-awaited Palm m900, the next-generation ARM-powered Palm that we’re all expecting to see later this year.
Well, don’t hold your breath. Several well-placed sources have noted that these devices were exactly what they appeared to be - prototypes of devices that were later cancelled. Don’t expect to see these at your local Office Depot store in the near future!
Palm m130 Ain’t As Colorful As It Seems
Wired News was reporting yesterday that the Palm m130 apparently doesn’t display 65,536 colors (16-bit color) as advertised - it is actually capable of displaying 58,621 “color combinations”. Apparently some users had though that the display was actually a 12-bit (4,096 color) display, which would have been a major PR disaster for the folks at Palm. This is somewhat similar to the controversy that arose with early HP Jornadas, which were advertised with a certain color depth and actually shipped with much less capability.
Palm says it was an “honest mistake” and that apparently they had full intentions of delivering 16-bit color on the m130 but a choice of components reduced the number of colors that could accurately be displayed on the screen. Palm spokesmen noted that the company will be tightening its processes so that future devices will ship with the advertised properties, but no word was supplied on whether or not the company will consider any sort of compensation to users. HP didn’t, so I wouldn’t expect Palm to do anything like this either…
Going To Redmond!
Well, if you read my last post, you probably saw my comments regarding the “Pocket PC, Wireless and Beyond” conference in 2000. I wasn’t able to attend last year’s event, but on Friday I received my invitation from Microsoft to this year’s “Mobius Redmond 2002″ event. To quote the invitation, “The agenda for the two day conference will consist of an in-depth “hands-on” look at Pocket PC Phone Edition, a “test drive” of the Microsoft Smartphone software, and detailed presentations relating to Microsoft Mobility products across the company including Tablet PC.”
Cool! This year’s event will take place October 10-12, and you can be sure that I will provide you with up-to-date information on what’s coming next from the folks in Redmond.
Pocket PC, Wireless and Beyond - Two Years Later
As many readers will remember, two years ago I was invited to and attended the Microsoft Pocket PC, Wireless and Beyond seminar in Redmond. The idea was to get a bunch of Palm-centric webmasters, user group leaders, etc… and show them what was available with Pocket PCs and what was going to come in the future. We got to see early prototypes of the Stinger (now Smartphone 2002) devices, and all attendees took home a great deal of equipment courtesy of Microsoft. The latter “freebie” caused a writer for a “PalmOS magazine to remain nameless” to publicly charge that Microsoft was “bribing” us to change our opinions. That was crap, because at the end of the session, most of the PalmOS users were still unimpressed with the Pocket PC platform although they did have more knowledge of what Pocket PCs were all about.
Most of the folks who attended that session formed a loose coalition on Yahoo where we posted messages, had flame wars, and attacked Microsoft. The group is still together, although not many posts are to be seen these days. In memory of the Pocket PC, Wireless and Beyond conference, I posted the following message earlier today:
It’s been almost two years since we all met up in Redmond, and I thought it would be interesting to find out what everyone is up to these days in terms of PDAs…
For me, I’m still bi-platform. I tried living without a Palm, but I find their wireless solutions to be much superior to the cobbled-together crap that is out there in the Pocket PC world (i.e., get an iPaq, throw a PC Card sleeve on it, drop a CDPD card into it, subscribe to a service, etc….). Back in late January I picked up a Palm i705. What a great unit! Even though it is on ALL the time picking up e-mail messages for me, I can go a week between charges. That’s very nice. They’ve got a good little thumb-board for it, so I can just whip out messages, IMs, etc… I also like their backup solution; it’s an SD card that you stick into the Palm and tap a big button that says “Backup”. It copies everything off of the device onto the card. If your Palm crashes, you stick the card into the device, press the button that says “Restore” and seconds later you’re back in business. I find the various backup solutions that come with Pocket PC 2002 devices to a lot less useful, so I rarely use ‘em.
In the Pocket PC world, I’m using a Toshiba e740. It’s very slim, has a pretty good screen, has TWO slots (SD and CF Type II), but the great thing is the built-in WiFi. I love lounging around the house and checking web sites, e-mail, etc… at full WiFi speeds. Too bad the battery life sucks and the 400 MHz XScale CPU doesn’t speed it up much.
What I’d really like to see and try is the Smartphone 2002 devices that are supposed to start coming out - finally. I don’t like the Pocket PC Phone Edition devices, as they look too big and clunky. I think Handspring has the right idea with the Treo series. Those suckers are tiny, several models have wonderful bright color displays, and they work very simply. The built-in thumb boards are a stroke of genius!
Since I don’t really want to change cell phone providers and therefore my cell phone number, I will probably stay with AT&T Wireless. They’re supposed to come out with a Smartphone 2002 device next year (why don’t they just call ‘em Smartphone 2003, since most of ‘em won’t see the light of day until next year!). They already push that mMode service (I think it’s an Americanized DoCoMo) on the Sony Ericsson handset; it looks nice, but I’d prefer something that could also act as a WMA player, open spreadsheets/word docs, etc…
Anyway, I thought I’d post this for the few bodies who are still checking in on occasion. Hope you’re having a nice life!
It should be VERY interesting to see the responses. My guess is that most people are probably still using PalmOS devices and haven’t been persuaded yet to go to Pocket PCs. For those who wanted music-playing capabilities in a PalmOS device, there are the Sony Clies. Wireless geeks have the Palm i705, Handspring Treos, and a handful of other devices. If I get some interesting feedback, I’ll be sure to post it here!
Press Release: TextMaker for Pocket PCs and Handheld PCs
Nuernberg, Germany — August 12, 2002 — In an ideal world, you could create a Microsoft Word document on your desktop computer, put it on your Windows CE device, edit and format it on the road, and then send it back to the office as a .DOC file, with content and all formatting still intact.This is what owners of Handheld PCs and Pocket PCs running the Windows CE operating system expect from their mobile computers.
Unfortunately, this is not how it works right now. Pocket Word, the word processor shipping with all Handheld PCs and Pocket PCs, is perhaps the biggest disappointment for mobile users: No headers or footers. No tables. No outliner. No on-the-fly spell-checking. Severely limited text formatting. No paragraph styles. Image support? Barely existent.
What about document conversion then? As soon as you move a .DOC file to your mobile device, all features that Pocket Word cannot process are stripped and thrown away. Basically, just the body text in bold, italic, and underline survives, but not much else.
Now there is an alternative: TextMaker, available in a Handheld PC edition and a Pocket PC edition, is the first and only complete word processor for Windows CE. Multi-language spell-checker? Graphics? Footnotes? No problem. Tables? Sophisticated character and paragraph formatting? Glossary? At your fingertips. Lossless conversion of Microsoft Word .DOC files? Right on your CE device. The mobile version of TextMaker has practically all of the features that the desktop version of TextMaker offers!
TextMaker is the most comprehensive word processor ever developed for Windows CE.
Imagine that: Desktop-class word processing for mobile devices.
HANDHELD PC owners can now try out TextMaker for free: The release candidate (the final version before product release) has been made available as a free download at www.softmaker.de/anywhere
The retail version of TextMaker for Handheld PCs will start shipping on August 30, 2002. It will be bundled with the desktop word processor TextMaker for Windows which works on any Windows 32 bit operating system. Introductory pricing has been set at US$69.95 in the Americas and EUR 79.95 in Europe.
POCKET PC owners will soon be able to work with TextMaker as well. TextMaker for Pocket PCs is under development, and SoftMaker promises the first beta version to be due in the coming weeks. In the meantime, Pocket PC users can get an early glimpse of this application by looking at the first screenshots that have been posted at www.softmaker.de/anywhere
The first beta version of TextMaker for Pocket PCs is expected in the coming weeks.
TextMaker is just one of the components of SoftMaker Office anywhere, a mobile office suite for Windows, Windows CE, and Linux which will also comprise a Microsoft Excel-compatible spreadsheet, a database package, and a PIM/groupware combo. SoftMaker Office anywhere will be available in “regular” desktop and mobile editions, but also as an ASP or client/server edition running over the LAN or Internet.
The components of SoftMaker Office anywhere will be released step-by-step in 2002 and 2003.
Discuss this press release in the PDAntic.com Discussion Forums!
Press Release: Applian Releases Super Explorer for Pocket PC
Super Explorer makes it easy to copy, move and delete files on your Pocket PC using a handy drag-and-drop interface. Plus you can adjust the size of the folder and file windows by dragging a separator bar. It’s a superior file manager compared to the built-in File Explorer application. What’s more, Super Explorer is a fully functional FTP client, with the same, easy-to-use interface.
Here’s some of the benefits of Super Explorer:
* Copy files to and from the Internet using FTP.
* Easily copy and move files and folders on your Pocket PC.
* Flexible interface lets you see more files or more folders.
* Choose a display font that works best for you.
* Change file properties.
* Customize display columns.
* Easily beam files to other devices.
Super Explorer is available now in 3 different packages:
For $19.95 by itself.
In the $29.95 Applian productivity Bundle of 6 programs.
In the $39.95 Applian Super Incredible Bundle with 15 programs.
Order now from the Applian Web site at www.applian.com
Discuss this press release on the PDAntic.com Discussion Forums!
Back again! Treo 300 Hits The Market.
In case you’re wondering why there were no updates for the last 10 days, it’s because I was on a MUCH needed vacation. I decided to keep my web work to a minimum, so I was just sending and receiving e-mail from my Palm i705 while I was in Santa Fe, NM and was incommunicado the rest of the time (except for sending and receiving some e-mails from my AT&T Wireless Nokia 8260 phone while I was in Aspen, CO). I survived very well without being in constant touch, thank you very much!
It appears that the big news today is that the Treo 300 has hit the market! This is essentially a Treo 270 with one difference - it is Sprint-branded, and is sold only with Sprint wireless voice and data service. It is packaged with the Blazer web browser, and also features Sprint’s “PCS Vision” service, which appears to me to be a proxy-based browser service. They refer to PCS Vision as allowing you to “surf the web and receive e-mail at enhanced speed”. Since Spring does not currently have a GSM/GPRS network, my guess is that they’re using a proxy server to strip unnecessary extras from e-mail and web pages. This isn’t anything new, as the ThunderHawk browser/service does essentially the same thing.
The price of the Treo 300 is “only” $499, which includes a vehicle adapter and free shipping. The service plans range all over the place, based on how much data service you use and how many minutes of talk time you want. Frankly, I’d love a service where you could get a ton of data (unlimited would be nice!) and limited talk time, since that’s how I tend to use my Palm i705 and cell phone today.
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Joy of Tech!
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MacLevelTen
