05:23 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

PalmAddicts' Podcast #22 is is upon us and available for your listening pleasure. Topics include:

• Welcome to the new Associate Writers
• Video on iPod nanos
• BETR ROKR?
• ACCESS/PalmSource Acquisition Finalized
• PalmPDF v0.6

More over at PalmAddicts.

04:54 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | Reading Recommendations

Readers of Guardian's Technology Blog have voted for the Top 20 geek novels. The list is led by:

1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams 85% (102)
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell 79% (92)
3. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley 69% (77)
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick 64% (67)
5. Neuromancer -- William Gibson 59% (66)

Of all the books listed, I've read eight. Do I now qualify as a geek?

04:38 AM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Driven by rapid growth in the market for smartphones, Symbian Q3 shipments have more than doubled year-to-year. The software licensing consortium said shipments of handsets with Symbian OS rose 131 percent to 8.54 million in the three months to end-September. They generated royalties of 23.8 million pounds ($41.2 million), which is also more than double the figure for the same period a year ago, though the average royalty fell to $5 from $5.50 per unit. According to The Register, it's all thanks to Nokia:

It's all down to Nokia, of course. Symbian said 8.54m handsets shipped in Q3 with its software on board. It didn't break that down by licensee, but market watcher Canalys recently said Nokia shipped 7.1m smart phones in the same period, all of which are based on Symbian. Even allowing for discrepancies between the way Symbian and Canalys calculate their figures, Nokia accounts for over 80 per cent of Symbian's shipments.

04:26 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

EzQuote is a nifty small tool for all Wall Street wannabes who want to stay informed about the latest stock prices with their Windows mobile device.

EzQuote is a simple, fast and easy portfolio tracking application for Windows Mobile Smartphone and Pocket PC devices. It enables you to create a list of your favorite stock quotes, and download prices (20-min delayed) and other information on demand. EzQuote is not limited to US markets. It supports stocks, indices and other securities from all major markets around the world.

Downloads: Pocket PC edition, Smartphone edition

04:02 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

It's an old saying that there are no bad ideas. We beg to differ. The OQO is one of such ideas we could have happily lived without. You pay roughly $2,000 and you get a sluggish 1GHz Transmeta processor, an undersized 30GB hard drive, insufficient 512MB of RAM, and a dull 800 x 480 5" screen. Yet somehow OQO Inc. managed to win the venture arm of Motorola to its side, plus to raise another $20 million in cash aimed at scaling sales and marketing efforts and accelerating research and development of their forthcoming OQO products.

Related: OQO Unveils New Pocketable Windows XP Computer, OQO review at NYTimes, OQO in-depth review at handtops.com

[via I4U News]

03:44 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Don't fix something that ain't broke, 'cause you'll break it and you still can't fix it. Next time listen to Murphy when you plan on upgrading your PDA to Microsoft's bleeding edge mobile OS. A member at Aximsite is quoting Dell technical support saying that they will soon release a bugfix upgrade for Windows Mobile 5.0, which hopefully addresses various issues such as

• sluggish response times (long loadings, slow screen redrawing)
• CF card mount randomly disappearing
• Bluetooth stack incompatibilities
• sudden battery discharge
• random system lock-ups
• power-up issues
• buggy Dell GPS tool

Now, how's that for a scary list?

01:28 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

I've always enjoyed reading about productivity. David Allen's Getting Things Done is one of my favorite books. Reading about it is fun because, of course, it's much easier than actually doing it! Well, the November Productivity Pro newsletter has some great tips for the Treo that I've never seen before.

My favorite tip, and one that I intend to look into, is the copytalk.com service that allows you to call a phone number and dictate. They transcribe and email you the results. Pretty neat! I wonder if there are other services like that out there?

So here are some Treo tips from Productivity Pro newsletter reader T. Davis...
"Here are a few more advantages I have found in going electronic with the Treo:
* There is a view of appointments by week in Palm (it is very small, I'll give you that).
* The QWERTY keyboard on my Treo is a fast way to enter notes compared to other methods (but I am with you, writing is faster; we really need electronic audio shorthand or better yet telepathy to handheld).
* I have downloaded a voice recorder to my Treo with one-button touch controls. This solved my problem of note taking while driving, which I do a lot of. I can save the audio files and name them separately and sync them to my desktop.
* I use www.efax.com so I can easily send faxes of files on my Treo through email to a fax number as a fax for someone who needs the communication in fax form.
* I use www.copytalk.com, which allows me to call a number and dictate my mental and paper notes from a meeting. They convert it to type and email it to me. I save the file attached to the contact it ACT. Very nice way to keep detailed notes of clients meetings tied to the client and well organized, which is a good comfort measure in our litigious society.
* My last and favorite benefit of the Palm is reminders. My paper calendar could not do that, and I would get busy and forget to look at it sometimes. I organize every day with calls, meetings and to-dos and put reminders on them. 5 min for a call, 1 hour for a 1 hour drive, 5 days for moms birthday card, etc. This really helps me keep from dropping thinks through the cracks. It is a real virtual assistant. Plus I use fewer sticky notes!!!
* I keep and old PDA around for quick functional backup if my primary one breaks or is lost or stolen. "

You can subscribe to the newsletter here, and the main Productivity Pro website also has quite a bit of free information.

05:41 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book Readers | Alternative Devices

As sad as this sounds, the Nokia 770 may not be the perfect mobile device yet. The guys over at Mobile Gazette found that WiFi connectivity of the 770 leaves much to be desired. They had trouble connecting to various domestic WLAN routers unless the device was very close in range.

The poor wireless LAN connectivity in our Nokia 770 is a very serious flaw, which is either a design issue or hardware fault. Otherwise, this is an excellent device with good inbuilt software. It works well with Bluetooth phones, and it is especially useful with a 3G handset. The inbuilt software still has a few rough edges and could do with some enhancements, but remember this platform is continually developing. We will pursue Nokia about the poor WLAN connectivity. If that can be resolved, then we would recommend this device wholeheartedly.