07:10 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

From PDA247 I found out today that TankerBob wrote the third part of his essay "Moving from Palm to PocketPC" (part one, part two) in which he compares stability, 3rd party PIM applications, alarm handling, registry management and more in his move to Pocket PC. His third week bottom line:

After speeding through program trials involving literally dozens of installs/uninstalls last week, this week proved to be a maintenance learning experience. Although the tools on a PPC differ from those on the Palm, the basic idea remains the same. Leftover preferences on the Palm or spurious registry entries on the PPC both negatively affect their respective platforms. On all handhelds, regular (I recommend daily) full backups provide priceless recovery capability should the worst come to pass.

If you are willing to make the transition, remember to also check out Bob's related essays (I Took The Plunge, PalmOS to Pocket PC: Part I - Intro and PalmOS to Pocket PC: Part II - Conversion).

05:52 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Amazon has posted details this morning not only on the palmOne LifeDrive itself, but also on original palmOne accessories for the LifeDrive:

• PalmOne 3218WW Aluminum Hard Case for LifeDrive Mobile Manager $49.99
• PalmOne 3219WW Leather Case for LifeDrive Mobile Manager $39.99
• PalmOne 3220WW Stylus Pen 3 Pack for LifeDrive Mobile Manager $19.99
• PalmOne 3223WW 1 GB Memory Expansion Card $129.99

05:34 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

The PalmOne LifeDrive Palm pda with a 4gig internal hard drive is likely to be coming soon, and another sign is a set of leaked pictures on Amazon. A price of $499.88 is reported by Engadget when adding it to your shopping cart. Some specs are given

• Quickly drag and drop files from your PC onto your LifeDrive mobile manager.
• Intel 416MHz XScale processor
• Portrait and landscape viewing
• 320x480 hi-resolution, color display
• LifeDrive smart file management

and the page also shows the following info

Amazon.com Sales Rank: None
ASIN: B0009JMT38
Item model number: 1044NA
Dimensions: 6.50 inches x 6.50 inches x 4.00 inches
Date first available at Amazon: May 18, 2005
Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
This page was created by a seller.

Thanks to Sammy at Palm Addict for the news submission.

08:34 PM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Lounge

One peculiar way of subscribing to RSS feeds is via RMail. RMail is a service for subscribing to any RSS feed via E-Mail. This could become useful if your mobile device doesn't support RSS but offers E-Mail connectivity.

[via Juice Browser]

08:18 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Future Windows Mobile-powered PDA and smartphone devices are likely to be a mix of organizer and multimedia player (Dell already makes the point by using a true video accelerator for its Axim X50v series). To make the integration of audio/video easier and more cost-effective for developers, Texas Instruments is working with Microsoft on a "Windows Mobile-based Portable Media Center Software Kit."

The kit is based on a TI system-on-a-chip (SOC), a highly-integrated Digital Media processor targeted specifically for portable applications, capable of supporting QVGA resolution for Windows Media Video 9, as well as up to D1 resolution of other commonly used video formats (it integrates a video encoder and a hardware video accelerator). DSP chips often offer superior performance while minimizing power consumption.

"Portable Media Centers have created new opportunities for people to take their entertainment — video, photos and music — with them anywhere, anytime," said John Pollard, director of Windows Mobile Applications and Services Marketing at Microsoft Corp. "TI's Digital Media processors will help our Windows Mobile-based device manufacturers deliver more choices as the category continues to evolve and expand."

Click here for the full press release

09:02 AM by Bob Russell in E-Book Readers | Alternative Devices

MQP Electronics has provided some nifty eBook creator software. You can now run text files (or html or pdf or rtf) through the converter and create files that give you an ebook on your GameBoy or GameBoy Advance. Pictures seem to even be possible, and there are some pre-made books like the complete works of Sherlock Holmes.

Probably not for the average GameBoy owner, though. There's lots of instructions there, but you do have to program that file onto a flash memory cartridge, and it doesn't seem that there's a lot of help. The instructions simply say

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]You will need to find your own solution to obtaining a suitable Flash Cartridge into which to program the electronic books you have made. I do not sell them.[/font]

This amazing piece of news comes to us from Palm Addict. Be sure to visit for your daily dose of Palm news.

07:17 AM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

Larry Page, co-founder of Google, recently spoke at the graduation ceremonies for the College of Engineering. A rough transcript from a student's recording is available here. (it's typed out in the comments. Note that the first comment with a transcript is just the introduction.)

I've iSiloX'd it, as I do with all web articles that look interesting but I have no time to read yet. So there it remains in my pocket until the next waiting time somewhere that gives me a few minutes to read. If you haven't gotten into that habit yourself, you're missing out on the fun!

06:55 AM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

PDAGround has gathered the thoughts of many developers about what they think of "PhonePDAs." Their feelings are kind of like ours:

I love them. I hate them. I love them. I hate them.

On and on it goes!

(via PDArcade)