06:05 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

On my daily morning reading tour at PalmAddicts I stumbled over a BusinessWeek review of the palmOne Treo 650. Despite some minor issues (a Treo 650 isn't exactly a light-weight, and nor is a Mercedes sedan), the reviewer concludes that the Treo remains the best mobile communications device on the market currently:

I spoke to one or two committed BlackbBerry users who said they really want their device only for e-mail and phone calls and that they don't care about photos and the rest. That's fine, but I do care. I happily used the Treo to take pictures of my daughter's soccer game, and I used Real Player to store dozens of songs on it. One day, probably soon, a better device will surpass the 650. But given the state of play today, it's hard for me to imagine how you could reasonably expect more features or better performance from this device. So I give it a five.

An important read for everyone who is considering buying a smartphone device!

[via PalmAddicts]

05:30 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Rachel from Laplink Software sent us word that her company has released Laplink Everywhere 4, a secure solution (128-bit SSL encryption) to access to remote PCs from any web-enabled computer, including Windows Mobile smartphones and PDAs. According to CEO Thomas Koll:

"Laplink Everywhere 4 brings you the best of both worlds. The remote control component compares with major brands such as GoToMyPC, but the product also includes a remote access web interface that extends the product's functionality far beyond anything our competitors offer, allowing you to remotely access your PC through any device that has a web browser, even PDAs and Smartphones."

Click here for a full feature list. Subscription prices start at $8.95 per month or $44.95 per year. A 15-day free trial version is available here.

04:46 AM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | Deals and Resources (No...

LinuxJournal wrote a marvellous tutorial explaining how to convert e-books of various proprietary formats to HTML. E-books in HTML should allow you to view them on your choice of device. The tutorial covers:

• PalmDoc (convert to HTML with Pyrite Publisher)
• RocketBook (convert to HTML with Rbmake)
• Mobipocket (convert to HTML with Rbmake)
• Microsoft Reader (convert to HTML with Convert Lit)

Non-Linux users be warned: this tutorial makes heavy use of the command line.

10:18 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

A company called StyleTap claims to have written a Motorola 68K emulator that allows Pocket PC users to run any Palm OS (5.2) application. Not emulated are support conduits, "hacks", and Bluetooth applications.

"With this product, users who decide to migrate from a Palm OS® device can keep running their favorite applications. And for the first time, existing Windows Mobile™ PDA users can access the vast array of popular, proven Palm OS® applications," said Gregory Sokoloff, CEO and co-founder of StyleTap Inc. "This is the first of a family of StyleTap™ Platform products that will extend this capability to other handheld operating systems such as Symbian OS™. StyleTap™ Platform is based on the idea that the same application software should run on many different kinds of handhelds, regardless of operating system. This not only benefits handheld users, but also allows developers to target a much larger customer base."

I am going to give this one a try tonight. It almost sounds too good to be true. You can click here to download a trial of StyleTab Platform V0.9.050. The current version is a preview that you can evaluate for 14 days without purchasing a license.

[via Engadget]

06:36 AM by Bob Russell in Miscellaneous | Lounge

PDA24/7 is another excellent site that you should visit for frequently updated Palm news or PocketPC news.

But in particular, they have a resource that you may not be aware of even if you follow their news. It's an editorial section called PDA Thoughts. You can find it here. The rate of entries really seems to have picked up, and the content is very good.

05:34 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Buy.com is currently selling palmOne's top model, the Tungsten T5, for $290 ($340 - $50 mail-in rebate) including free shipping!

The $50 rebate is valid from 2/11/2005 to 7/16/2005.

05:09 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

This is from the support section over at AvantGo:

Planned Maintenance Outage: We are planning an outage for the weekend of April 29, 2005 at 17:00 PDT through May 1, 2005 at 23:59 PDT to perform scheduled maintenance. Users will not be able to sync or login to my.avantgo.com during the outage.

Hence one more reason not to use a centralized solution like AvantGo.

04:56 AM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

The topic whether cell phone radiation has a negative biological effect on human cells is controversial, and every other day we hear different opinions from "experts" on the field. So far there is no real scientific evidence for or against. Experts hired by Japanese mobile phone operators (yes, right!) are now claiming that radio frequency energy from mobile phone base stations does not affect human cells.

Using four human cell lines, two containing established infant and fetal fibroblast cells and two containing cerebral tumor tissues, and examining about 20,000 genes in the human genome (approximately 40,000 genes have been identified), researchers found no effect on cell proliferation, gene expression profile or DNA single-strand breaks. The results seem to indicate the safety of radio waves, as the radio waves used in the experiment were up to 10 times stronger than the limit set forth in radio frequency radiation protection guidelines for base stations.

What I surmise: Although there isn't any hard evidence to show mobile phones damage health yet, I would not sleep with a cell phone under my pillow.