09:28 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

c|net reviewed Avantgo 2005 and - believe it or not - gave it a whopping 8 out of 10!

Powerful phrases jump out of the review such as "must-have", "virtually painless", "clearly spelled out directions", "without a hitch", "a nice touch", "real excitement", "it was refreshing", "was a cinch", "pretty intuitive" -- making Avantgo 2005 look like THE winner app.

The reviewer's bottom line: AvantGo makes handheld Web surfing a breeze, and it doesn't cost a thing. Need we say more?

I leave it up to you whether they should say more. I deleted Avantgo two years ago from my PDA and never looked back - thanks to Plucker and other Avantgo alternatives.

06:30 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

British software maker Symbian yesterday announced the latest version of its smartphone operating system, Symbian OS 9. Key enhancements in Symbian OS 9 include: Bluetooth stereo headset support, USB, Audio mixing/playback (MP3), MPEG + OMA DRM, 3D graphics, graphics acceleration, enhanced e-mail client support, ARM-processor support.

The first phones with Symbian OS 9 will be introduced in the second half of 2005, with volume sales expected by Christmas, said Symbian spokesman Peter Bancroft according to Reuters.

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

I removed Tad's technical analysis (post #11) regarding the hard-reset code in Pocket Mechanic. Although reverse engineering software per se is not illegal (copyright infringement, or patching software to defeat copy protection or DRM schemes is), we don't want to post this kind of detail here.

I think it is up to you to decide what to do with this information. Personally I think the risk of having a hard-reset when using a legitimate license is very low; Tomov proved to be a capable programmer and I am sure he has built in various checksum checks to diminish the risk of entering a wrong serial "by accident".

On the other hand, if you are using an illegal license, don't come crying later and say that you haven't been warned.

11:50 PM by hacker in Miscellaneous | Lounge

For anyone who might not know, the "State of the Union Address" is an annual event in which the elected President of the United States reports on the status of the country, normally to a joint session of the U.S. Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate). The address is also used to outline the President's legislative proposals, goals, and vision for the upcoming year.

President Bush gave his State of the Union Address speech today, February 2, 2005 and it was recorded around the world. I've taken the time to find a corrected transcription of the speech, and converted it to Plucker format for everyone to enjoy.

As with most of my works, this was done by hand, and some additional navigation was added to make it easier to use and read on a mobile device.

As the attached screenshots show, it looks great on my Tungsten T3 device.

I've attached two versions: one in hires/color, and one in lores/black & white.

Let me know what you think..

I have literally hundreds of works of this quality now that I will be releasing in the coming days, weeks, and months.

12:04 PM by Alexander Turcic in E-Book General | News

Morpheus already mentioned Scott Redford's essay on e-books, which first appeared at Teleread. Since Scoot also submitted his essay to us, I feel it beneficial for discussion to republish it here:

eBooks: with courage and patience, we are getting there

Just how do we make the "e" in e-books stand for "easier"? Well, how about this? Let's scrap the existing digital rights management. Instead everybody in charge of administering DRM would be re-trained overnight as digital priests. They would certify "trustworthiness" to those seeking to download e-books.

Before downloads, customers would be visited by digital priests of their respective religious persuasions. With great pomp and circumstance, they would "pledge" not to forward their books to everybody in the world without compensating the authors and publishers. Break the pledge, and you'd find yourself in purgatory, hand-copying old encyclopedias.

Or maybe a totalitarian law would work instead. First-offenders guilty of unlawful content reproduction would have to wear a scratchy wool eye patch for one year. For a second crime, the patch would be now a mask. We could set up toll-free hot-lines and reward people for spying on their neighbors.

The Real Point

See my real point here? No easy way exists to loosen the DRM grip--this complicated issue can't be addressed with good old-fashioned guilt and fear. But e-book standards for DRM and formats would help. I am counting on the laws of capitalism, which always prevail. A demand will eventually be met with supply, and I'm hoping that the right set of standard will break from the pack and simplify the digital content landscape. That will be a blessed day. Microsoft, Adobe and Palm and the others now have their own special technology fee tacked on to the price of e-books. And that complicates merchandising. We e-book merchants would rather not have multiple cost structures for the same e-book.

Nor do we like consumers to be limited to books published in their chosen format or suffer multiple technologies just to enjoy a story. Nothing is more frustrating than having three different libraries on your handheld and forgetting where your recent fiction resides. I don't just hear customers complaints--I myself own a handheld.

Villains not

Who's to blame? I'm thinking nobody. Many authors and publishers break out in a cold sweat at just the mention of the word "Napster" and can you blame them? Their livelihood is at stake. They should, however, strive to better satisfy consumers desire for more content in digital form.

If a publisher has faith in their work, it's now accepted that expanding to e-book will deliver extra profit and drive hardback sales. Not all understand this. I still hear some authors express misguided fear that e-books will cannibalize their hardback sales. Publishing is not a zero-sum game, however--and that actually can be good. E-books add incremental value to the equation. Granted, companies tasked with encrypting content for them are an easy target, for they create the hoops through which we must jump. But the DRM heavyweights like Microsoft, Adobe and eReader are simply business people satisfying a need with existing technology.

No glass chin

Let there be no mistake, the future is bright for e-books--sales are on a steady rise. The industry took a couple of jabs during the Internet correction, but you'll find no glass chin here. More students are beginning to see e-books as an alternative for those pricey hardback textbooks. The computer savvy are learning the ease in pasting code directly from their favorite Java e-book manual, and there's even speculation that men are reading more romance as they no longer fear being seen with a floral book cover. Moreover, the Tablet PC is maturing, and the publishers are slowly but surely putting even more content in digital form. It takes courage, but we're getting there. Though it is a word often used in excuses, "patience" is needed by digital downloaders, me included.

Article by L. Scott Redford - scott@diesel-ebooks.com
Scott is the President of Diesel eBooks with over 35,000 popular and professional eBooks organized by 50 categories.

10:47 AM by Colin Dunstan in Miscellaneous | Lounge

PDAMill.com is celebrating its 2nd anniversary and for that reason has a 30% discount on any of its current 25 software titles.

All you have to do is put the products in your shopping cart and enter the promotion code MYPDAMILL - valid until 02/14 and only for the first 1000 purchases (phhh that is a lot; could they really reach this number in only two weeks?).

10:35 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

PalmSource decided to grant Ira Cook, the company's Vice President of Finance, an increase in compensation. From the latest SEC filling:

During the time that Mr. Cook serves in the capacity of PalmSource' principal financial officer, his annual base compensation will be $250,000 and he will be eligible for a discretionary quarterly bonus under the Company's bonus plan at the rate of up to 50% of his base quarterly compensation. In addition, Mr. Cook also received a stock option grant to purchase 40,000 shares of the Company's common stock which will vest quarterly, at the rate of 25% at the end of each fiscal quarter during which Mr. Cook continues to serve in the capacity of PalmSource' principal financial officer.

Maybe I should apply for a new job

10:26 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

EDGE stands for Enhanced Data for Global Evolution and is Cingular Wireless' network designed to be the fastest national wireless data network.

Equipped with EDGE technology, palmOne's Treo 650 can access accelerated data speeds averaging up to 135kbps, which is nearly three times the speed of a conventional wired dial-up connection. Cingular's EDGE network is available in more than 8,500 cities and towns and along 30,000 miles of highways. A variety of monthly data plans are available, including an unlimited plan for $44.99/month.

Read more in the official press release.