Some Assembly Required » Palm

Palm Pre

Ian — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 05:55:35 +0000

I got a Palm Pre yesterday and really like it so far. Compared to my Treo, it is small and lovely. It looks like a black stone with smooth rounded shape that fits naturally in the hand. The webOS UI is much prettier than PalmOS. The touch interface is well done. Running multiple apps and switching between them with gestures is brilliant. The slider works well and the keyboard is cramped but usable.

One reason I got the Pre was the Classic app which runs PalmOS apps in an emulator. I can use my old apps until webOS equivalents are released. I can even browse the old PIM state from my Treo. Unfortunately, the app catalog is quite limited since the webOS SDK has not been released. It sounds like there is enough interest that once it is released that plenty of developers will release apps.

There are a few hardware annoyances. The microUSB port on the side is covered by an annoying, useless, fragile door. The top already rotates slightly side-to-side. The button on the front really should be a trackball.

Google Maps for Treo

Ian — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 05:23:42 +0000

Google just released Google Maps for the Treo. It is a Palm application which downloads the map over the Internet. It has a simple and usable interface that can use the scroll pad and keyboard for most operations. It can search for addresses and display driving directions. It can also show satellite view and traffic info for major highways.

The lag of downloading the maps can be a little annoying when scrolling to new areas. And since it uses the images, the space and time is larger. Zooming in and out seems to download new images. It requires Internet access so it won’t work outside of cell phone range. I have been having with Mapopolis which keeps crashing on me and isn’t usable with the keyboard. But it can work offline with maps and addresses stored on the card. And it GPS which can show the current position and do dynamic directions. A mixture of the two which worked smoothly, downloaded maps as needed, and showed your current position would be perfect.

Bluetooth HotSync with Linux

Ian — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 04:24:00 +0000

It turned out to be really easy to do Bluetooth HotSync from my Treo 650 to my Fedora Core Linux box.

On the Linux box:

service bluetooth start
service dund start

Create the /etc/ppp/peers/dun file:

115200
        192.168.2.15:192.168.2.16
        local
        ms-dns 192.168.1.14
        noauth
        debug

The first IP address is the local machine and the second is the Treo.

On the Treo 650, open the Prefs, Connection. Create a New connection, with PC, Bluetooth and then select the computer. Next, go to Network prefs. Create a New (from menu) service. Select the Connection you just made. Set your username and password (although I suspect they aren’t needed).

Then, open HotSync. Set the Modem Sync Prefs to Network, the LANSync Prefs to LANSync, put the PC IP address from above in Primary PC Setup box. Finally, select Modem and select your Bluetooth network connection below. Start the HotSync.

On the Linux box, you can run any pilot-xfer command using net:any as the port.

pilot-xfer -p net:any -l

For some reason, HotSync over the Bluetooth serial connection does not work with Linux.

Mobile Blogging

Ian — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 01:01:41 +0000

This was posted with mo:Blog, a blog client for PalmOS. It supports the blogger, metaWeblog, and MovableType APIs. The MovableType API is supposed to work best with Typo.

Blazer is Evil

Ian — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 04:38:00 +0000

I had this long entry (for a mobile one) about visiting the Space Needle when I accidentally hit a button and switched to another app. Blazer helpfully forgot the text entry field. So now I hate it.

Mobile Blogging

Ian — Sun, 16 Oct 2005 07:16:07 +0000

This entry was posted from my Treo. Sure, I was sitting in front of my computer. But I could have been anywhere I was willing to type of the little keyboard. Which is fine for typing short messages like ‘Buy’, ‘You jerk’, or ‘I’ll call when I find a real computer’. But not for long pithy posts.

New Toy

Ian — Sun, 16 Oct 2005 07:05:11 +0000

I have had my new Treo 650 for a week now and I love it. It replaces a old cell phone and Sony Clie. It is a little thicker than both of them but still small enough to fit in a pocket. I like not having to decide what piece of electronics to take and always having access to the PDA. The keyboard works well; I type faster on it than I wrote Graffit. The 5-way navigation is brilliant; for many apps the stylus does not need to be used. I am still training myself to not take the stylus out and use it one handed.

All my old apps moved over smoothly. I found a few new ones. Chatter is a good IMAP email client. Address XT is a Contacts replacement which looks like the old address book but with the new fields. Pocket Tunes for playing music is nice; with the 1 GB SD card I got, it could be enough of a music player for me to leave the iRiver at home most of the time.

The wireless network access is the best thing. I can now read email anywhere. Browsing the web through a tiny screen is annoying but it is worlds better than a cell phone. There are a couple of cools apps I found. Directory Assistant looks up phone numbers from online yellow pages. KMaps fetches maps from Google Maps. I have a suspicion that the killer app for smartphones is that kind of web service.