Treos To Get MS Exchange Sync Support

PalmOne will soon enable native Exchange sync support, which will not only eliminate the need for 3rd party products, but also give total control to the user. This can’t be too good for Good, and seems to work around the need for RIM’s software as well. I’ll have to ask about this stuff when I am at the Treo Roadshow on Thursday.

PalmOne said Tuesday that it will add the ability for its Treo smartphones to synchronize directly with e-mail and other personal information stored and managed by Microsoft Exchange Server.

Specifically, the device vendor said it is licensing Microsoft’s Exchange Server ActiveSync protocol, which is used for synchronization between mobile devices and Microsoft Exchange Serve 2003. PalmOne said it will add the capability in forthcoming Treo smartphones, which, it said, will eliminate the need for third-party synchronization software.

“Having wireless synchronization to Exchange 2003 available out-of-the-box will enhance our smartphone customers’ experience while slashing company IT costs,” Ed Colligan, palmOne’s president, said in a statement.

PalmOne is widely expected to be releasing new versions of the Treo this autumn, but it did not say if the support for Exchange Server will be in those new devices. [Mobile Pipeline]

EarthLink to Offer Free Calling Between Computers Over the Web

Earthlink goes VOIP…

For now, Earthlink’s phone service will only allow its customers to call one another via their computers instead of through their regular phones. That means they need a headset, or a microphone and speaker, and will have to dial an Internet address instead of a normal phone number. As a result, avid technology users are likely to be the only ones to take advantage of EarthLink’s offer. (EarthLink also offers Internet phone service through Vonage.)

But in the next 12 months, the company expects to offer its own expanded service that allows people to use their regular phones and call anywhere, though that service won’t be free. Earthlink’s service is similar to one offered by Skype Technologies SA, a Luxembourg-based Internet phone company that offers free computer-to-computer calling and recently began allowing its customers to make calls to regular phones for a low fee. [WSJ.com]

MacTheRipper

This seems like it works… good to have in the toolbox.

MacTheRipper is a DVD ripper (extractor). It removes CSS encryption, Macrovision protection, sets the disc’s region to ‘0’ for region-free, and is capable of removing RCE region checking. This is to backup your legally-purchased DVDs onto your hard drive. [MacUpdate]

The Need For Softphones

Andy at VoIP Watch has been traveling a fair bit lately and as expected, been doing a lot of calling over VOIP. As he’s moved along, all the calling has been over softphone since they make it easier to route around hotel port blocking as well as basic configuration issues.

I totally agree with his perspective that the US carriers need to focus in on this as a real product and as I’ve noted before, NOT charge extra for it. Vonage charges extra for the privledge while AT&T does not even offer it.

Time Warner Cable VOIP offering in NYC

The VoIP Weblog notes the launch of Time Warner Cable’s VOIP service in NYC. The pricing is out of whack for VOIP, but certainly less than you are probably paying Verizon for unlimited calling. Seems they’ve chosen to target pricing against Cablevision which makes no sense, since you can’t pick what cable company you buy service from anyway.

Andy does not think this is even VOIP

I’m not so sure it matters to the consumer. They’ll perceive it as such since phone service is coming from a different place than normal. In Marketing, perception can become reality.

Blazer 4.0

Blazer 4.0 is part of the included software on the T5 and looks like a very nice upgrade to the Blazer browser on the current Treo. Aside from device specific enhancements, like wide-screen viewing for the T5, the new Blazer handles web standards (HTML 4.01, xHTML 1.0, cHTML, WML 1.3, SSL 3.0, HTTP 1.1, JavaScript 1.5, CSS 1.0 and 2.0 (partial), GIF, animated GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP and Cookies), offline browsing, save to card (both internal and card) and SSL.

This will be a most welcome addition on the Treo 650 assuming PalmOne decides to include it.

T5 is Live

PalmOne released the Tungsten T5 today as the official successor to T3… No Wifi, but a nice amount of memory (256MB) Documents to Go 7 and a feature than enables the the both device and SD card to be seen as a removable drive on any computer regardless of whether the Palm Desktop has been installed. The Universal Connector is gone after a brief 3 years… so accessories are going to have to be purchased yet again.

Gmail Adds Atom Feeds

I don’t see this yet on my GMail, but am looking forward to adding my Gmail account to my aggregator… This will be cool to add to my RSS2email as well for learning about new Gmail messages while on the go.

Gmail has added Atom web feeds, a format that’s akin to RSS. The feeds include a summary of each new message in your Google email. [Micro Persuasion]

RogueAmoeba Consider Podcasting Product

Very cool news … You know a meme is maturing when products being to develop on the commercial side of life.

Rogueamoeba, who make audio hijack pro and nicecast are considering developing an all-in-one podcasting solution. From my own experience I can say they definitely have all the bits in place. Routing audio through applications is still a bit of a hack, but obviously possible. [iPodder.org]

Open Source and Just About Off the Grid

Thanks to Om for the link to Cringley on this one… I’ve got serious geek envy!

Like many of us, Andrew Greig put a WiFi access point in his house so he could share his broadband Internet connection. But like hardly any of us, Andrew uses his WiFi network for Internet, television, and telephone. He cancelled his telephone line and cable TV service. Then his neighbors dropped-by, saw what Andrew had done, and they cancelled their telephone and cable TV services, too, many of them without having a wired broadband connection of their own. They get their service from Andrew, who added an inline amplifier and put a better antenna in his attic. Now most of Andrew’s neighborhood is watching digital TV with full PVR capability, making unmetered VoIP telephone calls, and downloading data at prodigious rates thanks to shared bandwidth. Is this the future of home communications and entertainment? It could be, five years from now, if Andrew Greig has anything to say about it. [PBS | I, Cringely]

Control Your Slim Server via iTunes

I’ve used my SliMP3 for quite a while now and have enjoyed streaming music on my home network as well as remotely since even before I purchased my player. The typical manner to control what plays has been through the hardware remote, the software player (now built in) or via the Web UI. Things just got very interesting and you can now control what plays on your slim players by choosing the easiest method I can think of – iTunes.

A guy named Anton F. van der Kraaij wrote this AppleScript which when saved as an application and left to run, will queue the same selection on your hardware.

Here’s the script – Thanks Anton!


-- Begin of Script
-- iSlimServer: Control SlimServer from iTunes
-- Plays whatever song is currently playing in iTunes on the SlimServer
-- Copyright Anton F. van der Kraaij 2004
-- Thanks to a script by Barry Brown for inspiration and help from Oscar Marsch
--
-- This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
-- it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
-- the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
-- (at your option) any later version.
--
-- This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
-- but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
-- MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
-- GNU General Public License for more details.
--
-- INSTRUCTIONS:
-- Set your variables server_address and server_port to your situation
-- Save this script as an application, making sure to click 'stay open'

global server_address, server_port, current_file_track

set server_address to "127.0.0.1" -- This is the slimserver's address
set server_port to "9000" -- This is the slimserver's port

set current_file_track to ""

on idle
try
tell application "Finder"
if (get name of every process) contains "iTunes" then set okflag to true
end tell
if okflag then
-- iTunes is running. Check if it is playing a song.
tell application "iTunes"
if player state is paused or player state is stopped then
-- iTunes is not playing. Stop slimserver.
do shell script ("curl "http://" & server_address & ":" & server_port & "/status.html?p0=stop"")
set okflag to false
return 10
end if
end tell
end if
if okflag then
tell application "iTunes"
if class of current track is file track then
try
copy current track's location to file_path_of_track
on error errText
display dialog errText buttons {"Cancel"} with icon 0
end try
end if -- not a file track
-- return file_path_of_track
if (current_file_track is not file_path_of_track) then
-- File in iTunes is different than file on SlimServer.
-- Thus update variable
set current_file_track to file_path_of_track

-- convert mac path to unix path for use in URL with curl (be careful with special characters here)
set mac_path to (file_path_of_track as text)
set root to (offset of ":" in mac_path)
set rootdisk to (characters 1 thru (root - 1) of mac_path)
tell application "Finder"
if (disk (rootdisk as string) is the startup disk) then
set unixpath to "%2f" & (characters (root + 1) thru end of mac_path)
else
set unixpath to "%2fVolumes:" & mac_path
end if
end tell
set chars to every character of unixpath
repeat with i from 2 to length of chars
if item i of chars as text is equal to "/" then
set item i of chars to ":"
else if item i of chars as text is equal to ":" then
set item i of chars to "%2f"
else if item i of chars as text is equal to """ then
set item i of chars to "" & """
else if item i of chars as text is equal to "*" then
set item i of chars to "\*"
else if item i of chars as text is equal to "?" then
set item i of chars to "\?"
else if item i of chars as text is equal to " " then
set item i of chars to "%20"
else if item i of chars as text is equal to "+" then
set item i of chars to "%2b"
else if item i of chars as text is equal to "&" then
set item i of chars to "%26"
else if item i of chars as text is equal to "" then
set item i of chars to ""
end if
end repeat
set filetoplay to every item of chars as string
-- end conversion
-- Tell slimserver to stop current song and play the song currently playing in iTunes
do shell script ("curl "http://" & server_address & ":" & server_port & "/status.html?p0=stop"")
do shell script ("curl "http://" & server_address & ":" & server_port & "/status.html?p0=playlist&p1=play&p2=" & filetoplay & """)
end if
end tell
end if
end try
return 10
end idle
-- end of script

Scientific-Atlanta may give TiVo heave-ho with new DVR

I know I just got the 8000HD, but to be able to record and archive to DVD would be very handy…

Scientific-Atlanta’s next-generation DVR will record content to both a hard drive and a portable DVD so the content can be replayed on a variety of devices, including personal computers, home entertainment systems with DVD players, and portable DVD players. It’s also expected to play DVDs. [MSNBC]

T-Mobile Going PTT … in Europe anyway

I’d consider this a test… have to wait to see if people care for this over text before they roll into other areas like the US — though the US is much more voice oriented than Europe which has been quite comfortable with text.

T-Mobile is to become the latest European mobile operator to launch Push-to-Talk services. The Deutsche Telekom-owned wireless giant said this morning that it will launch the new “walkie-talkie” style services in Germany by the end of this year. The first handset available to offer the service will be the Nokia 5140, said the company. [3GNewsroom]