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]

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]

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.

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]

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

more on Dowser

At first, Dowser seems like a simple search engine, but then you realize that with the power of Google, wikipedia and sourceforge (pretty sure you can add others) you get an enhanced search exerience running saved results on your computer.

Not only are your searches saved, but related topics get recommended in the flow and you can easily browse back through search terms as well as related topics — kind of similar to A9 actually, but in more simple terms. Pages referenced in results are also cached which is very slick. You might miss some pages as you initially search or decide to go back and try to dig deeper on things and you’ve got a very handy reference of everything sitting and waiting for you right on your own computer. Cached pages let you know when they were saved so you can easily see if you need to check for more recent updates.

Dowser is definitely a keeper in my book.

Dowser

Just starting to play with this… Seems very cool. I noticed I could add Dowser as my search engine within Firefox, so I did. I’ll use it as my default for a while and try to report back…

Dowser is a Web research and archiving tool that clusters results from search engines, associates words that appear in previous searches, and keeps a local cache of all the results you click on in a searchable database along with summaries and links to related information. It helps you to keep track of what you find, with no advertising. [Dowser]

NewsGator Gains Partners to Extend RSS Reach

Just caught this story at eWeek via Bloglines on how NewGator is cutting a similar API deal with FeedDemon which should make windows users reading via Outlook locally quite happy – now there’s a choice (when released) for how you sync your feeds.

NewsGator also did a deal with SixApart to comarket each others products… seems like a good deal since they offer the other side of each other’s equations – that being publish and subscribe.

Pretty amazing week for RSS syndication and synchronization via web services…

ProfiMail for Series 60

Russ discovers a great new email app for Series 60 phones… It’s great to see this function get seriously enhanced since many people looking to use smart devices want better connectivity.

ProfiMail from Lonely Cat Games finally meets the need. It has everything you’d expect from a real email client – scheduled check for new mail, synching, attachments (including zips), image viewer, ability to view HTML mail, multiple email accounts, etc. [Russell Beattie]

New Bloglines Web Services

Yesterday I posted I was looking for an RSS sync capability to enable desktop readers and web based services to link … well it looks like that day will come very soon. This is very cool news… (Thanks JP!)

Three leading desktop news feed and blog aggregators announced today that they have implemented new open application programming interfaces (API) and Web Services from Bloglines (www.bloglines.com) that connect their applications to Bloglines’ free online service for searching, subscribing, publishing and sharing news feeds, blogs and rich web content. FeedDemon (www.bradsoft.com), NetNewsWire (www.ranchero.com), and Blogbot (www.blogbot.com) are the first desktop software applications to use the open Bloglines Web Services.

Bloglines Web Services address a key issue facing the growing RSS market by reducing the bandwidth demands on sites serving syndicated news feeds. Now, instead of thousands of individual desktop PCs independently scanning news sources, blogs and web sites for updated feeds, Bloglines will make low-bandwidth requests to each site on behalf of the universe of subscribers and cache any updates to its master web database. Bloglines will then redistribute the latest content to all the individuals subscribed to those feeds via the linked desktop applications — FeedDemon, NetNewsWire or Blogbot — or via Bloglines’ free web service. [Bloglines]

PalmSource Builds New Browser 3.0 for Cobalt

The screenshot on this at PalmInfocenter says it all… nicely done PalmSource! Of course until we actually run it, it’s just specs…

Built on the ACCESS NetFront core technology, PalmSource Web Browser 3.0 offers enhanced graphics rendering and navigation capability for the wireless delivery of information and streaming media. PalmSource Web Browser 3.0 uses technologies such as page zooming, scalable fonts and ‘squeeze’ rendering, allowing users to eliminate horizontal scrolling for easier navigation. It also includes support for one handed operation, and multiple windows or Tabs and supports both web and WAP browsing.

PalmSource Web Browser 3.0 is designed to support the latest W3C standard specifications including WAP 2.0, HTML and XHTML, enabling mobile device users to browse operator portals or traditional Web content. Smartphone and smart mobile device users with wireless connectivity can browse Web and WAP pages to shop, download games and music, watch and listen to news, connect to corporate intranets and access email. Enterprises and wireless shoppers will benefit from increased security with support for SSL (Secure Socket Layer) or TLS (Transport Layer Security) for secure communications and e-commerce transactions. PalmSource Web Browser 3.0 is also designed to support optional proxy settings for use in environments that require a proxy server. [PalmInfocenter.com]

RSS Synced up and Served Fresh

If you read or try to track a great deal of feeds, you’ll want to have access to this information in as many places as you can. I’ve found it pretty hard to manage personally though I’ve been using quite a few tricks to keep tabs on things. First, I use Bloglines as my primary aggregator these days which I’ve blogged about previously and think is really an excellent choice. It allows a logged session to track what you’ve read, saved and subscribed to seemlessless carry across any platform — multiple machines or even wireless.

NetNewsWire 2.0 now supports sync which is a great thing if you use more than one mac or and now FeedDemon is getting into the mix as well according to this post I just read from Steve Rubel…

FeedDemon is working on a new feature that will enable users to synchronize posts they read somewhere online with the ones they read in the application, according to a forum post by Nick Bradbury. Looking forward to seeing it. [Micro Persuasion]

This sounds like a cool addition for local and and more local usage. After reading the forum post, it seems like the model will be similar to the way in which NNW does it which is between 2 copies of the app on 2 machines.

In my ideal world, you’d be able to read locally or off the net and seemlessly manage subscriptions and read status like an IMAP email account. I’d like to be able to use NNW on my mac and either Bloglines or FeedDemon on the PC I use for some work. I’ve actually thought about this stuff before… just did a quick search here and found this post mirroring this basic thought from December 2003.

Older Palm Devices To Get BlackBerry

Great news for older Palms… or Treos. While applications like Chatter and Snapper can do email even with the added security of SSL, many companies are supporting blackberry only for remote access. This will certainly change that and give users and IT departments a nice choice.

Research In Motion (RIM) said Monday that it will offer a version of its BlackBerry Connect software that will enable older Palm OS devices to access always-on e-mail.

Specifically, the company said it was working with Palm OS vendor PalmSource to make the software available in the aftermarket for existing Palm devices. The companies previously announced that BlackBerry support was being built into the latest version of the Palm OS. [Mobile Pipeline]

iPodderX

I’ve mentioned iPodder previously and things have been getting very active in the development of tools to make life easier for the subscriber. iSpider (though it’s now been renamed back to iPodder) is now the current cross-platform app of choice, but there’s a new kid on the block for Mac OS X users…iPodderX. It has a great User Interface and can make things pretty easy to manage considering the number of moving parts involved with subscribing and downloading enclosures from the web to your system and directly into iTunes.

If you’ve been waiting for an easier way, this is it.

Bloglines Updates

So nice to see keep as new… I am often cruising through a bunch of stuff and want to recall one for later – this makes it quite easy to do without having to leave a bunch of tabs open in Firefox.

We pushed out a couple of cool new features last night on Bloglines. First is ‘Keep New’, which lets you mark individual blog entries as unread. The second is ‘Related Feeds’, which are a list of feeds that are similar to the feed you’re reading. This compliments the Bloglines Recommendations, which are personalized for each user. [wingedpig.com]

WP 1.3

I’ve been playing with Nightlies from the WordPress dev team for a while and have activated a new one tonight which enabled me to switch to the Kubrick theme which seems to work quite well.

I’ll let it stick for a bit and see how it goes. I’ve got my older template which while it had some quirks (my fault) also had a personal touch as well. Have to mess around and see about tweaking things.

I’m open to suggestions or comments if you’ve got them.