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Shadow Divers

I recently finished reading Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson and wanted to recommend it to anyone interested in Scuba, History or Adventure. My dad actually recommended the book to me recently and I picked up my copy digitally to read on my Treo via eReader.

As I started the book I was hooked right away. While it’s a non-fiction work, Shadow Divers reads like a novel and I found myself completely living through the lives of the divers as they explored the dangers and mystery lurking below. There are many amazing things about the book, but the fact that it takes place so close to where I live really puts the relative dangers from WWII into perspective. It’s amazing that a Nazi submarine simply disappeared off the coast of NJ in 1945, but even more amazing that you can feel compassion for these men who died, even though they were Nazi soldiers.

While I am a certified PADI Diver, I have never dreamed of doing anything like what was described in this book. The depths (~230′) and risks associated with the discovery are so intense, I found myself thinking about things even when I was not actively reading.

The story compelled quite a few others to follow including a Nova Documentary, which I have not yet been able to find a copy of, but the interative components are live so you can still experience some of the details. I also explored a site dedicated to U-boats referenced in Kurson’s notes on sources, which has a good page on the sub from the book if you want some more info.

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Crazysoft offers Palm Software rentals

According to the Crazysoft newsletter and website, you can now rent any game from Crazysoft. This is a new spin for Palm software and should be interesting to see if anyone else follows… The policy at Crazysoft seems like a good one. You rent for a low price ($2.95) and unlimited access to the software as if it were a full purchased version. The only restriction is that it can only be run 50 times. You can re-rent the same title up to 5 times before it automatically becomes a full version.

By renting a game (2.95$) you will have:

  1. FULL ACCESS to the game. (Like the full version)
  2. NO TIME LIMITS! (Play whenever you wish)
  3. You may start 50 new games and then the rental code will expire.
  4. If you rent the same game for the 5th time then the rental version automatically becomes a FULL version.

I like demo software and have endured my share of long wait times on things I’ve for some reason just chosen not to purchase and this would force my hand a bit to see if I really wanted something or not after I had used it a bunch of times. It seems like a great idea for a small publisher, though the flip side is that since you need to pay to play (literally in this case) you might not be as likely to simply try something new.

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Healing Mail.app

My Mail.app had been acting strange… HTML newsletters from Apple sent to either my main email or my .Mac account never displayed as HTML and my IMAP accounts were giving consistent errors on launch and then lately Mail was not able to Quit without a force quite so I finally decided to take some action…

In doing a google search for my IMAP error – “IMAP command “SELECT” failed” I found very few options to fix things other than trying to add INBOX. to the IMAP Path Prefix: in Advanced options. Immediately I lost all my folders! My server folders all went away since they were not sub folders from the Inbox (that’s what the . means) so I had to go back, undo the change to the path prefix and move the folders to become subfolders from the Inbox. Moving back again, I noticed that my IMAP error on Launch was gone, but I was still unable to quit without Force Quit and this caused the mailboxes to have to rebuild each time driving me crazy with duplicate messages getting displayed again and again as I tested abck and forth. There were times when I was unable to get Mail to really even start… well it would start, but not clear past the initial load of mailboxes and message lists. Mail could be sent at this time, but not received. You can imagine the pain…

My only course of action for the moment was to open Thunderbird which worked great. IMAP enabled everything to just be there which is most excellent and I’d be happy in Thunderbird in general except for one glaring omission… You can’t sync it with your Palm on Mac. 1.0RC was released today which I upgraded to as soon as I saw it and my .9 preferences easily migrated and things were OK. I missed Mail though.

It occurred to me that one thing I had not tried yet was the ol’ kill the preferences trick. Before doing that I decided to eliminate any bundles (~Library/Mail/Bundles) not really needed for now (PGP, HTTPlugin) and then went to the local store of mail (~Library/Mail) and checked some things out. I actually had some old stuff lying in there. I recall my move from a previous machine and had POP folders from before my switch to IMAP as well for some of the same accounts. I archived that stuff and trashed the local copies and was ready to kill the preference file.

Amazingly (or perhaps not) this fixed my problem. Mail.app launched without error, mailboxes as they had originally been and I’ve received a few Apple emails today and they all came through just fine. I even received another HTML newsletter I had previously been seeing only the text to link online. I did have to accounts other my .Mac mail, but the messages were there even though it might initially scare some to see such a clean view at first. I can again quit the app without issue and restart it quickly to begin once again doing my thing.

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Portable Media Center Is the Wrong Choice

Walt Mossberg sums up the state of the Portable Media Center pretty nicely…

There’s a tendency in the technology industry to think that, just because a product can be built, it should be built, even if all the necessary pieces to make it a success aren’t in place. Sometimes these premature products eventually become hits. Sometimes they just fail. [WSJ]

While the hardware design of these devices is nice, the content available to buy or rent is limited and of poor quality and conversion is still a tricky geeky business…

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Cingular 3G

Cingular’s announcement of a real 3G network for North America is a serious canon fire across the other major carriers… This clearly declares that they want to big both the biggest and the baddest in town. T-Mobile has yet to even make a formal EDGE (2.5G) statement…

Cingular today announced its 3G plans, an expected announcement after the AT&T Wireless takeover (Cingular now has ample spectrum for advanced data services). The UMTS/HSDPA third generation network will offer average data speeds between 400-700 kilobits per second (Kbps), and bursts to several megabits per second on capable devices. Nokia, Motorola and LG should all have devices out for the new network by this time next year. [MobileTracker]

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TWCNYC Goes Voice

I am not sure if it’s actually a VOIP product, but Time Warner has officially launched their voice product here in NYC. It’s called Digital Phone – a shockingly boring name and costs $39.95/month. That’s less than Verizon, but more than options from Vonage or AT&T CallVantage.

Feature-wise, Digital Phone falls a bit short. Forwarding is one line, there’s no conference calling and no email announcing of voicemail or listening online. There’s also no call log, or way to click to call from the computer.

I’d say this is purely for people looking to save money on existing phone service – though willing to take a chance with their cable company rather than use the phone company since the service quality is unknown. Time Warner does have access to free media on TV, so I expect to see quite a bit of it while the tube is on. I actually learned about the product from a generic bill stuffer (you had to actually go to the main site and see if service is available in your area), but checked it out tonight after seeing a local market commercial on TBS.

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SBC Just wasting money

For a while I’ve been seeing SBC ads on network TV … I just caught one during the first quarter of the Eagles vs Giants game on FOX. What are they thinking?? This is far from an SBC market and their brand has next to no meaning for the MILLIONS of people watching. For kicks I checked my phone number as a potential residential customer on their site and as I expected:

You may live outside the SBC 13-state service territory: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas or Wisconsin.

I am in NYC, so the only possible state possibly of interest is Connecticut in this region and I can’t imagine there are enough people there to make this a worthwhile ad spend…

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AvantGo comes back to life

I just learned that there’s a recently activated AvantGo Beta program and decided to give an old friend another chance… I was hooked on AvantGo early in my Palm days and even used VirtualPC to sync it before there was a proper Mac conduit. There’s still no proper Mac conduit directly from the source, but it’s simple for non-Windows users today if you use a wireless device (you can do it over the air) or on Mac OS X you can use Missing Sync with the MAL conduit as I’ve done.

The latest beta is version 5.7 Build 26. I am not completely certain, but I think it’s the first real release since the company was acquired by iAnywhere. I had given the previous version 5.5 a run, but was really not that psyched with how it worked on my Treo – limited 5-way support and it just did not look all that great.

This latest release fully supports the Treo and allows for much great account management on the device itself. You can now fully customize the display order for channels and even browse the entire collection of available channels from your device which is a very nice addition and enables mostly computer free control. While you can choose to surf or sync the channels you have selected (or any site actually since it is a browser after all) with a live connection, you will be more impressed if you use AvantGo in an offline capacity as the speed in which pre-cached content loads is great.

AvantGo existed before RSS came into the mainstream and it looks like it just might keep on pushing to bring professionally formatted content down to your device with each sync. You can easily read news or site updates from a variety of sources during your commute or simply just killing a few minutes. You’ll need about 2MB of free space in order to install the required .prc files and store content from your account. If you’ve paid for the premium level of service you can keep up to 8MB of information — assuming you have that much free space.

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Brighthand’s First Impressions of the Treo 650

A very positive review coming from Brighthand on the 650… memory issue aside — preventing proper mobile backup, not that other issue.

Everything that made the Treo 600 so hot is even better. The Web, messaging, the camera, the better screen, better buttons, and more powerful applications all join to make the Treo 650 the newest ‘must-have’ smartphone, and when I can back it up to and restore from a card it will be… dare I say it… as close to perfect as it gets in a smartphone. With the Treo 650 palmOne has once again raised the bar. [Brighthand]

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Command thy Treo (or T3) via Voice

I had actually heard of VoiceLauncher at an earlier stage, but finally gave it a whirl tonight… It absolutely works! The only noise in the room I did my tests was the steady static from a baby monitor. I was able to easily program a few speed dials and call them into action without any searching about which could certainly come in handy for in-car activity when you are trying to be a safety conscious type. There were a few hitches, but these were easily resolved with another recording of the command.

Voice command is a very handy thing to have at times and something I’ve made great use of it on my laptop in the past following an injury and a cast that left me one-handed and unable to really type. We are pretty far from that level of interaction (no text transcription) on a Palm, but for opening applications, panels or simply calling a number it’s quite easy to see the value here.

The app is an amazing 99 Kb and your voice profiles and actions can easily be stored on an SD card. Treo 650 users shouldn’t have anything to worry about if they are interested in checking this one out.

There is a major new release of Jean-Francois Morreeuw’s best selling program VoiceLauncher available! The new version 0.8.5 works with the Treo 600, Treo 650 and the Tungsten 3 (on both the simulators and the real devices!!!). Now you can save database to an SD card, launch a phone call in handsfree mode, utlize newly enhanced recognition capabilities and a new normalization feature (for users who don’t read the tutorial to have a working database), the microphone sensitivity is more accurate, and several small bugs have been fixed!

Application Description

VoiceLauncher is the very first voice recognition application publicly announced and made available for palmOne Treo600 and palmOne Treo650. VoiceLauncher has been fully designed to take advantage of palmOne Treo600 and palmOne Treo650 specific features: 5-way navigator, phone application, signal and battery indicators just to give few examples.

VoiceLauncher can launch applications, panels and phone calls. It can dial through any helper compatible application, and is fully integrated with TAKEphONE phone application, allowing features likes pauses in phone numbering. [mytreo.net ]

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eReader goes RSS

I’ve been enjoying the content at eReader on my various Palms for a while now and am glad to see this addition. I love the link right to the shopping cart! I’ll still have to subscribe to the newsletter for now, since that’s where you get the weekly discount code. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until that also makes its way to the RSS, though they’ll lose some sense of who they are communicating with since I’ve yet to see RSS get to personalized in the way email has been capable for years.

The folks at eReader have added an RSS feed so you can see all the new releases each week. They also include a link to add the book directly to your shopping cart. Excellent use of RSS. [Michael Gartenberg]

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AOL goes for Premium Mail

While I get the need / desire to be in the premium mail space I don’t get their choice off brand for this venture… Everything AOL has been doing as of late has bee to parse out the pieces and this would have be a great way to offer a core piece of service at a competitive price. I can’t recall any other times the ICQ brand has been anything but free…Regardless this sounds like a good offer if you happen to be the market.

Looking to nudge its way into the mail storage market dominated by the likes of Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc., and Google Inc., AOL said its ICQ (I Seek You) subsidiary is rolling out a $19.99-a-year e-mail service offering 2GB of storage.

The premium ICQmail, which is powered by Los Angeles-based Mail2World Inc., will also offer bells and whistles like personal calendaring, WAP access to Web-based mail, mail-forwarding to wireless devices, and support for POP3, IMAP4 and SMTP.

Paying ICQmail users will also get access to compression technology to handle large attachments and the ability to schedule delivery of outgoing mail, create distribution groups and set up auto-responses, according to an AOL spokeswoman. [eWeek]

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Voom adding 30 MORE HDTV channels

Voom had a rough start when they launched losing about 20% of their customers through churn as they were ramping up. It seems that while the path is far from clear the picture sure will be… adding an additional 30 HD channels is very exciting news and something that should attract people looking for HD content once they get their sets. I have roughly half their current crop of HD channels through Time Warner cable, but this move will push Voom way ahead.

As I’ve stated numerous times, Voom doesn’t appear to be the “about to fold” company many have made them out to be, and this bit of news wouldn’t lead me to believe otherwise. On or around March of 2005 Voom will add an additional 30 plus HDTV channels, as well as nearly 200 standard definition channels, according to Tom Dolan, CEO of Rainbow Media Enterprises. [Home Theater Blog]

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Memory Issue or usage Issue?

By now you might have heard of the potential memory issue for Treo users moving from a 600 or even just another Palm device. The hitch is that the Treo 650 like the Tungsten T5 uses a type of memory called Non-Volatile File System, which enables your Treo or T5 to keep everything you have if the battery runs out or if you switch batteries on your Treo. This is a great new security addition and something I certainly welcome. While I honestly can’t recall the last time any of my Palm devices ran out of juice completely — perhaps not since my m505 or even Vx. I’ve had few since then (TC, T3 and Treo 600) all of which were always safely turned off if I reached the danger point without a cradle or charge cable in sight.

Because of the new file system / memory, the new Treo and T5 maintain a constant backup and as a result write large block sizes (512kb to be exact) so programs and data from previous palms will get rounded up to 512 and eat more space that you had previously thought. For now you have to pay to play… hopefully there will be a fix for some of the more widely used applications to maintain a more trim file if possible.

In the meantime, I’d suggest a good look at what you run on your device and consider how your usage might even change as you migrate to something better. T5 users probably don’t have to worry much since you’ll be enjoying close to 256MB of space, but the 32MB (actually less…) on the Treo might be less than you were hoping to work with…

I’ve found a few things have changed as I’ve moved to a Treo and as I’ve thought about the potential issues with the Treo 650, I’ve already changed what apps I use and think you might as well as you make the adjustment to a new way of working with a Treo. First… Since you’ve got a Treo, consider using it the way it was intended… without a stylus whenever possible. This enable the power and ease of one-handed operation through the 5-way and will really (at least for me) highlight the value of certain apps.

I’ve been a longtime Agendus user.. but have been continually frustrated by the lack of full support on the Treo. I love the professional look and icons, but have actually found myself using it less as I’ve toyed with other options and today actually made the move and deleted (over 1MB of stuff) it from my Treo. Instead, I am using 2Day, by ShSh, which provides a simple 1 screen glance at what’s on my calendar, the day’s weather (from 4Cast also from ShSh) items in my todo list, the number of messages in my inbox (from ChatterEmail as well as other apps), SMS indications and many more features. Its’ fully customizable like all good applications and very easy to use. I can just as easily view today as I can add events. There’s terrific integration with TakePhone another ShSh application I’ve been playing with which enhances your contact and phone applications by making it easy to make calls, view call lists, as well as add or change contact info.

The other major switch I’ve made recently leading to a nice space savings was removing Silver Screen and switching to Initiate, formerly Arrow Launcher from Hobbyist Software. Initiate lets you simply tap the keypad to hit the application, contact, music file or even bookmark on your Treo or SD card. Since it can read the memory card, you can easily move things to the /Palm/Programs directory and have access from there beyond the normal device limits. No need for PowerRun, or any other helper to get to the card. BTW — Butler is another great utility for the Treo… it can handle quite a few tasks including enhacing the reminders on your unit as well as keyboard shortcuts and travel alarms.

I have also taken a serious look at what else I’ve just let sit around without being used and actually was able to easily save a few MBs of space by just being diligent. I don’t use AvantGo – gone. Have not been traveling – killed SF from my Vindigo list and just kept NYC. Games I had not played – gone.

The thing about the Treo I’ve found is that it’s a powerful and unique device. My usage has been primarily communications (email, IM, browsing some RSS), with a twist of entertainment (ebooks, photos etc) and some information management (Life Balance and SplashID) on the side. It suits what I’ve needed and I fully expect the new one to easily handle my needs as well.