It is far from perfect, but it get's the job done!

The sweetest tool in my arsenal of business tools is my Lifedrive. I have owned many Palm handhelds over the years, and the Lifedrive is probably my favorite, despite it's faults.

I think Palm's biggest mistake in designing the Lifedrive, was make it a Hard Drive memory based device. Think of it this way... You know how most Operating systems use a "Swap File," to provide virtual memory, when "real," physical memory runs low?

Well the LD uses a 64MB partition on the built in 4GB hard drive as memory, in place of RAM. The result of this is a beautiful handheld with tons of storage, that has to spin up the hard drive every time you load a program or access data in "RAM." Can you imagine using a PC where there was no real memory, and everything literally ran from the hard disk?

I believe you got the picture... It sucks. It also sucks that this particular memory scheme also makes the LD really flaky at times and causes innumerable resets, which are made worse by the fact that the Handheld must literally Reboot... Sometimes taking as long as 1.5 - 2 minutes to do so...

Those are the downsides to the LD.

Now, for the Upsides!

1. Gigs of Memory! With 6 GB's of memory (4 Built in and 2 on an SD Card), I can carry tons of multimedia content, all of my business documents, and a huge library of eBooks, including novels, technical manuals and documentation.
2. Editing and Creating Office Compatible Documents on the fly. With Documents to Go, I can leave my notebook behind, carry an optional keyboard and work on full featured Word, Excel and Powerpoint Documents, all in their native format, without loss of formating. (Something Windows Mobile devices can not do).
3. Wifi and Bluetooth. While on the go, I have the option of connecting to public WiFi networks, or using my Treo Smartphone as a modem, and connecting to Internet based resources, sending and receiving email, or browsing web pages.
4. Project Management. There are tons of good project management applications available for the Palm. One of my favorites is Progect. It is open source (Free), and is robust enough to handle most of my project needs. I also use a notepad manager called MemoLeaf. Memoleaf has actually made using the memo pad on my LD a useful function.
5. Reference. For years I have carried a copy of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War," with me wherever I go. It has proven to be invaluable to me as a reference and business tool. With eReader, ISilo and Plucker all on my LD, I carry a virtual library of several dozen books, including The Art of War, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and others.
6. Email attachments. Scenario.... I get an email asking for information about our consulting services. I am away from the office, but want to get back to a potential client as soon as possible. I have several synchronized folders from my Windows desktop with ALL of my important documents, including brochures, sample contracts, resumes, etc. It's as simple as connecting to a public Wifi network, or using my Treo as a modem to connect and email the documents.
7. Entertainment. I can load several full length feature films onto the lifdrive and use the Core Media Player to watch them, or listen to a subset of my huge Mp3 Collection.

Yeah, the Lifedrive is far from perfect, but aside from carrying my notebook computer with me everywhere I go, the Lifedrive is my on the go digital enabler.

Originally posted on Business Blog

Wiki Notepad anyone?

Tomboy is a desktop note-taking application for Linux and Unix. Simple and easy to use, but with potential to help you organize the ideas and information you deal with every day.

Have you ever felt the frustration at not being able to locate a website you wanted to check out, or find an email you found interesting, or remember an idea about the direction of the political landscape in post-industrial Australia? Or are you one of those desperate souls with home-made, buggy, or not-quite-perfect notes systems?

Time for Tomboy. We bet you'll be surprised at how well a little application can make life less cluttered and run more smoothly.

Tomboy is a very cool piece of software.

I got Tomboy as part of the upgrade to my Ubuntu Linux desktop, and was excited about using it as a replacement for Microsoft OneNote on my Linux desktop. I was soon disappointed as it ran only once successfully under my KDE desktop environment. Afterward, it simply would not run.

After switching back to gnome, I was able to set up Tomboy to work, and it is fantastic. The ability to create notes on the fly, and link them to other notes is fantastic. I have a master Project Note called "Projects," this note is then linked to other notes of the individual projects.

I can create a new linked note simply by clicking on the "link" icon in the Tomboy toolbar. I keep the projects note open all of the time on the desktop. As I create new projects, or need to review or add to an existing one, I simply click on this Master note, and take the appropriate action.

Tomboy is always running in the Top Dock, waiting for me to click on it for a list of all available notes.

This is a very useful tool, and another reason why I am spending more and more time in Ubuntu and not windows.

Since solving my Palm Sync problem not long ago, I find myself spending more and more time using Ubuntu Linux and less time in Windows. In fact, my next PC purchase will probably be 100% Linux. The only reason I continue to use Windows at this point is for certain banking and other practices that require a windows browser.

My experience in Linux has been much more pleasant. It is faster, more attractive, secure and in many ways more intuitive. Installing some programs (those requiring a manual install), can still be a pain, but I am learning daily how to manage that process.

Using Linux is initially not the most user friendly experience in the world, but once you have made the switch and committed to it, there are a wealth of resources available to Noobs, as newbies are called. There is a real sense of community, and I have found myself receiving emails from notables in the Linux community who have spotted posts of mine in the Ubuntu forums, asking for help.

I am planning on sponsoring a major seminar next year to promote open source software here in Costa Rica.

One of the best things about the Open Source movement is that there are tons of Free software titles out there, with quality equal to or surpassing that of the commercial products available for Windows... No wonder Microsoft is terrified of Open Source. I have to produce a lot of PDF documents in my business. I struggled with various "Free" ad-ons to Microsoft Word, and even considered paying for Adobe Acrobat. With Open Office, saving to a full featured PDF, is included in the program.

Tomboy is just another pleasant surprise in my journey to Linux mastery. If you have not tried Linux and have 10 gigabytes or so of free diskspace on your PC, you should consider setting up a Linux partition. There are various flavors to chose from. Ubuntu is easy, free and you can download the disk image directly from their website. After burning a CD, you can try it before you even install (The CD is bootable, without changing your Windows configuration).

But installing it is a JOY. Once you have done so, the world of Tomboy and Open Office and a wealth of other software will be open to you. Unless you or your business relies heavily on Microsoft Applications, I don't think you will look back.

Crossposted to Business Blog

Gizmodo makes a damned good case for it. Nice look...

Thin, with the familiar iPod industrial design...

If this is the long rumored iPhone, I will be very disappointed. One of the most bone headed and arrogant things Steve Jobs did when he re-took the helm at Apple was to cancel the Newton project.

Seeing the success that Palm had in taking advantage of the market created by Apple, and the strong support the Newton platform has even today, it is easy to conceive that a fourth generation Newton would have been a huge success.

Apple currently owns dozens of technologies, including those included in the Newton and patents on others that could result in a robust smart phone experience. Imagine OS X on a smartphone, with Newton Handwriting Technology!

If the eventual iPhone turns out to be nothing more that an iPod with a phone strapped to it, Apple will have blown a golden opportunity, and will disappoint legions of fans who like me... hope for so much more.

Crossposted to Business Blog

Hat Tip Palmaddicts

"The combination of Agendus Premier and YourCall, are what completes the Treo Smartphone!"

I have been an Agendus user since the days when it was called Action Names. I purchased the YourCall add-on the day it appeared on the market, and it has made managing my busy schedule and keeping track of conversations a pleasure.

The following is from the YourCall Site:

Dialog received when contact is unknown

YourCall has 4 easy-to-access, "thumb sized" actions: (Depending on whether the contact is known or not) View Contact Card - View contact's detailed information Create a Contact - Create a new contact from the received phone number Add to Contact - Adds the received phone number to a current contact Add to Journal* - Adds the contact or phone number to your journal Call Back - Calls the number back Send SMS - Sends SMS to the number or contact Take no action - Exits the YourCall dialog

More options are available via a dropdown list: Create a meeting - Schedules a meeting with the contact Create a task - Creates a new task which links to the contact Create a call* - Schedules a phone call with the contact Create a memo - Creates a memo which links to the contact Create Journal entry* - Adds the contact or phone number to your journal Send E-Mail - Sends an email to the contact Send SMS - Sends a text message to the contact Call back - Calls the contact back. (If the contact has multiple numbers, click "show dialog" to select a different number to call) Reverse phone lookup - Looks up the phone number via reverse 411 address service in addition to web search

Dialog received when contact is known

Additional drop down menu options

» Let YourCall do the work for you. Once an action is selected, YourCall automatically fills in the appropriate information such as telephone number, contact, length of the conversation, end time, and the date the call took place. From there, you can fill in the extra details. Don't have time to fill in all appropriate details? Create a place holder to gather your thoughts before they fly away. Once you have time to reflect, you can revise the descriptions at your own pace. Note: (*) This functionality requires the presence of Agendus for Palm OS.

---
Now, add to that functionality, the power of the Agendus Premium Organizer, and you have as close to a perfect "digital personal assistant," as you will find. Your call has been updated today with a bunch of cool new features.

I loaded it up this afternoon, and was tempted to make a couple of calls, just to play with the new features. I didn't but I will probably handle some calls tomorrow. One of the great things about the release of the new Treo 680, is that a lot of software is being updated for the Treo. My own setup, which includes email, chat, call recording and the above mentioned Agendus and YourCall, is about as close as one can come to having full Personal Assistant functionality in a device I can carry around with me.

YourCall's integration with Agendus is incredible. It was always a problem with me before installing YourCall, that I would forget about important points covered during mobile conversations, especially while on the move. YourCall and Agendus have fixed that, by enabling me to instantly, with a couple of taps of my stylus, schedule follow ups, make quick notes or even send a quick email, after a phone call, and the new logging features of YourCall are really powerful additions.

Crossposted to Business Blog

I had almost forgotten about this piece Thanks to the folks at Palm Addicts for reminding me of it...

The truth is, despite my own desire to get a Treo 680, and my love for Palm Hardware and Software, (I own both a Treo 650, and a Lifedrive). I am far from being one of those drooling Palm Fanboys, who has sold his soul for the occasional demo handout.

I believe that Palm has grown far to comfortable with it's leadership position in the last few years and has grown complacent. My Treo is a great business tool. It allows me to stay connected away from the office and to keep in touch with clients via email and chat. It's an amazing device, made even more amazing by fantastic developers like Hobbyist software, who publish just about every piece of software on my Treo.

But it is fatally flawed. How Palm could ship a smartphone with only 24mb of usable memory is both a mystery, and an insult to people who paid up to $600 for the phone. Especially when HP and others offer WIndows Mobile based smartphones with 128mb of memory at about the same price. To add to the insult, the None of the Palm based Treo line, even the 680, offer Wifi as an option. And while I love my 650, not a day passes that I don't have some kind of a reset.

Likewise, my Lifedrive is a wonder of technology... 4 Gigabytes of memory (Hard Drive Based), Wifi and Bluetooth... Great Screen... And it crashes daily as well, despite the fact that every piece of software on it is Lifedrive compatible... Not to mention the fact that it is slow as molasseses in winter (Due to the lack of REAL RAM... Even the RAM is based on the Hard Disk). Palm makes the problem worse by ignoring customer feedback, and providing the worst support India can offer.

So why do I remain a Palm Addict? Because I know what Palm CAN do. I am hoping for a T/X 2, because I believe that Palm can recapture the old magic. They just need to provide a good device with multiple wireless functionality and Gigs of memory... At a fair price... And if Skype continues to refuse to release a Palm VOIP Client, program one yourself. It is time Palm got true access to the biggest VOIP network in the world, without having to do black magic to do so.

I want to stay with Palm, and for the short term I will. I have a lot invested in Palm add-ons and software. But if Palm does not come up with a compelling handheld product next year, I may be switching to Windows Mobile.

Crossposted to Business Blog

And there are a ton of Treo 680 reviews up today. Apparently Palm was pretty generous in seeding the product to Technology Sites.

Brighthand does the best all around review.

Mobility Today adds some nice YouTube video to their review.

Palm Infocenter has a nice photo gallery.

TreoCentral also weighs in...

And of course, standard bearer Palm Addicts has extensive coverage, including this review, after using the Treo 680 for a week.

My overall sentiment after reading all of the reviews? I will get one. The new tweaks in software, new web browser, and most of all, additional memory, make it a required upgrade for me.

I have spoken many times about how my Treo is my office on the move, this "new office," will give me some much needed enhancements to my "office space," while at the same time, allowing me to continue to perpetuate our image as a cutting edge company in Costa Rica.

Several times I have been the ONLY person to have a certain model of tech in Costa Rica, and putting aside the ego factor, this has been a remarkable marketing tool. Nothing says, "competancy," more than having the latest and greatest technology at your disposal, and utilizing it for maximum efficiency.

Crossposted to Business Blog

This is the most wicked memory chip I have ever seen.

Reminds me of the Afro pik I used to comb my nappy hair with when I was a kid!

I am forever amazed at the developments in technology over the last 30 years.

It is amazing that something this small is more powerful than the computer that landed Apollo 11 on the moon in 1969, and 1000X more complex.

Talked about suped up...

Sure, liquid-cooling your gadgetry is oftentimes done to prove your 1337-ness, but in cases like Apple's oh-so-toasty Dual G5 PowerMac and Microsoft's notoriously warm Xbox 360, we consider the task quite appropriate. In OCZ's case, however, we're leaning towards the unnecessarily flashy side, as the company's PC2-9200 FlexXLC (Xtreme Liquid Convention) Edition memory touts both air and water cooling possibilities. Dubbed the "world's fastest DDR2 RAM" at 1,150MHz, the modules feature an eight-layer PCB which hinders crosstalk and improves signal integrity, and sports a "fin-like heatsink" to waft warmth away from the components. Moreover, it also boasts liquid-dispersing units that pass water across copper lines to cool things off when taxing your system.

What's next, water cooled smartphones?

Crossposted to my business blog

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu Edgy and added KDE desktop.
Finally I can use Kpilot and Kontact to Sync my Palm lifedrive.
The problem is that every time I sync, som of my data is erased from the palm.
I understand that this is a documented problem and that the solution is to change the version of kpilot. I have the latest (I think)version of KDE (Kubuntu) and the KPIM suite, so I am not sure as to what version of Kpilot I need to fix this.

Can someone help this Linux Newbie through this?

The Treo 680 Fund has been officially kicked off. If you enjoy ISOU, have been saved from getting ripped off by Nigerian Lottery/419 Scammers, or if you just want to hook a brother up with an early Christmas present, consider dropping a couple of bucks in the tip jar. You will find it over on the right!

Oh yeah, and if you are a marketing type from Palm, and you just happen to google up on this site, send a guy a 680, I have probably sold enough Treo's in the last year to have earned a million Palm Bucks! Hehe...

Zune is selling like ice cubes at an Eskimo reservation... And I can also understand why Bill, is suddenly being modest...

When we report on the sayings and sound bites of higher ups at technology companies, we tend to cover them from a negative angle because, as you well know, execs are pretty fond of belittling their opponent's products. The latest exception to this rule comes from none other than Bill Gates, who recently praised Apple's iPod, calling it "phenomenal, unbelievable, fantastic" in front of an audience at Stanford University, California. The timing of these words -- only a few days after the launch of Zune -- would be the most surprising aspect of his speech were it not for Gates' later musings on Microsoft's aim with the Zune. According to Gates, the plan with Zune is "more modest" than total domination of the portable media player market, with Gates elaborating that the company wants to "excite people about the concept" of sharing music and video wirelessly through Zune.

The thing is butt ugly, it's Microsoft, and.... and what, that is all I really have to say. Think Pocket PC version 1! Yep you got the picture.

I mean what genius came up with "Brown," for a color?

Crossposted to business blog

I was sitting here playing with my Treo 650 tonight, lamenting the 24 Megabytes of memory that prevents me from loading more applications (I am down to about 7 Megabytes). I recalled watching From the Earth to the Moon, the other night with my kid, and it got me to thinking...

Here I am sitting with a little marvel of technology that allows me to make phone calls wirelessly almost anywhere in the world. I can keep my schedule, compose Microsoft Office compatible documents, surf the internet, and am always in touch with my email and SMS.

I wondered out loud, how much memory Apollo 11 had on its onboard Landing Module Computer.... So I googled it...

"The on-board Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was about 1 cubic foot with 2K of 16-bit RAM and 36K of hard-wired core-rope memory with copper wires threaded or not threaded through tiny magnetic cores. The 16-bit words were generally 14 bits of data (or two op-codes), 1 sign bit, and 1 parity bit. The cycle time was 11.7 micro-seconds. Programming was done in assembly language and in an interpretive language, in reverse Polish. Scaling was fixed point fractional. An assembly language ADD took about 23.4 micro-seconds. The operating system featured a multi-programmed, priority/event driven asynchronous executive packed into 2K of memory. The Mean Time to Failure (MTBF) of the machine in a space environment was calculated at 50,000 hours -- almost 6 years, and it never failed in flight operations. It was truly a marvel for its time, a tribute to M.I.T.'s designers, and it accomplished a most complex mission."

38k.... That's right... "k" not Megabytes, not Gigabytes, but "k." I looked around my desk.... My watch has more memory than the craft that first landed man on the moon. In fact, my freaking toaster probably does... We've come a long way baby. The question one must ask is... What happened to simple elegant programming. I dont think a single application on my Treo would even fit into the memory of that glorious machine that fulfilled so many of our dreams and aspirations... And it didn't even crash!

This looks to be a very interesting piece of software:

Thinking Rock is a free software application for collecting and processing your thoughts following the GTD methodology. It is simple and easy to use - see our demos and manual.

A lot of our mental energy is directed towards trying to remember and manage all the things that we want or need to do. Thinking Rock will allow you to clear your mind so that you can become more proactive and concentrate on what is important to you.

Thinking Rock allows you to collect your thoughts and process them into actions, projects, information or future possibilities. Actions can be done by you, delegated to someone else or scheduled for a particular date. Projects can be organised with ordered actions and sub-projects. You can review all of your actions, projects and other information quickly and easily to see what you need to do or to choose what you want to do at a particular time.

Why we recommend Thinking Rock:

• It will help you to store in one safe place all the things you have to do or would like to do one day;
• Unlike many task management applications, Thinking Rock lets you to group your actions in projects and sub-projects;
• It gets you moving on your thoughts by encouraging you to think of the next physical action to take;
• It has good on-line help;
• We provide free customer support;
• The data file is separate so you can have the application installed on your home computer and at work, and transfer the small data file between computers;
• It is multi-platform: use it on Linux, Machintosh, or Windows;
• It's free.

If you don't have time to download and use this software then you really need it.

I am "slumming it," tonight in Linux, and have not been able to get it to install due to some problems with my Java installation. Give it a look, go through the demos, for those implementing GTD, this looks to be another great tool, and it's free.

Crossposted to my Business Blog

I tried out Gmail Mobile last night. I downloaded the Java Application for my Treo 650, and installed it. Then logged on to Gmail via the Treo's Blazer web browser. The Gmail page gave me the option of downloading the Java Applet for Gmail on the Palm. It took a couple of tries to get the Java application to install the applet, but it finally worked.

I gave it a quick spin, and much like the Opera Mini Java Applet, it loaded fine, asked me if I wanted to use airtime to connect to Gmail, connected and allowed me to futz around with my Gmail inbox.

My conclusions? Not worth the huge footprint that installing Java requires (On my Treo about 1.5 Megabytes). For a device with only 24 MB of usable memory, and one that will get flaky if it gets below 5MB, Gmail Mobile offers nothing compelling. It is far easier and less resource intensive to just add my Gmail account to Chatter Mail, and download it periodically, rather than adding an additional application.

Granted, Gmail for Treo is in version one. As the product matures, or once I get my Treo 680, with it's larger memory footprint, it may be worth it.
At this point, I just cant see dedicating almost 2MB's of precious memory to a proprietary email solution.

I might feel differently if I was using Gmail as a portal to all of my email addresses, but I am not. Even under those circumstances I probably would not, as the interface is just not as "roomy," as Chattermail, and of course there is no Push functionality.

Like most things from Google, Gmail Mobile is getting a lot of initial play. All the techie types want to give it a spin, including yours truly. But the novelty wore off quickly, and it did not last an hour on my Treo, before being uninstalled, along with the bloated Java Virtual Machine (Which Palm should have loaded in ROM).

So if you use GMail as your main or only email application, and push is not important to you, this application may have some merit, otherwise, skip it and save the space...

Think blogging is just for political partisans and nerds? Think again....

Blogging is turning into a big bucks opportunity. The model may still be a young one, but the opportunity is clear.

(Business 2.0) -- Michael Arrington is a partying kind of guy. While showing off his home in Atherton, Calif., he boasts about how he crammed 500 people into his one-acre backyard at a bash in February. Then there are the official parties, like the one he threw in mid-August at August Capital, a nearby venture firm. Arrington posted an open invitation on his website at 3 a.m. By sunrise, all 500 spots were taken; the onslaught of traffic crashed his site. "I knew it would be fast," says Arrington, who houses so many out-of-towners in his ranch home that he often isn't sure who's crashing on which mattress on which floor in which room.

Arrington, a 36-year-old entrepreneur behind a long list of unrecognizable startups, has suddenly become one of the rising stars of Silicon Valley. Why? The answer lies in TechCrunch, Arrington's blog about new technologies and companies. In the year since he launched the site, he has amassed such a strong following that he's become a go-to person for VCs and tech execs looking to leak corporate tidbits or announce news. More than 1.5 million readers regularly check out his site. But here's what gives Arrington real distinction: He's pulling in $60,000 in ad revenue every month. That's 10 times what the site was making earlier this year, which was when Arrington, convinced of the potentially monstrous riches ahead, quit his day job as president of a startup to blog full-time.

With Internet-like speed, blogs have gone from self-indulgent hobbies to flourishing businesses. Real businesses, with real revenue streams from real advertisers--not overhyped next big things with pick-a-number valuations based on selling out someday to some overenthusiastic big-media sugar daddy. Boing Boing, a four-person operation that bills itself as a directory of wonderful things, is on track to gross an estimated $1 million in ad revenue this year. The digital-media news site PaidContent.org, headquartered in the second bedroom of a Santa Monica apartment, is set to post even more than that. And Fark.com, a site packed with sophomoric humor run by a lone guy in Lexington, Ky., is on pace to become a multimillion-dollar property. In short, some of the most popular blogs, long the bane of the mainstream media, are themselves becoming mainstream.

What has changed? For starters, blogs today benefit from what might be termed uneconomies of scale: They are so cheap to create and operate that a lone blogger or a small team can, with the ever-expanding reach of the Internet, amass vast audiences and generate levels of profit on a per-employee basis that traditional media companies can only fantasize about.

At the same time, advertisers--shunning old-line media in favor of the Web--are discovering the unique power of blogs. Blogs offer a personal touch in the mediascape; small sites have become our guides to a content-saturated world. As such, their recommendations are highly valued by readers--which naturally has made advertisers take notice. In recent months, big-name companies like Banana Republic and Coca-Cola (Charts) have for the first time run campaigns on blogs, in the belief that blog communities often consist of concentrated numbers of the passionate and influential people all marketers want to reach. Intel bought its first blog ad in March; now all its ads run on blogs as well as traditional outlets. Says Thom Campbell, head of media strategy for Intel (Charts), "The audience on blogs is the cream of the crop."

But before you quit your day job, consider that this isn't easy money, nor is it guaranteed to last. For one thing, the market is small right now: Web ad agency Organic puts ad spending on blogs at $40 million this year. Bloggers are typically selling only about a third of their available ad space at top rates. (The rest goes at heavily discounted prices.) And as with any business dependent on the mercurial ad market, prone as it is to sudden skids, the threat of crashing and burning always looms.

Still, the blogging-for-dollars phenomenon is only in its infancy, and already blog ad spending is roughly twice what it was last year. With overall Web advertising expected to grow by 50 percent to $23.6 billion in 2010, it's certain that more and more ad dollars will land on blogs. For a growing cadre of bloggers, the opportunities to score fat profits from pumping out posts on whatever their particular passions might be are widening--and one consequence could be a radical reshaping of our notions of how to build a successful media company.

The monetization of blogging can trace its roots to late 2002, when Google (Charts) created a revolutionary system that allowed anyone with a website to run ads. The technology, called AdSense, matched ads with a site's content. Each time a visitor clicked on a linked ad, the site's owner got paid (a model now referred to as cost-per-click advertising). For the first time, anyone could be a real publisher with real advertisers, with no need for the big sales forces that magazines, newspapers, and other traditional media employ.

For do-it-yourselfers, however, the revenue stream created by AdSense in its early days was for the most part simply beer money. At the same time, display ads--the banners, buttons, and skyscrapers that had fallen into disfavor with the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2000--began to make a comeback on major destination sites such as Yahoo (Charts) and MSN. Marketers pay for those kinds of ads based on a formula known as CPM, which stands for cost per 1,000 impressions.

The promise of these two Web advertising models whet the whistles of wannabe publishers, and among the first was Nick Denton. He bet that he could run sites as low-cost one- or two-person operations and offer advertisers ready-made, easily targeted niche audiences. He reasoned that he could eventually one-up automated systems by handselling display ads for his sites at premium CPMs. But to lure advertisers into uncharted blog waters, he initially gave away ad space for free.

Denton launched his company in New York in 2002 with the media gossip site Gawker and the gadget blog Gizmodo. Gawker Media now runs 13 sites, including such edgy titles as Defamer and Wonkette. Denton recently announced that he's "battening down the hatches" and selling two sites, but his core properties are on a tear: Gawker Media sites clocked 66 million pageviews in June, more than double the traffic they saw a year earlier. Denton won't discuss financial details, but industry experts estimate that Gawker Media will bring in as much as $3 million in revenue this year. Gawker Media's average CPM is between $8 and $10; CPM rates on Google AdSense and competing automated systems are estimated at anywhere from 50 cents to a few bucks.

Another pioneer, Jason Calacanis, provided a big shot of momentum to the blogging-for-bucks phenomenon last October when he sold Weblogs Inc., his conglomeration of 85 sites, to AOL for a reported $25 million. "Everyone in the ad industry took notice after that deal," says Mark Kingdon, CEO of Organic.

Read the whole article, it is very interesting...

What will be interesting is watching how the blogging revolution takes off here in Latin America. I recently spoke with a friend who is a major player in developing the technology industry in the region. I had spoken with him once before about starting a blog. At the time he was not interested, today he is. He sees the potential for networking, reaching a larger audience and promoting investment in Technology in the region. It will be interesting to see how things shake out.

Crossposted to my Business Blog

For those of you using the GTD system of time management, this is a HOT new application.

GTD Gmail is a browser plug-in that allows you to create an entire GTD based system within the Gmail environment. I have been flirting with GTD for several months now trying to integrate it's principles into my more traditional Franklin Covey approach to time and task management.

My personal system relies heavily on iambic's fantastic Agendus software on my Palm. Agendus Premier, along with Agendus Desktop for Outlook, have been mainstays in my own time management system for the last year.

My recent move to Ubuntu Linux has made the desktop portion of my experience, a bit more challenging, but I am still a STRONG supporter of Agendus on my Palm Handheld.

I am still struggling and experimenting with GTD, so I am far from proficient in it. But I have adopted several tools, that I hope with time will help me to adapt to the process and to become even more efficient. Memoleaf in particular has been a great tool in adopting GTD. I rarely even used memos as a tool in keeping track of things. Memoleaf has given me a way to better keep track of memos and notes and to incorporate them into my planning process. If you use a Palm Handheld or smartphone, it is well worth the investment.

The new GTD Gmail tool, is just another step in my incorporation of GTD into my daily process management scheme. For those of you who might be interested, there is an excellent Yahoo Group on Palm/GTD located here.

Crossposted to my Business Blog

Since moving most of my day to day work to Linux, and finally getting my Palm Lifedrive (My main Palm), I have been trying to figure out a way to sync my Treo 650 without screwing up my delicate Linux syc configuration. Today I found the solution to that problem and a whole lot more! From Brighthand today:

Just last week Google released a Java application that allows handhelds and smartphones to access the email in its Gmail service. Now, a company has introduced a family of applications that can synchronize GoogleCalendar with a mobile device.

GoogleCalendar is a free online service that allows users to enter their schedules and then share them with their family and friends. It can also send reminders of events by email or text messages.

Toffa's new GooSync is still in beta, but it can handle the task of synchronizing the calendars on a wide variety of mobile devices with the ones on Google's servers. The synchronization process is handled by the device, so it needs to have some form of connection to the Internet.

There are versions for both the Palm OS and Windows Mobile, as well as for many other smartphones. A complete list can be found on Toffa's web site.

GooSync is currently free. It is not yet known if Toffa intends to charge for this service once it comes out of beta.

I now have the ability to remote sync with my Google Calendar. Using this same system, I dont need to sync my Treo to the Linux desktop, I just make sure all of my Google Calendar data is up to date, and then occasionally sync the Treo via GPRS. Nice solution by the way.

One of the things that is also nice, is that my clients can not get a snapshot of my free time just by visiting my Google Calendar, and know that it is always up to date. Sweet!

Today I had another one of those experiences that reminds me why I am for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA/TLC). ICE, the Costa Rican Phone Monopoly started a test of GPRS internet five years ago.

As one of Costa Rica's Technorati, I was one of the first people to get this service. I have used the GPRS internet connection with various equiptment for the last five years.

When I purchased my Treo 650, and Chattermail, I was in connected heaven! I finally had a solution, along with Causerie Internet Messaging, and the built in Blazer Web Browser, that gave me a reasonable facsimile of my office communication tools.

I was able to stay in constant communication using a combination of push email. IM and SMS, without ever making a phone call... Best part about it... The Service, still in test, is free!

Well I guess ICE did not like the fact that someone was ALWAYS connected to thier GPRS network. About a month ago, the service stopped working.

Since I am constantly tweaking my Treo, I assumed it was some software problem. I hard reset my phone, went through the painful process or reinstalling everything and then customizing my settings... Still did not work. I have been a MONTH without mobile Internet, and it HURT.

Well, today on a lark, my wife called ICE to ask why the service was not working. Since they announced that they would soon be going out of test mode, and charging for the service, we assumed that they disconnected my GPRS in preparation for charging me for it... NO... They disconnected it because they said, "he is not using it." Har de har, har! They simply disconnected my service, one I have had for five years... without even asking or informing me...
Well they reconnected me this afternoon, and while I was on a trip up north to do a seminar, I once again reaquainted myself with the joys of mobile internet...

I cant wait until these guys have some competition!

Crossposted to my Business Blog

I have been using Ubuntu Unix exclussively for three days now, without shutting down my computer.

During that time, I have utilized NOTHING but open source software. Including J-Pilot, the Unix Palm Desktop.

I have not experienced a single crash or slow down. My internet connection is running at about 2x the speed that it runs under windows. I am multi-tasking like a madman, and I have not missed Windoze one bit.

I have full read access to my Windows document folder, and can once again use my Palm Lifedrive in drive mode. I am also using my iPod as an external disk. After a few days of this, I am want to muse.... "Why would anyone WANT to use Windows?

Crossposted to my Business Blog

Download the PDF here. My only issue... Looks like the unlocked version is going to be over $400 bucks. Not exactly what I expected, but I will probably upgrade anyway.

I purchased it, right after reading this article on PalmInfoCenter:

Keep in mind that this is version 1 software, but I am pleased with it. After copying all of my iPod videos to a folder on my Lifedrive, I can now watch the movies on my palm, as well as listen to my MP3 Collection.

I am GOING to buy a new Treo 680, as soon as the unlocked models are available. This comparrison chart from Teonauts compares all of the current Treo line, if you are considering purchasing a smart phone, its a must review item.

That those messages to your new transexual girlfriend in Brazil were confidential!

NOT!

Nick Sparagis asks a question no doubt on the minds of anyone who logs onto personal e-mail while at work: The Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) scandal has brought to the surface the curiosity I have had for quite a long time about snooping. I know that using corporate e-mail is always a bad idea for personal use, but how about Web-based e-mail programs like Yahoo! Mail (YHOO) or Google's Gmail (GOOG) inside your corporate network? Can a company read these messages also, if they go through the corporate network? How about my instant messages?

The safest assumption for any employee is that anything he or she sends across an employer's network can and probably will be monitored. This is a widespread and perfectly legal practice, since as a matter of law, electronic communications that you create on your employer's equipment are regarded as the employer's product. As a practical matter, however, the level of monitoring will vary generally both with the type of enterprise and the nature of the traffic.

Messages sent over the corporate e-mail system are generally subjected to the most scrutiny (in some organizations subject to regulatory compliance regimes, such monitoring may actually be required). E-mails sent and received are frequently archived, so copies may exist even of messages that you have deleted. In addition, many companies run messages, especially outbound traffic, through software designed to detect text that might contain confidential company information or "inappropriate" content, however defined by the company.

Eyes Everywhere

Instant messages sent over a company's internal IM system are probably treated much like e-mail. IMs sent over a public system such as AOL Instant Messaging or Yahoo! Messenger are more problematic. If the traffic goes over the company network, it may be monitored and archived. Odds are it isn't, but you can't be sure.

Bottom line.....

Save the personal shit for HOME, UNLESS your company specifically allows you to use the internet at work, and to conduct personal business using corporate resources...

Over the last year, Verizon Wireless has been repeatedly slammed online for their misleading tactic of selling their wireless EVDO service as "unlimited" but then cutting off users who use too much. For a while this was a "fuzzy cap" where they wouldn't even tell you how much. It was estimated at 10gigs per month, though more recent comments from the company suggest that it's actually 5 gigs. As for why this isn't false advertising, Verizon Wireless execs have been doing some fancy footwork to explain how they mean "unlimited amounts of data for certain types of data." Then, they claim that if you use more than 5 gigs a month, the only way you could possibly be doing so is if you've been using that data that isn't unlimited -- and, in fact, isn't allowed. That would include things like videos. Understood? They claim it's "very clear." Apparently, however, it's not so clear to whoever Verizon Wireless had create their TV advertisements. PCS Intel is noting that a new TV commercial for the Motorola Q phone on Verizon Wireless shows it streaming video -- which, if you recall, is a big no-no, and the type of thing
that will get you kicked off the network.

Palm Addicts has run several stories a day, non stop since the product was announced and there have been numerous reviews, including this one from 1src, one of my favorite Palm sites.

The pictures and stats I have seen, have had me drooling since the product was first announced. It has been speculated that carrier branded versions of the product will probably debut at about $200, and that an unlocked version may be less than $300. If they hit the $300 price mark for an unlocked phone, they will be be on eBay in a few months for $200.

My Treo 650 will do fine for the time being, and I will definitely wait for the discounted price.

I like the look of the "copper" flavored one, but the red or granite will be just as nice.

Anyone else waiting for the new Treo?

Brighthand and Palm Addicts are reporting the announcement of the long anticipated Treo 680.

The DigitalLife conference is going on now in New York, and Palm, Inc. is currently holding a press conference to announce its latest Treo smartphone.

Brighthand's Brian Beeler is in attendance, and will be sending in reports on what Palm is announcing.

So far he has said:

Treo 680 in multiple "fun" colors to reach out to the average user.

Promising a great price point, but won't talk pricing today. Said it will be competitive so expect $200 or so, is my guess.

If it is $200, consider it bought on this end. Nothing yet on Palm's site. 1src has all the details.

Engadget has a blow by blow update.

1:17PM: ...in multiple fun colors! Great new price point -- won't get into specifics today.

1:32PM: We've doing a new advertising campaign in partnership with Yahoo, eBay, and Google to highlight these new features. We've improved the browser so that it caches these pages and is faster at delivering content.

Damn, this thing is going to be HOT! The 64Mb of memory alone is enough to demand an upgrade, but the updated software will make it an instant best seller. Not only do you get more memory, but many of the third party applications I use now will be unnecessary with the improvements in the stock, in ROM applications. SWEET!

I will pay $400 for an unlocked version of this phone!

Update: It's up on Palm's Site!

Crossposted with additional commentarty to my Business Blog

Do you use Skype for VOIP? Are you an Outlook User? Do you value software that simply makes your life easier, and Gets Things Done. Then THIS is something you need.

Standard Outlook lets you send, receive, forward, reply to, store, organize, search, follow-up and archive emails.

Outlook with Skylook lets you do all those things with phone calls too, as well as PC-to-PC calls, voicemail, instant messages and SMS*. (Calls are recorded to MP3 for storage and archiving).

Skylook also combines email, reminders, calls, voicemail, instant messages and SMS in powerful ways - e.g. to send you SMS alerts when you miss reminders, or to read important emails to you on your phone when you are away from your desk.

I have been an enthusiastic user of Skylook since version one, and version 2 adds a boatload of features to an already awesome feature set. If you use Skype, and you don't have Skylook, then your Skype experience is incomplete.

I am a mobile executive. It is the nature of not only who I am, but also what I do. My purchase of a Palm Treo 650 a few months back, was probably one of the best investments I have ever made. I have been an iambic Agendus fan for many years now, going back to the Action Names days.

As a busy consultant, I am almost never stationary, and I depend on my Treo to be my “office, away from the office.” It manages my agenda, alows me to carry important documents while away from my computer, acts as my messenger (via SMS) and has always on, Blackberry style push email. But the Agenda function is second only to email in importance to me.

I am always looking for an edge in managing my business, and Iambic has given me that edge with it’s outstanding time and project management features. Lets start with Agendus Premier.

Agendus Premier Takes the Hassle Out of Scheduling Meetings

Sending Appointment Invitations
Simply choose contacts from your address book, create the meeting’s description, and Agendus will send a SMS (text message) immediately to the invitees.

Checking for Free Time
Agendus automatically scans invitees’ schedules for availability (if they have Agendus installed as well) and informs them if detects a conflict in their calendars

When the intelligent notification arrives, the invitee can accept or decline without delay.

Tracking Responses
Agendus keeps track of responses so you’ll know exactly how many people accepted, declined, or have not replied to your meeting in real time.

With Premier I am able to intelligently manage my schedule while on the run. If the person I am trying to schedule a meeting with has a Treo, the features are even more powerful. My biggest enemy is time, and Agendus helps me to control it in ways that are both powerful and flexible, and it even has an outlook plugin.

All exciting stuff, but yesterday, Iambic introduced a simple, yet powerful augmentation to the system. It is called YourCall, and it quite simply COMPLETES my Treo.

YourCall integrates with Agendus, and the phone application on your Treo. When you recieve or make a call and end the call, a dialogue like the one at the left appears on the phone and allows you to immediately create an action in Agendus. This has been very helpful to me already. I recieved several calls today relating to meetings I have scheduled for Friday. Normally I would try to remember to later make a note in my Treo regarding any follow up actions. This is a lot easier for me since I have Call Record, which automatically records all my phone calls, and I can refer to the recordings later as cheat notes, but YourCall really automates the process of setting up next steps.

Today, after each call, I was prompted with the action screen, and quickly scheduled a meeting and several tasks directly from the screen after the call. The call information was also automatically logged in Agendus. For $10, this is a piece of must have software. Keep an eye on iambic. They have some really compelling solutions for the executive on the go, or even for just busy people who need to keep their schedules and work on track.

For today only, you can get one of the SWEETEST pieces of software I have seen in a while for FREE.

NTI Ninja is exciting software that maximizes data protection by using a driver level encryption technology to create private and public partitions on USB storage devices. Ninja allows you to easily access and share commonly used data on the public partition, and also restrict and hide access to confidential data on the private partition simultaneously.

What You Do With Ninja, Stays with Ninja!

I downloaded it tonight, installed it on my thumb drive and BAM! James Bond shit!

I can now carry arround a whole bunch of files that I would normaly be worried about losing. The technology is cool, and the price is SOOOOO right. So get it while you can. Personally, this is one I would have paid for.

Ever wanted to save some of the cool You Tube videos to your video iPod? Here is the tool!

Now Playing on David's iPod:

I am often called the most connected man in Costa Rica, for reason. I have been one of the principle and FIRST promoters of wireless technology in Costa Rica.

I am always connected via wifi or GSM/GPRS, and clients are often surprised that even when out of the office, I always answer my email within minutes, thanks to Chattermail and my Palm Treo 650.

Well, I have just added a new tool to my already formidable arsenal of communications tools.

Causerie Unified messenger, is another in the long list of "killer apps," available for the Palm Treo platform.

With Causerie running on my Palm in background mode, I am literally always connected to my instant messenger clients. Many times I receive emails from international clients who are looking for a quick answer to a question... With Causerie, I can now offer them the opportunity to talk in REAL time, rather than playing email or phone tag.

The only concern I have, is am I TOO connected.

With Phone, SMS, email and now chat. There is almost no reason a person can not have instant access to me. I have a couple of small issues with Causerie, it seems to reset my device if I lose connectivity with the GPRS system, when Causerie senses it is reconnecting and it tries to auto restart.

This may be perception on my part, since I recently installed a couple of new applications to the Treo. It also does not see Chattermail as my email client, which is a pain, because I do not use the built in Versamail. Overall though, the application rocks, and adds a new dimension to my connectivity options. Too connected? I don't know. When it comes to being able to communicate with my clients and potential clients, that does not seem possible...

Has Palm Addicts sold out?

I had a small post about the Palm Treo posted to the premier Palm Devotee site today:

I look to Palm Addicts on a daily basis to keep me up to date on what is happening in the Palm and Mobile Technology world. It was your raving reviews of the Treo 650 that convinced me to buy one not too long ago. I am a long time Palm user going all the way back to the Pilot, and I have owned almost every model produced by Palm, and a couple of Sony Models. My most recent model before the Treo, was a Lifedrive, and I have been more or less pleased with it, despite the sometimes flaky behaviour and resets.

Also posted here.

To Palm Addicts...
One of my favorite handheld technology sites. They have been serving up Palm and Handheld Technology news for seven years now. Congrats Sammy. May you have seven years more! And I want that last prize! Hehe...

I could take pictures like this one... Believe it or not, taken with my Treo 650 while at the beach last month...

One baby step at a time!

I have grown sick of using Windows to try to get my work done. I recently reinstalled a dual boot system with Ubuntu. While I will admit to small frustrations... Like not being able to get my Epson Stylus CX3700 Printer/Scanner, to work, and not being able to sync my Palm devices.... I am loving the stability and speed of Linux. The fact that I could not access files from my Windows volume, was a major pain, now solved.

Hopefully some Unix Guru will read this, take pitty on me and help me work through my Palm and Printer/Scanner woes. At any rate, it is like having a Mac again, and has breathed new life into my Thinkpad.

I don't think so, but I do think Palm will be, unless they do something about quality and support issues.

Maybe not as secure as you think?

Is Google getting a bit ahead of themselves? It appears that they might be...

I have made a couple of changes this week in my usage of Technology, that should have a possitive impact on my personaly productivity.

I installed Ubuntu, the free Linux distribution (See image above), a while back. I liked it, but found too many things lacking, mainly solid support for my Palm handhelds. Since then I have made some changes on how I use my Palm. (Switching over to carrying ONLY my Treo 650), and have found that the syncronization of the Palm is less important to me than I originaly thought. I still cant reliably syc the Palm, but I am learning to live without this as a major priority.

Since I have a dual boot system, I can always boot into windows to do anything I MUST do with the palm. Meanwhile, the Ubuntu O/S is fast, reliable, flexible and frankly "beautiful." I have been using ALL open source software, and honestly have not had my productivity hampered ONE BIT.

On the Palm Side, my Treo has become my main device, and I find that using it to manage my calendar, on the move email and messaging, and even some project management tasks, is a breeze.

UPDATE: I just discovered how to mount my Windows directories in Ubuntu! Now I can access my files from the Dark Side without using my USB Key!

Slow blogging the last couple of days. I have been doing some training with one of my clients, and working on developing a Phase III project for them.

I have been tweaking my Treo 650 over the last couple of weeks and working on making sure the device is both stable and robust enough to handle my day to day PDA needs.
I think I am just about there, so I am going to try over the next couple of days to leave my Palm Lifedrive at home and use the Treo exclussively.
Its loaded up with all of the necessary productivity software, including:

Documents to Go
Agendus 11
and Chattermail

So I should have the main areas, (Document Management, Agenda and Contact Management, and Push email), handled.

Will let you know how it turns out....

From cnet News:

"There's lots of excitement out there over news that Microsoft's Zune player--pitched as a rival to Apple Computer's iPod--can turn its owner into a DJ of sorts by streaming music content via a wireless network to up to four other devices."

If the iPod loses it's throne as the premier MP3 player on the market, it will be as much the fault of Apple as anything Microsoft does with Zune.
Innovation with the iPod has been far too slow. I recieved a 30GB iPod for Christmas last year from a client.

I was really excited about the video playing capabilities until I found out it used a non standard (well not exactly non standard, but certainly hard to code), video standard.

Encoding videos for the iPod is a pain, and often chokes on my notebook. The battery life while playing music is acceptable, but it eats the battery when playing videos. And everyone knows about the problems with scratching the casing.

But those issues are small time compared with apples lack of innovation.

Like many people, I have longed for an iPod that had more robust PDA capabilities. I frankly dont carry my iPod very much, simply because I have too many things in my goody bad as is, and my Palm Lifedrive, is a more than adequate replacement for the iPod, and WILL play various types of video files, all on a 320x480 screen.

So the iPod has been relegated to backup.

Now I am not suggesting that the Zune will fix all of the iPod flaws in version one, but the mere fact that it is coming with wireless capabilities out of the box, is a sign of the potential of the device.

As Microsoft has done with their much beleaguered Pocket PC, they will keep improving Zune until they are making inroads into Apple's market.

Steve Jobs has done a great job of bringing Apple back from the brink, but that is not to say he has not made mistakes.

The success of devices like Palm's are more than proof of concept for PDA devices, a market started by Apple with it's Newton Product. A product that Jobs abandoned, some say out of spite, on his return to Apple.

The marketability of a Super iPod, featuring Newton Technology, or a subset of OSX, is apparent based on the number of rumors on the Internet of such a device or smartphone with iPod capabilities, and the excitement those rumors generate.

I would buy such a device in a heartbeat!

"Looks like Nikon is jumping on the Wi-Fi camera bandwagon. Can surfing with your digital camera be far away? All kidding aside, this Wi-Fi idea does seem cool. Snap your cool looking pic and send it off to friends via Wi-Fi or send them to the nearest printer."
From Palm Addicts


I have heard about a number of new high end digital cameras coming out with bluetooth or wireless connectivity, but to be honest I am not all that enthused about the concept.

This one seems interesting enough, as the concept seems to be some kind of email ability from the camera. This could be an interesting vertical application, especially for people like Photojournalist, Insurance adjusters, police investigators and others with mobile photography requirements.

The price, at less than $400 seems to be a good deal. Seems interesting, but does not quite make it to... "Must have," tech for my gadget bag.

Like the author of the review, I would like to see some sort of FTP functionality added.

I was reading PalmAddicts when I came across this today:

"I have 4 handhelds, 2 of which are phones and the other 2 are stand alone pda’s. One pda and one phone have to go as I will need to raise cash to purchase the proposed new treo 700 (I’m tied into a 12 month Orange contract and any new phone before next April is going to have to be sim-free).
The question of course is which 2 will go? At the moment I’m back to using the treo 650 for phone, email, internet, RSS feeds and games purposes whilst the pda (sony ux50) is handling all the heavy duty work data. Never mind all this converged / deconverged/ single / double device nonsense… I say you can use a treo and have a separate pda if, as in my case, you use the two devices for completely different purposes."

This statement is SO true for me.

I have tried to wean myself off of my Lifedrive, but I find that the limited memory of my Treo and its small screen and limited handwriting support, make it less that ideal for most of my PDA type task.

The Treo is my communication platform. It keeps me in touch on the run and enables me to manage my email and communication in a way that is almost transparent from my desktop or notebook.

It took me a long time to drop the change to buy a Treo, and even then I waited until I found an unbeatable deal on eBay. Having discovered the joys of being a Treonaut, I will state unequivocally that I would spend $600 in a heartbeat if a new GSM Treo appeared with substantially more memory, and I am talking a minimum of 64mb.

I can live with the smaller screen. I can even live with alternative input methods. The memory footprint forces me to make compromises in what software I chose to use, and that is what keeps me working with the Lifedrive. There are certain tools:

Agendus 11 (Agenda Program)
Xiino (Web Browser)
Splash ID and Photo

that I dont load on my Treo because they would consume all of the available memory. I use LauncherX as my default launcher on the Treo despite the fact that I much prefer ZLauncher... The small screen just does not do justice to ZLauncher, and to use Zlauncher the way I do, would again require too much precious memory.

So it's about compromise. I make many in using the Treo, but my Lifedrive fills in the gaps. It also adds to my "Cred," as the most "Techno Cool," dude in Costa Rica, that I have and use Palm's two flagship devices.

August 23, 2006 10:50 AM PDT

If you're in the business of stealing state secrets, or have always wanted to star in your very own high-tech heist flick, the DocuPen RC800 can at least aid in that fantasy.

It's a scanner that looks like--you guessed it--a pen, weighs 2 ounces and can fit in your shirt front pocket. It utilizes a dual-roller guiding system and optical registration technology to allow for smoother scanning in any of three modes: 24-bit color, 12-bit color or monochrome. As many as 100 pages can be stored in the pen's 8MB flash memory. If that's not enough, you can pop in a TransFlash memory card.

SWEEEET!

Ad me to the list of folks who wants to ad this to his gadget bag.
I am always attending meetings where hand drawn documents are shown off, this would be the perfect tool for capturing such information on the go. Nice...

[From JustinB] Justin sent me this in, and if you start surfing on your wifi enabled Palm device or a Airport internet terminal then just be careful. The New York Times carries the full story. "Any business traveler who has logged on to a wireless network at the airport, printed a document at a hotel business center or checked e-mail messages at a public terminal has probably wondered, at least fleetingly, "Is this safe?" Although obsessing about computer security is a bit like worrying about a toddler — potential hazards lurk everywhere and you can drive yourself crazy trying to avoid them — the fact is, business travelers take certain risks with the things they do on most trips. "If you go into the average hotel and sit down in the business center and have a look at their computer, I'm sure you'll find some interesting things that people should'’t have left behind,"

We've been working to make Picasa (Google's free photo-organizing software) even better when it comes to searching for your own photos—to make finding them be as easy as finding stuff on the web. Luckily we've found some people who share this goal, and are excited that the Neven Vision team is now part of Google.

Neven Vision comes to Google with deep technology and expertise around automatically extracting information from a photo. It could be as simple as detecting whether or not a photo contains a person, or, one day, as complex as recognizing people, places, and objects. This technology just may make it a lot easier for you to organize and find the photos you care about. We don't have any specific features to show off today, but we're looking forward to having more to share with you soon.

Google Blog

This is exciting news. I have used Picasa off and on since version 1, but never really got into it because of the system overhead. Frankly I just didn't see where it added any value over the included browsing tools that come with Windows. The kind of intelligent filing described above is reason to use it. I have about 5,000 pictures stored on my computer and it often takes me forever to find anything. This could be truly useful.

From Webpro News:

Google nearly sneaked this one in us. Late Thursday, Google quietly made Writely, the online word processor the company acquired in March, available to the online populace again. As 4PM EDT Friday, there's still no mention of at the Press Center.

The news must have gotten lost in all of the excitement in Mountain View over attending the Star Trek convention in Vegas, which they were sure to issue a press release about yesterday - and blog about it.

Captain's log: got so excited about Marissa Mayer in Spock ears, forgot to tell everybody about Writely.

Writely is one of those new Google-owned services that gets everybody tossing around phrases like "Microsoft-killer" and makes them rue the plight of the little guys, who'd been working on similar server-based applications.

Still in beta, the "Web word processor" requires visitors to sign up for an account before trying it out. The application allows users to share documents online, team edit from anywhere there's an Internet connection, and store documents online.

To understand why I am so excited about Chattermail, you need to understand a little bit about what it's like living the Tech lifestyle in Costa Rica. The GSM cell provider here in Costa Rica has been "testing," GPRS for five years now. I was one of the first to sign up for the program, and despite the fact that you can NOT sign up for it now, I have continued to use the service. It's spotty, hard to connect even in some areas where there is good GSM signal, but I have managed to get by using my Lifedrive and Motorola V3, and now my Treo 650.

Mobile High Speed, is a piece of software that automates the process of connection scripts and phone configuration, and supports Costa Rica's GPRS network. MHS has connection scripts for hundreds of countries and providers, and works like a charm. I have been using the wonderful Snapper Mail for some time now on all of my mobile devices, and have generally been satisfied with it. But Snapper depends on you making a connection and then downloading your email. While you can set Snapper up to automatically download email, the connection is often lost, and requires using MHS to reconnect and then download, often a time consuming process, IF it works. Since Blackberry services are not available here, that was not an option.

I had heard about Chattermail in some of the forums I frequent, and heard that it could provide Blackberry like connectivity without the cost. I started testing the software on Saturday, and it is AMAZING! Chattermail integrates with the connection software, in this case MHS, and keeps the connection open. Using my service providers IMAP server, I am able to keep connection with my email all day long, with each new email arriving instantly.  I often go down to one or two bars of cell signal during my travels during the day. The amazing thing is that Chattermail rarely loses its connection, regardless of relative signal strength. It also manually recconects to the GPRS network quite transparently if the signal is dropped. It is fast, reliable, easy to use and powerful. Snappermail has been deleted from my Treo...

Palm Addicts has been giving away stuff for the last week or so. A real good reason to read what is a great Palm Technology site.

Today's giveaway:

OK we are going back in time for today's segment of our office clutter giveaway. The last week has seen us clear clutter from our office as we are move space around Palm Addict Towers. Last Thursday's winner Mark Gallagher who won the LifeDrive has requested not to take it only because he has just invested in a Treo 700p and would like to give the LifeDrive to another lucky winner, so with that in mind, the LifeDrive is back on the giveaway market. It's 18 month's old and comes with a Proporta case. Winner announced later, readers and writers welcome to participate.

Send me a polite request with GIVEAWAY in the subject line, no follow up emails asking whether you are the winner because I get so many emails it's a no go to answer them -

This guy could easily be me!

Because I would say practically the same thing....

"For a self confessed, gimme-gimme-shiny-new gadgets nutcase like me to be using a phone several years old speaks volumes of the strengths of the Treo 650. It's not a perfect phone by any means, but after trying out various Nokias, Pocket PCs, Motos, Sony Ericssons and other wannbe contenders, I've come to the conclusion that the Treo remains the best smartphone on the market."

After a couple of weeks of using my Treo, here in Costa Rica, I can honestly say that it has been a major help to me in getting things done.

I could get my email while on the move before, using my Motorola V3 and my Palm Lifedrive, but it was not as seamless as it is with the Treo. With the treo, I set Snappermail to autofetch and go about my business. When new mail arrives, the phone gives me a little beep, and I attend to it when I have time.

I may change my mind when I get my hands on my HP iPaq 6915 later this year, but for now, the Treo has proven to be the perfect phone for me, and I can see why such a cult has built up around the device.

Rumor: Images of what appear to be a new Palm OS Treo model have been posted on a Chinese PDA message board. This Treo could likely be the long rumored 4th new model due this year code-named Lowridder or Nitro. Previously leaked documents from Cingular point out this is a GSM smartphone that could be released in October.

The images come from a post on the Hi-PDA.com forum. The photos appear to be fairly legitimate and look like they were taken with a Treo camera judging my the picture quality.

Read the whole article. Hat tip to Palm Addicts.

In reviewing the pictures one thing stands out, 64mb of memory. If these pictures are real then Palm still has not learned it's lesson. 64mb of memory on a modern Smartphone is a bare minimum, and as I have become painfully aware, many of the enhancement applications that one might chose to run from an SD card, simply will not run from an SD card, and must be in main memory.

It is not clear from the info on the page whether this new Treo will include Wifi or not. Palm makes some great, if Flawed products. I am very happy with my Treo 650, but it is NOT perfect. The 24mb of memory SUCKS, despite my having a 2gb SD card. The 2GB card works well for backups and data files, but I am used to the more spacious memory of other Palm devices. Despite the fact that my Lifedrive has on 64mb of "memory," there are few applications I can not run directly from the units internal drive.

From Palm addicts:

If you purchase DateBk5 now, or have purchased it on or after January 1, 2005, you are eligible for a free upgrade to the forthcoming DateBk6

DateBk is what the Palm Calendar Application SHOULD Be. Take advantage of this deal.

"DigiTimes reports that Dell has stopped its PDA development altogether and has diverted the funding to its notebook division. According to reports, Dell turned off the faucet in 2005. Dell's last all-new model was introduced in 2004 in the form of the Windows Mobile 2003 based Axim X50 series. The company then released a minor update in the form of the Axim X51 series which basically added the Windows Mobile 2005 operating system. More at DailyTech"

No surprises there.

The HP iPaq series is taking Dell to the cleaners.

The iPaq 6915 offers a smaller form factor, more elegant and attractive design, and phone functionality along with Bluetooth and Wifi. The ancient Axim X51.

I will probably be evaluating one of these in September or October. Until then I am very pleased with my Treo 650, but have to say, the additional memory 128MB and Wifi, of the 6915 would be a welcome addition to my mobile experience.

I have always felt that the Dell was a great device with a very poor industrial design. Lets face it, the Axim is just a BORING handheld. The HP iPaq series has always focused on building quality hardware that is aesthetically pleasing.

The 6519 continues that tradition. While many Axim fans will miss Dell's solid performance in the PDA space, there are many alternatives.

I downloaded and installed TAKEphone, a very cool piece of Treo Software.

The phone apllication on the Treo 650 is pretty damned robust, but I found myself from day one longing for something a bit more robust. If you own a Treo, please check it out. It was one of those rare applications that is so good, I registered it right away.

TAKEphone makes utilizing the communicator functionality of the phone a pure pleasure. It gets my highest recommendation.

Okay, the rumor is out that Apple will introduce their "iPhone," next month. I have no clue if it will be released, or what it will look like, but MAN, this ROCKS!

If the rumors are true, Apple may be in trouble. Despite my distaste for Microsoft products, this one looks like a killer one.

The Carrier Killer

What if, instead of burning up minutes on your cellphone plan, you could make free or cheap calls over the wireless networks that allow Internet access in many coffee shops, airports and homes?

New phones coming on the market will allow just that.

Instead of relying on standard cellphone networks, the phones will make use of the anarchic global patchwork of so-called Wi-Fi hotspots. Other models will be able to switch easily between the two modes.

The phones, while a potential money-saver for consumers, could cause big problems for cellphone companies. They have invested billions in their nationwide networks of cell towers, and they could find that customers are bypassing them in favor of Wi-Fi connections. The struggling Bell operating companies could also suffer if the new phones accelerate the trend toward cheap Internet-based calling, reducing the need for a standard phone line in homes with wireless networks.

The spottiness of wireless Internet coverage means that for now, the phones will be more of a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, standard cellphone service. But dozens of American cities and towns are either building or considering wide-area wireless networks that would allow Wi-Fi phones to connect and make free or cheap calls.

“It’s a phone that looks, feels and acts like a cell phone, but it actually operates over the Wi-Fi network,” said Steve Howe, vice president of voice for EarthLink, which is building networks in Philadelphia and Anaheim, Calif.

Later this year it plans to introduce Wi-Fi phone service that Mr. Howe said could cost a fifth as much as traditional cell service.

The technology is in its early stages, and it faces some hurdles to widespread use. But it is being promoted by big technology companies like Cisco Systems and giving rise to new competition in the mobile phone business.

A handful of companies are already using Wi-Fi phones to cut costs within offices or on corporate campuses, and the phones will soon be reaching the consumer market.

Is it going to happen... You betcha! But not without a fight from the Cell Phone Service Providers. Wifi is the 800 Pound Gorrila pounding on the door. And despite efforts by Verizon, Sprint and others to keep Wifi off the table, by insisting that manufacturers like Palm deliver units without Wifi, the consumers are winning the battle. There was a roar of outrage when the latest Palm Treo premiered without Wifi, and Palm recently responded by promising Wifi on future models.

Customers are DEMANDING the availability of Wifi in high end phones, and successes like HP's 6900 series , are giving it to them.

From MS Watch

But for the poorest people - individuals located primarily in developing nations who own almost no electronic devices beyond TVs, and, increasingly, cell phones - PCs are not within their budgets.

That's where FonePlus fits in, according to Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer. FonePlus is a Microsoft Research project at this point. It currently consists of WebTV technology running on a cell phone.

"Could this be your first computer?" Mundie asked rhetorically.

Such a device, whether running Windows CE or some other Microsoft operating environment, would be able to open and read e-mail, run a suite of productivity applications akin to the PocketOffice suite that runs on Windows Mobile phones today, surf the Web, and access online video content, Mundie said.

***

Do these bozos have any idea what a smartphone cost these days??? and that would be without the broadband connection monthly cost, and additional built in hardware, like the video card and drivers for a TV set.

Sometimes I wonder about Microsoft, and then I remember BOB... Nuff said.

Picked up some new body armor for my favorite tech toy this week. I have been paranoid since I got the Treo, since I have been using Palm's open holster style holder.

I was constantly worried that the phone would fall out of the holster, or be damaged by bumping into a wall or something.

The holster was cool, no doubt, and really showed the phone off very well, but one fall and my $400 investment would have went down the drain.

I have been using the Treo extensively since it arrived over a week ago, and I can truly say that it is the most fun I have had with a phone.

With the new hard case, I am less concerned about bumps and bangs in my day to day use and in carrying the device.

It is a bit hard for me to use it without opening the case, as my fingers are a bit big for the small cut outs for the main keys, but the protection it affords me over the open leather holster, more than makes up for any inconvenience.

I was out in meetings most of the day today, and it rocked having my email constantly available at the push of two buttons. Yeah I know this is old hat in the United States, but here in Costa Rica, where Cellular Internet is new and novel, it makes quite an impression, as well as being very practical and useful.

I have been installing and uninstalling demos of different software for the last week. I have had a few stability issues as a result, but I finally thing I have found a combination of software that works well for me.

I met Hanan from Moroco - Play MP3 the other day on Skype. She is a precious 19 year old who wants to study Nursing abroad. What a beautiful voice she has. The next day this other gorgeous, (Yes I saw a picture) Colombiana hit me up on Skype... Oh to be single again! Hehe...

After more than a week with my Treo 650, I found this article very interesting.

I can officially say that long use of converged devices has made me a bit of a mobile advocate. I see the benefit of having everything that you need literally at your fingertips. This is not a bad thing for most people that I come in contact with, either. Many people like that they can do a quick Google search for a local restaurant on their mobile phone, or that they can pull up a map of someplace they are going while already on the way.

On the other hand, I have talked to other people about purchasing converged devices and have heard a completely different side of the story. They like devices like Treos and Blackberries, but cannot see paying an additional monthly fee (that is two-thirds of what they pay for broadband at home), cannot deal with the smaller screen size (compared to a notebook) or larger phone size (gotta love that RAZR in comparison to the Treo), or just see a converged device as putting too many eggs into one basket. All of these are valid points.

However, all of them (both positive and negative) speak to the same bottom line in our wallets: do the positive costs of being mobile outweigh the negative ones? In this editorial, I will take an in-depth look at some of the not so positive aspects of converged mobiles and then ask if they are heavier that the positives.

Negative 1: Having a converged PDA or smartphone means that your monthly phone bill will be higher.

In some respects this is true. If you never used the mobile Internet before getting a smartphone, and then use it a lot after getting it, you will have to shell out additional funds.

However, this is not totally a true statement (contrary to what some carriers would have you purchase). In many cases, a smartphone is more than usable without going online one bit. This is because the PDA aspects of the phone can be very useful. Instead of buying a phone to make calls and a PDA to keep track of your schedule, a smartphone can do both for less money.

And depending on what your job is, paying a larger phone bill can be worth it. In some situations, getting that email now, rather than later, can mean a ton of money.

Make sure to read it all.

The answer for me to the question, "Are smartphones worth it," is a resounding yes after a week of using my Treo. I still carry my lifedrive arround, for now. But as I load up the treo with the files I need on a daily basis, I will probably carry it less. There are still some things I dont like doing on the small screen of the Treo... document processing comes to mind. I am going to add to the Treo certain documents I need to carry with me, and the LD will likely stay in it's pouch most of the time.

All I can say is buy one! I spent the whole day on the run yesterday, meeting with clients and taking care of business. With my Treo set to check mail every 30 minutes, I was on top of everything that was going on all day.

The thing JUST WORKS! That is what is so cool about it. It just works, just gets out there and gets the job done, and what more can you ask.

Tomorrow I have another full day, and I expect the phone will keep me on schedule and well informed throughout the day. I will be having lunch with a potential client at noon, meeting with an existing client at 2pm, and then its off to the SPA for a little relaxation.

I really need to stay on top of things tomorrow as I am expecting to close a MAJOR deal tommorow and will be away from my office and waiting for the call or email.

One of the things I have noticed... The speed of the Treo makes me notice much more, just how slow the lifedrive is.

Oh what the "internets" have wrought!

Our friendly Treo Specialist.

Hat Tip Palm Insider

Palm Addicts is giving a new Treo 650 away. Enter the contest. Believe me, this is the best phone I have used.

I woke up this morning and picked up the phone from my nightstand. I had set it up to download my email during the morning.

When I turned the phone on, I found all my email (mostly junk), already downloaded. I was able to scan my mailbox, delete the junk mail and purge it from our mail server, before getting out of bed.

Finding one email from a client, I responded to it, and set an action item in my calendar for later today. I then checked my calendar to ensure I had nothing else critical on the calendar for today.

Now could I have done all this on my Lifedrive? Yep, I could have, since I have a WiFi network in the house, but it was fun checking it on the phone.

I have loaded up the Treo with some must have applications like Agendus Pro, Agendus Mail, Butler, Genius, Phone Technician, MobileWrite, which lets you write on the screen of the Treo like other Palms, and Facer Launcher. I also added Resco Backup, my favorite backup utility.

The main thing I notice in using the Treo is how fast it is. After using the hard drive based Lifedrive for six months, I had forgotten how fast a RAM based Palm can be. NICE! So far, the only thing I don't like, is the fact that the phone is Cingular Branded, which means there are some applications on the phone that I will not be able to use, and they are taking up screen space and ROM.

Other than that, I want to thank the guys at Palm Addicts, Treonauts, TreoCentral and Palm Insider, for showing me the light!

Well I finally got my hands on my new Treo 650 yesterday. It has been held up in Costa Rican Customs for over a week! I bought the Treo over eBay and my final cost was about $400, a savings of 100% over the local cost ($800), so I am happy.

My first experience out of the box was a bit scary. After waiting patiently for a couple of hours for the Treo to charge up, it reset repeatedly with both of my Costa Rican SIM chips. Since the model I purchased was an unlocked Cingular unit, I suspected it had something to do with the unlocking process.

I did a hard reset of the unit and reinserted my first SIM. The phone initialized just fine, found the SIM and registered on the network. The coolest thing is that the Treo has better reception than my trusty RAZR ever had.

Next was the Internet test.

I loaded Mobile High Speed, (A special application with preconfigured scripts for just about every internet provider in the world. Configured it for the Treo and Pow! It immediately connected to the internet, something my Lifedrive and RAZR combination was NEVER able to do from my house.

I am sold!


For the last six months I have been wanting the Treo. I read daily the Palm Addicts Website, and drool over some of the Treo stories. I can truly say that I now understand what all the hype was about. I have not tested the call quality yet, but I have to say that my first impressions of the Treo, based on the Internet connectivity alone, are very positive.

I will write more after I have had a chance to give it some real world test as a phone.

Interesting Piece:

My brother and I each own an Apple iBook and a Motorola RAZR -- you could chalk it up to genetics, because we never discussed these purchases beforehand. That makes two genetically similar brothers, two identical laptops, two identical cellphones, and one key difference: I'm able to create my own ringtones, and my brother is not. That's because I use Cingular for my cell service, and he uses Verizon.

Earlier this week, he showed me how the RAZR he bought from Verizon last month blocks your ability to transfer files into its Audio folder, in an apparent brazen attempt to force users to buy ringtones rather than creating their own tones from CDs or from scratch. We stayed up late that night trying to figure out how to get the files onto the phone and around Verizon's blockade, which bans users from transferring MP3s and other data from their computers to their phones using either the Bluetooth or USB connections.

I find it abhorrent that Verizon disables the transfer of MP3s onto a phone that is advertised as having that feature. People are signing two-year service contracts for hardware that's been intentionally, knowingly, and deceptively crippled by their cellphone provider. I think Verizon should be forced to put a sticker on each of its new RAZRs explaining that it has disabled the MP3 ringtone function.




Why do people even bother doing business with Verizon. I have heard numerous horror stories of them crippling expensive phones in order to sell premium services on their network. Cellular Service is not the best here in Costa Rica, but at least the National Phone Company does not cripple your phone.

This is interesting news:

It seems it is all about convergence these days. This is a good move by Microsoft and Yahoo. One less Messenger application I need to have running on my desk.

IWinBreak writes "Marketwatch is reporting that, nine months after their announcement, Microsoft and Yahoo! are finally ready to roll out beta IM clients of MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger that will be able to talk to each other." The Windows Live Ideas and Yahoo! Messenger pages have more information; the companies say that the resulting user community will be the world's largest, at around 350 million accounts, and that they'll be using SSL to encrypt the traffic between the systems.

New government in Costa Rica, this means new Customs officers, new rules, delays... It sucks. My phone has been here in Costa Rica since early last week, and I still dont have it.

Makes me nostalgic for the days when Palms just worked! No weird resets, phenomenal battery life... Simplicity! And the commercial is pretty hot too!

By this time tomorrow night I should have my new Treo 650 in hand, charged up and be loading software and playing with it.

It has been a while since I bought a new toy, so I am excited about this. I sold my beloved Motorola Razr V3x last week, and have been going through "cool withdrawals."

I also ordered a 2GB SD card to go along with the Treo so the small memory footprint of the device should not be an issue. If anyone has any suggestions about must have software for the Treo, please leave them in comments.

It will be interesting to see if I can get Costa Rica's flaky GPRS Internet connection to work on the new device. The combination of my Palm Lifedrive and the RAZR worked well when I was out and about.

I have been thinking of whether I want to buy a next gen bluetooth headset for use with my new Treo 650. Checking out the TreoCentral website, I found this review tonight. Now the review indicates that this is a headset women will love...

I may not be a woman, but I think the thing is butt ugly.

Any headset that can take away from the beauty of someone as fine as this young lady, has got to be ugly.

Nevertheless, my biggest issues with SE accessories here in Costa Rica, has been quality. I suspect that I will stick with my trusty Motorola.

I have used the Motorola H500 for several months now with my Motorola RAZR, and have never had a problem with it. Sony makes some cool looking gear, apart from this piece, but if it is poorly made, makes no difference.

I have not yet recieved the Treo I ordered the other day, but I am already working on "pimping it out." I just ordered a new 2GB SD card, should help me to eliminate the Treo's know memory limitations. I will probably also pick up a nice hard case for it. But want to wait and see what comes with it first.

Well, I finally bit the bullet and ordered my Treo 650!

Unfortunately, there is no Treo 700P for the GSM Market yet, so the models being sold by Verizon and Sprint will not work in Costa Rica, as there is no CDMA Network.

I got a great deal on the 650, paying about $350, including shipping via eBay. It will probably ship today or tomorrow. More likely tomorrow. It will take about 3 business days to get to Miami, so I should have it sometimes the later part of next week.

It has been a long time since I purchased a new bit of Tech, so I am very excited about it. Thanks to all of you who bought the Costa Rica Party Guide, in the last 3 months, you pretty much financed the thing.

I am going to continue with the Get Dave a Treo Contest, since Tony Pierce was nice enough to hook me up with a Blog Ad, and since I have not gotten any response to it. Maybe I will be able to buy some accessories or something, could use a nice case, memory card, bluetooth keyboard, headset, etc. So help a Brutha out!

You can take my PDA when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands:

By Kim-Mai Cutler, Globe CorrespondentJune 25, 2006

Web designer Mike Rohde was a certifiable Palm fanatic. He had the original PalmPilot 1000 , then a Sony Clie , then a Tungsten E, and several more all the way up to the Zire 72 . His monthly newsletter vetting the newest models went out to 10,000 subscribers. But when his PDA turned up missing two months ago, Rohde's quick fix wasn't the latest Treo.

He picked up a notebook and drew a calendar.

"The Palm started to become a creature. It demanded things from me. It demanded me to recharge it every couple days or I'd have to make back ups," he said. "I wanted to see what it would be like if I went to paper."

After years of cracked screens, battery outages, and wiped hard drives, technophiles fed up with a litany of glitches from PDAs are turning to a new - or rather old -- source of comfort: pen and paper. It's called "going analog" and for some, chucking the "Crackberry" has been a conversion of almost religious proportions.

So far, Rohde hasn't had any cravings to go back to his digital ways. On his blog, he's documented the move to an "analog task management system" (read: his notebook) with feverish detail. Checked circles show completed tasks, sticky tabs are for an easily accessible to-do list, and week numbers mark every upper right-hand corner.

"So Analog!!!" read one of the comments. "Very cool mod. "two thumbs up" read another.

Other former devotees of personal digital assistants have taken it a step further, giving instructions on the Web on how to go retro. Software programmer Chad Adams developed PocketMod.com after being inspired by Viking map-folding techniques. It's a Flash program that spits out an eight-part planner on a single sheet of paper. With one cut and three creases, it becomes a booklet with easily flippable pages. Users choose their own templates from lined paper to Sudoku, math equations, or Benjamin Franklin's 13 virtues. He now gets about 27,000 hits a day, after launching it a year ago.

In a more tongue-in-cheek variation, Merlin Mann , who went through several PDAs, created the ``Hipster PDA," a stack of index cards held together by a binder clip. Others riffed on his homemade invention, making a ``Ductster PDA" from duct tape.

``Strangely enough, it's mainly a revolt of tech lovers against their favorite toys, junkies eschewing their drug of choice," wrote multimedia project manager Douglas Johnston in an essay on the blog Communication Nation. "It's painful, it's heart-wrenching, it flies in the face of our own self-identities, and it makes all our high-tech podium-thumping and evangelizing suddenly look hollow."

Johnston runs DIYplanner.com, which stands for "Do It Yourself" planner. The site houses more than 400 templates for making grocery lists, managing glucose levels, and even tracking Weight Watchers points. After his PalmPilot crashed, Johnston designed the site when he saw that planner forms could cost more than $2 a sheet. So he made his own and let users submit designs. His basic kit has been downloaded close to 700,000 times.

He said the pushback is meant to reclaim human space in an increasingly digital world. For techies who have always relied on PDAs to manage their time, suddenly switching to paper can be a "Zen-like experience."

"It's just as much a novelty to us as it is for analog folks trying digital the first time," he said. "It's casting out all the gunk and junk you've accumulated over the years and suddenly approaching something with an open mind or a blank page. You're able to focus for the first time."

Though regular notebooks will do, an analog cult favorite for scheduling and keeping contacts is the Moleskine notebook, reputed to be the right-hand companion of Vincent van Gogh and Ernest Hemingway. For techies the Moleskine's sleek binding, thick pages, and built-in bookmark are the antithesis to the souped-up PDA. And they never crash, don't come with a hefty owner's manual, and can be kept as long as people like.

Moleskines went out of print two decades ago, but Italian publisher Modo & Modo revived the little black book in 1998. The notebook's sales are expected to reach 3 million worldwide this year, up from 2 million last year, according to Modo & Modo. Meanwhile, PDA sales have slumped to 7.6 million last year from 11.6 million in 2002, according to International Data Corp . But analysts say this reflects a shift to smartphones, which are cell phones like the Treo that have adopted the PDA's functionality.

Christian Lindholm , vice president of global mobile products for Yahoo!, used a Moleskine to go analog this February for brainstorming and taking notes. He now carries around a Moleskine reporter-style notebook and uses it sideways, or as he puts it, in "landscape" format.

"I needed an instant portable solution that I could have with me all the time, which doesn't run out of batteries, has high resolution and is ergonomic to write on," he said. "I'm actually quite pleased. I'm already in my second generation, almost third."

But the wave of recent converts isn't necessarily a revolt in the techie world.

"We don't really even evangelize. We're not asking people to cross over," said Armand Frasco , who runs Moleskinerie .com , a site that has various "hacks" to modify the notebook along with photos of Moleskine sightings from around the world.

Instead, "going analog" is about making wiser choices about how people use technology, not cutting PDAs cold turkey, Mann said.

Read this review on Palm Addicts, one of my favorite Palm Fan Sites.

Accessories bring the unique dimension of personalization. We can accessorize and amp up our PDA’s appearance or functionality simply by changing the case or clip; or popping out the latest Bluetooth keyboard or by the choosing the type of stylus we use. Over the next few days, I’ll be reviewing some of my favorite PDA accessories. Accessories have added to my Palm’s life some stylish panache, purposeful practicality, elevated efficiency and peerless protection. I’ve entitled the series of reviews: “The Best of the Best” Palm Accessories.

There aren’t too many companies that produce luxurious, leather cases for the PDA the way Piel Frama does. In my native tongue, there is a term for this: “Ibang klase!” Translation: In a class by itself!

Piel Frama is truly in a class all its own from the packaging to the product. Once you receive a case in the mail, you know you’re in for a special treat. The box is lined in beige-colored linen paper for the cover and red linen paper on its insert foundation. Upon opening the box beige linen paper is folded neatly encasing the product. Emblazoned on the cover of the box and the paper encasing the product is the distinctive, bull-horned logo reminiscent of the company’s Spanish origins.

The black leather cowskin and crocodile skin is one of the best cases ever made…bar none. As with all of Piel Frama’s products, this was uniquely hand-made by leather craftsmen. The cowskin leather serves as the sturdy base that encloses the PDA. The crocodile skin enfolds the exterior with a cool, black sheen that only crocodile skin can provide. The leather is both supple and smooth. The case neatly snaps into place at the back so that the front view of your PDA remains unhindered by unnecessary flaps cluttering its appearance. The color-matched stitching perfectly blends in with the leather exterior. This was a good decision as the stitching doesn’t detract from the case’s beauty.

I have to agree. I have the PF Case for my Lifedrive, and it is one of the classiest pieces of gear I own!

I have to admit I love my Palm Lifedrive.

I love the fact that I can load every document in my Windows documents folder, and still have room to spare on it's hardrive.

I love the fact that it has built in bluetooth and wifi, and I can just about connect to the Internet, ANYWHERE.

Unlike most people, I even love its size. As a man with big hands, I like holding something of substance. The LD is big enough to fit comfortably in my hands.

What I don't like, is that the LD is probably the most finicky Palm device I have ever owned or used. Just installing a new piece of software on it is a freaking adventure. Just doing so can cause a reset, if there is ANY conflict at all with the installed software, the LD will start acting flaky or even reset.

I have owned just about every model of Palm PDA since the original Palm Pilot, (With the exception of the smartphones and a few of the new models like the TX), and find the Lifedrive to be the most useful of all the devices, (when it works). The worst thing about the Lifedrive is that when it does reset, it takes over two minutes for the OS to load. This problem is due to the fact that the LD uses a 64MB partition on the built in 4GB hard drive as RAM. Every time the unit needs to reboot, it must load the OS and OS state into this partition, rather than physical memory.

Many believe that this memory scheme is also to blame for the general stability issues of the Lifedrive.

All I can say is that when she works, (Sometimes for weeks at a time without a hiccup), she is an incredible piece of hardware.

Yes, I have experienced the notorious Lifedrive Lag, which can be attributed to the PDA reading applications and data from the hard drive, into the hard drive based memory. There is a program called Sharkcache, which has all but eliminated this lag.


There are a number of other issues as well, including problems with the built in Blazer web browser. I just don't use it. There is a marvelous alternative browser called Xiino, that is in my opinion far superior.

I can live with most of the foibles of the LD, except when it hits a snag and starts the seemingly random resets. Troubleshooting is almost impossible at times, with error messages indicating the culprit application (The one that crashed the unit), but no idea how to eliminate the problem.

Often the only way to eliminate a problem is to have several sets of backups of your unit while it is working, and to do a hard reset and restore until you get a stable unit. I use Resco Backup for this purpose, and it has saved my bacon on more than one occasion. Resco has a SWEET suite (pun intended) set of utilities that really enhance your handheld experience, and I am a faithful customer.

I have managed to work around most of my problems using Brighthand's wonderful forums. My latest reset problem took me several days and several hard resets and restores from backup, before I discovered a solution lurking in the Brighthand forums.

My overall verdict after using the Lifedrive for six months?

It's nice to be able to carry around a ton of documents, including PDF and Microsoft Office files. It's also nice to be able to leave my iPod at home, and use the multimedia capabilities of the LD to listen to music or watch movies. Agendus Pro and Agendus Mail keep me organized and connected via email and SMS, and the Agendus Outlook plugin is one of the best on the market. All of these applications work flawlessly and compliment the power and capacity of the Lifedrive. For example. I have about three months worth of mail stored on my Lifedrive, for easy reference.


The flip side is the instability at times. When the unit is stable, it is a real pleasure to use, and a real WOW factor when I whip it out at a client meeting. But when it reboots during the meeting and takes 2-3 minutes to reload... Well, you get the idea.

Will I keep it? I am not sure. I am still working on getting a Treo 650. If I do, I will be loathe to carry two devices with me. But then again, there is always room in my gadget bag!

It would however be nice to just carry one device...

If this happens...

A few interesting rumors are starting to circulate on a Palm and Research In Motion (RIM) merger this Thursday (06/29/2006). There are a couple of good points here but I think there's a bit more to this.

Looking at this from a pure technology perspective for a moment, this could actually be a great thing. RIM does not have a product as good as the Treo, but Palm does not have server software as good as RIM. Very soon we will see the BlackBerry Connect software released for the Treo in the US which will help bring the Treo into the enterprise, but it's not quite enough. Palm won't have the end-to-end solution, it will require RIM for Palm to break into the enterprise. If Palm can get their hands on RIM server software allowing for push e-mail, calendar, contacts, remote device security and policy auditing, it will create a very powerful solution. Third parties offer this now in the form of GoodLink and whatnot but these solutions are still not as good as what RIM has to offer in their turn-key package.

True that!

Anyone who reads ISOU knows I am a time management and organization freak. My version of Microsoft Outlook is so customized it is unbelievable. But I live and die in my business life by email! I am trying Neo email organizer, and I have to tell you, it ROCKS! I am not sure I can justify buying the full version, but it is definately worth it. Give the free version a spin and see if it works for you. I can tell you, I have been using it for just 15 minutes and I can already see where I will save hours!

I do this all the time with my Lifedrive. It's great on long trips, like my monthly drive up to Esterillo. Tip, when possible, load movies to an SD card, they play smoother and use less battery power, than loading them to the Lifedrive's internal hard drive.

This is one SWEET idea!

We all get phone calls we'd rather not deal with. But you can only send a caller straight to voicemail so many times before it starts to look suspicious. For those with no other escape from loquacious acquaintances, fear not. David Schmucker--and our old friend the Interweb--has come to the rescue.

His site, SorryGottaGo.com, is a collection of handy MP3s that, when played in the background during an especially tiresome talk, gives users a convenient excuse to end a call with a gabby relative or salesperson.

Schmucker says he was encouraged by colleagues to set up the site, which features audio files of everything from a doorbell ringing to a roaring jet engine flying by.

Now if someone can figure out a way to incorporate it into the phone itself....

There is no excuse for stupidity:

Back in March, we noted how stories covering the death of a deaf girl who got hit by a train focused on the fact that she was text messaging when she was killed, rather than the other circumstances leading to her death. Now, in India, a 23-year-old woman has been killed in similar circumstances -- she was crossing a railroad track, talking on a cell phone, when she got struck by a train and killed. This, of course, becomes an article called "Cell phones can kill". The phone really had nothing to do with it, but rather a person who, for some reason, thought it would be a good idea to walk on or cross some train tracks while not paying any attention.

Microsoft OneNote 2007.

LOL! Read the whole thing.

Technology, you clever minx. A father intent on hiding paying less child support was forced to pay more after his PDA revealed his true earnings. Timothy Gooden of Queens claimed that he didn't have steady work, so a judge ordered him to pay $60 a week in child support for his 8 year old. But it seems that he gave his ex-girlfriend his old PDA - which kept receiving his emails.

I recently installed an open source version on Linux on my IBM Thinkpad. It's called Ubunto, and it ROCKS. I still need to take some time to learn a bit more about Linux, and how to do things like compile and install binaries, but Ubunto comes fully loaded with all the applications one needs to be productive. Suprisingly, it was easy to install and configure, and has a package management application that makes downloading and installing a wealth of Open Source applications, a breeze.
It is very fast, secure and frankly... beautiful.

I think I have finaly found a way to get over my Mac Envy, without spending $2000 on a Mac!
Even making a connection with a wireless network was easier than Windows. The Ubunto distribution is completely Free, and you can order a CD or download the image from their website. It comes with Firefox, an Outlook compatible email and agenda application, the Complete Open Office suite, and a host of other utilities.

If you are tired of Windows constantly crashing on you, give it a try. You may never go back!

Screw the political debate, I want to know what type of PDA that is, that Jon whips out near the end of the clip?

This is a great article on protecting your mobile data.

Read it, there are some great tips.

Another absolutely must have application for those of us who use email as a tool.

Check out Waxmail!

As you can see, it has a nice clean interface that hooks in nicely with Outlook or Outlook Express. It's fun! I just got a Waxmail from the developer down in Australia, and most important...

IT'S FREE! Yep, 100% free. It places a small, unobtrussive tag line in your email saying it was sent with Waxmail, but that is it. And if you want to get rid of that, you can order a version free of it for $29 bucks. These guys are great. They have actually made Outlook a REAL tool for me at last.

What is outstanding is, with Waxmail and Skylook, it's like having a $100,000 Multimedia Messaging and VoIP application running on your PC. I hope these guys will get arround to developing a mobile application.

Mac Rules!

There is a new version of Opera Mini for the Palm Platform.

The last version did not support large screens like the one on my Lifedrive, so I did not like it. This one supports high res screens and is lightning fast. It gets my recommendation.

While the page at Opera software says it is for the Treo 650 smartphone, it runs fine on other Palm Connected devices like the Lifedrive and T-Series.

May have just arrived!

While a smartphone VoIP solution has been around for the last couple of months, and while Skype has talking about it for a year at least, a VoIP solution has finally arrived for the Palm Platform.

MobiVoIP provides at least a starting point for those of us who use Palm OS devices to join the VoIP revolution. I requested entry to the program and will let you all know once I have a log in, how well it works. The mobiVoIP solution looks interesting, but it's service plans appear to be a lot less flexible, and more expensive at least at this point, than Skype.

Nevertheless, this new system will provide an attractive alternative to switching to another platform, just to get mobile VoIP connectivity. It will also apparently work over both wifi and cellular data connections (using bluetooth).

The other drawback I see right now is limited global coverage. I am sure that will improve with time.

Hat Tip, Palm Addicts

Skype is an indispensable business tool for me. Using it in combination with Skylook, a nifty Outlook plugin that extends the capabilities of Skype, and a Skype in and Skype Out subscription, I am able to maintain reasonably priced contact with customers and potential clients in the U.S. and Europe. I even have a U.S. based phone number!

Skype has added some cool features in the last few days that make it even more of a value. Especially for people in the U.S. Free Skype Out calls to anyone in the U.S. or Canada. Now that is cool!

For those of you who want to contact me on Skype, my Skype ID is davidsanderson. Or just click below:

I use the notes function extensively on my Palm Handheld. I have tried several, including:

Phatnotes
Pennovate Notes
and BugMe

All fine applications.

Phatnotes is fine as a syncronizable notepad replacement. Pennovate was just too complicated for my use, and Bugme is fine for doodling. Yesterday I downloaded the trial for Iambic's Easy Notes.

It blew me away. From its slick interface, to its flexibility (You can take regular text notes, pen notes and voice notes), to it's clean and simple interface, it is a winner.

If you use a Palm Handheld device and are looking for an application that does it all when it comes to data capture... This is it.

From WAPO:

Eran Reshef had an idea in the battle against spam e-mail that seemed to be working: he fought spam with spam. Today, he'll give up the fight.

Reshef's Silicon Valley company, Blue Security Inc., simply asked the spammers to stop sending junk e-mail to his clients. But because those sort of requests tend to be ignored, Blue Security took them to a new level: it bombarded the spammers with requests from all 522,000 of its customers at the same time.

That led to a flood of Internet traffic so heavy that it disrupted the spammers' ability to send e-mails to other victims -- a crippling effect that caused a handful of known spammers to comply with the requests.

Then, earlier this month, a Russia-based spammer counterattacked, Reshef said. Using tens of thousands of hijacked computers, the spammer flooded Blue Security with so much Internet traffic that it blocked legitimate visitors from going to Bluesecurity.com, as well as to other Web sites. The spammer also sent another message: Cease operations or Blue Security customers will soon find themselves targeted with virus-filled attacks.

Today, Reshef will wave a virtual white flag and surrender. The company will shut down this morning and its Web site will display a message informing its customers about the closure.

"It's clear to us that [quitting] would be the only thing to prevent a full-scale cyber-war that we just don't have the authority to start," Reshef said. "Our users never signed up for this kind of thing."

Security experts say the move marks a disheartening development in the ongoing battle by computer users, online businesses and law enforcement against those who clutter e-mail inboxes with a continuous glut of ads for drugs, porn and get-rich-quick schemes. According to Symantec Corp., maker of the popular Norton antivirus software products, more than 50 percent of all e-mail sent in the latter half of 2005 was spam.

I have been using their software for a week now. And while I did not know if it was having an impact, it felt good to know I was doing SOMETHING, anything... in the war against these arrogant scumbags that fill my email and my blog with porn and viagra on a daily basis.

These people are terrorist... Blue Security was fighting a lonely war against them, and now they have won. It is a sad day for those of us who use the internet for more than playing online games and trying to find someone to cheat on our spouses with...

What I dont understand, is if we have the capacity to spy on millions of phone calls and emails, why can't we put spammers out of business.

The Cost to business:

Spam will cost the world $50 billion in lost productivity and other expenses a research firm said Wednesday, with more than a third of that -- $17 billion -- wasted by U.S. firms.

According to San Francisco-based Ferris Research's newest report, spam's cost is primarily in lost worker time as employees filter spam, deal with false positives, and query corporate help desks for assistance with the plague.

"But the costs could be a lot worse," said Richi Jennings, one of the Ferris analysts who authored the report. "We haven't seen as much of a spike in costs as in spam volume," he added, "because more organizations are putting in better anti-spam technology."

Since 2003, for example, spam volume hitting U.S. enterprises has jumped five fold, while costs have not even doubled. In 2003, Ferris estimated spam costs to U.S. organizations at $10 billion, with 2005's lost money amounting to $17 billion.

is obviously staggering...

So my question is... If Blue Security could come up with an effective way to fight them, why can't our governments...

Looks like Google Notebook is out...

Forgive me if I am a bit... Underwhelmed.

"Some sources have informed us of a rumor which would include the brand new TX2 which will be launched at the end of 2006 including a 4 gigas flash memory which is really a breakthrough for Palm. This new model would be expected for the end of 2006."
Palm Insider



As a long time fan of the Palm Computing platform, and an owner of the imperfect but fascinating Palm Lifedrive, I have been disappointed of late with Palm's failure to capitalize on their long term leadership in handheld computing technology. Through vendors like HP, Microsoft has continued to make inroads in the area of smart handheld devices and as I wrote yesterday, the reign of the Treo may be over with the introduction of HP's new 6900 series handheld/smartphone.

The Palm TX, with its big screen, fast processor, bluetooth, wifi and 128mb of memory, has been a stellar performer for Palm, and few have complained of it's usability. The only issues I have seen with the TX has been related to it's cache and the Blazer web browser, which has been a huge failure on all the Palm devices using it. According to early reports, the version shipping on the new Treo 700P (Blazer 4.5), may have fixed these problems. Time will tell.

The Lifedrive, with it's 4GB hard drive has been a disappointment for Palm and based on reading the user forums at Brighthand, a great deal of users. My own experience has been just satisfactory. The device has an uncommon (For Palm Devices) tendency to reset, is a bit slower than my previous Palms and just "seems flaky at times.

For a device I use daily for business, this is less than an optimum user experience for me. Most trying has been the times when I was working with a client and needed to access data on the LD and had it reboot in the middle of a process. This would not be so bad if it did not take up to 2 minutes to reboot.

At that point, one's confidence is shaken and one becomes unsure as to whether or not to repeat the process that caused the reset.

If Palm comes out with a flash memory based TX2 that has the same capacity of the Lifedrive, without the flakiness and slowness of the internal hard drive, I would be tempted to make the switch... If this rumor proves to be false, it could be too late for Palm to recover. It still may be, as the competition is a lot more robust in the handheld space than it once was. By the end of 2006, there could even be an Apple branded smart phone out there. But regardless of whether Apple enters the fray or not. Competition is here and more coming. While the first UMPC devices have been duds so far, Sony has entered the fray, and a lot of buzz is being created around their device. UMPC's have the potential to use the Lifedrive model and create a killer lightweight mobile computing device, with little or no compromise. So far these devices have not delivered on the promise of power at a PDA type price, with long battery life. But they will...

However, the issue may be moot for me by that time, as I fully expect to have a new HP 6900 smartphone, and a large SD card by then, eliminating the need for an additional device.

I have made up my mind that despite healthy sales of our Costa Rica guides and renewed interest by advertisers in ISOU blogads, that I will probably not BUY a Treo 650. Now if anyone wants to give me one, that is an entirely different story...

MENLO PARK, Calif. - "PharmaMaster", one of the world's leading spammers, is the culprit who is holding the entire Internet hostage to stop the Blue Community and keep his spam business running says Blue Security. Blue Security is a company based in Israel than fights spam by targeting spammers and the businesses that advertise their products using spam.

Eran Reshef, CEO of Blue Security, said, "Six out of the top 10 spammers worldwide have stopped sending spam to the Blue community recently; as such, PharmaMaster is determined to prevent this change in the spam economy. After a barrage of threatening letters last week that only made the Blue community stronger, PharmaMaster resorted to sophisticated attacks on Blue Security."

Reshef continued, "The attacks started with a strike on the Internet backbone itself, causing the Blue Web site to become inaccessible to visitors outside Israel, while remaining available for Israeli visitors. The attack used a technique called "Blackhole Filtering". PharmaMaster boasted that it was he who was able to make a top-tier ISP's staff member to block Blue Security's former IP address (194.90.8.20) at the backbone routers."

In PharmaMaster's words (taken from ICQ sessions where PharmaMaster contacted Blue Security): 'Support (top-tier ISP's name withheld) says: Yes wont be a problem, I'll make sure to block all traffic to this domain very soon just get me reports, mate.'

Reshef continued, "Thirty minutes after Blue closed its Israeli site and posted a note on its blog site, PharmaMaster ruthlessly ordered a massive, sophisticated DDoS attack against any site associated with Blue. This attack caused five top-tier hosting providers in the U.S. and Canada, a major DNS provider and a popular blog site to go down for several hours."

PharmaMaster summarized the situation (excerpt from ICQ session): "you know Ii feel sorry for you and all the world 9000 servers (which) are down :-)"

According to Reshef, PharmaMaster also told Blue Security that if he can't send spam, there will be no Internet. He also said that he will do whatever it takes to continue his fight but acknowledged the power of the Blue Community.

This is the first time I have seen anyone come up with a practical way to fight spam. I enrolled in the Blue Frog army last week.

And I have noticed that several of the Viagra and Penny Stock spams I was getting daily have all but dissapeared. The only persisten ones I have not been able to shake are the Japanese spammers who seem to have escalated their mailings...

The idea is a great one, Hit the spammers back and hit them hard and where it hurts... with their advertisers. I highly reccomend the Blue Frog solution. While I have not been a member long enough to see my spam completely dissapear, it seems to be working with some of the spammers already, and that is a blessing.

From Palmaddicts:

"It is the year 2000, but where are the flying cars? I was promised flying cars. I don't see any flying cars. Why? Why? Why?"

A few years ago, IBM ran a commercial which began with that question.

It was the first quote that I thought of when I read today's announcement... Here's a brief summary of my internal dialogue:

"Ok, EvDO... great, how much will that cost?... What do you mean it's the first phone with built-in dial-up networking.... I've been using Bluetooth Dialup Networking for ages, that's not new.... Oh good, at least it has 128MB of RAM.. WHAT?!?! Only 60 of that is available to the user?!? Are they kidding? It's 2006 for crying out loud, how many more pennies would it have cost to throw in 256MB if you're going to eat up 68MB worth of RAM? Certified for 2MB SD cards? Why not 4? Why are they not supporting the biggest cards available? I can use .wav files for ringtones, what about MP3s? Seriously, they still won't let me use an MP3 for a ringtone?"

And then it hit me.

"Wait.... where's the WiFi?"

(Scrolling)

"Are you kidding me?"

(Scrolling)

"Oh you've got to be kidding...."

"Where are the flying cars?!?!"

PJ Arts promised that this had been discussed in his interview with Michelle White so I went and read it:

MW: The Treo 700p does not have built-in Wi-Fi, and will not support the SDIO Wi-Fi card, but the Treo 700p does support EvDO, which means broadband-like speeds for users.

In general, integrating Wi-Fi creates big tradeoffs in terms of form factor and battery life, and those are two of the top customer priorities in purchasing a smartphone.

In this product, customers will benefit from the product's DUN (dial-up networking) capabilities. Customers can use the Treo as a modem to connect to their computer and, since the Treo 700p uses a high-speed EvDO radio, users won't have to rely on finding a fee-based Wi-Fi hot spot to be able to access the web at broadband-like speeds. DUN will be available with a monthly service charge from the carrier, and could be less expensive than Wi-Fi service.

Then I went back and re-read PJ Arts' article and saw this gem:

DUN support from both Verizon and Sprint (DUN users may incur higher data charges)

BLAM!

There is it.

There's no WiFi support, "But we have EvDO!" (note the fine print where EvDO will no doubt cost a huge amount per month if you want unlimited data... I've seen estimates of $80/month).

"There's DUN support out of the box!!!" (note the fine print where they are going to charge for this)

Compare this to WiFi HotSpot services already in existence which costs $30/month plus the fact that you could use your home and office WiFi networks which you are already paying for.

I never seem to win these things anyway. But I have a good feeling this time. The guys at PalmInsider are having a contest that ends the 15th. They are giving away an unlocked Palm Treo 650. Rules are simple. Sign up for their forum and post a picture of your Palm stuff on the board. If you dont want to play, send some possitive vibes my way. I have been wanting a Treo 650 for a year or more.

Apparently MySpace, the social hot spot for 65 million on the Web, changed, then changed again, its terms and conditions giving it broad rights to the content posted by members even after they removed that content from the Web site, according to a child advocate Web site and a report in The Register.

Exactly why I dont use these amateur excuses for social networking. A bunch of blathering teenagers posting pictures their mamas dont know about, and talking about sex.

The folks over at Blue Nomad have a new backup solution for Treo 600 and 650 users, where the owners of the popular smartphones don't even need to think about backing up their data. BackupBuddy.Net, in public beta, automatically and continuously works in the background to protect data by sending it to the software developer's remote data center wirelessly over the Internet.

Whenever BackupBuddy.Net detects changes to information on a Treo - even with the display off - it immediately sends the new data off when the handheld isn't being used; in the same encrypted (AES) format used by most banks and e-payments sites. The software is designed to stay completely out of the user's way. So, for example, to determine if something has changed, it can very quickly (less than a second) scan a Treo and doesn't need to access the network to do so.

I wonder if it would work with a Wifi based Palm?

Read the whole story

Opera Software today released Opera Mini 2.0, the new version of the tiny and fast Web browser that runs on almost every mobile phone. With over 2.5 million users since its first release in January 2006, Opera Mini has revolutionized mobile Web browsing. Opera Mini 2.0 further improves the Web surfing experience for any mobile phone user by enabling them to download MP3s, images and other Web content directly to their mobile phone. Additional features include quick and easy mobile shopping, improved design, bookmark speed dials, and more.

I downloaded Opera Mini today for my Palm Lifedrive. Though the product is designed for Mobile phones, it works just fine using a wifi connection. Nice product, super fast. If you use a Palm device, or one of the supported mobile phones, give it a spin.

Hat Tip PalmAddicts

Steve Jobs presenting to the Cuppertino City Council on Apple's plans to build a new campus in Cuppertino.

The man is pretty slick. He manages to drop a few hints to the council about how Apple is Cuppertino's biggest tax payer... The implication being that he expects some breaks along the way as Apple moves forward with their plans. The man is smart, you got to give it to him....

Via Palm Addicts, I find this new Mobile Focussed Magazine:

And tiazelmira might have just found some competition, UK Style.

Anyone else having a problem accessing Gmail from Firefox?

With the introduction of Apple's Dual Core Intel based product, the natural question on all us Geeks minds was, "Will the new Macs run Windows?"

Well the answer is here:

More and more people are buying and loving Macs. To make this choice simply irresistible, Apple will include technology in the next major release of Mac OS X, Leopard, that lets you install and run the Windows XP operating system on your Mac. Called Boot Camp (for now), you can download a public beta today. As elegant as it gets

Boot Camp lets you install Windows XP without moving your Mac data, though you will need to bring your own copy to the table, as Apple Computer does not sell or support Microsoft Windows.(1) Boot Camp will burn a CD of all the required drivers for Windows so you don't have to scrounge around the Internet looking for them.
System Manager

Optional alt. At startup, hold down the option key (alt) to choose between Mac OS X and Windows.
Run XP natively

Once you've completed Boot Camp, simply hold down the option key at startup to choose between Mac OS X and Windows. (That's the "alt" key for you longtime Windows users.) After starting up, your Mac runs Windows completely natively. Simply restart to come back to Mac.

The choice between buying a Mac Notebook and a PC one, just got a LOT easier, and some people in Austin are getting very nervous at this point.

I am gearing up for one of the most important presentations of my career next week. (Making a presentation to a group of Angel Investors to get funding for a new company). I have spent this week working on the presentation and polishing it. I have always hated making formal presentations for a variety of reasons, the main one is that I dont have a remote control for my notebook and if the people I am making the presentation for dont either, it means approaching the laptop and clicking each time I want to change slides.
This takes away from my natural public speaking style.
Well I just discovered a bit of awesome software for my Palm and Notebook that allows me to stand practically anywhere in the room and advance the presentation. It is called Salling Clicker and it ROCKS!

As you can see by the graphic above, it works on just about any piece of tech you own that had bluetooth. I could actually use the software on my Moto RAZR! Hehe... (Which might even be cooler), but I love the way it allows you to preview things on screen as you are working your way through a presentation.

There is a great review of the product here.

Hat Tip, Palm Addicts

I love great and proactive customer service. Remember this piece from the other day?
YOU NEED SKYLOOK!

Well I got an email from the developer tonight offering me a nice discount on the software. To be honest I would have paid full price, but I purchased the software tonight. I had an important conference tonight on Skype with a business relation in the U.S. and one here in Costa Rica. The Skylook Software recorded the entire conference seamlessly, and then droped a copy into my Outlook email box. Fantastic tool! If you use Skype... and if you don't you are missing out.... SKYLOOK is a MUST HAVE extension to the software. Buy it!

And THIS is it! Yeah...

10 Years of Palm devices, incredible! Listen to the Podcast.

My first PDA was an Apple Newton, and while I still think Apple did it better than anyone since, I have been using a Palm device since 1998. I currently use a Palm Lifedrive, and despite some quirks, it is my favorite device since the Newton. I am negotiating a deal for a new alliance with HP, and may get my hands on one of HP's new convergent devices soon, but I still love Palm for it's power and simplicity.

I am one of those people who is constantly looking for tools to improve my productivity. I have been a user of Skype, for some time now, and have both the Skype In and Skype Out services. I use skype to keep in touch with business and family contacts in the U.S. and find that it is a cost effective way to keep in touch from Costa Rica. I just discovered a new tool today that I find absolutely incredible. Skylook, is an add-in for Microsoft Outlook that provides some pretty amazing features, including delivering Skype voice mails to your in-box and archiving Skype chats and calls.

I am entering my 14 day trial today, and will probably justify buying it. So far, I am very impressed.

Ever wanted a person assistant for your Palm? Well, "she" has arrived.

Will Apple answer Microsoft on Origami? Hard to say, but this is an interesting article:

More speculation is floating around about Apple's answer to Origami, where CNet goes over the latest patent filings by Apple with the US Patent and Trademark Office for touch-sensitive screens, citing around seven patents filed by Apple so far.

Perhaps the most provocative educated guess by the reporter is his Fox News-like reach about how "some expect" to see two versions of the next video iPod, where the story goes that while one upcoming iPod keeps that 60GB spinning drive, another more-svelte model is all-solid-state with one or two 8GB or even 12GB flash cards on board. Knowing the sweep of history so far, we don't think that reporter had to reach that far to figure that one out.

My guess is that they will...

Apple fans have been speculating for years on an Apple Branded tablet. With Apple's industrial design wizardtry, their existing portfolio of Newton patents, and the tremendous engineering resources at their disposal, I would not be surprised to see something like the mockup posted above. Now wouldn't that be something?

The discussions have already started about the Palm Lifedrive vs. The new Ultra Mobile PC.

From The 1src Site:

In the last few weeks, easily the biggest story in the mobile device market has been the announcement of the first generation of Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPCs).

Eventually, these will be pocket-sized, inexpensive, Windows computers.

The first models, though, will be too big to be pocketable and cost more than even the most expensive Palm OS devices.

This gives Palm, Inc. a window of opportunity.

Ahead... for Now

Palm already has a device that is capable of competing with these first-generation UMPCs. You might have heard of it; it's called the LifeDrive Mobile manager.

It can handle Microsoft Office documents in their native formats, surf the Web, store hours of video and audio, handle email, and much more. It also fits in your pocket.

Because it doesn't run a full version of windows, this handheld has many advantages. It offers instant on, for example, and performs well on a 400 MHz processor. Windows, on the other hand, tends to wake up slowly and perform poorly on even a 1 GHz processor.

The LifeDrive also costs hundreds of dollars less than any of the UMPCs that are going to come out this year.

This might tempt Palm's top executives to feel overly confident. I can only hope this doesn't happen. These people must keep in mind that the second generation of UMPCs will offer features that will leave the original LifeDrive in the dust.

The companies behind the UMPC movement promise that future models will be much smaller and have vastly greater battery lives. At the same time they will drop significantly in price.

If Palm hopes to compete it will need to evolve as well.

Bring on the LifeDrive 2, 3, 4...

If Palm wants to keep ahead of the competition it needs to keep updating the LifeDrive.

The most obvious way to do this is release a LifeDrive 2 with a larger internal hard drive. There can be little doubt that the jump to a 6 GB version is the minimum people will accept, but a 8 GB LifeDrive would be much better.

Read the whole article, it makes some good points...

My own experience with the Lifedrive has been mixed. It is a neat device to be sure. The 4GB hard drive makes it easy to carry oodles of documents and reference material with me. I have about two hours of MP3s stored on an SD card, several of my favorite music videos and tons of reference and business material on the LD's built in hard drive. The biggest problem with the LD is stability... yes, I know that the LD 2.0 Update helped a lot of people with this, but for me it remains a problem. My LD will reboot at least once a day, often wiping out the LD's preference files. The resets dont seem to affect the installed applications or other data, but rekeying my reg codes and "recustomizing the device has become such a pain, that I have had to buy a backup program and run it often to make sure that I don't lose changes. This is a minor inconvienance, but the real pain is the LOOOOONG reboot time for these devices. We are talking about two minutes or more, each time the device resets and then another two minutes to run a restore from my last backup.

The other issue I have with the LD is the lack of TRUE RAM. The device uses the hard drive as Virtual RAM, and this is slow. By using Ludus Tech's Sharkcache, I have increased speed to an acceptable level, but the device is still slow when compared with my old Tungsten 3. Finally, there is battery life. The Lifedrive has decent battery life if used mostly as a PDA. When using Wifi extensively or playing multimedia content stored on the built in hard drive, the LD will suck juice. These issues could have been addressed by adding more physical memory to cache the hard drive files.

I agree with Ed that the Lifedrive is a worthy opponent to the first UMPC devices, but all things considered, it wont take much to provide an alternative to the Lifedrive.

1. Provide at least 5 hours of battery life.
2. Provide instant on functionality
3. Integrate the UMPC with OneNote
4. Make it a lot faster.

The other big dissadvantage that Palm has is the lack of multitasking ability. UMPC out of the box, beats the LD in this aspect. I dont have any immediate plans to give up my LD for a UMPC. For the moment, it does most of what I need it to do as a companion to my main computer, an IBM T40 Thinkpad. But I will consider a UMPC when HP or Dell improves on the first version. Ah... a UMPC iPaq, now that is worth dreaming about.

I recently paid $125 for a new battery for my IBM Thinkpad, after a little more than a year, the old one would not last more than an hour. This story, is exciting in its implications:

Soon you could be running your laptop computer all day without a recharge as commercial versions of fuel cells go on sale.

At the Cebit technology fair in Hanover, Taiwanese hi-tech firm Antig said its fuel cells should be on the shelves of computer shops by early 2007.

The first versions of the methanol-using units should keep a laptop going for up to nine hours.

Fuel cell technology got a boost recently when international air flight regulators changed rules that banned passengers from carrying flammable methanol onto aircraft.

Linnet Tsai, deputy marketing manager for Antig, said the first fuel cells to go on sale would marry familiar lithium-ion batteries with the methanol-based technology.

Instead of storing power, fuel cells generate electricity by breaking down methanol via an electrochemical process.

The fuel cells can be recharged by topping them up with methanol from a cartridge.

Being able to use my notebook for over 5 hours without a recharge would be a major blessing. I have heard that there are other battery technologies in labs today that could offer incredible productivity gains, but that they are being held back by battery manufacturers. I dont know if this is true or not, but any advances are welcome.

And like Paul... I am not impressed, at least yet....

The new Microsoft Site features some snazzy looking hardware, and the typical hype, but at this point, I see it as a repackaged Tablet PC. What it looks like at this point, is that Microsoft created a shell to run on top of Windows XP, and removed the keyboard.

From Microsoft's Origami Blog:

Of course XP has been out for quite some time, so did Microsoft actually announce something new? Why yes, we did. We announced the Microsoft Touch Pack which is a new set of software built exclusively for UMPCs. That means only OEMs who ship UMPCs can preinstall the Touch Pack.

The Touch Pack is made up of five main applications/features. The first is Program Launcher. It is the launching point for applications on UMPC devices and what you see in many of the marketing materials. At its simplest form, Program Launcher basically gives the user a way to easily categorize their applications to make them easier to find and easier to open on a small form factor pc. It’s also totally cool looking!

So there you have it... what's new... A Shell running on top of Windows XP Tablet Edition, not that revolutionary....

The promise of this device is if they can achieve the same small form factor, LOOOOONG battery life, (I have heard that this version has only three hours battery life), and sell for under $1000. Anything less and it is just a new Tablet form factor.

If you can't wait until March 9th to see what Microsoft is up to with their Origami concept, check out these videos on a special Intel site.

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Google Inc. is preparing to offer online storage to Web users, creating a mirror image of data stored on consumer hard drives, according to company documents that were mistakenly released on the Web.

The existence of the previously rumored GDrive online storage service surfaced after a blogger discovered apparent notes in a slide presentation by Google executives published on Google's site after its analysts presentation day last Thursday.

"With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including e-mails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc)," the notes in the original Google presentation state.

Chief Executive Eric Schmidt in his presentation made comment that one goal of Google was to "store 100 percent" of consumer information.

Copies of the notes were captured by a handful of bloggers and shared around the Web. The company subsequently took down its original PowerPoint slide presentation and replaced it with a 94-page Adobe Acrobat file, devoid of the speaker notes.

Some of us tech savvy people, have been doing this for years using our Gmail accounts. Looks like Google has caught on and decided to join in, instead of fight. It's a good idea.

Looks like the Origami is out of the bag, a little earlier than Microsoft expected. Looks like a pretty cool device if the rumors of it being sold for under $1000 are true. Check out the video...

Apple has got to be joking... right?

Overcame the final barrier. Phone now connects to internet for IE browsing and Email. It simply rocks!

Engadget Mobile continues their phone giveaway.

Put your dibs in now, and while you at at, check out the EM site, some cool stuff for techies.

Testing a neat new piece of blogging software on the palm. u*blog is a piece of software that runs on your Palm handheld, that allows you to post blog post using the Palm.

Hat Tip Palm Addicts, which remains on e of my favorite Palm sites, despite the occassional bit of bad writing. (For those who read PA, you know what I mean.) Occassional bad writing asside, which I myself am guilty of, PA remains on the cutting edge of delivering timely news on handheld technology.

I got a chance to play with the Mpx 220 today.

My first impressions are mixed.

First the possitive:

1.Yeah its a clamshell, not much different than other clamshells, but it has a nice look too it. Especially the pollished front. It has a pretty sturdy feel to it, despite being feather light.

2.The screen is very bright and vibrant, with good colors and readability. The keyboard and menu keys are backlit, large and have nice travel to them.

3. Setting it up (except for the internet connection) was a piece of cake, and fairly intuitive. I put my SIM card into the phone, went through the basic setup and fired up the phone. Everything worked out of the box as expected. The only issue I am having IS the internet configuration which is a bitch, probably due as much to Costa Rica's GPRS setup as to the usual bloated Windows Mobile setup routines.

4. Setting up Activesync was likewise a piece of cake, once I had paired the phone with my computer using bluetooth. The sync went without a hitch, loading all of my contacts onto the phone.

5. For anyone familiar with Pocket PC or Windows Mobile, using the phone is pretty straightforward, with some nice features when it comes to dialing (you can start entering a number or a name and the phone will suggest names from the phone book).

6. The "Today Screen," keeps my appointements and task in front of me, so I dont need to consult my Palm Lifedrive for a quick review of my schedule or priorities.

7. Reception seems to be much better than my V3, probably due to the Mpx's antenna, which while built in also, seems to be bigger.

Negatives:

1. There seems to be a problem when using bluetooth. My computer (to which the MPX is paired), prevents me from hearing incoming calls. It may be a setting I need to sort out.

2. The Camera, as most reviews have noted, is nothing spectacular. (See Photo below)

3. The internet connection is a pain in the rear.

Overall, I give the phone a B+. It will take a couple of days to sort out all the features and what not. The real beauty of the Motorola V3 is that is just works, and is pretty simple to use. But the Mpx 220 is a "smart phone," and is actually two year old technology, so it may not be 100% fair to compare them apples to apples. The only thing that bugs me at this point, and I am going to play with my bluetooth configuration to see if I can fix that.

What is Microsoft up to with this?

Engadget has more details.

At least a temporary one.

I know I am a bit late to the party on this one, since the news came through this morning. In the final analysis, no matter what the decision, RIM may be soon facing deeper challenges than the ones they are facing in court.

It is somewhat ironic that Microsoft, who has faced their own legal challenges in recent years, seems to be taking the most aggressive role in redefining the mobile landscape, especially with their new smartphone partnership with Palm.

Whatever happens, it can be certain that it will be good for consumer and business users who have made RIM the success that they are.

I believe that RIM probably made a mistake by letting this thing drag out as long as they have. During that time, not only has doubt and uncertainty spread amongst their core user base, but Palm and others have made inroads in providing similar services and alternatives.

I just picked up one of these for a steal,

less than $200. Charging it now, will let you all know what I think after I put it through it's paces.

is trying to catch up with Windoze.

There was a time when security was a reason to buy a Mac. Looks like that time is slipping away.

Some spine...

In August, Google was served with a subpoena from the U. S. Department of Justice demanding disclosure of two full months' worth of search queries that Google received from its users, as well as all the URLs in Google's index. We objected to the subpoena, which started a set of legal procedures that puts the issue before the Federal courts. Below is the introduction to our response to the Department of Justice's motion to the court to force us to comply with the subpoena. You can find the entire response here. (This is a 25-page PDF file.)


I. INTRODUCTION
Google users trust that when they enter a search query into a Google search box, not only will they receive back the most relevant results, but that Google will keep private whatever information users communicate absent a compelling reason. The Government's demand for disclosure of untold millions of search queries submitted by Google users and for production of a million Web page addresses or "URLs" randomly selected from Google's proprietary index would undermine that trust, unnecessarily burden Google, and do nothing to further the Government's case in the underlying action.

Fortunately, the Court has multiple, independent bases to reject the Government's Motion. First, the Government's presentation falls woefully short of demonstrating that the requested information will lead to admissible evidence. This burden is unquestionably the Government's. Rather than meet it, the Government concedes that Google's search queries and URLs are not evidence to be used at trial at all. Instead, the Government says, the data will be "useful" to its purported expert in developing some theory to support the Government's notion that a law banning materials that are harmful to minors on the Internet will be more effective than a technology filter in eliminating it.

Google is, of course, concerned about the availability of materials harmful to minors on the Internet, but that shared concern does not render the Government's request acceptable or relevant. In truth, the data demanded tells the Government absolutely nothing about either filters or the effectiveness of laws. Nor will the data tell the Government whether a given search would return any particular URL. Nor will the URL returned, by its name alone, tell the Government whether that URL was a site that contained material harmful to minors.

And it's a good thing... Now about China...

Engadget Mobile is giving away cellphones:

Ah yes, day 8 of Engadget Mobile's 30 days of cellphone giveaways! Last week we gave away seven Palm Treo 650s or 700ws, but we figured we'd up the ante on the choose-your-own QWERTY smartphone this weeek. That's right, for the next five days we're giving you your choice of a Verizon XV6700, Cingular 8125, Sprint PPC-6700, or T-Mobile MDA. To enter today's drawing all you have to do is post a little something in the comments below and we'll pick a winner at random (yes, your comment must validate). Doesn't get easier than that, right? We'll keep today's contest open for about 24 hours, and we'll announce a winner when we post tomorrow's.

Make sure to enter!

A while back, I talked about RIM's problems, and how there were alternatives in place and on the way. As you can see, I was on target:

Microsoft's flurry of announcements out of Barcelona, Spain, last week promising cheaper, faster, easier mobile e-mail might have awakened the world at large to the benefits of push e-mail and the load of trouble BlackBerry vendor Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) is up against.

But plenty of IT managers apparently did not require last week's Microsoft news to spur them to action.

Several CIOs said yesterday they are already testing alternatives to RIM technology -- and spending time playing company shrink to anxious BlackBerry users.

"My CEO came up to me just last week, again," said Rich De Brino, Compass Health CIO. "I said, 'Don't worry about it. We've got it under control.' Everybody is more nervous than we are." De Brino is among the CIOs who heeded analyst warnings regarding an alleged RIM patent infringement and stopped issuing BlackBerrys to employees at the Everett, Wash.-based not-for-profit.

If BlackBerry service is interrupted, De Brino is ready to go with "Plan B," an alternative solution using a Pocket PC from Samsung Corp. and Good Technology Inc. "We could scale everybody to Good [Technology] within a week, easily. We literally have a written plan in place. We don't mess around."

This is a great piece of software for your Palm Handheld, and it is Free!

With Mobipocket Reader 5.1 Pro (Freeware), you can read all the ebooks in the Mobipocket ebookstore - including dictionaries, synchronize enews channels, view your personal documents.

Version 5.1 adds support for MS Office import, Adobe PDF, text and HTML documents, as well as support to synchronize bookmarks, annotations, reading lists, and book metadata between devices.

This is a great post on selecting a mobile computer.

Over the course of writing articles and reading through the forums here, I often wonder what it is that keeps so many people asking for help in finding a PDA that will best fit their lifestyle. I can attest, it was a lot harder even two years ago with companies such as Sony (who put out different models every three months or so) and HP who would flood the market with so many devices and different configurations.

One would almost think they were purchasing a new, full-sized computer. But then, there is always a range of questions that ask for help in that search. There really are many things to consider. And even with multiple budgets to think about, the different fields in which the PDA would be used, and even the different accessories that would be bought with it; a mobile computer has proved to be a tough item to purchase for many.

In some ways, that is why I like what Palm and Dell have done with their mobile computer lineups. They have extremely simple model lineups; and depending on how much it is that you want to spend, there is a level of complexity/convenience that comes with that purchase. But even with things ironed out that well in the retail area, how does one really choose a mobile computer that would best fit his/her needs (and at the same time provide a great overall value no matter how much is/is not spent)?

Therefore I say, think of this as your common sense buyer's guide. Not so much because you don't know what it is that you are looking for; but because you do. Don't let us make the decision for you on which device specifically however, that is up to you. Looking at these notes and noodles, you can get a better idea of what mobile computer will work best for you; and end up as a very satisfied purchaser.

Read it all, it has some great tips, and will likely save you some money and heartache if you are looking to buy a mobile system.

Google continues to Amaze:

My first post to my blog was a little paragraph about my obsession with cycling, and I remember feeling a little ... let down. Sure, it was remarkably easy. Write. Click a button. Reload. Cool! But then what? It wasn't until someone left a comment that I was hooked. An audience! Someone is reading!

It was this feeling that led to the idea of Measure Map. Our goal has been to use the power of web analytics to help bloggers feel that same sense of connection with their audience. Today, as the Measure Map team joins Google, our mission remains the same: to build the best possible user experience so people can understand and appreciate the effect their blogs - their words and ideas - can have.

Looks like the next big thing in blogging...

I realize Verizon has one of the fastest cellular based data networks in the country with their EVDO system, but with this:

Verizon users have been complaining for years that this carrier disables Dial-Up Networking (DUN) on many of the devices it offers.

This means that they can't be used as a wireless modem for other devices, like a laptop.

Now, for the first time, Verizon's hard-line stance has cracked, if only a little bit.

According to PC Magazine, this carrier is now allowing users of just a few of its mobile phones to have access to DUN.

Kind of treatment, and with them crippling client's phones, why would anyone sign up for their services.

If like me you have been struggling to find video content for your 5G iPod, I may have just found a SWEEET solution for you. Check out this FREE video encoding program.

According to their web page, the program can rip video for the iPod as well as various handheld devices, give it a look.

This thing may be the Treo killer.

Read more here.

The problem with Palm is that they do not listen very well to feedback from their customers. The fact that there are no wifi card drivers for the award winning Treo 650 is a perfect example of this. HP has made several attempts at entering the Windows smartphone space and each iteration has gotten more interesting. It it doubtful that I will get my hands on one of these any time soon, but if it pans our as advertised, it could be the Treo Killer, and it could definitely give RIM's Blackberry a run for the money, with Microsoft's new push email technology.

If you are thinking about buying a new smartphone, you have to check out this presentation.

Verizon does not exist in Costa Rica, so I cant get one of these, but it is pretty slick.

One of my best friends, Fred Blaser, the President of La Republica, Costa Rica's best business publication, swears by pen and paper. He is a throwback to the old days of newspapers, where reporters ran around town with a notepad in their pocket. Fred is a genius, one of the smartest men I know, and I know some people who would kill to get access to the scraps of paper he carries around in his pockets with notes.

I have been trying to bring Fred into the 21st century slowly but surely. When I first talked to him about blogging, he saw it as a big waste of time. Last year I convinced him to convert one of his online ventures, CA+ into a Blog. While it is still in it's baby step phase, it is a great Blog on business in Latin America and will grow.

I simply need to Convince Fred to post more often.

I am probably one of the biggest technology users I know. I was trained years ago to be a Dayplanner user. I was one of those cats who never went anywhere without his Franklin Dayplanner, and I swore by it. Using a Dayplanner was and is one of the reasons I don't have much stress, and I am able to stay organized. Just about every stressed out business person I know, is stressed because of a lack of organization and planning. They may know where they are trying to go, but have no clue as to how they will get there.

After using a Dayplanner for several years, I invested in the original Apple Newton. I was a faithful upgrader until Steve Jobs, curse the day he did it, killed the Newton. I moved to the Palm Pilot, tried several other platforms, including several iterations of the Pocket PC, and finally came back to Palm. My latest device is the Palm Lifedrive, which I have written about several times here on ISOU. The Lifedrive is a wonderful device, and with built in Wifi and Bluetooth, a 4GB hard drive to store ALL of my documents, and a large 320x480 screen, it has become close to a laptop replacement for me. More importantly it is my digital notepad, agenda and phone book. I have added numerous programs to the Lifedrive that allow me to organize my day and thoughts, communicate wherever I am, (via Wifi when available and when not via my cell phone's GPRS connection), and its built in SMS program makes sending short text messages to colleagues, friends and associates a painless process, instead of trying to enter the messages on the tiny keyboard of my Motorola V3.

Fred stands by his scraps of paper, but I can do something Fred can not. I can find any scrap of information, email, document, etc. in seconds on my Lifedrive. Sometimes being able to find information fast can make the difference between closing a deal or not. Using programs like Agendus, I am able to not only effectively manage my time and tasks, but keep track of billable hours and associate contacts with projects, other contacts etc. I can even use the built in voice recorder to attach voice notes to contacts, tasks or meetings. Why take notes in a meeting when you can just record it and store it with the appointment in the agenda. The Palm becomes a handheld relational database of surprising power. Add to this the multimedia and multi document format reading capabilities and you have a powerful portable reference platform.

There are solutions available, some of them free like PalmPDF, that allow you to open and read PDF formatted documents better than the Adobe Acrobat Reader for the Palm. The latest version of Documents to Go Premium also features the ability to open PDF Documents. Documents to Go also provides support for NATIVE Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents, including the ability to edit them, something Windows Mobile does not do very well. In a typical scenario for me, I might be having lunch at a restaurant in the city when I get a call from a client requesting a document or asking me about an email they sent me. If the restaurant has a Wifi network, I simply take out the Lifedrive, log on to my email and answer their question or send them the document they requested, which is synchronized from my Notebook to my Lifedrive's hard drive each time I sync the Palm. If there is no Wifi, I can connect to the GPRS network using my cell phone and complete the same task. In a crunch I can even log on to Yahoo Messenger or MSN Messenger and chat with colleagues back in the office or their homes. The bottom line is that I am never more than a few seconds away from the information I need.

While I carry my iPod with me just about everywhere (See my typical out of the office kit photo below), the Lifedrive is also a multimedia powerhouse. I often rip full length movies to the Lifedrive and watch them on the built in media player while relaxing in the evenings or waiting for a meeting.

My ipod, Motorola V3, Lifedrive and wireless keyboard, along with my "kit bag."

For me, paper is not an option any more. In my business decisions and opportunities are often decided in seconds, and I can not afford to lose a scrap of paper that holds the key to that success. With the robust built in communication tools in my Lifedrive and phone, I have a portable office that goes with me wherever I go. Phone Calls, emails, short messages, all become part of a Master Puzzle that allows me to track my business and projects effectively and to analyze results.

Seems like kids are getting an early start in the blogging world...

This winter, teenagers at a Chicago high school used their Xanga websites to post obscene and threatening comments about a teacher, in one case suggesting her neck be "slit like a ... chicken."

Last spring, a girl at a different Chicago high school outraged students when she posted derogatory comments about gay marriage and blacks on her Web log.

The school district dealt differently with the two situations, defending the girl's freedom of speech in the latter while reportedly disciplining the three teens in the first.

The incidents speak not only to the murky territory of free speech in schools but to the challenges of educating in a cyber age - particularly with the growing presence of Web logs or blogs, those online pages that millions of teens use for journals, photos, dating, or chats.

The worries range from the serious - student safety and cyberbullying - to the mundane, minimizing gossip and protecting students from embarrassment. Some schools are trying to restrict access to the sites, or are holding sessions to educate both parents and students on proper guidelines.

But drawing a line between free speech and misuse can be tricky, and blog proponents caution that there are plenty of positive ways to use the medium.

"We're a little quick to respond in part because this is such a new phenomenon, and it involves the Internet," says Steve Jones, a communications professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago. "You can't blame school administrators for being fairly sensitive about these things. What's happening is that in so many domains in our professional and personal lives we're having to reestablish some boundaries in regard to the Internet."

Blogs are still unfamiliar to less computer-savvy adults. But a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that 1 in 5 kids between the ages of 12 and 17 - about 4 million - keeps a blog. About twice that many regularly read them.

"It's replaced the mass e-mail or even the phone chat," says Amanda Lenhart, one of the researchers on the Pew study. "They use them to reinforce the connections they have."

And the hate speech thing should not shock anyone... Just check out their parent's blogs on the Right or Left. hehe..

Looks like Palm might be a good buy.

From Yahoo News:

The U.S. Justice Department urged a federal judge on Wednesday to refrain from any plans to shut the BlackBerry portable e-mail service over patent infringement until the government gets more assurances its users will be exempted.

"We believe that there are still a number of serious questions to be answered as to how an injunction can be implemented so as to continue BlackBerry service for governmental and other excepted groups," the Justice Department said in a legal brief filed in federal court.

The department's comments were the second piece of good news on Wednesday for BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. (Toronto:RIM.TO - news)(Nasdaq:RIMM - news) whose shares climbed.

Earlier the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office sided with RIM by issuing a preliminary rejection of a fifth patent in the court battle with patent holding company NTP Inc.

The patent office decision means the agency has now issued non-final rejections of all five patents at issue in a BlackBerry patent-infringement case before a federal judge.

Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM is pursuing the patent office challenge as it tries to fend off the 2003 patent infringement ruling that NTP won against the company in federal court in Richmond, Va.

But the final outcome of the challenge at the patent office is likely months away, while a potentially decisive court hearing in the patent infringement case is set for February 24.

I have a sneaking suspicion that RIM is going to survive this challenge. In my opinion IT Managers and Corporate decision makers should be looking at alternatives, of which there are many...

Man take a look at the improvements at Skype. I guess the purchase by eBay did them good. Now including video, improved calling plans, yada yada... Good stuff.

I just signed up for three months voice mail and inbound calling and a couple hours of outbound.

Not that I need a new IM Program running, but as more and more of my business shifts to relationships in the United States, it is probably a good idea to give U.S. folks some more advanced options on contacting me.

I still have not figured out why Skype has a Pocket PC client but no Palm client. This is probably due to the fact that Palm is shipping a lot of units these days without voice capability, but it would seem that this represents a missed opportunity for them.

Anyway, if any of you get the urge and want to holler at me, my skype ID is davidsanderson.

Like Bill is trying to sell Windows Mobile.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Microsoft founder and Chairman Bill Gates believes cell phones are a better way than laptops to bring computing to the masses in developing nations, according to a published report.

The New York Times reports that Craig Mundie, the No. 1 software provider's vice president and chief technology officer, told the paper that both he and Gates believe that turning a specially configured cell phone into a computer by connecting it to a TV and a keyboard is the best way to spread the power of computing.

"Everyone is going to have a cell phone," Mundie told the paper, noting that in places where televisions are already common, a phone could be turned into a computer with a cheap adaptor and keyboard. Microsoft (Research) has not said how much those products would cost.

The proposal is an answer to a plan by Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory, who in November unveiled his prototype for a $100 laptop computer that could help bring computers to hundreds of millions of mostly-poor students worldwide.

The Times reports that Negroponte has failed to reach an agreement with Microsoft on including its Windows software in the laptop. That failure prompted Negroponte to use free open-source software in his laptop instead of Windows, and spurred Microsoft executives to discuss an alternative.

"I love what Nick is trying to do," Mundie told the Times. "We have a lot of concerns about the sustainability of his approach." He said there was no firm timing for the cell phone computing strategy, but that Microsoft encouraged such innovations in the past by building prototypes for consumer electronics manufacturers.

The idea is pretty ridiculous as far as I am concerned. A better idea would be to create something like the Palm Lifedrive, with a 2GB flash drive,wifi and a keyboard.

For Valentine's Day:

Some of the girly girls we hang around with were just dying for the new pink Razr V3c from Verizon, so Gizmodo got its greasy paws on one last weekend. It’s the usual Motorola Razr stuff, with its effortless good looks but labyrinthine user interface. Its 1.3 megapixel camera is bad (see pic after the jump), but not awful like the one on the original Razr. But the thing sounds great, with nice side-tone (you can hear yourself, eliminating the dreaded "cellphone yell"). It also gets good reception even in the boondocks, and its color is, well, pink.

Brighthand does a review of the controversial Palm Treo 700W.

Palm, Inc. recently stunned the world by coming out with its first smartphone running Windows Mobile 5.0 Phone Edition, not the Palm OS.

Ignoring the change in operating systems, the Treo 700w is superficially similar to this company's other smartphones from a hardware standpoint. But don't get the wrong impression, the differences go all the way to the core.

This includes a lower-resolution screen and support for a faster wireless-networking standard.

Treo 700w I've only had a Treo 700w for a few days so I'll just cover some of its most significant features at this time. A full review will be available in the near future.

Basically, at this point I'm going to concentrate on debunking some of the criticisms you may have heard about this smartphone.
Screen

Possibly the most controversial part of this smartphone is its 240-by-240-pixel display. Considering that Palm's most recent smartphone with the Palm OS has a 320-by-320-pixel screen, many people are worried that the Treo 700w's is going to be too small.

"Too small" is in the eye of the beholder, but I didn't have a problem with it. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's a lower resolution screen than I'd prefer, but I found it to be quite usable for the tasks this smartphone was created to deal with.

And lets keep things in perspective. It hasn't been that long since Palm's premier smartphone was the Treo 600, a device with an even lower resolution. Considering that this was one of the most successful smartphones of all time, I'm not too worried about this latest model.

Having recently migrated back to Palm after a brief flirtation with Windows Mobile, I can tell you that you could not even GIVE me one of these things. Not to mention that the cell phone system the phone uses is not available in Costa Rica, or even regionaly. Why Palm decided to go CDMA with their first Windows Mobile Product, is completely beyond me.

Anyway, if you live in the U.S. and are considering a smart phone, give the article a read. The Brighthand people are my number one source of information on handheld technology.

As most of my regular readers know, I like to mix it up here. Politics, Life in Costa Rica, Beautiful women, Life in General, Commentary... More beautiful women... and TECH. ISOU is sort of the Maxim Magazine of Blogs. Hehe...

Anyway, my recent post about the woes of Blackberry users has been picked up by an IT site. Cool stuff....

And speaking of communications over mobile technology. I just purchased a piece of software that ROCKS. If you have ever faught with your handheld and cell phone to configure a GPRS internet connection, (And I tell you, this can be a nightmare in Costa Rica), then this software will make your life SOOOOO much easier. Mobile High Speed is a piece of software that takes the pain out of configuration. Three simple drop down menus, pair your phone and you are online. It is the KILLER APP for my Palm, as I am always on the go.

The software has modules to assist you with conference calling and SMS messaging as well. But the thing that is most impressive is how easy it is to configure your GPRS or Edge Connection. No manual IP addresses, no configuring ports, nothing, just click your way to a connection with your bluetooth or IR enabled phone and you are set. The number of countries and providers is Huge, and the configuration takes just seconds.

Who needs a blackberry... Hehe...

My One the Go Tools:

Palm Lifedrive Mobile Manager
Motorola V3 Special Edition
Agendus Mail (Mail and SMS Management)
Xiino Web Browser

I also use Snappermail on occassion. Snappermail is a robust email client that compares favorably with the best desktop applications. It's handling of large atttachments, combined with the 4GB storage on my Lifedrive, makes a powerful mobile communications combination when I need to update clients with new documents, or revise contracts or proposals.

Is a COOL video... (Warning... HUGE), Palm's Corporate vision. Very nice.... Makes me want to buy ANOTHER Palm!

I have been thinking of adding a Treo 650 to my arsenal of communications tools. Checked the price here in Costa Rica, at one of my favorite cell shops....

$700

Eh, I cant afford it...

For any of you with a Java enabled cell phone, or handheld with java installed, Opera has just officially released their mini browser. I already have two browsers running on my Palm and see no need for a third, so I will pass. I ran the beta version of the Opera Mini browser on my HP Windows Mobile handheld, and it was pretty slick, but I prefer Xiino on my palm.

It's fast, has a small footprint and has not crashed on me once since I installed it on my Palm. Palm's own browser, Blazer, is buggy on the Lifedrive, prone to crashes and errors loading large or complicated pages.

I have had enough problems with Blazer to relegate it to backup browser if something does not load right in Xiino. (Something which to date), has not happened.

Mobile browsing is always a challenge. Small screens, lack of standards support, and memory limitations on handheld devices and cell phones limits one's ability to have a robust browsing experience. There are some tools out there like Skweezer, and Google's new mobile portal that make the experience a bit more tolerable, but a small screen and the limitations of mobile devices make usability for anything other than basic browsing, a challenge.

But I find the whole Blackberry thing to be hillarious.

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - It's not the sub-zero temperatures that have the corporate kingpins shivering in Davos this year but the prospect of life without their "Blackberry."

After Angelina Jolie, the wireless portable e-mail device is the thing every business leader wants by his side at the annual World Economic Forum, where hundreds of chief executives, dozens of heads of state and the odd celebrity couple gather to discuss world woes and corporate trends.

The hi-tech gadgets are an essential tool for staying in touch with the office and the world while negotiating the waves of interviews and meetings held during the five-day jamboree.

But the chance of a Blackberry-less future at next year's Davos summit loomed large this week when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a major patent infringement ruling against maker Research In Motion Ltd.

Now, a federal judge could issue an injunction to block RIM's U.S. business.

"It's just nuts. The idea that someone is just going to switch it off in three or four weeks, even if it's only in the United States, is crazy," Peter Levene, chairman of the Lloyd's of London insurance market, told Reuters.

"Everybody has adapted their working habits to it. If you close it off at a stroke the damage could be colossal."

William Parrett, chief executive officer of Deloitte, USA, agreed that the Blackberry, nicknamed the "Crackberry" for its addictive allure, was a vital business tool, particularly for keeping communications and business lines open during a disaster.

"It would be a significant blow. We made sure all our people had handheld devices at the time of 9/11 because it was the only communications tool we had," Parrett told Reuters.

These people have known for a couple years now that RIM lost the first lawsuit, and yet they continued to buy the devices and base their communication strategy on their use. The most ridiculous thing about all this, is that there are more than adequate alternatives. Palm's smart phones all have push email solutions available via software ad-ons, and are in many ways more powerful, flexible devices. The Blackberry is a fad, just like two way pagers were a few years ago.

If I am building a mobile communication strategy, (And I will be for a client... very shortly), I would base the strategy on open standards like IMAP and POP, and with a robust hardware platform like the Treo smartphone or HP6515.

Both of these solutions are based on standards and are configurable to provide the same functionality of the Blackberry, with strong additional features like Agenda management and third party applications that provide other functionality not offered by the Blackberry.

In Costa Rica, where the Blackberry is not available, I am able to utilize the same kind of mobile functionality using my Palm Lifedrive and Motorola V3 RAZR phone. The Lifedrive's 4GB drive and multiple wireless features allow me to not only stay in touch while on the move, but to carry ALL of my important business documents with me and Mail them in standard Word, Excell, Powerpoint or PDF format while on the move.

I have had numerous scenarios where I was out of the office and recieved a call requesting a copy of a document, or a quick edit to one. I was able to find the document on the Lifedrive and email it using a GPRS connection and my RAZR.

This is a great idea:

HaggiZ writes "Here is alternative to the clutter of USB cables and keys sitting on your desk. Now Belkin has announced their own wire-free USB setup.

If you are running a 5th Generation iPod, there is an update available here.

According to Apple, the update addresses the following:

What's new in iPod Updater 2006-01-10:

* Support for the iPod Radio Remote for iPod with video and iPod nano
* Bug fixes for iPod with video, iPod nano, iPod with color display, iPod mini, and iPod with Click Wheel

For wireheads like me, this is some pretty interesting stuff.

Is exactly WHY I went back to Palm.

As much as I travel, I am always facing the problem of being sure that wherever I am I can connect and get work done. Because of my High Tech Goodie bag (Palm Lifedrive, iPod, Palm Wireless Keyboard, Motorola V3 Cell phone), I am usually able to get connected using GPRS and download mail and whatnot. What hurts is I dont have access to some of my tools from my PC, and on those rare occassions when I need to scare up an internet cafe to work, this can be an issue. ISSUE SOLVED!, and I finaly found a good use for that expensive thumb drive I carry around with me all the time.

Want an alternative to Gmail with a huge email box? Try these people. I am testing it right now and seems to work well.

And speaking of Google, this is kind of neat for us Road Warriors and mobile types...

Google has created a mobile version of their personalized Google homepage. The new service puts your gmail, weather, rss newsfeeds and stocks up in one place on a mobile friendly page.

You need to use the desktop version of Google personalized home to choose which content to add to your phone's homepage. To get to the service on your mobile device visit: www.google.com/xhtml More information can be found here.

Google has also launched a new service that will format any URL of a large webpage for small mobile device screens. The service is located here: www.google.com/gwt/n

For several months now ISOU has been invisible to Google. Since the site went down last year and was rebuilt, Google has not been indexing the site. I had the google search function implemented, followed the same processes I used before to get ISOU up in the rankings, and yet I could not even find current articles on Google.

Last week I set forth to fix this problem. I joined a Google Usenet list and posted about my problem. Answers ranged from, "you've been blacklisted," to "Make sure you dont use a robots.txt, file." After asking my web mistress to remove the Robots file, I went back to google and created a site map for my site. Slowly but surely, the big ole' Google Monster woke up to my presence. Today I finaly reached a milestone...

We're BAAAAACK!

That's right, ISOU is first on Google and Yahoo when you search for the term, "ISOU." Right On!

Update: What's funny, and AWESOME is that the search term "Utopia" on MSN search results in ISOU coming up as the second site listed.

This review:

I just picked up an H500 after looking at several new bluetooth headsets for my Black V3, and this little wonder truly ROCKS!

It is so light you don't even feel it on your ear. The sound quality is excellent and the COOL FACTOR is off the scale. I put the thing on and I feel like a Special Ops soldier or something. If you are looking for a wireless headset for your bluetooth phone, this is it baby!

This:

Dell's Chief Executive Kevin Rollins said on Thursday that he is open to selling computers that run on microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices.

Dell, the world's biggest manufacturer of personal computers, currently uses microprocessors from No. 1 chipmaker Intel as the brains that run its machines. Dell is Intel's biggest customer.

"We're always open" to making changes, Rollins said. "We want the very best technology for our customers."

Rollins made the comment to reporters after speaking at a lunch sponsored by the Boston College Chief Executives' Club.

might have something to do with THIS?
Hehe....

This is a pretty cool concept. Install Linux on your iPod!

In sales of iPods in Costa Rica.

Because the tummy bare style is all the rage here.

I just heard the news.... And I gotta figure out a way to get one of these...

It's official, Apple will whip Dell and other Notebook Manufacturers like an ugly stepchild with this monster...

Look like anything you've seen before?

Is Naughty Cool.

For a company that did not even appear at CES, Apple is having a lot of impact.

I have to admit, I have fell in love with my iPod. Last night I lay in bed watching The Dukes of Hazzard on my iPod. Unbelievable this technology.

Motorola Plans Cell-Phone Google Feature

Motorola Inc. will soon begin selling Web-enabled cell phones that feature easy access to Google's search engine by clicking on a button on the phone's keypad, the world's second-largest maker of cell phones said.

The company said in a statement late Thursday it will integrate a Google icon onto certain Internet-optimized handsets that will be distributed starting in the first quarter this year.

Financial terms were not disclosed and Motorola spokeswoman Una Kent said she could not give any specifics on what model phones or which operating systems the button will be built into.

Motorola is also working with Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) to bring Yahoo Go Mobile, a mobile version of Yahoo's search and content, to those phones, Marco Boerries, senior vice president of Yahoo's "Connected Life" division, said Thursday.

"Many of our customers have been asking for mobile devices integrated with their consumers' favorite online search services," said Scott Durchslag, vice president and general manager of Global xProducts for Motorola's mobile device business. "Our relationship with Google provides an opportunity for us to offer a high quality mobile search experience — one familiar to and loved by millions of users across the globe."

Google - Set to take over the world, one platform at a time! I love it.

Looks like the Treo 700, featuring Windows Mobile for Phones, is not the big hit Palm Hoped for.

eh.... There is a reason I went back to Palm after spending a year with a Pocket PC device.

I can understand Palms decision to produce a Microsoft Powered Treo, but I suspected it would NOT be the big hit many thought it would.

If this is true, Microsoft executives have to be wetting their pants. This article from back in September may have had a ring of truth to it. With Microsoft's most recent OS flaw making news all over the world. Security fatigue is setting in for a lot of people. Apple has had a window (No pun intended) of opportunity for some time now to take advantage of consumers dissatisfaction with Windows. They have not taken advantage of it. While OSX remains a more robust and stable operating system, and the Mac platform more elegant, Apple has failed to capitalize on these advantages and to expand their base. The revolutionary iMac remains overpriced compared to PC's with similar configurations.

Google's strong market presence, cutting edge technology and confidence among consumers, could signal a devestating blow to both Redmond and Cuppertino, if marketed right, sold at the right price point and if it includes applications suitable for everyday use. This will be one to watch.

A special welcome to the visitors who are coming over from Netscape's Gadgets and Tech news page. Hope you will chose to come back and explore a bit more.

How does Microsoft avoid class action lawsuits?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - The new year is off to a rocky start at Microsoft, where security experts are scrambling to confront a potentially massive virus threat to Windows PCs.

According to a report Tuesday in the Financial Times, the latest vulnerability involves a flaw which allows hackers to infect computers using programs inserted into image files. The threat was discovered last week. But it mushroomed over the weekend, when a group of hackers published the source code they used to exploit the flaw.

What makes this threat particularly vicious, according to the Times, is that unwitting victims can infect their computers simply by viewing a web page, e-mail, or instant message that includes a contaminated image. That differs from most virus attacks, which require a user to actually download an infected file.

I mean really?
Microsoft Windows is the most dangerous operating system in the history of computing. I stopped using Internet Explorer two years ago as a result of exploits available in the program. I am still infuriated when I find a site that will only open with Explorer. This threat is absolutely terrifying. Imagine the idea of simply viewing a rogue web page, and having your system infected.

Sammy from Palm Addicts is giving away some goodies! They are ALWAYS giving away some goodies. I just tossed my hat in the ring for the Treo 600! But I will take anything Sammy gives away! (wink).

I finaly saw Sin City, last night. I guess I am one of the last people on the planet to see the movie. It was awesome. Watched it on my iPod. Even on that tiny screen, the movie rocked. And what movie featuring the lovely Jessica Alba (Pic for Boyd), would not rock?

The violence was over the top in places, but it was a visualy stunning movie.

Oh, and Rosario Dawson was pretty hot to! (wink)

Have I mentioned that Apple Sucks? The "video iPod" uses a propriatory format for videos that.... SURPRISE, requires you to buy Quick Time Pro, to convert your movies. Thats right, you cant just rip DVD's or DIVX movies to the ole iPod.

I love my RAZR V3, but this new version looks like the cats meow.

In a lot of ways I am like the kid with the tricked out car who is always attempting to sqeeze more horsepower and more flash out of my wheels. My Tech is like that car, and I am always tuning and pruning, trying to sqeeze the most productivity possible out of my toys, and to make them ever more intuitive. When I left the Pocket PC behind, I knew that in coming back to the Palm Platform, that I would not be satisfied with the out of the box productivity apps. I used Pocket Informant on the Pocket PC, and I knew that once I went back to Palm, there was only one choice... Agendus!

Agendus simply ROCKS. It gives me a world class and customizable datebook and contact application, and seamlessly integrates email and SMS, two of the functions I use most often on my handheld.

After adding Agendus 10 to my Lifedrive, I trully have what amounts to a portable office that I can slip in my pocket.

On my Christmas short list... If anyone out there from Motorola is googling the New Q Phone, and wants to send me a unit, I would be most appreciative. Hehe... I am one of the people that sets trends in Costa Rica by the way, not to mention running a very popular blog, so if any of you marketing types wants to get some free pub for this baby, drop me a line!

Okay, I have had a little over a week with the Palm Lifedrive. Following are my observations:

First impressions...

1. The device is easy to use, powerful and flexible.

2. I love the fact that I can carry all of my Word, Powerpoint and Excell documents with me in Native format, and open them with DTG.

3. Multimedia capabilities are very powerful. I have dowloaded several full length movies to the device and can view them with the built in media player. The Lifedrive Manager provides the option of converting the movie to a format best viewable on the device or copying it in its original format. A third party open source media player with a ton of video translators, makes viewing the video transparent, regardless of format.

4. The screen, (320X480), is crisp, bright and responsive.

5. Speed is quite acceptable, despite the fact that the device loads most software from its 4GB hard drive on execution. This has been a complaint of some, that the device is too slow. I have found that other than a slight delay in loading application, that the device's speed is quite acceptable. Third party applications like SharkCache, enable you to speed up this function as well.

6. Palms implementation of bluetooth connectivity to cell phones remains superior. I was able to connect to my new Motorola RAZR and send and recieve SMS messages OUT OF THE BOX. The Pocket PC does not even recognize the RAZR by model and has limited capability (I have never been able to find even a third party SMS client for the Pocket PC that would work with the RAZR V3).

I have run into a few things I dont like.

1. I have never been able to connect with a Linksys 802.11b Wireless Router with any of my Palms. Not sure why this is. An update to the Lifedrive software suppossedly made it more compatable with Linksys newer 802.11G routers, but it still fails to connect to the older router.

2.The included Blazer web browser chokes on some large or complex websites, including ISOU.

3. I dont really like (understand) the filesystem yet. For example, I am not sure which new programs can be installed directly to my 1GB memory card or to the hard drive. I am still playing with this.

Other than that, the thing ROCKS, and I am not even looking back at my brief flirtation with the Devil.

If you are looking for a mobile device to replace your notebook for short trips and day to day use, you may find it in the Lifedrive.

Just keeps getting better.

I just picked up a new piece of software for my Palm Lifedrive. And I think I have found the killer app. It is called Mobile High Speed for Palm, and if you use your Palm handheld to connect to the Internet via GPRS, you NEED this application. Configuring the Palm to use GPRS in Costa Rica is a pain in the ass, but using this software I was up and running with a stable and fast connection in about 30 seconds. The application does all the configuration for you AUTOMATICALLY, and has scripts for hundreds of GSM Cellular service providers and most mobile phones, including my trusty Black RAZR.

Surfing the web is now as easy as turning on the Lifedrive, firing up the Mobile High Speed software, clicking the connect button and then switching to my email program or the Blazer Browser to surf the web. NICE!

I now have arguably the sexiest phone/handheld combo currently available... and oh yeah, I can be productive too.

There were some things I really enjoyed about the Pocket PC platform, but after years of using Palm Computing devices, I just could not get used to the shortcomings, bugs and limitations of the Pocket PC. I picked up a new Palm Lifedrive at a Duty Free on the way back from Guatemala. And one of the first things that I noticed was how easilly it paired with my Motorola RAZR V3, and I was sending SMS messages within 2 minutes of pairing the phone... Something I have never been able to do with my HP Hx2410. In fact, the Pocket PC device did not even include an SMS client, and none of the ones I tried worked with my V3. So I am happilly back in Palm Land.

I have been using Microsoft Money, for some time now. Due to the international nature of my business, I use a number of currencies, including the Dollar, Colone (Costa Rica), Quetzal (Guatemala) among others.

While money does a fairly accurate job of conversion rates and what not, the Pocket version of money only syncs with my various dollar accounts. This is a pain when traveling to Guatemala as I am doing next week, as I like to use a Guatemalan debit card and move money into my local currency account. While I have visibility of such movements in my PC application, I like to keep track of money on the run. The Pocket PC enables me to keep track of my spending and available balances on credit cards, debit cards, checking accounts etc. Today I found a solution:

Spb, a great developer of Pocket PC software has a great application called Spb Finance, which syncs all of my accounts.

Today I synchronized all my accounts and am ready for my road trip.

Anyone have any experience with this beauty? I am thinking of buying one with the following specs:

IBM THINKPAD T42 ( Pentium M 1.8GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 512MB, 80GB, Combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM, 14.1" TFT SXGA (1400x1050), 64MB ATI Radeon 9600, Wireless 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth/ Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, Ultranav, Secure Chip, LECTOR DE HUELLA DIGITAL, Bateria 6 Celdas, Win Xp Pro espanol, teclado espanol)

Any thoughts?

I just picket up my new cell phone, the one I have wanted for about three months. And I can't wait to PLAY, unfortunately the vendor advised charging it overnight before using it... I thought that went out with old style batteries! Hehe...

Anyway, I am ready to head to Guatemala in style. Speaking of which, I have a new Blog that I will be documenting my adventures in Guatemala, it can be found here.

Of course I got the Limited Edition, Black V3, Silver is just so.... Yesterday ya know! One thing I completely dig about this is the attention to style on the part of Motorola. This phone is a phone designed to appeal to the style consieus, and little things like the stylish headset, lens cleaner for the camera and first class leather carrying case, all scream, "Expensive!"

It's a kick ass piece of technology, and probably the hottest phone I have ever owned. The V80 (My current phone) was always good to illicit a few Ohhs and Ahhs when I whipped it out on social occassions. This phone is likely to be a great conversation starter as well.

I found this application tonight, called Pocket Controller Professional. It allows me to connect to my Windows Mobile device right on the desktop and control all the functions of the device using my mouse and keyboard. This is a cool little application, very sexy as the image above indicates. It even has skins for your particular model of Pocket PC. What I love is that I can use it to send SMS messages without having to de-cradle the device, or use my stylus to write the message.

I use SMS messages daily to stay in touch with my team, and this application will make the process a lot easier.

Anyone want to hook up your favorite Blogger with an early Christmas present?

If Tony Pierce can get an iPod from his readers, I know some of you guys out there will want to hook up your friendly Utopian Scribe? Hehe... How about it?

Apple should be very concerned!

Google Inc. will make its first direct challenge to the broader communications industry today when it introduces an instant-messaging and voice communication service for personal computers.

The program, Google Talk, will allow its users to exchange text messages and converse through their computers with others at remote locations. Other instant-messaging services offer similar capabilities, but Google said the appeal of its system would come from its voice quality, based on audio technology it has developed.

Via SFGate

And Google continues it's march towards desktop dominance. I just downloaded the new Desktop Search Beta the other day, and it rocks. Can't wait to see this new chat client.

Update: Well it is downloaded, and invitations are sent to most of the people in my GMail address book. Waiting to get my first call to test the alleged superior voice quality. Download it and add insearchofutopia@gmail.com to your buddy list, then give me a call. Lets take this baby for a spin.

Read about it here. This is a must have toy. Forget about that RAZR, I was going to order.

Sort of looks like something out of the Borg and Star Trek, but gotta have it.

One of my most valuable online subscriptions is to eWeek online. I keep up to date on the important events happening in the world of High Technology. I have been watching the developments in the battle against "Malware," for a while now, and this is the scariest story I have seen so far:

From eWeek online:

Spyware researchers picking apart one of the more notorious spyware programs have stumbled upon what appears to be a massive identity theft ring hijacking confidential data from millions of infected computers.

Sunbelt Software Inc., makers of the enterprise-grade CounterSpy spyware protection product, made the discovery during an audit of "CoolWebSearch," a program that routinely hijacks Web searchers, browser home pages and other Internet Explorer settings.

During the research, Sunbelt researcher Patrick Jordan deliberately installed the "CoolWebSearch application on a machine and immediately noticed that the infected system became a spam zombie that was placing callbacks to a remote server.

When Jordan visited the remote server, he was shocked to find that it was being used to distribute sensitive personal information from millions of PC users infected by the spyware application.

"We found the keylogger transcript files that are being uploaded to the servers. We're talking real spyware stuff…chat sessions, usernames, passwords, bank account information, full names, addresses," said Sunbelt president Alex Eckelberry.

Read the whole thing.

I have never been able to figure out why people dont defend their computers. I run Microsoft Anti Spyware, AVG Anti Virus, and Sygate's excellent personal firewall, all free products that automatically update themselves. It is more or less install and forget.

I also have enabled the Security features of Windows XP, dont use Internet Explorer for anything other than sites that idiots have coded not to work with other browsers, and then only when I HAVE to. All of these are simple processes that can be executed in less than an hour of download, installation and configuration time.

More needs to be done to prosecute the people who create and distribute this software. But I am also of the mind that Computer Manufacturers and Microsoft need to do a better job of safeguarding systems OUT OF THE BOX, and that people who turn this protection off should be prosecuted as well, especially those who's machines are turned into SPAM spewing Zombies, that infect others machines.

ISP's also need to step up and monitor more closely what is going on on their networks. The Technology exist today to identify Robot machines and shut down their outgoing connection, why isn't this being done?

Grupo Utopia is in a competitive bid situation for a MAJOR project in Guatemala. The project is the kind I am well known for implementing, and will not only be a major client for us, but a major feather in our cap. I believe strongly in the power of prayer, especially when it comes from many people with no direct interest in the results. On Thursday and Friday of last week, the potential client started reference checking on us. I know because several references called to inform me that the call had went well.
If you are so inclined, please pray for our success in this matter. If you are not a believer, just wish us luck and send some good Karma this way. I would appreciate it.

In other news, I have convinced the owner of the second largest newspaper in Costa Rica to start a blog on Business in Central America, a very appropriate time with the passage of CAFTA. Grupo Utopia and I will be consulting for him to help launch the blog, it will be online in a week or so. I hope you will add the blog to your blog roll and help him get some momentum!

From Publish Online:

Opinion: There are different theories about why Microsoft is not implementing W3C standards, but the sad truth is that Web developers have to build sites with IE in mind. Microsoft is about to release IE 7.0, and if you've been hoping that this new release would solve your development problems, prepare to be disappointed.

Besides the obvious issues with an X.0 release of anything, word has it that the new browser won't fully support CSS2 standards.

So what else is new?

Since the beginning, those of us who make Web sites for a living have had to contend with various implementations of Web "standards." We've coded and canoodled and hacked and browser-detected in order to get our pages to render correctly in the plethora of browsers our users came to us with.

When Microsoft pretty much won the Browser War and Netscape faded into relative obscurity, it seemed that at least if we didn't have the best browser to deal with at least we had pretty much one browser to deal with.
Then along came Firefox (and Opera, to be fair), and all of a sudden we were back in the trenches again. To everyone's surprise it turned out that Firefox was a pretty nifty browser that adhered to the open standards and worked really, really well. Subsequently it caught on like wildfire, and Microsoft began to see their market share get eaten away again.

And now here comes IE 7.0, and we're again going to be faced with a dilemma. Considering Microsoft's overwhelming share of the market (and the fact that their browser is integrated into everything that goes on inside Windows), we're going to have to continue to deal with the limitations of a substandard browser. I use the word "substandard" advisedly, because IE7.0 is coming in below the standard that the WC3 has put forth.

This is just another example of Microsoft trying to dictate standards to the rest of the world, most of the time to their advantage. Do yourself a favor, keep using Firefox!

My readers know how I love my toys. Here in Costa Rica, SMS (Short Messaging Service over GSM Cellular), is one of the most popular forms of business and personal communications. I probably send 50 SMS messages a day, even more than the huge amount of emails I send and receive.

The other day I installed the latest version of Motorola's Phone Tools, a Desktop Application that gives you access to the full functionality of your cell phone via cable or Bluetooth connection. I use the program during the day to send and receive SMS messages just like email. It rocks to be able to do this using my PC keyboard instead of the crap text input of my Motorola V80.

The image above is the application running on my desktop with the inbox open.

From Politburo Diktat:

This July is the 60th anniversary of the publication, in The Atlantic, of Dr. Vannevar Bush's hugely influential article, "As We May Think."

As World War II was drawing to a close, Dr. Bush laid out an agenda for, and made some predictions about, the new disciplines of computing and information management that, in hindsight, look almost prophetic.

Among other things, he predicted in 1945! a system of managing information, the "memex," (presumably for "memory extender,") which sounds a hell of a lot like a personal computer running a standard set of productivity applications and a Web browser.

This guy "got it." Some people still don't. We are a technology driven society, and the PC as we know it today will look like a typewritter in comparrison, just a few years from now. Read the whole article.

Another Grupo Utopia Spectacular!
We are planning a major Mobility Event in September of this year with HP.

The event will focus on mobile solutions based on HP iPaqs, Tablet PC's, Notebooks and other mobile Technology. We are also planning on including vendors with business oriented Wifi and GPRS Cellular connectivity solutions.

Event Theme: "Mobility Everywhere!"
The mobility everywhere event is being organized to promote mobile applications and technology across a broad spectrum of industries and Professions.

Purpose of Event
To provide Companies and end users with practical solutions and applications based on mobile technology and applications. The focus is on handheld, tablet and Laptop Computing Technology by HP, and software applications focused on specific vertical markets.

It should be another exciting event!

If you are a solutions vendor or integrator and are interested in promoting your product in front of decision makers from one of the most technologically savy countries in Latin America, or if you are a business person in Costa Rica and interested in how you can use wireless and mobile technology to advance your business strategy, you can contact us here, for more info.

I have to admit that when we first established a relationship with HP and I gave up my ties to Palm, I was at first a bit skeptical about the Windows Mobile platform.

I took one look at the cluttered screen of my HP iPaq 2415 and just knew I was in for problems. When I found out that the unit did not ship with an SMS messaging application. I was also used to using some powerful agenda enhancement programs on my Palm and there were no PPC versions of the software.

My first task was to find suitable applications to enhance the power of the PPC, and I found an excellent Calendar/Agenda program in WebIS's Pocket Informant.

Pocket Informant gave me the power and flexibility of an integrated Agenda and Address book. Through WebIS, I also found their outstanding email application, WebIS Mail.

The mail application integrates with Pocket Informant, allowing me to keep a running log of emails, and to associate them with contacts and activities. I use the Agenda function to plan my day, set tasks, and record project information for billable clients of Grupo Utopia.

Pocket Informant also allows me to send SMS (Short messages) to others on the local cellular network using my installed SMS package. This is a great way to do "burst communications," with clients and Utopia Team members. I have discovered that this form of communication is much more effective for me as a time saver, and that it allows me to keep a running record of such communications. It took me a while, but I found a great application for SMS for the Pocket PC. It is called SMS Manager, and it functions very similar to email.

I still miss the simplicity of Palm's built in SMS application, but SMS Manager has a power and flexibility that I have come to appreciate.

There are still things I miss from the Palm side. In particular I liked Documents to Go, and its ability to retain formating on word and Excel documents, something that surprisingly, Microsoft has failed to do up until now on the Pocket PC platform.

The other issue with the Pocket PC is memory management, (It is Windows after all!) And though my device comes with an equal amount of memory to my previous Palm Tungsten 3, the Pocket PC's memory management is nowhere near as efficient. There are a slew of utilities on the Palm side, that allow you to load programs onto SD Cards for example, saving your precious internal memory.

While the there are many programs that will load to SD and compact flash cards, they can be wonky when you do so. I have discovered a couple of Great applications to help with the memory management issue. One in particular, Battery Pack Pro, is superb, giving the Pocket PC user fantastic control over memory management and configuration.

After two months of using the Pocket PC, I have pretty much forgotten my Palm and feel comfortable with performing 99% of the tasks I formally performed on the Tungsten. In some cases, even more efficiently.

I will say it again, "DELL Sucks!"

From Gillmor:

Intel has announced a new chip (Mercury News) that can send and receive signals from a variety of wireless devices -- "part of the quest to create phones that could roam across different types of networks in any part of the world."

There will be a big market for this kind of thing (and Intel's far
from alone in this arena), becuase of all the different mobile
standards. My GSM phone only works in some places, inside and outside the U.S.; I'd like it to work wherever I go.

What will be interesting is watching the reaction to this kind of technology by the big mobile carriers. There is NO reason that with the technology we have today, that one cant make a wireless communication connection almost anywhere in the world, and have it be reliable and reasonably cheap. Wifi and WiMax ammong others are showing the way. Hmmmm, wonder how ICE will react to this kind of technology down the road.

Smart move...

Another Dumb Move!

Okay, I just had a conversation with my buddy Ron, who is not only the coolest lawyer I know, but also one of the most wired in people I know in Silicon Valley. Ron works as a Top Executive at one of Silicon Valley's top companies, is a Mac person, and one of the few people I know who has as many tech toys as I do!
Anyway, the point is that the conversation took place from Costa Rica to Silicon Valley over Skype using my HP iPaq 2410 and Skype for the Pocket PC!

The voice clarity on the device was nothing less than stunning. 15 minutes latter I get a local call from a client, calling from San Jose, just 10 miles away... The quality sucked! Hehe.. Technology, gotta love it!

Another reason for us Techies to be a bit paranoid these days...

Bluetooth crack gets serious
Mobiles can be taken over even with security features on.

By Matthew Broersma, Techworld

Two security researchers say they have discovered a technique for taking control of Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones, even when the handsets have security features switched on.

The technique is a practical implementation of a technique described by Ollie Whitehouse of security firm @Stake last year, which allows an attacker with specialised eqiupment to connect to a Bluetooth handset without authorisation. Once the connection is established, the attacker could make calls on the target's handset, siphon off data or listen in on data transfers between the device and, for example, a PC. Some security firms recommend financial traders avoid Bluetooth handsets because of the potential attack.

The original method required an attacker to listen in on the initial connection procedure between two Bluetooth devices - called "pairing" - which occurs only rarely. The new attack however allows an attacker to force two devices to repeat the pairing procedure, allowing the attacker to listen in and determine the identification code (PIN) used to protect the connection.

Get one of these...
And read this website. There is no reason not to be able to jack in, where ever you are. Hehe... A Tri Band GSM Phone, with Bluetooth, Wifi and Windows Mobile, now that is sexy.

With Jwire's wireless guides, you will always be on top of where the hot spots are for wireless. Why pay for that phone call when you can use Skype for Pocket PC, to make calls over Voice over IP!

You know I am really enjoying writing about Techie Stuff again. I have long had an AOL Messenger Account, and I got an email tonight from AIM inviting me to use their new AIM Mail service, which is linked tightly with the Instant Messenger client. Microsoft did this with Hotmail, and Yahoo has had it for a while to some degree,but they never really impressed me all that much.

The new AIM Mail Service is pretty slick. What they have pretty much done is give you the AOL Mail Service in a webmail client, along with 2 Gigs of storage space.

I have to admit, I am pretty damned impressed. They have one upped Google mail in some respects, especially since Google does not "yet," have a chat client. (Something I expect they will fix pretty quickly in the face of this challenge).

The service is free, AOL Idiot Proof in it's implementation, and suppossedly has pretty good Spam protection. The last thing I needed was another email account, but I think I will give this one a good workout. I like the whole integration with messenger thing.

I also like the clean and functional layout of the mail window, the one button spam reporting and the ease of use.

I could prove to be a nice option to use with the small group of people I normally chat with. So if are so inclined, go to AOL's web site and sign up for an Instant Messenger account, the email part is then semi automatic after that. Then hit me up on AIM Messenger. My User name is davidsandersonsj@aim.com.

Well, it has happened...

Apple got the world's attention on Monday, saying it will move to Intel processors.

Apple Computer Inc. will begin moving its systems to Intel Corp. processors by June 2006 and will finish the transition by June 2007, Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, said in a keynote address at the company's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco.

I guess the best we can hope for is to see some interesting and less expensive Macs coming out of this. My prediction, you will soon see an Apple Branded Tablet/PDA type product running an intel ARM processor.

With idiots who open virus packages serving as front line collaborators with the enemy:

Anti-virus researchers are sounding the alert for a massive, well-coordinated hacker attack using three different Trojans to hijack PCs and create botnets-for-hire.

The three-pronged attack is being described as "unprecedented" because of the way the Trojans communicate with each other to infect a machine, disable anti-virus software and leave a back door open for future malicious use.

"This is so slick, it's scary," said Roger Thompson, director of malicious content research at Computer Associates International Inc. "It clearly points to a very well-organized group either replenishing existing botnets or creating new ones."

In my opinion, anyone stupid enough to get a virus or trojan these days should have their computer taken away from them. With Free Anti Virus and Anti Spyware solutions readilly available, there is simply NO excuse.

Some of you guys are aware that I recently made the move from Palm to Pocket PC, specifically the HP iPaq HX-2410.

I have been playing arround with it since I left for Monteverde a few weeks ago. For the most part I have been very satisfied with it, but there was one killer application that was missing... SMS Messaging using bluetooth and my mobile phone.

SMS is a critical application here in Costa Rica. High per minute charges on cellular, poor GPRS connectivity for mobile internet, and convienance, make SMS a prefered mode of business communication. My PalmOne T3 had a fine SMS application built in to the OS, but the Pocket PC did not.

Even finding an application that was not designed for the Smart Phone version of Mobile Windows, proved quite a challenge. Today I found SMS Manager, a robust SMS application for the Mobile Windows platform, that meets all my needs.

I was browsing Microsoft's Windows Mobile Page and came across this article.

Imagine the last networking event you attended. Now imagine enjoying it.

Networking is not rocket science. It is a skill you can learn. Darcy Rezac, managing director of the Vancouver Board of Trade since 1986, has shaken hands with more heads of state, captains of industry, and folks like us than you and I probably ever will.

Rezac draws on the small world phenomena work of Cornell mathematicians Duncan Watts and Steve Strogataz. Rezac contends, "We're all connected to each other by as few as six handshakes." But without an effective networking strategy and skill set, as Rezac says, "It's just a whole lot of hand shaking going on."

In his book The The Frog and Prince: Secrets of Positive Networking to Change Your Life*, Rezac uses the classic fable to delve into the art and science of networking. Rezac says that when wannabe networkers working a room—or a pond—focus on "What can these people do for me?" they're asking the wrong question.

The right question is, "How can I be useful to these people?" According to Rezac, the difference between glad-handing and successful networking is that the power goes both ways. Discover what you can do for someone else without expectation of return. Networking is about good things going both ways. It's also about maintaining a connection.

This is where your Windows Mobile-based device comes in. In the six degrees metaphor, not all connections are equal. Only a few people are pivot points and, according to Rezac, you want to be one of those. You can use your mobile device to keep notes on the people you already know, or add more to expand your network easily. Jotting or recording a few notes on your Smartphone or Pocket PC is much more discrete than opening your laptop or pulling out a tattered notepad.

As you meet people, make a few quick notes in your Pocket PC, or if you have a Smartphone, add names and phone numbers to your contacts. Later, when you sync your device to your desktop computer, you can type up more extensive notes or add voice notes from your Smartphone.

To view the notes you've added to your contacts on your Smartphone, open a contact name. Scroll to the bottom of the entry and select View Notes. You can also make voice notes to refer to later. Categorize your contacts into buckets, such as "Sales" or "Real Estate" as well as the usual Business or Personal categories. That way you'll be able to filter by category to find relevant information quickly.

Here are a few more tips on how to improve yoru networking skills while at a meeting or event:


While you're there
Instead of watching for the right moment in the conversation to thrust your business card at your new friend, listen for an opportunity to share a contact that can help her with something she needs. Maybe she mentions she's always wanted to go on a fly-fishing vacation. You just happened to have met someone who talked a lot about the best fly-fishing vacation he ever took. He found the best places to go, and where to stay. You, being organized and having recorded his name in your Smartphone, can find his name quickly by filtering your contacts on Vacations. You can also call him to confirm his willingness to share the information.

I found it very interesting, because recently I was called an enabler by a good friend of mine BECAUSE I practice this very method of networking. It really doesn't matter whether you carry around the latest piece of Tech or not, the idea of helping others to achieve their goals as part of a networking strategy very much works.

One of my Greatest Mentors, the legendary Computer Industry Executive, John Hlavic once told me... "You can get whatever you want out of life... As long as you are willing to help others get what they want." I have lived by that rule for 15 years, and still find it helping me even today.

This thing is a MONSTER!

wireless features

* Bluetooth® 1.1 wireless
* Wi-Fi® 802.11b wireless

processor

* Intel® 416MHz XScale™ processor

memory

* 4GB hard drive (3.85GB accessible to user)
* 16MB ROM

battery

* Rechargeable Lithium Ion

operating system

* Palm OS® 5.4 (Garnet)

size

* 4.76h x 2.87w x 0.74t in.
* 121h x 73w x 19t mm.

weight

* 6.8 oz. / 190 grams

display

* 320x480 Transflective TFT color touchscreen
* 16 bit color / 65,000+ colors
* portrait and landscape orientation

expansion

* Supports SD, SDIO and MultiMediaCards via built-in expansion card slot
* Supports peripherals (sold separately) via the multi-connector (see #12 above)

audio

* Stereo audio headset compatible via 3.5mm stereo audio jack - headset sold separately.

And I gave up my relationship with Palm to form an alliance with HP a while back. Man, I want one of these!

That a new Treo is in the works too?

From Palm Infocenter

palmOne has announced today the creation of a new category of mobile-computing products - the mobile manager. The first product in this category is expected to be announced later this month. The new line is targeted towards a growing number of people that want access to greater volumes of digital business, personal, entertainment and online content.

The introduction of a new category reflects usage patterns palmOne has tracked over time, especially among customers for its premium products. Customers of palmOne's high-end Tungsten T3 handheld computer, for example, show a strong affinity for taking full advantage of the included DataViz Documents To Go software, which puts Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents at their fingertips. Customers also have asked palmOne to provide them with convenient ways to carry, file and manage rich digital content, such as music and video. While overlap exists, palmOne has identified three major customer segments and assigned three corresponding product lines to better serve them. They are as follows:

Mobile managers are designed for customers who are eager to take full advantage of the trend toward "digital everything" - from documents and email to music, images and video, as standalone files or in organized folders;

Handhelds attract customers whose first and foremost interest is in basic organization tools, such as calendar and contacts. These customers often incorporate additional applications and add music and images to their handhelds, but their central purchase driver is organization. palmOne’s Zire branded handheld computers serve consumers, and Tungsten branded handhelds serve mobile professionals in this customer set; and Smartphones attract customers whose primary interest is in a single converged device that is an outstanding phone that also delivers excellent email access and organization. The Treo smartphone from palmOne serves this customer set.

Anyone want to bet that before the end of the year there will be a new PalmOne smart phone that will have a bigger screen, faster processor and have gigs of memory to carry arround all those MP3s (ahem... business files)

That Google is getting creepy with all of its expansion?

Blackberry Killer?

"PalmOne plans to announce later this month its first hard-drive-based product line, broadening its device portfolio and leading another trend in the handheld market.

The No. 1 handheld maker will introduce LifeDrive Mobile Manager on May 18, according to sources familiar with the company's plans. The $499 device will come with a 4GB Hitachi Microdrive and two flavors of wireless networking--Bluetooth and 802.11b Wi-Fi."

ZDNet News

If true, and if Palm can do this without the usual bugs that have been showing up in first generation new products... This may be the product that puts Palm back firmly in the lead in the PDA Market Again.