Dmitry's latest creation: DynaClock

DynaClock is Dmitry' latest piece of software. It dynamically clocks the processor of you device so that it's overclocked for things like games and underclocked for less intense things like memo. This saves battery power immensly. Give it a try.

More info can be found at http://www.1src.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114728&page=1&pp=15

And you can download it for yourself at http://www.palmpowerups.com/file/DynaClock.zip

Review: NoviiRemote Deluxe

In our current Palm world, there seems little reason to keep including an infrared port. People rarely use it for beaming and almost never use if for internet access. Yet they continue to be included in the "palm" design . However, there on one function that that makes the infrared a vital component, a universal remote control. NoviiRemote Deluxe is one such program and is available from NoviiMedia at the price of $34.99. Although that price may seem a bit high, this program is truely worth it. And if you're will to settle with less features, NoviiRemote Classic is also available for the price of $24.99. I've been using NoviiRemote ever since I had my Zire 71, and I am so glad that my new TX is full supported. In fact, NoviiRemote Deluxe supports practically every Palm out there!

Installation was a bit more complicated than it should be. They recommend you install the main application, 2 skin files, the IR database, and the profile files, however if you handheld is strapped for memory, you can just install the main application and 2 skin files to the ram and install the IR database to the PALM/Launcher folder on your exansion card. I had a TX, and had plenty of memory available, so I decided to do a full installation (which insidentally took up 2.1MB)

Setup unfortunately took longer than expected, mainly because my TV, VCR, DVD, and computer weren't in the IR database included. Luckily enough, NoviiRemote includes a very useful learning feature, essentially making this program compatible with any device with a remote control (I even got it to work with my Windows Media Center PC). During the "learning" process of adding a new device is quite simple and easy to do. You just need to put you Palm in front of your device's existing remote control. Then all that's left is to press the button you want to map on you Palm, and press the corresponding button on the remote.

Once you've added your devices, you're able to get into the serious configurations. I absolutely LOVE the amount of customization involved in this program! It might seem confusing as first, but as you get deeper into the program, you'll see it's actually much more simple than it seems. You get to add and remove buttons and move the tabs and buttons wherever you want. I particularily like that you can use symbols or text as button labels. You can even add macros, which are basically a sequence of buttons or actions to be carried out on macro execution.

The graphics style of NoviiRemote Deluxe really is an experience in itself. It has the classic Novii feel to it, with great lively colour. The buttons look great it makes the program a joy to use. I can believe how great the portait/landscape support is. In portrait on my Palm TX, the buttons are spaced enough that anyone I know can just use their figures to press the buttons, like a regular remote.

Once everything's set up and configured to your liking, it's simple matter of pressing the buttons. It takes slightly longer to transmit the signal to my TV than the standard remote, but that's something I can live with, especially considering it replaces all 4 of my existing remotes.

While the setup can take a while, the resulting virtual remote is well worth it and overall amazing. NoviiRemote Deluxe easily defeats the competition and makes the most out of the infrared port that has become a lost feature to so many in the PalmOS community.

Funtionality: 9/10
Interface: 9/10
Usability: 7/10

eWeeks Top 25 In 25 Years Places Palm Pilot 15th

eWEEK Labs picks the Palm Pilot as number 15 out of the Top 25 Products of the Last 25 Years

From eWeek.com:

"With an almost Zen-like minimalism of both software and hardware complexity, The Palm Pilot was no more than users needed - and exactly what many wanted"

eWeek.com Article

Hard at Work or Hardly Working?

Well, to be perfectly honest, with a Tungsten T3, you can never know.

Although this Palm PDA is almost four years old, it still holds up as a very powerful productivity booster and a great entertainment device. Who says you need the newest and bestest devices out there? In the eyes of this university student, a T3 still cuts it. Read on to see how I've used the T3 in my day-to-day life!

Basic Organizer
Simple is beautiful. The built-in organizer functions are more than enough for a busy student, with your basic scribble board (Note Pad), basic text dump (Memos), to-dos (Tasks), address book (Contacts), and by far the most important, the almighty Calendar. And guess what? Aside from minor differences, the T3 has the same revised PIMs that you'll find in the newer Palms.

Colour-coding has helped me more than once when trying to find who I'm supposed to be meeting, where I'm supposed to be, and random notes associated with those events in my Calendar. While I was in Hong Kong for a trip I got to use a Bluetooth phone which let me dial contacts directly from my T3. Listing what you have to do (and watching the list grow and never shrink) is essential for any student, and random guitar tabs, song lyrics, and small notes are thrown into Memos. Note Pad is so versatile, as not only can you draw really bad graphs from class in there, you can also play tic-tac-toe with your younger siblings...and lose.

But we all knew about the PIM functions already, eh?

Pretending to Work
Another beautiful thing about the T3 is that it's discontinued. Wait, isn't that a bad thing? Not really, especially when you can pick up compatible accessories for really, really, REALLY low prices. Crucial for every starving student.

Take my Palm Ultra-Thin Keyboard. I got mine new for $14.95. That's in Canadian dollars, and that's a lot lower than a new Palm Universal Keyboard, which usually retails close to the C$100 mark. Yeah, I got one of those too, but used and even then at $30!

The Ultra-Thin is pretty slick. Amazingly light and compact, plus it has a very spiffy opening sequence. Only downside is that it uses the T3's battery and doesn't allow you to charge it while using it. Oh well. At least it looks sweet. Combined with Documents-To-Go, this PDA is one mean note-taking machine!

Multi-Multi-Media
The T3 is powered by a PXA255 400 Mhz processor, and with the relatively economic Palm OS, that translates to lots and LOTS of power. I overclocked mine with warpSpeed (and with that, also eliminating the damn annoying screen whine) to 472 or so Mhz, and I watch videos, play Nintendo and Super Nintendo games, and listen to lots of music.

Oh yeah, did I mention the screen is actually larger than an iPod Video's?

Connected...for About an Hour
Let's talk connectivity. The T3 has Bluetooth and optional WiFi. Problem is, the folks at Palm sacrificed battery life for a very very slim handheld. Solution? Get a battery adapter and some batteries, then you can go for ever on the thing!

I have free wireless all over my university campus, so it makes it easy for me to check email every once in a while. Plucker is a great offline reader too, and it keeps me connected with news and RSS feeds that I sync from my laptop.

Outclassed and Outgunned, but Still Good Enough
I think most students will find the T3 more than enough in terms of an all-in-one device. It's sleek, has that slider that I absolutely love (makes it easy to hide the PDA when wearing a suit!), and is one of the few PDAs with a speaker at the front. Go figure why not many others do. There are also countless undocumented ways to upgrade the T3's built-in software, so that you can be on par with the latest Palms as well. It's stable, versatile, and best of all, cheap. US$150 can fetch you a decent machine, and I tell you, it's worth every penny of that!

That being said, some people will find that they may need an even more "all-in-one" device. Take me for example. My beloved T3 is being passed down to my brother, and my new Treo 650 just arrived last week. How does it stack up against the T3? What's with the antenna? Why can Jack Bauer kill terrorists with his and I can't?

Stay tuned for more on the Treo!

Palm's license to PalmOS expires December 2, 2006

From Palm's 10-K filling on the 28 June 2006

Termination of the Palm OS license, an adverse change in our relationship with PalmSource or Access, failure by PalmSource and Access to supply a competitive platform, retain employees or otherwise remain viable, or an unfavorable outcome in any material lawsuit involving the Palm OS, could harm our business. Additionally, we are contractually obligated to make a minimum annual payment to PalmSource for the contract year ending December 2, 2006, regardless of the volume of devices we sell containing the Palm OS.

Contemporaneously with the license agreement, we entered into a co-development agreement with PalmSource to develop a next-generation Palm OS for use in future Palm products. PalmSource did not timely meet certain of the milestones under the co-development agreement, relieving us of our obligation to make minimum royalty payments under the license agreement after calendar year 2006. We are presently in negotiations with PalmSource to expand our development and distribution rights to the current version of the Palm OS. If we are unable to successfully conclude these negotiations, it may adversely affect our ability to develop and distribute new products based on a next-generation version of the Palm OS. Regardless, we will continue to release new products based on the current version of the Palm OS.

Canuck Software Releases 4 New Programs!

Canuck Software has released 4 new programs. The first, SBG, generates beeps at whatever frequency you choose, for however long you choose. The second, PowerBtn, allows you to remap any of your four main hard buttons to act as a new power button. The third, Life As I See It, is a journaling program with password protection. Last and my personal favourite, BlackBorder, which lets LifeDrive and Palm TX users to change that 2-pixel white border into a black border.

Review: Binary Clock for Palm OS

Created by Tamoggemon Software, the authors of AutoSync and LedManager, Binary Clock for Palm OS is a completely different and unique product. According to the website: "Binary Clock is the first kind of clock that is radically different from all clocks before it; it combines beauty, style, time and simplicity in the palm of your hand. Binary Clock for Palm OS displays the time in binary encoding, a format that is extremely easy to grasp and looks exotically beautiful nevertheless! Ditch that old analog or digital clock, and enter the fascinating world of binary time!" and they certainly are correct about it being a "radically different clock". In a nutshell, Binary Clock displays the traditional sexagesimal time in a binary format. To better understand this statement, you will probably want to refer to the definitions I have included at the end of this review.

Configuration Heaven
Aside from it's unusual display format, Binary Clock has other features which make it unique. The display is highly configurable. You can adjust the "display geometry and display colors to make Binary Clock for Palm OS look like your dream clock - this clock adapts to your style instead of you having to adapt to its own!" Which means you can change the default 'dot' style and colour from plain rectangles to "have a red bubble clock, a blue boxy clock or a golden on black point one, round bubbles like in a lava lamp boxes like on a computer screen, lines like on an old oscilloscope - heck, you can even emulate an old terminal monitor's display! A stylus tap, and your Binary Clock changes color and appearance - from now on, your clock can finally look like your dress!"

I'm not sure who would want a clock that matches their dress (or their suit for that matter) but regardless, it is highly configurable, utilizing a 5 slider control panel to allow you to control the dots 'Rim' on all four sides (top, bottom, left and right) and the overall 'Roundness'. This set of controls really does seem to give you endless control over the shape of the dots. Additionally, you can set the colour of the dots, the background, the text overlay and it's background.

Text Overlay
Speaking of the text overlay: "rest assured - there is no need to learn Binary to read Binary Clock for Palm OS! Binary Clock's award winning text overlay system can display a text banner straight over the binary time - this way, you can easily read the time and date without needing to understand binary." Personally, whether you understand binary or not (I do, and have for more than 30 years) is not the question. The binary display is so different from a normal clock display that even someone who is completely conversant with binary has to pause a few seconds to 'read' the display. That is the beauty of the text overlay, the ability to read the time at a glance without having to read the binary number display.

Text Overlay - Fonts
Binary Clock includes FontBucket to allow you to change the text overlay display font, along with five fonts (Astron Box ( + Wonder), Batang, Comic, Garamond, and Times). Don't worry if you find these fonts limiting, there are "literally thousands of fonts are available all over the internet - that boring old Palm OS font is dead and gone!" I didn't find that any of the included fonts displayed exactly the way I wanted them to. However, because FontBucket is included, the fix for this is simple. I only have to browse through the TrueType fonts I own, and maybe search online, to find a font that I feel suits Binary Clock exactly. The text overlay system itself is a nifty addition to Binary Clock. You can configure it to show 'No Text', 'Plain' or 'Series 60'. While 'No Text' has no settings (obviously ), 'Plain' text lets you set the 'Display Format', 'Date Format', 'Time Format', 'Text Color', 'Font' and a toggle to 'Show Weekday'.

One of the few things you cannot change about the Text Overlay is where on the screen it is displayed. While it would have added interest to be able to choose the display location, it is certainly not a serious drawback and if you want variety in your display location, just select the 'Series 60' option. I didn't find that the 'Series 60' option was very well explained anywhere I could find. The solution to this is simple: Try It! A poor substitute for actually trying it is to say that it will cycle through a wide range of colour settings and display locations on a seemingly random basis. It's definitely a fun and visually interesting option.

Currently, there is no way to have the text overlay not hide part of the time display 'dots' (in a kind of banner effect). I wouldn't be surprised if this is a limitation of the graphics capability of the Palm OS. But it is a setting I tried to achieve by selecting the same colour for the text as I had already selected for the 'dots'. It didn't work. I simply received a warning message stating that the "Text and foreground colors are similar!/n This would impede program operation ->change abandoned".

Text Overlay - Data Options
The text overlay display formats available are numerous. For example, the 'Date Format' list includes ten (10) different options: 'MM/DD/YY', 'DD/MM/YY', 'DD.MM.YY', 'DD-MM-YY', 'YY.MM.DD', 'Month DD, YYYY', 'DD Month YYYY', 'DD.Month YYYY', 'YYYY.MM.DD', and 'YYYY Month DD'. While the 'Display Format' and 'Time Format' options are not quite as extensive, in combination they provide for a set of very versatile configuration options.

There is a good side and a bad side to having so many options. The good side is that virtually everyone will be able find a combination of options that pleases them. The bad side is that you can't please everyone. I seem to be one of the latter. Despite the large array of choices available, I didn't find the exact setting I was looking for (I wanted to use the 3 character abbreviation for the month). For the ultimate in configurability, I would like to see the text settings include the ability to select each item individually. But then again, I was able to find several different combinations of settings that I liked.

Alarm Clock
Binary Clock also features an alarm clock. "Binary Clock makes a great alarm clock to get you out of bed each morning!" As you would expect from an application this unique, even the alarm clock handles things a little differently. There are seven alarms, one for each day of the week, and each is customized individually. I found this to be quite different from the usual approach to alarms in other Palm programs. Each alarm (M T W T F S S) has it's own settings for alarm time, alarm service (on or off) and alarm sound (any system sound installed on your Palm). Because each alarm is dedicated to a specific week day, there is no way to set one alarm to sound on more than one day, or to set more than one alarm for a specific day. I don't think there is anything 'wrong' with this interface, it's just different from most others which allow you to choose an alarm time, and then select which day or days (such as Monday, or Monday to Friday, or all seven days) the alarm should be active on.

An interesting (to me) quirk of the alarm interface is the alarm time display. When you tap the current alarm time, the standard Palm time set interface pops up, which allowed me to select the alarm time in 24 hour time (for example 16:30). Selecting OK on this interface takes you back to the alarm clock page, but with the time displayed in 12 hour format (in this case as 4:30 pm) despite the fact that I have my Palm set to use 24 hour time format.

Hint Of The Day
Binary Clock includes a 'Hint Of The Day' popup screen that displays each time you start the application (until you uncheck the 'Show Again' option box). This is a great way to learn about many of the features unique to Binary Clock, just select "next" to work your way through all of the hints.

Menus
Currently, there is no way to change any settings in Binary Clock except through the menus. And the only way to get to the menus is to use the menu select icon from the Palm status bar. I automatically tried to tap the Text Overlay display to change its settings, or tap one of the 'dots' to change those settings, finally I tried to tap in the upper left corner to have the menu bar appear. None of those worked. I had to go outside the program to get the menu bar to appear. Does this hurt Binary Clock, I don't think so, it just wasn't the way I 'intuitively' thought I would be able to make changes. It's certainly no different than many other programs as well.

Summary
Binary Clock is a unique application that not only serves a useful purpose as a clock (with alarms), but it is also a great conversation starter. I've had many curious inquires about it because it's assigned a hard button, and I have developed the habit of showing it to people when ever they ask me what time it is! It's sure to bring a grin to my face as the look of bewilderment comes over theirs while they try to decipher the display. If you are looking for a functional but curiosity-generating program for your Palm OS PDA, you need look no farther. Binary Clock for Palm OS is it!

You can visit the Binary Clock for Palm OS website to learn more, or go straight to the Binary Clock Download page to get your own trial copy.


Funtionality: 9/10
Interface: 8/10
Usability: 9/10

Price: $7.49

NOTE:
Tamoggemon Software is run by Tam Hanna, who is also a primary author (there are currently nine contributors) of an always interesting blog called "TamsPalm-the Palm OS Blog" which seems to have quite a large following (including me). If you are at all interested in software development for the Palm OS, TamsPalm is a great place to start (though that is not actually it's focus).

Definitions
Courtesy of Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia

Binary clock
A binary clock is a clock which displays traditional sexagesimal time in a binary format. More precisely it shows each decimal digit of sexagecimal time as a binary value. Most binary clocks are digital, although analog varieties exist.
In a typical binary clock, each column represents a single decimal digit, a format known as binary-coded decimal (BCD). The bottom row in each column represents 1, with each row above representing higher powers of two, up to 8. To read each individual digit in the time, the user adds the values that each illuminated segment represents, then reads these from left to right. The first two columns represent the hour, the next two represent the minute, and the last two represent the second. Since zero digits are not illuminated, this clock is not very usable in the dark.

Sexagesimal
Base-sixty: a numeral system with sixty as the base.
Example: 11:59:59 (seconds and minutes are base 60 numbers)

Binary
Base-two: a numeral system with two as the base, represented using two symbols, typically 0 and 1