Daily Quote 2 - Custom Quote Databases

Palm Daily Quote, updated yesterday to Version 2 by Tamoggemon Software, has a lot of neat features, but my favourite is: it allows you to use custom quote databases. This means you have several different options if you decide you want to replace the built-in quote database.

Download a Custom Quote Database
By far the easiest and most versatile option is, I think, to simply download a new quote database. Tamoggemon Software has given Daily Quote a page dedicated to additional quote databases, created and submitted by users of Daily Quote. You can even create your own custom quote database (more on this option below). If you do create your own custom quote database, I would encourage you to share it with others. In fact, one of the things I find most interesting about the Daily Quote user submitted databases page is that 3 of the 4 custom databases currently available were submitted by members of the Canuck-PDA community! Here’s a list of the currently available custom quote databases on the Palm Daily Quote site:

Daily Quote User Submitted Quote Databases

File Name	Contents	Developer
Contest	57 random but interesting quotes	Geoff Luk
DaiQ_Bible01	50+ Popular Bible quotes	Fred Coad
DaiQ_FredPC01	A 'best of' database	Fred Coad
KDP Quotes	My 'very best' quotes	Kraig D Pritts

I have not found any other locations that provide custom quote databases for Daily Quote, but I’m sure they must exist, even if they only provide one persons custom quote databases. Let us know if you know of any.

Create Your Own Custom Quote Database.
One of the really nice things about all the Tamoggemon Software products is that they include a 14 day free trial. Therefore you don’t even have to own Daily Quote to be able to create your own custom quote database. Simply use the trial version. This lets you sample the full range of features included in Daily Quote, including using your own quote database for 14 days. In fact, I used the trial version to create both of the quote databases available above.

UPDATE: "daver" has created a thread on our Discussions Forums, about custom Daily Quote databases. Check it out here!

Tamoggemon Software releases Daily Quote 2

Tamoggemon proudly announces the release of the latest update to its Palm OS quote solution.
Daily Quote is the most flexible quote program for Palm OS! It supports a flexible quote database system that allows quote downloads off the internet or the creation of quote databases on the handheld. Quotes can be displayed at each start-up, the first start-up each day, or once each hour!

Daily Quote 2 improves the following aspects of the product:

2DAY SUPPORT
The currently-active quote database's quotes can be displayed in ShSh's 2day via a plugin file. Plugins for further applications are currently being developed and will be released soon.

HiRES+ SUPPORT
Daily Quote's editing UI now supports HiRES+ to reduce scrolling!

IMPROVED RELIABILITY
DailyQuote v1 contained a bug which dead-locked the quote display on some handhelds. Version 2 completely resolves this issue!

A free 14 day trial can be downloaded from www.palmdailyquote.com, registration costs $9.95 at MobiHand’s. Registered customers get access to the update for free.

Palm Power in Canada/Treo 700p's WiFi Misadventures

First off, a story on TreoCentral claims that Palm has actually gained market share in Canada. Eh? And mostly from smartphone sales? Details are somewhat there, but the sources are foggy at best. Not like I'm a hotshot businessman who has the opportunity to meet lots of clients/fellow businesspeeps and their smartphones, but I am a fairly involved business student and the only thing that I ever see people using Downtown are old BlackBerry 7290s and the occasional Pearl. Click on over to decide for yourself.

EDIT: Mike Overbo, the author of the story over at TreoCentral contacted me and clarified the source of the info for all of us. It's Environics PR, Palm's Canadian public relations firm! They passed on the results of a study by Canalys, a Canadian IT consulting and marketing analysis firm.

---

In other news, Geoff and I met up to test out DialByPhoto and those beta Enfora WiFi Sled drivers that have been poking around to see if we can get a Treo 700p (his) to work with it. The review for DialByPhoto will be up soon, but in the meantime, check out what happened with the Enfora sled and let us know your thoughts in the forum!

Palm Releases Daylight Saving Time Updates

After months of complete silence on the topic, Palm has released Daylight Saving Time updates for those devices that "know" about Daylight Saving Time.

New Daylight Saving Time Changes
Beginning this year (2007) Daylight Saving Time (DST) for most of the U.S. and all of Canada, starts on the second Sunday in March (11 March 2007), and changes back to standard time on the first Sunday in November (4 November 2007). These dates are NEW and a change from the current start/end date that is built into some Palm devices.

Palm devices, both smartphones and handhelds, need to be updated so that they reflect the correct time when the new DST changes take effect. Without the Daylight Saving Time Updates, calendar events and email messages will indicate an hour off the actual time in locations that observe DST.

Things get really interesting if your Palm knows about the new dates, but your OS or application doesn't. For your information, the only two Microsoft OS's with the proper Daylight Saving Time corrections are Windows XP Service Pack 2, and Windows Vista. None of the other versions know of the DST change, nor will Microsoft be making a fix available.

Affected Palm devices: (every Palm that knows about DST)

Palm OS
* Treo 700p
* Treo 680, 650, 600
* Treo 300, 270
* LifeDrive
* Tungsten T5,T3, T2
* Tungsten C, E2, E, W
* Zire 72, 31, 21
* TX, Z22

Windows Mobile
* Treo 750
* Treo 700w
* Treo 700wx

Palm has full instructions and download links available here.

Java creator named to Order of Canada

CBC News - Technology and Science section has a good article on the Order of Canada awards. Of particular interest to Canuck-PDA readers is that James Gosling, the man credited with inventing the Java programming language commonly used on the World Wide Web has been appointed to the Order of Canada.

James Gosling, a vice-president of Sun Microsystems Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., has been named an officer of the Order of Canada, the office of the Governor General announced on Monday.

Gosling was responsible for the original design of the Java programming language and implemented the original compiler for the so-called Java virtual machine. Java programs are compiled or converted into machine code by a program called a compiler when they run.

[snip]

The Order of Canada recognizes outstanding lifetime achievement and contributions to society and the country by Canadians from all walks of life.

You can read the full CBC News article here.

Astraware Announces Support for Mobile Linux and Joins ACCESS Connect Ecosystem Global Partner Program

THE MIDLANDS, UK - February 19th, 2007 - Astraware is excited to announce their first steps toward support of an additional mobile platform for their range of PDA and Smartphone games. The company has been working on updates to its own core technology library to enable its games to run on Linux® based mobile platforms, and the first fruits of this labor, running under an early SDK and hardware, have recently been demonstrated by ACCESS Co, Ltd at 3GSM in Barcelona, Spain.

Astraware also announced it has joined the ACCESS Connect Ecosystem (ACE) Global Partner Program as a charter member. ACCESS’ recently announced ACE partner program is designed to create an ecosystem of world-class partners that will unleash the potential of the digital life generation by driving development and adoption of new mobile and converged technologies and solutions.

"Extending our platform support is a key part of our strategy." said Howard Tomlinson, CEO of Astraware. "We see mobile Linux as being an extremely important part of the industry over the coming year, and we're aiming Astraware to be the games provider of choice for this platform. As a charter member of the ACE program, we're taking a lead in the growth of the mobile Linux community."

"We are delighted to be able to continue our long-standing partnership with Astraware," said Larry Berkin, Senior Director, Developer Ecosystem & Technology Acquisition for ACCESS. "Astraware's games are incredibly popular and are an excellent addition to any mobile device. We are pleased that they have been able to assist us in these early stages of the platform development, so that we are confident a range of great quality software will be ready when the platform launches. We are also pleased to welcome them as charter members of the ACCESS Connect Ecosystem global partner program."

"Astraware's CTL system and cross-platform game development methodology allows us to target a wide range of mobile device platforms," said David Oakley, CTO of Astraware. "We are very excited to be working with ACCESS to extend our technology on to the ALP platform. ALP provides a rich set of functionality to third-party developers such as ourselves enabling us to deliver a compelling experience to consumers."

Astraware is continuing to develop its core technologies to function with the various flavors of Linux for mobile devices and intends to have a range of games fully compatible when device manufacturers are ready to launch. These will include Astraware Sudoku, Astraware Solitaire and other titles from the company's own IP alongside key titles from its range of licensors.

Space Invaders on a whole new level!

Do you remember the good old days when you would put your dime into the big, black, electronic machine, and then MIDI music would play for a second or two, and finally the little green aliens would appear with your space ship at the bottom? I sure do. It's been a while since I've seen a real Space Invaders arcade machine - I've seen an Asteroids machine and my friend's father owns a PacMan machine.

Well, the arcades of the 70's and 80's are clearly the past. Now, we have next generation consoles like the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and the Nintendo Wii. Sure, they have great games. But other than the Wii, can they make you distort your body, turning you into a human pretzel just to blast away some alien scum?

They can't, but your Treo can!!!

Yes, that's right, there's a new game for Treos on the rise called Arcade Reality. Utilising a type of technology called "augmented reality", this game takes in live camera feed from your Treo's camera and follows the movements, creating virtual reality-esque type motion.

Granted, this is no Gears of War or Air Force grade flight simulator, but it's certainly a step up in terms of games for the Palm.

It isn't available yet, but in time it will be. For now, you'll have feast your eyes on this demo:



More info about Arcade Reality here: http://toyspring.com/arcade/