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I'm reasonably sure these guys have thought of at least that. I'm still not sure it's a useful idea, but I doubt that particular objection will hold.

I bought a PalmOS upgrade pack (about 6 years ago, I think). I'm reasonably sure this produced an upgrade to v 4.0 or 4.1; I remember thinking that I was fortunate to escape Graffiti 2 (which came in 4.1.2). I also remember a very scary flashing process that utilised screen memory, producing the same kind of snow dump as loading large 8-bit games.

After a quick shufty at Wikipedia, I'm now sure - the bitmap drawing program Notepad was first released on PalmOS 4.0 and I definitely have that now.

ZDNET confirms it was once available

Palm.com KB points out that they no longer sell it (probably due to one of their legal wrangles - maybe even because this was the last time they shipped Graffiti 1 before Xerox sued them.)

I've not noticed any problems. There are various improvements in usability, and overall the applications feel slicker and more useful than the older ones - things like a merged display of the todo list with the calendar. Some of the OS improvements are a little pointless on a Palm III, particularly the ones regarding networking because the only way to use them on an unexpanded device is to park it in the cradle. And colour support, obviously. And some things are just daft on a device with only 2MB of storage.

I confess that I don't use it often anymore because my job changed from being highly mobile and roaming around hospitals, for which I needed a good task list and phonebook application, to sitting behind a desk with a PIM application open on the second monitor all the time. I'm starting to feel the need for it again though, just to manage my at-home life. Maybe I'll hunt out a good belt holster for it.

It still functions properly after multiple drops to hard surfaces, and it's nearly 10 years old. The low power consumption and use of AAA batteries is a design combination I'd love to see in a modern PDA device. The Palm III is a classic to me ; sure, it's a bit chunky in todays world, but it's a wonderful example of form fitting function - it doesn't have any more resources than it needs to be a decent PIM, and the OS is trim and lean enough to provide for that, quirks aside. Robust case, hard top flip cover as standard, instant on, weeks of useful battery life from standard cells. For a while I considered writing a bunch of software for doctors to run on wi-fi enabled variants that the likes of Symbol cranked out.

At the time it was an expensive purchase ; the present entry level Z22 is a much more powerful machine, and costs less than a third of what I paid for it, but it lacks many of the desirable features, Graffiti 1 being one of them. There are various articles on backgrading the Graffiti 1 library from older machines, but I'm not sure I'm prepared to shell out and risk it not working.

What I would LOVE to see would be a port of PalmOS for the DS, or even just a Palm emulator. Shouldn't be too hard - DS is ARM, PalmOS 5 is ARM, and it includes a Dragonball emulator that runs faster than the original native processor on modern ARM hardware. There is DS organizer software, but it just isn't nearly as slick as Palm. And think of the possibilities for that second screen.

A DS is a little bulky, but no more so than a paper organiser, and just imagine the kudos gained from whipping out a slick, piano-black organizer and proceeding to note your next business meeting before playing Zelda.

Heck, I'm sold. I'm off to hunt out some homebrew kit.

You jest, but that actually is the case where I work. I'm just a lowly support critter here, separate from the network group. They have our filter set up to catch anything with .EXE in the address, meaning when I'm simply trying to do my job* the filter kicks me out. I've tried explaining that they can restrict ".EXE" while still allowing ".EXE?" (I know, I'm familiar with the filter they use), but it falls on deaf ears.

* - http://kb.palmone.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE?New, Kb=PalmSupportKB,ts=Palm_External2001,problem=obj( 39316) - note that the CGI is posted as an EXE. I do not consider this good form, and have told Palm so, which also seems to fall upon deaf ears.

You jest, but that actually is the case where I work. I'm just a lowly support critter here, separate from the network group. They have our filter set up to catch anything with .EXE in the address, meaning when I'm simply trying to do my job* the filter kicks me out. I've tried explaining that they can restrict ".EXE" while still allowing ".EXE?" (I know, I'm familiar with the filter they use), but it falls on deaf ears.

* - http://kb.palmone.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE?New, Kb=PalmSupportKB,ts=Palm_External2001,problem=obj( 39316) - note that the CGI is posted as an EXE. I do not consider this good form, and have told Palm so, which also seems to fall upon deaf ears.

Availability of Treo 650 smartphone without a camera

I know I saw it listed on sprint's website a month or two ago, but now they are only listing the 700p.

The Tungstens do have Wi-Fi. I love the Wi-Fi card in my Tungsten T3, though the palmOne LifeDrive is sexier.

The Tungstens do have Wi-Fi. I love the Wi-Fi card in my Tungsten T3, though the palmOne LifeDrive is sexier.

The Tungstens do have Wi-Fi. I love the Wi-Fi card in my Tungsten T3, though the palmOne LifeDrive is sexier.

http://www.palmone.com/

Does that help?

I don't know of any combined phone/pda/mp3 player/game console/electric razor that allows you to shut off the *phone* -- and having the cell phone on while you're flying around is a Bad Thing, according to the FAA.

• The Treo 650 is one phone/pda that allows you to turn off the phone part.
• The rule against cell phone use is largely not from the FAA, but more from the FCC.

I typically go 2-3 weeks between charges, and it syncs via WiFi (802.11b). It works great with Windows, Mac OSX and Linux (with none of that pesky USB/udev configuration). You can get them for as little as $170 lightly used on EBay (I just bought a second unit for my wife). Full specs here.

It would have been helpful if you included the Palm Desktop version number with which you're having trouble. The most recent version I've used, Palm 4.1 SP3 (looks like it was released in April '03), still only requires the user to be an admin during installation. It looks like 4.1.4 (April '04) is the newest downloadable version (some Palms, like the LifeDrive and the T5, don't have a downloadable version of their software).

It would have been helpful if you included the Palm Desktop version number with which you're having trouble. The most recent version I've used, Palm 4.1 SP3 (looks like it was released in April '03), still only requires the user to be an admin during installation. It looks like 4.1.4 (April '04) is the newest downloadable version (some Palms, like the LifeDrive and the T5, don't have a downloadable version of their software).

You can get the latest firmware with supports DUN over BT.

New official update for Treo 650: http://www.palmone.com/us/support/downloads/treo65 0updater/sprint.html

Treos are licensed to use MS's Exchange server ActiveSync, the same thing the Windows-based phones use, and the same thing that is being upgraded to Direct Push.

And there's always IMAP.

"Synchronize your corporate Microsoft Exchange email and calendar with built-in Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync®"

quote is from this page:
http://www.palmone.com/us/products/smartphones/tre o650/

You're wrong. Palm m105 does -NOT- have SD/MMC slot.

However, Palm m125 and 130 do (and most of the palms on:).

Here's the info about the devices:
http://euro.palmone.com/uk/en/products/palmm105/in dex.html
http://euro.palmone.com/uk/en/products/palmm125/in dex.html
http://euro.palmone.com/uk/en/products/palmm130/in dex.html

You're wrong. Palm m105 does -NOT- have SD/MMC slot.

However, Palm m125 and 130 do (and most of the palms on:).

Here's the info about the devices:
http://euro.palmone.com/uk/en/products/palmm105/in dex.html
http://euro.palmone.com/uk/en/products/palmm125/in dex.html
http://euro.palmone.com/uk/en/products/palmm130/in dex.html

You're wrong. Palm m105 does -NOT- have SD/MMC slot.

However, Palm m125 and 130 do (and most of the palms on:).

Here's the info about the devices:
http://euro.palmone.com/uk/en/products/palmm105/in dex.html
http://euro.palmone.com/uk/en/products/palmm125/in dex.html
http://euro.palmone.com/uk/en/products/palmm130/in dex.html

And no backlighting. IMO giving a Zire 21 in exchange for any of the effected Palms will piss people off. The Zire 21 just plain sucks if you've ever owned a Palm before.

I wish someone could confirm for me what type of replacement they would give me.

It's Palm, what do you think they'll offer? With their track record I suspect some nasty, scratched up M1xx or used Zire 21. I would be very, very surprised if anything else was offered. Forget new since this is a great way to clean out their refurb supply.

It would've been nice if they had offerred a choice of a replacement or $100 (the cost of the Zire 21) off of any new Palm. I've had four different Palms (thankfully no defects) but my Tungsten E is my last. I'm moving over to the Nokia 770 (which runs Debian) when it comes out this fall. Palm has had way too many defects in which they have been way too slow to resolve them. There are also many complaints about their horrible tech support. And I see no change in that in the future.

The company Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky started in 1992 and the Palm of today have nothing in common. The early days of Palm were exciting. The Palm of today is a rotting corpse.

The newer unit would probably be the: http://www.palmone.com/us/products/handhelds/zire2 1/ Which is worse in serval ways than my m105, for instance it has no expansion slots while my m105 has an SD/MMC slot. I have one of the affected units but I don't want to trade it in for the zire21, an expansion slot is necessary for me. I wish someone could confirm for me what type of replacement they would give me.

So.. I can't store a 600mb video on this thing?

Which has 4 gigabytes of internal storage and a high-resolution screen for on-the-road access to music, video, digital photos, e-mail and office documents.

I understand where the submitter is coming from completely -- this type of device has been my Holy Grail for a long time too.

The closest I ever came to the perfect solution was pulling together the following kit:

• Handspring Visor PDA. Nothing special about this device, it was just a cheap PalmOS device with a good amount of memory (8MB) for not much money (around $150-200 new). You can't get Visors anymore, but a roughly equivalent device, the Zire 21, can be found on the street for less than $80 new -- or you can pick up someone's used device off EBay, as others have mentioned.
• WordSmith word processing software. Provides an amazingly robust editing environment right on any PalmOS device. This is not just a viewer for docs created on your desktop -- it's a full featured word processor that interoperates seamlessly with your desktop copy of MS Office (I know, I know). Free to try, $30 to register.
• PrintBoy -- amaze people by printing to any printer straight from your Palm device, over infrared or Bluetooth. $30.
• Stowaway keyboard -- a tiny folding keyboard that nonetheless has decent typing "feel". I had the original model; the new one, the XT, is even smaller and more portable. $50.

Total cost: approximately $200-250. Others have pointed out that there are devices that wrap all this functionality into one unit (the much-loved Psion devices such as the Revo and the 5mx spring to mind), but with the PalmOS solution you're at least dealing with stuff that's all still currently manufactured and supported, so you won't have to futz with hunting down obscure software and strange replacement parts just to get things done. And if the device dies, big whoop, at $80 it's not the end of the world.

(If you're into this sort of thing, Jeff Kirvin's blog Writing on Your Palm is a good source for advice on mobile writing.)

This technology looks like it could be used in palmtop devices.
The Sharp Zaurus series of handhelds had one device with a 4 GB drive in it.
The palmOne LifeDrive may also have uses for this technology.

But, above all, it would be best in the laptops, both for smaller size and for extended battery life.

I think Cell phones are too small for many pda-ish things, currently.

from the palm page:
http://www.palmone.com/us/products/mobilemanagers/ lifedrive/details.epl

"Built-in voice recorder.
Capture that big idea anywhere. Tape important lectures. Take notes hands-free. Or, record a slideshow narration to accompany your photos. It's all possible with this integrated, go-anywhere audio functionality."

On Sprint's CDMA cellular network, one can reasonably reliably listen to 56kbps shoutcast streams with a smart phone such as the treo. Lower bitrates are even more reliable. Sprint's unlimited data plan is $15/mo on top of your regular phone charges.

This can't compete with XM on quality and obviously not on signal reception. But a treo with a wifi card would beat the device referenced in this article hands down, in my opinion.

The Palm Treo 650 is pretty close to what you seem to desire minus the radio. It does not have a huge storage capacity, but supports flash media cards so you could have a decent amount of memory to store MP3's and whatnot. I am most likely going to get one when I upgrade my phone next. Check it out here: http://web.palmone.com/products/smartphones/treo65 0/details.jhtml/

Untitled Document Our relationship started nearly a year ago. Like an attractive transfer student in high school, it seemed like we needed an invitation just to meet. My friends kept on telling me about your personality and, yes, joy about the ways you brightened their lives.
Eventually one of my friends provided an introduction, and we hit it off. In fact, we have been going steady for nearly nine months now. You are all that I ever wanted, almost, and seem to be the most popular member of our class. From reliable junk mail filters, to free pop access, to email searching, it seems like my past relationships were with just a bunch of Yahoos.
My only wish is to be able to hold you in the Palm of my hand, like a Web Pro appreciating your every nuance. It may not be Siberia, but it remains home sweet home. I know you listen, that's one of your features I find most endearing.
Let's celebrate our first anniversary and look forward to many more years of bliss.

Untitled Document Our relationship started nearly a year ago. Like an attractive transfer student in high school, it seemed like we needed an invitation just to meet. My friends kept on telling me about your personality and, yes, joy about the ways you brightened their lives.
Eventually one of my friends provided an introduction, and we hit it off. In fact, we have been going steady for nearly nine months now. You are all that I ever wanted, almost, and seem to be the most popular member of our class. From reliable junk mail filters, to free pop access, to email searching, it seems like my past relationships were with just a bunch of Yahoos.
My only wish is to be able to hold you in the Palm of my hand, like a Web Pro appreciating your every nuance. It may not be Siberia, but it remains home sweet home. I know you listen, that's one of your features I find most endearing.
Let's celebrate our first anniversary and look forward to many more years of bliss.

None of the founders of Numenta other than Jeff Hawkins have any experience in AI or for that matter have any background in hardcore computer science.

Dileep George is an Electrical Engineering graduate, while the CEO Donna Dubinsky is a hardcore salesperson and holds an MBA. Interestingly, the page also mentions that Jeff Hawkins " currently serves as Chief Technology Officer at palmOne, Inc". Fishy!

Next Generation AI ? Who are we kidding ?

I've compromised on my ringtones - during the day, I usually get only business calls, and at night I tend to get personal calls. My Treo 650 allows me to set ringtones by "group" (using the Ringo Pro software), so I have business people with an old-school telephone ring MP3. With friends, however, I tend to try to go all the way with the irony (I hate musical ringtones, so I'll make mine as obnoxious as possible - my friends find it amusing). Some suggestions:

* Kyle's Mom's a Bitch (From South Park)
* Suck My Salty Chocolate Balls (Also from South Park)
* Move Bitch, Get Out The Way
* America, Fuck Yeah! (From Team America: World Police)
* I Like Hubcaps (as sung by Brak on Space Ghost)

You get the idea.

A $1000 OpenPower server would be nice, though. So would a Cray that fits in my pocket that costs $25.

Sadly, it costs $40 plus shipping on ebay, but it'll come down soon.

Not relevant, but highly amusing. And yes, I know the C1 has archetechtural advantages over the Zire 21 (parrelelism, floating point...). It'll happen to the OpenPower servers too.

blah blah blah i am an irresponsible fool. blah blah blah someone else should pay because i don't have the capacity to face up to the result of my own foolhardy actions.

so using this logic then, if i make a bad investment through my online brokerage then Scottrade should pay because they didn't inform me that PalmOne's stock was overdue for a nosedive? right.

Done.

My friend, you are talking about the PalmOne Treo 650 with SanDisk's Wi-Fi SD card.

palmOne does not provide replacements for lost or out-of-warranty parts and accessories. If the warranty has expired for your accessory, we recommend you purchase a new one (palmOne Store).

palmOne does not provide replacements for lost or out-of-warranty parts and accessories. If the warranty has expired for your accessory, we recommend you purchase a new one (palmOne Store).

palmOne does not provide replacements for lost or out-of-warranty parts and accessories. If the warranty has expired for your accessory, we recommend you purchase a new one (palmOne Store).

Yeah, and you have a treo. Comes in quad-band gsm, or cdma. It has a decent CPU and takes sd/sdio/mmc cards, has bluetooth, et cetera.

...I need to get a Palm for one of my classes this semester, and was thinking along the same lines. I just need something cheap, I already have an iPod, so I don't need mp3 capability, stuff like wifi would be nice, but I don't really NEED it...


I was considering the PalmOne Zire21. Anyone know if/how well these work with Linux? Someone suggested LinuxDevices.com, and I couldn't find anything about it on there.

A lot of the suggestions seem like overkill to me. I use a Palm Tungsten C, which has WiFi and a web browser built-in (though you probably want to upgrade the browser). Slip it in a zip-lock bag, and it's water/dust/grease proof.

I'm in the market for a PDA and have been researching for the past couple of weeks. I've come to the conclusion that Palm is going to quite deservedly kill itself over the coming year.

Look at their feature matrix. They have a seemingly random distribution of features throughout their model line. One has 256MB of memory. Some have cameras. Some are phones. Some have bluetooth. Some have wireless. All have different processors and ship with different versions of the OS. And most are very, very expensive.

But this is what I want:

* Bluetooth - So I can go online via my phone. I want to be able to check my email in the line at the mall.
* Wi-Fi - So I can sit in the conference room at work, take notes and email them.
* Compactflash slot - This is the standard that high-end digital cameras are settling on. I want to be able to slip in a CF card and manage / view photos. Ideally so that I could reduce and email a photo on the road if I was so inclined (but still have the high-res copy available).

The only product that fits this description is a PocketPC. Palm can offer models with cameras, phones, flash storage, blah, blah, blah - but nothing that is actually useful to me. I want the Tungsten T5 - but only after replacing the flash drive with Wi-Fi and giving it a CompactFlash port.

So I'm holding off on purchasing for now, waiting for Windows Mobile 2005 and getting whatever Dell is selling at that time (their current X5 would be perfect - bluetooth, wireless, compactflash - except that Microsoft's newest OS revision is supposedly due Real Soon Now)..

I've recently hooked myself up with a similar set-up, and have recently been writing about it in my journal. I'll detail it a bit here.

Here's what I'm running:

• Cell Phone: Sony Ericsson T610.
• Handheld: PalmOne Tungsten C
• Laptop: Apple PowerBook G4 (12")
• GSM/GPRS Provider: Fido
• Handheld SSH software: pssh

How everything is connected:

• The PowerBook is outfitted with WiFi (802.11g) and Bluetooth, using WiFi when at home/office, and GPRS through the T610 via Bluetooth when on the road.
• The Tungsten C is outfitted with WiFi (802.11b) and InfraRed, using WiFi when at the home/office, and GPRS through the T610 via IR when on the road (technically I can get it online via WiFi if I use the PowerBook as a bridge in ad-hoc mode, but it is exceedingly rare that I'd ever need to have both the laptop and the T|C online at the same time when outside WiFi range).

So far, this is a set-up I'm quite pleased with. The only way it could be better were if the Tungsten C supported Bluetooth as well as 802.11b.

I can't recommend Bluetooth highly enough for this sort of connectivity either. So long as I'm within 10m of the phone, I can connect to it from the laptop. And Mac OS X's Bluetooth support is excellent -- I'm able to synchronize my contact list and calendar, transfer files back and forth, send and receive SMS messages from my desktop, dial phone numbers, and connect to the internet -- all without wires, or any set-up hassle.

SSH has been important for me, as one of my primary uses for this sort of connectivity will be CVS source repository access through SSH.

I've only had the phone for a week, but I'm quite pleased with it in general. I could have done without the camera portion I suppose (the resolution and quality is terrible), but might come in handy for something someday.

Overall, the set-up appears to be working well, and I'm as pleased as punch with it. Everything is nicely portable, and I have instant access everywhere I go. Set-up has been a snap, and everything works as expected. Now if only I could get cable modem speeds out of this set-up, I'd never work at a desk ever again :).

Yaz.

I use SprintPCS, the Palmone treo600, and pssh. SprintPCS's network is CDMA so if you're not in the continental United States, and not in or near a metropolitian area, forget about it. For the rest of you I can tell you that it works splendidly, though latent. It'd be difficult to perform any complex task, though not impossible. On the treo the font-size will be tiny. One should consider the treo650 with it's high resolution screen as an alternative.

I should also mention PalmVNC. The bandwidth limitations of the sprintpcs network, and the resolution limitations of the treo600 render this application to little more than a novelty. Though again, in a pinch, it's a usefull app to keep around.

Perhaps you already have a phone that runs java midlets? If so you could try SSH & Telnet Floyd or MIDPSSH.

I use SprintPCS, the Palmone treo600, and pssh. SprintPCS's network is CDMA so if you're not in the continental United States, and not in or near a metropolitian area, forget about it. For the rest of you I can tell you that it works splendidly, though latent. It'd be difficult to perform any complex task, though not impossible. On the treo the font-size will be tiny. One should consider the treo650 with it's high resolution screen as an alternative.

I should also mention PalmVNC. The bandwidth limitations of the sprintpcs network, and the resolution limitations of the treo600 render this application to little more than a novelty. Though again, in a pinch, it's a usefull app to keep around.

Perhaps you already have a phone that runs java midlets? If so you could try SSH & Telnet Floyd or MIDPSSH.

I use SprintPCS, the Palmone treo600, and pssh. SprintPCS's network is CDMA so if you're not in the continental United States, and not in or near a metropolitian area, forget about it. For the rest of you I can tell you that it works splendidly, though latent. It'd be difficult to perform any complex task, though not impossible. On the treo the font-size will be tiny. One should consider the treo650 with it's high resolution screen as an alternative.

I should also mention PalmVNC. The bandwidth limitations of the sprintpcs network, and the resolution limitations of the treo600 render this application to little more than a novelty. Though again, in a pinch, it's a usefull app to keep around.

Perhaps you already have a phone that runs java midlets? If so you could try SSH & Telnet Floyd or MIDPSSH.

...with the Tungsten T5 and the Treo 650. Each of these handhelds has two types of memory built in - the usual RAM that we've had for years, and non-volatile memory where all of your user data, programs, etc are stored. This memory is formatted with a standard FAT filesystem, and can be mounted on the desktop with no special tricks. Essentially, this NVRAM acts as a "hard disk" for the Palm, and should be every bit as flexible as one.

From the T5 spec sheet:
256MB (215MB actual storage capacity: 160MB internal flash drive, 55MB program memory for applications and data.)

And from the Treo 650 spec sheet:
23MB user-available stored non-volatile memory [doesn't list program memory - I believe it's 32MB]

See the following for more details:
How does the Treo 650 memory system work (NVFS)?

As an extra bonus, you can backup your remote control when you hotsync. Have you ever lost the programming in your programmable remote control (dropped on the floor, batteries pop out)?

Oops, until December 10 they're backordered

I guess it's back to carrying a Treo and a real phone.

(I know you can buy a nice third-party headset for cell phones. It's just a joke.)