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Limitations in Current Breed of Palm Handhelds?
JabrTheHut asks: "Having been a Palm user for over two years now, I've upgraded to a Tungsten T3. While the features I'm used to using have not changed, I have become increasingly frustrated by what I see as a lack of progress. It doesn't seem to want to deal with text files (there is no import feature for the Palm Desktop notepad or memo pad, for example). Also there seems to be no way to copy arbitrary files to the Palm - all files must be "owned" by an application. With a 256MB SD card I expected to use it to copy files between work and home. Has anyone else noticed these or other shortcomings and have figured out ways around them?"
Pocket PC.
Go ahead. MOD me down I don't care.
You Know I am Right!
The Palm desktop application sucks. You can work around some of the issues you mentioned though. Moving text files is pretty straightforward if you just copy and past the content. There are file size limitations though. A better way is to write to your SD card directly, and use (on the palm) an application (like FileZ or UniCMD) to access it.
In Palm Quick Install.. Click on "Add" then select files of type "All Files (*.*)".
:)
Alternatively, get a SD card drive, its faster
Documents 2 Go can handle text files, alternatively, you can use the Palm Desktop to copy/paste things into memopad.
There are various shareware/freeware utils that act as very basic file managers for the palm, with hexedit capabilities. (They can also be used to edit/delete your preference files - which can come in useful)
Third party applications are really the only solution to this problem, here's one I used a while back: http://www.tealpoint.com/softmovr.htm
Some Palms (and Palmish devices.. I have a Sony Clie) come with a gateway-type program you can use to put random files on the memory card. If yours doesn't have one built in, you may be able to find a third-party one.
mrg
this is the new PDA, unless Palm try harder (and not silly branding initiatives) they will be marginalized even further, palm are already considered last and if they dont buck their ideas up they are history left in the dust of the giants which would be a shame
You can install anything to a SD card by selecting "Install to Card". Alternatively, you can install anything to ram using a program such as RAMDisk. Palm uses a very efficient database file system, and they don't want it cluttered up with your MP3 files (just look at the problems they had with the T5 when they tried to allow any files to be stored in RAM).
Most Palms seem to go to great lengths to hide details of the filesystem from the user. The workaround I've found is to simply store all user data on the removable flash memory, plug it into my flash memory reader and access it that way. I don't have a T3, but I'm able to work with the filesystem directly on several of the m-series Palms.
I agree, there seems to be very little forward movement in significant functionality in the Palm world. Can I be so bold to suggest that this lack of innovation might be due to the lack fo significant competition for Palm?
I have a Tungsten/E, up from a Palm IIIe that I had for years. The only workarounds I've ever been able to come up with have been to do the old cut/paste for plain text, and to find an app that I can set to 'own' arbitrary files.
That recent flap about Palm using the FAT for SD suggests they're trying to do something, but they obviously still need to work on it.
Yes, it does pretty much suck. If Palm doesn't get their thumb out, I'm going to have to start looking for something else. If somebody comes up with a way to burn Linux to the flash, I'd be real happy!
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
I currently use a Sharp Sl-5600 PDA. I love the little guy. It has an SD memory slot AND a CF slot. I have a 512 Mb SD card for all my files. Straight out of the box there was applications to read Word files and Excel files, as well as a decent text editor. I too had the problem you described with the ability to read and transport files. Plus the capability to do just about anything with a cf card is a huge plus. Just my humble opinion.
I have been a palm user since the Palm III. They definitely defined the palm top and made it popular (with some help from the Newton, et al).
...Michael...
Now with Sony ditching their palm based products, we see how truly uninnovative Palm is. Sony had some of the best designs, including swivel displays, camera's, keyboards, WiFi, etc. Palm pretty much had the same old design, sometimes adding a feature here or there. After all, there is a palm that has a camera, but only that one unit. Some could play MP3's, but the business ones didn't have stereo sound. Retarded.
Unless palm can innovate, and quickly, the exodus will only continue. With Handspring and Sony gone it's pretty much up to them, and I don't see it happening. Even the owners of Handspring left Palm because they didn't like the direction it was going.
And now we have the Treo, thanks to them. Palm gets a hold of it and can't even put WiFi in it. Is that too much to ask? But to their credit it is probably the most feature rich Palm available.
For my next PDA I am seriously looking at a Dell. Cheap, and just about every feature you could want. VGA display, WiFi, Bluetooth, Compact Flash, etc. And these features are all in the same unit. What could I possibly buy from Palm that has all that?
Because we all know the CLI is faster, even when you don't have a keyboard.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Then I was purchased a Dell Axim as a gift. It did all sorts of stuff my Palm couldn't - video, sound, etc.
But it did a crappy job handling my todo list. So I stopped using it.
Palm got a lot of stuff right off the bat - and they don't seem real eager to mess with success.
A lot of the major updates to the OS have really been focused around hardware support as opposed to new features. It took forever for the first MP3 playing palm to come out..
stuff like this has cost them a lot of sales to Windows CE (or Pocket PC or whatever they call it now).
If only Apple would buy them...
The greatest limitation I have found is that except for PixelViewer (which only comes with Sony Clie's), no application has native PDF support. Adobe's reader must first translate the file to another format for the palm to read. This is a minor annoyance because since I have a Tungsten C, with WiFi access, I still cannot get school files to my Palm straight off of the internet.
Wouldn't a full strength "tablet" PC be a nice addition to the Palm lineup? Of course M$ would never let this happen, but it would be good to have more choices for full-sized touch-screen computers.
File Link|Create New Link|Application (Memopad) | File Path (Select your file -- even a
It will sync the file to the palm EVERY time you sync. Works great.
You can EASILY install ANY file to ANY palm with an SD card using either a USB card reader OR install-to-card on the palm quickinstall menu.
This doesn't even begin to address 3rd party solutions available, too. I have a LOT of problems with palm -- but what you are complaining about isn't a weakness in palm, but a weakness in your knowledge of how to USE a palm.
My current palm is a Zire 72 -- and I'm quite happy with it. Aside from the paint peeling off (DUH PALM!), it's VERY stable. My few work-mates who have PPCs crash almost daily.
I eventually found out from talking to the developers that version 0.12.0, currently in CVS, supports the uploading of arbitrary files to the memory card on the palm.
I downloaded 0.12.0-rc4 from CVS and it compiled cleanly. There's a new option to pilot-xfer, -D, to install arbitrary files to the filesystem on the memory card.
This worked perfectly, but I found it a bit slow for transferring lots of MP3 files, so I bought a cheap USB2 card readed, which I can mount like a drive, and use cp to copy the files across. The card readed only cost UKP9.95+VAT and is really worh it for convenience and ease of use.
Stick Men
But, seriously, find/write an application that copies files and "owns" them
That may be more easy said than done. Sony engineered the "Secure Digital" to prevent the wanton shuffling of bits around.
While it has been awhile, when I was reviewing this when it first came out I thought that it was pretty draconian DRM. And as you can see, it is accomplishing what it is supposed to do.
"Secure Digital" is code words for "Stopping the stupid consumer from doing something we don't want him to do."
I suppose it could be broken (calling Jon Johanssen) but there comes a point where you start wondering if is worth the trouble and instead realize that the larger issues of broken copyright law is what needs addressing.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I have an official Palm Keyboard, but it's useless with vi because it lacks the ESCape key...
You mean 'in Windows'. In the Linux and UNIX world, there are dozens of choices in how you want to talk to your Palm.
For "text files", nothing beats Plucker when carrying text, ebooks, manuals, HTML pages, HOWTO documents, and other items. The LDP even carries all of their HOWTO documents in Plucker format. Its the only format that is freely available, openly documented, and very extensible.
Just look at how beautiful Plucker is with the PHP documentation as one example...
You must mean '...in Windows' again. In the non-Windows side, including OSX, we have pilot-link which talks natively to your Palm and can do all kinds of things that the Windows tools cannot (including operating at 40% faster in some cases).
Commercial companies such as MarkSpace are using pilot-link (the core library of pilot-link anyway) in their commercial product, MissingSync which runs on OSX.
For desktop replacements, PIMs, and other tools, there are dozens of alternatives. Here are several, in no particular order (with Coralized links to protect the bandwidth of the various projects):
There are many others, but these are the top contenders. They all also rely on the libraries and language bindings provided by pilot-link to communicate with your Palm device.
Yes, stop using Windows. Stop using the featureless proprietary tools provided by these vendors who only listen to their profit margins, not to their userbase.
Seriously
I'd really like to see multiple calendars on the palm. Right now all categories of events have to reside in the same calendar, I'd like to be able to have just family stuff (like birthdays) on one calendar, have a business calendar, and then a personal calendar, and then all of the above. Currently the palm is fine for my needs, but that's because I only use the basics these days. It is true that there has been little innovation from Palm in the past 5 years. Just little details here or there, nothing really revolutionary. I expected something big from them when they bought the BeOS, but it looks like that was simply filed away for use by no one. Too bad! This wouldn't really bother me much except that I like Palm and I'd like to see them succeed. The truth is that eventually palmtops will be as capable as desktops, and palmtop makers will need to be ready for that reality. From this standpoint microsoft has a huge advantage over Palm in the future, since Palm has no desktop capable platform. Palm's only hope here is that they seem to have (or had in the past) an ease-of-use advantage, and a simplicity and reliability that microsoft has traditionally lacked. What palm really needs is a powerful work-of-art trendy eye candy OS that is be strong enough to be used as a full on work/game platform as well as a palmtop OS. Maybe its time for apple to take the stage here again? OSXNewtonPod anyone?
Too many palm loving mods suppressing intelligent comments
Palm is a dieing breed (Score:-1, Troll)
by fzammett (255288) on Sunday December 12, @08:15PM (#11067719)
( http://www.omnytex.com/ )
Seriously, it is. Even the worst PocketPC is far more functional, and they are quite stable and reliable.
And that doesn't even mention Linux-based devices, which really haven't taken hold yet. I think it's just a matter of time before they do, although there needs to be a good shell around it. I thought the Zaurus was a good start, but (a) they just aren't big in the states, and (b) they aren't up to snuff yet.
Simply put, a PocketPC is what you want, well, in your pocket, these days. Palm used to be king, but it's stagnated, and even in it's heyday it was difficult to write applications for, so even though you saw a lot available, 98% of it was crap (and still is). Sure, there's plenty of crap for PocketPC's as well, but there's a higher percentage of actually useful software.
Forget Palm. History will do the same, soon enough.
--
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pair?
Information is the location of things. Computation is moving things around.
It doesn't seem to want to deal with text files (there is no import feature for the Palm Desktop notepad or memo pad, for example).
I found the lack of a decent text editor so annoying that 18 months ago I started writing a text editor for PalmOS: SiEd. It opens text files straight from SD-Cards, as well as Palm DOC files in main memory. You can use it to convert between the two as well.
Get an iPaq, install Familiar. Or get a Zaurus.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
...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)?
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
I agree with you on one point: the Vx was absolutely the high point of Palm development. It had enough memory and processing power for any practical palmtop app (if you needed more you should probably be using a laptop anyway). And the battery lasted for days, even under heavy usage.
The Vx has one major flaw -- the up button sticks out too far, so the cover presses against it when it's in your pocket. This is severely uncool, since all the function buttons double as power buttons. Fortunately, a hack with the (self-explanatory) name of StayOffIfUp provides a reasonable workaround.
I'd still be using my Vx if I hadn't lost it. Should have tried to find a used one. Instead, I "upgraded" to the m515. Which has a bunch of new features I either never use or positively hate. The color hirez display looks cool, but usually needs backlighting to be readable -- which is a terrible battery drain. And they had to go and change all the physical parameters, so all the third-party styluses and covers for V series don't fit. And all the function buttons stick out too far!
Oh buy a Zaurus.... if they weren't discontinued.
I bought one of the last ones on Amazon about two weeks ago, and I have yet to unlock all of it's potential.
All I do if find a wifi spot, and I ssh into my box, reconnect to screen, and I'm reading my mail in pine. What could be cooler?
It's a little on the bulky side, but the screen... I have never seen such a fantastic screen. I have yet to find a website I can't read using Opera, which comes with it.
And transfering files around, scp anyone? Pulling files back and forth couldn't be easier.
It's just a shame this device was discontinued in North America, it truly is a micro-laptop as some have described it.
I have been using jPilot for about 5-6 years now with my Palm Vx http://www.jpilot.org/
I can import/export plain text files as text, CSV, or DAT/MPA. No need to copy-paste. This works for the Memopad app in Palm OS. It also works for the Addressbook, Datebook, and TodoList. I can not say enough good things about jPilot... reliable, simple, fast, gets the job done. It is such a good application I would use it as a PIM even if I didn't have the Palm OS device. One can also get plugins for gnu-keyring and email... and a few others I never use.
Only one caveat... jPilot only runs on Linux/Unix. Once the files are imported to the Palm the regualr Windows and Mac OS Palm Desktop apps read them just fine.
I really don't see the problem of the original question. Palm OS does a limited set of things and it does them well. It is basically a way of carrying around a bunch of conveniently searchable and editable databases. I have not found the need for the newer or more featureful apps that are available on Pocket PCs. I also own a Sharp Zaurus 5000 and an HP iPaq. Neither of which comes close to the reliability and utility of my nice little Palm Vx. From my experience all the fancier devices try to squish desktop apps into a palm sized device... none of them do it well.
YMMV
"Don't sweat the technique."
Was the insult really necessary? Or are you just a 3 year old?
I currently own and use for development work 5 Palms (visor, TE, treo 90, 2 T3s) and 2 PPCs (axim X5 & x50v). To be blunt, I do development work on PDA programs, and I find it hard to get good use out of these devices. I expect that most people get even less use of them than I do.
Anyway, PDAs working as laptop replacements will have a short lifetime. In 2-3 years you'll see a 6oz, PDA sized PC running XP. Who'd want a PDA then?
I've found that the best thing to do is to stick with a non-Palm yet Palm OS variant. I have a Sony Cliè and it is wondrous. The Picsel viewer that comes standard with the Cliè handles images, plain text, office documents, and PDF files wonderfully. There is also an MS-Office compatible application called "Documents to go" which allows you to create and open documents accessible by a variety of PC applications. The data import application allows you to connect the Cliè via USB to any computer and use it as a USB hard drive using default mass storage device drivers allowing you to copy arbitrary files to and from the Cliè with very little hassle. I've owned a fair number of PDAs, everything from the old pocket organizers from "back in the day" to clamshell full keyboard devices like the Psion Revo and Jornada 680 but by far my Cliè has been the most satisfying and useful PDA I've owned. Unfortunately, Sony has pulled out of the US PDA market (at least for now, one can hope can't they?) and you'd have to procure one via import or an auction site like e-bay.
On another note, it's disturbing to me that Sony's PDAs did so poorly in North America. In terms of ergonomics and ease of use, I've found the Cliè line to be outstanding. The only reasons that I can muster to explain their poor sales could be the price... they were on average a bit pricier than other models, but as the axiom goes, you get what you pay for. The other might be the relatively conservative design of the devices themselves. PDAs made by other companies are often exotic shapes and covered in lots of prominent buttons and such. They stand out, that's for certain, but they also get turned on in your pocket and are much more uncomfortable to use. The Cliè sports a hold switch which prevents any of the face buttons from turning the device on, and the face buttons themselves are recessed enough to prevent accidental operation anyway.
The jog dial of the Cliè is another example of superior design, whilst the majority of palm devices sport directional pads; the Cliè has a wheel-mouse like jog dial which makes navigation far faster.
Also worth noting would be the media fidelity of the device. The sound-rendering abilities of the Cliè rival any portable digital media player I've seen and the internal speaker is surprisingly capable when it comes to playback. (There is also a headphone port which makes it a suitable portable MP3 player as well. Start up the built-in media player with a playlist of MP3s and put the device on hold to save power) There is a lot to be said for the display as well, the screen is bright and the colors are rich and true. The Cliè has a higher resolution screen than most all PDAs of its class which means that images, websites, and games look much cleaner than they would on other devices. The higher resolution means that it's generally possible to scale a website designed for a 1024x768 PC display and still be able to read it without the need for tedious left-right scrolling.
Also worth noting is the wireless networking capabilities of the Cliè. It is convenient to be able to connect to your inbox when in a pinch. However, it is important to note that the use of WiFi is a major drain on the battery of the device. This is a minor pratfall, but I think it is also safe to say that PDAs are decidedly not the ideal device for casual web-surfing. If your intention is to surf the web at your local coffee shop or book emporium, it might be a better idea to invest in a laptop rather than a PDA. Even if somewhat dated, a laptop with a USB 802.11b adapter would be sufficient for mobile web surfing. (802.11b is inferior to G, I realize, but it seems fairly unlikely that you will be finding a WAP willing to give you a 54MBps internet connection)
There are downsides to the Cliè, I will admit. First off, the price is a bit daunting, especially for those who aren't looking for a device they plan to use constantly. You are also bound to using Sony accessori
Our greatest enemy is neither a single man, nor is it a nation, it is, as it has always been, our own greed.
If you have Treo 600 (palm OS 5.2), you will definitely get frustrated by lack of multi-tasking/multi-threading in PalmOS. If you are surfing the web and your friend sends you a text message, you go to SMS application and go back to browser, you lose where you left of. You have to start all over again.......
I think you are confusing a couple of issues.
First, Sony has nothing to do with the "Secure Digital" format of memory cards. They compete with it (with MemoryStick and MagicGate) and are not even a member of the SD Association.
Second, the "Secure Digital" part of the SD card is an optional layer of DRM that allows an application writing to the card to specify what can be done with it. While this is DRM, and thus icky, it is not some magic tech that identifies what file types are written to it and decides what do do from there. The vast majority of SD devices do not implement any sort of DRM on the cards.
The limitation the OP is talking about is a software limitation either in the PalmOS itself or in the implenation of external interfaces to copy files to/from the device. As others have pointed out this can be solved with a number of 3rd party or opensource programs, but the fact remains that the published interfaces into the PalmOS and it's filesystem are lacking for handling files that live outside of it's native database filesystem.
Please send all UCE to scally@devolution.com so I can f
You're absolutely right. Talk to your vendor, and have them begin porting their applications to Linux.
This isn't our problem to solve. Thanks for pointing it out.
I saw a few comments requesting SSH clients and Text Readers so I thought I point some out.
First some free stuff:
plucker - Ebook reader. Really only supports it's own format but is very robust. iSilo is a non-free ebook reader that supports other formats including txt, but with the plucker tools you can convert almost any document into plucker format.
pssh - There are other SSH clients for palmos, but this one doesn't crash my treo.
palmvnc - Very neat, but less than practical on my low-res, low-speed treo.
soundrec - Simple sound recording application, export to wav (usefull with Bhajis Loops) designed for the treo 600 but may work with other palm devices
Now some non-free stuff:
Pocket Tunes - Turn your palm device into an ipod only better with ogg and wma support. Worth the price.
Bhajis Loops - Turn your palm device into a music studio. Also worth the price
Not too mention the countless games, calculators, calendars, and other knick-knacks.
There are limitations in hardware obviously. There's only so much stuff you can fit in such a tiny device. But I must say that my treo 600 does way more than I ever expected when I bought it.
I was a big fan of the Palm and really didn't want to go the Pocket PC route. I purchased a Tungsten E and was disappointed with it. The biggest problem was that you couldn't connect a GPS to its nonfunctioning USB port and no built-in bluetooth. I looked at upgrading to the Tugsten T5 and was disappointed at no built-in wifi and a rather high price. The Dell Axim v50x came out about the same time. Built-in bluetooth, wifi, choice of SD and CF. In the vga model (v50x) it's available for just over $400. Surprising decent software and nice design. Too bad it runs pocketPC but it's really not such a bad choice. The palm seems to have lost their edge and it's hard to recommend them any more. The darkside is taking over...and damn it with a better product.
Especially when you consider the vaccum features on the Zaurus SL-6000L :-D. Check the features on the following eBay auction out, hilarious:
e gory=38331&item=5737274915&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cat
Heiko
You want the T5. That one has an internal drive that is accessible from your pc. I think it would solve most of your problems.
but get a PDA with Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition. My Dell x50v has it and I still can't belive the stuff I can do with it. It mounts as drives in WinXP, I stream TV/DVDs to it, I mount my home network and can play any file I own. Well, expet for my HDTV stuff - then again what's the point of a 1280x720 video on a 640x480 display? I guess the Linux ones can do some of this too...
Second, because Palm apps used to do that - when you entered an app it put right where you were when you last left it. Strictly speaking they never launched or terminated, they were just active or not.
PalmOS lost it's focus a long time ago, it's very depressing.
Clear, Dark Skies
Way cool things are coming with GPE, the Gnome Palmtop Environment. It's not quite ready for prime time on OpenZaurus yet, but it's beautiful and has the best handwriting recognition I've seen. Syncing software for that platform is in the works and already exists, I think, for Evolution. The further away from non free you get, the better things are.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Only if you are running familiar or OpenZaurus. GPE has excellent handwriting recognition. KPIM works almost exactly like Palm datebook +. Then you also have browsers, wifi, media players and other not considered "palm" programs.
I'm still using a Handspring Visor to organize my life, but I can see great advantages to newer platforms. With a little work, I'll master syncing with the Zaurus. If I do that and can find as good a calculator as the Visor has, that's it for the visor.
There's no way I'll find what I'm looking for in a Pocket PC running Microsoft crap. The last time I looked, those keyboardless things without decent hadwriting were a huge pain in the ass to use.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I picked up a Tapwave Zodiac last year, and was really looking forward to getting back into a Palm device two major OS revisions newer than my old Palm IIIc (which was eventually traded for a Newton 2100) but boy, was I surprised by how little had really changed. Sure, the resolution was higher, the expandabiltiy was there at last (Two SD card slots), it was designed for "gaming" with an actual 8M ATI video chip in it, 320x480, the works and then some. The only things it lacked were WiFi and a camera... ...and a decent fucking OS. Sure, my Zodiac can run in 320x480 - but the actual PalmOS dialogs all run in 320x320 at best, popping up the graffiti area even when not needed. If I use the toolbar to remove the graffiti area, it just puts black space on the sides of the dialog. And speaking of the toolbar, it's just so wonderful that Palm made every manufacturer come up with thier own way of doing more than 320x320 resolution. Apps to modify the toolbar on the Tungsten T2 or Clie series Palms, do fuck-all on the Zodiac. Well, I take that back - they're great for crashing it. You can't skin the graffiti area or toolbar, you -still- can't change your icons from the ones included with the device and applications, and multitasking? Nope, that'll be in PalmOS 6.
The Zodiac is great hardware. It feels right. Well made, sturdy. Quality stuff. But the OS it got saddled with makes me feel like I'm running the PDA equivalent of Mac OS 9. It'll be great for people that require OS 9 apps, but there's a lot more out there. Palm stayed still without INNOVATING for way, way too long.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Things I am missing from the current generation of Palms, but I find as built-in features on my [tr]usted HP-100LX are:
- A rechargable battery that runs for about three weeks.
- The ability to plug in standard AA bateries when the rechargable battery runs out.
- A plain vanilla 12V charger port and a backup batery when the two options fail. (In 12 years I have only lost data once, when the machine fell from my bike in a shallow water ditch).
- Real (though not preemtive) context switching. When I enter one application, the other one is suspended in the state it was, and will be resumed at exactly the same state when I return to it.
- An industry standard file system (FAT), and support for cheap standard PCMCIA memory cards.
- A complete spreadsheet (not just a viewer) that includes macros, and graphs.
- A customizable database supporting complex queries and a visual form builder.
- Customizable calendar, phone book, and note-taking applications, based on the above database.
- A scientific and financial calculator with an equation solver, and graphing capability.
- Locale support for Greece (fonts, keyboard, sorting) out of the box.
- A sturdy design that can withstand 12 years of (ab)use.
The flexibility and stability of the machine's software is legendary. Over the years it has adapted to a change in the daylight savings time rule, Y2K, the introduction of the Euro symbol, and a number of phone renumbering exercises (it contains a world city database with a dialing prefixes and a map). The software is fixed in ROM; all needed changes were made via configuration files.Solution to about 99% of the above complaints:
Open the Palm Install Tool.
Click "Add"
Change "Files of Type" to "All Files (*.*)"
Select the files you want to install (don't worry about whether the files are "owned" by an app. It's totally irrelevant).
Select the files you want to install. Non-Palm apps and databases will default to installing to your expansion card.
Sync.
If you know anything about installing *anything* to a Palm, you may have noticed that this is the exact same process for installing apps and databases, except for the part where you specify the file type.
This ain't rocket science, kids.
Main advantage of database abstraction is that HotSync could incrementally backup and synchronize your data without knowing about its internal structure. In cases when it should know about record structure, it could be extended on PC-side by something called "Conduits" - essentially plug-ins responsible for synchronizing certain kind of database records.
In more recent versions of Palm OS they realized that they could not get away without good old file system abstraction (for example for accessing network drives or compact flash cards) and they introduced Virtual File System manager, in short VFS. VFS is certainly step ahead, but data stored on VFS does not have advantage of HotSync - it is not backed up, not synced on per-record basis, not purged then application owning it is deleted.
Other systems, like PocketPC and Symbian already have just one data storage model - File System. PalmOS now have two, incompatible ones.
VFS abstraction is more flexible than database, since it offers multi-tier data organization (nested directories) versus two-tier in database (database and record). Interestingly, old model could be mapped into VFS model. One could write VFS library representing databases in main memory as VFS directories. Each record will be shown as file in appropriate directory. This would allow to access with old data structures via new API. Databases modified via this VFS API are still valid PalmOS databases and could be backed up via HotSync. Now developers could gradually shift to new VFS API and old database API could be eventually phased out.
I hope somebody will develop such VFS implementation.
(copied verbatim from my june 2004 blog entry)
Is there are market for people such as yourself who just want the basics? Sure. But Casio will satisfy that market for $19.99.
Then there's the high-end. To run a whole company based on handhelds, I say you have to own this territory.
Unfortunately, Palm is falling flat. From the Palm V to the m515 was about 3 years and hardly any improvement at all.
So I went over to this Sony TH55, chosing to stick with PalmOS because I have some beloved Palm apps (DateBK) and didn't want the hassle of switching. It has wifi, half-vga screen, camera, microphone... the possibilities are endless. Unfortunately the software, starting with the PalmOS, just doesn't live up to it. The memo pad is STILL limited to 4096 bytes - insane. I was eager to develop apps for this and what do I find? Developer documentation and SDKs for the camera and WiFi are very difficult to find, and different between the Clie and Palm models. Even the onscreen Silkscreen area is managed inconsistently between the two.
And with all this extra functionality, reduced application stability comes with the territory. Yet PalmOS still seems to have no memory protection; resets are a fairly regular occurance. Even the "find" function crashes it frequently!
IMHO Palm has lost. The Cellphone companies will take the bulk of the business, and don't really need Palm. The rest will go to WinCE.
Palm just announced that the next generation Palm environment is going to run on top of a Linux kernel with a standard (though, presumably, trimmed-down) Linux user space. They have also fixed severe problems with their database format and other parts of their system.
If they don't go bankrupt before shipping the Palm/Linux environment, that should turn out to be a good handheld.
There is one problem with this suggestion. Windows CE is about the least stable and least compatable form of Windows ever created. I've owned a number of Windows CE PDAs (in both major form-factors, palm-top and HPC) and though there are a lot of nice things about Windows CE, it is simply too buggy and too unstable. Case in point, I have a Jornada 680E. The Jornada 680E is an HPC with a touch-typeable keyboard, a wide screen (1024x360 I believe), a PCMCIA slot, micro serial port, and a CF slot. In other words, it's not cheap, and it's not meant to mess around. It had a desktop-scale processor and enough RAM to be an adequate substitute for a laptop (at least in its day) The problem is, though the hardware itself is magnificent, the software used to run it is awful Case in point, windows CE is notoriously bad with stylus operation. So much so that it's nearly impossible to get it accurately calibrated. Secondly, it's quite frequent that windows CE will simply give up and the machine will lock with no useful error messages of any kind. This can't be blamed on third party software, because it happens when using the Microsoft bundled applications just as much as any others. To further bolster this claim, I have installed an SH3 version of Linux on the device and it has never locked up in this fashion. Furthermore, Windows CE is horrendously incompatable with itself. So much so that there is little to no backward or forward compatability between applications. Applications that ran fine on my Uniden PC100 failed miserably on my Jornada as well as on the Toshiba that by ex roomate used and frequently lamented. Windows CE can also be quite the battery hog as well, I've never heard of a Windows CE device lasting as long as a Palm device under normal operation. I will admit that the task switching of Windows CE is a lot easier to fanangle than that of Palm, especially if one is not used to Palm devices. However, I feel that that single benefit outweighs the overall poor performance and reliability of Windows CE in general. There is a reason Windows CE is often abbreviated as WinCE. Palm has its down sides (directory structure anyone?) but it's vastly superior to Windows CE in enough ways that it's far worth the trouble.
Our greatest enemy is neither a single man, nor is it a nation, it is, as it has always been, our own greed.
Forgive me if this is slightly off topic as I boast about blackberries vs palms, but I think the idea of avoiding "information dead-ends" is significant enough to be of value to some slashdot readers.
For me the usefulness of a tool is connected to how well it allows me to do tasks I already want to do. On my Blackberry I will look up a person's contact information on the internet using the browser, then I'll click on their phone number and my blackberry is calling them. Or In our organization of 20,000 people if I don't know exactly who I'm looking for I do a search against our exchange server and get the closest matches, then I can choose the right one and send an email. My email is always synchronized (no plugging into a cradle etc...) After I use a number or an email, I have the option of adding that contact into my address book.
I can't play solitare on my Blackberry. It isn't a computer, but when it comes to email, the web, phoning, and otherwise connecting those communicating tasks the Blackberry doesn't present many "dead-ends" for information. My palm m125 on the other hand is nothing but a dead end for information.
Much like the Internet or Unix, it's not about one killer feature, but rather the integration and connection of simpler features that allow us to work with tools in a way that is powerful scalable and ultimately useful to us without re-inventing how we do our work (graffiti?)
Thanks
Greg.
"Sometimes you've got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight" Bruce C0ckburn
I use Linux daily at work. It's the only OS I use for development. I tried to swttch from a Palm to a Zaurus and it was a tremendous failure. First off, I could expect crashes consistently that would trash all of my PIM data. Secondly the apps (or lack thereof) made me carry my Palm as well as the Zaurus. The Zaurus wasn't good a s a PDA or as a "mini laptop", IMHO.
I went to a store and with an open mind I played with the latest PalmOS and PocketPC devices. None of the PocketPCs can run any of the programs that I need in my work. Tough luck.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem