PalmAddicts

Pre-tty Impressed!

Well I haven't been excited about a smart phone release since.... well never actually.  The iPhone got me marginally chirpy, the Blackberry Bold didn't do much either, the Pre however has gotten me VERY excited.  I moved over from having Palms for 8 years to my Blackberry as the new Treo 680 just didn't have enough of a change from my old 650 to keep me for long.  The Pre makes me wish I hadn't gone for a one year affair with the Canadians, I have gotten to used to instant email and such.

The Pre however will get me back at the drop of a hat if they bring Blackberry Connect out for it like they did for POS5, even without it there's a fair chance I'll move back, I'll just have to set exchange up for push email!

For Palm the Pre is going to get them back up with RIM and Apple in the smart phone market and hopefully back to their glory days of the Treo 650, as I don't think any deice on the market looks as good as the Pre, both in features and aesthetics.  They nay-sayers who proclaimed Palm to be dying will eat their hats, rightly so!  Hopefully the software will come to WebOS and Palm will return to the top of the business smart phone market, although now probably alongside RIM.

PhoneFace from ElectricPocket

PhoneFace is a new app from one of my favourite developers Electric Pocket (who brought us Busker, Bugme, Ringo and FlipSide to name but a few…), PF is a speed dial application that scans your Blackberry’s phonebook for contacts with photos and automatically adds them (you can add photo-less contacts and assign one of the many pre-designed icons to them.

For day to day use at my desk I don’t use Phone Face as I often have to dial one of 4 or 5 numbers I have for my business contacts but when I get in my car PF becomes really useful.  Speed-dial on the Blackberry is the same as a Treo, hold a button down and it dials, great if you can remember the button!  PF allows me to quickly and easily scroll through a list of my top 40 contacts (those I added to it) using the scroll wheel and single click dial.  This means I am less distracted and can find the number I want quickly without having to read the small text of the Address Book, all I do is locate the big photo and large font name.

In essence it’s a big font and photo address book, which is idea for drivers who like me have their phone dashboard mounted and cant always read the text!  I have the permanently assigned to my side button so I can launch it with a single click, scroll to my contact and hit dial!

This comes highly recommended!

P.S. Did I mention the FaceBook plugin will scan the names and numbers/email addresses in your Address Book, cross reference it with your Facebook friends and download their current profile picture and use that? That’s just the icing on the cake really!  Features like that really tickle me, merging my phone contacts with my FaceBook friends is another level of integration I really like!

Proporta’s Alu-leather case & screen protector reviewed (Blackberry Curve)

For the past 5 years or so I have used Proporta’s cases nearly exclusively; the introduction of their Alu-leather range a few years ago gave nearly the same protection as their excellent Aluminium case but added a large amount of style.  My last 3 Palms were decked out in Alu-leather cases, and now my Blackberry Curve is too.

One thing I have noticed about Proporta is that over the years the quality of their presentation has risen with their success, nowadays the cases come in a very nice box, with the Proporta logo in silver on the front flip, the stitching has improved, not that it ever needed improvement...

I will admit Proporta managed to bribe me; they are the only company I have ever seen who include a sachet of tea in with your parcel, not just any tea; Twinnings Breakfast Tea, and loose I might add (Earl Grey would have been nicer but you can’t complain)!

Now as I drink my cup of tea let’s have a look at the features...

The Alu-leather cases have always been a favourite of mine, the belt clips are excellent, they are not fixed like some manufacturers and are free to swivel 360 degrees, the case also detaches from the belt clip for easy removal.

The phone itself is held in with a grip that keeps it sternly in place and unlikely to slip.  There are also the usual cut-outs for the camera on the rear.  The case’s flap is secured by a metal clasp not an annoying popper clip or such.

Protection wise the case has aluminium armour plates front and back, which will protect it from most impacts in general use.  As will all the Alu-leather cases the sides aren’t protected, but if you want all round protection take a look at their aluminium shell cases for true bullet proofing.  However if you want a balance of style and protection, go for the Alu-leather and you won’t be disappointed!

This case has reaffirmed why the Alu-leather cases are my favourite and will remain so for the foreseeable future!

Proporta’s reusable screen protector....

As I no longer have a touch screen device screen protectors have been of a low priority for me, and yes my screen has been scratched as consequence, my own stupidity really!

Proporta’s screen protectors have always been my favourite, they last a long time, they are re-usable (no sticky gunk left on removal!) and their clarity is so good you don’t realise its on there!

If you want a screen protector go for the Proporta ones, if you don’t want one, go and get one anyway as you won’t notice it and it may just save your screen!

A quick look at the FindMe Beta

FindMe from ElectricPocket is a relativly recent new beta application they have released a few weeks ago.  FindMe utilises GPS or cell tower triangulation (or both) to update your location on Facebook via it's own little application.

FindMe doesn't quite broadcast your position; you bookmark locations and FindMe updates your position when your arrive or pass through one of these location.  You also have the option to 'go dark' whereby FindMe stop reporting your status.

Having had a play about with the BlackBerry version (Win mobile also available) I like it although being the tin foil hat man I am I have privacy reservations, namely I tihnk it should be always off not always on so you update your location when you like, although that defeats the point of it to an extent.

It's an excellently made program (as per Electric Pocket's usual standard) and is the only program I can think of that fills this niche in the market, and with Geotagging becoming the next biggest thing perhasp EP are on to a winner with tis on?  Personally I am still using it but only updating my location sporadically, call me paranoid but people follwoing my location of Facebook makes me a tad security conscious!

It's free so I encourage any Facebook user who has BlackBerry or Win Mobile users to head over to Electric Pocket's website and check it out, especially if you have a GPS based device.   Please remember though it is in beta so don't expect it to be 100% finished, but do also rememebr it's free! Can I take my tin foil hat off now?

Flipside for Blackberry Review

As an iPod owner I don't use my phone as a main device.  RIM's media application is ever so slightly basic compared to Palm's offerings of Real Player or pTunes.

Back on my Treo my MP3 player of choice is Busker from Electric Pocket.  Why?

Well I covered that in a review a while ago, but mainly because I love cover art (The main reason I own an iPod Touch is coverflow!).  Now Flipside got me very excited, it's not a port of Busker; it's a brand new player from Electric Pocket.

Flipside had been long awaited by the Blackberry community, there isn't much competition in the area so when a strong developer comes along to make an MP3 player that has a gorgeous interface with cover art browsing  it was  bound to be talked about.

Interface wise FlipSide allows you to flip through your cover art to choose album, add to play list, or just to play an individual song.  This is incredibly effective using the scroll ball found on the Curve and Pearl devices as  a quick flick sends your cover art whizzing by. The interface really is where Flipside excels, unlike most Blackberry applications which can be a tad bland.

On the cover art side of things one very cool feature brought over from Busker is the ability to download new cover art as needed, very handy (if slightly slow over GPRS)!

As expect Flipside works perfectly playing in the background and can be flipped to from a shortcut it creates in the application menu, simple and effective.

I can't really pass judgement on the audio quality as I have no baseline comparison (and a tone deaf!), but it's as good or better than Busker is on my Treo, I suspect this will vary between Blackberry devices though.

So if you want a good looking, good quality player for your Blackberry Flipside is a superb choice. Go and have a nose over at the site here.

SplashID by SplashData review (Blackberry version)

Continuity is a good thing, since moving to my Blackberry Curve I have found I missed a lot of my favourite Palm programs, one being SplashID which is use daily to store my tens of passwords and private information. RIM supply 'Password Keeper' with the Curve however it is basic compared to SplashID and has no desktop client. Thankfully I got asked to review SplashID for Blackberry (I must admit I didn't know Splashdata did BB ports until then!) and it's good to have a familiar product again.

I've used SplashID for several years now to keep track of all those passwords, financial details and other business and personal data. I have always found SplashID perfect for the job, it has plenty of categorisation and custom fields for various types of information from bank details to airline details or software keys (essential if you have 25 licenses of Windows to keep track of!), it's just so customisable, plus you can separate business and personal data making life even easier.

One of the best features of SplashID is the desktop client; when you sync (on BB, Palm and I would imagine WinMo) it syncs your SplashID encrypted database with the client allowing you to access and add/modify/remove entries, and it allows the same database to be used by multiple devices (I share mine between my BB and my Treo), it comes in Windows and Mac flavours too.

With SplashID security is obviously the biggest issue, you set a main access password (I use an alpha-numeric-symbolic pass as I am paranoid) that unlocks the database, and should some unscrupulous person attempt to access the database, after 10 incorrect entries the database is locked, and i believe deleted (although I am not going to check this one!). The database is encrypted with 256bit Blowfish encryption which means it is nearly uncrackable (anything can be broken with enough time and equipment).

Sufficed to say there is only one program I trust my confidential data to; and that's SplashID!

My Treo is now 'on the side'

Recently I have begun flirting with my shiny new Blackberry which is gradually taking over from my Treo 680 as my main device, why?  Palm is great, nothing will replace the simplicity and ease of use of PalmOS however Garnet hasn't moved on at all since it was released back in 2002 and it is starting to feel it's age.  That combined with pressure from work has made me move over to the shiny new Blackberry 8310 'Curve'.

Since 'moving' i must admit I miss my Treo for a lot of things, the lack of a touchscreen I have got used to as I rarely ever used anything but the 5 way nav on my 680, but I miss the abundance of software that make Palm OS one of the best mobile platforms around, because of this I haven't stopped using my Treo entirely but it does get left at home most days.  Software for Blackberry OS is far more commercial oriented (the target market can afford it) and as such there is very little decent freeware and shareware for BOS which I miss, although now I have a battery that lasts me 5 times longer than my Treo which is the best plus point so far.

As soon as a fresh device based on ALP or Palm's own OS is released I will be ready to jump back on the boat and return Palm to it's number one spot as my smart phone of choice, until then I have succumb to RIM, albeit begrudgingly (with my Treo as a mistress on the side).

SplashNotes review

Note taking is and almost daily activity for me, be it project meetings, society minuting or lecture notes, one of the main tasks I use my LifeDrive (and now my new Treo) for is note taking.

I am not one for using anything but the simplest tool for the job, typically I just knock my notes out in memo or a couple of bullet points WordToGo, this has worked satisfactorily for as long as I can remember, it’s not elegant and it does take a while to decipher notes though, but it gets the job done.

SplashNotes peaked my interest; I must admit I was skeptical about how useful a note taking program would be, I mean there’s not much to note taking right? So I installed SplashNoes on my PC (it works nicely under Vista), sync’d it onto my Treo and popped off to a business meeting.

One of my problems with note taking on my Treo was the flow of ideas; it was hard to see what new ideas are and what are simply sub ideas, since my typical note taking session is 100 points long things get messy.

I get to my meeting which happened to be a project brainstorming meeting, I start up Splash Notes and create a blank note page, nothing hugely special here I thought, it’s just a list of bullet points.

The first note goes in; Topic A. We quickly move onto Topic B, then someone chirps back with an idea for Topic A… This is where I usually have problems; I have to scroll back up, insert a new line break, and enter the text (which is most likely on the wrong line). Wait a minute I can just add another line in with the tap of an icon, oh and I can tab it in with another tap…

By the end of the meeting I was at about 60 points, the difference today was they were all neatly laid out with varying tabbing and I could follow the train of thought without thinking, brilliant.

I get back home, pop my Treo in it’s cradle and sync it. Then I open up SplashNotes on my PC and right there in front of me are my notes, all neatly formatted exactly the same as on my Treo. I select all and copy it into Word, a quick bit of formatting and my meeting minutes are done in record time!

With regards to features SplashNotes contains everything you need, you can add check boxes, or number the bullet points in different styles (Roman, legal etc.), tabbing is done simply with two arrow buttons in the main screen, one for tabbing in, and one for tabbing out. It’s main view is clear, uncluttered and very intuitive.

So do I like SplashNotes? Simply put, yes I love it. If you do any kind of note taking or project outlining on your Palm then is simply worth its memory footprint in gold, it’s boost to my own productivity was huge I may even consider a hard button for it!

Pop over to SplashData's website and download a trial to see for yourself!

Bye-bye LifeDrive, Hello Treo!

Well my LifeDrive which has served me faithfully for two years mearly took a turn for the worst last week, it's headphone jack finally broke. I have been mulling over picking up a second hand Treo 650 for a while now, and finally crack last week while my LifeDrive was in for repair and managed to grab a good deal on eBay.

This is the third time I was thinking of buying a Treo, it seems to happen once a year, and I keep using the excuse that I need WiFi since I graduate from Uni in June which is my only source of free WiFi (other than at home) I started thinking that maybe a Treo wouldn’t be too bad, although data prices in the UK are extortionate compared to the US (£4 for 4MB!), but I made the move, and now I couldn'€™t imagine life without my Treo, especially the thumboard, after 7 years of using Palm PDAs I still find Graffiti a pain to use!

The LifeDrive is a truly excellent PDA, its concept was superb, and when Palm finally released ROM update 2 it became stable, however I no longer find myself using the gorgeous screen or the ample space to watch videos; it's main use is PIM, email and MP3 playback. So it has been resigned to eBay to pay off the cost of my Treo 650 and new Bluetooth car kit (yes I was up until recently a proponent of the good old fashioned wired car kit, nothing like a nice powered cradle!).

Using a Treo has opened me up to a whole host of new software, for years I have been checking my email infrequently using Bluetooth or IRDA connections to my mobile on my Palm, now with my Treo I am playing about with Chatter and I forgot how useful push email really is! I also flirted with MSN messenger on my LifeDrive but never used it seriously so I am now giving Mundu IM a spin and I must admit 24/7 connected MSN is handy in someways, but not in other... I must remember to set my status to invisible at 4AM!

My only gripe with the Treo is that Palm didn'€™t include an MP3 ring tone manager, it’s not exactly a tall order since an MP3 player is already in the ROM, but you can’t have it all I guess. So I am now playing about ith various ringtone managers to find one I like!

The Treo truly is a remarkable device, I have played with smart phones before, usually Windows Mobile ones as a lot of my friends have the XDA/MDA devices and I must admit they felt more of a PDA than a phone, the Treo manages to keep the PDA/phone balance just right, and I'€™ll admit I quite like the antenna for some bizarre reason! Now I have to stop myself considering a Treo 680!

Proporta's 3in1 Stylus and Screen Protector Review

Amongst the kit to review I received from Proporta were one of their 3 in 1 styli and an Advanced Screen Protector.

Firstly I'll mention the stylus, I have never owned one of these fangled multifunction styli, I always found a normal stylus did the job fine and never gave it a second thought. Proporta have designed a very nifty piece of kit; it has a pen under the stylus tip which is handy and it is very nicely weighted. I always found Palm's extending stylus to be a little light so I do like Proporta's, it has a nice weight and is a bit longer, so is on the whole it is a lot more comfortable to use.

The screen protector from Proporta did surprise me, I have used loads of screen protectors and never really got on with them, they never stick well, or stick too well and I can never get the bubbles out! Proporta did the incredibly sensible thing of packaging their screen protectors with a lint free cloth and an applicator card, so you have everything to apply it in the box, excellent! The application was simple; clean the screen with the supplied cloth and slide the protector on with the card, a lot easier than with most other screen protectors; I have been known to spend an hour getting a screen protector on right as they usually bug me, not this one it went on and stayed first time! It also has a very nice feel to it and my stylus glides over it smoothly. There is also an anti-glare coating that's very effective under bright light, it makes the display a lot clearer when outdoors or under fluorescent lighting . Most screen protectors I use come off quickly as I hate them , not Proporta's I think it may be here to stay, it beats all the others I have used by a long shot!

The stylus was more than I was expecting and is a lot more solid to my LifeDrive stylus, but what I was really amazed by was the screen protector which comes very highly recommended!