Meet my new PDA pal- Samsung Omnia

Yes. I've had this unit for 1 month and continue to admire the device- for its hardware and software specs! Why did I choose this device? The HTC Diamond, HTC Raphael and Sony Xperia have better screen resolutions than the Omnia. But in other specs they are lacking- a faster Processor, bigger Storage Capacity (16gb + SD Expansion of up to 16gb), Optical Navigation or Mouse, and 5mp Full Function Camera!

I'm a person who can sacrifice Screen Resolution. It is not a must have- after having a look at the HTC Diamond. Yes- Text and Print are legible if viewed on a VGA screen. But the screen size is just too small at 2.8". And besides- a VGA screen requires more memory.

The Omnia has a 3.2" screen size. And the WQVGA is perfectly fits the screen size. With 128mb RAM- there is sufficient memory to run programs without the need to reset the device. And Samsung has loaded the unit with the most needed applications except for the Weather.

Samsung provides 3 Today Interfaces- which is far better than the traditional WM screen. I prefer using the Widget Screen. The screen allows you to mix and match most need applications- a calendar, contacts,web browser, game folder, radio tuner, photo browser, or connection manager in an ICON form on your today screen. The ICONS can overlap each other- COOL! Just TAP an ICON to run a particular program- tap the Calendar and your preferred PIM program will execute.

The bottom of the LCD screen you will see the words "PHONE" and "MAIN MENU". Tap the PHONE to execute the PHONE Dialling Screen. Tap the MAIN MENU to execute the most used PDA applications- settings, camera, Programs, and etal. Another screen provides 12 user editable buttons to execute their programs. Samsung has put great effort to give a TOUCH friendly experience to the OMNIA. You will still encounter some relics of the tradition WM interface. Overall- I'm :).

The Omnia runs fast- faster than my previous Atom Life PDA. And with 16gb on-board Memory- its quite a shattering experience!

My O2 Atom Life- a good PDA but its adios....

Yes. I've had my Atom Life for 1 year and 4 months. It's still a very capable device as compared to other WM brands- especially that 624mhz processor and 800mb ROM Storage space. But the Today interface is quite dated and RAM memory is a piddling 64mb. Add a new slick Today interface and you will find that available RAM memory will decrease to 16mb. You will face a constant task to RESET your device more often.

And with regrets I say adios to my Atom Life PDA.

Freecom MusicPal- initial opinion

The Freecom MusicPal is your 21st gateway to the world. You can tune-in to a multitude of worldwide Radio Stations streaming music to the internet in MP3 or WMA format. Plus extra functions not standard in other Internet Radios.

To set-up, you will need to have a broadband access. The Musicpal connects to your broadband in wired or wireless mode. All you need is to enter your encryption code to access the internet to finish the set-up.

You can customize the unit in a variety of ways. And Freecom has included the software Storage Assistant to alter, with ease, the MusicPal via PC (You can also customize the unit without a PC!). You can instruct MusicPal to automatically retrieve your Home Time from the net, turn-off the unit at a set time, wake you up at set time and many other tweaks.

It was a breeze to locate Radio Stations. Just rotate and press the Navigate Button when a particular station is located. You have the option to search by Country or Genre. And requires no remote control. To store your station to the Favorites Menu simply press the Navigate Button, scroll to Add to Favorites, and press to save- no memory buttons necessary. To locate a saved Station, just navigate to the Favorite Menu, and scroll thru the all the stored Stations.

Extras? The MusicPal is capable of retrieving RSS Feeds, Stocks, World Weather, World Time and Calendar. No need to open the Computer, and wait to boot-up before being able to retrieve information. What other internet Radio can to all of these extras?

And there is one more extra- MusicPal can access and play your music files stored in your Computer. Just like a Mac AirBook Computer. No need to have a built-in or external CD player to listen to music.

Quality of Sound? The MusicPal has only one speaker. You can't expect much in terms of sound quality. But don't fret- Freecom includes two options to upgrade sound quality. You can connect the unit to a receiver with aux inputs. Or connect a powered speaker to the headphone jack. The other point to note is the kps used by a particular Radio Station. The rule is the lower the kps the lower the sound quality. And the higher the kps the better the sound quality but you will require a faster broadband connection. Otherwise, you will hear a lot of skipping.

Size? The MusicPal is small and light to lug around the house. But Freecom forgot to include a battery option. You are stuck will lugging around an A/C adaptor. What happens if the power is cut? Your settings and saved Favorites remain intact.

Built quality? You will not be disappointed by the built quality of MusicPal.

Design? The MusicPal won the IF design award.

Any caveats? When MusicPal was first introduced to the market it did not have WMA capabilities. A lot of internet blogs ridiculed the lack of WMA support. The current firmware update 1.47 supports WMA streaming to a certain degree. The other caveat is MusicPal on occassions my hang-up. No worries. Just power down and turn-on the unit again.

Overall, I love my MusicPal. It is my new companion to the World!

Panasonic HDC SD9

The HDC SD9 is the latest camcorder from Panasonic that records AVCHD video in SD/SDHC cards. The cam records in true 1920x1080 pixels using 3 CCD's to correctly record the blues, reds and greens.

Whats my opinion? It's an awesome camcorder! It does record sharp HD videos contrary to many reviews in the internet. It is simple to operate and with enough manual controls to produce videos to your own standards.

This cam smoothly zooms in at 10x optical using the Leica Dicomar lens system. And scene modes enable the cam to adjust to a wide variety of situations such as low light. You have the option to turn on/off the Face Detection feature that detects Faces and automatically adjust the brightness and picture quality recorded. Sound clarity is exceptional with the ability to record in Dolby 5.1 surround system. And the OIS ensures stable video shots. The cams weighs a mere 337g using the standard battery. You hold the body by the palm of your hand. And record using the 2.7 inch, 300,000 pixel, LCD screen.

You can also use the cam as your back-up camera. It takes 2.1mp pictures. And can shoot 25frames/second or 72 shots in 3 seconds in high speed burst mode. A built-in flash ensures clear shots indoors.

There are various optional accessories you can buy to expand the functionality of the SD9 such as wide/tele converter lenses and video dc light.

On the negative side, Panasonic chose to hide the A/C and HDMI plugs behind the battery. You have to remove the battery to plug-in the A/C and HDMI cables. The other negative is the supplied software is inadequate for editing AVCHD videos.

This is a superb camcorder to own despite the negatives. It may not be the smallest but sure is fun to use. And despite bad reviews by bias websites, you will not be disappointed by videos it records. The best judge will be YOU.

A new and fun application to view entertainment and information content on your PDA is Zumobi. It comprises of 16 tiles, grouped into 4, to view information such as weather, stocks, news, and entertainment. Pressing the "z" will zoom-in on 4 tiles that displays a downsized content version on your screen. Tap a particular tile to see the full information. To zoom-out just tap the "z".

Tile content is still limited. You only have Associate Press for News. Other tiles of interest are Engadget, Weather, MTV Movie, Chinese Horoscope and DIY. And hopefully, more tile content will be available within the year.

You may also need to have a PDA with a speed of at least 400mhz to enjoy the use of this application. And a wi-fi or broadband plan to retrieve and update tile information. Click on www.zumobi.com to download the software. :)

SlideIt- a revolutionary text input for PDA's!

There are numerous text input alternatives for PDAs. And all fall short of my expectation in terms of speed to ender text. Enter SlideIt developed by Dr. Daniel Suraqi. His concept is to tap and slide letters to form a word. Does it work? The answer- YES!

Finally, a solution to speed-up your text input on your PDA. To form the word "YOU' tap on Y and slide the stylus to all the remaining letters. Then lift your stylus and a SPACE is automatically created to enter your next word. You can see word suggestions on the left side of the PDA screen which you can tap for quicker text input. For numbers and special characters, you may opt to write using graffiti in the left side of your PDA. I suggest you download and try the software. There is no trial expiration but only a nagging ad to purchase this revolutionary application.

There are 2 caveats to note. First, it is not possible to use the SLIDE mode when typing words such as www, Yahoo, and Google. The application will guess and input the best possible word that fits your first three letters. You have to turn-off the SLIDE mode and manually tap each letter on the keyboard. I have given an email to the developer to ask him to incorporate a feature that will turn-off word suggestions on SLIDE mode. And I received a positive YES reply.

Second, the developer is asking a steep price for the software at US$40.00! That is big price to pay. But for PDA users with lots of text to write - IT'S WORTH IT! No alternative text input application can compare with SlideIt- IPHONE included.

You can download and try the application at http://www.mobiletextinput.com/Product/SlideIT/SlideIT.php.

A new life to your old Canon Powershot Cameras!

Got an old Canon Power Shot camera? This includes the SD and G models. Sure looks outdated. But cheer up! All is not lost! Go visit the URL- http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK. And bring life to your old Canon. The most important new feature is the ability to record in RAW mode. Can my old Canon do that? Why did Canon not include RAW? Probably Canon feared that enabling RAW in their Compacts will erode sales of their DLSR line.

First step is to check if your model is supported. And then download the approriate HACK to your camera's memory card. And choose FIRMWARE UPDATE from your Camera Menu. Presto! You now can shoot in both RAW and JPEG. You can alter your shot to your desire without losing precious details due to JPEG. The hack does not alter your Camera's firmware. It only appends to your firmware. You can remove it anytime you want.

I tried the hack on my Canon Powershot A700. And have not experienced any problems. You get the option to save the RAW file in a separate folder or JPEG folder. It took approximately 3 seconds to save the file to my memory Card. Other cool features - a Histogram display when taking your shot, Under/Over exposure indicators, and 2 GAMES- reversi and sokoban. :)

Fring anyone?

Fring is a software that allows you to call or chat with various IM platforms- Skype, Google Talk, AIM, Yahoo and MSN via WIFI or your carrier's data plan. The software is available for Symbian and WM devices. There are 3 major advantages for downloading Fring to your device- a. The software is FREE. b. You can call/chat with various IM platform in one software. c. It integrates your Phone contacts when you run the application.

Voice clarity using SKYPE was good. Just make sure you are on WIFI or on a 3G broadband Plan. And you have enough SKYPE credits to make the call. The call will be cheaper if you are on a free WIFI area.

The multiple IM's enable you to chat to almost everyone you know on different messenger platforms.

Magic Button 2.1 a perfect complement to IFONZ

IFONZ is a great WM Interface. You can run a particular application at a touch of a button. But the interface lacks the ability to multi-task. The solution- download Magic Button. The software allows you move out of an application and return to the IFONZ interface to run another Program. It displays running programs as ICONS on the WM Task Bar. Simply press a Program Icon to return t0 a running application.

And you can configure the program to really CLOSE programs. Other uses of Magic Button are- shut-down or soft reset your PDA and look for the Definition of a particular WORD if you installed the WORD Dictionary.

It's a great program to install. And only uses 71kb of your memory.

New IFONZ update

The application IFONZ has been updated to 0.9.4. New features added to this update are:

1. Slide down your finger or stylus to minimize the program.
2. Added the ability to slide through pages from left to right.
   
3. Addition of System Information to show battery and memory status.
4. Added Notifications and Move Gestures in the Setting Menu.
5. Allower user to set the Program to ask first before closing down the program.
6. Additional animation effect when pressing a button.

And many more fixes and enhancements.

The program uses approximately 2.5mb of Free RAM. I detected some Memory Leaks which causes your PDA to report less available RAM after closing a program. The version 8.8 fixed the leaks. But the leaks returned in this new version. You need a program like Memmaid or GBA (Game Boy Advance Emulator) to restore lost RAM. Looking forward to version 1.0.

To download the new version click on this URL address- http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=369241. And do Donate when the program turns to version 1.0.

Why I still love WM?

The market is littered with a variety of mobile Platforms- to name a few Apple,Palm, Symbian, Android, and QT. But the Window platform remains my Mobile Platform choice when the innovation of Palm stopped. Like Palm, there are a myriad of applications, free or paid, to jazz up your device. Its this lack of applications which will prove to be a liability for other Platforms. WM Platform provides true flexibility to cater to your specific requirements- be it Business or Personal. Until a better Platform will arrive and hypnotize the Market, the WM Platform still remains the leader and choice Mobile platform of the Future.

Which Touch Interface for WM?

There are now 4 exceptional Touch Interface software available for WM devices- SPB Shell 2.0, Goodwin, Pointui and Ifonz. Which one to choose?

Once deciding factor to consider is Simplicity. And Ifonz wins. The application is reminiscent of the PALM interface- one press of a button to run a Program. Plus the added convenience of Touch to view Pages. Beats the hassle of pressing the Program menu, Searching for the Program, and Running the Program. Further, the interface allows the user to program the application they want to RUN- e.g. PocketInformant in lieu of the bland WM Calendar. And the internet is littered with free and paid programs to make your WM Device graphically tasteful!

The second best program is Pointui. It gives instant access to Time, Appointments, Tasks and Contacts by sweeping your finger across the screen. Its a Graphically intensive application. But fails in providing instant access to Programs. You still have to go to the graphical Program Menu to look for the application you want to run.

The third best program is SPB Shell 2.0. It gives instant access to Time, Weather, and Appointments. With ICONS littered in the Today screen to access your Phone, Mail, Programs and Contacts. Although it provides 12 slots for your Favorite Programs, other applications have to be accessed using the Program Folder. It could have been my second choice, but Graphically the program is a history of its previous iterations. SPB just added the touch and animation feel.

And Goodwin comes in at a distant fourth. The application fall shorts of WOW! factor. Just the ability to use Touch on your screen.

SPB Shell 2.0- another Touch Interface Concept

SPB just released an update to their Shell application. Some interesting features are

1. A Touch Interface with 3 Panel View- Today, Applications and Contacts. Just sweep across your Screen to change views.
   
2. The Today View shows a Big Analog Clock with Weather or an Analog Clog with Appointments. Easy access to your Calendar, Programs, Contacts,Mail,SMS,Phone Profile and Weather.
   
3. The Application View shows 12 of your Favorite Programs plus instant access to Settings.
4. The Contact View shows 19 of your Favorite Contacts.
5. A choice of Animation Effects.
6. A small memory footprint.

The program costs US$29.95. Users of previous SPB Shell versions can upgrade at 50% discount of the price.

IFONZ updated to version 0.8.8!

There is a new IFONZ update. Yipeee! The author has done a lot of improvements on the application such as-

1. Program the Calendar Button to show the actual DAY.
   
2. Program a Button to show number of uncompleted TASKS.
   
3. Program the speed of the SLIDE animation.
4. Bottom Bar ICONS are editable- change icon and/or change assigned PROGRAM.
5. Animated Button Press- the Button Icon zooms out when pressed.
   
6. New ICONS to download. You can now choose to have the IPHONE look or VISTA look.
   

And many more improvements while maintaining the 2mb program footprint.

Many thanks to Simon for bringing out this AWESOME program! His url site is www.thedogcorner.blogspot.com. You can download the program from http://www.freewareppc.com/utilities/ifonz.shtml or http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-ifonz-v0-7-6.html.

Great Programs to use with IFONZ.

If you have decided to use IFONZ as your WM Interface, here are some suggested applications to program for the buttons-

• Clock- WorldMate free edition. Just make sure if you exit WorlMate it is in the Clock View.
• Weather- WeatherMate 3.2 will give you detailed weather for more thatn 50000 locations.
• Calendar- Pocket Informant 8 is your best bet. This version uses the Touch interface to scroll through your Appointments. Just exit the Program either in 1 or 7 day view.
• Images- use either S2V or PictureViewer. Both uses the Touch interface to scroll through your photos, zoom in/out and exit.
• Navigator- Google Maps or Google Navigator.
  
• Videos- TCMP or CorePlayer.
• Finance- SPB Finace or CashOrganizer.
• Calculator- HiCalc or Omega One 1-Calc.
• Notes- Free Notes is a small program that instantly runs on your WM Device. You can draw, write or type on the Note. The beauty of this program is its ability to save your note on a per day basis just like a daily journal. You can write a note on a past or future date. Notes are saved on your My Documents folder. And organized on the basis of Month. If you require a simple note program, without saving on a day to day basis, Touch-Notes or PencilBox are the best applications. They are small, open up instantly and runs fast on any WM device.
• SMS- you can use your Device default SMS application or us FlexMail.
  

Don't forget the Qtopia platform. ....

Yup. Yup. Yup. We have Palm, Wm, Symbian, Blackberry, and Android. Not enough? How about Qtopia? A linux based platform said to provide unmatched freedoom to customize your Smartphone. And claims to be the first new platform with a Smartphone device out in the market! Hurry-up Google. The market is getting more crowded.

Coming soon...the Android Phone Platform.

The Android phone platform, lead by Google, is taking aim at capturing a sizeable chunk of the Smartphone market. Their website http://code.google.com/android/ states that all applications are equal. The platform is free and has no restrictions unlike WM or Symbian. The question remains- is there room for the Android Platform? Will developers make money with so many phone platforms? Will any platform disappear because of the competion? Only time can tell...but one platform is dying! The granddaddy of the PDA- PALM. They once had the market to themselves. And their failure to innovate will soon kill them. They are close to becoming a Polaroid in the past.

Waiting for a Blackberry Touch Smartphone...

The internet is abuzz with news of an upcoming Blackberry with touch screen. If true, it will enable Blackberry to gain market share from the giants- Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and Apple. The current Blackberry platform is good- very stable, does not consume much memory and fast. And its push email is unequaled. It reminds you of what Palm was in the early PDA days. And more developers are creating software for the platform.

The lack of a touch screen limits its market to users used to typing on a keyboard. A touch screen plus a keyboard will enable Blackberry to get a bigger slice of the market pie. And will future proof the device against competitors. :)

Sony Xperia- a new WM xperience !

For WM lovers, Sony will soon market the Xperia! And as the saying goes "better late than never!". Finally, a WM device to love provided the pictures on Sony's website are to be believed. It has the Touch and Feel of the IPHONE. And I do hope that Sony has enhanced the WM programs such as Internet, Mail, and Documents. It runs on a Qualcomm Arm processor running at 52omhz- enough juice for fast processing of programs. And has a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, agps, wifi, bluetooth, querty keypad, optical joystick, memory expansion and 4 way navigation. To cap the list of features- a 800 x 480 picsel 3 inch LCD Screen! Wow! The only mystery- how much is the device??? One thing is for sure- I will start saving-up to get an Xperia! And hope I won't get frustated owning the device.

More Iphone like software for your WM device.

A flood of programs are filtering on internet sites which gives users of WM devices the Touch Feel and Visual Graphics of the IPHONE. Some of these great programs are:

1. PocketCM- a Contact program that allows you to scroll through your contacts with a flick of a finger. You can edit, add notes and send SMS at a touch of a button. The URL of this program is http://www.pocketcm.com/index.php.
2. S2V- a stylus free picture viewer. The URL site to download the software is http://forum.xda-developers.com/member.php?u=392886.
3. Picture Viewer- another stylus free picture viewer. The URL site is http://forum.xda-developers.com/member.php?u=510170.
   
4. Picsel- a all in one program to view websites, photos, documents, pdf, and spreadsheet. It was one the first programs to incorporate the touch feel on WM devices.

If you have downloaded IFONZ, you can configure the buttons to directly run the programs on your PDA!

A touch of IPHONE-NESS on WM Devices

Pointui

IFONZ

For users wishing to have a touch of IPHONE-NESS on their WM device, there are 2 free software you can download.

The first is IFONZ, with URL address http://thedogcorner.blogspot.com/, which mimics the look and feel of the IPHONE. Users can change the graphics and program that runs on each button. You can add as many buttons and pages as you like with memory the only limiting factor. The main program requires 2MB of free RAM on your PDA. You are able to configure the program to slide the pages, randomly move the buttons as the page slides, and change the wallpaper in portrait and landscape mode. To complete the IPHONE look you can download the SLIDER program from URL address http://www.freewareppc.com/utilities/iphoneslider.shtml. This is the lock program of the IPHONE. Just configure one button to serve as the LOCK key.

The second is Pointui , with URL adress http://pointui.com, that offers a unique Touch Interface to your PDA. You can slide the Today Screen to show a large CLOCK, see your Appointments and Tasks. Touch another button to Touch scroll on all the programs loaded into your PDA. The program requires 3MB of free RAM on your PDA.

I prefer using the IFONZ on my WM Device. It's simpler to use. More stable. Faster to access Programs. Less demanding on your PDA Resources and Memory. And minimal Battery usage. Maybe that's the reason why IPHONE garnered a sizeable market share of the IPHONE market!

Hurray! Blue-ray Wins!

With the withdrawal of Toshiba from the HD-DVD consortium and Warner's defection to Blue-ray- it looks like the DVD battle is over. This time SONY wins! Hurrah! Now I can purchase a PS3 with Blue-ray Disc.

Future Smartphone Trends.

1. A continued divergence in Smartphone devices- pim, wallet, phone, camera, music player, gps, and game machine.
   
2. A continued emphasis on the feel, look and simplicity of the IPHONE.
3. Bigger and sharper LCD screens.
4. More new Platforms to choose- Linux, Android, Trolltech and etal.

Apple lead in Innovation...the rest follows!

Yup.  There is no doubt that Apple is the leader in Product Innovation!  You may like or  hate the Company.  But one thing is sure- the rest follows.  It's a me-too or die in the market ideology.

When the first IPOD came out of the market, it was such a great hit!  Users embraced the simplicity of the IPOD.  And made other Brands simply obsolete.  Now you can see major Brands such as Microsoft or Samsung rush out me-too devices that mimic the simplicity and look of the IPOD.

Then came the IPHONE.  And it WOWED the MARKET!  Nothing on the Market can compare with the speed, beauty, feel and simplicity of this Smartphone.  And again the likes of Microsoft, 
Samsung, Nokia, Motoral, HTC and other Brands are in a mad rush to bring out Smartphones
that mimic the IPHONE.

And the lastest from Apple is the MacBook Air.  A laptop so thin and light that users can carry it around with ease.  Despite its limitations this product will prove to be a great hit for Apple.  And are other Brands worried? You bet.  They are now racing against each other to market a product similiar to the MacBook Air.

Why is Apple the leader?  Apple can be viewed as a Small Company with minimal bureaucracy.  A Company were Innovation thrives with less interference from the upper Echelons.  A velociraptor among T-rexes of the Modern World.  

A NEW BLOG ABOUT TECHNOLOGY!

On this site, I start a new blog on anything about Technology- trends, new gizmos, computer, pda's, smartphones and etal.  Any opinions published on this blog iare all based on my Personal Views.  Please fell free to express your comments.