To Meeting Minutes Main Page

by Joseph Caputo, NYCDAUG Scribe & Secretary, Sam Wagner, Pocket PC SIG Chair and Peter M. Fine, President
(and with help from all of our members)

Pro-Clip Holster for the Treo 650 Review by Peter M. Fine, May 2005

Pro-Clip continues to offer a quality, well made product for the new Treo 650 and as before these units come either for vertical (#229011 and horizontal (#229012) carrying of the phone.  I prefer the vertical as it keeps the PDA in a profile slim. Even if you have a leather case used normally, these units show much less "bulk" and so they keep a more invisible profile with dress cloths or a sweater. The PDA screen is always protected as it is face in and it takes no time to pop the unit in or out for easy access. List price is $24.95 and ProClip's site covers lots of other holders for many PDA models as well as car mounts - a must visit in my opinion.

Palm OS Meeting Minutes for May 19, 2005 by Joseph Caputo with Peter M. Fine
Photos ©2005 Peter M. Fine and were taken with a Treo 650

The reason for this special meeting was palmOne’s “Pugapalooza 2005 Tour”. Stephen McDonnell and Maureen Garvey, both of palmOne Inc., did the presentation. Pizza and soda was provided and everyone who attended received a cap with “LifeDrive” logo and other free goodies, including information about palmOne’s latest products and special discounts for purchases.

NYCDAUG’s President Peter M. Fine hosted the event and Peter reminded everyone that NYCDAUG’s membership fee was reduced from $15.00 to $10.00 per year as an incentive for more members to join at Supporting level.  Henry Posner of B&H Photo/Video was thanked for hosting this and all of our meetings for many past years.

McDonnell spoke through a slide show enhanced presentation about palmOne’s latest complete product line.  He then talked extensively about their just released (the day before) "LifeDrive", the first product in the new "mobile manager" line. Stephen described the LifeDrive as a real workhorse that lets you take whatever is important to you, with you, anywhere that you go.  This includes your documents, your photos, your music and any other computer data file that you would like to have with you.

The LifeDrive has an Intel 416 MHz Xscale processor, a state of the art Hitachi 4 gigabyte hard drive, and a 320x480 Transflective TFT color display.  It is the first palmOne device with a hard drive, making it the first palmOne device to have “moving parts” within (a reference to the hard drive’s spinning disk).  Out of the box, photos from your SD card capable digital camera can be stored or viewed instantly with the LifeDrive’s camera companion software.  It has built in WiFi, Bluetooth, an SD expansion slot and comes with the widely popular Pocket Tunes software to play back music files.  The LifeDrive is $499.

Stephen also talked about the new Tungsten E2.  Some features that distinguish the E2 from its predecessor, the Tungsten E, includes a brighter display, the addition of Bluetooth wireless technology, non-volatile RAM and an improved battery.  The Tungsten E2 is $249.

More information about both new devices can be found at palmOne’s website.

Maureen talked about the palmOne “pays back” program where enrollees can earn “Palmbucks” for handhelds that are purchased by your referred friends and families.  If you don’t already know about this great program, go to the palmOne web site and click on the palmOne pays back link under the “Community” headline.

Anyone interested in earning an additional 100 or as much as 500 additional Palmbucks can submit their own trivia question to triviaquestions@palmone.com.  Enroll and you will receive 100 palmOne bucks.  If your trivia question is used, you will earn 500 palmOne bucks.  PalmOne bucks can be redeemed for merchandise available at the palmOne store or other popular online merchants including Amazon.com.

A raffle was held and Martha Mahoney won a Lifedrive, Al Lavine won a Tungsten E2, and Mary Ann Nordeman won a Zire 72.  Others won palmOne Pugapalooza T-Shirts and Howard Katz won limited edition palmOne “bowling” shirt.  All who won the major prizes joined or renewed their supporting member dues as is customary.

MSN Direct Wrist Net Watch Review by Peter M. Fine, March 6, 2005

The MSN Direct Wrist Net is offered as a Fossil branded model ($149.00) or as a slightly less expensive Abacus branded model ($129.00). For this review, I was provided with the Abacus model. I demonstrated this at our NYCDAUG Palm meeting on February 17, 2005.

This is THE watch for news junkies although it falls short for those expecting a full PDA experience. However, note that Fossil is also offering a more expensive Palm OS PDA model although this reviewer has not seen it to compare experience.

Below are services as detailed and quoted from the source material and online. Keep in mind one needs to be able to get the wireless service in their area so going to the web site and making sure you have coverage first would be a step not to overlook. Content is of course from MSN Direct.

Service Description:

“MSN Direct is a subscription based service that sends your Wrist Net watch personalized information over FM radio waves. New out of the Box service with MSN® Direct gives you national news and Hi/Low temperature for your area for FREE! Upgrade to the Smart Plan for just $39.95 a year and get all most popular MSN Direct channels. Add one-way Personal Messaging via MSN Messenger and Outlook Calendar sync for your appointments to the Smart Plan for $20 more per year.”

So, you need to spend a minimum of $40 per year for most services and if you want full email messaging TO the watch, that is an additional $20 per year. I was only able to test out the $40 year plan so I cannot speak to the messaging services at all.

You must use a traditional web interface on a desktop PC or PDA with a browser in order to configure and customize your services to the watch. Other channels offered quoting MSN site descriptions:

TIME= This watch automatically updates to the correct local time when you move locations. Plus, you can change the look of your watch with different watch face graphics, or use chronometer, alarm, and timer features.

NEWS = Receive regular, easy-to-read updates on only those types of news stories that interest you, including world, national, business, sports, technology, entertainment, health and travel.

WEATHER = Scan weather reports for your city and cities all over the world. Data includes current conditions, easy-to-read three-day forecasts, wind, humidity, barometric pressure, UV index and more.

CALENDAR = View times and locations for events important to you, including professional and college sports, concert and entertainment schedules, cultural events, holidays, appointments and even personal date book entries.

SPORTS = Continuous updates keep you current on game times, scores, pre-game stories, post-game stories, and standings for your favorite collegiate and professional sports teams.

MOVIES = Stay up to date with the latest from Hollywood and get a list of current movies in your area with show times or a list of your local theaters that includes each movie and their show times.

PERSONAL MESSAGES received on the watch - This feature needs the $20/yr EXTRA service.

Additional services are promised as well.

The watch worked as advertised. Through the use of a clever cradle, you just sit the watch on it and it is charged with no additional wires to connect. It is of course a black and white screen, no color and is on the big size for me but consistent with what is now being worn in many fashionable circles so this is a personal preference. Paying $60/yr ($5/month) with all services including email messags is not exorbitant but one still needs full access to the Internet somewhere else to configure the watch as well.

Conclusion: Being a PDA user, I would be more interested in the PDA model which apparently has been improved vastly over the first release a number of years ago. For those who want news and such related information updates, this watch might fill that need.

Also demonstrated at the February 17, 2005 Palm OS  meeting by Charlie Ridgway, were two games: :

Cool Curling can be downloaded from Palmsource and costs $8 to register.

Microsoft Office Concentration is downloadable from Avantgo for free and there is a version for either Palm or Pocket PC PDAs.

NotSync by UltraSoft v3.1 - $10  - by Peter M. Fine

Works in tandem with either the Macintosh or Windows version of Palm Desktop software 4.0 or newer

This product adds one of the best features of the more expensive products like The Missing Sync which is to have the ability to create SETS of conduits you want to load in your desktop software. If you only want to sync the calendar, ordinarily you have to go and uncheck or change the setting on every conduit you have to disable them. Using NoSync, all you need to do is create a set with just that one conduit enabled. It is a feature that I believe should have been in the Palm software but was never added.

Pocket PC Meeting Minutes for January 20, 2005- by Sam Wagner

Sam presented a small application named XCPUScalar that allows user to over/under clock their Pocket PC to either allow for faster processing or save some battery life. The application has been reviewed by Anatoli and is currently posted on the website below.

Jerry presented a bunch of little programs:

cLaunch – Free tab Today task launcher
WeatherPanel – Today screen weather and forecast - $11.99
Pocket Breeze – Today Screen task and calendar display - $12.95
Avantgo – New offline information Sync (such a NYTimes, NY1...) - FYI, NYCDAUG is an official AvantGo partner!
Skweezer – Free proxy based web site optimization - compress and optimize any page to view on a PDA

January 15, 2005

Product Review: XCPUScalar for Windows Mobile v.2.85

Vendor:ImmerSoft
Reviewed by Anatoli Arkhipenko

Test Platform: Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition 

Test Hardware: Toshiba e830

Brief Description: XCPUScalar is a system utility, which takes advantage of Intel XScalar processor's ability to dynamically change speed. This mode taps into the safety delta of the chip, and therefore is technically unsafe.) without interruption (reboot, reset, etc.).  XCPUScalar measures processor load and switches speed between several preset values.  XCPUScalar allows to "overclock"(overclocking – running a processor or any other clocked microchip at clock speeds higher than recommended by the manufacturer)  your processor, giving a power burst beyond device's declared ability.  XCPUScalar also provides several system functions, such as warm reset, key lock and display toggle.

Verdict: A MUST HAVE for owners of XScale-based PDAs. If configured properly, XCPUScalar will give a power boost to your applications when they need it, and conserve the precious battery power, when your machine is idling.I personally do not run XCPUScalar all the time. I use it when I need to conserve battery power, or when I need the most performance from my Toshiba.

Setting up: Installation went without problems. XCPUScalar creates itself as a Control Panel applet, and as a regular application, so there are plenty of ways to start the application.

Configuration of XCPUScalar includes:

1. Selecting Speed and View settings:

This is how the XCPUScalar TaskBar meter looks like.

For instance, when moved into the left most corner, with transparent background

3. Deciding on the boot up options  - for instance, start after soft reset and immediately minimize.

4. And finally deciding whether you are bold enough to risk the life of your device and over-clock it above 20%, as well as deciding on what shows up in the Today tray:

So in 4 quick steps, you should have you XCPUScalar up and running.

Running: XCPUScalar runs in the background.  If you did not set it up to display on the TaskBar or in the Today tray, it is invisible.  You do, however, notice how your PDA slows down at times, and then picks up after you start some "heavy" application, like TextMaker, or BetaPlayer.

One of the reasons, I do not run XCPUScalar all the time is the delay with which my Toshiba scales up to some reasonable speed after power up when I need to quickly look something like a contact up.  This, however, has probably little to do with the program itself, but rather with my impatience…

The most important thing about XCPUScalar: it is stable!

I have been trying out Pocket Hack Master 2004, and that application would lock my machine up all the time for no particular reason.  XCPUScalar works perfectly in comparison. My Toshiba still locks up, but not more frequently than without XCPUScalar running. Lock-ups cannot be attributed to the program running. In the end – it's a Microsoft system it has to run on.

Secondly, it does save power! I ran several tests, and the difference is noticeable.

My typical uses of XCPUScalar are:

1. Maximum performance. Which is over-clocking without scaling for applications like TextMaker, and PlanMaker.  Those two monsters need all the power you can get to make them move. Surprisingly, BetaPlayer can run a fullscreen (640x480) movie (with original 320x240 resolution) using just about 50% of 520MHz power processor, so no need for XCPUScalar here.
2. Reading. When I read, all the PDA needs to do is turn pages. Scaling processor down to 200MHz helps battery a lot, since it hovers around 0% load most of the time.
3. Listening to MP3s. Again, surprisingly, Toshiba can play MP3s without breaking a sweat, so scaling down also helps to listen to them a bit longer.
   

Below is a few screen grab with some additional functions that XCPUScalar provides.
I find myself never using them, since other applications provide that already, and I am kind of used to those:

I am sure, there are many other applications of XCPUScalar.  I just wanted to share some.

Problems: Not without them, but none is critical.

I noticed that displaying a TaskBar will make some Today Applets stay blank and ignore taps.  Some screen events will kick them out of this "comatose" state until the next power up…  Today tray icon does not have this problem, so I use it instead (why do I need to know processor speed all the time anyway?) TaskBar indicator does not update for a long time sometimes, and remains a "white box". Landscape mode is not supported.

In other words – nothing critical.

Wish List: A bit more control over the scaling speed settings (maybe for advanced users?)

Ability to save preset speeds. Say I have "Reading" mode and "MP3" mode – different scaling settings, different thresholds. Would be nice to be able to switch with a few clicks.

Pros: Stable and robust application. Allows to "squeeze" the "last drop" of performance from your Pocket PC when you need it, and conserve power which you always need.

Cons: May make some users go nuts over the "switch on" latency. Maybe it might be possible to make XCPUScalar react to processor load more rapidly at slower speeds? A few minor bugs.