12:46 AM by hacker in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

(This picture is not me, thanks Alexander =)

As many know, I have a lot of mobile, embedded, and other handheld, powered, and battery-laden gear. I just picked up another pair of 16-outlet TrippLite adapters just to try to keep the office desk and floor cleaner to try to alleviate the headaches of all of the power bricks and adapters.

All of these gadgets means I have a lot of cables, cradles, adapters, parts, pieces, and other things that are all very device-specific. A year from now, when I'm looking at two unlabeled power adapters, I won't remember if they go with my Cybiko units, or the JTAG I was using at the time to reflash my iPAQ devices.

This leads to a cable-management nightmare. I've tried keeping them separated in boxes. I've tried labels. I've tried putting them in "industrial" ZipLock bags with the built-in labelling. I've tried the little plastic drawer sorting solutions, and these don't work well either with all kinds of shapes, sizes, and parts to fit in identically-shaped drawers.

None of these solutions are ideal.

Here's what I'm looking for:

1. A cable/cradle/adapter management system that allows me to label, sort, and re-label my gadgets as necessary.
2. Some sort of case, block, foam standup portfolio that lets me hold about 25 PCMCIA cards and adapters inside. Ideally, this should include holding other media as well, for my CF, SM, and SD/MMC cards, but that isn't really a hard-requirement.
3. Some way to keep the system clean and out of the way, which can be easily relocated or moved around (i.e. semi-portable, not bolted to the floor or wall).

Has anyone found something like this that they've used, or seen used before? Its really reaching the boiling point now, I have an entire 6x8 table covered with sorted wires, cradles, adapters, and other devices.

Note: Ok, I've identified the numbered list bug here. If you have a numbered list, and preview your post several times in a row, while changing nothing, the spacing above the numbered list will continue to grow by one line for every preview you make. Alexander, a small fix?

12:29 AM by hacker in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

So here I was, surrounded by dozens of possible gadgets, books, and other odds-and-ends to buy for myself for the holidays (I'm very hard to shop for, I either already have what most people will buy me [in duplicate], or whatever they're going to get me, is obsoleted by something I have, or doesn't work with whatever I have already in-place).

I went out to my local Cingular store (I'm already a customer), to see if they had the Motorola V3 Razr for my wife. Indeed they did, at $549.00/USD with a 1-year plan. EEP! Ok, maybe I can wait to get her a new flipphone. Almost $600 for a phone + service, she would castrate me for even thinking of such a purchase.

But, while I was there, I picked up a Motorola HS820 Bluetooth headset. Only 17g of weight. It really has to be held to be believed. It has 1hr more of standby time than the last version. It also had a $30.00 rebate, which basically cut the price in half. Not a bad deal.

I also snatched up a Jabra EarWave Boom headset for the wife to use with our 5.8Ghz system at home while carrying the baby and talking to "The Grandmothers™" With our phones, it gets hard to have to crank your head to one shoulder to hold the phone, and juggle a 5-month-old baby in the other arm, and concentrate. Being able to go handsfree, is really a godsend when you're dealing with a squirming little lifeform.

Besides, this is my house we're talking about. We must have all of the modern conveniences that technology allows us! <grin>

But enough about that... there's a lot more gadgets I picked up. Maybe later on I'll write up some articles about those, and all of the books I bought for myself to read for Christmas. Lots of good stuff to be had.

I get home, and tear into the HS820 package, and charge it up. The unit comes with a split cable to charge the headset and phone. Unfortunately, my phone (a Nokia 3600) doesn't have the kind of connection that this cable would work with. Oh well, I labeled it and put it away into storage in the "Box-o-Cables™". (My next post will concern this very item)

After the mandatory 2+ hour charging time, I tried to pair it with the devices I have here, so I could play with it. I've got Bluetooth everywhere here now. My wife thinks I'm going to grow tumors all over my head from the amount of RF and wireless leeching out of our house.

The directions said to hold the MFB (Multi-Function-Button) for 5 seconds, until it rapidly blinks, to initiate "discovery", so I could pair it with my phone, PDA, and laptop.

The directions were wrong. I almost returned it as defective, until I did a quick google, and found a post in Hungarian (which I had to translate) that said you have to hold the button for 10 seconds, until it glows solid. That worked. I quickly paired it up with my Nokia, and PDA.

My laptop has Bluetooth as well (in fact, I wrote the HOWTO on how to sync your Palm device with Bluetooth under Linux), and I can sync my Palm and dial my phone from the laptop, thanks to BlueZ.

But I can't get the Palm to transfer audio from the headset to the phone!!! I can connect the headset to the Palm, and it claims "connected" as an Audio device (though, I can't use the headset for actual audio on the Palm, because Palm lacks the profile to redirect it to the headset).

If I have the headset paired with the Palm, and dial a contact, it never transfers the headset and call to the phone. The phone itself will begin dialing, and will take the call, but not through the headset.

If I pair the headset with the phone, and try to dial the phone over Bluetooth from the PDA, the PDA will fail to find/connect to the phone. This might be because the phone is taking the one connection it has, to the headset.

Has anyone had any luck getting their Palm to use any of the following (Note: MobileRead has a bug with numbered lists, grr!):

1. A Bluetooth headset as an audio device, to listen/record voice memos, or listen to music, or just plain audio at [all]
2. Dialing a phone, using Bluetooth, and then transfer the Bluetooth headset connection from the Palm to the phone itself
3. Pair a Bluetooth headset to a Bluetooth-enabled phone, and still allow a Palm device to dial the phone, using Bluetooth

I'd be interested in hearing any experiences with any of the above.

My next goal is to get the HS820 to work as a wireless mic for my laptop, for an ad-hoc wireless microphone for local speaking engagements that don't carry their own sound system.

06:00 AM by Alexander Turcic in Miscellaneous | Week in Review

In case you've missed any MobileRead news from this week, here is our usual roundup:

Avantgo
AvantGo 5.7 Production Release available
AvantGo new support site
Free AvantGo memory upgrade from 2MB to 3MB

Browsers
Essay on status quo of mobile web browsing

Current E-Books Trends
Google Print: earth's largest searchable library

E-Book Readers
Hi-res e-paper is a feast your eyes
Sony Librie Firmware upgrade

General Chat
Thank You For Being a MobileRead Reader!!!

New Links
Skyweezer - free gateway for mobile browsers

Palm
Another View of PalmSource's Future
Avantgo/Microsoft gives away free Palm/PPC game
Insider reveals: What Does "Palm OS for Linux" Mean?
PalmOne shares drop on Q2 results & Q3 forecast
Review: Trooper (Now Low Heap Version!)
Wi-Fi SD card support on your Treo 650

Pocket PC
BetaPlayer 0.095 with aac and mp4 support
PocketScumm V0.7 RC available
Square screen Pocket PC Devices, Like Treo?

Portable Audio/Video
Apple is suing to protect its "innovative products"

Sunrise
Sunrise 0.40 pre1 released

WiFi / Bluetooth Technologies
FCC approves cheaper WiFi technology on planes

06:33 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

According to Reuters, Apple is suing unknown individuals for posting info on upcoming products on the Web. The complaint alleges that "an unidentified individual, acting alone or in concert with others, has recently misappropriated and disseminated through Web sites confidential information about an unreleased Apple product."

Doesn't this complaint basically confirm rumors that Apple has been quietly developing a flash-based iPod MP3 player (I don't recall any other posted info on upcoming Apple products)? Ok, but then again: what is so innovative about an MP3 player with flash memory?

01:57 PM by gadgetguru in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

It's the Christmas season, and software companies are giving away free game/software(s) to attract your attention to their respective companies or product.

Avantgo has partnered with Gumbosoft and Microsoft to give away a free Concentration game titled: MS Office Concentration. The game is pretty basic, you must match similar MS Office icons in the alloted time. It's available for the Palm and Pocket PC platform. Pocket Pc users need to have the .net Compact Framework installed. Palm users get standalone .PRC files.

If you loathe Microsoft, beware, this features ads as well as texts about Microsoft Office Products. Get it through the link below:
http://www.avantgo.net/channels/ms_office_web/

04:21 PM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Great news for all LucasArts games fans: PocketSCUMM, the unofficial name of the Windows CE ScummVM port, is finally available as a 0.7 Release Candiate!

Daily RC builds can be downloaded from the official PocketScumm web page, with the final 0.7 expected to be released around Christmas.

10:38 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

AvantGo has revamped its support site now offering a more detailed knowledge database.

Wow, this is the third news on AvantGo today. Looks like they are trying to get some attention before Christmas

10:23 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Douglas Bowman from Stopdesign (great webdesigner btw) wrote an essay on the status quo of mobile browsers and mobile websites.

Douglas' most important question: Why isn’t the handheld media type supported more widely by now? Why aren’t mobile browser software companies doing the right thing from the start?

Further down in the essay he tells us his answer:
It’s a chicken and egg thing. Mobile browser software companies aren’t building in support for the handheld media type because virtually no sites are authored with a handheld media type style sheet — yet. However, designers and developers won’t start using the handheld media type until they know there are at least a few mobile browsers that reliably support handheld style sheets, and can immediately see the benefits of providing these additional style sheets.

Overall a must-read for every serious webmaster!