03:40 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

Thanks to BoingBoing (love you guys!) for reporting how to do a small binary patch to enable iPod download again for iTunes 4.7:

It turns out that Apple's system for disabling the plugin uses a blacklist of disallowed iTunes additions in the iTunes binary. If you open the binary in a hexadecimal editor, like HexEdit, you can find the area where Apple has inserted the string "iPod Download" in its blacklist and simply replace the text with something else (in fact, I think you could probably just change one character) and your iTunes's original functionality will be restored.

The origin of the hack appears to be Hardmac.com.

03:29 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Thanks to Laurens for bringing some light into the confusion whether or not PalmSource plans to port PalmOS to PocketPC. C|Net reports:

PalmOne [PalmSource's biggest customer] representatives disputed the contents of the research note, from Needham & Co. The note said that PalmOne "tacitly admitted" it was working to make Microsoft's operating system available on the popular Treo line of phones...PalmOne representatives said the report was based on a misunderstanding, adding that the company is platform-agnostic. The representatives also said the company as a policy does not comment on products that may or may not be under development.

How interesting that PalmSource declines to commend on the report, and that palmOne is the one who tries to clean up the mess.

03:21 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

"Smart Moves" is this year's theme of the Nokia Mobility Conference in Monaco, where Nokia also unveiled its Nokia 7710 widescreen multimedia smartphone. Finally Nokia has stepped across the line and entered PDA territory with its new phone!

The 7710 is Nokia's first handset featuring a screen that lets users access functions with a stylus, pitting it against PDA rivals such as PalmOne. In addition, the handset can also function as a souped-up smart phone, featuring a digital camera, radio, Internet browser and music player, using the Symbian OS. Specs:

- 8x4 cm 65,536-color wide screen with pen input
- handwriting recognition
- HTML browser supports Flash 6
- up to 90 MB internal memory, 128 MB MMC card
- megapixel camera (1152x864 pixels)
- music player with stereo audio
- audio and video playback and streaming
- FM/Visual Radio

The 7710 will be available in Asia later this year and in Europe and Africa early in 2005, Nokia said. It's priced at €500 (US $638).

Sounds like a "smart move" to me, even though I haven't had experience with Symbian OS (yet).

12:03 PM by divajess in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

As some of you crazy writers might be aware, November is National Novel Writing Month. The goal? Write 50,000 words or more in just 30 days. At the end of the month, you submit your manuscript for an official word count (no cheating!) and if you hit the 50K mark, you win the satisfaction of a job well done. Oh, and a nifty little "winner" graphic to display proudly on your website. Neat, huh?

Last year I decided to sign up, but never got much past my first 1,000 words due to complications of the real life kind. This year I decided to give it another shot, and I am determined that I will finish. The key to my success? My Pocket PC.

I love writing by hand, but writing 50,000 words that way seemed like quite a daunting task. I also don't think that carrying around my 5 pound laptop is a very viable solution. I might have 50K by the end of the month, but I would also have huge back problems. But that's why we have PDAs, right? My beautiful new Dell Axim (with Calligrapher 7.0) plus my Targus IR keyboard is the perfect portable word processor. They both fit into my small handbag and I never leave home without carrying at least the Axim, if not also the keyboard.

Even just one day into NaNoWriMo my setup has proven its worth. I had lots of errands to run last night, including a trip to the emergency vet with my cat, but I was able to churn out about 500 words on my PPC instead of leafing through 10-month-old magazines. It was much better than reading old magazines!

Are any other writers out their using their PDAs as a mobile writing solution? Any fellow NaNo'ers? I want to hear from you!

04:19 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Portable Audio/Video

Yesterday I read the amusing yet disturbing article Apple to iPod owners: "Eat shit and die" at BoingBoing. It appears Apple is trying everything to stop you from moving your OWN music data stored on your iPod back to your computer. This is what you get when you "upgrade" to the latest iTunes V4.7.

Remember when Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer stated that most iPod users were thieves using stolen music? The Apple fan community was aghast and had certainly no nice words left for Balmer:

This from a company that knows nothing about "Fair Play".

Balmer is trolling and is also a ****ing retard. Monkey Boy.

This is very typical from Microsoft. They think that if you competitior is doing better than you, you should buy them. If you can't buy them, create bad publicity.

I have a couple of words to say to Mr. Balmer. Unfortunetly, MacRumors' filter would turn them into a bunch of *s.

Microsoft must be ashamed.

Can we say "Inferiority Complex" or "Why didn't we steal that too?".

How ironic, in retrospetive Balmer was perhaps trying to make some bad press about his competitor, but Apple is now the one who is, in BoingBoing's words, devoting time, money, and lawyer- and engineer-hours to breaking your iPod and selling it to you as a "fix." I feel sorry for all loyal Apple lovers, who must feel like being stabbed in the back! (not without a big smirk in my face)

03:40 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Earlier today PalmSource (PSRC) was downgraded by Needham & Co from Buy to Hold, because of the company's decision to port its Treo handheld computer product line to Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system. Needham said it thinks the current valuation of PalmSource reflects the potential upside of license fee revenue from rising Treo sales that could be lost to Treos running on Microsoft's platform. The broker left its financial estimates for the company unchanged for now, because the timing of the product's introduction is still uncertain.

As a result, PalmSource shares slumped more than 9 percent today.

The fact that the Treo is supposed to be ported to Pocket PC makes all my alarm bells ring. Did you hear about that before? I try to read all the news, but somehow it must have slipped me that PalmSource (or is it palmOne?) wants to step into the realm of Pocket PC. What do you make of it?

10:32 AM by sUnShInE in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

According to the Associated Press, a new standard for multimedia messaging has been adopted by the wireless industry, allowing customers from different wireless companies to exchange photos, video, and audio just like e-mail.

While the standard has been adopted it will take some time for companies to change and integrate everything. Until then, multimedia services will remain more like the current status of instant messaging, where users of services from AOL, Yahoo! and MSN still cannot chat directly.

The lack of interoperability has been a huge stumbling block for wireless carriers and their capabilities. For example, most cell phones today have cameras, but users wouldn't or couldn't share their pictures because their friends and family do not use the same wireless service. At a base-level short messaging service, or SMS, enabled a common standard of interoperability.

The establishment of a new multimedia message standard will encourage the exchange of photos and other multimedia content no matter what wireless company or technology a customer may be using. This will drive wider use of the technology and could lead to expanded multimedia services from wireless providers.

Cingular will be using a company call Mobile 365. VeriSign also announced an inter-carrier multimedia messaging service that wireless companies can take advantage of.

10:38 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Was reading about smart phones and it hit me one more reason I don’t like the growth of smart phones over traditional PDAs (besides the compromise of the PDA specs and screen and battery issues, like we’ve all discussed before.)

As an analogy, remember how before the internet you used to control your own PC. No big worries about being exposed to evil stuff out there. When you did something on your PC it was basically handled locally. Then Microsoft IE and the Windows upgrades and all kinds of other programs started trying to make things “seamless.” Basically, they took matters out of your hands and you didn’t really know when your computer was talking to the internet and why. You didn’t know exactly what ActiveX controls were going to do under the covers. You lost control. And look at the result. We’ve been forced to accept levels of blind trust relative to internet communications that we never would have accepted in the beginning, but Microsoft and others ramped it up for the more valuable purposes like Windows upgrades and you really didn’t have any choice. You got accustomed to letting them control the terms and methods of your interaction with the web.

Now think about PDAs. True, we have WiFi and Bluetooth in traditional PDAs and they have a level of exposure to internet villains. But now with smart phones you see the game changing already again. Now smart phone makers and wireless carriers are bending the rules of play according to their own wishes, not according to the best interests of us customers. Bottom line is they want to sell downloads and content and wireless minutes, whether data or voice. That means that all the core software is tailored to their plans. They want hooks into their distribution systems. They want to get you on their data plans. They want you running their software for monitoring and controlling the way you connect in this new interconnected world. (I bet some of our readers that are already using smart phones can give some real-life examples of this, or alternatively they can dispute this viewpoint.)

I’m sure there will be great benefits and features, but I’m not so sure I am comfortable being forced into doing things in new ways designed by the people trying to take control of how I spend my money. Some of the things I might not feel comfortable with right now are probably going to become commonplace soon. Just watch… you will see more and more the wireless carriers are going to steer OS development for smart phones and we’re going to be doing things according to their best interest. We’re going to lose control of how we interconnect. We’re going to be paying through the nose for wireless data plans and published content. It's going to have such strong DRM that it's useless except on your smart phone. And we’re going to be upgrading both for phone technology and for PDA technology.

I think, for now, I’ll stick with my traditional PDA. And maybe we’ll see growth of some WiFi-like technology until it is a ubiquitous alternative to wireless carriers. Am I concerned for no reason? Too early to tell, I guess, but the future will be interesting, and there's some very talented people out there trying to determine the future of mobile computing on our behalf... or at least on someone's behalf.

And a general MobileRead thought as a postscript--
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