Omar Shahine's WebLog : Software

Treo 650 Review Part 3

omars — Sat, 21 May 2005 22:58:50 GMT

I almost forgot that I never finished my Treo Review Series. The device is so integrated into my habits now that I don't even notice how much I depend on and value the device. It's been over a month since the last review, and that's a good thing because I have finally settled on all the applications that I deem "core" to my Treo experience, and the stability of the device has gone up as a result since I don't install/uninstall programs daily.

If you missed it, here is Part 1, & Part 2

Applications

I thought I would tell you about all the Applications I use. Personally I do not feel that the value add of the Treo is solely based on what comes in the box. Much of it has to do with the fact that there are thousands of wonderful applications. Here is my short list of must have products and what they do.

Vindigo (24.95 a year)

Vindigo is an indispensable tool and one I have used off and on since they launched. They do not have an application for the Microsoft Smartphone, only Pocket PC and Palm. Vindigo lets you get location based information for food, bars, movies, weather, maps, museums etc. It's valuable for the city I live in and many cities that I travel to.

Bart Planner (free)

If you live in San Francisco, having access to Bart schedules is a must, and this application does not dissapoint.

Caltrain+ (free)

Ditto about this, but for Caltrain instead of Bart.

Directory Assistant (donation ware)

This is an excellent Yellow Pages search application that has nice integration with the Palm OS (to create new address book entries, copy info to the clipboard etc)

FileZ (free)

This is a freeware application for managing files, memory cards, and preferences for Palm applications. It's nice if you like to hack.

KeyCaps 650 (free)

This is an indispensable application that allows you to capitalize, and enter optional characters by simply holding down keys on the keyboard, or double pressing a key quickly. Wonderful for one handed use.

Slap ($10)

If you use Getting Things Done, this is a must have. Slap is like a limitless Note, that you can use to jot anything down quickly, and then later make that into a Contact, Appointment, Memo, or Task. It's like a Sticky Note. I use this all the time to quickly capture information to be processed later much like an Inbox.

Snap (free)

Simple application for taking screen shots on the Treo.

SplashID (29.95 or part of SplashWallet)

From SplashData, a great program for managing all your passwords, credit cards, ID cards etc. Comes with a companion desktop application and can be purchased in a bundle (SplashWallet).

SplashMoney (29.95 or part of SplashWallet)

Also from SplashData, a program for managing your finances. SplashMoney can connect to your bank and download transactions much like Microsoft Money and Quicken (bank must support statement download via OFX). This is excellent for knowing how much money I have when I am mobile. Comes with a companion desktop application and can be purchased in a bundle (SplashWallet).

SplashPhoto (29.95 or part of SplashWallet)

Also from SplashData, this is a Album and Capture application that is far better than the built in Treo applications. Comes with a companion desktop application and can be purchased in a bundle (SplashWallet).

SplashShopper (29.95 or part of SplashWallet)

Also from SplashData, this is a shopping list and general list program. Jot down all the groceries, gifts, books, wine, gear and other stuff you wish to purchase. It also allows you to keep such lists as travel checklists and can be customized to your liking. Comes with a companion desktop application and can be purchased in a bundle (SplashWallet).

Tetris (19.99)

Enough said. My wife is still addicted to Tetris.

TreoAlarm (free)

An Alarm clock with built in weather updates. Wakes me up every morning!

VeriChat (24.95 a year)

An indispensable multi-stack IM client that supports AOL, Yahoo, MSN. I LOVE this product. It works wonderfully, keeps me connected even with a spotty GPRS connection, and makes my Treo a fantastic IM tool.

FieldPlus (free)

It's shocking the Treo does not support shift-select, but FieldPlus will allow you to press the Shift Key and use the 5 way navigation pad to select text keeping the stylus or your fingers away from the screen. It also adds many other useful features like a Command Bar when you hold the menu button. This also improves one handed use.

Profiles (free)

It's also shocking that the Treo does not have profiles support like most mobile phones. The Pocket PC does not either, but one feature I loved in my Microsoft Smartphone was that it would automatically vibrate in meetings. Well, Profiles will allow you to define any number of profiles that can be invoked from a number of different triggers. One of those triggers can be the start/end of an appointment. No more embarrassing ringing in meetings!

Pocket Mirror XT Standard (29.95)

How do I say this... the Palm Conduits don't sync, they mostly duplicate. On the first hint of trouble, they duplicate data. No field level sync, nothing. I don't even think there is really any kind of algorithm for determining which record is the most recent as it seems random to me. I have absolutely zero confidence in the Palm sync software, and have gotten rid of it in favor of Pocket Mirror. It just works and I don't have to think about it.

Thankfully since VersaMail does Mail and Calendar I only have to worry about Contacts, Tasks and Notes. I just have Pocket Mirror do this. Since I managed the Entourage Sync Conduit for the Palm project (design, help dev, and test a lot of it) I have intimate knowledge of just how sorry building a sync conduit for HotSync can be. However, we optimized the heck out of our conduit to NOT DUPLICATE UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. You can always do a field level compare between records to eliminate 99% of duplications.

You must take care and ensure that you do not install the Calendar Sync conduit if you are using VersaMail to sync to Exchange.

Battery Life

Battery Life isn't amazing, but it's good. If you just use this as a Phone and PIM you'll get great battery life. However, if you are syncing mail ever 15 min, using Bluetooth and browsing the web a lot you'll get about as much battery life as a comparable Windows Pocket PC or Smartphone, which for me was 2-3 days max. I charge my device every night though.

Camera

The Camera is decent. Better than my Audiovox 5600, but still problematic. I wish it were a megapixel camera, but it's fairly decent for what I use it for.

Final Thoughts

I have gotten quite a bit of interest from folks inside Microsoft about my Treo experiences. A few folks I know have even purchased devices. In all cases I do not hesitate in recommending a Treo 650 to anyone who works at Microsoft, or anyone who cannot use a Blackberry but does have Exchange 2003. palmOne's support of Exchange, and our blessing, was the real tipping point for me even considering something I had previously ignored but secretly admired. My frustration and impatience of waiting for a Windows device with a similar form factor are no longer eating away at my geek persona. When and if one exists (for sale to Omar from my carrier) I'll happily consider that device.

The Treo does have its quirks, bugs and annoyances. You are really just trading one set of problems for another if you are considering switching from a Windows Mobile device. However, the form factor, and reliability are enough of a benefit for me to deal with the issues.

It's really hard to explain, but the Treo is a digital "companion". When I am traveling, or out and about, I have a world of handy tools at my fingertips. The ease of data entry has increased my usage of mobile IM, SMS, mapping and directory tools, mobile email, even access to all of Wikipedia via Wapedia. It's even improved my continued use of Getting Things Done as I can easily access my tasks by context, take notes in Slap, and file lots of tidbits into my Memos which prior to my Treo was akin to an empty parking lot in Outlook. Now it's buzzing with Reference material, Notes, Agendas, Lists etc.

If there were 4 things I could ask Palm to improve they would be:

Exchange Sync that's as good or better than Windows Mobile Devices. Fix your bugs (there are many sync related annoyances).
Fix the anemic PIM applications. They should round-trip all the same data found in Outlook. This includes fixing your busted Conduits.
Improve the flow between applications. Right now it feels like using a Macintosh before there was a multi-finder. Changing context between programs should not feel like you are quitting/relaunching all the time. This is especially important when moving between Email, Web, and PIM products.
Fix your bugs. 99% of the crashes that occur on my Treo are related to "Web", "VersaMail", "Applications", "Messaging". These are all Palm apps.

Wow I was slashdotted!

omars — Thu, 19 May 2005 04:13:52 GMT

I never thought it would happen, but thanks to Dan Crevier's recent patent, I was slashdotted because I have a blog post that gives some background on Dan (who to this day is still one of the smartest people I've had the honour of working with at Microsoft).

I haven't read all the commotion regarding the patent and I really don't care. Dan's a good guy and that's all that matters to me. Plus dasBlog didn't tip over :-).

Newsgator + FeedDemon

omars — Tue, 17 May 2005 07:03:11 GMT

Interesting indeed. I started using FeedDemon because I grew tired of having my RSS in Outlook (I do not think RSS belongs there for high volume RSS readers). Before using FeedDemon though I was using NewsGator Online, and then added FeedDemon because while I liked the benefits of online I did want a single offline client that sync'ed to NewsGator Online and well FeedDemon does this.

Congrats to Greg and Nick on the deal. I think it will result in really positive outcomes for both sides of the deal (and the customer, me!).

Yahoo Music

omars — Thu, 12 May 2005 07:50:25 GMT

Here is why Yahoo Music is cool. Yes I work for MSN, and sure I wish MSN Music had this same feature, but I'm super excited that Yahoo Music launched their business. Why? THEY ARE BUILT ON OUR PLATFORM! Let me explain.

A few months ago I wrote this post about Technology Camps. Let me point out my favorite paragraph:

"Now contrast this to Microsoft. For the past few years the focus has been on building a world class platform. From the codec's, to the encoding technology, to the protocol for moving bits from the computer to the device, to the encryption technology, policy enforcement of digital rights, and servers to manage those rights it's all been spec'ed and delivered in a manner that any software developer can utilize. You can create your own Music Store and sell content to anyone with a compatible device. You can build a device that can play rich video and audio. You can build software that can manipulate that music, and organize it for users, or even a new shell that can present that media to the user who is sitting on their couch and interacts via a remote control. You can even buy a cell phone that can consume these media files! Talk about a rich eco system. But that's what it is; a platform for anyone with a desire to build on. Microsoft participates in this eco system via the MSN Music Store, and other various properties, but we do not dictate how much you will pay, and what device you will use. We give you choice, and history has shown time and time again, that choice is always more powerful. Choice and flexibility always wins. Consumers want choice."

A bunch of people made some very valid comments about my perspective on how this all relates to Apple regarding Choice. I'm not going to disagree with them. However, this is so utterly cool because Yahoo was able to build and bring to market their own music store that leverages our platform end to end.

Microsoft Technology for encoding and DRM
Microsoft WMA 192 KBps 2-Pass CBR Encoded files (iTunes is STILL 128KBps AAC)
Janus to deliver subscription audio to PlaysForSure Compatible devices
Sync to those devices via Media Transport Protocol

And they offer this all for the cost of 3-4 music CDs a year with access to their entire Music collection. They are far cheaper than Napster-To-Go which I complained as being to expensive and buggy for my tastes.

Now how much do you want to bet that Apple is going to eventually have to offer subscriptions? I bet that the reason they have not yet done so is because Steve doesn't believe it makes sense.

"Steve Jobs, has dismissed the idea of subscription-based services, saying people want to own their music"

I'm not so sure about that. Me thinks that Apple is going down the exact same path with the iPod as they did with a Mac. They have build a phenomenally successful and wonderful CLOSED ecosystem. Just like the Mac. And we all know what happened there.

Yahoo does things that have potential positive revenue impact. They did not have to spend their resources building a platform, delivery mechanism, tools, services and whatnot to make this happen. They had to licence content, create a user experience and launch it. Anyone can do this.

My iPod is an island. My Creative Zen Micro just had a new bridge built to Yahoo that gives me access to a million songs for 5 bucks a month. Apple isn't competing with Microsoft, they are competing with potentially dozens of companies, and now a big internet media powerhouse.

How do you like them Apples?

Fixing Outlook Red "X" Problem

omars — Tue, 26 Apr 2005 08:43:38 GMT

Every few months, Outlook 2003 will get into a situation where it will no longer render images in the preview pane or the message window. If you reply to the message, then you will see the image.

Perplexed by the problem, I would take the brute force "Detect and Repair" solution but that isn't always desirable as it resets all the Outlook settings and takes a while. Months ago, some one posted to an internal DL that the problem can be fixed by deleting the Outlook Temporary Cache folder. Since then I had forgotten this solution, and noticed the problem re-appeared. I was talking to Reeves today and he mentioned that he is having the same problem.

Anyway, here is how you fix the problem.

Locate the Outlook Temporary Items folder by opening the Registry and locating HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Security\OutlookSecureTempFolder
Navigate to the value of this Key. It should be something like: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\OLK3D\ where OLK3D is some randomly generated string that always starts with OLK
Quit Outlook
Delete the contents of the folder
Launch Outlook

Problem solved! I could not locate a KB article on this topic.

Photoshop CS2

omars — Tue, 26 Apr 2005 04:13:38 GMT

First of all, a big shout out to Adobe for creating an awesome upgrade for Digital Camera owners. I still don't understand why you insist on installing Adobe ImageReady when I never use it and curse it when I accidentally double click a PNG and watch it take forever to load. However, you fixed one of the biggest problems for me. Changes to Orientation of RAW files were never persisted to the XMP MetaData files, but thankfully you now write the tag:

<tiff:Orientation>8</tiff:Orientation>

Which makes a world of difference cause lots of my photos previously edited with Nikon Capture 4 trashed this data, and I was unable to fix the problem in Photoshop CS1 or Elements 3.0. Now these changes will persist across machines, and stick around with my photos.

First impressions. Adobe Picture bridge is worth the upgrade alone. The new Camera RAW editor is great. But best of all, THANK YOU for allowing me to use a product that is infinitely more usable and polished than every other product on the market that can edit RAW photos. They all suffer from any kind of normal and intuitive user interface.

The bottom line is that unfortunately for me, and fortunately for Adobe, I will continue to shell out money for every upgrade till I feel that the art of Digital Camera Workflow is mature in these products. I think CS2 is a huge step forward, especially with the guidance of many of the auto settings for editing RAW photos that are great for quick and dirty "make this not look like a raw file" type editing. But I still think we have a long way to go.

If you are currently an owner of a product that qualifies for an upgrade I would easily recommend the CS2 upgrade. If you are not an owner, and can't or don't want to shell out $500 for the full version, I suspect most of the core feature for managing Digital Photos will arrive in a new version of Photoshop Elements 3.0.

Media Center TV on PSP

omars — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 05:22:34 GMT

I just found this app called Image Converter 2 made by Sony, that will convert a wide variety of video and photos to playback on the PSP. It supports DVR-MS, the file format that Windows Media Center records TV. It costs $19.

Now all I need is a 1GB Memory Stick Duo. NEVER in my life did I think I would purchase a Memory Stick. Sigh...

Adobe Photoshop CS2 in the mail!

omars — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 19:35:48 GMT

Just got this email from Adobe. Wohooo!

Your Adobe Store order has shipped!

Product: Adobe Photoshop CS2 Upgrade for Windows

Ship Date: April 21, 2005

Quantity: 1

Price:
Price:$149.00

Item Subtotal: US$149.00

Zinio 3.0

omars — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 03:29:45 GMT

Zinio released an updated version of their Magazine Reader. It's much improved over 2.0. One of the things I actually do religiously with my Tablet PC is read PC Magazine in Tablet mode. I can't tell you how cool it is to sit there and read the magazine, like on an airplane, or in bed. It's one of the few times I use my tablet in portrait mode.

I do still wish that Zinio used ClearType rather than Adobe's "Blurry Type" technology.

Photshop Maximize Compatability

omars — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 23:25:26 GMT

I just noticed this warning when I saved a file:

So lets see. You are asking the user a question. Unchecking the checkbox above has no clear benefit to me. However, if I do uncheck it my file may not be compatible with future versions of Photoshop or other applications.

Not I undestand it may not be compatible with other applications, but not with future versions of Photoshop?

So lets see. Here is what I know:

Unchecking Maximize compatibility has no clear benefits
Unchecking Maximize compatability may render this file unusable in other applications
Unchecking Maximize compatability may render this file unusable in the next version of Photoshop

HELLO! Adobe? What is the point of asking me this when I save a PSD file? If I were the PM for this feature, I would have cut the thing entirely.

Shutdown

omars — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 19:28:05 GMT

Why doesn't Shutdown work? Shutting down Windows and Shutting down Outlook requires user intervention 80% of the time for me. Yes I run Add-ins in Outlook, so what? I also run software in Windows. I don't care that an Add-in might be holding an Outlook resource, or that some Windows process won't go away. Last time I checked I was the boss of the computer. When I say shut down it should do everything in it's binary powers to exit. I mean if I can go into task manager and end processes forcibly, or hard power down my computer, I should be entitled that when I issue the same command that the software honor my request. Why is this so hard?

It's gotten so grim that I am considering buying this. What is the world coming to such that I have to pay good money for Outlook to shutdown? But my options are to run Outlook without any Addins (including my own), or paying money for another add-in to take care of business. Oh the irony. Anyone know of a similar tool for XP?

Turbo Tax 2004

omars — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 08:09:18 GMT

Well, this is the 6th year I've used TurboTax now. Each year I owe some federal tax, and each year TurboTax insists on printing out vouchers for estimated tax payments for the following year. They use the most conservative rule for determining if you should pay estimated taxes, and I never need to do it. I always end up with 5 extra print outs each year and I usually curse endlessly at the program while I go in and delete the forms. So annoying. More annoying was the fact that this year, TurboTax removed the ESPP tax calculations from their deluxe product and moved it to their premium product. Well, I just did the calculations by hand and created a handy dandy excel spreadsheet to do the same next year. I'm not sure they are really improving the software in any substantial way. Maybe next year I'll try TaxCut. I tried them a few years ago, but returned it for a refund because they never asked me what my previous years state tax payment was to deduct that from my federal AGI. Not good.

Anyway, it feels good to have filed... now to pay San Francisco property tax. It's someone's cruel joke that they are both due in the same month!

WikiSpam

omars — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 20:05:42 GMT

I am getting a ton of LinkSpam on my dasBlog Wiki. It's driving me nuts. Like 3 times a day! In about a few days I'm going to hook up the same CAPTCHA that dasBlog has to FlexWiki and be done with them. The current antispam features of FlexWiki aren't helping.

Apple iTunes DRM hole

omars — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 12:46:00 GMT

It seems that Paul Thurrott is astonished that Apple would apply DRM to purchased music on the client (iTunes) rather than the server. Seems like a really bad design decision and a good way to open the door for two programmers to crack it.

The statement from their blog is precious:

"Our intent was not to circumvent copy protection, and if Apple did DRM on the server, we would leave it in place! But applying DRM in an opensource project is not worth the time it would take to code it."

If memory serves me right, when Apple first released Software Auto Update back with Mac OS X they did not cryptographically sign their updates, which of course opened them up for a man in the middle attack delivering malicious code to their customers. Nor did they use any form of HTTP authentication or certificate validation when downloading updates. I remember this because when we developed our software update for Microsoft Office X I was sort of astonished that they did not code sign their updates or use https. Well it was a matter of time before they had to fix it.

I guess hindsight is 20/20 (that goes for everyone). But personally I'm not surprised.

Windows Media DRM to deliver Indian Movies over the Internet

omars — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 10:23:00 GMT

One of my co-workers, Imran, is a prime example of how powerful a rich and licensable DRM system allows people to build a business on your platform. The site that he helped create is called Masala Downloads and operates much like Cinemanow or Movielink. The difference is that Imran isn't a big media company, just a guy with an idea. Pretty cool. Here is what he has to say:

"...I was thinking about the huge Indian movie market and how the Internet could be used to deliver movies to this market. I thought what if there was a web site where you could go, choose a movie and it gets downloaded to your computer so you can watch in less than five minutes. It could use some system of rights management ensuring that the user can only play the movie for the time they have rented it for."

I think it's awesome that he is able to bring a bit of the Indian movie market to anyone with an internet connection and a PC. The movies are in fact DVD quality which is very impressive given that Cinemanow and Movielink have paltry collections of DVD quality stuff. He built this business by leveraging our platform APIs for Audio and Video.

Product:	Adobe Photoshop CS2 Upgrade for Windows
Ship Date:	April 21, 2005
Quantity:	1
Price:
Price:$149.00
Item Subtotal:	US$149.00