bioneural.net » pda

Using faux Contacts for GTD on the iPhone

Bruce — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:16:28 +0000

Despite strong indications of an imminent second generation 3G iPhone, the recent £100 price drop on the 8GB iPhone proved too tempting. I had hesitated because the iPhone failed to meet my minimum requirements for basic PDA functionality. With 1Password mostly overcoming the secure data exchange obstacle, the remaining challenge was to find a network-independent way of managing and synchronising tasks ("to do" items). I've also been wading through David Allen's book Getting Things Done in a search for ways to improve my personal productivity. Could I cherry-pick the key principles of the GTD religion and apply them on the iPhone using only the built-in apps? The essence of GTD The OmniFocus Basics Video does a good job of distilling the core ideas in the GTD method. It outlines three concepts: Actions are something you can physically do in a single step; Projects are activities that require more than one physical action to complete; Contexts are physical requirements for carrying out actions (e.g. being at work, at home, connected to the Internet, etc.) The video also summarizes three workflow steps to getting things done: Capture all outstanding individual ("atomic") actions; Organize those actions by grouping them into projects and/ or context; Do the outstanding actions. Let's put that graphically (adding horizontal reorganization as part of ongoing review): I'm not being strict about contexts being a physical place, person or thing: in my world a context can be a frame of mind, or an area of mental focus—whatever makes sense for grouping related actions. The wrong tool for the job? The iPhone is most ...

In-car GPS + Palm = DIY photo tracker

Bruce — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:00:50 +0000

From bioneural.net:

If I told you I was using a GPS photo tracking system for geotagging photos from my Nikon D70 that stored track logs and waypoints to 1GB of memory, exported in GPX format, and connected to my Mac via USB or Bluetooth—you'd be right to wonder if I was making it up. It's not fiction, and nor is it new tech either. It's a "make do" solution I put together from gear I'd already been using for several years and with £0 new investment. Given poor Mac support in the data logger market, such a system is surely a good way to experiment on the cheap before shelling out on yet more battery-operated gadgetry. A DIY photo tracking kit A Nikon D70 I shoot in raw, meaning my D70 saves images in Nikon's NEF format. Although finding Mac OS X software that can write geo-location data to EXIF in raw is not difficult, getting that data in the first place is somewhat more involved. The D70 is neutered when it comes to support for on-camera fully automated geotagging (I'm still not entirely clear whether this is a physical hot shoe issue, or a firmware deficiency—anyone?) The upshot is that my only choice, other than the tiresome manual method, is automatic geotagging using a standalone data logger (aka photo tracker). A Navman 4470 "But why do you need another GPS?", my wife justly asked. Indeed I do have a GPS device equipped with Bluetooth, the Navman 4470, which I use for in-car navigation. Navman make great ...

Mac-friendly alternatives to Apple's 1G iPhone

Bruce — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:04:28 +0000

From bioneural.net:

The iPhone has arrived in the US. Even if it were available in New Zealand I still wouldn't buy one. I'm happy to wait for the large beta-test program (i.e. 1 in 5 US adults) to refine the product first. That said, I've been looking for a way to converge my mobile devices (phone, PDA, iPod) for some time. Sadly the 1st generation iPhone does not look like the device to fill this need. Relative to other Mac-friendly alternatives it comes up uniquely short in a number of areas on my feature wish-list. But of course I haven't seen or held it in the "flesh", and it is only a 1G device—so I can't be overly critical. Or can I? Most of the pre-launch focus has been on iPhone's interface (not unimportant), but what about comparative features? It's clear that while the iPhone offers few unique features (iTMS DRM playback, bookmark syncing) it's also immediately apparent that, relative to comparable products, the iPhone has the most limitations. I've been a Palm user since 1999, owning a Palm V, an m505, and (currently) a Tungsten T3: I also use an ageing Sony Ericsson T610 and an iPod (1G deceased; currently an iPod Photo). It would be nice to carry around one device instead of three (ditto on the chargers); I had hoped that device might be the iPhone: So the iPhone has arrived. I posted on the perfect PDA + phone back in 2005—it still hasn't arrived. With Palm OS so obviously stagnating ...

Linux-based Palm OS due in 2007

Bruce — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:34:25 +0000

From bioneural.net:

Palm announced delivery of an open-source Linux-based OS by the end of 2007. They have licensed Opera for web browsing and acquired Chattermail for messaging. Palm OS 5 (Garnet) "support" is to be included in the Linux kernel, hinting at backwards compatibility with existing Palm apps. I have high hopes that the shared 'nix heritage of the new Palm OS and Mac OS X will foster tight integration between these platforms.

Google Maps on your PDA

Bruce — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 02:09:20 +0000

From bioneural.net:

Google maps have gone mobile, meaning anyone with a data-capable mobile phone is now bereft of excuses for not finding their way home from the pub. If don't have a bling phone with excesses of screen real estate, your old phone should do just fine if your pair it with your Palm (.prc here) or Pocket PC (.cab here) and Google's PDA software. It's like "GPS Lite" for those who already know where they are! I tried out the Palm version of the software using Missing Sync to share my Mac's Internet connection to my T3 (this is still possible even if you don't own Missing Sync). I don't have a working GPRS data plan with Vodafone NZ, although I expect this would work equally well (albeit slowly) if I tried my GPRS-enabled Vodafone UK SIM. So what does the Google app allow you to do? Predictably, you start with Find Location... in the app menu (e.g. wellington, new zealand). Once the search is complete you'll be presented with a map that contains basic zooming controls. As with Google Maps on the web you can toggle between viewing a road map or a satellite image (but not a hybrid). In either view you can overlay traffic information or nearby businesses by keyword (e.g. pizza), but this is apparently location-dependent as neither data were available for Wellington: If you need a map, however, the chances are that you are trying to find your way from "A" to "B". Such direction-findng capability is of course ...

Geocaching with TomTom: a Mac/ Palm solution

Bruce — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 10:05:47 +0000

From bioneural.net:

Jeff Fort read my post concerning the installation of TomTom POI from a Mac. Jeff is into geocaching, and asked if I knew a way to get waypoints into TomTom Navigator 5 on his Palm from his Mac. While I'd heard of Geotagging (with reference to tagging images with GPS co-ordinates), my first step was to find out something about geocaching. Then I could start looking at the problem... According to Wikipedia: Geocaching is an outdoor activity that most often involves the use of a Global Positioning System ("GPS") receiver or traditional navigational techniques to find a "geocache" (or "cache") placed anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small, waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure", usually trinkets of little value. Participants are called geocachers; those not familiar with geocaching are called geo-muggles or just muggles, a term borrowed from the Harry Potter series. Geocaching is similar to a much older activity called letterboxing. The major difference is its use of the GPS and the Internet. Err... interesting! The Geocaching.com website has a great tagline: "The sport where You are the search engine". An exchange of e-mail determined Jeff had the following requirements: To download a geocaching.loc file from http://www.geocaching.com; To use GeoNiche, a Palm app, to view the data when walking; To get the data in the .loc file into .pdb format for GeoNiche using the Java applet EasyNiche); To use the same waypoints in the file from 1. with TomTom maps in order to find the locations in the car. As Jeff explains ...

TomTom vs. Navman: I backed the wrong horse

Bruce — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 14:56:47 +0000

From bioneural.net:

Some 8 months ago I chose Navman over a TomTom GPS solution for Palm for several reasons that seemed valid at the time. Since then TomTom have released Navigator 5, and Navman have discontinued support for Palm. Curiosity got the better of me, and now that I've tried TomTom I've come to realise the true extent of the Navman's failings. I bought Navigator 5 and Great Britain maps (i.e. software only) on eBay, and used this with my existing Navman 4400 GPS Bluetooth receiver. For Palm or Pocket PC—not both Navigator 5 is not platform-specific: it will work out of the box on Palm and Pocket PC devices. According to TomTom: This TomTom License Agreement ("License") permits you to use the TomTom computer program and the digital (map) data included in the accompanying package acquired with this License on any single computer, provided the Software is installed on only one computer at any time and provided the Software is combined only with one (1) navigation system. This License is non-exclusive and non-transferable. To activate a map on a different device you must change the registered device code. However: Please note that you can only change your device code once within 6 months. Please contact Customer Support if this results in any issues for you. Install to Palm from a Mac This isn't actually a well-supported option, but it can be done whereas Navman requires a Windows PC. I found this page very helpful. There are three steps: Download the TomTom setup Application for Mac OS X here, then ...

Missing Sync for Palm turns 5

Bruce — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 22:01:59 +0000

From bioneural.net:

With the release of The Missing Sync for Palm version 5, getting data from your Mac desktop to your Palm (and vice versa) has become a more streamlined process. For those using Mac OS X 10.4.x MS does away with Apple's basic HotSync conduit for iSync, using Tiger Sync Services instead. The results are mostly pleasing. The most obvious new capability is Folder Sync, a conduit that lets you synchronise a desktop folder with a folder on an SD card: This is useful for several reasons: Using Folder Sync for Word documents to a /Documents folder (accessible by DocToGo) on the SD card means you can keep working with native Word documents and avoid the desktop DocsToGo, which is (in my experience) both flakey and slow; Using Folder Sync for MP3s to an /Audio folder (accessible by RealPlayer) on the SD card is better than iTunes conduit, as it avoids sync history alerts re incompatible files (i.e. AACs). However, installing via HotSync takes such an age you might consider using a USB 2.0 card reader instead; Using Folder Sync for JPGs to a /DCIM folder (accessible by Photos) on SD card is better than iPhoto conduit, as you get more control over image size and quality (e.g. use PhotoToolCM to batch re-size the longest side to 480 px at high JPEG quality); Using Folder Sync offers a quick way to drag-and-drop the same Word docs/ MP3s/ JPGs etc. to a Pocket PC from the same desktop source folders. Other observations on the upgrade: Application stability seems to ...

Make your blog small-screen PDA friendly

Bruce — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 03:20:21 +0000

From bioneural.net:

Trying to please everyone is an ambitious aspiration for any web designer. Do you please most of the people most of the time, or some of the people all of the time? As described previously, I use a chuck of JavaScript called StyleSwitcher to offer readers of this blog (all two of them) three alternative ways to view the site: single column, fixed-width, and widescreen. Now that web surfing on a PDA using WiFi is a reality, how can this be fine-tuned to ensure those with small screens are automatically offered the "lite" single column view? The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is provided once again by JavaScript. This article refers to iBlog (version 1.x), a Mac blogging client that was formerly used to publish this site. It may refer to design elements and other features that have since been replaced. Firstly, a recap on the current offerings. The style-switching buttons in the sub-navigation menu are as follows: [I] specifies a stylesheet stripping out most of the graphic elements and using a fluid-width single column; the text wraps to the width of the users screen. [II] specifies (the default) stylesheet using all graphic elements in a fixed-width two-column layout. This is ideal for screens 800 to 1280 pixels wide. [<II>] specifies a stylesheet using most graphic elements that permits an adjustable-width widescreen view, ideal for screen widths of 1280 pixels or more. The user agent (browser) remembers which stylesheet was chosen during the previous visit and loads the appropriate CSS when the user re-visits. But what if visitors ...

Visiting the other PDA platform (first 48 hrs)

Bruce — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 14:31:03 +0000

From bioneural.net:

Palm or Windows Mobile? I've been firmly in the Palm camp to date, but have just acquired a Pocket PC together with Missing Sync for Windows Mobile. This is not a review of the Dell Axim X50v, but rather a functional comparison with my Palm T3 from the point-of-view of a Mac user. How did a Palm user making a trial transition to Pocket PC fair when pairing the device with Mac OS X? For given applications and functionality, does Palm or Pocket PC have the winning edge? Will he or won't he become a "switcher"? First impressions count, so I decided to document my experiences during the first 48 hours with a Pocket PC. There will be plenty to revisit in subsequent bloggings... The outgoing Dell Axim X50v Now superseded by the X51v, Dell were having a 20% off clear-out of the previous model, now 1 year old. The hardware is the same aside from double the ROM. Buying direct saved £77 over Expansys (shop around!) and avoided having to fight it out on eBay for a similar price. It cost me less than a Fujitsu Siemens Loox 720 "Grade B" stock which seemed like a similar spec alternative. I chose a "Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC Second Edition" device because Missing Sync (see below) doesn't yet support Windows Mobile 5.0 (free update pending); Dell has announced that there will be a WM5 upgrade for the X50v (not free), so I have options. The X50v doesn't match my recent wish-list, but then ...