1SRC Podcast FortyNine

[Alan G]

This week I discuss the latest 1SRC editorial, Palm's open letter to the Palm OS developer community, future Palm Treo plans revealed, and Resco Backup. [details (http://www.1src.com/?m=show&id=1316)]

[Legodude522]

Uber Geeks. ^-^

[Alan G]

I figured I couldn't keep talking about "Wingnuts" so I went with Uber Geeks this time out. :)

But it is true. We fall outsite of Palm's target audiance. That isn't to say Palm isn't interested in us. We just aren't the majority of the buying public.

Alan G

[rolandrsr]

Alan, being a rep for one of the manufacturers in this field. I agree everything is really focused on the "soccer mom" and similar suburban types. The "ubergeek" though is indirectly responsible for pushing the envelope. But, that person may be more in Asia than here, if you think about it, where did Sony first introduce their Clie's with all the "ubergeek" stuff. In general, Americans like the equipment simple and easy to use. Just my opinion.

[intellidryad]

The first thing I noticed with this podcast is:
"Yeah! It's Clie friendly again!"

Alan, can you keep all your future podcasts at 64kbps, 44.100kHz, so that it's playable by the Clie Audioplayer? Jeff used to use this sampling rate, too.

[Alan G]

rolandsrs wrote:
In general, Americans like the equipment simple and easy to use. Just my opinion.

I'd agree that the Asian market is far more advanced that we here in the United States. But when I was talking about "uber geeks" I'm talking about those folks who disliked devices like the T5 because it didn't have Bluetooth *and* Wi-Fi; no voice recorder, and no Cobalt. I was initially in this camp until I started reading more about the T5 and how cool it really was. Better battery life than the T3; NVFS memory, DriveMode; and no slider.

Alan G

[Alan G]

intellidryad wrote:
The first thing I noticed with this podcast is:
"Yeah! It's Clie friendly again!"

Alan, can you keep all your future podcasts at 64kbps, 44.100kHz, so that it's playable by the Clie Audioplayer?

I ended up doing some research this past weekend to come up with a way to try to keep file size in check while meeting the requests of folks who use devices other than a computer to listen to the podcasts that I host. Over the weekend, I was testing with my T3, T|C, the Clie NZ90, and -gasp!- an iPAQ 3835. All of my podcasts, including 1SRC should now work on Palms and Clies.

And, Jeff did warn me about the Clie users here on "ClieSource." I'm just happy that I finally found some middle ground.

Alan G

[Jeff Kirvin]

FWIW, I encoded at 40kbps, 44.1khz.

[Alan G]

Jeff wrote:
FWIW, I encoded at 40kbps, 44.1khz.

That may be true, but people in the know know that my machine, specifically my sound card, is possessed! :D

Alan G

[Dick Tracy]

Hey, let's not get started on card, device or machine possession here. There's enough threads floating around about that sort of stuff already. :eek:

Not that I'm superstitious or anything like that...eyeing warily the latest MS security patch notification in system tray :rolleyes:

[Legodude522]

My Zire 72 worked fine. :)

[applejosh]

It played fine in xmms under Ubuntu (not that I would've had problems with most settings). (As I played at work, not having to eye the MS critical update tray icon. :) )

[palmsolo]

Alan, I couldn't agree with you more, Resco Backup ROCKS!! I have tried several backup solutions on my Palm devices, but I find that Resco is the fastest and most dependable, even on my Treo 650 that has had issues in the past with backup solutions.

Great podcast by the way, keep up the excellent work.

[Alan G]

palmsolo wrote:
Alan, I couldn't agree with you more, Resco Backup ROCKS!!

I finally decided to switch do to repeated restore poblems with my old software on the T5 and for some reason or another the backups on my Treo 600 started going weird on me. I was really blown away as to how easy it was to restore the entire Palm from the backup and without any issues. Now if only Windows server restores when that easy!

I e-mailed the show notes link to Jan over at Resco and she was happy with the review also.


Great podcast by the way, keep up the excellent work.

Thank you.

Alan G

[applejosh]

My only wish for Resco Backup is stronger encryption. Other than that, it does rock. (And I am using it instead of the other two programs I own.)

[Alan G]

applejosh wrote:
My only wish for Resco Backup is stronger encryption.

Ahh, that's what upgrades are for! :)

Alan G

[depret]

FWIW, I encoded at 40kbps, 44.1khz.

Alan and Jeff,

Another good podcast for the collection and thanks for the clie friendly format. Note, TCPMP seems to work on other encodings. Please pass the info to the other Palm podcasters.

www.radioopensource.com has clie friendly podcasts and the stories are interesting (no connection to the site).

I will have to listen to TechTalk 27 again, I do not recall your reaction being that strong but I may have missed one. Should be entertaining.
;)

I really am looking forward to the other Treo (Palm OS) options at a lower price point for the unlocked versions. I still feel that Palm needs another "hit" product in another catagory because the Treo smartphone will not last forever.

I recall Jeff's comments on the new connector supporting A/V output (in the future) and your comment on the NZ90 trigger that recall. Currently, I can download a podcast and play it on my TV/DVD/CD audio speakers in my house. How about seeing my PDA screen on the TV or projector? I read the dell 50v has an add-on. How about Palm providing the solution out-of-the-box?

Keep up the good work.

[PDAJah]

@Alan, I totally agree with you about the usability and simplicity of the Palm OS. But the implementation has not been stable on all the Palm platforms. My hypothesis is that for mobile devices, for consumers, the s/w and apps need to be attractives (yes attractive) to use and simple and the whole system needs to be rock solid. To date the most rock solid OS I have used is Symbian, it is stable across a number of platforms. My Treo 650 has been stable but last week I had it fail on me twice (looking to do a hard reset and re-install as I think the BT has been messed-up some how). The user interface for Symbian devices has not been that usable (best has been on the Nokia 7710) compared to Palm but UIQ3 may change this. For comparison I would say WM5 is not stable and the UI metaphor is that of the desktop and does not work for me on mobile devices.

@Jeff, any news on First Contact IV and Genesis 2?

[Alan G]

depret wrote:
How about seeing my PDA screen on the TV or projector? I read the dell 50v has an add-on. How about Palm providing the solution out-of-the-box?

That was one of the things that Sony did that Palm has yet to do. If Palm really does move the Mobile Manager line into a mini-tablet 5"x7" device, then this is one of the features that they should include. The Athena Multi-Connector cradle on has a line out port, no video out.

Alan G

[Alan G]

@ PDAJah -

Smartphones are one of the most complex devices on the cellular networks. Getting everything right for the word "Go" just isn't the norm. (That isn't to say that it's right for companies to rush stuff out the door.) Anyway, things are getting better. There was a podcast interview with Dana Dubinski (Palm board member and long time business partnet with Jeff Hawkins and Ed Colligan - They all started a small company called Palm Computing) that talked about some of the issues with the Treo, wireless carriers and where they [Palm] sees the future of wireless mobile computing is going.

You can listen to the podcast here:
http://podcast.diamondcluster.com/dtpiw.html#dtpiw-2005-08-11-14-04-45

Alan G

[Jeff Kirvin]

@Jeff, any news on First Contact IV and Genesis 2?
We should have our own storefront up and running by January 1st.

[Alan G]

You can keep up to date with what's happening over at Solo Media's website:

http://www.maximumgeek.org/

Alan G

[PDAJah]

@Alan, I'm getting old! I must have found maximumgeek a while ago and I even registered as "jah". Will keep an eye on maximumgeek as well as 1src. And thanks for the link on the podcast.

[johnsoax]

We should have our own storefront up and running by January 1st.


So are you going to use Fictionwise anymore? I have a balance there just for your and Josh's books.

[PDAJah]

@ PDAJah -

...
You can listen to the podcast here:
http://podcast.diamondcluster.com/dtpiw.html#dtpiw-2005-08-11-14-04-45

Alan G

Wow - this podcast has some really great insights and historical information.
:)