Bringing a Clié up to scratch...

[ugriffin]

Hey. Recently I obtained an (awesome) TH55 Sony Clié. It's a really nice device, but it needs some decent apps to be up to my standards. :cool: Having come from a Palm Vx background, I lost a few apps, and gained a few. Here are my troubles:

Firstly, cash is an issue for me. So freeware is preferential :).

Now, my music collection is a mix of .ogg, .mp3, and AAC. The troubles are:

TCPMP cannot background play :(
Pocket Tunes 3.1.8 Deluxe has no AAC plugin and I need one :(.
CorePlayer is too expensive /hard to find a crack for.

If there is a solution to any of those three problems it would be awesome.


Second, I have no idea why the Clié has Flash if it is practically useless. And by useless I mean YouTube. Now, I am aware that CorePlayer can YouTube perfectly, but I can't get it for the reasons above. Help here would be appreciated as well.

Third, anything better than NetFront 3.1? Opera Mini 5 looks awesome but it won't run in my clie with JVM. Blazer sucks (apparently), and Universe 3 I cannot find a PRC for :(.

Fourth, is there a decent MSN/Windows Live solution available?

Finally, recommend me some decent games that look good. RPG preferred.

[headcronie]

Awww... can't find cracks. Too bad. Go buy the software ya nitwit.

If you could afford the device itself, support the authors of the software.

I don't feel one bit for you.

[ugriffin]

Awww... can't find cracks. Too bad. Go buy the software ya nitwit.

If you could afford the device itself, support the authors of the software.

I don't feel one bit for you.


I'm underage, with parents suspicious of online transactions. Thus, I can't pay for the software. If I had a credit card I would happily buy it. Believe me, I hate cracked software because of the viruses, searches, ethics blah blah, but it is what I have, and until I have the legal means to pay for it I cannot obtain it any other way.

Besides, I inherited the Clie. I didn't pay a single cent.


If you wish to insult, go someplace else. Dish out your frustration and leave people alone, or explain why cracked software is wrong (because it is. I am not denying it).


Anyone willing to help? A link to Universe 3 would be really appreciated as well.


Thanks.

[Clie Patra]

Pocket Tunes (http://www.handango.com/catalog/ProductDetails.jsp?productId=83555&platformId=1) supports AAC. And if you use Mozilla firefox and Ant Toolbar, then you can download Youtube clips in a format that the (free) TCPMP can play. Works great for me.

[Aces]

I agree with Headcronie on this one. Just because you got the device for free, it doesn't entitle you to get all your software for free. Fortunately for you, there are a lot of PALM developers who have made freeware available. but in the case of the TH-55, sometimes the hardware limitations will limit your options.

One gotcha to look out for is that the basic music player on their TH won't handle variable bit rate mp3's. So if you are ripping songs, keep that in mind.

[Cyker]

The TH55 is an old device so you're gonna have to make compromises I'm afraid! :(

If you want background music playing, you're stuck with the hardware player (Unless you don't mind the whole thing slowing down!) which means transcoding to 44.1kHz CBR MP3's only.
Otherwise, TCPMP is pretty much the best there is. Remember the TH55 only has a 123MHz CPU so don't expect it to do too much! AAC in particular is quite CPU Intensive.

For web browsers, NetFront is pretty much the best one available. You can try Universe ( http://mytreo.net/downloads/universe-webbrowser,1406.html ) but I use that on my Zodiac 2 and it crashes all the time with lots of these horrible newer HTML4+CSS+ZOMG websites.
(<rant>In my day it was the pictures that took the most data and render time of opening a webpage, not the bloody text!!!</rant>)

The Flash thing is only Flash7 (This device came out ~2003!) so most newer things wouldn't work with it anyway, and the TH55 is not powerful enough for such poorly coded high-res vector stuff anyway. Given YouTube is moving to MP4, there is no way the TH55 could play that in real time so TBH you can pretty much forget that...
The only practical way to watch videos on a TH55 is to transcode and downscale them using ffmpeg or Handbrake to non-h264 mp4 or divx and playing them using TCPMP.
Also you'll probably need another 2GB MemoryStuck Pro to fit them all on :P

I don't know of any MSN stuff for PalmOS; Suspect such a thing does not exist. Would kill the battery leaving the WiFi on all the time anyway...

Games, well, Space Trader is quite fun but frankly the TH55 is pretty bad for games; The CPU is geared for power saving and is really too slow for most games, and it lacks a D-pad (Tx/T3 are deffo more suitable).
TH55 is better used as a PDA - It's under powered but the battery lasts for ages.

I've also had the CellarDoor text adventure interpreter on here for a while and been trying to play through Zork et. al. again (So hard! I swear it never used to be that hard!), but you like reading and are very shortsighted I wouldn't install it because you'd probably go blind from reading all the small text on the screen! :P

[philpalm]

The PSP is sony's latest multimedia handheld. Will they update it to use flash? Will they ever put out a keyboard (the old one could hack an IR keyboard) Basically will PSP be a great game platform? Now that PSPgo has come out downloaded games will soon be sold over the internet cutting out the middleman.

[ugriffin]

TCPMP runs AAC fine for me. Problem is I *wanted* background play. Audio Player is off-limits because I stupidly bought a 4GB card and then had to install the FAT32 driver when I discovered that there was no way the device could not support this natively.

Universe 3 is too unstable on a Clié. Pocket Tunes 3 is fine, but I asked if PT3 can play AAC and they (support staff) said no. PT4 can't run on the device, and PT5 shouldn't, either.

Netfront's good, and an Opera Mini 3 + Netfront combo is great, but it then makes other apps that are usually stable crash the device (odd). So I'm sticking with netfront.

CorePlayer renders YouTube great, haven't tried Kinoma (and won't) because they don't background play either. AeroPlayer's website is dead.

IM+ is great for MSN.

Finally, Little John Palm is GREAT on NES games (all else lags, including Game Boy :p).

[Cyker]

I use LJP on my Zodiac (Zodiac2 pwns all other Palms for gaming :D), but how the heck do you play it on a TH55 with no D-pad?!

(Or do you have the legendary mythical joypad addon?? :O)

[rcxAsh]

Haha back in the day, Sony had a bunch of add-ons for their PalmOS 4 Clies. One of them was actually a game controller. I did a quick search for it online and was surprised to see a seller on Amazon.com having it in stock for $20. I suspect it would have cost at least twice that six or so years ago... I doubt it's compatible with the TH55 though.

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-PEGA-GC10-Game-Controller-PEG-NX/dp/B00006L3TS

I remember they had a thumb board add-on too. Even a memory stick camera module for the old SJ/SL series! Oh things have changed...

[El Maquinas]

Haha back in the day, Sony had a bunch of add-ons for their PalmOS 4 Clies. One of them was actually a game controller. I did a quick search for it online and was surprised to see a seller on Amazon.com having it in stock for $20. I suspect it would have cost at least twice that six or so years ago... I doubt it's compatible with the TH55 though.

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-PEGA-GC10-Game-Controller-PEG-NX/dp/B00006L3TS

I remember they had a thumb board add-on too. Even a memory stick camera module for the old SJ/SL series! Oh things have changed...

I own a PEGA-GC10 and you can use it with your TH55 as I did in the past,in order to fix the PEGA-GC10 over your TH55 you will need to remove the cable cover of the PEGA-GC10.

Sony's thumb board has no PalmOS 5 driver but theres is a hack around. You can use the thumb board on a TH55 using some system files are from a PEG-TG50, but the thum board is not 100% usable at it misses some hardware buttons present on the PEG-TG50.

Regards.

[JAmerican]

Funny. I started using my CLIE again. Mainly to show off it's cool looking design for a 2003 model. :) Sad, most devices don't even last 2 years now. The CLIE still works!! :).

[El Maquinas]

Funny. I started using my CLIE again. Mainly to show off it's cool looking design for a 2003 model. :) Sad, most devices don't even last 2 years now. The CLIE still works!! :).

I'm still using my TH55 for every day use, needs some repairs, like the digitizer that sucks after some minutes of use, but works fine for me.

[LupeValenz]

Yeah, I still love using my Clie. Th55 still one great workhorse, though its mostly my personal PDA for my journal writing. Work combo is my Pre/Touch. Kinda sad to see the battery drain before my eyes as I use it, gotta get that replaced later.

[jj2me]

El Maquinas,
With 4 spares, and the highest possible Palm OS datebook date (something like 2030?), you might want to try to time how you'll use up your TH55s, rather than fixing them. They're practically indestructable when compared to other electronics. (I have the same problem, 2 spares, but they just don't break!)

I just love the look of the Clie Datebook, I don't know why, maybe it's the colored time blocks that give such a pleasing presentation of all the things I won't get around to doing each day. :o

[El Maquinas]

El Maquinas,
With 4 spares, and the highest possible Palm OS datebook date (something like 2030?), you might want to try to time how you'll use up your TH55s, rather than fixing them. They're practically indestructable when compared to other electronics. (I have the same problem, 2 spares, but they just don't break!)

I just love the look of the Clie Datebook, I don't know why, maybe it's the colored time blocks that give such a pleasing presentation of all the things I won't get around to doing each day. :o

:D

Well, I use the spares mainly as parts, this is because some software that I own uses the serial number of the device in order to function, so I keep the original board changing other parts. Next planned changes, the digitizer and case...

I like Clie Datebook too, I prefer it over PalmOS stock datebook app. :)

[mark krebs]

I love it too, but I need MSExchange sync, and I want to do it over wifi.
My work calendar & contacts are such a big part of my daily life that not having them is a real problem. Is there any solution?