Jeff Kirvin

The LifeDrive is real, but less impressive than it should have been. Also, Textware Solutions releases Instant Text for Palm OS. [details]

STBXXL

Hi Jeff,

I mostly agree with your 1st thoughts on the LifeDrive. Having the T5 (and the Wi-Fi card) I'm not very impressed. Why should I change? I'm probably not the target customer for the LifeDrive.

However, I wonder what the later versions of Blazer (v4.1 vs. 4.0 with the T5) and VersaMail (v3.1 vs. 2.7.1) offer? If palmOne will make them available to the existing T5 customer base at some point? I appreciate that the development of those two programs costs money. So I'd be even pay an upgrade fee - provided it's attractive.

Cheers.

rpayne

Did you record differently this week? I can't get my NX60 to play the podcast...I did get to listen to to it on my computer.

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Rob
YO-260M --> Sharp SE-500 --> Visor Deluxe --> Palm i705 --> Clie NX60 --> T|X & Cingular 8525

Alan G

In the podcast, Jeff did say he was on vacation this week, so I suspect he was using a different computer to record the podcast.

Jeff,

Thanks for your summary review of the LifeDrive. I was ready to drop the $600 on the LifeDrive today. Alas, I wasn't able to find a local store that had them in stock. After listening this latest podcast, I will probably upgrade to the T5 without any further reservation. So my quest for a Zodiac appears like it will end with a T5.

Alan G

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Host, 1SRC Palm-Powered Podcast
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JAmerican

I hope that PalmSource might release a ROM update for the LifeDrive when they are ready for Cobalt.

JAmerican

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JAmerican

Handspring Treo 90 --> Royal RG135nx --> T-Mobile Sidekick --> T-Mobile Sidekick Color --> PEG-UX40 -- > PEG-UX50--> Samsung T629 (Returned) -- > Palm TX (SOLD)/T-Mobile Sony Ericsson T610(Defective) --> T-Mobile Dash(Broken Screen) --> ASUS EEE 1000H Black/Treo 800w/PEG-VZ90

Accesories: Transcend 16GB SDHC | 8GB Transcend microSD

Cyker

*Moved from LiveDrive RAM thread*
One thing, did anyone else have any trouble listening to the Podcast? It kept clicking and going quiet and loud and quiet.
I'm re-downloading it right now just in case, but...

As for the LD, I wasn't really disappointed because everything about it is more or less in-line with what I suspected it would be.
I was surprised by the revelation that accessing VFS stuff causes it to be written to the HD first before it's run - This is bad bad bad... again I feel compelled to slate Palm's implementation of NVFS (Bad Palm! Get better software designers! )

I look forward to your review 'tho - The performance shouldn't be as bad as people seem to be making out. I'm expecting it to be slow and unresponsive (Like old Palms or PPCs), but not to the point of taking 4-5 seconds to switch between programs!!

InstantText - Nifty! I can only imagine what it's be like combined with Fitali or a keyboard
My only annoyance is that on my TH55 it seems a little slow, and I feel ~1MB is quite a lot of space for me to give up. It would be neat if the datafiles could be held on VFS with only the core stub staying in RAM... although that might make it even slower...!

Anyway, enjoy your vacation (with the insane dog(s?))


Edit: As well as the dodgy encoding, it's encoded at 24kHz which is why we can't play it in AudioPlayer. TCPMP eats it up 'tho

JAmerican

Yea Cyker. I noticed that. The audio file is also Mono and 40kbps. The audioplayer can play that bitrate but the sample rate has to be 44.1 or 48kHz according to the manual.

JAmerican

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JAmerican

Handspring Treo 90 --> Royal RG135nx --> T-Mobile Sidekick --> T-Mobile Sidekick Color --> PEG-UX40 -- > PEG-UX50--> Samsung T629 (Returned) -- > Palm TX (SOLD)/T-Mobile Sony Ericsson T610(Defective) --> T-Mobile Dash(Broken Screen) --> ASUS EEE 1000H Black/Treo 800w/PEG-VZ90

Accesories: Transcend 16GB SDHC | 8GB Transcend microSD

depret

Listen every week but just like Tech Nation (earlier this month) I get the following error. They have a new under writer (sponsor).

"This track is unavailable for one of the following reasons:
The card is write-protected or does not support copyright control, or the track file is corrupted."

Never had this problem with 1src podcast only other podcasters. BTW, I download both via WiFi while in the cradle. I guess the commute will be a 20 minute moment of silence. Hey, LD forum to catch up on after 24 hours.

Keep us the good work but if you change how you record then Thursdays will continue to be very quiet.

Cyker

dpret: As me and JA said above, it's because the file is encoded to 24kHz instead of 44.1kHz.
Clies can ONLY play 44.1kHz* MP3s using the built-in AudioPlayer.
You can listen to it with any software MP3 player 'tho like PocketTunes, AeroPlayer or TCPMP.


*JA - Can your UX playback 48kHz MP3s?? My TH can't

strider_mt2k

Just ran into the same trouble on my TH55. (Glad it's not ME!)

NP, will listen on my PC at work.

I can't fault Jeff.
I'm sure he's wrapped up with other things at the moment. (Star Wars)
(Well, not THIS moment. At THIS moment he could be still sleeping, courting a hangover, or possibly both.)

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Mike Thompson

ptmin

Hi All
I just found the real specs of ram here very comforting from P1 knowledge base:
Quote From P1:
# "LifeDrive" logo, centered above screen. This is the first mobile manager to bear this name.
# Silver metal exterior, rounded edges.
# 4GB hard drive in addition to 64MB Program Memory. Do not confuse it with the Tungsten T5, whose hard drive is 256MB.
# Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless capabilities built in. This is the first palmOne device to include both

4GB Hard Drive (3.85GB available to user) for documents, music, photos, movies and more
64MB Program Memory (55.1MB available to user) for Palm OS applications and data
Non-volatile memory means the information is saved even if the power runs down. You don't need to worry when you're on the move and unable to recharge or synchronize.

See it here:
http://kb.palmone.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE?New,Kb=PalmSupportKB,ts=Palm_External20 01,case=obj(39318)

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Uncle Pee
Palm T3 Nokia N95, N810.

rpayne

Earlier I posted having trouble listening to the Podcast on my NX60. Today I downloaded the trial for Pocket Tunes Basic and it works fine. I was having the same problems with EarthCore - the free podcast novel...and it too plays fine on Pocket Tunes. I'll be purchasing P-Tunes soon!

I figured that as I downloaded more podcast, having them fall within the Clie's 44.1 kHz spec would become more and more of a problem.

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Rob
YO-260M --> Sharp SE-500 --> Visor Deluxe --> Palm i705 --> Clie NX60 --> T|X & Cingular 8525

MrNako

It sounds terrible even in my computer.

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Cyker

Yeah, the file seems to be a bit corrupt or something...
Downloaded it three times but they all have this quietLOUDquietLOUD weirdness :/


Strider - If you have TCPMP installed, that can decode the MP3 (As can PTunes, Aero, mmplayer etc.)