Looking back: 'bread and butter' apps of 2007

Having purchased the HTC P3600 (aka Trinity) earlier this year, I thought now might be a good time to look back and pick out the applications that I’ve found most useful on a regular basis - the handheld ‘bread and butter!’ So here they are listed in no particular order, with some quick summary notes.

1. QMAIL3

http://q3.snak.org/en/

I have been using this mail client for several years, initially with the HP Jornada 720 (Handheld PC2000). Now I use it with the Trinity, mainly just to keep informed whilst away; I occasionally compose a few short messages and send attachments, but it’s mainly for reading. It’s very powerful, providing good support for the IMAP server at work (e.g. can sync on any number of folders) and quite a number of configurable options in the interface, including HTML support and message threading, though it is somewhat cramped on the QVGA display.

2. Tomeraider + Wikipedia (snapshot with images)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TomeRaider

This was the combination that almost single-handedly removed my dependence on the clamshell form factor. For general facts and figures, Wikipedia is an excellent resource and thanks to Erik Zachte versions of the database have been made available for ready conversion to Tomeraider, an e-book reader whose clever indexing and nifty interface makes accessing and navigating entries a breeze. It usually takes me just a few seconds from switching on the PDA to tapping out the topic under investigation; the version I have also includes small versions of about 2/3 of the original images.

However, the outputs from Wikipedia have been changing from time to time, too much to keep up with, so at present there is not an up-to-date version of the full text that can be read in Wikipedia, certainly not one with images. Alas, the conversion process stalled some while ago. I still hope that some initiative will emerge that enables it to become active again. One area that has been considered is the production of subsets according to particular categories – that at least is an interesting research project!

Working with this combination has sparked quite a few thoughts aboiut which I'm still pondering – first about PDA clients (thick or thin?) and then using this educational resource as the basis of what might become One PDA [or smartphone] per Child, which prompted thoughts in the sphere of education from Leonard Low - One PDA Per Learner (OPAL). With the iPhone bring handheld devices very firmly out of business confines and the emergence of various initiatives concerning small laptops, this looks increasingly likely in the mid term.

3. ZIP for Pocket PC

http://htc-zip.en.softonic.com/pocket

A utility to unpack ubiquitous Zip archives is essential for document bundles, installation files etc. HTC’s offering (Version 1.20) is easy to use and quite flexible in the extraction options.

4. Outlook/Google calendar via Oggsync

http://oggsync.com/
http://www.google.com/calendar/

I have been making daily use of the pocket Outlook client and it works well, obviously has been given a lot of attention for business users. It is a real boon to sync it with Google Calendar – I was hoping for a free client to cover all my needs, but I think for a reasonably reliable and functional product decided it was worth paying for Oggsync, even though I think the licensing model (annual payment) is questionable as it is software that is being provided, not an online service.

I currently sync on 3 calendars: a personal calendar, a work calendar and a public calendar that gives dates of Oxford terms. Google has many public calendars that are worth perusing.

5. Contacts

Similar to the calendar, on using the phone more, I have been storing and updating contacts here.

6. Windows Media Player

[Audio]

One of my Thai friends very kindly scoured Chulalongkorn University bookshop and subsequently presented me with two self-study Thai language courses called ‘Thai for Beginners’ and ‘Thai for Intermediate Learners’ by Benjawan Poomsan Becker. They came with cassette tapes that I’ve digitized into mp3 format [technicalities described in another post]

I still take the physical book with me, but use the phone to listen to the audio. There are better audio players, e.g. GS Player, but WMP does the job okay.

[Video]

I use Windows Movie Maker on a laptop to transcribe videos produced by the Thai temple that I support (see e.g. DMC TV). They are typically made available as .wmv downloads or if collecting on CD they may be supplied as MPEGs encapsulated in VideoCD format (just rename the DAT file). Transcription is straightforward and the output option of PDA (320*240) produces good results. :-)

7. MS Live Search Mobile

http://livesearchmobile.com/

Of the various mapping applications that I’ve tried, I’ve found Live Search to be the most robust. If I’m visiting somewhere I download the tiles in advance. Then, when using that map data, the application works fine and won’t crash when you explore the edges.

8. Camera: pictures and videos

I’m not much of a photographer, but even I find it very easy to take snaps with the Trinity – just switch on and press the camera button twice. A nice feature is that it is integrated with the GPS, so you have the option of recording GPS data in the EXIF file.

Quality is modest, though with the CMOS sensor it works quite reasonably in low light conditions. I’ve uploaded a few to my Flickr space.

9. VisualGPSce

http://www.visualgps.net/VisualGPSce/

This application is well made. In the absence of any GPS application with the HTC ROM upgrade I use this to establish connections and then switch to other apps, e.g. the camera, knowing that a lock is available immediately.

It introduced me to the fun of GPS and digital maps, including a little detective trail and route animation (not sure about the practical value of that!)

10. Adobe Reader

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2_mobile.html

A lot of documentation, especially work-related is distributed as PDF, so it’s necessary to have a PDF viewer. Adobe’s offering works reasonably well, though unless text flow works, then it’s not very practical to read more than a page or two.

Others

There are other apps that I’ve used occasionally, including:

• Supersnap: the best tool I’ve found for capturing a sequence of screenshots. The developer was very responsive to comments.
• Skype: For the Trinity, I needed to download version 2.1 (2.2 doesn’t work), the latest beta version of which I obtained via archive.org. It works okay, quality fair - I made one overseas call that lasted over an hour and found that although the audio sounded processed, it was clear enough. The main limiting factor is the phone contract, which prohibits its use, along with instant messaging. :-(
• MS Powerpoint viewer: for presentations that I prepare and similarly from others
• GS Player: I use it occasionally to listen to streams, as delivered by Shoutcast.com; can connect the output to the Hi-Fi. It’s a smart application with a very neat and tidy interface.
• XnView for Pocket PC: it’s a great graphics package, which I use to convert screenshots from BMP to GIF and then can upload to the Web.
• Word mobile: it’s limited, but sometimes that’s enough :-)
• Lingvosoft Thai-English dictionary for Pocket PC: I’m just starting to learn to read and write Thai and this is starting to help me more, though I first need to learn the alphabet! It comes with a virtual Thai keyboard and I can copy and paste Thai words to/from Pocket Word, so I hope eventually to be composing blog posts in Thai :-) It is has a large number of entries, more than adequate. The 2006 version that I bought supports speech synthesis, but for English only!

As this year draws to a close, I'd just like to say thanks for reading - I hope there's been something worthwhile for you. More thoughts in 2008...

No excuses for getting lost with HTC P3600 ROM Upgrade :-)

As mentioned in my previous post on PDA and phone convergence, the HTC P3600 that I purchased has in its circuit board a GPS receiver, but it was not enabled in my version of the phone. During the past weeks I had been scouring the Web for signs of an official ROM update that might include this. The Asian version (for the Dopod equivalent) had been released in February, but the European version was slow to emerge until news spread via sites like XDA Developers of the official WorldWide English (WWE) release becoming available in a few countries such as Belgium, Sweden and then Italy.

So where was the ROM for UK users? It was a bit odd - I had read of people's queries to their HTC sellers with generally noncommittal responses. Wanting some clarification of the situation, on Tuesday (3rd) I got in touch with Smartphones Direct, the company that had sold me my phone, using their Java-based online chat facility. I asked about the availability of the HTC Rom update to include GPS and at that time was informed that it wasn't available and that even an official ROM download would invalidate the warranty, but there was the possibility of the company installing it for me for a fee.

Disappointed, I was wondering what to do. However, I kept dipping into online fora and the next day I was encouraged by a thread on the Expansys site. It was great news - an official ROM to download from HTC Europe's site. I proceeded to download and was expecting to install straightaway, but I hit a snag - I had left the sync cable in the office and the next day I was on leave and due to be travelling in the afternoon! Never mind. This morning I popped into the office, collected the cable en route to a bit of shopping, then raced back home and carried out the upgrade and it was fine.

Naturally, I was keen to try out the GPS. I see they have since added TomTom Navigator as a freebie, but I was travelling by train this afternoon, so instead I installed VisualGSPCE. Having never used GPS before, I don't know what to expect, but I find this a very nice piece of software that is easy to use and provides very clear details of your co-ordinates (longitude and latitude are very accurate, but altitude seems to fluctuate quite a bit more) plus your velocity. It also shows some stats about the satellites - how many around, how many are being used (have strong enough signal). After installation, I found I needed to do a restart of the PDA and initially it gave an error because by default it was expecting communications to be on COM1; changing (via the app) to COM9 enables it to work. From then on it's a doddle!

My colleague Matthew had alerted me to an article in The Register in which they had tested the GPS in the Orange SPV M700 (rebadged HTC P3600) and they had found it drained the battery as much as talk time, i.e. to about 4.5 hours. One of my other colleagues has the Orange phone and had already tried the GPS; I haven't got round to asking him about battery life, but I think his ROM is dated January and since then I've read very positive remarks about improvements in this area in later ROMs (the HTC WWE one is from March).

So I ran a test. Just before my train arrived I switched on the phone, got a lock (within a minute) and left it on for the duration of the journey. VisualGPSce has a logging facility, which I remembered to switch on just after we had left the station. I then kept the PDA on (with non-backlit display) for the duration of the journey, which was 3 1/4 hours. So did it last the distance? At the start it was at 90% and by the end of that period, it had 50% battery left, which means only about 40% was used in that duration, which also included 3 quick calls and a 1 minute video shoot. All in all, quite impressive, I think!

There are quite a number of features in the ROM Upgrade that are worthy of mention, including support for receiving streaming video. However, now at my destination, I have about 2MB of GPS log to peruse... :-)