Palmdoc's Journal

6:41AM - In search of VOIP

If you have a wireless PDA, then I think VOIP is a "killer app". Here's an app which will turn your hamdheld into a mobile phone. Making calls overseas too would be a fraction of what the telcos are charging. For instance I can call Canada and the US for only 7 sen a minute using Skype's SkypeOut service.
Unfortunately Skype has not released their PalmOS client though there is one for PPC.
What are the Palm alternatives?



Gphone was released for the Tungsten C. I wondered if it would run on the TT3 (equipped with the SD Wifi card) and indeed it does. But the company has temporarily suspended it's service due to "business reasons". I wrote to them and someone from VLI (the company releasing Gphone) was kind enough to confirm this and said to watch their website for any news. Sure hope they haven't "gone under"!!

There's another hope yet - FreeWorldDialup is beta testing a PalmOS client. Hope they succeed!

Both Gphone and FWD conform to the SIP standard for VOIP. Skype is different and it uses P2P technology. I'll take whichever succeeds in getting a working PalmOS platform!!

Current mood: awake

8:08PM - Malaysians in the news.

Jeff Ooi has been Slashdotted (Gee I'm jealous :P )
and now we read in the BBC of a Malaysian tying the knot for 53rd time

Current mood: quixotic

6:00AM - The T5 unveiled

So the T5 was unveiled on Monday - but won't be available till next month. Unusual for palmOne to pre-announce their PDAs this long in advance but I guess they had to meet their traditional October dateline for releasing new devices. I suspect something's holding up the production and it may be perhaps the drivers for the SD Wifi card are not ready or somethng like that.

I think it doesn't look too bad. In fact I would prefer a device without the slider. I love the bigger battery and the larger capacity - 256MB Ram - the biggest out there for any PDA.
But it still falls short of my ideal Palm and is not enough for me to upgrade from a T3. So it looks like the wait continues.....

3:23PM - Idiots

With the current controversy going on with Screenshots and the NST/Berita Harian, to read something like this in the NST invokes nausea. There is a difference between authoring a blog and posting comments on a blog. There will be idiots who make idiotic comments on one's blog. But there are bigger idiots who can't differentiate between blogging and commenting.
I threw out the NST a long time ago. No regrets.

Current mood: angry

1:17PM - Case modification

Had to modify my T3's hard case to better fit the SD Wifi card

6:52PM - MobileMule

I have to say this is one of the coolest mobile Internet apps I have seen for some time. If however you don't know what eMule is, don't worry and you can stop reading right here ;)
What does it do? It is a java applet which you can install on your Java capale mobile phone (e.g. SE t610) or even your Palm if you have IBM Java installed on it.
It is not eMule on your mobile device but it allows you to remote control your eMule running on your desktop!
Well I am glad I decided to sacrifice the 1MB or so required for the IBM Java installation on my T3 as this app alone is worth it - not to mention too now I can try out all those cool free Java games and what not in the future.

You can get all the info from the MobileMule Home Page

The current version is 0.9a and it works well on my T3. You don't need a Wifi connection, as GPRS will do too.
Here are some screen shots:


This is the home screen


This is the main menu and the things you can do in this current version


You can search for files - and after that you can select files for your eMule to start downloading.


Graphical view of the transfers in action


Some of the nifty things you can do other than download files - you can shutdown eMule and even shutdown your PC.

The MobileMule controls are password protected and you can change the port from 80 to a high one (eg 8888) to protect it from hackers.

Current mood: sleepy

5:47PM - palmOne SD Wifi Card

Had a chance to play around with the new SD WiFi card for the T3 and Z72. Unit courtesy of Cheng Ho of InnoPDA in Sunway.
The Wifi setup wizard is very easy to use and it could locate and detect the Maxis Utopia Hottspot signal with no problem. Surfing speed was slow supposedly because of net congestion. I had no opportunity to test it with other networks.
The card sticks out a fair bit but is very light.

Current mood: cheerful

2:40PM - Trip

Well I'll be off to Prague tonight on for a medical conference.

In the meantime thought I'd just c&p something which came in my mailbox

You know, life isn't all about jokes. Really. No, really. It's also
about humor. But life isn't just about jokes and humor. It's also
about jocularity. But it's not just about that. It's not just about
beating a comic premise to death either. It's sometimes about
trivia. We know this because we have included some of that here.

* Roulette was invented by French mathematician Blaise Pascal. The
popular game of chance was a byproduct of his experiments with
perpetual motion.

* All cheerleaders were male in 1898. Now, about three percent are.

* The baseball home plate is 17 inches wide.

* Moderate dancing burns 250 to 300 calories an hour.

* The U.S. motto, "E pluribus unum," means "out of many, one." It
first appeared in a Roman poem as part of a recipe for making a
salad.

* In Latin, the word "disco" means "I learn."

* Forty-two percent of American women are able to belch on command.

* In scientific terminology, the Sun is considered a "Yellow G2
Dwarf."

* The saying "the sky's the limit" originated in Don Quixote.

* Because of outrageously high costs in California during the Gold
Rush of 1849, miners sent their laundry to Hawaii for washing and
pressing.

* Two-thirds of the world's lawyers practice in the United States.

* A cow has four stomachs: the rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum.

* Before the year 1000, the word "she" did not exist in the English
language.

11:06AM - Amazing palmOne support

I got my T3 back in less than 24 hours

Delivered to Sitt Tatt at 11am Sept 2
Got it back @ 10:45amSept 3

DHL tracking:

3251727080 - Detailed Report
Date Time Location Service Area Checkpoint Details

September 02, 2004 15:52 Singapore - Singapore Shipment picked up
September 02, 2004 18:59 Singapore - Singapore Departed from DHL facility in Singapore - Singapore
September 02, 2004 19:33 Singapore Hub - Singapore Arrived at DHL facility in Singapore Hub - Singapore
September 02, 2004 21:48 Singapore Hub - Singapore Departed from DHL facility in Singapore Hub - Singapore
September 03, 2004 03:37 Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia Arrived at DHL facility in Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia
September 03, 2004 04:09 Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia Arrived at DHL facility in Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia
September 03, 2004 04:09 Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia Clearance processing complete at Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia
September 03, 2004 04:27 Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia Departed from DHL facility in Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia
September 03, 2004 05:53 Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia Arrived at DHL facility
September 03, 2004 08:44 Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia With delivery courier

7:13AM - Treo 650

Well, you gotta admit the specs look tempting. Another fake?

5:04AM - T3 tracking continued...

Hmmm, a turn around in only 1 day? Wow.......

3251727080 - Detailed Report

Date Time Location Service Area Checkpoint Details

September 02, 2004 15:52 Singapore - Singapore Shipment picked up
September 02, 2004 18:59 Singapore - Singapore Departed from DHL facility in Singapore - Singapore
September 02, 2004 19:33 Singapore Hub - Singapore Arrived at DHL facility in Singapore Hub - Singapore
September 02, 2004 21:48 Singapore Hub - Singapore Departed from DHL facility in Singapore Hub - Singapore
September 03, 2004 03:37 Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia Arrived at DHL facility in Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia
September 03, 2004 04:09 Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia Arrived at DHL facility in Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia
September 03, 2004 04:09 Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia Clearance processing complete at Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia
September 03, 2004 04:27 Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia Departed from DHL facility in Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia

7:21PM - Tracking my T3 Return

Decided to send in my T3 for a return before the warranty expires - another month to go - because of the digitiser drift problem. I had no hassles convincing Palm Asia Tech support for a swop.
Popped over to Sitt Tatt in Klang/Shah Alam at 11am.

DHL Tracking
http://www.dhl.com/cgi-bin/tracking.pl?AWB=3251727080

3251727080 - Detailed Report

Date - Time Location Service Area Checkpoint Details

September 02, 2004 15:52 Singapore - Singapore Shipment picked up

September 02, 2004 18:59 Singapore - Singapore Departed from DHL facility in Singapore - Singapore

12:22PM

Well it sadly looks like the supposed T5 story was a hoax after all. It was so convincing it had me hook line and sinker :(
I really don't know what to make out of all the other new T5 rumours now but I can say if palmOne does not come out with a WiFi + BT model I am not upgrading - especially since my T3 serves me well and I can make do with BT and GPRS most of the time.

On another note, what a surprise, Anwar Ibrahim has been set free... Wonders never cease....

5:38AM - My next Palm

1:25PM - On this day

I did another naughty thing.
Yes, had a quick lunch at Yew Sing SS15 coffee shop after doing some banking.
The TV was blaring away some loud Astro Chinese serial.
I whipped out my T3, opened NoviRemote and changes to 80 - the Spors channel. Hehe
After all its the Olympics and its my birthday ;)

6:45AM - Athens 2004

Current mood: energetic

12:19PM - Plucker 1.8

Supports 320x480 in lanscape and portrait modes.
Great for viewing cartoon strips!

Download the free Plucker viewer and desktop sync software from:

http://www.plkr.org/index.plkr?a=dl

7:03AM - If Spiderman III was produced in Bollywood.....

6:31AM - Quality Video on your Palm

Taken from Brighthand
http://discussion.brighthand.com/palmhandhelds/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54950

Posting here for my reference :)

Tools:

VirtualDubMod
Xvid or Divx codec (better install both, cause you need decoder/filter to open file)
You may also need following programs depending on your source file (mp3/ac3) etc…{this may be updated}
Ac3 Decoder filter

Download and install above items unless you already have them.

• the settings described below are especially optimized for Zire71, it means they will also probably work with TungstenT /T2/ T3/ /C, Treo600/ some Sony models/etc because these devices have same or more powerful processor. And these setting will probably NOT work on Tungsten|E which has slower 126mhz cpu.
• Codec Choice. I don’t want to start war here telling that some particular codec is better than another . I chose Xvid and I will use it here, But you of cause can choose another codec (Divx4/5 / Div3=SBC). Another mpeg-4 codecs like Wmv9/rv9/vp6/nero digital/ffvfw/3vix are not supported, and even if they are, I didn’t test them. You can try if you want. For more information about codec choice you can go to Doom9's last Codec Comparison page and chose better (for you ) codec.

Open VirtualDubMod and open desired file. File-Open

If you have all codecs/decoders installed , file will open correctly. Here are 2 separate parts: audio and video:
Audio: The initial file can be probably in mp3 format (in most cases) or as well in ac3 (2 or 5 channels) or in some less popular formats like Ogg ( the best one for me ) or Divx audio/ wma (windows media audio). Go to Streams->Stream list. Right click on stream , and choose Full processing mode.

Choose Compression-> Mpeg layer 3(mp3) (if you have more than one – better choose Lame mp3, but it doesn’t really matter. Anyway you should have at least one which comes with Win2000/XP.)
Choose preferred bitrate, and sampling rate. It better be 32k(22/24)khz/mono, or 22kps(22/24)khz/mono or 48k/(44/48)khz/mono. Don’t’ choose higher bitrates, cause zire’s cpu may not be faster enough to decode audio stream And resulting file will take more space.
You may also want to increase audio volume level in Volume context menu since some movies are already recorded with too low volume (which is not problem for pc. But is problem for palm) and because Zire’s output volume is too low.

Video Part:
Since palm palm cpu is slow compared to pc’s cpu, you will have to not only reduce resolution , but frame rate too. So here we go.
Video->Full processing mode. Video->Frame Rate. Set it to “process every other frame /2 “
No way zire will handle full (23.976/25/29.97) frame rate.

Now we will resize. Go to Video->Filters->Add VDMod_resize (or other resize filter). Resize it to 320x???, or to 304x??? , where ??? depends on your aspect ratio, which you can see on the right. Note! Both resolution MUST be dividable of 16. So It will be mostly 320x144/320x160/320x176/320x and so on.

Than go to Video->Compression-> Choose Xvid mpeg4 codec (or Divx5 if you prefer)

Click Configure -> press on “…” button near profile, Check “BVOPs”, check Closed Gov, and put 1 in “Max consecutive BVOPs” aka – B-frames. In Quantization type choose h.263, Uncheck rest. Click OK.

Click Advanced, Set “motion search precision” to 6, “VHQ mode” 0 , you may also check “Turbo” , Click OK

Choose “TwoPass-First Pass” click OK, OK once more, go to File->Save As (f7) and save file ( you can call it temp) anywhere , where is enough place (up to 500mb). . Check “don’t run this job now”

Note, Although, this file is pretty watch able ,maybe even on Zire, THIS IS NOT YOUR RESULT FILE. Go back to Video->Compresson-> Xvid-> Configuration, And choose
“TwoPass- Second Pass” Now you have to set desired output size. Couple of notes here:
I don’t know what SD-card you have ( I believe you have some ) but you have to consider following.:
a) This is video only size, so take it into consideration. Audio part takes space too. Sum of your video+audio~ will give you desired output size) (for example, 1h30min 32k22khz_mono audio will take 21 MB.
b) Don’t try to compress it too much, For my conception of quality on palm don’t go below 1 minute of movie in 1 megabyte. Otherwise quality will really drop.
c) Don’t try to compress to few. Bitrate shoud be not more than 250kbps. ( you can choose bitrate there as well instead of desired space) , otherwise Zire will not handle it. , I have about 180mb on my 256sd left for movies – it is more than enough for even very long movie.

Click OK->OK->OK. … no, too much OK’s go to File ->Save as-> type desired name. This will be your result file. , Keep ckecked “don’t run this job..”

Now go to File->Job control-> Press Start .

Now The conversion/compression process begins, which will probably take some time, depending on your computer specs. On my Celeron 1700mhz/512mb Sdram 133mzh/ Win 2000 It takes about 1.5-3 hours for most movies.

At last, when file is ready, you can put it on sd with card-reader. I really really hope you have one. Because if not – you will have to wait about 1min per 1mb of file (in my case before I bought cardreader) Which means – About 1.5-2.5 hours of Hotsync process.
Now you have about 2 hours of really cool high quality video to watch, you must see it to believe it. Quality on Zire71 is awesome !!!

Another thread on this topic:

http://www.kvpug.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9036

9:59AM - Traffic reports on your PDA

Due to the initiatives of the local PDA community, you now can get to view traffic reports on your PDA

First the graphical (sill pictures only) from Chris Wo's conversion of the DBKLCam website:

http://www.aksb.com.my/chris/DBKLcam.asp

Here's a view on a T3



If you want an even more data friendly traffic report, you can use

http://www.kvpug.org/traffic.cfm
or
http://medicine.com.my/cgi-bin/traffic.asp

which are stripped down versions of the L&E traffic report site

Here's a screenshot of how it appears on a T3:

Current mood: geeky