Tuxtops

Today Nokia announced the introduction of the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet device along with the Open Source based Maemo Development Platform.

The typical use case for the Nokia 770 is to be the internet usability extension to your mobile phone or other wireless internet access equipment.

It is extremely portable by its small formfactor, usable for almost all internet applications thorugh its exceptional resolution of 800x480 pixel and its multimedia capabilities by making use of a TI-OMAP CPU and a accompanying digital signal processor (DSP) core.

The consequent use of open source software and technology basing on the Linux kernel 2.6, X11-server technology and the GTK+ toolkit the resulting new Hildon graphical user interface creates a fully new user interface experience for portable Linux devices.

The internet browser used is based on Apple's WebCore Kit (ported to GTK).

Earlier this year Archos released the Embedded Linux/Qtopia based href="http://www.archos.com/products/overview/pma_400.html">PMA400portable
media device. This amazing unit is designed primarily for video on the go,
but is also a very full featured PDA with many extras, so it only made
sense for theKompany to start porting their popular software for the Sharp
Zaurus to this new device. Of the several dozen applications to choose
from, the first 3 to be ported are:

tkcMail - The
most complete email solution for Embedded Linux available today with
support for SMTP, POP3 (with SSL) and IMAP4 (with SSL). $19.95

tkcBlocks - A
fun Tetris type game. $4.95

tkcExplorer -
An advanced file management tool that also knows how to deal with the
variety of file formats used on the Archos. Find, Copy, move, delete,
rename, open files and launch applications with this super powerful
tool. $14.95

"It takes six seconds to spin up the drive and feed its data into the palmtop's memory so you can use it. As a result, your work is frequently interrupted by maddening, six-second visits to the dead zone. Everything is frozen on the screen, no button works and your workflow comes to a crashing halt." Read the full review of the Lifedrive. Also, PalmSource's David Nagel expects Linux to have a big impact on mobiles.

After the problems of a SanDisk wireless compact flash card when used in conjuction to a Dell Axim X5, we tried the LinkSys WCF12 which currently sells for a mere $33 at eCost. Here are our thoughts on its installation and performance.

The box included a quick hands-on installation illustrated paper, a driver's CD and the actual card in a plastic case. There was no PCMCIA adapter included as this card does not have Windows drivers (however Zaurus/desktop-Linux does have drivers for it, via the HostAP drivers).

The installation illustrated paper is only valid for PPC2002, if your PDA has PPC2003/SE, then the way configuration works is vastly different, as the Windows subsystem is in charge of the configuration GUI instead of the driver's supplied GUI application. Microsoft added WiFi support to the OS with PPC2003 so manufacturers don't have also write a GUI along the driver.

The CD came with drivers version 1.2, while on the web LinkSys still offers for download version 1.1 (which is quite weird to start with). It installed fine, but to be sure, I navigated to the CD's /utilities/windowsce_4/ subfolder and ran that setup.exe from there. The PDA must be connected to the ActiveSync at the moment of the driver installation, as it does not give any feedback if/when/where the driver was installed. Then, unseat and re-seat your compact flash WiFi card and it now the driver should be loaded (it does not require soft-reset).

In our Axim X5 with PPC2003, navigating to /Settings/Connections/Wireless panel applet it will show a screen where the WFC12 card is mentioned. Tap to select it, and from its above drop-down-box (combo box) select "The Internet". After pressing "ok" to that screen a list of networks appears where you can select your own network. Supply its WEP key (if applicable) and off you go to the Internet (screenshot)! Please note that most strong-encrypted WPA and WPA-psk networks are not supported with PPC2003. The feature was added on PPC2003SE a year later.

The card is performing really well, and "wakes up" correctly after you turn on your PDA and goes to sleep either manually or when you turn off your PDA. It eats lots of battery, but that's to be expected from a previous generation WiFi card:

- With the WiFi ON, the cpu speed on 'automatic' and screen on maximum brightness X5's battery life goes down to 1.2 hours (normal X5 battery life is about 5 hours)

- With the WiFi ON streaming music off the web, the cpu speed on 'automatic' and the screen off, it can do a bit more than 2 hours.

Overall, this is a thumbs-up little device. No matter if you have a Zaurus or a PocketPC 2002/2003/SE, this is a good purchase.

palmOne, Inc. today introduced the LifeDrive mobile manager. Designed for people with a significant volume of digital information, the LifeDrive mobile manager offers 4GB of hard-drive storage, a large 320x480 high-resolution color screen, and wireless access through built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technologies. Reviews here, here, here and here.

The purpose of this document is to be a comprehensive timeline of the history of PDAs. Specifically, my intention is to clarify which companies premiered each of the primary front-end features that are considered standard in modern devices, as of the mid/late-1990s commoditization trend.

LinuxCertified Inc, a leading provider of Linux training and services, today announced Linux Device Driver Development (June 13-15, 2005) and Embedded Linux (June 16-17, 2005) classes in Austin, TX. Read more for the rest of the press release.

With the increasing adoption of Linux in wide variety of environments, supporting Linux has become vital for device vendors. Being able to support Linux opens a rapidly growing market to these device vendors. For developers, the skill set to develop and maintain Linux drivers presents a lucrative career option.

The Linux Device Driver Development course covers the key issues in developing and testing Linux device drivers. This three-day course provides substantial practice with the key steps in developing Linux device drivers. The course shows attendees how device drivers work with the Linux kernel, how to compile and load drivers,
how to debug drivers, how to access PCI/ISA hardware, as well as other essential topics.

Over the past few years, more and more organizations have been opting for Linux as their embedded platform. According to several surveys, Linux has become the number one embedded Operating System. Ability to use Linux and associated open-source tools efficiently is key to successful development of the Embedded Linux projects.

The Embedded Linux Development course covers the key issues in embedding Linux. Such questions as: why Linux, how to embed Linux in Linux and how to write applications on target platform are examined. The attendees will gain experience in developing applications and system programs. Taught by veterans in the field, this two-day
course provides an in-depth analysis of the subject. The course will be useful both for managers looking to identify correct tools and resources for their projects as well as developers looking to hone their skills before taking on a serious Embedded Linux project.

"Our Linux device driver development and embedded Linux development classes bring immediate cost-savings for a wide range of organizations," said Chander Kant, President of LinuxCertified. "Skills learned in these classes will enable managers and developers make optimal choices for their projects and reduce time-to-market of their products".

Details on this course are respectively available at:

http://www.linuxcertified.com/linux-device-driver-training.html

http://www.linuxcertified.com/embedded-linux-training.html

These workshops are also available as on-site classes throughout North America.

About LinuxCertified, Inc.


The mission of LinuxCertified, Inc is to help our clients benefit from significant savings of effectively using Linux and Open-Source software in their IT and development infrastructure. Our core offerings are:


- Linux trained and certified professionals

- Implementation and development services using Open-Source software

- LinuxCertified products providing industry's best ROI

To learn more contact us at 1-877-800-6873 or [email protected]


http://www.linuxcertified.com/

For those lucky to have a Pocket PC PDA, here is a list of freeware applications that any user should have!

Utilities

vBar

At mere 31 Kbytes, vBar is the world's smallest and fastest PocketPC Task Manager (switch between and close open apps). And it can also show the memory and battery status in the notification area too, without taking much space! Magic Button and WisBar Advance are capable alternatives to vBar, but bigger and buggier, in my experience. vBar does the basic functionality one needs, and does it well.

MH Conversions

Convert Altitude, Areas, Distance, Depth, Fuel, Length, Liquid, Mass, Torque, Temperature, Volumes. Requires the MS eVB Runtime for PocketPC.

Ray's RPN Calculator

It is RPN calculator for the PocketPC 2002. Built from the ground up. Finger friendly!

Total Commander

Total Commander is a file manager, a program like Windows Explorer to copy, move or delete files. However, Total Commander can do much more than Explorer, e.g. pack and unpack files, access ftp servers, compare files by content, etc!

CabInstl

This program is an installer for CAB files and allows to install PPC programs into the specified folder instead of that by default created by the standard installer (great way to save main memory). If the folder is not specified, installation will be made into the default folder.

Productivity

Repligo Viewer

RepliGo allows you to read any document, including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, Project, Visio, Web pages, and more.

Adobe PDF Reader

Adobe Reader for Pocket PC 2.0 extends the value and capabilities of Adobe PDF files by adapting them for high-quality viewing on smaller screens, while preserving their rich content.

Microsoft Money

Control of your finances, even when you're on the go. Synchronize your accounts to make managing easier. Update your investment portfolio on the fly. Complete financial tasks quickly and easily.

Microsoft Reader

Microsoft Reader for Pocket PC comes pre-installed on most Pocket PC 2002 and Pocket PC 2003 devices. If you already have an older version of Microsoft Reader installed, you'll need to uninstall Microsoft Reader, then install the new version. If your version of Microsoft Reader is installed in ROM (which means it was preinstalled by the manufacturer), you cannot uninstall Microsoft Reader. You can, however, install a RAM version of the program with your ROM version. eReader is a good alternative freeware too.

NoteM

Voice Notes Recorder with MP3 encoding (NoteM) was implemented as an alternative to build-in Notes application's voice recording feature. It gives you approximately 5.5 compression rate (for Low bitrate option) as compared to Notes default recording mode (8-bit 11.025kHz mono PCM), with the same (or even better) perceptual quality. Higher bitrates are also available (you can even record music).

Pocket Translator

Pocket Translator is an easy to use, freeware word translation utility. It supports 9 different languages. Included in the basic setup is English and French. Other dictionaries can be downloaded separately here. The only disadvantage of this app is that the language packs must be installed on your main memory's "My Documents" folder.

Networking

Agile Messenger

Agile Messenger is an Instant Messenger and supports the six most popular instant messaging services: ICQ, AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, QQ and Jabber.

AvantGo

Use AvantGo to synchronize specially designed mobile Web sites to your handheld using a desktop or wireless Internet connection. Get news, sports, stocks, movie listings from the world's top brands. It can be used as either offline or online browser.

NewsMonger

NewsMonger is an RSS feed reader for the Pocket PC. Features include: Supports RSS 0.90, 0.91, 0.92, and 2.0.1. Categories - organize your RSS channels into categories. Stores category and channels in one OPML file. VGA aware (e.g. axim x50v, iPaq 4700). pRSSReader has become my favorite the last few weeks though.

PocketPC VNCViewer Client

Connect to your desktop PC with your PocketPC. VNC client is not compatible with VNC 4.0 server, unless the server is configured to provide 3.x VNC protocol.

Skype

PocketSkype is free software that enables you to make Skype voice calls using your WiFi-enabled Microsoft PocketPC based handheld computer from any WiFi hotspot.

Stanaphone

The big Skype competitor, some say it has more free features. Stana-to-stana user calls are free and incoming calls to your (real) stanaphone telephone number is free.

Orneta FTP

This is an FTP client for Pocket PC. Requires a registration key that it's now available for free.

Multimedia

XnView Pocket

Reading :Jpeg / Jfif, Gif, Bmp, Png, 2bp, Tif, Pcx, Pbm, Pgm, Ppm, Pnm, xbm, xpm, Tga. Writing :Jpeg, Gif, Bmp et Png. Display in 5 input modes : Thumbnail, list, detail, Filmstrip et full screen. Display information, exifs and iptc of images. Sorting of images by the name, the date, the type, the size and the definition, the whole in ascending or decreasing order. Conversion of images between the different supported formats. Resizing of images according to various factors, sizes, and possibility to resize to the screen size in order to obtain the best ratio weight/clearness. Screen capture and more.

PaintWinCE

Similar to widespread application Paint. In the first version the following tools are implemented: Select, Erase, Eyedrop, Magnify, Pen, Brush, Line, Rect, RoundRect, Oval. Also it is possible to undo last action and load and save files in bmp format. Kinda jerky and buggy though, but it's the only free one...

TCPMP (BetaPlayer)

The ultimate video playback application, supporting XviD, DivX, mpeg, mp4, aac, ogg, ffmpeg and h.264 support is on the way. Also supports the GAPI & 2700G graphics accelerator for better performance. If you want to rip DVDs, this is the best player you can get yourself into playing back video on a PDA.

GSPlayer

GS Player is simply an audio player for Pocket PC. Features: MP3 playback using the MAD 0.15.0b, Ogg Vorbis playback, Wave format playback. HTTP streaming playback (MP3/Ogg Vorbis). SHOUTcast streaming playback (MP3 / Ogg Vorbis). ID3 v1/v1.1 support. PLS/M3U playlist support. 10 bands equalizer (MP3 playback only). Surround / Bassboost effects. Reverb / Echo effects. Skin support. Hardware button mapping. Noiseless playback (See decoder tab in options dialog). Sleep Timer. Hold (Lock hardware buttons).

Games

Freeware games

Logic games based on .NET Compact Framework. Chess v2.0, Rubik cube, GemSwap, Mastermind. Many more free games available online, however usually not as good as most commercial games.

And a personal wish: a usable & stable SSH & telnet client. There is one freeware right now, but it's really buggy, not recommended.

Worldwide PDA shipments dropped for the fifth consecutive year in Q1, 2005, according to an IDC report. Meanwhile, the market for mobile phones with PDA-like features continues to surge, with a growing number of PDA vendors shifting resources toward the mobile phone market as a result, IDC says.

Indian technology firm Encore Software will soon offer a low-priced Linux-based mobile computer, the company announced on Tuesday.