Proud Geek

Can you imagine reading an article on your mobile phone about the dwindling Amazon jungle — and smelling jungle / machine scents at the same time?  Do you really want to?  What if it’s a blog post about diarrhea-y doggie doo?

A Japanese phone company, NTT DoCoMo has made it possible for mobile phone users to “download” scents to a machine that works with certain mobile phones.

I’m not too sure about fragrance emitters.  It just seems too jarring to experience scents as you read or view contents via the Internet.  I’ll have to give it a try — way in the future — before I decide if I like this.

The same phone company already has technology to bring fragrances to homes and movie theaters.  And they even have a mobile phone that emits a variety of fragrances to “provide a therapeutic experience.”  That, I would like — preferably with alternating lavender, citrus, and other soothing scents …

While we’re at it, can we have mobile phones that clean / disinfect themselves?

Got a hankering to know just exactly what time it is, whereever you are? Wanting to synchronize time with your pals but can’t decide whose watch / smartphone has exactly the correct time?

Go pay time.gov a visit on your mobile device / smartphone / pager.

But what’s that? Time.gov’s Java-enabled functions doesn’t work on your smartphone? (These Java pages make it possible to see the time in real time on computers and Java-enabled phones - with the seconds running.) Don’t fret. Almost buried in a corner of many time.gov pages is a tiny link saying “Disable Java Animation” — clicking on this link allows you to see a non-Java version of that page. In fact, when you find your time zone and then get the non-Java version of that page, don’t forget to bookmark it on your smartphone’s web browser so you can quickly refer to it again. But keep in mind that, unlike Java versions of these pages, non-Java time.gov pages only show the time at the exact time the page was loaded onto your browser - that is, the time isn’t updated automatically unless you refresh the page.

I know many smartphones - including the Palm Treos - can automatically get the time and date from the network. But leaving this functionality on can be a huge power drain for the Palm Treos (and possibly other devices) - so that’s where having a bookmark to time.gov can come in handy if you leave this functionality off.

I’ll make it easy for you. Here’s a list of links to the non-Java pages of the various USA time zones. Gosh, ain’t it interesting how many time zones there really are in the USA and its territories? And remember when Alaska’s number of time zones changed from the previous four to just two now?

Happy times are indeed here! (And yes, I had previously blogged about checking time.gov from your computer.)

List of non-Java versions of time.gov time zone webpages:

• Atlantic time zone
• Eastern time zone
  
• Central time zone
• Mountain time zone
  
• Mountain time zone (Arizona, non-Navajo, no Daylight Saving)
• Pacific time zone
• Alaska time zone
• Hawaii / Aleutian time zone (Aleutian Islands, no Daylight Saving)
• Hawaii / Aleutian time zone
• Samoa and Midway time zone
• Marshall and Wake Islands time zone
• Kwajalein Island time zone
• Federated Islands of Micronesia (Caroline) time zone
• Chamorro time zone
• Palau time zone

Remember a while ago when I suggested that the next big smartphone could be the Blackberry Curve 8310? Well, Jennifer over at TreoCentral recently did a review. Check it out. Money quote (from the Wrap Up section):

I see the Curve as a great Email machine that looks and feels great. The initial setup is simple (for me on a Windows PC anyway) as is the email setup. I really like the way the Home screen looks with the cute icons. All the little pics with the BB Dimension Icon theme are self explanitory and make sense. If I had several email accounts, I could see myself getting a BlackBerry device someday. It really excels in that department. For now though, from using the Curve for only a few days, I wouldn’t replace my Treo with it. I do like the Curve though.

The guy who developed the Sidekick in the early 2000’s is apparently leading the team that’s developing a new Google phone. Makes me cautiously optimistic that this gPhone will have a built-in keyboard, instant messaging, and a whole slew of Google mobile applications pre-installed. Plus, judging from how Google has been, and much like the Sidekick, the gPhone will be open to third-party applications that users can browse and then download onto the gPhone.

I can’t wait.

Palm Treos look great, but they’re starting to look aged in comparison to all the newer phones coming out — especially the iPhone. Now there’s a way to dress up your (and my) Palm Treo — with a “Fun Friend” case on sale at mytreo.net.

Honey, I want one for Hannukah / Christmas! In fact, I want the Ruphus case.

I know, I know, putting a Fun Friend case on my Treo 650 will make it difficult to put into my favorite case — the Smartphone Experts P6 Pouch Case. Who cares. Maybe I can squeeze Ruphus in.

Mytreo.net’s blog has some photos of butch military folks (of both genders) in cameo fatigues enjoying Fun Friends on their smartphones / iPods. With friends like these, you can’t go wrong …

The hugely popular Skype service has pretty much left the deaf community behind because, well, its primary service is low-cost or free voice communications over the Internet. Its video chat quality isn’t up to par (at least when I tested it several months ago), and so I quickly stopped using Skype. But that hasn’t stopped many hearies from signing up for Skype — and using its voice communication services (much like a telephone) over the Internet. Some cell phones are even beginning to allow Skype voice services whereever WiFi is available — saves a lot on caller minutes.

But now there’s a reason for deaf folks to have a Skype account. Skype has paired up with Spinvox (which I briefly wrote about several months ago) to convert voicemail on Skype accounts to text messages (otherwise known as SMS) that can then be sent to any cellphone.

This could be an useful pairing for us deafies. If you’ve got hearing family members who use Skype for low-cost or free voice communications through the Internet, now they can call your Skype account and leave a voice message for you. The voice message will then be converted to text and sent to your Sidekick or Blackberry (or Treo if you’re lucky and geeky enough to have one) as a SMS message.

If you do this, let us know in the comments what you think of this service.

(Thanks, Download Squad!)

No, I didn’t succumb. I haven’t bought an iPhone, and my getting-ancient-yet-trusty Palm Treo 650 is still my smartphone of choice. But I did get to play with a friend’s iPhone several times, and discussed the finer points of the iPhone with him — with him demo’ing everything at least twice to me. ;-)

Some quick thoughts, to supplement what I wrote before the iPhone was released:

In the iPhone’s favor:

• It sends shivers up and down my spine! It is so geekingly freekingly cool. Just the way it looks, the way it feels and sits on my palm, the way the Apple logo seems to be winking at me …
• The screen is so crisp and brilliant — and it looks so large (and bright and colorful) in comparison to my Treo’s screen.
• Being able to rotate the screen 90 degrees just by tilting the iPhone to one side (or the other, for left-handed users) — that has got to be one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while.
• The ability to scroll by flicking your finger in any direction on the screen is fantastic. Just flick your finger, and the page (or photo) moves / flips naturally in that direction — and gradually slows down till you flick it again. Looks as if you’re flipping through actual photos or pages. Very natural.
• Want to magnify a photo or webpage? Just put two fingers on the screen then draw your fingers apart. Want to zoom out? Bring your two fingers together. The multi-touch screen (you can use two or more fingers at the same time) is a new feature, and a relevation as well.
• No stylus. None. Use your fingers. Nice.
• 6 or 8 gigabytes of memory (depending on the model you buy). Huge friggin’ amount of memory. My Palm Treo only has like 24mb (I think) of memory. Let’s see … (Switching to the calculator mode on my Treo.) How many zeros in a gigabyte? Damn, 9 zeros. Divide that by 24 megabytes, six zeros … 333 times as much memory as my lil weeny weenie Treo’s memory.
• The Safari web browser works just like it does on an Apple computer screen. Works well with many java-laden websites like Zoho and Vitalist and their ilk. Wouldn’t work anywhere as well on my Palm Treo’s browser. And what’s more: it formats webpages just like they’d be seen on a full-screen monitor — and if you want to see different areas of the webpage, you just zoom in by sliding your fingers.
• It’s got wi-fi built in, for those times when you’re close to a wi-fi router (like the one in your home or at Starbucks). That, plus its normal mobile-phone data connection for the times you aren’t in a wi-fi hot-spot. C’mon, Palm, put wi-fi in them Treos already!
• The camera takes crisp 2-megapixel photos. Looks very good. Makes my Treo’s .7 (yes, below 1) megapixel photos look positively grainy in comparison. No, wait-a-min, those Treo photos ARE grainy.
• The iPhone looks, feels, and operates like art. It looks and feels so good that it oughta be rated X — or at least NC-17.

Strikes against the iPhone (in my opinion):

• No actual touch-feely keyboard. Sure, the keyboard pops up onto the screen, and you can type on it. But I like to walk and type at the same time without looking at the keyboard. (I could say I can drive with my knee and type at the same time, but that’s illegal in many states …) Can’t do that with the iPhone, at least as far as I know — you have to look at the screen and watch what you’re typing.
• No ability (for now) to highlight and then copy and paste. What!? You can’t copy an address and then paste it into the Google Map app or into a new contact. I wonder if the iPhone does it more intuitively, perhaps recognizing an address and giving you the option to map it or add it to your contacts. But in the meanwhile, if you try to highlight something, a small magnifying glass shows up instead and magnifies what you’re pointing at. Ok, that’s kinda nice, but totally unnecessary for many people. I just find it very odd that these iPhones don’t come with highlighting and copy / paste abilities. I’m certain that an update soon will add this capability.
• No memory card slot. I know, 8 gig is large enough to hold just about anything plus your kitchen sink (in technicolor). But I like being able to move information to or from a computer using a memory card rather than sync’ing. Faster, more controllable. I have a 2 gig memory card in my Treo, and I use it so much for different things — including plugging it into other people’s Treos and also different computers — that I can’t imagine not having it. (Hmm, this is beginning to sound obscene …)
• Got new email? It only vibrates just once. Once. Not up to 8 times, like if you’re using Chatter (absolutely my favorite smartphone email program) on a Palm Treo running on Palm OS. Hope the next iPhone update will fix this.

Got any thoughts you’d like to share about the iPhone? Don’t be bashful, share in the comments.

The iPhone will go on sale on June 29th. Yes, June 29th of THIS YEAR.

What’s so cool about the iPhone?

• 3.5 inch wide videos via the Apple iTunes store (must sync from a computer first)
• Totally cool colors and icons
• Large screen that can be viewed vertically or horizontally
• Keyboard that appears on the screen when you need it — for you to do some heavy-duty typing
• 2 megapixel camera with knock-dead color
• Internet browser that makes webpages look like the real webpage deal. And it multi-tasks by loading pages while you work elsewhere — niiiiice.
• Email that works with POP and IMAP and gets emails in the background while you work.
• Can be used world-wide or on Cingular’s high-speed EDGE wireless network, or with a wifi router, or via bluetooth.
• Comes with three different sensors: an accelerometer that detects if the iPhone is being held horizontally or vertically; a proximity sensor that senses whether you’re holding the iPhone near your ear; and an ambient light detector to brighten or dim the screen as appropriate. Hot damn.
• A multi-touch screen that lets you interact in ways never seen before — like flipping the covers of your different music albums, or moving through photos. Breathe deeply, Proud Geek, take deep breaths or you’ll hyperventilate.
• 2.4″ wide, 4.5″ long, .46 thick.
• And much more!

I want it. I want it soooooo bad. But will it be more useful to me than my venerable Palm Treo 650 with push email, e-books, my favorite information manager, a friggin’ awesome choice of games, and so much more? And my Treo 650 comes with a full keyboard with keys I can actually feel as I press them (and which I can type while walking and looking around and not looking at what I’m typing — yes, I’m that geeky) — can the iPhone’s “soft” screen keyboard beat that? Only time will tell.

But, ach, I want it soooooooooooooo bad.

TIP that I picked up from another blog (wish I could remember which one), which got it straight from an Apple executive’s mouth: on June 29th, all the Apple stores will be mobbed with lines around the block. Don’t go to those stores if you want the iPhone. Instead, go to your local AT&T / Cingular sales office. More likely they’ll also have the iPhone and won’t have the same crowds.

I’ve heard several people ask how they can use their smartphone / pager to have a conversation with a TTY user. Thanks to a tip from commenter Jon, I came across iptty.com, a website that’s customized especially for the Palm Treo’s Blazer (web browser) application. Commenter Jon said that iptty.com also works with Windows Mobile smartphones’ web browsers, although probably not as well.  I wonder too if this also works with Blackberries and Sidekicks.

Using my trusty (but becoming ancient) Palm Treo 650’s web browser, I navigated to iptty.com, and was given two choices: to make a free relay call (via Hamilton Relay), or to make a free TTY call. The first choice would connect you to a Hamilton Relay agent, and while slow, this method works pretty well. Nice to have this option in case your instant messaging application isn’t connecting for whatever reason.

The second option (making a TTY call) is even nicer, because ever since Wyndtells went out of fashion, I hadn’t heard of any other way I could use my pager to communicate with a TTY user. I should note that this TTY option can also be done via your computer’s web browser as well.

This service is run by Lormar Logic, which also provides several other free deaf- and mobile-oriented services: using a TTY to communicate with AIM users, and using a TTY to send text messages or emails to a cell phone or pager. Lormar Logic also provides a paid service for using AIM messages to reach a TTY user — although it puzzles me why TTY-to-AIM is free while initiating AIM-to-TTY conversations cost money.

IM+ is one of those programs where I’m tempted to say, “Move on, nothing to see here.” Quite frankly, in a meet-up between Mundu Messenger (see my review of Mundu) and IM+, Mundu Messenger would beat IM+ to a bloody pulp — and then jump up and down on IM+ for good measure.

IM+ (version 2.8) is an IM program by Shape Services. It is available on a wide variety of smartphones, including the Palm Treos running Palm OS or Windows Mobile, Windows Mobile Pocket PCs, Blackberries, several Symbian smartphones, and several other smartphone types. (This review covers the version for the Treo running the Palm OS only.) It costs a one-time fee of $29.95 - a bit steep compared to Mundu Messenger which sells for $11, but still cheaper than other instant messaging applications out there.

There were some things I liked about IM+:

• Can sign up for AIM, Gtalk, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, and Jabber.
• Can carry a conversation via the background pop-up window (that shows up when I get an IM while using another program on my Treo). Other IM programs usually only allow one (long) line to be sent, and then the pop-up window goes away. (The converse of this is: sometimes I want this pop-up to go away quickly after responding, but with IM+ I have to press an extra button to make this window go away.)
• Alerts you of new IMs and buddies via sound, vibration, and/or pop-ups.
• This program is available for a surprisingly wide variety of smartphones, including many Blackberries.

And there were quite a few things I didn’t like:

• It crashed my Treo several times, causing my prefs to be erased at least once. (Prefs include all the registration codes, button assignments, and many other customizations.) Thank goodness for Reset Doctor which restores them, whew. After seeing this happen as well with Verichat and Mundu Messenger, I’m starting to suspect that it’s Chatter Email or some other wierd thing on my Treo 650 that conflicts with all instant messaging programs.
• Appearance is not crisp or neat. Some lines run past the screen. Some IMs appear run-together. Colors do not blend well. And what’s with the scary alien-ish green color found all thru the program? I can’t change the color scheme.
• In the window that pops up when in the background and also in IM conversations, words that I type or receive are cut in half at end of line / beginning of the next line. A total deal-breaker, in my opinion.
• When returning to my IM conversation from another Treo application, my prior conversation history was gone - I’d be looking at a new, blank conversation. If I wanted to see what was said before, I had to click on “show history” (as long as that option is turned on in prefs) - and even so, I could only read it before returning to the (blank) IM window.
• Can’t customize fonts or colors of what is being typen.
• Hard to distinguish between my words and the words of who I was talking with, since our fonts and colors were identical.
• Not many preferences or customizations
• When the Treo is off, receiving an IM will in some circumstances turn it on. Not something I like because of the potential of inadverently hitting the wrong key or the screen while walking with the Treo in its case.
• Alerts cannot be customized very much. Can turn on vibrate or sound, but cannot turn pop-ups (when program is running in the background) off. Cannot turn alerts off or on for specific actions, i.e., receiving a new IM, or a buddy signing in or out.
• At the top of the screen is a tab for your contacts, and another tab or tabs for each of your conversation. I found trying to click on a tab difficult because I kept activating the top-level pull-down menus instead.

Thus far, for my Palm Treo 650, Mundu is my choice. I still have several more instant messaging programs to review, tho. (Thanks, Grant — I’ll try WebMessenger next.)