Proud Geek

Heads up. Palm (via its official blog) has announced a critical update for the AT&T / Cingular Treo 680.

This update would, among other things, improve battery life, fix certain instances of freezing, add the new Daylight Savings Time change, and replaces the Cingular branding with AT&T.

Updates for other Palm Treos, as well as non-AT&T Treo 680’s, are also available.

I thought it’d be difficult to top Mundu Messenger, but I was wrong.

On a tip from commenter didjital [and commenter pany too], I tried out Causerie Unified Messenger for the Palm by Mantra Group. And I have one word to describe Causerie.

Wow.

I really, really like Causerie. Lots to like about this program, and not that much not to like. Finally, a worthy replacement for the late Verichat IM program. Nay, an even better replacement. Bye bye Verichat, nice knowing you, here’s the door.

Pricing is a bit steep. It’s $29.99 per year for the Standard version, and $39.99 per year for the Premier version.

Here are just some (!) things I liked about Causerie Unified Messenger:

• Can sign in to these IM accounts: Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ, Jabber, Google, and even a few enterprise-type networks.
• Available for the Palm (which this review covers), Blackberry, Pocket PC, J2ME, Brew, and Symbian smartphones, as well as phones that support Java.
• Can simultaneously sign in to up to six different accounts - including up to two of the same type. Yes, two simultaneous AIM accounts open, for example. (This feature available only with the Premier version.)
• Very clean, crisp interface. Colors work well together and aren’t gaudy. In fact, you can download skins to customize the look of your Causerie app.
• When you open Causerie for the first time, you have the option to get a tour via instant messages — a neat option I’d never seen elsewhere.
• Can open links sent to you via instant message — i.e., send a new email to an email address via your mail app, a call to a phone number via your smartphone, or a web URL address.
• Can get push email notification whenever you get a new Yahoo email - a nice feature. Works with some email programs for the smartphones, but not all.
• Many different ways to configure alerts - including sound, vibrate (from one to four vibrations), LED (red, orange, or green - AND solid or rapid flashing), and an alert dialog box (of which you can customize the color). Can do all this for buddy list status changes as well as for new IMs.
• Easy to organize buddy lists several different ways.
• When viewing the IM conversation window, the toolbar can be resized to give you more or less text to type with - a very nice feature and one I hadn’t seen anywhere else.
• Different fonts are supported (if FontBucket is installed).
• Causerie works in the background - you can still get IMs while working in other programs or with the smartphone off. This option can be turned on or off.
• Comes with a good range of Bots (’roBots’ that return automated info) - including movies, news, weather, flight info, or even just a chat buddy. (This feature available only with the Premier version.)
• Whenever I returned to Causerie from another app, it opened up quickly without any noticeable delay.
  Can customize colors and appearance of my chat windows - including colors of my words as well as the colors of the words of who I’m talking with.
• Chat logs can be kept indefinitely or be deleted after a time interval (which you can set).
• The “background” pop-up window that opens when I’m using other apps is very nice. Can stay in the window and send a series of messages, go to Causerie to continue the conversation, or just close it. Best background pop-up window I’ve ever seen.
• Didn’t crash my Treo, even with Chatter Email also running in the background. Then again, since I tested several other IM programs (which caused my Treo to crash), I did a total hard reset of my Treo - erasing everything - and re-installing some programs one by one. Seems to have helped - or Causerie works so well with my Treo. Hmm.

… And here’s a few things I didn’t like about this program. But believe me, I had to try hard to find just those few things.

• Bots didn’t seem to be working - I tried movies, weather, and the chat buddy (I was lonely, ok??) and all of them returned “invalid” responses. How humilitating - I was rejected by a chat robot … Then again, maybe I have to have the Premier version — and not just be using the demo version.
• Not easy or quick to quit or log off (if the “keep running in background” option has been selected). Have to navigate up to or press the red “x” in the corner of the buddy list view. Suggest that a menu command for “Quit / Log off all” be implemented, with slash-Q (or whatever) as the quick key combination.
• When the smartphone is off and I receive an IM, Causerie turns the smartphone’s screen on. I’d rather have the smartphone’s screen stay off and still receive an alert / notification.
• At least in AIM, buddies can set up a message that shows up next to their names on the buddy list. But Causerie doesn’t display these messages, whether on the buddy list or in these buddies’ contact properties. Really hope Causerie can implement this feature (e.g., some kind of icon next to a buddy that has a message).
• There was noticeable battery drain when I used Causerie and Chatter Email at the same time. But I think this is to be expected.

In sum: thus far, Causerie comes on top, with Mundu Messenger a relatively close second. WebMessenger is third, IM+ a distant fourth, and EQO Mobile still in last place.

I am on an odyssey … To find the “perfect” instant messaging program for my Palm Treo 650. I had been using Verichat, but it has sadly been discontinued. (Why? Why!?) I’m now searching for a good replacement. EQO Mobile is the fourth instant messaging program I’ve tried - see my past reviews of the Palm 650 versions of Mundu, IM+, and WebMessenger.

In a nutshell: I didn’t like EQO Mobile at all. Out of the four, it ranks dead last thus far. Yes, even lower than IM+, which I disliked immensely. It’s horribly slow (at least on my Treo 650), requires too many button-presses, and had no customization at all.

Pros:

• Available for a wide variety of phones, smartphones, and Blackberries — supposedly over 400 handsets altogether.
• Clean, crisp look - icons and colors were neat, non-clashing.
• Can log-in to one AIM / ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, Skype, and Jabber / GoogleTalk account apiece.

Cons:

• On the Treo 650, have to have Palm’s WebSphere Java installed first.
• Very s….l….o….w……….. on my Treo 650. Not sure if it’s a bug or something. I kept pushing a button twice thinking it hadn’t detected my keypress the first time. It had indeed detected my keypress, but was reacting slowly. Sometimes took a second or two to react. Ugh!
• Every time I started up / restarted the EQO program, it asked me the same two questions each time - whether it was ok to use the Treo’s airtime to connect EQO. Yes, already!
• The log-in / connection process was slow - took me nearly a minute to log into and finally view my AIM buddy list.
• Every time I leave EQOMobile (ie, to read emails or use another application on my Treo), I’m then logged out. I then have to go through the entire (and SLOW!) log-in process again.
• No customization at all - whether alerts, looks, or any other preferences.
• When I received an IM, there were no alerts (or at least, no visual / vibrating alerts).
• The icons that EQO uses for AIM buddies aren’t the same as the usual AIM icons - leaving me a bit confused as to the meaning of some of them. (Remember, I don’t read the users manuals.)
• On some screens, using the 5-way pad’s button on my Treo didn’t work for some buttons - I had to press the screen instead. And vice versa, too - not consistent.
• I felt I had to press too many buttons from log-in to finally be able to send an instant message.
• When I select a buddy, I’m then viewing our (often blank) conversation history. I then have to press another button to compose something, then yet another button to send it.

I only had to try out EQO Mobile for several hours before I uninstalled it (and the Websphere Java app as well) from my Palm. Definitely not one I’m going to use again, unless they make significant updates and modifications.

I’ve been trying out and reviewing instant messaging programs that can run on the Palm Treo 650 (and probably other Treos that run using the Palm operating system as well). See my past reviews of Mundu and IM+.

I recently tried out WebMessenger for the Palm Treo 650. In a nutshell: Mundu still comes on top, followed by WebMessenger and then IM+.

There were quite a few things I liked about WebMessenger:

• Could view multiple IMs from one person or different persons via the background pop-up window (that appears when I’m using another application on the Treo) - nice feature.
• Includes Skype - and can chat via Skype network.
• Can set up chatroom (public or private) and invite other buddies to join in. Couldn’t figure out how to get it to work, but then again, I’m such a Proud Geek that I don’t read the Users Manual …
• Plenty of preferences and customizations.
• Vibrate notification (whether while running application, or in the background, or when Treo is off) is very nice.
• When returning to WebMessenger, and new IMs are pending, a small envelope appears on the upper right corner. Clicking on it shows a list of all buddies with pending new IMs.
• When adding an IM account, you have the option of importing the buddy lists organized by their existing groups or into a single group on WebMessenger.

And there were some things I did NOT like — especially the first two:

• Each time I came back to the application (ie from a pop-up window in the background), at times I had to wait five seconds for it to “Resume services.” Five friggin’ seconds nearly each time I returned to this program.
• Couldn’t send a response via the background pop-up window.
• Organization of buddy lists seem a bit complicated.
• When a buddy sent me an IM with formatting, I got a bunch of HTML codes.
• Can’t format my own IMs - can’t change size or colors.
• When I return to this program, I couldn’t see anything telling me of my current on-going conversations (that didn’t have new messages pending).
• Leaves weird error logs inside the “Memo” application on my Palm 650.

Next instant messaging application I’m going to try: Agile Messenger. No, waitamin, there’s no version available for Palm Treos running on the Palm operating system. Aw heck. Ok, I’m going to try EQO next.

Is the Blazer (internet browser) application on your Palm Treo taking a longer time (like a few more seconds) to start up than before? Does this affect a couple other programs as well, like HotSync taking longer to reset itself after cancelling a sync, or emails taking longer to open inside Chatter?

The (usual) solution to this is ridiculously simple. You gotta clear all cookies from inside Blazer. Yes, just that. Ridiculously simple, like I said.

Here’s how:

1. Start Blazer
2. Activate the top menu bar, and pull down the Options menu.
3. Select Preferences
4. Click on the Advanced tab
5. Click the Clear Cookies button
6. Confirm by clicking OK
7. Exit the Preferences dialog box by clicking OK

Hopefully, your Blazer should be starting up a bit more speedily, and a couple other related programs may see performance gains. (But then of course you’d have to re-login to your favorite mobile sites. Ah well.)

Thanks to Marc Blank of Chatter Email for clueing me in to this tip.

The latest issue of the NADmag published by the National Association of the Deaf has a full-page glossy color advertisement from Sprint Relay. Near the bottom of the page, it says, “Sprint IP Wireless for any Treo: free download at www.sprintrelay.com/download/wm/treo”.

That would be true, only if your Palm device was a Palm Treo running on Windows Mobile — i.e., the Palm Treo 700w/wx or the Palm Treo 750. However, if your Treo runs on the Palm operating system, well, you’re out of luck. My Treo 650 runs on the Palm OS, and so does the Palm Treo 680 and Palm Treo 700p owned by several of my friends. That means Sprint Relay’s downloadable program “for any Treo” doesn’t work on fully half of the different types of Palm Treos out there.

So, “for any Treo?” Nope. Seems like the person who designed and/or wrote this portion of the Sprint Relay advertisement didn’t make sure s/he isn’t advertising something false or erroneous.

Nonetheless, I’ve updated my “IP Relay from your pager” post by adding the link to the downloadable program for Treos running on Windows Mobile. (Not for all Treos, mind you. I know I’m sounding like a stuck record. I’m just appalled by the false / erroneous advertising.)

Sprint folks: If I’m in error, please let me know (and tell me where I can download the program that would work on my Palm Treo 650) — and I’d gladly print another blog post taking back my words.

Note: in another recent post, I recommended against getting a smartphone that runs on Windows Mobile if you want true “push email” like the Blackberries and Sidekick does.  But since then, I’ve seen some news, heard of a website, and gotten a comment about getting direct push email on devices running on Windows Mobile.  More on this later.

PDA Performance recently announced a sneak peek of Saguro, which would eventually bring a new operating system (or at least the appearance of it) to Palm devices running the Palm operating system. Mind you, this is a sneak peek — it’s not even beta. Your Palm device would have to meet some rigorous minimum requirements:

• Palm OS v5.0 (or higher)
• 320×320 resolution display (or higher)
• 100 MHz StrongARM/XScale ARM processor or faster (300 MHz recommended for best performance)
• 3MB of storage memory (RAM) to install Saguaro system executable
• 4MB of free storage memory to operate Saguaro
• 2MB of dynamic heap memory
• Internet connectivity (via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or cellular data service)*

The website says that “Most newer Palm handhelds (Tungsten T3, Tungsten T5, TX, Tungsten E2, Zire 72, LifeDrive, Treo 650, Treo 680, Treo 700p) fulfill the above requirements.”

Once you install and get it running, you’d then see a very cool sharp rain-splattered background, and two widgets that look just like they do on a Mac or Windows Vista desktop: the CNN news widget, and the weather widget.  You can customize both widgets by showing different types of news and changing the zip / city for the weather forecasts.

This makes me very curious of what future releases of Saguro will bring!  Surely more widgets — perhaps a calculator, a launcher (for other programs installed on the Palm), other Internet sites like the Wikipedia, and more.  Stay tuned …