... to the January edition of our user and developer PDA tips newsletter.
As always, please feel free to submit requests or ideas through the links
at the bottom of this page. This is also where you will find
subscription and removal information.
This newsletter contains Graffiti tips, Pocket PC comparison sites, CES info and an assortment of development tips and sites.
Palm related items in our newsletters are marked with this icon . Pocket PC/WinCE items are marked with this one. Phone-related PDA tips show a icon.
Please note: This newsletter contains tips and tools that can alter your PDA.
These items are offered here "as is" and without any warranty or support from FO. Please
consider them carefully before using or trying them (and as always ... backup, backup, Backup! first).
Thank you,
Bill Shadish, Principal
User Tips
Dot Dot ++
Adding to our Vol. 3, Issue 1 graffiti
Dot Dot Tips, here are a few more entry tips to use on a Palm PDA.
Creating your Own Shortcut
This allows you to set up your own shortcuts for entering text, using the shortcut character (). Using the shortcut replaces a few characters with a much longer string of your choosing. A good example would be to set up a shortcut for your email or web site address, which can be used when writing that information to others. To set your first shortcut up...
1. Open your Preferences (Prefs).
2. Pick ShortCuts from the top-right menu.
3. Tap New.
4. Pick a SHORT name for your shortcut.
(e.g. "fo")
5. Enter the longer string of text.
(e.g. "Fundamental Objects, Inc.")
Now, when drafting an email or writing in an application such as Memopad, Enter the Shortcut symbol (a cursive lower l) and your short descriptive name. For example, enter fo into Memopad, and the string "Fundamental Objects, Inc." will be displayed instead.
Quick Graffiti Entry
To enter a @ symbol when writing, write .O
To enter a bullet point when writing, write \
To enter a \ symbol when writing, write .\
To highlight a word on the screen, tap on it twice.
To highlight a sentence on the screen, tap on it three times.
PalmSource Inc. announced that they will improve
their Graffiti handwriting recognition software with Jot from CIC.
Called "Graffiti 2 powered by Jot", the Jot recognition will work across
the entire screen, not just on the Graffiti pad. Jot will also accept characters that look
like the actual letter, rather than the "close" approximations required to render some letters today.
AND WHY is this being done? See
Palm loses lawsuit over Graffiti: (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2003/tc20030114_8995.htm).
Save your PPC-02 Battery
OBEX is the infrared protocol that allows Pocket PCs, Palms, Windows 2000 and some phones to talk to each other, via beaming.
The Pocket PC 2002 uses OBEX to allow you to beam information to other OBEX compliant devices (which is good). However, leaving OBEX support on all of the time will use up battery life (which is bad). You can turn off OBEX support, by going to Start, Settings, Connections, Beam and unchecking the Receiving (Receive all incoming beams and select discoverable mode) option.
Software
What is the CES?
As PDA users (and developers), it is no longer enough to simply understand the products and services as described to us via PalmSource and the Microsoft Product Roll-Out events. With the emergence of [buzzword warning!] convergence, which is the process of moving voice, data, gaming and work tasks all together into one device, becoming a growing force -- it is important to look at the new venues through which such devices are coming. One such important place to look to for new information on convergence is the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
Here are some sites related to new from the CES show.
For some reason, it is often a task to find out what
PDAs, supporting hardware and wireless plans are available across the
spectrum of Pocket PC hardware. This makes it difficult to compare the options and the different vendors' products.
Here are some Pocket PC links that will help towards the goal of understanding what is out there and how they compare:
An interesting new Pocket PC is the low(er) cost, HP H1910 IPAQ. While running at a slower speed than the new top of the line Pocket PCs (200 MHz XScale vs. 400 MHz), it comes with 64mb of RAM (48 of which is useable), a SD/MMC expansion slot, 240 x 320 screen AND most importantly, with a Palm M51x form factor. At 4.2 ounces and 4.4 in. x 2.75 in. x.5 in., the H1910 is much smaller than, for example, the Dell AXIM X5. The street price is around $289 USD.
The iQue 3600 integrates GARMIN GPS technology and a Palm OS5 PDA.
Once you specify where you would like to go, the accompanying software accepts voice commands to steer you to your target location.
Rechargeable battery, Voice recorder, Arm processor.
Here are some interesting thoughts for Palm (or any PDA) developers, on WHY we need to consider and do things in certain ways. Here are some high-level examples from the site:
Design Philosophies
The Essence of PCs
"In the PC world there is a linear relationship between features and value. More features are always better. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Corp. President and CEO, put it this way, "Software should get bigger every year."
The Essence of Handhelds
"A handheld is a different creature: it is like a sports car. An SUV is fine until you need to race in the Indy 500 or escape the bad guys in a high-speed chase. A sports car doesn't have time for extras that will weigh it down. It has to be maniacally focussed on speed and maneuverability."
High Resolution Coding
Older Palm applications, coded for 160x160 displays, are not able to take advantage of the increased screen size of the new 240x320 and 320x320 PalmOS devices that are now on the market.
The fact that the Palm™ hardware itself has trailed the PalmOS 3rd party vendor pack in increasing the screen resolution size, will cause some compatibility problems. Other vendors (such as Sony and HandEra) who increased their screen size first had to develop and distribute APIs for their own hardware, to take advantage of the larger screens. Now that PalmSource has introduced the High-Density API standard in OS5 (which will work across many devices) -- the original hardware pioneers will need to modify their APIs, or adopt the PalmSource High-Density standard.
The next several sites cover coding and SDKs for developing PalmOS applications that run properly, regardless (somewhat regardless) of the display size of the hardware.
Definitely worth reading, this IBM's Developerworks article, shows you a process to port Windows DLLs to the Palm OS. They use a Perl script to parse C source code and produce [much of] the ported code.
In an effort to help to marry the web and handhelds together, we are releasing an online adhoc report writer tool, called foReports.
foReports can be accessed by a Palm, Pocket PC or even a wap-enabled phone to query data stored in a web-based database. The currently supported databases are Microsoft Access 2000, SQL Server 7+ and Oracle 8i+.
Security is provided on a View or a User basis. This just means that you can restrict data to groups of users, or on a per-individual basis.
foReports works most like the Microsoft Access Query Designer (see figure).
foReports designer interface
This tool, which can also be used as a standalone web tool, provides:
This section highlights one of our partnering-program affiliates. We believe that you will find the skills and services offered by our select partners helpful to you as well.
This issue's FO affiliate is The Palm Tipsheet, who became a FO partner in 2002. The PTS produces a free, online, Palm newsletter; which is loaded with tips, reviews and articles.
"The Palm Tipsheet (a free monthly newsletter of practical tips for Palm
users) and Fundamental Objects (a mobile software developer and integrator) teamed up in 2002 to bring FO's knowledge of technical matters to Palm
Tipsheet's thousands of readers. FO is also providing our readers with
technical services for integrating mobile technology and corporate web-based systems."
About PTS
"Many non-technical users read the Palm Tipsheet each month. Our
jargon-free approach empowers regular users to gain a better understanding of their Palm handhelds -- without excessive tech-speak. Click through to our site to sign up for our newsletter."
After each issue, we receive a number of reader comments, questions and tips regarding handheld development. We would like to share your tips with all of our readers as well.
"Developers who would like to include custom font support into their application should take a look at our freeware product called FontBucket. It makes including custom fonts easy, and supports OS 5 Hi-res fonts, too. See http://www.handshigh.com/fontbucket for more info."
Here is a bit of code.
Using the built-in Palm standard fonts, you would do something like the
following to make a Hello World application on the Palm. This Hello
World lets the user select which Palm font to draw.
if (selected) {
FmFreeFont (newFont); // Release the Font ID used by the FontBucket font
}
You will notice that it does not require much to convert a program to
be FontBucket enabled. Most developers report being able to do the
conversion within a few hours on a commercial application.
Some FontBucket highlights include:
The developer does not have to check for the existence of the
FontBucket application. The FontBucket API does that automatically, and
will use standard Palm calls if the FontBucket application is not
installed on the device.
FontBucket does not use Hacks or trap patches, so it is compatible
with Palm OS5.
Adding the FontBucket API to a project will increase the application
size by a maximum of 2K, less for most applications.
FontBucket comes with utilities to convert desktop fonts to Palm
fonts.
FontBucket is the only mechanism I know of that allows creation of
custom, hi-resolution Palm OS 5 fonts.
If you would like to suggest topics
for us to focus on, we will strive to add content in the direction
of the most interest. Choose from the following categories, or
add your own, and include this in your email:
Palm Development
Palm User Interface topics (look &
feel issues),
Palm User-oriented topics (tips!),
Palm vs. Pocket PC issues
<other>
If you have other comments or suggestions,
please send us an email with your thoughts by clicking
here.
. Pocket PC/WinCE items are marked with this 
one. Phone-related PDA tips show a 
icon.
). Using the shortcut replaces a few characters with a much longer string of your choosing. A good example would be to set up a shortcut for your email or web site address, which can be used when writing that information to others. To set your first shortcut up...
