Archive for the 'Gadgets' Category

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News from the Kluge Gadget Department

Published on October 23, 2006 in Gadgets. 0 Comments

Yes, its not really a brandnew device and vowe wrote nearly everything about it. But the Treo 750v is new to my collection of mobile devices. I received the Treo 750v in the right time when I started to think about throwing away my Treo 650 and reactivate the Communicator. The Treo 650 rebooted several times a day and I knew I would have to do a hard reset and reinstall all my stuff.

I like the look and feel of the new Treo 750v. I don´t like Windows Mobile very much, but its much better than old Microsoft powered smartphones. I made some bad experiences in the past.

Battery life is most annoying. You can not travel without a charger. Choosing between sync solution lets you choose between poor battery life and even worse battery life. Using Blackberry Connect is much better for battery life then Onebridge oder Pylon but it only syncs e-mails and calendar entries with Lotus Notes. As an IBM partner you would say: Just download IBM Easysync from the software catalogue, sync you contacts once in a while and not wirelesse – thats it.

So I tried to use Easysync. I received an error message with no description at all. I did some search and found this IBM announcement. With access to the IBM Software Catalogue I tried to find te new version 4.2.4 which should support Windows Mobile 5. Browsing through the IBM Software Catalogue I found version 4.2.4 for Windows 2000 and Windows 2003, but only 4.2.3 for Windows XP. This is IBM. I will ask my friends from iAnywhere for a Version of XTND Connect, which IBM sells as Easysync.

Anyway. I will keep the Treo 750v for a while. Like on all Windows platforms you will get error message like “services.exe crashed in module xyz. Send error report to Microsoft yes/no”. This sounds very familiar to me.

And if someone would like to send me a Pearl – just do it :-)


Weird Treo Crash

Published on August 22, 2006 in Gadgets. 0 Comments

Just in case your Palm Treo 650 crashes everytime you receive a SMS, and the log says something like:

Datamgr.c, Line 8898,
dmWrite
DmWriteCheck failed

I can tell you: Don´t delete the SMS Messages Database. Delete the Messages Database. Thats all.

And I still wonder how Palm relies on third party products like Filez to do this job.


Backberry Connect for Treo 650

Published on May 11, 2006 in Gadgets. 0 Comments

Fixed a few issues with the Blackberry Connect on Treo. Solved the calendar problem with dbScan tool – there were problems with repeating calendar entries that crashed the Treo after initial setup. Second, the timezone problem fixed itself. No changes to local timezone, no changes on BES or Domino or its OS, just installed it twice and everything is fine now. Adress book? Still no solution for that.

But BB Connect now does what it is supposed to do. And it works.


Blackberry Connect on Treo 650

Published on May 4, 2006 in Gadgets. 0 Comments

Blackberry Connect for Treo finally has been released.

What it does: It provides push mail, and it works great. But I had many problems syncing my Lotus Notes calendar. Opening the calendar freezed the Treo completly – tried it with several configurations. Setting up the initial Blackberry connection without syncing the device via cradle finally worked. Calendar entries now come in wireless.

What it does not: It does not sync the adress book. I am using Lotus Notes for managing my contact list, so I would need a separate sync tool – bad idea. My Nokia 9300 syncs with Lotus Notes via the cradle – no additional software needed. Using iAnywhere software on the Treo, contacts even sync wireless.

Second: Because of limitations of the Palm´s calendar app, I am not able to invite people to meetings. iAnywhere fixed that in the separate mail-application, and on the Nokia 9300 its a build in feature. This also makes me unhappy.

Some reported problems switching the internet connection for web browsing. For me it worked well.

I will test the Blackberry Connect for Treo for a short time. What I still like is the speed of the Treo compared to the slow performance of the Nokia device. But the contacts and calendar limitations will probably lead my way back to the Nokia 9300.


Sametime on Nokia 9300/9500

Published on April 7, 2006 in Gadgets and Sametime. 0 Comments

SAMETIME

Somehow the Sametime Client for the Nokia 9300 made it to me. But as many other testers I can not make it work on my device. It seems the client is missing something on the server side, but this is all what the log says:

SAMETIMELOG

So has anybody a documentation for that piece of software? I can not get it from IBM Lotus. What version of Sametime must be installed on the server? And when will IBM deliver an official release?


Gadget Comparision

Published on November 29, 2005 in Gadgets. 0 Comments

I was addicted to Palm – and I love my Treo 650. I am using Palm devices since Palm owned this product category in the good old times. And the short switch to Microsofts mobile platform was disapointing for me. So I expected not very much from the Nokia Communicator, remembering the low performance of this device.

Well, I changed my mind. Using the Nokia Communicator 9300 for a week now I have to admit: it is a great device – although it is still very very slow. But it has lots of other strengths.

Like the Treo the Nokia Communicator is a robust phone AND a good PDA. This is something you should not take for granted. The iPaq device was a good PDA, but an ugly phone. The Communicator is robust, size is not too big, the user interface is clear and streamlined compared to the old fashioned Palm OS. In some ways Palm OS is much simpler, for example entering a calendar entry in the Nokia Communicator requires much more editing of different fields. On the other hand you find application and setting of the Communicator where you expect to find it.

Battery life seems to be very good and the display is brilliant. The Blackberry client installs smoothly and syncs Lotus Notes mail and calendar entries immediatly.

Until now I had no reboots. Only the adress book application crashed while trying to open the contact list with 1.700 contacts which I imported by mistake (Note to myself: never ever sync the device via SyncML with openBC after you synced the device with Lotus Notes via cradle and afterwards Lotus Notes with open BC). But: The Palm would have crashed completly, while the Communicator just killed the adress book application and reloaded it on the PDA system – the phone system continued to work without problems because it has a separat CPU.

So it seems I will stay with the Nokia Communicator for a while. The only thing I miss is the camera. Even if the camera is a no go for business phones I use it a lot for taking pictures and posting it here on the blog. But I think I can cope with this ;-)