palmsolo's personal blog » Geek.com http://www.palmsolo.com Mobile devices, politics, and life with my girls Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:53:38 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Sony VAIO UX50, Nokia N91, and more in the Geek.com Labs http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/06/21/sony-vaio-ux50-nokia-n91-and-more-in-the-geekcom-labs/ http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/06/21/sony-vaio-ux50-nokia-n91-and-more-in-the-geekcom-labs/#comments Wed, 21 Jun 2006 20:43:16 +0000 palmsolo http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/06/21/sony-vaio-ux50-nokia-n91-and-more-in-the-geekcom-labs/ Boy, last night felt like Christmas with a Sony VAIO UX50, Nokia N91, and Battery Geek Portable Power Station box on at my house after work. I have my work cut out for me as I get to reviewing this and much more for Geek.com. I posted some initial impressions that will go up on a Geek.com Labs entry later this afternoon. I have to say that the Sony is very impressive, but so far I actually like the Q1 UMPC better for a few reasons that I’ll post about on one of my other blogs. It sure is fun being a product reviewer and writer, except for the lack of time to sleep :)

]]> http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/06/21/sony-vaio-ux50-nokia-n91-and-more-in-the-geekcom-labs/feed/ 0 All gear gone at Mind Camp 2.0 http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/29/all-gear-gone-at-mindcamp-20/ http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/29/all-gear-gone-at-mindcamp-20/#comments Sat, 29 Apr 2006 20:44:11 +0000 palmsolo http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/29/all-gear-gone-at-mindcamp-20/ So after the intros the opened the board up to signing up for sessions. I don’t think there are that many mobile geeks so I’ll just wait to see if there is an informal gathering of mobile geeks where I can share my toys with later. I have a Newton 2100, Zaurus 5500, Treo 650, Nokia N70 and N90, i-mate SP5m, and Palm PDA watch to let people play with if there is any interest.

I checked the free table and all the gear I brought was gone after the intro session so I guess it was pretty good gear, huh? I probably could have sold it on ebay for a few dollars, but it wasn’t worth the hassle and I figure the people here will actually use it.

I am also buying an i-mate JasJar from a guy here for a good deal as this will now satisfy my VGA Pocket PC Phone Edition urge for reviewing and using. I couldn’t really pass up the deal, even though I really don’t need it.

The first official session I am attending is the MindManager one in the theatre. I need to try to load MindManager in Parallels Workstation and see how it runs.

]]> http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/29/all-gear-gone-at-mindcamp-20/feed/ 0 Start of Seattle Mind Camp 2.0 http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/29/start-of-seattle-mindcamp-20/ http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/29/start-of-seattle-mindcamp-20/#comments Sat, 29 Apr 2006 18:25:31 +0000 palmsolo http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/29/start-of-seattle-mindcamp-20/ I just arrived at the Seattle Mindcamp event and finished checking in and picking up my T-shirt and badge. I saw a table for Free Stuff so I added the following items to the mix for absolutely free as most were freebies from reviews I conducted:

  • Space LED watch
  • Abacus MSN Direct watch with leather band
  • Logitech Bluetooth headset
  • Zoom 56k Bluetooth modem
  • Bunch of Treo 650 cases
  • USB multi-card adapter
  • Metal Gear Acid PSP game
  • Few other odds and ends

I am in the big theatre now as people just start arriving and checking in. I am not sure if I am staying all night tonight or not and I am open to see what goes on. I don’t think I will lead any discussion as I am primarily focused on mobile devices, but I am flexible and will see how it goes.

]]> http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/29/start-of-seattle-mindcamp-20/feed/ 0 Take a whiteboard photo and get back a PDF with your Nokia N70 http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/28/take-a-whiteboard-photo-and-get-back-a-pdf-with-your-nokia-n70/ http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/28/take-a-whiteboard-photo-and-get-back-a-pdf-with-your-nokia-n70/#comments Fri, 28 Apr 2006 17:12:20 +0000 palmsolo http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/28/take-a-whiteboard-photo-and-get-back-a-pdf-with-your-nokia-n70/ I am really finding out some cool handy tools that work with the Nokia N70, and other camera phones too, and just posted a blurb on Geek.com that shows how you can take a pretty poor photo of a whiteboard with the N70 and get a pretty dang good PDF document emailed back to you. The service also lets you take photos of documents and get PDFs back. Check out my scanR.com blurb and give the service a try yourself.

We use the whiteboard with dry erase markers quite a bit here at work and this is a very cool way to get a document back that can be archived and used later by the team.

]]> http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/28/take-a-whiteboard-photo-and-get-back-a-pdf-with-your-nokia-n70/feed/ 1 Reviewing gadget products is a bit like Christmas http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/22/reviewing-gadget-products-is-a-bit-like-christmas/ http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/22/reviewing-gadget-products-is-a-bit-like-christmas/#comments Sat, 22 Apr 2006 22:07:08 +0000 palmsolo http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/22/reviewing-gadget-products-is-a-bit-like-christmas/ In some respects being a product reviewer is a lot like spreading Christmas out throughout the year. I love seeing what the FedEx, DHL, or UPS man drops off while I am away at work. Most of the stuff gets sent back within 30 days, but that’s about how long people play with their Christmas toys anyway so that’s not bad. Some products are good and some are not, just like some Christmas gifts are good and some are not. The one aspect of getting lots of items to review that isn’t as fun, and not much like Christams, is having to actually write up the review after playing with the software or hardware for days, weeks, or even months. I currently have about 20 reviews pending and it is just very tough to catch up. I already only sleep 4-5 hours a night so I can’t cut too much more into that time. My wife is gone this weekend and the girls are staying at my mother-in-laws tonight so I think I’ll pull an all-nighter and try to write up 5 reviews for Geek.com.

]]> http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/22/reviewing-gadget-products-is-a-bit-like-christmas/feed/ 1 Testing out a Nokia 770 Internet Tablet http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/21/testing-out-a-nokia-770-internet-tablet/ http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/21/testing-out-a-nokia-770-internet-tablet/#comments Fri, 21 Apr 2006 17:38:30 +0000 palmsolo http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/21/testing-out-a-nokia-770-internet-tablet/ Joel, the Chief Geek, sent me his Nokia 770 Internet Tablet to check out for a few days and I surfed a bit with it last night. The hardware is slimmer than I imagined it would be and of high quality. It takes a bit of getting used to the operating system and navigating around the device, but after an hour or so I am starting to get comfortable with it. I haven’t been able to get it to connect via GPRS and Bluetooth to my i-mate SP5m as the network settings appear to have some missing pieces and are not very user friendly. The handwriting recognition leaves something to be desired, but the on-screen keyboard has been adequate for me to enter URLs and search terms in Opera.

The video player works well in full-screen mode, but I still like the PSP better for video. If I could just get a Bluetooth or IR keyboard to work with the PSP then surfing could be cool too.

If you are looking for something to carry around the house to surf the net and perform some basic functions with and your only other gear is a desktop and a cell phone then this looks like a good solution. Since I am such a PDA Geek, I have other devices and a MacBook so I would actually pull out my Dell Axim X51v first for surfing before a Nokia 770. The Nokia is priced reasonably well at US$350 and I understand it can be tweaked quite a bit since it runs on Linux.

I’ll try to play with it some more this weekend and post my thoughts later. If you have any good tips on using the device, feel free to send them along.

]]> http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/04/21/testing-out-a-nokia-770-internet-tablet/feed/ 0 Let’s give away a Xbox 360 on my blog! http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/02/23/lets-give-away-a-xbox-360-on-my-blog/ http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/02/23/lets-give-away-a-xbox-360-on-my-blog/#comments Thu, 23 Feb 2006 19:50:02 +0000 palmsolo http://www.palmsolo.com/2006/02/23/lets-give-away-a-xbox-360-on-my-blog/ OK, Ryan over at PalmInfocenter discovered my TextPayMe blog entry and posted the news with a good idea. I already have a Xbox that I barely have time to play so if I get enough referrals (you need 36) from my readers I will hold a contest right here on my blog for the Xbox 360 system.


SignUp at TextPayMe

So far, I do have one referral so 35 left to go and we’ll have a big Palmsolo Blog relaunch contest with the Xbox 360 as the prize. If this contest is a success I may even have others and give away some cool gear I have sitting around my house.

OK, after giving it some more thought I decided that I will pick the winner of the Xbox 360 from the list of people who sign up with my referral. Wow, that would be pretty incredible odds to win an Xbox 360. Here are a couple rules: (1) my family (wife and daughters) are not eligible to win the prize, (2) if more than 36 people sign up then it wouldn’t be fair to not let them have a chance, so what I’ll do is stop the contest on 31 March and let all those who sign up before then be eligible to win, and (3) I am going to send you the system as they send it to me and don’t warranty the device, etc., etc. If there are not 36 people by 31 March, then I’ll extend the contest to when the 36th person does sign up.

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