Nalder's Lifedrive mLearning video...Neat.

Jonathan Nalder has made an interesting podcast entitled "Lifedrive mLearning."  It is an overview of the Lifedrive and I think it looks very interesting.  As explained on the website http://voicerecorderz.com/   "An www.mLearnxyz.net video overview of the Palm Lifedrive from an educational perspective."

Very nicely done.


LDD.
(Click on title to take you there).

Apple sets date for WWDC. It all comes together now....

In one of my posts I wondered about the reason for hosting the WWDC in late june, postulating that Apple was ready to disappoint in the quarter ending in June, due to relying solely on the iPad and Mac sales to drive the quarter.  Seems as though everyone got this one wrong.  If my estimates are correct, with WWDC being held on June 7th, this sets the quarter up nicely for a new release of the iPhone.

One wonders whether the events that took place at Gourmet Haus Staudt (where the prototype was lost) had anything to do with this.  One also wonders what will be offered up in late June since there is an opening there for an Apple meeting also.

With the Palm purchase by HP and Apple appearing to be pulling out all of the stops on the iPhone - with videoconferencing - this summer could end up being one of the best for innovation ever.

LDD.

Palm Firesale? Am I missing something here?

Okay, so we know that Palm is up for sale.  This information is now over 48 hours old.  However Shaw Wu from Kaufman Brothers reckons that Palm will be sold in a fire sale for prices that are either similar to the $5 that we are seeing today or lower.  In a note to investors he wrote:


""We remain concerned that it may be a 'take-under,' meaning a price that is below its current share price," Kaufman Bros. (Citation:  Kaufman Brothers Note). "

Now, I am not an analyst nor do I make any bones to be a stock market guru, but a little bit of research brought this little gem forward about a company named Huawei, thought to be an early suitor for Palm.  Apparently Palm began talking to this company in "mid february" about a possible takeover, according to Thestreet.com and Reuters:

"Huawei was approached through its investment bank sometime in mid-February for "preliminary discussions,"a source told Reuters. The source said discussions hadn't since moved forward.  "

(Citation:  TheStreet.com Link ).


A quick review of Palm's stock price from February to March shows the following (Prices are at the weekly close):

Week of      Weekly close

2/1              10.38
2/8                9.99
2/16              9.25
2/22              6.09
3/1                5.7
3/8                5.46
3/15              3.96
3/22              3.65
3/29              3.71

The question that arises if you are a shareholder in Palm and not on the board or on the inside is when exactly did that meeting take place?  What caused the stock to drop so precipitously, going down 33% in one week?  If the companies met somewhere before 2/16 (literal translation of mid february would mean around 2/14), then one could hope for a buyout at 8 or 10.  If not, then the market drop today is predicting that it was during the week of 2/22 with the weekly close at 6, hence the price drop today to $5.16.  Or could another company pay a premium for the company which floated above the $10 mark for a while?


Sad days, but if you are a shareholder, perhaps high risk and possibly high return days if Shaw Wu is wrong, especially if that meeting took place before 2/16.  




LDD

Nirvana in Todo Land....Toodledo

When I used my Lifedrive profusely, I often wondered what would happen if I forgot the gadget at home. All of my Todo lists were on the device. Naturally, I could have used the Exchange server at work as a backup, but there were times when I felt that my needs with the Exchange Server conflicted. For example, did I really need my workplace to know that I was visiting my mother or that I had to pick up milk at 5pm? Too personal. On the other hand, I needed to know about important meetings and the Lifedrive and all of the Palm devices afforded me a way of knowing these things well in advance - be it 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week. But I still yearned for something more. The day that I left my machine at home showed me that.

It was a tuesday as I recall, back in 2002, I had a calendar of events as long as my arm. I had to see patients, but in between that there were other things that had deadlines fast approaching - and all of those non-direct patient care deadlines were on the device. Some things required phone calls being made before 5pm, some before 2 pm. I couldn't keep up with them all. My Palm Tungsten kept everything in place. I missed nothing that day, but only after getting back in my car at lunch time and driving home to get it. My partners thought I was crazy, but I knew better. The day ended at 11pm, but not without me putting a check mark next to every single item on the Todo list for that day.

So I began thinking.... Backing up the Todo list and the calendar to the PC was not the best thing in the world. If you left the gadget at home, you had two devices at home - The gadget and the PC. Enter Google!

Google was not the first to start putting things in the cloud, they are just the best at it. They have seen the future and it really is in cloud computing. Other companies have jumped on the bandwagon and some of these smaller companies are doing an incredible job. Again, I do want to give a shout out to Mobisystems for creating one of the first cloud devices, found on the palm with their MobiOffice suite for Palm. Hands down the best ever created for the Palm, eclipsing Dataviz. But I digress.

For the last two years I have been looking for a calendar solution that would integrate online and with the iPhone. I have yet to find a solution that works well. If I use my workplace Exchange calendar, it wipes out my regular calendar and events. If I use Google's calendar, I can't get my work calendar in at the same time due to the limitation of only 1 exchange server at a time on the device.

So, I began looking at the second problem that I was having, linking Todo lists which I use quite frequently. After reading "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," and "Getting Things Done," and eventually listening to the hyper linguistical Merlyn Mann, I have been keeping TODO lists since 2000 and perfecting them after reading and listening to the other two that I mentioned. The 7 Habits book was a lifestyle changer for me. I categorized everything that I had to do, including family time and forced breaks. I have since fallen away from some of the very draconian things that I used to do, but with work, I find that these lists are invaluable. If something is due next friday, I label it a "3." If it suddenly becomes more important, I drag it up to a "1." I am able to complete things, not always in a timely fashion, but complete them none the less, using this system of importance. It turns out that others have been using systems like this for years. In "The Toyota Way," one of the first electronic books that I ever downloaded, I was stunned to see how these systems were used over and over again in the production plants. Microsoft, in a book written by one of its serious gurus - Randall Stross, this system was not only looked at, but strictly adhered to and probably accounted for much of the incredible profits this company produced during the heady 90's. "The Microsoft Way by Randall Stross" is a book about nothing but lists. I couldn't believe it when I read it in 1999, soon after reading "The 7 Habits..."

Fast forward to the present day, after years of searching for the near perfect solution, I finally believe that I have found my list taking Nirvana. The website is called TOODLEDO.COM. There is a competitor called REMEMBERTHEMILK.COM that is similar. But what makes Toodledo so wonderful for me is its integration with a TODO list suite called TODO (What else right :)?). TODO is available on the iPhone and is a list makers dream. It is customizable and can synch with either your Mac Desktop wirelessly (which is a dramatic plus - can you hear me Dataviz????). But it can also synch with TOODLEDO.COM for free. What's nice about this is the fact that even without a desktop app for the TODO iPhone program (It synchs with the iCal application, but not in an elegant way), synching with TOODLEDO.COM affords the download of a desktop widget, which is basically your TODO list synched with your iPhone. Make a change to your iPhone and hit synch and the change is on the desktop in the widget, in the cloud and available from any machine, be it windows, linux, solaris, Mac OS X, Symbian, Pen & Paper :). That IS TODO Nirvana.

Now, I am looking for the same thing for a calendar program. I would like a calendar program on my iPhone or any phone for that matter that would just synch anywhere. Google doesn't quite cut it due to some issues on the iPhone, especially the lack of multiple exchange servers or at the very least allowing 2 exchange servers on the phone. In addition, I would like for the calendar to be able to show the calendars of the rest of my family. Even my young kids have gotten into the calendars now themselves. I would like to see those calendars and not have to put their events in my own calendar, but have it just show up. Still not there yet.

In regards to notes, I have found a note Nirvana solution too. But more on that later.
For now, I highly recommend the following for the chronic List Takers out there:

1. TOODLEDO.COM - An online Todo list that synchs with iPhone's TODO.

2. iPhone App TODO by Appigo - A little expensive at $9.00, but very customizable and the best TODO app I have ever seen on the market. I've used at least 5 of them on the iPhone.








Honorable Mention:

1. REMEMBERTHEMILK.COM - These guys actually started the craze, but App
integration has been spotty. Additionally, the iPhone app is a
little too sparse, when compared to TOODLEDO.

2. Mobisystems Database for Palm - When I used it, it was the best Office App ever,
but it is a little dated now with the iPhone. Additionally,
there is no TODO list available. Still a great suite if you're
still using the old Palm OS. By the way, it won't crash your
Lifedrive. (This is really an honorable mention for a program
that brought me great joy).

LDD.

The iPad

Today's announcement was again another master stroke from Steve Jobs. However, most in Techland are unimpressed by the device. Its name seems to offend some women, if the blogs are to be believed. Its lack of Flash is still hitting hard in some circles; the OS being possibly some flavor of iPhone OS 4.0 and not OS X 5.1.X seems to be bothering a lot of people, even though these things don't seem to upset people in the Netbook arena running a watered down Linux or Android system.

To call this a big, fat iPod Touch would be close, but not completely precise. It appears to have created a niche unto itself. It's not an eBook - it's a lot better. Yet, it's not a portable laptop - it's less than that. It is a class all by itself.

It appears to beat the Kindle, something that I was about to buy in December to read more books. I believe that the pricing is the killer app! A lot of people expected $1,000. What they did was segment the market, while still keeping even the top model below the price of a MacBook. Brilliant ! They now have segments in just about all markets: The Sub $500 market will get you the low end iPad, any series of iPhones or iPod Touches; 500-999 will get you a used Macbook Pro or a MacBook or any series of iPads; 1000-1500 will get you a Macbook and a low end Macbook Pro or a desktop iMac fully loaded. 1500-2500 will get you an extra fully loaded iMac, a super duper Macbook and a fully loaded Macbook Pro. 2500+ will get you a Mac Pro - the PC looking separate machine with a monitor separate. They own this entire genre. Not to mention the fact that everything talks to everything else.

Some are ticked off that the iPad has no USB slot, but why would you need it? It's an advanced eReader basically, not a full fledged computer. And what about the iWork series on this thing? $10 buys you brilliance. So, they have Price, Products and a large developer population. The No-Boys (and they are mainly boys) say that this product is too lightweight and will fail dismally.

I say "NO!" The product is pure genius. I believe that many women will purchase this product. Mainly because it doesn't get in the way of doing whatever it is you are doing. There is no Operating system to worry about; no virus shield etc. The 3G option without a contract is again pure genius. I can see myself going away for a week and staying on 3G while I'm out and using the hotel wifi for everything else. I think that the only thing that will remain is whether AT&T means it when it says Unlimited Wifi or if it's 5 Gigabytes?

I think that Apple will learn a thing or two from Palm however. I don't think that Steve mentioned Iphone OS 4.0. I think that that will come either next month or during the iPhone presentation. Why is that important? Because I believe that we will see MULTI TASKING during 4.0. Jobs actually listens to the criticism. This is a 1.0 device. But I will probably still buy it to talk with all of my other Apple products. The syncing and the Sphere is just so compelling.

But look for OS 4.0 to take a gigantic hint from Palm with its opening page. I don't think that we will be thumbing through pages and pages of apps. I expect to see some kind of folder.

So, to my original query. Who will buy the iPad? Doctors, healthcare workers, people who like reading books, women, not kids and not teenagers, some tech savvy users, but not most, but definitely those who do not "like" or "get" computers. At $499, it's going to be compelling. It's better than an eBook reader; better than a Netbook and with excellent productivity software, it outshines a lot of laptops.

I think it's going to be a Winner. Uber-Geeks sit this one out!

LDD.

New Palm WebOS to provide some Palm OS 5 compatibility

While perusing the Palm universe today I stumbled upon an interesting news piece from PMP TODAY. Palm has apparently given rights to a company called MOTION APPS to develop a Palm OS emulator. The icon, shown on a video demo and picked up by a few astute Palm devotees, clearly shows an application called CLASSICAL. Uncertain whether this is just a label, folder or program. But it is, for all intents and purposes, evidence that Palm is not leaving its old-school players behind.

Naturally there must be a thousand questions about this, particularly the NVFS question, which all but made the LIFEDRIVE a brick on more than one occasion. However, with a UNIX underbelly this time around, this may be child's play. I'll tell you this: If Palm can create a great experience on the device with WEB OS and also satisfy the old-school crowd from Palm OS5 (yes and beyond...), Palm could not only compete with the iPhone, but they could really create a compelling reason for just about anyone to stay with Palm.

On paper, this all looks good. I cannot wait for the end of the month.


References:

http://www.precentral.net/ <--- Above pictures taken from Precentral.net http://www.pmptoday.com/2009/04/02/palm-pre-to-come-with-palm-os-emulation/

Adding New Web site to the List

I haven't looked at the site recommendations list in a while, but today after perusing a website, I thought that I should add this one to the list.

www.precentral.net

There you will find just about everything and anything that you ever wanted to know about the upcoming Palm Pre handheld. They are in a frenzy and I can almost feel the excitement with every article published.

The writers seem to have an inside scoop on the Pre and the information appears to be aggregated and published by independent sources. It's a very nice blog, with some serious commentaries listed along with it. There are even Pre accessories available. That one surprised me! But if you have a few minutes and an inquisitive mind, pop over and see for yourself.

LDD.

Palm Strikes Back!

Palm today announced at CES the introduction of the Palm Pre. It is a beautiful looking machine. I was very pleased to read that Palm will introduce multitasking to the device and incorporate true wifi. Of course, not many have had the chance to either play with or see the device in person, so I, like you, am relying on 3rd party reports, pictures and videos.

The form factor looks good, but it would appear that the iPhone has been emulated in many parts. Palm has done away with the Stylus and opted for Thumb swipes. Additionally, the swipes are truly "liquid" with no staccato type movements. Second, the Apple Apps store will have some competition, with Palm literally following in the footsteps of Apple to create its own Apps store. The question of course will be, will Palm allow independents to directly put their products on the device or will it be locked down like Apples'?

I did not see any video playbacks and have a few questions. First, will there be legacy support (ie. Smartlistogo)? Additionally, will everything be Web-Centric? What happens when the web goes down? Will it continue to work? Particularly with the combined email accounts.

Anyhow, I think that Palm is moving in the right direction (by the way does anyone know if this really Linux renamed?) and I commend Ed Colligan for coming out swinging. Now, they will have to get this thing on a GSM platform also.

I cannot wait to see a true review of this device and to see this thing in action. I am also interested to see which developers have actually signed on for this device.




LDD.

NEWSFLASH: HANDBASE FOR IPHONE JUST RELEASED !!!!

I just received an email from DDH Software that they have just released Handbase for the iPhone.
This marks the very first Relational Database released for the iPhone.

I will post my review once I play with it for a while.

LDD.

Palm Getting Ready for Something New.....

I think that many of us have been predicting the fall of Palm for some time now. But a few sources are exclaiming that Palm is not quite done yet. Palm has apparently been working quietly on its new linux operating system NOVA. Additionally, they have had a very influential person in the design team for at least a year now. The designer of the Helio/Sidekick, Matias Duarte has been on board and is thought to have been brought over by Jon Rubinstein, the co inventor of the iPod.

This is very important news, because it means that Palm is betting the farm on NOVA. If this thing doesn't work, it could be lights out. It remains to be seen whether they will make a clean break or land in the world of Microsoft's Windows Mobile problem - trying to support legacy software. But for those of us sitting on the sidelines wondering whether we should jump ship to the Apple camp, this could be the twig that makes us sit up and take notice.

Again, for those of you not excited by this, this is big news. It means a complete overhaul of the Palm computing platform and more importantly a radical shift in the User Interface - maybe keyboards that can actually fit a real person, mmgh. I would say that if Palm can just keep on schedule, we may be looking at one of the greatest comebacks in the technology field. (Remember Palm ---- Lots of onboard memory, multitasking, wifi, gigabytes of extended memory and you'll do alright).



Resources:

Engadget.
Electronista.
Matias Duarte's blog.
Matias's Resume (pdf file).

Pictures: The Helio - Top Left.
The Sidekick - Bottom Right.


LDD.

Wonder why Garnet persists?

Our good friends at Access have just released Garnet (Palm OS 5) for Nokia Tablets. This means that the PalmOS will run in a virtual machine and have the look and feel of a Palm device. No word on whether NVFS programs will work. The same holds true for significant database files.

For more information, check out Access Garnet

Hotsyncing is supported surprisingly, as is graffiti. Access is still seeking developers for the platform, coming out with their own emulator to ensure that software will be compatible.
An interesting notice is found on their developer page though. It appears that they have had some problems with compatibility and appear to be working hard at correcting these. Programs listed that have thus far been "corrected" or that now work on the device are:

• Google Maps(TM) (crash when accessing network)
• Agendus (application failed to launch)
• MegaBowling (crash when using 5 way navigation)
• MMPlayer (application failed to start)
• Pocket Tunes (various crashes)
• WorldMate (application failed to start)
• CorePlayer (application crashes)
• CredibleMed Easy E&M(TM) (application failed to start)
• ICUmath (application failed to start)
• Parens (and all applications that use the MathLib)

The last one, Parens is interesting, since the majority of medical software use the MathLib. Another interesting note is the finding of no less than 2 medical programs on the list, a sign that the medical community may be losing its long love affair with Palm.

On the downside of all of this however is the question of age. How long will Access survive using the same outdated operating system that Palm continues to use? For an emulator, this may not be a bad nostalgic ride in the park, but for true day to day activity, will we ever progress past Garnet? Access's answer to this could be found in the following graph that they outline in the website, showing Garnet to have an edge on Windows Mobile when it comes to applications written. But one needs to remember that this graph is from 2005 and does not include the Palm Windows Mobile relationship. But the point is well taken as to why they would continue to support the platform (Yes, I know there's also the question of the millions spent on buying the rights to do so, but we won't digress):



On the plus side though, one could consider leaving Palm and buying a Nokia, if you run a lot of programs on your Palm that do not require NVFS, ie Calculators and small nonNVFS database files. I do see the potential, given Nokia has so little software for medicine.


LDD.

Reference:

Access OS5 download and information site
Access Developer Site for testing