Why I hate Palm

[Updated with more illustrative notes]

My PalmOS CLIE TJ-27 (the one with the stylus from heck) finally died. I dropped it. No big deal, my wife has one she isn't using. All I have to do is sync it ...

Wrong.

The backup restore sort of worked, except for a bunch of apps where it didn't. It left a remnant of TealLock that took me an hour to get rid of.

Then a sync replicated all my Outlook records -- three times for every one. Then the restore from a Palm device backup failed because I was restoring to a 'different device'. Riiiiigggghhht. So exactly what did those idiots think one needed a backup for?

I found the Outlook .ost file from my automated system backup of 1 am this morning and fixed up Outlook, then executed a sync back to the PDA. That worked.

Its easy to see why Palm died. Any one of the problems I ran into on this restore would have led 99% of the world to give up on the device.

Sure, this is a SONY device -- but these are all classic Palm OS problems. The Palm OS was great in its day, but the company was snowed by Microsoft and lost its way in the boom years. They never recovered. The darned OS needs a stake through its heart.

I guess I'm back to waiting for the rumored Apple SmartPhone, but I have to say that the history of sync services in OS X is not encouraging. And let's not mention iCal ....

Update 1/23/06: So everything works, except when I enable TealScript (I also hate Palm for dumping Graffiti One -- the version that worked) the number and alpha input areas are reversed. Fortunately I didn't delete the installer for the older version of TealScript.

Update 1/23/06b: Ok, I figured out the TealScript glitch. The new version of TS has some new advanced features. For example, it's now configurable for different input area setups. It's supposed to recognize the layout automatically, but it made the wrong guess for the TJ-27. I set it manually and it works.

Bonjour for Windows 1.0.2 - essential for mixed LANs

I've been very pleased with Bonjour (formerly Rendezvous) for Windows -- it brings internet standard resource discovery solutions to Microsoft's platform. There's an important update out. (via Macintouch)

Apple - Support - Downloads - Bonjour for Windows 1.0.2

With Bonjour for Windows, you can easily network your Windows computer to an existing network or create instant networks of multiple devices without any additional network configuration.

This update is recommended for all Bonjour users to improve usability and compatibility.

It includes fixes for:

- Improves compatibility with Mac OS X Printer Sharing
- Fixes 'Error 1920' installation issue that could occur if Norton Internet Security was present or Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) service was disabled
- Improves compatibility with Norton Internet Security
- Improves connectivity with DNS relays in certain third-party routers
- Fixes an issue that could cause 'You do not have sufficient access to your computer ' error when adding new printers
- Addresses compatibility issues with certain third-party VPN clients
- Installation of Bonjour no longer requires a restart

Image Tricks - free OS X app for using core image library

Via Macintouch. This free image management tool, Image Tricks, allows access to the OS functionality also used by Preview, iPhoto and Aperture.

I'll play with it.

Adobe DNG Converter updated

Macintouch mentioned Adobe had updated their DNG converter for Photoshop, but in fact they've also updated their free converter: Adobe DNG Converter for Macintosh - Downloads

You need a free Adobe UserID to download. I plan to test using this Automator tool (first use I've had for Automator). I'm interested in seeing if iPhoto 6 running on 10.4.4 will handle DNG transforms of Digital Rebel XT Raw.

Nikon vs. Canon: Consider the DRM

Canon and Nikon dominate the dSLR marketplace. Minolta/Konica just quite the camera business, and SONY is a very distant third in this world.

Both produce excellent cameras and superb lenses. How can one choose between a DigitalRebel XT and a D70 or D50? One factor to consider is which vendor is nastier about keeping their image formats proprietary.

OpenRAW - News is a good place to check. Nikon's D200, for example, encrypts the RAW image format. In general, Nikon has been playing harder ball than Canon in shutting out alternatives to Nikon software. It's not that Canon is being insightful or cooperative, it's rather that Nikon is being more aggressive. OS X support for Nikon is much more limited than support for similar Canon cameras for this reason.

On balance, the Digital Rights Management (DRM) wars favor Canon at this time. On the other hand, if either vendor implemented in-camera DNG they'd win this race.

It won't show up on in any online camera review, but if you're making the Canon vs. Nikon decision, consider Nikon's desire to lock in Nikon customers through the data format. If you choose Canon, consider sending Nikon a nice note.

Blogger bug: BlogThis! is mangling URLs

Blogger took 4 months to address a bug with mangling posts when the Link field was enabled. This past month they finally introduced a new version of BlogThis! that enables some rich text editing with Firefox and IE (no bullets though).

It turns out, however, that the new version has a nasty bug of its own. It doesn't encode URLs correctly. This is what you get if you post with BlogThis! against a Google search (I took out the angle brackets so Blogger whould show the html):

href="http://w....q=iraq" demographics="" population="" history="" shia="" sunni="" fertility="">iraq demographics population history shia sunni fertility - Google Search

Blogger is embedding quotes throughout the Google search string. If one hand copies the URL and pastes it by hand into the BlogThis! editing screen it works correctly. This is very easy to demonstrate, so I hope I'll have more luck communicating this bug than I did with my last report .

TuneCenter: Making the iPod accessible

TuneCenter - Griffin Technology does for your iPod what Front Row does for iTunes and iMovie. It displays playlists and tune info on a the TV screeen. Works with a remote. Getting the Playlist to the screen seems magical to me; I assume the TuneCenter has an embedded operating system but a quick search didn't turn up any leads.

This could be very helpful for visually impaired persons. A cheap compact LCD TV would be much more readable for many persons than the iPod's built-in display. The remote sounds a bit complex however.