Monday, 23 January 2006

Anyone Know How to Read the Treo PhoneCallDB.pdb?

Before I got the Treo, I had a SonyEricsson that worked real nicely with BluePhoneElite and my PowerBook.

Sure, Caller ID and answering the phone from the laptop was nice, but what I really miss is the integration w/ iCal.

Since the Treo keeps a record of the phone calls and their duration and backs it up to my PowerBook on sync, it seems I could read the PhoneCallDB file and send the data to iCal using AppleScript.

Flixton Software’s Treo Call Log can read the file, but I can’t do anything with the data. So it doesn’t really help.

Anyone know where I can find some documentation on how to read PhoneCallDB.pdb so I can use the data?

Thanks.

Saturday, 29 October 2005

Memory Cards are More Convenient than Flash Drives

Yesterday, my trusty 128MB USB Flash keychain drive gave up the ghost. Dead. Unrecognized by any machine. I originally picked it up a couple years ago to transfer a large number of files too big for email, yet passed back and forth too frequently for the slow mount/unmount of the iPod.

It’s served me well.

After the moment of mourning, I still had this problem of 30MB of files needing moved from that machine to this machine.

For whatever lame reason, the Powerbook isn’t aware of the SD/MMC card in the Treo. So, when I picked up the card, I also picked up a USB Memory Card reader from OfficeMax.

After I tossed the Flash drive, I popped the memory card out of the Treo – into the Reader, plugged the reader into that machine and grabbed the files.

I love when technology works. Oddly, this solution feels more flexible, more secure, and more portable than the keychain drive. I’m sure that’s because around the house, almost every device has a SD/MMC slot (cameras, Palms, Rios) – and only the computers have USB ports.

Sunday, 25 September 2005

Treo Replaces iPod for Brush Clearing Listening

Finally had a few moments to clear out the tree damage we had from the late summer thunderstorm I mention eariler.

About halfway through, the battery in my 40gb iPod started flaking out – as it’s so prone to do. With the battery only reliable when it’s plugged in, the usefulness of the iPod is seriously hampered.

Still needing some audio entertainment, I loaded up my Treo 650‘s 1GB SD card with a handful of podcasts and some Brad Sucks and headed back out.

Adding stuff to the SD card was a more manual process and the audio quality isn’t as good as the iPod – but it didn’t die every 5 minutes. Grumble grumble.

Sunday, 19 June 2005

Exactly the Same Thing as a Treo from Earthlink

The reception on my T610 has been awful lately. A month or so back the signal was so clear people could hear the birds in my backyard. Last week, I’d be lucky to make out words under the tidal waves of static. On road trips, the T610 lost it’s signal the moment the “Wisconsin Welcomes You” sign was in view. While Jen’s Samsung E310 always kept at least one bar.

As I’ve mentioned before, the I’m heavily using Apple’s iSync and BluePhoneElite to keep my phone and Powerbook playing nice together. T-Mobile offered to replace the T610 with a comparable model. None of their current handsets support iSync via Bluetooth let alone match my ideal phone – the opposite of a Treo.

Bryce Howitson suggested an unlocked Nokia 7280. The 7280 fills all my requirements, though I’m not quite comfortable buying an unlock phone off eBay…yet. This left the Motorola RazR and the Treo 650 in the running. Emails with T-Mobile customer service confirmed neither are available through them.

It was OfficeMax’s $299 after rebate price on a Treo with Earthlink Wireless finally sold me. Eight hours after taking it out of the box, Earthlink had ported my number. During that time, I quickly remembered all the things I loved about Palm’s OS and the awkwardness of HotSync/Palm Desktop on the Mac. The Palm OS itself has matured quite a bit in the 3 years since I ditched my Visor, those two apps seem to be frozen in time.

I’ve bumped up against some oddness; Bluetooth polling seems to be more frequent than necessary – if only because it locks the Palm up completely, it’s not obvious how to record just audio, and the ‘@’ key an option-click. I’d rather it be a shift-click (like other QWERTY keyboards) or better – a key all it’s own.

Overall, I’m extremely happy with the Treo. Just as Christoper Mark Brooder said I would be.

Not only does the signal stretch well into Wisconsin, I discovered there’s something both wonderful and wrong about checking your email from a pontoon boat.

Also, if anyone wants my USB phone charger, make me an offer.