Quote Of The Day: Uncov

Synthasite Wants To See If Users Understand Liquidity

Designer 2: Shouldn’t you be working?
Designer 1: Naw, man! Nobody does any real work in Web 2.0.

I gotta get me some of that Web 2.0 shit.

If We Can’t Have Momentum On This, Can I At Least Get An Amen, Brother?

Two calls for Ed Colligan to be terminated or to resign:

The first:

Just like Colligan cancelled the Foleo, Palm should fire Colligan

Colligan shows that it’s never too late to fix a mistake. Palm should take the hint and get rid of Colligan. What has he been doing all these years??

The second:

Dear Mr. Colligan …

By Tim Beyers September 5, 2007

To: Ed Colligan, CEO, Palm (Nasdaq: PALM)

From: Tim Beyers, The Motley Fool

I’m writing to ask you to step down.

How long before others catch on? Ever? Bueller? Bueller?

–second linkswiped from Palm Infocenter

Left: PDA pioneer
Right: The Humiliator

Blog Notes: Almost Cancelled!

Really. It’s a jinx of mine.

If I tell anyone else what I’m going to do, Something comes along to eff it all up.

That’s the case with these two Foleo posts I’d expected — planned — to post. I should never have mentioned them at all. That way, I could have quietly said Feh! and never done them. Or not been so ambitious in my original plans.

Now, however, I’m committed. At least to something. What’s shaping up isn’t what I first planned. Between now and still-planned publication it might change again.

Of course, I could always wind up getting an email from Ed Colligan that would cancel all this, dashing my plans and publicly humiliating me.

Maybe I should call it The Foleo Syndrome: Better to shut up until it’s released than to pre-announce and get a mob throwing rocks at you for not delivering.

Anyway, I won’t be posting about the Foleo today. But at least now I have a better keyboard to use when I’m away from this PC later! I’ll see how much work I can get done.

In the meantime, I’ve been contacted (yes, there are people who do email my cranky ass!) by the ProFoleo blog. Go take a look at We still want one. It’s a shame that Palm doesn’t have the brains to understand the implications of that. Plus, Palm is no longer a company that changes history anymore. If Steve Jobs were to see it, I think he’d understand it immediately. In fact, he just basically pulled off something like what that implies. I’ll be rolling this into my upcoming Foleo posts.

Newsflash! Palm Did Something RIGHT?!!? Almost.

Previously, I screamed:

For God’s sake, why is it ten years later and there’s no Progress Bar in HotSync?

Guess what Palm Addicts has just revealed is in the new Vista version of Palm Desktop?

Then comes the hugely bad news about the latest change in file formats for synced data!

Now, here’s the real problem for those that make use of third-party software like Dimex, Dawn, or any other package that accesses Palm Desktop data directly; Palm Desktop for Vista no longer uses .DAT files to store your PIM data in. They’ve made the switch to using Microsoft Access databases (.mdb) to store the data. That’s a mixed blessing; your old software won’t work unless it’s updated to work with the Access databases, but because they’re now Access databases, it means that it’s likely that there will be more third-party plugins available to use the data sometime in the future. Doesn’t help you now, though.

If you’re thinking “hey, I’ve got MS Access, I’ll just open and modify the databases directly”, you might want to hold off on that, or just open it read-only for viewing. Palm is using a BLOB (Binary Large OBject) to store large amounts of data in each of the PIM applications, and to my knowledge, have not released any information about their formats. If you try to modify a record, Access doesn’t know how to handle what’s in the blob, so it may trash your data.

Who? Makes? These? Decisions?

What that tells me is that I can’t just swap via Flash drive my data between a PC and any other computer that can’t run MS Access! They’ve locked that data down to the PC! That’s what it sounds like to me. Why couldn’t there have been an option to select which file format to save the data in? Why do companies think they can just jerk their customers around like this?

Now I wonder what Palm will do for the OS X Leopard update…

LifeDrive Notes: I Can Has Bluetooth Keyboard?!!?

Following up on my previous post: The answer is … maybe.

I downloaded the driver for the Palm Wireless Keyboard with Bluetooth® wireless technology.

My God. It worked!

But then I got a crash.

Don’t know why.

But when the LifeDrive rebooted, it worked again.

Before all of you rush out to try this At Home, give me a day to bang on it to see if it’s all good.

In the meantime, some piccies:

You can’t read the screen, but it says: I Can Has Bluetooth Keyboard?!!?
(And, yeah, the WriteRight is worn. You lookin’ to start trouble?)

Top view of both keyboards. Notice the big-ass Driver On! note.

Lined up for key-size and roominess comparison

Close-up action shot of above

(Yeah, yeah. Shut Up about the surface it’s on. I wanted to post pics fast here, so I put it on a mat the cat sleeps on! No flash reflection. And oooh, look at that contrast!)

Previously in this blog:
LifeDrive Notes: Palm Keyboard Vs. Human Brain

LifeDrive Notes: My Innate Fekkin Idiocy

So, I see that many of you are clicking through to investigate the Chinese Bluetooth keyboard I have (let me be clear: I call it the Chinese Bluetooth keyboard not because it types in Chinese — but because I had to frikkin order it from there, via ebay!).

Well, I clicked through myself to see what you were all looking at, and my eyes fell on something I had never even considered: that the keyboard was compatible with PalmOS 5!

I bought to work with the Nokia 770. And then just put it away for some later time, never thinking to even try it with the LifeDrive since it didn’t come with any driver.

Anyway, I just tried to make it work with the LifeDrive.

Hit a speedbump.

The Bluetooth on the LifeDrive asks for the Passcode of the keyboard to make it a Trusted Device.

The keyboard came with no documentation.

I’ve tried:

1) Putting a passkey on the LifeDrive prompt

2a) Typing the same on the keyboard

2b) Typing the same on the keyboard while holding the button underneath the unit (that turns on the radio)

No joy.

I just sent an email to the manufacturer.

Oddly, the support section offers a driver that is for their previous wired keyboard. I don’t see how that would work with this unwired one. Maybe I am missing something. But this driver seems very old and I don’t want to have to wipe my LifeDrive as an accidental consequence of trying it.

I tell you, if I can get this baby to work, it would give me hours more writing time each day. I wouldn’t mind the weight and the bulk compared to the Palm Universal Folding Keyboard because I can really type like hell on this Bluetooth baby. It’s joy to my fingers.

Stay tuned.