Dave's Free Press

Palm Treo call db module

To make up for a disappointing gap in Palm's software for the Treo smartphone, I wrote a small perl script to parse the database that stores my call history. I then re-wrote it as a re-useable module which also figgers out whether the call was incoming or outgoing.

Wikipedia handheld proxy

I got irritated at how hard it was to use Wikipedia on my Treo. There's so much rubbish splattered around their pages that it Just Doesn't Work on such a small screen. Given that no alternatives seemed to be available - at least, Google couldn't find any - I decided to write my own Wikipedia handheld proxy.

It strips away all the useless rubbish that normally surrounds Wikipedia pages, as well as things like the editing functions which are also hard to use on portable devices. Internally, it's implemented using perl, LWP, and mod_perl, and is hosted by Keyweb.de.

Palm GPS help wanted

I'm looking for a combination of GPS hardware and software that I can use with my Treo 680. I'm sure that one of the many products I've looked at will do the job, but their websites are ever so unhelpful.

I need to be able to plan waypoints in advance, record waypoints as I go, and have my position displayed on a moving map. I will supply the map files myself as bitmaps in any reasonable format. When I am near the edge of a map, the software should merge image segments from up to four map files. Anything that requires Windows is defined as broken.

I do *not* need automatic route finding, although I suppose it would make sense to be able to add seperate software for that later.

Phone advice wanted

My trusty old 6310i is giving up the ghost so I need a new phone. And I might as well combine it with a PDA. Being a long-term Palm user I'm inclined to go for the Treo 680 (or whatever is the studliest Palm OS version is - not Windows because I'm not stupid).

Specific questions I'd like answers to, and which I can't find on Palm's webshite, are:

• Can the mail client talk imap(s) and smtp, or is it crippled by being MS-ware only?
• Can the web browser do the Google Maps dance?
• How zoomy is the interwebnet connection?
• Is there a decent ssh client and terminal emulator?
• What's battery life like when (and when not) using it as a phone?
• And of course, is it any good and where should I get it from?

Your time starts now, please use both sides of the paper.