Gadget Report [PDA Pundit: Latest Toys for Treos - 09/01/2005]

September 1st, 2005

PDA Pundit: Latest Toys for Treos

Sr. Editor Yardena Arar

I'm probably one of the luckiest commuters on the planet: My home is
two blocks from PC World's headquarters. But I used to drive 15 miles
(each way) to work in Los Angeles, so if you spend your mornings and
evenings stuck on a busy freeway, I've felt your pain.

Palm's latest app for its Treo 600 and 650 can't do much about
congestion in the nation's most traffic-snarled cities. But if
forewarned is forearmed, then Traffic for Treo Smartphones can at
least give you an idea what's in store--and maybe help you figure out
a route that avoids the worst jams.

The service isn't free, so you should check it out only if this sort
of information has real value to you. Monthly subscription fees start
at $5 to track one city, $8 for two cities, and $15 for all ten
metropolitan areas that the service currently covers: Atlanta,
Baltimore/DC, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San
Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. Traffic gets its real-time
information from a traffic-tracking service called Metrocommute.

I took advantage of a 14-day free trial to test the service in San
Francisco. Downloading and installing the app on my Treo 650 was easy.
It requires about 500KB of free space, which was less than I
expected--a good thing since free space is in short supply. You can
read more about that in "New File System Constrains Treo 650 Storage
Capacity":
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/...,tk,grx,00.asp

Once Traffic was installed, I had a bit of difficulty establishing a
connection via my Cingular service; a Palm spokesperson said there had
been some intermittent problems with Cingular. But within half an hour
the network was up and running and a map of the Bay Area appeared on
the screen, dotted with blinking red and orange blobs. Clicking on one
of the blobs pulled up details, including the road or intersection
impacted by the traffic, and the resulting average travel speed. Even
if you don't get around to tapping on the blinking blob, you have a
visual clue: The brighter red the blob, the worse the problem.

You can easily customize your maps by moving around (either by tapping
or using the navigation jog wheel) and zooming using an icon on a
small taskbar at the bottom of the application. Other icons let you
refresh data and save frequently used customized map views as
bookmarks within the app.

Cingular Patch

In case you're a Cingular subscriber with a Treo 650 and haven't yet
heard, there's a free and useful patch available:
http://www.palm.com/us/support/downl.../cingular.html

Among other things, it frees up internal memory--and as I mentioned
above, that's a scarce commodity on my Treo 650 (and yours, perhaps?).
I have yet to hear of anyone who carefully followed the instructions
having problems with the installation. Of course, there's a first time
for everything, but for now I can heartily recommend devoting the half
hour or so you'll need to install this firmware upgrade.

Latest Word Game Addictions

Regular readers know I'm a big fan of handheld word games, and in the
last few months I've added two to my Treo 650. Astraware's $20 Super
Wild Wild Words for Palms is a miniature version of a game from
Gamehouse, the folks who created my perennial favorite, Text Twist:
http://www.astraware.com/palm/word/wildwildwords/

Super Wild Wild Words is basically a hangman variant with a Western
theme; you have to form words from letter blocks to earn the right to
guess at letters in the mystery word or phrase, or end the game by
going for the full solution. There are two game modes, one rewarding
speed and the other rewarding the formation of long words. It's an
okay pastime, but the roster of mystery words seems somewhat limited:
I've already come across the same ones several times.

I have higher hopes for Smart Box Design's $15 Word Watch, my most
recent acquisition:
http://www.smartboxdesign.com/wordwatch.html

It's a word descrambling game that incorporates a timer and the
ability to make up lost ground (when you can't come up with a word
using all the letters) by earning bonus rounds and forming longer
words including some or all of the leftover letters from previous
rounds.

As usual, you can try both of these games for a limited time before
you buy. Have fun!

For more news, reviews, and tips visit the TreoLog at PC World's Info
Center for PDAs & Cell Phones:
http://www.pcworld.com/resource/info...,tk,grx,00.asp

Have a question or comment? Write to Yardena Arar:
pdapundit*pcworld.com

Read Yardena Arar's regularly published "PDA Pundit" columns:
http://www.pcworld.com/resource/colu...3,tk,gr,00.asp


===
"In a world where more than 10 million americans live with cancer -- we believe unity is strength, knowledge is power, and attitude is everything!"
-- Livestrong, by Lance Armstrong

Ablang Wrote:
> September 1st, 2005
>
> PDA Pundit: Latest Toys for Treos
>
> Sr. Editor Yardena Arar
>
> I'm probably one of the luckiest commuters on the planet: My home is
> two blocks from PC World's headquarters. But I used to drive 15 miles
> (each way) to work in Los Angeles, so if you spend your mornings and
> evenings stuck on a busy freeway, I've felt your pain.
>
> Palm's latest app for its Treo 600 and 650 can't do much about
> congestion in the nation's most traffic-snarled cities. But if
> forewarned is forearmed, then Traffic for Treo Smartphones can at
> least give you an idea what's in store--and maybe help you figure out
> a route that avoids the worst jams.
>
> The service isn't free, so you should check it out only if this sort
> of information has real value to you. Monthly subscription fees start
> at $5 to track one city, $8 for two cities, and $15 for all ten
> metropolitan areas that the service currently covers: Atlanta,
> Baltimore/DC, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San
> Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. Traffic gets its real-time
> information from a traffic-tracking service called Metrocommute.
>
> I took advantage of a 14-day free trial to test the service in San
> Francisco. Downloading and installing the app on my Treo 650 was easy.
> It requires about 500KB of free space, which was less than I
> expected--a good thing since free space is in short supply. You can
> read more about that in "New File System Constrains Treo 650 Storage
> Capacity":
> http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/...,tk,grx,00.asp
>
> Once Traffic was installed, I had a bit of difficulty establishing a
> connection via my Cingular service; a Palm spokesperson said there had
> been some intermittent problems with Cingular. But within half an hour
> the network was up and running and a map of the Bay Area appeared on
> the screen, dotted with blinking red and orange blobs. Clicking on one
> of the blobs pulled up details, including the road or intersection
> impacted by the traffic, and the resulting average travel speed. Even
> if you don't get around to tapping on the blinking blob, you have a
> visual clue: The brighter red the blob, the worse the problem.
>
> You can easily customize your maps by moving around (either by tapping
> or using the navigation jog wheel) and zooming using an icon on a
> small taskbar at the bottom of the application. Other icons let you
> refresh data and save frequently used customized map views as
> bookmarks within the app.
>
> Cingular Patch
>
> In case you're a Cingular subscriber with a Treo 650 and haven't yet
> heard, there's a free and useful patch available:
> http://www.palm.com/us/support/downl.../cingular.html
>
> Among other things, it frees up internal memory--and as I mentioned
> above, that's a scarce commodity on my Treo 650 (and yours, perhaps?).
> I have yet to hear of anyone who carefully followed the instructions
> having problems with the installation. Of course, there's a first time
> for everything, but for now I can heartily recommend devoting the half
> hour or so you'll need to install this firmware upgrade.
>
> Latest Word Game Addictions
>
> Regular readers know I'm a big fan of handheld word games, and in the
> last few months I've added two to my Treo 650. Astraware's $20 Super
> Wild Wild Words for Palms is a miniature version of a game from
> Gamehouse, the folks who created my perennial favorite, Text Twist:
> http://www.astraware.com/palm/word/wildwildwords/
>
> Super Wild Wild Words is basically a hangman variant with a Western
> theme; you have to form words from letter blocks to earn the right to
> guess at letters in the mystery word or phrase, or end the game by
> going for the full solution. There are two game modes, one rewarding
> speed and the other rewarding the formation of long words. It's an
> okay pastime, but the roster of mystery words seems somewhat limited:
> I've already come across the same ones several times.
>
> I have higher hopes for Smart Box Design's $15 Word Watch, my most
> recent acquisition:
> http://www.smartboxdesign.com/wordwatch.html
>
> It's a word descrambling game that incorporates a timer and the
> ability to make up lost ground (when you can't come up with a word
> using all the letters) by earning bonus rounds and forming longer
> words including some or all of the leftover letters from previous
> rounds.
>
> As usual, you can try both of these games for a limited time before
> you buy. Have fun!
>
> For more news, reviews, and tips visit the TreoLog at PC World's Info
> Center for PDAs & Cell Phones:
> http://tinyurl.com/7h8fn
>
> Have a question or comment? Write to Yardena Arar:
> pdapundit*pcworld.com
>
> Read Yardena Arar's regularly published "PDA Pundit" columns:
> http://www.pcworld.com/resource/colu...3,tk,gr,00.asp
>
>
> ===
> "In a world where more than 10 million americans live with cancer -- we
> believe unity is strength, knowledge is power, and attitude is
> everything!"
> -- Livestrong, by Lance Armstrong

Try using 2 wheels instead of 4, traffic problem melt away!!!!


--
Ralph5407