Monday, March 24, 2008

Rip Palm T5

My palm T5 is no more.

It has ceased to be, bereft of life, it rests in peace, it has kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, it has expired and gone to meet its maker, it has shuffled off its mortal coil.

It is an ex-palm.

I have an history of almost 9 years using palm devices. From IIIx to Zire 71 and from there to Tungsten T5.
The IIIx endured a lot, I used it for 4 years, before an unfortunate accident between the screen and my fist ended its life.
The Zire was the replacement, and it worked great, util another unfortunate accident, this time completely accidental, between my elbow and the screen (again the screen). Lessons learned: don't have you PDA laying around in the middle of papers; buy a hard case)
I bought my refurbished T5 on ebay in 2005, and I've been using it until now, allways having a mediocre battery life.

Last week, my palm refused to leave the logo screen, with a dreaded line blinking on top of the screen. I've even tried the peculiar way of doing a cold reset; there are two ways, one is easy, the other is good for aliens with 12 fingers and 3 hands. But nothing worked. A quick search and I found that I was not alone, and there were no hope.

So now I have a dilema... what to do?

As for palm platform, I think I got to the end of the line. The OS is outdated, the divices all have keyboards, the applications are getting expensive. Time to move on.
As for pocket pc, there are more options in terms of hardware. The compact framework makes it simpler to develop applications, but the core OS is still windows...
As for symbian, I know very little about it... and the little I know, I don't like... I want to develop what I want in my mobile, and don't want anyone to sign it for me...
As for android, it doesn't exists yet...

So, do you have any recomendations?

Monday, March 3, 2008

Google Maps vs Live Search Maps vs Yahoo Maps

Microsoft finally became an option on mapping solutions in your browser, for people living in Portugal. And it came to business with a bang, giving you Bird's eye view for all of Lisbon and surroundings! It is very cool!!!
For that it deserves a peek. Go search your house, and see it in different angles!

but if you want to calculate routes, search for things, Google is still the king. But they have the most outdated route info!!! THEY ARE STILL MISSING MY ROAD!!! GO GET SOME DECENT DATA!!!! GET NAVTEQ!!!

And what about Yahoo? To me, it looks like it is getting behind... let's see what the future brings.