Automation Adventures

About a week ago I got the exciting news that WebIS was releasing their Pocket Informant for the BlackBerry. I have used Pocket Informant on my PocketPC before, and was impressed with the features that it had – I never used all of them!

The BlackBerry version is not as extensive as the PocketPC one (a lot of settings seem to be missing – unless it was because it was the Trial version), but the look and feel were identical between the two versions. And as is mentioned on their website, the PocketPC version took over 8 years to evolve into its current form. Their goal with this version was to get the most important Pocket Informant features onto the BlackBerry.

There is one major drawback that makes me not want to buy this version however: in the week that I’ve had it installed on my BB Pearl, the application has slowed to a crawl, slowing down the entire phone with it. And slowed it down so much that I couldn’t make a call anymore. At other times, I was informed that the BlackBerry had terminated Pocket Informant because it had become unresponsive. This may have been an interaction with other applications on the phone, but to have a phone that won’t make or accept calls is not a good thing.

You can buy Pocket Informant for the BlackBerry for $19.95, or download a limited trial version here.

Tags: blackberry, pim, pocket informant, webis

A couple of weeks ago I said that I thought that I knew what the Internet was all about.

I was wrong.

The Internet is about sharing information, without censorship, or control, from government, police, any official, religious or political leader. It is up to you to decide what is the truth. Don’t get all your information from one source, that is tightly controlled (i.e. TV). Gather your news like they are precious nuggets of gold.

The reason I bring this up is this documentary:

It is a long documentary, but worthwhile the information. If nothing else, it will wake up the gray cells in your head!

Tags: 9/11, conspiracy, internet, theory, truth

For about a week now I’ve had problems synchronizing my Blackberry Pearl 8130 from Verizon with our Blackberry Enterprise server. Nothing synchronizes: email, calendar, to-do lists, etc.

After trying several options suggested around the net (take out battery, turn wireless synchronization off and back on), with no results, I thought I’d have to secure wipe my Blackberry again. Hesitating to do that, I was playing around with the phone last night, and noticed that the message folder for my enterprise mail was missing. Now completely convinced I had to bite the bullet and wipe the phone, I went off to a restless night of sleep.

This morning, I was browsing through some of the options in Settings, and I noticed in Security Options an entry named Firewall. Curious, I selected it. It showed the firewall enabled, gave me options to block certain incoming messages, and showed how many messages were blocked because of Incorrect Encryption keys. 1159 were blocked??? This gave me an idea: I’ve had problems surfing to certain sites with the browser, while others worked fine, or were slightly slower than normal. I reset the counter of blocked messages, and try to access one of the sites I had problems with (www.zoho.com). Sure enough, it didn’t work, but upon checking the Firewall option, it now showed me 1 blocked message. Hey! Some key is corrupt!!!

The fix turned out to be very simple:

• Go to Options
• Go to Security
• Go to General Settings
• Scroll to the bottom where the Services are listed
• Place your cursor on Desktop
• Click the menu key and select Regenerate Encryp…

Not only did this allow me to surf to pretty much any site I had problems with before, my phone went through an automatic activation and showed me it was now synchronizing again with our Blackberry Enterprise server.

A fairly quick and simple fix, that is much faster than completely wiping your phone, and go through a new Enterprise Activation.

Tags: blackberry, calendar, enterprise, mail, pearl, schedule, synchronization, task

Yesterday Apple had its September presentation, which, as the title “Let’s Rock” may have given away, was focused on iTunes and the various iPod models. Here are the announcements in a nutshell:

• HD TV shows added to the iTunes store. $2.99 per episode ($1.99 for standard definition), and you can view them on Apple TV and your computer (and hopefully you iPod).
• NBC returns to the iTunes store.
• iTunes 8 is announced:
  • New browsing options
  • Genius mode: automatic playlist based on songs that “go great together”. It sounds like Pandora in iTunes.
• iPod classic: the current line up of an 80GB and a 160GB model will be changed to one 120GB model, priced at $250 (what, not $249?).
• iPod Nano 4G:
  • has the form factor of the Nano 2G
  • the video of the 3G
  • Built-in accelerometer
  • new User Interface
  • landscape mode for coverflow
  • thinnest Nano yet
  • $149 for 8GB, $199 for 16GB
• iPod Touch:
  • Thinner
  • has integrated volume control
  • built-in speaker(!)
  • Genius playlist creation
  • Nike+ built-in (you still need the Nike+ transmitter)
  • $229 for 8GB, $299 for 16GB, and $399 for 32GB
• AppStore: 100 million downloads in the first 60 days. Upcoming offerings: Spore Origins, Real Soccer 2009, Need for Speed: Undercover.
• Two new headphones:
  • A regular set with in-band control (volume, next, prev, play, pause) and microphone for $29
  • An in-ear set with two drivers per bud (woofer and tweeter) for $79
• iPod Touch 2.1 software: Free upgrade for 2.0 users, $9.95 for 1.x users
• iPhone 2.1 software:
  • Free upgrade
  • improved battery life
  • fewer call drops
  • fewer crashes
  • increased speed for iTunes backups

It sounds that Apple is slowly retiring the iPod classic, and adding more emphasis on the AppStore. More news can be read at Gizmodo and other sites around the net.

Tags: apple, appstore, iphone, ipod, itouch, itunes, nano

I just received an email from TiVo, announcing the availability of a new HD DVR: the TiVo HD XL DVR.

The product specifications list this unit as:

• Save up to 150 hours of HD programming at one time
• TV signal sources: digital and analog cable, digital and analog antenna. Satellite NOT supported.
• Replaces your cable box using one or more CabeCARD™ decoders available from your cable company
• Video output modes: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, native, hybrid
• TiVo Series3™ architecture

Tags: hd, PVR, series 3, tivo