Monthly Archives: May 2008

Free Palm games, other freeware at Handycase.com

Juliana of Handycase.com e-mailed me this morning to inform me about the Palm OS freeware on their site. I checked it out and I found interesting — and best of all, free — Palm games and utilities.

Their free games include a series of IPuzzle Basic games, Logic Puzzle, Roman Table, Illusion Cubes, JoQPo, HandMemory, Stonestris and Triball. I downloaded and installed IPuzzle Basic edition 6 and Stonestris. IPuzzle is basically a sliding puzzle where you move squares one at a time to to correctly complete an image. Stonestris, is — of course — a tetris game. Handycase games may not be as crisp as the usual commercial ones, but they are still worth trying.

Other freeware from them include HandTube, a utility for YouTube users; HandClock, an analog clock; Priorities, an app that organizes your priorities; FreeContacts, a contacts and reminder suite; HandDraw, a paint-type app for Palm; TopicList, a to-do-list-type app that organizes information and tasks; and HandWriter, a text editor.

Handycase also offers a diverse line of commercial software for personal, professionals and corporate use.

Mapalad June 2008 meet

Members of Mapalad, the Philippine Palm Users Group, will meet on June 14, 3 p.m. at the Power Mac Center at Greenbelt 3, Makati City, an announcement posted on its website said.

Filipino Palm users who want to meet other Palm users may be interested in joining this event. If you’re not yet a member, visit www.mapalad.org and be one of us. :)

Aside from being a great discussion forum for all things Palm-related, Mapalad.org has a classified ads section where you may buy Palm previously owned products and accessories.

WP 2.5.1 media upload problem on Hardy Heron

As I was composing the previous entry, I ran into a problem uploading the accompanying image. While the upload dialog popped up, red x marks were shown instead of file icons. I was able to choose the file, but the upload did not begin. I had to manually do it using FTP.

I thought it was a Java-plugin problem, so I thought I install the necessary plugin first, then would update the post after the problem is resolved. I guess I was wrong in thinking it had something to do with Java, as it appeared to be a Flash-plugin issue, as discussed in this bug report on LaunchPad. As one of the commenters said, this problem “is present on 64-bit hard drive installations,” such as mine.

For now, I could only search for possible solutions, or use FTP for image uploads while waiting for the experts to resolve this issue.

Now on Ubuntu Hardy Heron

I learned about the release date of Hardy Heron (or 8.04) –  Ubuntu‘s latest version — from my classmate Max last month, but I got to install this user-friendy Linux operating system only last Sunday.

I was using Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) before I upgraded. Probably due to the various experiments I was doing with my PC, as well as some incorrect and incomplete program installations, my PC started getting sluggish. My Firefox 3 Beta kept on freezing and turning gray, and there were instances when the system kept on restarting on its own.

So after learning that the newest version is ready to be downloaded, I starting sorting my files and backing up on DVDs those that I needed to keep. I also downloaded and created a Hardy Heron installation CD for AMD64 systems.

Last Sunday, I finally completed the backups, so I proceeded with the upgrade. I chose to wipe out everything on my PC as I wanted to do a clean install. The process, however, was interrupted by an error with the LiveCD that I was using.

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Globe is iPhone’s official RP carrier

Globe will be iPhone’s official carrier in the Philippines, according to the following announcement posted on the website of Globe Telecom today:

Globe, SingTel, Bharti Airtel and Optus today announced that they have signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to the Philippines, Singapore, India, and Australia later this year.

More information will be released at a later date.

Apple announced the iPhone, which it describes as “a revolutionary new mobile phone”, on January last year.

A colorful Palm Centro TV commercial

Sprint, a telecommunication company in the United States, has a new television commercial for the Palm Centro, according to reports by Palm InfoCenter and TreoCentral.

The television commercial shows the different colors and features of Palm’s latest smartphone that has already sold more than a million units.

Below is a video of the said advertisement, which was posted on YouTube by user Palm2401.

Meanwhile, Mobilitysite.com also shared on YouTube a “closer look at Sprint’s Palm Centro,” which it described as “an attractive little device that sells for only $99!”

Palm is not a “dying platform”

Palm logoAs I wrote earlier, at least two Palm game developers recently started distributing their Palm games for free, and one announced it will stop developing games for Palm. And then today, fellow Entrecard member Adrian Corscadden asked me on Twitter how much longer do I think I’ll be blogging about palm devices, as “they seem to be on the way out.”

The Washington Post on April 30 posted PC World contributing editor James A. Martin’s piece “Is the Palm OS Dying? Should You Care?“, which discussed the pros and cons of Palm devices against other smartphones. (Here is another version of the article published at the Australian PC World and reposted at the Palm blog).

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