Dragging Vintage Tech into the Year 2013

Monday, 12 August 2013

Upgrading the Libretto RAM to 96Mb

And here is the proof. It can be done. I've surprised myself at how easy it was to do this upgrade, but you will need some familiarity with a soldering iron and the case modifications are not for the faint of heart.

The memory module can still be sourced here. Which is linked to in the original How-To here.
 
You may be able to find one elsewhere and please let me know and I'll put the information here, but the link above seemed to be the best price from what seemed to be one of the few legitimate looking sites, so I went with that. Be wary of postage and import duty if ordering from outside the U.S. though.
 
Anyhow, I struggled with the explanation in the original how-to, but took the plunge anyhow.
 
Firstly you need to make room for the PA2067U module inside the casing.
 
WARNING: please do not attempt this if you are not familiar with the basics of electronics, soldering, and how to use a Dremmel (or similar) and remember to use anti-static measures. 
 
To get the memory module bay, remove the battery (and the power), and carefully lift the strip at the top of the keyboard from the right-hand side. Once fully removed, you should be able to lift the keyboard up and away from the bottom half of the machine.
 
You should be able to see the memory slot in the bottom left area where the keyboard was. If you had the official memory upgrade for the Libretto, you could just slot it right in, put everything back together and boot-up with a full 64Mb RAM in your machine. Unfortunately, the  PA2067U is not really intended for the Libretto 110CT, but will  work with the correct mods.
 
To do this, you will need to take the machine apart further. Remove the keyboard completely by removing the two silver screws at each end of the keyboard recess and then carefully push open the securing clips at each end of the ribbon cable connector, so that you can slide the keyboard ribbon cable out and then remove the keyboard completely.
 
You will also need to remove the thin metal plate that is under the keyboard. Under are three connectors which must be disconnected: on the right side is a connector for the screen, another one at the top left (I think I remember this is the microphone connector or something), and one near the bottom which is for the CMOS battery.
 
Turn the unit over and remove all the screws from the underside. To be on the safe side, remove the hard disk from the bay on the left side of the machine and place safely to one side.
 
Once this is done you should be able to gently prise the screen and the top half of the main unit apart from the lower part of the main unit and motherboard.
 
Now the tricky part: there is a silver strip along the bottom edge of the keyboard area which is in the way of our new memory module, and the only way it will fit is if we remove most of it. By trying the module for size you will easily see how much needs to be removed. I snapped the silver strip away with some long-nose pliers and smoothed it off with the Dremmel tool, but I can't emphasise how carefully you need to do this bit as you could really ruin the casing of your Libretto if you are a bit too heavy handed with this. See the picture below and compare with your own to see where I have removed the silver plastic from mine.

 
You also need to remove some of the plastic over the screw hole just to the bottom right of the memory slot. Not only that, but the connector for the CMOS battery gets in the way of the memory too. This is quite easy to snap off from the motherboard, but this will mean that you'll have to solder the wires from the CMOS battery directly to the motherboard as you can see I have done above. Some insulation tape will be needed over this, as the module will sit directly on top of this.
 
With this all done, and the plastic halves of the lower half of the unit put back together the memory module should snap into place nicely. If not, then you may have to trim away a bit more of the casing until it fits.
 
Now I won't pretend to understand why, but to get the Libretto to recognise the full 64MB (and not just half) you need to select the middle jumper on the upper left side of the module. I did this by putting a small blob of solder between the two jumper contacts as shown in my photo below.
 

 
Now put everything back together! Don't forget to reconnect the connectors under the keyboard.
 
Once you have your Libretto all in one piece, hold your breath, boot-up, and check your system properties, and if all is well the memory should report 96Mb instead of 32Mb!
 
Whew!

Friday, 2 August 2013

Well, here it is: my latest ebay purchase is the Toshiba Libretto 110CT.



It occurred to me that for some of these older gadget to properly work with Windows it might be a good idea to get a computer that runs an earlier version of Windows.

For example, I am considering getting a Psion 5MX Organiser, but the Sync software (Psywin, I think it's called) will not run on my Windows 8 PC nor will it run under Win7.

I had always wanted one of the early Librettos. This was in the days before netbooks, and these were touted as small, super portable but powerful little machines.

Well, it is a lovely piece of vintage tech, and I'll be writing more about it here over the coming weeks.

So far I have boosted it's RAM to 96MB which I will detail on these pages. I will also be attempting to make it into a solid state device with a mod I have read about, but before I can proceed with that I need the PCMCIA floppy disk drive, which I don't have yet.

Anyhow, please stay tuned for more soon.

Friday, 12 July 2013

Keyring





I have been using mSecure password manager software on my Android phone for ages and more recently on Windows 8. It's a great piece of software, but since abandoning Android and embracing PalmOS, I needed to find a suitable alternative.

Keyring fits the bill nicely, and is simple and easy to use for storing all your passwords securely.

If, like me, you have at least 10 different logins which you are forced to change regularly, then something like this is a must.

Sunday, 7 July 2013

ToDo2


I've been looking fo a nice simple ToDo program for use on the UX-50:
something similar to the built-in ToDo but with with alarm capability and
no other bells or whistles.

ToDo2 is that program. It is still available to register with the developer
here, although I had to email my Hotsync ID in order to get the reg code.
There is also a downloadable demo to try for yourself.

Friday, 28 June 2013

Photography: Then and Now

I am on holiday in Devon for a few days so won't be testing out any software for a while.

Also, for it's Sat Nav abilities, I have had to revert to using my Samsung Galaxy Note for the duration of the trip.

However, while out walking in Torquay this morning, I thought it might be a good idea to take a few comparative shots with the camera on the Galaxy Note and on the Sony Clie UX-50.

Unsurprisingly, the UX-50 camera doesn't do well compared to the Galaxy Note.

See the evidence below (UX-50 photos first):

 

 
 



Sunday, 23 June 2013

Snappermail Enterprise

I have been having problems with Agendus Mail. It works fine with GMail over Wi-Fi, but via IR to my Samsung E700 it continually gives time-out errors.

The only other email program I could find that has the required SSL settings to support GMail was Snappermail Enterprise Edition, and it turns out this works just fine. So as a functioning piece of software I'd recommend it.

There are a couple of problems though. Firstly, this was an expensive shareware app at the time, and is nearly impossible to find now. I did find a cracked version, but as such I will not be making it available for download.

The other problem is the Codediver settings to make it work fullscreen. I
have played around, and it will run fullscreen, but every time a dialog
opens in smallscreen, it stays that way until you tap the expand button on
the side bar. Irritating, but it still functions properly, so I guess I'll
be sticking with this for now.

If anyone reading this has any suggestions, I'd gladly try them out and
share on this blog.
___
Sent with SnapperMail
www.snappermail.com

Wednesday, 19 June 2013

Observations of Battery Life

Having lived with The Sony UX-50 for a few weeks now, although I love it, I have to comment on the absolutely awful battery life.

When designing the UX-50, Sony obviously wanted to keep the size down. They succeeded, because the unit is very light, slim and portable.

The obvious sacrifice to achieve this, was battery size. I certainly noticed that today, as the buttons at the edge of the unit kept getting pressed while in my pocket at work today, and I got it out when I got home to find the battery completely drained.

Suffice to say, I have now found the switch to lock they keyboard, so hope for this not to happen again. Nevertheless, I find myself putting the Clie back on the charging cradle at every available opportunity.

I read my eBooks on this for about half an hour in bed at night and find I have to charge it again first thing in the morning to give myself confidence that it will last the working day. If you want to use Wi-Fi on this thing, you better make sure you use it for long, or it'll waste the battery in no time.

It's okay though, I can live with it, but I'll definitely looking into the extended battery if I can get one as well as doing the USB charging hardware MOD I have read a bit about on 1src forums. Why Sony didn't include USB charging out of the box I'll never know.

It got me thinking in more general terms about battery life. I have pretty much got used to daily charging of previous iPhones, tablets, and Android blowers, and battery life these days seem to be slowly getting better, despite that battery technology seems to have hit a bit of a developmental brick wall. It is probably more to do with tech becoming less power hungry and more efficient.

In total contrast however, is my Samsung E700 which I am using as my main phone now. It has a tiny battery and easily lasts three whole days on a single charge!

This was the advantage of having lots of different gadgets: separate batteries for separate t functions. My phone has a battery, my PDA has a battery, my Satnav has a battery, my eBook reader has a battery and my iPod had a battery. Collectively, they probably have a week or more worth of charge between them.

I guess, the point of this ramble is that while convergence in technology has added the convenience of having everything you need in one device, battery technology simply hasn't caught up yet.

Mobile Stream Card Reader

THis is a great little utility which allows you to copy files to and from Internal Memory of the UX-50 or a Memory Stick if you have one installed. I have tried the other free and shareware utilities available that are supposed to do this, but none seem to work with Windows 8.

This one does and it's very handy. It's from the same developer that's responsible for Portrait which is a great piece of software too.

A free trial of Card Reader is still available here.

Saturday, 15 June 2013

New in Software Repository

I have added the following Palmos apps to the repository at the top right of the page.

Resco Explorer
This is easily the best for functionality in one package and looks great on the UX-50's HiRes screen. It also allows ftp access to services like StorageMadeEasy.com so that you can upload and download from your cloud drives.

Resco Photo Viewer
With the same look and feel as Resco Explorer, this is a polished piece of software with lots of options.










Network.prc
Sometimes the simplest things are the best. I was fed up with having to keep going into the Prefs app and selecting the network drop-down just to switch off the wireless. This app simply takes you directly to the Network Panel, and if assigned to a hotkey (say Ctrl+1) will take you there in a couple of key clicks. Brilliant!

KeyQuick
I can't pretend to be an expert with this yet, but it allows you to configure your Keyboard to do all sorts of things.

Straight out of the box, it has some pretty neat features enabled though: it makes the Ctrl key "sticky" so instead of holding Ctrl while pressing another button, you can press Ctrl and then the other; and it also makes the up and down keys move between text entry fields, which saves time messing about with the stylus. Genius!

Monday, 10 June 2013

Samsung SGH E700


Photos taken with UX-50
Another oldie but goodie!

This was my state of the art mobile phone 10 years ago or so.

I've cludged this together from three faulty and battered phones from ebay to make one fully functioning and less battered one. I thought these little babies would have survived the years better, but apparently not!

No Wi-Fi, no 3G, no Bluetooth: only two small colour screens, T9 text entry, GPRS, and an infra-red port. What fun. Perfect compliment to the UX-50, that is if I could only get the UX to connect to the E700's GPRS, but more on that another time.

Friday, 7 June 2013

Clie Overload!

I've been playing around with the UX-50 for nearly a week now and I have almost got it working optimally.

I have installed so many applications and done so much tweaking, I hardly know where to start blogging about it.

I am planning to replace my smarthone's functions with this as far as possible, so below is a list of some of the software I have installed so far.

Opera Mini
Not so easy to install: you need  to install Java first, then Opera Mini, which will run, but if you want this to run fullscreen you'll need to install something called Codediver and also an app called Portrait. Both tweak how apps use the screen, as many Palmos apps only run in the usual square dimensions that most Palm devices have.

Having said that, Opera Mini, seems the most capable browser that will work on the Clie.

Agendus Mail SSL Edition
This was the only email program that would run fullscreen and supported the security that GMail requires, and it is a nice polished piece of software.  It even does IMAP which is handy if you prefer that over POP3, and there are many reasons why IMAP is preferable.

Mobipocket Reader
The only ebook reader that is still worth installing in my opinion. It is nice and easy to configure and supports lots of file types.

I use it to read my Kindle eBooks on. These can be easily stripped of DRM if you know what you're doing, and converted with "Calibre".

It's worth noting that despite a checkbox in the settings, the software does not support sub-pixel rendering that gives nice smooth fonts. For that you'll need another tweaking app called FontSmoother which does the job of smoothing fonts in Mobipocket very well.

I also like to read ebooks in Portrait mode and the settings have an option to do this, but I have used the "Portrait" app mentioned above to make it happen automatically.

Kyle's Quest 2
I used to love the original game on my old Palm Pilot and this is the same but in colour and brings back many memories.

Vexed
Another great puzzle game from my old Palm days. Use your stylus to move blocks around and clear the  board.

CliFrotz
Another Frotz port, this one designed for the UX-50's wide screen. I'm not sure I'll be sticking with this one as the font size is tiny even when it is set to"Large".

Datebk 6
I used this on the Palm years ago, and although the built-in PIM is decent enough, it doesn't provide a simple week-view with events clearly shown. DateBk6 does this and much more.

Documents to Go 11
I haven't used this much just yet, and I'm not expecting too much regarding compatability with Word, Excel etc. with such an old piece of software, but it would seem this is as good as it's likely to get.

BT Toggle
USB cable Hotsyncing isn't going to work on a fairly modern PC, but Bluetooth syncing does work and is probably the easiest way to install software (I don't intend to sync my calendars and addresses etc. with Palm Desktop).

So  after frequent Bluetooth Hotsyncs, you will soon tire of going into the Prefs panel every time to switch Bluetooth off. Thankfully "BT Toggle", can automates the whole process for you. I' quite like something similar for the Wi-Fi but have yet to find it.

LauncherX
I  remember using a version of this a long time ago and still think it's the best. It has the best balance between simplicity and configarability IMHO. I tried a couple of others which seemed to be firm favourites among the community but found them too complicated to set up how I liked.  It needs "Portrait" to make it run fullscreen though (see screenshot above).

I'll upload most of these to the Software Repository on this blog, but be warned: most of them are shareware and many of the developers' websites are no more, meaning no way to register them. Where possible, I've registered a couple of these, but have had to be more creative when getting some of the others fully functional.

I hope you've enjoyed this quick run-down. Keep an eye on G3, for more on the UX-50 and Palmos soon.


Sunday, 2 June 2013

Sony Clie PEG UX-50


My latest (old) gadget has arrived and I love it!

This PDA is much smaller than I imagined. The picture above should show that clearly enough. The size makes it very pocketable though and easy to type on when lounging about.

The screen is pin sharp and nice and bright, if a tad small, and registers taps easily.

The PALM OS is a joy to revisit: I had a few PALMS over the years but never the UX-50. PALM's strength was it's simplicity, although compared to modern smartphones, it suddenly doesn't seem so simple and easy to use now.

Nevertheless, the Sony is a solidly built and nicely designed piece of kit. Aesthetics are very modern and pleasing to the eye and it feels very nice in the hand.

The camera is nothing to write home about but is a nice little extra.

There is Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on board, but like the Jornada 720, only supports Wireless "B" and WEP encryption (see my earlier post on connecting the HP Jornada to the internet).

Confusingly, you can't rely solely on the keyboard to navigate when in "laptop" mode, but have to frequently resort to poking the screen with the stylus. This is frustrating, and I don't know why Sony didn't try and improve keyboard navigation. The Handheld PC did this much better. Having said that, I may be able to tweak that with software and if successful I will of course update here.

Battery life is poor when using Bluetooth or Wi-Fi so it is important to switch them off quickly when you have finished using them. That way, you might make it through a full day of use, but plonking it back in it's charging cradle when you get home from work will probably be neccessary.

As always with legacy devices, finding software is a bit of a struggle, but that's all part of the fun. Anything I mention on this blog I will add to the software repository which someone may find helpful.

Stay tuned for more updates on the Sony as I learn more about it!
--
Sent using Agendus Mail demo.

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

Nokia D211 GPRS/WLAN PCMCIA Card

As promised, here is my review of this PCMCIA card which promises
Handheld PC users the ability to access the internet from home via
Wi-Fi, or while out and about via GPRS (SIM required of course).

If, like me, you get one from ebay without the original CD, you can
find the drivers in the software repository at the top right of this
blog. I found them at www.hpcfactor.com which seems to be one of the
few sites for the HPC that still seems to be going.

Installation is simple, just install the drivers, reset and plug in
the card.

GPRS set-up was simple enough and allowed a strong connection in my
experience. As a bonus, the drivers included SMS messaging, which was
nice and might be useful for some.

However, I had quite forgotten how terribly slow GPRS is. Now my
memory has been jogged, I seem to remember being quite dissatisfied
with the speeds back when that was the best we had.

Even worse though was the W-Fi, which despite hours of searching the
web and fiddling with the configuration I could not get a successful
connection. I had partial success with an old D-Link wireless router
that I dug out the back of the cupboard, which appeared to connect but
wouldn't transfer any data.

In the end, I just had to admit defeat. Discussion on hpcfactor's
forums seem to back up this experience. This was a real shame as I
wanted an all-in-one solution, but to have the connectivity I want I
would have to use the Nokia and my existing Wi-Fi card, which in the
end was just too much hassle when I can just use the Wi-Fi card plus
the wireless hotspot on my phone.

If anyone reads this and wants to try for themselves, I'll gladly let
them have it for just the postage.

So to sum up, if you just want GPRS on your HPC, then this is the
hardware for you. If you want both mobile access and Wi-Fi in one card
then you are probably out of luck.

Sent from my HP Jornada 720

Sunday, 26 May 2013

Wireless Printing

UPDATE: Please ignore all the convoluted instructions below! I have just
tried emailing a document directly from Hotmail on my Jornada to my
wireless printer and it works. It just doesn't work with GMail.

I was originally going to do a detailed tutorial on this, but having
given it some thought, it is probably a bit too "niche", even for this
blog. It depends on you having an HP Wireless printer set up with it's
own email address.

If you do, I'll not go into huge amounts of detail, but you can use
IFTTT to print any document you upload to a public Dropbox folder.

I tried to email the files directly in the first place, but it seems the
HP ePrint  service rejects any emails that don't have the correct security
certificates. These certificates are only sent when you use the GMail web
app but not when you use POP with GMail. I have not tested with another
email provider.

This recipe on IFTTT can be configured to email any document that you
place in a special "PrintThis" folder in Dropbox to your HP Wireless
printer's email address.
In a previous post, I demonstrated how to remotely access cloud
storage via FTP on the Jornada 720. Using this to upload any file to
the "PrintThis" folder will send the file to your printer.

It's not instant: it may take a while for it to reach your printer,
but it works.

Sent from my HP Jornada 720

Saturday, 25 May 2013

Mobipocket Reader

Simply because the form factor, I'm not sure if I will use the Jornada
as an ebook reader, but I love reading ebooks and wanted to try and
see how well it worked.

After some research, I figured the best bet would be Mobipocket as it
is a relatively straight foward conversion from the Kindle format.

The application itself runs well on the HPC and after converting an
ebook, displayed it nicely. There are lots of options and you can even
display the text in two columns. However, I found the lack of
sub-pixel rendering (such as ClearType) to be lacking which is a
shame. I tried uBook, which does have the smooth font rendering I was
looking for, but found the software otherwise slow and clunky. uBook
seems to be a bit of a favourite in the HPC community, but I can't
seem to get it to work nicely. Hence I'll be sticking with Mobipocket.

It's a shame that ereader.com and fictionwise.com no longer seem to
sell ebooks for Mobipocket or the eReader software. I like to read
current best sellers etc. and don't mind paying either, so my best
option was to buy and download Kindle books to my PC, strip the DRM
and convert to a .prc file with a piece of PC software called Calibre.

I have no moral qualms about stripping out the DRM as I have no
intention of distributing the ebooks.

The final step is of course to transfer the .prc file to the 720 and
open in Mobipocket and enjoy.

Mobipocket .cab installation file is now in the software respository.

Sent from my HP Jornada 720

New Focus

If you have seen this blog before, you will notice a new name which indicates a slight change of focus for the blog.

I started the blog because I was bored with the latest gadgets and smartphones as they now seem to be offering little which is new or exciting, so decided to get myself an old gadget which I had coveted many years ago but couldn't afford.

This was the HP Jornada 720, which I have had hours of pleasure tinkering around with for the last couple of months, but I am now hankering for more, so I have ordered myself an old Sony Clie PDA from ebay.

I also took delivery of the exact same make and model of TV/Radio/Alarm Clock that I had as a child and hooked this up to a Freeview box, and am now reliving memories of black and white TV from my youth.

Next, I would also love to get my hands on (a reasonably priced) Samsung SGH P310 mobile phone.

As I would also like to blog about these, it made sense to change the title of the blog. I will continue to post about the Jornada, but this will no longer be the sole focus.

I will add any Windows CE software that I have mentioned but so far not added to the software repository, but of course this will probably expand to include Palmos software and who knows what in the future as well.

Thanks for reading.

Sunday, 12 May 2013

Google Calendar Syncing Is Here!

Well despite my earlier post saying that it was not possible, I have
got Google Calendar sync working on the J720.

Thanks go to Jake from the forums on hpcfactor.com who helped with
much of the testing and experimenting to get this working.

First you need an account with goosync.com, which unfortunately is not
free, but is the only way I know to get this to work. Fortunately for
me I already had an account.

Make sure you have Redgear and TTSync installed (available from the
repository on this blog). You will will want to run TTSync in PPC
portrait mode from the Redgear settings icon in the titlebar. This
renders the TTSync GUI in a more readable way, although it will still
be rough around the edges as is often the case when trying to run
Pocket PC software on the Handheld PC.

The important thing is that is usable. Now, if you already have a
device profile set up at the Goosync end, delete it and set up a new
one. Any device profile seems to work. You may want to go into
Goosync's calendar settings as well, as it seems to set a default
reminder for each appointment. I switched this off.


The TTSync program is not set up to sync with Google out of the box,
so you will need to edit the config.ini file in the TTSync program
folder. I have uploaded my config.ini file to the repository, so you
can just overwrite the file with that if you don't want to put in the
server settings yourself or just have a look to see how I've done it.

Now you can start TTSync. Go into the settings and put in your Goosync
username and password. Make sure you click in the Server setting box
and make sure Goosync is selected. Tap okay.

Now tap the large "Calendar" button down the bottom of the TTSync
screen. Make sure the "Sync mode" is set to Server. When you're ready
hit "Sync".

The screen should take some time sending and receiving, and if
everything works you should see the "completed" message in the
screencap above. Tap "Exit" to go back to the main TTSync screen.

From now on you should be able to just use the "Sync All" option at the
top of the screen every time you sync.

IMPORTANT: Do not do what I was doing wrong throughout most of my
testing and click the Redgear X button to close the apllication. If
you do this it will not save your settings and syncing will not work
after. Instead ALWAYS exit by selecting "Options" then "Exit".

That's it. It only works one way: from Google to the Jornada, so
essentially the calendar is read only. Any appointments made on the
handheld will not sync back to Google. Two-way synchronisation is
possible but it just creates duplicates of your appointments and I
don't recommend it.

Also note that I have so far not been able to get All Day events to
synchronise correctly. Thney appear as midnight to 23:59 timed events.
However I can live with that.

The other screencap above shows a test appointment I made on Google
Calendar and successfully synced to my Jornada.

It is also possible to edit the config.ini file to sync GMail contacts
as well although I have left this out as it only syncs names and
telephone numbers, not email addresses,which is of no use to me.

Quite a complicated process, but well worth it I think. I hope someone
else finds this helpful.

UPDATE: Jake from hpcfactor.com added this tip, "disabling automatic reminders in Pocket Outlook will also take away the default appt reminder in a GooSync sync".

Sent from my HP Jornada 720

Sunday, 5 May 2013

Connecting To The Cloud

Yes, believe it or not, it is possible. You can connect to Google
Drive, Skydrive, Dropbox etc. from the trusty old Jornada HPC.

I looked into this for a long time: trying the webdav plugin for Total
Commander, and playing around with services such as attachments.me
(the latter allows you to send attachments to the cloud as email
attachments), but not to any great success.

Then I stumbled upon storagemadeeasy.com. I was looking for some free
method of accessing my files in the cloud, and have so far not found a
way. This service is quite cheap though, and not only provides a way
to download to and upload from the Handheld PC, but has some nifty
tools for accessing the same on your desktop PC or even from Libre
Office on a portable flash drive.

Once signed up to the free service, which allows you to connect to up
to three of your cloud storage services, you can add FTP access for a
one time fee of around $20 or £12.

Once this is done, you can add the settings to Resco Explorer's FTP
plug-in (see image), and away you go.

I expect this should work in Total Commander too but have not tried
it.

I have also used this to print to an HP wireless printer, but more on
that another time.

Sent from my HP Jornada 720

Saturday, 27 April 2013

Connecting to the Internet

The great thing about the Jornada is it's built-in 56K modem. It gave
me such a kick to connect it to the phone line and try dial-up again
after all these years and hear all those noises emanating from the
machine. I must have been really handy at the time to just plug in a
cable and connect for your email or web.

Fast forward to 2013 and to be honest, it's not so handy any more.
It's more of a bind than anything else. I did toy with the idea of
carrying a modem cable around with me, but I knew there had to be a
better way.

So back to ebay and I found a cheap PCMCIA wi-fi card called the
"Cabletron Systems Roamabout Wi-Fi". Setting it up wasn't so easy
though. There seem to be quite a few of these listed on ebay at the
moment in the UK and appear on searches for "Jornada", so there may be
a few people stuggling like I did.

Firstly, I couldn't find the correct drivers, and spent a lot of time
installing and uninstalling drivers to no avail. The drivers supplied
with the card were of no use. The correct drivers, which I eventually
tracked down are in the repository on the right if anyone needs them.

Windows CE 3.0 cannot support the WPA encryption that my wireless
router uses, and I didn't want to drop the security to WEP, so once
again I had to be a bit more creative.

On the router I set up a guest network called "Jornada". In the router
settings I made sure that it was set to not broadcast the SSID,
meaning other computers would not be able to see this guest network.
You would only be able to connect if you knew the name of the network.
On the back of the Roamabout card is something called a MAC address.
This is a unique identifier for the modem card, so if you set up a MAC
adddress filter on the guest network for this address, it will only
let this particular card connect. I left the guest network unsecured.

That done, I added a profile in the Roamabout settings. When it asked
for SSID I had to type this in because it is a hidden network. I made
sure the security settings were left open and finished the setup.

Lo and behold, it worked!

To be sure it's not going to be the fastest connection to the
internet, but you don't need it on a device of this age.

Out and about, I suspect there would be problems connecting to public
wi-fi hotspots because of the security, but at home this works fine
and dandy.

In any case, I have just ordered a Nokia D211 Wi-Fi/GPRS card from
Amazon second hand, which should solve the mobility issue once set up
with a pay-as-you-go SIM card, so I'll let you know how that goes.

Sent from my HP Jornada 720

Friday, 26 April 2013

GSPlayer

What a great little media player this is. It is freeware, nice and
compact and plays shoutcast streams.

If you want to play shoutcast on your HPC simply do the following:

- Install GSPlayer from the repository on this blog. There is no CAB
file: simply unzip to a folder on the device and run the .exe, create
a desktop shortcut or assign to a hotkey.

- On your laptopor desktop, browse to shoutcast.com, find a station
you like and right-click on the link. Choose "save link as" and save
the "tunein-station.pls" file somewhere.

- Rename the "tunein-station.pls" to the name of the station, e.g.
"Smooth Jazz.pls" and then transfer to a folder on your handheld.

-From there, you can either open the file you just saved from GSPlayer
or double click the file from explorer.

- Listen to the radio! (best to keep the Jornada on charge or you'll
have a flat battery very quickly.)

This is of course assuming you have your Jornada connected to the
internet. This might work over dial-up, but unlikely. I'll explain how
I got my J720 online in the next post.

Also, coming soon: How I managed to set up wireless printing through a
very convoluted solution, and how I now have cloud access to Skydrive,
Google Drive, and Dropbox!

Sent from my HP Jornada 720

Tuesday, 23 April 2013

New Software Repository

Trawling the web for old legacy software has certainly kept me
occupied for the last few weeks. It seems that some software titles
are just dead and buried and will probably never see the light of day
again.

To make things easier for any new HPC owners that land on this blog, I
thought I would put together a little repository of some of the best
and most useful (and often hard to find) applications for the
platform.

They are either freeware or trial versions, so I should not be
stepping on any toes by putting them up here. Needless to say, if you
need to get some of the software registered, then you should try the
official sources first, but if the software has been abandoned by it's
writers then you might need to be a little more (ahem) creative!

I have included nPOPuk, which is still supported by it's developers
and seems to be the only email client worth installing. Many of the
other clients do not support SSL, which means you cannot use it with
modern email servers like GMail etc. Best of all, it's free!

There is also Opera Mobile 8.65 (trial) but make sure you install
Redgear first. Redgear allows you to run software designed for later
Windows CE devices on the Jornada.

Opera is probably your best option for web browsing, but to be honest;
that ain't saying much. Web browsing on the J720 is painful at best:
there doesn't seem to be enough memory, modern website security seems
to always fail, and the machine has locked up completely on me on
numerous occasions while trying to browse. However, a computer needs
web capability doesn't it? Well this is as good as it gets.

Resco did some pretty decent software back in the day, and here we
have two fine examples. The first is Resco File Explorer which is much
easier to use than the built-in explorer, has loads of functions, and
has an FTP plug-in. The FTP plug-in has proven to be very useful, but
more on that in a future post. There is the also excellent Total
Commander for the same sort of thing, but I just prefer Resco's app.

The second Resco app is Photo Viewer, which allows basic conversion
and editing of photos as well as viewing. Not only that, but it has a
screen capture function which is useful for me when posting screencaps
here.

Resco Explorer has a registry editor plug-in, but I prefer this one:
PHM Registry Editor. This is useful for tweaking the system, but more
on that later as well.

CE Agenda, is a very nice PIM application, but so far, I have had
little success syncing my google calendar items, so it's not very
useful to me at the moment.

Finally, FrotzCE is for playing Infocom style text adventures and I've
had lots of fun with this already. Great on a device with a keyboard
like this. Takes me back to yesteryear.

Well that's all for now. Hope this has been useful.

Sent from my HP Jornada 720

Sunday, 21 April 2013

Don't pin any hopes on getting google calendar sync to work...

I have been trying to get this to work for some time now.

You see, I don't have Outlook installed on my PC: I use Google
services for just about everything. Anyhow, I resent having to dock
the Jornada and sync with my PC. I have a wireless card in the
handheld, so shouldn't I be able to do this over-the-air?

Well, as is often the case, the HPC predates google's sync services
and any software I could find requires a higher version of the OS and
.net CF 2.0. I could get around the versioning problem using tools
such as "executability check" but not the .net CF requirement. There
is absolutely no way to install it on this machine. You can install
.net CF 1.0, but this is not compatible with any of those apps.












The closest I have come to getting google sync to work is by
installing an old Pocket PC shareware application called "TTSync". It
will run if you have the Redgear utility installed. However, as you
can see from the picture, it doesn't run very well.

Nevertheless, I tried ediing the .ini file in the TTSync folder with
the the server details for Goosync.com (where I have registered an
account) and eventually I had success. The sync process seemed to work
and I had my google calendar appointments and contacts appearing in
Pocket Outlook.

Sadly, this only seems to work once, and then I have to delete my
device profile on goosync and re-add it for the sync to work again,
and when it does work for subsequent tries, it duplicates all the
data.

Therefore I have given up for the time being, but at least the above
shows that it is at least technically possible.

Sent from my HP Jornada 720

Sunday, 14 April 2013

My New (But Old) Gadget

So, I have had this lovely HP Jornada 720 Handheld PC for a couple of
weeks now.

Being a gadget nut who always likes to have the latest toys, I had
longed for this for many years after it's release circa 2000.The
problem being, the extremely high price at the time.

Fast forward to 2013: remembering how I'd coveted the Jornada, I took
a little look on ebay, and a few days later had the device in my
hands.

Having played around with it, I have come to realise that installing
software and getting it to work with with services is far more
difficult than I imagined on a thirteen year old device.

There a couple useful websites out there, but even those are not very
current.

Hence this little blog: I aim to provide information on how I have
managed (or tried) to make the Jornada into a useful device. Judging
by the number of these being sold on ebay, there ought to be a few
people out there who may find this useful.

I'll also be updating the blog entirely from the J720.

Sent from my HP Jornada 720