Baby pictures…
So, I’m supposed to have been posting stuff, haven’t I? Sorry about that.. been distracted. Don’t have much to say at the moment, actually, so let me distract you with some pictures of my new baby: the iPaq 2215 (if anyone out there has a cute nickname I could give it, I’m all ears!). I’ll just put the first screenie here, the rest will be after the -more- so as not to clutter up the main page too much.
This is the main screen of the iPaq. Notice the Penny Arcade/Metroid wallpaper. It identifies me as a geek (even more than carrying around a PDA does). Lots of extra buttons, icons, and info, too, like battery and memory meters, weather indicators, etc. A busy Today screen is a happy today screen. 
Reading is, of course, one of my favorite pasttimes, and every PDA I’ve had, from my old Visor to the Zaurus to the new iPaq, have become capable eBook readers (I often carry around 5-8 ebooks in memory at any given time). I think I mentioned before in another post that I wasn’t terribly fond of the built-in Microsoft Reader software that came with the iPaq, though. It was serviceable, sure, but it had a lot of shortcomings. Then I found my current favorite: Mobipocket Pro 4.8. It shows a lot more text on screen than the MS Reader, and it lets me rotate the screen (as shown above) for a comfier reading experience. Add in really nice font anti-aliasing (makes text easy to read), a bright screen, and auto-scrolling, and you’ve got one bad-ass little eBook machine.
Few things show off the cool multimedia capabilities of my new precious better than playing Flash animations on it. The Bryht Flash Player lets me download Flash anims from the web and watch them on the iPaq, with full color, sound, and interactivity, and they move perfectly, no stuttering or anything. I can even put them up full-screen. Rawk. 
Ah, AvantGo, my old standby. I had it on my Visor, I missed it on my Zaurus, and it’s back again on the iPaq. Hundreds of news and entertainment channels available, all I have to do is pick the ones I want to be kept up to date on, and it takes care of the rest. On every sync, it downloads the latest headlines from the sites I’ve chosen, like the NYTimes, Wired, MaximumPDA, and a buttload more. I even set up a custom channel to download the local movie times. Sweet.
The iPaq brought a little Notepad-type application built into it where I could scribble notes quickly if I needed to. It wasn’t terribly good, but it got the job done. Then I found PhatPad. It’s a simple Notepad application, sure, but it’s so much better. First off, the visual quality is stunning. It incorporates anti-aliasing to create a really smooth ‘digital ink’ effect that makes my chicken scratches much easier to read. It can also translate the handwriting into regular text for copying and pasting into other apps (in combination with the Calligrapher handwriting recgonition software from the same company). Each line and letter drawn can also be picked up, moved, edited, and deleted individually. It can also be set up so that it automatically turns simple drawings, like crude circles and boxes, into perfect squares, triangles, and circles automatically, which is neat for sketching out quick maps and the like. Overall, a really neat app, and one I get a lot of use out of. I might never need a pad of paper again.
I’m a busy, busy man. Or, at least, so I like to pretend. It makes me feel important. In any case, while the built-in calendar app is seviceable, I found a much better one: Pocket Informant. It’s a calendar, to-do list, and time tracker all in one. Really slick interface, more options than I’ll probably ever use, and quite handy for keeping track of my meetings and how many hours I’ve spent on each project.
Ahh.. time for some fun. First up is a classic: Bejeweled. It’s every bit as good and addictive as the online version, with better graphics, and great for passing the minutes in line for food or tickets.
And then come the Snails. If you’ve ever played ‘Worms’, you know this game. It’s basically a clone of ‘Worms’, but with cute little snails instead, raining death, chaos, and destruction upon one another. It’s a fun little strategy game, and the cutesy graphics mean that your female friends won’t look at you too oddly when you play it.
Insaniquarium: here’s the idea: you have this tank full of guppies. You have to feed them to keep them alive. As you feed them, they start to grow. With me so far? Good. Now, once they start to grow, they start to poop. They start to poop coins. You pick up these coins, and you buy more guppies, better foods, and laser guns. Laser guns? Sure, you need them, if you’re going to defend your coin-pooping guppies from the evil aliens that occasionally pop up to try and eat them. Now, throw in some pirannas, special pets, different tanks, and star-gobbling, diamond-popping anonemae, and you’ve got Insaniquarium. It’s good.
And finally, a screenshot of GFinder+ 2, a freebie that’s much, much better than the built-in File Explorer. Gives you the same kind of control over the iPaq’s file system that you might have on your desktop. Good stuff.
Well, that’s it for now. Enough showing off. I promise next time I’ll put up some actual content.
