After I’ve published the Roundup of All Pocket PC Image Viewers and Editors, Resco has been silent for over 1.5 years and haven’t come up with a new version of their excellent image viewer (and a bit barebone editor), Resco Photo Viewer. Up until now, that is – they have just released the latest version of their flagship image viewer.
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Availability, compatibility
The viewer is available here. It’s compatible with all Pocket PC’s starting with PPC 2002. (Note that the homepage only promises WM2003+ compatibility. This is not the case – it’s also compatible with earlier Pocket PC 2002 devices and runs just great on my 5-year-old Compaq iPAQ 3660).
It also has MS Smartphone / Symbian S60, UIQ and Palm OS versions. I’ve also checked out the latter on my Palm Tungsten T3. It also ran flawlessly and was able to zoom into 10 Mpixel images without getting pixelizated. Excellent results!
The price of the title is $24.95; you get the new version for free if you purchased the title in the last 12 months and with a 50% rebate if you’ve a customer of a previous version but purchased it before the last year. Also, if you purchase the title, you get a $5 rebate for Resco Explorer 2005, Resco Radio and Resco Audio Recorder – all top-level, highly recommended applications (see for example the Audio Recorder Bible on why I consider Resco Audio Recorder the best Pocket PC sound recorder application).
What’s new?
Regarding the Roundup (please see this article for Resco 5.31-specific info), they have fixed almost all the problems / shortcomings I’ve listed in there:
It has no longer problems in fully zooming into high-resolution photos. This means it can effectively make use of the RAM memory of devices that have plenty of them. For example, I had no problems with fully zooming into 10 Mpixel images (for example this one; this screenshot also shows this) on my 128M RAM-equipped WM2003SE VGA Pocket Loox 720. While zooming into this image, the RAM usage was around 40 Mbytes, which does also show it did zoom into the image. Also note the new zoom icons – now, it’s far easier to change the zoom percentage.
It supports the video output capabilities (see this article for more info) 2700G MPU in the Dell Axim x50v / x51v. This is also a very welcome addition and great news for all x50v / x51v users.
It supports both manual (hardware button-based) zoom in/out and scrolling around in an image. This has been missing from all the other image viewers.
It has wallpaper setting capabilities – with transparency setting. The latter is painfully missing from most (simple) Today wallpaper setter applications.
It allows for directly exporting a given image to the system-level Contacts database.
It supports WM5 softkeys.
The program has undergone a generic facelift; all icons have been changed and made much prettier.
Also see THIS for more info on the changes.
What hasn’t changed (much)?
The screen capture module (please see this full roundup of all Pocket PC-based solutions to see how Resco’s solution compares to the alternatives) hasn’t changed much as can be seen in here – there is a new Settings button, which makes it easier to set the image target and type paramers. (For comparison, the main dialog of version 5.32 can be seen in here). This means, unfortunately, there’re no radically new additions to this module.
The editing functionality of the application isn’t at all extended; the same stands for the (still) non-existing batch editing / conversions. This is not a big problem though.
Verdict
The best Pocket PC-based image viewer just got better. While it’s still lacking some (advanced, “geeky”) functionality, you won’t find better / faster generic-use photo / image viewers for the Pocket PC. Don’t forget to check it out, particularly if you’re already an owner of a previous version and are, therefore, eligible for free / rebated upgrade.
On my universal, I m having problems playing mpg files. It makes the whole unit hangs.
Somebody else having problem with Resco photo viewer on universal??
Workin great on my wizard! Love the speed, great app, definitly buying it...
I had problems viewing mpegs in Photo Viewer on my XDA Exec until I installed it to the main memory and also turned off image caching. Now works perfectly.
Related
I’ve long been wanting to review Scott Seligman’s Launcher, which has always been one of the better and, what is more, free (!) Today launchers.
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Availability, compatibility
(Current, tested version: 1.40)
It’s available here (direct download link here) and is compatible with all WM2003+ operating systems (it’s NOT compatible with PPC2k / 2k2 - tested this on my Compaq iPAQ 3660.)
I’ve tested it on most (HTC Wizard (WM5; KTamas/bepe AKU3.2 RC1 ROM version), Dell Axim x51v (WM5; A12), HP iPAQ hx4700 (WM5; 2.01), HP iPAQ 2210 (WM2003; 1.10) and Pocket Loox 720) of my WM2003+ devices (along with memory / CPU usage meters) and had no problems on any of them.
Usage
Install it. After the first run (enable it in Settings / Personal / Today / Items), the \Launcher directory on your PDA will be populated with all the links in your Start Menu. You can, then, freely edit these and delete the ones you don't need.
Memory and CPU usage
Additional CPU usage is only measurable when there are a lot of links. On WM5 devices, shell32.exe consumes between 3 and 6 % on my three WM5 devices when the plug-in displayed (that is, when the Today screen is active) between 10 and 30 icons (the fewer icons, the lower CPU usage). On WM2003(SE) device, the CPU impact was far lower - almost impossible to measure.
The memory usage depends on the number of the displayed icons (because of the in-RAM icon cache). Upon just enabling the plug-in, the RAM usage only increases by about 60 kbytes; when you have, say, 25 icons, the additional memory usage will be about 300 kbytes (including the size of the app itself). This is a very good result, compared to the much larger memory usage of the alternate Today launchers.
When the Today screen is not active…
The CPU usage goes away but the memory isn’t freed up. The former is great news, the latter isn’t very (but at least it guarantees Today reloads very fast if you switch it back, thanks for the icon cache).
Native VGA compliance
Unfortunately, in native VGA, the icons become small as can also be seen in here. In this respect, Spb Pocket Plus and iLauncher are both better (but not Resco Explorer's Today launcher.)
Compared to the alternates...
As opposed to cLaunch, the other, well-known free Today launcher, it doesn’t have any kind of GUI or link editor. However, it’s very easy to edit links in the above-explained way. It doesn’t have categories (tabs) either (not that it’d really annoy me: on the contrary, I almost never use tabs. This, of course, only applies to me – some other users may prefer tabs.) It isn't able to display titles (labels) for icons either.
It, however, is fully VGA compliant, as can also be seen in the example screenshots (both the SE (standard) and the native VGA. This means it won’t mess up the Today wallpaper, unlike cLaunch.
The icons are navigable with the cursor pad on all WM2003SE+ devices - this is also very good news.
Verdict
Go get it, particularly if you still don’t have any Today launcher. After all, it’s free and has much better (much lower) memory usage than some of the alternates (for example, Spb Pocket Plus). With other free tools like the very good Magic Button, PIEPlus 2.11 (review here) and Spb Pocket Plus’ Safe Mode module only (nothing else! I tend to disable all its modules in its entirety because of the considerable memory usage and the, compared to PIEPlus 2.11 / MultiIE 4.0, really poor PIE / IEM plug-in), you can achieve the same as with Spb Pocket Plus – at a MUCH lower memory usage.
Other links
Today launcher/meter plug-ins - the complete roundup (alternates: MobilitySite, AximSite, PPC Magazine, FirstLoox, Brighthand). This is a bit old (I've published it a year ago), but is still worth checking out.
What to come?
A decent comparison of iLauncher 3 and Spb Pocket Plus 3.1. Hope I'll be able to publish it soon.
tdlaunch should also be mentioned, which was a precursor to claunch.
TDlaunch is great, claunch better - it's so good, I put my name on it, as they say.
V
vijay555 said:
tdlaunch should also be mentioned, which was a precursor to claunch.
TDlaunch is great, claunch better - it's so good, I put my name on it, as they say.
V
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, as soon as I have some time to rewrite the old Today launcher roundup with iLauncher3 and the like, I'll also include Tdlaunch.
Ever played Aspyr’s Enigmo (note that Aspyr has removed their Enigmo page in the meantime, this is why I’m giving you a Handango link. See for the 3D Accelerated Pocket PC Games and Demos Bible Part II for more info and the alternative review in German here)? Wanted something similar for the Pocket PC, running on all Pocket PC models, not only on Intel 2700G-enabled ones? (Unfortunately, you must have a 2700G-based Pocket PC – that is, currently, a Dell Axim x50v or x51v – to run Enigmo.) AeonFlame’s Gloop Zero may be of interest to you!
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Availability, compatibility
It’s available here. The full version costs $14.99; there is also a trial version.
The game is compatible with WM2003+ operating systems (this means it’s NOT compatible with PPC 2002 – I’ve tested this). I had no problems running it on my QVGA/VGA WM2003(SE) / WM5 test devices – it ran OK on all of them.
Visuals
Pretty good, albeit nothing extraordinary. There’s no Hi-Res VGA support. The game is Landscape-only.
Sounds / music
Absolutely nothing. This is a BIG problem – the Zodiac version has nice in-game music. The developer should implement music as soon as possible. However, with the hack I've found out, you'll be able to play the original music in the background - see the next section.
Do you still want the original music on the Pocket PC?
If you have a compatible (Palm OS 5 and HiRes(+)) Palm OS device too, download the original Palm OS demo, install it onto your Palm device (installing will ONLY work through HotSync; direct PRC install off a storage card doesn't work), go to \PALM\Programs\GloopZero-GLPZ\data\other\music\ on your storage card and copy the files to your Pocket PC. These are midi files; this means you'll need to have a midi-enabled local player on your Pocket PC if you want to listen to just these files while playing the game. Please read the Midi Bible for more information on all these questions. Fortunately, the game lets for playing anything in the background - so, this hack will work.
This will only work if you have a Palm OS device - the Pocket PC version doesn't have these files and, as far as I know, it's not possible (without some elaborate hacking) to extract the original files from the given installer file.
Compared to Enigmo...
There is, in my opinion, no comparison as far as graphics and sound / music are concerned. Enigmo has very nice music and sound effects and is, of course, high-resolution. Even after dumbing down (which unfortunately, I don’t think will ever happen as Aspyr doesn’t seem to support the game any more, let alone release a new, non-2700G-only version of it) not to require hardware OpenGLES support (2700G, GoForce), it would still remain, in my opinion, better than Gloop Zero.
Playability-wise, on the other hand, Gloop Zero is a bit easier / faster in my opinion – with Enigmo, you need to position the gadgets far more thoroughly than with this title. With Gloop Zero, after deciding for a strategy on a given level, sometimes you “only” need to do some drawing with the stylus and all is set. With Enigmo, this takes far more time. That is, if you find Enigmo requiring far too much time to solve a given puzzle and want something similar, you may find Gloop Zero very cool.
Compared to the Palm OS version...
Unfortunately, the regular Palm OS version (I've played it on my Palm Tungsten T3) also lacks both sounds / music and HiRes+ graphics (it uses 320*320 in Portrait - that is, HiRes, without the + - only).
Verdict
Well, if you’re lucky enough to have a Dell Axim x50v or x51v and have already given Enigmo a try (if you haven’t, do it now – it’s a masterpiece!), I think you’ll be disappointed with Gloop Zero at first – Enigmo is definitely better-looking and -sounding. It's only because of the much faster gameplay that you may want to prefer this title to Enigmo.
If you, on the other hand, don’t have any 3D accelerated Pocket PC devices and want to have an entertaining game that will keep you and your brain occupied, you definitely want to consider giving the trial of this game a try – it is pretty cool, despite the major flaws (no music / sound and, to a lesser degree, no high-resolution support). Remember, again, that you can "hack" the original midi music files out of the Palm OS version if you really want to listen to them while playing.
(News source: PocketGamer.org.)
You may have heard of (and even seen!) the National Weather Service Enhanced Radar Loop on your Windows Mobile device, particularly if you’ve visited Beverly Howard’s related link collection. This Radar loop gives a nation-wise (U.S. only) radar image of notable weather conditions and is highly useful and popular.
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(WM6 Internet Explorer Mobile screenshots on VGA devices using the CrEme Java plug-in with Use High Resolution enabled.)
In this article, unlike with Beverly Howard’s links (see the “Recommended links” section), I elaborate on making the enhanced (dynamic) version work on Windows Mobile devices. While requiring substantially more resources, it offers a lot of goodies not available in the standard (basic) version, which is a plain animated GIF without any configuration / zoom-in capabilities. For example, with the enhanced version, you can freely en/disable counties / rivers / highways; you can freely zoom in/out etc. I really recommend giving both the standard and the enhanced version a try on your desktop browser to see the differences – you’ll love the enhanced capabilities of the latter. (Let it download and install the Java plug-in if it isn’t already installed.)
I’ve already elaborated on the Windows Mobile (WM for short) compliance of the enhanced Radar applet almost two years ago in my previous, pretty thorough article "Making the National Weather Service Enhanced Radar Loop Java applet work on your Pocket PC" (also cross-posted to MobilitySite, AximSite, BrightHand). In the meantime, however, the applet has been substantially updated (the previous version, for example, didn’t allow for dis/enabling terrain, rivers etc) and its resource needs increased, which, unfortunately, also means it has become incompatible with the majority of the Java-capable Web browsers on WM.
Two years ago, all major Java-capable browsers (Thunderhawk, Access NetFront 3.2 (the, then, current version of the browser)) and the two available WM Pocket Internet Explorer Java plug-ins, Jeode (then, tested with 1.7.1) and CrEme (then 4.0) ran the applet pretty well.
Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. I’ve given the applet a very thorough try in the following configurations:
WM2003 / WM5 / WM6 + NetFront 3.3 (the last NetFront version commercially available; that is, having a Java plug-in)
WM2003 + NetFront 3.2 (version 3.2 is not compatible with newer WM versions)
WM2003 / WM5 / WM6 + Jeode 1.7.1
WM2003 iPAQ 2210 + Jeode 1.9.1 (couldn’t test it on other, newer devices because it’s locked to the iPAQ brand)
WM5 / WM6 Internet Explorer Mobile + CrEme 4.10 plug-in
The latest Thunderhawk
Of these, it’s only the latter two that still supports the Radar applet; the former three not any more. This is particularly sad with the two NetFront versions, which no longer are able to run the applet.
All in all, if you are a Thunderhawk subscriber or happen to have the CrEme JVM on your WM device, you can still enjoy the vastly enhanced capabilities of the Radar applet.
An important Thunderhawk tip
Thunderhawk, by default, uses a 640*480 zoom, converted to 320*240 on the client (even on VGA devices, unfortunately). This means fine text on images become totally unreadable as can be seen in here and here. Fortunately, with explicitly switching to low-resolution mode inside Thunderhawk, the results become pretty usable, as can be seen in the following screenshot:
Additional remarks & screenshots for geeks & WM gurus
NetFront 3.3: stops at 30-33% on all supported OS’es (WM2003, WM5, WM6) (device.exe and cvm.exe crashes when the dynamic memory is either fully filled in – with devices having less than 31-32M of RAM before starting to load the page or after allocating some 35Mbyte of RAM on devices with more memory). Under the old 3.2 with a WM2003 device having initially less free memory than 35 Mbytes, at least it stated it’s because of the shortage of RAM that it can’t go further. Of course, decreasing the initially 1 Mbyte warning threshold to 0 Mbytes (as is recommended by NetFront) doesn’t help – it just further results in the entire device’s locking up (particularly under WM5, where the free RAM threshold of the system becoming unstable and messed-up is around 1.5 Mbytes).
On the two tested Jeode versions (used with PIE / IEM), it won’t ever stop loading. On a freshly hard reset and, therefore, absolutely clean iPAQ 2210: after allocating some 35M of memory, it didn’t go on; the same stands for NF 3.2 and 3.3 running on WM2003.
Recommended links
Beverly Howard’s link collection, linking to GIF animations.
Windows Mobile Web Browsing Bible - the source of ALL Web Browsing-related information. A MUST read!
Many older computer users know what adventure games the excellent folks Magnetic Scrolls have produced some really good adventure games. (See THIS (if the link doesn’t work, THIS) for more info). If you want to play these really excellent games on your Windows Mobile (WM for short) device, I have some very good news for you: yes, they’re all playable – and not only under CPU-hungry and not-the-best-suited-for-the-Windows-Mobile-UI emulators, but also real interpreters.
You may have already heard of “Magnetic”, THE Magnetic Scrolls games interpreter. It, fortunately, also has a Windows Mobile port.
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(another VGA shot; a QVGA one)
There are three main revisions of Magnetic: 1, 2 and 2.2. Of course, the higher, the better (see the three charts comparing them HERE for more info on the version differences if interested). For WM, fortunately, a port of the latest, 2.2 version is available; as with the desktop Windows. Note that there is another version called for WindowsCE-based Handheld Pro and 2000 devices: chiark’s MagnetiCE; you will NOT want to use it on your WM device because it uses H/PC menus even under Windows Mobile.
Installing the interpreter
Download it from here (linked from this IF-Archive page) (alternative, direct download here). Unzip MagneticWinCE.exe and transfer it anywhere on your handheld.
Note that the interpreter is only compatible with WM2003SE and newer operating systems. It doesn't seem to run under WM2003 (tested on my iPAQ 2210), let alone PPC2k2. I had no problems running it on my (several) WM2003SE+ devices; worked flawlessly even under WM6. It makes use of built-in keyboards and landscape modes without problems. It also supports command history (up/down cursor keys), which is very useful particularly if you want to, say, repeat “wait” many times.
Getting and installing the games
Fortunately, all compatible games are available online and you don’t need to do any conversion. Go HERE and go to the bottom, to the bottom-most Game Files chart. Download the “Story files” of all the games you’d like to enjoy. Unzip it to anywhere on your storage card. Make sure you only put it in a direct descendant (subdirectory) of the root of the card and not the second, third etc. one; this, unfortunately, also applies to the \My Documents directory on your card) or in the main storage, under a directory in \My Documents.
If you don't like this restriction because of the standard file selection dialog, you can fix the problem by getting Mad Programmer’s File Dialog Changer , the current WM5/WM6-compliant version of which is 1.66. Get it HERE. You'll also need GSGetfile.
I’ve often elaborated on the installation / usage of this really useful utility (see for example THIS). Just a quick recap (with WM6 screenshots): after transferring ARM\filedlgchg.cpl from filedlgchg.zip and ARMRel\gsgetfile.dll from gsgetfile-i.zip to \Windows on your mobile device, go to the new Settings / System / File Dialog Changer applet and just check in “Exchange Standard File Dialog”. This will make it possible to peek in anywhere in the file system as can be seen in here.
In addition to the (text-only) story, you may also want to download the image repository (see the “Graphics file” column for all the games you’d like to run). Title graphics and title music files are also downloadable (if present); you will need to separately watch / listen to them from a multimedia player and an image viewer. Hint files, on the other hand, are also handled by the interpreter engine; therefore, you will want to download them too if you do need hints.
Then, just start MagneticWinCE.exe, select File / Open and select the game to play.
The menu of the interpreter is pretty straightforward; in addition to the standard Open / Exit functionality, in Edit / Verb, you can select five predefined verbs to speed up input words. In Display, you can set the size of the images displayed (and whether they’re displayed at all).
The Palm OS Kronos emulator
If you have a Palm OS device, you may have heard of Kronos, an emulator for Magnetic Scrolls, Infocom-style ZMachine, and Scott Adams style adventure games. It’s very advanced: as opposed to the original Windows (and Windows Mobile) version, it supports automaps and popwords.
Unfortunately, it (as of the latest, 1.4.7 version) crashes the current version (1.0.025) of StyleTap, the Palm OS emulator for WM, in the 66% screen mode and, as can be seen in here, in 100% mode, on VGA devices, it uses a low-resolution display. However, if you can live with this (because don’t want to enjoy the images), running Kronos under StyleTap may be a good alternative.
Note that as far as QVGA (low-resolution) Windows Mobile devices are concerned, images are almost invisible on them; example screenshots here and here. However, if you don’t need images at all or can play in 66% mode on QVGA devices, the images are, then, correctly displayed (1 2).
Note that Kronos offers autoload/save features. This is missing from the WM version. The latter, however, supports saving and loading the game state (via the save/load commands) any time.
This is the latest part of my Games News series; you can find the previous part HERE. The news in this part applies to both the Pocket PC (Windows Mobile 6 Pro / Classic) and MS Smartphone (Windows Mobile 6 Standard) devices - that is, no matter what Windows Mobile device you have, you WILL want to read on.
Arcade Park 1.3 out – now, with redefinable fire button!
Arcade Park is, in my opinion, a really good collection of reimplementation of old arcade games reviewed HERE (you may also want to check out the two other reviews linked at the end) containing several old subgames. It’s available for example HERE for all mobile platforms, including both the MS Smartphone (both 176*220 and QVGA) and Pocket PC (it’s even compatible with 240*240 square-screen devices; unfortunately, it doesn’t make use of high resolution on VGA ones).
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(main menu on a 176*220 Smartphone; the same on a QVGA/VGA PPC / QVGA Smartphone)
In-game screenshot on a 176*220 Smartphone; the same on a QVGA/VGA PPC / QVGA Smartphone)
The biggest problem with the game, so far, have been the inability to redefine keys; most importantly, the Action button. Now, oin the new version, you can do it in the new Controls menu. Example 176*220 SP screenshots: 1 2 (on a QVGA PPC / SP)
(Incidentally, as can also be seen in the in-game screenshots, you no longer need to defend the Soviet flag, which may be good news for several players, particularly in post-Soviet countries. Another plus for the developers.)
(Guys, I’m really sorry you’ve just missed the deadline date for the Awards 2007 with this upgraded version. Should you have published the new version some days earlier, I would definitely have nominated it for this year’s awards. No problem – I’ll do it next year.)
Verdict
Now that the button redefinition problem is fixed, highly recommended, particularly if you have a Smartphone (given the lack of good MS Smartphone games).
SmartGear 0.28 out!
SmartGear is one of the best gaming console emulatrors I’ve featured in my past emulator news / roundups.
So far, one of the biggest problems with the emulator was the sound problems (in addition to its incompatibility with some games – for example, enhanced NES titles; the PC Engine version of Turrican – unfortunately, this hasn’t been enhanced. The only change is that for example Turrican no longer starts (with all 0.2x versions, as opposed to 0.12)). Now, according to the developer, this is supposed to be fixed.
Note that there are still some problems with the sound: for example, the PC Engine (TG-16) version of Bonk's Adventure still plays the same FM-like sounds during the game as earier versions. Also, very few Genesis (Mega Drive) games have music (for example, Xenon 2 (Xenon 2 Megablast (E) [c][!]) and Risky Woods (Risky Woods (UE) [!]) don’t have, the former not even sounds; one of the very few games that do have music is Alien 3 (JUE) [!]. Also, the FitWin* mode still crashes on my VGA devices and FitWin is unberabaly slow – you will still need to use either the 100% or the 150% mode, which means stamp-sized screens on VGA devices. On the other hand, on 176*220 Smartphones (for example, on my HTC Oxygen / s310), where it’s REALLY needed with most desktop games (otherwise, they’d be too big even in 75% mode) FitWin works just great and doesn’t result in any really bad speed decrease (tested this with the GG version of Sonic and the PC Engine version of Bonk's Adventure; they both worked just great with the default sound / frame skipping / throttling settings on my Oxygen).
The desktop Windows version of the emulator, after closing it once (because I couldn’t continue a paused game), kept crashing after restarts.
All in all, while this title is REALLY good (particularly on slower devices – for example, non-overclocked TI OMAP ones, including, screen size-wise, both types of Smartphones), the FitWin performance may need to be addressed on VGA Pocket PC’s as soon as possible, along with the Genesis (Mega Drive) music issues.