Related
Hi.
I study Telecomunications Engineering and I need to have a sicentific calculator like Hp 59g ot 48, or aTexas Instrument Model like those, to make some subjects abaut calculate or algebra...
I´m looking for a software to emulate this calculators, but I can´t find anything.. Could anybody tell me something abaut?
73´s
Here's one: http://www.calculator.org/download.html
Here's more: http://www.freewareppc.com/calculator/calculator.shtml
Make sure you have a pop-up blocker installed. :wink:
i just use the same hp48 emulator that i use as calculator for my normal pc
http://www.pocketpcfreewares.com/en/index.php?soft=307
could try 1-calc from omegaone, but it is resource hungry and takes large amounts of memory (about 8 meg I think). I rarely use it, but you can guarantee the time when i dont have something like that is the time that I am going to need it.
www.spacetimemobile.com
Absolutely FANTASTIC piece of software!!!
Version 1.9 is currently available for $30 and you can try a 15 day trial of it. Soon, version 2.0 will be released (it was meant to become available in December, grr!), that will be $40.
I'm sure that whatever you want it for, it will do it. As far as I can tell, it lacks no functions from my standard scientific calculator, and introduces more than I can concieve uses for!
..my favourite part is the 3D graphing technology
Ahap.
I saw the first links, and I don´t think they could help me...
I want something to operate with matrix calculate, memory for introduce transform formulas (as Laplace Transform...) integration, 2d and 3d representation, complex mode...
I´m going to see the other links right now and then I write you something...
thanks 4 all
73´s
Try Virtual TI, it's an emulator for the Texas Instruments Calculators.
If you google a bit you can find the ROMs needed, or if you have a TI at home you can download it from that one using a serial cable
Anyone have any luck getting a ti emu on WM200x? I sure could use it!!!
EDIT
I had some luck, I'll try it out and see (if i geta chance).
http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/309/30978.html
EDIT2
Here's a rom..... http://www.me.mtu.edu/~phlee/TI89/
I would like to try a ti83+ rom if someone has one/knows where one is.....
I'm gonna go play with this now and see how it is........
i used to do plenty of laplace and matrix calc on my hp48
so guess one can use the hp48 emulator i linked to
I use RDcalc v2.7A http://ravend.com/
Got it originally for use on IPAQ HX4700 WM2003, now use it on my XDA Exec WM5.
Added bonus was that it comes with a copy that you can use on the PC.
Lots of features.
no offense to rudger, but here is an sdk with the ti-83+ and a few other roms. Remember, you are violating copyright laws if you use a rom image of a calculator that you do not own!
http://education.ti.com/educationportal/appsdelivery/download/download.jsp
I haven't tried the other sci calcs. I know and like the TI83, so it's what i'm going with.... Good luck!
well once you go reverse polish notation you never look back
and you could get doom for the hp48
:lol:
MyCalculator v1.0 is quite good scientific calculator indeed
I would have to go with richardkemp on this one. SpaceTime is, as he rightfully said, absolutely fantastic.
I'm on an acoustics course and I do plenty of logarithmic, comlex, calculus based operations on it and including amazing graphing capabilities. This is THE CALCULATOR you wanna have. (If you've tried this and found something better, do let me know too
download from
www.spacetimemobile.com
Impressions from HTC Cruise - Windows Mobile
Hello All,
I have been relatively new here, but I thought I could contribute in the forums by posting my (unbiased) views about HTC Cruise here, hoping other people may find them useful. I am a software developer, so although I do not have an experience with hi-tech PDAs and smartphones, (never owned such a device before), I am fine with the technicalities of such devices.
My everyday phone was a simple sony ericson K510i . What had always annoyed me was that in most "simple" phones, it was quite hard to control the phone via my PC, do backups, backup contacts, SMSes, etc. My sony was good, I had found "MYPhoneExplorer" which pretty much did all those things for my phone. The screen was little bit outdated in terms of resolution, but I did not mind much.
And then came iPhone (which I never owned). I was impressed by its design, usability and user friendliness. I also liked the idea of having WiFi on it. I was close to buying that phone and using one of the available tools to unlock it, (noway I would pay for a contract - I am UK based). My brother who is into mobiles and gadgets more than I am, commented on the fact that iPhone is an "old" generation phone in terms of phone technologies and overpriced. I soon realised it was quite overpriced and started looking at alternatives. I was happy to see HTC would release a really cool phone, which I could get as my Christmas gift (yes, dream on, I had my eyes on it since November and managed to get it this February)...
So, what are my impressions so far?
I dare to say, quite mixed...
On the one hand this device is really wicked and cool! It has all the things I had always liked and needed in a single device. Packing a GPS, a radio, 3G, WiFi in a nice package is just amazing. I can now listen to music, watch videos, find my way around using GPS and have a nice PDA. These are really cool things! No need to have my pockets filled with separate devices...
On the other hand, this phone costed me little bit less than 400 pounds. One can argue you can get a laptop for that price, but then again, a laptop is not a phone. The video issues has not been much of an issue for me, I encode my videos at QVGA and all is well. However, I do get *very* upset when I realise that there is hidden potential in the hardware platform which has not been utilised. What I found bad straight from the moment i used it, is that when i press the "phone-call" hard button, there really is a lag when drawing the blue rectangle above the dialpad, (I am talking about the area which shows the names of your contacts as you type the numbers below.) I mean, come on, so much CPU power, and I can see the blue area being drawn? The other things is that if a couple of applications are running, then the phone does not seem to be operating so smoothly. Again, in order to be fair, it is still very usable. However, as things stand now in the market, in terms of specifications this phone is easily on the upper part, so in my opinion it should be fast, not just "very usable".
My other bit of criticism is probably related to Windows rather than HTC cruise. I find this OS quite interesting on the device, there is a huge applications' base and the things that are missing can be coded by talented people. However, I find the platform a little bit of a pain to use in a pure phone context. Why do i have to check an option everytime I want to get back a delivery report for my SMS? Why do I have to hack the registry to make this permanent? I set a wallpaper in my phone, then I set its transparency, then I realise it is hidden by the today plugin, which I can of course disable. If I disable it I loose certain features which are accessible straight away. I can of course get a new plugin that matchs my needs. Why is it so hard to have tabs with incoming/outgoing/missed calls? This is a feature that phones that cost 10 times less have. Of course Windows 6.1 has this, but then I would have to "install" a new ROM. Simple question: Why do I have to do these things? Why dont' they get it right from the beginning? Don't get me wrong, I am a technology enthusiast and I am sure I will manage to set up the phone the way I want. A number of users out there will do the same thing. However, is this platform one that non-enthusiasts would find user-friendly?
Look at all those skins and modding. Really cool. And the moment you press a button on your really cool new Today plugin, an ungly Windows application will pop up.
I hope that my criticism will be received well here! I like the phone, Windows is cool on it, but I think Microsoft has quite some way to go in order to make their platform really simple to use and user-friendly (think iPhone for example, my parents could use that, but I am quite sure if I show them my phone, they will not know how to make a a phonecall with it!)
In many ways some requirements are contradictory: Being user-friendly means you may have to hide settings, having your platform run on a variety of hardware means you cut corners here and there. Hopefully Microsoft will get it right with version 7 and 8, screenshots look quite good.
As for HTC... They lost a little bit of their credibility with a couple of issues for me. First the sound issue with the french rom which was initially denied and then fixed by people in this forum, then of course the drivers issue. I intend to make good use of this cool phone and customise it to my needs, it just takes time.
For your information, I find these applications useful:
Coreplayer (obviously!)
TouchPal keyboard works good for me
WKTask (and get rid off that default task switcher)
MyMobiler installs on your PC and a little "daemon-service" on your phone, (which you can disable). Then it allows you to control your phone from your desktop.
PocketCM did not particularly appeal to me, so I removed it
FunContact was cool, and loved it. Unfortunately, two things were not so good:
a) Splash screen and loading time
b) sometimes it made my phone freeze
Thanks for reading this (long) post,
Michael
Good post...Here are my impressions as well.
I used to carry a Palm Tx and a Motorala SLVR. I have been looking for the most ideal device to "do it all", PDA, phone (quad band gsm, tri band umts), wifi, and gps. There was nothing realy that appealing on the market until I read about the HTC Touch Cruise.
I read about people's complaints about the "driver" issues and hardware acceleration, and decided to take the risk and bought the phone from a gsm seller online. The phone was unbranded and did not have any stupid carrier proprietary software.
For the most part, I am very happy with the Touch Cruise. I have dumped the palm pda and the slvr, and have not looked back.
I just spent the last 2 weeks traveling to UK (London), Germany (Frankfurt), and Italy (Padova). As a mobile phone, the Touch Cruise functioned flawlessly and had 3G connections where they were available. Couldn't have asked for better features out of a "world" phone.
The TomTom GPS also ran quite well (Western Europe maps). Had to drive alot in Frankfurt and never got lost. Even traffic reports were right on the money.
As for a PDA, it blows the Palm syncing and calendar features out of the water. I used to be a Palm pilot only person, but Palm has become a dinasaur in their attutude to features and interface. The pocket pc has in my opinion surpassed them.
As a portable media device, it does kind of ok . Core Media Player is a must install, microsoft's media players still suck and are not usable and dont support all codecs. This device is not really ideal for video in my opinion. You have to re-encode videos to QVGA for ppc level quality, then video will play fine. You cant simply take a wmv file and dump it on the device to view, it wont work. As for music/mp3's, it works great. I got on a 10 hour flight from UK to US, and used it play music and games, and still had 40% battery charge left over and used an hour of GPS on the way home, with 20% left over.
In all fairness, the HTC could run a little faster, but I blame Microsoft and HTC for hogging up the cpu and not using hardware acceleration.
Since media (video) is not high on my list of required features, I am quite happy with the HTC Touch Cruise.
darkazally, I tend to agree with you really...
I guess if one did not have such a device before or had a really old one, then HTC Cruise is really super. On the other hand I can see certain people's frustration with Cruise. It is mostly people who owned 3 or 4 PDAs before and were probably expecting to be blown away by its specs; I kind of sypathise with them....
I read in an article written by someone at Microsoft, that companies tend to overload Windows with their own propriatory software and then the whole experience goes downwards. He mentioned that for the next versions of windows mobile, they intend to post stricter requirements just because of this situation.
As I also read in these forums, people who got their devices from O2 (just to mention a single company), seem to have more issues with HTC's performance...
I enjoy using the phone everyday and I am in the process of customising it to my needs, though it takes some time!
Uhhh mymobiler is amazing thanks for posting that! That is frickin sweet!
Great review, I tend to agree.
As far as PIM Management, I came from using two devices, a slim panasonic phone and a Xircom Rex 6000 PDA in the early part of this decade (circa 2001), like you I converged them into a Sony Ericsson phone (T610>T616) which had limited capabilities and lacked a lot of features my Rex had. In 2006, I got my first Windows Mobile smartphone, a Qtek 8310 (HTC Tornado), and now I have the HTC Touch Cruise.
Ever since getting into Windows Mobile, I thought that HTC/Microsoft had delivered great functionality, but poor usability and way too much lag for such high powered devices. Take for instance the settings panel. There are probably over 8 programs (4+networking icons, 3+ button config icons, ect) in there that only have one check box, when I'm sure HTC/Microsoft could very easily put them into one or two easy to use program with a Help feature.
But at the end of the day, I don't care if no one can use my device as long as I understand it. Additional consolation is provided in the fact that this phone looks so damned sexy
My Own impression
First of all, I'm new here & let me introduce my self...
I'm Richard & i'm from Indonesia.
I've waited for +3 months, before I decided to buy HTC Touch Cruise.
My other candidate are Atom Life & Nokia N82.
Soon (2 days) after my pal (who own a PDA shop) introduce me to Touch Cruise, I bought it
First impression is luxury.
Second impression........Windows Mobile sucks......
I have done hard reset for 4 times now....due to mis configure the registry....
I've done quite intensive test on my Touch Cruise, including Video,Audio,GPS,3G & Internet,Battery life & Applications.
This is my score (0-10):
1. Stability : 3 -> Typical Windows product
2. Looks : 9
3. Dimension : 8
4. Features : 8
5. Usability : 8
6. User Friendliness : 6
7. Battery Life : 7
Average score : 7
The Driver issue doesn't bothered me yet, so I'm very pleased with my new Touch Cruise
NOTE:
FYI,try not to uninstall anything from your TC.
Microsoft Windows product tends to leave "garbage" into the Registry & it will slow down your TC.
Choose wisely before installing & if you have to uninstall,search & delete any leftover inside the registry.
d4rkkn16ht said:
1. Stability : 3 -> Typical Windows product
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's wrong with stability? I'd have to agree that it is probably not the best device overall, but I didn't have a single stability issue with it. Maybe, you've got a defective one?
You know, there are certain lag things that I don't think are due to video drivers. I mentioned this in another thread "Why the lag" but I used to have a Cingular 8525 and supposedly that device had video drivers. It still lagged with a phone skin when you hit the phone button. Rotating the screen was still slow. I hate little things that lag like that. it should be smooth navigation / interface.
The device doesn't have a cohesive feel to it when we have to customize the **** out of it to get it to work the way we want to. You're right when we make a today screen look good then all the underlying apps are ugly windows apps. Your transparency issue, that can only be done from within the Windows picture viewer not the HTC photo viewer. You need to install your own video player. The HTC video browser app only shows videos with certain extensions. It's like you have to have a specific app for every little thing and then it feels like there isn't a streamlined feel to the device.
I gotta give credit to HTC for trying to improve the interface with their apps, the Windows interface is archaic. It's just the combo of the 2 doesn't allow for a polished interface.
hambola said:
The device doesn't have a cohesive feel to it when we have to customize the **** out of it to get it to work the way we want to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the other hand, thanks to HTC for a platform that allows us to do so and even greater kudos to all the xda-developer wizards who make it possible (and relatively easy for the most part).
Not enough can be said for xda. Although I'm a new poster I've been reading these forums for about a year now. Helped me out greatly with the 8525 and is proving to be helpful with the Cruise.
>You're right when we make a today screen look good then all the underlying apps are ugly windows apps.
I am happy we agree on this, I just wish it had a little bit of the Apple touch on it, that's all....
>Your transparency issue, that can only be done from within the Windows picture viewer not the HTC photo viewer.
All I wanted is a kind of minimal interface, so I can set my own wallpaper and not have it hidden by the huge HTC today plug-in. I have installed spb shell for a couple of weeks now and it looks great. I also discovered the HTC Home Customiser which looks cool, so, that's nice too.
>You need to install your own video player...
I think HTC should actually write a very generous paycheck for the people that developed CorePlayer. Without that one, Cruise would be a *little* bit of a disaster.
Overall I guess Windows is a versatile OS with lots and lots of space of customisation and at the end you do get it right, it just takes a lot of patience and resets to get there...
rev3nant said:
What's wrong with stability? I'd have to agree that it is probably not the best device overall, but I didn't have a single stability issue with it. Maybe, you've got a defective one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After some intensive test, I found some irritating bug that caused stability issues.
Quick Menu sometimes disappeared after running several applications.
System Hang at random cause.
Some system settings cannot be changed even if you've already change it.
Redundancy in Registry Entry that can cause stability issues if you change the entry. (not considered a bug if you don't change it)
and some other (not quite sure yet...)
Have you tried a different ROM?
Got a company iPhone 3G yesterday and it's an intersting experience how different the devices and their OSes are. Think that's nothing new for the most but I like to share my impressions ...
The iPhone has an impressive build quality, feels very good and solid in your hands. The cold real glass touch screen paired with the chrome border and the smooth back are nicely put together. But it's a little too big, not thick, it's just rather a bigger phone. For surfing the web it's better to be big but for daily use the small dimension of the diamond appear to be more slick.
Safari is incredible in terms of speed and responsiveness. There are definetely moments where Safari isn't reactive but compared Opera it's another league. I am wondering that Opera who is doing browser development on embedded devices for years isn't able to build something similar. Just the time of the first connection and request is MUCH MUCH shorter than on Opera (both tested on 3G). I don' know if this issue is Opera's or WM's IP stack's or the radio ROM's fault. Site rendering, zooming, clicking on links is SO MUCH better than with Opera. I think that's clearly Opera's fault. The non-capacitive touch screen of the Diamond CAN BE reactive, look at TouchFLO on udK's latest BETA. Anyway and the larger screen is more comfortable despite its much lower resolution. But that's again a trade-off when it comes to transportation.
Just saying that the Diamond can be reactive with the right ROMs it's still awesome how much more reactive the iPhone's GUI is: Just swipe the main menu to the left or right a few times (screens are following your finger instantly) and you see what can be done with the right hard and software setup of a mobile device.
Great: the auto completion of recipients. The iPhone looks in your contacts and at the company server for matching namea the same time. SO SO FAST and stylish!
And now I'll make it short: what I am missing
- A2DP: all my devices at home are A2DP devices (3 devices) and it's damn convinient just to enter a room and within seconds you have music, a stylish remote and flexibility. My Diamond is my central music source, all the newest music on it (as my previos WM6 device). Second source is the notebook with my full collection also connected via A2DP with all the devices. Sorry but an iPod connector is so 80ies in times of A2DP
- A2DP tweaking - independently of the question if the iPhone ever will have A2DP I'll enjoy to be able to tweak the sound quality of a WM device to its max. Don't think that an iPhone will ever provide the flexibility when I look at the OSX A2DP stack (more a beta)
- Disc drive mode for syncing media - sorry but I don't want to manage iTunes or anybody to sync or handle my music and other media. Connect the diamond and you get asked if you want an ActiveSync device, a disc drive or an Internet sharing device, that's a PERFECT usability. Choose the disc drive option and go with high USB2.0 transfer speed.
- No calendar events with invitations, YOU CAN NOT invite participants?! Did I missed something? Crucial point, probably something for their next update
- E-Mails are not read/unread marked or do I have to change the settings?
- Smartdial, such a great feature on WM6, still ten times faster calling somebody with the Diamond
Still the GUI is amazing (loving OSX's font rendering) and I am happy that Apple raised the bar for mobile devices' OSes and hope that competitiors come with similar responsiveness & style but I doubt that. Apple showed the direction where mobile devices will go: replacing desktops/notebooks for many use cases.
Finally, the iPhone feels like a dinner in an high-class restaurant. You get four courses of finest french cuisine in a styled environment and pay 400 bucks for two persons. You are entirely impressed but still hungry because of small portions on big plates. So the next time you just get a Big Mac, french fries and a Coke when you are hungry, no style but you get what you asked for. That's Windows.
mttcee said:
Finally, the iPhone feels like a dinner in an high-class restaurant. You get four courses of finest french cuisine in a styled environment and pay 400 bucks for two persons. You are entirely impressed but still hungry because of small portions on big plates. So the next time you just get a Big Mac, french fries and a Coke when you are hungry, no style but you get what you asked for. That's Windows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
fantastic description
mttcee said:
... the next time you just get a Big Mac, french fries and a Coke when you are hungry, no style but you get what you asked for. That's Windows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nah,
not so fantastic description!
People forget too fast how much you can do with Windows Mobile! Installing or programming real offline application for exsample - or customization! The iPhone on the other hand: cut off your internet / 3G and you have most likely an useless (but yet expensive) toy with cool animated menus ... - ... however, still useless!
Junner2003 said:
The iPhone on the other hand: cut off your internet / 3G and you have most likely an useless (but yet expensive) toy with cool animated menus ... - ... however, still useless!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pssst, The Cold War is over,
you can come out of your nuclear bunker.
We started a new section on our site called " Meet the Developer " and thought it would be a good idea to post it out here as well.
In the 1st Episode we chat with Jörg Michel , most of you guys would have come across some of the fantastic apps he was released for Windows Mobile like G-Alarm, G-Profile, G-Invaders, etc
In the 2nd Episode we chat with Alfonso Presa , who is the developer of Throttle Apps ( ThrottleLauncher, ThrottleLock , etc )
We had to split the interview in to 2 parts coz of the word limit.
Meet the Developer - Ep 1 : Jörg Michel [part-1] [part-2]
Meet the Developer - Ep 2 : Alfonso Presa [part-1] [part-2]
Meet the Developer - Ep 1 : Jörg Michel - Part 1
We had to chance to chat with Jörg Michel the developer of apps like G-Alarm, G-Profile, G-Invaders and more. Jörg has created some great apps with beautiful UI that is finger friendly too. You can find all his apps at his website http://ageye.de. I want to thank you for taking the time to chat with us here at 1800PocketPC.com. Well lets get in to it…
Tell us a bit about yourself
First of all: Hello to everyone who takes the time to read about my thoughts… It may not be worth it so please don’t blame me
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My name is Jörg Michel, I’m currently living in Ulm/Germany but have grown up in the near of Oettingen/Bavaria where the good beer comes from (I really like it). I’m 24 years old and I’m currently studying medicine in my 10th of 12 terms.
Tell us a bit about your apps ?
My first apps were the games Caver and G-Invaders… Nothing much to say about them. These are very basic and poorly designed games with an online high score feature which is probably the best of it
G-Alarm is an alarm clock which has probably more features than any other alarm tool and is also one of the most reliable clocks. It still has some problems on old devices which quickly run out of memory but I’m currently developing a new graphic engine which hopefully improves the memory usage.
G-Watch should combine three different aims: a stopwatch, a countdown timer and a GPS tracking function. Of course you don’t need a GPS device or have to use the stopwatch if you just want to have a countdown timer in the kitchen.
G-Light can help you to decrease battery consumption by dimming the backlight according to the ambient light. Of course you need a supported device which owns a light sensor (HTC Diamond, Touch Pro, etc.)
G-Profile is my newest tool which can manage your device (e.g. set the volume and ring tones, turn on/off phone radio, wifi, or bluetooth, and so on) according to your needs. It can activate the profiles by time, when an appointment occurs, when you connect something to your device (e.g. headset, ac power), when your phone is in a specified cell and so on…
How did everything start?
Well, everything started by getting my new HTC Diamond some months ago (I think it was June 2008) and looking for some tweaks and new software for it on xda-developers.com because I was disappointed by the performance and look&feel of the ROM (1.34?). I stumbled upon the sensor API of Koushik Dutta who is by the way one of the most important guys for Windows Mobile programming - he brought the access to the sensors which opened the doors for so many tools.
I remembered playing the game “Cave Run” lots of years ago on my Palm and I thought about extending the great accelerometer example of Koush to a “Cave Run” clone without even knowing how to program in C# or .NET Compact Framework…
As you may know I succeeded and Caver got soon playable. Afterwards I had lots of ideas for new games and G-Invaders was born.
After some weeks I thought of doing some serious stuff and started to develop G-Alarm because I was so disappointed by the Windows alarm clock and also a heavy sleeper…
It started really bad, lots of bugs (I just think of the severe bug where G-Alarm didn’t stop at the time change because of daylight saving) but it soon grew and now I’m pretty proud of it .
Whats WM device do you own and use?
I own an old HTC Prophet which I don’t use anymore and my HTC Diamond.
What sites do you usually hangout on?
My first site for PocketPC related topics was xda-dev and I still think it is a very good source for every owner of a PocketPC. But I really like other sites as PPC-Geeks as well and also write on the German forum www.handy-faq.de. And of course there is 1800PocketPC.com
How can we contact you ? ( twitter, facebook, etc )
I don’t twitter, facebook, myspace or whatever. I still don’t think that everything which is in the internet and gets widely used is a good invention - but that’s my own opinion…
You can contact me on my page (www.ageye.de), my forum or blog.
Are you going to list your apps on the WM MarketPlace ?
To be honest, I haven’t heard much about the new WM MarketPlace yet… Is it already available? If so, where can I access it?
If the conditions are good I will list my apps on it - for free, of course…
What are your thoughts on WM MarketPlace ?
As I said, I’m not an expert for MarketPlace related things but I’m not sure what to think about it, yet…
First of all: I don’t like Apple and its products. I think they have a bigger monopoly in many sections than Microsoft ever had but will never get accused. I think it is a cheek to sell music player at a really high charge without shipping the software or even an AC adapter. If Microsoft would only allow to play .wma files on Windows they would have to pay - Apple may force you without consequences to not use .wma files on their iPods…
As you can see I’m not a big fan of Apple, but the iPhone has brought some good and fresh ideas to the mobile world and I also like the idea to access the latest software on a marketplace.
I’m just curious if some big Windows Mobile software development companies can buy better search positions when you try to find e.g. an alarm clock. Microsoft would be stupid to list e.g. G-Alarm on the first place which is free when it could earn a commission for helping to sell commercial software.
So I’m looking forward on how it’s going to work. Hopefully my tools have a chance…
Any plans to expand to other platform like Android , iPhone ?
As you can read and see in my blog I’m currently working on a graphical interface which is completely independent of Windows Mobile’s controls and I have it nearly finished.
I don’t know how the mobile world will look like in a few years but I’m prepared to port my software to other platforms.
Meet the Developer - Ep 1 : Jörg Michel - Part 2
We know this is an ongoing project but how long did it take from the drawing board to your initial release of G-alarm ? What was your motivation to develop it ?
The main benefit for me (which may be a curse for the users) is the fact that I share my new tools and features immediately with the users. Of course there have occurred a lots of bugs but because of the great community helping me to find them and proposing new ideas especially G-Alarm could grow like hell.
So it takes only a few days from the idea to the first public release.
My motivation:
1. The built-in alarm clock didn’t satisfy me
2. I had a lot of time
3. I got really angry when trying to find a good alarm clock. There are so many software companies which just publish crap for a lots of dollars. There are only a few which create high quality, good looking and finger friendly tools (the number increases, thanks to the competitors). Besides the fact that I needed the help of the community, teasing other commercial software developers was a big argument for me to keep the software free
What are the future plan for your apps ?
I’ll release G-Watch 0.6 in the next few days which already uses my new graphical “engine”. Afterward I’ll create a new tool called G-Center (I’m not really happy with the name) which covers all installed ageye-tools (incl. export/import settings function) and maybe also be a customizable start center other apps as well.
After that I’ll probably come back to G-Profile or to G-Alarm. G-Profile definitely needs some new options (the so called “advanced profiles”) and G-Alarm needs the new engine…
What are some of your favorite apps ?
I’m using S2U2 and HomeScreen++ which also demonstrate that freeware may be better than any commercial tool. The Opera browser receives my biggest respect. It brought a quantum jump to Windows Mobile.
New WM devices have some amazing hardware like accelerometer which you have used very well in G-Alarm, its said Touch Pro 2 has a proximity sensor are you cooking up some ideas to exploit these ?
I think it’s a very good idea to have a proximity sensor. HTC’s approach with the light sensor to recognize when you have your phone put at your ear to turn off the backlight is somehow ridiculous…
I don’t have any ideas yet what to do with the proximity sensor - first of all I would need such a phone and users with ideas
When you consider the number of lines of code, which of your app is rated the highest and which one is the lowest?
Of course, I’m proud of G-Alarm. My download counter reached 450.000 downloads within about 6 months which is soooo awesome (of course you have to substract partial downloads, etc.).
The development of G-Alarm has driven me crazy a lot of times - Windows Mobile is such a ungrateful operating system (thanks to all the different vendors with their different opinions on how to customize Windows Mobile).
But now I’ll hope that especially G-Watch and G-Profile catch up… G-Light is somehow my stepchild. The idea has a great potential but I somehow lost the interest in it…
Did you create all the graphics yourself or did someone help you with the look-and-feel of your application?
I’m a poor designer… a very poor designer… Daniel Bergmann (aka expo7) does all the graphics for me! He is a really great designer who creates so professional graphics that I could take a bow in front of him every single day…
A tip for everyone who is interested in programming for Windows Mobile:
I develop my tools with C# using .NET Compact Framework and some native C++ - I haven’t bought a book to learn it. All you need is an idea for a project, a good sample on how your desired language works (for me it was the sensor API of Koush) and time to try a lot of code until it works as it should. It is really easy! If you have an idea, try it!
It was great chatting with you Jörg, good luck with your studies and the WM development. Looking fwd for the new G-Watch and G-Center. May be some of our readers can suggest an alternate name for G-Center.. G-Pack ???? G-Alarm is definitely one of the best WM software out there and I am sure I am not the only one who thinks so.
blocked for future use
nice website!
Meet the Developer - Ep 2 : Alfonso Presa - Part 1
Today we chat to Alfonso Presa who has given us some great apps like ThrottleLauncher, ThrottleLock, etc. People who are in to customizing the look and feel of Windows Mobile would have definitely come across ThrottleLauncher. You can find all his apps on his website : throttlelauncher.com. Thanks for chatting with us mate.
Tell us a bit about yourself ?
I’m Alfonso Presa (aka. APBilbo) from Madrid, Spain. I’m 27 years old and I work on IT. Currently I’m on a project in a multinational bank working on web development over Fatwire.
Tell us a bit about Throttle Apps?
To be honest I never intended to start a “big” project like ThrottleApps… It most of happened on the run . It all started one day when I was trying to customize my Herald (around December 2007)… I was searching for the perfect freeware UI and I realized that there where lot’s of great apps out there but none of them was complete. rltoday was customizable but very hardly and themes where fixed to the point that you have to change the files to suit it to your needs, MortButtons was a perfect launcher but it was fixed to some buttons in a grid layout, the cube was very cool but very limited in space (only 9 contacts, only 9 apps, etc), HTC Home was good but functionality was fixed. I thought, hey I just want a simple kinetic scrolling row of icons… what a good chance to learn C#! Then I released a proof of concept app on XDA and people started asking for clocks, registry info, etc… An that’s how ThrottleLauncher was born .
About ThrottleLock, I seen someone’s post at XDA asking if it was possible to make something like the Android lock for Windows Mobile… I though… “Hey! that can be funny!!”… and there it is!
What mobile devices do you own and use?
All ThrottleApps where developed for my “little” Herald but I got an Omnia i900 recently. I always test my apps on both of them.
How can we contact you ? ( twitter, facebook, etc )
I’m not a fan of IM applications or social networks… I prefer forums and email
(I feel I’m starting to get old… I’m sticked in the old technology). I’ve a facebook account though , but I just check it from time to time. You can always find me at my web’s forum…
Are you going to list your Apps on the WM MarketPlace ?
I will have to see which conditions does Microsoft offer in order to get your app listed. I don’t like how microsoft handle homebrew developments… if you want your software to be distributed without the user to get a warning about unknown software provided you have to send your app and pass through “Microsoft’s controls”… If that’s a precondition to get my apps published there I will definitely not do it…
What are your thoughts on WM MarketPlace ?
From the user’s point of view I think it’s a great idea to have a software catalog where you can access and download with just one click (just like linux systems has the apt catalog). Though I think this can kill the new developers creativity and will give Microsoft the complete control over WM software… If they don’t like it or if it’s against their policy they can remove it and no one will ever known of it’s existence… May be I’m a little bit paranoid here :-D.
Any plans to expand to other platform like Android , iPhone ?
Some time ago I started porting ThrottleLauncher to Android platform but I didn’t have too much time for it and that project is currently abandoned… Any way I like developing mobile apps and I don’t discard developing for those platforms someday if ever I get a device to test on . May be when 1.0 arrives… who knows .
How many hrs a week do you spend on WM development ?
Depends on the week… but it may be arround 20/30 hours… I also have to provide support and documentation for the apps ;-).
How many hours have you put into ThrottleLauncher ?
Many many more than my girlfriend would have liked . It has been about a year and a half of work so I guess it may be arround 1200 hours.
Meet the Developer - Ep 2 : Alfonso Presa - Part 2
You have made customization and skinning of your apps a high priority, how has the user response been ?
To be honest I expected more interest on my app from theme designers as ThrottleLauncher currently is capable of almost anything… though the lack of themes may also be my fault as there’s not too much documentation for ThrottleLauncher’s theme development. I’m working hard this days to write some tutorials that are available from my web. My target is to make ThrottleLauncher the first choice for theme designers when they have an idea… Then users will hopefully understand how powerfull ThrottleLauncher is ;-). At this point I have to say that there are many great designers (like Rumball, Paul de Groot, Zoltair Wright, m.schmidler, blazingwolf and much more) that have helped me to turn ThrottleLauncher in what it is and are working to make it the best UI ever .
ThrottleStorage is a unique application , how was the user response to that ?
I think ThrottleStorage is a great tool that provides a functionality that Windows Mobile definitely lacks, specially with the small internal memory that devices currently have. As an app it’s not so appealing as ThrottleLauncher or ThrottleLock and users will use it when they need it. I think it’s a great tool for ROM cookers to include on their ROM’s.
What are some of your favorite apps ?
If I’ve to choose one, it will be TaskMgr without any doubt. None of my apps would have been possible without this little handy tool. Definitely a must have for every developer. Other apps I really like are MostScripts, S2U2 (but I use ThrottleLock… sorry a_C
), S2P and TouchCal.
What are your favorite development tools and Language?
For WM I use C# and C++ over VS2005 and I really like how flexible and simple things can become by using that app and that languages, though…. I think the most powerful and flexible language is Java (I use to develop using Eclipse platform). Also CVS/SVN is a must have in order to develop applications.
New WM devices come with better hardware like accelerometer , proximity sensor, etc are you cooking up some ideas to exploit these ?
ThrottleLauncher currently has support for accelerometer . I plan to release some updates of the themes that will allow users to choose this as an option so they can scroll rows just by changing the orientation of their devices. Note that this support is still experimental…
Have you worked on any commercial apps ?
No I’ve not .
The new version of ThrottleLauncher has a skin to mimic the iPhone, Android, Palm Pre and WM7 did you develop these yourself ?
I’m not a good designer so most of the graphics used on the themes are provided by other people. WM7 theme was almost 100% developed by Paul de Groot and I only made some tweaks over it. For the Palm Pre I’ve only made the layout as the icons where provided by Cpeacha. Android was enterily designed by me… but it doesn’t have too much built in graphics . iPhone icons where taken for several places arround XDA, the base of that theme was initially dones by Gullum and continued by Blazingwolf.
Throttle Launcher has grown to a fantastic UI for Windows Mobile users and is close to version 1.0 , what can we expect in the future?
I’m starting to work on a PC .NET application that will allow users to visually create themes for ThrottleLauncher. This way designers will find a lot more easy to implement their creation in ThrottleLauncher. Also I have to make some experiments on 3d effects by using the gsensor. Probably ThrottleLock will be the first to use this feature.
Fantastic, the PC application is sure to be a hit and with the documentation on skinning on the way I am sure more people will be creating new and exciting skins for your apps. ThrottleLauncher has definitely come a long way from when it was first released, congrats on that and good luck with the apps in the future. Once again thanks for chatting to us @ 1800PocketPC.com
I have now researched the various 'ROMs' (actually firmware), and have narrowed the field to four. I'd like input on these. Priorities are (in order):
1. Complete Stability. I've run TomTom on WM5 for 6 years, and outside of TomTom it's a real mess. WM is so buggy I can't use it confidently for anything other than nav.
2. Good Battery. I have a friend who just got an Evo, and he says battery lasts only ~3 hours. I'm sure that's because of the large display, but also I read that several ROMs and apps really sacrifice battery on the N1. One screen I want to have dedicated to some sort of CPU/Mem/Storage monitor, so I can easily check it.
3. Lots Of Cool Features. It seems that video at 720p might be problematic as I gather it's really 3Mp upsampled, and/or it disables the still camera/flash somehow? Kernel optimizations are nice, although "deodexing" is not defined -anywhere-. I'm unlikely to stray beyond the UI built into the ROM, as it could introduce instabilities.
a. CM6 - The Big Kahouna. This ROM will likely be supported for a long time and is likely to integrate the newest kool features over time.
b. MoDaCo - Its thing seems to be stability, although a feature-by-feature comparison with CM6 leaves me confused, much less comparative usability is impossible to determine. Kitchen allows preclusion of G**gle apps.
c. LeoFroYo - The guy seems to know what he's doing, so under consideration. Comes with G**gle apps tho.
d. Kang-o-rama - an innovator whose improvements have been co-opted by others.
e. RoDrIgUeZsTyLe - I like it, but it is clearly very ill given the thread comments. Rejected.
Really? Nobody knows anything about this?
it depends on which phone u have bro, u didnt even specify that