Zen Garden - @ 20six.co.uk

REVIEW: Gaining Productivity with TMP

Happy New Year to everyone! Its that time again when we change our daily planners and organize our event schedules / appointments for the rest of the year. For people who owns a PDA, there's no need to buy one. But are you happy with what you currently have? Does it help you be more productive? What do people get from paper-based planners that you won't get on a regular Palm Calendar / Datebook application? The cleaner look and feel and the ease of using any writing instrument to pen down a schedule or task. We all know that we won't see the latter happening anytime soon, but there's a replacement app that will answer what the default Calendar cannot. Its called TMP (short for Time Manager Pad).
For years that I've owned a Palm, all of the datebook replacement app that I've used didn't bring something new in terms of look and feel. They all look thesame! You name it, every replacement tries to mimic the look and feel of the built-in Calendar. I'm not saying that the layout are no good - its just not easy to the eyes. For the rest of us who thinks differently, we prefer the clean look that the Apple iCal gives to the Mac. And TMP is by far the iCal for the Palm platform. TMP gives you the clean look and feel of a paper planner and integrates itself nicely with the built-in Calendar and Tasks. It enables you to modify existing color schemes and add icons to a schedule or task according to your preference. At a glance, you'll never have to worry on missing out a single appointment or task.
Though TMP doesn't have the bells and whistles when compared to the rest of the competitons, however it has everything what you would expect on a digital planner. TMP is what the built-in Calendar should be in the first place.
W
You can download the trial version here.

2.1.07 20:23

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iPhone: Apple's Third Act

I'm as facinated and excited about Apple's iPhone (as much as everyone else) when it was introduced last Tuesday. I've burned midnight candles to do some readings and was ready to drop my Palm TC (and my current Moto phone) right away. Everyone was talking about it with such enthusiasm and awe. Its indeed a wonderful piece of concept, but the reality distortion field (RDF) begins to wear off quickly. Back to reality, I've asked myself if I would be getting one, I could have probably if it was made available right away. If you ask me now, I'll tell you that I'll be holding off until the release of the iPhone version 2 or 3 (if there are such in the making). Why? Let me count the ways...
1. The iPhone is high technology, highly priced but with a crippled feature and its locked. It wasn't designed like the iPod. The iPod started out only to play music and it does what it does with an affordable price. For the iPhone, you have the potential technology that is crippled to the application and features that Apple dictates (with a high price).
2. Steve says you don't need a fixed physical thumboard on the device. This seems to be a viable reason if the phone doesn't do SMS and email, but it does. And it needs a tactile feedback inorder for the concept to be compelling. This is the same reason why Apple's Mighty Mouse created much frustration.
3. No unlocked version available. The choice of network is out of the question. I personally don't like to be tied up if the phone is not even given away for free. The second or third iteration would probably have the unlocked version (not to mention a much lower price).
There are more reasons in the sea on why its an overrated phone, but those three are the main reason for me not to jump on it right away. The iPhone won't kill the ones that Steve shown during his keynote. In fact, I'm even in doubt if the iPhone could make its expected 1% marketshare target by next year. Remember that not all iPod owners could afford an iPhone and not all iPod users would buy an iPhone. Buying a shuffle or a nano for a second iPod is more likely to happen than buying an iPhone as a third or fourth iPod. If history repeats itself, I see the iPhone being another G4 Cube in the making.
W

14.1.07 05:52

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