Palm Open Source
- Open
source software for Palm OS
Currency does exactly what its name says: it converts one currency to another. The utility supports no less than 170 currencies, which should cover you in most countries. Most currency conversion utilities act as a calculator: you enter an amount, choose the desired currency, then press the convert button. Currency uses another, more efficient technique, where the main windows already contain a user-defined list of currencies. You simply enter an amount next to the currency field you want, and the utility converts it into other currencies on the fly. The currency exchange rates for the utility are stored in a separate database that is updated daily. To get the most up-to-date exchange rates, download the cupdate.pdb file from the software's Web site. Better yet, the utility comes with its own conduit, which fetches the updated currency exchange rates every time you synchronise your Palm device.
- Open Source Business Models and Palm Development
It?s great to see Falch.net, a Palm developer tools company, use a simple open source business model to such beneficial effect. Not only is their product by far the best tool for developing PalmOS applications, they?ve drawn a perfect line between supporting and giving back to the open source community, and creating a revenue opportunity that will drive their business. They deserve support and acknowledgement. The company?s flagship product, Developer Studio for PalmOS, is a Windows IDE that sits on top of PRC-Tools, a gcc-based compiler for PalmOS applications, and PilRC, a PalmOS resource generator. Both PRC-Tools and PilRC are GPL?d. Falch.net employs a full-time programmer to maintain PRC-Tools. On top of these packages, Falch.net has built all the things at which open source tends to fail: double-click able installers, professional user interfaces, visual forms designers, and so on.
- Interest in Open Source Palm OS clone
A while back it became clear to me that Palm OS was dying. There weren't any Palm OS 6 devices on the market despite the OS being available for a while and Palm Source was floundering around without any real coherent strategy to fix the problem. The imminent death of Palm OS became all the more certain when Access announced ALP. Being a fan of PalmOS and not being terribly fond of Unix-like systems, several months ago I started work on a Palm OS clone with the intention of releasing it as an open source project.
- Palm handed open-source browser
The Vagabond browser relies, like DPWeb, on a CGI gateway that speeds up Web page downloads. But its open-source license allows users to run their own gateway, eliminating the risk of the gateway provider going out of business. The DPWeb software didn't work without a connection to Digital Paths' servers. The browser's features include support for color screens, HTML, WAP, i-mode, cookies, SSL, bookmarks, an advanced toolbar and history, and auto-fill of Web addresses. Designed for wireless Palms such as the Palm VII, VIIx or 705, it will work with any Palm handheld that has a recent version of the operating system and the Web Clipping libraries installed. The world of wireless Web browsing is still in its infancy, limited by small screen sizes and slow wireless connection speeds. Palm has been criticized for shipping its wireless devices without an HTML browser, relying instead on its pared-down "Web clipping" approach.
- pssh: SSH 2 for Palm OS 5
Pssh is a free, open-source SSH 2 client for Palm OS 5. Features
* SSH 2 protocol using 3DES or AES-128 ciphers
* Fast authentication and encryption using ARM-native code
* Support for public-key authentication and host key verification
* High quality VT100/VT220/xterm terminal emulator
* Up to 80 x 53 character display on 320x320 screen
* Support for large screens with virtual Graffiti areas
- Palm's Open Secrets Exposed
Palm enthusiasts are second only to Apple enthusiasts in the energy they devote to speculation about what products are coming next. It's no surprise, really. Palm isn't quite as secretive as Apple when it comes to giving information about future product releases, but they do a pretty good job keeping their plans under wraps. That leaves the field wide open to all kinds of theories, based on past history, the occasional word that drops from an executive's lips, or fuzzy images "leaked" by Photoshop mavens. But if rumors and press release exegetics aren't your bag, you can learn a lot about what to expect from Palm in the coming years from a more authoritative source: Palm's own web site. The trick is to look carefully at the job postings, which often describe new product development in surprising detail. Let's take a walk through some recent job descriptions and see what we can learn.