Blog entries about Text and Reference

A built-in language translator is something I've always thought would be a useful add-on to Windows Mobile. I mean what better way to "integrate" and unify your user base than to provide a simple, effective ability to translate mobile content into multiple languages on the fly? It would tear down a significant barrier to global information sharing for sure.

"A new version of the award-winning handwriting recognition software for Windows Mobile features improved performance and compatibility.

Listening to or watching podcasts is great fun. If you think they are boring, meaningless or can’t entertain you during, say, a long fight, you’re wrong. For example, watching all the clips of X-Play, played back on my VGA HP iPAQ 214 (thanks to Smartphone & PPCMag / iPhone Life’s Hal Goldstein for the gift!) could entertain me for long-long hours.

Along with tags and cover arts, lyrics are also highly sought-for and widely used metadata, particularly with non-English folks who would like to know the lyrics of the songs they listen to.

I've reviewed a number of new software input methods this year for Windows Mobile touchscreen devices. They have all generally used the standard qwerty layout that would be found on a hardware keyboard. Fitaly throws you for a loop because it uses a non-querty layout, and incidently the name is derived from the arrangement of letters on the keyboard (just like querty).  The fitaly layout was designed in the nineties for pencomputers, when Jean Ichbiah thought that writing with a stylus required a different type of keyboard.

"The efficiency of the Fitaly on-screen keyboard lies in its layout and its enhanced features. Most people think 10 fingers are necessary to do extensive texting. Fitaly allows 10-finger speed with a single pointer. As one user puts it: “Simply nothing better. I’ve tried many different input programs and fitaly stands out well above the rest."

Many a Windows Mobile power user (including me) will insist all kinds of wild stuff about how you can replace your laptop with the built-in programs in Windows Mobile. The sad truth is, well, NOT! For one, the fancy formatting in your desktop documents may not translate well to your device when opened in the built-in pocket office apps. You need something with seriously more power and features on the device-side. SoftMaker has the answer with it's most excellent Office suite.

You may already have heard of the really revolutionary E Lnk e-paper and the dedicated book readers using it. The most important in-production ones are, currently, as follows. (If interested, see the full list / a full comparison chart HERE; note that the matrix doesn’t contain the very important effective resolution; I’ve fixed this in the short listing below as the value after the slash. Note that, in order for quick accessibility, I’ve also listed the grayscale levels supported in here too.)

iRex iLiad - in my opinion, the best ebook reader, mostly because of its high-resolution (XGA,1024*768) screen and the quality material. (resolution: XGA / no effective resolution given (but, in Landscape mode, it’s only a little bit narrower than 1024 pixel); 16 grayscale)

Sony LIBRIé (resolution: SVGA / 754 x 584, 4 grayscale)

Sony Reader PRS-500/505 (a somewhat enhanced LIBRIé for the U.S. market; it’s smaller (no keyboard) and features a dual Memory Stick PRO Duo/SD slot to augment the memory) (resolution: SVGA / 754 x 584, 4/8 grayscale in 500/505)

Cybook Gen3 (resolution: SVGA / no effective resolution given, 4 grayscale)

And the latest device, the much-criticized Amazon Kindle (resolution: SVGA / 450x550; 4 grayscale)

Now, there’s a new player on the scene: Polymer Vision.

They have demoed a very promising prototype of their phone + reader combo called Readius. Some shots (all taken by me) follow:

Why you may be interested? I’ve talked to the Polymer Vision folks and found out the following:

Mobile Refererence, which has consistently provided some of the best travel guides, phrasebooks, and quick-study guides is offering the full version of their Weights and Measures Quick Study Guide for free. It's available for desktops, pocket pcs, smartphones, and other devices. You'll need MobiPocket Reader, which you can download from here for free.

Cameron Moll, who never sleeps it seems (writes books, gives lectures, runs several websites including a very popular one for web jobs while holding down an awesome day job, while still finding time for a gorgeous wife and four fabulous sons with great names), has just published "Mobile Web Design: A Web Standards Approach for Delivering Content to Mobile Devices".

YadaByte has recently completed work on new editions of some of its signature ebooks for its popular ereader, TomeRaider. Available for a great many platforms (Windows, Pocket PC, Palm, and several more), TomeRaider is known to handle very large reference titles extremely well.

Anyone having read my Pocket PC Wikipedia Bible knows there’re two decent Pocket PC Wiki implementations in town: the Tomeraider-based one and Lexipedia. Now, with the former, unfortunately, only slightly updated (dated 12/12/2005), new versions are released.

Acclaimed science fiction and fantasy writer, Charles Stross has released his latest novel Accelerando under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license.

According to the Microsoft Reader Activation FAQ, one is permitted to activate up to 6 different devices using the same Microsoft Passport account. Various gadget sites around the web have recently calimed that that figure has now been raised to eight, and if that has indeed happened, the FAQ has not yet been updated to support the contention.

According to the Microsoft Reader Activation FAQ, one is permitted to activate up to 6 different devices using the same Microsoft Passport account.

Various gadget sites around the web have recently calimed that that figure has now been raised to eight, and if that has indeed happened, the FAQ has not yet been updated to support the contention.

It was a few days ago that I’ve reviewed the brand new series of the great book / reference reader/browser TomeRaider and reported it being buggy.

Now, fortunately, this is no longer the case as can be seen for example in the following screenshot (I’ve searched hard to find any text with rendering errors – in vain):

All in all, NOW you may want to consider upgrading to the

I’ve thoroughly updated The Definitive Roundup of All Pocket PC Dictionaries Part I – WordNet-based English Dictionaries with TomeRaider3- and PocketGenius 3.0-related information.

(Incidentally, I’ve too slightly updated the strictly TomeRaider3-related article published yesterday.)

TomeRaider is a well-known book/dictionary/reference work reader having a lot of useful application areas, most important of them being reading Wikipedia on your PDA. As I definitely wanted to add a complete, comparative review of TomeRaider to my series of dictionary / reference roundups (links in the article below), I spent quite a lot of time evaluating it.

Note that in this article I both compare the brand new (3.2.00) version to the previous (3.1.30) one and to the dictionary / reference alternates. Yeah, killing two birds with one stone :)

Also note that I directly compare TomeRaider3, as far as its dictionary engine is concerned, in the Definitive Roundup of All Pocket PC Dictionaries Part I – WordNet-based English Dictionaries. You will also want to check out the comparison chart in there to see how it compares to the alternates as a dictionary engine.

Availability, compatibility

It’s available here, compatible with all Pocket PC platforms (yes, even MIPS/SH3 Pocket PC’s – I’ve even tested it on my MIPS Casio E-125 and was very happy with what I saw) and costs $38.00. The upgrade is free for all 3.x users – previous registration numbers will work.

What’s new compared to the previous, 3.1.30 version?

WikiPedia has become by far the best source of really up-to-date information – in many respects, even better than the online Oxford English Dictionary (see “The Definitive Roundup of All Pocket PC Dictionaries Part II – non-WordNet-based English Dictionaries” for more info if interested on the well-known, alternate sources of available information.)

In this roundup, I elaborate on how you can access information in WikiPedia on your Pocket PC other than directly browsing its pages in your Pocket PC Web browser.

Note that this article contains a LOT of never-before-published tricks and tips. Did you know, for example, that you can save a lot of money / greatly speed up your mobile phone-based online Wiki access by using data compression? Did you know that, for example, one of the offline Wiki databases, Lexipedia, offers excellent fuzzy searching capabilities, which make it possible to find keywords whose spelling you’re not really sure of? The list continues – trust me, even seasoned Wiki users will learn a lot of tricks and tips from this article.

UPDATE (04/04/2007): Some interesting news on HowardsForums
(End of update.)

Yes, Part II of the Definitive Roundup of All Pocket PC Dictionaries series is here, with a lot of never-before-published-by-anyone information. Along with Part I, it's a must for everyone looking for an English dictionary for the Pocket PC.

In Part I, I’ve elaborated on all the Pocket PC-based WordNet dictionaries. In the (current) second part, I elaborate on engines offering English dictionaries not (only) based on WordNet.

Please note that reading the first article is essential to understand this one. For example, I won’t explain in the current article how the comparison chart is to be read.

Note that this article contains a LOT of information usable by not only Pocket PC users: I’ve done quite much work in tracking the online availability of well-known English dictionaries accessible via both thorough standard Web client (Pocket Internet Explorer and the like) access, sometimes, even through the much more bandwidth-friendly Wap and Java midlets (the latter can even be run on a low-end, super-cheap non-smartphone but still Java-capable mobile phones like the T610). The info presented here is far more reliable and up-to-date than, for example, at the “official” dictionary lists at many well-known link repositories.