Customising the Treo 500v

This has taken me some time to figure out, mostly because there doesn’t seem to be very much interest (at least in the internet vocal enthusiast crowd) about this phone. In fact, the net is so quiet about this that it’s almost as if someone is actively deleting anything that has to do with this phone. Anyway, here’s what I’ve done to customise my phone to suit how I like to use it.

(EDIT AT YOUR OWN RISK!)

The “carousel” menu

I like this menu, but I don’t like that you can’t change the programs that it displays. From the “Recent Applications” screen you can click on the right softkey to go into the “Main Menu”, but that’s time wasted waiting for the carousel to load and go away. The name of the carousel menu app is “Hotlist.exe”, and to change the program that is launched when you press the “Start” key, go to:

\ HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Shell \ Rai \:MSHotlist\ 1

…and change the value to a different launcher. I used the app that shows the “Main Menu”, which is called “Gridview.exe”.

The side hardware button

The Treo 500v ships with the side hardware button (not the volume buttons, the one below those) not linked to any program on a click, but will launch Pocket IE when held down for a time. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for this except that either Vodafone or Palm forgot about it when then were setting up the phone. You can change it so that when you press down on the button it will launch one program, but when you press and hold down it will launch another. To do the former you have to change these two keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Apps \ KeyAssignment \ Click \ 195
“Open” = “\ Program Files \ YourProgram.exe”
“Remap” = dword: 00000000

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Apps \ KeyAssignment \ Default \ Click \ 195
“Open” = “\ Program Files \ YourProgram.exe”
“Remap” = dword: 00000000

…and to change the latter:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Apps \ KeyAssignment \ PressAndHold \ 195
“Open” = “\ Program Files \ YourProgram.exe”
“Remap” = dword: 00000000

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Apps \ KeyAssignment \ Default \ PressAndHold \ 195
“Open” = “\ Program Files \ YourProgram.exe”
“Remap” = dword: 00000000

I’ve changed my phone so that it launches the “carousel” menu on a click, and the camera on press and hold:

Click — Open: “\Windows\Hotlist.exe”
PressAndHold — Open: “\Windows\Camera.lnk”

The Vodafone Live! softkey

I bought my phone unlocked from eBay, and I don’t use Vodafone, so it’s pretty pointless to have a button devoted to a link I can’t use. I do, however, lean pretty heavily on my tasks program, so I changed it to launch Tasks instead:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ software \ microsoft \ home \ key \ 113
“Default” = “Whatever the label should be”
“Open” = “\ Program Files \ YourProgram.exe”

You should be able to change the icon as well with the “IconResDll” and “IconResID” keys, but I’m not sure where the icon for the Tasks program is, and it’s not that important for me anyway.

Start Menu icon order

The last thing I did was to put all the apps that are useful but aren’t used too often (like the calculator, voice notes etc) in a folder in the Start Menu. But folders are placed low in the list, with Windows prioritising application icons. To change the order, and to “pin” my “Quicklist” folder to the top of the menu:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Shell \ StartMenu \ Order

…and edit the “Order” key by adding (or removing) a line from the list.

That’s all the changes I’ve made to my phone so far, and it’s working pretty well for me. I’m no expert though, so you make these changes AT YOUR OWN RISK. I also had a fair bit of help to find these myself, the solution for the “Start” button I found here, the left hardware button here and the Start Menu order here.

Hope this works as well for you as it does for me.

You can now buy my photos!

Thanks to redbubble.com. Cards, prints and posters, as well as tshirts and calendars, at great prices and international delivery. Have a look now!

On mobile phones

1. A couple of months back I was talking about the iPod touch, and how I wanted one, and how I didn’t want an iPhone. I now have an iPod touch, and I’ve been using it for the last couple of weeks, and what do I think? Well, Iku thinks it’s my new girlfriend, that’s how much I’ve been using it.

2. The interface is far better than I had expected, it’s just magic. Well, 90% of the time. The other 10%? That’ll be the times when you want to change the volume one handed, or whilst walking, or trying to scrub ahead in a podcast or video. Those slider bars are insanely hard to use unless you use both hands, and are wildly inaccurate — I’ve accidentally blasted myself a few times already. But wait — why is that stuff only 10% of your time? It’s a media player, shouldn’t that account for more?

3. Well, yes. If it didn’t also have WiFi and a web browser.

4. Honestly, the touch has become my main internet device, something I can use pretty much anywhere (who knew there were so many WiFi access points in this city?) Safari works wonderfully, the “flick” method of scrolling feels so much more organic than using a mouse and a scroll bar. The whole device has a lovely heft to it, and it balances well in one hand, so I can pretty much read the morning news on the touch in my left hand, using my left thumb to scroll and click on links. And, just as importantly, the internet looks good on the touch. Compare the New York Times mobile site on my touch, compared to my Nokia N73:

0711_ipod_comp1.jpg0711_ipod_comp2.jpg

5. Which one would you rather use?

6. The font on my N73 is perfectly legible, if a bit small. But the font rendering is fantastic on the touch, and it raises the legibility of mobile devices to the point where I would actually prefer it to the computer. Look again at those photos, a single column of text is about the same size (perhaps a bit bigger) as a column of text in a newspaper. There are about five to seven words per line, so it’s easy to follow from line to line — unlike blocks of text on computer screens where you could, depending on the width of your screen, have twenty to thirty words per line. Having too many words per line makes it more difficult to find the next line in the text. Just think, how many times have you gotten lost in a passage because of this?

7. What has this to do with the iPhone? I was adamant about not getting one because I didn’t want to get locked in to a carrier, I hated that Apple makes this amazing platform but shuts it off to developers. But using the touch just brings home just how much better it is than my Nokia, which is a pretty sweet phone as it is. But there’s no comparison, despite the very many failings of the iPhone, for 90% of what it does, it does it waaaay better than the competition.

8. And I’d rather have a great user experience 90% of the time, than having a passable experience 100% of the time.

iHave Entitlement Issues

1. From CNET:

“Some commended Jobs and the company for what they considered a humble and fair response to the iPhone price flap. Others, however such as CNET News.com reader Jake Kushner, president of JK Media, said Apple’s response didn’t go far enough to satisfy those who bought a 4GB iPhone for $499, only to see the 8GB model become $100 cheaper. They should get a free upgrade to an 8GB model or a $200 rebate, he said.”

“I feel wronged and misled by Apple. Such a quick price reduction indicates that Apple premeditated this reduction before the initial release,” Kushner wrote, addressing Jobs. “I read your public response on Apple.com to this issue, but I still feel that the solution you are offering is not adequate.”

2. Pfffft. The only thing inadequate is your ability to control yourself… twice. Once for being a cheap bastard and buying a 4gb iPhone, and once for telling the world about it. Fake Steve has a tshirt for you, have you heard of him?

The only question now is…

1. …the 8gb iPod touch, or the 16gb?

2. I’ve been betting quietly that one of these would come out, and even without WIFI I would’ve bought one. Why? That kickarse interface. I’m an interface geek, a holdover from my design days, and that multi-touch interface is just mind-bogglingly awesome. I don’t really want an iPhone, ’cause while it might be thin, it’s not a small phone, and if I’m out on the piss the last thing I want is to break that screen by being drunkenly over-enthusiastic. Or by dropping it. And how can you have a smartphone where you can’t even cut-and-paste text? Here’s hoping for iPhone 2.0.

3. But this… all the best features of the iPhone, and I can still leave it home when I don’t need it. And, lets face it, it’s really an 8mm thick computer. You just know that this thing will get the crap hacked out of it, and by Christmas there’ll be a bunch of 3rd party apps available — who knows, even Apple might get in on the act, since the only excuse they gave for the lack of 3rd party app support in the iPhone was because of “stability issues”.

4. Now if you can plug in a foldable keyboard and run third party apps, I’ll never need a laptop, ever again.

5. (Anyone who whinges about the lack of storage should look at an Archos 605, equally drool-worthy, 160gb storage, and matches the iPod touch in pretty much every regard except OSX and thinness. So quit it with the damn whinging.)

Mamiya 645 Super

1. It was the Holga.

2. I hadn’t thought about shooting film since finishing Uni, after I no longer had access to the uni darkrooms. Film was expensive and sometimes difficult, and after I bought me a D70 there was just no going back. But in the back of my mind I’d always wanted to play with a medium format camera, but I never found one in the right price range that I really wanted.

3. And then I found this…:

07_mamiya645_1.jpg

4. …a Mamiya 645 Super, for 38000 yen. Medium format is usually a fairly expensive proposition; most of it is pro gear, with the pricetag to match, or older cameras become sought-after by collectors, driving prices up. Luckily, these cameras can still be found for reasonable prices, and $400 is a pretty cheap way to play around with medium format.

07_mamiya645_2.jpg

5. Unlike the Holga, this is a proper, serious camera. The lenses are great, and this was a pro model so it has a bunch of cool features, like a removable back that can accept anything from Polaroid film to digital systems. Not that I’m ever going near a digital back for this thing, not when the asking price for a Phase One P25 25MP back is somewhere around $25,000. Dude. And now for the obligatory Transformers shot:

07_mamiya645_3.jpg

6. As you can see the film cartridge at the back comes off, as does the viewfinder prism (which you can replace with a prism with an auto-exposure function built in), and even the film winding crank (makes way for a handgrip / film advance motor). But, most of all, it’s just fun to play with; I love all the mechanical noises it makes, the way the film crank turns, the snapping of the shutter when it goes off…

7. I can’t wait to get back into the darkroom.

Team Fortress 2 (Forever)

1. I honestly haven’t gotten this excited over a game since… actually, I can’t remember. Maybe GT4. But I found this Team Fortress 2 trailer (a game, might I add, that has been in production for longer than Duke Nukem Forever) on YouTube and I’m excited all over again!

Holga

1. The Girlfriend (who is a different person from the last time I mentioned her) is a keen photographer, in fact, she was a wedding photographer a few years ago. She quit doing that because shooting weddings is a dull, dull gig.

2. But getting back to the point, The Girlfriend is a keen photographer, of the analogue kind. These days she doesn’t shoot regular cameras, she prefers the more esoteric types, and has developed quite the collection of Lomo cameras. They’re pretty good fun, almost completely lacking in controls, it’s the ultimate point and shoot.

3. Anyway, for my birthday she bought me a Holga, a chinese made toy camera that shoots 120 roll film and literally looks and built like a toy:

0705_holga1.jpg

4. It’s great fun, and shoots photos like this:

0705_holga2.jpg

5. It’s way awesome, the lens only focuses in the middle, everything else is distorted and it vignettes like a fisheye. There are even mods that let you mount a Holga lens on a digital SLR, but the mods require you to hold the lens to the body, and that’s just a bit too crude. The flash is bloody terrible too, but such awesome fun to play with. I’ve got it loaded up with some Kodak TMax B&W film, gonna play with it a bit more to get the hang of it. Makes me want a medium format camera all the more!

No One Belongs Here More Than You

1. This is the most awesomest website in the history of websites, and quite possible of life itself. Really. I wanna meet a girl this damn cool. Then marry her.

http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com/

Running. I don’t do it. Normally.

1. I recently spoke to a close friend online. I mentioned to her that I’ve recently started running, to which she responded:

TB: BULLSHIT!!!

2. …which neatly sums up my attitude towards running, and excercise in general, since about Year 11 of High School (AKA Some Years Ago). But, I’m not getting any younger, although the way I spend my weekends here suggests that I am, mentally at least, regressing, and I promised myself that when the weather warmed I would start excercising. So, the weather warmed, and I went to the shoe store and bought a pair of NikeFree shoes.

0704_shoes.jpg

3. They’re wicked! Super light, super comfortable, and super flexible which lets my feet flex the way they’re supposed to. The whole upper material is mesh, and on a cold night you can actually feel the cold air come in, but it means I’m not assaulted by foot-sweat-smell when I take my shoes off after a run. Extra points for that.

4. I also bought the Nike+iPod sensor kit, which is basically a pedometer and transmits information to my iPod, where it calculates things like distance, pace, calories used and the like and puts it on display. At the press of a button a voiceover will tell you those stats, and when you sync the iPod it will transfer that info to a Nike website when you can track your runs. The website lets you create goals (time spent running, pace, distance etc) and you can compare your results with other people online. I’m really diggin’ it, makes the whol excercising thing fun — something I ‘d never thought I’d say.

5. (And before I get accused of being an Apple/Nike whore — if anyone can point out a $30 device that does all that, I’ll look into it.)

6. Anyway, the sensor kit is really nice, and you don’t need to buy a pair of Nike+ shoes to use them either. I taped my sensor to the top of the tounge of my left shoe, it doesn’t get in the way at all.

0704_nikeipod.jpg

7. Maybe I’ll post monthly updates of my running stats — maybe. When they’re not so embarassing.