Pen Computing Magazine: Software at a glance - Pocket Lunabar, Audible Player, PalmBrowser

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Software at a glance

by Dan Hanttula

Pocket Lunabar

Some things you just have to appreciate for their pure physical beauty and design. Pocket Lunabar, the Windows CE version of clySmic Software's moon-phase information almanac, has just arrived; and it is beautiful.

The program tracks the current phase of the moon; the times of moonrise, the moon's "southing," and moonset; and the moon's zodiac constellation and sign. The information is displayed on a daily almanac view, monthly phase in calendar view (see screen shot), and a moon phases view. The application lets you change dates, so you can plan a romantic moonlit walk on November 22nd (that's our next full moon), but only goes back to the beginning of this year. The application also waxes poetic on a number of topics when you switch to the poems & moonlore view. If all this is too much for you, simply set Pocket Lunabar to display the moon's phase on the Palmsize PC's taskbar, then tap it once for the constellation or zodiac sign or twice to return to the full lunar almanac.

The only negative thing I have to offer is that the installation of the application was troublesome. After installing the application, Pocket Lunabar will not run until you configure your desktop, export the configuration file, and manually copy it on to your Windows CE device. But once you get LunaBar installed, it caters to your every need. The application allows you to select from color, black on white, or white on black modes, so you can set the best mode for visibility on your device. The first version of the application only "officially" supports the Palmsize PC in color and grayscale, but it will work on HPC Pro devices as well. To see the beautiful color background on the application, you need a device that supports a 65,000-color display.

Pocket LunaBar comes with the desktop version and the Pocket version for US$16.95, the same price as the desktop version alone. A free trial version as well as some free Palmsize PC background images are available for download from their web site. This way, if you want to plan a date on a full moon evening, you'll be ready in a flash with the correct day, poetry, and some pretty pictures!

Pocket LunaBar - US$16.95
clySmic

Audible Player

From Audible Inc. comes Audible Player, an audio information and entertainment player with a powerful desktop companion. Don't get this confused with a MP3 music player (also reviewed in this issue); Audible Player only delivers "books on tape" and "talk radio" style news and information. Designed to work just like their MobilePlayer, the software sports a stylish and sexy V-shape with easy-to-understand controls.

The desktop companion, AudibleManager 2.0, downloads and organizes audio, transfers the content to the Palmsize PC, and even functions as a stand-alone player of the audio content if you're PPC isn't handy. The AudibleManager has smart memory management, demonstrated by deleting the content you've already listened to, and can automatically check your device to make sure you have the next chapter and that all your subscriptions are current. The desktop also stores all of the audio you've purchased, so if you want to listen to the content again, simply copy it back to your PPC by dragging it to the Window.

The audibly crisp and clear voice programs are compressed to fit 60 minutes of programming into just 2MB, and up to 16 different programs can be downloaded to the Palmsize PC at one time (Audible has a library of over 15,000 hours of programming).

Audible Player is a free download, and has a promotional bundle with many of the newer Palmsize PCs. So check your device's box when you pick up a new PPC; you may have a cash rebate, free hardware accessories, or Audible service credits just for finding the offer in your box!

Audible Player - free
Audible Inc.

PalmBrowser

If you've broken down and purchased a modem for your Palmsize PC just so you can get email, you're missing out. Conduits Technologies has just released v1.5 of their PalmBrowser product and it is so feature packed that every PPC/Modem owner should buy it.

PalmBrowser has nearly all of the basic features of a desktop browser. The application is nearly HTML 3.2 compliant and supports technologies such as cookies, META tags, and form submissions (via "get" and "post" for you web techies). Frames are also supported, though on a "which frame would you like to view" basis. The browser supports quick searching, where "y Windows CE" would perform a search for the text on Yahoo! and you can even perform View Source on a web page.

But what really makes the PalmBrowser innovative is the "just for handheld computing" features. Taping the vertical "URL" text provides URL helpers, a set of quick entry fields that have been added to the program to ease the entry of web addresses. The most promising one enters http://www.[HOST].com into the URL field, highlights the [HOST] text, and pops up the Windows CE Input Panel. Now you're ready to start typing any web address (for instance, just type "pencomputing") and you're on your way. If the web page is wider than the PPC's 240 pixels (and whose isn't), the program has an ingenious scrolling icon in the tool bar, and a full screen mode to get those few extra pixels. And the new caching feature will allow you to store visited web sites, without lifting a finger. Simply select "work offline," and the browser will display cached pages when you're on the go.

Visually, PalmBrowser is quite impressive. The program design is unique and interesting (see screen shot), yet clear and concise. A small text area in the bottom left hand corner lists the number of items remaining to load on the page, complete with an animation to let you know the program is still running. And it runs rather quickly on even the slowest of Palmsize PCs and only occupies 236KB of memory. PalmBrowser supports both v1.0 and v2.0 PPCs, with a maintenance release planned for Rapier compatibility

PalmBrowser v1.5 US$24.95
Conduits Technologies Inc.

-Dan Hanttula

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