Got My Pal A696

     Bought this with a free wireless router from dell.ca in their recent Days of Deals. The appearance is very nice. GPS software is good (I will have comparasion with other software later), but it’s dead when I went down to the garage and sat in the car for the first time, it just said ‘Map corrupted’. Tried to re-install, which was not a good idea because it warned me that remove the program will force me to install from CD later.  (Now I think that was because I don’t want to modify the program on the original SD card).  So I just removed the SD card, turned it off, and on, and put in the card again, started DestinAtor 6, it worked.  I think this could be the machine (O/S?) couldn’t fetch the directory update from the SD card in a timely fashion.  Last week, I bought a 4GB SD-HC from Costco for about $55, and loaded all maps on the new card, since then the problem is gone.  So I think the SD card came with the deal is not so compatible with the GPS software. (I got a similar situation in one application server running on Windows Server 2003, which need to increase the service timeout value to ensure the services start up properly, otherwise the service could never start.  Ha, this is its cousin in Windows family.)

     When I drive out and pick up the GPS signal, it’s quite faster to get the position, in about 0.5 to 1 kilometers; and the signal is also quite stable, I can even put it on passenger’s seat and just listen to the voice direction.  Later, I attached the mount kit on the windshield, it stays there firmly, and if I put it on-hold, the GPS is still running and voice direction will still come out, so I won’t look at the screen and focus on driving.  Using its earphone jack and FM transmitter, I can play MP3 in the background and let the music and voice come out from my car audio system.

     Then, I found the map is out-of-date.  Some new residential areas just show blank in the map as they were farms in the past.  It even doesn’t include a street behind the SuperStore near my home, the street has been there for at least 3 years, so I think the map could be around year 2005.  There is also another problem, when there is no signal, it alway positions back to somewhere in Montreal, although I’ve already set my home as orginal.  If I use the map of France, its original point is somewhere in Paris.

     Machine hangs some times, then need a reset, okay … you have to reset several time a day.  For this tiny machine, I need to be patient, it shouldn’t run as fast as a P4 desktop, sometimes I have to wait for a while, especially when it’s synchronizing with the desktop.  The screen just freezes and not response to any touch… but if there is no sync, I would hit the reset hole.

     Windows Live from Microsoft, failed to sync folders is also fixed by reset.  This shouldn’t be a problem, but it drives me mad as it always failed to sync my Live personal settings after successfully sync my Live Mail since last week, no solution so far; and the famous AvantGo also has problem, it refused to sync the content and just gave me ‘Account Locked’ … this is resolved last week and I got a on-screen message from AvantGo apoligize for this issue.

     There are more WM6 freebies from Microsoft, include MSNBC Mobile in which I can play daily news briefing via wireless LAN; Live Search; and Wiigo, a RSS stuff.  Of couse, MS Reader, an old time freebie, MS provides quite some free download books too.

[Like it, add more thought tomorrow … ]

附: 解决PalmV不能校准触摸屏幕的问题–this is for my old pal–IBM Workpad C3.
Keywords: PalmV digitizer align calibration fix "Mad Digitizer Syndrome"
Links: http://www.freewarepalm.com/utilities/digifix.shtml
http://www.computing.net/pda/wwwboard/forum/1531.html
http://forum.brighthand.com/showthread.php?t=232546&page=2