I’m embracing my inner corporate whore and digging my new BlackBerry. I don’t use BlackBerry push email though, and I don’t use POP or IMAP or gmail either. I use mutt, and I love it, but that means I need a ssh client so I can check my mail.

Fortunately for me, there is a great open source ssh client for the BlackBerry (and other J2ME devices) called MidpSSH. Although there are more polished commercial ssh clients available, MidpSSH works great for me, and you definitely want your SSH client to be OSS.

Shag asked what the terminal window size was. stty -a reports the default window size is 40 rows X 80 columns, but the font is really tiny. I prefer using the 5×9px LCD font, which gives a terminal size of 26 rows x 64 columns. It looks much sharper than the sidekick ssh client.

Check out this bit about subpel fonts on J2ME devices:

On MIDP 2 devices there are additional font options provided by Roar Lauritzsen. These fonts exploit the spatial separation of the RGB components within one pixel (similar to Microsoft’s ClearType). They double the horizontal resolution of the font by treating the G component as one pixel, and the R+B components combined as another. Basically they are more readable but still very small.

Filed under: gadgets, opensource, pocket pc · 0 Comments

Here is how I chose a new cell phone. I ran all the cell phones through this flow chart, and added up the scores. The BlackBerry 8703e on Verizon came up on top, but only because the 8800 isn’t out for another two weeks. I have a pretty specific set of requirements, so this probably won’t be useful to you, but here it is anyway:

Here are a few things I forgot to add to the chart (the BlackBerry 8703e has none of these):

• Trackball/D-pad
• Camera
• Touchscreen
• Transflective display
  

Filed under: blackberry, doodles, flowchart, gadgets, pocket pc · 0 Comments

So this just makes my geeky little heart sing. a couple days ago i discovered that i can stream internet radio stations from my cell phone to my car’s stereo! This heralds a pretty big change in my listening habits since my car was the only place left I listened to commercial radio. now I won’t have to listen to commercials anymore. yay! here’s what i’m using to get it working

• a mobile radio app (this one works on pocket pc phones but i’m sure there are similar apps for other kinds of phones. One nice thing about this one though is that I can set it to record programs at specific times (like Q’s radio show) and it’ll save the recording as an mp3 that i can listen to later…sorta like tivo for the radio)
• a 2.5mm / 3.5mm headset adapter
• a cassette/audio player stereo adapter if you don’t have an auxilary jack in your car. If you have an auxilary jack then you don’t need it.

Of course you’ll also need a data plan with your cell phone company (Sprint charges $15/mo for EVDO). Sound quality and reception are surprisingly good. It does tend to drop in certain places (especially along the 280 where my cell reception is spotty) but in general it works pretty well in the city. Aside from $20 for the radio app, there are no extra fees. Given that XM satellite radio costs about $13/ mo, this is a pretty sweet deal!

Filed under: apps, gadgets, pocket pc · 3 Comments

BugMe is quite possibly the most ingenious mobile app ever. It’s simply a digital post-it-pad that lets you scrawl a note and attach an alarm to go with it. You can even record a voice note to go with each scribble.

The alarm can be set for a specific interval (i.e. in 1/2 hr, 1 hr, etc) or for a specific date and time and when your phone alarm rings, it’ll flash your scribbled note to remind you of what you need to do. I use it to remind myself to move my car for street cleaning, feed the parking meter, call people and other random things that I always forget to do. Setting a reminder is just as easy as jotting a simple note, except now, they don’t get crumpled in my pocket or lost among all the other notes on my desk.

Filed under: apps, lifehacking, pocket pc · 3 Comments