Order is allowed, for either oldest first or newest first.  This is great.  What this means is that it will constantly download the oldest or the newest.  Doesn’t matter how many times you have heard them.  It doesn’t matter if you manually marked them as heard and manually deleted them.  If you have oldest selected, guess what is downloading back on the phone?  You remember those old favorites that you have manually deleted 10 times already?  Yeah, they are back.  Hello old friends.

If you are caught up and always listen to the latest, the moment it comes out, then having the newest set and keeping the latest X on your devices works fine.  Myself, I set almost everything to oldest, because if 2 episodes come out before I get back to that podcast, I want to hear them in order.

This isn’t that hard.  When a feed is added, a piece of data is tracked for each episode.  If you have downloaded and listened to a podcast, store the podcast filename or URL with a played flag.  When you are listing episodes, you put a small indicator that this is old and listened to already.  When syncing podcasts, download the oldest or newest that don’t have the listened to flag set.  Done.  This is programming, not rocket science.  The user can manually redownload them if wanted, but otherwise they are dead to us.

Now that we have a database that remembers which are played, can we mark them as played without downloading them?  Pretty please?  Some podcasts were online before you were even a glint in your compiler’s linked binaries.  I’m at episode 140 of 200, but selecting oldest will only allow me to start at 1.  Even if episodes were marked as listened correctly, I would have to download and mark all 139 prior episodes.

Now, can we ask for another great feature?  Add an auto delete after listening option.  Wouldn’t that be great?  You listen to an episode.  It is marked as played in the DB and deleted.  Now what happens?  The next episode is automatically downloaded to get up to your keep at least number.  It would be almost like the software was reading my mind.

I’ve almost stopped listening to PodCasts on Windows Phone, because the management of episodes is more work than the enjoyment of listening to them.  Maybe it is too easy to spot really crappy software after using really great software.   If anyone wants to see really good software, look at drPodder on webOS.  It is open source, take a look.  It makes Zune’s implementation looks like a bad student programming project.

All signals are 24 VAC from the R/RC/RH and C terminals. I need to research how much power can be pulled from this to run a device.

The turn by turn directions in pre Mango Windows Phone is a joke.  You must tap the screen to move along, making it totally unusable for navigation when you are driving the car.  The Mango update provides considerably increased driving instructions.  If you follow the route given, the system works very well.  If you do not, you will soon want to through your phone out your car window.

I have used each phone's direction solution to "find" my way to work.  Due to heavy construction, the fastest route is not obvious.  This is a good way of figuring out how annoying GPS software will be, by driving in a manner that it considers idiotic.

My first day was with Android 2.3.5.  I started Navigation, tapped Speak Navigation, and rattled off my work address.  It parsed the address correctly.  I deviated from the proposed route no less than ten times.  When I went off route, the phone didn't utter a peep, it just recalculated a route faster than any mapping solution I have ever used.  Voice prompts were there when needed, but not annoying at all.  After determining that the routing works as well as TeleNav, this would be my preferred navigation solution on Android.  TeleNav give you a speak destination option, but it does not parse the speech to text as well as Navigate.  If you want to use TeleNav for the routing, you can let Navigate hear your location then select which you wish to use for GPS routing.

My second day was with Windows Phone 7.5 beta.  I started Maps and tapped the directions arrow, then typed in my work address.  Then I started navigating.  No voice destination is available in Maps or TeleNav.  The routing looks fine.  Now I almost immediately go off route.  My phone tells me that I have gone off track and I can tap the screen to reroute.  Excuse me?  I have to tap the screen to reroute?  Whoever came up with this idea is the same guy who puts 2 "Are you SURE you want to close this App?" dialogs, when you just want to get out of the program.  So I held the phone in my hand, because I knew I would have to tap the screen after each mile or so leg, when it thinks I should get "back on track".

I wound up turning off Maps about halfway to work, to keep me from throwing the phone out the window.  A complete and utter usability failure.

Android wins this round.  Still not sure if it is enough to get past the complete ease of use failure that is the Android system in general, so I'm still using both.

Adding a little edit here after using TeleNav GPS Nav for a while on both platforms. It routes better than either built in solution. This will be the method I use GPS on either platform, due to this. Good routing trumps any slick interface, when the goal is good driving directions.

I will be outlining the current successes and fails with Windows Phone which keep it from being an enjoyable podcasting experience.

Adding Podcast

Adding podcasts from the device is only possible by searching the Zune podcast library.  If the podcast does not exists in the library, you cannot add it from the phone.  If you have an obscure podcast, you can add an rss feed through the Zune desktop software.  Not at all ideal, but it does work.

Playback Order (Win)

When setting up a podcast, you can specify the number of episodes you wish to download to the phone at a time and the order (oldest or newest first.)  This makes sense.  Some podcasts are episodic and it would be confusing to listen to them in anything but chronological order.  News podcasts might make more sense to listen to the latest first and the older if you have time.

But what happens when you want to listen to them from oldest to newest for a podcast that has been out for years?  That brings us to...

Episode Management (Fail)

I listen to many podcasts that have been around far before Windows Phone was a twinkle in a cell carrier's eyes.  So I setup a new podcast that I am up to episode 107 on my current device.  I listen to it oldest first and set a sync of 3.  My Windows Phone will download Episodes 1, 2, and 3.  Then I can tap hold and mark as read.  However, I cannot do this until the episode is downloaded.  So the process of catching up is to download each episode and mark it as read.

Tap and hold an undownloaded, unplayed episode should have an option to mark as played.  Ideally, there would be some functionality to "catch up" and mark all as played.  This would be more useful in a majority of cases when you are transitioning from a device where you have been a loyal listener.  If you set all to read and then have to reset the last 2 or 3 to unread, this is still a faster experience.

Video Support (Win)

The Windows Phone handles video podcasts very well.  Playback is crisp in visuals and program performance and start up time.  I don't see anything in video that is a problem, other than the problems also common to any style podcast in general.

Bookmarks (occasional Fail)

Podcasts are much longer than songs.  It is not uncommon for them to pass 90 minutes.  Most people won't listen to them at one sitting.  The podcast player should remember time into each episode of each show to which a listener has progressed.

Bookmarks seem to work as expected in video podcasts.  However, I have had mixed results with audio, with many times getting no bookmark.  Instead of a complete oversight, which I originally assumed, it seems to be bugs in the process.  What I am running is till beta code, so we will have to wait to see if this is addressed in the version of Mango sent down to phones.  If you play from the main screen and are careful to pause, it seems to work.  Time will tell.

A2DP Bluetooth Support (Fail)

While Bluetooth support on Windows Phone is woefully lacking, the A2DP profile seems to work perfectly for any audio only component.  When you bring video into the mix, nothing you do will make audio stream through your Bluetooth device.  This affects video podcasts along with all video on the device, including YouTube, local videos, and Netflix.

If you will watch no video on the phone, you will find A2DP to satisfy you.  But with only partial support, you have no choice other than to use wired headphones if you consume any video at all.  This makes A2DP worthless.

Streaming (Win)

If you want to listen to an episode that you have not downloaded, no problem.  Streaming the episode worked great for both audio and video playback.  As long as you used those wired headphones for the video, that is.

Control from Other Apps (Win)

While Windows Phone is not anywhere close to the multitasking that was enjoyed in webOS, they control of audio playback while moving around other apps works well.  If you at inside another application and wish to pause playback (or other controls, such as skipping a track) you simply hit either volume button.  The first touch of a volume button does not change the volume, but drops down a media control panel.  From here you can pause and go forward or back.

 Summary

After getting past the pain of catching up all the shows, it should work fine for steady state listening.  Heaven help me if I ever get behind again and just want to catch up.  I'll be using this for my daily podcasts for a while and see how it goes.  Sure wish I could get my missing podcasts back though.

This article will detail the pain points that will exist on doing a webOS to Windows Phone (and specifically the HTC Arrive) transition.  I will also highlight the cool things I see that aren't possible on webOS (at least Sprint available webOS phones).

MultiTasking vs MultiPausing

webOS is still the best multitasking platform for mobile, full stop.  Windows Phone acts much like iOS, where apps are put into a pause state and resumed when reloaded.  The Arrive has three "soft" buttons on the front for Back, Windows, and Search.  These are needed to navigate and annoying at the same time.  I can't tell you how often I accidentally tapped search and was bounced into Bing search.  Then a Back tap resumes where you were in a variably amount of time, depending on the app.

In the development documentation, there is a term for preparing your application for this pause: "Tombstoning".   Sit there and act dead and I'll let you know when you can come out of the coffin.  Mango supposedly has faster resume, but like the iOS transition a short while ago, the apps must be coded to use this for a faster resume.  Most I've used have not been updated.

Holding the back button takes you to a similar view as card mode on webOS.  This isn't nearly as nice, but I can work with it.  The cards will be a list of the last 5 (or less) apps that you have opened.  You will always start at the right and can swipe to the left in chronological order.  webOS this sure isn't, but I can deal.  It isn't as bad as I expected it would be.

Notifications

This is another feature where webOS tops the mobile space.  Others are getting close, but not there yet.  Windows Phone uses live tiles on the home screen to display some of this information.  However, there is not one place to go to see all that has happened.  I can live with Windows Phone version, but it is vastly inferior.  The unlock screen shows many of the "notifications", which is slightly like the locked display on webOS.

Calendars

When my wife and I purchased our webOS phones, over two years ago, we started expanding into the capabilities of webOS Synergy.  I use a work Exchange calendar, Google personal, and my wife used two Google calendars for work and personal.  All of these show up on my Pre with no effort other than linking my Google account.  This is not the case with Windows Phone.  It is not even possible to see multiple calendars for one account in the current release of Windows Phone.  When I upgraded to Mango, this was possible, but only after a hack that I detailed in this article.

Since you only have to do this once, I call the Calendar a draw (once Mango comes out, that is.)  webOS has a few nicer features, but Windows Phone is 5x faster in getting through the info.

Touchstone

The wireless charging setup for webOS phones and tablets is something that isn't thought about, until you are plugging cabled into phones for the first time on two years.  I have my Pre sitting right in front of my keyboard on a Touchstone, right now.  When I leave my desk area, I just scoop it up.  It is there to tap songs or quickly look at notifications.  Just a handy setup.  This will be missed.

Podcasts

I have used drPodder for webOS, since early betas.  It is a great app with the ability to download podcasts directly from your phone, or stream them.  It supports audio and video, as well as some advanced renaming features.  The negatives of using drPodder are all related to the error filled media playing implementation of webOS 1.4.5, where my Pre is stuck.  I just expect the last 6-10 seconds of a podcast to get cut off.  It just happens.  Starting a podcast playing back (even a downloaded one) can take up to 10 seconds.  If my Pre starts getting hot for some reason, playback slows to 80% speed.  But drPodder makes listening to and managing podcasts a breeze.  After playing, the file can be auto deleted.  You can play from bottom or top (oldest to newest or reverse).

Mango has added podcasts directly into the Zune media system.  I was able to find a majority of the podcasts I listen to in the directory.  I am not used to the immediate response of the software, when lags where just part of the game with webOS.  The current setting is to download audio and video only when WiFi is connected, but this is configurable.  I cannot find a way to manually add an RSS feed to a podcast not in the Zune directory.  So immediately, I'm missing 3 of my normal podcasts.

You have options of how many of each podcast to download, if you should get oldest or newest first, and if you should play them from oldest or newest.  So it seems to replace most functionality of drPodder.  But not so fast.

Some of the podcasts I listen to are nearly 90 minutes.  I almost never listen to them at one sitting.  On webOS, drPodder just keeps my last place and when I start that episode again, I'm just slightly before when I stopped.  If I leave the podcast in Zune player, and go back to it in the future, I'm right back at the beginning.  This has got to be a joke, right?  They aren't bookmarking audio podcasts?  It looks like they are handled just like songs.  This is a complete and utter fail and makes audio podcast listening impossible on the device.

Now for video podcasts, they are storing the position for each one.  I can pause 4 different episodes of a podcast, 3 different ones of another, and all will restore at the correct position.  So I have to download video versions of the podcasts that have them and listen to that on my drive into work, when I will never be looking at the video.  Have I been spoiled too much by drPodder, or is this implementation just not well formed?

Podcasting on Windows Phone is a fail.

Video Playback

Be it video podcasts or video files that you loaded on the phone via Zune software (which encodes them), they all play great.  However, I have not been able to figure out how to make sound for Video come out over A2DP headsets.  Audio works great.  However, once you start a video, it either comes out of the speaker or wired headphones.  I'm not sure if this is an HTC Arrive fail or a Windows Phone issue in general.  Why isn't audio just audio.  Just when I thought that I could used the video versions of a podcast to get past the bookmark issue, now I can't use A2DP headphones for that.  You seriously have to be kidding me.  This is a major annoyance and needs to be addressed.

Web Browser

There is no way to describe the web browser in current Windows Phone, other than crap.  It was really bad.  The Mango update essentially loads IE9 onto your phone.  While this is still a step back from the Chrome or Firefox that I'm used to on the desktop, it is a decent mobile browser.  ACID3 test jumps from a 12 to a 95, between current WP and Mango.  For most browse ability, the Windows Phone wins over my old Palm Pre.  This is a combination of screen size and processor speed.  However, there are sites which my Pre can open that Windows Phone Mango will not.  For getting something done all over the web, webOS still wins here.  For most use, the speed of the newer phone and clean OS is on top.

Camera

If the Pre3 was released, I think this would be equal or slightly into webOS for functionality.  Video editing on the Pre is pretty cool.  However, my Pre cannot shoot a clear shot closer than 8 inches.  Scanning barcodes with the phone? Don't make me laugh.

The Arrive has a 5 MP autofocus camera, which allows me to shoot as close as 2-3 cm.  Dedicated camera button that never seems to freeze for up to 20 seconds when I want to load it, as my aging Pre will do occasionally.

There is also automated uploads to SkyDrive (Microsoft's cloud storage) if you desire.  This is a hands down win for the HTC Arrive and Windows Phone.  The uploads to Facebook and other upload features that a almost never using on the Pre are also available here.

Apps

The Windows Phone Marketplace isn't iOS or Android level yet, but there are Apps.  More and better games than available for webOS.  The one missing app that I hope they get soon is Pandora.  I have gotten used to listening to a mellow mix over A2DP headphones while I work.  This will be missed.

You know one app that is pretty cool?  Netflix.  Streaming on my phone.  Oh, yeah.  These are the things that may push past any of the pain.  The real apps we have been waiting for on webOS for two years.  While there are some missing innovative apps that are unique to webOS, Windows Phone is walking to the finish line to win on this one.  They have the apps that I hoped HP scale would bring to webOS.

Bing Search

Does Windows Phone have an app to identify songs?  Yes, but with Mango it is baked into the OS itself.  (This is also why Shazam has upped their price to $5.99 for Windows Phone, as they will be obsolete when the Mango update pushes out.)  To search for music in Mango, tap the search button and tap the music icon at the bottom.  Then let the phone listen.  It does a decent job identifying music, with a link to the Zune marketplace if you want to purchase it.

They also have visual search, that allows you to photograph text with the camera and translate it into other languages, or pull up QR code, Microsoft Tags, UPCs for books, CDs, DVDs.  It isn't perfect with the text, but better than I expected.

You also have voice search.  This works amazingly well.

Speech to Text and Text to Speech

I'm interested in trying this out on Android, as Molly Wood indicated that she uses it in more places than just searching.  However, I found it very useful.  If you hold down the windows key, you activate voice mode.  I may say: "text Amy", it will respond with which of my wife's numbers I should text.  I say "Google" for her Google Voice number.  It then says "Texting Amy Sacher" and goes to the SMS composition mode.  Then I say what I want to text.  It gets it down fairly accurately and reads it back to me.  I can say "Send", "Try Again", or "Cancel".

"Open" followed by any installed app name works to start up that app.  "Call" followed by a phone number works as long as you say each digit and don't call 18 "eighteen" instead of "one, eight".  If it doesn't recognize a valid verb noun combo, it will bing search for the text you spoke.  This blows away the functionality that I've played with on the Pre2.

Trial Version

Windows Phone apps allow trial versions.  This would be fairly simple to hack around in webOS and is possible, because the apps are compiled.  I have tried many apps and it keeps be from buying bad apps, which is have done many times on webOS.  This is good for keeping the collection of apps strong.  If you try 3 apps to provide one service, download all the trials.  Then buy the one you like, but review all three.  This will reward good developers.

I'm downloading all the trials of Instapaper apps right now.  Let the best app win.

Tethering

Of all the features that I use on my webOS phone, tethering for free on Sprint is the most needed, due to now having the Touchpad.  This is easy on both webOS and Android.  I'm not sure if this is possible with the HTC Arrive and Windows Mobile, yet.  I believe some type of tethering will be available with Mango, but if you can do it without the extra fee is yet to be seen.  This may be the deal breaker that takes me to Android.  But comparing webOS to Windows Phone, webOS knocks it out of the park.

Homebrew

There is no debate on this one.  webOS homebrew is the only thing that kept people on webOS in the dark days (1) before HP acquisition.  It is also how people are staying on webOS with FrankenPre2s and other methods of staying on their carrier and getting through the dark days(2) after the HP cancellation.  There is not a more open system than webOS, period.

Getting Files on Device

There is no USB mode for Windows Phone.  Like iTunes on iOS, you go through Zune.  This is annoying.  The only other real option is going through SkyDrive.  This worked to edit an Office document on the phone from SkyDrive and push it back up there.

With webOS stock, you can connect your phone to your computer as a USB drive.  Copy either way.  All good.  With a little WebOSInternals, you can SSH into the phone and SCP files with the phone just being on the same network.  This is an easy webOS win and I have many "work arounds" to learn if I will be staying on Windows Phone.

Development

While this doesn't affect strictly users, I see the development environment for each platform pretty well matched.  There are cool things that webOS does where Windows Phone can't match, and vice versa.  We are still waiting for mic access and other hardware access on webOS.  Both platforms are much nicer than trying to develop for Android.  I'm looking into MonoGame to port apps to Android, iOS, Mac, Linux, and possibly webOS, in addition to the native support on Windows Phone, Windows, and XBox.

There is also a fun little scripting app on the phone called TouchDevelop.  This exposes most if not all the phone's capabilities for your little mini programs.  I made a 4 line program that prompted me to talk, converted Speech to Text, then used Text to Speech to read it back to me.  I'm sure I'll mes with this more.

Conclusion

The only part that I will have trouble working past is if I can't get tethering on my Windows Phone.   I will be getting an Android phone via our two year upgrade discount, to test that platform as well (most likely a Nexus S).  No conclusions what platform I'm landing on yet, still much more research to be done.  Unlike webOS, the hardware is solid.  Performance of individual apps blow away my aging webOS hardware.  However, there are software fixes that are still needed.  Since Mango will not hit for a month or more, these will be a while in coming.

Bottom line.  I could switch to Windows Phone.  It will be different, but it is a very usable platform.  After I get some experience with Android, I take my pick.

For most Windows Phone 7 users who are waiting for the Mango release, this won't be useful yet.  But you can go through the steps if you want, and it will magically show all your Google calendars when you get the OS update.

Google is only selecting the primary calendar to sync to your WP7 calendar.   In my situation, I have an Exchange Work calendar and a Google Personal calendar.  Both of those showed up with WP7 NoDo.  What was missing is my wife's Google Work and Personal calendars.  Here is how I enabled them.

Google will allow you to configure the calendar to sync if it believes you are an iOS device.  If you have access to an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, etc.) you can use those to do this.  Otherwise, we will just fake it.

To fake an iPhone, I used Google Chrome.  You will want to start up the browser on the command line.  So open up a Command Shell and "cd" (change directory) into the proper directory for chrome.exe.  If you don't know where this is, right-click on the shortcut in Windows and select Properties.

Once you are in the directory, paste this command into your command prompt and execute it.  (You will need to close down any Chrome browsers you may have open before you do this.)

chrome.exe --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7"

The Chrome instance that started up is telling the world that it is an iPhone 4.  Browse to http://m.google.com/sync.  You should see something similar to this:

Click on WindowsPhone and you will see your calendars:

Notice only your main calendar is checked.  No problem, check the others.  But that doesn't work.  Google has blocked this with JavaScript.  We just need to turn JavaScript off.

Click on the wrench icon at the top right of Chrome and select Options.  Now click Under the Hood on the left.  Click the Content Settings button.  Change JavaScript section to not allow any site to run JavaScript:

Now you will be able to select the other calendars and click Save.

That is it.  Going back to your Mango phone, you should be able to sync and see all calendars.  Just remember to reselect JavaScript.

The too long didn't read version of this post is this: Download HandBrake, render using the iPad Preset and change frame rate to Same as Source.  Upload to Touchpad and be happy.  If you care about some of the testing I did, continue reading.

I started with a high end HD video file, to take advantage of the full resolution of the Touchpad.  The video I played with is a BluRay version of Pixar's Partly Cloudy.  This is a 1080p video (1920x1080), with 5.1 channel AC3  sound (48 kHz and 16 bit).  This is most likely the highest video quality source that people will use for Touchpad encoding.  Runtime is 5:48 with 23.976 frame rate.

Two pieces of software I used are Format Factory (Windows only) and HandBrake (Windows, Mac, Linux. Tested on the Windows version).

First render was in Format Factory with the  iPad setting at 720x480 MPEG4.  This rendered slightly faster than I had been seeing with HandBrake.  There is a noticeable quality loss with stretching the 720 out to the Touchpad's 1024 width, but the video is very watchable.  If you did not have a 1024 width video to compare it to, you would not see an issue.  File Size 47.0 Mb

I took the same iPad setting and bumped the resolution to 1024x768, keeping all the other settings the same.  What surprised me is the file size dropped to 46.6 Mb.  Looking closer, I noticed that the video bit rate is fixed at 1000 kbs, rather than using HandBrake's quality style setting.

HandBrake has a video format for the iPad at 1024 width with aspect ratio set height (but steps width down to source video width if smaller than 1024).  The only change I made before I ran this encoding was to set frame rate as Same as Source.  (It was defaulted to 29.97.)  The encoding takes longer than Format Factory (1.1-1.4x).  The file size came out to 69.8 Mb.

When you look at both 1024 wide videos on the Touchpad, you can see the difference between Format Factory's 1120 kbs data rate and HandBrake's 1672 kbs data rate.  There was quite a bit of motion blocking artifacts with FF's encode.  The added time to render due to detecting quality of the frame dynamically is worth it.

I upped the Format Factory setting to use 1500 kbs video data rate (for similar to HandBrake's total data rate) to do an apples to apples comparison.  File size came out to 67.9 Mb, so pretty close.

When looking at the two on the Touchpad, they are very hard to tell apart most of the time.  The biggest issues is with horizontal streaking on single color backgrounds for the Format Factory version.  By going with a fixed bit rate, rather than the HandBrake's quality based setting, you also get blocking during highly changing scenes.  HandBrake will use less data during the static scenes, but more during dynamic scenes, resulting in a better encoding at the same overall file size.

I rendered some of the files that I have ripped from my DVDs (most 640 x proper aspect ratio height) through HandBrake, using the iPad profile.  These play great.  The Touchpad had no issues with m4v or mp4 file extension for the H.264 MPEG 4 files these apps were generating. It would not even display the Xvid based MPEG4 files that I have encoded for use with my media players and Boxee Box before H.264 was the standard.

Watching video on the Touchpad just reminds you how great the audio on this thing sounds.  Really a good video viewing experience.  Do some transcoding and enjoy your moving picture shows.

Also, I forgot to mention on the video, but you will want to install the Patch for Send To Paper Mache if you use the Touchpad.  Adds to InstaPaper, as there are no Bookmarklets on WebOS currently.

At first I expected the chicklet keys to be annoying, compared to a full sized keyboard.  It was surprising to me that they were not.  The keys depress quickly, to give a feeling of depth, before stopping.  I have no trouble typing as fast as I would on my laptop.

The Good

I am listening to music on the Touchpad as I type. When a song pops up that I'm not enjoying, I tap the FF button at the top of the keyboard and keep going.  This is more handy than I expected, as most media keys on desktop keyboards have gone unused by me.  Possibly it is the feeling that the Touchpad is just the monitor and you want to do everything on the keyboard as you are working.  It works for me.

I like the WebOS specific keys.  In addition to being a very functional keyboard, it integrates well with WebOS for control of power, volume, playback, brightness, show/hide for virtual keyboard, immediate jump to Just Type, and dedicated "card view" button.  Of these, Just Type is amazing.  I'm typing something and think, "hmm, I wonder about subject x".  Tap the magnifying glass button above the 1 key, type "subject x" and tap enter.  A web page with the Google search pops up.  (Before writing this, I had no idea that Subject X was a character in a Marvel comic book. Learn something new every day.)

This article will have many points in the Bad and Ugly category below. This doesn't mean that it isn't a good keyboard. For the most part these failings are software that I hope are addressed in future WebOS versions. The hardware is good enough to make this a great keyboard experience with the right supporting code.

The Bad

Two hardware design issues can be seem by just observing the keyboard before even using it.  These don't detract terribly from the use of the keyboard, but if it isn't intuitive or obvious, it is usually a design fail.

First, there is no indication of how to change the batteries.  Without reading the instructions, I did not know how to slide the battery cover.  A simple arrow on the cover would completely solve this issue.  The battery life is supposed to be good enough that batteries last for months. We won't have the instructions by then, I hope I remember which direction to slide the cover.

Second, the power switch has two settings: black and slightly whiter black. It is difficult to know which setting is "on".  This goes away with training of what is the right direction, but a product should be designed to be able to be picked up and used.  These problems could be fixed with a new battery cover, adding a 1 and 0 icon for power and the cover removal arrow.

I've run into unintended key repeats twice in about 3 hours of typing. I'll be typing the word "most" and get mooooooooooost. This could be either a hardware or software problem.  It doesn't really feel like the key contacts are sticking, but it would be possible under the key without me seeing it.  It would also be possible for the software to be hanging for just a bit.

The Touchpad has two styles of correction for words it thinks are wrong. First, if it is pretty sure that you are wrong and it knows what is right, it will do an auto correction. This replaces the word you typed with the "correct" one and underlines the word in gray.  The second method is when the correct fix is not known, so the incorrect word is left underlined in red. The user may tap that word and select the correction or enter it into the dictionary if the word typed was actually correct.

When a word is auto corrected and what you typed is correct, you press Delete and the original is restored. That is a great idea, but is only effective if you are a slow typist.  With the Bluetooth keyboard, you are into the next word before you realize that it made a correction.  After you have typed a new letter, you can no longer correct it quickly with Delete.  You must delete the letter(s) you typed, delete the gray underlined word, retype the word, hit space, hit delete to undo the auto correction which will happen again, hit space again and continue.  Optionally, you can tap the gray underlined word to restore the original word, but this takes you off the keyboard so it totally depends on the length of the word as to which is faster.  This restored word will be underlined in red, so tapping it and adding to the dictionary will eliminate the problem with this word in the future.  Otherwise the Touchpad will continue to replace it each time it is typed.

You do have the option of disabling Auto Correct in the Text Assist App in Settings.  I disabled it while typing the last two paragraphs and made enough mistakes it would have auto corrected, that I lost time over what I saved fixing "good" words.  I have it back on and will leave it that way.  As you train the dictionary to the vernacular you use, this will be less and less of an issue.

The Ugly

WebOS is an elegant OS.  That is part of what draws people into it.  The operation is intuitive and clean.  Sadly, this stops when a keyboard is introduced.  There is a card view button, but you can't do anything with it.  It only saves you an up swipe.  Here is how it should function:

Tap the card view button.  Press left or right arrow to select different cards.  Tap Enter or Down Arrow to bring the card to full screen. Maybe Control+Up would close the currently selected card. Nice.  Elegant.  WebOS-like.

The Just Type search key is great. From anywhere, I can jump to a system wide search.  Then it fails to be like WebOS on the keyboard.  Here is how it should function:

Tap the Just Type button.  Type what you want to search.  Then the Up and Down keys allow you to select different options from the default.  Then press Enter to go to the one you selected.  This is a situation where two key taps on down would be faster than reaching over to tap the screen.  And to blow our minds with usefulness, how about Control+Left or Right to switch between All, Contacts, Content, or Actions.  That would be awesome.  Elegant.

The biggest of the ugly is the lack of expected functionality of the keyboard while you are typing.  I ran into this over a dozen times and it makes using the Touchpad for final editing a frustrating experience.

Selecting text should be possible by holding down Shift and using arrow keys.  This works exactly as it should when you are either in a text area that has less than a screen full of text in it or is scrolled to the top of the text buffer.  If you are in the middle of a multi screen document and try a selection with either Shift+Left/Right or Shift+Up/Down, you get a little highlighted and then the screen tries to scroll up or down with every arrow key push.

I just deleted 6 words and retyped them, because I couldn't do a Cut and Paste quicker.  That is a big fail. It is unusable.  I must resort to the tap and hold, tap Select, drag edges to region and Cut or Copy, so I only do this for sentence length or longer text sections.

This leads me into the second problem with productivity while editing on the Touchpad: Copy and Paste.  Why doesn't Control + X, C, and V function?  It is inexcusable on a business class device that will be used for document editing.  I have used it over a dozen times editing this post and follow it up with having to use the slower methods of the touch screen, as I remember that it doesn't work.  It is almost subconscious for anyone that has done editing on the computer.  It is THE WAY to copy and paste if you are using a hardware keyboard, full stop.  Fix this, HP.

So, there you have it, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of using the HP Touchpad Keyboard to actually do work on the Touchpad.  In its current state, it is great for getting thoughts down.  However, doing the final polishing is painful.  I forced myself to use the Touchpad for this entire article.  In reality, I will be switching back to the laptop for any final editing until the two major text editing issues are addressed, unless I don't have a choice.

The solution is to delete the Kindle App and redownload. I'm poking in the source to see if there is a cleaner way to test books against the hybrid components that parse the ebook files, without requiring this tedious reload. You have been warned.

I did not know if the Kindle App on the Touchpad could even handle .mobi format files, if I could get them there. Amazon purchased MobiPocket and their original ebook format was only slightly modified .mobi file. I assumed that the reader plugin would understand the .mobi format and I was right.

The books for your Kindle app are stored in the /media/internal/.palmkindle directory. The book files have strange names such as B000JMLFLW_EBOK.azw. I'm not sure if this is the same on each device for a given book, but I would assume so. Best guess is that it is just the primary key for that book in Amazon's DB. This is the file for a free book of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

There is a subdirectory holding the cover images, called appropriately "coverCache". Inside there, you will find up to three files of the format: B000JMLFLW-[small|medium|large].jpg. Large does not exist for all books. Large is 333x500, Medium is 120x180, and Small is 52x78.

I decided to try a copy of John Ringo's When the Devil Dances that I had purchased from webscription.net. I replaced the original B000JMLFLW_EBOK.azw with the .mobi format of that book using the same name. Then I saved images for all three sizes with the same prefix. When I ejected the Touchpad, the ebook loaded correctly, but the cover image did not change for the thumbnail style of books display. When I changed to a list view, the image was correct. I had not gone into list mode before, so I am guessing that caching is used to only load images once. This makes sense, as the book cover is not a rapidly changing asset.

At this point I rebooted, to try to uncache the cover image. This worked. I now had a book that looked correct in the thumbnail view.

Tapping on the book loaded When the Devil Dances with an expected title up top of Pride and Prejudice.

The book had no issues being read. So all that is needed is updating the book database to correct the title. That would complete the hack. I have no idea how this will interface with Amazon syncing for distance read. I have turned off syncing before I started messing with this to keep from "mucking things up".

What this proves is that sideloading non-Amazon sourced books should be fairly trivial to add to the Kindle App. It would just require updating the database to show the new books and loading a .mobi file and cover images.

Please read this warning if you plan to attempt this.

I should also add that pReader in the App Catalog (for Free!), will work full screen on the Touchpad, and display most formats.  It is not as clean as the Kindle app, but a solution for sideloading books now.  One quirk, to navigate back, you must use the menu.  As webOS phones had a back gesture, not needing a button for this functionality.

I finally figured out how to view a key as I enter it and validate the key, so I can be sure the passcode part of the network acceptance is valid. Here is how I did it.

When you have the WiFi network selection open, tap on the "+ Join Network". The above image was capture before the Touchpad located any WiFi networks. Normally, you will see your network and possibly others above the "+ Join Network" option.

This will open a dialog that is normally used for you to enter the SSID of a hidden WiFi network. Instead, we are typing our WiFi passcode in plain text (oh, glorious plain text).

You can now see all characters and scroll back and forth to verify everything is correct (just tap and drag to the left or right.) When it looks good, tap and hold to bring up the Select menu. Choose Select All.

Now with everything selected, tap and hold again for the Copy menu. Select Copy and you have your WiFi key in your clipboard. Tap cancel and select your WiFi network.

Tap and hold in the passcode field and you can select Paste.

If I had done this the first time I started to enter our complex key, I would have only had to type it once and been able to verify it easily. Typing 64 characters with only vision on the last one is a little too tough.

HP, PLEASE make an option to show the passcode. All you have to do is change the enyo options of the text box. Entering a passcode for WiFi should not be this hard. If it must be secure by default, put a check box that allows "Show WiFi Key". This is much more painful than it needs to be.

When reading the author's name, Don Brown, I was mistaking it for a more famous Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code). As I read the military themes unfold, my mind then played further tricks on me as I made a connection with Dale Brown's military styled novels as the author. None of this is important in discussing the merits and faults of this novel, which shares more with John Grisham than either of the other two authors mentioned.

Treason is the first book in Don Brown's Navy Justice series, which follows Navy JAG (Judge Advocate General) Lieutenant Zack Brewer through two major cases. This feels familiar to the JAG TV series. Don Brown is a former JAG Officer and thus the similarities between the two are actually similarities between both and the actual Military Justice System of the United States. All interactions and procedures portrayed in the book seem real and believable.

I was confused by the level of discussion of faith throughout the book, tempered mostly by my assumption that the author was one of those discussed above. It was surprising that they would break form and include some discussion of Christian faith and beliefs, when not directly germane to the plot. As a Christian, I actually enjoyed what it added to the book.

I realized, after completing the novel, that the publisher is Zondervan, one of the largest Bible and Evangelical Christian book publishers. Thus the inclusion of Christian themes is less surprising. I actually found it much more subtle than other novels with tangential Christian teaching which I have read in the past.

It is hard not to compare this book to works from John Grisham, who is after all a master of the courtroom novel. Unfortunately, Don Brown does not quite make the cut.

The novel opens with Muslim leaders discussing the infiltration of sleeper agents into the United States Armed Forces. As the story unfolds, we learn that a lawsuit was won which allowed Muslim Chaplains into the Armed Forces. Some of these Chaplains are handlers to infiltrate and create a network of like minded Muslim soldiers to attack the enemy from within. This is truly a scary premise and one which is an undeniably fertile ground for a great story.

Muslim soldiers are committing acts of terror. One instance, a soldier brings grenades to a Christian church where a discussion of Islam was occurring. The bomber demands that the preacher renouce his faith and explodes two grenades when the preacher stands his ground. Many are killed, along with the attacker. In a second instance, a sniper assassinates the Ambassador from Israel, before committing suicide.

The first trial in the book is mostly for setting the ball rolling and introducing the main players. A Navy SEAL is accused of raping an officer, who is the niece of a prominent Senator. I found it amusing that the novel included a token "Reverend" whose only preaching occurs by talking about oppressed minorities to the press (the SEAL was a minority). This just rings a little too true.

Zach is prosecuting the case against a beautiful JAG officer, who hates Zach due to a previous encounter. Throughout the trial, the truth is unknown. The rape accusation sounds fishy and Zach is troubled by his thought that he might not be doing the correct thing in putting the SEAL away. Unfortunately, this theme is almost immediately dropped at the conclusion of the first trial, with the feeling that a wrong was done.

Meanwhile, a F-18 Hornet is destroyed by another jihadist, who plants explosives in the fighter. This is the event which starts the investigation of the main case in the novel. The United States vs the 3 Chaplains who ran the jihadists in the military.

Along the way we have cross plots of possible future political aspirations of the young Lieutenant Zack with a possible pairing with the famous Senator's niece. The main meat and potatoes of the novel is the second trial, which is where the novel falters.

The President of the United States allows cameras into the courtroom for the first time in a Court Marshal. I initially wondered why and realized later that it was for the benefit of the writer. Far too often, when major portions of the case were to happen, the plot was moved forward by tangential characters hearing the summary on the evening news. It seems as though the author assumed all readers would skim this part anyway, so he did the skimming for them. The drama is in the courtroom: what is said, what is done. The novel is lesser for leaving much of this out.

There are many important details of the investigation and trial that are lightly mentioned once, but never discussed. Every shallow character does their shallow job. There are no twists. No unexpected turns in the case. The reader is given everything at face value and just follows along.

The writing was good enough that I enjoyed my time reading it. Unlike some of my favorite novels that I will reread every decade or so, this will not be reread. Everything is very black and white. I assumed the ending in the first few chapters and unfortunately was absolutely correct. I may eventually read the other two books in this series, but I'm in not rush to do so.

First it is recommended that you install KB907306 - Software Update for Web Folders. I'm trying this on Windows 7 and that update installed fine.
Access to Box.net via WebDAV uses this URL: https://www.box.net/dav/.

In Windows, you right-click on Network in Explorer and select Map Network Drive...

Pick any free drive (I selected X, because it reminds me of boX). Make sure you check to connect with different credentials or it will fail trying to log into Box.net with your Windows login. If you want the drive to be persistent, check Reconnect at logon. When you click Finish, you will eventually get this dialog:

Enter your Box.net username and password. If you don't want to have to enter them each time, you can allow Windows to remember them.

After mapping was completed, I was able to view my folders and add new files and folders. The pain of Box.net on the PC was just lifted and this service will be useful after all. For Mac users, I'm sure there is a reference out there for WebDAV mapping.

I've been typing this in the WordPress app on the Touchpad.  Now to see how to post it.

It was fun to watch slightly misaligned resistors get pulled into place as the solder melts and forms a fillet with the part. Even the SOT23-6 ATTiny10 chip self aligned a little. Very cool stuff. I jumped to the LED current limit resistor with my multimeter and see that the expected 14.3 mA is flowing through the LED. (And that I mounted it the correct direction, as it lit up.)

I left the photo transistor off the board for now. I will first get a good LED flashing "Hello World" program loaded to verify that I can program my micro controller and that it functions.

I was worried that the CR2032 battery holder would be too cheap. But it works well enough, which is good, because I have 9 more. Now I need to see if the USB programmer for TPI that I bought off eBay will work and load a tiny little flash LED program. I just need to get back up to speed with assembly programming in general and Atmel 8-bit assembly specifically.

The ATTiny10 is a little too small of a chip (in register count and memory) to be able to efficiently handle C code. It has 1024 bytes of program memory, which means 512 instructions with the 16-bit instruction length of the AVR 8-bit RISC micro controllers.

Then I thought that I could make a programmer for the dominoes. By exciting the photo transistor in a certain pattern, I could program each domino to have specific characteristics. Set the delay between when it sees a signal and when it relays it to the next domino. Set how long the light should stay on or if it should follow the previous duration. I wonder how accurate of a tone I could reproduce with a varying frequency square wave into a piezo element.

I need to see how fast the LED to photo transistor can switch. Possibly I can send data between the dominoes with the actual flash. I could see a count being useful. Each one adds to it and passes along. Now tone frequency could be based on count. The possibilities are vast and fun.

I ran across the DorkbotPDX pcb batch order and saw that it was going out on June 6th. So last night I decided to throw a board together. I went by datasheets, as I don't have most of the parts yet but had to create custom parts for everything except the resistors and caps. However, for under $5 I will have 3 trial boards of my Micro Domino. To meet DRCs for the submission, I had to move some things around. This made the board look a little messy. But, hopefully I got the circuit good enough.

I am using a 2 pin header for power switch. I also added a resistor location and "header" connection for speaker. I can attach a piezo element here to experiment. I also included a 2x3 header for ISP programming (actually TPI on the ATTiny.) The photo transistor will be a standard through hole style, but I will be soldering the leads sideways on the SMD style pads. It looks like I messed up the collector pad, but that just goes to Vcc, so I can solder a small jumper wire for it. A battery holder for a CR2032 sized 3V battery is on the bottom and will be what the domino site on. The LED is going to be a wide lens (120 degrees) SMD style.

I should have then in two weeks. Time will tell if this will work the first time around.

Dave Jones at the EEVBlog has a video about adding power to the ISP cable, using an LM317 to provide both 5V and 3.3V. The issue with this, as he stated, was that the 5V source was very close to the required dropout voltage of the regulator to get the 3.3V. In addition, resistors are needed to set the voltage. This is my version of hacking on the AVR ISP II.

I decided to use a Low Drop Out regulator for 3.3V. The specific part I used was the BD33KA5 in a TO252-3 package (pdf). I started by soldering the tab of the LDO 3.3V regulator to the shield ground on the USB jack. My new $50 Atten 858D+ hot air rework station made this much easier than an iron. I had tried and failed with the iron before the 858D+ arrived. According to the data sheet, I needed a 1uF on both Vcc and 3.3V output pins. I used some tantalums that I had around.

I soldered the Vcc side of the regulator directly to the USB 5V pin and also soldered a 5V wire from the regulator back to the switch.

I decided that I would use a DPDT ON-OFF-ON switch to allow for 5V - 0V - 3.3V output options. I used a double pole, instead of a single pole, so I could use the other pole of the switch to power little LEDs beside the 5V and 3.3V labels. This will give an indication to make it harder to accidentally power into a live circuit. I decided to mess with surface mount LEDs. This would turn out to be a mistake.

When I got the LEDs from DigiKey, they were tiny. Like, stick to your soldering iron when trying to solder tiny. Like, Joe you are going to snap them in half a couple times. I soldered the LED to a 1/4W resistor and a wire. This allowed me to test the power. For 2mA, these were pretty decent. I snapped one LED during this, but resoldered on another one.

After messing around with soldering those to the switch and trying to bend the resistors into place, I snapped both of them. I think it might have been possible with thin wire and would have looked good. But I was done with this SMD stuff for now.

I grabbed some 3mm red LEDs that I have had since I was in middle school. These let me also fix the one problem I didn't think about. My SMD LEDs were crossed, so the light would be illuminated the opposite direction of the switch toggle. I crossed the hookup for the 3mm LEDs. I had to change the current limiting resistors from 1.5k to 220. I figured about 16 mA for these LEDs and it turned out about right. (I am running the LEDs directly from the 5V power.)

With 5V and 3.3V soldered to each side of one pole, I wired the center down to pin 2 of the ISP header. Now we can power it with 5V, 3.3V or Nothing.

I connected the AVR ISP II to the ISP connector on an Arduino Uno board. With no power, the ISP should work as normal, if you power the Uno board.

I then tried the 5V power to the Uno board and that looked good.

Finally I thought the Uno might run on 3.3V, even though I don't think you are supposed to use up to 16 MHz with 3.3V. I didn't try programming, but the power definitely works.

I'm not terribly pleased with the results of hot gluing the LEDs. It spreads the light too much. If I was to do it again, I wouldn't try to cover around the LED, I would have put a dab of hot glue and stuck the LED into the glue. I did find out that the 858D+ rework air iron was again helpful to fix my glue mess. By setting the temperature down to the minimum of 100 C, I was able to remelt the glue and push the LEDs in deeper with a flat screw driver, without hurting the plastic case at all.

Anyhow, it is a test device, so it doesn't have to look good. It just has to work. Work it does.

The storm was heavy. No matter what I did, I couldn't keep the ship from going down. Long weekends driving down to be with Dad and doing anything I could to make him more comfortable, but the storm just grew. The ship was groaning, in so much pain. Then, faster than I could imagine, the ship is in splinters and I'm awash in the sea.

I'm drowning with the ship's wreckage all around me. Trying to be strong and put on a brave face for the others floating with me, but the waves of grief come fast and are towering. I gasp for breath and hope to survive. There is a piece of wreckage that I grab. A physical thing or two, a picture, memories of a certain time. But all around me is wreckage reminding me of the beauty of the ship that was and now is gone. For a while, all I can do is float. Survive.

The waves are shrinking. I know they'll be less frequent. Some waves I'll see coming for birthdays or while doing something we did together. Some will surprise me, unexpectantly filling my mouth with water and making me gasp. But I know I'll get through them. I know I'll survive.

We all know that Dad is now reaping his reward, for years of service to the Lord. That makes it easier to handle. I never knew my dad's dad and my namesake. He died when my father was in his late teens. It was up to dad to teach me of grandpa through himself and now I will have the task of teaching my unborn children of dad through me. I hope I'm worthy of that task.

The one sure way to get dad to do something was to tell him it is impossible. This is one of the best lessons dad taught me, that I could do anything. I might have to learn something first and the worst that would happen is I would fail. So what? What happens most often is I didn't. In a world full of people scared to try, this was a great gift.

I never realized how many lives dad touched. With little notice, on a Thursday night, the largest funeral home in town was completely packed. The line was out the door for hours. Cars circled the lot to wait for someone to leave, just to have a spot. A dozen times that night, someone came up to me and told me how much dad meant to them, with a story they had to tell. So many things I never would have know he did. Something dad probably just did from his nature and without a second thought. Most would love to have touched that many lives when they are gone.

I miss you, dad.

And I hope the waves never stop.

I've been asked by many people how I track tasks and I thought I would write it up on my site so I could just give them a link.

I am a WebOS user. I love the UI. After using it, I can't go to Android or iOS devices without feeling let down. Quite a while ago, a developer was working on a task tracking application on WebOS. This became Done! in the WebOS App Catalog. It was the app that introduced me to Toodledo, the online task tracker it syncs with.

I have tried many online task trackers. Remember The Milk and a ton of others. All felt like they limited me, until Toodledo. I really like how it is possible to setup tasks. With an app on my WebOS Phone, which is always with me, I can get the task out of my head and recorded quickly. The two important pieces are Contexts and Folders.

Contexts

Contexts are the idea that you should only worry about things you can do when you are in a place to do them. Unfortunately, Contexts are not manually order-able in Toodledo, as are Folders. So I use numbers to make them appear in the order I want. Here is a list of my Contexts and what they mean.

• 1 .Inbox - Any new task that I email into ToodleDo or created and not filed yet goes here.
• 2 .Waiting For - on hold until I get something from someone else.
• 3 @Work - can only be completed while at work. (Technically, some of these could go into @Computer, but I'm segregating all day job work tasks here.)
• 4 @Home - can only be done at home (mowing lawn, laundry, etc.)
• 5 @Computer - can be completed on a Computer (generally with Internet) where ever the computer and I are located.
• 6 @Errands - tasks to complete while in the car heading places. Often these can be low priority items that would be handy to complete if I am close to where they need done.
• 7 @People/Calls - these are contact related. Things I need to do with people or calls I need to make.

When I am in a location, I will select that Context and I have a list of all the things I can complete. No sense in looking at the honey do list from home, while I am at work. I would only stress about it, without being to do anything about it.

Folders

Folders are where you categorize what this task is about. I have the following folders:

• Work
• Homeowner
• Personal
• Word Whirl
• many other Project Specific folders

Work contains my day job work tasks. Homeowner is anything to do with the home: mowing, roof repair, the new four season room I'm putting on. Personal are all my personal tasks I want to accomplish. Then we get into the specific projects.

I have Word Whirl folder as a way of tracking all ToDos on my WebOS Game: Word Whirl. While many of the tasks for a project can be done in different locations or contexts, here I can see all of the tasks for this program. Using notes on a task to track code snippets and seconds of a support email, etc.

Tasks

Each tasks allows you to set many fields for them, with the option to turn off any that would just be in the way. Priority and Due Date generate an "Important Level", which orders the sort of the tasks. I try to keep it pretty simple or I get bogged down in the book keeping. The large note area for each task is great for writing anything relevant to the task. With the Pro Plus subscription, you can also attach files to the task. I thought I would use this more than I am, but at times it is very useful.

You can get the basic Toodledo account for free, so there is no reason not to check it out. Hopefully this will help you get all those flying tasks in order. It is still often a fight for me. But, when I use the tools how I should, I do feel my stress level dropping.

One last tidbit of info. Use Negative Priorities. These are great. You can limit your task display to show only 0-3 (Low, Medium, High, Top) priorities. The "-1 Negative" priority can then be used for nice to have tasks. I use them for things that really should be done when I have the time to do them, but might never get accomplished. A great idea for a rewrite of a section of code or that french drain that would be great to put in the back yard. You can always change the filters to show them, but you aren't constantly bugged by good ideas that might not be used for a long time.