Treo Tweaker

Bad Lockup? Or Good Energy Saver?

2008-02-07T17:10:00.000-05:00

I have noticed lately that one of the good but misunderstood features in the Treo 680 is the energy saving features. With the new features the Treo has a great knack of turning the screen off when it's doing something that you can't affect. An Example is when the system restarts and the phone is turning on and searching for signal. The system would normally be unresponsive at this time, but the screen would be on. Now at times like these the screen goes black!

The problem with the nice feature is that it took me 3 months to realize this was happening. Instead every time this happened and the system seemed unresponsive I would get impatient and do a reset. DOH!

Now that I am aware of how the system is trying to save energy I am more patient and have noticed many areas where it is doing so. It does this now when I am updating Quick News in the morning or when I am doing a long backup. The old 650 would stop syncing quick news when I turned off (or it automatically) the screen.

So needless to say this is a very nice little power saving feature that a newbie to a 680 may not recognize as such right off the bat.

Hidden Gems

2008-01-21T08:36:00.000-05:00

One of the thing I LOVE about the Treo680 is that I keep finding LITTLE things that annoyed me with my 650 that I didn't realize the FIXED in the 680.

One perfect example is the ringer to the headphone out. On the 650 whenever I would use my highend headphones to listen to my music and someone would call my eardrums would get blown out (figuratively of course). The ringtone would shoot into the headset at RINGTONE volume, not music volume and BAM.

Well with the 680 last week I noticed that when I got a call while listening to music with my headphones, the ringtone no longer go to the headphones just the external speaker.

HOW WONDERFULLY FANTASTIC.

Another little hidden suprise I have found after 5 months owning the Treo.

I never LEARN. Giving Java another chance!

2008-01-10T13:13:00.000-05:00

So it's that time again. Where I set myself up for a "why did I do this AGAIN" moment.

Java has been available for my past Treo 600 and 650 devices. On each device I had installed Java multiple times in hopes of some great new revelation I guess. Each time the only thing I realized was there were no apps I NEEDED Java for, it took up TOO MUCH space and frequently crashed my device. Of course later on there would be a release of a Java app that would make me do it all over again. I also found that the only way to completely get RID of Java's influences on my device was to do a Hard Reset.

Now I have a Treo 680 and a new version of Opera is out and a Gmail app (now mind you I use Xpress mail for my gmail and DON'T NEED a gmail app ... but why not. And Blazer on the 680 works fine for almost all of my purposes)

Well I was able to JUSTIFY installing Java again to try these new apps, because my 680 has 3 times the internal space, adn because I HAVEN'T TRIED IT YET on my 680.

The short of it is ... for a Tweaker I like having it. It opens up a different world of things to try and get working. Also I REALLY like the new version of Opera Mini for the Treo. It's a nice browser with nice features. The Gmail app does little for me, but I keep it on the device anyway for now. I have TRIED to get some Java Games (like SIMS 2 and others) that weren't necessarily made for the Treo680 to work ... and I was mostly unsuccessful.

For now unless something changes and the Java App seems to be negatively affecting my Treo I will keep it on the device and keep playing with it. I'll let you know if anything changes.

When MORE space is BAD!

2007-12-03T00:31:00.000-05:00

So I have had the Treo 680 for a little while now and have discovered an unexpected issue.
My main tool in troubleshooting crashes is locking things in memory. Well when I had most of my apps running their parts off of the SD card the files IN memory were smaller. This allowed me to lock more troublesome and conflicting apps. However NOW that I have almost everything running in memory and extra add on features for apps like Agendus also installed that app size in main memory is MUCH larger. For example Agendus has changed from about 1MB to almost 3MB.
The reason this is such a problem is the Rlock only lets you lock up to 4MB with of apps in memory. So nowI have Agendus, Lightwav, and my small hobbyist apps locked and am out of room to lock more apps. This is definitely an unforeseen problem with actually having MORE memory. I have been looking at how I store my apps and their data and seeing if I can pair down even though it's not necessary for the sake of free RAM.

Sometimes it's the small things that count!

2007-10-09T10:35:00.000-05:00

Ever since the Treo 680 was released I have had a yearning for a new Treo. But like many others I found the mediocre spec increase of the 680 not enough to make me want to switch up.

Well being a gadget-head and always pining over the newest cool thing, I couldn't take having my older 650 after I bought my wife a new I-Phone. While the I-Phone is a fantastic device and perfect for my WIFE (especially after I hacked it), it just isn't right for me.

So having AT&T and refusing to use a Windows Mobile device, I took another look at the Treo 680. Here's what I liked superficially:

Color ... I wanted a Copper, but would be almost as happy with a Crimson.
3 Times the internal memory
Better Data Network functionality
Upgraded Bluetooth
Slightly Smaller Form Factor
No Antenna

Here's the Bad I had heard:

HORRIBLE ... not bad, but HORRIBLE battery life. (less than half the power output of the 650 battery)
Worse Cell reception than the 650

So I found a great deal, decided like usual I could buy the 680, sell my 650 and make out either even or slightly ahead ... so why not.

Here is what I found

Loved the colored phone, but it made it more difficult to choose cases
The greater memory is fantastic. All of the apps that I had running off the card with Zlauncher could now be in main memory. Also I could now install all of the extra icons I have for Agendus.
Better Data Network functionality. The data network is night and day compared to the 650
The Bluetooth on this is improved ten fold over the 650.
The clarity on a headset, speed of connection/pairing, and
My bluetooth stereo headphones work GREAT now with Audio Gateway
(before it was really touch and go).
Also a far better bluetooth hotsync speed.
While the form factor is smaller, I almost find this a problem. The lack of bulk makes it a little harder to hold on to.
No Antenna is actually very nice ... it does lose a bit of the classic TREO look though.
PERSONALLY I use the phone quite a lot and have no issues with the battery. I charge it every night and some nights it's at 20%, others it's at 75%. It's a smaller battery ... I can except that.
My cell reception has been FAR BETTER than with my 650. I get perfect reception everywhere I used to with my 650 AND places I NEVER had reception with my 650.
Because of the increased RAM size Tom Tom works better than ever
Unexpected but the change that made the switch TOTALLY worth it was a GREATLY
improved signal to noise level on the audio output. The Treo650 is horribly noisy, especially
when listening with headphones. The 680 is crystal clear.

The Not So Good:

1. Slower OS speeds. Changing catatgories, rebooting, touchscreen responsiveness are ALL noticeably slower. This is a fine trade off to me for what has been improved even if it's a bit curious.
SD Card door is kinda flimsy. I use Card Export II for my transfers to my 8 GB SD card more now so I am not constantly opening and closing the flimsy little side door for the SD Card.
Really wish they would have upgraded the camera still, but the quality still seems a bit better than the 650 especially in lower light.

Well that's about it. Loving the new Treo680 and finding I made a wise switch.

psyslaunchDB

2007-09-26T14:00:00.000-05:00

I have posted several times about the battle with the Treo650 crashes. I have been able to install TON's of apps that shouldn't be together by keeping some on the SD Card, Locking some in memory, and most importantly getting rid of and finding workable apps for the really troublesome ones.

A major tool I have mentioned I use is a Crash Logger. I specifically use the one build into Reset Doctor by Hobbyist Software (one of my favorite developers). This technique works GREAT unless you start getting "Application" as the primary culprit. This is what has started happening to me.

Well the good news is that it has told me one good piece of info. If Application is causing the crash, then a SPECIFIC app is NOT. However finding what part of the system itself was causing the problem took some time and some stumbling upon.

I ended up finding the problem by looking at my Resco Backup Logs. What I found was the "psyslaunchDB" was getting corrupt every couple days. My quick solution for this was to reach back to one of my previous 4 days worth of backups and find the newest one that was NOT corrupt and replace the corrupt one currently in memory. Viola all is good.

The moral I guess ... use all of the tools at your disposal. You never know which one will help you solve the problem.

Goodbye Dear Friend ... I Miss you already!

2007-09-16T23:05:00.000-05:00

As many of you may know already SplashBlog (which was bought by Six Apart, creators of Vox Blog Site) is being shut down by it's new owners. This is forcing many old Splashblog users over to Vox as the closest "ALTERNATIVE". The nice part is Vox offers MORE. It offers video, Audio, Text, and Photos. However this also offers a more cluttered site and more from your visitors.

Vox does include a software app for Palms built off of the Splashblog app.

At first I found the Vox app annoying because it would automatically post each image as a separate blog entry. A small work around is to set your Vox app on your Treo to submit photos to the library and NOT a new Post. This allows you to then login to the site and quickly create a blog entry including all of the photos you have uploaded to the library.

While Vox is a workable alternative, Splashblog was a GREAT and Unique site/service that just hasn't been successfully replicated by anyone else yet.

Farewell my good friend. I WILL miss you!

4Gb are better than 8 ... This time.

2007-09-16T22:23:00.000-05:00

So as you know I have been having issues with my 8 Gb card. A recap of the problems.

1. Files kept getting corrupt
2. The speed was SOOOOOO SSSSLLLLOOOOWWWWW
3. Other small things I can't remember

So as a test months ago I swapped out the 8 for one of my 1Gb cards to see how it acted.
The problem was definitely with the 8Gb card. Well now that my wife has an 8Gb I-Phone I am envious of the space I lost. So I have been tweaking again with the card to see what I can get out of it.

First observation.
When I removed the 8Gb card from my DV Camera (where I was using it temporarily) and transferred the files to my PC before reformatting it for my Treo, it was FAST. Real Fast. Like 1 Gb in less than a minute fast. However once I reformatted it and started copying files back to it for the Treo it took forever. 1 Gb was taking about 30 min. I tried several different formatting methods and chunk sizes .... none of them made a difference.

Then I realized that when the card was formatted for the camera that camera had formatted it to 4 Gb. So I thought maybe some of these cards act like CPU's that are essentially under clocked to work at a stable speed. So I put card BACK in my DV camera and formatted it on that, then copied the files for the Treo back on it. The copy speed was slightly better, but nothing compared to my first copy experience. However when I put in in my Treo it was only SLIGHTLY slower than the 1 Gb card I had in there.

So now I am running an 8Gb card, formatted down to 4 Gb and running relatively beautiful.
The single issue I had with it was when I was copying the files for the Treo back onto it. I kept getting corruption errors. However running and scan disk and correcting the errors while looking for bad sectors seems to do the trick.

Sure I am wasting 4 Gb of space I could be using, but it wasn't working very well at all as an 8Gb card and is working wonderfully as a 4 Gb, so I see it as a success. If anything changes I will let you know.

2007-09-15T23:13:00.000-05:00

Friends keyboard problem.

A friend of mine at work has been having a LOT of wierd problems with has verizon 650 since he bought it. The system would stop responding to key presses ... unless he ejected the card and reinserted it. After which it would work for a little while and then he would repeat.

All I could tell him was it seemed like a physical hardware problem because hard resets did nothing. So last week he replaced the actual keyboard and low and behold ... it all works again. Not sure why ejecting the card affected anything ... but hey .... it works.

Excellent.

2007-09-15T23:07:00.000-05:00

When a backup isn't enough.

I talk a lot about backups and I mean it. however I have found lately that my backups are not enough to fix my problems.

I will say that when you are looking for a backup program find one that let's you restore in different ways. specifically the ability to restore FULL, SPECIFIC FILES, AND SPECIFIC APPS.

Also a good crash log app helps a lot.

Lately I have been getting frequent crashes where my crash log simply states that "applications" is to blame. No specific program. This has led me to believe that I have a bad/corrupt or otherwise compromised system file. Simply restoring the system after a hard reset will just bring it back. So I have needed to do a restore only specific apps. I restore just the apps I want, no unneeded preferences, system files, or temp files.

This has been a real life saver for fixing these untrackable system crashes.

Well back to the tweaking.

Favorite Cases

2007-03-19T14:16:00.001-05:00

Cases are really a matter of preference. But to me I have a couple important standards; Fit, Look, and Protection.

Since the days of my 1st Treo 600, I have felt that protecting (physically) from my clumsy ways was the most important. For that reason I went with a Rhinoskin aircraft aluminum case. It was the best purchase I have ever made. I tried knock offs of the same type of case and the best fit, looks, and protection has been the Rhinoskin. Along with that though is a great warranty for 1 yr. My biggest complaint with my 1st Rhinoskin case was the clips. The clips are crap and I wore out 3 in a couple months. I called the company and the sent my 2 brand new and newly designed clips for nothing. I should note that the 1st replacement clip I used 3 years ago is the one I am still using.

I have been using my current Rhinoskin for almost 2 years and it only now is starting to be in need of replacement. I need to replace it simply because I beat the crap out of it, it's scratched, worn, the padding inside slightly stretched out from my constant playing, and I have hit it so many times the clear plastic over the screen area is starting to push in.

If you are looking for a case that will REALLY protect your Treo Investment I have not found anything better than the Rhinoskin. At fist I thought 29.99 was a lot for just a case, not anymore soon I will go out and buy my 3rd and it's worth every penny. Good Luck.

Treo space loop

2007-03-19T14:16:00.000-05:00

As if to reiterate my previous statement about BACKING UP...

Recently my wife and I went to Florida and took in the joy of Epcot. One of my favorite apps is Splashblog and I take A LOT of pics with it http://www.splashblog.com/mlumb. While at Epcot my SD Card got ejected inside my case (a rubber style skin type) and I didn't know. Well Splashblog started putting pictures in RAM since the SD Card wasn't present to the system and 6 MB later BOOM! Suddenly my Treo started to reset and reset and reset! WELL lesson 1 "don't fill up your RAM to the max ... space, space, space" lesson 2 "Always have a backup.

Well I keep a backup on my SD, so I pulled off the skin, did a Hard Reset and then restored my backup. Actually I keep 5 daily backups and 2 CLEAN INSTALL backups where I have all the default applications installed that I KNOW won't mess up my Treo. So I restored my morning backup and fortunately only lost about 10-20 of the 555 pics I took that day. UNFORTUNATELY you guys will never see the huge genetically altered vegetables I had pictures of. Sorry!

2007-03-01T18:57:00.000-05:00

More on the 8Gb upgrade

I have to say that I am loving the crazy amount of space this upgrade is giving me. I have LOADED it with music and movies and tv shows, as well as normal apps, maps and more and I still have 2.5 Gb left.

I have noticed speed issues on occasion and the Treo doesn't read the space correctly. It will read 3.5 Gb and then when you fill that up it will read the second half.

I am still experimenting and if I find that the speed issues are related to some formating issues, I'll let you know.

2007-02-25T00:46:00.000-05:00

New Favorite Games.

I have 2 new favorite games and they are from the same developer.

Toyspring

1. Arcade Reality
This game uses your camera to give backdrop to an alien invasion. As you move your treo around in 3d space you find enemies to kill. Its s great new way to look at such a classic video game style.

2 3d Mine
I have always wanted to play mine sweep, but never really cared to learn. Well this version got my attention. They took the regular mind sweep game and wrapped it around 3d objects. I AM HOOKED!
I absolutely love playing this game and the challenges of thinging in 3d.

So hopefully if you are looking for some new games and something a little different, you will check out one of these great options.

2007-02-24T17:02:00.000-05:00

8Gb upgrade

I added an 8 Gb SDHC card to my treo 650 this week. Of course this required hacking the rom to replace the old fatfs with the new fat32fs files. I ran into a few issues the first time I tried, but because I had backup up my rom first was able to replace and try again. After a second try everything works mostly fine.

a couple of issues I expected and have noticed. speed issues when accessing this much space. A programs seek function or loading a program from card can be significantly slower. Not sure if this is fixable yet, or if it will just be a cost of the added space?

I have noticed the access time a glitches when accessing music in ptunes and files from the card has gotten better. Music streams very very well.

I love the added space. I have jammed it with music, maps, movies, samples for music making. pics and I still have over half the space left.

For the less than $60 I spent this was a GREAT upgrade.

More info to come as I work out the kinks.

2007-02-09T11:33:00.000-05:00

Favorite Apps

As a tweaker there are several VERY crucial apps that I need.

Resco Backup
- The key to tweaking is being able to FIX it when you DO ... and you WILL mess it up. I keep 5 days of full system backups on my SD card and have it auto backup before I even wake up. Most important I keep a working backup, which is a backup of a cleanly installed system with apps I know work and play well together (like the ones mentioned here). So if something happens and my system starts acting wierd I just restore one of my backups.

Uninstall Manager:
It takes a bit to get used to and for impatient tweakers like me it takes self control, but if used correctly it will save you a ton of time and frustration by removing everything installed and uncompressed by an application.

Rlock
I found this after using preference doctor, which later became reset dostor. It will lock up to 4MB worth of applications on your device. Why is this important? Simply because newer palm os systems with VSFS especially the treo 650's at highly susepible to resets from bad apps and then loose their system preferences. Rlock will help possibly problematic apps NOT reset your device. Since using this app I have had a lot fewer resets.

Reset Doctor
This used to be preference doctor and has several parts. I peronally found that the pref dr version caused most of my crashes. however it might be better now. It does however have a handy utility that will backup your system preferences in case you DO have a crash that causes the loss of your application preferences. VERY HANDY.

Basically the combination of these apps have made my Treo 650 98 percent crash free. IF I do screw it up and can quickly get back on track, without a computer!

2007-01-31T16:50:00.000-05:00

today I start.

Ok, so I named this blog Treo Tweaker because that is exactly what I do. I mess with my treo daily, adding and removing, backing up and restoring. So I hope I can share some of my thoughts, opinions, etc and make your treo life a little easier!

Next up: my favorite apps.

2007-01-31T16:13:00.000-05:00

I start with blogging. a blog about my treo from my treo!

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