Well many of you have some time off for the holidays, whether it's Christmas, New Years, Hanukkah, or whatever you Holiday might bring, or just a day off because you don't celebrate holidays and everything else is closed. So I decided to run through some of the things I use my i730 for that are above and beyond the normal use. I have mentioned some before, but this will give you some ideas of things to mess with, search about, or just plain play with.
So to continue this, list some of the more out of the ordinary things you do to get others interested in some of the advanced stuff. If you have the time feel free to post links to other threads.
1. Video on the i730 - I do this in a number of ways, transfer from my DirecTV Tivo, change from DVD, download and convert, whatever the source. Once the file is small enough and still good quality, normally around 1 hour = 100 MBs, then I put it on the i730 in WMV format for use in Windows Media Player, or other formats with players like TCPMP. My favorite thing recently about this is getting software for my hacked Tivo to make it easy to transfer movies/shows to a pocket pc sized video. I transfer around 5 shows a day automatically and then just copy them over as needed to have something to watch.
2. GPS - Although I don't do this, other people are using both plug in GPS modules and Bluetooth modules to have GPS capability.
3. Home Controller - Places like http://www.smarthome.com sell items to control just about anything in your home. The i730 has a built in IR port, which means you could control IR devices with you i730, or you could use the Web Interface on a lot of items and control it from the web browser on the i730 with a WiFi network.
4. X10 Controller - Piggy backing on the above, I use it to also control the lights in my house. I have a VPN connection to my home which I can log in and control the software for my lights when I am away, I also use the remote control software to control my X10 lights with an IR controller.
5. Databases - I designed my own billing software for my company with an Access Backend and a Visual Basic interface, and I wanted a way to do easy entry when on the road for easier and faster billing. I am using software from abcDB to make an interface for the Pocket PC capable of syncing directly with the access database, making it easier to just click "start time" and "end time" when at clients appointments.
6. Photo Viewer - Although this is pretty straightforward, many people don't think of this, dump a bunch of photos to the i730 (the closer the are to the 320 x 240 screen size the faster they load) and you can have slide shows of pictures, and can show people photos just like having them in your wallet.
7. Password/Financial Manager - something like eWallet and you can have all of your passwords, credit card numbers, bank accounts, handy when you need them in a secure database that is password protected.
8. Photo Drawing Software - PhatPad has the ability to take a photo and then draw right on the photo. I have a client that's a plastic surgeon that is using the i730 for many things, including taking pictures and drawing on them to show people different things or to make quick notes about what he is going to do with his procedures. He also has a tablet PC and does this on there, but he likes having the ability to do it on the i730 because he always has it with him.
__________________
-Michael
Need help setting up your i730/i830 or other WM2003/WM5 Phone, as well as the other hacks I have done, check out the MRailing Guides and Links
Genealogy Database - Using Pocket Genealogist, I can keep the information on 10,000 people on my I730. This has eliminated the need to take a laptop with me when I am researching or visiting, and I have it with me wherever I am.
General Laptop Substitute. My personal laptop is starting to gather dust. When I go on vacation or other personal trip, I no longer have to take my laptop with me to read and respond to my home email, look up restaurants and museums, or to navigate (Mapquest, Google or Yahoo Maps).
Great thread. Some of my favorites:
Listening to podcasts. I almost never listen to the radio anymore. Check out www.thisweekintech.com, Digg- http://revision3.com/diggnation/ , http://www.onthemedia.org/ to get started. You can also search for podcasts you may be interested in at a site like http://www.podcastdirectory.com/. I haven't mentioned itunes because you can't download directly to the i730 from that site, however, you can use itunes to subscribe to a lot of podcasts on your home computer and then find the folder they're stored in and drag it to you sd card via card reader. with all the other sites you can dl directly to your i730 sd card, but you must move your cache to safestore or your sd card as outlined in the faq's first.
Streaming Radio (disclaimer - this is in violation of your contract, information provided for novelty purposes only). Check out www.shoutcast.com for hundreds of streaming radio channels. You can also stream sattelite radio, but this is free. Most require a player like TCPM.
Buying movie tickets online, from the line, when the line at the theater is ridiculous. Not really a trick, just a cool use of the technology. Always amazes your friends.
Searching for wine info (rating, price points, food and cheese pairings) from the wine aisle. I use to have a program for this, now I just use google.
Streaming Radio also (Same disclaimer) . With the addition of a cheap FM transmitter plugged into the headphone adapter, you can listen to Hong Kong or London on your car radio.
When playing spin the bottle, sit your i730 on the table and spin. Use the antenna as the pointer!
OK, just kidding.
Like MRailing, I like to watch DVD's on my i730. The Seinfeld DVD's I got for x-mas last year have served me very well, as have the Curb Your Enthusiasm DVD's. I use DVD-to-Pocket PC with great success.
The remote control feature on the phone has been fun, too. There's nothing like sitting in an airport and messing with people by changing channels.
My favorite feature is WiFi. They've come such a long way with the ability to view web pages on these devices. If you haven't before, check out www.gizmodo.com and www.engadget.com. If you own an i730, you probably are a techy and would enjoy these Blogs, and they are very readable on the i730.
Games are great too. I dabble with MAME and really enjoy some of the games picked up from Handango. Aces Texas Hold'em and Bejeweled 2 are a few favorites. If you haven't tried it, there's also a game called Simbsoft Volleyball. It's one on one volleyball action, and can be challenging. Of course, you are an odd-shaped blob, but that adds to the challenge.
Lastly, its always fun to try all of the new product demos that come out. I've probably tried Phonealarm 5 different times (hope it gets fixed one day).
Well Happy Holidays everyone! Great thread MRailing!!
I originally posted this in another thread but it bears repeating here:
I watch live TV on my i730 all of the time - it was great when our Chicago White Sox where winning their way through the play-offs & World Series. Wife wanted to drive out to her sister's home, about an hour away, on Sunday - no problem watching the Bears using good defense and good luck to overcome Green Bay while riding out to the suburbs.
You will need:
a desktopcomputer with enough speed, memory, and hard drive space to act as a video server
a tv tuner card installed in your computer that is hooked up to a cable feed
a broadband "always on" internet connection
orb software installed on your computer (free) and your own orb account (free) configured for your channels
Here is my setup:
I have an ATI "All In Wonder" graphics card in my desktop computer which has a tv tuner on it. And I have a dsl internet connection that uploads at about 380 k
I have comcast cable in my home and my ati radeon card is connected to my cable feed
I downloaded and installed orb (free download @ http://www.orb.com ) and set up a personal account on the orb server (free service)
from my i730, or any computer with web access, I point my browser to http://my.orb.com and long in with my username and password
once logged in, my browser widndow shows me my tv channels (and also other media I have configured my account to give me access to on my desktop hard drive such as, videos, music and photos)
I select the channel I want to se and my i730 automatically opens media player and begins streaming the video.
if I press media player's forward or reverse buttons I can change channels (up one or back one)
I DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT VIDEO RE-ENCODING ORB DOES THAT AUTOMATICALLY. Orb basically turns my desktop into my personal video server and does the encoding on the fly (er, uh, like it was said in the post above, just for novelty.)
At first I was having problems with choppy video - my i730 kept having to rebuffer the feed, but when I upgraded my desktop processor from a 2.4 gig Pentium 4 to a 3.4 gig Pentium 4 my video started to stream smoothly. Although orb states that you should be able to use a P4 2.4 gig processor, it doesn't work well with orb. Orb users who have a Hauppage tv tuner card ( http://www.hauppage.com )report better results witht he slower processor. This is because the Hauppage uses hardware to do the mpeg conversion while ATI uses software.
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The only constant is change.
Last edited by JimCapraro : 12-26-2005 at 12:03 AM.
Interesting thread. I just got my i730 on Wednesday. I'm upgrading from an iPaq 6315. Here's what I did with my 6315 and am already enjoying on my i730:
Use VoiceSignal to make calls. Very cool, my just starting to play with this feature.
I've created a quoting spreadsheet to calculate client prices.
The remote control feature is very easy to use. I used at my brother's home, and he didn't know what was wrong with his TV.
One thing I miss from my 6315 is that I can't play podcasts via my Jabra BT250. I use to do the same as jpurv: download, then listen later. Is there any way to make it work with a bluetooth earpiece?
For fun I like to listen to shoutcast. Believe me my IPOD friends are a little jealous. Also has anyone set this up to monitor their house with a webcam while they are away? I had a trial application on my old i600 but forgot what app. it was.
where is this service contract that says you cant stream audio or video?
i am on a corporate account. i ordered my phone and added the unlimited data over the phone. no signature no contract etc. we have 100 phones in service from vzw. to me unlimited data would include streaming. time will tell.
fun thing = looking at all the envious people when they see my phone do stuff theirs cant
One thing I miss from my 6315 is that I can't play podcasts via my Jabra BT250. I use to do the same as jpurv: download, then listen later. Is there any way to make it work with a bluetooth earpiece?
P.S. I know who John Galt is.
Not to hijack this thread, but I got to help out a fellow Ayn Rand fan. http://www.pdaphonehome.com/forums/s...threadid=54951 I have the BTon and BToff mapped to the start menu. I find that more useful than BTtoggle because BTtoggle gets confused when a call comes in.
Originally posted by RWC where is this service contract that says you cant stream audio or video?
i am on a corporate account. i ordered my phone and added the unlimited data over the phone. no signature no contract etc. we have 100 phones in service from vzw. to me unlimited data would include streaming. time will tell.
fun thing = looking at all the envious people when they see my phone do stuff theirs cant
I agree with you about what unlimited SHOULD mean, but if you read through the fine print on their web site under data plans, you'll see that their definition of unlimited is about like our former Presidents definition of sex; i.e; different from everyone elses. I wouldn't worry about it though. To date, there are no reports of penalties for "abuse".
a desktopcomputer with enough speed, memory, and hard drive space to act as a video server
a tv tuner card installed in your computer that is hooked up to a cable feed
a broadband "always on" internet connection
orb software installed on your computer (free) and your own orb account (free) configured for your channels
This is probably a moot point as my PC doesn't have the horsepower for this anyway, but after carefully combing through www.orb.com I can find no discernable funding stream for this stuff.
Being a believer in the old saws “there ain’t no free lunch” and “if it looks too good to be true it probably is” it occurs to me to wonder why these guys are serving up this very expensive bandwidth and server farm(s) for free.
__________________
Don't mess with old futs...age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill! B. S. and brilliance only come with age and experience!
You aren't using them to do the acutal streaming, it's done through your connection directly to your computer. Everything doesn't pass through them, they just initiate the connection to where your PC is (what IP address it currently has) and then passes you off to a direct connection. P2P technology with them just initiating the connection.
__________________
-Michael
Need help setting up your i730/i830 or other WM2003/WM5 Phone, as well as the other hacks I have done, check out the MRailing Guides and Links
Until I had this device, I used to carry a Frankin Spanish-English translator with me. Now I've disposed of the Franklin. Thanks to the Oxford English-Spanish and Spanish Dictionaires, It is no longer needed. They are as rich and robust as the Franklin and allow one fewer device to carry. These are in two separate dictionaries. Due to their size, they need to be installed in Safestore or the SD card.
I am new to this i730 and was wondering if someone can provide detail as to how to go about working www.shoutcast.com on this device? I went to the website on my i730 and it didn't play the file. I went to the website on my laptop and it worked just fine so I am sure there is something I am not doing. Anyone willing to help with detailed setup?
Originally posted by NedMohammad I am new to this i730 and was wondering if someone can provide detail as to how to go about working www.shoutcast.com on this device? I went to the website on my i730 and it didn't play the file. I went to the website on my laptop and it worked just fine so I am sure there is something I am not doing. Anyone willing to help with detailed setup?
You need a player that can handle their codecs. The Core Project Media Player (TCPMP) works great and is free. mrailing posted a link at the top of this thread
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