I finally hooked up my Sony PEGA-VR100K video recorder and it's great! It's far easier to record video on it than the process I was using on my PC. With my PC I recorded the shows using Sony giga pocket recording software and then had to convert that into a Clie compatible format. Kind of a cumbersome, time consuming process. With the new recorder, I just enter the time and channel I want to record onto my Clie, pop out the memory stick and stick it in the recorder and walk away. It's all pretty cool, record direct to memory stick with good looking video to boot. What I really like, is that I can check out TV listings using Pocket TV Browser, then also enter the shows I want to record right away. When I get home I just pop in the memory stick and I'm good to go. And with all the extra memory sticks I have after buying my 1GB stick, I have room for plenty of video!

I've been buying the Leonard Maltin Video Guide ever since it first began publishing. This year, for the first time, I purchased it as a download for my Clie and it is great! Landware has done a great job with it, making it an interactive guide that gets updated with every hot synch. They list upcoming movies, DVD release dates and allow you to track movie purchases, movie rentals or just movies that you watch. The movie search feature is awesome, allowing you to search by title, year, rating, genre, star, director, awards and attributes! Just a great program, my rating is **** :)

The November issue of Handheld Computing Magazine is out and has a some great items in their "Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide". In it, they call the NX80V, "the top-of-the-line PDA". Can't say I fault their logic. My own list of the top PDA's (Palm OS only) would be:

1) Sony Clie NX80V
2) Tapwave Zodiac2
3) Garmin iQue 3600
4) Sony Clie UX50
5) palmOne Tungsten T3

It's been a couple of weeks since I received my new NX80 case from Piel Frama, and I thought I would give a quick review of it. The quality of the materials and the workmanship are excellent, as was expected (see my Oct. 1 post). The case comes with 3 credit card / ID holders and two memory stick holders. The closure is a flap with a magnet to magnet connection. I was a little worried about it at first, but it has proven to be secure at all times, as well as quick opening when I need it to be. There is a slot at the top so that the case can be closed while a CF card is installed, although the point of this is lost on me as you need to take the CF card out to then open the case. The best thing about having a case is the fact that I can now leave my screen in the open position and get easy access just by flipping the case open. All in all, it's nice having a great looking case that protects my NX80 and also draws loads of compliments.

Wow, it's been awhile since I last posted! I'll try and keep this Blog updated at least once a week from now on. The biggest news, I guess, is that I finally broke down and bought a 1GB memory stick. I was getting tired of switching around 128MB memory sticks and also of not having them around when I wanted them. So the solution was to get enough memory so that I could consolidate all the programs, information and music that I now have spread out on 5 or 6 memory sticks. Of course, two days after I bought the memory stick, Athena America (formerly Eruware) came out with a compact flash driver for the NX80 (and the NX73), not that I wouldn't have bought the memory stick anyway. So this weekend, I'm downloading the CF driver and will have loads of memory to play around with :)

Note: As an alternative to Athena America, PDAscent also has a compact flash driver available (although not yet compatible with the NX73-80).

Pocket TV Browser has returned! (Sort of). They are using listings from Evolve Solutions, who make universal remotes with TV listings built in. They are providing listings for PTVB for a nominal yearly fee of $10. Certainly worth it as the listings quality seems comparable to the old TV Guide listings.

For the first time since I had my Palm Vx, I am getting a PDA case. The problem with the Clie's I've had (NR70V & NX80V) are the flip screen design that always seemed to make a case impractical. However, I recently saw someone with a nice case on their Clie and decided to go ahead and give one a try. I've ordered a Cowskin-Ostrich skin case from Piel Frama in Spain. All their products are hand made and of excellent quality (I have one of their leather mouse pads). They sent me an e-mail the day after I ordered it, saying that the NX80 cases were in the final design step and I should get it within 30 days. Only two more weeks to go!

I've enabled comments to the site tonight. Thanks to BlogSpeak!

I'm in tears! Pocket TV Browser has been discontinued! Boo / Hiss to the corporate goons over at TV Guide, who couldn't even let a small PDA app like this slide by. It's not as if they have a competing product for consumers or anything like that. Apparently it's just cold hearted corporate logic (or illogic, as this case may be).

I finally found a great site that lists pda-friendly web sites. PDAPortal.us lists more sites than you'll ever use. Much easier than searching out all of these sites on your own. Thanks to Handheld Magazine.

My top 5 palm programs currently on my NX80:

1. Agendus.

2. Splash Data (I didn't split them up because I think every program in the suite is a great product. It includes; SplashID, SplashMoney, SplashShopper, SplashPhoto and SplashClock).

3. Documents to Go.

4. HandStory.

5. Bonsai & DayNotez (tie).

I've been looking into getting some video onto my Clie this weekend. I've found some pretty good movie trailers that play and look great on the NX80. My main goal however, is to convert a DVD into mpeg format and put on a memory stick for later viewing. I found a great thread on cliesource that gives step by step directions on how to do this, and I'm hoping to give it a try sometime this week.

Okay, this is my first post using both Blogger and AvantBlog. I'm also using my new Clie PEGA-KB100 portable keyboard to type it on. What a series of firsts!