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I’m still playing around with the idea of podcasts for my two main blogs (this one – MobileViews – and my Freeware/Open Source blog – OgasaWalrus). The Blogr web service that lets me easily post Podcasts and even videos has been a huge factor in working towards this goal. They just applied a fix to let their users email audio files directly from a mobile device and post it as a podcast. I recorded a short audio clip on my T-Mobile Dash and posted it today. You can find all 14 seconds of it at…

MobileViews Mini-cast 4: Blogr email podcast test

There are, however, two problems I need to deal with before I will feel comfortable with the process. First, Windows Mobile smartphones appeared locked in at 11KHz for recordings. I would really prefer to record at 44KHz. Second, even at 11KHz, the resulting WAV file is pretty large (e.g., 14 seconds = 320KB). This can take a long time to upload using the pokey ol’ T-Mobile EDGE network (and, no, I don’t want to move to AT&T Wireless or Sprint/Verizon). So, I need to find an audio recorder that can produce smaller MP3 files. Three apps that look interesting are Resco Recorder, Vito SoundExplorer, and Vito AudioNotes. Unfortunately, only AudioNotes works on a Smartphone. The other two are for Pocket PCs.

Any comments on those three apps would be appreciated. And, any recommendations beyond those three apps would also be appreciated.

From a gadget owner’s point of view, there is nothing more frustrating that one that isn’t working the way you think it should. One comment posted here is how do you contact Microsoft for a Windows Mobile problem. You can find direct Microsoft contact information at…

Microsoft: Contact Us

Be aware that there may be a fee involved if you contact Microsoft for support for a specific problem outside of your initial support period (right after you buy a device). I suggest visiting one of the many mobile device community sites. Here’s a couple created by Microsoft itself to consider…

Microsoft Public Newsgroups (NNTP client such as Outlook Express or Vista Mail required)

Microsoft Windows Mobile Owners Circles Forums (web based)
There are also many excellent 3rd party sites with large and active communities. You might want to start two that were founded and managed by an old friend of mine: Jason Dunn.

Pocket PC Thoughts (AKA Professional Edition & Classic Edition)

Smartphone Thoughts (aka Standard Edition)

There are, of course, many other great sites. And, I’ll list them somewhere on MobileViews later. But, I have to rush off to my day job now 🙂

I posted two more MobileViews Mini-casts (very short audio files) that can be found at…

MobileViews/OgasaWalrus Podcasts

Mini-Cast #2 is an audio recording created using an HTC S710 (Vox) Windows Mobile 6 smartphone. Mini-Cast #3’s audio recording was created using an old Dell Axim X50v Pocket PC (Windows Mobile 2003 2nd Edition). I used it because it is the only WiMo device I have that can use an external microphone (mini-plug type) for audio recordings.

You’ll notice that the HTC Vox’ recording sounds a lot tinnier than the Dell Axim. This is because WiMo smartphones only allow recordings at 11KHz. Or, more correctly, I can’t find a way to change the audio recording quality settings on a smartphone. I changed the Axim’s audio recording setting from the default 11KHz to 44KHz.

Having tested a couple of devices for audio recording quality, I think it is pretty reasonable to use a Pocket PC as a recording device for Podcasts. Smartphones are ok but produces recordings that are not as clear as Pocket PCs set to record at 44KHz. I’ll guess that running a smartphone’s audio file through something Audacity for post processing could clean it up and make it sound better though. Finally, I didn’t think using an external mic with a Pocket PC sounded any better than using the PPC’s internal mic. And, of course, the odd drop-outs when recording using the external mic isn’t a good thing either.

A few weeks ago I toyed with the idea of taking a photo a day and was searching for a web tool/service to use to store the photos and, perhaps, annotate it. I’m still looking for that tool… This evening, I read about an interesting idea over on lifehack.org…

Keeping A One Sentence Journal

The twitter fan in me (as well as the lazy writer combined with the historian and statistician in me) found this simple idea fascinating. For many of us, this simple technique could keep a year’s worth of entries in probably 20 paper pages or so. Of course, the geek in me wants to keep it electronically and preferably on a Windows Mobile device.

That, however, leads to the issue of future-proofing the journal. How can I be sure the text could be retrieved and read 10, 20, or more years from now. The simplest and safest way is probably to use a simple ASCII text file. But, that, to me, seems too visually messy. There are journal type apps for Windows Mobile. But, I worry about how to effectively archive those files without doing a lot of research on each product.

I think, though, that the answer is right in front of me: Excel Mobile. My gut instinct is that the pre-Excel 2007 XLS file format is going to be around forever. Why do I think that when other file formats (the Microsoft Picture-It MIX image format comes to mind) disappears or became irrelevant? I look to a now a now departed application whose file format has lived on long after the software itself went away: dBase II. I don’t even know when dBase II went away. But, it seems that all kinds of apps including Microsoft Excel can still read and writer dbf files.

But even if XLS becomes extinct, I hope that establishing and following some kind of reasonable practice of export each year’s worth of entries (365 rows… 366 on leap years) to some simple format like CSV or XML will allow relatively simple retrieval (even reading the raw file in a terminal window – which I also think will never disappear).

I think I will add one little addition to the date and single sentence though. It will simply note if the day was generally good (1) or bad (0). In some simple minded way, it might even let you decide if, overall, a year was good or bad. 🙂

Any other tool recommendations? Do you already do this? How is it working out for you?