Palm Art Gallery

Yesterday, I received a nice email from Karen Larson (a Tipsheet reader and fellow graphic designer) about PalmArt.us, her new gallery website of Palm-created artwork. I stopped by for a look and was impressed with the color and quality of the pieces on display, all of them created on Palm handhelds!

Now, I dunno why, but I've never spent much time using my handheld as an art tool. What's worse, as an artist, I have no good excuses! So, I've grabbed copies of a few different Palm-based drawing tools: TealPaint, Mobile Paint, DrawIt and Scrawl so that I can begin work on a portfolio of Palm artwork to submit to Karen's site.

If you're an artist (or you just play one on TV) the gallery accepts submissions and even has a tech info area to help you transfer your Palm art to a Mac or PC for submission. To submit, drop Karen an email with your art attached, your name, city, state, country, hardware and software used to create the art and artwork title and/or inspiration.

Even if you choose not to submit anything to the PalmArt gallery, why not grab a drawing tool for your Palm handheld and have a bit of fun making art? :-)

Hacker Tales from the Underground

I was reminded today of an excellent non-fiction e-book I read about a year ago and had forgotten until recently. It's a great yarn called Underground written by Suelette Dreyfus. "Tales of hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier" is indeed a perfect description of this book.

The story follows several computer hackers in the US, UK, Australia and Germany back in the days of old computers and BBS systems. If you're thinking to yourself that a non-fiction book about old time hackers sounds incredibly boring I'm here to tell you that you're wrong!

Now I'm not sure how I came across this book, but after getting into the story was very glad I did. I was amazed at the flow of the story and how interested I became in the characters. Suelette's writing voice is nicely transparent to the story itself, and the background information seems very well researched. I was amazed at how hard it was to put this nearly 500 page book down. In fact, after reading the book I sent in my $12... it was that good!

So, rather than go on about the book, I'll just direct you to the download page where you can grab a copy in one of many different formats, including Palm Reader, iSilo, Doc and Plucker to name but a few. Give this book a read -- I'm confident that you'll enjoy it.

AvantBlog Arises!

AvantBlog Arises!
Well, much to my surprise it turns out an offline blogging tool that's compatible with Blogger.com actually does exist! It's called AvantBlog from DentedReality. Thanks to Vlad Campos (of PalmBR.com fame) and fellow PalmBloggers Yahoo Group member Sergio Lima for the tip!

Anyway, it's a simple concept: just add the AvantBlog page as a custom channel to your AvantGo account and HotSync. You must first log in once and then sync. Then, the Palm side is logged in when you next open AvantGo. Just start posting offline in AvantGo on the Palm side and the posts will appear after the next sync with the AvantGo servers.

I tried to get it working with iSilo, but had no luck as the two very necessary form fields on the AvantBlog page didn't render correctly. If you have any tips on this let me know.

So, it's back to my old PowerBook and Mac OS 9 to try with AvantGo...

Welcome Tipsheet Readers!

If you're here as a result of this month's Editor's Welcome welcome to my weblog! It's great that you've taken a moment to drop by and visit; please feel free to have a look at past postings and the rest of the rohdesign website.

If you're not a Tipsheet reader and don't happen to know the news, I've decided to step down as the editor of the Tipsheet last month. Since that announcement, I've found a new owner, publisher and editor who will continue the Palm Tipsheet after me.

Either way, I'm glad you've stopped by! I hope you like what you see. Feel free to stop by with a fresh cuppa coffee or tea now and then to see what's up. I'll be posting tibits several times a week as inspritation or good links strike.

See you soon! :-)

Vintage Hardware: Resources

Earlier this week I mentioned my love for old hardware, in particular Mac hardware and my Powerbook Duo 230. Well, I thought one way to encourage others to get some "Old Iron" cranking again would be by mention useful resources for old computers, parts and info.

First is MacResQ, a favorite company of mine. They offer both complete vintage Mac systems, parts and software for sale. Anything from old beige G3 systems to refurbished PowerBooks and parts for various machines at low prices. I especially like their weekly specials newsletter as they often offer great deals that somtimes sell out before they're noticed on the website.

For good information on old Macs, check out LowEndMac, The Pickle's Low End Mac FAQ, and Jag's House.

Apple History is a fun place to visit if you want to review old Apple hardware, all the way from the Apple I in 1976 through the Apple PowerBook G4 12" in 2003.

Lastly, check out Leander Kahney's Cult of Mac series of articles, particularly these about vintage Macs: Where Old Macs Go Off to Thrive and One Man's Retro Mac Revival, both very interesting reads.