10.20.08
Posted in Geeking Out at 3:23 am by ryan
There are still two “missing pieces” for Windows Mobile 6.1 that I haven’t found a solution for:
- Picture Viewer with Zoom & Scroll Support. FREE. The iPhone includes a great media viewer that supports a ton of media types. The iPhone does a good job with pan and zoom, though not a great job since the iPhone does impose a hard limit on image file sizes… You can’t really use the iPhone image viewer to browse maps - unfortunately, the WM61 default image viewer doesn’t seem to support any form of zoom.
CORRECTION: The Built In “Pictures & Images” viewer actually does have a great “Zoom” feature. Just hit the menu button and choose Zoom to activate it!
- World Clock. The standard clock application on Palm OS was really great. The iPhone’s is even OK. Both support simultaneous display of 4 timezones. This really seems like a basic thing that should be part of the WM61 core OS. Moreover, I don’t need a bloated “travel buddy” that converts currencies, checks weather, etc, just the time please. MSFT hit the ball out of the park with WM61 stability, with Pocket Outlook and the rest of Office Mobile, and with Windows Live/MSN, but why does the Clock & Alarm application leave so much to be desired? The closest thing I’ve found so far is the $5 Today Clock ME plugin or the popular $15 SPB Time application.
Other Windows Mobile critique while on the topic… WM6+ guys, polish up Windows Media Player Mobile, the Clock, and Image Viewer. Make them look pretty! Pay attention to the details. For example, ever notice the way iTunes/iPod crossfade the last 2-4 seconds of each song with the start of the next? It creates a pleasant listening experience. Make sure the links from your applications to your website go to useful URLs. Media Player supports themes, but where are they on the msft.com? And fix the home screen - HTC is doing some good stuff. Why not buy them and integrate their guys into your WM UI team?
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Posted in China, Geeking Out, iPhone at 2:34 am by ryan
Problems:
- Screen is too small: Why hardware buttons for Send, End, Windows, Calendar, OK, Mail and the “5 way” button? Could have easily put a scroll wheel plus the other buttons on the left and right edges of the phone and expanded the screen at least to 320×480, possibly even larger. (Note iPhone is only a 320×480 display!)
- iPhone/HTC Diamond “Multi-touch” interface - support for the stylus is a great way to support handwriting input, but for menu selection/navigation Multi-touch is clearly superior to the stylus. (especially for zooming and scrolling… which brings up why still no “zoom” in WM6?)
- BlackBerry is still THE FASTEST and MOST RELIABLE email service on the planet. BlackBerry Push is significantly faster than Windows Mobile’s “ActiveSync Push” via AirSync, and if you go direct over IMAP you can only check for new messages every 5 minutes.
It would also be great to have the iPhone’s 3-dimensional accelerometer, improved battery life, and a flash for the camera, but none of these issues is a deal breaker for me.
The Benefits:
- Built-in WiFi, GPRS and 3G — toggle wifi support with a hardware button (though why a button instead of a switch?)
- PlecoDict 2.0 - the ultimate chinese dictionary (newest version add 350,000+ new words in addition to the huge base)
- Plum-SIP Chinese Input Method (input chinese as quickly on your mobile as your laptop!)
- MSN/Windows Live Messenger - full version - mobile!
- Plaxo for Windows Mobile - Contact/Calendar synchronization - alternative to ActiveSync - if you’re on a Mac and don’t use Exchange, this is your answer for OTA (over the air) calendar/contact synchronization
- Skype for Windows Mobile (not even on the iPhone yet! but it does require a wifi connection)
- Pocket Outlook - Great IMAP support! Great HTML/CSS Email Support! Great for MMS and SMS too! (still can’t MMS on the iPhone!)
- Opera 9.5 Beta - Renders almost as good as Safari for the iPhone. Would be even better of the Treo Pro had a bigger screen, but it is a great app. Web is totally usable on Opera 9.5!
- Pocket Putty - SSH/Telnet from your Mobile (great alternative to Idokorro Mobile SSH for Blackberry)
- Office Mobile - Word, Excel, Powerpoint - the real deal
- Built in GPS - Route 66 for Windows Mobile has Chinese Maps and Driving Directions
- Hardware Keyboard… not as good as the BlackBerry’s, but so much more usable than the crashy iPhone touch keyboard.
- STABLE, STABLE, STABLE
The biggest surprise is just how STABLE Windows Mobile has become over the years. I used CE years ago and it crashed constantly, but Windows Mobile 6.1 is amazing. It multi-tasks very well (much better than the iPhone) and allows you to manually close any program(s) if you choose. But Windows Mobile’s built in memory manager is always running in the background and will normally just keep is going smooth fro you.
BOTTOM LINE: If your a BlackBerry or iPhone user that needs Chinese Support, then the Treo Pro is likely the one device that you can finally settle on!
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10.13.08
Posted in Chinese (中文) at 3:29 am by ryan
Yes and no. People in HK actually use slightly different 繁体字 then the people in Taiwan, so there is a version of Big5 called “Big5-HKSCS” (Hong Kong Special Character Supplement). For example, if you were to take the mandarin “是不是他們的?”, in Cantonese (HK) it would be written as “係唔係佢哋嘅?”. For more examples of interesting characters used in Hong Kong but not in Taiwan, see: Written Cantonese.
This translation site also has a few cantonese/mandarin translation examples that are worth taking a look at.
It’s OK for the HK people to read Taiwan-style Chinese text or for the Taiwan people to read HK-style text – they can understand the content without any problem, but that won’t make them as comfortable as reading the text in their own language style.
The tone of wording is also slightly different. When we say ZHHK, we must make the text read suitable for Cantonese speakers. When we provide ZHTW documents, we need to adapt it to mandarin tongues.
Therefore, for those text with great significance and extreme cultural sensitivity, for example the ads and important marketing brochures, we need to at least get them read through by the “native speakers” residing in either HK or Taiwan, thus to ensure your text delivers the right subtle feeling to the targeted audience.
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