Back in our Palm days — which many of us here at Gear Diary still miss, I might add — Astraware was one of the go-to companies for Palm games.  And while Palm may be on shaky ground these days, Astraware at least hasn’t given up, releasing a pair of new games for the Palm Pre:

• Astraware Casino: http://www.astraware.com/webos/casino
• Police Range: http://www.astraware.com/webos/policerange

There’s life in the ol’ Palm platform yet, I’m guessing.  And if you’re a Palm Pre owner,  then hey, check them out!… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

If you were a Palm OS fan, you were probably a whiz with Graffiti, the shorthand text input system. In college I took all my notes on my Palm M100, and I used Graffiti so much my pen and paper notes were in an unholy mix of print scrawl and Graffiti. So when I saw this morning that Access had released Graffiti (the famous, original, pre-lawsuit with Xerox version) for Android, I practically danced in my cubicle.

It is everything I had hoped it would be and more! I was very skeptical at first, since Graffiti is so stylus-based, but it works beautifully… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

The Gear Diary Store is a great place to find software and accessories for your Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian, iPhone and Palm OS devices; together with our partner MobiHand, we are working to bring you at least one software title deal a day. You’ll get a great price while supporting Gear Diary, no special codes necessary. Are you ready to save?… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Anyone who cut their teeth on Palm OS PDAs knows Splashdata and Iambic. SplashMoney, SplashPhoto, SplashWallet, Agendus, Health and Diet Manager…the list goes on and on, but the point is that no PDA user went without at least some of  those programs.

Throughout the years they branched out to other OSes, with their flagship products appearing on every major platform, including the iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android and Blackberry. Now shopping for those apps will be even easier, since Splashdata has announced they are acquiring Iambic! Hopefully this leads to more software support across platforms, and the same quality apps we’ve come to know… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

(Doug sez, “Aaaauuuuuggggghhh!  Help!”)

Yes, kids, it’s time for holiday, Black Friday, Christmas, Channukah, Kwanzaa, Solstice shopping madness.  The holiday shopping season is upon us, and you need help!  (Personally, I need psychiatric help, but that’s not germaine.)  And the folks at SplashData think they have a little help to offer you:  SplashShopper.

I’ve been a business smartphone user since the category was invented.  I started with Palm and have been loyal to them through the years as the market has developed from a niche geek market to the fastest growing segment of mobile communications.  Analysts say it will easily overtake conventional cell phones in developed countries very soon.

As a business user, I’ve always assumed the ‘next’ new device would be better than the previous device at getting the job done.  That job being primarily communicating with colleagues via voice or text.  Originally email was the exclusive text method, but of course today we have SMS, IM, Twitter, Facebook etc.

So why am I upset with what Palm has done in their latest ‘comeback kid’ device, the Palm Pre?

Read on to find out.… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Are you a Palm loyalist, still clutching your Centro, Treo, or T|X tightly in your fingers, not yet ready to surrender your trusted device, but perhaps looking for something to give your Palm OS device a little boost and add a little excitement?  If so, Handmark may just make your day.

Through its gaming group, Astraware, Handmark makes a great range of games for the Palm OS, Windows Mobile, Symbian, BlackBerry, iPhone, and PC platforms.  For a limited time, they are offering their Palm OS games at a 50% discount, including such well known titles as Tetris, Tradewinds 2, Bejeweled, Text Twist, GTS World Racing, and Astraware Casino.

To get your discount, use promo code PALM50

Yesterday Iambic released the new update to the Agendus Standard, Professional and Premium Editions, reaching version 13.05.
From the producer site a long awaited bug fix.… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Shhhhh – don’t tell Clinton but his 20% off all software sale that he Twittered about this morning and claims will start Friday — seems to have started early. I just picked up DataViz Documents to go for 20% off using his BLACKFRIDAY coupon code (Yes, BlackBerry’s latest OS includes the software but you can’t create documents with it). Head on over to his store and steal him blind while he doesn’t notice that the word is out.

Clinton Fitch Software – 20% off (use BLACKFRIDAY coupon code)… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

The lovely Alison graced my inbox this morning with the latest from Club Astraware; this month’s special is one you won’t want to miss!

Club Astraware offers for September 2008

The Club Astraware Member-only discount offer for September 2008 is Astraware Solitaire for just $9.95, that’s a huge saving of $10 off the regular price!

In addition to our regular offers for Palm OS(R) and Windows Mobile(R) device owners, this discount is also available to Club Astraware members who own Symbian(R) S60(R), and UIQ(R) smartphones.

Astraware Solitaire features 12 of the most well-known and best-loved single player card games, chosen based on direct feedback and suggestions from Astraware customers.

The games included in Astraware Solitaire are Klondike, Pyramid, Spider, Clock, Yukon, Canfield, Four Seasons, Sultan’s Harem, Idiot’s Delight, Golf, Calculation, and Freecell, and to make the playing experience both familiar and fun, each game has custom gameplay options so everyone can enjoy the games using their favorite variation on the standard rules.

MobileHeist is on a roll – providing our readers with amazing deals on great products for a very limited time! This time the Gear Diary Store has teamed up with our software partner, iambic, for a fantastic offer:  giving away, for two days only, Propel – Standard Edition for Palm-based phones.  Propel for Palm OS Standard Edition is the ultimate launcher for your palm smartphone, you’ll be amazed at how snappy and straightforward launching applications will be.  This popular application normally sells for $14.95 but for two days only, this Thursday & Friday, June 19th & 20th we’re going to give away a free copy with any purchase over $4.99 from our store.

The lovely Alison knows how much I love word puzzles, and she has been teasing me with the idea that something was coming from them soon that would be right up my alley, and now here it is: Astraware‘s new brain-teasing word game Bubble Babble.

Challenge – create a set number of words against the clock,
Target – reconstruct the separated word from the letter bubbles,
Mystery – try different permutations of letters to find the hidden word,
Freeplay – just enjoy making words to boost your points score.

This game is available for the Palm OS, Pocket PC, and Smartphones; I’ve just loaded it to my MWg Zinc II, and I’ll give it a try later today. You can give it a try, too – just hit the Astraware site and download the trial. … Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

The Ilium Software anniversary party I mentioned the other day has started; here are the details!

It’s been another great year for us, and we want to celebrate our 11th anniversary with you! One day just isn’t enough, so we’ll be stretching this party out all week.

From June 2 – June 6, we’re offering BIG savings on our software. Scroll down to find the programs you want, add them to your cart, and get 55% off your entire order! That’s right – all week long, you can buy a little or you can buy a lot, and it’s all 55% off! We told you the savings were big.

Kevin Doel forwarded some information that should come in handy for anyone with a Palm OS, Windows Mobile or BlackBerry device. There is a new collection of fun SMS “blips and bloops” available which he says will “make great message alert sounds and increase the choices available from the “default” options that come with phones.” Looking at the product description, it appears that Ringo will give you a bit more than just “blips and bloops”, though; it might be worth a look.

The purpose of Ringo is to make it really easy to change your ringtones on your smartphone:
1.      Easily turn your favorite music and sound clips into ringtones & alerts.
2.      Jazz… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Can you believe that it has been ten years since HanDBase came out? This was one of the first business tools I bought to run on my Palm, and it was also an application that I eagerly added to my Pocket PC once they crossed platforms. Modern versions of HanDBase will seamlessly sync between Palm OS, Windows Mobile (for Pocket PC and Smartphone), Symbian Series 60 and UIQ, and BlackBerry smartphones, and can be run from either a Windows or Mac computer. Pretty slick, right?

So what is HanDBase and why should you care?

HanDBase is a light and fast relational database manager for desktops, PDAs, and smartphones which offers data entry, searching, sorting, filtering, printing and synchronization across a wide variety of desktop computers, handheld computing devices and smartphones.

With HanDBase, you can create database forms to keep track of everything and anything. If you aren’t up to creating your own personalized forms, you can also download ones that others have created from DDH Software’s extensive database repository – which currently has over 2,000 titles!

That’s where the competition comes into play:

To mark their 10th Anniversary, DDH is “reviving its “HanDBase Applet of the Year” contest, seeking the most innovative uses for its popular HanDBase mobile database program for PDAs and smartphones. The goal for this year’s contest is to demonstrate how easy it is for anyone to develop a mobile solution for either work or personal use. The company will reward the Best Commercial Applet and Best Personal Applet with “HanDBase Runtime” licenses (a US $1,000.00 value) which will enable the winners to turn their entries into commercially-available standalone mobile applications.”

Are you up to the challenge? Read on…… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...