(Last updated March 4, 2008)

Wow. Time sure flies when you’re having fun. It didn’t seem so long when I was getting ready for my 2 week vacation, visiting Tokyo, Japan and Hong Kong, China. My main objective, aside from visiting families and friends and doing some sightseeing was to get a cheaply priced unlocked GSM Treo 650 and what little bit of shopping I could muster. And I achieved that goal. I got an unlocked GSM Treo 650 with free bluetooth headset in HK for $3380 HKD which is a little over $500 Cdn. No tax. Not bad. And they come with international plugs or attachments so I’m set for my next world travel excursion. I’m quite happy with this purchase and I will be doing a posting on it sometime along with the usual Flash simulations I normally do.

(EDIT. May 25, 2006) I have created the Flash simulations of the Treo 650 in three parts: part 1, part 2, part 3. As well, I have created video posting of the Treo 650 showing how it looks on the outside as well as provided a few brief thoughts here and here.

Just to take a brief moment to describe the trip, Tokyo was amazing! I loved it! The people were EXTREMELY friendly, courteous. Everywhere was amazingly clean and I mean EVERYWHERE. People were bowing at me everywhere and I was astonished at how well they spoke English even when they didn’t know much of it. I love their McDonalds Ebi burger (deep fried shrimp burger) but their Teriyaki burger tasted like English McMuffin on a sesame bun with Teriyaki sauce. And they had these octopus balls topped with seafood shavings that tasted pretty good. I guess it’s somewhat similar to eating calamari except that rather than squid, you’re eating octopus. Hmm. Anyway, their subways are very extensive but quite complicated but it was fun to travel around nonetheless. I love it and I’m sure I’ll go back again.

Hong Kong was, well, Hong Kong. If you’ve never been there, I’m sure you’ll be amazed at it too, although in comparison to Tokyo, it is quite different. HK is a lot more polluted, dirty, and the people are not as courteous or friendly or speak English as well. I speak Cantonese so I have no problems with communication but with non Chinese speakers, if you’re not in the “touristy” places like Tsim Sa Tsui, Central, or others, you may have some difficulties with some aspects of communicating. The McDonalds in HK offered some interesting food. They currently have these “Fan”tastic burgers (the “fan” is a pun on the Chinese word for rice)where instead of having a bun for a burger, the meat is put between two pieces or patties of spicy sticky rice. And there’s other things but I really didn’t check it out. But, still quite interesting.

HK was quite humid and in some ways I had forgotten that it took several days to dry up my clothes, and even then, it still felt somewhat damp. Well, if you lived in a hotel where it’s completely isolated from the outside, you won’t notice a thing. But aside from all that, HK is still quite nice. I just didn’t like feeling sticky and sweaty most of the time. The shopping and eateries almost make up for all that. It’s bustling with people and things almost all the time. Quite a sight and experience. Think of Times Square in NYC with 90% Asians, humid weather, smoggy and you can somewhat picture what it’s like.

The trip seemed short but sweet and although I suffered from jetlag both ways and dealing with the time difference, it was still well worth it. And now that I’m back, it’s nice to be home and getting back to writing.

Now that I own a Treo 650, I find that I am re-discovering the Palm all over again. Why? Because it seems like I’m having to re-learn or learn something different about this new (to me) device. Although the Treo is still an OS 5 device, the lack of an on screen Graffiti input feature is enough to make me take notice. And there are a lot more things that I was aware of that I find in terms of differences between my old Zire 71 and the Treo 650 but it’s always interesting to discover. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my Zire 71 and am still using it, although I’m sure that the Treo will get more attention. I am slowly but surely likely passing it on to my husband or my son, who seems to love playing Palm games with it so it will be in good hands.

I’m certain that this new device will take me to many more years of love and admiration with the Palm. And so, my journey of discovery continues… now with more of a focus on the Treo 650 but I will still have the Zire 71 in mind.

Graffiti Anywhere

Little did I realize how much I missed Graffiti 2 (regardless of the frustrations I have with it sometimes) until I bought the Treo 650 and found out that there’s no Write Anywhere On-Screen feature that I took for granted in my Zire 71. Of course, I love the keypad of the Treo 650 but sometimes it’s nice to be able to still have access to writing on the screen for those special symbols and characters that would require the Options or Shift key on the keypad.

The strangest thing about the Treo 650 is that it still has the Graffiti 2 software inside but there isn’t any easily noticeable way to access it. I may be wrong (as I am a lot of times) but I don’t think that there is the Write Anywhere On Screen files in the Treo 650. It’s very strange how the G2 files are there but Write Anywhere On Screen isn’t. But thank goodness that Graffiti Anywhere (which has been around for quite a while) is still around to save the day.

For those not familiar with Graffiti Anywhere, it’s an application that will allow you to input your Graffiti stroke directly on the Palm screen, that’s normally used for viewing. Most Palms have the grey silkscreen/Graffiti area underneath for inputting the Graffiti strokes and don’t have that Write Anywhere On Screen feature.

With the Treo 650, since it already has a set of keypads, I guess Palm thought that people didn’t need to write or input via the screen anymore so there’s no grey silkscreen area and there’s no noticeable way to input on the screen. But, now, with Graffiti Anywhere installed, I can have the best of both worlds: inputting by pressing the keypad or by writing Graffiti 2 on the screen.

For someone who has mentioned being frustrated sometimes with Graffiti 2, why would I want it back? Well, although it looks like I have a full set of keys for inputting on the keypad, for a lot of special characters, it seems cumbersome to “look up” the correct key pad combinations to input them. For example, it took me a while to figure out how to input the underscore character _ in the Treo 650. To create an underscore character, I have to press the Options button (blue button located underneath the A), S, Alt (located underneath the M) and then select it (using the directional buttons) from amongst the various choices available. With Graffiti 2, I have to do the shortcut stroke which is the upstroke |, then a horizontal stroke from left to right -, a small stroke or accent grave ` and then another upstroke |. So, it looks like this: (taken from a screenshot of the Graffiti 2 tutorial application. If you don’t have that app on your Palm, you can check out my Graffiti 2 application posting and download it.

So to clarify, it’s |-`| vs , , , . Then select with the middle directional pad key.

Unless you’ve memorized all the special key combinations and characters, it may seem quite frustrating to spend minutes searching for that elusive character to input. So, even with a keypad, there seems to be a slight disadvantage with it as well. I guess, as with everything, nothing is perfect. At least with GA, you now have the choice of using either the keypad or Graffiti 2 so you can choose between using one over the other for specific characters to minimize hassles.

Here’s a screenshot of the various characters you can input with the Treo 650 taken from the manual:

(edited June 26, 2006). Palm Addict forum member, arny has taken the time to list out all the various characters that can be accessed in the Treo in this Palm Addict forum posting. Very nice!

To better explain how Graffiti Anywhere works, here’s a simulation of the program as well as its menus and a brief demonstration of how you can input strokes on the screen.

Simulation of Graffiti Anywhere

Alternative Flash links: Image Shack

The simulation will play through to the end unless I’ve inserted a pop up note to explain specific points.

To continue playing the simulation, press the button.
To go back to a previous paused segment, click on the button.
To pause the simulation at any time, press the button. To continue after it’s paused, press the button again.

To scroll forward or backward in the simulation, click anywhere on the left (to go back earlier in the simulation), or right (to go forward in the simulation) on the progress bar.

PLEASE NOTE THAT MANY FREE HOST SERVERS MAY HAVE POP UP ADS. PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU DISABLE POP UPS BEFORE CLICKING ON THE FLASH LINKS

In this simulation, I have opened up Graffiti Anywhere and set it to draw an activation indication in the bottom right corner (which shows up as a small speck or dot. You can change the color of it to make it more noticeable but the default color is black). For activation settings, I’ve set it to detect a single tap in the bottom left hand corner but you can customize it to detect hard button key presses. As well, I’ve set it so that once enabled, it will remain enabled until I disable it. The default is disabling it when you exit the application. You can set it to work in specific applications as well.

With Graffiti Anywhere as I’ve shown in the simulation, there are a number of settings you can customize according to your preferences. You can enable it by key presses or tapping in a corner, have it disabled when it exits the application or when it times out, show the strokes on screen as you’re writing it (Graffit echo) and many other features.

Graffiti Anywhere is in my opinion, essential for Treo owners who normally won’t have access to the Write Anywhere On Screen feature and allows the best of both worlds in terms of inputting text in the Palm. Without it, I’m sure I would be almost as equally frustrated (sometimes) navigating with the various keys and key presses to get a specific character.

Now that I own a Treo 650, I am thankful that there are still some applications that work and especially thankful that Graffiti Anywhere allows me to still use G2 on the Treo, when it seemed that it wasn’t possible.

Thanks for visiting and supporting Palm Discovery. If you are not reading this article from Palmdiscovery.com or Palmdiscovery.net, the website you are reading it from is guilty of copying and posting my content without consent. Please visit Palm Discovery for the original source of the material.

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