Two years later, I bought a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500. It ran Zaurus and OPIE GUI environment. The Zaurus SL-5500 was Sharp’s first PDA to run Linux. Linux was the main reason I chose Zaurus. It was fast and colorful (at that time). It came with a couple of useful apps and desktop sync software. Syncing to a desktop running on Linux was good. After using it for a few months, some commercial apps which I bought, began to crash more often after I updated the operating system. I gave it up after a few attempts to restore the original operating system. Here is the photo of Zaurus (I managed to find its charger) with iPhone lying beside it. Well look at its size! The iPhone 3GS is half the thickness of Zaurus.

The other drawback of the Zaurus is its retractable physical keyboard. The keys are too small for my fingers and typing is real pain. So, BlackBerry with physical keyboard is totally out of the game. Here is the picture of Zaurus with its keyboard and iPhone with the virtual-touch keyboard for comparison:

I was tempted by HP and Toshiba but, hey, they ran on Windows. No way! In early 2008. I purchased a 2nd generation, 32GB iPod Touch. I was immediately captured by its charms. In December 2009, I got a 32GB iPhone 3GS. My response was: “Damn! I should have gotten it earlier.”

Both PalmPilot and Zaurus need stylus to tap on their screens. If you lose your stylus, you need to buy a new one. iPhone is more convenient because everything is manipulated with your fingers. Apple’s innovative multi-touch screen gives more user experience and more operability to the device.

All I can say, I have never used other PDAs like I use my iPhone. I mostly use my iPhone in my work (especially) and for fun during leisure (social networking, music, games and etc.) Here are some apps I use to boost my productivity while I am on the move and even at my desk.

Paymo is a free online time tracking and billing service. With a small fee, user can upgrade the service for unlimited users and invoices. I use Paymo to track my time spent on various projects and business/work related activities. The Paymo free iPhone app works in both online and offline mode. When I am out to support my clients, and/or having business or technical meeting and discussion, I can easily track my time with this tiny useful app.

With design based on the concepts and techniques described in David Allen’s book, “Getting Things Done”, OmniFocus for iPhone is a powerful to-do app that let you stay focused in whatever you are doing or trying to complete. The app is priced at $19.99 which is a little bit on the high side. I was hesitating for a while because of the price. After using it, I will say, “Save your money for OmniFocus and forget about other to-do apps.” Before this, I was using Things and I am still using it. The only reason I want to keep Things is that it allows assigning teammates to your tasks. OmniFocus is more comprehensive than Things and it let you stay focused in getting your jobs done, which is most important. Besides, you can sync your data via MobileMe, Bonjour, WebDAV server or locally mounted disk on your Mac. Personally, I think it is worth the investment.

Things is an easy-to-use to-do app priced at $9.99. It’s a good alternative to OmniFocus if you are on a tight budget. The price tag of $9.99 is considered quite high especially there are some free to-do apps, but to do a good job, Things will be above average. Unlike OmniFocus, syncing can only be done with a WiFi at your local area network where your Mac is running the desktop version of Things. One feature which I don’t like is its ability to assign more than one tag to your tasks. Too many tags confuse me.

Evernote is a free online service which let you save your ideas in the form of texts, voice memos or photos. You can save a web clip or PDF. Syncing between multiple devices and Macs over the Internet is a breeze. I use it while I am writing computer codes to note down what I have done and new ideas that come along. You can tag your documents for easy retrieval later. If you would like to enjoy a larger storage and monthly usage bandwidth, you can upgrade the service to Evernote Premium for $5 a month or $45 a year. Evernote is a good companion for notetaking while you are working, engaged in meetings and discussion and even at leisure.

Invoice2Go allows me to issue invoices on the go without a notebook or desktop computer. With it, I no longer need to go back to office to issue invoices. It saves me a lot of time from traveling back and forth between office and clients. Just email the invoices to your clients and you can make the delivery right away. For only $9.99, it saves you time and gasoline.

Dropbox is a free online storage service. You can take any file with you on your iPhone to meetings. Your co-workers or clients can drop files to your Dropbox and you can pick them up anytime, anywhere on your iDevice or Mac, provided they are connected to the Internet. It also allows you to share your files on Facebook or Twitter via link. By getting your friend to sign up you can earn 250MB of extra free disk space (up to 8GB) for every new account created. Click here to sign up.

Well, I admit that I was wrong. I am developing a cloud/web-based MIS (Medical Information System) which enables patient to be able to view certain information and interact with the clinic/doctor from anywhere. Likewise, it also provides doctors greater mobility and still are able to care for their patients while they are away.

After reading articles (on Apple’s website) how iPhones help hospitals in the U.S. to provide better healthcare at lower cost, I decided to build the MIS with iPhone support. I based my decision on these reasons:

1. Ease of use. I have been toying/using around with an iPod Touch for a few months and I find that it is easy to navigate/use. iPod Touch is essentially an iPhone without the phone. You get what I mean.
2. Beautiful UI. Apple is well known for its brilliant UI (User Interface) in Mac OS X and iPhone OS. Nothing else comes closer to it.
3. Security. All applications must be approved by Apple and be signed with license keys issued by Apple. Apple’s iTunes Store is the only place to download applications. I can be rest assured  to have less (or none) headache about spooky applications from unreliable sources. Of course, there are jail broken iPhones which do not play by the rules but I am not too worried about that.

So, I went ahead ordering one last week. Last night, I went to Maxis center to collect my 32GB Black iPhone. It is such a beauty.

Give me a couple of weeks mingling with it and I promise you I will write about my experience.

Here’s the screenshots (click to enlarge):

On this page, it says “iPhone 3.0 Software Update for iPod Touch – Already have an iPhone? Update it with new features, free.

On the other page, it says “Download software update. Only US$9.95.”

On the page found at Singapore site, it says “Buy now for $9.95″

I hate misleading advertisement. I checked various websites and found out that iPhone owners are entitled for free update but the iPod Touch owners are not. What the ….

I am not going to pay for the f&$@*?# update so I searched the web. I found one blogger from Sarawak has written a blog entry about this. I also found some links to download the free iPhone 3.0 here.

It seems like, according to dzimonotion, Apple has mistaken published a free upgrade for download but the link has been taken down later. Someone was quick enough to discover that and downloaded the free upgrade and sharing it now.

You can download the iPhone 3.0 free upgrade here or here is a torrent link.

After downloading, connect your iPod Touch and option click the Update button in iTunes (8.2 or later). Look for a .ipsw file and select. The upgrade will begin immediately. The upgrading process will take a while. Do not disconnect your iPod Touch. When the upgrading process is completed, your iPod Touch will reboot. Enjoy!

Now, I can connect a bluetooth stereo headset (I don’t have one now), I can do copy-cut-paste, etc. Check the Apple website for new features in iPhone 3.0 Update.

Not too long ago, I wrote an article about Apple’s business practice, Is Apple Dirty? Why iPhone owners are entitled for free upgrade? Why iPod Touch owners are not? Now, you judge.

The idea is to design different programs with advertisements and messages interleaved among documentary and his own educational videos for playback on different days of the week. And the most important thing is to allow the doctor himself to easily update his educational videos and advertisements anytime as he wishes from his new 24″ iMac.

After I installed Apple TV a few days ago, I realized it did not have movie playlist. After Googling for a while, I wasn’t alone. Here is a blog entry with the same problem. And I found out the Apple TV Software Update 2.3 allows movie playlist in iTunes to be seen on Apple TV. I downloaded the 2.3 update this afternoon, and after I activated the movie playlist in Apple TV settings, it is now able to play the movies in the playlist as desired.

I pondered why Apple did not ship Apple TV with new software update 2.3. It was released in November 2008. About the Apple TV software update can be found here.