The included Clie Viewer program, while good intentioned, suffers from lethargy. Take more than a handful of pictures with your Clie Camera, and you sit and wait, and wait, and wait for the Clie Viewer to generate thumbnail images. It doesn’t cache these thumbnail images, so the next time you want to view images, you have to wait, and wait, and…

An alternative is to purchase one of the several third-party Imager Viewer apps. One such app is AcidImage from RedMercury.com These third-party viewers add functionality and speed not available to the native Clie Viewer.

For example, AcidImage adds a “file manager” function that lets you choose to view pictures stored anywhere on yout Memory Stick. This is very handy because you can organize your pictures into folders either on-board using a program like ClieFiles or “externally” using MSImport and opening a Windows Explorer window to manage the files on the memory Stick. You can select one, selected, or all photos to view. You can view the thumbnails in various sizes or view a text list of the photos. Very flexible.

Another nice feature is the ability to view “other” image types imported to the Memory Stick using MSImport. The Clie’s camera takes pictures in .jpg format, but AcidImage can display .gif and .bmp, and several other graphic file types. This is especially useful if you want to carry graphical information with you. You are no longer limited to viewing just Photos taken with your Clie, but you can carry with you and view images from just about any source.

For example, say you are Web Surfing and go to MapQuest.com to find a map of a specific place. Once it displays on your PC, just right-click on the image, and (in Internet Explorer) select “Save Picture As…” and save the picture to your PC. Then, use MSImport to load the picture onto your Memory Stick. Viewing the image in AcidImage lets you Zoom, Pan, and Rotate the image quickly.

There’s also a slideshow function that cycles through your images.

Admittedly, one nice thing about the Clie Viewer is that you can use it as a “launching point” to view Photos, Movies, listen to Voice Recordings, etc. but these functions can be easily done by launching the associated apps separatly. This integration is something I would gladly give up to have an image viewer that is quick and simple to use.

A Third-Party image viewer can open the door to many other uses for your Clie!

Note: I am not affiliated in any way with Red Mercury other than being a happy customer.

As always, all my information is free, but if you like what you see and would like to help support JimsTips.com, please click on the “Donate” button. Your financial support, no matter how large or small, helps keep this site alive and kicking.

PalmOS PDA Tips find, import, tips

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One of my biggest complaints about the NX series, unfortunatly, is its clamshell design. I personally prefer keeping it in “tablet” mode, but doing so poses one significant limitation: No access to the four standard hard buttons. So, what to do? Try McPhling! This little app lets you pop up a small list of launchable “favorite” apps from within any application.

Problem is that none of the hard buttons are exposed in Tablet mode, and if you are like me, you keep the Virtual Graffiti area hidden. I just hate pulling out the stylus to launch an app, so how do you activate McPhling without having to make unnecessary taps? Assign it to the “Capture” button on the side of the NX!

1. Launch McPhling and tap the “Avtivation” button.
2. Uncheck the “Swipe” box and check the “Button/keyboard” box
3. Tap on the dropdown next to “Apps:” and select “Custom…”
4. When prompted, press the Capture button on the side of the NX
5. Tap on the dropdown next to “Back:” and select “Disabled”
6. Tap on “OK and then select your favorites.

So now, when you press the capture button, it launches McPhling and you can choose whatever app you have defined. Use the Jog Dial to scroll through the list, and press the Jog Dial to launch the selected app. Pressing the Capture button again will dismiss the popup list. To preserve (or actually extend) functionality, be sure to assign the “Clie Camera”, “Movie Rec”, and “Voice Rec” apps.

The only down side to assigning the Capture button is that you lose the ability to press the Capture button to actually take the picture/start the recording, so you have to press the on-screen capture/record button to do that. But to me, that’s a small price to pay to have fingertip access to my favorite apps!

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We all know that you can play MP3 files on your Clie NX series, and while the ear buds included aren’t bad, did you know that you can use your NX’s MP3 player functionality in your car or at home?

1. Buy a “CD to Cassette adapter”. One came with my portable CD player, but you can get them separatly from places like Radio Shack and Best Buy, and they’re inexpensive. This device is a cassette case with some electronics inside with a cord coming out the end. The concept is that you plug one the cord into the headphone jack of your portable CD player (or MP3 player) and then plug the cassete-end into your cassette player. The electronics inside “fools” the cassette player to think it’s playing from a tape when it’s actually getting its signal from the portable CD player.

The sound quality is excellent, and it’s pretty portable–just wind up the cord when you are done and slip it into your glove box or pocket.

2. Buy a wireless FM transmitter. I purchased an “iRock” wireless FM transmitter from Radio Shack for about $30.00, and I am (pretty) happy with it. THis device plugs into the headphone jack and then transmits the audio over one of four selectable FM frequencies. Tune your car radio to the selected frequency, and you are hearing your MP3 music! Pretty cool!

My only complaint with this is that it introduced a bit of “hiss” into the sound stream. Also, the design of the on/off switch is, in my opinion, very poor. It’s too big and doesn’t take much of a tap to turn it on ot off. The implication is that this CANNOT be “pocketed” because it will most likely turn on and drain the batteries. That said, the cool thing is that unlike the wired cassette adapter, you don’t have to have a cassette player to make it work, and you just have to have the device within about 10-20 feet of the receiver. This means that you could turn on your home stereo, tune it to the proper frequency, and play your MP3’s from your living room chair. Again, the wireless aspect of it introduces a bit of interference, but non-the-less, it’s a neat gadget.

So, both have their place, and both have their advantages and disadvantages. The point is that these are just two more ways to extend the usefulness of the Clie NX PDA.

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I stumbled upon this one by accident today. Did you know that you can navigate a spreadsheet in Documents-To-Go with the Jog Dial?

Sure, you can use it to scroll up and down, but try pressing the Jog Dial and then scrolling. You can move side-to-side! Press it again, and it reverts to up-and-down!

I’m sure this is documented somewhere, but I never would have known this had I not accidentally hit the Jog Dial.

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Want to be more “functional” with LanucherX? Why not rename your apps to something more meaningful!

One way to make launcherX’s “Launcher Experience” more functional is to use LauncherX’s “Rename” Gadget to rename application filenames to something more meaningful. Note that we are NOT actually renaming the app itself, but we are renaming LauncherX’s name for the app. This is very important because it does not disrupt the underlying integrity of the app, it just changes how you, the user, see the app labeled.

Here’s a real-world example: TomeRaider is a nice DOC reader that also reads other specialized formats. One of those specialized documents is the “IMDB – Detail” file. This cool file found at Memoware weighs in at over 15MB, and contains over 30,000 US Movie listings. Anyway, I use HandStory for all of my DOC reading, but I use “TomeRaider” EXCLUSIVLY to acces the “IMDB Detail” file. I don’t use it for anything else, just for that. So, because “TomeRaider” is not really descriptive of its function, I renamed it in LauncherX to “IMDB Lookup”. Now, when my wife or I want to access the IMDB database, there is no confusion as to what app to launch.

Another example is the Clie Remote Control program called “CLIE RMC”. At first glance, I say, “What the heck does that mean?” Why not rename it to “Clie IR Remote”? Makes more sense, and again, there is no confusion to its function.

Here are some more examples of some application filenames I have installed, and the names to which I renamed them in LauncherX. Some are for clarity, and some are for consistency:

“DateBK5″ becomes “Date Book”
“Address” becomes “Addresses”
“CLIE RMC” becomes “CLIE IR Remote”
“ProWord” becomes “Dictionary”
“TomeRaider” becomes “IMDB Lookup”
“TimePlace” becomes “Global Time”
“MyBible” becomes “The Bible”
“Movie Rec” becomes “Movie Recorder”
“Prefs” becomes “Preferences”
etc.

Obviously, not all apps need renaming, and not all apps are so “functionally specific”. My goal was to rename several apps so that they are more “meaningful” and “consistent”.

If you find that you end up with an “elipsis” (…) at the end of a filename, that means that it’s too long to display. There are several ways to fix this: 1. Shorten the name through the Rename Gadget, 2. Go into the tab’s settings, select the “Advanced” page, and change the tab’s font to something smaller. Personally, I have changed ALL fonts in LauncherX to “Small Bold” and find it to be very readable and it looks sharp!, and 3. Go into the tab’s preferences and tweak the tab;s “view” (ie: Icon view vs list view, number of icon columns, etc.)

Oh, and if you can’t remember the original app’s name, just drag the app’s icon the the “Information” gadget and a dialog box will pop up with the app’s actual name. Please note that unfortunatly, this doesn’t always work, so if you REALLY need the ACTUAL name of the app, just exit LauncherX and view the actual filename in the Clie launcher. Simple as that.

LauncherX is VERY customizable, so poke around at the settings and have fun!

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Are you a MusicMatch Jukebox user? Do you want to easily transfer your MP3 files to your Sony Clie NX from within MusicMatch? Are you bummed because MusicMatch doesn’t list the Sony Clie NX series a supported device? Well, there is another way!

I’m using MusicMatch Jukebox Plus, the registered version, so I really don’t know if the free version supports this. It’s only $20 so I highly recommend registration.

Anyway, Here’s how you get your MP3’s onto your Memory Stick from within MusicMatch Jukebox:

-Assemble your play list normally
-Click on the “File” menu
-Select “Export Playlist Tracks”
-Select the “Copy as is” option
-Select the drive letter of your portable player (as mapped by the MSImport program)
-Navigate to the PALMPROGRAMSMSAUDIO directory
-Ensure that you have enough room on your Memory Stick. MusicMatch tells you estimated required space and space available.
-Click “Start”

Ths files will transfer directly to the Memory Stick.

Disconnect the connection by tapping on “Disconnect” in MSImport and you are ready to listen to your new MP3s!

Thanks to “Shannon” at MusicMatch support for the info. Once again, MusicMatch proves its quality in both product and support.

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Digital Camera Adjustments

The NX70V has a great little digital camera. It’s definatly not a pro-grade camera, but for quick-n-dirty snapshots, it’s wonderful. By default, it takes fairly decent pictures, but did you know that you can adjust some settings to compensate for varying conditions to improve the results?

Launch the Clie Camera app and click on the “tools” icon–it’s the round one on the left of the screen that looks like a two-ended open end wrench. This opens a preferences screen that allows you to tweak several options, two of which are important to determine what your final picture will look like: “Brightness” and “White Balance”. Adjusting either of these settings will be reflected in the small preview window in the Tools screen as will as in the standard preview window.

Let me start off by saying that I am definatly not a photographer. I can’t tell you what an “f stop” is nor do I really care, but I do know what I like. That said, your best bet is to experiment and just try all the settings for yourself. Remember, these are digital pictures, so take as many as you can! You can always delete them if you don’t like them! Now for the tool settings…

Brightness
“Brightness” is a sliding scale from “-2″ to “+2″ giving you 5 possible brightness level settings. Experimentation will tell you which is the best setting.

White Balance
This setting adjusts the White Balance of the picture based on one of 4 settings: “Auto”, “Indoor A”, Indoor B”, and “Outdoor”. The specific details of these settings are beyond the scope of this tip, so refer to the manual if you want more details. I can say that depending on your lighting conditions, these settings CAN affect the overall color and quality of the pictures you taks.

OK, so you have adjusted the settings, you have taken some pictures, you have transferred the pictures to your PC, and when you view them, you may or may not be totally happy with the results. Because of the nature of digital pictures and the data, you may have the opportunity to tweak the picture further. There are a ton of programs out there that can be used to tweak and enhance digital pictures. The Sony NX70V comes with Picture Studio which has “correction” functions that work pretty well. Try them out and get comfortable with them. They can certainly improve your photos!

Enhancement Example
While vacationing in the Napa Valley in California, I took a picture of the Culinary Institute of America. The picture was taken on a very cloudy, overcast day, and as you can see, it’s dark, very blue, and there isn’t a whole lot of detail. Click here to see it.

Now, to see what the same picture looks like after using Photoshop’s various level tools (the same could be accomplished with Picture Studio), click here. THe difference is stunning. You can pick out detail that was not in the original, and the colors look more true-to-life. The truth is that what I actually saw with my eyes was somewhere in between the two, but the point is that the NX70V camera captures a lot of information that can often be tweaked to enhance the results.

Bonus Tip:
Be aware that lower light conditions tend to yield lower quality pictures. They tend to be grainier, not as sharp, and the color isn’t as brilliant.

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Create new alarms! Did you know that you can use the included Voice Recorder app to create alarms?

Launch the Voice Recorder app and open record some audio. Next, select the menu option “Data > Convert to Alarm” Check the box in front of the recorded file to convert and tap the “Alarm” button.

Now, open the standard DateBook app, and open the menu “Options > Preferences”. Tap on the “Alarm Sound dropdown, and your recording is now in the list. Select it, and the sound you recorded will now ne your alarm!

This could have many cool and novel possibilities!

Note: I found that the converted alarms to not yet appear in the list in DateBK5. Pimlico Software is aware of this and is working to include this function in a future release. I will update this thread as I find our about updates.

Update: Here’s a work-around: Just record and convert the alarm normally in Voice Recorder. Next, go into the native Date Book app and select the new alarm. Finally, go back into DateBK5 and uncheck the “DateBK5 handles alarms” checkbox in the Alarm Preferences. You lose some of the DateBK5 alarm functionality, but you get the custom alarms!

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