Tuesday, May 14, 2002
iSilo at last
Posted by Tycho Morgan in "THOUGHT" @ 03:25 PM
http://www.isilo.com/info/beta/iSiloPPC.htm
In my time with Pocket PC Thoughts, I've made no secret of he fact that I've been a Palm user. Once upon a time I had a Visor Solo, and at the time I was quite happy with it. I could read ebooks, I could write, I could keep track of my to-do list, and like most people who haven't yet seen the light of Pocket PCs, I could want nothing more. (That isn't entirely true, because I had seen Pocket PCs, and I did want one, my budget was such that I didn't think I could afford one.) One of the things that allowed me to get along so well with my Visor Solo was this nifty little program iSilo. It let you read documents (with a lot of HTML formatting, which at the time was otherwise unavailable) in the most compressed form. When using a Palm you were able to get more formatting options and have files that were half the size of competing DOC files (which the program read too). As if that weren't enough, iSilo has this nifty little desktop counterpart that allows users to easily convert text files, html, and even pull a number of channels off the web for your later reading. This last part may not seem to be very big, but I think this is what will make iSilo HUGE for Pocket PCs.
When I was able to make the switch over to Pocket PC, I wasn't too concerned with loosing iSilo: Microsoft Reader and Palm Digital Media Reader for Pocket PC combined to do everything I needed, and my supply of Compact Flash and RAM, compression wasn't that big of a deal anymore. However, I really missed the desktop conversion utility that iSilo had. Mazingo with its custom channels and other premium services come close, but the conduit isn't nearly as efficient (or as nice) as iSilo was. You could convert a file into an eBook in a matter of seconds, and pull 5-7 web channels (assuming they aren't graphics intensive or anything) in 90 seconds tops; or at least that's what I remember. This is what mobile favorites should have been, and I'm really looking forward to seeing a final version of this.
What are your thoughts?
In my time with Pocket PC Thoughts, I've made no secret of he fact that I've been a Palm user. Once upon a time I had a Visor Solo, and at the time I was quite happy with it. I could read ebooks, I could write, I could keep track of my to-do list, and like most people who haven't yet seen the light of Pocket PCs, I could want nothing more. (That isn't entirely true, because I had seen Pocket PCs, and I did want one, my budget was such that I didn't think I could afford one.) One of the things that allowed me to get along so well with my Visor Solo was this nifty little program iSilo. It let you read documents (with a lot of HTML formatting, which at the time was otherwise unavailable) in the most compressed form. When using a Palm you were able to get more formatting options and have files that were half the size of competing DOC files (which the program read too). As if that weren't enough, iSilo has this nifty little desktop counterpart that allows users to easily convert text files, html, and even pull a number of channels off the web for your later reading. This last part may not seem to be very big, but I think this is what will make iSilo HUGE for Pocket PCs.
When I was able to make the switch over to Pocket PC, I wasn't too concerned with loosing iSilo: Microsoft Reader and Palm Digital Media Reader for Pocket PC combined to do everything I needed, and my supply of Compact Flash and RAM, compression wasn't that big of a deal anymore. However, I really missed the desktop conversion utility that iSilo had. Mazingo with its custom channels and other premium services come close, but the conduit isn't nearly as efficient (or as nice) as iSilo was. You could convert a file into an eBook in a matter of seconds, and pull 5-7 web channels (assuming they aren't graphics intensive or anything) in 90 seconds tops; or at least that's what I remember. This is what mobile favorites should have been, and I'm really looking forward to seeing a final version of this.
What are your thoughts?
