Friday, February 7, 2003
"Journal Bar" From OmegaOne. Does it deserve a place on your Today Screen?
Posted by Peter Traugot in "SOFTWARE" @ 08:30 AM
There a number of Today plugins available for the Pocket PC 2002 operating system. Most of them offer a single feature - whether it be a calendar, a currency converter, or a system monitor. Omega One has something a bit more ambitious for you. It's called Journal Bar and it packs a day's worth of global information into a half inch on your screen. Has anyone ever asked you what's on TV tonight? Or, what's the weather going to be this weekend. Well, maybe you can be Mr. or Miss know-it-all. Check out what else this plugin puts in your pocket . . .
Introduction
Journal One is a Today plugin that offers a large palette of informational views, each of which is reached by scrolling the up-down navigation buttons on the left side of the box. There are four categories of information that are displayed. They are: Weather (two different locations can be displayed), News (there are four sections), Stocks (up to 11 entries), and Links (six user definable entries).
The Setup
As with most Today plugins, the configuration is accessed through the "Today" settings dialog. Each category can be updated at different time intervals which are user definable at the bottom of each page. Once configured, all the user has to do is enter his or her zip code and sync his or her device. I found that the program takes about a minute or two to download all of the information. Of course, your mileage may vary depending on how much information you want to have available. Once all information is downloaded (you will know this because the little category icon in the top left will stop flashing) your Today screen will resemble Figure 1.
Figure 1: Default view on your today screen. You can see the navigation arrows on the left side of the Journal Bar section.
And here is what each of the modules look like when you scroll through them. Note: Each of these modules REPLACES the current display, it doesn't open additional sections. This image is used to quickly show what each module looks like in one image :)
Figure 2: This is a break-out of most of Journal Bar's modules. News is actually broken out into as many news sections as you select in the configuration.
There's a setting in the configuration that will cycle the information fields in regular intervals. You can override this by manipulating the up and down navigation controls. The configuration controls can be reached a couple of ways. You can open the Today app through Settings, or, you can navigate to the Links portion of the Journal Bar plugin and access the configuration icon there. The numerous tags in the configuration window are self explanatory and are as follows: General / Weather / News / Stocks / Links. See images below:
Figure 3: "Weather" tag
Figure 4: "News" tag
Figure 5: "Stock" tag
Figure 6: "Links" tag
Likes and dislikes
I immediately liked this plugin. The weather display is great. I've looked at many other weather-only plugins and this one has the best display with the smallest footprint. The information is offered very without clutter on the Today screen. When you click on a day, you are taken to a custom screen where details of the day's weather are displayed. (See image below.) The headlines are clear and stock infomation is well laid out. However, unlike the weather screen, once you select a headline, theater location, or stock quote, the plugin launches Pocket Internet Explorer. In some cases it takes a while to render the page, especially the theater location page. It also, obviously, starts another application on your device. You need to jump back and fourth between your Today screen in order to select another article. For some this might be minor, for others they may have expected a more integrated approach.
Figure 7: The Weather screen that opens when you click on a day from the main Today screen
Gotchas
This information is from OmegaOne's Web site:
You can download a trial version of this application, or you can purchase it for $9.99 by visiting Handango (affiliate).
Specifications
The application requires 155 KB of storage memory and takes up approximately one fifth of the Today screen when active. Like all Today screen plug-ins, it should be installed to main RAM, not a storage card or Flash ROM.
Conclusions
I like this application - for $9.99, you get a great plugin that doesn't take up much space at all. That's a big plus. The navigation is simple, though the controls are a bit small for quick navigation. I'm not too thrilled with the combination of a built-in viewer, like the weather panel or the Movie Reviews, and the use of Pocket Internet Explorer for all other information. Load times aren't great given the information is already loaded on your device, although this may simply be a rendering issue with the Pocket PC. There are also many times when a link, embedded into the article leads to the inevitable "Connection not available" dialog. For example, if you select the Movies link from the plugin, Explorer opens up and you are shown the theater listings. Clicking on a theater brings you to that theater's listings. However, if you click on the movie, it tries to connect. Why not have it link to the movie review data that is also downloaded to the device in the Reviews section? I don't know how you would filter out or otherwise eliminate those dead links, and I don't know if you would want to, but I found the line between offline and cached data to be fuzzy.
Introduction
Journal One is a Today plugin that offers a large palette of informational views, each of which is reached by scrolling the up-down navigation buttons on the left side of the box. There are four categories of information that are displayed. They are: Weather (two different locations can be displayed), News (there are four sections), Stocks (up to 11 entries), and Links (six user definable entries).
The Setup
As with most Today plugins, the configuration is accessed through the "Today" settings dialog. Each category can be updated at different time intervals which are user definable at the bottom of each page. Once configured, all the user has to do is enter his or her zip code and sync his or her device. I found that the program takes about a minute or two to download all of the information. Of course, your mileage may vary depending on how much information you want to have available. Once all information is downloaded (you will know this because the little category icon in the top left will stop flashing) your Today screen will resemble Figure 1.
Figure 1: Default view on your today screen. You can see the navigation arrows on the left side of the Journal Bar section.
And here is what each of the modules look like when you scroll through them. Note: Each of these modules REPLACES the current display, it doesn't open additional sections. This image is used to quickly show what each module looks like in one image :)
Figure 2: This is a break-out of most of Journal Bar's modules. News is actually broken out into as many news sections as you select in the configuration.
There's a setting in the configuration that will cycle the information fields in regular intervals. You can override this by manipulating the up and down navigation controls. The configuration controls can be reached a couple of ways. You can open the Today app through Settings, or, you can navigate to the Links portion of the Journal Bar plugin and access the configuration icon there. The numerous tags in the configuration window are self explanatory and are as follows: General / Weather / News / Stocks / Links. See images below:
Figure 3: "Weather" tag
Figure 4: "News" tag
Figure 5: "Stock" tag
Figure 6: "Links" tag
Likes and dislikes
I immediately liked this plugin. The weather display is great. I've looked at many other weather-only plugins and this one has the best display with the smallest footprint. The information is offered very without clutter on the Today screen. When you click on a day, you are taken to a custom screen where details of the day's weather are displayed. (See image below.) The headlines are clear and stock infomation is well laid out. However, unlike the weather screen, once you select a headline, theater location, or stock quote, the plugin launches Pocket Internet Explorer. In some cases it takes a while to render the page, especially the theater location page. It also, obviously, starts another application on your device. You need to jump back and fourth between your Today screen in order to select another article. For some this might be minor, for others they may have expected a more integrated approach.
Figure 7: The Weather screen that opens when you click on a day from the main Today screen
Gotchas
This information is from OmegaOne's Web site:
- Journal Bar will not sync over 802.11 networks, although it will sync via bluetooth connections.
- Currently, the application does not sync over the cell phone on phone edition units.
- Due to the fact that a great deal of information is gathered from Web sites, there is the chance that your device will not be able to gather all up-to-date data if those pages become unavailable.
You can download a trial version of this application, or you can purchase it for $9.99 by visiting Handango (affiliate).
Specifications
The application requires 155 KB of storage memory and takes up approximately one fifth of the Today screen when active. Like all Today screen plug-ins, it should be installed to main RAM, not a storage card or Flash ROM.
Conclusions
I like this application - for $9.99, you get a great plugin that doesn't take up much space at all. That's a big plus. The navigation is simple, though the controls are a bit small for quick navigation. I'm not too thrilled with the combination of a built-in viewer, like the weather panel or the Movie Reviews, and the use of Pocket Internet Explorer for all other information. Load times aren't great given the information is already loaded on your device, although this may simply be a rendering issue with the Pocket PC. There are also many times when a link, embedded into the article leads to the inevitable "Connection not available" dialog. For example, if you select the Movies link from the plugin, Explorer opens up and you are shown the theater listings. Clicking on a theater brings you to that theater's listings. However, if you click on the movie, it tries to connect. Why not have it link to the movie review data that is also downloaded to the device in the Reviews section? I don't know how you would filter out or otherwise eliminate those dead links, and I don't know if you would want to, but I found the line between offline and cached data to be fuzzy.
