Juniskin thoughts

Pursuading Juni to release a Smartphone Exclusive

To give me a birthday surprise, Juni put the finishing touches on his Jcorder (Jcars for smartphone) theme, so it can grace my HTC Star Trek. I have to say, this is the most stunning skin I've ever seen on any device. It's just beautiful. Now it requires some registry hacking if you want the full effect, but if you go that extra mile, it's just breathtaking.

He's been waiting around for icon support in Fizz Traveller, but since it doesn't seem to be forthcoming, I'm of the mind that he should just release the thing. The original idea had been to include these in the pocketpc skins, and he may yet do that, I'm not sure, but this skin deserves to live on its own. The skin is for Facade, Smart Monitor, Fizz Traveller, and obviously the homescreen. There's some extra backgrounds for the phone dialer and start menu background if you'd like to go there. (and you should, it's worth it)

He doesn't have a homescreen only version yet, but I don't think you should bother with that, no this one deserves the full treatment.

I don't know what the future holds for the other exclusives coming to smartphone, or if they should or will be included with the ppc skins, but this one skin? Best.skin.EVAR. It's the kind of skin that you'd buy a smartphone just to use it. Seriously.

If he lets me, I'll take a vanity pic of the HTC Star Trek running Jcorder. :)

I couldn't think of a clever subject line, so just think of something witty and Christmas-related, and fill in the blank here

Santa certainly didn't go easy on the loot this year! On top of that Qtek 8500, I got a ton 'o stuff. Of course, we forgot about the micro sd card...oops, but what I lack in memory, I make up for with everything else. :-)

So let's see, Juni got a Little Martin LXK2 3/4 guitar for my small stubby non-guitar playing fingers to actually enjoy themselves while playing. And ya know, ok so it's not real wood, but it sounds great. Certainly better than anything else I've tried at that price, and the action is easy on the fingers. It's nice little guitar to have near the couch, and hey, it's a Martin. :) Oh yeah.

And from the Land of Oakley, I nabbed some Black/ice Gascans, and some Lil' John Zeros (YEAH!!)... with some Black/Emerald Canteens on the way for my birthday. (Huneymonkey and Total_O are excellent ebayers - look no further than these two if you want essential Oakley)

From the We-can't-resist-gadgets dept., Juni got me a Casio Mission Impossible III G-Shock, and I got him the Mudman he's been wanting. (Can't say enough good things about Superchrono.com)

Juni was a bit easier to shop for, being that DVDs are the way to his heart. I stocked up on stuff like Little Britain seasons 1-3, Eddie Izzard boxset, Voyager Season 5, Family Guy Season 5 (no Family Guy here in Finland, DVD is the only way... time for a sexy party), the Indiana Jones boxset he's been wanting like forever, Call of Duty 3 (yes yes, he has Gears of War), some Muppets (he loves Muppets. The world needs more Muppets), and the untested Firefly. It never made it across the ocean to Finland, but its reputation proceeds it. I really should have picked up BSG Season 2, but that can be a possible birthday idea. Oh, and a new coat, but he doesn't count clothes.

So yeah, Santa was good this year. I don't think it's the money you spend, although the wallet inevitably starts to cry, it's all about when you get something that maybe the person didn't know they wanted, but it's totally them, and shows just how much you care.

As for the Qtek, I'll need to update the rom I think, but so far, so good. It synced successfully using the Missing Sync, no muss, no fuss, and I finally get to use my favorite theme, Organizer....for which Juni has made a version 2, and not updated the site yet. Hmpf. In the new year, time notwithstanding, it'd be great to see more smartphone themes, because he's just so good at it. :)

The smartphone seems to be better at being a phone than the Imate Jam is. Duh. It sounds better, for one thing, and the camera, while on paper is the same 1.3 mp, in reality it's actually slightly useful, as opposed to the Jam's useless. On the flip side of the coin, the Jam is better at being a pda with a phone in it. Another Duh moment (and this would be a perfect world if it had Edge support). But all-in-all, I'll still probably use both, and just wait out the WM5 pocketpcs until the Wince 6-based devices start rolling out.

I'm caught up now with the orders placed while we were away, so I hope everyone had a great time and got either the stuff they wanted, or the stuff they didn't know they wanted... and that there's not too much Some Assembly Required going on. :)

I'm dreaming of a slightly chilly Christmas

But hey, I'm not complaining. 8 Years in Helsinki means I've had my fill of snow and ice. :) Finally finished the rest of the Christmas shopping today. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to put you in that holiday spirit! I knew what I wanted to get everyone, I just needed to go and do it. Juni and I finished our shopping for each other a couple weeks ago though.

So this year once again, we're heading out to the country for Christmas. Juni's 4 year old neice demands to see the "Pixelhunden" (it's the name she's given Pixie), so tomorrow it's onto the train, and then about an hour's drive from the train station. Pixie's never been in a train before, and being that she's a dachshund, she's very vocal about how she feels. This should be interesting. ;)

You'd have to know Juni has a dog named Pixel, right? But it makes sense, because she looks like her mom all over again, and her mom's name is Dottie. Get it, Dot..Pixel.. Juni...does graphics.... ok, deep space quiet, moving on...

We're heading out tomorrow, and then hitching a ride with Juni's little brother on Monday (Christmas Day for those of you playing along at home). We plan to just take a gift each with us, as Christmas Eve is the big day here, and then we'll have our own Christmas once we get back.

I've got too much to carry to take the ibook with me, so while Juni and I won't be completely net dark (I'll have my psp, and he'll have his hx4700 and qtek 8310), it's understandably a bit more cumbersome to give lengthy email replies, or to process paypal orders.

If you purchase any skins from Paypal during that time between Saturday and Monday (morning EST, evening CET and EET), I promise I'll get to you just as soon as I get back. I can lie to myself and say I'll leave the computer alone on Christmas Day, but we all know that's not possible. After all, I'm getting a qtek 8500, eventually I'm going to want to sync it. :)

Speaking of syncing, I've been a longtime user of Pocketmac. I had been a big fan of The Missing Sync for the Sony Clie, but the pocketpc version just wasn't very reliable, and support just ignored you if the problem was too big. Then they came out with an upgrade, including bugfixes, that you had to pay for. Uh-huh, no way. See 'ya. Sure Pocketmac was slower but it was a solid reliable workhorse. Still is. There are a few ical issues, like syncing changes with recurring events, but at least it didn't time shift them by hours or days like TMS did.

But nowadays, Pocketmac has really fallen behind with the WM5 support, and you have to get a completely separate program for smartphone syncing. That led me back to take advantage of the upgrade pricing with TMS, and so far, so good. I've obviously not tested the qtek yet, but after a few glitches that always seem to happen when switching sync programs, it's been working pretty well. The concept isn't unlike Palm's Hotsync, based on plugins. Hopefully those old time shifting bugs with recurring events is solved. We shall see.

In the meantime, Merry Christmas to all you happy Juni fans, and may your stockings be filled with shiny gadgets with bright sharp displays just begging to be skinned. :)

A possible answer to our prayers?

The number one thing that puts lots of pocketpc users off the idea of skinning, is how difficult they seemingly are to install. It's not really difficult at all, but if you were expecting a simple setup program, the idea of copying and pasting folders can be off-putting for many.

Enter Sbsh Guru. It's still early days yet, but this has got to be worth testing at least, especially with plans to add Wisbar support. I'm on the case and I'll start testing this soonishly, and see if it's solution, or just something that wraps up what's already there.

Update: Not yet, it seems. Turns out in order for it to work, the skins have to be kept where they are. As it is, there frankly isn't a lot of use I can see for it. The whole point of a skin theme builder is so you can easily install them all at once. Stardock has something like this for a while now in the PC customization world. This isn't a must-have feature just for skin artists trying to make installation easier, but for avid skin users as well. If you keep 10 or 20 of these things, the size starts to make a dent. Even at 2 skin suites it starts to make a dent. Easy installation and removal is an idea whose time has come. Hopefully this is where Guru is going eventually (again, it's still very early days), but if not, I don't see much point for it.

Et tu, Juni?

Every now and then, on those odd occassions when Juni had spare time and no skins to make, he would ask me if there were any of the old skins that I'd really like redone to work with the latest program versions.

My instant reply was always Organizer. I love the combo of blue and orange, and I think it's a combo that should be used more often. It's simple, but it just works. This was the skin I always went back to when I grew bored of the latest and greatest. It hasn't been usable since, oh, about Wisbar v 1.0.x I think.

So when he getting his hx4700, how did he celebrate? I'll show you how - by doing this. Those times when I mention this, he just pretends to forget he didn't make a qvga version.

Fast forward, oh, a year or more, and I get him, out of the kindness of my heart, a Qtek 8310 smartphone for Christmas. And what was he quick to put on his screen? Why this, of course.

So what's to be done? I have an i-mate jam, I don't really need a smartphone, but if it's the only way I can have my favorite theme, then it's payback time this Christmas, Buster. I'm getting a Qtek 8500 and that's that. ;)

December update

To get the full effect of this update, imagine reading it a flat in what was a nice family apartment building, only now there you are surrounded by the 3 worst neighbors from hell, who have no concept of time, consideration, or even the reading skills needed to comprehend the house rules posted in the hallway. One has recently crashed from his 2-day bender, the one above him is unsuccessfully fighting the urge to go through his dvd collection at max volume, and the one beside him and above us has decided that since he got the full week off because Independence Day falls on a Wednesday, then he'll just keep us all up, because, and I quote "Sometimes you just have to be bad."

Families with children? Need to get up early, or do you simply need sleep every 24 hours? Nah, screw them. The rules obviously don't apply, as we were informed by one such neighbor. Of course he was high at that time, but he's the expert.

So if we here at Juniskins seem a bit hair trigger and sleep deprived, you know why. ;) I love a good party as well the next person, but I won't bully others to do it, so a word of advice to anyone who likes it loud and who needs little sleep - don't have the weekly (or daily) party every time at your place, and after 11pm may we remind you that there have been some wonderful advancements in the world of headphones in the past 5 years. Especially if your downstairs neighbor actually gave you a pair of Alessandro Ms-1s and a Pimeta headphone amp... that you gladly took and never used or returned.

And now that that's off my chest, here's what we've been up to. ;)

The skin suites have stalled because of a couple freelance projects that Juni has been working on. One of them I can't discuss, but I suppose it's no mystery that Juni does the default graphics for Pocketbreeze, and has been working steadily on the latest version. If you don't have Pocketbreeze yet, I can say you'll want to buy the next version if only for the settings icons. He really outdid himself.

I think he just assumed at least one of the two new exclusives would be ready by Christmas, but that was before these two jobs came about. Between them, work, and personal life, something has to give. The new exclusives will see the light of day, I just don't know when.

As for the existing suites, there is a long list of upgrade ideas that I've brought up before, and it basically hasn't changed, it's just that you always want to do new things as well, but the existing suites aren't dead... just resting. ;)

Speaking of which, I thought the last time I posted that the skin suites would be at Mobihand quickly, but Juni's grandmother recently passed away, and with everything going on, there just hasn't been time. Navigator is now up though, so they're slowly but surely making a Mobihand appearance. :)

So sit tight. We're still here, and wouldn't it be awesome to decorate your shiny new Christmas devices with a shiny new New Year's suite? No promises, but Juni thinks that would be awesome too. ;)