GedStar Pro v3.1 Public Beta, GedStar Pro 3.0 Changes

GHCS Software is asking for people to test out v3.1 of GedStar Pro, a Palm genealogy application. You can find the details/download link here.

Even though V3.0 was released recently, there are already some improvements available that will become part of the V3.1 release within a few weeks. This public beta test is being made available for those of you who require some of the new features or just want to try them out.

Users with PalmOS V3.5 devices should definitely install this beta, as it will allow the picture feature to work on your device, but only if you select the new Convert to grayscale option on the Photos tab of the conversion program. Viewing pictures in color is not possible at this time on V3.5, but you will find that the grayscale pictures look very good and are certainly better than nothing.

GedStar Pro 3.1 Changes (Over 2.x/3.0)
* New graphics library for the PC converts virtually all known raster graphic types, including JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, PNG, PCX, and several others.
* Conversion speed greatly improved – you will hardly see any difference with or without photos.
* Medium-high setting for color pictures yields slightly better quality than before, with slightly reduced size. The High setting takes more space than before.
* Can force conversion of all pictures to grayscale. Required for PalmOS 3.5 users; recommended for most low-res, limited-color devices.
* Supports some non-standard GEDCOM implementations, specifically the structure used by Family Historian.
* Conversion log file contains information about converted photos.

Gedstar Pro 3.0

GedStar Pro 3.0 has been released by GHCS Software. It’s $24.95 (upgrade from GedStar or GedStar-Plus is $14.95). It works on PalmOS-based handhelds running PalmOS 3.5 – 5.x, including color devices, and requires a PC running Windows 98 – XP. For a comparison between GedStar, GedStar-Plus, and GedStar Pro, please see this page.

Among the Changes/New Features:
* Version 3 now converts and displays your photos (JPEG/BMP formats) as well as data.
* Lower Price.

Press Release:
Read more

GedWise 6.3 Beta – Linux and Mac OS X (Nov 20)

Earlier this week (November 20th), the GedWise (PalmOS) 6.3 beta was released for both Linux and Mac OS X. GedWise is a Palm OS based genealogy application that now has a Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X installer (the only PDA genealogy application to cover all three platforms, and the only other Palm OS-based application besides My Roots to support the Mac platform). This is the first release for Mac OS X.

NOTE: As far as we know, this version # simply reflects a new installation platform for PalmOS-based PDAs.

Mac Requirements: Mac OS X. If you have a Mac and a Palm, it probably be greatly appreciated if you downloaded it and tried it out and left them feedback if everything worked or didn’t work, including your system information.

Linux Requirements:
* Red Hat 9 or higher, Fedora Core 3 or higher, SUSE 9.1 or higher) on an i386 computer running X11.
* Other RPM based Linux distributions may work provided you have Linux Kernel Version 2.6 or higher and X11.

Handheld Requirements
* Any handheld device running Palm OS 3.3 or higher with at least 512 KB of available RAM.

You can download it from batteryparksoftware.com (here).

PocketPC Magazine: Phatware CalliGrapher 8.0

PocketPC Magazine has a review of Phatware’s CalliGrapher 8.0: Taking handwriting recognition to the next level. About a month ago we posted MobileTechReview.com’s review of this handwriting recognition software. If you are using your PocketPC/Windows Mobile PDA for genealogy research, and you don’t care for the default handwriting recognition software, you may want to take a look at this.

Dan Hanttula wrote the review, and had this to say: CalliGrapher is a more feature-rich program, and the latest version (8.0) includes major improvements that may change the way you enter information into your Pocket PC.

Read Websites, Newsletters, on your iPod

Dick Eastman has a tip on reading RSS feeds on your iPod (iPod, iPod mini, iPod Nano, with Notes facility). He mentions using it to read Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter, but it can read other sites’ RSS feeds as well.

It uses iFeedPod, which is a Mac OS X (10.3.9+) program, however as was pointed out in the thread, there should be a Windows equivalent available (and perhaps a Linux as well).

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