Journal Bar

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&platformId=2&productType=2&catalog=0&sectionId=0&productId=52103' target='_blank'>http://www.handango.com/PlatformPro...productId=52103</a><br /><br /></div>"From the makers of Battery Pack 2003 - Journal Bar gets all this information and more and puts it right on your Pocket PC today screen! Simply install, enter your ZIP code, then let Journal Bar put all the best web pages &amp; information automatically:<br /><br />• Weather - the 5 day forecast for home and one alternate city <br />• News - headlines &amp; in-depth articles for National, World, Local, Business, Sports, Entertainment, Technology &amp; Pocket PC news stories. <br />• Stocks - up to 11 of your favorite stocks / mutual funds / bonds updated every 10 minutes <br />• Movie times for your local movie theaters <br />• Movie &amp; Video reviews of the latest releases <br />• TV listings for the main channels this evening <br />• Sports scores for the major leagues <br />• Custom links - take your favorite web pages with you wherever you go"<br /><br /><img src="http://www.handango.com/include/pictures/30615/jbani.gif" />

[jet8810]

wait...Journal bar doesnt come with Battery Pack? When I registered and downloaded Battery Pack the install file came with program bar, calendar bar, journal bar and battery bar today plugins. Hasnt bugged me to register at all... :?

[smittyofdhs]

the description text is sort of misleading. I installed this the first day it came out and found that the only thing actually downloaded to the device was the weather and leader text for each article. All other features spawned out to a web site.

Is this the way it was intended to be? or did I miss something?


If so, then they should change the description to reflect what's actually downloaded and what's not.

[smittyofdhs]

wait...Journal bar doesn't come with Battery Pack? When I registered and downloaded Battery Pack the install file came with program bar, calendar bar, journal bar and battery bar today plugins. Hasnt bugged me to register at all... :?

Omega is notorious for allowing you to install the demos of other software while installing one of their apps. They did do a promo once that included Checkers and Dominoes with Battery Bar for free, but the next version came out and it was no more. Maybe that's what they did here???

[AirTimid]

Does this program work with Canadian cities?

[ploeg]

This product works with U.S. cities only at this time. I think this has something to do with the download sources that this program uses. I wonder if/when the source of these forecasts is going to get wise to this and start tweaking/breaking the service in lieu of payment.

[griffter]

No Canadian cities, and here was me thinking that the screen shots were displaying the forecast for Calgary :wink:

[ploeg]

the description text is sort of misleading. I installed this the first day it came out and found that the only thing actually downloaded to the device was the weather and leader text for each article. All other features spawned out to a web site.

Correct, the weather and leader text is the only content that is displayed using the Journal Bar app itself. Journal Bar also downloads the other (web-based) information, but it runs PIE to display this information. No need to write your own crappy browser when you have a perfectly awful one available to you already. But all the info is available offline.

[vincentsiaw]

this is something i can really use in snowy days like now

[urologyhealth]

Downloaded tonight and it prevented my sending and receiving email. I uninstalled this program and email is now working!!

BEWARE

[ploeg]

I use @Mail, and I'm able to send and receive email just fine with this product installed. Seems kind of strange that it would affect email.

[urologyhealth]

I use @mail as well and tried with that and then closed it and tried INBOX and server was blocked.

On the calendar bar the e (for internet explorer)was flashing constantly?

UNINSTALLED and allis working.

[Bearjaw]

Hey guys do you know how long the trial is for? And I can still send and recieve mail so check your settings they might be screwed up.

[bucho]

Be ready to sacrifice some storage space for this, at least for folks that have limited space on their PDAs... I'm not sure if it was a memory leak in the app or just all the sync'd content, but I kept running out of memory on my device. I even tried disabling all channels/modules except for the weather, but it was still doing it... I liked it, but had to uninstall to get back my precious 5-8MB free :D

[dhettel]

Well I need St John's Newfoundland Canada! Give that to me and I'll buy it! That and a city in the USA. I tried it tonight, and the news display once, and now I can't get it back. Keeps cycling between weather and the reviews bar.

David

[heyday]

Well I think this is a cool app. I installed to to my built in storage and seems to work fine.

heyday

[Dan Vystrcil]

Been playing with this since BP 2003 came out. No problems with email or anything else.

I wish I had wi-fi though.... lol, too bad

[normaldude]

I downloaded the Journal Bar trial a couple of days ago, and so far it's been the best Today screen weather program I've ever used.

I've tried ADB weather II, Infuzer, pdaAgent and Weather Today. For putting US city weather forecasts on your Today screen, Journal Bar is clearly the best. Smooth, clean, and takes up very little screen space.

If you need non-US cities, maybe give ADB weather II a try.

[ploeg]

When you first install the Journal Bar and hook it up to the Internet, it downloads your selected content. (The icon on the left-hand side flashes when it's downloading content.) The weather downloads very quickly, but the web-based content takes a while (or it may hang). So try paring down on the information that is downloaded to your PPC using Settings>Today>Items tab>Journal Bar Options. If that works, try adding back content to see what the exact culprit is (if you wish).

[normaldude]

When you first install the Journal Bar and hook it up to the Internet, it downloads your selected content. (The icon on the left-hand side flashes when it's downloading content.) The weather downloads very quickly, but the web-based content takes a while (or it may hang). So try paring down on the information that is downloaded to your PPC using Settings>Today>Items tab>Journal Bar Options. If that works, try adding back content to see what the exact culprit is (if you wish).

I got rid of everything except weather and stock quotes, and it syncs pretty fast for me.

[griffter]

When you first install the Journal Bar and hook it up to the Internet, it downloads your selected content. (The icon on the left-hand side flashes when it's downloading content.) .

For me, it only downloads content when connected through activesync. Has anyone managed to have it download when connected through WiFi?

[Reza]

this is something i can really use in snowy days like now

What snowy day? 75°F over here! :D

But seriously, Journal Bar is a great app, far superior to Two Peak's PDAAgent and $10 cheaper too!

[Ed Hansberry]

Any way to tweak the updates? For example, I don't want it updating stock quotes over GRPS every 10 minutes, nor outside of business hours regardless of the connection speed.

[racerx]

I don't know if others have this problem, but I experienced a severe memory leak using this app. I would reset and have 20MB of program memory and over the course of a few hours, I would be down to less than 5MB with no apps running (I run WisBar, but not APPS). Once I uninstalled, memory problem went away.

[normaldude]

Any way to tweak the updates? For example, I don't want it updating stock quotes over GRPS every 10 minutes, nor outside of business hours regardless of the connection speed.

Start > Settings > Today > Items > (Highlight Journal Bar) > Options

Then you can change the frequency of the stock quote updates. I don't think you can schedule it to only do it during business hours though.

Does it even update over GPRS? I thought Journal Bar only updated over ActiveSync.

[Ed Hansberry]

Does it even update over GPRS? I thought Journal Bar only updated over ActiveSync.

Constantly. :( I uninstalled it. GPRS is slow enough and costly enough as it is. Having this clog up the line and ding me for the cost isn't worth it. I just did a quick IM chat and looked at by GPRS usage with GPRSMonitor - it was over 300K! Normally, I can chat for quite a while and never hit 50K.

[normaldude]

Constantly. :( I uninstalled it. GPRS is slow enough and costly enough as it is. Having this clog up the line and ding me for the cost isn't worth it. I just did a quick IM chat and looked at by GPRS usage with GPRSMonitor - it was over 300K! Normally, I can chat for quite a while and never hit 50K.

I actually had a similar problem. It seemed to constantly download stuff over activesync. It wasn't expensive GPRS, but the blinking icon was annoying.

So I disabled all the features except weather. And set the weather to only update once every 6 hours. And even though the news and stocks were disabled (blanked), I set their download intervals to be very long too. Then did a soft reset.

Now it works great. It basically downloads the 5-day weather forecast when I sync, and that's it.