OStatic

Over at The Apple Blog today, I wrote about some cool geocaching applications for the iPhone that make the adventure lots more fun. If you?re not familiar with the sport, here?s the scoop. People venture out with GPS devices and look for containers hidden somewhere in the great outdoors by other geocachers. Once found, you jot your name in the logbook, put the container back where you found it, and go find another. Think of it as a pumped-up version of the treasure hunts we used to go on as kids.

If you're already a geocaching fan or want to give it a try but don't have an iPhone, try out these open source apps for your computer, netbook, or cell phone.

Over at The Apple Blog today, I wrote about some cool geocaching applications for the iPhone that make the adventure lots more fun. If you?re not familiar with the sport, here?s the scoop. People venture out with GPS devices and look for containers hidden somewhere in the great outdoors by other geocachers. Once found, you jot your name in the logbook, put the container back where you found it, and go find another. Think of it as a pumped-up version of the treasure hunts we used to go on as kids.

If you're already a geocaching fan or want to give it a try but don't have an iPhone, try out these open source apps for your computer, netbook, or cell phone.

Over at The Apple Blog today, I wrote about some cool geocaching applications for the iPhone that make the adventure lots more fun. If you?re not familiar with the sport, here?s the scoop. People venture out with GPS devices and look for containers hidden somewhere in the great outdoors by other geocachers. Once found, you jot your name in the logbook, put the container back where you found it, and go find another. Think of it as a pumped-up version of the treasure hunts we used to go on as kids.

If you're already a geocaching fan or want to give it a try but don't have an iPhone, try out these open source apps for your computer, netbook, or cell phone.

Although I own a BlackBerry and I am writing this blog post, I am not writing this blog post on a BlackBerry. I could if I wanted to, though, thanks to the new public beta launch of the WordPress BlackBerry client.

A TypePad blogging client for BlackBerry already exists, but so far there hasn't been anything for WordPress users and, of course, nothing open source. Naturally, I was thrilled to take this new app for a spin and, I must say, it's pretty snazzy for something still in beta.

The skyrocketing success of Apple's App Store and the recent launch for Research In Motion's (RIM) App World for BlackBerry is clear proof that people want third-party apps for their mobile phones. Unfortunately, developers with a brilliant idea for the next blockbuster app typically have to decide which platform to choose before they write their first bit of code -- iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile, etc.

The creators of PhoneGap think it's nonsense that developers have to write the same app in several different programming languages to reach the widest swath of mobile phone customers, so they developed an open source, cross-platorm framework that bridges the gaps among them.

Although I suppose, technically speaking, everyone at OStatic should use the G1 smartphone with its open source platform, some of us really love our BlackBerrys. You already know Kristin uses Funambol to sync contacts and calenders with the desktop, but tethering the BlackBerry to a laptop takes an entirely different approach.

If you've hung on to your BlackBerry smartphone in the hopes that you'll one day see an open source version of it's code, you're in for a long wait.

Speaking at the BlackBerry Developer Conference hosted by Research In Motion (RIM), RIM Senior Software Developer Cassidy Gentle said, I would expect some of our Eclipse or Mobile Tools for Java could be made available on an open source basis, but as for our APIs or other softwareﾗthat's a pretty big leap.