I really love AvantGo...
It makes a wonderful addition to my Kyocera 7135's Palm applications. And you can't beat the price - FREE.
I especially like the following channels:
AccuWeather.com - current weather for up to two predefined locations
American Airlines - flight schedules at your fingertips
Bbspot - irreverent satire to fill those countless hours sitting and waiting wherever
CNET - news at your fingertips
Computerworld - computer industry related news bites
CoolQuiz.com - a new helping of trivia each day
Delta Air Lines - flight schedules at your fingertips
Hollywood.com - local movie information
PalmJokes.com - a new joke each day, many of which make me laugh out loud
SCI FI Channel - providing the latest news for Sci-Fi and Fantasy buffs
USATODAY.com - headlines from USA today
Wired News - nerd news when you need it
There was one other channel which seemed really useful: the Yahoo! channel. Problem was, it never seemed to work correctly. After doing some web research, I found out that there appears to be some problem which has been around for a while, but remains unresolved. I was really bummed, because I grown spoiled when I lived in the Raleigh NC area to having a really good movie reviews and showtimes feed (MovieMinder). Unfortunately, Hollywood.com doesn't quite measure up - actually, it doesn't even come close. On the other hand, Yahoo!'s movie section on their portal is really good. But, that was one of the features that didn't work on the AvantoGo channel.
I had just about given up, when I was inspired to do a search on Yahoo! (as opposed to my normal Google search). After wandering around a little, I discovered that Yahoo! has a WAP service. While I gave up trying to use the palm on-line a long time ago, it turns out that the WAP pages work great as Personal Channels on AvantGo!
The URL for the main Yahoo! WAP page is: http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/
Unfortunately, in order to get customized information for some of the sub-pages, your interface must support cookies, which AvantGo channels do not. Fortunately, there is a work-around. Rather than configuring the main page as a channel, you can configure each of the sub-pages as a channel. Using this method, you can use a URL which includes the identifying information needed to generate the desired results. The easiest way to do this is to open the Yahoo! WAP page in your PC's browser, then navigate to each of the sub-pages, filling in the required identifier (usually your zip code), then copying the address of the resulting page into the Personal Channel configuration screen in AvantoGo.
TIP: after you set up each page, make sure to click on the Personal Channels link to open a new default Personal Channel page. If you just go edit the name and URL after clicking the "save channel" button, only your last entry will actually be saved.
For example, for the Yahoo! Movies page for theaters in my area, the URL is: http://acid1.oa.yahoo.com/mbl/mov/home?&addr=&ct=YOURCITY&st=YOURSTATE&zip=YOURZIP&air=
Weather is http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/raw?dp=weather&&addr=&ct=YOURCITY&st=YOURSTATE&zip=YOURZIP&air=
(where YOURCITY, YOURSTATE, YOURZIP would be replaced with values for your desired location)
News is http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/raw?dp=news
Now that I have movie information handy once again, maybe I'll even take Jeanie to a movie some time...
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Posted by David at September 16, 2005 12:44 PM