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Epoc Digest Wed, 02 Jul 2003 Volume 01 : Number 294
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Sent to: 799 subscribers
In today's Epoc Digest 11 messages:
==============================
- Revo Battery
- Compact flash different standards and behaviour
- Charging netbooks accu
- Re : CfCard/Revo; Re OS158 Opera
- TR Encyclopaedias
- CF, GPS & RoutePlanner,
- Re: EPOC DIGEST V1 # 290 (4) : more postings, GPRS idle,Symbian OS onnB, eMail-app folders, NetPad keyboard,
- Re: EPOC DIGEST V1 # 293 : nB petition , OS 158 / Opera ,CompactFlash ( long ! )
- Help with Gprs 5mx and Me45
- Dead Revo or Mako wanted for spares.
- Re: Spell in Jotter
*++++++++++&
Date: 30 Jun 2003 21:30:05 +0000
From: Stephen Murgan
Subject: Revo Battery
Anyone know where I can get a replacement? My wife's machine seems to have "died"...
Stephen
-----
Lobster: A great excuse for eating a pound of butter
*++++++++++&
Date: 30 Jun 2003 22:15:17 +0000
From: Stephane Sage
Subject: Compact flash different standards and behaviour
Hello to all
To Darryl (Kempster): the posting you quoted mentioned different behaviours from Dane Elec and SanDisk flash cards. I use either a 128 MB Dane Elec card or a (same size, as both get my daily Ralph Sprenger Backup) PNY card and never (up to now...) encountered with any problem on my 5mx.
Best regards.
Stephane Sage (Grenoble, France)
*++++++++++&
Date: 1 Jul 2003 05:51:04 +0000
From: francisco.vegas
Subject: Charging netbooks accu
Hy,
Does anyone know about a possible solution to charge the netbooks accu outside of the device. I wanted to buy a second accu but it makes only sense to me if I can charge the second accu apart from the nB. I know there is no existing solution from Psion.
Did anyone of you had same thoughts ... ?
Vaya con Symbian
Francisco
*++++++++++&
Date: 1 Jul 2003 07:40:02 +0000
From: Jack
Subject: Re : CfCard/Revo; Re OS158 Opera
To Timothy H.D. Williams Subject: CfCard/Revo
>>>...Is it possible to connect a CF card reader to a Revo?...<<<
Re :
No, but you may Ir-beam to Revo/C: from a CF inserted in another ie 5 or 7...) computer.
Just my .2eurocents
+++++
To Manuel Subject: OS 158 / Opera
>>>...I reloaded the OS and my backup, Opera starts in "unregistered" mode ........ Looks as if I placed an old pre 158 backup.....<<<
Re :
You probably loaded the 450 OK, but earlier Opera shareware erratic files may remain from backup.
Search and delete, from E,D,and C, any Op.... (Opera related) files in /System/apps/, /install/...
Jack
-
"A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end"
--
Jack
*++++++++++&
Date: 1 Jul 2003 11:49:51 +0000
From: Timothy H.D. Williams
Subject: TR Encyclopaedias
On Monday, June 30, 2003, at 06:21 PM, Jack wrote:
> Re : Here (most of them and many others:-) :
> http://www.memoware.com/
> ?start=125&screen=search_results&p=category^!Language~!
The encyclopaedias are more recent at BitTorrent. The CIA book is dated
2002 and the Cinema Guide includes the 2003 version of The Italian Job.
On the other hand I can't get the Grolier Encyclopaedia to work. I get
the message to use the most recent version of Tome Raider, but that is
precisely what I am doing.
I haven't tried Encarta because the file is so big.
T
*++++++++++&
Date: 1 Jul 2003 12:35:18 +0000
From: Itamar Engelsman
Subject: CF, GPS & RoutePlanner,
Answer to: Edgar Brazda
Re.: CF - Somewhat off-topic. Do be careful with the IBM drive in your camera. As a professional photographer I follow a couple of forums and discussions about photography and as there are mechanical moving parts in the IBM drive it can go wrong and goes wrong from time to time. Once in a lifetime photos I would not shoot on such a drive. And, you can get 1 Gb CF cards as well.
Answer to: Karsten
RE. GPS & RoutePlanner - The time is dependent on the average speeds you entered in the preferences. If these are wrong, the time calculation will be wrong as well.
Best regards,
Itamar Engelsman
London, UK
*++++++++++&
Date: 1 Jul 2003 18:03:44 +0000
From: Arent Kits van Heijningen
Subject: Re: EPOC DIGEST V1 # 290 (4) : more postings, GPRS idle,Symbian OS onnB, eMail-app folders, NetPad keyboard,
On 26 Jun 2003 22:38:45 +0100
Itamar Engelsman wrote
>> Re. Symbian OS onnB - Your message is unclear to me. What will Symbian be left to do if not provide for phone software ? You mean that they only supply the operating system in the background with the "foreground" being left to WindowsCE and Linux ?<<Exactly that . the phone manufacturers are going for a completely embedded version of Symbian OS with *.CE or PalmOS 5 and /or Java providing the user/application layers ,the higher-level networking stacks and the filesystem Compare it to Wine or VMWare on the (IBM/Intel-compatible ) PC There is a major change going on in the mobile phone business now that MicroSoft has joined forces with the incumbents (i.e the likes of BT , KPN ,Deutsche Telekom (=T-Mobile ) France Telecom (=Orange ) Phone/device manufacturers/vendors have to follow ,otherwise they will lose market shareParallell to this , operators are partnering directly with the actual hardware manufacturers , bypassing the phone/device vendors completely The consequences of this is that there will be little or no room left for native Epoc32/Symbian applicationsThe on-board resources are becoming such that .NET ,Java and standard *.CE applications run fine on these devices
On 25 Jun 2003 19:28:02 +0100
Trygve Henriksen wrote about
Osaris, Rant about Symbian...
>>I thought you used a WinCE machine...<<
Actually yes but for the digest as well as email ,I compose/edit on Sharp Zaurus Classic and now again thanks to that sale at Belcompany on an ER5 machine
>>(I have enough broken computers that I'm trying to fix already; Husky Hunter, ...<<
Try www.itronix.de or give Mr Joerg Mueller a call on : +492246920316 or mail him at jmueller
>>Have you been sniffing the PR brochures from M$ again?<<
Ikke i de hele tatt , not at all , it is just a rerun of the old history ,MicroSoft has managed to get the ECMA , the ISO and the ITU on its side
>>Nokia have no plans to change to any M$ OS, which I believe they told the M$ people who took the trip to Finland recently...<<
You are correct here , but it will cost them dearly in lost marketshares from 2005 onwards as the incumbents introduce features that are only accessible from M$-based smartphones The battlelines are already drawn , it will be between PalmOS and *.CE -based phones rather than between open Symbian and MicroSoft
>>As for Ericsson, you never can tell.One of my colleagues used to work in one of Ericsson's research and development facilities, and even with his inside knowledge he can't guess either...<<
Ericsson decided for a very low-profile introduction of its M$-based phones ( perhaps they are ashamed that they caved in to market pressures ? ) in a hotel in New-Zealand followed by a gradual rollout worldwide starting from there and moving to European and North-American markets in Fall 2004 ...
>>I must agree, though, that there's not much chance that Symbian OS V7 (or V6) will show up on a netBook, but that is because the V7 has been geared towards smaller 'smart devices' like phones. Not only must the OS be adapted to each new platform it is to reside on, but in the case of the netBook, all applications will need to be updated, too.(How much depends on whether or not the UI is changed)<< .....
V 7 is a better choice than V6 as it supports the UIQ interface ( i.e. touchscreens and full keyboards )
Backwards compatibility with ER 3 , 4 and 5 and Sibo is a must however in order to take advantage of the large amounts of good software already written for it
*++++++++++&
Date: 1 Jul 2003 18:12:11 +0000
From: Arent Kits van Heijningen
Subject: Re: EPOC DIGEST V1 # 293 : nB petition , OS 158 / Opera ,CompactFlash ( long ! )
On: 29 Jun 2003 14:05:24 +0000 ,Gianluca Gallino contributed : . >>Robert Harmsen (The Chairman of the Benelux Symbian Organisation):
Supplementary info :
>>Psion Teklogix ( thus not Psion! ) wish to offer within the new generation Netbooks Windows CE instead of Epoc 5.
The motive is that the Netbook as Hardware is still one very popular product, but that ER5 is not very interesting for producers of drivers and applications. <<
>>For all add-ons like a Bluetooth CF Cards Teklogix has to write the drivers themselves.<<
>>The same for GPRS cards , new Wifi PC cards etc. <<
>>Whilst the drivers for Windows CE ( <edited kitsvh>and palmos/linuxce -</edited kitsvh >) are mostly available.<<
For the *.CE side drivers are readily available as one can draw on the extensive libraries of the respective parent operating systems Besides that , there's a substantial effort to develop applications that take advantage of both Bluetooth and Ethernet
>>Psion Teklogix manufactures hardware, and is NOT a software company. For them it's core bussiness to sell devices.<<
*.CE is now where the action is , Symbian is too narrow an environment to carry out substantial projects
>>I've seen the device, and I have to admit that I was very impressed.<<
It will revitalise the large-form-factor K-PDA and make it a serious competitor for the AMD/IBM/Intel-powered notebook
>>From within the developersword there is still a big need for OPL development, where the netBook is lord and master. Especially when OPL is open-sourced for Symbian OS7.x. <<
A guy from Hong Kong named Micro Cheng ( WWW.MICRO-CHENG.COM ) has ported OPL to WindowsCE
>>The new-fashioned Netbooks will not be able to load Epoc in ROM anymore, the petition is aiming at this and this will be a small adaption to the system.I have understood that a request for this modification was filed some months ago, and that it's still within motives. Waiting for their descision is all we can do << Why not using VM technology to run ER 6/7 side with side with a CE environment ?This could sidestep the driver/applications issues and by running CE as the guest OS stability could be improved as a bonus
>>Zegert van Eijk:The petition tries to achieve that the new netBook will run Symbian OS as an option.What i've noticed is that (while browsing from forum to forum) a lot of users would be very content if the current netBook stays existent, this is related to possible reparations and availability of spare products.<< The Classic Netbook/Netpad are based on the now discontinued StrongARM cpu , to continue the Classic line they could be moved to a faster version of the cpu found in the 5mx/mc218/OsariS
>>Looking at the prices for netPads, it is plausible that the new netBook will be too expensive for a lot of people, especially normal consumers. This was the case when the normal netBook came on the market.<<
The new nB could be offered at the same price as the old one , the nB Classic could be offered at the same price as the now defunct s7 , wich in effect it replaces ( One feature of the s7 could be carried over to the budget nB . the large on-board flash to hold the OS and core applications -without sacrificing the ability to load from CF/microdrive -, this would free up the entire RAM for heap and the "C" drive and could simplify stockholding For the same reason , languages available shoulld be limited to US English with add-on packs for others as separate downloads/installs ( what about the ability to load/run s5mx pro images ? ) That version ( let us call that nBlite ) could well be offered for the same price as the current s7 ( currently at GBP 540 + clove.co.uk ) >>Meanwhile there is more traffic of used machines and is the malaybook owing the prize very pleasing too( and this pushes the 2nd hand prices).<<
This makes a good case for a budget machine for the small-business markets based on the best of the old nB/s7
>>I'm very curious too on how things will progress and wait for the descisions that will be made.<<
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Robert Harmsen:
Hello Zegert,Research has proven that a lot of people are charmed by the hardware design and that EPOC ER5 and the embedded applications are accepted pretty good too, but that the bottleneck is the fact that the availability of drivers for add-on products is just very bad (in my opinion that's just an understatement. I've had to wait for years to get the non-alpha drivers for the LAN-Card they advised.) Everything had to be developed from scratch. This is too much work for a relatively small usergroup.The costs would be sky high and the sales would be relativly small.Personally I think PT does a really smart move with this one. In any case (before you ask :) ): ER6 or ER7 will not be ported to the netBook. Anticipating on another question: No, Windows CE cannot run on existing netBooks. The CE netBooks get (partly) different hardware under the hood. :( <<
The issue here is licencing , key parts of ER5 fall under either MicroSoft or the GNU/GPL licences ( the EIKON GUI for example but also the executable/library formats )This is the driving force behind the series 60 UI and the UIQ GUI development ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Zegert van Eijk:Hello Robert,Thanks for your reaction and to your ease of mind: Those 2 questions where not on my mind (anymore), because I had the anwers before. Still it's good that it got mentioned here. Besides this all it depends stronly on what you expect from such a device. I'm using it as a stand-alone system with a separate modem connection for email. I'm not waiting for 'drivers', but when you need to deploy such a device into a network it will be a different story.<<
This would be a good case for a revised nB "Classic" using the same casing and screen as the old one but with a revised mainboard to take care of the replacement for the StrongARM , wich has been discontinued
>>In short: with regards to hard and software I'm still able to use the current(old) version for years without me missing something (hence my collection of psion devices) but I think that's not the case for everyone. <<
On 29 Jun 2003 16:33:24 +0000
Edgar Brazda MD, PhD wrote about
Re: CF (to Darryl)
>>Hi,After having used a 256MB Lexar for a year, I bought a 1GB Microdrive half year ago. It worked well with nB with one exception: reading the full directory tree took more than 30 seconds. (Otherwise it is really fast - and biiiiiiiiig.) When I saw, that Psiwin (via nB) could read the tree in seconds, and EPOC system screen was acceptably fast, I realised there had to be a bug in the "reading full directory tree" routine which is widely used in all "open" and "save as.." functions.When I bought my beautiful Canon D60 2 weeks ago, I got a Toshiba 512MB CF as a promo present. I swapped it with the Microdrive and the Toshiba CF runs in the Psion very well. Full directory tree read in 9 sec (I checked it with a stopper watch), read-write times are short (but I was satisfied with MD in this respect either.)<<
>>The moral? In my experience not the device, but the EPOC sw routines determined the usability of the card. I would not suggest to buy a CF bigger than 512MB
On 30 Jun 2003 00:40:42 +0000
Manuel Campos Galvan
wrote about :
OS 158 / Opera
>>I just received my repaired netbook from Teklogix with a new keyboard. However, when I reloaded the OS and my backup, Opera starts in "unregistered" mode granting me 30 days to sample the software. Mmm. Looks as if I placed an old pre 158 backup, but it seems unlikely. Anybody had seen this behavior before?>>
Nothing unusual , your machine's UID has been changed and you need to re-register
On 30 Jun 2003 15:12:45 +0000
Toni Cabot <tcabot
wrote about :
Compact Flash
>>Very interesting submission. I purchased a Lexar 256MB 40X Compact Flash afew weeks ago from Amazon.com for $90, including shipping (toMassachusetts).
I haven't checked thetime the 40X would take in the netBook to "Browse folders"; it takes about 5seconds with the 12X Lexar card.<<
Tell us more about your results , currently there are some great offers on Lexars over here , EUR 79 ( around 60 dollars ) for the 128 meggers ( dunno about the speed )
>>However, I did have problems with corrupt files when I tried to write to the card using the USB reader. This was some time ago and I now do all mywriting with the card in the Psion via the serial port. <<
Yup that age-old issue about subtle but devastating differences between the way EPOC and 'doze ( of any stripes ) handles memory cards On my ( now defunct because of irrecoverable hardware crash ) OsariS I had the same issue , so from now on ( after the initial copy of rmrzip.sis ) it is xmodeming the files to the in-situ formatted card in the Psion
If it is very big or if I want to transfer a large number of files I make a .zip archive first and then transfer it overnight On 28 Jun 2003 03:43:10 +0100 Darryl Kempster wrote about : Compact Flash
>>"The CF card standard defines some parameters, a long with the permittedtolerances. I think, that brands such as Dane Elek or PQI use the completetolerance band width, whereas Sandisk and Lexar stay as close to thespecified value as possible. Camera's are also designed according to the CFcard standard, so they don't mind the tolerances. Here comes the annoyingpart: Psion claims that its devices are designed according to the standard,but this is not true! Psions can deal with Sandisk, but not with Dane Elek,because they cannot stand the wide tolerance definitions of the CF standard!This also shows why both DE cards show different (but still annoying)behaviour on my 5mx. The PQI card shows it in a different way: it'sannoyingly slow!"Anyone care to comment? I have a netBook so wonder if this 'problem' wassolved by Psion or if they kept repeating their ."<<SNIP>> <<
YES , I have a 256 meg SanDisk in my 680 and used 32 meg SanDisks in an OsariS ( now defunct because of irrecoverable hardware crash ) and an AlphaSmart Dana ( one of Dirk's loaners ) where I have had the following experiences so far :The 680 (wince on 32-bit Hitachi SH-7700 running at 132 MHz and 16megs ram ) handles the large sizes pretty well . but opening the directory tree in some apps takes ages Saving mail to flash takes some time ( mail is first downloaded to RAMand then saved to flash using alt+s , hence mail downloads are speedy and I can use the reset key as undo ! )On the OsariS the 32 meg was acceptably fast , but opening the directory tree took again ages Mail was acceptable , but anything above 9600 bps did not give any improvement in download speed Speed of direct to card transfers ( from my 680 using datacomms/emuraterm was acceptable , but maxed out at 19200 bps A 32 meg SanDisk MMC in Dirk's loaner ( we're talking Dana her ) gave inconclusive results as!
it was not possible to test direct
to card transfers ( Mark/Space's Online terminal emulator proved too buggy to give usable results ) Opening the applications directory in Launcher , however took ages ( yup the old speed issue rearing its ugly head )A 64 meg CF in a recently purchased s5mx (dutch edition ) performed fine , but here it is the mail app acting up , it takes literally forever to download mail when I put the message directory tree on the card All other operations are fine , even opening the directory tree ( both in the native file manager and in RMRFile ) is acceptably fast
On the thema of compactflash , here is a copy of a message ( nonessential header information edited out for clarity ) taken from another list I have subscribed to
From: Chuck Yerkes
To: soekris-tech
Subject: Re: [Soekris] OS images for soekris 4511?
Message-ID: <20030701164349.GA19143
Reply-To: soekris-tech
Quoting Vladimir Ivasche
> Take a look here then: http://www.xs4all.nl/~hreuver/net4501.html
>> PS: Modern CFs can sustain quite a lot of writing. Somehow a myth
> spreaded on the list that it is not so.
Modern CF's are SLOW to read and MUCH slower to write (they AREflash). Such that swapping over NFS may be faster.
If you need to count on lots and lots of writes, then perhaps a CFis the wrong answer. Me? as my box logs data it very periodicallywrites it to a slice at the end - operational stuff such that ifI lose it in a power reset life goes on.
Writing ~ 0.5k every two days will get slower. Eventually. 4years is 700 writes.
"Modern CFs" are driven by market forces. We, at this time, arenot even a footnote of marketing. The main market is cameras andthe like. Unfo, like the disk market, the drive is for size.
I'vegotten 8MB cards from folks with new cameras - they come with atoken, but useless, card.
On a limb, we won't likely ever see $5 16MB cards. Economics andmarketing and production makes it hard to justify keeping more than5 levels of cards.
As 512MB and 1GB cards come along, the low endwill get larger and larger. And the flash takes up less and lessroom on a card that was sized fairly large for userhandling.
CF makers have mumbled about multifunction cards - something tokeep price up. I'd love to see a wireless card with 128MB of RAM.
A CF with a write cache to bundle up writes would be nice but notpractical in the camera world (snap! tug, store).
_____________________________________________________________________Soekris Engineering, technical discussion mailing list
[un]subscribe: http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
And here is a message of our resident guru M Warner Losh ( Aj are you there and listening ? )
From: "M. Warner Losh"
Subject: Re: [Soekris] OS images for soekris 4511?
Date: 2003/07/01 07:04:53
In message: <3F018479.7090205
Vladimir Ivaschenko writes: : PS: Modern CFs can sustain quite a lot of writing. Somehow a myth : spreaded on the list that it is not so.
The number of writes is limited, so it is a design consideration. But
the limits are high enough to not matter to most applications.
However, heavy data logging applications that need to run for yaers
will have problems. Also, if you are producing a large number of
machines, getting the same exact type of flash over the entire run of
the project can be difficult. Each new brand has to be re-qualified
to make sure that it can handle whatever write load you plan to put on
it. It is better to be a little conservative because of these
variations.
I've been working with CF for a few years now, and we have found that
even ordering the exact same brand from the exact same supplier one
month apart can result in the second set of parts not working due to
silent changes in the product. We've seen a variation as large as 8x
in the speed of the parts from month to month.
When we started with all of this, we calculated we could do about 1 8k
write per minute on the then available flash based on the destructive
testing we were able to do. I'd say that is maybe 100x better today.
We try to design our systems to have a safty factor of at least 2x,
mostly due to the wide variation in parts that you get in the
marketplace.
It didn't used to bea 'myth' maybe 24 or even 18 months ago.
Warner
*++++++++++&
Date: 1 Jul 2003 21:33:13 +0000
From: Mike McConnell
Subject: Help with Gprs 5mx and Me45
To: Robert Bell
<<< i would appreciate any advice setting up the 5mx, Seimens me45 &gprs with the orange network. i really am at a loss wot to do, as i have tried all settings and still not getting any where! >>>
I tried to email you with a suggestion to help with the problem but the message, using the address copied and pasted from the digest, bounced as "unknown recipient"???
--
Regards,
Mike [Dundee, Scotland] __________________________________________
Mobile Phone & SMS: +44 (0)7870 236984
Mobile Fax: +44 (0)7977 156138
Web: http://www.mikemcc.org.uk __________________________________________
*++++++++++&
Date: 2 Jul 2003 21:42:22 +0000
From: Owen H. Morgan
Subject: Dead Revo or Mako wanted for spares.
Hi
My beloved Mako is falling apart! The tabs holding the springs in the back of the machine are long gone, and the whole hinge assembly is getting sloppier by the day. I think all I need is the springs and the bottom dark grey piece of plastic at the back of the machine (the part the stylus inserts into). Does anyone have a dead or half dead Revo or Mako to sell, or even just this bit of plastic and the springs?
PS. My battery is still good. I've always charged the machine over night and never charged it whilst it was switched on.
Owen
Thought for the day:
In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.
--
Owen H. Morgan, Yacht "Naomi J.", LD-953°27.22'N 6°09.05'W
Malahide, Ireland
http://home.no.net/naomij
Phone and SMS:
In Ireland: +353 (0)87 7474173
In Norway: +47 9205309
*++++++++++&
Date: 2 Jul 2003 21:42:34 +0000
From: Owen H. Morgan
Subject: Re: Spell in Jotter
Howdy!
Salix wrote (> ):
> at the moment I am doing a lot of studying and
> using the jotter format to write my notes, however
> I cannot find a way to use spell in Jotter. Any
> suggestions?
The only thing I can think of is to write a small macro to copy the text of the Jotter entry to a Word file, spell check it there and then paste it back. It may have to be too macro's, one to copy the text over and start the spell checker and the other to paste it back.
PS. Today is my last day at work! My departure from Ireland is just around the corner. This also means I'll soon have to depart from the list in a week or two, at least until I get settled in the Canaries or wherever I end up...
Owen
Thought for the day:
Nihilism should commence with oneself.
--
Owen H. Morgan, Yacht "Naomi J.", LD-953°27.22'N 6°09.05'W
Malahide, Ireland
http://home.no.net/naomij
Phone and SMS:
In Ireland: +353 (0)87 7474173
In Norway: +47 92053097
*++++++++++&
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