Epocdigest V1 # 335

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Epoc Digest Wed, 10 Sep 2003 Volume 01 : Number 335

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Sent to: 801 subscribers

In today's Epoc Digest 16 messages:

==============================

- How do the list members; Re: Eurocoin; Re: address management

- Re: Programming for the Not Very Clever At All

- Re: What if - Netbook Pro...

- Re: Programming for the Not Very Clever At All (OT)

- Re.: Psion and T610

- Re: This Digest is .....

- RE: Motorola Leaving Symbian

- Different databases on Psion

- swap for jornada 710

- Re: TubeRoute

- Re: EPOC DIGEST V1 # 334

- Crash

- Luach 5764

- Re: Programming for the Not Very Clever At All

- Re: T610 and Faxing (OT)

*++++++++++&

Date: 9 Sep 2003 13:34:13 +0000

From: Jack

Subject: How do the list members; Re: Eurocoin; Re: address management

Hi all psiomaniacs around here,

How do the list members manage with their Owner Information window? Any hints, design, usefulness... Just curious.

To : Andreas Prochazka subject Eurocoin URL

Sorry for my wrong Urling of your nice app;

only your www.propro.at works OK.

Other Euro lingua (10?) version(s) would be great.

To: U Hornstein Subject: Email address management

>>>I maintain 4 files with email addresses:

contacts (only a few; best interface to Email app)

data (my main "contacts" application)

REM (Repy Every Mail) address list

Not often used address list on PC (Outlook Express)<<<

...And more and more on the mobile Phone (SonyEricsson for me)... and/with Phoneman (nice piece of soft).

-Contacts is fine.. and ContactsPlus, now free, adds a "plus"

-Data remains the reference; which can be easily converted to Contacts with phoneman.

-I don't see any other need of the mailing address list in REM except for answering to TheDigest.

-I'ld suggest to delete MSOE ;-)

Jack

"with a psion, no need for antivirus"

*++++++++++&

Date: 9 Sep 2003 13:47:50 +0000

From: Michael Kennedy

Subject: Re: Programming for the Not Very Clever At All

Andy

I don't confess to being a programmer but this is how I would do this..

For each item initialse a variable for each one and when they are picked the program would do a quick check to see with the itme has been used... the code could look something like this...

PROC init

local no_items&

dinit

dlong no_itmes&,"Number of itmes:",1,10

dialog

create_array:(no_items&)

ENDP

PROC create_array:(no_items&)

<NO SURE IF YOU CAN PASS PARAMETERS TO GLOBAL COMMANDS.... never tried it> global itmes%(no_itmes&,2)

pickitem:

ENDP

PROC pickitem:

local pickitem, itempicked%

do until <some condition to stop this loop>

check:(pickitem%)

if 1

pickitem:

endif

items%(itempicked%,1)=1

loop

ENDP

PROC check:(pickitem%)

If item(picked%)=1

return:1

else

return:0

endif

ENDP

I've not tested it and only quickly knocked this out in a minute or so... I'm not even sure if it will work (probably not!!) but will hopefully give you an idea...

Have fun...

Michael

*++++++++++&

Date: 9 Sep 2003 14:47:24 +0000

From: Andrew Gregory

Subject: Re: Programming for the Not Very Clever At All

Hi Andy,

> Date: 9 Sep 2003 11:23:43 +0000

> From: Andy Hayes

> Subject: Programming for the Not Very Clever At All >

> Hi All

> I have always held programmers in the highest regard; mainly because I > haven't got the wit to understand how it all works. I once wrote a

> little prime number application, but it was fairly awful, although it > did (surprisingly) work! Just not as efficiently as it might have!

> With the start of the long Shetland winter nights only a few weeks away, > what I want is a simple explanation of how an application is written for > the following scenario: -

> I have a number of "different" items in a sack, say 10 for the sake of

> argument. One is picked, leaving nine items in the sack. How does the

> programmer write the application so that if I put my hand in the sack I > can only now pick one of the nine items and not the item that I have

> already taken?

> AndyH

This is really quite a complicated question, and one that is quite fundamental to programming - the management of data structures. Entire books have been devoted to this topic. The problem is that there a large number of ways of creating a "sack" to put things in. Which one you pick depends on how complicated or how fast you want your program. It's a bit like "simple or fast - pick one!".

I'll use OPL as the language.

----8<-------------

CONST KSackSize% = 10

PROC main:

GLOBAL sack$(KSackSize%, 255) :REM sack of KSackSize% strings, each up to 255 characters

AddItemToSack%:("Item 1")

AddItemToSack%:("Item 2")

AddItemToSack%:("Item 3")

AddItemToSack%:("Item 4")

PRINT FindItemInSack%:("Item 3") :REM "3"

PRINT RemoveItemFromSack$:(FindItemInSack%:("Item 3")) :REM "Item 3"

AddItemToSack%:("Widget")

PRINT FindItemInSack%:("Item 3") :REM "0"

PRINT FindItemInSack%:("Widget") :REM "3"

ENDP

REM tries to add an item to the sack, returns 1 if it could

REM or 0 if it couldn't (sack is full)

PROC AddItemToSack%:(item$)

LOCAL i%

REM search the sack looking for an empty space

i% = 1

WHILE i% <= KSackSize%

IF sack$(i%) = ""

REM put item in empty space

sack$(i%) = item$

RETURN 1

ENDIF

i% = i% + 1

ENDWH

RETURN 0

ENDP

REM Searches for the item in the sack. If the item

REM is in the sack, its index number in the sack is

REM returned. If the item isn't in the sack, zero is

REM returned.

PROC FindItemInSack%:(item$)

LOCAL i%

REM search sack backwards so we end up with

REM i%=0 if the item isn't in the sack

i% = KSackSize%

WHILE i% >= 1

IF sack$(i%) = item$

BREAK

ENDIF

i% = i% - 1

ENDWH

RETURN i%

ENDP

REM Removes the specified item from the sack

REM and returns it, or returns "" if the item

REM wasn't in the sack.

PROC RemoveItemFromSack$:(index%)

LOCAL ret$(255)

ret$ = ""

IF index% >= 1 AND index% <= KSackSize%

REM save the sack item for returning

ret$ = sack$(index%)

REM empty the space in the sack

sack$(index%) = ""

ENDIF

RETURN ret$

ENDP

There's several problems with this:

1. The sack has a fixed size. What if you want more? You'd have to adjust KSackSize% and retranslate your program.

2. It doesn't scale well. What I mean by that is that bigger and bigger values of KSackSize% result in longer and longer runtimes. The technical name for the type of search I've implemented in FindItemInSack is a

"linear search". This type of search often results in your program taking what's called "polynomial time" to run. You would often find doubling the size of the sack would *quadruple* (or more!) the overall time your

program takes to run.

3. The string/item "" is special and indicates an empty spot in the sack. You can't store an empty string ("") in the sack.

To fix point 1, you'd need to use dynamically allocated memory: ALLOC, ADJUSTALLOC, FREEALLOC, PEEKs, and POKEs. It's quite a bit more complicated, but you would end up with something able to grow with the needs of your program without needing to retranslate it.

To fix point 2, you'd need to do something *a lot* more complicated. There are all sorts of options ranging from sorting the sack and doing a "binary search", to using "hashing" systems, or building "tree" structures, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah. The benefit is your program becomes much faster. In one of my programs I reduced it's runtime from 15 minutes to 90 seconds by using a couple of binary searches in the appropriate spots.

To fix point 3, you'd need some other method of storing items, eg dynamically allocating the memory for each item and then storing the

memory addresses - a zero memory address meaning no item. An alternative would be an array of integers the same size as the sack which record which sack entry is in use, eg "GLOBAL sackEntryInUse%(KSackSize%)".

You can mix and match these. For example, fixing point 3 using dynamically allocated memory also goes a long way to dealing with point 1.

I should point out at that OPL is not a good language for data structures as it only easily supports fixed-size arrays. Java, for example, while it also has fixed-size arrays, also has a large library that does variable-size arrays, hashing, trees, sets, maps, and other stuff.

As an aside, I'll put in writing a thought I've been sitting on for some time. It's sometimes been said that OPL is a slow language. It's slower than C or C++, but I don't consider OPL to be "slow". I suspect, rather, that given that OPL is such an easily accessible language, that many of

its practitioners are, to put it politely, in a state of blissful ignorance :-) being unaware of some of the above mentioned areas of data structures and the algorithms to go with them. I've frequently found that using the right data structure and algorithm for the job, I regularly get order-of-magnitude performance improvements. It's just that OPL doesn't make it easy to do the right thing.

I'm not sure what to recommend for a beginning programmer. If you've got a PC, I would probably recommend learning Java, since it's free and quite popular, so there's lots of resources (people, software, etc) around. It's also possible to do Java on your Psion, but I haven't gotten around to looking into that.

I hope I've helped, and not confused :-)

Andrew Gregory,

<URL:http://www.scsoftware.com.au/family/andrew/>

*++++++++++&

Date: 9 Sep 2003 16:38:51 +0000

From: Martin Maxwell

Subject: Re: What if - Netbook Pro...

Reply to: Wong Koi Hin and (indirectly) David Steer

I agree with Koi Hin. I really cannot see the reason why anyone would put the ER5+Eikon platform on the netBook Pro hardware, unless it is for emulation purposes of ER5 applications etc.

The thing is, we already have a current netBook (herein 'nB Classic') which is *optimised* for running ER5+Eikon. I do not think there will ever be another machine that can run ER5 better than the nB Classic. The availability (or unavailability depending how you look at it) of features in the nB Classic hardware is exactly matched by the availability (or unavailability) of the corresponding support for those features in the OS+UI.

The nB Pro is a completely different machine for which neither ER5 nor Eikon was not built. Just a simple detail: the nB Pro screen does not have any silkscreen buttons nor Nokia 9200 type CBA (softbuttons) whatsoever. Furthermore, the colour depth is 18-bit, the screen size is 800x600, it's got Bluetooth as internal expansion, GSM/GPRS possibility, SDIO, USB, support for external headset etc etc, features which ER5 do not support. I think there would be an outcry of disappointment if Psion were allowing a machine outside its doors which assuming that people will pay for hardware features which they cannot use.

I believe the cost of upgrading (assumed that you could find the developers, which is also unlikely) ER5 to the nB Pro platform would be roughly similar to the cost of making a nB Pro version of the Symbian OS 7.0+UIQ. However, with the latter you would gain support for most of the additional features including USB, Telephony w Conferencing, Bluetooth, etc (the only exception being the IO in SDIO which Symbian OS does not seem to support yet). And UIQ does not need any softbuttons. Furthermore, you would have access to developers and most likely access to new applications made for UIQ.

Another alternative would of course be Symbian OS 7.0+Eikon, but although this combination is part of the Symbian OS 7.0 development environment (TechView), the problem is that there is no active application development for Eikon at this stage.

UIQ already has numerous applications that could be made to run on a larger screen with little or no adjustment. In fact both the development boards used in almost all Symbian related OS, UI and application development - the XScale based Lubbock and the StrongArm based Assabet - have 800 x 600 screens as standard.

But over and above these discussions, I thoroughly agree with both David and Koi Hin in their intents and purposes; I also desire another large screen, typable keyboard Symbian machine...

Greetings

Martin Maxwell

*++++++++++&

Date: 9 Sep 2003 19:02:38 +0000

From: Wong Koi Hin

Subject: Re: Programming for the Not Very Clever At All (OT)

Reply to Andy Hayes

Hello Andy,

AH>I have a number of "different" items in a sack, say 10 for the sake of argument. One is picked, leaving nine items in the sack. How does the programmer write the application so that if I put my hand in the sack I can only now pick one of the nine items and not the item that I have already taken?

You can try using lists. Basically lists are a sequence of objects with associated functioms to allow you to manipulate the sequence of objects.

In your case below you would declare a list with 10 objects. The next part is where it is unclear, does your user randomly draws an object or does he pick one of his choice?

If he randomly picks one, you would use a Random function to select an object by its index in the list and remove it.

or he just selects an object of his choice and you remove it.

You are now left with nine items and you can repeat until no objects are remain. :)

Your life will be a lot easier if you choose the appropriate programming language, the above can be no more than a few lines of code. Please note using lists is of course not the only way, you may find a better solution for your needs elsewhere.

warm regards,

Koi Hin

*++++++++++&

Date: 9 Sep 2003 19:02:41 +0000

From: Wong Koi Hin

Subject: Re.: Psion and T610

Reply to Itamar,

Hello Itamar,

IE>Thanks for the answer. Do you find that the synchronisation via outlook works without problems and that the capacity of your phone is large enough to contain all your contacts and appointments, to-do's etc. ? As to the screen outside, I suppose it also depends on what Theme you use. On the "classical" it is a lot better than on the "deep blue" I tried out before.

XTNDconnect which is provided with your T610 is a very capable piece of software, and thus far in my 2 months of usage I have not encountered any duplicated entries or other errors in synching with Outlook. As to your question, I hesitate to say yes. Here's why. I do not synchronise ALL my appointments and To-Dos, I typically synchronise between a rolling date range, say 6 months in the past to 1 year ahead. I was initially appalled by the limitation of the T610 to only have up to 510 contacts entries despite having a 2Mb memory capacity, as I have close to a 1000 contacts in my Outlook. A recent house-keeping of my contacts list however, reduced that to about 400++ contacts, and I could now synch with no problems. This is one aspect I believe symbian smartphones shine with their dynamic memory management. (Yes, I know, we take this for granted with most computing devices, but for mobile phones it is almost like a Revelation wth a capital R)

warm regards,

Koi Hin

*++++++++++&

Date: 9 Sep 2003 19:28:35 +0000

From: Wong Koi Hin

Subject: Re: This Digest is .....

Reply to: John Wetton

Hello John,

JW>OK, they are less and less EPOC biased, but tending to focus on pros and cons of the latest mobile phone handsets and mobile data in general.

err.. Don't think i agree with you on this one! :) The posts on mobile phones tend to be in relation to usage of our Psions or a comparison therefore, and if you take a look at the past digests, say this year as a whole, it is hardly dominated by posts on mobile phones or mobile data.

JW>Now that GPRS is on the increase, I reckon there ought to be more and more demand for websites now that have low graphic content to keep the costs down where possible, whereas before only a few people wanted them, and then only to keep the length of the call down. ...

Here's a thought, how about just disabling graphics on your browser? Most news/info sites should work just fine without the graphics, so now you can use Opera (or Web if you insist) on your Psion while sailing with your Russian associates.

Happy sailing and warm regards,

Koi Hin

*++++++++++&

Date: 9 Sep 2003 19:28:36 +0000

From: Wong Koi Hin

Subject: RE: Motorola Leaving Symbian

Reply to: Martin Maxwell

Hello Martin,

MM>Furthermore, the Europeans now control about 80 (Psion+Nokia+Ericsson). I think a stronger Asia&Pacific shareholding would benefit Symbian in the long run, in particular from Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

I would be quite happy if they just open up the licensing to everyone! Of course Japan does have a representation of sorts through Sony in Sony Ericsson. ;) China (PRC) has many up and coming mobile phone companies as well which are doing well in the mainland. It will be a big boon to them if they could use Symbian in their handsets.

warm regards,

Koi Hin

*++++++++++&

Date: 9 Sep 2003 23:28:36 +0000

From: Itamar Engelsman

Subject: Different databases on Psion

Hi Ulrich,

When I moved to the 5MX and had to decide between Contacts and Data, I took the advice from many people and did not transfer all my data to the Contacts program, as it is considerably less flexible in all ways. So I transfered only the email addresses to the Contacts program and all other data I left in my Data files. I had to do this by hand of course, but once done it is done. In Data I have 3 files, "UK" for all my UK addresses, "World" for all my addresses outside the UK and "Business" for all my Business contacts. These I did not enter but copied from Outlook at work to the S7 with synchronisation between an empty file and Outlook. Ah, I've got 2 more files for my photography business clients and suppliers.

In my Contacts program I use two files, one for personal and one for business use. I differentiate between the two with the program Contactloader (registered user) which allows you to use multiple Contact files.

My different mail collections are not that difficult. I use one address again for private use and one where I copy all my emails and faxes from work to for when I am traveling. Only two mailboxes (and sometimes a third when I run the digest <G>). At home and work I use Outlook but I don't synchronise between these and my Psion.

Hope this helps, but if you have more questions don't hesitate to ask.

Best regards,

Itamar Engelsman

London, UK

*++++++++++&

Date: 10 Sep 2003 04:00:36 +0000

From: ashoni

Subject: swap for jornada 710

I can swap you a series 5 8MB machine

*++++++++++&

Date: 10 Sep 2003 07:26:01 +0000

From: Chris S Handley

Subject: Re: TubeRoute

Hello Jaan,

> This sounds like a good program I was wondering if maps can

> be added such as online maps of of the united states and if

> it is possible to do searches or get directions from it.

I don't know if there is a misunderstanding, but:

TubeRoute is a program for finding routes between stations of a subway (underground railway) network. In England this network is known as "the tube".

TubeRoute is provided with a database that says what train lines connect which stations for the London Underground, and it supports using a map. Users are free (and encouraged!) to make their own database & map for their own countries, although sadly no-one has sent me any yet... Maybe they will when TubeRoute is *properly* finished & released.

You could try using TubeRoute for normal (above ground) train networks, trams, and anything similar.

Regards,

Chris Handley

*++++++++++&

Date: 10 Sep 2003 10:44:57 +0000

From: Chris S Handley

Subject: Re: EPOC DIGEST V1 # 334

Hello Itamar,

> Re. Motorola Leaving Symbian - I am sure Symbian would love

> to grow as large as Microsoft <G>. For Nokia investing

> further in Symbian probably assures them of Symbian's

> continuation and assures them of the OS for their phones not

> wanting to use Microsoft. Sorry but I fail to see why that is

> bad for us.

Probably it is a matter of opinion, but:

If Nokia has a big ownership of Symbian, then short term this is good (cos Nokia are successful), BUT long term it is bad because other phone manufacturers may think Symbian is no better than WinCE (Microsoft), and there is no guarantee that Nokia will always dominate the market.

In short, the only way for Symbian to be "permanently" successful is for many manufacturers to use it.

===============

Hello Andy,

I am quite happy to discuss anything programming related, although you might find I have strong opinions on some aspects (e.g. the C++ language is really crap :-)

> From: Andy Hayes

> Subject: Programming for the Not Very Clever At All

> what I want is a simple explanation of how an

> application is written for the following scenario: -

> I have a number of "different" items in a sack, say 10 for

> the sake of argument. One is picked, leaving nine items in

> the sack. How does the programmer write the application so

> that if I put my hand in the sack I can only now pick one of

> the nine items and not the item that I have already taken?

For the moment let us forget about any fancy graphical interface, because that is relatively easy (basically just some draw commands to the screen), and instead focus on the ABSTRACT problem.

What you want to do is for the program to "remember" what items are in the 'sack', so the it only allows an item to be removed if it is actually present inside the 'sack'.

Well, first you need to realise it doesn't matter whether you are using a 'sack' or a 'box' or anything to hold the items, but rather you just need a list of the items that are inside. For this purpose you could write them down on a piece of paper, and erase them when they are removed - so you need the computer equivalent of a list.

Secondly you need to realise that it doesn't matter what kind of item you are storing, all you need to do is uniqely identify that item - so any kind of name will do, as long as the program knows which item a name refers to. For this purpose you could simply give each item a unique number, e.g. six items called 1,2,3,4,5,6 . The program may know that "2" refers to a big apple, for example.

So in the end, the problem is quite simple. You just need the program to keep a list of numbers, be able to remove one from the list, and be able to see what the list holds (to check if you are allowed to remove an item).

In modern programming languges, you have something called a "linked list". You don't need to understand how it works (although it is not hard), but the result is that you can store an ordered list of items, with the list using more computer memory the more items are added. This is the easiest & most flexible way to solve your problem. Hopefully it should be reasonably clear how you solve your original problem now?

In OPL (and other BASIC-like languages) the simplest way to keep a list is to use an "array", which is basically a fixed-size table where each box is referenced by it's position (which is given by a number). The problem here is that you must know the maximum number of items in advance, so that the table (array) is big enough.

The obvious way to use this array is to store an item's number at a place in it (somewhere that is not yet used). To see if an item is present, we simply check every place inside the array for that item. To remove an item we can say that "0" (or "-1" or whatever) represents an 'empty' position, and so replace the item's number by "0".

In programming the goal is to make your program as fast & simple as possible. With this in mind, we can use a trick with the array. Say we have items numbered from 1 to 30. Then we create an array of size 30. Instead of putting the item's number somewhere in the array, we shall associate a specific item with a specific place in the array; so for example, if we have item number 5, then we will always use array position 5 for that item. An item is then present if it's array position contains a "1", and is empty if it contains a "0".

Using this trick, we can immediately tell if item number 5 is present, by seeing what array position 5 contains. The previous way would have required us to check all 30 array positions, and therefore would have gotten slower the more items we stored; our Psion Email program probably does something like this, which would explain why it slows down the more emails it stores.

I hope this explanation hasn't gone too quickly, or in too much depth. If you puzzle over anything, just say so!

BTW, for your interest, I mention that I have written a "linked list" for OPL, so that many programs are much easier to write (and I used in every big app I have done). The only unusual thing is that my linked list holds text (known as "strings") instead of numbers, mainly because OPL is not the best language for a general-purpose linked list.

BTW #2, once you have mastered a few basic concepts in programming, such as arrays & lists, it is surprising how many kinds of programs you can make.

---

Chris Handley

*++++++++++&

Date: 10 Sep 2003 13:07:48 +0000

From: ealasaidandsimon

Subject: Crash

A mystery affliction has gripped our 2 psions at the same time, my 5mx and my wife's netbook. Both have taken to completely freezing whilst connected to the internet via the Psion IR travel modem. Both are otherwise healthy and have not done this before, but since a week or so ago both are doing it on average once a day, sometimes not for a day or two, sometimes 3 times in 10 mins. The whole thing just freezes, no key presses or screen taps work, even the on-off switch usually does not work; a shift-control-fn-k removes the email app from the screen but then all that's left is blank, or grey rectangles where the toolbar and left bar of the System view should be, or ocasionally a small rectangle of part of the System view in the corner of the screen. Needless to say with everything frozen only a paperclip up the bum does anything to get them working.

Any ideas? Could the IR modem possibly be freezing the machines? The fact that both are doing it suggests so...?

*++++++++++&

Date: 10 Sep 2003 13:43:35 +0000

From: Itamar Engelsman

Subject: Luach 5764

Dear All,

As in other years I have again available for anyone interested an agenda file of the Jewish year 5764 with the following details :

- Jewish date each day

- weekly Torah reading portions

- Jewish Holidays and new months

- Omer counting

Send me an email off digest if you are interested in receiving it (I have a file both for Israel and for outside Israel, not much difference this year)

Best regards,

Itamar Engelsman

London, UK

*++++++++++&

Date: 10 Sep 2003 17:02:02 +0000

From: Astrid Stappenbeck

Subject: Re: Programming for the Not Very Clever At All

Hi Andy,

> I have a number of "different" items in a sack, say 10 for the sake of argument. One is picked, leaving nine items in the sack. How does the programmer write the application so that if I put my hand in the sack I can only now pick one of the nine items and not the item that I have already taken?

I am no programmer but like you have tried to get some understanding of the matter to perform some small stuff.

So I came across Steve Litchfield's OPL-tutorial at 3lib. It teaches you how a small Lottonumbers-generator is programmed. One part is to avoid duplicate numbers.

This is desribed in the 3rd lesson http://3lib.uonline.co.uk/progtut3.htm

after which the program looks like this:

PROC myfirst:

PRINT "Milo v0.1 (C) Fred Bloggs 1998"

PRINT "Here are the numbers for the next lottery:"

LOCAL i%,j%

rem Counter used in number selection loop

LOCAL numbers%(6)

rem Array to store picked numbers

RANDOMIZE MINUTE + SECOND

i%=1

WHILE i%<=6

picknum::

numbers%(i%)=INT(RND*50)+1

rem add 1 to take the number into the 1 to 50 range

j%=1

WHILE j%<=(i%-1)

IF numbers%(i%)=numbers%(j%)

GOTO picknum::

rem Duplicate number, so go and try again!

ENDIF

j%=j%+1

ENDWH

PRINT numbers%(i%)

i%=i%+1

ENDWH

PRINT "Press any key to exit"

GET

ENDP

The trick is storing the picked number(s) in an array.

If you want to go further into the matter you should look it up in Psion's OPL handbook which you can download from Psion sites or their FTP server.

Hope this helps

Astrid

*++++++++++&

Date: 10 Sep 2003 17:07:02 +0000

From: Kevin Collins

Subject: Re: T610 and Faxing (OT)

To Wong Koi Hin (> ):

> One possible explanation is that your SIM is not enabled > for data/fax. You might want to confirm with your

> service provider. I am not certain whether being able to > send faxes means you can receive fazes as well. Or it

> could be a buggy firmware as you said. A firmware update > ought to do the trick.

> I own the T610 and I can see and ebable the option.

Hi Koi Hin, many thanks for that, and your suggested possible explanation transpired to be perfectly correct! My current service provider (O2) charges Eu 7.50 per month extra to have the SIM fax-enabled, and I now recall that at the time I decided not to bother (instead I can give my mailbox number as my fax number, and faxes sent to that number can then be freely transferred to a fax machine). When I read your posting, this all came back to me. By then I had sent the phone to Dublin for a firmware upgrade!

In addition to my O2 SIM, I have an old Vodafone SIM, which *does* have fax enabled. On reading your post I tried both SIMs in my old SH888, and some menus which appear when using the Vodafone SIM, e.g. Call Next Type, do not when using the O2 one. I then realised that I had sent my T610 away needlessly! I did get a newer OS, however, and also none of my settings were affected, so no harm was done - other than to my ego! :-)