Epocdigest V1 # 370

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Epoc Digest Fri, 24 Oct 2003 Volume 01 : Number 370

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Sent to: 798 subscribers

In today's Epoc Digest 13 messages:

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- MBM View

- netBook Pro Symbian

- Re: EPOC DIGEST V1 # 367 (29)

- Mystery crash - solution (for now at least)

- TREO or Clie for Word and Sheet

- Microsoft - What Else Can We Use

- Re: Sheet, netBook Pro Symbian, Apple (OT), What programs am I missing?

- Re: Program list

- email & internet problem, Nokia time setting, EPOC support, Program list,

- netBook Pro Symbian, Apple (OT),

- Storage Problems

- mConsole

- Opera KERN

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Date: 23 Oct 2003 01:02:27 +0000

From: Scott Lloyd

Subject: MBM View

Grettings to all,

MBM file viewer has been suggested as a good tool to use (thanks Jack) for viewing jpegs,etc.My problem is I cannot seem to locate it, reg-net no longer carries it so Im asking for help from the digest where I can locate this tool. I would

appreciate any help.

thanks so much

your friend in Texas

scott

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Date: 23 Oct 2003 07:50:22 +0000

From: Martin Maxwell

Subject: netBook Pro Symbian

Answer to: Arent

RE: netBook Pro Symbian

>>>There SymbianOS phone base is now over 2.3/4 million, with more

>>>>devices coming onto the market, and the price points coming

>down. <> But how many of these are full-blown ,open -i.e non-embedded ,

>capable of running native applications - models like Nokia's

>7650/3650/N-Gage or Ericsson's P 800/900 ? >If you substract embedded

>sales ,then this figure could drop well below a million

Correction 1: if you subtract embedded sales, the figure will be *zero*, because in *all* current Symbian phones, the OS is embedded.

Correction 2: Symbian OS phones are currently selling at a rate of 1.5-2 million units per quarter. The total user base is around 10 million at present.

Correction 3: "Closed" Symbian OS phones like Ericsson R380 and Fujitsu 2051 represent a fraction of total Symbian OS phone sales.

>>>The Symbian platform is essentially designed to remove any

>potential Nokia dependence on Microsoft.<<<

Don't know who put in this statment, but in any case it is baseless.

Symbian OS was designed to be the ideal operating system for wireless information devices. It was also designed to allow maximum freedom in designing handset hardware thereby allowing stronger branding and differentiation opportunities to the handset m kers and operators.

As such it is seen as a strong alternative to a Windows-based OS, by many handset vendors and operators.

>>>Where Microsoft could do serious damage is through lawsuits similar to the SCO vs IBM re: Code allegedly copied from SYS V into Linux >Microsoft could try to assert intellectual property rights on key components of the operating system-e sentially everything above the level of the kernel and wireless stack- and when succesful this could be the deathblow for open Symbian <<<

Since Symbian has the technological lead over Microsoft, it would be much more likely that Symbian assert intellectual property rights over Microsoft than the other way around. Some of that, though not involving Symbian, is happening in the Sendo vs Mi rosoft case.

>>>The news I have is that Nokia will move away from Series 80 and towards the 6800 and Java as the future platform for Communicator products <<<

Series 80 is an open User Interface platform. 6800 is a Phone. Java is a development language. What on earth are you talking about?

"The news I have is that Daimler-Chrysler will move away from Diesel engines and towards the Mercedes-Benz E200 and ERP as the future platform for Truck products"

If I try to see what you intend to say in this utter confusion of terms, I guess you are trying to say that Nokia will in the future stop selling smartphone communicators and focus on feature phones. This is of course highly unlikely and contrary to al Nokia statements, as well as their recent restructuring further emphasising enterprise markets.

Kind regards

Martin Maxwell

Kuala Lumpur

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Date: 23 Oct 2003 22:14:42 +0000

From: Alan Morris

Subject: Re: EPOC DIGEST V1 # 367 (29)

Euan Mee wrote:-

<< To refute these points:

There SymbianOS phone base is now over 2.3/4 million, with more

devices coming onto the market, and the price points coming

down. I /don't/ think that this shows 'writing on the wall'. >>

I would agree with your posting BUT these devices are smart phones and NOT computers as a 5mx, 7 & netBook.

The writing is on the wall, until someone produces a computer.

Alan R Morris, G4ENS.

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK.

Using a Psion 7 & Nokia 6210e.

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Date: 23 Oct 2003 22:52:38 +0000

From: John Morris

Subject: Mystery crash - solution (for now at least)

Having suffered from the mystery crash with my Revo when connected to Freeserve.co.uk (using my Nokia 6210e), I took the advice given in the PDAStreet forum,

http://www.pdastreet.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26597 and set up a new account and connection with the ISP FreeUK.net.

The good news is that Email & Opera now work perfectly; possibly this is because FreeUK.net either (a) has not yet been modernised to cope with the V.92 modems, or (b) is too small & insignificant an ISP to have been targeted by spammers/hacker ... yet.

Whatever the reason it would seem worth a try for any UK based users who are having freeze-up problems.

Regards

John Morris

Cambs UK

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Date: 24 Oct 2003 05:05:30 +0000

From: Gary Y Reyes

Subject: TREO or Clie for Word and Sheet

>Date: 15 Oct 2003 23:51:16 -0500

>From: Itamar Engelsman >Subject: netBook Pro Symbian, Backing up 5mx ?, Hanging Psion, Dana + Treo = >

>Answer to: Jim Watson-Gove

>Re. Dana + Treo Update - How does the screen of a TREO or Clie work with = >WORD and SHEET files ? Are the screens not too small for serious work on = >these machines ?

Additional inputs:

For Word, not too bad but you see a small portion at a time.

But for any serious Sheet work, screen is too small. You'd probably do the serious sheet work on a laptop or desktop then load on a Treo or Clie or any similar PDA just for reference and minor work in the field.

Now on the Revo or Series 5, that's another story.

Gary

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Date: 24 Oct 2003 05:15:01 +0000

From: Gary Y Reyes

Subject: Microsoft - What Else Can We Use

>Date: 15 Oct 2003 23:51:17 -0500

>From: Itamar Engelsman >Subject: Microsoft

>Answer to: Euan Mee

>Re.: Microsoft - I don't like them either, but in the end I think most = >Companies would do the same given the chance ( and did not many try ?). =

Our company has mission-critical applications for the products we make. We tried using Windows as the OS but ran into too many hanging problems. So we rewrote our programs for DOS then shifted our hard disk drives to solid state Flash IDE c rds.

Now we have application programs that just work and work and work and a CPU/terminal that needs very little maintenance. We used to have to change hard drives every 6 months.

Gary

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Date: 24 Oct 2003 09:21:24 +0000

From: Chris S Handley

Subject: Re: Sheet, netBook Pro Symbian, Apple (OT), What programs am I missing?

Hello Itamar,

From: Itamar Engelsman

> I would have to make the choice to buy a netBook Pro with

> Symbian v. 7, meaning that all my existing software on my S7

> will be unusable,

I think it is quite likely that a lot of the EPOC program authors who have moved to Symbian would be very keen on porting their EPOC programs (if not already done) to Symbian. I certainly remember reading there was a lot of interest from a Symbia mailing list or something?

> don't need it at the moment. PDFPrinter, I hardly print out

> anything from my Psion, I am very much a "screen reader".

You don't just use PDFPrinter for printing! It's main purpose is really to allow any Psion document to be read on any other computer, because PDFs are so easily read.

> As I said before, I am not a great Microsoft lover myself,

> but do feel that some of the criticism is unfair.

Then you simply don't know enough about Microsoft :( . Have you ever read the so-called Halloween documents leaked from Microsoft? They are truely scary.

Basically, what most underhand business dream of doing (both immoral & illegal), Microsoft has the monopoly (and money) to do on a regular basis to their competition, and it is part of their mindset. Microsoft is headed by such paranoid peopl , that even though they are far more successful than anyone else, they still squash any small company who might concievably be a threat, either through underhand tactics or simply buying them out.

Ever heard of BeOS? They could well have been a significant PC Operating System today if it wasn't for Microsoft, who put illegal clauses in contracts to stop other OSes from being shipped by companies who also sold Windows machines.

Ever heard of Netscape? They used to be the defacto web browser, until Microsoft started giving their Internet Explorer away for free. Of course, now that Netscape is beaten, they have stopped developing Internet Explorer significantly, des ite the huge number of KNOWN bugs & security flaws.

Ever heard of Microsoft Word?!? The only reason there are so many different (and incompatible) versions of Word documents, is that this (a) makes it very difficult for the competition to be compatible with them, and (b) forces all the poor saps t buy the latest version of Word so they can still read documents from other people. Certainly immoral, and quite possibly illegal since it works because MS have a monopoly.

The list goes on, and may come to include Symbian (who are at least savvy to Microsoft's tactics).

Now, all this might be a BIT more forgivable, if Microsoft was a source of innovation, but unfortunately they couldn't innovate their way out of a wet paper bag! Virtually every half-decent idea you see in a M$ product is a poor copy of a good id a somebody else had. Quite why this is, is unclear, since they spend enough money!

Similarly, it might be more forgivable, if Microsoft products were high-quality & well-designed, yet major security flaws are designed into most of their software products (for no good reason), and it has taken them god knows how many generations o software to products a half-decent set of apps & OS.

In the end, if Microsoft wasn't regularly using their monopoly in illegal ways, we might well have some decent (if not superior) competition, which would then force Microsoft to get their act together or go bust. As it is, there is no strong reas n for Microsoft to make either secure or good programs, let alone innovative ones.

Errr, rant over :-)

Regards,

Chris Handley

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Date: 24 Oct 2003 09:52:00 +0000

From: Chris S Handley

Subject: Re: Program list

> Interesting list but what are C-loader and Eposyc?

He probably means EpocSync (get it from www.freepoc.org ).

>> Ok, guys and girls, what am I missing? <

> A lot (of course) and you didn't mention a single macro. So

> here is my additional list:

At the risk of blowing my own trumpet, I have a habit of writing essential programs that seemingly don't exist (or atleast the existing free versions are not up to my expectations) :

For Utilities, that would be FastBackup.

For Macros, that would be Clipboard History.

Both are available from www.freepoc.org , which has a large selection of free but professional programs.

Stuff not by me, which may not have been mentioned here yet, would include EPlayM (MP3 player), Crypto (general automatic file encryption), and OPL Manual (yes, it's a database, but extremely handy).

That said, I didn't like the GUI provided by EPlayM, and so wrote my own in OPL using the provided MP3.OPX extension. But I never bothered to make this public...

Similarly, I could NOT live without my Email >>>indenting macro, which makes it feasible for me to use Email as my main email program. Pity no-one here seemed interested in it, but perhaps that is because people misunderstand how it work ; it does NOT move the cursor about & insert ">" characters where needed, which would be VERY slow & unreliable, but INSTEAD it copies the entire email to the clipboard, modifies it there using a very quick algorithm, and then pastes back the i dented version (taking perhaps 1 second to do everything).

---

Chris Handley

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Date: 24 Oct 2003 10:06:12 +0000

From: Itamar Engelsman

Subject: email & internet problem, Nokia time setting, EPOC support, Program list,

Answer to: Tony Lough

Re.: email & internet problem - It is probably a problem with the script. I sent you by separate email my script I use for landline contact with Compuserve. Hopefully that will work for you.

Answer to: Hoffman, Susan

Re. Nokia time setting - Time for an update on your phone .... ? <BG>

Anser to: Kevin Thorne & Keith

Re. EPOC support - I agree and will use my S7 as long as possible for those functions it does well !! However, it does not do everything well. I just now finished my slide show of my wedding, functions photos and portraits on my Sony Clie. now walk around with a digital portfolio of 83 photos on my Clie which I can show either all or in groups as a slide show to any potential client I might meet and I have it in the inside pocket of my jacket ! The S7 is too heavy and the colour scre n too low quality for this function (just an example).

Answer to: Astrid Stappenbeck

Re. Program list - Thnaks for your list. There are several again that I had no idea about and will try and look these up in th enear future. As to your questions:

C-loader is a program that allows the use of multiple contact files instead of the single one available standard.

EpocSync is a program to synchronise EPOC files on two Psions with each other. However, it will only update complete files and not individual entries in files (AFAIK).

AlarmPlus gave me problems and I deleted it. SaveMail I forgot to mention <G> and I am not into reading books on my Psion. Yes, I do use many macros, although most of them are small macros I recorded myself to make my life a little easier.

Anser to: Karsten

Re. Program list - You are right, I do use DATA, email, Sheet and Word quite extensively. Contacts only for the email addresses as it integrates with the email program.

Best regards,

Itamar Engelsman

London, UK

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Date: 24 Oct 2003 10:06:15 +0000

From: Itamar Engelsman

Subject: netBook Pro Symbian, Apple (OT),

Answer to: Martin Maxwell

Re.: netBook Pro Symbian - I don't think we will agree in the end, but always useful to discuss and try to explain one's opinions:

>> Investing in OS v.7 <<

The first question is whether this would be a platform for which many third party software writers would write (versions of) their programs for. The answer is most probably no, so one would be "stuck" with the built-in programs. Secondly, I currently d n't feel a trust that such a version would be supported and developed by Symbian / Psion any further and so personally I see this also as "just to buy a few years' more time".

>> Sofware for Symbian OS v7 <<

What third party software is currently available for the P800/900 ? A search on Tucows shows 35 entries for "All best selling Symbian Os Software". It does not show the quality programs we are used to (Route/Streetplanner, nconvert, Macro5, Crontab), n bank or money programs, etc. Who would write for v.7 to be used on _one_ machine only ?

>> If I am used to Symbian OS, and I am up against the chioce of moving to Pocket PC, Palm or a newer version of Symbian OS which is compatible with smartphones, what do I chose? <<

With Symbian/Psion machines alive and kicking the answer would be very clear to me as well. As unfortunately that is not the case, for me using v.5 or v.7 are both temporary solutions, sorry.

Answer to: Cyril Catt

Re. Apple (OT) - I think there was a mistake and some quotes were "credited" to me that I never made. I am not sure either, so suggest to drop the subject.

Best regards,

Itamar Engelsman

London, UK

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Date: 24 Oct 2003 11:25:22 +0000

From: Andy Hayes

Subject: Storage Problems

Hi All

Since the arrival of my new netBook I have been setting up the old one. Fastbackup has been a godsend - a big thanks to Chris Handley for that excellent app.

What I can't get around is my inability to sort out the problem I have with TomTom's route and street planning software. I have moved these from one netBook to the other, knowing that it wouldn't work due to some UID dependence at the install stage. Th CDs are sat in storage in Sussex - aaargh! I just can't get hold of them. Annoying really as I have bought every release of RP and SP since I bought my first 5 which came with En Route. I don't suppose that there is anyway around this. I have been search ng past digests (the ones that I still have since the PC self destructed a couple of weeks ago) and the NGs. I was under the impression that you could delete a file, but I don't think that it works for moved installations, only upgraded ones.

The last email that I sent to the digest wasn't included in any digest that I have read since. If it crops up after I have sent this I will have to apologise for repeating myself!

PlBeam also stopped working, but PsiLoc immediately issued a new registration code to overcome the UID dependant code that had been issued before. I have always sympathised with software authors who offer decent backup and yet have their software rippe off, but would never consider UID dependant registrations where there was an alternative, nor I did not absolutely NEED the software. The re-registration of PlBeam has been a pleasant experience.

I am extremely pleased with my new netBook. The list member who sold me it made the experience with his honesty, trust and integrity a positive pleasure. The spare netBook now acts as a charging station for my spare batteries!

Does anyone on the list use mConsole? I have recently started the CCNA course and wonder if it is worth getting. I already have PDF and a PsiWin lead that has a UTP connector though. Should I just stick to Comms?

Its a shame to see the lack of support that Phoneman now receives. Ask a question in the forum and grow a beard whilst you await an answer!

Andy Hayes

---

Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.

Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).

Version: 6.0.530 / Virus Database: 325 - Release Date: 22/10/2003

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Date: 24 Oct 2003 12:21:23 +0000

From: Andy Hayes

Subject: mConsole

Hi Al

Now that I am doing my Cisco course I thought that I would re-visit mConsole but the site seems to be down. Nevertheless, perhaps someone can help me. When I first heard of this app I charged off to the site to download and register it. Registration wa a very pricey 60ukp if memory serves me, BUT it also included PDF (or perhaps PDF+) and a PsiWin Y lead (Honda / 9 pin d-sub / UTP connectors). I didn't want either as I had registered PDF+ already, and also had a lead of the same configuration. I asked he site if I could buy just the software, but they wouldn't let me so I carried on using Comms and spent the money on loose women, wine and song. Sixty quid doesn't go far on loose women so it wasn't much of a night!

I believe that they had a demo version that you could download. I am not sure if the site is down or no longer there so I can't have a look myself. Did anyone download the demo version? Did anyone register the full version? Was it useful?

Thanks

Andy Hayes

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Date: 24 Oct 2003 13:51:11 +0000

From: robertsont

Subject: Opera KERN

Dear all,

I've been having a little trouble with opera. When I try to visit certain secure websites the prog closes KERN error. This happens when i try to book flights with ryanair or use postfinance.