San Sebastian de La Gomera, Canary Islands
Owen H. Morgan, Yacht "Naomi J.", LD-9311
c/o Idrettsveien 6, 3188 HORTEN, Norway
Phone & SMS: Spain: +34 620520079 Norway: +47 92053097 *++++++++++& Date: 23 Mar 2004 18:41:22 -0500 From: Owen H. Morgan Subject: Indistructable Computer OS Hi Gang! I just sent the following to the Go Digital program on the BBC World Service. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Hi It was interesting to hear your program today where you mentioned the Project Inkwell dedicated to creating a stable and indistructible computer suitable for schools. I don't know about indestructible hardware, but the most stable and user friendly OS I've ever worked with is EPOC from Psion and Symbian. I've been using Psion EPOC ER3 and ER5 palmtops since they came on the market half a dozen years ago. When the computer is switched off it goes to sleep and when I switch it on again it is instantly back to exactly where I left it with the cursor blinking in the exact same spot in the document. There is _NO_ bootup time EPOC is a true multi-tasking OS, and I have no problem keeping a dozen different documents and programs open at the same time. The only limitation is the available system memory on the device. EPOC hardly ever crashes. My Psion palmtops are typically rebooted once or twice a year, and only because I am a power user and constantly pushing the envelope. Don't disregard EPOC as an OS only suitable for palmtops, I use my Psions as I would use a desktop system, with the added advantage of portability rather than haulability which is what you get with your average Windows or Mac Notebook. I have been doing all my e-mail on my Psions for years, and have written several magazine articles on these machines. I also own a Toshiba laptop, but only use this for the few things the Psion can't do, like storing and editing my digital photographs, ripping CD's to MP3 to play on my MP3 player and running Chart Plotter software for my yacht. As I live on a yacht where all the electricity I use has to be generated onboard, the measly power consumption and long running time between recharges of the Psions is an added advantage. Unfortunately, Psion no longer make EPOC palmtops, but the OS survives in it's updated version in the high end Nokia communicator phones. The newer version has the added advantage of better support for audio and video. There are thousands of software titles available for EPOC to do just about anything you can think of, and many of them would be easy to port to the newer EPOC version as used by Nokia. In fact, many have already been ported. The basic software most people would need like Word processor, E-mail, Spreadsheet, Calculator, Agenda, Contacts, Database etc. come pre-installed in ROM. It should be a simple task to put this OS on a robust portable machine suitable for schools along with some specialized applications. In fact, this has already been attempted in Malaysia with a special version of the Psion netBook. Sadly, the project failed, but not through any fault of the hardware or software. Unfortunately, the new Psion netBook Pro uses the much less stable Windows CE operating system. Owen Thought for the day: The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity, the rest is overhead for the operating system. 28°05.31'N 17°06.53'W San Sebastian de La Gomera, Canary Islands Owen H. Morgan, Yacht "Naomi J.", LD-9311 c/o Idrettsveien 6, 3188 HORTEN, Norway Phone and SMS: In Spain: +34 620520079 In Norway: +47 92053097 *++++++++++& Date: 23 Mar 2004 18:41:33 -0500 From: Owen H. Morgan Subject: RIP 5mx :o( Hi. Well, it's happened again. This morning, I opened my 5mx and the screen displayed an interesting pattern off horisontal and vertical lines. The screen looks normal through the crack between the screen and keyboard if I almost close it. There was no prior warning, it worked fine yesterday. Thankfully, I am able to keep EPOCing and get my e-mail with my Psiomond Mevo. However, there was a rattle in the machine today and investigation showed that the lug holding one of the springs in the back had broken. Has anyone found a way of repairing this? I was able to open the remote link and back up the internal disk of the 5mx (and I had a recent backup of C: on the CF as well as a recent synch with my Mavo). PsiWin is now in the process of backing up the 256mb CF with only 450 minutes to go! It's a good job I'm in a marina and connected to shore-power for once. I prefer backing up the card through PsiWin even if it takes ages because WindoZe has had a nasty habit of messing up filenames and folders if I give it direct access to my EPOC CF cards. I've had this happen when I used WindoZe 95 and 98, but don't know if it applies to Win 2000 as well. I think it only happens when copying from the WindoZe computer to the card, but I'm not willing to risk it. This is my fifth Series 5/MC281/5mx screen cable to go, and they all seem to have lasted between 12 and 18 months. I am not particularly rough on my Psions and I don't open and close them all that many times per day. This last one is quite surprising as I bought it in almost unused condition just over a year ago and haven't used it all that much. My Revo has seen far more use the last couple of years. Right now, I can't afford to send the machine for repair, but I'll probably start working for a company in the south of Gran Canaria in a couple of weeks, so I'll send the machine for screen cable repair and a memory upgrade when I get some income. Could someone please remind me what my options are, keeping in mind that I'm in the Canaries and my only www access is through Internet Cafés? I believe there's a company in Germany who do screen cable repairs and memory upgrades, but I seem to remember there was some problem with using this company from outside Germany? I also want to upgrade the memory of my Rako, but I won't do that until I get the 5mx back. Does anyone have any experience to confirm that the "improved" screen cable without holes really does last longer? It would be useful to hear from people who have had the repair made, particularly whether anyone has had a failure with the improved cable. How about the memory upgrade of the 5mx or Revo? Have any of you had this done? What is your experience. I remember there are issues with upgrading a mx above 24mb. Maybe it would be cheaper to mothball the 5mx and look for a second hand 7even or xBook rather than repair and upgrade the 5mx? I don't want to buy another new or second-hand 5mx with the original type of screen cable and the threat of a faillure on the horizon, particularly as I'll probably be in Brazil or the Caribbean when it fails. Owen Thought for the day: I doubt, therefore I might be. San Sebastian de La Gomera, Canary Islands Owen H. Morgan, Yacht "Naomi J.", LD-9311 c/o Idrettsveien 6, 3188 HORTEN, Norway Phone and SMS: In Spain: +34 620520079 In Norway: +47 92053097 *++++++++++& Date: 23 Mar 2004 20:32:23 -0500 From: Nicole Carbonara Subject: Broadband advice To: Alan Morris Subject: Re: Broadband advice >> interference with other radio services using that band of frequencies. << Yes, I know but it is very difficult to spot in a building where I do not know what my neighbours use. Nicole *++++++++++& Date: 23 Mar 2004 21:04:14 -0500 From: Ian Chapple Subject: Re. WiFi question Nicole, >>Thank you for pointing me to your very interesting article. I don't want to disable WZCS at the source though because I need it to find automatically the signal when I wake up my computer in the morning. So I shall rather try to use the stop and start shortcuts on my desktop to only stop WZCS when the signal gets instable.<< If you manually configure your WiFi adapter on your laptop, it will *only* connect to your router; you don't need the roaming ability the the WZCS gives you, and if you do this, the you don't need the WZCS to be running. Once you have done this, something that is quite convenient is to create a shortcut to your WiFi connection on your desktop; just drag and drop the icon in the Connections panel to your desktop. Double-clicking on this will establish a wireless connection to your network; right-clicking and selecting Disable disconnects from the network. >>When I right click the wireless connection icon on the toolbar, it allows me to view the available wireless networks and there I can de-tick the case for "Use windows to configure my wireless networks settings". Would this be the equivalent of disabling the WZCS?<< To be honest, I'm not sure. I think it maybe is supposed to be, but it's been a while since I tried any of this, so I can't be certain; Windows XP help is suitably vague about all this. If you do deselect this option, I think you will see that you don't have any access to any wireless networks at all, at least not until you configure your WiFi adapter manually. I have also heard that NetStumbler, which is a popular *network-sniffing* application can hijack any configuration utility that your adapter came with, making it difficult or impossible to do what you want. I am pretty sure, after my own experiences and from what I have heard since, that the WZCS is the single biggest problem when trying to get an XP PC to network wirelessly, so my advice is definitely to disable this and set things up yourself. Since I took the steps outlined in my article, I've had no problems whatsoever. Hope this helps, Ian. *++++++++++& Date: 23 Mar 2004 21:18:18 -0500 From: Philip S. Adkins Potter Subject: UPS5D Hi Roman, Unfortunately the archive at http://www-public.tu-bs.de:8080/~y0007925/epoc/ups5/index.html just mirrors what I'd already got. But I do now (well, soon as I'm getting it piecemeal) have a rather bigger archive. It doesn't actually *matter*, of course. I'm just interested. Happy days, Phil. "To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." *++++++++++& Date: 23 Mar 2004 22:31:23 -0500 From: Jack Subject: Re.: Rogue Fax accounts (4 Itamar) >>>>Shift-Ctrl-L will show all the mailboxes but not the Fax boxes on my Psion. Are you sure this is the right answer ?<<<< Re No I'm sure I was wrong... I do not know a way to make the fax account to be shown on the left folders list. But how on earth did you manage to set more than the unique allowed Fax account (some wrong restorings?)? If a reset does not do, I'm afraid you'll have to rename your index file or even your Mail folder (& then re-set THE Fax account) Tell us back... Jack *++++++++++& Date: 23 Mar 2004 23:55:00 -0500 From: Jack Subject: Re.: Crontab Hi Itamar, >>>... can also do your back-up by hand, but still looking for a better solution,...<<< Re Like the smart Backup (reg) and its nice sheduler : http://www.psionwelt.de/ralphsprenger/ Jack *++++++++++& Date: 24 Mar 2004 07:24:13 -0500 From: Manuel Campos Galvan Subject: RMR Task Fellow Psionstas: Anybody had any experiences with RMR Task? I have been looking for a task/to do manager and been unable so far to locate a review. Thanks and regards, Manuel Campos *++++++++++& Date: 24 Mar 2004 08:50:00 -0500 From: Steve Litchfield Subject: re: P800 Data In answer to Martin Maxwell, although the P800 doesn't have Data built-in, it's an inexpensive add-on from www.epocware.com . "Handy Databank" is almost a clone of Data and very usable, with a desktop converter, IIRC. ____________________________________________________________________ Steve Litchfield, 3-Lib, http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/ For Psion and Symbian handhelds, with computer-based training on CD Also PocketInfo, useful files - http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/pocketinfo Journalism: sub-editor and/or senior contributor to: Palmtop User - http://www.palmtop.co.uk/ PDA Essentials - http://www.paragon.co.uk/mags/pdaessentials.html PC Basics - http://www.paragon.co.uk/mags/pcbasics.html Reviews editor, AllAboutSymbian - http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/ *++++++++++& Date: 24 Mar 2004 14:27:58 -0500 From: Hugh Dibley Subject: Compact Flash "Disk not Present" solved ! Another Way - Format Using a Camera -----Original Message----- Date: 22 Mar 2004 20:16:41 +0100 - Epoc Digest V1 # 480 From: Gabriela & Radek Subject: Compact Flash "Disk not Present" solved !!! Another Way - Format Using a Camera Radek, I had the same problem recently of "Disk not Present" with several CompactFlash Cards in my 2 Psion 5mxs, which could not be solved by Formatting / Error Checking with Windows. Discovered - eventually - that if I reformatted the cards in my Canon PowerShot A70 they would be read by the 5mx, and accept the data / programs stored in my PC OK, using a PCMCIA adapter. I still select digital cameras - such as Kodak / Canon - which can use the CompactFlash cards that I have accumulated for my Psions. It also means that if I leave the camera card in my PC by mistake and then have "No Memory Card" when trying to take photos, I can still use my Psion's 256Mb card. This has saved my great embarrassment several times! For info, a 128Mb C-Data CompactFlash card - which I think I bought in Singapore in October 2001 - developed bad sectors which affected both the Psion and Canon cameras making it unusable. It initially could not be read by Windows properly, but after several attempts at Error Checking / Formatting with Windows it is now working OK - don't know why and for how long! (Have triple boot with WinXP/2K/9x so not sure which Win version did the trick, but now primarily use WinXP. Have not yet loaded Linux which I bought several years ago as am frightened this would take me weeks to sort out!) Regards, Hugh Dibley, London and Toulouse, Mobile: +33 6 0385 2882 *++++++++++& Date: 24 Mar 2004 14:38:27 -0500 From: Owen H. Morgan Subject: EPOC Simulator question Howdy! Could someone please remind me how to add disks to the EPOC ER5 simulator? Now that my 5mx has died, I would like to give it access to my backup. Owen Thought for the day: If rabbits feet are so lucky, what happened to the rabbit? 28°05.31'N 17°06.53'W San Sebastian de La Gomera, Canary Islands Owen H. Morgan, Yacht "Naomi J.", LD-9311 c/o Idrettsveien 6, 3188 HORTEN, Norway Phone and SMS: In Spain: +34 620520079 In Norway: +47 92053097 *++++++++++& Date: 24 Mar 2004 15:07:08 -0500 From: Daniele Squarci Subject: RE: Mbook Internet Connection Impasse Melvin Woody wrote >> My second problem arises when I try to connect with my 2Wire wireless router supplied by SBC Yahoo to handle my DSL line. I have a lucent orinoco silver card and set the modem for "rlan" at the suggestion of one of you. But I still can't connect with the 2wire router.<< With a Lucent Orinoco card you should surely be using the Lucent/Orinoco RLAN setting, not the generic rLan? Ciao Daniele Squarci - Italy *++++++++++& To reply or to send your own messages, subscribe by sending an email to with SUBSCRIBE in the subject.
28°05.31'N 17°06.53'W