Epocdigest V1 # 540

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Epoc Digest Mon, 14 Jun 2004 Volume 01 : Number 540

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Sent to: 778 subscribers

In today's Epoc Digest 10 messages:

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- RoutePlanner

- Powerbook / JPL

- Opera, Questions,

- Open source software, spacebars, weird USB cables and stolen netBooks

- SD-CF1 Adaptor

- Re: USB on netBook? I'd say *NO*!

- Re: Fontmachine SIS file contents

- Re. Tom on Tom's Questions

- Internet Faxing with 5mx

- Re: Opera

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

Date: 13 Jun 2004 21:46:42 +0000

From: Nils Langeland

Subject: RoutePlanner

Friends!

I at last have come to the point where the screen-cable on my 5mx has given out. Luckily I have a spare one, and have been able to restore all my data from my back-ups. The problem is that my copy of Tom Tom's Route-planner calls for a re-installing and I don't have the original CD. The program was licenced to the person from whom I bought the 5mx, but I didn't get the CD. I know there is a file that contains the info needed to migrate from one machine to another, but I can't find the specs for it.

Can somebody help me, please. I do have the maps.

Greetings from Nils Langeland

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

Date: 13 Jun 2004 22:08:08 +0000

From: Andy Hayes

Subject: Powerbook / JPL

Hi All

This will be my first mail to the list from my new Mac Powerbook. It feels great to be leaving Windows behind at last. Although I have told Mail I want this to go as plain text I would be interested to know if the List Admin has to do anything with it or whether it really did arrive as plain text.

I want to use Java Psion Link and would like advice from any of the Mac users on the subject. I had an unused USB/Serial connector laying around, but the drivers only went as far as OS9. I installed them nonetheless, but when I downloaded JPL I had the OSX version. I don't suppose that this is going to work is it? If the worst comes to the worst I shall just backup C: to D: and put the CFs in a card reader.

The Powerbook looks OK, but for 1,200 ukp it should. There are some nice touches, but I am not in awe of it. It took 2 hours to crash it so completely that I had to press the button to switch it off. I was

trying to copy data to a CF that I believed was still faulty at the time. If you wwant something properly tested then just hand it to me! Does anyone know what syntax I should use at the command line in Terminal on the Powerbook to format a CF in a card reader hanging off the USB port, that is not a fast backup?

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

Date: 13 Jun 2004 23:16:02 +0000

From: Itamar Engelsman

Subject: Opera, Questions,

Answer to: Andy Hayes

Re.: Opera - I totally agree with you. But as you say, when I travel I use the mBook to download all my office emails and faxes (that come in via outlook as well with a computer fax program) and easily send answers with my office email address in the "from" field. And during the day I use it to make notes during my meetings as well as with Route- and Streetplanner to get to my destinations. Now try and do all that with a laptop .....

Answer to: robertsont

Re.: Questions - Don't be silly, this digest is meant for people to ask questions. Don't stop, just fire away.

Best regards,

Itamar Engelsman

London, UK

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

Date: 14 Jun 2004 01:48:46 +0000

From: Richard

Subject: Open source software, spacebars, weird USB cables and stolen netBooks

Oh dear - Now I'm starting to show cracks...

Tom,

Archos:

I'm out of my depth with anything more recent than my quite old Archos. I have found them to be helpful and respond to emails pretty quickly though.

But - I can give one fantastic piece of advice - find out if the model you have your eye on can run "RockBox", (or if there's any chance that it will). RockBox is a freeware O/S created explicitly for *some* Archoses, by geeks as talented as those who have improved our Psions immeasurably. The difference between the "official" system and RockBox is just unbelievable: http://rockbox.haxx.se/docs/features.html

(I put the word "official" in speech marks, because I now consider RockBox to be the official O/S. Unofficially, of course.)

For me RockBox speaks volumes about the power of open source software. (Which is why I am making this O/T post.) The software on the Archos was an *incredibly* awkward, basic, frustrating, stinking nugget of uselessness (that took 12 seconds to boot).

Now it boots in 4 seconds and supports different languages, different fonts, grayscale images & videos(!), mid-track resume, better sound, usable playlists, sleep & timer features, speaking menus, customisable screens, oscillograph features etc etc etc etc etc!

Spacebar:

My spacebar didn’t need any glue to stay in place – the clips held it there. Are any of the Psion’s plastic bits broken? I’m sure Google could find some advice about that sort of thing…

USB -> Serial adaptor:

Ooops – I can still hear the voice of my maths teacher – “R T F Q ! R T F Q !!” I thought you wanted Psion-to-PC, via PC’s USB port. I’m sorry if I got anyone’s hopes up…

That said; can the serial/PC end of a Psion RS232 connect to any sort of USB adaptor? Can a USB device plug into the adaptor?

Remember that USB cables can have *three* possible ends: The slightly square (sort-of house-shaped) end, and the female OR male flattened rectangular socket that either looks like the USB port on your PC, or looks like what plugs into that socket.

I think memory card readers often come with a male-male (A-A) cable. Could an A-A, an A-B, or a B-B cable help in connecting a USB device to the USB end of the USB-serial adaptor?

NHS/Psion Contract:

Well I got my Malay netBook cheap after a large public-funded program to supply Psions to lots of people for free, fell through. So let’s hope everything goes OK, until at least they’ve produced a few thousand of these little “keyboarded” darlings!

There are plenty of people who are more knowledgeable than me in this field, but I think it *very* unlikely that Psions would be made available to the public like that. (But I bet it wouldn’t take too long for a few to appear on eBay…)

To Koi (Hin?) – Psion communication with USB devices:

Read my apology above!

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

Date: 14 Jun 2004 05:08:20 +0000

From: A. Bernard Olij

Subject: SD-CF1 Adaptor

Hi all,

I am very much interested in the Minolta SD-CF1 Compact Flash Adaptor as discussed recently.

Minolta is not represented in Indonesia and I was informed, that Minolta Singapore does not sell this item.

I would appreciate if somebody could mention a place to me, where I can order the above adaptor, on line or otherwise. Thanks.

Bernard Olij

Dau, Indonesia

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

Date: 14 Jun 2004 06:41:15 +0000

From: Marcus von Cube

Subject: Re: USB on netBook? I'd say *NO*!

Hi,

I think answering the question if a netBook supports USB with "Through a USB -> Serial adaptor, yes." has raised hopes which cannot be fulfilled.

USB is asymmetric in nature: There is always one USB host, connected to one or more USB hubs

which link to a bunch USB slave devices. USB slave devices include mice, mass storage (USB sticks, cameras, portable harddisks, card readers), scanners, printers, sound devices, network adapters,

RS232 adaptors and more. The USB host is, in most cases, a PC or a MAC. You can neither connect

a USB host to another host directly (there are "cables" which overcome this limitation by serving as a USB device for both hosts, acting as a mini network) nor can you conect a USB slave device to

another device without the help of a proper USB host.

The bad news: a USB->serial adaptor connects a USB host to a device having a serial (RS232) port,

not a system with a serial port to a USB slave device! You simply won't be able to plug the USB cable of your USB->serial adaptor into your printer because there is no USB host built into the printer. The only thing you can do is connect the USB->serial adaptor to your PC or MAC and connect that to your netBook (or any other Psion).

The CE netBook PRO has a USB host port to attach devices like mice or printers. This port, on the other hand, isn't able to connect directly to a PC for synchronisation or software download. You'll need the docking station for that purpose. (Don't hope that the USB docking station will work with an EPOC netBook!)

It might still be possible to make a PC Card with USB host hardware work under EPOC, but this

requires writing a driver (the USB protocol isn't a piece of cake!) for the card and for any device category you want to support. But I fear that the power requirements of such a card may prevent it

from working with older netBooks.

Marcus

http://www.mvcsys.de

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

Date: 14 Jun 2004 06:57:45 +0000

From: Marcus von Cube

Subject: Re: Fontmachine SIS file contents

Hi Itamar and others,

here is the contents of the Fontmachine SIS file. It might help to remove the files manually:

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

K:\download\fontmachine>emxsis -d fontmachine.SIS

File name: fontmachine.SIS

Language: 1 (EN: English) "FontMachine"

Language: 3 (GE: German) "FontMachine"

Language: 2 (FR: French) "FontMachine"

Language: 18 (DU: Dutch) "FontMachine"

Language: 10 (AM: American) "FontMachine"

FT TA S \FontMachine\Epoc-License.txt

FF D !:\System\Controls\Fonts.aif

FF D !:\System\Controls\Fonts.ctl

FN D c:\System\Controls\Fonts.ini

FF D !:\System\Controls\Fonts.rsc

FF D !:\System\Fonts\FontMachine.dll

S freetype2.sis

FF D !:\System\Programs\SoftReset.msg

FR RI D c:\System\Programs\softreset.exe

Nested SIS file: freetype2.sis (language #1)

Language: 1 (EN: English) "FreeType 2 for EPOC"

FF D !:\system\libs\freetype2.dll

S stdlib.sis

Nested SIS file: stdlib.sis (language #1)

Language: 1 (EN: English) "Standard C Library"

FF D !:\System\Libs\ESTLIB.dll

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

The dump was created with emxsis from the EPOCEMX package by Eberhard Mattes (http://epocemx.sourceforge.net/). I compiled the tool for OS/2 and used it on my PC.

If you want to remove Fontmachine, be careful not to remove the C standard library (the lib is on Z on the netBook and can't be removed).

Marcus

http://www.mvcsys.de

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

Date: 14 Jun 2004 07:06:44 +0000

From: Ian Chapple

Subject: Re. Tom on Tom's Questions

Tom,

>>"I use a CF-PCMCIA (now known as PC card) adapter in my netbook, and this works fine."

- do files simply show under the 'E' drive?<<

Yes.

>> - thanks for the tips on WIFI, my netbook build is 156, this shouldn't be a problem or might it?<<

I have the latest build, which I think is 158 (I'm at work, so I can't check), and is downloadable from the Psion Teklogix website.

Cheers, Ian.

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

Date: 14 Jun 2004 07:47:48 +0000

From: Eir

Subject: Internet Faxing with 5mx

Hello all,

Because of the failure of my 6100 to provide faxing I am now looking at using an Internet faxing service. Has anyone successfully used such a service with a 5mx?

How do you send a fax from Word or Sheet on the 5mx?

How do you view incoming faxes on email? - most of the service providers seem to send emailed faxes as tiff attachments?

I ask these questions here as a quick look at some of the services on the web shows them to be set up to deal with Microsoft Windows systems.

Many thanks,

Martin O'Neill

PS I have also placed this query on PDA forums, but did not get any replies.

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

Date: 14 Jun 2004 11:29:30 +0000

From: Chris S Handley

Subject: Re: Opera

Hello Andy,

Andy Hayes wrote:

> Kevin asked about Opera.

> It has possibly been one of the most painful surfing

> experiances that I have ever had.

> I doubt whether the EPOC version mimics IE properly as sites

> that check to see what browser you have declare that they

> can't tell and wont let you in. My bank was one of them.

Possibly Opera reports it is an OLD version of IE?

But really, it is your bank's fault for assuming everyone uses IE, and I would complain to them that it should be up to you (not them) to decide if your choice of browser is up to the job. If they whine about being responsible for security or some rubbish, then point out that their website could give a warning to non-IE users *and still let them proceed at their own risk*!

> Opera seems to have difficulty coping with anything out of

> the ordinary. It totally screws up some pages by overlapping

> text so that you have to mess about with the page

> magnification to be able to read the page. Google's

Yes, Opera's text rendering is a bit cack sometimes - mainly at the edge of pages. Personally I wouldn't bother altering magnification, since anything other than 100% seems to be very buggy.

> The app runs like

> treacle at the best of times, although to be fair I have

> never ran anything else on this line so I don't know what its

> quality is like.

The main point I'd like to make is that Opera's preferences have a large impact on the time taken to render some pages, as well as the accuracy. Often it is better to click on the User CSS button (to show the little guy). The cache settings can apparently have a big impact on speed too. Quite why Opera was never provided with sensible defaults is beyond me.

Of course, good preference settings will only improve Opera somewhat, and it might still not be good enough for you.

> If an OK button is highlighted on a web page

> you would imagine that you could take the default choice and

> press return on your EPOC keyboard to select that OK action -

> wrong. You have to click on it.

Yes, this was a stupid oversight that they never fixed because of abandoned development.

> Although it is slow normally,

> it is absolutely dire if the worms are trying to connect to

> one of your ports. I run the excellent Sink2 but things still

> grind to a crawl. My advice - don't do it. Get a cheap PC and

> use that instead.

Hmmmm, have you tried the official TCP/IP patch? Sink2 is only a hack.

> Afters year of being really impressed with Psions it is

> probably Opera that has done more to make me realise that

> they are now very limited if you want to interface with the

> rest of the world.

Certainly it is getting much harder to make Psions interface with the rest of the world, but for some people I think this effort will be small compared to the benefits of owning a Psion!

> My Mac can't come soon enough.

Mac's are pretty good IMHO - much simpler & more reliable than Windows, and I'm sure you'll soon be a huge convert! But if you want a really easy, robust, small & instant-on device, then a Psion is still probably your only option. If only someone would release Symbian running on a Netbook then I think most of your (and our) gripes would be gone...