The Digest V1 # 588

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The Digest Fri, 03 Sep 2004 Volume 01 : Number 588

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Sent to: 745 subscribers

In today's digest 08 messages:

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- TomTom CityMaps .sis files

- Re: The Digest V1 # 587

- Re: DOS better than Windows, Palm support!!, Crontab & Freenote, Email Problem

- Re: Sony Ericsson K700 and Series 5mx

- Re: Crontab & Freenote

- To Rolf: Windows vs Unix

- RE: Revo -Open Case-

- Durabillity of Symbian,

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Date: 2 Sep 2004 13:15:13 +0000

From: Keith Giles

Subject: TomTom CityMaps .sis files

I'm trying to find out how to extract the .sis files from the TomTom CityMaps-Europe CD. I remember someone gave the instructions. I looked in the Psioneering archive database. What I'm looking for might be in issue #552. The archive itself skips #552. Could someone check that issue and see if the instructions are indeed there and if so, send them to me.

Thanks.

Happy Cycling,

Keith

Sunnyvale, CA

http://ohsix827.home.comcast.net

Thought For The Day: Most of us don't mind getting older, but we do mind having aging children.

All my outgoing e-mails have been checked by Norton Anti-virus.

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Date: 2 Sep 2004 16:15:15 +0000

From: Martin Maxwell

Subject: Re: The Digest V1 # 587

Date: 1 Sep 2004 21:37:01 +0000

From: Martin Maxwell

Subject: Re: Durabillity of Symbian

Dear Rolf,

You have repeated Dr David Potter's statements almost verbatim. But I don't agree.

>It's thanks to Dr. Potter's whims and fancies that we've been using Psion handheld computers. <

This is not a question of belittling his past achievements. They are worthy of awe. This is a question of the market asking: 'Can we rely on someone with a tradition of L-turns and U-turns to be a credible systems provider without leaving us in the lurch the next time around'?

>I suppose that your "whims and fancies" is based on Psion PLc. selling it's stake in Symbian Ltd.<

Only partially. There are quite a few more. In fact, I was always very much in favour of Psion exiting from Symbian to obtain much needed capital. They really didn't have a choice. Since Symbian didn't go public according to the initial timeline, Psion's sharemarket behaviour was clearly that of a Symbian proxy. They needed to make sure that their share price didn't sway with the ups and downs of Symbian but rather according to their own performance.

> That was to be expected as the company had two Symbian OS licensees - Psion Computers and Psion-Teklogix<

Really? There is no logic link in this sentence at all. If anything, two licencees would speak in favour of continuing at least with one. However, I never saw Psion mentioned two times in the licencee list, so

I think it was only one, the Plc. Furthermore, Psion Plc still has rights to certain parts of ER5. This is why Symbian has problems open sourcing OPL v5 for instance. They have only been able to make OPL v6 and later open source.

>Psion Computers has pulled out of the consumer market and has been wound up.<

Is it a whim or a fancy? Sure it's a fait accompli now, probably never to be reverted, though several prominent shareholder groupings were pushing for the Sendo acquisition idea.

>While Psion-Teklogix has been in the process to move its products to Windows CE due to market conditions.<

And leaving Symbian/EPOC customers in the lurch, sacrificing a key differentiator to Symbol and Intermec and the Japanese/Korean competitors, and creating negative waves in the media. As this whim goes, rather than the argument, they cannot 'afford' to support more than one OS, and the next day they're going Linux...

>A process which has been completed recently with the introduction of the Workabout Pro.<

Again, and then there was Linux...

>The only interests in Symbian Psion Plc. had left were sentimental and financial.<

That is only true if you close your eyes, plug your ears and keep rehearsing David Potter quotes in your head. The truth is that David Potter had a whim/fancy that he did not want Symbian. Any proposed logic reason for this can easily be dismissed. Meanwhile Nokia and others were setting up enterprise business units focussing on Symbian. IBM, Oracle, Siebel, Peoplesoft and many other enterprise vendors were pushing for a non-MS alternative in enterprise mobile computing. And Sendo entered the consumer market with a much smaller capital base than Psion, and literally had to start building from scratch, tear down the Windows Mobile house, then build again.

>It doesn't make that much sense to remain a Symbian partner when your primary interest, Symbian OS >based products, has gone. <

It wasn't gone at all. It was David Potter's credibility and consistent development of his vision that was gone.

Believe me, I'm in touch with many PT distributors and system integrators, though it's a long time ago I was one myself, but that's what they're saying. "If we now invest in porting our SIBO and/or EPOC applications over to the new PT line, how can we be sure that PT makes another L-turn? Is WinCE a guarantee for that? Only if we change vendor to Symbol, Omron or Intermec! No I rather stay with my Workabouts and then call it a day with Psion. If I'm going WinCE they're so many much cheaper Taiwanese and Koreans now to choose from.".

No, sorry to have to say it, he's done some incredible things in the past, but Dr David Potter appears to have lost the plot. Moreover, and perhaps somewhat related, he has lost his brilliant team of thinkers and architects. They're all in Symbian now. He's alone with a bunch of small-time special purpose PDA makers who are under the belief that WinCE will bring higher profits (!), and who still haven't got a clue about what impact smartphones are having on enterprise computing.

Kind regards

Martin Maxwell

Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia

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Date: 2 Sep 2004 18:07:18 +0000

From: Chris S Handley

Subject: Re: DOS better than Windows, Palm support!!, Crontab & Freenote, Email Problem

Subject: Re: DOS better than Windows

Rolf Brunsting wrote:

> Much has been

> written about the real and perceived monopoly position of

> Microsoft. The idea of Linux and Open Source then looks

> appealing as you're not dealing with a single big corporation.

> When Linux takes over the position of Windows it means that a

> different group of developers now has the power to dictate.

> History has show that whenever a group has the power to

> dictate it will sooner or later make use of that power.

> Collective organisations have no better track record than

> corporate organisations in this respect. Both are going to

> use the power they have for their own benefit. What Linux

> taking over the position of Windows will therefore mean to

> the software consumer is that they're now bitten by a big cat

> rather than by a big dog.

Rolf, you do sometimes talk a load of rubbish! :-)

In the past I've suspected that you don't really appreciate the differences which being Open Source provides, and this post would seem to clinch it. While I'm certainly not going to get into a protracted argument about it (as it could quickly get very boring & tedious), here's why I think you are wrong:

Microsoft represents a single group of people with one unified objective (squash or buy all competitors, including the little guys). Linux represents a diverse group of people with widely varying objectives; some will do it just for fun, some will do it to spite Microsoft, some will do it so that they have a decent OS to use, etc. The only thing they (mostly!) agree on is using the GNU GPL license.

If some sub-group of Linux developers wants to start acting Microsoftish, then they are free to try, but the odds are stacked against them:

1. Any work they do must be freely distributed to everyone else (roughly speaking), so that they cannot have the major propriatary advantage that Microsoft has. If they start from scratch, they loose the advantage of using Linux (tedious explanation omitted).

2. I suspect that most of the other Linux developers would be against this sub-group, so I wouldn't be surprised if they actively worked to exclude them from their latest developments for as long as is possible (basically until they publically release their new stuff).

3. Most programmers are also users(!), so if Linux was the domiant OS, then that is an awful lot of potential Linux developers - and I seriously doubt that any one sub-group of people would find it productive to work against them all! The only reason current programmers don't work on the Windows OS is because it is completely Closed Source (and signing an NDA to see the source doesn't make it Open whatever Microsoft says).

Of course, the best argument for your or my position would be some actual documented cases, but I suspect we'd have difficulty finding them. (Although the Cathedral & Bazaar document probably gives some anecdotal evidence in my favour.)

---

Chris Handley

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

Subject: Re: Palm support!!

ian chapple wrote:

> I'll reply to Rolf Brunsting's lengthy, and somewhat

> patronising (there's something new!) posting by summarising

> our experience as follows:

Hi Ian,

While I'm sure Rolf's intentions were good, it's a pity he doesn't try to temper his fountain-of-knowledge tendency, by checking his assumptions about the poster first... Certainly his posts are always full of useful information, but occasionally they aren't actually relevant or helpful, as in your case :(

I'm just hoping that Rolf doesn't decide to compound his slight mistake by denying it and attempting to justify himself instead - as I suspect that would lead to a nasty argument.

---

Chris Handley, who believes in being (too?) honest, and like Rolf is sometimes afflicted by the desire to give helpful advice... which is not always the best combination ;)

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

Subject: Crontab & Freenote

Itamar Engelsman wrote:

> Thanks for the answer.

> I suppose the right command in a macro would be

> FgApp%:("D:\System\Apps\FreeNote\?????") but which file is

> the data file ?

If Freenote follows EPOC conventions, then it will use the last opened document. However, it would be better to open the document directly:

FgDoc%:("C:\Documents\Foobar")

---

Chris Handley

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

Subject: Re: Email Problem

For the program that I posted, I recommend changing the following line:

TRAP RENAME Index$, Backup$

with this:

RENAME Index$, Backup$

It's not that important, but it might prevent a small mistake by the user.

---

Chris Handley

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Date: 2 Sep 2004 18:21:26 +0000

From: Bob

Subject: Re: Sony Ericsson K700 and Series 5mx

I have only seen photos of the K700 and it looks cool. I have a T610 and it works fine with my Series 5mx and my Netbook. I am not sure if the operations is such that it is different for hooking up to the T610. I have been looking at the K700 with interest, not sure if its worth upgrading or not. The ony thing that I have to do is set up the IR on the T610 and with the set up on the 5mx it works great. Even while in England to check my stateside email it works great.

Thanks,

Bob

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Date: 2 Sep 2004 18:52:59 +0000

From: Chris S Handley

Subject: Re: Crontab & Freenote

Subject: Crontab & Freenote

Itamar Engelsman wrote:

> Thanks for the answer.

> I suppose the right command in a macro would be

> FgApp%:("D:\System\Apps\FreeNote\?????") but which file is

> the data file ?

Ignore my last reply, if not already - I misread it, having not noticed the "?????" bit of the path.

Since I assume FreeNote doesn't have multiple documents (just as Contacts doesn't), then you should just start FreeNote itself. This would be done by:

FgApp%:("D:\System\Apps\FreeNote\FreeNote.app")

---

Chris Handley

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Date: 3 Sep 2004 00:05:20 +0000

From: Antony Booth

Subject: To Rolf: Windows vs Unix

To Rolf

I apologise to all about the size of this post, but I am addressing several issues at once.

<< The best multitasking O/S was and still is Unix and its variants >>

>Which expresses your personal preference rather than plain fact as the operating systems by DEC and IBM didn't have to bow to UNIX when it comes to multi-tasking and a number of the other features you mention. And what you forget is that UNIX and Windows served completely different sections of the computer world for a very long time. The feature of "mounting additional disks on the same volume instead of creating a new drive" is only of interest when you have a fairly big computer with multiple disks. Such a computer is overkill for the overall majority of home, home office and small office situations. And for such applications it's no problem having all business documents on drive C and the financial administration on drive D.

Yes it is my personal opinion. Your post was your personal opinion. Unix has always been a server technology and Microsoft was a desktop operating system that has made efforts to capture the server market since the development of NT 3. It has more recently made efforts to capture the unix market with the aquisition of Citrix's MultiWin technology, but the underlying operating system is a desktop system, with server services added to provide server functionality. As windows servers were windows desktop technology, there were always problems with increasing disk space when servers were full. This often involved cloning disk contents onto larger disks as a way to increase disk space. With Unix, you'd simply install another disk and mount the volume as a directory on the filesystem.

<< ... and development heading towards more platform independant technologies like Web based server sided scripting, java and .net(???), it is obvious that MS Windows advantages are quickly becoming fewer ...

>The same can be said about UNIX. When you have well defined and standardised exchange and interaction mechanisms it doesn't really matter which operating system you have on the server side or on the client side.<

As Windows is the primary desktop at the moment and applications are becoming more platform independant, so the dependance on having a windows desktop reduces. As X-windows products have become more sophisticated and Suns Java desktop is fully developed, Unix based systems are now taking market share from Windows desktops as well as retaining and in some variants increasing server market share, again at the expense of windows products.

<< ... and when hardware developers afford more time towards Linux drivers rather than leave it to 3rd parties to develop their own, the primary global O/S will be Linux ... >>

>The linux philosophy of create your own code and/or improve the code of others isn't always working to Linux's advantage. Hardware

manufacturers don't have to do anything as far as Linux is concerned. When Linux people get damned irritated about there being no driver for device 'X' they'll write one in their own time and at their own expense.<

It's not a philosophy, but a necessity. If the manufacturers make their own drivers, there'd be no need for Linux developers to make them.

<< O/S performance will no longer be improved by hardware upgrades, but by ever efficient code and greater application selection and tuning, thanks to the open source concept >>

>This is plain nonsense as there's always a limit to the amount of performance tuning you can do. There comes a point at which you're

using each and every clock cycle of of the processor extremely efficiently. You can then only get more processing power by moving to a more powerful processor. The same applies to data storage as the speed at which you can move data to and from a hard disk is finally

determined by the hard disk. Having a much faster operating system and applications is then the equivalent of a Ferrari that's stuck in a traffic jam.

This is not nonsense as performance tuning of applications and services on open source systems can be refined for specific tasks. On a Windows system, performance tuning is done by stopping services that don't have dependant services and changing configuration settings. This can be done with Open source too, but you can also remove unwanted functionality from a specific services source and actualy recompile the kernel, integrating the service into the core of the O/S. This is absolutely impossible with a windows operating system and will always be a limitation. As windows products are released as precompiled binaries only, code can only be modified at Microsoft. Open source code is freely available, so it is more likely that code would be modified to make it more efficient and iron out the bugs, as they can be detected and fixed at the point of fault detection by a technician and the bug fix or enhancement submitted for review to an Open source organisation, to be included in the next release of that product. Microsoft cant beat that level of debugging and product development, because no company is big enough to have a development department as big as it's entire customer base.

<< History will show that MS-DOS was superceded by Windows 3.1 and Windows 20?? will be superceded by Linux Kernel ??? >>

>Let's all hope that it doesn't go this way. Much has been written about the real and perceived monopoly position of Microsoft. The idea of Linux and Open Source then looks appealing as you're not dealing with a single big corporation. But it doesn't make any difference to the vast majority of computer users. They don't have the talent, or have insufficient talent, to develop software. They have to rely on the software others produce for them - that software developers create the applications which meet their needs. Whether the software is supplied

by a company (Microsoft) or a collective (Linux / Open Source) doesn't really matter. When Linux takes over the position of Windows it means that a different group of developers now has the power to dictate. History has show that whenever a group has the power to dictate it will sooner or later make use of that power. Collective organisations have

no better track record than corporate organisations in this respect. Both are going to use the power they have for their own benefit. What Linux taking over the position of Windows will therefore mean to the software consumer is that they're now bitten by a big cat rather than

by a big dog.<

Commercial applications are made for Linux desktops too. The main difference with Linux and Windows is much of the development is free, or licenced with GNU. I think you'll find that for every application Microsoft have developed, there is another development company who also has a similar product, even for a Microsoft operating system. Much of what Microsoft has developed is a clone of someone elses product anyway. The difference between Microsoft dominating and Linux dominating is massive. Instead of one company dominating the desktop market, no one will, as no one owns Linux and an almost limitless talent pool is available to develop whatever flavour of Linux you wish to use. Anyone who tries to monopolise Linux will find themselves bypassed by other Linux developers.

You don't need to be a hacker to use Linux. You can get free versions like Fedora, stick the CD in your machine and install the product from boot up as easy as Windows XP. When it boots up, you'll get a nice GUI desktop with tons of applications already installed. You then go through the straight forward procedures of setting up your email accounts and internet connection and you've got yourself a fully functional GUI operating system with a full Office suite of applications installed. You didn't pirate a thing and it didn't cost you a bean. A miracle, you can get something for nothing. What a nightmare hey?

Antony Booth

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

Date: 3 Sep 2004 07:26:09 +0000

From: Daniele Squarci

Subject: RE: Revo -Open Case-

Manuel Campos Galvan wrote: >>My wife's Revo Plus has some type of plastic piece, inside where the batteries are held, that came loose. If you shake the Revo, you hear the bit of plastic bouncing around. Sometimes, the bit of plastic interferes with closing the Revo. Otherwise the machine is working perfectly. Before I ventured with my clumsy hands to open it, is there anything such as a guide to open Revo's?<<

I just had the very same problem. It's easy enough to solve. Take a look at http://www.portal-pda.com/guides/battcasing/battcasing.html Start at "step 9", but here's a trick to remove the Revo badge without bending it out of shape: take a warm iron and press it on the badge to warm it up evenly. This will soften the glue used to stick the badge on. Using a penknife you will be able to lever off the badge. The glue will regain its adhesive property when the badge cools down.

Once you have opened the top silver cover of the Revo you will be able to find out what's rattling inside. Most probably it will be one of the two little springs that holds the Revo closed. The plastic lugs onto which the springs are hooked tend to break off easily when the Revo is dropped. I just removed the loose spring and reassembled the Revo. It still closes well enough with just one spring.

Ciao

Daniele Squarci - Italy

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Date: 3 Sep 2004 11:54:53 +0000

From: Itamar Engelsman

Subject: Durabillity of Symbian,

Answer to: Rolf Brunsting

Re.: Durabillity of Symbian - You wrote "What you'll end up

with, however, is still an educated guess". I agree with your message, I just wondered if there are more knowlegeable people that can make a more educated guess than mine. Yours is certainly one, thanks.