- Anyone interested in an Mbook??

- Comment on Entry on "UIQ" by Steve Hodgson

- UIQ/Symbian, Palm & Smartphone operating systems

- Nokia 9500 Excel problem.

- SMTP servers, GPS, Nokia 9500 Excel Problem, The future for UIQ,

- Re: Upgrade to XP

- Re: The Digest V1 # 798 (5)

Date: 28 Sep 2005 08:51:04 +0000
From: Bernie <address truncated>
Subject: Anyone interested in an Mbook??

Hi all,
I have an Mbook which I am no longer using nowadays (a shame really) as I have my laptop and the 9300. I am keen to sell it to a Psion user, who can appreciate and use it well. I have the gold card, a printer cable, rs232 cable, a cisco wifi card and the mbook itself and would be keen to sell it for £100 ono.

Is anyone interested? if so, please email me at bernieckm<at>yahoo.co.uk

Cheers,
Bernard

Date: 28 Sep 2005 09:04:20 +0000
From: Franco Cozzani <address truncated>
Subject: Comment on Entry on "UIQ" by Steve Hodgson

Steve wrote:

"The apparent death of Cobalt, move to Linux and the very recent
announcement of Palm hardware running Windows means I don't feel
particularly upbeat about the survival of the 'classic' PDA at the moment."

I fully agree with you, Steve. The issue is "do we care?". I am limping
along on a Palm TE2 (an excellent machine in view of its low price) after my
MC 218 died simply because it was a little too late to buy a SE P910 (the
Hermione aka P 950 was already rumoured) and I have been complaing on these
pages about defects in the Nokias 9300 and 9500 that should not be there.

But I have no doubt that a Smartphone is excellent as minimum data device to
have always with you, and that our beloved Psions were unbeated for
functionality.
So, I am not so much crying the eventual demise of the simple tablet PDA …
as I am missing a real successor to the 5MX, Netbook etc, which is simply
not there!


> Franco COZZANI
> Brussels
>

Date: 28 Sep 2005 11:17:38 +0000
From: Arabbitte <address truncated>
Subject: UIQ/Symbian, Palm & Smartphone operating systems

To: Steve Litchfield
Subject: OPL on next gen Symbian devices

<<<
The problem is that the OPL runtime has a number of (ahem) hacks that help it work with Symbian OS 6 and 7. So far, noone's found a way of getting it to work on ANY OS 8 or 9 devices. The OPL project *desperately* needs a really good Symbian-experienced C++ programmer with some spare time and motivation to take on the code base and adapt it for the new generation of smartphones. >>>

This response is exactly what I didn't want to hear. Looking at the timescales, I'd say there is now no way OPL will be ready for the launch of the P950 which - although nobody knows for sure - will probably be before Christmas. Added to the lack of personal Java, and it looks like there may initially be be a dearth of applications available for it. But I hope I'm WRONG! I hope that Documents to Go, Route 66, Smartmovie, SMan, Handy Databank, OggPlay and all the other popular UIQ applications are currently in the latter stages of testing and proofing in the new environment; digitally signed and ready to go.

But I doubt it. As a tiny example, if you go to the UIQ site, you will find all types of technical documentation on UIQ 2.1 available for free download but if you go looking for the same for UIQ 3, the best you can get is a - rather aspirational - 6 page "glossy". Doesn't give me a lot of confidence for something thats going to be running on a phone in the next 3 months or so ...

I would consider myself an early adopter and this means I buy things a little to early in the product lifecycle; so I generally spend too much money for too little return. Even taking this into account, I'm not sure if I will make an early jump to a P950 (or whatever it will be called). From what I see today, I think I'd be loosing lots of functionality (never mind money!) and gaining very little.

To: Steve Hodgson
Subject: Palm

<<<
Yes, the joys of multitasking are denied us Palm users for the moment. While on a Psion I could browse the Web, check e-mail, write a document and be planning a route all at (apparently) the same time, such pleasures are unavailable to me on the latest Palm hardware. The apparent death of Cobalt, move to Linux and the very recent announcement of Palm hardware running Windows means I don't feel particularly upbeat about the survival of the 'classic' PDA at the moment.
>>>

I agree - I saw the official announcement of this yesterday. Initially, it appears to make great commercial sense. After all, business users want windows - don't they? But if I think about this a bit more - and from Palm's perspective - I would question what their future holds. What differentiates them from all the other Windows-powered smartphone providors?  What is a Palm Smartphone without a Palm operating system? How can they compete with other Smartphone vendors (many based in the East and with much smaller cost bases)? With the recent sale of Palmsource to Access, maybe they no longer have a choice. My own feeling is that when Palm was sold to 3Com all those years ago, they sat on their hands for too long and milked the platform without making any investment. 

Maybe they need to look at Symbian? V9 with UIQ3?

All the best from Dublin, Ireland
Alan RabbitteUIQ/Symbian, Palm and Smartphone Operating Systems

To: Steve Litchfield
Subject: OPL on next gen Symbian devices

<<<
The problem is that the OPL runtime has a number of (ahem) hacks that help it work with Symbian OS 6 and 7. So far, noone's found a way of getting it to work on ANY OS 8 or 9 devices. The OPL project *desperately* needs a really good Symbian-experienced C++ programmer with some spare time and motivation to take on the code base and adapt it for the new generation of smartphones.
>>>

This response is exactly what I didn't want to hear. Looking at the timescales, I'd say there is now no way OPL will be ready for the launch of the P950 which - although nobody knows for sure - will probably be before Christmas. Added to the lack of personal Java, and it looks like there may initially be be a dearth of applications available for it. But I hope I'm WRONG! I hope that Documents to Go, Route 66, Smartmovie, SMan, Handy Databank, OggPlay and all the other popular UIQ applications are currently in the latter stages of testing and proofing in the new environment; digitally signed and ready to go.

But I doubt it. As a tiny example, if you go to the UIQ site, you will find all types of technical documentation on UIQ 2.1 available for free download but if you go looking for the same for UIQ 3, the best you can get is a - rather aspirational - 6 page "glossy". Doesn't give me a lot of confidence for something thats going to be running on a phone in the next 3 months or so ...

I would consider myself an early adopter and this means I buy things a little to early in the product lifecycle; so I generally spend too much money for too little return. Even taking this into account, I'm not sure if I will make an early jump to a P950 (or whatever it will be called). From what I see today, I think I'd be loosing lots of functionality (never mind money!) and gaining very little.


To: Steve Hodgson
Subject: Palm

<<<
Yes, the joys of multitasking are denied us Palm users for the moment. While on a Psion I could browse the Web, check e-mail, write a document and be planning a route all at (apparently) the same time, such pleasures are unavailable to me on the latest Palm hardware. The apparent death of Cobalt, move to Linux and the very recent announcement of Palm hardware running Windows means I don't feel particularly upbeat about the survival of the 'classic' PDA at the moment.
>>>

I agree - I saw the official announcement of this yesterday. Initially, it appears to make great commercial sense. After all, business users want windows - don't they? But if I think about this a bit more - and from Palm's perspective - I would question what their future holds. What differentiates them from all the other Windows-powered smartphone providors?  What is a Palm Smartphone without a Palm operating system? How can they compete with other Smartphone vendors (many based in the East and with much smaller cost bases)? With the recent sale of Palmsource to Access, maybe they no longer have a choice. My own feeling is that when Palm was sold to 3Com all those years ago, they sat on their hands for too long and milked the platform without making any investment. 

Maybe they need to look at Symbian? V9 with UIQ3?

All the best from Dublin, Ireland
Alan Rabbitte

Date: 28 Sep 2005 13:00:44 +0000
From: Charles Davies <address truncated>
Subject: Nokia 9500 Excel problem.

Further to my last posting I transferred the formula in the Psion 5mx
which is a nested MOD.  
The 9500 still does'n't like it.  In fact it takes a good 5 minutes to
convert and then only the result of the formula appears in the cells
the formula itself disappears.  Again takes another 5 minutes to save
going for some unknown reason into the Conversion mode again.
Could there be a restriction on the nesting - only 3 deep.
Any ideas anyone ?
Charles Davies

Date: 28 Sep 2005 14:10:35 +0000
From: Itamar Engelsman <address truncated>
Subject: SMTP servers, GPS, Nokia 9500 Excel Problem, The future for UIQ,

Answer to: George

Re.: SMTP servers, GPS - Wha do you mean with "AUTHSMTP" ?  Do you mean the program SmtpAuh for he Psions or is this something else ?
As to the Garmin GPS, is that the one currently advertised for abt 200 pounds with UK maps only ?  How does it compare to the routeplanner programs you were used to and can you add European maps to it ? Is it possible to add he speed cameras to it as well ?

Answer to: Charles Davies

Re.: Nokia 9500 Excel Problem - I don't have a 9500 but wo thoughs come to mind. Maybe it could be that the file is in a different format tha the Psion and others can read bu the 9500 cannot ?  Another though is to convert the file to a .csv file and try to import that file into the 9500.

Answer to: Alan Rabbitte

Re.: The future for UIQ - First of all I would like to say that it is interesting that with all the criticism of Microsoft their OS's are fully backward compatible. I still run a program on my Windows XP computer that was written in the 1980's (!) to run on a PC with 2 floppy disks and DOS only.    Personally I think it is sad that the various Companies working on OS's do not take backward compatibillity as an important matter and prefer to see the commercial advantage of users buying everything new again. Each time you buy a new phone (not to speak of PDA's) you have the chance that the database for storage of phone numbers has changed again needing to retpye everything into the phone again. You buy a car with Bluetooth in it compatible with your current phone and a year later you change the phone and the car system cannot read the stored phonenumbers anymore (happened to me). Or you buy a phone/PDA and invest in various bits and pieces and software and just a year or two later it is all outdated and you need to buy it all again, if all the different software programs are available at all for the new gadget. Maybe in this light it might be beter to initially invest in several gadgets instead of all in one (phone, GPS system, PDA, etc) so that if you update one you will not necessarily have to update everything with it ?  Your thoughts please ?

Best regards,
Itamar Engelsman
London, UK

Date: 28 Sep 2005 19:15:18 +0000
From: Colin Messer <address truncated>
Subject: Re: Upgrade to XP

Mark Kenepp wrote on: 26 Sep 2005 17:57

> My Pocket did not work with PsiWin 2.3.3 so I had to make that
> sacrifice in order to synchronize with Outlook.

Hi Mark,

What problems did you have with MyPocket?  I use it on XP every day and would be sad to lose its functionality.

Regards
Colin

Date: 28 Sep 2005 21:23:46 +0000
From: Tony Napier <address truncated>
Subject: Re: The Digest V1 # 798 (5)

Hello all
re e mail and broadband.
I still have not solved my inability to send mail via broadband. Many thanks to all who replied about this but I still seem to be out 
of my depth completely. I have set smpt addresses appropriate to my 
mail providers, are they not the same whether you are using dial up 
or broadband? Or since I am using BT broadband to connect to the 
internet do I have to get an smpt address from them (BT)? I did ask 
them about this some time ago and I got no assistance.
I have two dial up accounts. Which.net and doctors.org.uk. I can 
connect via broadband and pick up mail from both accounts. I can also 
send mail to myself at either the which.net or doctors.org address, 
even to my wife to her own doctors.org address but mail to any other 
address apart from which.net or doctors.org addresses fails.
I have set up a logs/email directory as suggested by marcus but I am 
not getting any authorisation failure comments so it does not seem as 
though smpt authorisation is the problem?
If anyone uses BT broadband I would be interested to hear from them. Thanks
Tony