- NiMH

- Re: NIMH s in P5? # 1049 (1)

- Re: The Digest V1 # 1049 (1)

- NIMH s in P5?, Corrupt CF Card,

- Re: Corrupt CF Card

- Owen Morgan

- Re: Corrupt CF Card

- Re: Corrupt CF Card

- Re: Video on netBook

- Re: Corrupt CF Card, NIMH in P5, Video on Psion, HTC Athena

Date: 29 Jan 2007 17:01:47 +0100
From: ealasaidandsimon <address truncated>
Subject: NiMH

> My P5 manual was written in 1997, before NiMH batteries became > widely available.
> Although NiCad batteries are mentioned in the manual, NiMH > batteries are not.
> Is there any reason why NiMH batteries should not be used in a > Series 5 Psion?

Dear Cyril,

We use them all the time, one set in the 5mx, one set fully charged in a wee cloth pouch ready to swap. When the batteries die they die almost instantly, so you have to have a spare set ready to go, but apart from that they are perfect, last over a week of normal use, and its nice to just put the backlight on and not worry about it costing money. Get the highest capacity you can, my usual ones are 1800mAH but I have one set somewhere that is 2100.

Simon

PS Itamar, the video thing is for impressing other geeks, not for actually watching videos!!!

Date: 29 Jan 2007 17:45:59 +0100
From: Vlad A <address truncated>
Subject: Re: NIMH s in P5? # 1049 (1)

> Cyril Catt wrote on 29.01.2007 18:36 Uhr:

> any reason why NiMH batteries should not be used in a Series 5

None!

best,

vlad a

Date: 29 Jan 2007 17:47:21 +0100
From: Vlad A <address truncated>
Subject: Re: The Digest V1 # 1049 (1)

> Melvin Woody wrote on 29.01.2007 18:36 Uhr:

> Corrupt  CF Card

In my experience, it is not worth trying to repair the file-structure of a CF. Just reformat it. Perhaps your data back in successive chunks, just to see if there's anything wrong w. any file (this shouldn't be the case though). Switching CFs between systems causes trouble (there were several threads on data-corruption here about two years ago I think). Hope this helps.

best,

vlad a

Date: 29 Jan 2007 19:23:05 +0100
From: Itamar Engelsman <address truncated>
Subject: NIMH s in P5?, Corrupt CF Card,

Answer to: Cyril Catt

Re.: NIMH s in P5? - AFAIK you can use NiMh batteries without any problems and AFAIR I used them in my S5 and 5MX too. However, be aware that they hold their charge very well and than suddenly die on you so check regularly how much power you have left and take them out before they are totally exhausted.

Answer to: Melvin Woody

Re.: Corrupt  CF Card - Why not get Checkdisk from Atelier or a similar program and check your disk for faults ? You might be able to repair the problem. If the fault is in a file it will not help you to reformat the disk and than copy the files back. If it is a disk problem you can copy everything over, reformat the disk and copy the files back again. Success.

Best regards,
Itamar Engelsman
London, UK

Date: 29 Jan 2007 20:12:05 +0100
From: Chris Holly <address truncated>
Subject: Re: Corrupt CF Card

Melvin, I have had pretty good luck in the past attaching the CF Card to my Windows computer, going through file manager, and usually found one file with a clearly spurious appearance (usually huge). I deleted it in Windows and then shut down the card in windows, removed it from the computer and popped it into the Psion, and all seemed forgiven. If that worked I might still be inclined to reformat it with EDU, but it probably is not necessary. I would then also use FastBack or something to put a lot of data on the card to see if you get another error, and if not I would hope it was OK.

Be advised, I do not know what I am talking about. this was just something that worked for me.  --Chris Holly

----- Original Message -----
Date: 25 Jan 2007 20:58:09 +0100
From: Melvin Woody <address truncated>
Subject: Corrupt  CF Card

I've just discovered that the CF card that I've been using in my Mbook is corrupt. (A little black bar with that message appears when I shift from "C" to "D" drives.  I had been having lots of trouble using the Mbook because I would open files and write into them and then, when I tried to reopen and add, I'd get a corrupt notice about the file and could not save it in its revised form.  So in one way, I'm glad to discover that the problem seems to be in the card as a whole.  I've tried opening, changing and saving files using a smaller CF card that i had on hand, and that all goes very well.
     But what do I do now?  I find that I've backed up that CF card pretty well - hopefully before it became corrupted, although I can't be sure. Should I try reformatting the card?  Or should I delete one file or folder at a time in hopes that one file has jinxed the whole disk? Or should I just buy a new card and forget the one that's corrupt?
    I'll be grateful for any guidance.

Melvin Woody

Date: 29 Jan 2007 20:39:30 +0100
From:<address truncated>
Subject: Owen Morgan

Apologies for posting this if you have already seen, but those who remember Owen Morgan may be interested to see a collection of his photos from his various journeys - www.panoramio.com/user/95799

Regards all

Matthew Walters

Date: 29 Jan 2007 22:42:48 +0100
From: Chris Handley
Subject: Re: Corrupt CF Card

Melvin Woody wrote:
> I've just discovered that the CF card that I've been using in my Mbook is > corrupt.

> Should I try reformatting the card?
>  Or should I delete one file or folder at a time in hopes that one file
> has jinxed the whole disk? Or should I just buy a new card and forget the > one that's corrupt?     I'll be grateful for any guidance.

Do a QUICK format.  But you now need to determine whether the corruption was due to a one-off mistake by the computer, or whether the CF card is going bad (worn out).  The simplest way would be to copy some large JPG pictures, until the CF is full, and then to view all the pictures to see if there is any corruption (typically 8x8 pixels blocks).

An alternative would be to download & install Atelier's Essential Disk Utilities, which was free from Martin G's site (in Lost & Found I think) the last time I looked, and then use Check Disk to try repairing the CF card.  It will take a long time.  You should then use CheckDisk *again*, to see if some problems remain - if they do, then the CF card is going bad (worn out).  This is probably a less reliable method of checking, but you could do it before doing my first suggestion, just to be sure!

Note that these suggestions are off the top of my head, and there are surely other ways of doing it, and some may be better than my ideas.
---
Chris Handley

Date: 30 Jan 2007 03:43:50 +0100
From: g y reyes <address truncated>
Subject: Re: Corrupt CF Card

At 05:43 PM 1/29/2007 +0100, you wrote:
>Date: 25 Jan 2007 20:58:09 +0100
>From: Melvin Woody <address truncated>
>Subject: Corrupt  CF Card

>I've just discovered that the CF card that I've been using in my >Mbook is corrupt. (A little black bar with that message appears when >I shift from "C" to "D" drives.  I had been having lots of trouble >using the Mbook because I would open files and write into them and >then, when I tried to reopen and add, I'd get a corrupt notice about >the file and could not save it in its revised form.  So in one way, >I'm glad to discover that the problem seems to be in the card as a >whole.  I've tried opening, changing and saving files using a >smaller CF card that i had on hand, and that all goes very well.
>      But what do I do now?  I find that I've backed up that CF card > pretty well - hopefully before it became corrupted, although I
> can't be sure.  Should I try reformatting the card?  Or should I
> delete one file or folder at a time in hopes that one file has
> jinxed the whole disk? Or should I just buy a new card and forget
> the one that's corrupt?
>     I'll be grateful for any guidance.

>Melvin Woody

Melvin,

There are software packages in the market today that will help you recover lost, deleted, corrupted, etc. files on practically any media.

You might want to try something like "Object Rescue".  You can download a demo version that will be able to show you what files are recoverable.  But you will be able to actually recover the files only after purchasing a license.

I've tried this particular software and it seems to work.

Gary

"Seek no rewards, only the promised wage of a worker in the vineyard."

Date: 30 Jan 2007 11:32:18 +0100
From: Colin Messer <address truncated>
Subject: Re: Video on netBook

Reply to David, Austin and Itamar

Thank you, yes it was Phil Gooch's solution at:
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~philgooch/psion/video/index.html

that I successfully tried, at least installing and using the Java player, and running the clips on his web site.

I bought QuickTime-pro and tried half a dozen free converters but never cracked the method of converting clips that would play on a netBook.  Last time I looked QuickTime had unexpectedly updated itself from a pro to a free next version without the same conversion facilities.  Perhaps I'll start by upgrading to the latest QuickTime-pro first.

It is indeed true that the netBook does not have the same quality as HDTV, or my non-HDTV, or any video player that I have seen for that matter, but that it can play video is remarkable and I would like to see how good a clip I can get working.

Phil's samples are optimised for a 25MHz rather than the 192MHz netBook so I should be able to get a clip running at 8 times better quality than Phil's samples, if only I can work out how.

There are some limitations as to the size of clip as the Java player loads the whole clip into memory, so converting the Lord of the Rings trilogy will be possible in small chunks but may give a unsatisfying final result.  What i had in mind was, for example, watching small low resolution clips taken on my camera.

Thank you all for your contributions.  Now, those step-by-step instructions for the hard of thinking ...

Regards
Colin

Date: 30 Jan 2007 22:40:00 +0100
From: David Steer \(Plus\) <address truncated>
Subject: Re: Corrupt CF Card, NIMH in P5, Video on Psion, HTC Athena

To Melvin Woody,

Subject: Corrupt  CF Card

I have had this before, it was (for me) caused by a corrupt file or folder entry and was often not due to any real file being corrupted.  I always solved the problem by manually copying folders to a backup on my PC.  The corruption will prevent a particular folder from being copied and providing you do the copy in small chunks you can quickly fins out where (more often than not it is somewhere in the System folder).  Once you have copied all but the corruption, you can then re format the card and copy your files back.  If you are happy that your back up is good, do a disk check on the drive on your PC where it is, this is a precaution as it can fix some bad files, though I have not had much success with checking CF cards with corruptions.

I usually change my CF card every few years as they have a finite number of reads capability (usually millions) so it depend on how you use your CF card, I expect it is still good so try the recovery route first.

Regards
David Steer
------------------------------

To Cyril

Subject: Any problems with NIMH s in P5?

I have been using (at least I was) NIMH batteries on my 5mx for some time.  They worked fine for me.  They are rated at 1.2 volts where alkaline batteries are 1.5 volts, however, this never caused any problems.  The only caution required is that the time between your low battery waning and the system shutting down is not long with NIMH batteries.  So you always need a spare set for when this happens and ensure your back up battery is good in case your system dies.  If you leave yore machine not in use for any period of time I don't recommend using NIMH because of this.  However, if you use it often there are some now rated at 2700ma, when I was trying them mine were 1800ma and I had good results.

Regards
David Steer

------------------------------

To Itamar Engelsman,
Subject: Video on Psion

Because the netBook only has 256 colours, quality is not so good, however, it is often on the conversion that matters, for example Opera does not render graphics as well as Web does.  I guess quality will be very dependent on how you convert the video.  But as I said, it really is for fun factor and to show it can be done.  I would never use it seriously as it is just not that good.

Regards
David Steer

------------------------------

To John Morris
Subject: HTC Athena - Netbook replacement?

The HTC Athena looks very promising, it will be good to see in the flesh, I hope that aps support the 640*480 screen.  This device might be capable of replacing the Psion, though the keyboard may not be up to scratch, we will have to wait till at least Q2 for this though and it looks pricey at about $1200!  Lets hope there are some god deals or some unlocked version of it around.  Battery life also sounds good at about 8 hours - much better than any UMPC - finally there might be some light at the end of the tunnel, at least if this one is not it the Athena II might be if they ever make it!

David Steer