Epocdigest V1 # 431

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Epoc Digest Sat, 24 Jan 2004 Volume 01 : Number 431

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Sent to: 798 subscribers

In today's Epoc Digest 20 messages:

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

- Psion Journal

- Re: Random numbers

- Netbook US adapter

- Apology and a question re LittleSense

- RE: USSpell

- Re: Spam & the Digest's anti-spam protection

- Work from out of the office

- Email addresses

- Re: WLAN encryption

- Advertising on the list

- Re: Random numbers

- Re: Random numbers, Ebook replace macro &Spam & the Digest's anti-spam protect

- Re: How do I convert Psion 5 Record (sound) files to play on my PC

- Spam & the Digest,

- Re: Spam & the Digest's anti-spam protection

- 5mx application installation problem

- Backing up a 5mx to a Revo

- Spam?

- Bookmarks app, data more important than hardware, netBookscreen bringhtness

- USB PsiWin cable.

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Date: 21 Jan 2004 16:14:26 +0100

From: Neil Ogden

Subject: Psion Journal

Just tried this site, but appears to be down?

Date: 21 Jan 2004 14:38:06 +0100

Subject: Re. Psion Journal

more information can be found at www.psioncomputer.com.

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Date: 23 Jan 2004 02:15:11 +0100

From: Andrew Gregory

Subject: Re: Random numbers

The difference between Chris Handley's

RANDOMIZE INT((((MONTH*31.0 + DAY)*24.0 + HOUR)*60.0 + MINUTE) * 60.0 + SECOND)

and my

RANDOMIZE DATETOSECS(YEAR,MONTH,DAY,HOUR,MINUTE,SECOND)

is very small. Obviously, Chris' one will repeat it's seed values approximately every year. Mine will generate different values for all time (or at least the limits of the Psion date/time routines - about the year 2100 I think). I'd like to think mine is easier to type and remember.

As to the quality of the subsequent random numbers, a lot depends on the unknown algorithm used to generate the random number sequence from the seed. I don't think there would be any noticable difference. Flip a coin! :)

Andrew Gregory, <URL: mailto:andrew

<URL: http://www.scss.com.au/family/andrew/ >

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Date: 23 Jan 2004 02:34:32 +0100

From: Jim Watson-Gove

Subject: Netbook US adapter

Thomas,

<<1) I followed the discussion on this list, but failed to draw the conclusion. Which is the cheapest / best way to obtain a US power adapter for my beloved Malaybook ? I am now still in Belgium. Would Expansys then still be the way ?>>

If you are going to order from Expansys, do it early. It took about a month to get mine.

If your power unit is rated at 100-240 VAC, a simple plug adapter would do the it. If not it gets tricky (plug converter plus a $39 Radio Shack US 110 to EU 240 converter) and probably best to buy one from Expansis.

jim - port townsend

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Date: 23 Jan 2004 03:58:51 +0100

From: Moshe Nahir

Subject: Apology and a question re LittleSense

Hi Antony (in Canberra) and All,

First my sincerest apologies to you for 'reposting' by an unfortunate accident your posting from Digest #393 in Digest #429. I must have pressed the wrong button once again.

I have a problem with my 5mx and will be grateful for any advice. I have been using the English dictionary Little Sense by Necronomicon, which I had registered several years ago. A few weeks ago it suddenly gave me the message that the program is unregistered and that I should register it. It also stopped giving definitions for about half the entries, as if I was unregistered. I emailed Necronomicon about the problem a week ago but have had no response. I searched the Internet and it looks like they may not be with us any more. Does anyone happen to know if this company is out of business? Is there anything I can do to reregister my LittleSense? If there is nothing I can do about this, does anyone know of a good English dictionary for my 5mx (other than Tom Raider, which has some limitations)? I tried the Collins and the TomTom Web sites, but it looks like they no longer sell English dictionaries in the Psion format.

I will appreciate any help.

Moshe Nahir

Winnipeg, Canada

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Date: 23 Jan 2004 08:10:55 +0100

From: ExAbEtAl

Subject: RE: USSpell

Hi Spell checkers,

UK, US, Italian, Spanish, German, French, Dutch thesauruses and dictionaries, as well as SpellX, a handy language switcher, are available at:

http://website.leidenuniv.nl/~linthorsthjm/exabetal/

on the Welcome page click the link "Jasper"

click on the tip of his nose

Have fun,

Huub

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

Date: 23 Jan 2004 08:16:40 +0100

From: Rolf Vonau

Subject: Re: Spam & the Digest's anti-spam protection

Reference is made to the mail in the Epoc Digest V1 # 430 :

Astrid Stappenbeck wrote at 22.01.04 (> ):

> The main danger was the net and the old digests

> that you can access that way.

Hi Astrid,

don't worry,

we removed all addresses from _all_ old digest at psioneering.co.uk, a long time ago.

Best Regards

Rolf

Munich

http://home.arcor.de/rhvonau/index.htm

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

Date: 23 Jan 2004 08:52:07 +0100

From: Antony

Subject: Work from out of the office

To: Joe Fell

>I've been home for three months (broken leg) and kept working by having a friend set up "gotomypc" at my computer at work. Now, from any internet-enabled computer, I can "sit" at my desk and work. Disadvantage: all printouts are in the office!

Joe<

You can install a printer driver on your works PC to output to as text file or PDF document. This way, you can transfer your printouts to your local device.

Antony Booth

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

Date: 23 Jan 2004 09:06:43 +0100

From: Antony

Subject: Email addresses

A few months ago, this debate was going on about the archived digest and I suggested using a basic hex encryption that does little more than convert the characters to hex. so my email address would be: -

%61%6E%74%6F%6E%79%40%74%65%72%69%61%6E%2E%63%6F%2E%75%6B

This makes it difficult to trawl with web browsers and for a spammer to subscribe to this digest, would cause a lot of work for them to determine the subscription list.

In my opinion, doing this would be an acceptible compromise between those that wish email addresses to remain and those that do not.

To determine the addresses would simply require parsing it through a conversion utility. I have already written one for MS Windows, but could easily write one (or a function) in OPL too.

Antony Booth

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

Date: 23 Jan 2004 09:26:16 +0100

From: Marcus von Cube

Subject: Re: WLAN encryption

Thomas,

>3) I have now installed a WLAN network for my Malaybook, but I fail to see the following points: >a. How do I use encryption on the Malaybook ? I do not see an option for that.

Encryption is part of the card driver and works only with the Orinoco card. I've got the "gold" version of the card that supports 128 bit WEP (tested on my home network). I have a German netBook, not the

mBook, but I assume the drivers are the same.

BTW, are you going to work for NASA mission control? ("Huston, we have a problem!")

Marcus

http://www.mvcsys.de

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Date: 23 Jan 2004 09:40:01 +0100

From: Marcus von Cube

Subject: Advertising on the list

Hi,

Psion dealers are a vanishing species. I'm glad to learn about ways to get hard or software or written material, even if I don't buy daily. Therefore, some concise advertising on the list is welcome in my opinion. Would anybody of us know about the new Psion Computer Journal if Will hadn't had the

chance of advertizing it to us?

So let Chris, Will and others use this list as a means of reaching some more customers worldwide.

They are, of course, invited to help run the list, be it by personal or monetary help ;-)

Marcus

http://www.mvcsys.de

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

Date: 23 Jan 2004 09:51:08 +0100

From: Chris S Handley

Subject: Re: Random numbers

Alan Morris wrote:

>> Any idea how to make the selection truly random, or at

>> least more so?

> You could double RANDOMIZE; that is RANDOMIZE a second time

> using the first's result as seed.

I am afraid that this will not work! Counter-intuitive I know, but think about it:

If RANDOMIZE is fed a fixed (non-random) number, then RND will always generate a fixed number, and if you feed this fixed number to RANDOMIZE, then you have not managed to make it any more random!

---

Chris Handley

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Date: 23 Jan 2004 10:42:48 +0100

From: Chris S Handley

Subject: Re: Random numbers, Ebook replace macro &Spam & the Digest's anti-spam protect

Hello Owen,

Subject: Re: Random numbers

Owen H. Morgan wrote:

> Thanks to all who replied to this. I have implemented Chris

> Handley's suggestion and used

> RANDOMIZE INT((((MONTH*31.0 + DAY)*24.0 + HOUR)*60.0 + MINUTE) * 60.0 + SECOND)

> Then Andrew Gregory comes along and confuses the issue by

> suggesting:

> RANDOMIZE DATETOSECS(YEAR,MONTH,DAY,HOUR,MINUTE,SECOND)

If anything, this is actually better, and of course it is much simpler. If I had known about the DATETOSECS() function then I would have used it.

> I also placed the RANDOMIZE sentence outside the loop as

> suggested by several people. My life is now a lot less

> predictable. :o) I may also follow David Steer's' advice and

> store the seed value to make sure the next one is not

> identical.

Putting it outside of the loop, infact at the start of your program, is a very good idea.

But I really do not think it is necessary to store the seed, because you are already ensuring you give RANDOMIZE a unique number *every* time (as long as the time between RANDOMIZEs is more than a second - which it should be if it is outside of a loop).

Regards,

Chris Handley

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

Subject: Re: Ebook replace macro

Astrid Stappenbeck wrote:

>> Is it possible to search for the "Tab" character rather than

>> tcharacter with OPL/Macro5?

> You could get round this problem by manually

> marking the tab-space in the document before calling the

> replace routine. The tab will then be in the first field.

An alternative method, which will work with Data & all other programs, is to put a Tab character into the clipboard, and then paste this into the search field.

According to the Macro5 documentation (i.e. it is untested!), the following command should do exactly what I describe:

rem Put this after opening the Find dialog with Ctrl-F

Paste:(CHR$(009))

Regards,

Chris Handley

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

Hello Itamar,

Subject: Re: Spam & the Digest's anti-spam protect

Itamar Engelsman wrote:

> Personally I don't believe that the digest is

> important enough for a Spammer to actually manually subscribe

> himself to get several hundred email addresses while they can

> get thousands and thousands easier and automaticly.

Several other people have also expressed a similar opinion. I am afraid they are probably wrong, because of this simple fact:

It is *already the case* the spammers often try to subscribe themselves to Members-only Yahoo Groups mailing lists, to harvest email addresses. This is why it is now common practice for a (human) moderator to have to accept a subscription request, but this has simply forced spammers to look less obviously like spammers.

Granted that the Digest uses a unique mailing-list system, unlike those using Yahoo Groups, and so will be less likely to be 'attacked'. But as I said, it is only a matter of time, since Spammers are being forced to work harder for valid email addresses.

One of the reasons I suggested improving the Digest's spam protection is because I am searching for the cause of a recent leak of my address to spammers. Also, BECAUSE it has 700 members (i.e. quite large), I think it would be easy for a spammer to join.

BTW, I rather suspect spammers have automated software to read emails & harvest addresses. So the spammer needs only to spend 30 seconds composing an email requesting to be subscribed, and then he can just sit back and relax. :-(

Regards,

Chris Handley

P.S. I have opted to have my address made invisible in Digest posts, which is enough to keep me happy - thanks Rolf! Apart from not being able to keep up with the Digest's sheer volume, I *was* also considering unsubscribing because of the spam harvesting risk.

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

Date: 23 Jan 2004 12:15:24 +0100

From: Roger C Haslock

Subject: Re: How do I convert Psion 5 Record (sound) files to play on my PC

How do I convert Psion 5 Record (sound) files to play on my PC?

I have tried the Psion tool WVECONV - it says the 'Record' files are the wrong format.

I have been sent a copy of Sound Master - which does the job. Thanks everyone.

Regards

- Roger C Haslock -

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Date: 23 Jan 2004 13:28:48 +0100

From: Itamar Engelsman

Subject: Spam & the Digest,

Answer to: Owen

Re.: Spam & the Digest - It is not possible for anyone to start spamming the digest readers. The list of subscribers is kept on 4 Psions of the 4 operators currently active and appears nowhere on the web or any other service provider (Yahoo, etc.). The digest is sent with all the addresses in the BCC field and not visible for anyone. It is only the addresses of the writers that show in the digest. However, all subscribers have been given the option to have their email address replaced with an alias automatically by the digest system. If you are interested in this, send us a message with the word ADMIN in the subject field (as Rolf already wrote in the last digest).

Off topic for Psion, in the office I use Spam Inspector on my networked PC which does a very good job holding back 95% at least of all spam.

Best regards,

Itamar Engelsman

London, UK

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Date: 23 Jan 2004 15:27:58 +0100

From: U Hornstein

Subject: Re: Spam & the Digest's anti-spam protection

Reference is made to the mail in the Epoc Digest V1 # 430 (9) : Astrid Stappenbeck wrote on 22 Jan 2004 03:58:04 (> ):

> Chris S Handley wrote:

> > If you suddenly start getting some (or more) spam, you

> may have accidentally made your address public ... <

> > For example, if you are on a private email list (such

> as Epoc Digest!), perhaps a spammer has subscribed

> himself, so that he can see the addresses of those

> subscribed (or at least those posting). <

Astrid wrote:

> I strongly disagree. I doubt that a (clever) spammer

> would go to that much trouble and subscribe to a digest

> send to about 800 people most of them rather readers

> than contributers. And he would have to wait quite a

> number of digests to get say 100 different addresses.

> On the other hand it would make direct replies more

> difficult (and probably rarer), address management would

> become a major topic in digests (not that interesting to

There's not much to add to Astrids reply.

I have made an interesting experience: I use one single email address for the EPOC digest solely. Since more than a year no spam email has reached me on this address. This proves that during this year no spammer has taken the trouble to harvest the list addresses. I can't predict the future, but I think there is not much danger to leave things as they are. Should I ever receive much spam on this address, I would change it and take Rolfs offer to hide it from the digest.

FYI: I am using another unique address for yahoo digests since 2 years. Never received any spam there - except from one list where say once a month a spammer subscribes to the list and sends his stuff directly to the members. He gets banned immediately, and my address has not gotten any other spam from outside of this digest.

Right now I am testing the email harvesting on my www pages: on every page I have online is a plain mailto: "report broken links". This is a disposable address which could be changed quickly, should ever spam reach me on this way. I haven't got any since 6 weeks, which is not a long time; Sooner or later I expect some on this path.

The only source of spam that brought so much spam that I had to change my real address was my contact to the usenet. This has the most danger; I'll never go there again without a disposable email address.

With greetings from Germany

Ulrich Hornstein

For spam protection: Please NEVER type my mail address into a www page ('send to a friend' or similar)!

Sent by MC218 (EPOC palmtop)

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

Date: 23 Jan 2004 20:18:23 +0100

From: Chris Cooper

Subject: 5mx application installation problem

Hi, everyone

I recently got my 5mx repaired after many months when it had been off the road with the broken-screen-cable plague. (POS standard repair: £75 + £5 return delivery - back in five days, with a lurid new peacock-blue case. This personality change is a risk you take, according to POS.) I'm gradually reinstalling stuff, but I'm currently having problems.

The most recent example was with ExAb. When I tried to run the .sis file on the 5mx, it started off nicely, telling me it was preparing to install: then it stopped with the message 'In use'. When I ran the file on my PC, a lot of files were successfully installed. Then, during the 'Checking dependencies' phase, I got an 'Out of memory' message. Of course, there was plenty of memory left on both C and D drives on the 5mx.

I also got plenty of functionality - many features of ExAb are working fine. But when, for example, I try to use it to run the SpellOK macro, I get a message pointing out that a folder Exmacro hasn't been installed.

As I said, I've had similar problems, with the same error messages, trying to install other apps.

What should I do?

Thanks,

Chris

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

Date: 23 Jan 2004 21:30:50 +0100

From: Ray Upton

Subject: Backing up a 5mx to a Revo

My 5mx is showing signs of playing up - the screen is blanking out for no good reason - perhaps the dreaded screen cable problem is rearing it's head.

So I thouight I'd better get a backup. My wife's got a Revo that she doesn't use, so I thought I'd use that. I can connect it to the PC no problem, and PSIWin recognises it as a different psion, but it won't let me restore the 5mx contents onto the Revo.

Is it possible? If so how can I do it?

Ray Upton

Reading

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

Date: 24 Jan 2004 03:23:17 +0100

From: Jim Watson-Gove

Subject: Spam?

Chris Handley,

<<What worries me is that the Digest still provides FULL email addresses in actual Digest posts (but not archives), and this means that SOONER OR LATER a clever enough spammer will get himself subscribed, and then harvest our addresses. >>

My own experience is that I receive almost no Spam despite posting on this (and other) list.

I put up a web site with activated email function and suddenly got 20+ Spam messages per day. Finally got tired of dealing with it and removed the email forwarding from the site. The Spam went away.

My belief is that the Spammers are quite happy using Spam search engines that scan the web and pick up the easy addresses. A Spammer enrolling to an EList with the purpose of stealing email addresses seems labor intensive and not all that probable.

(IMO of course)

I like the ability to contact members off-list and would hate to see the address procedure changed.

jim- spam free in port townsend

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

Date: 24 Jan 2004 07:47:58 +0100

From: Eric Lindsay

Subject: Bookmarks app, data more important than hardware, netBookscreen bringhtness

>Epoc Digest Wed, 05 Nov 2003 Volume 01 : Number 377

OK, so I'm a little behind in my reading.

>From: Astrid Stappenbeck

>Subject: Looking for Bookmarks app

>I recently heard about an application called Bookmarks by Arnoud van der Giessen. It is a freeware bookmark utility which pops up a window with the 10 most recently used folders. However, I couldn't find a working link. Has anyone this program or a link to it?

If you happened to find a working link, can you let me know so I can update my reference to it on my web site.

>Epoc Digest # 379

>Rolf Brunsting wrote

>What you, both, forget is that the starting point for most of us isn't a Symbian OS 6/7 smartphone but a Symbian OS 5 Psion. We're therefore interested in what's going to happen with the Symbian OS 5 applications we're currently using. After all, we've spent quite some time getting to know these applications and have stored a sizeable amount of data in their file formats. Translate our experience and data into money and they represent a much bigger sum than the combined purchase price of our applications, Psion hardware, CF cards and peripherals.

I reached the point with computers in general where I'm unwilling to buy another Windows machine. I got very keen on Switching (to a Macintosh). However as I read Mac newsgroups, I decided that at the moment they have too many hardware issues (and some software issues). So my response has been to move from using my Psion as a PDA to using it more and more as a partial replacement for my increasingly eccentric PC, rather than buying a new Macintosh. I have a fair idea where the Psion is too limited, and think I can work my way around a lot of them. I will continue to use a PC (until the last of them here dies in the tropical humidity). However I'm aiming to have it as a stripped down, very much downmarket diskless web browsing machine (which basically cost me nothing, so the main constraint is the time factor), booting and running from a CD-ROM (probably Mandrake Mover), and running out of a ram disk, while saving any files I need to keep as ASCII and HTML onto a Compact Flash. The value of my data, almost all of which I've always deliberately held as ASCII and as hand written HTML and hand written Postscript markup, way exceeds anything I would pay for hardware. My Psion works real well with these. I think my future data will also include more music and photos, and they will also be in nice standard formats, but I can't expect my Psion to manipulate them (although it may index them).

Epoc Digest #382

>From: Grant Mearns

>Subject: netBook/S7 screen differences

>I noticed that the screen of a friend's S7 is more legible on brightness setting one than my own netBook is on level nine.

I notice the same problem between a MalayBook and a Psion 7, with the Psion 7 having a much brighter display. The backlight tubes would be a type that gradually reduce in output with time. I would assume the MalayBooks have seen a fair amount of use before resale, although mine still looks in good condition. Indeed, I'm contemplating getting another as a spare, although what I'd really like is a NetBook.

Eric Lindsay lists at ericlindsay com www.avalook.com

Box 640 Airlie Beach Qld Australia ph +61 7 4948 0435

http://www.ericlindsay.com NEW Airlie-SF-Psion-Epoc

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

Date: 25 Jan 2004 06:11:09 +0100

From: Melvin Woody

Subject: USB PsiWin cable.

In answer to my query:

>>> Will the USB PsiWin cable that both expansys and other >>> places serve just as well as the RS232 cable for

>>> communicaton with my desktop and laptop? It would be much >>> more convenient to plug into my USB hub than to run an

>>> RSB232 cable around to the back of my desktop.

Alan Morris wrote:

>>A couple of points Melvin. You don't say which version of windows you are using. I can't get a USB/serial Belkin adapter to work with XP - yes I have a new laptop, so no important serial port. Others have similar problems, while some say they have no problems. Like many other 'windows problems', some have problems others don't - it's pot luck. >>

I have Windows 98 on my desktop and XP, which I hate, on my lap top. I

will stick to 98 on the desktop and can presumably communicate with the

laptop by IR if need be.

>>On a w98 desktop I have a male/female extension cable always plugged in to the back of the floor mounted tower. The other end is conveniently positioned to plug in any serial device, including 5 Psions.