- AW: The Digest V1 # 1055_1

- Data to Macintosh (actually Address Book)

- Re: DATA to Macintosh

- Re: The Digest V1 # 1055_1

- ExAb, Psion and GMail ,

- E90

- Ref: Re: Psion and GMail

- Nokia E90 Communicator

Date: 14 Feb 2007 05:50:19 +0700
From: Norbert Fernkorn <address truncated>
Subject: AW: The Digest V1 # 1055_1

Dear Chris,

very cood comment, and I will add only one point:
***
Certainly looks like a reasonable way to replace a 9500, or even a
Psion, but I don't expect to be doing so any time
soon, because (a) I'll wait till the price drops, (b) wait until they
get the bugs out of it, (c) wait until some
software gets produced for it, (d) my 9500 isn't that old, and (e) no
OPL or other self-hosted programming language
for it (yet).
***
(f) and I'll wait till they have a  model with touch screen.

Norbert
(Germany)

Date: 14 Feb 2007 07:49:53 +0700
From: Eric Lindsay <address truncated>
Subject: Data to Macintosh (actually Address Book)

> Re  The Digest    Wed, 14 Feb 2007    Volume 01  :  Number 1055 > - DATA to Macintosh
> From: Michael Kosarin <<address truncated>
> Subject: DATA to Macintosh
>
> Has anyone had any success with transferring DATA files to an Apple 
> Macintosh Address Book?

It has been a couple of years since I converted my various Psion 
address files (which were in Psion Data, not in Contacts) to the 
Apple Address Book. As I recall, I got all 500 or so to convert 
without any significant problems. Which is not the same as none. I 
think I did my addresses in chunks of a hundred or so, to make 
finding errors easier.

Check the Macintosh Address Book Help file for "Importing contacts 
into Address Book" to get a description of how your CSV files should 
be prepared. Read it carefully. In particular, you can't have Line 
Breaks in the data (Psion will let you have them). Make sure you use 
a .csv file name extension, otherwise File > Import will not give you 
popups for selecting field names.

On the Psion, make sure that your Data file looks pretty clean. You 
can't export drawings or embedded Sheet or Word or other non-text 
data. Use File > More > Export and then Ctrl O for the CSV options. I 
am pretty sure I used the default double quote text delimiter, comma 
field delimiter, and end of line for record delimiter.

As I recall, I moved the file to the Macintosh via a camera card (my 
camera accepts a CF card). I used a Macintosh text editor that can 
show "hidden" characters to check through the file for format 
problems, like any weird characters that had snuck in. I used the 
free Text Wrangler editor from BBEdit for that check. If my Data 
files had been a little cleaner, then I wouldn't have needed the text 
editor step. Total conversion time was only a few minutes - harder to 
explain than to do.

It sounds like you need to clean the files up a little. They probably 
have the odd extra line feed in them, or possibly extra commas or 
more likely double quotes.

One test is export without the double quotes, and use Text Wrangler 
to see whether there are some odd double quotes somewhere in your 
data. Then you can fix your Data file on the Psion, and export again 
with the double quotes.

Good luck.

Date: 14 Feb 2007 08:38:21 +0700
From: ealasaidandsimon <address truncated>
Subject: Re: DATA to Macintosh

Dear Michael, I have not done it with data files, only psion 
contacts, but yes, going via vcf seems to solve most problems (though 
not all)

Simon

Date: 14 Feb 2007 11:06:03 +0700
From: Vlad A <address truncated>
Subject: Re: The Digest V1 # 1055_1

> Michael Kosarin Data to Mac:

> separator to make this work? Maybe porting it over to a Contacts (vcf) file > first? Any help is much appreciated.

I'd love such magick too...

A few years ago I did transfer a Mac OS9 adressbook DB to the Psion (the genious Dynodex, similar to Now). I set up a bogus record (name:name,
phone1: phone1, Street:street etc.), exprted it as tab-text on the Mac and imported it in Data.

Going from Data to Contacts was possible, but mismatching fields would have caused too much chaos and modifying the default Contacts fields to suit
would cause further chaos so I gave up and have lived with 2000 adresses split between Data and Contacts. I never found the way back...

How did vcf work?

best,

vlad

Date: 14 Feb 2007 14:18:31 +0700
From: Itamar Engelsman <address truncated>
Subject: ExAb, Psion and GMail ,

Answer to: Huub Linthorst

Re.: ExAb - Hi Huub, indeed long time no hearing .... . I am sure manypeople could be interested in a registration free ExAb program so I would like to ask you to do this anyhow. Thank you.

Answer to: K.I. van der Straten

Re.: Psion and GMail - In digest 880 someone wrote that someone else succeeded with the programXJMAIL but no specific settings were mentioned. I can't help you further, sorry.

Best regards,
Itamar Engelsman
London, UK

Date: 14 Feb 2007 14:50:57 +0700
From: Ian Chapple
Subject: E90

Here are a couple of articles about the new Nokia E90 communicator (warning: some of you may not like the second one):

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/13/90_rizrx8_shoot-out/

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/Enough_About_Psion-Symbian_Doesnt_Need_A_History_Lesson.php

Cheers, Ian.

Date: 14 Feb 2007 16:14:11 +0700
From: K.I. van der Straten <address truncated>
Subject: Ref: Re: Psion and GMail

Howard Weissman wrote:

*  Using a Psion compatable ISP, my Gmail accounts- I have several- are *  set asforward to my ISP email address.



So the conclusion is, that it isn't possible to reach a GMail address, directly, with my netBook. I noticed before, that I can forward the GMail to another address, but I'll use the GMail for the big attachments and it isn't an option to forward the attachment mails to a 'normal'
account.


Regards,

Kees.

Date: 14 Feb 2007 21:17:00 +0700
From: Simon Jeffree <address truncated>
Subject: Nokia E90 Communicator

There's a detailed review of the new E90 communicator, on:
http://www.my-symbian.com/
or their mobile version:
http://mobile.my-symbian.com/

It answers one of the problems raised by Chis Handley:

<< (c) wait until some software gets produced for it, >>

Apparently all Series 60 3rd edition software runs on it, without modification.

However, there's no answer to the problem below:

<< (e) no OPL or other self-hosted programming language for it (yet). >>

This is also my big bug-bear about it.  OPL was (IMHO) one of the reasons why the original Psions were so successful - because of all the shareware/freeware written using OPL & also its (largely invisible) usage by ordinary owners & small companies, to solve their own individual requirements.

Its first death-blow was dealt when Nokia decided not to include it built-into the ROM of the first communicator & all subsequent ones.

Then Nokia/Symbian open-sourced it, leaving it to gradually stagnate due to lack of resources.  Even when under Psion's control there was never quite enough develpment of useful OPXs - but at least 3rd parties did their bit - only to have all their effort go to waste when Psion left the market..

More recently, support was dropped in S60 2nd & 3rd edition.  Now the existing S80 communicator seems to be the end of the road for OPL.  Apparently, there's no way OPL can be made to run on S60 2nd or 3rd edition without some engineering work done by Nokia to change the code.

I'd love Nokia to prove me wrong & ideally, bring OPL back in-house or at least provide the necessary code changes to allow it to run on S60 3rd edition.  Perhaps people would then perceive there to be enough life in it to be worth developing programs using it.

Failing that, perhaps Python is the way to go.  I don't know much about this, but the impression I've got so far is that there's a long way to go before it is production ready.

One problem I have with both OPL & Python at the moment, is that because of their 'open' nature, I find it very difficult to know where to go for various resource such as documentation - there are various bits all over the place on the web.

I do hope something happens eventually, so I don't have to be held hostage by what the software developers 'think' my requirements are & I can write my own software again.

Comments, anyone?

Regards,
Simon Jeffree