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Epoc Digest Fr 21 Jun 2002 Volume 01 : Number 018
Sent to: 375 subscribers
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In today's Epoc Digest 15 messages:
==============================
- Thanks to Itamar/PDA market niches
- MC218 / Screen Cable
- RE: EPOC DIGEST # 017-Revoworld-Backlight on your Revo
- Psion Thai / USR Modem / Screen Cable
- KEYBOARD PDAS / TOUCH-SCREEN
- Screencable explanation,
- RE: EPOC DIGEST - Digest advertising
- SMS when in foreign country
- Re: Screen Cable of Psions and Ericssons
- Opera vs Web
- RE: EPOC DIGEST V1 #008
- Report of the recent London Psion Meet
- Re: Synchronisation with mobile phones
- Re: Screen Cable of Psions and Ericssons
- RE: EPOC DIGEST V1 #008
*++++++++++&
Date: 19 Jun 2002 03:19:43 +0100
From: Cyril Catt
Subject: Thanks to Itamar/PDA market niches
*++++++++++&
Date: 19 Jun 2002 09:42:05 +0100
From: "r1
Subject: MC218 / Screen Cable
> From: Wajira Perera
> Subject: Screen Cable of Psions and Ericssons
>
> Having had my fair (or is it unfair?) share of
> screen cable problems with my Psion Srs 3a, 3mx
> and MC 218, I wanted pen my thoughts on it.
My MC218 has just failed after 20 months, the old
screen-cable problem again. In the past IIRC Itamar
and others raised concerns about whether it was safe
to buy the MC218 as far as maintenance/repair were
considered. I can now tell you that those concerns
were well-founded. I eventually got through to a very
helpful person at Ericsson's Servicing Partner company,
who looked into it and informed me that the repair would
probably cost £200 plus postage. This compares to
Psion's £90. Clearly not worth the repair cost.
Considering my problems, I looked at what to buy as a
replacement. Any realistic non-Psion replacement is
going to cost approx £500, with probably *at least*
another £150 in software, £100 for memory if no CF-I
slot, and another 50 or more for a cable to connect
it to the GPS. All in all, 4 or 5 times the cost of
a 5mx. So I bought the 5mx.
I have now seen the light, the validity of Itamar's
policy, so will probably get a spare when they come
back into stock with the cheaper retailers.
On another note, do Psion not care about their UK
customers? From their website:
"Psion products bought before 1 January 2002 carry
12 month limited warranty, products bought after 1
January 2002 carry 24 month limited warranty
(excluding UK Customers). "
So worldwide people get a 2-year warranty, but UK get 1?
Scandalous.
Bye,
Rick http://www.gillyon.com/
*++++++++++&
Date: 19 Jun 2002 10:31:10 +0100
From: "Nicole Carbonara"
Subject: RE: EPOC DIGEST # 017-Revoworld-Backlight on your Revo
Reply to: Itamar Engelsman
Subject: Revoworld
>> Thanks to Peter Rand for mentioning us on the website of Revoworld
and for REVO owners have a look at their website how it is possible to
get a backlight on your REVO ! <<
Itamar
Did you really check the page?
This is what I get when I go there:
¸ÄÚ ¹éóÀÌÆ® °³Á±âÀÔ´Ï´Ù.
¸ÄÚ ¹éóÀÌÆ® °³Á±âÀÔ´Ï´Ù.
°ÅµÎ Àý¹ÌÇÏ°í ¹Ù•Î º»•ÐÀ¸•Î µé¾î°¡°Ú½À´Ï´Ù.
Plus lots of pictures of a Revo being dismantled.
Is it in Japanese and I do not have the right font?!
Nicole
This message has been checked for all known viruses by Trend PC-cillin
*++++++++++&
Date: 19 Jun 2002 10:54:06 +0100
Hello Pat and Kits,
My apologies for the late reply. Sadly, the screen on my 5mx is no longer working as of yesterday :( I will need to get a replacement while I send it for repairs.
To Pat:
Thank you very much for your suggestion. I will go and check out the website. It is a pity that there is no Thai system available for the Psion.
To Kits:
Thank you for your advice and information on the USR External Modem. Does it come with a regular serial cable for the pc? If so, how does one change it for use with 5mx serial port. Sorry to ask this question if it has been already addressed in prior posts. I have a spare USR/3Com Sportster and would like to try that.
Regarding my screen cable, D&G don't have cables but have new screens for £50 so I will send it there for repairs. They did a good job with increasing the memory in my Revo.
Best regards,
Dick
*++++++++++&
Date: 19 Jun 2002 12:37:20 +0100
From: Peter Keene
Subject: KEYBOARD PDAS / TOUCH-SCREEN
Hi Guys,
For Alan, Maria and Kits re keyboard-based PDAs:
I've just had my first look at a Sony NR-70-V - in a magazine, not 'in the flesh' unfortunately. Now that Sony is a Symbian licencee I wonder whether we'll ever see one of these magnificent little machines running a version of the Symbian platform?
As to future development of the Jornada 710/720, that would be encouraging. However, I recently had an e-mail from Conrad Blickenstorfer, editor of Pen Computing, in which he expressed concern for the future of the H/PC version of WINCE because Microsoft don't seem to know what they want to do with it.
For John re touch screen failure:
This may seem obvious, but have you tried to recalibrate John? (Menu/Control Panel/Screen/Ctrl+C) If so, all I can suggest is a hard reset after, of course, backing up all of your data. In the meanwhile, you can also access your silkscreen buttons by using the ctrl+100-- codes. These were originally posted by Trygve, I think, but I have a copy. Contact me off-digest if you don't have them.
Regards,
Peter
Cape Town
*++++++++++&
Date: 19 Jun 2002 12:58:18 +0100
From: Itamar Engelsman
Subject: Screencable explanation,
Answer to: Wajira Perera
Re. Screencable explanation - Yes, it is irritating. Unfortunately as Psion has stopped development (even if not yet production) of these machines, you (we) are too late. However, I think it is a wider industry problem. In my car the indicator turning right does not always move back. The garage said they have to replace the whole unit for over 200 pounds ... I told them I'll live with the problem <G>.
Bye,
Itamar Engelsman
London, United Kingdom
*++++++++++&
Date: 19 Jun 2002 15:10:40 +0100
From: "Nicole Carbonara"
Subject: RE: EPOC DIGEST - Digest advertising
I found in http://pnicolas.epocboulevard.com/ a reference to the old digest:
Mailing lists on Series 5
- The Unofficial Psion Series 5 Digest (US) by James Laurence
I sent an emailto let him know that this Digest had been replaced by The temporary EPOC Digest with the details for subscribing, so that he can update his website (when he find the time to do so!)
Nicole
*++++++++++&
Date: 19 Jun 2002 19:10:25 +0100
From: "Thomas F. VAN DER ZIJDEN"
Subject: SMS when in foreign country
Hello group,
When I am in a foreign country (e.g. France at the moment) I set my location to the current location and I notice that all my Dutch phone numbers (when I want to call them) carry the extra 0031. However, when I create a new SMS in e-mail (I have a 5mx) and choose a name from the Contacts, it still uses the 06 and not the +316.
1. Does anybody else have this?
2. Can something be done?
(I don't have the same problem with Phoneman, because it uses the copy from my phone's memory and those numbers are all internationalised already, ("So, use Phoneman then!") but Phoneman has the disadvantage that it sometimes crashes with my 7110).
Yours truly,
Thomas van der Zijden
PS It has already happened to me, that I accidentally sent an SMS to a _French_ phone and (why does this always happen to me) it was NOT in Dutch, but in French! ;- )
*++++++++++&
Date: 19 Jun 2002 21:14:00 +0100
From: ALYG
(Andrew Longdon)
Subject: Re: Screen Cable of Psions and Ericssons
Wajira,
I agree with you with regard to the screen cable design. I think my keyboarded Psion is great and the only thing I miss about it is a colour screen. However, having tried an old Palm Pilot, I have to say that its one-piece construction must be a lot less vulnerable to wear'n'tear. The day my 5MX screen dies, I will go out and buy a Palm...
,\nd
*++++++++++&
Date: 20 Jun 2002 00:56:25 +0100
From: Darryl Kempster
Subject: Opera vs Web
Just had to reset my Series 7 (froze downloading a over complicated web page) and now all my Web pages have Opera icons. I have solved this in the past but can't for the life of me remember how. Can someone please tell me how to restore Web to default browser? Many thanks
Darryl Kempster
*++++++++++&
Date: 20 Jun 2002 14:08:27 +0100
From: "Upton, Ray J"
Subject: RE: EPOC DIGEST V1 #008
What's happened to the psion digest?
Cheers,
Ray Upton
Reading
UK
*++++++++++&
Date: 20 Jun 2002 21:34:25 +0100
From: Rolf Brunsting
Subject: Report of the recent London Psion Meet
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This report was posted on the comp.sys.psion.misc USENET newsgroup and is reposted by the author on the EPOC Digest mailing list for those who don't follow the newsgroups.
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The informal London Psion & Palm user meeting of the 31st of April was the right excuse for me to book a long weekend break. Just to get away from it all for a few days - to revitalise the cultural senses by visiting museums and galleries - trawl along Tottenham Court Road for the electronics stores - Charing Cross Road for the bookshops, etc. And to taste a good pint of draft bitter, of course!
I arrived the evening before the meeting and used the Friday to visit the refurbished Japanese section and new Korean section at the British Museum. I can recommend them to everybody, if only to see where the attention for detail in current Japanese and Korean products comes from. Specially for the Japanese pottery on display - which looks so utterly simple but has been created to a very high level of craftsmanship. A small, 17th century, tea jar used in the Japanese tea ceremony really took my breath away. An object to make you realise what the term 'priceless' means. Needless to say that I couldn't resist buying a book on the Japanese collection of the British Museum at the museum bookshop. That's book no. 1 to take home - I always leave London looking a like a travelling bookseller.
After a quick stop back at the hotel, I went to the Fountains Abbey pub on Praed Street where the user meeting was held in the upstairs function room. There were about 15 people there when I arrived. A group that was to grow to about 35 people - a smaller group compared to the previous London meetings I've visited. Which is a pity, but had a positive side effect. Organiser Steve Litchfield had persuaded Psion and Palm related producers of hardware, software and add-ons to donate quite a number of prizes. Given the people present there were *two* rounds of the prize draw. After which there were still a few prizes left to hold a free-for-all. My thanks to the kind souls who donated the Covertec Series 5 belt holster and the copy of Purple Software's Allegro handwriting recognition system I won. The Covertec holster is welcome as I succeeded in busting the belt clip of my old holster a few months ago. While Allegro will be used to train my erratic handwriting to a better state of machine recognition readiness.
Visiting these user group meetings has allowed me to meet some the people behind the names of CompuServe Forum and comp.sys.psion messages. The 'names' I met for the first time at this meeting were Steve Waddicor and Steve Godfrey. Steve - Waddicor that is - mentioned that he hadn't been active on the Psion newsgroups for some time. As if this had escaped our attention. He asked whether JF Mezei and Alasdair Manson were still present on the newsgroup, which I was able to confirm.
Steve - Godfrey, of course - was pleased that I mentioned Zenobyte's Phone Manager whenever SMS and phonebook management were discussed on the newsgroup. However, he was less pleased to hear that the new beta plug-in for the Nokia 6310 didn't work for my phone. We, first, checked the version number of the phone's firmware. Which proved to be identical with the firmware of the 6310 Steve had used for testing. We therefore sat down to investigate the matter. Steve used Phone Manager's logging feature to record the communication between phone and Psion. What he found was that all the phonebook entries on my 6310 were retrieved by Phone Manager. However, that their entry type number was 11 rather than the type 10 of Steve's 6310. In other words, Phone Manager simply ignored these phonebook entries as they weren't the right type. Steve made some notes on the type and subtype numbering as used by my 6310 and would modify the 6310 plug-in. [I've sent Steve a copy of the full log in the mean time. And have already received the message that the modifications have been made and that Phone Manager 2.96 plus a revised plug-in are available for download from www.zenobyte.com]
Another aspect of these meetings is that you see gear you haven't seen before or only know from advertisements or magazine articles. Things like the Palm folding keyboard and the clip-on thumbboards for the Palm 5xx and the Handspring Visors. The folding keyboard won't persuade me to switch to a Palm as its keys are of the 'dead flesh' membrane type. Not very comfortable to type on - the Targus keyboard is much better. The thumbboards are interesting as they're about the size of a packet of cigarettes. You slide the Palm/Visor in them, with the keypad covering the handwriting section of the display and the buttons below. Needless to say that the keys are small and the layout cramped. Some training will be needed before you get a decent typing speed out of them. Still, they're a solution for the above average data entry jobs when the handwriting recognition system is a bit of a hindrance.
I also saw Palm's Bluetooth SD card - a miniaturisation marvel as the card is about 50% taller than a standard card. The part that sticks out of a Palm contains the radio aerial. It's therefore not recommended to put the Palm plus Bluetooth card in your pocket as the antenna section is bound to break off. It's still an SD, thus slim, card. Handspring's Visor has the advantage here as their springboard add-in Bluetooth module is reported to be flush with the Visor's body. Made me a bit envious as Bluetooth CF cards aren't an option for the Series 5(mx) and Series 7 / netBook.
Symbian's Rick Andrews was also at the meet and I half-expected him to carry a Symbian OS 6.2 based Nokia 7650. Just as he'd taken a Nokia 9210 to a previous meeting, at a time the 9210 wasn't yet available to the general public. Proved that it wasn't Rick but Steve Waddicor with the 'have one before you can get it' 7650. And it's a very neat phone, indeed. Smaller that I'd imagined it to be but not too small to be functionally limiting. The colour screen is bright and clear, with a well designed user interface. I didn't have much problems using the 7650 for the few minutes I was able to play with it. The built-in camera works well, storing 640 by 480 pixel JPEG images of about 20 kByte size. Which is a high level of compression as my Canon Ixus 300 produces files of about 80 kByte at the same image size. The aperture and focal length of the lens makes the camera well suited for taking muggshots and a number of people present had their portraits taken. There seems to be a photo editing application on it as Steve (Godfrey) morphed a picture of Steve (Waddicor) into that of a hamster with bulging cheeks. What cheek, indeed!
I have to disappoint those who are keen to hear news on a SonyEricsson P800 - there was a beta 7650 but no beta P800. Ozzie Hall-Osman (PalmtopMan - Technical Support & Training) had seen the P800 at the recent Symbian Developer Conference and described it as a killer phone. More capable as a PDA thus better suited for the demanding user than the 7650. Ozzie also mentioned that the Symbian Developer Conference was much better attended than the recent Palm one. The Symbian conference had been packed while the lecture room at the Palm conference had only been filled for about 15%. Makes you wonder about the future of PalmOS. Still, there's enough Palm hardware software and associated gear available at the Tottenham Court Road electronics stores. Thus no sign yet that PalmOS is in the process of being squeezed out by Symbian OS and Pocket PC. Though I downloaded a news story on Palm having given out a profit warning the Saturday after the meeting.
As for the rest of the meeting, it was the usual mixture of demonstrations, exchanging tips and technical info, questions about software solutions plus having a pint and a few good laughs. My thanks to Steve Litchfield for organising the meeting. I trust attendance will be better next time, the dreadful World Cup will be over by then. And the Queen's Golden Jubilee weekend is a once in a lifetime event.
--
Kind Regards,
Rolf Brunsting - Back in Darp - The Netherlands
*++++++++++&
Date: 20 Jun 2002 21:34:34 +0100
From: Rolf Brunsting
Subject: Re: Synchronisation with mobile phones
Dear Jan,
In response to your message on synchronising Psions with mobile phones
There's no problem in transferring contact and appointment data from a Psion Revo, Revo Plus, Series 5mx, Series 7, Diamond Mako and Ericsson MC218 to a modern phone like the Ericsson T39 or Nokia 6310. The problem is with synchronisation as the exchange mechanism (infrared object exchange - IrOBEX) is one way only and initiated by the sender. In other words, there's no IrOBEX mechanism to retrieve what the other device has stored. It's therefore not possible for a Psion (et. al.) to:
a) Read the contacts and appointment data on the T39,
b) Compare this with its own data,
c) Modify its data set when and where necessary,
and,
d) Send the necessary modifications to the T39.
The solution phone manufacturers are putting forward is the SyncML protocol. Which also allows synchronisation over a GSM, HSCSD or GPRS data connection with a remote computer. Practical problem is that the number of phones that support SyncML can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Plus that somebody will need to build a SyncML based tool for the EPOC based handheld computers.
An alternative is to make use of a phone manufacturer specific protocol, when there is one. Nokia has such a protocol for the 7110/6210 and 6310/6310i. Zenobyte Ltd, the makers of Phone Manager, are currently reverse engineering these protocols. They have a solution in beta test for reading the multiple number per name phone books of these models. But they haven't yet succeeded to write such data reliably to them.
The only thing I can add as a form of consolation is that the owners of other handheld computers, the Palms and Pocket PCs, are in the same boat as the EPOC users.
--
Kind Regards,
Rolf Brunsting - Darp - Netherlands
*++++++++++&
Date: 20 Jun 2002 21:34:38 +0100
From: Rolf Brunsting
Subject: Re: Screen Cable of Psions and Ericssons
Dear Wajira,
In response to you message on screen cables.
[Quote] I cannot see a good reason for not redesigning the cable to be a separate item, replaceable by itself, which would have cost GBP 10 at the most, rather than being nearly ten times dearer as it is now, except for the motive for making more money. [Unquote]
Well, I can see a number of reasons but they tend not to be the ones people like to hear.
The first is that devices like the Psion Series 3a and Ericsson MC218 need to be designed to a particular cost price. Otherwise the retail price in the shops will be too high for the market you address, so that they become a flop. Which automatically means that a number of design solutions and materials won't be adopted because they're too expensive in relation to the target cost price of the machine. Note there's a rule of thumb which says that £1.= in cost price means £2.= to £2.50 in the shop.
The second one is that a solution using a cable with (secure) connectors takes space. While space is something you lack in a handheld computer that needs to fit a jacket pocket. There's the option to make the machine bigger, of course. However, just as there's a maximum cost price there's also a maximum acceptable size. Go beyond this size and the device becomes much less attractive to the general consumer.
Reason no. 3 is that you design for a limited life time. A recent survey shows that the people who buy a new handheld computer tend to keep it or 1.5 year and then buy a new one. Most of these 'old' models are sold as second-hand or passed on (to a family member, for example) but their useful life ends around the 3 year mark. Development doesn't stand still and products with new/improved features will have been put on the market in the mean time. It's therefore no use to make a handheld computer with a much longer life time than 3 years. So that you select materials, components and constructions that have a Mean Time Between Failure of about 3.5 to 4 years. Now, MTBF is based on statistical averages allowing some components to last for a much longer but also a much shorter period. You can thus expect, as a manufacturer, to get a relatively small percentage of your production back for early repair. Not what the consumer would like to experience, but there's no escape. As an MTBF of 7 years means that the statistical average has shifted, but it still allows for a number of early failures.
Fourth reason is that you also design with the way people will use your product in mind. Like the number of times people will open and close the Series 3a/MC218 on average each day. Thing is that there are always non-average people who use the machine so intensively that one year for them equals two years of use by the average person. In other words, they wear their machines out much earlier than is the norm. You can take some of the aspects of high-intensity use into account. But not all as that would mean over-engineering the product which isn't free from (undesirable) side-effects.
The fifth reason is that you only make items easy to exchange when they're consumables or need to be exchanged on a regular basis. The reason why you can easily get at the MC218's backup-battery but that there's no flap or cover that allows quick access to the machine's processor or RAM memory.
In other words, a design aspect like the cable linking screen to motherboard will always be subject to a number of constraints. What you add in size, weight or cost for one item needs to be saved somewhere else in order to meet your targets. What you get in the end is a compromise. It's clear that you would like to have seen Psion come up with different compromise. Thing is, that your preferred compromise is one that may not please other people.
[Quote] I have owned Psion Srs 3a from 1995 and after 7 years, these machines still remain he same as far as the screen cable is concerned. [Unquote]
That's clearly not the case as there are marked differences in screen cable design and materials between the Series 3/3a/3c/3mx and the Series 5/5mx/MC218. Ask a mechanical engineer which of the two is the preferred design and (s)he'll say it's that of the 5/5mx/MC218.
[Quote] In any other industry, customer resistance would have forced the companies to modify the machine, and indeed, in others like aviation, legislation would have done the needful. [Unquote]
I'm sorry, but you're going into a direction which doesn't make that much sense. There would be a reason to change design when a significant proportion of screen cables fails (much) earlier than expected. Both from a life time design as well as a customer expectation point of view. I very much doubt whether that's the case. Sure, there will be a number of dissatisfied customers, but that's unavoidable (see MTBF above).
Secondly, you're dealing with human safety when discussing aviation design. While your life isn't at risk when the screen cable of your MC218 fails. Aviation design standards don't apply to a handheld computer. Think of the need for a second ARM 710T as fall-back processor inside your MC218 in case the main processor dies. Other subsystems will also need to be designed for double and triple redundancy. And then I'm not even talking about the strict regime of inspections and maintenance as used in the aviation industry. With components being replaced by new ones after an x-number of hours, irrespective of the (healthy) state of these components.
Thirdly, the level of consumer protection legislation in Europe and North America is already such that a manufacturer can't afford releasing a product on the market with a high failure rate.
[Quote] In this case, the poor customer is made to fork out whatever the manufacturer thinks fit, unnecessarily at that. [Unquote]
It's not only what the manufacturer thinks fit but also what you, the consumer, think fit. There's nothing cynical about it. When the consumer has sturdiness as the no.1 requirement, and ease of repair as no. 2, then all handheld computers would be designed and manufactured accordingly. Thing is, that the consumer has a long list of other requirements that take precedence. With the inevitable result that more work is done to meet these requirements than to meet ease of repair.
--
Kind Regards,
Rolf Brunsting - Darp - Netherlands
*++++++++++&
Date: 21 Jun 2002 00:40:00 +0100
From: "Rolf Vonau"
Subject: RE: EPOC DIGEST V1 #008
to Ray Upton :
< What's happened to the psion digest?
The digest lives!
But our address list don't contain _your_ address.
I included it now in the subscriber's list.
Best Regards
Rolf
Munich
http://home.arcor.de/rhvonau/index.htm
(FYI: in this time I'm collecting the digest messages for Itamar)
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