Epocdigest V1 # 310

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Epoc Digest Fri, 01 Aug 2003 Volume 01 : Number 310

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Sent to: 798 subscribers

In today's Epoc Digest 14 messages:

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- RE opera 3 vs 5 on MnB (4 Thomas)

- Backing-up, Sony Clie Peg-UX50, support for Psion, Zaurus C700,

- 5mx Pro and 1gb card, PC Card Modem, Upgrading mobile phone,

- holidays in france with a psion nB (gprs connection)

- REAL alternatives to the Netbook?

- Is Palmtop Money the worst accounting program ever?

- 5mx Pro and 1gb card

- Future of Symbian

- Re: WinCE

- Earthlink as an ISP

- 5mx Pro and 1gb card

- RE: Berries et al

- Dacom 56K Global

- Program update: ebc v1.04

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Date: 31 Jul 2003 12:44:15 +0100

From: Jack

Subject: RE opera 3 vs 5 on MnB (4 Thomas)

To : homas V. subject Opera 3 vs 5

>>>...when I go to d:\system\app\opera and start opera.app (which is version 5.14) I get version 3.62!...<<<

Could try the recent DualOpera from : Lutz-W.

Quote from its Readme : <After the start of dual_O your PDA will be searched for any installed versions of Operas. By now the versions 3.62 and 5.14 of the Opera browser are supported. The use of other versions is not tested.>

HTH

Jack

And the world was all before him. Milton (Lost paradise).

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Date: 31 Jul 2003 13:21:19 +0100

From: Itamar Engelsman

Subject: Backing-up, Sony Clie Peg-UX50, support for Psion, Zaurus C700,

To All

Re. Backing-up - After installation of new PC's at work Psiwin decided it had to back-up my complete D disk again which would take something like 4 hours or so. I did not do this but was unhappy I had no updated back-up of course. So I took a card reader with me from home today and backed up the D disk in ... 4 minutes !! Even for this the reader was worth it's price in gold (but I use it regularly for my photography CF cards as well).

Oh, and yes, sorry, I meant of course BlackBerry (I just don't like them, prefer to eat blueberries <G>).

Answer to: Mike Fellhauer

Re.: Sony Clie Peg-UX50 - Would you mind to give us a report on your impressions of using it ? I am particularly interested in the standard software (Word, Sheet, Data, etc), the available extra software and how the typing on the keyboard goes. Why do you say that Palm OS 5.0 is now comparible to EPOC ?

Answer to: David Steer

Re. support for Psion - It is hard to support a Company that does not want your support anymore for products they neither produce nor develop anymore. With all the best will in the world I think we should realise that while we will continue to use our EPOC machines until the "bitter end", that end is in sight and we will all have to venture out into different platforms.

Answer to: Mike Woodward

Re: Zaurus C700 - It looked good, but after your description I would almost say "to good to be true" and it isn't. Great screen but bad keyboard, not acceptable for intensive typers. To have only 1 application open as you described it (unless I did not understand you saying you can't have your Agenda and meeting notes open at the same time) would be a real pain for me. Little software to replace my just over 90 programs on my S7, not good either. No proper back-up possibillities and problems connecting to GPRS for when I am traveling not good either. Sounds like this is not a solution for me.

Best regards,

Itamar Engelsman

London, UK

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Date: 31 Jul 2003 13:21:22 +0100

From: Itamar Engelsman

Subject: 5mx Pro and 1gb card, PC Card Modem, Upgrading mobile phone,

Answer to: Philip Carlisle

Re.: 5mx Pro and 1gb card - No, you talk about a 1 Gb Microdrive and we talk about a 1 Gb CF card. That is probably the difference. Apparently there are already 2 Gb and 4Gb CF cards available.

Answer to: Adam Carter

Re. PC Card Modem - It should work, I use a Global card with my S7 too. My modem settings are :

Speed : 57600

Connection via : PC Card

Fax class : auto

Init string : AT&F (only the top one, other two empty)

Hradware (RTS/CTS)

Terminal & carrier detect both ticked

Modem tyep : Fixed line

To All:

Re. Upgrading mobile phone - Time for an upgrade again as my wife would like to take over my 6310i to use the hands free car unit we have for this phone (my car now has bluetooth). There are a lot of possibilities like P800, T610, Sharp and Panasonic models. I am not into the thrills of "on board" cameras and picture sending from my phone, but GPRS and Bluetooth are both a must and a more attractive screen would be nice. Any bright ideas anyone or good advice ? Thanks in advance.

Best regards,

Itamar Engelsman

London, UK

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Date: 31 Jul 2003 13:31:42 +0100

From: Gianluca Gallino

Subject: holidays in france with a psion nB (gprs connection)

Hello everybody!

1) This summer I'll be spending my holidays in France and I wish I could use both my netBook and my T68i for regularly connecting to internet.

At the moment, Vodafone Italy has a promotion which allows for a 30-day unlimited forfait connection just at 20 euros, which makes the deal very convenient.

Does anybody know if in france there are similar opportunities?

are there any pay-as-you-go card which enable you to browse on the internet on a forfait basis?

Does anybody happen to know something more about it?

As an alternative, I have already become a wanadoo free-user and I could buy a card in order to connect myself via landline connection... by doing this I could dial a local number with wanadoo and still pay a reasonable price.

BTW, I would prefer a GPRS connection instead, so to have more freedom of connection without being tied up to the presence of landline plugs.

2) If anybody is coming to Italy and is interested to know more about mobile connection prices, I could tell you more about my experience with the above-mentioned Vodafone special offer as well as the special internet pay-as-you-go card they sell.

Unfortunately TIM seems to be offering different and higher prices, while I have heard that WIND is proposing interesting prices but I did not experience them personally and they should be checked out...

Gianluca Gallino AKA Cangiante

(this mail was written on the email app on his netBook and sent via the cheapest mobile ISP thanks to SMTPauth java program)

NB: please keep on supporting the petition for an EPOC/Symbian new netBook PRO on www.petitiononline.com/nbookpro/petition.html

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Date: 31 Jul 2003 19:17:10 +0100

From: Chris S Handley

Subject: REAL alternatives to the Netbook?

Hello all,

With Simon Wolf announcing he is leaving Psions for hardware that is able to fulfil his needs, in particular ditching his Netbook for an iBook, I thought it might be interesting to discuss what REAL alternatives there are to the Netbook.

Now, in my opinion a 12inch iBook comes close (3-4 hour battery

life(?), and very small size), I still find it lacking in the way every other laptop does: You are expected to torture yourself using the 'drag pad' to move the mouse pointer.

About 12 months ago a new type of PC laptop came out, known as Tablet PC, all of which have touch screens, and most interestingly of all is that a few also come with keyboards. I've termed these as Clamshell Tablet PCs, for want of a better word.

And most interesting of all is that although Tablet PCs were initially very over-priced (e.g. 2000 British pounds), over the last year their price has plummeted, and some in particular have dropped even more recently since they are going to be replaced by newer models.

The Acer TravelMate C102Ti falls in this category, now costing only 1000 pounds, and is what I ended-up getting a couple of months ago. In addition, it has a particularly good battery life (3.5 hours),

while also being light (1.5Kg) and have a fairly good performance.

To me it seems these (Tablet PCs) are finally coming close to replacing the Netbook, because all of them are small & have a high (for laptops) battery life. Now, don't get me wrong, the Netbooks still manages to get up to double the battery life, is slightly smaller & more conventient, and weighs a bit less, but you DO have to make some compromises to replace the Netbook!

Now, using the Epoc Emulator, I get a fairly good imitation of a Netbook (well, one with a bright 800x600 display & 20Gb C drive:-) right down to the touch screen. And with my virtually finished FastBackup program, it is very feasible for me to swap my 1Gb Microdrive between Netbook & Tablet PC, and share all my files (inc C drive).

I've posted some of my thoughts and experiences here, should you want a bit more info:

http://www.pdastreet.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18182

What other alternatives are there? Netbook Pro running WinCE? I'm not convinced WinCE is sufficiently good to justify the high price of a Netbook Pro. Better Tablet PCs?

---

Chris Handley

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

Date: 31 Jul 2003 19:20:04 +0100

From: Chris S Handley

Subject: Is Palmtop Money the worst accounting program ever?

Hello all,

Since my post to PDA Street failed to elicit any response, I'm hoping the high intelligence quota of this list might come up with some info.

While the subject line may seem a bit exaggerated, I think it is almost justified becase the Forecast by Budget feature seems to be totally broken. Such a feature is one of the MAJOR reasons for using an accounting program.

I bought Money v1.61 nearly two years (2001) ago, having used a similar accounting program on my Amiga (called Money Matters) for years, and despite periodic attempts to find what I was doing wrong, I have totally failed to get Money to work.

Over a year ago I sent Palmtop & TomTom, a short but precise report on my problem, and the details which I believed indicated this to be a bug in Money. After several more emails, I finally recieved a reply saying they would look at it - and then absolutely nothing since! I have to say I am fairly shocked at Palmtop/TomTom's lack of any kind of real reply.

**********************************************

I would be most interested to know if I am the only person experiencing the following problem:

**********************************************

Select the "Report / Forecast..." menu item (Shift Ctrl F), choose any Forecast beyond today (e.g. "categories" & "30-12-2003"), and base the forecast on "budget". Assuming you have a budget set up (using mainly positive values), you should see the predicted account balance rise pretty fast from today (when it starts predicting).

The balance rises even if I choose prediction based on only expense categories, which should be impossible!

Based on this & other results (see below) I conclude that the forecast fails to notice which categories are Expenses, and therefore thinks everything is Income!

If I base the forecast on "historic data", then it gives a sensible forecast. And the "Report / Profit & loss" function gives nice sensible results; e.g. Ratio% is always positive & close to 100 percent, while Subtotal & Total closely match the value & sign of the Budget column.

On the other hand, if I decide to use Money wrongly, and make all Budgeted expenses have negative values, then the Forecast gives sensible results, while all other features (e.g. Profit & loss) give incorrect results.

I am really hoping someone can give me some insight into this; either when the bug was introduced (so I can use an older version that works), or tell me they do not get this problem.

Note that Series7, 7book & Revo all give the same results.

---

Chris Handley

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

Date: 31 Jul 2003 20:39:25 +0100

From: Stephen Bedford

Subject: 5mx Pro and 1gb card

To: Philip Carlisle

Roman and Itamar were not referring to 1GB IBM microdrive. You can get compact flash cards of 1GB and more. Pretec do 1 & 2GB type I and 1.5 & 3GB type II.

http://www.pretec.com/index2/product/SSD/ach_industrial.htm

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

Date: 31 Jul 2003 20:48:29 +0100

From: Stephane Sage

Subject: Future of Symbian

Hello to all.

Reading the (particularly sound and matter-of-fact) replies of Rolf B and Martin H to Arent K's sombre views on our preferred OS, I feel relieved that all Arent meant was prejudiced, ill-informed and merely vindictive. Arent, if you won't give a chance to one of the (now very few remaining) of W Gates' independent OS, why don't you quit our forum asap ? Please don't get hurt, but the more I read yr epistles, the more I get the feeling you belong to MS's fifth column.

Best regards.

Stephane Sage (Grenoble, France)

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Date: 31 Jul 2003 20:59:58 +0100

From: Alan Morris

Subject: Re: WinCE

Arent Kits van Heijningen wrote:-

<< Rolfs contribution was in many respects solid , but again colored by his

dislike for "Crap Edition " >>

I can't say I agree with Arents love of Wince, but I do like his choice of "Crap Edition"; even Micro$oft staff that I've spoken to don't know what CE stands for.

I ran my own PC business for 24 years starting with the CBM computers, but I never used Windows in any form to run the business. I've used Windows from version 1.x that arrived on 5¼" floppies but never pushed it to my customers. Many regretted having to move to an inefficient Windows when it was being pushed from all quarters. In recent years I've used Psions to help run my business. Many new customers were most fascinated when I connected their office printer to my 5mx and then presented them with an invoice.

On this Digest we all enjoy our Psions with EPOC, but unfortunately it is a dying OS. Even versions higher than 5 are not real EPOC computers as we know it with ER5, lacking functionality in the built-in apps and third party apps.

In the modern world progress unfortunately means throwing away a good and working system and being forced to buy an inferior new 'supper-dupper' product.

I find it interesting that in my day to day work and leisure, I have not seen anyone that I know using a non keyboard PDA. I can't remember the last time I saw anyone using one.

Also most days I see a number of folk using mobile phones, some with built-in camera interfaces, but none use them for photos. So who's using these phone cameras and phone PDAs?

Are they being sold and then the owner stops using them soon after, realising that they've wasted their money?

Alan R Morris, G4ENS.

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK.

Using a Psion 7 & Nokia 6210e.

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

Date: 1 Aug 2003 00:41:00 +0100

From: Tim Schweikert

Subject: Earthlink as an ISP

Hi Tony,

You reported that you are having problems with Earthlink as your ISP. The reported problems (squealing) appear to indicate that your modem is not negotiating with the Earthlink modems.

As you can see, I have Earthlink as an ISP and I have had no problems on my Palm + Palm modem or on my former Psion 5MX + IR Modem.

I have had the symptoms you indicate for a few months when using my laptop built-in modem, never with my external USR Sportster modem on V90. In this case, Earthlink had a modem driver in their Total Access SW that wasn't

very compatible with my laptop modem. The situation was corrected in the latest upgrade from Earthlink - I no longer have any problems.

Some thoughts: log on to Earthlink and find a different phone number, at least in a different area code, assuming that you have several area codes that do not constitute a long distance call. That should ensure that you obtain a different modem bank.

I also recall that Earthlink recently sent out some blurb about changing something for your logon servers.

I have in my server listing:

pop.earthlink.net for incoming email,

stmp.earthlink.net for outgoing email.

I do recall that they recommend the addition of ELN before one or both of those server ids. Check the Earthlink website.

One last item - there shouldn't be any script in use. This is not like Compuserve or Juno where special scripts are needed.

Tim

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

Date: 1 Aug 2003 07:31:21 +0100

From: Roman Frotz

Subject: 5mx Pro and 1gb card

Philipe wrote:

> Your machines must differ from my standard 5mx, as the IBM 1gb card is too large for that machine's slot. > I find it only fits comfortably into my NBook - or do you guys have some form of adaptor?

Philipe,

I guess you refer to IBMs 1GB Microdrive which indeed does not fit into the Psion 5/mx/mx Pro series card slot. I have problems with a "normal" CF-Card that has 1GB storage capacity. At the time the Microdrive came out normal CF-Cards with 1GB where not available but this has changed in the meantime and I think they are already working on (selling?) CF-cards as large as 4GB.

Thanks for the tip in the previous digest to check if I put the CF-Card in a correct way into my Psion but I did, therefore my problem persists. Any other ideas? I hate to think that there is no solution because this card was meant to be used in my Psion and not in my PC.

Roman

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Date: 1 Aug 2003 07:32:04 +0100

From: martin

Subject: RE: Berries et al

>>Are you all giving him the Razzberry? :-)<<

>> I learned that size is nxot everything <<

Thus Halleberry

cheers

Martin Maxwell

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

Date: 1 Aug 2003 08:49:23 +0100

From: Kate Head

Subject: Dacom 56K Global

>>Date: 30 Jul 2003 08:37:50 +0100

>>From: Adam Carter

>>Subject: PC Card Modem

>>I have a Psion DACOM 56k + Fax Gold Card Global that I bought of e->>bay. Unfortunately I can not get it to work with my S7

Hi there Adam,

Modem

name Psion Dacom Modem (so might not be the 56K of yours)

speed 38400 (try 57650)

connect via PC Card

fax class 2

options

never quiet 4

initialisation

AT&F

advanced

flowcontrol Hardware (RTS/CTS)

Terminal detect ticked

carrier detect ticked

Modem type fixed line

Hope that helps and your modem works.

All the best,

Kate!!

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

Date: 1 Aug 2003 11:08:20 +0100

From: Martin Guthrie

Subject: Program update: ebc v1.04

Dear All,

Due to pressure of other commitments, Neil Thompson has kindly agreed to have me take over maintenance and updating of his 'ebc' program. ebc lets you add colour support to Jason Kneen's excellent ExtraBars. New in v1.04 (compared with v1.02/3 published previously by Neil):-

• Support for 'internal' ExtraBars colour icons added (e.g. Folder, Macro5, etc.).

• Colour ExtraBars icon added (for Extras bar)

I'll be continuing to develop it further over the next few weeks months.

Things currently planned to be added are:-

• Support for the 'Extras' key capture

• A colour splash screen on startup!

• Colouring of the side 'Extras' and top title strips

• A help file

• Repositioning of the Task switcher (bottom right instead of middle right)

• Repositioning of the ExtraBars selector (bottom left instead of middle left)

• Support for Opera web links as well as / instead of Web

If anyone's got any suggestions / requests for other things you want fixed then drop me an email and let me know...