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Epoc Digest Tue, 25 Nov 2003 Volume 01 : Number 387
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Sent to: 788 subscribers
In today's Epoc Digest 19 messages:
==============================
- X-mas period
- RE: Tungsten T3
- 5MX Repair
- RE: Tungsten T3
- Psiwin blocked when backing up
- RE: Free ISP in Washington DC and New York City area?
- 3/3a/3c/3mx
- Re: Using Smartphones while flying (OT)/XP
- Re: CF Card sizes
- Re: Net(Lowe)Book bug?
- Re: Rolf - nB Pro OS 7
- Re: Using Smartphones while flying (OT)
- Re: EIKON CLOCK error in Program
- Re: Fax problems with 6310i
- YC?, NB~, weird?
- Documents To Go on my Palm, Tungsten T3,
- Opera and wireless ADSL
- Re: Opera and wireless ADSL
- Teklogix's Public Guardian
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Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003
From: Digest administrator
Subject: X-mas period
During the X-mas period many of you will be away. If you expect your mailbox to be full or activate your auto-answer function, pls send us a message (with ADMIN in the subject field) with the dates. We will temporary unsubscribe you for that period. Digests you missed appear on our website.
With best regards
Itamar Engelsman
The Epoc Digest Team
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Date: 24 Nov 2003 16:45:19 +0000
From: Simon Wolf
Subject: RE: Tungsten T3
Rick,
> Just bought a T3 myself, been using it for 3 or 4 weeks now.
> Bought it as a *possible* 5mx replacement. I'm more than
> happy with it, it only has two drawbacks so far: 1.
> rechargeable battery (recharge every night) 2. no keyboard.
Welcome to the world of Palm! :) Regarding switching to a rechargeable machine, I tend to sit my Palm in my cradle when I am not out and about and have a cradle on my desk at home and one here at work. This means that I generally don't have to make a conscious effort to recharge my T|3 since it is kept topped up. If I am going away then I just pack the travel charger (not a cheap accessory but very useful).
> Grafitti is pretty quick, but nowhere near as good as a
> keyboard. The upside of this is that it's easy to take notes
> wherever you are, jotting things down like I never would with
> a 5mx, e.g. in a shop, at a museum, looking up words on the
> go. It easily fits ina trouser pocket. I think an add-on
> keyboard would only be necessary if you do a lot of typing on
> the PDA, I don't find it necessary.
I agree that Graffiti is not ideal for writing long notes but I tend to do a lot of data entry on my PC or Mac and just synchronise the data over to the Palm. However, as you say, for quick notes it is more than capable and in some ways easier than using a keyboard. I do also own one of the folding keyboards but I tend only to use it infrequently (if I am away and need to write an email for example).
> They do not work at all on OS5, and TomTom will not give a
> date when (or even if) they will be available. For an
> excellent alternative, giving door-to-door instructions, go
> to www.mapopolis.com.
Thanks for the link. A recent addition to Craig Murphy's excellent Blog (http://craigsblog.blogspot.com/) also mentions a route mapping solution but it looks quite expensive.
> <sniff>...it was beautiful while it lasted... ;)
Indeed but once you get over the nostalgia (not that easy ... I'm still a subscriber here and I still post at PsionPlace every now and then) it's not quite so painful. Not everyone will like the alternative devices that are currently available and they certainly won't suit everyone but they do have some advantages and I do now think that I would find it hard to go back to a Psion for my day-to-day needs.
Simon
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Date: 24 Nov 2003 18:17:29 +0000
From: Andy Gilbert
Subject: 5MX Repair
Has anyone recently had their 5 or 5MX Repaired? Mine now has a broken screen as well as case, and badly needs some TLC. POS still appear to do repairs, has anyone had recent experience of them?
I've not posted recently as much now seems to be Series 7 & phone related, though I still check for items of interest. For the record, my 5MX is still giving sterling service, even with a broken screen, though I'm having to learn to navigate mostly by keyboard. It's faults are solely due to accidental damage, clumsiness on my part. I do hope a repair will mean I can get a few more years out of it yet!
Andy Gilbert
Exeter
Devon
England
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Date: 24 Nov 2003 18:57:05 +0000
From: Chris Kantarjiev
Subject: RE: Tungsten T3
>
> Some features are missing, e.g. Data, but HanDBase ($30) offers far more feature > s than Data. A few other add-ons are advised to spice up the Calendar and Clock > . After these it replaces the 5mx fully except for the two points noted above, > and that searching, route-planning, clearing bank accounts etc. is remarkably qu > ick compared to the 5mx.
I'm curious - what did you use for an improved Calendar? One of my
gripes every time I tried a Palm was that the calendar was nowhere
near as good as my 3c Agenda; one of the features I use a lot is
repeating ToDos, and that always seems to be missing.
Is there an app like World? Does the thing understand time zones
as well as the 3c (that is, the Agenda stores things in local time
rather than in GMT, so when you move the machine and change time
zones, it does the sensible thing)?
Thanks,
chris
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Date: 24 Nov 2003 21:06:18 +0000
From: Stephane Sage
Subject: Psiwin blocked when backing up
Hello to all
Sorry to bother you with my "fresh" news on Psion assumed takeover the other day: I didn't take time enough to read previous Digests, my mistake...
Can anyone explain why Psiwin (2.3.3) (with XP Pro) will block itself on backing up my 5mx ? It says:
" Program incident: the file has been opened on the Psion. Do you wish to start again ?" after the usual "differential analysis". But nothing improves after relaunching the process.
In the meantime I could backup from the PC to the other 5mx without any hitch...Which is why I didn't reloaded Psiwin after all.
Thanks for any help
Stephane (Grenoble, France).
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Date: 24 Nov 2003 21:22:17 +0000
From: Bramley, Charlie
Subject: RE: Free ISP in Washington DC and New York City area?
Johan,
No such thing as free - but cheap possible...
Have a look at www.access-4-free.com I've just signed up and its $4.95 one-off payment & includes 10hours per month free. The website has listings for all USA access numbers (may cover the east coast)
Their email server is epoc friendly as it does not require SMTP authentication. It seems to work - the times I've tried it.
Charlie
Portland, Oregon
Quoting original message "...
Date: 22 Nov 2003 08:54:31 +0000
From: Johan Lindahl
Subject: Free ISP in Washington DC and New York City area?
Hi!
Does it exist free Internet providers in USA? I recall it has been discussed before and that it was very few or none? Maybe there is some PAYG service?
I wonder because i'm about too take a two week trip to Wash. DC and NYC in december and would like to keep contact with e-mail on my Psion.
Thanks in advance for any hints!
Johan Lindahl
Stockholm, Sweden
" End Quote
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Date: 24 Nov 2003 21:55:40 +0000
From: Cyril Catt
Subject: 3/3a/3c/3mx
Hi Rolf and Philip,
I’m one of the old curmudgeons who would be happy if my 3a were still
working, because it came with software that made it easy and convenient
to swap files with my Macintoshs, had a long life on easily-to-find
penlight batteries, apps adequate for my needs, and a keyboard that
allowed data entry at least twice as fast as pen entry. Small enough to
be a constant companion, it was also a useful travel alarm, and fully
met my minimalist needs.
Cyril Catt
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Date: 24 Nov 2003 22:54:41 +0000
From: Keith Giles
Subject: Re: Using Smartphones while flying (OT)/XP
Koi Hin wrote:
> It would seem to me to be a case of convincing the airlines that the > smartphones are not in transmission mode.
I think you'd has as much luck as bicycle folks have convincing the airlines that since the entire aircraft is pressurized to about 6,000 ft, you don't have to let the air out of your tires. Hell, bikers climb to much higher altitudes without their tires exploding. :-)
Re Psiwin / Regclean / Win XP: Regclean does work with XP and 2.3.3 works brilliantly with XP.
Rick Gillyon wrote, re T3:
> It easily fits ina trouser pocket.
"Is that a T3 in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?" - Mae West. :-)
I'm sorry, folks - I just can't resist.
Happy Cycling,
Keith
Sunnyvale, CA
http://ohsix827.home.comcast.net
Thought For The Day: How long a minute is, depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on.
All my outgoing e-mails have been checked by Norton Anti-virus.
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Date: 24 Nov 2003 23:15:25 +0000
From: trzygrosze
Subject: Re: CF Card sizes
On 23 Nov 2003 Marcus von Cube wrote:
"Since EPOC does not seem to support partitioned CF cards, this limits the total usable CF card size to 2 GB."
More then 5 months ago I have partitioned my new Transcend 256 MB Compact Flash with Windows (freeware) utility Ranish Partition Manager. Initially I have created 4 primary partitions (both FAT16 and FAT12). Some time later I have re-partitioned the card into 3 FAT16 partitions: one of them takes about a half of physical disk, the other two are smaller.
It appeared that the partitions are recognised by the EPOC OS. After some testing I have decided to use the first partition for system files and for back-ups of the Internal disk. The second and the third partitions are used for documents only (that is -- for non system files). It seems that some applications happily run from any partition, but as there are issues with other programs, I am now trying to use only the first logical disk on this CF to install new apps.
On my netBook the partitions are reported as disks D, F, and H (assuming that the CF card is kept in the drawer, not in PC Card slot). On my Ericsson MC218 the same partitions are reported by the OS as disks D, E, and F. Atelier EDU is perfectly happy with this card, and apart from the problems with installing or lunching some apps on F or H drive, I haven't experienced any other issues that I could relate to the fact that the card has been partitioned. All partitions that I have created with Ranish Part. Manager are so called primary partitions (you can create up to 4 partitions of this kind on a single physical drive) -- so I have no idea whether extended partitions are supported by the EPOC OS or not.
I've done this experiment mainly to speed up the EPOC build-in folder browser (system screen -> tab), and I can confirm that the improvement is big in this respect. The only thing I am yet to try is booting my netBook from partitioned CF.
Hope this might be of interest
Marek Oswiecimski
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Date: 24 Nov 2003 23:25:22 +0000
From: Alan Morris
Subject: Re: Net(Lowe)Book bug?
Martin Guthrie wrote:-
>> I have a NetBook (from David Lowe) that I'm very happy with
>> (The screen cable has lasted for more than 6 months !) It
>> does, however, have a strange bug. When I type uppercase
>> "CY" into word or jotter it actually writes "CY?" This is
>> not the case with my 5mx
When Rick reported this, I checked it on my netBook from David, but was unable to reproduce it.
> Well, it's nothing to do with David Lowe since my standard
> netBook (same OS build) does exactly the same. I've noticed
> the same effect before when typing "NB" (which comes out as
> "NB~"). Interestingly, both these only happen if you type
> the letters very quickly together. If you type them more
> slowly, they appear normally. Must be an OS build quirk
> I suspect.
I don't think that it has anything to do with the speed of typing Martin, but it's probably an OS quirk on netBooks. Psion changed the keyboard on the netBook after the 5. The most noticeable (and annoying) is the swapping of the <Menu> and <Fn> keys. Also the 'add/subtract 1 to date' and 'add/subtract 10 to date' auto-nudging, 4 key sets have changed.
The tilde <~> and <?> keys are amongst the minor keys that have changed their position. So have their scan codes changed: I've not had the time to check.
I think the problem is about how EIKON handles hot keys as the odd display is more in line with a hot key. The changes required to the table has left a few oddities.
Type: <Shift> + <N> and hold. The repeat actions. (normal)
Type: <Shift> + <N> + <B> and hold. The repeat does not action, but a '~' is displayed. Then the repeat actions for '~'.
Do this using <C> and <Y> and you get '?'.
You can also use <N> and <£> for a '?'.
If the <B>, <Y> or <£> is released before the repeat actions for a '~' or '?', then there is no repeat.
Psion trivia!
--
Alan R Morris, G4ENS.
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK.
Using a Psion netBook & Nokia 6210e.
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Date: 24 Nov 2003 23:25:36 +0000
From: Alan Morris
Subject: Re: Rolf - nB Pro OS 7
Rolf Brunsting wrote:-
<< Please note that this is a quite common phenomenon. Create a new technology and you're bound to build a number of limitations into it. Develop the technology and there comes a time that you're not able to take it further because of these limitations. Meaning that you have to development something new again. >>
This is often the case but for many years I've used the expression 'wizz-kid designed'; meaning designed by someone (probably just out of university) that has hardly ever used the previous product and therefore does not know it's features.
So many good features are lost. I remember when 8-bit PCs were replaced by 16-bit PCs. The new machines were generally inferior than the ones they were to replace. I continued to develop on Commodore PETs, programs that ran on 16-bit PCs, transferring files both ways using the same word processor on both machines.
Many here will remember the loss of being able to access the new Psion's drives from the PC as with the old SIBO Psions. I still use a 3mx for my Agenda, although I'm typing on a nB and also have a Revo+, 5mxs and a 7. I still keep the DOS word processor referred to above as it can still do things that XP Word can't.
New PDAs (to use the popular name) lack decent keyboards, which many want. So why is there no new Palm or Pocket PC device made with one. We never hear of keyboard cables failing, so what's the problem?
Progress for advancement yes, but often features that could be retained are lost through ignorance rather than difficulty in implementing them on advanced products.
We are being persuaded to purchase products that we don't want, because they lack the features we regularly use. However the salesmen and designers today keep pushing their ideas, which we reluctantly have to accept.
Trygve wrote, "that runs (shudder) DOS". I often wonder how more advanced we would be today if DOS had not been replaced by Windows or if OS2 had won the Win/OS2 battle.
--
Alan R Morris, G4ENS.
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK.
Using a Psion netBook & Nokia 6210e.
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Date: 24 Nov 2003 23:53:54 +0000
From: Owen H. Morgan
Subject: Re: Using Smartphones while flying (OT)
Howdy!
Wong Koi Hin wrote (> ):
> I was given to understand that the ban on turning
> on mobile phones on planes was because it was a
> transmitting/receiving device, and may interfere
> with the navigation system of the plane. (Has
> there been a known case of mobile phones
> interfering with the navigation of a plane? I do
> not know of any)
In most cases it probably wouldn't happen, but if there was a bad connection somewhere with a problem with the electric shielding of some equipment it might. Have you ever heard the Tat-Tat-Tat Tat-Tat-Tat Tat-Tat-Tat Tah sound in the speakers of a stereo system or cheap portable radio when you make a call or receive a text message? If not, try holding your phone next to a cheap radio and switch it on. That sound can easily make life rather annoying for the aircrew if it comes through on their communications radio (it does on both my short-wave receivers) and it could cause some instruments to give "peculiar" readings. In most cases the equipment is well enough shielded that there won't be a problem. The rule is simply a case of "better safe than sorry".
However, there is another important reason not to use a mobile in the air. There are only a limited number of frequencies available in the GSM system. If you're sitting in your car on Tower Bridge and I am outside Buckingham Palace, we can both have phone conversations using the same frequency. Our phones and the two different base stations we are connecting through will be too far apart to disturb each other.
If you are in an aircraft above London, you phone conversation will block that frequency for the whole London area. This is why it's unlikely that the future will bring the call charges for satellite phones down to the price level of GSM phones unless someone invents something really revolutionary. If everyone had a sat-phone, there simply wouldn't be enough frequencies to go around even with the high compression and channel density of digital systems.
> How should the fact that modern
> planes are "fly by wire" be any different?
If the wire to be flown by has a problem, the rudder controls may receive your Tat-Tat-Tat Tat-Tat-Tat Tat-Tat-Tat Tah instead of the signal to trim the elevator a fraction up.
> We are
> allowed to operate other electronic devices like
> laptops and PDAs after take-off and before
> landing. Surely the same treatment should be given
> to Smartphones if they are not in tx/rx mode.
It's easier for the airlines to make sure all devices that contain a radio transmitter are switched off than to train the staff to recognise when a certian device is in standby mode and not transmitting. Add to this the risk of operator error where the user thinks (s)he has put the unit in standby mode, and maybe you are using your smartphone in standby and someone else sees you and reckons (s)he can do it too.
Would it be possible to disable the phone part before switching the unit on, or would the user need to switch it on first (thus activating the phone part) and then chose to switch the phone part off from a menu? Remember that a GSM phone always transmits when you first switch it on and it links up to a base station even if you don't make a call. In fact, it repeats this at regular intervals and more often when you move from one area to another.
> It would seem to me to be a case of convincing the
> airlines that the smartphones are not in
> transmission mode. Perhaps bringing along the
> instructions manual might be helpful. :) We might
> also write in to the airlines about this matter.
Whether or not they decide to allow people to use the PDA function of a smartphone, it would be useful for them to have some sort of scanner that would sound an alarm if there was an active phone on the aircraft. It should be simple to make and would work the same way as one of those cheap keyring things or pens that light up when you receive a call or SMS.
Owen
Thought for the day:
Always yield to temptation, for it may not pass your way again.
--
28°07.86'N 15°25.65'WLas Palmas, Gran Canary
--
Owen H. Morgan, Yacht "Naomi J.", LD-9Somewhere in sunny Portugal, heading for the Canaries.
http://home.no.net/naomij
Phone and SMS:
In Spain: +34 620520079
In Norway: +47 92053097
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Date: 25 Nov 2003 08:56:05 +0000
From: Marcus von Cube
Subject: Re: EIKON CLOCK error in Program
Phil,
>On my 5mx, if I try to activate "Program" I get an errr message >" Program Closed
>Program - Program
>Reason code - EIKON- CLOCK
>Reason number - 1"
I saw this once on my system after I tried to install a program written for the Revo on my netBook. There are obviously some library differences between the ER5 machines. The trouble occured with Web which I installed on my netBook from the Revo CD (to be able to use the HTML converter in nConvert which relies on Web being installed).
I didn't try whether Program broke the same way after the installation of Web. I assume that you have installed some piece of incompatible software which breaks Program, probably by a restore from a different machine type.
Marcus
http://www.mvcsys.de
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Date: 25 Nov 2003 09:02:43 +0000
From: Marcus von Cube
Subject: Re: Fax problems with 6310i
John,
>I recently upgraded from the Nokia 6210e to the 6310i phones, but now I can't fax!
>Does anyone have an idea what I can try next, please?
You should create the folders C:\Logs\Etel and C:\Logs\Fax. Then, after a failure, look at the files in these directories, they should tell you, what has happend to your phone.
Marcus
http://www.mvcsys.de
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Date: 25 Nov 2003 09:29:22 +0000
From: Marcus von Cube
Subject: YC?, NB~, weird?
Ian,
>I have a David Lowe netBook, and am unable to reproduce the problem, no matter how fast I type (with Caps Lock on and off); however, if I press Shift, N & B simultaneously, then I do get NB~. Similarly, if I press Shift, C and Y simultaneously, I get YC?....very weird.
Not weird at all if you know how a keyboard works: The keys are arranged in a matrix with rows and columns of wires and the keys (switches) on the crossing points of them. Some keybords provide "n key rollover" which incorporates a seperate diode on every key. Whithout this precaution, if you press three keys of which two are on the same row and two are on the same column (let's say Sh[row A / col 1][row A / col 2][row B / col 1]) there is a short circuit o[row B / col 2]. The software cannot decide, which keys are pressed and which are fake and produces all four keycodes.
(On my german nB, Shift + C + Z produces _; it's the position of the keys, not the logical codes they generate!)
Marcus
http://www.mvcsys.de
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Date: 25 Nov 2003 09:31:17 +0000
From: Itamar Engelsman
Subject: Documents To Go on my Palm, Tungsten T3,
Answer to: Peter Rand
Re.: Documents To Go on my Palm - Which Palm do you use and how do you type longer texts in ?
Answer to: Rick Gillyon
Re. Tungsten T3 - When Ceasar saw the group of people that came to kill him it included his son. Apparently he said "And you too, Brutos". You bought a Palm too .... ? <BG>. It is not multitasking, but how often do we use several programs at the same time on our Psions ? On the Palm the programs do open whereever you left them which is almost as good as multitasking. I also use DateBk5 which enhances the agenda program considerably. As to Mapopolis, that is quite an investment to replace the TomTom programs ! For me the keyboard is of major importance, I just do too much with the keyboard to forego it.
Best regards,
Itamar Engelsman
London, UK
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Date: 25 Nov 2003 10:03:55 +0000
From: Klaus Gottlieb
Subject: Opera and wireless ADSL
Hello all you experts on rLAN.
- How can I get Opera show me websites using rLAN connection ?
Opera 5.1 (v 5.14 (36)) works fine with the t86i-phone, gprs and infrared. But this connection is to expensive to use at home.
At home I have:
- ADSL internet connection, SMC router and SMC Access Point
3 month ago, I got a cheap and lovely netBook with Danish keyboard from David Lowe. (took time to get it remapped with Keyboard Layouter). After 2 month I stopped trying to get my SMC wireless PC-card to work with the netBook and I got a Buffalo-card. Still no connection using DHCP.
After getting some help from my nabo with the manual insertion of (IP-adr, Net Mask, Gateway and DNS) numbers and fine results ping´ing with FIfinger, this morning I tryed the Email application. It worked as a dream.
Following my own sense of logic, I should finaly be very close to the possibility of having a quick web-search, without waiting 2-3 minutes for win2000 to start up.
Still with the same connection on, I tryed to get www.google.com via Opera without any luck. It says "Network problem".
In Opera preferences for connection, there is no choise of connection. What have I missed ?
from KlÅrhus, Denmark
PS nFTP works also as a dream ... ! - So I can make my homepages and upload them, but not look at them ... !
*++++++++++&
Date: 25 Nov 2003 10:19:01 +0000
From: Klaus Gottlieb
Subject: Re: Opera and wireless ADSL
Hi again
Just removed the tick on Synchronous DNS under performance in Connections preferences in Opera.
Wow, what a connection. And battery is dawn to 10,9.
Sorry to take your time, being so blind. But honestly, I have been in trouble for very long time ...
from KlÅrhus, Denmark
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Date: 25 Nov 2003 11:36:59 +0000
From: Peter McCafferty
Subject: Teklogix's Public Guardian
Dear All,
Nice photo in today's Guardian newspaper of the production line in Wales for the new Netbook Pro. Ironically it seems that Teklogix have awarded the contract for the unit's manufacture to a Chinese company, who in turn sub-contracted the order to a Welsh company. (I think that's the gist of it). The contract value is GBP15m. That'll help keep a smile om the UK's IT manufacturing industry, especially in critcal areas like Wales.
It's claimed that a tranche of the order is for the NHS (National Health Service - the world's second biggest employer, behind Indian state railways), so that staff can monitor/update patient info etc on the fly. I assume that'll be using the Bluetooth functionality to allow users to meander around the wards. I wonder if this new exposure at a sharp public/industry interface will provide a 'shot-in-the-Arm' for Teklogix to increase production numbers, and ultimately spawn an EPOC love child.
regards
Peter
--
Peter McCafferty, Peter Julian & Associates, Architects
6-8 Tiverton Street, London, SE1 6NZ, UK.
Tel: +44 (0) 20 72 34 01 12
Fax: +44 (0) 87 00 55 78 12
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