Epocdigest V1 # 429

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Epoc Digest Wed, 21 Jan 2004 Volume 01 : Number 429

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Sent to: 796 subscribers

In today's Epoc Digest 19 messages:

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

- Re: Random numbers

- Re : FreeNote 3.08

- RE: Power supply rating for Netbooks

- USB and PSIWIN

- Re: US Spell

- Re: Atomic time & Crontab

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

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

- (pseudo) random numbers

- Off Topic, but.....

- Re: Random numbers.

- Re: USB Psi Win cable.

- Re:Revo Questions,re:Netpad Stuff, re:Netbook power specs

- Re: Zaurus 860 OT

- CronTab

- Spam & the Digest's anti-spam protection

- Despammed.com, Mobile phones and roaming,

- Re: Epoc Digest V1 # 393 (5)

- Re. Psion Journal

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Date: 20 Jan 2004 02:03:12 +0100

From: Andrew Gregory

Subject: Re: Random numbers

I can see other people have already explained the cause of the problem, so all I have to contribute is my suggestion:

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

Andrew Gregory, <URL: mailto:andrew

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

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

Date: 20 Jan 2004 03:45:23 +0100

From: Jack

Subject: Re : FreeNote 3.08

To Philip Bister

Any chance to get a colo(u)ris(z)ed icon in your nice FreeNote 3.08 ?

Jack

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

Date: 20 Jan 2004 07:46:01 +0100

From: Daniele Squarci

Subject: RE: Power supply rating for Netbooks

Shlomo wrote: >> Can anybody tell me if an original UK power supply for Revo (6v/500ma), will suit the Netbook. <<

No, it's entirely different! The netBook PS runs at 15v/1.5 A. I got mine via Expansys.

Ciao

Daniele Squarci - Italy

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

Date: 20 Jan 2004 09:08:09 +0100

From: Philip Carlisle

Subject: USB and PSIWIN

For Neil Ogden

On my PC at work, I have a 5mx linked by standard serial cable and a NBook linked by cable into Belkin serial/USB converter to the USB port (ran out of serial ports). PsiWin recognises both machines and both ports. I find it best to use the PsiWin preference options to reduce the number of ports it searches to just the 2 relevant ones. Even then it sometimes need 2 attempts before it recognises that I have switched from one machine (and port) to the other.

Regards

Philip Carlisle

London

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

Date: 20 Jan 2004 11:13:13 +0100

From: Owen H. Morgan

Subject: Re: US Spell

Howdy!

Jack wrote (> ):

> Not sure there is such an US specific Spell.app

> UK one at :

> http://www.sie.com/sweden/support/DOWNL/Spell.zip

The Diamond Mako comes with the US Spell application on CD. As I prefer UK English, I installed the UK one that came with my first Revo instead. I'm sure some nice Mako owner with a faster Internet connection than me would be happy to e-mail you the US spell application, assuming it's the Revo you need it for. The 5ives and MC218 have Spell in ROM, but you can use an alternative dictionary with it. I don't know what the case is with 7evens and Books.

Owen

Thought for the day:

Patience is something that you admire greatly in the driver behind you but not in the one ahead of you.

Owen H. Morgan, Yacht "Naomi J.", LD-928°02.83'N 16°42.89'W

Los Cristianos, Tenerife

http://home.no.net/naomij

Phone and SMS:

In Spain: +34 620520079

In Norway: +47 92053097

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

Date: 20 Jan 2004 11:13:21 +0100

From: Owen H. Morgan

Subject: Re: Atomic time & Crontab

Howdy!

Itamar Engelsman wrote (> ):

> I downloaded the Atomic Time program which works

> nicely. However, it creates a problem when you

> have Crontab on all the time as whenever you

> update the clock with Crontab active, the next

> alarm goes off (a known bug on Crontab).

I don't know if this will work as I don't use Atomic Time (I set the time from my GPS) and I haven't used CronTab for a long time, but how about writing a macro that first sets a silent alarm in CronTab to go off in one minute, then runs Atomic Time. This way, the next alarm in CronTab will be your bogus silent one, and that is the one that will go off when Atomic Time sets the time, leaving your real alarms to go off when they should.

Owen

Thought for the day:

Freedom is doing what you like, happiness liking what you do.

Owen H. Morgan, Yacht "Naomi J.", LD-928°02.83'N 16°42.89'W

Los Cristianos, Tenerife

http://home.no.net/naomij

Phone and SMS:

In Spain: +34 620520079

In Norway: +47 92053097

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

Date: 20 Jan 2004 12:18:16 +0100

From: Nicole Carbonara

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

To: Roger C Haslock

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

Mike McConnel addressed this problem in:

http://www.pdastreet.com/forums/showthread.php?s=7846c58081a5ff4a3570843a046 047a9&threadid=32914

In case you can not access this link, I copy here his reply:

>> PsiWin should be able to convert the sound files provided they have been created using "Standard" compression and not "ADPCM".

Open the "Record" application and in the menus select "Tools > Compress sound". Make sure the "Compression type" is set to 'Standard'. <<

Nicole

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

Date: 20 Jan 2004 13:49:10 +0100

From: David Steer $Plus$

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

Rodger,

PsiWin should convert the files from the Psion WVE format to the PC WAV format; it should do this when you drag a file from your Psion to the PC. Alternatively, if you run the Psion File Converter, select the Psion sound file it should give you the option (it does in PsiWin 2.33).

There are a number of tools that you can use: Sound Master (originally from Palmtop) can export the WVE files to WAV files directly on the Psion. However, I don't think this is available, though searching the Internet might find it. I also recall a program called Sound Trans that can do something similar - still seems to be on this site:-

http://www.mypsion.ru/software.php?aid=461.

Perhaps your best bet, though you will need to have Java installed on the Series 5, is Voice Recorder from Alexander Zavorine (http://www.zavorine.com/epoc). This should allow you to open a WVE file and save it as an MP3 file. I know this works under EPOC5 (Series 5mx/7 and netBook) but not sure if it works under EPOC3 (Series 5).

Regards

David Steer

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

Date: 20 Jan 2004 14:30:59 +0100

From: Marcus von Cube

Subject: (pseudo) random numbers

Hi Owen,

> RANDOMIZE DAY+HOUR+MINUTE+SECOND > RecNr%=1+INT(RND*MxRec%)

If you repeat this sequence in short intervals, you will get a sequence of numbers which is not very well distributed. The reason is that you reset the random number generator each time to the same or a very similar "seed" by calling RANDOMIZE. It's much better to call RANDOMIZE once at the

beginning of the programm and than let the generator alone.

Donald Knuth has devoted a whole chapter in "The Art of Computer Programming" (vol. 2, ch. 3) to the generation of random number sequences. Let me quote one statement: "Random numbers should not

be generated with a method chosen at random. Some theory should be used."

Such a pseudo random number generator isn't random at all! With the same seed value, it will produce the same sequence of "random" numbers all over again. The main purpose of it is to distribute the results over the range [0,M) so that the relative frequency of any particular result is roughly the same. M is typically a power of 2, e. g. 2^32. The RND function returns the integer result divided by M to scale the value to the range [0,1).

The most commonly used formula is R[n+1] = (a*R[n]+b) mod m. This computes the next number

R[n+1] from the most recent number R[n]. a, b and m are some "magic numbers". The "seed" set with

the RANDOMIZE call is the initial value R[0]. The method is called a "linear congruential sequence" (according to Knuth).

The implementation of the OPL random number generator is deeply burried in the operating system

itself (in the C++-class Math). I couldn't find any details about the "magic numbers" it uses. The algorithm (and numbers!) used in Java is detailed in the Java API documentation (class

java.util.Random).

Marcus

http://www.mvcsys.de

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

Date: 20 Jan 2004 19:07:02 +0100

From: John Wetton

Subject: Off Topic, but.....

.....who else is likely to know the answers :)

Hi Folks,

A quick off topic question - how do you go about accessing a networked PC via it's internet connection /remotely? I am looking at accessing a database remotely for work. Please drop me a line direct if you can offer any words of wisdom.

Email on a PC - upto now I have been using The Bat quite happily so that I don't have to download all the crap on the server. This works quite well, but doesn't feel as slick as Outlook (if that isn't a contradiction!). I have just tried Pocomail which seems slicker and more polished. It appears to have excellent filters that can be applied BEFORE downloading from a server, so you can effectively manage what actually comes onto your machine.

A trial version is available from www.pocomail.com this has a 45 day life.

All the best,

John Wetton

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

Date: 20 Jan 2004 23:40:56 +0100

From: Alan Morris

Subject: Re: Random numbers.

Owen H. Morgan wrote:-

> I have written a small OPL program to chose one record at

> random from a database of 475 records ....The code I use

> for the random generation is:

> OPEN MP3File$,F,T$

> MxRec%=COUNT

> RANDOMIZE DAY+HOUR+MINUTE+SECOND

> RecNr%=1+INT(RND*MxRec%)

> RN&=RecNr%

> POSITION RecNr%

> S$=F.T$

> CLOSE

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

> least more so?

Owen are you calling the OPEN ... CLOSE a number of times, if so then take RANDOMIZE out of the loop as you are reseeding every call.

Use RANDOMIZE in the initialisation of the program.

You could double RANDOMIZE; that is RANDOMIZE a second time using the first's result as seed.

Alan R Morris, G4ENS.

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK.

Using a Psion netBook & Nokia 6210e.

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

Date: 21 Jan 2004 02:01:03 +0100

From: Melvin Woody

Subject: Re: USB Psi Win cable.

I think I asked this once before -- but haven't seen it appear and may have left the query on the expansys forum:

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.

Melvin

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

Date: 21 Jan 2004 02:03:54 +0100

From: Scott Lloyd

Subject: Re:Revo Questions,re:Netpad Stuff, re:Netbook power specs

Hello my friends,

Great last digest, thanks to everybody for the plethora of imformation I recieved on my Revo, I have recieved some good advise and I feel alot better about using it for work. Will Green mentioned in the last digest that he had purchased a Newton 120 on ebay and was impressed by some of the features. I did exactly the same thing. One thing I can say for sure was Apple was way ahead of its time with the Newton, great machines, not very practical at this time but Im glad I bought it.

In the last digest someone ask the question about the power specs for the netbook they are as follows: 15.5 volts 1.5 amps

I am in the US so of course Im using a US power supply. Special thanks to Christoph Pulster for imformation on my Netpad

he has a great website, of course my German is not what it used to be! need to practice up a bit. Anyway I think I rambled a bit too much in the last digest so, time to put the kidlets to bed and me to follow, raising kids (again) at 49 is a bit different vs 24.

god bless

sco

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

Date: 21 Jan 2004 05:08:11 +0100

From: Wong Koi Hin

Subject: Re: Zaurus 860 OT

Reply to: Gerrit Muilwijk and others

Thanks to all who replied on this. There seems to be very little change. The ability to be recognised as a external disk is nice but not terribly so, and I suspect it only works with Windows OSes.

Hoepfully this leads to a price decrease for the 760.

regards,

Koi Hin

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

Date: 21 Jan 2004 08:16:42 +0100

From: Andy Hayes

Subject: CronTab

Hi All

Itamar asked about an alternative to CronTab. I am suffering the same problem but with CronTab & FastBackup which is set to run at 3am every day. It does the job, but as soon as I connect the netBook to the PC via psi-win and use it to sync my agenda, one of the files that FastBackup backs up, CronTab runs the Fastbackup macro at the same time as PsiWin is syncing it. It has finally corrupted the agenda which had to be sync'd from scratch. I don't have an alternative yet!

Andy Hayes

---

Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.

Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).

Version: 6.0.560 / Virus Database: 352 - Release Date: 08/01/2004

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

Date: 21 Jan 2004 09:30:51 +0100

From: Chris S Handley

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

Hello all,

Owen H. Morgan wrote:

> I've used the same e-mail address for a long time and hardly

> ever receive any spam. My solution is simply to never ever

> ever post my e-mail address on the WWW and to strongly

> discourage anyone else from doing so.

I whole-heartedly agree with Owen's solution to avoiding spam, because I use it myself, and it is the ONLY solution that you can guarantee will always work against spam - as simply the spammers will never get hold of your address in the first place (pretty much anyway).

> Those of you who are

> already receiving spam by the truckload will have to change

> your e-mail address before employing this policy.

I would say that it is not ALWAYS necessary to change your email address before you start using this policy. I managed to massively reduce (but not totally eliminate) the spam I recieved by simply ensuring I stopped putting my email address in the public domain, as Owen described.

I assume this happened because most spammers will discard their "old" email addresses - and why not, when 1000s of new email addresses appear every day from new internet users, while older addresses become abandoned?

This is REALLY GOOD NEWS, because in the event that you accidentally make your email address public (and you will do, trust me!), you are not forced to change addresses.

A big tip: If you suddenly start getting some (or more) spam, you may have accidentally made your address public by using a new service (such as some web chat system), or an existing service may have changed how it works, or perhaps the spammers may just have got a new trick to obtaining your address. The solution is obviously to then have a close look at your internet presence, and see if there is any way a sneaky spammer could get your address.

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).

#######################

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. The simple solution would be for me to post using a fake address, but unfortunately Psion Email will not automatically do this for only Digest posts, so I can't.

I therefore would REALLY like the Digest to change it's policy on revealing full email addresses. If someone TRUELY needs to reply to someone else in private, they can ask that someone to (on purpose) post their address to the Digest - or alternatively post their own address & ask the other person to email them privately.

########################

There is an even better way to avoid giving your address out in public, by providing a level of indirection. The best solution I know of so far is to make your own address a PICTURE (e.g. GIF or JPEG) and put this on your web site. I have done this, and can simply tell people to use the address shown on the web page http://email.cshandley.co.uk . This has the down-side that spammers will eventually work out how to automatically convert such pictures back to email addresses, but I believe I am one step ahead of them by splitting my address into MULTIPLE parts (each a separate picture), and then showing them side-by-side on my web page.

(Some other people recommend using JavaScript to generate your address only when viewed in a web browser, but I have my doubts about the long-term effectiveness of this approach, since it still shows your address as plain text.)

Regards,

Chris Handley

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

Date: 21 Jan 2004 09:34:16 +0100

From: Itamar Engelsman

Subject: Despammed.com, Mobile phones and roaming,

Answer to: Arent Kits van Heijningen

Re.: Despammed.com - With this program you need to open an email address with them and redirect your mail from there to your old address. The disadvantage is that while it will stop new spam it will not stop all the older spam that is already directed towards your old mail address and will continue to float around the cyberworld. If you want it to work properly you need to open two new email addresses, one with Despammed and one with your old provider. Spamache on the other hand - although not free of charge - will check your old email mailbox(es) every 10 minutes for spam messages.

Answer to: Alan Morris

Re. Mobile phones and roaming - I think it depends mainly on what you use it for. If only for emailing GPRS will be cheaper as you only pay for the bytes transfered and not for the waiting time for logging on etc. If however you do considerable browsing the opposite might be true. GRPs is definitely faster, but it also depends on the total usage on the network. At peak times it will be slower than off peak.

Best regards,

Itamar Engelsman

London, UK

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

Date: 21 Jan 2004 14:07:42 +0100

From: Moshe Nahir

Subject: Re: Epoc Digest V1 # 393 (5)

Subject: re: Psions for sale

Hello Roy,

You will get lots of $ if you sell your Psion gear on Ebay. If you have not used Ebay before then do not worry - it's easy to work out what to do. I've seen working Psions fetching around 150 to 200 UK pounds, and from sellers in the UK, USA, Australia & Germany etc! I've been wanting a 2nd hand Psion since dropping my old one, but there are so many people on Ebay bidding for them, that the price keeps going up too high!

I think that I am about to buy an Ipaq 4150 - which I now think is the best deal. You should check out www.aximsite.com for info on the Dell X3i (wireless, but no Bluetooth - although you can buy a SDIO BT card) and then www.ipaqhq.com for info on the Ipaq's. The 4150 has 802.11 (wireless) as well as Bluetooth and is getting the better reviews, although it is more expensive than the Dell X3i.

(Yes, I know that I said the Dell was a better model only a few days ago!)

I am probably going to go for some hypnotherapy treatment where my knowledge on the Psion products will be medically removed. That way, I will be overjoyed with my new PDA - and will be able to forget about the most superb applications Series 5 users can use. I am also going to be changing the work that I work. For example, I am now going to make use of Outlook to manage contacts on my PC (never needed to when I had my trusty Psion) and I will have to learn how to do nice graphs using Excel (only on the PC, forget about graphs on a PocketPC!).

IMHO there is a clear difference between a Psion user and a PocketPC user. The Psion user only needs the Psion - a desktop PC is not an essential part of the package. The Psion is used in the office (but not for email), and out on the road (email emergencies). However, the PocketPC is just a small subset of Microsoft Outlook running on a desktop PC, and is probably mostly used out on the road with the desktop PC (and Outlook) being the machine used in the office.

Rgds,

Antony

Canberra, Australia

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

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

From: Will Green

Subject: Re. Psion Journal

Re. Psion Journal for Tony Ross.

Dear Tony,

The Psion Journal is a 100% Psion dedicated publication, available worldwide.

It is published quarterly, and issue one is available now.

I've emailed off digest with all the info to save cluttering the digest's veritable pages, if anybody else would like further information please do not hesitate to contactor more information can be found at www.psioncomputer.com.