Epocdigest V1 # 442

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Epoc Digest Sun, 08 Feb 2004 Volume 01 : Number 442

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Sent to: 793 subscribers

In today's Epoc Digest 18 messages:

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- Nigel Bamber

- Re: Vodafone in nB?

- comms.nam

- Viruses, Euro symbol, CronTab,

- Re : EUR symbol

- Netpads

- Re: antivirus, CF Fail w/Machine Fail?,

- Re: Euro symbol on a Series 5 ?

- Viruses on EPOC - Not yet!

- Re: View HTML mail (again!)

- Re: Scandinavian characters

- TimeLog v 5Time / Antivirus Certification / netPad / CronTab

- Phoneman

- Gold Card

- Extrabar

- 256 mb MMC Cards

- SD / MMC Cards in netPads

- Re: Files on C/ Improving programs

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

Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004

From: Digest administrator

Subject: Nigel Bamber

Your email address has (with 41 days delay !) returned all digests since the end of December and we have now unsubscribed you. Please only resubscribe with a different email address.

With best regards

Itamar Engelsman

The Epoc Digest Team

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Date: 6 Feb 2004 13:54:32 +0000

From: Jack

Subject: Re: Vodafone in nB?

Hi all,

Did any of the dear old psion fellows succeed in using a

Vodafone GPRS (air)card in a (even old) nB?

TXS

Jack

Those who can, do.

Those who can't, teach.

Those who can't teach, administrate.

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

Date: 6 Feb 2004 14:01:04 +0000

From: Philip S.Adkins Potter

Subject: comms.nam

Hi Folks,

I have a couple of Comms files on my 5mx for transferring files to and from my other 5mx, my Mac and my 3c. Each time I run Comms using one of these files a comms.nam file appears in the same folder.

It has the Comms icon *but* it is not, apparently, a valid Comms file and deleting it seems to do no harm. It is created on opening a Comms file but it is not open then. It's causing no harm, it only uses 97 bytes (so takes up 1 cluster) but it is a niggly nuisance.

If there is a way of preventing Comms creating this file I'd really like to know it just for neatness' sake.

Happy days,

Phil.

"A committee is a life form with

six or more legs and no brain."

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

Date: 6 Feb 2004 14:07:16 +0000

From: Itamar Engelsman

Subject: Viruses, Euro symbol, CronTab,

Answer to: Rick Gillyon

Re.: Viruses - You wrote "but I doubt that anyone would make the effort for such a small and ever-diminishing audience.". I think because of that reason the assumption is safe, although agreed only 99.9%. Also, I would like to believe that someone knowledgeable enough to write such a virus on a Psion would not be inclined to write virusses ....

Answer to : Astrid Stappenbeck & others

Re. Euro symbol - The Euro symbol was made AFTER the S5 came out and AFAIK if the Ctgrl+128 is not preprogrammed on the OS it will not work on the S5. Just out of interest, am I right or wrong ?

Answer to: Chris Handley

Re. CronTab - I can live with both your morals as well as with CronTab as it is. I would not be able to make the necessary changes even if you told me what to change, I have no OPL knowledge. What I was trying to say was that Nicholas has always been very open and helpful with his programs and stopped the developement a long time ago due to constrains of time. Maybe we could contact him and get his approval for you to improve CronTab and take out the bug ? Furthermore, you are neither changing his program nor claiming ownership, just correcting a small bug. Anyhow, I respect your decision.

Best regards,

Itamar Engelsman

London, UK

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

Date: 6 Feb 2004 14:24:25 +0000

From: Jack

Subject: Re : EUR symbol

To: kevin.neale

A partial solution could be to use :

the official "EUR"

or "E" (in sheet for instance) may be set it in Control Panel/International/Currency.

Or, as Itamar suggested, a graphic file, which can be macro-pasted in word.

Have a look at s5mboles Set1 from Huub site :

http://website.leidenuniv.nl/~linthorsthjm/exabetal/

Jack

"It's life, Jim, but not as we know it"

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

Date: 6 Feb 2004 15:53:05 +0000

From: Timothy H.D. Williams

Subject: Netpads

As ER5 heads into the sunset, I imagine there are people like me who want to buy machines before they disappear for good. As prices come down on the Netpad, some of you may be tempted to buy the machine and it is for those people that my experience may be of use.

I soon realised that the operating system of my new Netpad was flakey and so I tried updating with OS taken from the Teklogix site. But here is the problem: although my machine identified its operating system as 1.06, on the site the oldest is 1.1

Consequently I was not able to update to the oldest OS available which I assumed was more recent than my 1.06. Likewise, I couldn't update with the most recent update because OS must be updated in order, one at a time.

Finally, I rumbled the problem and have made four updates starting, I believe, from 1.2 and am now in 1.7 which the machine identifies as 1.7. And thank goodness most of my default problems seem to have disappeared.

I should just like to add that Teklogix were not very helpful. In reply to my queries, they told me to send the machine back for an update.

Thanks to those kind souls who gave advice, in particular to Michael in Denmark. Thanks !

One last question: with this OS, you can use .pbd files for keyboard layout. Is there a way of customising a .pbd file? I have a mac, not a PC.

Best

Tim

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

Date: 6 Feb 2004 17:57:02 +0000

From: Owen H. Morgan

Subject: Re: antivirus, CF Fail w/Machine Fail?,

Oops!

A small, but significant typo!

In my last message on this subject, I wrote (> ):

> I have always kept everything except the e-mail folder

> on D, and the only time I've had any problem (touch

> wood) is when I did have the mail folder on C.

What I meant to say was that I've only had problems when I had the mail folder on D! That's D for Delta, _not_ C for Charlie!

Owen

Thought for the day:

Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the Universe together.

Owen H. Morgan, Yacht "Naomi J.", LD-928°14.86'N 16°50.54'W

Los Gigantes, Tenerife, Canary Islands

http://home.no.net/naomij

Phone and SMS:

In Spain: +34 620520079

In Norway: +47 92053097

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

Date: 6 Feb 2004 20:18:06 +0000

From: Owen H. Morgan

Subject: Re: Euro symbol on a Series 5 ?

Howdy!

Astrid Stappenbeck wrote (> ):

> The ASCI code for the character is Ctl + 128

> If you need it more often you might integrate it

> to a macro or use a mapper. Remapper e.g.

The 5ive classic precedes the Euro symbol. The only way to display it on screen would be to use a graphic (Sketch or MBM file) or install a font which has the Euro symbol if it's possible to install extra fonts under ER3. It is, as I mentioned possible to _print_ the Euro symbol if you use Andrew Johnson's printer drivers which are far superior to Psion's own buggy ones anyway.

Owen

Thought for the day:

If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.

Owen H. Morgan, Yacht "Naomi J.", LD-928°14.86'N 16°50.54'W

Los Gigantes, Tenerife, Canary Islands

http://home.no.net/naomij

Phone and SMS:

In Spain: +34 620520079

In Norway: +47 92053097

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

Date: 6 Feb 2004 21:43:43 +0000

From: Philip S. Adkins Potter

Subject: Viruses on EPOC - Not yet!

Hi Folks,

Rick Gillyon is absolutely right about this subject.

But it should be emphasised that pretty well all nasties need to be written for their intended target. They also need to be run in some way. A virus/worm may be automatically run by the Operating System if that is an option. For EPOC it isn't except for certain system extensions which need to be specifically installed and then show in the Control Panel. So they wouldn't be hidden, pretty much a prerequisite for them.

Trojans are programmed objects embedded in documents and the document software runs them when the document is opened (they're like macros in many ways). They are often pan-OS as the targeted programs are also pan-OS. But an MS Word trojan won't run on an EPOC machine unless MS release (and we use) a version of MS Word for EPOC which allows it to run. Document conversion usually discards such code as it is usually application-specific.

Basically no EPOC program will run these trojans unless they are *specifically* written for the EPOC program. Most (all?) native EPOC programs don't support programmed objects anyway.

Viruses and the like are programs - malevolent programs but still programs. They need to be written to use the Operating System they run on. Simply writing them in C++ is not enough. They need to be written to access the Operating System (working at such a low level is one way they hide too) so making them transferable across platforms is usually not practical.

JAVA is a possibility but I suspect that there have been few nasties written for it as no JAVA program will run unless a JAVA Virtual Machine is running and any nasty would have to be specifically started. (there are two kinds of people who have knowingly run malevolent programs - investigators and idiots).

But most EPOC machines have their Operating System in ROM so if there are any such nasties found running a reset, hard if need be, will stop them anyway.

As far as I know there have been no ER5 (or earlier) nasties yet, the platform is mostly ROM-based, there is a comparatively small user-base and it is now *effectively* obsolete. The idiots who write such things generally prefer to target Micros**t systems as having the largest user-base, and the newest OS they can

afford (or steal). After that comes the Mac OS for which a few nasties have been written. ER5 comes way down that list.

So. while there is no reason yet to worry about your ER5 device yet and probably never will be, you should be aware that it is not invulnerable. But it is far less likely that any malevolent software will be written and distributed for ER5 (and earlier) than any subsequent platform.

Surprisingly there are a couple of 'joke' programs for EPOC that emulate viruses. I can't imagine why they were written!

Happy days,

Phil.

"If a thing is worth doing,

someone will screw it up."

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

Date: 6 Feb 2004 23:35:07 +0000

From: Alan Morris

Subject: Re: View HTML mail (again!)

Daniele Squarci wrote:-

> .... on my first try I got another error: the macro runs,

> Opera opens correctly, but then I have an error

> message: "file://c/System/Temp/HTMLMailTemp.html Could not

> open file". I'm fairly sure the error is in the temp file

> settings in the macro. These, however, seem to be correct:

> const KFileName$="C:\System\Temp\HtmlMailtemp.html"

> const KWebName$="file://C:\System\Temp\HtmlMailtemp.html"

> Why then does the drive letter in the error message miss

> the colon? Can anyone help out?

When I tap on a file with the Opera icon, I get the following at the bottom of the Opera screen:-

file://localhost/D:/E-mail/Attach.........

I don't know, but try adding 'localhost/' before the C:\ as it _might_ work.

Note that Opera uses '/' and not '\' as EPOC does.

Ciao,

Alan R Morris, G4ENS.

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK.

Using a Psion netBook & Nokia 6210e.

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

Date: 6 Feb 2004 23:35:16 +0000

From: Alan Morris

Subject: Re: Scandinavian characters

Axel Moberg wrote:-

> Fn+key as suggested by Andrew is one possibility, which I

> use on my MC218. But it is a bit cumbersome if you have to

> use it in every second word, so I would like to avoid as

> far as possible.

Axel why not use the built-in Ctrl + ???

ie ??? = 223 to get ß, which I frequently use.

Use Ctrl + Shift + C to display the characters, so that you can learn the three digits to press.

Alan R Morris, G4ENS.

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK.

Using a Psion netBook & Nokia 6210e.

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

Date: 7 Feb 2004 13:52:52 +0000

From: Andy Hayes

Subject: TimeLog v 5Time / Antivirus Certification / netPad / CronTab

Hi All

I have been testing out TimeLog and 5Time to see which best fits my needs. They are both good except that 5Time's print preview looks like it will print beyond the page margins in certain conditions when printing to PDF. It also only works in letterbox mode on a netBook. TimeLog is so crippled as not to allow you to print in the unregistered version. I need to print 2 pdf files for the two departments for which I work that shows start and finish times on which days and hopefully a total duration.

Is there anyone on the list who is using TimeLog who also has PDFPrinter installed and can tell me if it will produce what I want. I can't ask the author as he seems to have disappeared off the web, so how I am going to register it I am unsure at the moment!

I use AVG anti-virus in two forms on two different machines. One is a free version and one is the paid for version. I must admit to have jumped to the assumption that the free version automatically included the certification text at the end of each message and there would be no way to change it. A quick look through the settings soon revealed the ticks that could be removed, so my messages should no longer contain the certification. AVG is nonetheless a product that has seemed to have protected both PCs from viruses since installation and I would recommend it to people.

I promised that I would give you my conclusions of the experience once my netPad arrived, but there is little in the way of good news at the moment, so I will see if anything changes before filling you all in on the details.

Chris, if you manage to produce a patch or a separate app for/like CronTab I for one will continue to be one of your groupie's! :-).

This would be a good opportunity for me to draw further attention to the likes of people like Chris and Freepoc, who give so much of their time to the Psion community for free. After downloading many applications from Freepoc I decided that it was about time that I donated some money to them. This was just after I got a job and was at one of the poorest financial points in my life for many years. It wasn't a fortune, just under 20 ukp, but I hope that it will help them. Its dead easy, just use their PayPal link. Freepoc aren't touting for donations, and I am not sure if they will thank me for this, but why not nip along to www.freepoc.de and give them a little something. With any luck it might make Chris feel guilty enough to give the CronTab project top priority in his life - only joking Chris ;-)

Andy Hayes

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

Date: 7 Feb 2004 20:30:44 +0000

From: Andy Hayes

Subject: Phoneman

Hi All

I may have stumbled across what the problem was that I was having with Phoneman Pro. It just wouldn't sync the extended phone book beyond 31% with my Nokia 6310i. This could be coincidence though. Some of the entries whose names started with S had no phone number. The field was missing altogether in Phoneman. After putting in a phone number field and populating it with just a zero the sync worked. I had copied the phonebook across to the SIM card and deleted a couple of duplicate entries. I wouldn't imagine that the former made a difference, but the latter might. I then deleted the phone book from the 8310 and sync'd to that without a hitch. Its wonderful to have all of the numbers in Phoneman and on the phones identical.

Andy Hayes

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

Date: 7 Feb 2004 20:37:30 +0000

From: Alan Morris

Subject: Gold Card

When I bought my netBook, it came with a Psion 56K gold card WAN Global PC Card.

Part No. WGP0MC-001ZZP with Cable RJ11 05_137

The plug on the cable is the small type and not the larger BT type plug.

It will plug into my laptop but not to a telephone line.

Only two pins are fitted to the plug, so it's reasonable to assume that exchanging the plugs would solve my problem.

Any suggestions as I'd like to try Email using a land line.

I used PC fax when it was first available with a DOS wordprocessor and also sent faxes via the 6210, so presumably I should also be able to fax with this card and Email or Psion Word.

Would I be able to network the netBook to WinXP?

Alan R Morris, G4ENS.

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK.

Using a Psion netBook & Nokia 6210e.

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

Date: 7 Feb 2004 20:56:27 +0000

From: Timothy H.D. Williams

Subject: Extrabar

I am finding on the Netpad that once the Extra bar has filled up with five rows of eight icons plus an additional six icons with the More icon, it ceases to recognize any icon at all in More but instead launches the topmost and hidden icon in the MORE list.

Is there any way round this, given that I want more than 46 programmes on my machine?

Best

Tim

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

Date: 7 Feb 2004 21:03:10 +0000

From: Timothy H.D. Williams

Subject: 256 mb MMC Cards

Can anyone tell my why any search I run on the net for 256 mb. MMC Cards comes up with stockists who are based outside the UK or the US? Is there with a problem with them. They seem to be selling in Europe for about eighty euros.

Best

Tim

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

Date: 7 Feb 2004 23:25:51 +0000

From: Andy Hayes

Subject: SD / MMC Cards in netPads

Hi All

What brand and size cards are you netPad users using in your machines?

Andy Hayes

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

Date: 8 Feb 2004 00:22:02 +0000

From: Astrid Stappenbeck

Subject: Re: Files on C/ Improving programs

Hi Chris,

Chris S Handley wrote:

>>> Simply keep all commonly used data files (e.g. Agenda, Jotter, some Word files, maybe even Contacts) on the C drive [...] <<<

>> Well, so we should keep all these (large) files on C and the E-Mail folder [...] and OPX files [...] and other apps where speed is an issue and apps that can only run on C and leave lots of free space on C for memory hungry apps like nConvert or Opera and all that on machines having 8 to 32 MB available for C - I have just one question: How ??? <<

> Hi Astrid,

> You're taking my suggestion rather farther than I meant it: The key part in what I said was "COMMONLY used DATA files". That means Agenda, Contacts, and the FEW other files that you MODIFY every day or week (such as a one or two Jotter, Data, Word or Money files). <

> [...] But it is best to install OPXs (which are tiny) to the C drive for speed. [...] BTW, Email is REALLY slow if running from the D drive, therefore I think installing it to the C drive is a requirement anyway. To do this you need some kind of email archiving system [...] <

I understood you well enough. The files you mention ARE large (at least mine) and therefore almost all on D. I archive my Mails and Newsgroup messages with Dighandler + SaveMail + SaveNews (although not that regularly), JVM is on D, Opera is compressed (zExe) and that leaves me about 8MB (often less) on my 5mxPro 32MB when essentials are running, which is just ok for downloading a larger file in Opera's cache (I hate it when there is no Save option) but were a problem with nConvert (crappy app - thrown out again). I wouldn't cope if I followed your example.

But I agree, if you can handle the memory issue yours is a sound advice.

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

> Itamar Engelsman wrote: <

>> However, as both MACRO5 and CronTab were freeware to start with is there really a problem improving it when the author himself long time ago stopped altogether with Psion work ? <<

Chris answered:

> Freeware doesn't mean the author has waived ALL rights to the program, just the right to ask money for it. I think many authors would be mortified that anybody think it's OK to do absolutely anything with their freeware programs. You will note that the programs mentioned are clearly "Copyright Pascal NICOLAS". <

> Personally, I would be extremely unhappy if someone went around distributing modified versions of MY programs that I hadn't given my permission for. <

I would agree if there were fundamental changes. But quite often an author simply didn't think of different machines (screen size, colour, OS in other language, faster CPU) or new features ('new' file types to be launched, different browser/ email app) or wasn't aware of/ unable to fix a bug. Would you be 'mortifed' if you saw such a changed version distributed when you were no longer answering requests let alone developing? And if these changes were properly explained and declared as unauthorized?

Do you really think Pascal Nicolas would mind if his Macro5 e.g. fitted properly on a revo or was able to launch pdf files? And as for permission - how many authors are still around to ask?

It is great that you and many others are still developing and supporting programs - even as freeware. A lot of people couldn't do it because they don't have the time and even more often don't have the skill. Is it really necessary to reinvent the wheel when a small fix is all that's needed?

If you find a way to improve/ fix existing programs please let us know - even if some DIY is still needed.