Epocdigest V1 # 491

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tips for Posting to the Digest and how to unsubscribe

at the end of the Digest

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Epoc Digest Sun, 04 Apr 2004 Volume 01 : Number 491

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

Sent to: 776 subscribers

In today's Epoc Digest 12 messages:

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

- Bluetooth Adapter | Finding WiFi | Batch file in Win 2k (OT) | Sigs

- Add/Remove Icon

- Re: OPL questions and inquiry on SAILLOG

- Re: Sigs

- Thoughts of the day, SMS centres

- GPS and 5mx

- CF Success

- Wireless - an answer to my own question

- Re: Epoc Digest V1 # 489 : Re: AOL and Opera 3.62 ( 4 jakfish )

- OT: Putting evolutionary theory to practice

- CF Failure / Slow CF Card

- netPad Ownership

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

Date: 2 Apr 2004 11:52:50 +0100

From: Antony Booth

Subject: Bluetooth Adapter | Finding WiFi | Batch file in Win 2k (OT) | Sigs

Bluetooth Adapter

-------------------

The BL-521 that Arent Kits van Heijningen suggested seems like a useful device. Has anyone tried one of these with something like Mocha PPP as a type of WiFi connection?

Finding WiFi

--------------

This site is fun for WiFi hotspots: www.warchalking.org

To: Owen

Batch file in Win 2k (OT)

---------------------------

In the command script, preceed the application name with 'start'. E.G: -

OFF

Start WinWord.exe

Start Excel.exe

Sigs

-----

I find it surprising that you put a lot of thought into your signatures as you suggest, because if you connect to the internet via mobile phone, it would be prudent to minimise the information you send, especially the unnecessary information such as the GPS position you last recorded. In your last message, you posted a signature that included both the location: Las Palmas, Gran Canaria and the Longitude and Latitude. Surely if someone wants to meet up with you, they can look for your boat at Las Palmas harbour and this should be sufficient information? The map reference serving little purpose and hardly worth posting several times per day as you occasionally have, when you reply or post several topics. Also, you declared 2 phone numbers from 2 different countries, one of which would obviously not be of any use while you are in the other country. You also include a URL which could have linked to a page with all this information on as well as anything else you wish to add. Finally, having added your name, boat name, registered number, GPS position, town, Web site, Spanish telephone number, Norwegian telephone number and a line of dashes, you then add your thoughts for the day, making an already very long signature, ever longer.

You stated that your full signature likely takes up more than 0.27%(including thoughts ...) of all information posted on all digests in a 3 month period and even though this is a small percentage, I would argue that it is more than most digest members have posted in total in a 3 month period.

You state that many people on the digest are interested in your travels. May I suggest you poll the digest members to see if more people are interested than not. The likelihood is that all people who are interested will reply in support, whereas most that do not will probably not bother replying, however, should more people reply negatively than positively, this would indicate that most digest members are not interested in your travels? I am not saying this is the case as I have not conducted such a poll. I would however state that if people were truly interested in your travels, current whereabouts and contact details, they could derive sufficient information from your signature from 2 lines: -

1) Las Palmas, Gran Canaria

2) http://home.no.net/naomij

The rest could be obtained when they bother to visit your site, which they would surely do if they wished to be updated with your ventures. Your signature would not take up so much of an individual digest then, especially when you often post it several times

I don't think the overall size of your signature compared to the digests themselves is the main factor, it is the fact that most of your signature is not a signature and has nothing to do with EPOC issues. Also, information your signature contains could be placed elsewhere so as to show more consideration for other digest members rather than be a possible source of contact info in the off chance that someone may read the digest, be in the same port as you and wish to say hello, or obtain your telephone number in an archived digest for the same purpose. All of which could still be attained with a smaller signature linking to your website that could present far more information than a text signature could hold, such as a picture of your boat in the harbour, which would help people locate you far easier than a GPS map reference.

People leaving the digest because of heated discussions is just 1 of many reasons why people leave and really does not justify people being free to do as they choose without accepting criticism. The important point is this: People subscribe to this digest because they find it useful. When it no longer serves that purpose, they unsubscribe. I have subscribed and unsubscribed from this digest maybe 10 times since I first used it about 5 years ago. One reason was because of the annoyance of your postings, but I subscribe again when I want to post questions.

I recall discussing with you that you use this digest as a means to keep in touch with friends and this is why you post the details you do. I think that to some extent, this is reasonable, but your signature holds far more information than is really necessary. Also, you should consider the fact that not all digest members are your friends and most would not use the digest for this purpose. Subsequently, they would find the information you post about yourself unnecessarily elobarate.

I am not saying you should reduce your signature, I am trying to explain why I and probably others like me, feel it is excessive and inconsiderate.

Antony Booth

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

Date: 2 Apr 2004 15:25:09 +0100

From: Keith Giles

Subject: Add/Remove Icon

The Add/Remove icon in my Mbook's Control Panel is B&W. How can I get it to be colored like the rest of the icons there?

Happy Cycling,

Keith

Sunnyvale, CA

http://ohsix827.home.comcast.net

Thought For The Day: If you're stopped by the police, shut off your engine and put your mouth in neutral.

All my outgoing e-mails have been checked by Norton Anti-virus.

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

Date: 2 Apr 2004 20:42:22 +0100

From: Jaap Laméris

Subject: Re: OPL questions and inquiry on SAILLOG

On 30 Mar 2004 19:50:10 +0100 Armin Podtschaske wrote:

>Hi Jaap

>I'm not sure, if it's a good hint where you can find the technical data how to send data via a serial port. Maybe the >book "Programming Psion Computers" can help.

Thanks for the tip. I will look into this book.

>> As author of some freeware OPL programs like Biklog and Saillog,

>What is Saillog? Can you give us some more informations?

Saillog is a small utility primarily intended to track your personal sailing experience, based on the Royal Yachting Association's paper logbooks and qualification requirements. If you own your own boat, Saillog will also allow you to log the cumulative miles and engine hours of your boat, and gives a reminder when service intervals arise. If you

charter your boat to a third party, these details can also be logged in the vessel record without affecting your personal sailing totals.

Saillog is based on Biklog, which is a similar uitility to keep track of bicycling rides for up to 4 different bicycles and 5 different biking events. Both programs can be found on my website:

http://home.hccnet.nl/j.lameris/mypsion.htm

>Psee you,

>Armin Podtschaske,

Jaap Laméris

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

Date: 2 Apr 2004 21:04:56 +0100

From: Alan Morris

Subject: Re: Sigs

Owen H. Morgan wrote:-

> Everything I put in my sig is there for a reason. I have put

> some thought into it .... This e-mail is 7kb, so that's the

> equivalent of almos three months worth of thoughts for the

> day in one message.

I've snipped most of Owen's posting, as there is no need to repeat it all again. I at first thought that Owen's sig was a bit excessive, but it's most useful. I fe-mail addresses annoying. Why do folk have to hide behind a nickname? Don't answer, I can guess.

With .net and similar endings, it's impossible to know where folk are. With the address I now use here, folk know I'm in the UK, but when using alan- at- computerweekly.net, there is no indication of country.

Often I'll be contacted, or I'll contact someone by direct e-mail, because I know their location. Owen is probably unique on this digest, but on GPS lists it's very common to have a lat/long given.

One day in my European travels, I hope to be able to meet with Owen, so his sig helps and mine will change. Sometimes those observant will see my ham callsign change when I'm in Wales - GW4ENS.

I also support his dislike of the other greater forms of bloat in postings. It's not so much the cost of a longer mobile phone call but the waste of time reading through the quotes of quotes etc. Fortunately this digest is the best of all lists for staying on topic, or very close, and for editing out long quotes.

One day maybe we will have a better system where all postings get a number automatically placed in the Subject: field, so that the only bit to quote would be that number. Did you see that pig fly past.......

Thought For The Day: If people listened to themselves more often, they would talk less.

Alan R Morris, G4ENS.

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK.

Using a Psion netBook & Nokia 6210e.

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

Date: 2 Apr 2004 21:22:01 +0100

From: Kevin Thorne

Subject: Thoughts of the day, SMS centres

Owen H Morgan wrote:

I haven't complained about these off-topic discussions yet but I'm now beginning to find them irritating too - I have no interest in them and they just clutter up an otherwise excellent source of reference for all things EPOC. My heart sinks when I have to scroll through seemingly pages of irrelevant dross! However, I don't see how anyone can really object to just a couple of lines of "thought of the day" signature, such as yours. I enjoy them - they're short, straight to the point and always very funny :-)

Thomas VAN DER ZIJDEN wrote:

<A possible solution is the use of the (now freeware) Phoneman at www.zenobyte.co.uk

Don't forget to download its additional modules and to jot down its register code (available at that website). This program allows you to define many different SMS centres and it completely ignores the SMS centre found on your SIM card.

It might therefore be the solution.>

Thanks, I'll try this. As far as I can tell, the standard Email program insists it uses the message centre number that was originally set and just throws up error messages if the user tries to later change it. I suppose another solution may be to start a completely new Email program (deleting the Email app files so forcing a newly rebuilt index file) then entering the new message centre number - I may try this as well. I didn't realise that PhoneMan was now Freeware - you learn something new every day!

Regards

Kevin Thorne

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

Date: 3 Apr 2004 08:26:51 -0500

From: Gianluca Gallino

Subject: GPS and 5mx

Ciao all!

a Psion_Fans_Italia forum member was asking about such GPS product as "Palmtop

or Tegaron to be used in combination with a Psion 5mx"

he said he has also the latest version of CityMap for Epoc, which he would

like to use with such equipment. BTW one of the two products is described

at the following link:

http://cgi.ebay.it/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3086978544&category=23384

I personally have no idea of that, is anybody able to say something about

this matter?

thanks in advance

Cheers

Gianluca

please keep on supporting the Symbian netBook pro petition on www.petitiononline.com/nbookpro/petition.html

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

Date: 3 Apr 2004 18:52:26 -0500

From: Andy Hayes

Subject: CF Success

After the problems with my CF, and not having access to a PC that could format FAT16 (even a "plain" FAT format in XP didn't make the CF visible to the netBook), I am glad to say that I managed to borrow a digicam that uses CF cards (Canon Powershot 70) and after struggling with the menu for a while, it took 3 seconds to format the card so that the netBook can read it. The moral of this story is to try, try and try again!

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

Date: 3 Apr 2004 20:55:55 -0500

From: Matthew Walters

Subject: Wireless - an answer to my own question

In case anybody else is struggling to get Autodial to work - make sure that Remote Access Auto Connection manager is enabled in the Win XP Services..... Only took me five days to find this one.

Regards all

Matthew Walters

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

Date: 3 Apr 2004 21:17:29 -0500

From: Arent Kits van Heijningen

Subject: Re: Epoc Digest V1 # 489 : Re: AOL and Opera 3.62 ( 4 jakfish )

on 31 Mar 2004 15:45:02 +0100

Jakfish wrote about

Re: AOL and Opera 3.62

>>As for switching to the 5MX, while the EPOC word processor is light years ahead of the Classic Zaurus's, it's still not as sophisticated as TextMaker for H/PC. I'd go to a 5MX if TM ran on EPOC, but until then, I'm hanging onto my J-720, despite its inferior battery life (and probably inferior weight, too--the J's 1.1 pounds. What's the weight of the 5MX?).<<

There's hope , the new releases from Nokia and Panasonic are powerful enough to run TextMaker ...

You are right here , psion is lightyears ahead of the Zaurus ( both the Classic and the new PocketPC/Linux-based ones )

But the Zaurus has one ass on its sleeve , export to formats that do not need conversion on a Windows desktop

My two Clsssic Zauri can export as .txt,.rtf and through Filer and Terminal as .csv

And then the Fax applet has a superb dialer ( wich I use for such things like home banking or dialing long numbers ) , great if you have a Dect with a write-once adressbook with only 20 entries

Weight-wise the 5mx/mc218 and the jornada 680/690/7*0/728 are the same , but the clip-on lithium of the jornada makes the latter substantially heavier ( Take off the battery from your Jornada and you have a fairly good idea of the 5mx's size and weight )

The s5mx/mc218 have a Datacomm application similar to the Zaurus Terminal and EmuraTerm on the Jornada so you can up/download files in much the same way as with the Zaurus ( you will need an external modem on the psion and a mini-pabx or line current generator )

Storage cards will work too , but beware of the subtle but devastating differences in formatting between jornada and psion

You will need two cards , one of wich formatted in your Psion , treat this one as read-only in your Jornada an a second one standard format for your jornada , treat this one as read-only in your psion

( I use both methods , modem2modem as well as cards )

comments welcome

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

Date: 3 Apr 2004 23:38:10 -0500

From: Timothy H.D. Williams

Subject: OT: Putting evolutionary theory to practice

On 3 Apr 2004, at 17:10, Itamar wrote:

> As I will be on holiday from coming Sunday for 2 weeks during which > time my wife will only "allow" me little time on my Psion.

Good luck. Take lots of vitamins.

Tim

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

Date: 4 Apr 2004 00:08:01 -0500

From: Andy Hayes

Subject: CF Failure / Slow CF Card

Oh well, it looks as though I spoke too soon. Once I started copying the files from the new 256mb CF to the now fixed one, at 116mb the fixed CF reported itself as corrupt. I am next to try it in an NT laptop to see if I can at least mark some of the sectors faulty, if indeed that is the problem.

The reason for changing to the old CF was the chronically slow speed of the latest cheap CF that I bought from Expansys. It is branded Integral. Avoid them like the plague, they are absolute crap. I ran some benchmarks using benchmark.OPO and was horrified with the speed differential between this card and the rest of those that I own. The write speeds were around 7.6 and the read speeds were around 0.72. The Integral card speeds were write - 12.22, but a similar read speed. I repeated the test a few times, but the results were the same.

I have been contemplating a new digicam for some time, my Fuji MX 2700, which only has digi-zoom, is a bit long in the tooth now. You don't realise until you are out on a walk and come across 10 or so seals basking on the rocks on a quite Shetland beach. Although I have a picture of them, taken using the Fuji, the digital zoom just lowers the resolution too far for the quality of picture that you end up with. A Canon Ixus 430 looks like the best choice for me and the slow CF might well be used there. I will then look for a fast CF for the netBook.

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

Date: 4 Apr 2004 00:08:04 -0500

From: Andy Hayes

Subject: netPad Ownership

Although I have owned my netPad for some time I haven't written about it as there has been an outstanding issue that needed to be resolved. I wanted to be able to write a fair piece of text, and am now in a position to do just that.

I had noticed netPads and netBooks being advertised on ebay.co.uk for some time, the vendor being David Lowe. I had also seen a new netPad 1400 on offer at clove-tech.co uk for £900. I had lusted after a netPad for some considerable time, but the price, for what would turn out to be a toy in reality was a real sticking point. Nonetheless, I had set my heart on one.

I contacted Clove to ask if the netPad screen was transmissive or transflective. Surprisingly they couldn't answer the question better than "it is the better one". Better for whom, I wondered! If I was paying out that sort of money I definitely wanted the outdoor (transflective) screen. I emailed Psion to ask if they could shed any light on what type of screen the netPad that Clove. Psion, in there normal way promptly failed to respond.

I wanted the netPad to mount in a vehicle as a satnav system, attached to my GPS. The netBooks that I own are just too big and unwieldy for the job as far as I am concerned, although I know that there are those on the list who have used them successfully, but it just isn't for me.

I contacted David Lowe and told him that I was on the lookout for a netPad some months ago and explained what it was for. I really wanted the outdoor model and it had to have WiFi so that I could connect to my planned new network at home. Broadband hasn't reached the shores of Shetland yet under the stewardship of BT, so the networking side is not a high priority at this moment.

David would come up with offers that were all outside of my budget, or didn't seem to represent the sort of value that I was looking for. Eventually he came up with what was described as a netPad 5520* with a retail price of over £2,000 with an indoor screen. The deal was struck at £475 and for that I was to receive the netPad, docking station, mains charger, serial cable and a software CD.

After transferring the money into an account at a bank here on Shetland I waited for the goods to arrive. Everything takes a day longer in Shetland, or longer than that if the weather turns nasty. Some days later a very well packed box arrived for me and I opened it up like a small boy with a present at Xmas. Being an industrial device it would be fair to get the goods in less than brilliant condition. David had described the netPad as being in good condition and it looked OK in the photos that he had emailed to me. I was certainly impressed with the look of the device. Not a scratch on the screen and overall in very good condition. The plate on the back advised that the model was in fact a 5110, which was not as it had been described. The described model would have had a barcode scanner too. This was of little consequence to me as I currently have no need to scan barcodes, but might have been a problem to others. The package also contained a power supply, its the same as the netBook one, a docking station, known as a docker (why?), a serial cable with its non-standard end (not even a Honda connector I am afraid), and the WiFi antenna, which screws into the netPad. Also enclosed was a CD which had a large number of applications including commercial, shareware and freeware titles. Unusual titles like Regit probably don't really have a place on a CD that a person whose business seems to revolve around selling Psion's, but I suppose that is up to the individual.

The initial concern to me was the appalling battery life and the fact that the three buttons on the front, two of which are programmable and the other which is a rocker switch for navigation, wouldn't work. My heart sunk. I had bought the netPad at a very bad time financially. I really didn't want another expensive door stop.

David had sold the netPad with a 3 month warranty, which is certainly a worthwhile thing to have on a netPad, due to the difficulty that you would have getting parts, compared to a netBook for instance. I contacted David about the problem with the buttons on the front and he suggested that I send it back to him to have it looked at by an expert. At £7 for the return postage I decided to save the money and investigate the problem further myself. Tim, of this list, also got a netPad at about the same time and provided me with lots of useful hints and tips. Thanks Tim! I looked around for ideas, took what advice I could get and eventually ended up downloading the correct OS image. I needed an MMC card to install the image on as it appears to only be able to be installed from a card, although the instructions that I have read seem to suggest that it could be installed via the serial port. Expansys (I just love 'em) supplied me with a 32mb MMC within a couple of days and I installed the OS image. The buttons now worked. It didn't cure the battery though, and ChaDis wont work with the netPad due to the odd voltage (around 8vdc), so it is difficult to know what is going on.

I tried four different chargers in case there was a problem there. No change, so it was either the battery on the netPad, the charging circuitry or control, the docking station or serial cable. Now some of you will be thinking that I have lost the plot here, but the only way to charge a netPad is through the docking station. My feeling was that it was more likely to be a battery problem than anything else as I was having to leave the battery on charge all day and the percentage charge was still dropping by two per cent per day. The battery degradation, presumably of the internal battery, was 2%. It was time to contact David again. He wanted the netPad back to have it looked over, so the £7 postage had to be spent this time. It took some time to come back, but I have now been reunited with my netPad, and it seems to be resplendent with a new battery, although the degradation is down to 4% now. It wont be keeping me awake at night though.

So far the only other problem that I have had has been that it crashed whilst playing Montana7, something that I never suffered on the netBook. When it crashes the screen turns a quite bright white with thin black horizontal lines running across the screen, probably every couple of millimetres.

The netPad is certainly a robust bit of kit. Its about half the thickness of a house brick. Mine has the indoor screen so if you own a netBook/MBook/7 you are basically seeing the same quality as I am. My screen is smaller though at 1/2 VGA. Apps like Montana7 (a card game - try it) run full screen instead of leaving a white space at the bottom of the screen.

When you install the OS image it only installs Data, so you need to get the downloads for the other apps that you want to install. I assume that if you bought a netPad new this would all come on some accompanying CD. At least on this device I will be able to install Opera 3.62 without having to install Dual_O to stop different versions of Opera fighting. I might at last be able to access some of the sites that don't care for Opera 5 now.

Its a shame that Psion didn't allow a CF card to be used, but the choice here is MMC. SD will also fit the same slot, but I haven't tried one as yet. That will come shortly though when I buy a larger card for installing Route/Street Planner on as well as the maps.

I sat down to test the GPS connection to see if everything will work OK when I use it in anger. Unfortunately there was no comms between the netPad and the GPS. This was in spite of using a null modem convertor and good cable to the GPS. The good thing about having a load of netBooks just laying about is that you can confirm your testing as you go to narrow the possibilities down until you find the fault. Much lead swapping later, testing with comms, as well as a test with a modem I discovered that the fault lay in the receive leg of the netPad or its cable. More likely to be the cable, but as it is a special cable I don't have anything that I can swap it out with. Nor do I have a meter to test it with, not that I would know what the pin-outs were supposed to be. It was time to write a very long email to David detailing every test step that I had taken and await the outcome.

The following day I decided that I really ought to set up the wireless access point on the XP PC and test out the WiFi on the netPad. If it was going to have to go back again then I might as well make sure that if there was a problem with the WiFi it would be addressed at the same time. I set the WAP up on an IP address and the netPad on one in the same range. Other than setting the WaveLan network name wrongly, everything was easy. Once the SSID was set correctly into the WaveLan network name field I fired up NetUtils and pinged the WAP. There was a brief pause and then the 25 pings came back perfectly. Excellent. Things were at last starting to look up.

I installed NetStatRF and that brings up a Kern-Exec error message when run. Contact with Psion to seek support has only thusfar elicited a response to ask where I bought it. Ironically there is a company who are looking at mobile solutions (WinCE admittedly, but there is a WinCE netPad) to roll out. I know one of the people involved in the team that will test potential solutions and eventually decide on a solution. I showed them my netPad and they were really impressed with it, except for the price. They had been looking at iPaqs for this project which will probably become national if the initial roll out in the trial area works. He could see the benefit of a more robust solution in a market that may extend to over 1,000 units. Being a person who likes to see fair play I later contacted him to advise of my support query progress, especially as I asked Psion Teklogix sales for prices on three items and have only received a response on one of them. His answer was to the effect that if they were going to go for a solution (netPad) that "different" then they would need to be able to totally rely on a decent support mechanism. They would have spare machines, but only a few per region. I will keep him up to date on the progress that I make. At the moment it is difficult to be able to recommend Teklogix.

Going back to my purchase, would I buy from David Lowe again? I think that the fact that the model that arrived was not the one that he had described was probably a genuine mistake. Whilst he has not been the most communicative over the power problems that I have been suffering, he has done the decent thing and replaced the battery at no cost to me other then £7 postage. The fact that the battery appears new is obviously a bonus as I have seen them for sale for between £60-£80 on ebay, (by David!). Added to this he would have had costs shipping the netPad to his "expert" and then back to me. My policy of only dealing with vendors by email and text, rather than by phone, would you imagine, save me if there is a problem. My email and text to David regarding the problem with communications between the GPS (or modem) and the netPad have gone unanswered. Draw your own conclusions here.

My apologies for the length of this posting, but I have waited a long time to say this.