- P910 Desktop s/ware from SE - freeware !!!

- Psimail Internet instruction book

- Re.: Phoneman with a Nokia 3310

- Re: 9500

- Nokia 7710 & answers to Itamar Engelsmann + Rolf Brunsting

- Dumbed down

- Re: Phoneman with a Nokia 3310 - Content of the Digest

Date: 6 Dec 2004 14:59:44 +0000
From: Arabbitte <address truncated>
Subject: P910 Desktop s/ware from SE - freeware !!!

Hi,

I've just spotted on one of the various SE forums a reference to something called SonyEricsson Desktop. It's a utility application that runs on a P910 and is available, now, from SonyEricsson's web site - and it's free!

So what is it? Well, I've just installed it and played with it for a few minutes - it looks good - but I'd feel more comfortable by quoting SE directly:

The SonyEricsson Desktop provides PIM functionality at an easily accessible position in the user interface. The Desktop positions itself as the base view in flip open display modes and provides the user with an at-a-glance summary of their missed calls, messages, appointments and tasks as well as providing a place for the user to store their favourite shortcuts to applications, web pages, contacts and documents.

So maybe this is a replacement for Handy Day 2004/2005 ???

If you are interested (and if you own a P910, you should be), click here to download:
http://www.sonyericsson.com/downloads/LHSSE_01_FULL.sis
or here:
http://www.sonyericsson.com/downloads/P910_Desktop_UG_R1a.zip
to read the documentation.

By the way, I've been missing my regular Digest fix over the last few days - I even checked the Digest website and saw that I haven't missed anything. Hope nothing is up ...

All the Best
Alan Rabbitte
Dublin, Ireland

Date: 6 Dec 2004 17:39:31 +0000
From: Itamar Engelsman <address truncated>
Subject: Psimail Internet instruction book

Who contacted me that (s)he is interested in this booklet ?  I must have mislaid the email. Please contact me again.

Best regards,
Itamar Engelsman
London, UK

Date: 6 Dec 2004 20:31:35 +0000
From: Phil Vervliet <address truncated>
Subject: Re.: Phoneman with a Nokia 3310

Hello Itamar,
Bad news indeed; but it isn't so bad as it works with my PC.
The thing is that I must realise sometimes that I can't do everything with my Psion.
Thanks again,
Phil

Date: 7 Dec 2004 15:54:55 +0000
From: Mike Dyer <address truncated>
Subject: Re: 9500

> Date:  3 Dec 2004 10:08:00 +0000
> From: Steve Litchfield <address truncated> > Subject: OPL apps on the 9500
>
> Biggest downer of the 9500 for ex-Psion users is the lack of Spell and > Thesaurus in Word, unless I'm missing something.....
>

I am disappointed that Nokia are dumbing down (sorry Rolf), the built in office suite, hopefully some third party will write one that will plug in.

Rather like when the Revo shipped without Sketch.

Regards,
Mike Dyer. (happy enough with his p800 after several months of adjustment)

Date: 7 Dec 2004 16:19:54 +0000
From: Franco Cozzani <address truncated>
Subject: Nokia 7710 & answers to Itamar Engelsmann + Rolf Brunsting

Hello everybody.

Many thanks to Itamar for the link to 3lib.ukonline It makes for some good, simple reading and it turned out to be complementary to some info and my own opinions I already had. Which is the best way to progress in understanding some new, as Picasso was used to say!

Also, many thanks to Rolf for his opinions on a number of Symbian-based platforms & Palm & Jornada, which I read with interest.
Far from me to wish to start an on-line debate on the semantics of "dumbed-down". Only want to re-assure Rolf that I simply used an expression that I saw often on on-line articles and digests - including our own. I lived a few years in the States and no one there got offended about fool-proof solutions. So a dumbed-down OS (or a dumbed-down shell on the same kernel) is not necessary made for dumb people. Who have their constitutional right to be able to use a smartphone anyway.

Looking for peace in the "personal tastes and needs" war:
I find the icons of Palm OS 5.2 boxy and plain awful. The icons of UIQ 2.1 look to me much nicer. Also, I prefer the pastel colours of Mac OS X, whereas my daughter (fourteen and a half) prefers the saturated ones of Windows XP. This is course entirely subjective.
The fact that an Apple Powerbook 17" provides a more spectacular mobile viewing experience but has a correspondingly larger footprint than a Nokia 9300 falls in what I call the subjective/objective realm. With this I mean that not everybody has the same needs of portability, ergonomics, time to boot etc. This is the subjective part. But everybody - I guess - would agree that the first is better than the second in some well defined applications and viceversa. And that is the objective part.
Finally, there are qualities that I believe are fairly objective and not much left to personal tastes. My 5Mx froze once in almost 4 years and my Palm Zire 72 (running OS 5.2.8) kept freezing happily until I shipped it back. An OS can allow sub-folding or none at all, etc.
So feed-back and info from the early users of SE P910, Nokia 9300/9500, future 7710 etc. in this last category of "fairly objective" qualities is most useful and, for me at least, most welcome.

Cheers to everybody on the digest and special regards to Itamar & Rolf. Franco 

PS: someone might spot in the sub-title of the last section of this contribution to the Digest "looking for peace ..." an adaptation from the last chapter of the recent - and excellent - book "Facing up: science and its cultural adversaries" by Steven Weinberg. So perhaps Rolf was not that off the mark in reminding me of the dangers of "an expression of computer-intellectual snobbery and/or an inflated sense of self-importance". Well, perhaps except the inclusion of "computer-" in that danger. There, I am hopelessly dumbed down.

Franco COZZANI
Brussels

Date: 7 Dec 2004 21:43:00 +0000
From: Steve Litchfield <address truncated>
Subject: Dumbed down

It's not often that I accuse Rolf of talking rubbish, but I have to take issue with his defense of 'dumbed down'.

I often refer to S60 in this way, NOT because I think the average S60 buyer is stupid, but BECAUSE Nokia had Symbian's full PIM apps and their source code to work with and chose to write their own versions with critical things missing. Now that's dumb.

For example, adding a Note field to Contacts, Calendar or to To-do entries would have made NO difference whatsoever to the usability of the apps, and yet its omission is a complete showstopper for anyone used to other PDAs/Psion/etc. For example, I tried syncing from Outlook to my Nokia N-Gage and found that all my info in Note fields had simply been omitted. Am I a power PIM user? No, I don't think so. I just think Nokia dropped
the ball on this one.

S60 PIM apps are dumbed down in the sense that they haven't got all the features needed by anybody who half knows what they're doing.

Rant over. Back to the 9500 testing.... 8-) ____________________________________________________________________
Steve Litchfield, 3-Lib, http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/
Software and features for Psion/Symbian handhelds and smartphones
Also PocketInfo, useful files - http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/pocketinfo Journalism: sub-editor and/or senior contributor to:
Palmtop User - http://www.palmtop.co.uk/
PDA Essentials - http://www.paragon.co.uk/mags/pdaessentials.html
PC Basics - http://www.paragon.co.uk/mags/pcbasics.html
Reviews editor, AllAboutSymbian - http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/

Date: 7 Dec 2004 22:11:36 +0000
From: Rolf Brunsting <address truncated>
Subject: Re: Phoneman with a Nokia 3310 - Content of the Digest

Dear Itamar,

<< Your phone does not have an IR (infrared) port and Phoneman is programmed to work via the IR port of the Psion only >>

Obviously you haven't checked your version of PhoneMan Pro as the Preferences dialog shown that a connection can be made via infrared or serial.

<< Some time ago there has been a long discussion about censorship in the digest and the general consensus was _not_ to censor at all >>

These discussions followed proposals to change things regarding the 'Thought for the day' people add to their messages as well as rather lengthy signatures. They had to be cut short because some people cried "Censorhip!!" much too quickly and because those who made the proposals were personally attacked. They don't form a basis on which to conclude that there's a general consensus. First, because no conclusion can be made on discussions that have to be stopped by Digest Team intervention. Secondly, because those who don't necessarily agree with the 'Anti-Censorhip Lobby' have found out that it's no use putting their ideas forward. They're going to be personally attacked which, inevitably, leads to the discussion coming to an abrupt halt because the Digest Team steps in. Meaning that those who want to address the issue that's being discussed, rather than any participating person, can no longer do so because others can't keep a civilised tongue. What we therefore have is a no-censorship rule that's supposed to allow freedom of personal expression but is enforced by some people's suppression of other people's personal expressions.

---
Kind Regards,
Rolf Brunsting - Darp - Netherlands