- Re: Dumbed down

- Re: For Rolf Brunsting re Censorship

- Re: The Digest V1 # 655 (7)

- Spelling Dictionaries, P910i F/W upgrade, Life with a P910 insteadof a netBook,

- Proposed system, J. Boyce,

- RE: 7book and WiFi

- 5mx replacement

- RE: Blackberry

- Re: Language dicitionaries

- UIQ Jotter Files

- PROCYON became freeware

- Re: Content of the Digest

- Re: Content of the Digest

- K700i & Psion - Is it compatible

- Proposed system for Digest

Date: 15 Dec 2004 15:02:32 +0100
From: Rolf Brunsting down

Dear Steve,

<< 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 >>

I'm very sorry, Steve, but as the P in PIM stands for Personal we're dealing with something that's subject to personal interpretation. An interpretation that's rooted in personal circumstances, personal work methods, etc. The information you need to have readily available via a PIM can therefore be quite different from others. In other words, there's nothing wrong with wanting to have a smartphone that allows you to add, view, edit and delete notes to contacts, appointments and tasks. Notes that can be synchronised with such PC applications as Microsoft Outlook. But this doesn't make it mandatory for Nokia to supply a note function with each and every smartphone it produces. There are people who aren't going to use the function or use it so rarely that they're not going to miss it when the function isn't there. And what they consider to be critical can be something you don't need or can do without.

Besides, when being critical is *the* factor to determine whether a feature should be supplied as a standard feature we'd end up with smartphones that have an almost endless features list. There's always somebody who comes up with a feature that's critical to the person in question, who can explain why it's critical to him/her. We'd end up with a monster of a smartphone with a monster price to match.

<< 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 >>

You're contradicting yourself as people who half know what they're doing aren't considered (very) clever. While you don't think that the average user of a Series 60 based smartphone is stupid.

Besides, there will quite a number of people who achieve the same things you're achieving with a PDA or smartphone but achieve it in a quite different fashion. They're using a PDA or smartphone differently because they don't work the same way and store their information in a way they're comfortable with. Information that's quite similar to the information you store on your PDA or smartphone. I find it rather snobbish when you say that these people half know what they're doing when they don't use the features your missing in Series 60 based smartphones. What you're effectively saying is that there's only one way to use a PIM and that's the Steve Litchfield way.

But wat really susrprises me is the following. If there's one person on the EPOC/Symbian Digest who has ready access to smartphone industry sources and is able to test and review the smartphones that are
launched on the market it's you. So, if there's one person who has the knowledge to avoid getting a device which doesn't meet his requirements it's you. But what do I read, you got yourself a Nokia N-Gage and found out that your Outlook notes aren't transferred during synchronisation. Surely, when you want to have a smarpthone that allows the synchronisation of notes you get yourself a smartphone which does just that. I can't escape the impression that what your write against Series 60 is partly based on a personal mixture of irritation and disappointment that the N-Gage proved to be the wrong smartphone for you.

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

Date: 15 Dec 2004 21:48:39 +0100
From: Rolf Brunsting <address truncated>
Subject: Re: For Rolf Brunsting re Censorship

Dear Phil,

<< The Digest management team *_did_not_* propose censoring the Digest
>>

I never said that the Digest Team did make this proposal.

<< A member of the team did not realise Owen's signatures were different so deleted some - and apologised with grace >>

A proposal to cut lengthy signatures short was already put forward for discussion shortly before the Digest Team made this error. It was unfortunate that the error was made at that point in time as it had an influence on the discussion that was taking place.


Regarding your thought for the day (even though you didn't name it as such) that's censorship related:

<< The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire >>

Which is a nice and attractive proposition when you're against the many irritating rules and regulations but one that's fundamentally flawed. The first thing you need to do when aiming for a no-controls society is to prevent those who want to have new or more stringent controls from introducing them. The next is to abolish those controls that are
already in place, which will be against the wishes of those who are in their favour. This won't be achieved without getting control over those people who don't agree with the idea that limits, rules, restrictions, laws and regulations are inherently bad. Meaning that those in favour
of a no-controls society need to control people (the opposition) in order for society to become a no-controls society. And these controls can't be relaxed, even abolished, when a no-controls society is
achieved as those in favour of the various forms of control will then be free to introduce them again. In other words, a no-controls society is a dictatorial society.

<< The former are idealists acting from the highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism >>

Well ... the latter are also idealists as what they'd like to have can't be achieved without introducing controls (of a different kind).

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

Date: 17 Dec 2004 12:10:31 +0100
From: Bernard Hill <address truncated>
Subject: Re: The Digest V1 # 655 (7)

In message <address truncated>, The Digest <address truncated> writes
>Date: 15 Dec 2004 15:35:50 +0100
>From: Norbert Fernkorn <address truncated>
>Subject: CF-Card 8GB
>
>Hallo for all the hungries for Memory space:
>
>SanDisk announced that the 8GB and 4GB TypeI CF-Cards are already >available.
>They have write speed of 9MB/s!
>Sorry I didn't have a price :(
>Works our lovely S5mx properly with this huge space?

Very unlikely.

When DOS/Windows-formatting floppy disks, hard drives and CF cards there are 4 different formats available. These are the limits on sizes:

FAT12 - 16Mb. Was almost always used on floppy disks only.
FAT16 - 2Gb or 4Gb*
FAT32 - 32Gb or 128Gb or 2Tb**
NTFS - 16Tb or 16Eb***

[Units used here: 1Mb=1024Kb; 1Gb=1024Mb; 1Tb=1024Gb; 1Eb=1024Tb]

Your 5mx only formats in FAT16 (afaik) so any CF card over 2Gb would only be seen as a 2Gb card in a 5mx (and I suspect P7 and netBook too).

The same problem exists with digital cameras - only the very latest models can handle FAT32, the others will only see 2Gb available on large CF cards.


*This limitation or 2Gb or 4Gb depends on the OS you are reading it with. For instance Windows 2000 and XT are different. So we can't be definite about the 5mx but my bet is on 2Gb at most. And it may be even less although my 5mx reads my 1Gb CF cards fine.

** these also depend on the OS. Win XP Pro can format to 32Gb, Win 98 can *read* to 128Gb, it is possible to write an OS which can read to 2Tb but no-one's done it yet.

*** Win XP can only go to 16Tb, but 16Eb is theoretically possible. It may be some time before we see 16Eb CF cards. That's quite a lot.


--
Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

Date: 17 Dec 2004 13:01:05 +0100
From: Itamar Engelsman <address truncated>
Subject: Spelling Dictionaries, P910i F/W upgrade, Life with a P910 insteadof a netBook,

Answer to: Victor Warner

Re.: Spelling Dictionaries - You can activate a different language spellchecker with any of the available products, highlight the text to be checked and run the spellchecker and repeat that for different parts of the same WORD file. Theoretically you should be able to write macro's to do this for you but it might need some advanced knowledge of macros.

Answer to: Arabbitte

Re.: P910i F/W upgrade - In my humble experience with computers and PDA's/phones I have always been cautious with upgrades of the software and will only do it if there is a very good reason to do so like enhancements of the programs for example. Otherwise, "if it aint broke, aint fix it". And why should you not enjoy your phone ??? I do !

Answer to: Grant Mearns

Re.: Life with a P910 instead of a netBook - Very interesting. I still use my mBook very much for all functions where the larger screen and keyboard are an advantage like emailing, typing some letters, keeping data, etc. My phone is still more a diary, contacts database, phone and games machine and I check my email sometimes when on the road. It is also a modem for my mBook when away from home.    I would be very interested to hear more how exactly you use your P910 and how you replaced the functions of your nB with it. Please expand.


Best regards,
Itamar Engelsman
London, UK

Date: 17 Dec 2004 13:01:06 +0100
From: Itamar Engelsman <address truncated>
Subject: Proposed system, J. Boyce,

Answer to: Antony Booth

Re.: Proposed system - Are you unhappy with the way the digest works ?  Interestingly enough most reactions I do get from subscribers is that they are very happy the way it works !  If there would be a tremendous push by loads of subscribers to change things it would be something else, but that appears not to be the case. The operators are happy and enjoy their shifts (so much that when recently one operator replaced the other for a week the second one asked to be "compensated" in the next rota). I really don't see a good reason to make changes outside our current system of operations.
The "thoughts for the day" topic is not a topic. It is allowed within reason and that reason has never been overstepped. If someone doesn't like it, don't read it (I don't).
If you look at the website and open a digest you will see how the html version of the digest will work. The searching of the digest(s) has also been improved. Rolf will send a message to the digest soon explaining the improvements made by him. He is the writer and owner of the digest application and if anyone thinks of a possible improvement please don't hesitate to contact him.

Answer to: Jack

Re.: J. Boyce - Of course we remember John. He was (still alive !) one of the main operators in the time of the Compuserve Psion forum and co-author of the program to follow that forum on a Psion, gosh I forgot the other guys's name (American) and the name of the application. Ah, it was Dennis something I believe. i met both of them at one of the Psion meetings and John several times at other meetings. However, from the moment Psion stopped their development John migrated and lost interest in the Psions and programming for them. He always wrote programs for his own personal use and made these available if others were interested, that's why he stopped when he lost interest in the Psions, no personal need anymore.

Best regards,
Itamar Engelsman
London, UK

From: Daniele Squarci <address truncated>
Subject: RE: 7book and WiFi

Hi All,

About two weeks ago one of the Digesteers mentioned a new,
soon-to-be-released PDA that could perhaps be a replacement for the 5mx,
thought the OS is Windows XP. I checked the link and at least supuerficially
the PDA looked really impressive. Unfortunately I lost the link. I wonder if
the person who mentioned it, or someone else for that matter, could give it
to us again. Also, I would be VERY interested to hear what others think
about it. It would be really good to have a serious option once our 5MXs go
the way of all flesh.

Thanks and greetings

Moshe Nahir
Winnipeg, Canada

Date: 17 Dec 2004 18:25:43 +0100
From: Neil Thompson <address truncated>
Subject: RE: Blackberry

Ian,

I have been a BlackBerry user for over six months now and just love it. I have a 7230 which, I believe, is a good fit between the larger devices, which are getting close to the PPC in size and the more phone like 7100v.

The battery life is just phenomenal - if you don't use the phone features I can go well over a week without the need to recharge. Even using it as a phone too you still get a few days - much longer than a modern smartphone. BTW the 7100v has a poor battery life at only 1 day.

The killer app for the Blackberry is the push email which in my case is tied to my Exchange server. It is so quick that I receive emails pushed to it from Exchange quicker than it takes the email to travel across the lan to Outlook 2003!

Also the keyboard on the larger devices, such as the 7230, is great - you can hammer out long emails in no time at all.

However, if you are looking for a device with bags of software to install and use you will be disapointed - there is very little.

Finally if you are looking to run any of your existing Windows applications on the device via the browser then check out the company that I work for, www.appswing.com, as that is exacly what we do!

Thanks

Neil Thompson
www.neilthompson.co.uk/psion

Date: 17 Dec 2004 18:38:31 +0100
From: Tim Schweikert <address truncated>
Subject: Re: Language dicitionaries

Victor,

Since you didn't indicate which languages you were looking for, for some fairly general sites, check out:
  www. palmgear.com or
  www.pdassi.de or www.duden.de  if you can read German. or
  www.ultralingua.com  or
  www.penreader.com  for Paragon Software and the Slovoed dictionaries (Russia)

Most of these sites support multiple languages for the site as well as various language dictionaries.

Tim

The Digest <address truncated> wrote:
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004
From: Victor Warner
Subject: Spelling Dictionaries


Spelling dictionaries


I would be grateful to know if there are available spelling
dictionaries in
other languages to use for Psion 5MX/Series 7 Word other than the
standard
English one. Particularly: French, Spanish, Italian and German.


Victor WArenr"

Date: 17 Dec 2004 21:03:18 +0100
From: Mike Dyer <address truncated>
Subject: UIQ Jotter Files

Hiya,

yes, as I feared all jotter notes are stored as one big file!.

does anyone know how to extract them from a backup say as separate text files?

Regards,
Mike Dyer.

Date: 18 Dec 2004 16:11:44 +0100
From: Rolf Vonau
Subject: PROCYON became freeware

Hi astronomers,
One of the leaders of the Psion group into PDATotaal group in the Netherlands (www.pdatotaal.info), Kees I.van der Straten <address truncated> informed me, that the program PROCYON for Psion S5,S7, netBook and Revo became freeware. You will find it at members.home.nl/psion/procyonx.html or home.wanadoo.nl/johnsussenbach/.

The program together with the key for switching it to registered version you will find at Martin Guthrie's site www.psience5.net/, too.

--
BR

Rolf

Date: 18 Dec 2004 16:16:54 +0100
From: Rolf Brunsting <address truncated>
Subject: Re: Content of the Digest

Dear Itamar,

<< I suppose we will never satisfy everybody in this matter and I believe we are not doing such a bad job in keeping the digest mostly clean of personal attacks and with no censorship on subjects >>

I don't think the Digest Team has to fear an 'End of Year Evaluation' many employees are subjected to around this time. The Team's performance plus points far outnumber the bad points so that the Team's rating is : Very Good. Still, such an employee evaluation includes an investigation and discussion of those things that didn't go well as there's always scope for improvement.

One of the thing that didn't go well on the Digest were the discussions in which people were personally attacked. There have been four such incidents and they followed the same pattern:
1) Somebody makes a proposal and a discussion follows,
2) Some people don't like the proposal and attack the person who made it,
3) The Digest Team steps in and closes the discussion.
As this has happened more than once there's no guarantee that the tally will remain at four. Question is, whether we can make changes so that the chance of people being personally attacked on the Digest is reduced or even eliminated.

Reason why such an investigation is worthwhile is because an intervention by the Digest Team has the following effects:
a) The people who want to discuss the proposal can no longer do so,
b) It frustrates the person who made the proposal as it didn't get a fair and open hearing,
c) The proposal is left dangling as it's not clear whether the Digest is largely in favour or largely against,
d) The proposal becomes a taboo subject because a resubmission carries the fairly high risk that it will trigger a new round of attacks.
Three of the above effect are touching the "no censorship on subjects" policy of the Digest.

Now, it's clear that we can't stop people writing messages in which they personally attack (a) fellow Digest subscriber(s). Such messages will be written when somebody can't contain his anger and/or irritation and these messages will land in the Digest's mailbox. Nor is there anything wrong with an intervention by the Digest Team when it comes to personal attacks. What can be questioned, however, is the point at
which the Digest Team intervenes. Current situation is that all messages are posted on the Digest, including the personal attacks. What follows is that the Digest Team intervenes by closing the discussion. Either by posting a message in the same issue or posting one in the next. Trouble is, the lion's already out of the cage at that point as the personal attacks are clear for all to see. Meaning that the Digest Team can't do anything else then to close the discussion in order to prevent it really going off the rails. In other words, the cage is bolted after the lion has gone.

Practical solution is therefore not to post messages containing personal attacks - to reject them. They're sent back to whoever wrote them with the request to address the topic of discussion rather than
the people who discuss the topic. Such a rejection doesn't mean that the writer of the personal attacks is now disqualified from taking part in the discussion. This person has the opportunity to come to his/her senses and to write a new message in which the issue of the debate is tackled. It's only when the new message still contains personal attacks that the message is rejected again. Rejecting messages containing personal attacks means an earlier intervention by the Digest Team, saving it to close the discussion and saving us from the negative effects described above.

I realise that many a Digest subscriber will be uncomfortable about the Digest Team rejecting messages. Specially those for whom "There should be no censorship" is the 11th Commandment. Others may feel that a rejection means that the writer of the rejected message is shamed by
the Digest Team. Still, messages containing personal attacks inevitably lead to the Digest Team intervening in one way or other. Let's
therefore pick the method of intervention that does the least damage. I think that least damage is done by rejecting messages containing personal attacks as a message is stopped rather than a whole
discussion. Secondly, one of the general rules of the Digest is that discussions are held in an open, civilised and orderly fashion.
Messages containing personal attacks are thus in breach of this rule. And I don't think the Digest team can be blamed for keeping an eye on this rule. Finally, because the rejection will be something between the Digest Team and the writer of the message so that he, or she, won't be publicly humiliated. But what's most important of all is that the discussion and debate that's taking place can continue unhindered.

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

Date: 18 Dec 2004 22:03:19 +0100
From: Rolf Brunsting <address truncated>
Subject: Re: Content of the Digest

Dear Antony,

<< I feel myself agreeing with your point where there was no general concensus on the Thoughts for the day discussion, other than there were very strong opinions on both sides and the discussion was terminated as it was clearly the will of the admin to maintain the status quo of the digest, rather than allow the topic to fade or for a general concensus to be determined >>

Sorry, but I don't necessarily agree with that. It was proposed that the Digest would be a better place without these so-called "Thoughts for the day". Some people couldn't suppress their anger and/or irritation about the proposal and started to attack people personally. To the effect that the Digest Team had to intervene as keeping the discussion open would have turned into a slanging match or a flame war. The Digest Team was therefore right when it put a stop to the discussion. One of the very unfortunate results is that we don't know how the Digest as a whole thinks about the proposal. And as long as we don't know we have to accept that the Digest remains as it was before. That's the formal situation - things remain as they are until a proposal for change is accepted.

It's also unfortunate that one of the Digest Team members felt the urge to explain the Teams' decision to intervene. The Team didn't have to explain anything as it was plain for all to see that the discussion was getting out of hand. And the Digest Team has the right to intervene
when such a situation occurs. The explanation was a clear case of misjudgment as it can now be questioned whether the Digest Team was as impartial as it should be in situations like these.

<< The purpose of my post is not to submit an opinion on the topic either way, but to suggest an option to suit all ... A few months ago,
I suggested to the admin that all the functionality of administering the digest could be migrated to a web server ..... >>

Your proposal effectively attempts to circumvent the uncertainty whether the Digest is generally in favour or generally against these "Thoughts for the day". Looks to me that it's much better to get a
clear answer on this (by an e-mail ballot) rather than to spend much time and effort on a new system of administration, distribution and maintenance of the Digest. The Digest as a whole than having to respect the outcome of the ballot.

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

Date: 20 Dec 2004 06:36:44 +0100
From: Dave Thomas <address truncated>
Subject: K700i & Psion - Is it compatible

Hi there

Is  the  Sony  Ericsson K700i & Psion compatible.  I can't seem to get the two to see each other with infrared?


Kind Regards

Dave Thomas
Product Manager
Psionet

Tel +27 21 683 1192
Fax +27 21 683 1196

Web: www.psion.co.za

Date: 20 Dec 2004 08:25:01 +0100
From: Eric Lindsay <address truncated>
Subject: Proposed system for Digest

> The Digest       Wed, 15 Dec 2004     Volume 01 : Number 654 > From: Itamar Engelsman <address truncated>
> Subject: Proposed system,
> The digest program is still under development and a HTML version will > soon be available at the option of the subscriber.

I have been looking at changing my address for receipt of The Digest (and many other lists) because of increased spam over the past few years.  One additional precaution I could take is to discover the
source of spam is to provide a different mailing address for every list I join.  However, I don't have an unlimited number of email addresses. 
I do however have plenty of aliases, addresses that will receive email, but not send it.

Under the current Digest system, I can't use an alias with the Digest, because it requires a real email address.  I plan to make my email address for all lists into a "throw away" address (like dec2004) that will change each month.  If you are making major changes to the Digest, can I request that consideration be given to the increased efforts members may be making to reduce their exposure to spam?

Eric Lindsay lists at ericlindsay dot com
http://www.ericlindsay.com