The Digest Fri, 20 May 2005 Volume
02 : Number 745
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Sent to: 742 subscribers
In today's The Digest 10 messages
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- Re: "definition" of a PDA
- RE: off-topic topics
- Gadget's 'ere too!
- Off topics, Crippled Multitasking on UIQ,
- Off topics
- Error Code 'User 87' - help needed
- UIQ 3.0
- Big bang (was Re: Evolution)
- New P910i Firmware available.
- Off Topic Topics!! & Palm Question
Date: 18 May 2005 09:41:02 +0000
From: Ian Chapple <address truncated>
Subject: Re: "definition" of a PDA
Steve,
>>It was interesting that the author asserts that "anything
that requires two hands to reasonably use, isn't a PDA." In my
experience all PDAs (bar the Invair Filoewalker I guess) require at least
one hand to hold the thing and the other to drive. By the author's
criteria the classic Psion 3 series would be even less of a PDA as it
required two hands to hold and two thumbs to type.<<
I must admit that I find this "definition" of a PDA complete
rubbish. You can't even use a Palm one-handed, unless you place it on a
table... By this token, presumably my windows PC counts as a PDA; it's
portable (-ish) and I can use it one-handed when it's stood on a
table.
Cheers, Ian.
Date: 18 May 2005 12:19:35 +0000
From: Chris Cooper
Subject: RE: off-topic topics
I'd like to second those who DON'T want to see evolution, the Big Bang, etc. pursued in sustained threads. (Of course, absolutely anything might crop up occasionally on a lively list like this one.)
--
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Date: 18 May 2005 13:23:35 +0000
From: Phil Aypee <address truncated>
Subject: Gadget's 'ere too!
Hi Folks,
Steve (Hodgson), I tried to read that Gadgeteer page on my Psion (the Mac’s got the dreaded lergy pro tem). It’s very long, isn’t it?
Actually I’ve never considered my Psions (3a, 3c, 3mx and 5mx) as PDAs. I’ve always thought of them as handheld computers. Certainly they can function as PDAs, and very good ones too - but they’re far more capable than contemporary PDAs. In fact they’re computers with PDA capabilities!
I rather think it was the attraction of the PDA market that influenced Psion to release the Siena and the Revo. But the only truly one-handed computer I remember was the AgendA Microwriter, which I assume was a PDA - the name sort of indicates that it was. But it doesn’t seem to be mentioned on that page - I wonder why?
Happy days,
Phil.
"If it can't be expressed in figures,
it is not science; it is opinion."
http://www.philaypee.co.uk/index.html
Date: 18 May 2005 17:43:53 +0000
From: Itamar Engelsman <address truncated>
Subject: Off topics, Crippled Multitasking on UIQ,
Answer to: Brendan & Gary Jenkinson & others
Re.: Off topics - Well, not that long ago it was decided that there should not be any censorship to the digest and accordingly it is up to the individual writer whether to adhere to the requests or not. As to my own very private opinion, a few off topic messages in the digest do not worry me and might even bring some juice to the dry parts. in the end, some of the real EPOC/Symbian subjects i am not interested either and skip these too.
Answer to: Alan Rabbitte
Re.: Crippled Multitasking on UIQ - That is certainly good news. Now I know not to upgrade my P910 until a version 3.0 phone has been brought onto the market (if I don't choose to move to a 9500 ...<G>).
Best regards,
Itamar Engelsman
London, UK
Date: 18 May 2005 19:45:01 +0000
From: Kevin Thorne <address truncated>
Subject: Off topics
Gary Jenkinson wrote:
Subject: Off Topic Topics!!
<Hey Guys,
If you do feel the need to be contemplative and discuss all manner of esoteric matters like the meaning of life, evolution and other such weighty subjects, could I ask that you do it between yourselves, and more importantly, off Digest please? I, for one, subscribe to the Digest to participate and learn about handheld ITC matters and the above subjects don't fall into that category, as far as I'm concerned.
This is really detracting away from my enjoyment of the Digest because the content of last one (# 743) for example was mostly filled with non-ITC subject matter.>
My thoughts exactly! Just what those topics above have to do with handhelds is beyond me and I have to say I feel the Digest is going steadily downhill with all this unrelated babble. There are plenty of forums out there to discuss whatever you want but this is not the place. No doubt someone will now tell me just to skip the babble if I'm not interested but that's not the point - this Digest is supposed to be for EPOC/Symbian handhelds and it shouldn't be filled with 90% of babble as in #743 as Gary has stated above. Heck, I'm now guilty myself of filling it up with non related EPOC/symbian material but someone has to make the point and I'm getting fed up with it personally. What do the people running the Digest think about this? Does anyone else agree with me on this?
Yours disappointedly
Kevin Thorne
Date: 18 May 2005 22:02:21 +0000
From: U Hornstein <address truncated>
Subject: Error Code 'User 87' - help needed
Hello List,
in one of my OPL programs I have a strange error. The program crashes on the line
IOC(timh%, 1, timstat%, wait&)
with the error message:
Window: Program closed
Program: DMMtr42 (my prog name)
ErrorCode: User
ErrorNumber: 87
Depending on the value of wait& it crashes with values
34560, 69120 and 4147200
The program runs as planned without crash with many other values like
12, 15, 20, 24, 48, ... , 8640, 17280, (here comes the crash with 34560 and 69120), 138240, 259200 and more. I cannot catch this error with OnErr.
Any idea what this error means? Since wait& is a long integer, values above 32768 should not be any problem.
... a little later ...
This long list of numbers made me doubt the validity of the higher numbers and do further tests.
Result: The Prog crashes for wait&>=21475.
At wait&=42950 (=2*21475) it runs again, but having a wait time of zero. wait&=42960 produces a delay of 1 second, so we get the following:
with W=21475, crashes appear W <= wait& < 2 * W
above 2W we have RealWaittime& = wait& mod(2*W)
Some thinking and a few more tests showed:
crashes appear n*W <= wait& < (n+1)*W
for n=1, 3, 5, ...
and RealWaittime& = wait& mod (2*W) outside the crash area.
IN SHORT, the IOC timer function works only up to wait&=W meaning 35,79 min.
Can anyone of you give any hint how to get longer wait times? Is this an undocumented bug, or does anyone of you have documentation on this? Can I avoid this non-catchable error 87?
--
With greetings from Germany
Ulrich Hornstein
http://psion.uh-lab.de
For spam protection: Please NEVER type my mail address into a www page ("send to a friend" or similar).
Sent by MC218 (EPOC palmtop)
Date: 19 May 2005 08:09:35 +0000
From: Phil Aypee <address truncated>
Subject: UIQ 3.0
Hi Folks,
I’m not personally interested in UIQ 3.0 but I found this at http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news.php?id=37437.
“To quote... "In UIQ 3.0 an application keeps the state the user left it in and does not automatically return to the base view." Now we just need the devices.”
Happy days,
Phil.
"A plethora of words becomes the apoplexy of reason."
http://www.philaypee.co.uk/index.html
Date: 19 May 2005 09:53:08 +0000
From: Chris S Handley
Subject: Big bang (was Re: Evolution)
Hello Rolf,
Having given the Digest (and myself!) a reasonable respite from my last (unfortunatly) voluminous post, I'm replying to what you said to Itamar. This one is quite large too, but I think it could interest some people here, including you.
> One such question was asked by George Gamov in the early
> 1930's. On the basis that the Big Bang theory is true he
> calculated that there should be a remnant of the Big Bang in
> the form of a radiation in the range of 3 to 6 Kelvin.
> Penzias and Wilson were awarded the Nobel Prize for physics
> by detecting the Cosmic Background Radiation that was predicted
> by Gamov.
What your write matches exactly what Mr Hogan says, but he goes into more detail, which shows that the detected radiation is actually a PROBLEM for the Big Bang theory, rather than proof for it! There are also simpler & better explanations for the radiation. I quote him here, to save you having to believe me or buying the book:
(quote begins)
A group at Princeton looked into the question of whether such a universe could produce the observed amount of helium, which was still one of Big Bang's strong points. (Steady state had gotten the abundance of heaver elements about right but was still having trouble accounting for all the helium.) They found that it could. With the conditions adjusted to match the observed figure for helium, expansion would have cooled the radiation of the original fireball to a diffuse background pervading all of space that should still be detectable - at a temperature of 30 K.
Gamow's collaborators, Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman, in their original version had calculated 5 K for the temperature resulting from expansion alone, which they stated would be increased by the energy production of stars, and a later publication of Gamow's put the figure at 50 K.
The story is generally repeated that the discovery of the 2.7 K microwave background radtion confirmed precisely a prediction of the Big Bang theory. In fact, the figures predicted were an order of magnitude higher. We're told that those models were based on an idealized density somewhat higher than that actually reported by observation, and (mumble-mumble, shuffle-shuffle) it's not really too far off when you allow for the uncertainties. In any case, the Big Bang proponents maintained, the diffuseness of this radiation across space, emanating from no discernable source, meant that it could only be a relic of the original explostion.
It's difficult to follow the insistence on why this had to be so. ... Every temperature has a characteristic spectrum, and an ideal, perfectly black body absorbing and reradiating totally is said to be a "blackbody" radiator at that temperature. ... Thus, given the energy density of a volume, it was possible to calculate it's temperature.
Many studies had applied these principles to estimating the temperature of "space". These included Guillaume (1896), who obtained a figure of 5-6 K, based on the radiative output of stars; Eddington (1926), 3.18K; Regener (1933), 2.8K, allowing also for the cosmic ray influx; Nernst (1938), 0.75 K; Herberg (1941), 2.3 K; Finlay-Freundlich (1953 and 1954), using a "tired light" model for the redshift (...), 1.9 K to 6 K. Max Bourn, discussing this last result in 1954, and the proposal that the mechanism responsible for "tiring" the light en route might be photon-photon interactions, concluded that the "secondary photons" generated to carry away the small energy loss ... would be in the radar range.
The significant thing about all these results is that they were based on a static, nonexpanding universe, yet consistently give figures closer to the one that Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson eventually measured than any of the much-lauded predictions derived from Big Bang models.
Further more, the discrepancy was worse than it appeared ... the measured background [energy] field was THOUSANDS of times less than was required by the theory ... [snip lots of good stuff - hopefully by now you can see that Hogan has done his homework]
Resting upon three pillars of evidence - the Hubble redshifts, light-element abundance, and the existance of the cosmic background radiation - Big Bang triumphed and became what is today the accepted standard cosmological model.
(quote ends)
I should note that Hogan shows problems with the two other pillars (redshift & light-elements) that aren't quoted here. Basically, belief in the Big Bang is more an act of faith than science. He also goes on to mention several other theories (or "ideas" if you must) which could better explain some of our observations.
---
Chris Handley
Date: 19 May 2005 17:28:01 +0000
From: Alan Rabbitte <address truncated>
Subject: New P910i Firmware available.
Subject: P910i Firmware
According to http://uiqzone.org/software/firmware_p910.php , the latest firmware for my P910i (with a CDA of 162005/3) has been updated to R5A02 today, May 19, 2005. My upgrades (if I go ahead) will therefore look like R2A16 -> R3A04 -> R4A10 -> R5A02. As previously stated, my reasons for getting this version would be along the lines of "because it's newer than what's there already". Must stop treating my P910i as a gadget and start using it as a tool ;-)
As before, there is no indication what the changes/improvements are: I have emailed SE for this and will post it here when/if it comes.
All the best from Dublin, Ireland
Alan Rabbitte
P.S. Any 9500/9300 users out there carried out a FW upgrade on your phones? What was the experience like?
Date: 19 May 2005 22:31:00 +0000
From: Jim Watson-Gove <address truncated>
Subject: Off Topic Topics!! & Palm Question
Since this show first started on Compuserve, it has always had the tendency to drift into off topic topics. For one, that's the reason I have stuck around so long dispite having little interest in Psion's cell phone oriented offspring.
I also am little interested in the topics of copyright, ethics and morality. I generally (though not always) move past them without reading them. But I applaud the spirit that moves the members to follow their inclinations.
If the digest management ever decides to make rules to control what seems to be an enlightened anarchy (IMO not about to happen), I for one will still hang around but ignore the rules.
And for another off-topic topic, with the added processor power, enlarged keyboard (bigger than the Treo), 64 megs of memory, I am ecstatic about my almost move from Psion to my Palm Tungston C.
I am having problems with the Documents to go spreadsheet program.
Building and maintaining a spreadsheet on the Tungston works great - much better from my experience with the Treo. Then when I try to open the file on my Compaq or Dell (in MS Office), the desktop cannot read the file.
Anyone on the list playing with Palm have any experience to share?
TIA,
jim - waiting for the return to the list of the espresso machine the cow and the helicopter
Date: 16 May 2005 08:48:17 +0000
From: Gary Jenkinson <address truncated>br>
To Gary Jenkinson and Brendon.
You've Been Reading The Digest
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