- Psion 5MX Game - Dark Horizon

- Re: The Digest V1 # 1239

- E90 calendar

- Registering nConvert

- HP 2133 Mini-Note (aka "The Mini" :-)

- Re: new Eee PC (901) much better than recent one (900)

- Re: new Eee PC (901) much better than recent one (900)

- Alpha-400: First impressions

- More about the Alpha-400

- eee PC

Date: 18 Jun 2008 10:20:13 +0000
From: John Spillett <address truncated>
Subject: Psion 5MX Game - Dark Horizon

Has anyone any idea of how to register this as the registration sites are defunct?

Regards

John

Date: 18 Jun 2008 11:07:44 +0000
From: David G. Margetts <address truncated>
Subject: Re: The Digest V1 # 1239

>   The Digest    Wed, 18 Jun 2008    Volume 01  :  Number 1239 > ************************************************************************ > > From: Trygve Henriksen <address truncated>
> Subject: Re: The Digest V1 # 1238
>
>> update on the Alpha-400.
> Collected June 11.
> Left Hong-Kong on the 12.
> Arrived in Norway(Gardermoen airport) to be trapped in customs on the 14. >
> Should be here in a few weeks, now...
>
> :-)
> Trygve
>
> Who supplied the Alpha-400 in Hong Kong. I'm having trouble sourding in the UK.

David

Date: 18 Jun 2008 11:34:42 +0000
From: Ray Upton <address truncated>
Subject: E90 calendar

Hi,

I've bitten the bullet and bought an E90. I'm mostly impressed so far, except for the calendar.  What's the recommended 3rd Party calendar that will give me all the weeks appointments on one screen - just like the 5mx.

Also, any other must have applications or games for the E90?

Thanks

Ray Upton

Date: 18 Jun 2008 11:50:22 +0000
From: "Maurice Malek" <address truncated>
Subject: Registering nConvert

I've tried contacting Martin Guthrie at both <address truncated> *and* <<address truncated> about registering my copy of Neuon's nConvert, but no response from him so far. Can anybody help me out with a known valid email address for him, or some other way of registering my copy? TIA.

Date: 18 Jun 2008 18:52:54 +0000
From: Ajai Khattri <address truncated>
Subject: HP 2133 Mini-Note (aka "The Mini" :-)

On 16 Jun 2008, Trygve Henriksen  wrote:

> Yes, their Mini-note 2133 or something...
> The problem with it is that it's EXPENSIVE and HEAVY. It's heavier than > my 13"(widescreen) nc2400 laptop from HP. (discontinued, current model
> from HP is the 2510p which is nice... and also expensive)

Hmmm,

Let's examine some facts here and debunk some myths:

EEE PC 900MHz "Celery" (clocked at 630MHz normally) 512Mb RAM 8Gb SSD $499

HP 2133 1.2GHz VIA C7-M 1Gb RAM 120Gb HDD $549

EEE weighs around 3lbs. HP weighs around 3lbs.

The HP has two USB ports, an SD slot but also an ExpressCard 54 slot (EEE PC has no ExpressCard slot).

So, for $50 more you get a machine with a more RAM, a better scratchproof, higher res screen (1280x768 vs 800x480), much more disk space, a better (spillproof) keyboard with almost (92%) full-size keys.

To me, that extra $50 is money well spent especially if you do a lot of typing. I found the space bar on the EEE's keyboard particularly problematic / annoying. The HP keyboard is virtually full-size so typing is much easier. For a programmer like me, that's a pretty important consideration.

I dont know if I mentioned it on this list, but as you can guess, I own both the EEE 8G and the HP MiniNote. I have Ubuntu running on the HP and have been using it to write code for over a month now. Its a nice machine, so much so that Im now selling my EEE 8G.

Aj.

Date: 18 Jun 2008 18:59:18 +0000
From: Ajai Khattri <address truncated>
Subject: Re: new Eee PC (901) much better than recent one (900)

On 16 Jun 2008, Sergio wrote:

> Then tried with Ubuntu and quite succeeded, but wi-fi not always worked > and problems with unsupported-out-of-the-box hardware made me rethink
> about WindowsXP (I was tired of downloading codes, compiling for the
> linux kernel etc etc...)

These machines are new so the major distros like Ubuntu require a bit of work. However, I should mention that I successfully installed eeeXubuntu (do a Google for it) from a USB stick. eexubuntu is a version of Xubuntu but specially tweaked for the EEE hardware. I managed to get everything working without digging into kernels and what not - most of the information to use it is on the eeeuser.com forums and wiki.

I tried Xubuntu on the HP too and did have a few problems but then I tried full Ubuntu and have everything working now. Ubuntu is very nice on the
HP :-)

Aj.

Date: 18 Jun 2008 19:14:33 +0000
From: Ajai Khattri <address truncated>
Subject: Re: new Eee PC (901) much better than recent one (900)

On 14 Jun 2008, Jakfish wrote:

> HP SAID their HP 2133 would start at 499 USD, but real-life price is now 789 USD.

Not quite right: there is a RANGE of models starting at $499 for a Linux
machine with an 8Gb SSD and various models costing more up to $850 for the
fastest processor, full 2Gb RAM and Windows Vista.

I bought the $549 model (Linux machine but with 1Gb RAM and 120Gb HD) -
upgrading this machine to 2Gb RAM is cheaper than buying the next model
up.

See:
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF25a/321957-321957-64295-321838-306995-3687084.html
> ASUS, HP, and all the other players in the mini-notebook party owe
> everything to Psion (and to Windows CE, somewhat).  It turned out that
> users were willing to use the miniture hardware format after all; they
> just wanted to do so with their desktop software.  That, and neither
> Epoc nor CE could provide real-life Internet experience.  But this wave
> of sudden portability is because every designer has a Psion in the
> deskdrawer, I'm sure of it.

And, as we all know, it was Psion that first popularized SSD drives in
mobile computing.

Some of you may know, I used to work for New World Tech here in New York
and when we first saw the Protea (which became the Series 5) we were
a little disappointed. We knew that people wanted to be able surf
wirelessly and in color on a portable machine. We knew there was demand
for a mobile Internet device integrated with the great Psion software. I
look back and think its such a shame. EPOC is more than up to the task,
they just didn't integrate the right hardware - it should have been one
step ahead of WinCE, not one behind.

Aj.

Date: 19 Jun 2008 13:55:17 +0000
From: Trygve Henriksen <address truncated>
Subject: Alpha-400: First impressions

Greetings!

The Alpha arrived today, and I figured I should give my verdict...

This message is written directly into my webmail, using the built-in browser, "Bon Echo v2.0.0.1" which is based on FireFox, so it supports tabbed browsing, and is OK, for surfing.
I did have problems getting ON the net, though, as it seems this machine doesn't support WPA, only WEP encryption. (I'm 'borrowing' network from one of my neighbours at the moment)

the build quality is surprisingly good, though the screen hinges are a little too stiff.(I expect that to change as I use it.) No lock to keep it closed, though.
The keyboard takes a bit of getting used to, and the touchpad feels cramped because it's so close to the keyboard. Having the left/right buttons on the side of the touchpad instead between the touchpad and keyboard as I'm used to on other computers may also be a part of the reason. I expect that is just a matter of getting used to it, though.

Getting started with the machine is easy enough.
Unpack it, plug in the 'phone-charger'(9V/400mAh, so most 'stabilized' in=-car chargers with a 9V setting can also be used.) and wait a couple of minutes before switching it on.
Note that it will NOT switch off if you close it, so use the power switch or he 'sleep' key.
The battery is a 2100mAh/7.4V Li-ion tpe battery, and is hidden under a cover fastened with two screws. As it also has a fiddly connector, it's not posible to do a swap like on a netBook/S7.
As soon as it has fired up, click on the clock to set that, then click twice on the arow tointing to the right to find the icon for 'own
er information'
If you want to use Wi-fi, plug in the USB Wi-fi dongle, and click on the Wi-Fi icon to select the network.

The word processor 'XIP Word' is ABIWord 2.4.5, and it seems to start up relatively fast, so that shouldn't be a downer. (I'll test that out more properly later)

The Spreadsheet is 'Gnumeric 1.6.3' which at the very least shouldn't be worse than Sheet on an S5...

The PDFViewer is ePDFView 0.1.6 from www.emma-soft.com and I'll test that more, also....

Dictionary is Stardict 2.4.8 (stardict.sourceforge.net

There's no database as I can see, but maybe the spreadsheet can do the job?

Now, what most wonders about is probably the calendar, right?
I can't find any 'about' box, there...
It has Day/Week/Month/Agenda views, and seems to support more than one calendar, although they seems to all be in the same file? (Needs more research)
Events can be defined as 'all day' events or with start - end times. Start - end is with dates, so can span multiple days.(Someting our beloved
Agenda never could)
Events defaults to 'Single occurence' but can be set to Daily/Weekly/Monthly and yearly, too.
And that's when it begins to be interesting...
As soon as you select say 'monthly' you get a new line of select boxes to play with..
In addition to the 'every X months' you then get a selector 'Every' where you can select First/Second/Third/Fourth/Last/Second to last, and another to select weekday.
As soon as you select, say 'Every Second Tuesday', you get YET ANOTHER
such line so that you can also add 'Every Last Friday' of the month, too...
And another.. No clue as to how many you can add, yet...
No sign of any Alarms, though.
There's no way of ataching proper notes to them, either as you could do in Agenda.

More later...

:-)
Trygve

Date: 19 Jun 2008 19:48:32 +0000
From: Trygve Henriksen <address truncated>
Subject: More about the Alpha-400

Greetings!

Just a quick heads-up that I've set up an area in my forum to discuss this machine.

http://www.totallytrygve.com/phpbb3/
If anything 'exciting' is revealed in the forum, I will of course post that here, also.

Now, just one update about the Calendar.
It seems to be able to open and save standard .ics files. (To be used in iCalendar on the Mac, Outlook/Windows Calendar on Windooze, or even in Agenda on your Psion :-)

:-)
Trygve

Date: 20 Jun 2008 05:30:01 +0000
From: Bob <address truncated>
Subject: eee PC

Has anyone found an ebook reader that is compatible with the pdb and other ebook formats like one would find on Fictionwise or Mobipocket for use on the eee pc.  I looked on the Mobipocket site and they are not compatible with Linux.  I like to use my small laptop as an ebook reader like I did with my Series 5s and 7s.
Thanks,
Bobby