Slashdot Mirror
Filesystem Problems with the Treo 650s
Kaisa Tarasov writes "It turns out PalmOne's new Treo 650
is shipping with a major problem that's causing first adopter users and
developers to cancel
their orders in droves. The new Treo, along with the Tungsten T5,
utilizes a new FAT based
nonvolatile file system. Not only is the new system much slower, as
the data has to be loaded into a SDRAM chip before running, but in this
filesystem PalmOne switched from using directly addressable storage, to
storage addressed
in 512 Byte blocks. This has caused many files to swell in size - up
to 500% in some cases (such as the address book). Users,
already flustered with the small 23 MB of available memory, when trying
to sync their old data onto the new device are discovering that their
old data does not fit on the new Treo. What does PalmOne do?"
Easy. Palm should write a efficient 512 byte FAT block mapping layer.
What does PalmOne do?
File for bankruptcy?
Who gets fired for this? Q&A? The engineers? Managament?
It's too bad that such a glaring problem got missed in production. Hopefully they will be able to fix it.
I think this new item is a bit too negative. I just upgraded from a 600 to a 650 and I think it's a great product. I didn't even know about any of the filesystem "issues" before reading this news. While, I guess this may be an issue for some users, I have not had any problems myself. Also to note:
:)
- the 650 loads programs at least 3 times faster than the 600 from my experience (likely due to the faster processor, but still!)
- the 650 has 4X the resolution of the 600. It can be argued that the 600 should have had 320x320 to begin withy, but either way, it's worth the upgrade by itself.
- Also, one of the benefits of the new memory is that you don't loose data when you loose power completely. Making the removeable battery system feasible.
- Finally, it's the first sprint phone (to my knowledge) to have bluetooth. I love my jabra
Well, just my $.02, I thought palmOne was getting a little too harsh of a rap, the 650 is a very good product in my opinion.
I think that PalmOne is right in choosing to use a block based filesystem. There is obvious limits on the the old method, and while this has some problems, from what I gather they could easily solve them by instead of having each contact data in a seperate file, moving it to one file (or having a 'zip folder' which could expand and look like a normal folder when opened).
The main problem is that PalmOS is looking very dated compared to WinCE and Linux, and it's going to require serious pain that I don't think PalmOne can take to modernize it fully. This is just one step.. think how much it's going to hurt to get proper multitasking in etc...
IntechHosting - Free domain, 2GB, PHP, £4.95/$8.95
Dammit, yet another possible replacement for my Kyocera 6035 proves to be insufficient.
I was hoping for the 7135 to drop in price, but Verizon outright pulled it instead.
None of the current batch of smartphones appeal to me in design. They're all more PDA than phone, the Kyos were EXCELLENT phones. I *need* tactile feedback when dialing my phone, and all of the current smartphones use on-screen dialing.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
apart from sucking and cancelling orders? Well, not much beta testing I would say.
I'd rather not be their Q&A manager...
fat is so ... 80s, they should have used something a little more modern like reiserfs.
GETPKG - Package Management for Slackware
Why move from the major innovation of *all database storage* backwards to a FAT filesystem that even Microsoft doesn't use anymore? The way to get compatibility with prepackaged Flash storage that unwisely stuck with the ancient FAT system was to include a Palm DB wrapper for the Flash legacy filesystems. Yet another reason Palm should open their PalmOS source, so manufacturers can make it work across platforms, and Linux hackers can make Palm a GUI mode as we take over computing.
--
make install -not war
you horrific shill.
We die
They take it up the ass as usual for thier lousy testing procedures.
I'm tired of Palm devices being buggy out of the
box (and I say this as a long time Palm user and a former contractor).
I want to use and like the platform, I really do. But thier devices have always been behind the curve on technology, and even that older stuff never did really work right on the first try.
These newest problems should surprise exactly no one.
Ah, FAT. The cornerstone of any modern operating system...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this sounds like a software patch fix here. Change the block size, or re-write the fs manager. One way or another a software patch would accomplish a fix to this easily.
If it's anything like me, it'll go home and cry.
Given this scare with the 650, I did a search on eBay to see if people are unloading their treos. What I found was a lot of listings for people selling COUPONS to get the Treo 650 at a discounted price of $349. I noticed that some people were obviously mistaken and bidding upwards of $300 for this coupon, rather than the actual device. Does anyone have any information on this coupon?
Call me wacked but sometimes the best way to wipe egg (or in this case, a whole omlette) off your face is to ask someone to wipe for you (eek...).
Palm could reach out to the OSS community for help in dealing with this...
1) Rapidly turn around a six-month trial developers kit and a limited-licensed SDK for OS development.
2) Make it extremely easy to find/download/bootstrap.
3) Setup a contest... List the top five major issues/flaws in the software at any given moment with corresponding prizes for the individual/team that develops a viable solution for a given issue/flaw.
4) Filter solution entries though a rapid in-house QA and system testing process.
5) Release patches in "leap frog" pattern (i.e. say four-month cycles overlapping for bi-monthly update releases).
6) Build and distribute a Palm Desktop conduit for System and Application updates. Call in "pa1m OneUpdate Utilities" or such.
Just an idea... Run with it at will...
I have a Treo 600 that I waited for two update cycles to occur before I bought... I've been burnt by Palm and WinCE before. And while I loved Handspring products, I can't think of a single one that didn't have some odd problem (shiver, the Visor Edge...).
cheers,
Levendis47
--==[ AOL YIM ICQ : Levendis47 : levendis47@yahoo.com ]==--
One advantage I could see is that the FAT filesystem is well understood and supported by a lot of things - it might make it much easier to mount the device as portable storage and make direct modifications.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Call EA Games and ask to borrow some of their slaves to help recode their OS =D
They should give you a free 40 gig iPod to store the obese address book records...
The link says there is 32 MB RAM and 256 MB flash (the non-volatile files system). But we also know there's 20 GB of storage.
So the real question is, how is the 20 GB stored?
They imply all data fits in the 256 MB of static RAM, but that's ridiculous, and they're not charging enough for 20 GB of static RAM.
"It should be the management getting fired".
It should, but unfortunately nowadays "management is another form of politics". In this era, presidents/management take the glory for flasely labeled "Mission Accomplished" and hard workers or people who gave their entire lifes for their jobs get sacked for the failure of the management/president.
I have seen it many times.
They should have licensed reiserfs. It uses a block system but small files can share a block:
http://www.namesys.com/v4/v4.html#sharing_blocks.
You can get a special license to include it in your own proprietary OS.
Adding an extra couple megabytes to the built-in storage would solve any upgrade problems. As for slower access, I think it's worthwhile considering it makes the memory non-volatile, don't you?
What does PalmOne do?
From the look of things, they go the way of the do do. Their serious lack of smart choices has really put them behind the Windows Mobile devices.
They don't listen to their customers. They STILL haven't released a PalmOS Cobalt device after what... a year? They're still using a crappy, old, severely limited, non-multitasking operating system that's getting its ass handed to it by the infamous Windows CE for god's sake.
They have great hardware (well, I consider the Tungsten C the penultimate in PDA's right now)
I know that at least two of the major cell phone manufacturers provide beta test units to their employees. Even though you hear of some problems being corrected (like a camera whose lens protruded too much and was easily scratched) there seem to be 10 major problems for every one corrected. Are the employees just not USING the devices? Or are the companies just not listening?
At least Palm isn't alone:
- How could the original Nokia nGage get into consumer's hands with the game cartridge located UNDER the battery?
- Why didn't Motorola figure out that their beautiful smart flip phone had to run for more than an hour or so on a charge?
The list goes on...
Just the other day engadget featured a bluetooth wireless speaker adapter that incidently introduces a delay that causes audio to get out of sync with the video.
www.lonseidman.com
As Palm developer I've never found the lack of file system to be a problem. Moreover the siplicity and compactness of the DB system is quite desirable. The best thing about Palm OS is that it is simple and robust. I tend to think that the file system got added because other operating systems have such.
M
Who says they use FAT? The linked article does not mention FAT anywhere. Besides FAT is just not a good choice. Other file systems like reiserfs have been carefully designed to avoid the slack problem being described here. Of course it could easilly have been avoided by not storing all data in a bunch of small files.
Just about anything would have been better than FAT. The minix file system is simpler and more efficient, but it doesn't help on slack. Reiser is more complicated, but does solve the slack problem. I don't know if they really need any journaling. It is quite easy to come up with a file system, that is better than FAT, and even one that is simpler and solve the slack problem. It is builtin, and there doesn't seem to be any need for compatibility with anything else.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that a file system called FAT cause files to swell up in size, I mean come on, they should have seen that one coming.
FSCK IT!
plus, Hey! FAT is phat! (not)
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
I am a expert handheld reviewer and I have to say that its shocking to see what a poorly presented and researched piece this is. Are the real editors sleeping in on sunday morning?
While the lower addressable amount of memory is disappointing this is not a major issue, and I think this article is WAY too over-negative. Sounds like the submitter has some sort of bias on palmOne and the new Treo.
How can people be returning units in droves when only a few hundred have shipped!!!!
Only the most hardcore techie is even going to notice this sort of filesystem procedure, it is not a bug but a symptom of the Non volatile memory architecture.
Give me a break, The Treo 650 will do just fine.
-7L-
Actually, the employees typically DON'T use the devices.
I have engineered features for a set-top & tv box -- and I don't have (probably never will have) that tv.
I have worked for computer companies whilst never owning ANY of their product.
I have just done some engineering work for a printer company, and while I *have* in the past owned the vendor product, I will never own this particular product (and, indeed have never SEEN the product).
I have worked with a major graphics board company, and, though I do own several of their products, I was never given one to "home test".
In other words, the engineers put in the features, but we DON'T actually "eat the dog food". That job is left to Product Managers who probably don't care, and Marketing who probably doesn't either (make sure it meets the requirements).
So, if a "one-hour battery life" was in the requirements (or worse, no mention of battery life at all), that's what gets delivered.
And the justification? The employees/contractors won't BUY the stuff (why would we?); the company feels it is too expensive to build extra prototypes -- and besides, what does the employee know anyway? Stick to engineering; that's what we pay you for.
Does lead to Dilbert moments, though.
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Another day I have heard screams in computer room. I went there just to find my friends literally laughing to death. They were trying thru laughing point to the screen of WinXP with error message.
As soon I have taken a look at screen - I have joined them laughing to death under table.
"Invalid MS-DOS function"
For sure, we had over-reacted, due to couple of M$ Zealot who tried to persuade development department that WinXP is complete rewrite of Windows from scratch. And it has nothing to do with MS DOS.
As a person who switch to Linux & Apple long time ago I find bit fuzzing insistence of some companies on using technology from 80s. If you haven't noticed, all external hard-drives are shipped formated with FAT.
No-one yet came out and proposed read-write file system for hard-drives supportable by all OSs. File systems are not standard - I'll love to see OpenGroup/POSIX/ISO having standardize some file system in order for interoperability between OSs. Just like it was done for CD/DVD media.
P.S. Message in our case was showed when one guy tried to delete file with name 'nul' with Explorer. Who remember DOS times - it is reserved name which is presumably impossible to give to a file. Some tools do allow to create/delete files with such name under WinNT/friends.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
As I've been monitoring the discussions of the 650 at TreoCentral (I'm thinking about getting one myself when the GSM version comes out), I couldn't help but thinking that PalmSource and PalmOne seem to be in a position very similar to Apple a few years ago. I know, they're two separate companies where Apple was (and is) one and their new OS is actually off the ground, but bear with me.
A few years ago, Palm/PalmSource probably realized that their OS wasn't going to cut it in the New World of modern computing. They were making the transition from 68k processors to the StrongARM/Xscale series much like Apple made the switch from 68k to PowerPC. All arguments aside, I'd say this was the right thing to do for both companies, but it left them in a bit of a predicament -- legacy code. The only option for both companies was to develop an emulation system so the old could be run on the new. They both work really quite well, but everyone knows you can't run on a hack forever. The time to break with the old had come.
So, Palm decided to start developing Cobalt and Apple started to develop Copland. Preemptive multitasking, protected memory, better multimedia handling -- the calls to arms were the same. Yet where Apple failed with Copland, Palm didn't. Sort of.
Copland was a nightmare. Years of legacy code had turned the Mac OS into a bunch of spaghetti and for some reason the Copland developers thought they could use that spaghetti and bake a tieramisu. It didn't work. Drained of billions of dollars sunk into development, Apple started shopping around in 1996. They looked at BeOS (to what degree of seriousness is a matter of debate) and NeXT and some others, thankfully settling on NeXT. Palm, too, had likely started from the bottom up, found themselves a bit stuck, and then stumbled across the devalued Be, Inc. Purchasing Be, they gained huge strides in the multimedia area and were on their way. They also created PACE, an emulation environment similar to Classic in our beloved Mac OS X, for all that legacy code.
Cobalt should be a runaway success like Mac OS X is. But it's not. You could say that Cobalt is like Mac OS X when it was new. Everybody thought it had great promise, but even Apple was afraid to use it because it just wasn't finished. Now, I'm not sure how "unfinished" Cobalt is at this point, but it could be in the same boat. There are also issues of licensing fees (which I hear are significantly higher for Cobalt compared to Garnet) that cause the analogy to break down a bit, but for the most part it holds.
So in the end, Palm OS 5 is starting to look a lot like Mac OS 9. It works well, but man does it have its problems. Adoption of Cobalt will be key, but PalmSource needs something killer to drive that. It's a shame for PalmSource/PalmOne that they didn't pick up Dominic Giampaolo with the Be acquisition, but I'm also a Mac user and I'm sure glad he's on our team now.
Per Square Mile, a blog about density
to storage addressed in 512 Byte blocks. This has caused many files to swell in size - up to 500% in some cases
This is news for nerds. Don't you think we figured that out as soon as we read the 512 blocks - or did you just need to juice the story up?
I swear this place is turning into my local news, with all the pomp and circumstance...
"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that, it's called everyone, they meet at the bar."
This is amazingly stupid.
Whoever thought of this deserves a swift kick in the ass.
Where's my HD-based iPod iPDA?
stop hiring tards.
Palm has been underwhelming ever since the IIIc.
They're caught in this terrible "Do I want to be an organizer or a pocket computer" conundrum, and they're starting to do neither very well.
So we have PocketPC which sucks or we go with Palm which produces sucky hardware (in 2004, they have no WiFi solution. Welcome to 1997, Palm).
Between MS and Palm, they'll kill the portable computer market for sure.
So if you want to do some good stuff in your program, you just allocate "database" pointers and use them as your regular heap. I doubt it would for with Flash on Treo 650, since it will not even know which records are dirty. Even if they still support these calls, performance of your heap being swapped out to flash in 512 byte chunks would be dreadful.
The trouble is, programs that needed to use MemSemaphore calls are probably the ones that do something worthwhile. Try business applications, 3D games, VM-based programming languages... They are going to cripple the most cool programs written for their platform. Should have just included a rechargable backup battery just enough to swap out RAM on power failure.
If you read the threads, this isn't something that is going to affect most users. This guy is trying to put 22,000 contacts on his phone. It is taking up over 11 MB. Not good but we are talking an edge case here. I can't believe that this is a normal usage pattern for a phone!
I have about 100 contacts on my phone and I don't know who many of them are. They were added during business meetings or various introductions. How can anyone keep track of 22,000 contacts?
The supposed problem with the Treo 650 seems to be completely overblown from what I can see.
Between this and the Halo 2 problems, this sounds like quality control and alpha/beta testing has become more focused on complex, obscure problems as the products themselves have become more complex. You'd think that a filesystem bloat of this size would be caught pretty quickly, but if the people breaking the software/hardware are so busy looking at relatively minor issues, they might not think to try something as simple as doing a sync with an almost-full Treo. It's like the tech who spends an hour taking a computer apart to find out what the problem is, to realise that it won't turn on because it's not plugged into the wall.
PalmOne lays off Treo 650 developers and are hired as slashdot moderators making it even more useless...
I don't think this would slip through the cracks before release.
most likely, palm sees the light at the end of the tunnel, and its an oncoming train for the Palm
" I am a expert handheld reviewer"
That's like saying you're an expert in masturbation.
So is everybody who owns a handheld device and uses it.
"So in the end, Palm OS 5 is starting to look a lot like Mac OS 9."
Mac OS 9 was horrible. It had all the stability of Windows 3.1 once you loaded apps in it.
My son's imac still has OS 9 loaded on it, and he still complains because once a night it locks up.
OS 9 stayed around 18 months too long.
Man, at least try to compare apples with apples rather than apples with oranges.
Even if you figures are true, which I doubt, "most PocketPC devices" are just PDAs, where as the Treo 600/650 is a phone/PDA combo. What that means is that when you're not using a PocketPC directly it consumes no power but when you're not using a Treo 600/650 directly, it's still consuming power because it's communicating with your mobile phone network.
If you want a fair comparison, use a Tungsten C/E/T3/T5 as your example, not a Treo.
Comparing a Treo to "most PocketPC devices" and then attacking the Treo's battery life is like comparing a swiss army knife to a screwdriver and then saying that the screwdriver is better than the knife when it comes to unscrewing something.
Resolution is another area where you conveniently forget to compare like with like. Of course the Treos don't have 640 by 480 resolution screens: they have built-in keyboards in a similar (if not smaller) form factor, so they hardly need any area for you to write in, do they?
Some of your other points border on ridiculous too. Every PocketPC ever made can play MP3s and WMA files? So what? Every Palm model made in the last two years plus (apart from the cut down, dirt cheap $99 Zire 21) can play MP3s too. Are you really suggesting that playing music on a Palm is a problem?
And as for the size of apps, wow. Again, I'll take your word on the actual numbers but are you really saying that 5MB isn't big enough for any application that you'd want to run on a PDA?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
What's the big deal here and why is everyone moaning. Don't ya get it? It's marketing and engineering to make you buy upgrades/memory plugins, etc. Ya'll should be used to this sort of thing. Microsoft has been doing this for years. New OS needs more RAM, needs more powerfull CPU, needs bigger hard drive, etc.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
They ultimately approve the specifications, so they're responsible for why the filesystem is the way it is.
It's not quite out yet, but the Motorola MPX looks like it's going to be a great combination of PDA and phone. It's got a snazzy dual hinge clamshell design which will allow it to open vertically to function as a phone, and then open horontally to function as a Pocket PC PDA.
It's supposed to be out sometime in the next three or four months.
--
RumorsDaily
Wow, I never thought of that, but it's true. It's impossible to rename a file to "nul", or move, copy, whatever, with explorer or the command line. Filesystem does not make a difference, it just complains that it already exists.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
as an owner of the Treo 650 for a few months now (yes, i got it early) - it is definately the best phone/pda combination that exists; it gives users everything that the Treo 600 users have always been asking for.
as for this being a problem, its not.
palmone can get an update out for this to use the memory layout for its file system much more efficiently and then users can run a simple rom updater application (direct from SD card) to get the latest rom image flashed to the device.
if the device had mask rom, it would be an issue. but, i've been updating my treo 650 every week with new rom images. its a small issue, the developers should fix it quite quickly and then its just a matter of getting the flashable SD card image out to normal users to fix the problem.
I'm astounded that anybody would find this funny.
What do we do?
I will happily keep my treo 270, still a fantastic smartphone for my needs, and will wait for next year.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Where can I find these $100 powerbooks you speak of?
XP is based of NT, and NT is definitely not based on DOS. Learn your history.
Now, whether old code from the FAT file system was eventually ported to NT (NTFS is the native file system in NT) for compatibility reasons -- that's a good question. I don't know the answer.
i actually defelop software for a pocket pc phone (small truck telematics with help of gps navigation).
it is a htc himalaya (better known as o2 xda II)
http://www.my-xda.com/
windows ce mobile 2003 phone edition os
320x240 display
64k colors
64 mb ram
400 mhz arm
sd card slot
bluetooth
tri band phone with gprs
camera
and so on and so on
and this even not the latest htc device. the latest one (sold as t-mobile mda III) has got integrated keyboard and w-lan.
you really can play music and video on it, or even play music in the background and work with it. or have a gps navigation in the background and the to-do list in the foreground and switch seamless between them.
multitasking and hardware power, that's where palm lacks.
the only two problems of the pocket pcs are quite short battery times and the somewhat instable operating system.
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
I'm a third-party Palm developer, so let me shed some light on why this has happened. Or at least on my theory as to why it has happened.
OK, first of all, the current shipping version of Palm OS is 5.x. PalmSource (the software company that makes Palm OS -- Palm was recently split into PalmSource for software and PalmOne for hardware) has been working on OS 6.x. But, OS 6 is not out yet. They're basically done with it, but no devices running it have yet been released.
Now, OS 6 adds many great things (like threads, security, and graphics tools), but one of the big features is the ability to run everything out of flash (with a RAM cache). This is supposed to be a great feature for cell phones since people are always running their cell phones until the battery is dead, dead, dead.
BUT, there have been big delays with OS 6. So, my theory is that the T5 was originally intended to be an OS 6 device. But OS 6 wasn't ready, so PalmOne decided to just stick with OS 5 for it. And the thing is, they had already designed a flash-based device (the T5) but OS 5 doesn't have this flash-based feature, only OS 6.
So what did they do? They (PalmOne, the hardware company) added their own support for flash-based storage heap to OS 5. And they did it hastily, and it kinda sucks. Although it does basically work, but it's just not a good design because it's wasteful and stupid. (They probably didn't want to put in lots of engineering effort since they know it's only a stopgap thing anyway.)
Perhaps PalmOne will redeem themselves by making OS 6 available for the T5. Then it will have a proper implementation of the flash-based thing instead of this temporary crappy implementation that exists right now.
(I can't say definitively, but there are reasons to believe OS 6 does the flash-based thing by using the actual MMU. OS 5 almost certainly does it all in software (by shoehorning it into the system calls), which makes for a bad implementation because you can't really determine which pages are least-recently accessed to get good performance. If you do an actual paging system like I think they've done in OS 6, then you could easily pack small records into a 512-byte block of the backing filesystem instead of just mapping every single record to a list of blocks.)
So, to recap: T5 designed by PalmOne with OS 6 in mind; OS 6 (by PalmSource) delayed too much; PalmOne needs to release T5 so decides to go with (older) OS 5; OS 5 doesn't have flash feature necessary to even WORK on T5 hardware, so PalmOne has to add it at the last minute; OS 6 flash feature could/should be MUCH better.
Seriously, why is Palm so cheap with the storage in this device? For the (IMO ridiculous) amount of money they ask for this device, users deserve perfection!
I tend to think that the file system got added because other operating systems have such.
Actually, it's because block-addressed flash memory is much cheaper than word-addressed flash memory. Compare the prices of a 1 Gbit GBA flash card and a 128 MByte (same capacity) SD flash card.
Ah yes, hiding my secrets in NUL. Those were the glory days.
For you see, the luser admin could not do anything w/ them because he was stuck in the Win32 layer and didn't know how to use NtCreateFile, et all.
all of this will be fixed in the treo 700...
What was your username again? -BOFH
I was seriously considering getting this puppy. Now i think i need to hold off for another year or so.
sigh. early adopters always get screwed on usability.
gum2me?
I have a Palm m125. It is great...does everything I want it to do and nothing I don't want it to do. I would have stuck with the m100 I had before I got this one, but the SD/MMC slot was a very compelling addition.
Basically everyone is thinking way too new when they think about PalmOS. Basically PalmOS is most comparable to MacOS 6.x with Multifinder switching. Which is not surprising considering that Palm was originally created by Mac refugees. Up until PalmOS 5, that was the point it was stuck at.
If you want an accurate view of where the PalmOS is now, think a little older than 9. Think Taligent, Blue Box, Red(Pink) Box and the shift from 6 to 7. Cobalt is basically like Apple making the jump from 7.1 to X. No 7.5.x, no 8.x, no 9.x.
Add to this the jump from the Dragonball proc to the ARM, and you can see in just what kind of a world of hurt Palm is in right now. Netcraft confirms it: Palm is dying.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Yup - I was once called to look at a 'wierd problem' where someone had typed and saved a long document and it had disappeared.
Turned out the customer was typing up a contract and was trying to call it con.doc (CON is a DOS reserved file name too) - the WP application was reporting 'file exists - do you want to overwrite it' to which the user was happily saying 'yes' all day. The next day when they went to load it and carry on though...
AT&ROFLMAO
uhm, no you didn't know what the word means. It doesn't mean one before the ultimate as in 'almost the greatest but not quite', it means one before the last, from penult. As the poster above explained to you.
Just accept it and move on, looser
and more relaxed is the way to be...
This makes me doubly glad I picked the BlackBerry 7100t instead of waiting for the Treo 650. It has a removable battery and Bluetooth headset support, just like the 650. I find its collapsed QWERTY with predictive text *better* than a full thumbboard in virtually all scenarios. And it has a very nice form factor, especially compared to other BlackBerry devices - although I'll admit I've never actually used one, they seem too big to be used comfortably as a phone.
OK, so the Treo 650 has Bluetooth data/sync support. Yawn - seems pretty useless to me given the limited transfer rate. And it has a camera - which I actually think is a negative since I would never use it but I'd have to pay for it. And I know that they sell a Treo 600 with the camera disabled, but they charge the same for it. What a ripoff.
And yes, PalmOS has a selection of applications that is many orders of magnitude greater than the BlackBerry OS. Again, yawn. The BlackBerry has e-mail, web browser, address book, calendar, task list, photo album, calculator, alarm clock and a breakout game. More than enough for me. And I don't have to worry about bogus issues like this. They seem to go hand-in-hand with the platform complexity that enables people to write all those nifty yet useless apps. I have a PalmOS device, a Handspring Visor Platinum, and it doesn't do anything useful for me that my 7100t won't. Quite the opposite in fact.
So I only carry the BlackBerry now.
YMMV.
fnord.
For amyone that wants to know more about this hit Google for YAFFS or JFFS2.
Bias acknowledgement: I wrote YAFFS. I quite often get emails of the type: "We tried file system xxx but could not make it reliable enough to ship. Since switching to YAFFS we have no more problems".
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Now while it doesn't seem like a good deal, the calculus of $200 coupon + $349 unlocked device does come out to less than $600 MSRP, plus you might save sales tax on the $200.
You would have to be pretty lame not to know the ebay item is a coupon, so the only question is what is the coupon worth? The market will tell.
No body is laughing at the junk YOU buy on eBay - yes you, I'm talking to you, the trekkie in the stupid uniform!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I like my 7100t (stopgap till GSM Treo 650) but the bluetooth is only for headsets/car kits - no dialup networking, no sync, no BT keyboards, nothing.
The HP phone has some real issues - I returned mine, will try it again once they've incorporated the learning from this one. (No car kit support, flaky switching between networks, insane Windows wizard for joining wifi networks, etc...) Plus, have you seen it with the keyboard attached? U.G.L.Y...
Loose describes your mom.
Aditionallly, try putting an HTML ebook(s) on a memory device addressed like this-- I've filled up 128MB SD cards with 80MB of html files this way.
It's new!
It's improved!
It's lightweight!
Introducing...
The Skinny Filesystem (SFS)!
Maybe those programmers worked to death with crap all experience and who have only ever used a computer from 2001 onwards (not like us oldies who have used C-64s in 83) are being hired by PalmOne to save a few "bucks".
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anything at the linked article indicating that Palm users are in fact cancelling their orders "in droves." It seems to me that this is much ado over a rather esoteric bug that won't affect most people, and that possibly, Slashdot is being irresponsible here for allowing such an allegation to reach the front page with nothing resembling research.
It would be ironic if this Slashdot writeup indirectly causes one of Microsoft's few remaining competitors to bite the dust.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
CF cards suck ... old technology ... good for low tech cameras!
... more
SD cards (and MMC cards) are the way of the future
compact and more features. End of story! 8-)
Well, they apologize profusely, get a new model w/o the problems out pronto and establish a liberal one for one trade-in policy. Short of that, they may well lose a leg from shooting themselves in the foot.
With bad optics and bad lighting, the sensor doesn't matter.
Mobile phone cameras take shitty pictures, even for 640x480.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
That's what they do. They shrug and say "Oh well. It still stores data more efficiently than PocketPC."
So, reading the Red Mercury article it talks about the T5 having 256megs of NAND flash and that the Treo650 has NAND flash also which is accessed like a disk. I can find nothing that says how much NAND is in the Treo650, but if its the same at the T5 shouldnt this just mean that Palm apps just need to be written a bit differently? Unstead of relying on the combined small battery backed ram, write your app more like a real computer app and access your data out of NVFS.
If so, this is less a flaw and more a move towards making the Treo into a real handheld computer vs a simple PDA, but pure speculation until someone can definitivly say how much flash is actually in the unit. Sure, this breaks current apps which is not a great thing, but perhaps this is a larger evolutionary leap. Of course if theres no NAND or 32megs of NAND, all bets are off and let the PalmOne roast begin.
Nevermind that Palm schtuff. Have a look at this badboy; RIM's Blackberry 7100
Not clunky and slow *at all*. Crisp. Slick. Sweet.
Its the best PDA/Phone on the market bar none, hands down.
It still amazes me that nobody ever notices the Samsung i500.
One simple rule for its versus it's
Sorry you got such a sucky response. 'Anonymous Coward' certainly fits. I completely agree with you. I gave up some time ago, and now conclude that anyone who can't figure out the difference between one 'o' and two, is too stupid for me to waste any more time with.
I do like your idea - evil pedants! Of course, the same idiots who don't know the language (or are just too lazy), will think you're making some kind of sexual reference.
When pigs fly, use an extra strong umbrella.
Hm, has anyone got Linux to run well on these things? The price should be going down, and if you're running linux, you don't care about their filesystem.
I'm rather amused at the fact that the links on this "news article" all point to forums where a few curmudgeons are encouraging people to cancel their orders, because of a perceived gross error on PalmOne's new phone. All of the claims seem fairly petty on said forums. The only claim that is made that might lead one to believe the problem is a big one, (the statement that some apps can be "500% larger on the Treo 650") is completely unattributed, and I could find no evidence stated on any of the links to support this claim.
Sounds like a pretty minor issue to me.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
delete the old palm os and replace it with pocket pc 2003 or linux...
The Palm Pilot I currently own is the LAST one I will ever buy. I, and many other customers, were really screwed over when the Wi-Fi card for the T2 and other models was killed not for technology reasons, but marketing ones. Palm decided they would rather keep working Wi-Fi cards and built in Wi-Fi restricted to the higher end models, even though the T2 hardware would support a Wi-Fi card as easily as any other model.
I bough the T2 because Palm's site made it sound like a Wi-Fi card was on the edge of release. The reality turned out to be they were feeding us a line of BS to push products to customers they HAD to know would be unhappy with being screwed over.
If I had gotten accurate information from the Palm web site, if they'd said "No card will be released for the T2" instead of claiming it was being developed, I would have gotten something else.
No, I'm never buying Palm again. I don't really care what they do with hardware, they've demonstrated they don't care about their customers and are happy to lie to them for short term gains.
I really don't like Microsoft or their products, but Palm is no longer on my list of options.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Um, QA.
QA could help a bit.
QA Guy - "Uh, Bob, seems I can't fit the test address book with it's 15 entries on the device."
Bob the Manager - "Good to ship then! Outstanding 'QA' work, what did you say your name was?"
STOP. You're being farmed.
That's true, but you have to remember that the FAT filesystem doesn't work very well on thin clients, for some reason.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Sorry, I didn't read that carefully enough I guess. A good point that a wrapper would probably help matters.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ok, so I know there will probably be keyboards a'flyin' with this question, but humor me (please). I am strongly debating between purchasing the 600 or the 650. I've read all the reviews/criticisms for both units but I guess my ultimate question is - since I have NOT been a treo user before (only a palm vii once upon a time ago) - will the memory, lag and whatever issues on the 650 be all the noticable or a major concern for a "lay" user. My primary function for the unit will be for calls, about 200-300 contacts, email, messenging and some browser stuff. Your thoughts?
Finally a statement from PalmOne:i es/494-1.h tm
http://www.treocentral.com/content/Stor
I found this somewhat reassuring but we will see.
I have one. works great. get yer facts straight, pardner.
I can't believe that people are worried about this trivia...
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!