A recent study (I was one of the contributors, plug admitted) was done by a Dutch University. The link to the website is http://stitch.ewi.utwente.nl/detail/chakra/-page=e n-info.htm, but to be honest I don't know if the results are currently online.
In the Netherlands we pay around 10-20 cents (varies greatly per provider) per SMS. MMS (multimedia messages, pictures and sounds and stuff) cost a whopping 50 cents. It's a real shame that they made MMS's so expensive, considering it's only an SMS with a URL to the actual message:P
Luckily it's a lot easier to change the MMS server than it is to change the SMS server on phones. I recently built my own MMS server (using www.nowmms.com software) which sends them through a third party SMS service (from Africa, go figure), for 6 cents per message.
* Color Probably a no-brainer, but I do find it a must. Black&White works ok, but I personally dislike the backlite, I prefer the crisp true-white-on-black text that comes with color palms. Doesn't really matter how much colors, I have one that carries 256 which works fine. More colors usually translate into more cost, which I'll discuss later on.
* GOOD datebook/agenda thingy. I use my Palm mainly as an agenda, so for obvious reasons the software should be good. I use the DateBook application for PalmOS, which was written by some 3rd party vendor. Even though it adds a lot more functionality to the standard "Date" agenda software supplied by Palm, it still lacks in some areas. The input of dates is still somewhat clumsy, and some functionality requires a lot more time than it should. If I were you I'd really test the agenda software on the PDA your planning on buying.
* OS In my opinion the PDA should be a 'simple' replacement for the agenda. Palm really understood this, and built a simple OS which performs just this. On top of that, other apps work quickly and easily, and above all intuitively. In my experience, Microsoft has totally messed this up by trying to create a mini-OS which could still do anything. Thus results in a lot of bloat, and a very slow OS. In PalmOS, if you click on an app, it's there. If you shut it down (ie start another, there is no 'closing' in PalmOS) it doesn't clog anything. PocketPC2002 (Microsoft) software somehow manages to still stay in the RAM after you shut down the app. This means that you're RAM keeps on filling up, and eventually becomes unworkable because of the RAM shortage. Only way to fix this is manually (yes, manually...) flush the RAM. I haven't looked, but imo the killer-appliction for PocketPC would be some software which automatically did this for you. Or software that automatically flushed it's own RAM after an exit.
* Travel apps availability I live in the Netherlands, where the train system is the key to getting around if you don't have a driving license. The NS (dutch railway company) have released their entire train schedule for PalmOS (600 kb, OVR.nl if you're interested). For me this is one of those killer-apps without which I would really doubt if a PDA would be worth the money. If you use some other form of Public transit there are other really usefull apps, such as the entire subway system mapped out for all major cities (New York, Paris etc)
* Battery life Just like in laptops, battery-life can make or break the usefullness of a PDA. The old PalmIII series had AA batteries, which would last a long time but were a pain in the ass to keep track of. I use a lithium battery, which 'should' last for 8 hours. It usually lasts for 5 hours, which is enough if you use it simply as an agenda and recharge it every other day. If you're a heavy user this will probably still be a burden, so make sure the battery life is more than sufficient. 10 hours plus should be fine.
* Cost. Maybe I'm just a cheap-ass, but 500+ dollars for an AGENDA is way over-priced. I'm a poor student, so for me the max price I would spend on a PDA would be around 100 dollars. That's the amount where I find the device delivers enough performance to have an advantage over a normal paper agenda:) For people with a 'normal' wallet I would recommend going to 200$ before seriously asking themselves whether they're buying a PDA because the find the device useful or because they just want to show off (sorry, seen it happen and I hate it)
* Input methods The PalmOS has 'ok' recognition software. You have to learn some special alphabet to input characters, which isn't too much of a burden. The real problem is that after one year of frequent use, I still can't quickly jot down an entire sentence without making at least 1 or 2 typos. Windows CE can recognize any writing, but I haven't tested it enough to be able to say if it's really any good.
That's the most important stuff I guess... What I can't stress enough is TEST the write-recognition and datebook application, see if it's easy and intuitive enough, and above all fast enough. You want to be able to quickly jot down notes, not take half an hour to tediously input a note with lots of typos. (minor overstatement)
An Introduction to Programming, and Object Orientated Design Nino & Hosch
That's the book I started with 7 months ago (had never programmed before, HTML doesn't count:P), and I'm very happy I did. It's a fairly theoretical book, emphasizing greatly on the fundamentals of Object Orientated design, placing Java syntax a definite second. Chapters don't teach you how to program, they teach you the development of Object Orientated design, beginning with simple classes, building test classes for those, GUIs etc.
While this approach to programming is _very_ frustrating (I was very itchy, wanting to get ahead and start coding real programs which could actually 'do' something), it gives you a very good base from which to go on and learn more about programming. GUI's, for instance, are discussed in chapter 20 (one of the last chapters), and only AFTER completely digesting the whole Model-View-Controller pattern.
Enough of the propaganda for this book, I'm simply a student who is very happy to have been able get such a good introduction to programming from this book. I've tried other java books in the past, only to have been irritated with the lengthy examples which they START OFF with, even before teaching you exactly what a class is.
Problem with this book is that it doesn't really stand alone. You'll be able to grasp the concepts of OOP completely, but you'll have almost no hands-on experience, unless you pay _very_ close attention. I recommend using a second book as reference (we used a book by Kalin which I do NOT recommend, maybe an O'Reilly in a Nutshell book would be good)
That all countries of the EU are allowed to monitor and record data transmissions. This vote passed this morning, they're still debating over exactly what they're allowed to store (i.e. web URLS, web content itself, usenet etc)
Sounds like I'm gonna have to move back to the US, or somehow find an ISP that's gonna work around all this. What I was wondering about was exactly where they want to scan the data. At the ISPs or somewhere at the backbone?
A little more information can be found here, if you can read Dutch:)
I actually study Telematics, and it's not the art of putting computers in cars. It's simply the application of computing to (long) range communication.
Slashdot Mirror
A recent study (I was one of the contributors, plug admitted) was done by a Dutch University. The link to the website is http://stitch.ewi.utwente.nl/detail/chakra/-page=e n-info.htm, but to be honest I don't know if the results are currently online.
In the Netherlands we pay around 10-20 cents (varies greatly per provider) per SMS. MMS (multimedia messages, pictures and sounds and stuff) cost a whopping 50 cents. It's a real shame that they made MMS's so expensive, considering it's only an SMS with a URL to the actual message :P
Luckily it's a lot easier to change the MMS server than it is to change the SMS server on phones. I recently built my own MMS server (using www.nowmms.com software) which sends them through a third party SMS service (from Africa, go figure), for 6 cents per message.
* Color
:)
Probably a no-brainer, but I do find it a must. Black&White works ok, but I personally dislike the backlite, I prefer the crisp true-white-on-black text that comes with color palms. Doesn't really matter how much colors, I have one that carries 256 which works fine. More colors usually translate into more cost, which I'll discuss later on.
* GOOD datebook/agenda thingy.
I use my Palm mainly as an agenda, so for obvious reasons the software should be good. I use the DateBook application for PalmOS, which was written by some 3rd party vendor. Even though it adds a lot more functionality to the standard "Date" agenda software supplied by Palm, it still lacks in some areas. The input of dates is still somewhat clumsy, and some functionality requires a lot more time than it should. If I were you I'd really test the agenda software on the PDA your planning on buying.
* OS
In my opinion the PDA should be a 'simple' replacement for the agenda. Palm really understood this, and built a simple OS which performs just this. On top of that, other apps work quickly and easily, and above all intuitively.
In my experience, Microsoft has totally messed this up by trying to create a mini-OS which could still do anything. Thus results in a lot of bloat, and a very slow OS.
In PalmOS, if you click on an app, it's there. If you shut it down (ie start another, there is no 'closing' in PalmOS) it doesn't clog anything. PocketPC2002 (Microsoft) software somehow manages to still stay in the RAM after you shut down the app. This means that you're RAM keeps on filling up, and eventually becomes unworkable because of the RAM shortage. Only way to fix this is manually (yes, manually...) flush the RAM. I haven't looked, but imo the killer-appliction for PocketPC would be some software which automatically did this for you. Or software that automatically flushed it's own RAM after an exit.
* Travel apps availability
I live in the Netherlands, where the train system is the key to getting around if you don't have a driving license. The NS (dutch railway company) have released their entire train schedule for PalmOS (600 kb, OVR.nl if you're interested). For me this is one of those killer-apps without which I would really doubt if a PDA would be worth the money.
If you use some other form of Public transit there are other really usefull apps, such as the entire subway system mapped out for all major cities (New York, Paris etc)
* Battery life
Just like in laptops, battery-life can make or break the usefullness of a PDA. The old PalmIII series had AA batteries, which would last a long time but were a pain in the ass to keep track of. I use a lithium battery, which 'should' last for 8 hours. It usually lasts for 5 hours, which is enough if you use it simply as an agenda and recharge it every other day. If you're a heavy user this will probably still be a burden, so make sure the battery life is more than sufficient. 10 hours plus should be fine.
* Cost.
Maybe I'm just a cheap-ass, but 500+ dollars for an AGENDA is way over-priced. I'm a poor student, so for me the max price I would spend on a PDA would be around 100 dollars. That's the amount where I find the device delivers enough performance to have an advantage over a normal paper agenda
For people with a 'normal' wallet I would recommend going to 200$ before seriously asking themselves whether they're buying a PDA because the find the device useful or because they just want to show off (sorry, seen it happen and I hate it)
* Input methods
The PalmOS has 'ok' recognition software. You have to learn some special alphabet to input characters, which isn't too much of a burden. The real problem is that after one year of frequent use, I still can't quickly jot down an entire sentence without making at least 1 or 2 typos. Windows CE can recognize any writing, but I haven't tested it enough to be able to say if it's really any good.
That's the most important stuff I guess... What I can't stress enough is TEST the write-recognition and datebook application, see if it's easy and intuitive enough, and above all fast enough. You want to be able to quickly jot down notes, not take half an hour to tediously input a note with lots of typos. (minor overstatement)
An Introduction to Programming, and Object Orientated Design
:P), and I'm very happy I did. It's a fairly theoretical book, emphasizing greatly on the fundamentals of Object Orientated design, placing Java syntax a definite second. Chapters don't teach you how to program, they teach you the development of Object Orientated design, beginning with simple classes, building test classes for those, GUIs etc.
Nino & Hosch
That's the book I started with 7 months ago (had never programmed before, HTML doesn't count
While this approach to programming is _very_ frustrating (I was very itchy, wanting to get ahead and start coding real programs which could actually 'do' something), it gives you a very good base from which to go on and learn more about programming. GUI's, for instance, are discussed in chapter 20 (one of the last chapters), and only AFTER completely digesting the whole Model-View-Controller pattern.
Enough of the propaganda for this book, I'm simply a student who is very happy to have been able get such a good introduction to programming from this book. I've tried other java books in the past, only to have been irritated with the lengthy examples which they START OFF with, even before teaching you exactly what a class is.
Problem with this book is that it doesn't really stand alone. You'll be able to grasp the concepts of OOP completely, but you'll have almost no hands-on experience, unless you pay _very_ close attention. I recommend using a second book as reference (we used a book by Kalin which I do NOT recommend, maybe an O'Reilly in a Nutshell book would be good)
Never mind, the ISPs are forced to install spyware hardware by law :P
Apparantly, some providers have not met this requirement yet
That all countries of the EU are allowed to monitor and record data transmissions. This vote passed this morning, they're still debating over exactly what they're allowed to store (i.e. web URLS, web content itself, usenet etc)
:)
Sounds like I'm gonna have to move back to the US, or somehow find an ISP that's gonna work around all this. What I was wondering about was exactly where they want to scan the data. At the ISPs or somewhere at the backbone?
A little more information can be found here, if you can read Dutch
I actually study Telematics, and it's not the art of putting computers in cars. It's simply the application of computing to (long) range communication.