Umm, they didn't get rid of resource forks. Mac OS X's file system- HFS+- still supports them. And if you happen to choose the FFS as your FS for OS X, they're still there, although the Unix FS doesn't have native support for them in the same way that HFS and HFS+ do.
Apple didn't take a complete step back into the world of file extensions. There are still type/creator metadata and still resource forks. However, OS X apps follow the convention of putting on extensions- before, if you'd save an image in an app, there's a good chance it wouldn't throw on the.jpg unless you checked a box in the save dialog or in a prefs that said to append it- or if you added it manually. This can cause a lot of problems when exchanging files with Windows or Linux users, who traditionally rely mostly on the extension for knowing the file type. Although, there are some email apps that are smart enough to take the HFS type/creator and MIME type and add an extension on it. But there are a lot of Windows/Linux mail apps that get very confused if the extension isn't there- that is, even though a mac person sent out an email with an attachment with the proper JPG MIME/type, when they save the file, their emailed doesn't add a.jpg. That'd be the smart thing to do, since that is the local convention. Some clients are smart enough to do this though.
I agree- hidden extensions are very bad. When I'm using a Windows machine for a period of time I always turn that little feature off- it can cause oodles of problems. But- what is your point?
"The optional mod_mime_magic module uses hints from a file's contents and magic numbers to guess what the contents are. It then uses this information to set the file's media type if it is not apparent from the extension."
The MIME type isn't always obvious from content. Unless you have a proper metadata setup- perhaps with an attribute called MIME_type that has a string with the type, you're going to be falling back on file extensions quite a bit.
this is in response to a lot of people talking about this...
If you don't see any striking similarities between KDE and Windows, then you've been using Windows too long. GNOME has a lot of the same similarities that KDE has with Windows, though oftentimes they seem to steer away from the level of borrowing that KDE does. It could be independent thought on the part of the GNOME developers, or they may just be borrowing from other sources, which is fine by me.
A lot of folks don't really see many similarities. Why? They assume that all of these features that KDE or GNOME borrowed from Windows are just the way that any desktop would do them. They take for granted the way things look and feel, first on Windows where they got started, and then on Linux using KDE and/or GNOME. Not all desktops need to look like Windows, KDE or GNOME.
Most KDE developers grew up using Windows first, rather than the Amiga, NeXTSTEP, BeOS, Mac OS Classic or CDE. They associate the idea of a desktop environment with what Windows provides. The Windows desktop is the benchmark for a person who has been using Windows. That's fine, especially when they are targeting Windows converts, making the move from Microsoft Windows to Linux/Windowsish on the same x86 PC easy enough. It makes sense, but it shows. Most regular Windows users- and most regular KDE/GNOME users and a very high percentage of KDE/GNOME developers only have substantial experience using Windows. Most folks have used Mac, but it's Windows that is running in VMware while they try to put together analogous features *not* those other OSes/desktop environments.
P.S. Just out of curiousity, how will GNOME 2.8's MIME features be easier than the Winders way of doing things? From the screenshots in some of the replies to your post they really don't seem much different. IMHO, the GNOME version is ultimately better, as it depends on a MIME type rather than the extension.
Although with our current file systems, it is the file extension that tells the DE what MIME type it is- but down the line, when we are finally all using more flexible databases for data storage rather than random containers of unstructured binary and textual data that MIME type system will come in handy, I expect. Or on a file systems like BeFS or HFS+ where you can have metadata tagged on specifying the MIME type regardless of what goes after the past period in the filename.
But how easier? Both are pretty straight forward- you got a file type. You tell it what apps can deal with it and choose a default. When you double click the file, it opens the default, but when you right click you get the option to open the document up in any of the associated apps. The Windows version seems to add a little more power- that is, you can specify different actions (open, edit, print, analyze, whatever makes sense for that file type) that calls those different apps, etc etc. Perhaps GNOME 2.8's MIME system has that but isn't something I'm seeing in the screenshots, but if not, it's something they should add and I'd expect they would.
We're getting a little of this- the city is equipping all of downtown Duluth MN and Canal Park with free wifi access. Can I get a HELL YEAH from my fellow D-towners?
Yeah. The story goes that they named the Mac the Macintosh because at the time it was the most popular variety of apple in the US. You know, for common joes.
The Geode is probably a little faster per MHz than the XScale PXA255, but perhaps not that much. But Qtopia? Qtopia is slow on 206 MHz StrongARMs and even 400 MHz PXA255s- I'd look at WinCE or PicoGUI if you're going to be running on a slow machine like this.
You know, I always wonder what makes people spell Mac that way. But then, I hear people say "labtop" all the time too. Who knows what goes on in their minds...:)
Insightful? What the hell. Sure, the keychain would be smaller, but it's a fuck of a lot more expensive. How much is a blank CD on which I can burn Gnoppix? 30 US cents. The 2 GB keydrive? US$300? Would you mind buying me one of these oh-so-convenient 2 GB keychain drives? Don't get me wrong, I'd love to get one of these, but there are plenty of us withouth the dough to blow. The 2 GB model would be needed, because otherwise most of the flash disc would be taken up by the Gnoppix install.
If the vibrators are against bush, at least in one sense of the word, then it means they aren't into contact with bush. Which, ufortunately, leaves only one real orifice for the vibrators to be for: the asshole. Thank god they're against bush- because the possible mental image of Laura thrusting a vibrator into the rear end of the president is more than a little bit disturbing...
I'm getting a U50...
on
Handtop Roundup
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· Score: 2, Informative
I plan on having in my hot little hands a U50 in 2 or 3 months. Up until recently, I was using a Sigmarion 3 handheld PC as my primary computer when at home. It was a sweet machine, but I had to sell it to make a school loan payment. Before that, it was a Jornada 720, equipped with a 2 GB PCMCIA hard drive, also great. A lot of people assumed since I was using what most folks consider a PDA as my main computer that I was nuts- after all, don't PDAs have a tiny screen, 160x160 or 240x320? Pfft. The Sig3 has a 800x480 screen- just like the new OQO- and the J720 has a 640x240 screen. Both are great for browsing the web, email, coding and many other types of work.
If you're wanting something like this, be it a Sig3 or a Zaurus, I highly reccomend Conics.net. A big difference between one of these new "handtops" and the Sig3 or the Jornada 72x is price: the Sig3 usually costs around $500, while these new guys all cost around $2000. Especially a consideration when you're not planning on dumping the laptop or desktop at home for one of these handtops.
I've been waiting for the OQO for years now, and I'm sure glad I didn't sell the iBook to generate funds back during the first pre-order.
But the new Sony U50/U70 machines look like to be my dream machine. A nice screen. All the ports.
The only thing that would be more perfect is to have a U70-like device, but with the built-in keyboard. Not in a fixed laptop mode like the Sig3, but with the abiliy to convert- think the Zaurus C7x0 or most of the tablet PCs. That would be the perfect machine for me.
The Tablet PCs out there seem fine, except they're all huge. I want something with a 5" to 6" screen, not 10"-14". Not only can I not fit that in my pocket, it's hard to fit in my hands/arms for more than 10 minutes. Then you need to sit down, get it onto your lap, or put it on a table. I have no idea what those Tablet PCs folks are thinking having huge and heavy devices. Nothing more than laptops with touchscreens.
I've heard before that I should watch the other edition of the film. I don't remember if I watched the Director's Cut or the original, but a lot of people seem to think one or the other is a lot better. So eventually I'll try to watch both again... But it was pretty boring. Cardboard and without much of a point. *shrug* And I'm not someone with ADD who can't pay attention- but it just wasn't my kind of movie.
BUt Starship Troopers 2 is supposed to suck. So I dont' expect much from it, and it does OK considering how much it should suck. Blade Runner on the other hand is supposed to be great- or at least decent- but turned out to be a waste of time.
I know it's not just me- there are others- but I thought Blade Runner sucked. I love Harrison Ford's acting. I love science fiction even more. I enjoy good sci-fi movies.
But Blade Runner was the most disapointing sci-fi movie I've ever seen. More so than the all-too-common sucky sci-fi movie, I expect to suck. Like Starship Troopers. But Blade Runner was supposed to be good- but it seemed like a boring, vaguely uncomfortable movie for me. And I like PKD usually. The handful of friends I watched it agreed, so I know it's just me.
Bochs will run a bunch of Windows releases, as well as Linux/x86 and other OSes. But for the most part, it isn't really worth using it- it is slow. As hell. Or, as we say in Minnesota, slow as molasses in January. It's not bad to use Bochs for running old DOS apps- but then again, most people had a computer that was 4-33 MHz or so in the DOS days, so Bochs keeps up well there. But Windows or Linux... Painful.
C'mon- how long does your HP49g+ last on a set of batteries/a charge? Wouldn't you prefer it to last 2 hours, like a Zaurus? Or 4-5 if you buy a C760 or C860. Or, you could be like most Z users and have a pocketful of batteries, at the ready!
Although, with an external keyboard (or a PDA with a *real* keyboard, like a Jornada 720 or Sigmarion 3) it is pretty fun to use GNU Maxima or GNU Octave. Somehow though, it strikes me as lame that you can get a full GUI'd version of GNU Maxima on Windows CE [1], and on the Zaurus you only have text-mode Maxima and Octave. Some pretty bitchen ASCII graphs, though.
Although, on those two CE devices batter life is a fair bit better- on the Jornada 720 you're looking at 12 hours or so (with a 640x480 color screen, 206 MHz StrongARM) and the Sigmarion 3 around 6 hours, though with a fancier 400 MHz PXA255. Not sure why they can't make my C760 Zaurus last a usable length of time.
What I use on Palm OS is an HP48g emulator, pretty slick, since Palm OS itself doesn't have many good math apps. There's LyME, but nothing like an HP or Octave or Maxima.
Progressive was working on this sort of thing 5 years or so back, when I interned with them. Privacy concerns aside- and they are very real and serious concers- it sounds like a great system to me. The numbers worked out to be a lot cheaper for a good number of folks, people who drive less than the average. They were working on the prototype in Smalltalk, I believe. I wasn't on that project, but on another awesome Smalltalk project... but sounds like how things should be. Pay for what you use.
I'm not sure if she has a problem with smaller keyboards, but if not I would check out a WinCE handheld PC. The Jornada 720/728 ($200-600 used or refurb) or the Sigmarion 3 (~$450 imported) are both very nice. They keyboard is smaller, about 75% of full size- however, the mechanism is just like a regular laptop, and I can touch type on one with my fattie fingers with no problem at 60-70 WPM. There is also the NEC MobilePro line (~$200 for the 780 to $600+ for the 900) which some folks prefer because the keyboard is full size. For me, they're too big- I prefer a device I can fit in my pocket, which I can do with the Jornada 72x or the Sigmarion 3. These all have network capabilities, through PCMCIA slots (MobilePro and Jornada) or CF (Sigmarion, Jornada).
Another option worth looking into is the AlphaSmart Dana line. Keyboard is pretty big. I've never had one of these, but I've heard good things. A little more expensive, and they run Palm OS which is both good and bad.
If she wants to be really cheap, she could look into getting an Apple Newton eMate. You can get them on eBay for $50-150, and they're *very* nice for notetaking. They keyboard is very nice, and they're downright indestructable. The AlphaSmart Dana snapped up lucrative educational market whole that the eMate left open when Jobs killed off the Newton. They may be older, but they're still very capable, still can talk to modern Macs, PCs and even Linux/Unix, can get online via wifi or ethernet, and get the best battery life out of all of these except the low-end Dana.
All of the above devices have touch screens as well. She may not be using it much, but it's worth noting.
So many of these are things that have been promised for a long time. And a lot of them are quite possible with today's technology. But it's not just the level of technology that makes these things happen, but the culture they exist in. Yes, we could have cars that drive themselves, but we won't have them in 10 years. Not when most people would rather drive their own car for any number of reasons.
We won't have a single worldwide phone number. We could do that now too, but it doesn't make financial sense for the oodles of company all trying to rip us off.
We'll still have hard to cure health problems. Cancer isn't going away. No matter how much wishing anyone does, we won't have nanonics that can hunt and seek cancer cells throughout our bodies- at least, not in 10 years.
I mean, what is so hard about looking into the past? People have been talking about computer controlled cars that drive themselves- solving gridlock- and "kitchen of the future"s for a very long time. They promised us these things in the 60s- we'd have them in 10, 20, 30 years. We still won't, and sure as hell won't have them in 10 years. Maybe in 20. More likely 50 or a 100.
The Palm OS is inferior. It does less. However, that dose not mean it is bad.
That said, it does more than enough for a lot of people.... The Clie is nice, as long as I don't expect too much from it.
Which is about what you say. Not everyone needs a full computer in their PDA. I do. A TI-82 does a lot less than my Sigmarion 3 running GNU Maxima or Zaurus C760 running Octave, but the TI-82 isn't bad. It does exactly what a lot of people need. Likewise, Palm OS devices make great datebooks for many people- but until the OS approaches the power and robustness of Linux or WinCE, I won't use it for anything more than scheduling and reading ebooks.
Your "reasonably portable 5 lb, 12", Unix-based notebook" isn't portable enough for me. I can't fit my iBook in my pocket. But I was able to replace the iBook with a PDA, a device I can have in my pocket with me whenever I need it.
See, different people have different wants or needs. I don't want or need a big, clunky laptop that needs patches. My PDA is about stability. I've had to reset my Clie NX70V and a Palm m130 I had borrowed for a spell twice as many times as I've had to reset any Newton, Zaurus, WinCE device or PocketPC. Maybe I'm pushing it too hard by reading ebooks on it, but it doesn't seem all that unreasonable.
Utility? For me, my computer- be it an ibook or a PDA- is about utility. What else would it be?
It's not that there aren't apps for the Palm OS. It's the OS itself. You could say the same thing in regards to Mac OS 6 (sans Multifinder) vs any modern OS. They can run similar apps, no doubt. But on Palm OS you're limited to one app, just like on ancient Mac OSes. The UI can be nice, but in plenty of programs, a nice UI doesn't make up for the slowness of network and other IO.
Don't get me wrong, I like the Palm OS. But I also like Mac OS 6. They're both quite quaint. But as a person who uses and has used devices that other people call "PDAs" as my *primary computer*, running WinCE or Linux. I could not do that with Palm OS, both because of the architecture of the OS in general, but also because of the kinds of apps for the Palm OS that are available. For instance, there are no web browsers that allow one to have multiple tabs or windows. No, that isn't a big deal to most Palm or PDA users, but it is to me- and that's for whom I speak.
Slashdot Mirror
Why did you bother to read this thread? I mean, it's obvious that Star Wars means nothing to you, so why waste the time?
Umm, they didn't get rid of resource forks. Mac OS X's file system- HFS+- still supports them. And if you happen to choose the FFS as your FS for OS X, they're still there, although the Unix FS doesn't have native support for them in the same way that HFS and HFS+ do.
.jpg unless you checked a box in the save dialog or in a prefs that said to append it- or if you added it manually. This can cause a lot of problems when exchanging files with Windows or Linux users, who traditionally rely mostly on the extension for knowing the file type. Although, there are some email apps that are smart enough to take the HFS type/creator and MIME type and add an extension on it. But there are a lot of Windows/Linux mail apps that get very confused if the extension isn't there- that is, even though a mac person sent out an email with an attachment with the proper JPG MIME/type, when they save the file, their emailed doesn't add a .jpg. That'd be the smart thing to do, since that is the local convention. Some clients are smart enough to do this though.
Apple didn't take a complete step back into the world of file extensions. There are still type/creator metadata and still resource forks. However, OS X apps follow the convention of putting on extensions- before, if you'd save an image in an app, there's a good chance it wouldn't throw on the
I agree- hidden extensions are very bad. When I'm using a Windows machine for a period of time I always turn that little feature off- it can cause oodles of problems. But- what is your point?
"The optional mod_mime_magic module uses hints from a file's contents and magic numbers to guess what the contents are. It then uses this information to set the file's media type if it is not apparent from the extension."
The MIME type isn't always obvious from content. Unless you have a proper metadata setup- perhaps with an attribute called MIME_type that has a string with the type, you're going to be falling back on file extensions quite a bit.
this is in response to a lot of people talking about this...
If you don't see any striking similarities between KDE and Windows, then you've been using Windows too long. GNOME has a lot of the same similarities that KDE has with Windows, though oftentimes they seem to steer away from the level of borrowing that KDE does. It could be independent thought on the part of the GNOME developers, or they may just be borrowing from other sources, which is fine by me.
A lot of folks don't really see many similarities. Why? They assume that all of these features that KDE or GNOME borrowed from Windows are just the way that any desktop would do them. They take for granted the way things look and feel, first on Windows where they got started, and then on Linux using KDE and/or GNOME. Not all desktops need to look like Windows, KDE or GNOME.
Most KDE developers grew up using Windows first, rather than the Amiga, NeXTSTEP, BeOS, Mac OS Classic or CDE. They associate the idea of a desktop environment with what Windows provides. The Windows desktop is the benchmark for a person who has been using Windows. That's fine, especially when they are targeting Windows converts, making the move from Microsoft Windows to Linux/Windowsish on the same x86 PC easy enough. It makes sense, but it shows. Most regular Windows users- and most regular KDE/GNOME users and a very high percentage of KDE/GNOME developers only have substantial experience using Windows. Most folks have used Mac, but it's Windows that is running in VMware while they try to put together analogous features *not* those other OSes/desktop environments.
P.S. Just out of curiousity, how will GNOME 2.8's MIME features be easier than the Winders way of doing things? From the screenshots in some of the replies to your post they really don't seem much different. IMHO, the GNOME version is ultimately better, as it depends on a MIME type rather than the extension.
Although with our current file systems, it is the file extension that tells the DE what MIME type it is- but down the line, when we are finally all using more flexible databases for data storage rather than random containers of unstructured binary and textual data that MIME type system will come in handy, I expect. Or on a file systems like BeFS or HFS+ where you can have metadata tagged on specifying the MIME type regardless of what goes after the past period in the filename.
But how easier? Both are pretty straight forward- you got a file type. You tell it what apps can deal with it and choose a default. When you double click the file, it opens the default, but when you right click you get the option to open the document up in any of the associated apps. The Windows version seems to add a little more power- that is, you can specify different actions (open, edit, print, analyze, whatever makes sense for that file type) that calls those different apps, etc etc. Perhaps GNOME 2.8's MIME system has that but isn't something I'm seeing in the screenshots, but if not, it's something they should add and I'd expect they would.
We're getting a little of this- the city is equipping all of downtown Duluth MN and Canal Park with free wifi access. Can I get a HELL YEAH from my fellow D-towners?
Yeah. The story goes that they named the Mac the Macintosh because at the time it was the most popular variety of apple in the US. You know, for common joes.
The Geode is probably a little faster per MHz than the XScale PXA255, but perhaps not that much. But Qtopia? Qtopia is slow on 206 MHz StrongARMs and even 400 MHz PXA255s- I'd look at WinCE or PicoGUI if you're going to be running on a slow machine like this.
I've had people type to me labtop in emails to me at the university helpdesk. I've had clueless friends type it out in emails. Typing with a cold?
You know, I always wonder what makes people spell Mac that way. But then, I hear people say "labtop" all the time too. Who knows what goes on in their minds... :)
Mozilla doesn't have a file manager that integrates well into the desktop env as a whole.
Insightful? What the hell. Sure, the keychain would be smaller, but it's a fuck of a lot more expensive. How much is a blank CD on which I can burn Gnoppix? 30 US cents. The 2 GB keydrive? US$300? Would you mind buying me one of these oh-so-convenient 2 GB keychain drives? Don't get me wrong, I'd love to get one of these, but there are plenty of us withouth the dough to blow. The 2 GB model would be needed, because otherwise most of the flash disc would be taken up by the Gnoppix install.
If the vibrators are against bush, at least in one sense of the word, then it means they aren't into contact with bush. Which, ufortunately, leaves only one real orifice for the vibrators to be for: the asshole. Thank god they're against bush- because the possible mental image of Laura thrusting a vibrator into the rear end of the president is more than a little bit disturbing...
I plan on having in my hot little hands a U50 in 2 or 3 months. Up until recently, I was using a Sigmarion 3 handheld PC as my primary computer when at home. It was a sweet machine, but I had to sell it to make a school loan payment. Before that, it was a Jornada 720, equipped with a 2 GB PCMCIA hard drive, also great. A lot of people assumed since I was using what most folks consider a PDA as my main computer that I was nuts- after all, don't PDAs have a tiny screen, 160x160 or 240x320? Pfft. The Sig3 has a 800x480 screen- just like the new OQO- and the J720 has a 640x240 screen. Both are great for browsing the web, email, coding and many other types of work.
If you're wanting something like this, be it a Sig3 or a Zaurus, I highly reccomend Conics.net. A big difference between one of these new "handtops" and the Sig3 or the Jornada 72x is price: the Sig3 usually costs around $500, while these new guys all cost around $2000. Especially a consideration when you're not planning on dumping the laptop or desktop at home for one of these handtops.
I've been waiting for the OQO for years now, and I'm sure glad I didn't sell the iBook to generate funds back during the first pre-order.
But the new Sony U50/U70 machines look like to be my dream machine. A nice screen. All the ports.
The only thing that would be more perfect is to have a U70-like device, but with the built-in keyboard. Not in a fixed laptop mode like the Sig3, but with the abiliy to convert- think the Zaurus C7x0 or most of the tablet PCs. That would be the perfect machine for me.
The Tablet PCs out there seem fine, except they're all huge. I want something with a 5" to 6" screen, not 10"-14". Not only can I not fit that in my pocket, it's hard to fit in my hands/arms for more than 10 minutes. Then you need to sit down, get it onto your lap, or put it on a table. I have no idea what those Tablet PCs folks are thinking having huge and heavy devices. Nothing more than laptops with touchscreens.
I've heard before that I should watch the other edition of the film. I don't remember if I watched the Director's Cut or the original, but a lot of people seem to think one or the other is a lot better. So eventually I'll try to watch both again... But it was pretty boring. Cardboard and without much of a point. *shrug* And I'm not someone with ADD who can't pay attention- but it just wasn't my kind of movie.
BUt Starship Troopers 2 is supposed to suck. So I dont' expect much from it, and it does OK considering how much it should suck. Blade Runner on the other hand is supposed to be great- or at least decent- but turned out to be a waste of time.
Spoof or not, it sucked. While the book was pure Heinlein. If you're going to spoof sometihng, don't rape a good book in the process.
I know it's not just me- there are others- but I thought Blade Runner sucked. I love Harrison Ford's acting. I love science fiction even more. I enjoy good sci-fi movies.
But Blade Runner was the most disapointing sci-fi movie I've ever seen. More so than the all-too-common sucky sci-fi movie, I expect to suck. Like Starship Troopers. But Blade Runner was supposed to be good- but it seemed like a boring, vaguely uncomfortable movie for me. And I like PKD usually. The handful of friends I watched it agreed, so I know it's just me.
Anyone else agree?
Bochs will run a bunch of Windows releases, as well as Linux/x86 and other OSes. But for the most part, it isn't really worth using it- it is slow. As hell. Or, as we say in Minnesota, slow as molasses in January. It's not bad to use Bochs for running old DOS apps- but then again, most people had a computer that was 4-33 MHz or so in the DOS days, so Bochs keeps up well there. But Windows or Linux... Painful.
C'mon- how long does your HP49g+ last on a set of batteries/a charge? Wouldn't you prefer it to last 2 hours, like a Zaurus? Or 4-5 if you buy a C760 or C860. Or, you could be like most Z users and have a pocketful of batteries, at the ready!
Although, with an external keyboard (or a PDA with a *real* keyboard, like a Jornada 720 or Sigmarion 3) it is pretty fun to use GNU Maxima or GNU Octave. Somehow though, it strikes me as lame that you can get a full GUI'd version of GNU Maxima on Windows CE [1], and on the Zaurus you only have text-mode Maxima and Octave. Some pretty bitchen ASCII graphs, though.
Although, on those two CE devices batter life is a fair bit better- on the Jornada 720 you're looking at 12 hours or so (with a 640x480 color screen, 206 MHz StrongARM) and the Sigmarion 3 around 6 hours, though with a fancier 400 MHz PXA255. Not sure why they can't make my C760 Zaurus last a usable length of time.
What I use on Palm OS is an HP48g emulator, pretty slick, since Palm OS itself doesn't have many good math apps. There's LyME, but nothing like an HP or Octave or Maxima.
BLEH!
Progressive was working on this sort of thing 5 years or so back, when I interned with them. Privacy concerns aside- and they are very real and serious concers- it sounds like a great system to me. The numbers worked out to be a lot cheaper for a good number of folks, people who drive less than the average. They were working on the prototype in Smalltalk, I believe. I wasn't on that project, but on another awesome Smalltalk project... but sounds like how things should be. Pay for what you use.
I'm not sure if she has a problem with smaller keyboards, but if not I would check out a WinCE handheld PC. The Jornada 720/728 ($200-600 used or refurb) or the Sigmarion 3 (~$450 imported) are both very nice. They keyboard is smaller, about 75% of full size- however, the mechanism is just like a regular laptop, and I can touch type on one with my fattie fingers with no problem at 60-70 WPM. There is also the NEC MobilePro line (~$200 for the 780 to $600+ for the 900) which some folks prefer because the keyboard is full size. For me, they're too big- I prefer a device I can fit in my pocket, which I can do with the Jornada 72x or the Sigmarion 3. These all have network capabilities, through PCMCIA slots (MobilePro and Jornada) or CF (Sigmarion, Jornada).
Another option worth looking into is the AlphaSmart Dana line. Keyboard is pretty big. I've never had one of these, but I've heard good things. A little more expensive, and they run Palm OS which is both good and bad.
If she wants to be really cheap, she could look into getting an Apple Newton eMate. You can get them on eBay for $50-150, and they're *very* nice for notetaking. They keyboard is very nice, and they're downright indestructable. The AlphaSmart Dana snapped up lucrative educational market whole that the eMate left open when Jobs killed off the Newton. They may be older, but they're still very capable, still can talk to modern Macs, PCs and even Linux/Unix, can get online via wifi or ethernet, and get the best battery life out of all of these except the low-end Dana.
All of the above devices have touch screens as well. She may not be using it much, but it's worth noting.
Well.. There was that one guy who raised his son to speak Klingon as a first language, with English being supplemental. The kid hated it.
So many of these are things that have been promised for a long time. And a lot of them are quite possible with today's technology. But it's not just the level of technology that makes these things happen, but the culture they exist in. Yes, we could have cars that drive themselves, but we won't have them in 10 years. Not when most people would rather drive their own car for any number of reasons.
We won't have a single worldwide phone number. We could do that now too, but it doesn't make financial sense for the oodles of company all trying to rip us off.
We'll still have hard to cure health problems. Cancer isn't going away. No matter how much wishing anyone does, we won't have nanonics that can hunt and seek cancer cells throughout our bodies- at least, not in 10 years.
I mean, what is so hard about looking into the past? People have been talking about computer controlled cars that drive themselves- solving gridlock- and "kitchen of the future"s for a very long time. They promised us these things in the 60s- we'd have them in 10, 20, 30 years. We still won't, and sure as hell won't have them in 10 years. Maybe in 20. More likely 50 or a 100.
Next time, please try reading my whole comment.
... The Clie is nice, as long as I don't expect too much from it.
The Palm OS is inferior. It does less. However, that dose not mean it is bad.
That said, it does more than enough for a lot of people.
Which is about what you say. Not everyone needs a full computer in their PDA. I do. A TI-82 does a lot less than my Sigmarion 3 running GNU Maxima or Zaurus C760 running Octave, but the TI-82 isn't bad. It does exactly what a lot of people need. Likewise, Palm OS devices make great datebooks for many people- but until the OS approaches the power and robustness of Linux or WinCE, I won't use it for anything more than scheduling and reading ebooks.
Your "reasonably portable 5 lb, 12", Unix-based notebook" isn't portable enough for me. I can't fit my iBook in my pocket. But I was able to replace the iBook with a PDA, a device I can have in my pocket with me whenever I need it.
See, different people have different wants or needs. I don't want or need a big, clunky laptop that needs patches. My PDA is about stability. I've had to reset my Clie NX70V and a Palm m130 I had borrowed for a spell twice as many times as I've had to reset any Newton, Zaurus, WinCE device or PocketPC. Maybe I'm pushing it too hard by reading ebooks on it, but it doesn't seem all that unreasonable.
Utility? For me, my computer- be it an ibook or a PDA- is about utility. What else would it be?
It's not that there aren't apps for the Palm OS. It's the OS itself. You could say the same thing in regards to Mac OS 6 (sans Multifinder) vs any modern OS. They can run similar apps, no doubt. But on Palm OS you're limited to one app, just like on ancient Mac OSes. The UI can be nice, but in plenty of programs, a nice UI doesn't make up for the slowness of network and other IO.
Don't get me wrong, I like the Palm OS. But I also like Mac OS 6. They're both quite quaint. But as a person who uses and has used devices that other people call "PDAs" as my *primary computer*, running WinCE or Linux. I could not do that with Palm OS, both because of the architecture of the OS in general, but also because of the kinds of apps for the Palm OS that are available. For instance, there are no web browsers that allow one to have multiple tabs or windows. No, that isn't a big deal to most Palm or PDA users, but it is to me- and that's for whom I speak.