When MS releases a new OS, the patches stop for the old ones. Sorry, free patches.
Bull. MS just this year stopped supporting Windows 95, and patches are available for 98, ME, and 2000. They are free. The old patches for Windows 95 are still available for free, but if any new major bugs are discovered they will go unfixed by MS. But that OS is 6 years old, I can't exactly blame them.
I was referring to computer games in general. It would seem that most of Blizzard's games are in production so long that by the time they are released they can be played in a broad range of computers.
However, now that they have added 3D chip features, Warcraft III will probably need either a decent video card (Geforce or greater) and/or a relatively fast processor (600-700 Mhz+). Of course, these are guesses.
Yes, WarCraft II ran on everything, but Starcraft is pretty slow with 48 megs of RAM on a P150 (my laptop). Having more than a few computers in a lan-based multiplayer makes it too slow to enjoy.
I've already seen a few simple questions that are answered in the Warcraft III FAQ. Some highlights: Yes, there will be a Mac version. No, there won't be a Linux version.
From the looks of things, WarCraft III will continue the age-old tradition of requiring decent hardware to run well. Fortunately, they apparently are making a full-featured map editor (probably similar to Starcraft's, which was VERY impressive, unlike Civ II/IIIs).
Also, they finally are providing high resolution support, while still (somehow) maintaining lower resolution support for those of us with not-so-good video cards.
Looks like it's going to be another addicting Blizzard game for me, but I'm glad it won't compete with my Civ III playing time for awhile.
I don't think the cease and desist order prevents innocent modification of components that Firaxis intended for people to make and distribute. I don't have Civ III (yet), but Civ II was purposely designed so that it could be easily modified by fans. It also included a map editor - I can't imagine that Civ III is any different, but perhaps an owner of the game would like to comment.
Things like rulesets were laid out in simple configuration text files, so that patches could be applied to change the nature and look of the game - right down to individual units and map squares. Civ: CTP 2 (a game I own) also has easily moddable rulesets (the game is so buggy you simply MUST install Apolyton's patch).
Beating down on fans and modding is stupid , the most successful games are those that have been modded (Halflife, StarCraft). Until I see firm evidence of something other than this translation case, I still want Civ III and will enjoy playing it.
I knew I shouldn't have deleted all of my spam from the past year. I guess it's time to randomly place my e-mail address on newsgroups to get enough spam in the next few weeks to write some good poetry.
Most of us have seen nifty hardware setups with nice looking cases. However, I am much more interested in custom software to make a car computer more customized.
Anyone who has owned or used a power inverter or more demanding electronics in a car knows that you really can't run it (for long) when the engine is off. An inverter will automatically shut itself off and turn itself on when the input voltage fluctuates (a sign that the engine has been turned off).
Since the input voltage is only 12 volts, a easy battery backup could be implemented to allow the computer to run while the car is off. When the battery gets low, the computer automatically suspends or hibernates.
Obviously, these things are already present in every laptop. If I were to construct such a device for my car, I would probably use the laptop as the CPU and connect an LCD screen and monitor/mouse combo (wireless, probably) to it externally. Since laptops have one input voltage, you only need to build a single car adapter (or buy one).
In addition, plexiglass isn't shielded like the average metal case - you'll get more interference, especially noticable in a sound system.
I'd like to see setups of a small LCD touch screen that allows the user (preferably the passenger - drivers shouldn't be messing with computers while driving) to easily navigate through things. I think I have seen one such example, perhaps from/., of a Macintosh based system like that - pretty darned cool. Combined with a wireless access card (too bad Ricochet went under) of some sort, it could be somewhat useful for an internet connection. GPS would be simple. Add a wireless ethernet card so when you park in your garage you can access your wireless hub/network (if you have the money to put a computer in your car you can afford a wireless hub). This would make transferring mp3s and other files nice. Perhaps download some web pages for offline reading, a bunch of cool games (and emulated games), and a few joysticks and you'd have a pretty cool entertainment center for the car.
So, in conclusion, a laptop is an easier (if less creative) choice that is superior to most home-built CPUs, and the peripherals and software is the real place to be creative and innovative.
Perhaps it was a little strongly worded. I can see some advantages of using Linux and Java - the incredible ease of software development and the ability to create programs that run on both the PC and a handheld identically (for business use). However, there are some disadvantages to having a full-featured multitasking OS with a programming language that is notoriously slower than good C/C++ code - speed. Speed means a lot in the handheld world, and the harder a handheld has to use the processor, the shorter the battery life is. This is where the Palm apps shine. They aren't complicated, but they do the job and they are written to be extremely small and optimized. Thus Palms (and Handsprings, and TRGs, and Sonys) need the smallest amount of RAM and processor compared to the other handhelds available on the market. They can manufacture the things cheaper and with longer battery life.
Obviously this Sharp is aimed for the high end market. My main point was emphasized in my last paragraph - this high end market is already cluttered with mature devices like Compaq's and HP's. This is not to say the new Sharp handheld won't meet with some success, but that it will need to mature much more quickly in order to be successful, because too many high-end mature options exist now. Like I said, a few years ago this type of software would have a much better chance before Pocket PC got off the ground, and while Palm was even more primitive (not to say that it is a bad thing, like I mentioned, I am a very happy Visor Platinum user).
It requires more than just software to support good handwriting recognition - the touch screen must be sensitive enough to work well. I had an old Tandy handheld quite some time ago that "supported" handwriting recognition. The software was bad, but the touch-screen really was not designed to handle handwriting well. One could tap through things well, but the handwriting was quite inaccurate, caused by both hardware and software.
I cannot speak for xscribble, but I do know that the Agenda team had to revamp the handwriting recognition recently because it didn't work well (perhaps someone closer to the project could elaborate). I don't know if they based it off of xscribble code or not.
Sharp looks like it is actually trying to be a bit innovative with a PDA, unlike many manufacturers. First of all, the reflective TFT color display is good choice - consumers and business users seem to have this desire for color (I personally own a Visor Platinum with a grayscale screen, I love the battery life).
I don't really see what Java and Linux bring to a handheld device. Development isn't that difficult for the Palm OS, even Pocket PC, which have each picked a niche in the handheld market (the Palm OS for basic PIM functions with lots of little add-on software, Pocket PC for built-in support of Office documents and multimedia). I have spent some time thinking about it, and the advantages of Linux (multitasking, different processor support, open source) don't seem as important in the handheld market. At least not yet. If Palm OS and the Pocket PC platforms weren't mature, I would definately think that using Linux would be a much better choice. Unfortunately, it is still quite immature, as one can quickly tell from reading through the Linux development mailing lists of the Agenda. Not to say it isn't useful, but on the same hardware it seems to be slower than the Palm equivalents, from the reports I have read.
Moving on, the choice of compact flash and lithium ion battery was very wise. Better than a proprietary expansion slot, in my opinion, but somewhat more limited. Handspring's sprinboards are capable of doing so much more than memory expansion and modem/ethernet devices - like a remote module, GPS, cell phone, wireless internet, etc. I am not sure how many of these things the compact flash design on this palmtop could support - with something sticking out the top. Seeing as this has a 206 Mhz processor and a color screen, the good rechargable battery will be quite needed. It would be nice if these are easily removable, so that those who don't get a chance to charge for quite some time will be able to pop in a second battery.
The sliding keyboard seems nice, but obviously useful mostly for "thumb-typing". Handspring just announced a clip-on sort of keyboard for their devices that does a similar thing - SnapNType. One thing that I wonder about this Sharp device - will it support handwriting recognition? The site claims the color screen has "touch panel support". Handwriting recognition is fairly difficult to code, as the Agenda creators have found. Grafiti is nice, especially for those that have learned it, but there is some sort of licensing with it.
All in all, this looks like a promising Linux handheld. They learned from the Agenda's mistakes, by including USB connectivity, a rechargable battery, and compact flash slot. With all these features it will definately be in the price range of the already-mature color Compaq's, which means a limited consumer base. I look forward to hearing how well the developer models work.
Yes, since they have PIIIs, there is a fan. I can't really tell you how much it's on, 'cause I haven't used it longer than about 30 minutes doing simple web browsing and such (it's not mine, as I mentioned).
The bottom can get kind of warm for your lap if you're doing higher powered things, because normally the processor is clocked down using Intel Speedstep (to preserve battery length and heat). It didn't strike me as being any more or less noisy than the average quality laptop - I didn't really pay attention to it though.
After doing some research, I recommended to my girlfriend that she buy an Acer laptop. The reasons were simple - it had a modem, ethernet, and wireless ethernet built in, it had a large 14" screen, and it was only 5.2 pounds with the dvd drive installed, 4.5 without, and came installed with Windows 2000.
I looked at a variety of other laptops, especially Dell and Compaq, and none could build in everything (she wanted wireless ethernet for use at college and in the future) at such a low weight. The price wasn't too bad either, for last June - about $2100 including Windows 2000 and Office 2000 from CDW.
When it arrived, there was a feature I sort of brushed over - a smart card reader. Its primary purpose in this laptop is to restrict access if the card is not installed. It looks like a credit card, and is easily removable. By default, the security settings are such that the smart card must be installed for the computer to boot. Of course, this isn't perfect protection against things like theft, but it is more convenient than a boot password to prevent people from simply using the laptop.
So I am not surprised to see that Acer is leading the way with more laptop security features. I absolutely hate the many old desktops that I have had to fix over the years, but the quality of the laptops is quite nice. They fit a lot of features, including some pioneering ones, into a laptop that is comparable in price to Toshiba and Dell with less weight.
CmdrTaco, please...
on
VIM 6.0 is Out
·
· Score: 0, Troll
"Of course everyone knows that vim is the best text editor in the world. Anyone who tells you differently is either wrong, lying, or criminally
insane. (Or an emacs user, in which case they are wrong, lying and criminally insane)."
Please, CmdrTaco, have some respect for different opinions. Many people like Vi/Vim, many people like Emacs/Xemacs. I personally have used and continue to use both for various things. I find vi great for editing configuration files and quick alterations to programs. I like xemacs for larger development and manual HTML editing.
Choices are good, and we should support that. My hope is that you were being sarcastic, but it sure sounded like you have an incredible distaste for Emacs, and thought anyone who used it must be an absolute idiot.
Use the right tool for the right job, and respect others' opinions as to which tool goes along with which job.
No, not really. At the end of my post is the BSD license template from opensource.org. Basically, you can use the code in any program you like, under any license you like, just so long as you and anyone who distributes the code includes a simple copyright statement. Some MS tools have been known to include this (especially from Windows NT), and I'm sure some other/.ers can point you to strange places that BSD copyright statements come up.
Since the license is so short, might as well include it right here for people too lazy to click:
Here is the license template:
Copyright (c) ,
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
Neither the name of the nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
Granted, I think most of us expect code to be stolen from GPL products and stuck into proprietary products. It struck me as odd that BSD code would actually be put into a GPL program improperly, considering the only requirement to my knowledge is the copyright notice they discussed.
It was mentioned that the authors of the Linux kernel code worked for Red Hat. We can't be certain but I speculate that they didn't want to appear "lazy" by "stealing" anyone elses code, regardless that it was completely free. Perhaps it was just an oversight. I hope we see an update in a slashback in the future.
Yes, I am afraid this is one arena where PDA manufacturers seem to think they just can't make money - the ultra low-end. Quite frankly, they are right. The profit margins are too low and the service costs too high.
For example, I was having some syncronization problems with my Visor (it turned out to be Windows...I am now happily syncing with J-Pilot under Linux). Anyway, they shipped me a replacement unit (I figured I'd make sure it wasn't hardware) and I received it 18 hours later! (it was shipped airborne express). It also included a free Airborne Express slip to ship the unit back - no cost and very little hassle to me.
Now, they can handle that sort of service if they make a decent amount from each unit - enough to cover the costs of replacement shippings, etc. When you get sub-$100, the profits are just so small that it isn't really affordable.
Handspring, up until this week, was selling its 2 mb Visor Solo for $129, and refurbished Visor Deluxe's for somewhere around that same price. Granted, it's $50 more than the $80 you are looking for, but that's what they were getting for the 2 meg model (it was recently reduced in price). If you're still interested in buying a 2 meg model I suggest you try e-mailing them or calling them to see if they have any left. Free shipping, pretty nice.
Of course, retail outlets like Office Max seem to be selling cheap(er) PDAs, and you can always find a wide selection of them on Ebay. Sometimes Palm sells refurbished units of its own, but last I checked (about a month ago) they were all out.
If you are a geek who loves lots of fun software I think you'll quickly fill up your 2 megs and wish you had saved up some more. I recommend stashing away some cash and going for an 8 meg model. I actually took the 30 day money-back guarantee from Handspring for my Visor Deluxe and got the Platinum 'cause I liked the new Palm OS 3.5.2 and the faster processor. You'll probably use your PDA more than you think, but there are a few people for whom it just doesn't sit right.
The Handspring Visor Platinum and Visor Neo run the exact same Palm OS version, according to this Handspring page.
This makes me glad, because I just plunked down $200 for a Platinum. I like black better anyway (I was tempted to get the silver model). I also read that the new Neo's felt "slippery". Yes, I have the "quick lookup" in the address book.
Basically, Handspring is replacing the Platinum with the Neo just to gain some of the color appeal that the Deluxe had. I actually bought a "graphite" (black) Visor, sent it back within the 30-day period, and got the Platinum because they dropped the price $50. And I got a rather expensive leather case with it, something they are no longer offering.
I think Handspring had a far superior line of Handhelds until Palm released their latest m50x series. The Platinum, Edge, and Prism models were simply superior - but mostly because of price and USB connectivity. They took out the flash upgrade, which few people seem to use (Palm OS 4 doesn't look very useful for current PDA owners). The springboard module is finally becoming more popular - there are a lot of great things for it. Now if they weren't so darned expensive, I just might get one or two...I'd consider the mp3 players if they offered CF/Smartmedia expansion and were about $50 cheaper. For $150-200 I can get a standalone model, which has it's advantages and disadvantages.
Anyway, I agree with your point that Handspring must answer the Palm m505. Must be the size of the Edge or smaller, color, lithium battery, and get that springboard module in there. Oh, and they have to double the RAM to 16 MB. And it's got to be the same price or cheaper than the m505. Handspring has done it before (the Visor Deluxe blows away the Palm IIIxe), I think they'll do it again. It'll be interesting to see the next wave of wireless devices.
I used to purchase things from Onsale's auction site all of the time, including my refurbished laptop 4 years ago. They had excellent selection, and if you could find what you wanted you could usually get it cheaper than anywhere else. I also bought my new digital camera from Onsale's auction site.
Then Egghead purchased Onsale. At first Egghead did a decent job of keeping up the auctions, even imitating Onsale's not-so-hot web page design. Over the past year or two, the auctions have really fizzled - you can hardly find anything worth bidding on.
Then there was the incident where the credit card database was cracked. This did not make any Egghead customers very happy. Add to that the fact that many of their retail items were either overpriced or out of stock, the site quickly went to the bottom of the list from which I purchase computer equipment.
I am not saddened to see the company go under - they brought it upon themselves.
The difference between GUI development tools and command line development tools is fairly minor. In many cases, the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) simply brings together a large collection of individual utilities for convenience. This happens in the Windows world with Borland's C++ compiler and their IDE. In the *nix world gcc (and other compilers), as well as debuggers, possibly code-completion (usually only found within the IDE), class browsers, etc, are brought together into one package that allow for faster development of applications.
KDevelop and KDE Studio are two examples of this. The "tools" are really the same - they just offer a GUI interface to several command line utilities. I cannot speak for KDE Studio, but I believe KDevelop is working on good cvs support for a complete approach to shared development. To my knowledge some of these features are already implemented. Also, a GUI based IDE will almost ceretainly have good syntax highlighting.
However, one does not need to use a GUI to get colored code - vim and Emacs/XEmacs offer this from the command line.
In my opinion, development can take place faster and debugging more easily with an integrated environment compared to ed+gcc, but this should be rather obvious. This does not make IDE's (both GUI and terminal based ones - IMO Emacs is an IDE once you configure it properly) more advanced - just more convenient.
The nice part about developing with *nix is that you can use a wide variety of tools, even on the same project. Use what you are comfortable with, and ignore those who say your technique is flawed - everybody has their own way of doing things efficiently. With MS Visual C++, you are basically stuck with their IDE and you better like it.
Konqueror exists (in my belief) partly because of GUI toolkits.
KDE is looking to provide an entire host of applications that all look, feel, and interact the same way. They are designed to work together, to complement each other. Easy examples of this include KOffice (Kword, etc), Konqueror, and KNotes. If you apply a theme to KDE, it affects every QT based application. Of course, GTK+ (GNOME) applications work fine, but they don't pick up the look and feel of the rest of the interface. Mozilla does not use QT, and it implements its own themes. Some people like their browser looking and feeling completely different from the rest of the applications they use, but others want consistency. My belief is that the KDE team simply wanted to provide an alternative browser that fit in with the rest of the KDE applications very well.
Konqueror is designed like Internet Explorer was for Windows - it provides browsing, file managing, filesystem-like FTP, etc. Mozilla is a browser/e-mail client/newsreader designed as a standalone application. Konqueror leaves mail up to KMail, but KMail uses Konqueror's rendering engine (KHTML) to render HTML based e-mail (to my knowledge).
So, in the end, users are left with two nice choices for their browsing experience. Konqueror works very nicely if you prefer KDE (I do), but loading up all the QT libraries under GNOME in order to run Konqueror makes it lose some of the speediness that fans of Konqueror enjoy. Mozilla is nice because it is completely standalone, fully-featured (some would say bloated), but most importantly very cross-platform. Mozilla runs very nicely, and looks almost exactly the same, on Windows, Linux, MacOS, etc.
Both browsers have their niche to fill, and I think both projects are quite worthwhile to pursue.
From my experience, this topic seems to be considered mostly by sci-fi writers. Many people have seen 2001 with the rotating stations. A more recent example is Babylon 5 - the entire station (which is something like 2 miles long and a fraction of that in diameter) rotates. It creates some nice visual effects, but rotation-generated "gravity" has its problems.
The "gravity" is much higher towards the outer parts of a rotating ship and non-existant in the core. In Babylon 5, this is actually where some cross-station transportation took place. They even had the lead character experience the weightlessness of being in the center, with the danger of gradually moving to smack into the quickly rotating station. But that's another story.
Have you ever considered promoting AtheOS as an OS for GUI-based embedded devices? The competition in that arena now is Windows CE, Palm OS, and Linux - but an OO based GUI built into the OS may be beneficial in terms of performance.
With Linux, a device developer has to get the core Linux kernel working and then build a GUI on top of it (XFree86 or a smaller X server). Palm OS doesn't have multitasking and isn't very scalable to powerful devices. Windows CE requires a royalty. AtheOS could provide a powerful operating system for embedded devices for free.
Slashdot Mirror
When MS releases a new OS, the patches stop for the old ones. Sorry, free patches.
Bull. MS just this year stopped supporting Windows 95, and patches are available for 98, ME, and 2000. They are free. The old patches for Windows 95 are still available for free, but if any new major bugs are discovered they will go unfixed by MS. But that OS is 6 years old, I can't exactly blame them.
I was referring to computer games in general. It would seem that most of Blizzard's games are in production so long that by the time they are released they can be played in a broad range of computers.
However, now that they have added 3D chip features, Warcraft III will probably need either a decent video card (Geforce or greater) and/or a relatively fast processor (600-700 Mhz+). Of course, these are guesses.
Yes, WarCraft II ran on everything, but Starcraft is pretty slow with 48 megs of RAM on a P150 (my laptop). Having more than a few computers in a lan-based multiplayer makes it too slow to enjoy.
I've already seen a few simple questions that are answered in the Warcraft III FAQ. Some highlights: Yes, there will be a Mac version. No, there won't be a Linux version.
From the looks of things, WarCraft III will continue the age-old tradition of requiring decent hardware to run well. Fortunately, they apparently are making a full-featured map editor (probably similar to Starcraft's, which was VERY impressive, unlike Civ II/IIIs).
Also, they finally are providing high resolution support, while still (somehow) maintaining lower resolution support for those of us with not-so-good video cards.
Looks like it's going to be another addicting Blizzard game for me, but I'm glad it won't compete with my Civ III playing time for awhile.
I don't think the cease and desist order prevents innocent modification of components that Firaxis intended for people to make and distribute. I don't have Civ III (yet), but Civ II was purposely designed so that it could be easily modified by fans. It also included a map editor - I can't imagine that Civ III is any different, but perhaps an owner of the game would like to comment.
Things like rulesets were laid out in simple configuration text files, so that patches could be applied to change the nature and look of the game - right down to individual units and map squares. Civ: CTP 2 (a game I own) also has easily moddable rulesets (the game is so buggy you simply MUST install Apolyton's patch).
Beating down on fans and modding is stupid , the most successful games are those that have been modded (Halflife, StarCraft). Until I see firm evidence of something other than this translation case, I still want Civ III and will enjoy playing it.
I knew I shouldn't have deleted all of my spam from the past year. I guess it's time to randomly place my e-mail address on newsgroups to get enough spam in the next few weeks to write some good poetry.
Most of us have seen nifty hardware setups with nice looking cases. However, I am much more interested in custom software to make a car computer more customized.
/., of a Macintosh based system like that - pretty darned cool. Combined with a wireless access card (too bad Ricochet went under) of some sort, it could be somewhat useful for an internet connection. GPS would be simple. Add a wireless ethernet card so when you park in your garage you can access your wireless hub/network (if you have the money to put a computer in your car you can afford a wireless hub). This would make transferring mp3s and other files nice. Perhaps download some web pages for offline reading, a bunch of cool games (and emulated games), and a few joysticks and you'd have a pretty cool entertainment center for the car.
Anyone who has owned or used a power inverter or more demanding electronics in a car knows that you really can't run it (for long) when the engine is off. An inverter will automatically shut itself off and turn itself on when the input voltage fluctuates (a sign that the engine has been turned off).
Since the input voltage is only 12 volts, a easy battery backup could be implemented to allow the computer to run while the car is off. When the battery gets low, the computer automatically suspends or hibernates.
Obviously, these things are already present in every laptop. If I were to construct such a device for my car, I would probably use the laptop as the CPU and connect an LCD screen and monitor/mouse combo (wireless, probably) to it externally. Since laptops have one input voltage, you only need to build a single car adapter (or buy one).
In addition, plexiglass isn't shielded like the average metal case - you'll get more interference, especially noticable in a sound system.
I'd like to see setups of a small LCD touch screen that allows the user (preferably the passenger - drivers shouldn't be messing with computers while driving) to easily navigate through things. I think I have seen one such example, perhaps from
So, in conclusion, a laptop is an easier (if less creative) choice that is superior to most home-built CPUs, and the peripherals and software is the real place to be creative and innovative.
Perhaps it was a little strongly worded. I can see some advantages of using Linux and Java - the incredible ease of software development and the ability to create programs that run on both the PC and a handheld identically (for business use). However, there are some disadvantages to having a full-featured multitasking OS with a programming language that is notoriously slower than good C/C++ code - speed. Speed means a lot in the handheld world, and the harder a handheld has to use the processor, the shorter the battery life is. This is where the Palm apps shine. They aren't complicated, but they do the job and they are written to be extremely small and optimized. Thus Palms (and Handsprings, and TRGs, and Sonys) need the smallest amount of RAM and processor compared to the other handhelds available on the market. They can manufacture the things cheaper and with longer battery life.
Obviously this Sharp is aimed for the high end market. My main point was emphasized in my last paragraph - this high end market is already cluttered with mature devices like Compaq's and HP's. This is not to say the new Sharp handheld won't meet with some success, but that it will need to mature much more quickly in order to be successful, because too many high-end mature options exist now. Like I said, a few years ago this type of software would have a much better chance before Pocket PC got off the ground, and while Palm was even more primitive (not to say that it is a bad thing, like I mentioned, I am a very happy Visor Platinum user).
It requires more than just software to support good handwriting recognition - the touch screen must be sensitive enough to work well. I had an old Tandy handheld quite some time ago that "supported" handwriting recognition. The software was bad, but the touch-screen really was not designed to handle handwriting well. One could tap through things well, but the handwriting was quite inaccurate, caused by both hardware and software.
I cannot speak for xscribble, but I do know that the Agenda team had to revamp the handwriting recognition recently because it didn't work well (perhaps someone closer to the project could elaborate). I don't know if they based it off of xscribble code or not.
Sharp looks like it is actually trying to be a bit innovative with a PDA, unlike many manufacturers. First of all, the reflective TFT color display is good choice - consumers and business users seem to have this desire for color (I personally own a Visor Platinum with a grayscale screen, I love the battery life).
I don't really see what Java and Linux bring to a handheld device. Development isn't that difficult for the Palm OS, even Pocket PC, which have each picked a niche in the handheld market (the Palm OS for basic PIM functions with lots of little add-on software, Pocket PC for built-in support of Office documents and multimedia). I have spent some time thinking about it, and the advantages of Linux (multitasking, different processor support, open source) don't seem as important in the handheld market. At least not yet. If Palm OS and the Pocket PC platforms weren't mature, I would definately think that using Linux would be a much better choice. Unfortunately, it is still quite immature, as one can quickly tell from reading through the Linux development mailing lists of the Agenda. Not to say it isn't useful, but on the same hardware it seems to be slower than the Palm equivalents, from the reports I have read.
Moving on, the choice of compact flash and lithium ion battery was very wise. Better than a proprietary expansion slot, in my opinion, but somewhat more limited. Handspring's sprinboards are capable of doing so much more than memory expansion and modem/ethernet devices - like a remote module, GPS, cell phone, wireless internet, etc. I am not sure how many of these things the compact flash design on this palmtop could support - with something sticking out the top. Seeing as this has a 206 Mhz processor and a color screen, the good rechargable battery will be quite needed. It would be nice if these are easily removable, so that those who don't get a chance to charge for quite some time will be able to pop in a second battery.
The sliding keyboard seems nice, but obviously useful mostly for "thumb-typing". Handspring just announced a clip-on sort of keyboard for their devices that does a similar thing - SnapNType. One thing that I wonder about this Sharp device - will it support handwriting recognition? The site claims the color screen has "touch panel support". Handwriting recognition is fairly difficult to code, as the Agenda creators have found. Grafiti is nice, especially for those that have learned it, but there is some sort of licensing with it.
All in all, this looks like a promising Linux handheld. They learned from the Agenda's mistakes, by including USB connectivity, a rechargable battery, and compact flash slot. With all these features it will definately be in the price range of the already-mature color Compaq's, which means a limited consumer base. I look forward to hearing how well the developer models work.
The press release is dated for April 1, 2000. The project is supposed to have been completed by March 2001.
Try browsing through the parent site.
Here is an article from the BBC about it dated March 21, 2001.
Yes, since they have PIIIs, there is a fan. I can't really tell you how much it's on, 'cause I haven't used it longer than about 30 minutes doing simple web browsing and such (it's not mine, as I mentioned).
The bottom can get kind of warm for your lap if you're doing higher powered things, because normally the processor is clocked down using Intel Speedstep (to preserve battery length and heat). It didn't strike me as being any more or less noisy than the average quality laptop - I didn't really pay attention to it though.
After doing some research, I recommended to my girlfriend that she buy an Acer laptop. The reasons were simple - it had a modem, ethernet, and wireless ethernet built in, it had a large 14" screen, and it was only 5.2 pounds with the dvd drive installed, 4.5 without, and came installed with Windows 2000.
I looked at a variety of other laptops, especially Dell and Compaq, and none could build in everything (she wanted wireless ethernet for use at college and in the future) at such a low weight. The price wasn't too bad either, for last June - about $2100 including Windows 2000 and Office 2000 from CDW.
When it arrived, there was a feature I sort of brushed over - a smart card reader. Its primary purpose in this laptop is to restrict access if the card is not installed. It looks like a credit card, and is easily removable. By default, the security settings are such that the smart card must be installed for the computer to boot. Of course, this isn't perfect protection against things like theft, but it is more convenient than a boot password to prevent people from simply using the laptop.
So I am not surprised to see that Acer is leading the way with more laptop security features. I absolutely hate the many old desktops that I have had to fix over the years, but the quality of the laptops is quite nice. They fit a lot of features, including some pioneering ones, into a laptop that is comparable in price to Toshiba and Dell with less weight.
"Of course everyone knows that vim is the best text editor in the world. Anyone who tells you differently is either wrong, lying, or criminally
insane. (Or an emacs user, in which case they are wrong, lying and criminally insane)."
Please, CmdrTaco, have some respect for different opinions. Many people like Vi/Vim, many people like Emacs/Xemacs. I personally have used and continue to use both for various things. I find vi great for editing configuration files and quick alterations to programs. I like xemacs for larger development and manual HTML editing.
Choices are good, and we should support that. My hope is that you were being sarcastic, but it sure sounded like you have an incredible distaste for Emacs, and thought anyone who used it must be an absolute idiot.
Use the right tool for the right job, and respect others' opinions as to which tool goes along with which job.
Not according to the Free Software Foundation, the people who write the GPL.
See this page on their site. It lists the modified BSD license as being compatible with the GPL.
No, not really. At the end of my post is the BSD license template from opensource.org. Basically, you can use the code in any program you like, under any license you like, just so long as you and anyone who distributes the code includes a simple copyright statement. Some MS tools have been known to include this (especially from Windows NT), and I'm sure some other /.ers can point you to strange places that BSD copyright statements come up.
Since the license is so short, might as well include it right here for people too lazy to click:
Here is the license template:
Copyright (c) ,
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
Neither the name of the nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
Granted, I think most of us expect code to be stolen from GPL products and stuck into proprietary products. It struck me as odd that BSD code would actually be put into a GPL program improperly, considering the only requirement to my knowledge is the copyright notice they discussed.
It was mentioned that the authors of the Linux kernel code worked for Red Hat. We can't be certain but I speculate that they didn't want to appear "lazy" by "stealing" anyone elses code, regardless that it was completely free. Perhaps it was just an oversight. I hope we see an update in a slashback in the future.
Thanks for the link. Nope, the Platinum doesn't have that.
Yes, I am afraid this is one arena where PDA manufacturers seem to think they just can't make money - the ultra low-end. Quite frankly, they are right. The profit margins are too low and the service costs too high.
For example, I was having some syncronization problems with my Visor (it turned out to be Windows...I am now happily syncing with J-Pilot under Linux). Anyway, they shipped me a replacement unit (I figured I'd make sure it wasn't hardware) and I received it 18 hours later! (it was shipped airborne express). It also included a free Airborne Express slip to ship the unit back - no cost and very little hassle to me.
Now, they can handle that sort of service if they make a decent amount from each unit - enough to cover the costs of replacement shippings, etc. When you get sub-$100, the profits are just so small that it isn't really affordable.
Handspring, up until this week, was selling its 2 mb Visor Solo for $129, and refurbished Visor Deluxe's for somewhere around that same price. Granted, it's $50 more than the $80 you are looking for, but that's what they were getting for the 2 meg model (it was recently reduced in price). If you're still interested in buying a 2 meg model I suggest you try e-mailing them or calling them to see if they have any left. Free shipping, pretty nice.
Of course, retail outlets like Office Max seem to be selling cheap(er) PDAs, and you can always find a wide selection of them on Ebay. Sometimes Palm sells refurbished units of its own, but last I checked (about a month ago) they were all out.
If you are a geek who loves lots of fun software I think you'll quickly fill up your 2 megs and wish you had saved up some more. I recommend stashing away some cash and going for an 8 meg model. I actually took the 30 day money-back guarantee from Handspring for my Visor Deluxe and got the Platinum 'cause I liked the new Palm OS 3.5.2 and the faster processor. You'll probably use your PDA more than you think, but there are a few people for whom it just doesn't sit right.
Anyway, good luck.
It is possible I am misunderstanding what the "Fast lookup feature" is.
On the bottom of my address book app, there is a text entry labeled "Look Up:". If you start to write in it, it zeroes in on the last name.
I doubt I'd personally need anything more, but is this the "fast lookup" feature?
Have to correct you on one point.
The Handspring Visor Platinum and Visor Neo run the exact same Palm OS version, according to this Handspring page.
This makes me glad, because I just plunked down $200 for a Platinum. I like black better anyway (I was tempted to get the silver model). I also read that the new Neo's felt "slippery". Yes, I have the "quick lookup" in the address book.
Basically, Handspring is replacing the Platinum with the Neo just to gain some of the color appeal that the Deluxe had. I actually bought a "graphite" (black) Visor, sent it back within the 30-day period, and got the Platinum because they dropped the price $50. And I got a rather expensive leather case with it, something they are no longer offering.
I think Handspring had a far superior line of Handhelds until Palm released their latest m50x series. The Platinum, Edge, and Prism models were simply superior - but mostly because of price and USB connectivity. They took out the flash upgrade, which few people seem to use (Palm OS 4 doesn't look very useful for current PDA owners). The springboard module is finally becoming more popular - there are a lot of great things for it. Now if they weren't so darned expensive, I just might get one or two...I'd consider the mp3 players if they offered CF/Smartmedia expansion and were about $50 cheaper. For $150-200 I can get a standalone model, which has it's advantages and disadvantages.
Anyway, I agree with your point that Handspring must answer the Palm m505. Must be the size of the Edge or smaller, color, lithium battery, and get that springboard module in there. Oh, and they have to double the RAM to 16 MB. And it's got to be the same price or cheaper than the m505. Handspring has done it before (the Visor Deluxe blows away the Palm IIIxe), I think they'll do it again. It'll be interesting to see the next wave of wireless devices.
I used to purchase things from Onsale's auction site all of the time, including my refurbished laptop 4 years ago. They had excellent selection, and if you could find what you wanted you could usually get it cheaper than anywhere else. I also bought my new digital camera from Onsale's auction site.
Then Egghead purchased Onsale. At first Egghead did a decent job of keeping up the auctions, even imitating Onsale's not-so-hot web page design. Over the past year or two, the auctions have really fizzled - you can hardly find anything worth bidding on.
Then there was the incident where the credit card database was cracked. This did not make any Egghead customers very happy. Add to that the fact that many of their retail items were either overpriced or out of stock, the site quickly went to the bottom of the list from which I purchase computer equipment.
I am not saddened to see the company go under - they brought it upon themselves.
Thanks, I was under a false impression.
I stand corrected.
The difference between GUI development tools and command line development tools is fairly minor. In many cases, the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) simply brings together a large collection of individual utilities for convenience. This happens in the Windows world with Borland's C++ compiler and their IDE. In the *nix world gcc (and other compilers), as well as debuggers, possibly code-completion (usually only found within the IDE), class browsers, etc, are brought together into one package that allow for faster development of applications.
KDevelop and KDE Studio are two examples of this. The "tools" are really the same - they just offer a GUI interface to several command line utilities. I cannot speak for KDE Studio, but I believe KDevelop is working on good cvs support for a complete approach to shared development. To my knowledge some of these features are already implemented. Also, a GUI based IDE will almost ceretainly have good syntax highlighting.
However, one does not need to use a GUI to get colored code - vim and Emacs/XEmacs offer this from the command line.
In my opinion, development can take place faster and debugging more easily with an integrated environment compared to ed+gcc, but this should be rather obvious. This does not make IDE's (both GUI and terminal based ones - IMO Emacs is an IDE once you configure it properly) more advanced - just more convenient.
The nice part about developing with *nix is that you can use a wide variety of tools, even on the same project. Use what you are comfortable with, and ignore those who say your technique is flawed - everybody has their own way of doing things efficiently. With MS Visual C++, you are basically stuck with their IDE and you better like it.
Choice is good, use what you like.
Konqueror exists (in my belief) partly because of GUI toolkits.
KDE is looking to provide an entire host of applications that all look, feel, and interact the same way. They are designed to work together, to complement each other. Easy examples of this include KOffice (Kword, etc), Konqueror, and KNotes. If you apply a theme to KDE, it affects every QT based application. Of course, GTK+ (GNOME) applications work fine, but they don't pick up the look and feel of the rest of the interface. Mozilla does not use QT, and it implements its own themes. Some people like their browser looking and feeling completely different from the rest of the applications they use, but others want consistency. My belief is that the KDE team simply wanted to provide an alternative browser that fit in with the rest of the KDE applications very well.
Konqueror is designed like Internet Explorer was for Windows - it provides browsing, file managing, filesystem-like FTP, etc. Mozilla is a browser/e-mail client/newsreader designed as a standalone application. Konqueror leaves mail up to KMail, but KMail uses Konqueror's rendering engine (KHTML) to render HTML based e-mail (to my knowledge).
So, in the end, users are left with two nice choices for their browsing experience. Konqueror works very nicely if you prefer KDE (I do), but loading up all the QT libraries under GNOME in order to run Konqueror makes it lose some of the speediness that fans of Konqueror enjoy. Mozilla is nice because it is completely standalone, fully-featured (some would say bloated), but most importantly very cross-platform. Mozilla runs very nicely, and looks almost exactly the same, on Windows, Linux, MacOS, etc.
Both browsers have their niche to fill, and I think both projects are quite worthwhile to pursue.
From my experience, this topic seems to be considered mostly by sci-fi writers. Many people have seen 2001 with the rotating stations. A more recent example is Babylon 5 - the entire station (which is something like 2 miles long and a fraction of that in diameter) rotates. It creates some nice visual effects, but rotation-generated "gravity" has its problems.
The "gravity" is much higher towards the outer parts of a rotating ship and non-existant in the core. In Babylon 5, this is actually where some cross-station transportation took place. They even had the lead character experience the weightlessness of being in the center, with the danger of gradually moving to smack into the quickly rotating station. But that's another story.
Have you ever considered promoting AtheOS as an OS for GUI-based embedded devices? The competition in that arena now is Windows CE, Palm OS, and Linux - but an OO based GUI built into the OS may be beneficial in terms of performance.
With Linux, a device developer has to get the core Linux kernel working and then build a GUI on top of it (XFree86 or a smaller X server). Palm OS doesn't have multitasking and isn't very scalable to powerful devices. Windows CE requires a royalty. AtheOS could provide a powerful operating system for embedded devices for free.