Actually, the older apps on the newer devices aren't so bad if they don't assume a 160x160 screen.
But many of the newer apps won't run on the older Palms. Many apps, especially graphics apps, had to, and did, assume a 160x160 screen.
Of course, you really do start to notice the lack of color in some apps, but color has been around far longer than 320x320 screens, so most major apps are already in color.
Yes, and there has been a significant drop-off in new apps that run on all machines across the product line. The complications of multiple resolutions, CPUs, color vs. non-color, clock speeds, etc. means that developing PalmOS apps is not as easy as it used to be. And, when one develops one, there is either a lot more work to make it device-independent or it appeals to a much more limited audience because it only runs on a small percentace of the machines.
My theory is, the faster the processor, the more programmers will take advantage of the speed.
And the more they take advantage of the speed, the shorter the battery life.
High speed processors, color screens, and bright backlighting all contribute to shorter battery life. When you are miles from home, the batteries are dead, and you have no way to sync your data back on to the device, you'll wish Palm had gone for long battery life instead of glity features.
Another point to consider: One of the strong points of Palm's handhelds has been the tremendous quantity of software available. You could take an app written for an original Palm Pilot and run it on a Palm Pilot Pro, Palm III, Palm M100, Handspring Visor, etc. The differences were largely limited to quantity of RAM and physical dimensions of the device. Sure, there were minor CPU speed variances, but it wasn't a whole new CPU at 10x-30x the clock speed. Apps for a Palm with a 400mhz ARM CPU with a 320x320 color screen won't run on the older Palms. Older apps will be unappealing to someone who has plonked down a big chunk of cash for a color, hi-res Palm. An app that requires the new Tungston C's 400mhz ARM CPU won't run fast enough on the Zire 71's 144mhz CPU.
If Palm was going to change things, they should have done it all at once, going from the original standard to a new one. Now they've got a current product line with 16mhz Dragonball CPUs, 33mhz Dragonball CPUs, 144mhz TI ARM CPUs, 400mhz Intel ARM CPUs, 160x160 monochrome screens, 160x160 grayscale screens, 160x160 color screens, and 320x320 color screens. They've really lost it.
And that is exactly my point: they optimize for profit. If doing something right costs more or takes six months more to get to market, they won't do it.
I thought your point was that POSIX was the one, true answer for all PDAs.
By the way, good job of ignoring your absurd contradictions.
Oh, please do: that's the only thing your head seems to be good for.
When people want good head, they can always go to you.
Palm cares. That's why they are doing a big rewrite for PalmOS 6.
All that Palm cares about is profit. If they think that something will be popular, then they will sell it -- whether there is a technical need for it or not.
PalmOS comes from a single vendor only.
But I am not a purchaser of PalmOS. I am a PDA purchaser and PalmOS does not tie me to a single vendor. I could choose any number of PalmOS PDAs from multiple vendors.
Your flood of illogic is simply astounding. Here are some examples of absurd claims that you have made:
Because Palm PDAs use PalmOS, Palm will be clobbered by Microsoft, a company that does not sell PDAs, and by Sony, a company that sells PalmOS PDAs.
"[T]he $80 Zire is a good offering: small, light, and inexpensive, and it runs an OS designed for that kind of hardware" so the OS should be changed and the Zire replaced with something that has an order of magnitude more RAM, a much faster CPU, is larger, heavier, and expensive.
You can make up things or quote things out of context till you're blue in the face but I won't be able to tell you what you allegedly made up or quoted out of context.
PalmOS uses a 16 bit, unsafe, segmented memory architecture and that's bad. I just can't say how, since PalmOS devices have legendary stability, miniscule application sizes, and wholly satisfactory performance.
Palm makes terrible technical decisions regarding their operating system, so their decision to rewrite PalmOS 6 to be more like what I advocate proves that I am right.
Despite being twice as big as contemporary Palm offerings and having horrendously unresponsive, unpolished software, the Agenda was smaller and nicer than the Palm machines.
That's because the Palm Pilots we had at the time weren't even capable of starting up multiple applications at the same time.
Who cares? It's a PDA! You start an app, switch to another, and switch back. Everything remains in the last state in which it was when it was running. It's simple and elegant. It's not like I'm going to be running SETI at Home on a PDA.
Yup, and they will work exactly like they did on that machine, in all their 160x160 pixelated glory, knowing nothing about flash memory or anything else that has happened since then.
Again, who cares? I have a modern laptop for when I need a portable computer with high resolution, color, speed, storage, etc. The PalmOS machines are not intended as replacements for traditional computers.
Yes, the same argument has been made for DOS, and Windows, IBM, and MacDonald's food.
What argument? I was countering your claim that PalmOS tied you to a single vendor.
Despite all of your Linux fanaticism (and misstatements), you have yet to provide a compelling argument in favor of putting Linux on a PDA. It has a larger memory footprint than PalmOS. It requires far more CPU cycles. It will reduce battery life. It will kill off the low-end $99 machines. And it does not answer a significant need.
The review for the Agenda VR is entirely accurate. However, the the Palms available at the time were slower, less responsive, and crashed more.
That is simply incorrect. I have never tried to start an app on an Palm and had it take around a minute for [my] other application to start up or register [my] input as the review stated. The reviewer was well aware of Palms and even mentioned them, so if the performance of the Agenda was comparable, then the author would not have dinged the Agenda so hard for performance.
You see, unlike you, I have actually used the various systems.
I can read, so I did not have a need to use an Agenda to know that it was slow and unresponsive. Quit being such a smarmy bastard.
The difference is that they don't require software rewrites every few years and don't tie you to a single vendors.
I have applications on my current Handspring Visor that I originally used on a Palm Pilot Professional (512K RAM). [sarcasm]We all know that you can take any Linux binary and put it on any Linux system and it will work just fine.[/sarcasm]
Tied to a single vendor? I can get PalmOS PDAs from Palm, Handspring, and Sony. I can get cell phones from Samsung and Kyocera that incorporate a PalmOS-based PDA. I can get a barcode scanner in a PalmOS PDA from Symbol. For the most part, an appliation written for one will work on the others. How many Agenda VR3-compatible PDAs were there on the market?
They are going for a high-end market now, and they don't have an OS to match.
So, you admit that the original OS was suitable for the market at which it was aimed? If so, we've made some progress.
The only reason Palm is still hanging on is because of developer inertia.
Palm is still "hanging on" because their PDAs suit the needs of many users. I admit that their latest offerings are not very attractive from a price/features standpoint, but Sony's PalmOS handhelds (I love rubbing that in) are looking quite attractive.
I don't know why you keep blabbing on about "Linux+X11".
Because you brought it up:
Incidentally, my first personal UNIX machine had a 20MHz processor, 4M of RAM, and ran X11 plus many command line tools we still get today.
Since you were trying to say that the Palm hardware had adequate horsepower for the task and you brought up X11, what was I supposed to think you meant? It's not like you proposed any other graphics API.
You think that a 16 bit, unsafe, segmented memory architecture is just fine.
Yes, I do. It's just fine in many embedded applications including PDAs. My setback thermostat does fine with that. So do three GPSs that I have. So does my fishfinder. My Handspring Visor does not seem to have problems with applications stepping all over one another and corrupting the OS or one another.
If you do embedded systems work, you have given us an object lesson in why so many embedded systems suck so badly: you don't know what you are doing, and you have no long-term perspective.
That would have really hurt if I (or anyone) respected your opinions. If you are typical of U.S. engineers, it's obvious why so many jobs are going over to India and Pakistan. You are so dense that you can't understand that Palm's use RAM for both storage and program execution. You are so ignorant of marketing that you can't perceive that a $99 price point machine is important and that you can't put a 175mhz RISC CPU and 16MB of RAM in it and sell it for $99. You spout off about "POSIX", "Linux", "QNX", etc. without even the slightest thought about how any of those things would work in a PDA.
The Agenda VR was a smaller and nicer machine than the Palms at the time.
The first thing you notice about the performance of the VR3, is that it is a little on the slow side when opening applications or drawing menus once they're tapped with your stylus. It might be a second or two before you see your Datebook or Contacts list fully drawn on the screen and ready to accept events.
The whole Agenda VR3 experience goes okay right up to the point you want to start doing more than one thing at a time. Depending on how many applications are already running, you might be waiting anywhere from a few seconds to around a minute for your other application to start up or register your input. For instance, at one point I've run Launchpad, the Status Bar, a couple applications, and a terminal window. Trying to switch back and forth between applications with the status bar proved to be unnaturally slow. Menus would take tens of seconds to appear, and by that time, I had already pressed the menu a second time, which would cause it to collapse.
I will admit that the minute-wait scenario does not happen ALL the time, but it's occurred often enough for me in the last few days that I've had to swallow my Linux pride, turn the device over, and press the reset button.
There. Now you see how well Linux works on a PDA.
Of course, its software never had the benefit of having several years of user feedback and hacking, so it just couldn't catch up with Palm.
Quit making excuses. The Agenda failed because it was saddled with Linux and all of the overhead that Linux entails. That made the Agenda slow and unresponsive. Oh, and by the way, the Agenda was about double the size of a Palm V due to it being.8" thick vs. the Palm V's.4" thick. Battery life was disappointing at best and only a fraction as long as the Palm V. And the Palm V was out two years before the Agenda.
Just remember that when Microsoft and Sony eat Palm's lunch because, as we all know, the market is so good at picking nice technology, right?
Sony's handhelds use PalmOS. So, how does that toe-cheese taste?
No it isn't. It's a brain-dead regurgitation of the old 1980s callback-based forms management framework, and the operating system itself could be out-engineered by a 2nd year CS student.
You are wrong and the rich set of applications proves it. Many developers have found the PalmOS to be an easy platform to develop for. The applications are compact. The performance is good (given the CPU horsepower and the limited mass storage/RAM). The device is stable. I would dare say that the average PalmOS device crashes less often than the average Linux workstation.
The best OS is the one that works best for the application. PalmOS fits that bill well. You youngsters seem to think that the best OS is one that is the most elegant and powerful. Wrong. I don't want to have to get a microdrive for a handheld and I don't want 2 hour battery life. That rules out Linux as a real contender in this arena.
So keep your desktop OSs on the desktop and leave the embedded system development to us professionals.
Of course, why one needs to undergo that kind of self-flagellation on a 175MHz RISC processor with 16M of RAM is somewhat beyond me.
Do you think that PalmOS devices come with hard drives? You create small apps because the don't just run in RAM, they are stored there too. And it's not "self-flagellation." Using off-the-shelf C compilers and tools, you naturally get a tiny application on the Palm. That's an example of a good API.
Your ignorance is showing again. The Palm Zire, a current, low-end Palm handheld, has 2MB of RAM. So, tell me Mr. Unix, how do you propose running Linux, X11, and storing all of your applications and data in 2MB of RAM?
Incidentally, my first personal UNIX machine had a 20MHz processor, 4M of RAM, and ran X11 plus many command line tools we still get today.
My first hard-drive based computer had a 4mhz Z80 CPU, 64K of RAM, and spoke over a serial port. I've probably been in this industry longer than you have and I've specialized in embedded systems almost the entire time. I also know that X11 is not a GUI. It's a communications standard for remote graphics display. That's why you always see something like KDE, Gnome, CDE, etc. running on top of it.
If "us UNIX/POSIX pushers" had our way, handhelds would get by with a fraction of the power and resources that they are using, and they wouldn't require major OS and application rewrites every couple of years.
That's complete bull****. The PalmOS is far more efficient with memory and compute cycles than Linux is. X11 can take 10 to 20 megabytes alone -- and Palm Zire I mentioned earlier has 2 megabytes of RAM.
Linux has countless proponents all over the world. The Palm hardware is well-understood. So, if it's so desirable in a handheld, why has no one ported Linux to a Palm?
I mean, were you born yesterday? The T|T has more CPU power and memory than UNIX workstations from the early 1990s.
It's only people like you and the PalmOS developers who are completely ignorant of history and keep reinventing the wheel--badly.
I have been in this industry since 1980 doing embedded systems work. I'm smart enough know that you can't measure compute speed in mhz. You, apparently, don't know that. I also know that you can take two Handspring Visor Neos of different vintages and see drastically different speeds despite using the same CPU at the same clock speed. I understand that memory isn't free, CPU clock speed isn't free, and you pay a price both at purchase time and later in battery life.
There have been several attempts to create PDAs that ran Linux. They were invariably expensive, large, heavy, and had short battery life. And they failed in the marketplace.
Both Palm and Microsoft love churning out these messed up, non-standard APIs because it ties programmers to them and creates a market niche. The messier the API, the better, as long as a company has a captive developer population.
Palm's API is clean, intelligent, and well-designed for its intended purpose (a PDA). The tools to develop for it are readily available and it's a very good interface.
From a purely technical point of view, both systems should be relegated to the dustbin of history and replaced with a decent POSIX-compatible kernel (Linux, QNX, whatever).
This is the kind of Linux-on-everything idiocy that makes my head hurt. Linux is great for some things and complete crap for others. A POSIX-compatible kernel is completely inappropriate for a Palm-style handheld. Have you ever tried to write a GUI-based Othello program that's 15K long on Linux? How about a 47K full scientific calculator? And those are big programs compared to many PalmOS apps.
It's that I-have-a-hammer-so-every-solution-involves-a-nail kind of thinking that has ruined many embedded systems. The PalmOS devices continue to be successful because they don't try to cram some variant of Unix or Windows in them and, instead, stick to an OS that is appropriate. As a result, the devices meet users' needs for speed, storage, and battery life. If you Linux pushers had your way, PalmOS handhelds would need faster CPUs, far more RAM, and would drain batteries so fast that Rayovac shares would jump up 50%.
What the f*** does that mean? It's an office suite that works well, is free, runs on everything from Windows to Solaris, and is supported by Sun. How is that "nerdy"?
I'll bet you $10 that his "office" consists of him and his pear-shaped buddies eating cheetohs and playing tuxracer in his mom's basement.
Why would you bet that? OpenOffice.org has the support of Sun Microsystems and is a polished, professional product. Why would you doubt that a serious business would consider such an office suite?
Have you ever priced Microsoft Office? The cost is exorbitant and only getting worse. On top of that, there is the ever-present threat that Microsoft or the Business Software Alliance (BSA) will swoop down and demand a software audit. Of course businesses are looking for more reasonably priced alternatives that don't require the company to participate in "software audit" witch hunts conducted by Microsoft and/or the BSA.
Given your lack of understanding of the above, a safer $10 bet would be that every piece of software you've ever purchased supports a joystick.
Get another provider with a reliable mailserver and connect to it with POP-before-SMTP or through a VPN?
So now I am supposed to pay for a broadband connection plus another fee to another provider for access to a reliable mail server that supports off-network authentication? No thanks. I'll continue to run my own mail server. If AOL decides that they don't want to accept e-mail from me, that's fine. It's not like I feel a great need to talk to the unwashed/uninformed masses that flock to their service.
You also ignore the issue of privacy. When you use your ISP's mail server, you significantly increase the chance that your e-mail will be read by the lackeys working there. There is also the not-so-unlikely possibility that the Feds will be monitoring e-mail through major ISPs using things like Carnivore. (Don't tell me about sniffers. The people working at your ISP is unlikely to take that much initiative when they have a whole mail server of their own to peruse.)
Then do us all a favor, and keep those children and delicate adults inside and out of my world.
Do yourself a favor and get the psychological counseling you need. If you think that seeing someone eating shit or butterfly-splitting their penis is something that only the most delicate of children and adults would be upset by, then you need help.
Perhaps because it doesn't injure you or cause you to lose property to see naughty pictures?
Many sexual images, especially those portraying such deviant practices such as coprophagia, extreme S&M, mutilation, etc., could psychologically scar a child or deeply upset and offend many adults with more delicate sensibilities than yours or mine. The courts have long recognized mental anguish as a form of injury.
My phone is not. The road is a public resource but your driveway is not. Just because something connects to a public resource, one cannot assume that it, too, is public.
And are you seriously saying that if anyone calls anyone they need explicit permission or face criminal charges! I hope I never get a wrong number.
No. I suggest that you look at the tresspass to chattels lawsuits against spammers for a better understanding of this legal principle.
Why is this so unpopular in the US? It is the case for long distance after all.
I'd chalk it up to two things: politeness and business sense.
It seems rude to me to select a plan which forces the sender to pay when most plans do not. It would be like bringing a box of donuts to work and charging your coworkers for them when the coworkers regularly bring in donuts and you eat them for free.
It's also good business sense. If someone can reach me at no cost, then that makes it more likely that they will call me than a competitor. That's why toll-free long distance numbers are so popular for businesses -- receiver pays model.
Really? I want a provider that will agree to send me only email that I want. Who are you with? My agreement says that the ISP will deliver messages that are addressed to me.
He told you what he was paying for, not how the service would be provided. If you asked me why I bought flares for my boat, I would tell you that it was for use in an emergency. Would you say "my flares say that they will light any time for anyone who follows the directions. Where do I get some that only work in emergencies?"
I pay the utility company for water. I have a garden hose. I might tell the neighbors where it is in case they need to use it in an emergency. But it doesn't mean that you have a right to come on to my property and help yourself to water from my garden hose just because you found out where the spigot is. Nor does it mean that the utility company should publish information about who has garden hoses and where they are located.
By refusing to pay for a service that sends you text messages in exchange for a fee.
But I like messages from friends, family, and business associates. So I give them my address. You seem to feel that spammers have a right to commit a trespass to chattels. They do not. My phone is my property. The service is one for which I pay. It is up to me to determine who is authorized to send me messages. If I don't explicitly give permission, then they are prohibited from messaging me. If they do, then it's a trespass to chattels.
Yikes! Talk about over-complicating matters. How about simply charging it to their bill.
What bill? Someone can send me a text message by e-mailing the address associated with my mobile phone. Since text messages can be sent by anyone with e-mail access, there is no viable way for my mobile phone provider to bill them. How the hell is my provider in the U.S. supposed to bill someone in Zimbabwe who e-mails a text message to me?
People don't object to paying to call you on the telephone or fax, why wll they object to paying to send any other message?
In the U.S., they don't pay to make a local call to me. When there is a charge, it is on their phone bill.
I said that it was the company's fault for forcing the spammer to use a dictionary attack. If they didn't want them to do this, they should have supplied the addresses.
Why should they assist spammers who are pissing off their customers? That's absurd. It's like saying that car dealers should provide keys to people who want to joyride in your car.
It would be just as viable a business model for the telephone companies to charge the sender.
No it would not. There would be the costs associated with processing credit cards, getting the sender to agree to a click-thru contract, etc. And the sender could not just send to an e-mail address like they can now. There is also the issue of professionalism. It looks very unprofessional to have a colleague, client, or employer pay to send you a message.
There's your better contract. Go for an unlisted number.
Did you even read the article? The spammer used a dictionary attack. It doesn't matter if your number/address is listed or not if the spammer hits it during a dictionary attack.
What, you mean the ones that don;t charge you to receive messages? Every contry except the US
So all I have to do is emigrate from the U.S. to some foreign country, leaving friends, family, and job behind and then I can get a phone with free, unlimited text messaging -- so that I can receive spam for free. Yeah, good thinking.
They'r not. The money goes to the telephoj company.
Yes, they are. When they send their ad "postage due", they are stealing your money to pay for the delivery.
If you don't like that find a provider that doesn't charge you to receive messages
There is none. It costs the provider money to deliver the message and they charge the users.
It's implicit. The phone company would be in breach of contract if they didn't deliver the message. If you have a problem with this, get a better contract.
No, it is not implicit. Why would they offer an "unlisted number" service if that was the case?
And where do you find such fairy-land contracts as you keep making up?
Mobile phone spam breaks the phone? Wow! This is seriuous heavyweight stuff.
Yes, it does. When so many spams come in that the owner has to cancel the contract, the phone is 'broken'. But you are obviously too dense to understand the analogy, so I'll simplify it for you:
Mobile phone spam costs the user money. Replacing the windshield costs the user money. Both forms of "advertising" force the user to incur a cost that they do not want.
If I was paying someone to provide a service of throwing messages wrapped round bricks through my car window, I wouldn't complain if they did this.
If you are even semi-normal, you don't pay your mobile phone company to deliver ads to you at your expense. You pay them to deliver messages from friends, family, coworkers, and others with whom you choose to share your number/address.
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Actually, the older apps on the newer devices aren't so bad if they don't assume a 160x160 screen.
But many of the newer apps won't run on the older Palms. Many apps, especially graphics apps, had to, and did, assume a 160x160 screen.
Of course, you really do start to notice the lack of color in some apps, but color has been around far longer than 320x320 screens, so most major apps are already in color.
Yes, and there has been a significant drop-off in new apps that run on all machines across the product line. The complications of multiple resolutions, CPUs, color vs. non-color, clock speeds, etc. means that developing PalmOS apps is not as easy as it used to be. And, when one develops one, there is either a lot more work to make it device-independent or it appeals to a much more limited audience because it only runs on a small percentace of the machines.
My theory is, the faster the processor, the more programmers will take advantage of the speed.
And the more they take advantage of the speed, the shorter the battery life.
High speed processors, color screens, and bright backlighting all contribute to shorter battery life. When you are miles from home, the batteries are dead, and you have no way to sync your data back on to the device, you'll wish Palm had gone for long battery life instead of glity features.
Another point to consider: One of the strong points of Palm's handhelds has been the tremendous quantity of software available. You could take an app written for an original Palm Pilot and run it on a Palm Pilot Pro, Palm III, Palm M100, Handspring Visor, etc. The differences were largely limited to quantity of RAM and physical dimensions of the device. Sure, there were minor CPU speed variances, but it wasn't a whole new CPU at 10x-30x the clock speed. Apps for a Palm with a 400mhz ARM CPU with a 320x320 color screen won't run on the older Palms. Older apps will be unappealing to someone who has plonked down a big chunk of cash for a color, hi-res Palm. An app that requires the new Tungston C's 400mhz ARM CPU won't run fast enough on the Zire 71's 144mhz CPU.
If Palm was going to change things, they should have done it all at once, going from the original standard to a new one. Now they've got a current product line with 16mhz Dragonball CPUs, 33mhz Dragonball CPUs, 144mhz TI ARM CPUs, 400mhz Intel ARM CPUs, 160x160 monochrome screens, 160x160 grayscale screens, 160x160 color screens, and 320x320 color screens. They've really lost it.
And that is exactly my point: they optimize for profit. If doing something right costs more or takes six months more to get to market, they won't do it.
I thought your point was that POSIX was the one, true answer for all PDAs.
By the way, good job of ignoring your absurd contradictions.
Oh, please do: that's the only thing your head seems to be good for.
When people want good head, they can always go to you.
Palm cares. That's why they are doing a big rewrite for PalmOS 6.
All that Palm cares about is profit. If they think that something will be popular, then they will sell it -- whether there is a technical need for it or not.
PalmOS comes from a single vendor only.
But I am not a purchaser of PalmOS. I am a PDA purchaser and PalmOS does not tie me to a single vendor. I could choose any number of PalmOS PDAs from multiple vendors.
Your flood of illogic is simply astounding. Here are some examples of absurd claims that you have made:
Because Palm PDAs use PalmOS, Palm will be clobbered by Microsoft, a company that does not sell PDAs, and by Sony, a company that sells PalmOS PDAs.
"[T]he $80 Zire is a good offering: small, light, and inexpensive, and it runs an OS designed for that kind of hardware" so the OS should be changed and the Zire replaced with something that has an order of magnitude more RAM, a much faster CPU, is larger, heavier, and expensive.
You can make up things or quote things out of context till you're blue in the face but I won't be able to tell you what you allegedly made up or quoted out of context.
PalmOS uses a 16 bit, unsafe, segmented memory architecture and that's bad. I just can't say how, since PalmOS devices have legendary stability, miniscule application sizes, and wholly satisfactory performance.
Palm makes terrible technical decisions regarding their operating system, so their decision to rewrite PalmOS 6 to be more like what I advocate proves that I am right.
Despite being twice as big as contemporary Palm offerings and having horrendously unresponsive, unpolished software, the Agenda was smaller and nicer than the Palm machines.
---
I can't keep going or my head will explode...
Yes, you like to bask in the glory of your limited understanding
I usually don't stoop to this level, but "fuck you."
I am your intellectual superior and you are just a self-impressed twit that bandies buzzwords around. Grow up.
That's because the Palm Pilots we had at the time weren't even capable of starting up multiple applications at the same time.
Who cares? It's a PDA! You start an app, switch to another, and switch back. Everything remains in the last state in which it was when it was running. It's simple and elegant. It's not like I'm going to be running SETI at Home on a PDA.
Yup, and they will work exactly like they did on that machine, in all their 160x160 pixelated glory, knowing nothing about flash memory or anything else that has happened since then.
Again, who cares? I have a modern laptop for when I need a portable computer with high resolution, color, speed, storage, etc. The PalmOS machines are not intended as replacements for traditional computers.
Yes, the same argument has been made for DOS, and Windows, IBM, and MacDonald's food.
What argument? I was countering your claim that PalmOS tied you to a single vendor.
Despite all of your Linux fanaticism (and misstatements), you have yet to provide a compelling argument in favor of putting Linux on a PDA. It has a larger memory footprint than PalmOS. It requires far more CPU cycles. It will reduce battery life. It will kill off the low-end $99 machines. And it does not answer a significant need.
The review for the Agenda VR is entirely accurate. However, the the Palms available at the time were slower, less responsive, and crashed more.
That is simply incorrect. I have never tried to start an app on an Palm and had it take around a minute for [my] other application to start up or register [my] input as the review stated. The reviewer was well aware of Palms and even mentioned them, so if the performance of the Agenda was comparable, then the author would not have dinged the Agenda so hard for performance.
You see, unlike you, I have actually used the various systems.
I can read, so I did not have a need to use an Agenda to know that it was slow and unresponsive. Quit being such a smarmy bastard.
The difference is that they don't require software rewrites every few years and don't tie you to a single vendors.
I have applications on my current Handspring Visor that I originally used on a Palm Pilot Professional (512K RAM). [sarcasm]We all know that you can take any Linux binary and put it on any Linux system and it will work just fine.[/sarcasm]
Tied to a single vendor? I can get PalmOS PDAs from Palm, Handspring, and Sony. I can get cell phones from Samsung and Kyocera that incorporate a PalmOS-based PDA. I can get a barcode scanner in a PalmOS PDA from Symbol. For the most part, an appliation written for one will work on the others. How many Agenda VR3-compatible PDAs were there on the market?
You can make up things
What did I make up?
or quote things out of context
What did I quote out of context?
They are going for a high-end market now, and they don't have an OS to match.
So, you admit that the original OS was suitable for the market at which it was aimed? If so, we've made some progress.
The only reason Palm is still hanging on is because of developer inertia.
Palm is still "hanging on" because their PDAs suit the needs of many users. I admit that their latest offerings are not very attractive from a price/features standpoint, but Sony's PalmOS handhelds (I love rubbing that in) are looking quite attractive.
Because you brought it up:Since you were trying to say that the Palm hardware had adequate horsepower for the task and you brought up X11, what was I supposed to think you meant? It's not like you proposed any other graphics API.
You think that a 16 bit, unsafe, segmented memory architecture is just fine.
Yes, I do. It's just fine in many embedded applications including PDAs. My setback thermostat does fine with that. So do three GPSs that I have. So does my fishfinder. My Handspring Visor does not seem to have problems with applications stepping all over one another and corrupting the OS or one another.
If you do embedded systems work, you have given us an object lesson in why so many embedded systems suck so badly: you don't know what you are doing, and you have no long-term perspective.
That would have really hurt if I (or anyone) respected your opinions. If you are typical of U.S. engineers, it's obvious why so many jobs are going over to India and Pakistan. You are so dense that you can't understand that Palm's use RAM for both storage and program execution. You are so ignorant of marketing that you can't perceive that a $99 price point machine is important and that you can't put a 175mhz RISC CPU and 16MB of RAM in it and sell it for $99. You spout off about "POSIX", "Linux", "QNX", etc. without even the slightest thought about how any of those things would work in a PDA.
The Agenda VR was a smaller and nicer machine than the Palms at the time.
Yeah, it was real nice. Just look at an excerpt from this review of the Agenda:
There. Now you see how well Linux works on a PDA.
Of course, its software never had the benefit of having several years of user feedback and hacking, so it just couldn't catch up with Palm.
Quit making excuses. The Agenda failed because it was saddled with Linux and all of the overhead that Linux entails. That made the Agenda slow and unresponsive. Oh, and by the way, the Agenda was about double the size of a Palm V due to it being
Just remember that when Microsoft and Sony eat Palm's lunch because, as we all know, the market is so good at picking nice technology, right?
Sony's handhelds use PalmOS. So, how does that toe-cheese taste?
No it isn't. It's a brain-dead regurgitation of the old 1980s callback-based forms management framework, and the operating system itself could be out-engineered by a 2nd year CS student.
You are wrong and the rich set of applications proves it. Many developers have found the PalmOS to be an easy platform to develop for. The applications are compact. The performance is good (given the CPU horsepower and the limited mass storage/RAM). The device is stable. I would dare say that the average PalmOS device crashes less often than the average Linux workstation.
The best OS is the one that works best for the application. PalmOS fits that bill well. You youngsters seem to think that the best OS is one that is the most elegant and powerful. Wrong. I don't want to have to get a microdrive for a handheld and I don't want 2 hour battery life. That rules out Linux as a real contender in this arena.
So keep your desktop OSs on the desktop and leave the embedded system development to us professionals.
Of course, why one needs to undergo that kind of self-flagellation on a 175MHz RISC processor with 16M of RAM is somewhat beyond me.
Do you think that PalmOS devices come with hard drives? You create small apps because the don't just run in RAM, they are stored there too. And it's not "self-flagellation." Using off-the-shelf C compilers and tools, you naturally get a tiny application on the Palm. That's an example of a good API.
Your ignorance is showing again. The Palm Zire, a current, low-end Palm handheld, has 2MB of RAM. So, tell me Mr. Unix, how do you propose running Linux, X11, and storing all of your applications and data in 2MB of RAM?
Incidentally, my first personal UNIX machine had a 20MHz processor, 4M of RAM, and ran X11 plus many command line tools we still get today.
My first hard-drive based computer had a 4mhz Z80 CPU, 64K of RAM, and spoke over a serial port. I've probably been in this industry longer than you have and I've specialized in embedded systems almost the entire time. I also know that X11 is not a GUI. It's a communications standard for remote graphics display. That's why you always see something like KDE, Gnome, CDE, etc. running on top of it.
If "us UNIX/POSIX pushers" had our way, handhelds would get by with a fraction of the power and resources that they are using, and they wouldn't require major OS and application rewrites every couple of years.
That's complete bull****. The PalmOS is far more efficient with memory and compute cycles than Linux is. X11 can take 10 to 20 megabytes alone -- and Palm Zire I mentioned earlier has 2 megabytes of RAM.
Linux has countless proponents all over the world. The Palm hardware is well-understood. So, if it's so desirable in a handheld, why has no one ported Linux to a Palm?
I mean, were you born yesterday? The T|T has more CPU power and memory than UNIX workstations from the early 1990s.
It's only people like you and the PalmOS developers who are completely ignorant of history and keep reinventing the wheel--badly.
I have been in this industry since 1980 doing embedded systems work. I'm smart enough know that you can't measure compute speed in mhz. You, apparently, don't know that. I also know that you can take two Handspring Visor Neos of different vintages and see drastically different speeds despite using the same CPU at the same clock speed. I understand that memory isn't free, CPU clock speed isn't free, and you pay a price both at purchase time and later in battery life.
There have been several attempts to create PDAs that ran Linux. They were invariably expensive, large, heavy, and had short battery life. And they failed in the marketplace.
Both Palm and Microsoft love churning out these messed up, non-standard APIs because it ties programmers to them and creates a market niche. The messier the API, the better, as long as a company has a captive developer population.
Palm's API is clean, intelligent, and well-designed for its intended purpose (a PDA). The tools to develop for it are readily available and it's a very good interface.
From a purely technical point of view, both systems should be relegated to the dustbin of history and replaced with a decent POSIX-compatible kernel (Linux, QNX, whatever).
This is the kind of Linux-on-everything idiocy that makes my head hurt. Linux is great for some things and complete crap for others. A POSIX-compatible kernel is completely inappropriate for a Palm-style handheld. Have you ever tried to write a GUI-based Othello program that's 15K long on Linux? How about a 47K full scientific calculator? And those are big programs compared to many PalmOS apps.
It's that I-have-a-hammer-so-every-solution-involves-a-nail kind of thinking that has ruined many embedded systems. The PalmOS devices continue to be successful because they don't try to cram some variant of Unix or Windows in them and, instead, stick to an OS that is appropriate. As a result, the devices meet users' needs for speed, storage, and battery life. If you Linux pushers had your way, PalmOS handhelds would need faster CPUs, far more RAM, and would drain batteries so fast that Rayovac shares would jump up 50%.
because open office is nerdy, thx
What the f*** does that mean? It's an office suite that works well, is free, runs on everything from Windows to Solaris, and is supported by Sun. How is that "nerdy"?
I'll bet you $10 that his "office" consists of him and his pear-shaped buddies eating cheetohs and playing tuxracer in his mom's basement.
Why would you bet that? OpenOffice.org has the support of Sun Microsystems and is a polished, professional product. Why would you doubt that a serious business would consider such an office suite?
Have you ever priced Microsoft Office? The cost is exorbitant and only getting worse. On top of that, there is the ever-present threat that Microsoft or the Business Software Alliance (BSA) will swoop down and demand a software audit. Of course businesses are looking for more reasonably priced alternatives that don't require the company to participate in "software audit" witch hunts conducted by Microsoft and/or the BSA.
Given your lack of understanding of the above, a safer $10 bet would be that every piece of software you've ever purchased supports a joystick.
I've experienced several cases of spammers using what appears to be my @yahoo.com address to send out spam.
Serves you right for choosing an address of slutty.coeds@yahoo.com.
Whats the problem with changing your setup to send the outgoing mail through you ISP's SMTP servers?
Reliability, speed, and privacy, all of which are lower on their servers than on mine.
Get another provider with a reliable mailserver and connect to it with POP-before-SMTP or through a VPN?
So now I am supposed to pay for a broadband connection plus another fee to another provider for access to a reliable mail server that supports off-network authentication? No thanks. I'll continue to run my own mail server. If AOL decides that they don't want to accept e-mail from me, that's fine. It's not like I feel a great need to talk to the unwashed/uninformed masses that flock to their service.
You also ignore the issue of privacy. When you use your ISP's mail server, you significantly increase the chance that your e-mail will be read by the lackeys working there. There is also the not-so-unlikely possibility that the Feds will be monitoring e-mail through major ISPs using things like Carnivore. (Don't tell me about sniffers. The people working at your ISP is unlikely to take that much initiative when they have a whole mail server of their own to peruse.)
Then do us all a favor, and keep those children and delicate adults inside and out of my world.
Do yourself a favor and get the psychological counseling you need. If you think that seeing someone eating shit or butterfly-splitting their penis is something that only the most delicate of children and adults would be upset by, then you need help.
Perhaps because it doesn't injure you or cause you to lose property to see naughty pictures?
Many sexual images, especially those portraying such deviant practices such as coprophagia, extreme S&M, mutilation, etc., could psychologically scar a child or deeply upset and offend many adults with more delicate sensibilities than yours or mine. The courts have long recognized mental anguish as a form of injury.
The telephone network is a public resource.
My phone is not. The road is a public resource but your driveway is not. Just because something connects to a public resource, one cannot assume that it, too, is public.
And are you seriously saying that if anyone calls anyone they need explicit permission or face criminal charges! I hope I never get a wrong number.
No. I suggest that you look at the tresspass to chattels lawsuits against spammers for a better understanding of this legal principle.
Why is this so unpopular in the US? It is the case for long distance after all.
I'd chalk it up to two things: politeness and business sense.
It seems rude to me to select a plan which forces the sender to pay when most plans do not. It would be like bringing a box of donuts to work and charging your coworkers for them when the coworkers regularly bring in donuts and you eat them for free.
It's also good business sense. If someone can reach me at no cost, then that makes it more likely that they will call me than a competitor. That's why toll-free long distance numbers are so popular for businesses -- receiver pays model.
Really? I want a provider that will agree to send me only email that I want. Who are you with? My agreement says that the ISP will deliver messages that are addressed to me.
He told you what he was paying for, not how the service would be provided. If you asked me why I bought flares for my boat, I would tell you that it was for use in an emergency. Would you say "my flares say that they will light any time for anyone who follows the directions. Where do I get some that only work in emergencies?"
I pay the utility company for water. I have a garden hose. I might tell the neighbors where it is in case they need to use it in an emergency. But it doesn't mean that you have a right to come on to my property and help yourself to water from my garden hose just because you found out where the spigot is. Nor does it mean that the utility company should publish information about who has garden hoses and where they are located.
By refusing to pay for a service that sends you text messages in exchange for a fee.
But I like messages from friends, family, and business associates. So I give them my address. You seem to feel that spammers have a right to commit a trespass to chattels. They do not. My phone is my property. The service is one for which I pay. It is up to me to determine who is authorized to send me messages. If I don't explicitly give permission, then they are prohibited from messaging me. If they do, then it's a trespass to chattels.
Yikes! Talk about over-complicating matters. How about simply charging it to their bill.
What bill? Someone can send me a text message by e-mailing the address associated with my mobile phone. Since text messages can be sent by anyone with e-mail access, there is no viable way for my mobile phone provider to bill them. How the hell is my provider in the U.S. supposed to bill someone in Zimbabwe who e-mails a text message to me?
People don't object to paying to call you on the telephone or fax, why wll they object to paying to send any other message?
In the U.S., they don't pay to make a local call to me. When there is a charge, it is on their phone bill.
I said that it was the company's fault for forcing the spammer to use a dictionary attack. If they didn't want them to do this, they should have supplied the addresses.
Why should they assist spammers who are pissing off their customers? That's absurd. It's like saying that car dealers should provide keys to people who want to joyride in your car.
Refuse delivery then.
How? How do I refuse delivery of a text message?
It would be just as viable a business model for the telephone companies to charge the sender.
No it would not. There would be the costs associated with processing credit cards, getting the sender to agree to a click-thru contract, etc. And the sender could not just send to an e-mail address like they can now. There is also the issue of professionalism. It looks very unprofessional to have a colleague, client, or employer pay to send you a message.
There's your better contract. Go for an unlisted number.
Did you even read the article? The spammer used a dictionary attack. It doesn't matter if your number/address is listed or not if the spammer hits it during a dictionary attack.
What, you mean the ones that don;t charge you to receive messages? Every contry except the US
So all I have to do is emigrate from the U.S. to some foreign country, leaving friends, family, and job behind and then I can get a phone with free, unlimited text messaging -- so that I can receive spam for free. Yeah, good thinking.
They'r not. The money goes to the telephoj company.
Yes, they are. When they send their ad "postage due", they are stealing your money to pay for the delivery.
If you don't like that find a provider that doesn't charge you to receive messages
There is none. It costs the provider money to deliver the message and they charge the users.
It's implicit. The phone company would be in breach of contract if they didn't deliver the message. If you have a problem with this, get a better contract.
No, it is not implicit. Why would they offer an "unlisted number" service if that was the case?
And where do you find such fairy-land contracts as you keep making up?
Mobile phone spam breaks the phone? Wow! This is seriuous heavyweight stuff.
Yes, it does. When so many spams come in that the owner has to cancel the contract, the phone is 'broken'. But you are obviously too dense to understand the analogy, so I'll simplify it for you:
Mobile phone spam costs the user money. Replacing the windshield costs the user money. Both forms of "advertising" force the user to incur a cost that they do not want.
If I was paying someone to provide a service of throwing messages wrapped round bricks through my car window, I wouldn't complain if they did this.
If you are even semi-normal, you don't pay your mobile phone company to deliver ads to you at your expense. You pay them to deliver messages from friends, family, coworkers, and others with whom you choose to share your number/address.