Anyway. The thrust of my point stands. They know their competitors are going to copy this new development of their and they don't mind. In fact, they're expecting it and not taking any steps to block it. A new player gaining a foothold in a market I don't mind using patents on this sort of thing, but IBM are in a position where, if they felt like it, they could crush their competitors with this sort of thing. But they're not going to.
That is a shining example and good for us all. I don't care if they're doing it to stop another antitrust trial against them, it's the right way to play ball.
Y'know what makes me happy about this? No mention of patents anywhere.
This is a real advance, they know their competitors can rip their drives apart to find out what they've done and I'm sure they could have found a way to patent it to stop them using that knowledge. But they haven't - they even admit that they expect their competitors to produce drives with this shortly.
Well done, IBM. Patents have their place but you've chosen not to take one out and use it as a weapon - even though it would give you market control. That's good for us all and I thank you.
Last time I heard, true multitasking. My original 5 has 8 MB, the MX has 16 and an S7 32. All have larger screens. All have slower processors, too, though you wouldn't know most of the time.
All have excellent battery life.
Please remember, MS don't make the things! They might have come up with specs and the OS but not the hardware.
I'm still baffled why anyone buys those CE things. An iPaq, which seems to be getting all the attention, is pretty much the same size as a Psion 5 for goodness' sakes!
Microsoft and their partners might have some odd ideas about these things - but that doesn't mean that they've got everything wrong or that the PalmOS' level of simplicity is necessarily right, just that WinCE and its hardware isn't a particularly good idea in some ways.
Firstly, this means the best and the brightest are pretty much eliminated as possible jurors. That's not good.
Secondly, I find it difficult to concieve of how to draw the line here on what evaluation of the credibility of evidence is permitted. One divorce case springs to mind where a defendent said that him and the woman he was alone in the unlit room with were playing snooker. That's clearly ridiculous testimony...
However, note my location. What's the situation like over here, then?
Funny shaped stereos have been around in Europe for ages. I've got one of the early ones in my '92 Citroen ZX. Nice car but I'd love to be able to fit a CD changer at some point:)
The point, when they started this out, was that car security was becoming a serious problem. Dunno if it's much better now, but insurance premiums had started going through the roof due to theft. Stereos were a standard size and a plugin module - very easy to steal indeed and will then fit almost any car. They got stolen in large quantities.
Make them a funny size and they'll only fit another identical car - much smaller market, plus the only real point in buying one is replacing a dead unit. If you have the car you already have the stereo.
Some cars go further and split the unit into parts - find a Vauxhall Astra, for example, and the display is a separate unit located elsewhere. Not that readily removable, either.
The point, though, is that while it _does_ stop people readily replacing their stereos, that isn't the only significant effect. Plus, what does the car manufacturer gain, given that they ship a stereo with each car anyway? If anything they now lose as they have to put a better one in as the customer can't simply replace the standard rubbish...
They aren't exactly knocking out a competitor here.
Re: tables, I mostly work with intranet sites so I can't link to the page. Seriously, though, try some more complex tables in IE and watch it fall over. If you really want some fun, mix spans, percent sizing, nested tables and images. Handcode to make sure the editor isn't working round known problems. Some of the results are just truly horrible.
Re: right clicks, click on the normal background. You get Back, Forward, Save Background As, Set As Wallpaper and so on.
Now, try the same but hit an image. A normal part of the page (especially when the page _is_ an image) but the menu changes. I now get (ghosted) Open Link, Open Link in New Window, Save Target As, Print Target and so on. An inappropriate and largely useless set.
I wish we could replace IE... Looking forward to trying Mozilla, hoping it proves more stable than NS6.
I work with IE day in, day out. Woah, that thing has a buggy rendering engine.
It'll regularly ignore or miss out instructions, while throwing a complex table at it is a pretty good way to make it go nuts. One page I can think of will regularly produce an entirely useless and unrequested blank space, for example.
It regularly fails to send requests to the servers so I have to hammer on the link or hold the refresh key down to actually make it load the page. Its interface isn't anywhere near as powerful as Netscape's, either. Daft design, too -if I right-click to get a menu for a back command (for example) then I lose the options because it assumes it's got a link - but knows it hasn't because it doesn't give me the link options!
In many ways it's better than the alternatives, sure, but it's far from fantastic and I would happily dance on its grave. It's a lazy implementation in many ways and they could really do with some proper competition.
I know we've thought of using an IM client to handle internal office messaging before.
ATM, we basically all use WinPopup. Which has very few features, a clunky interface and simply doesn't work if the person isn't running it at the time. The message doesn't get queued, it actually gets erroneously reported as delivered... Considering we're looking at overstretched 9x boxes, that happens.
An internal IM server would be lovely, if only I could find the details on how and the time to do it:)
Presumably the individual members will be rated for reliability, so you're able to accomodate multiple groups of acceptability. Or, even if they don't set up that feature (which'd be cool but might not happen) they'll need some form of moderation system, so they can establish who's a helpful contributor and who isn't.
If the kids could find how to set their computer to agree with the porn site owners they'd be over the moon:-)
Re colour represenatation, I was thinking along similar lines.
It occurs to me that we have reference points, though. Skin tones, grass, sky. Different diets and environments will affect the first two a bit I'd expect, but the third should be roughly constant.
Anyway. It would seem that we would have relatively accurate colours... They don't appear the same in all the photos and they'd be altered depending on what colour illumination was applied to each transparency, clearly, but they don't appear to be very far out.
There's a clear difference between the photos, though. Some almost have the appearance of (very well) recoloured B&W in some places.
The balance between chassis, engine and driver WRT which is the most significant factor moves pretty much constantly. There have certainly been times when the driver was the least significant component in the package's overall performance.
This would simply be one of them, for racing cars.
There's no law there which prevents robots from building others not encumbered by the three laws. Which could be in the interests of robot society as a whole...
The driver is most definitely a bottleneck in a standard F1 car.
Various bits of design are purely there to protect the driver (which wouldn't be necessary in an autonomous vehicle) while some technologies have been banned to protect the driver.
Full ground effect underbodies were generating enough Gs in the corners to make the drivers begin to black out - 20 years ago. They banned them to avoid needing pressure suits for the driver's safety:) As I recall, that sort of thing was part of why they dropped the old turbo engines - truly insane acceleration. In the name of reducing cornering speeds, tyres have been narrowed then forcibly grooved. Why bother reducing cornering speeds? Driver safety - after the spate of accidents in '94, it became clear they needed to make the cars safer at the dangerous points - the corners.
Front wheels were moved to protect ankles when the suspension punctured the monocoque. X-wings were banned as they made it much harder to extract drivers in the event of an accident. They weren't so fond of how ugly the cars looked with them, but that wasn't the prime force.
The cars have to carry extinguishers and electrical cutout systems, both of which you can live without with no human on board.
Without trying one you can't say exactly what'd happen, but the autonomous vehicle could be a different shape. Aerodynamics on these things are critical, after all.
A car without a human driver could be substantially faster and certain developmental avenues wouldn't have been closed down.
I was speculating about setup file license agreements a while back. Got submitted as an Ask Slashdot whether anyone thought this would be possible, but got rejected after a natter with Cliff. Oh well:)
Anyway. InstallShield is a solid enough, known format. How hard would it be to write a program which could take any of its installer programs, strip out the license and give you a new file? Sounds possible enough to me.
I appreciate C doesn't worry about that sort of thing - we seemed to be having people arguing for making stuff really closely hardware linked, which is daft.
The point, though, is that if I'm coding in C I still have to worry about stuff which should fall into the SEP field. I just don't need that power, and its presence slows down coding and introduces possible errors.
Exactly! I've been saying this for years and it's really irritating to still see people using C/C++ as a general purpose language.
It's overcomplicated, unfriendly and rather less readable than possible. No, I'm not a COBOL fan;) but there is a happy medium.
C and its descendents are a major cause of program unreliability. If we could only move to something else for general purpose coding, we might actually get code with less bugs due to silly details got wrong, which was then easier to effectively debug.
I don't want to know what the hardware is, I shouldn't have to.
If I'm writing an OS, a HAL, a driver or a compiler then the hardware is an issue. If I'm writing something really speed critical then I live with hardware as an issue. For anything else, it shouldn't matter one bit. That's the whole point of high level languages. I mean, honestly, when I'm writing a WP what does it matter what the endianness of the processor I happen to be compiling to today is? Or how many registers its got? Someone Else's Problem. Make it mine and I cause others for no good reason.
Re:Another PDA Whoopee!!!
on
PDAs, PDAs
·
· Score: 2
Sadly, as with so many of these things, I have to think the Vx is an idea which looks better in the shop than reality.
When I was first looking, size was part of what pushed me to a Palm (I was also looking at Philips Ninos, FWIW). Having tried both, it honestly doesn't make any odds. As with so many things, the problem is more perception than reality. But hey, that's life.
Honestly, I have no problem accepting that people could find a Palm a good match for their desired functionality. I wonder how they justify its cost personally, but hey, I acknowledge the toy factor is a component. It's a lot of what made me buy my first. My suspicion remains that there's a lot of Palm users who are unconsciously living with limitations and they might well be better served by a keyboarded machine such as a Psion. The zen of Palm sometimes seems a little oversold.
If it feels good to you and others, you have every right to that perception. If you need software which is only on the Palm (of which there is plenty) then I agree entirely with the good sense of sticking with a platform. Heck, I wouldn't be posting this from Windows if I had the software elsewhere.
If they don't apply, though, I can honestly say I can't understand a preference among someone who'd actually seriously used both. I'm not going to fight because there's no point, it's just that my experience is that the benefit I derived from a Psion over a Palm is simply massive and, unless you're reliant on something which ties you to a Palm or cost ties you to an m10x (which seems to be a pretty unusual situation), I can't see how the pendulum could concievably swing back.
But hey, if that's my problem, so be it. However strange I might find it;-) you have every right to your opinion, as do all others.
Re:Another PDA Whoopee!!!
on
PDAs, PDAs
·
· Score: 2
QED, for me, worked beautifully as an _editor_ - I was editing and updating 40k ballpark text documents on a regular basis. I found that, within the limits of the device, it was absolutely stunning what it could do. The problem was that I was getting too many graffiti errors (no matter how much I practiced - I remain convinced their algorithms aren't as good as they should be) and found that trying to work on that tiny little screen was a serious nuisance. Colleagues got fed up with catching mixed Gs and Qs which Graffiti produced and I couldn't see on that screen... Seeing something not much larger but with a bigger screen and a keyboard, I jumped.
Can't find a solid description of SmartDoc but WordSmith looks serious overkill for what I was doing.
I'm quite sure the DB access is there and works very nicely - I've seen enough about it, I've seen PIMs synched with it often enough. I'd personally find the small possible form size irritating very quickly, having tried smaller databases on the Palm. It worked nicely for small lists and indexes, must more than that and it just got limited.
Maybe I could have fiddled with DB flags - but that's not provided in the OS as standard from what I could see. With the Psion it's extremely easy as it frankly just looks like a normal PC with an adapted UI.
Glad to hear you can use your keyboard on your lap - like I said, that was based on assumption from appearance and physics. You do seem to suggest that the newer, smaller ones don't work that way so well...
I'd strongly dispute your suggestion that the Revo and V aren't in competition. Yes, the V is smaller - but I'd maintain that the Revo (probably the 5mx too) is already small enough and neither is too small, so it's not actually an issue. Most seem to buy them as opposed to a III / m10x / Visor for their percieved style benefit.
Yes, you _can_ travel without the keyboard, but that implies you think through exactly what you're planning to do (with some accuracy) and make the decision. I just pick mine up and go - plus it's only one box so rather easier to carry and I'd suggest that the Palm and Go!Type might actually be larger and more awkward... Plus, if you want to use it you have to get both out and connect them up. I just open the lid.
Ultimately, it's horses for courses. You like yours, I like mine. I feel pretty strongly that yours isn't any good, you feel equally strongly that it's entirley adequate. Heck, this basic situation is mirrored the world over in so many different arenas.
I would hope that I've put together a good case for a Psion being a substantial improvement over a PalmOS machine, ditto you in reverse I expect. Ultimately, we've made our decisions, and it's up to others to read our arguments and decide accordingly.
But I'd fairly strongly dispute the suggestion of prejudice - I started on a Palm III, I tried to make it fit my needs as it would have saved me money if it could have done. It's also a far more mainstream choice, which generally seems a Good Thing. After some time evaluating it, I had to come to the view that it was oversold, overhyped and upderpowered, and that I needed a larger screen and a keyboard. I'd read the reviews, I'd seen the articles, I'd seen this sort of discussion. In abstract it seemed a fantastic idea - but when I used it, it all fell apart. Now, I tend to look on and think of the Emperor and his new clothes.
Oh, an aside - they're not that well built. Some individual specified glass in the screen, mine was ultimately retired when a short fall out of a pocket when bending over cracked the glass and so killed the digitiser. This sort of thing is going to happen with one of these, so why not use (lighter, too) transparent acrylic? Scratching isn't a worry as they already put a screen protector over the glass...
Honestly, though, my usability problems aren't sour grapes over this. I'd already made my mind up to sell and was looking for a Psion when this happened.
Re:Another PDA Whoopee!!!
on
PDAs, PDAs
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· Score: 2
I have pretty poor handwriting and can type faster, anyway. I can type up notes, live, in the meeting and distribute them almost instantly and readably. Also, I've written up various documents on this. Sure, I could have printed and annotated, but that's clunky and slow.
This thing also has a map, several games, a powerful enough spreadsheet (which actually does get used pretty often) and will be on the web and getting my e-mail when I'm away shortly.
It's cool.
Re:Another PDA Whoopee!!!
on
PDAs, PDAs
·
· Score: 2
Yep, you can definitely do that sort of thing.
I was actually quite tempted a while back by a runout Jornada 820 and similar boxes. Only £3-400 but gave you either 640x480 or 800x600 screen, depending on the machine. A decent keyboard (yes, better than my Psion) and a full office suite - while weighing almost nothing, booting instantly and running all day on the batteries. I could take one of them off and work all day in a park, or on a mountaintop, or pretty much anywhere in almost equal comfort to a normal laptop.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks.
:-)
Sounds like a defensive patent to me
Anyway. The thrust of my point stands. They know their competitors are going to copy this new development of their and they don't mind. In fact, they're expecting it and not taking any steps to block it. A new player gaining a foothold in a market I don't mind using patents on this sort of thing, but IBM are in a position where, if they felt like it, they could crush their competitors with this sort of thing. But they're not going to.
That is a shining example and good for us all. I don't care if they're doing it to stop another antitrust trial against them, it's the right way to play ball.
Congratulations IBM.
Y'know what makes me happy about this? No mention of patents anywhere.
This is a real advance, they know their competitors can rip their drives apart to find out what they've done and I'm sure they could have found a way to patent it to stop them using that knowledge. But they haven't - they even admit that they expect their competitors to produce drives with this shortly.
Well done, IBM. Patents have their place but you've chosen not to take one out and use it as a weapon - even though it would give you market control. That's good for us all and I thank you.
Psions.
Last time I heard, true multitasking. My original 5 has 8 MB, the MX has 16 and an S7 32. All have larger screens. All have slower processors, too, though you wouldn't know most of the time.
All have excellent battery life.
Please remember, MS don't make the things! They might have come up with specs and the OS but not the hardware.
I'm still baffled why anyone buys those CE things. An iPaq, which seems to be getting all the attention, is pretty much the same size as a Psion 5 for goodness' sakes!
Microsoft and their partners might have some odd ideas about these things - but that doesn't mean that they've got everything wrong or that the PalmOS' level of simplicity is necessarily right, just that WinCE and its hardware isn't a particularly good idea in some ways.
Two things worry me here.
Firstly, this means the best and the brightest are pretty much eliminated as possible jurors. That's not good.
Secondly, I find it difficult to concieve of how to draw the line here on what evaluation of the credibility of evidence is permitted. One divorce case springs to mind where a defendent said that him and the woman he was alone in the unlit room with were playing snooker. That's clearly ridiculous testimony...
However, note my location. What's the situation like over here, then?
Any circle tool in v5 is _very_ well hidden ;-) so I think I'm safe in the assumption that 3 doesn't have one.
I jsut find that interface horribly clunky though. Brilliance is just stunning - PSP sometimes makes me think POS.
Funny shaped stereos have been around in Europe for ages. I've got one of the early ones in my '92 Citroen ZX. Nice car but I'd love to be able to fit a CD changer at some point :)
The point, when they started this out, was that car security was becoming a serious problem. Dunno if it's much better now, but insurance premiums had started going through the roof due to theft. Stereos were a standard size and a plugin module - very easy to steal indeed and will then fit almost any car. They got stolen in large quantities.
Make them a funny size and they'll only fit another identical car - much smaller market, plus the only real point in buying one is replacing a dead unit. If you have the car you already have the stereo.
Some cars go further and split the unit into parts - find a Vauxhall Astra, for example, and the display is a separate unit located elsewhere. Not that readily removable, either.
The point, though, is that while it _does_ stop people readily replacing their stereos, that isn't the only significant effect. Plus, what does the car manufacturer gain, given that they ship a stereo with each car anyway? If anything they now lose as they have to put a better one in as the customer can't simply replace the standard rubbish...
They aren't exactly knocking out a competitor here.
With no circle tool? As just one example :-)
Paint Shop Pro is nowhere near as powerful as DPaint, PPaint or Brilliance. And our previous contributor isn't the only one who misses them.
Re: tables, I mostly work with intranet sites so I can't link to the page. Seriously, though, try some more complex tables in IE and watch it fall over. If you really want some fun, mix spans, percent sizing, nested tables and images. Handcode to make sure the editor isn't working round known problems. Some of the results are just truly horrible.
Re: right clicks, click on the normal background. You get Back, Forward, Save Background As, Set As Wallpaper and so on.
Now, try the same but hit an image. A normal part of the page (especially when the page _is_ an image) but the menu changes. I now get (ghosted) Open Link, Open Link in New Window, Save Target As, Print Target and so on. An inappropriate and largely useless set.
I wish we could replace IE... Looking forward to trying Mozilla, hoping it proves more stable than NS6.
I work with IE day in, day out. Woah, that thing has a buggy rendering engine.
It'll regularly ignore or miss out instructions, while throwing a complex table at it is a pretty good way to make it go nuts. One page I can think of will regularly produce an entirely useless and unrequested blank space, for example.
It regularly fails to send requests to the servers so I have to hammer on the link or hold the refresh key down to actually make it load the page. Its interface isn't anywhere near as powerful as Netscape's, either. Daft design, too -if I right-click to get a menu for a back command (for example) then I lose the options because it assumes it's got a link - but knows it hasn't because it doesn't give me the link options!
In many ways it's better than the alternatives, sure, but it's far from fantastic and I would happily dance on its grave. It's a lazy implementation in many ways and they could really do with some proper competition.
I know we've thought of using an IM client to handle internal office messaging before.
:)
ATM, we basically all use WinPopup. Which has very few features, a clunky interface and simply doesn't work if the person isn't running it at the time. The message doesn't get queued, it actually gets erroneously reported as delivered... Considering we're looking at overstretched 9x boxes, that happens.
An internal IM server would be lovely, if only I could find the details on how and the time to do it
Presumably the individual members will be rated for reliability, so you're able to accomodate multiple groups of acceptability. Or, even if they don't set up that feature (which'd be cool but might not happen) they'll need some form of moderation system, so they can establish who's a helpful contributor and who isn't.
:-)
If the kids could find how to set their computer to agree with the porn site owners they'd be over the moon
Re colour represenatation, I was thinking along similar lines.
It occurs to me that we have reference points, though. Skin tones, grass, sky. Different diets and environments will affect the first two a bit I'd expect, but the third should be roughly constant.
Anyway. It would seem that we would have relatively accurate colours... They don't appear the same in all the photos and they'd be altered depending on what colour illumination was applied to each transparency, clearly, but they don't appear to be very far out.
There's a clear difference between the photos, though. Some almost have the appearance of (very well) recoloured B&W in some places.
The balance between chassis, engine and driver WRT which is the most significant factor moves pretty much constantly. There have certainly been times when the driver was the least significant component in the package's overall performance.
This would simply be one of them, for racing cars.
The other problem which occurred to me:
:-)
There's no law there which prevents robots from building others not encumbered by the three laws. Which could be in the interests of robot society as a whole...
I propose the fourth law
The driver is most definitely a bottleneck in a standard F1 car.
:) As I recall, that sort of thing was part of why they dropped the old turbo engines - truly insane acceleration. In the name of reducing cornering speeds, tyres have been narrowed then forcibly grooved. Why bother reducing cornering speeds? Driver safety - after the spate of accidents in '94, it became clear they needed to make the cars safer at the dangerous points - the corners.
Various bits of design are purely there to protect the driver (which wouldn't be necessary in an autonomous vehicle) while some technologies have been banned to protect the driver.
Full ground effect underbodies were generating enough Gs in the corners to make the drivers begin to black out - 20 years ago. They banned them to avoid needing pressure suits for the driver's safety
Front wheels were moved to protect ankles when the suspension punctured the monocoque. X-wings were banned as they made it much harder to extract drivers in the event of an accident. They weren't so fond of how ugly the cars looked with them, but that wasn't the prime force.
The cars have to carry extinguishers and electrical cutout systems, both of which you can live without with no human on board.
Without trying one you can't say exactly what'd happen, but the autonomous vehicle could be a different shape. Aerodynamics on these things are critical, after all.
A car without a human driver could be substantially faster and certain developmental avenues wouldn't have been closed down.
Whoops, clicked the wrong box. Meant no +1, not anonymous :)
Consider it duly attributed.
Akira was released on the Amiga, too. Truly dreadful by all accounts so that probably explains why no-one remembers it :)
I was speculating about setup file license agreements a while back. Got submitted as an Ask Slashdot whether anyone thought this would be possible, but got rejected after a natter with Cliff. Oh well :)
Anyway. InstallShield is a solid enough, known format. How hard would it be to write a program which could take any of its installer programs, strip out the license and give you a new file? Sounds possible enough to me.
I appreciate C doesn't worry about that sort of thing - we seemed to be having people arguing for making stuff really closely hardware linked, which is daft.
The point, though, is that if I'm coding in C I still have to worry about stuff which should fall into the SEP field. I just don't need that power, and its presence slows down coding and introduces possible errors.
Exactly! I've been saying this for years and it's really irritating to still see people using C/C++ as a general purpose language.
;) but there is a happy medium.
It's overcomplicated, unfriendly and rather less readable than possible. No, I'm not a COBOL fan
C and its descendents are a major cause of program unreliability. If we could only move to something else for general purpose coding, we might actually get code with less bugs due to silly details got wrong, which was then easier to effectively debug.
I don't want to know what the hardware is, I shouldn't have to.
If I'm writing an OS, a HAL, a driver or a compiler then the hardware is an issue. If I'm writing something really speed critical then I live with hardware as an issue. For anything else, it shouldn't matter one bit. That's the whole point of high level languages. I mean, honestly, when I'm writing a WP what does it matter what the endianness of the processor I happen to be compiling to today is? Or how many registers its got? Someone Else's Problem. Make it mine and I cause others for no good reason.
Sadly, as with so many of these things, I have to think the Vx is an idea which looks better in the shop than reality.
;-) you have every right to your opinion, as do all others.
When I was first looking, size was part of what pushed me to a Palm (I was also looking at Philips Ninos, FWIW). Having tried both, it honestly doesn't make any odds. As with so many things, the problem is more perception than reality. But hey, that's life.
Honestly, I have no problem accepting that people could find a Palm a good match for their desired functionality. I wonder how they justify its cost personally, but hey, I acknowledge the toy factor is a component. It's a lot of what made me buy my first. My suspicion remains that there's a lot of Palm users who are unconsciously living with limitations and they might well be better served by a keyboarded machine such as a Psion. The zen of Palm sometimes seems a little oversold.
If it feels good to you and others, you have every right to that perception. If you need software which is only on the Palm (of which there is plenty) then I agree entirely with the good sense of sticking with a platform. Heck, I wouldn't be posting this from Windows if I had the software elsewhere.
If they don't apply, though, I can honestly say I can't understand a preference among someone who'd actually seriously used both. I'm not going to fight because there's no point, it's just that my experience is that the benefit I derived from a Psion over a Palm is simply massive and, unless you're reliant on something which ties you to a Palm or cost ties you to an m10x (which seems to be a pretty unusual situation), I can't see how the pendulum could concievably swing back.
But hey, if that's my problem, so be it. However strange I might find it
QED, for me, worked beautifully as an _editor_ - I was editing and updating 40k ballpark text documents on a regular basis. I found that, within the limits of the device, it was absolutely stunning what it could do. The problem was that I was getting too many graffiti errors (no matter how much I practiced - I remain convinced their algorithms aren't as good as they should be) and found that trying to work on that tiny little screen was a serious nuisance. Colleagues got fed up with catching mixed Gs and Qs which Graffiti produced and I couldn't see on that screen... Seeing something not much larger but with a bigger screen and a keyboard, I jumped.
Can't find a solid description of SmartDoc but WordSmith looks serious overkill for what I was doing.
I'm quite sure the DB access is there and works very nicely - I've seen enough about it, I've seen PIMs synched with it often enough. I'd personally find the small possible form size irritating very quickly, having tried smaller databases on the Palm. It worked nicely for small lists and indexes, must more than that and it just got limited.
Maybe I could have fiddled with DB flags - but that's not provided in the OS as standard from what I could see. With the Psion it's extremely easy as it frankly just looks like a normal PC with an adapted UI.
Glad to hear you can use your keyboard on your lap - like I said, that was based on assumption from appearance and physics. You do seem to suggest that the newer, smaller ones don't work that way so well...
I'd strongly dispute your suggestion that the Revo and V aren't in competition. Yes, the V is smaller - but I'd maintain that the Revo (probably the 5mx too) is already small enough and neither is too small, so it's not actually an issue. Most seem to buy them as opposed to a III / m10x / Visor for their percieved style benefit.
Yes, you _can_ travel without the keyboard, but that implies you think through exactly what you're planning to do (with some accuracy) and make the decision. I just pick mine up and go - plus it's only one box so rather easier to carry and I'd suggest that the Palm and Go!Type might actually be larger and more awkward... Plus, if you want to use it you have to get both out and connect them up. I just open the lid.
Ultimately, it's horses for courses. You like yours, I like mine. I feel pretty strongly that yours isn't any good, you feel equally strongly that it's entirley adequate. Heck, this basic situation is mirrored the world over in so many different arenas.
I would hope that I've put together a good case for a Psion being a substantial improvement over a PalmOS machine, ditto you in reverse I expect. Ultimately, we've made our decisions, and it's up to others to read our arguments and decide accordingly.
But I'd fairly strongly dispute the suggestion of prejudice - I started on a Palm III, I tried to make it fit my needs as it would have saved me money if it could have done. It's also a far more mainstream choice, which generally seems a Good Thing. After some time evaluating it, I had to come to the view that it was oversold, overhyped and upderpowered, and that I needed a larger screen and a keyboard. I'd read the reviews, I'd seen the articles, I'd seen this sort of discussion. In abstract it seemed a fantastic idea - but when I used it, it all fell apart. Now, I tend to look on and think of the Emperor and his new clothes.
Oh, an aside - they're not that well built. Some individual specified glass in the screen, mine was ultimately retired when a short fall out of a pocket when bending over cracked the glass and so killed the digitiser. This sort of thing is going to happen with one of these, so why not use (lighter, too) transparent acrylic? Scratching isn't a worry as they already put a screen protector over the glass...
Honestly, though, my usability problems aren't sour grapes over this. I'd already made my mind up to sell and was looking for a Psion when this happened.
I have pretty poor handwriting and can type faster, anyway. I can type up notes, live, in the meeting and distribute them almost instantly and readably. Also, I've written up various documents on this. Sure, I could have printed and annotated, but that's clunky and slow.
This thing also has a map, several games, a powerful enough spreadsheet (which actually does get used pretty often) and will be on the web and getting my e-mail when I'm away shortly.
It's cool.
Yep, you can definitely do that sort of thing.
I was actually quite tempted a while back by a runout Jornada 820 and similar boxes. Only £3-400 but gave you either 640x480 or 800x600 screen, depending on the machine. A decent keyboard (yes, better than my Psion) and a full office suite - while weighing almost nothing, booting instantly and running all day on the batteries. I could take one of them off and work all day in a park, or on a mountaintop, or pretty much anywhere in almost equal comfort to a normal laptop.
Real pity you can't get them any more.