You're not being fair here. The programs on the Revo did not handle actual MS Word or Excel files. They were converted into a special format for the Psion to handle.
This is very true. And that means the programs on the revo themselves never had to be updated. Only the conversion software. And there is conversion software you can run onboard the Revo, which is actually superior to the PsiWin stuff.
Finally, the Revo being the perfect PDA? Hardly. Psion failed to implement the IROBEX standard, making it a real bitch to beam contacts and appointments to and from anything besides another Psion.
There's a freeware/shareware IR driver that acomplishes this very nicely. I do it all the time, actually. The *ONLY* platform that gives it fits is PocketPC. Go figure.
How were you supposed to surf the net with it?
That's what my computer is for. My Revo+ is an emergency email/web machine when I'm travelling. Plain and simple.
If they slapped a digitized face on a CGI character, why would they need the actor at all? Eventually they could just generate faces. And the actors union wouldn't be very happy about that.
Last month, Maguire's agents renegotiated a record £11 million deal for the sequel.
That's not $11 million dollars. It's considerably more. Come on guys, wake up when you're posting this stuff!
Opie doesn't seem to have a usable email client, at least, not quite yet. Their solution is to use the old Sharp/Qtopia client, which works, but it's *barely* better than nothing. It has some annoying issues with wrapping, and doesn't handle larger messages well (over 30K).
One of the things I loved about the Zaurus was the Java environment. However, it isn't enough to win me over when the basic apps are so lacking. In any event, I keep hoping that OZ/Opie get a serious head of steam and really start improving.
OZ has issues running the Hancom apps. Which, honestly, aren't that good anyway.
I find that Hancom Word does some very odd things with Word docs that have tables, or bullets. Or both. Or maybe some combination of the two. The Revo's word processor doesn't.
I have a Zaurus, and while it's a great minicomputer, it's not a good PDA by any stretch.
After about 3 or 4 months of using the Zaurus, it went back on the shelf, and the old Psion Revo+ came out instead. The Revo/5mx just kick it all over the Zaurus (and PocketPC) when it comes to doing Actual PDA Stuff. The address book/agenda tool on the Revo is miles ahead of what you have on the Zaurus, and still better than what's on the PocketPC. And, if you want to kick it up a notch, the Word/Sheet programs on the Revo handle Word and Excel files about a hundred times better than Hancom Word/Sheet on the Zaurus. I just feel more productive with the Revo, and it seems that the software is better.
It's funny, but the Revo+ runs at about 1/6 the speed of the Zaurus, but Opera seems to render pages just as fast. It has half the memory, but it doesn't have any of the memory/space limitations I ran into on the Zaurus' internal memory. (Yeah, I kept the MP3s on a CF card).
I do hope that the OpenZaurus project continues, but it seems that they're not making any huge strides in the PIM areas. From what I understand, OZ's email client doesn't really work at all. Not confidence inspiring.
Maybe the bits about mp3s and automagically detecting/configuring/displaying on desktop your usb hardware when you plug it in weren't enough? Dunno.
But I dont' know how you got the impression that the sales people were in awe or anything, one of THEM was the one who made a big deal that they had to go back to gdm to shutdown. Go figure.
Actually I wasn't trying to belittle Mandrake at all. I really do hope they pull thru their current troubles. And I should have qualified my statement...
But it does seem as if Mandrake is in trouble. And if they don't pull out of it, the choices will be down to 2 major players.
That any better?
PS - I did try mandrake once, back in the day. It crashed on install, and I never went there again. But I'm sure it's better now.
I feel compelled to post this, because I'm sure in a few hours there will be tons of RedHat fanboys slagging SuSE and going on about how RedHat is the greatest.
I use RedHat pretty extensively at work (Advanced Server and 8.0) and I am not at all impressed with it. I'm not sure what it is, but it doesn't feel as complete as SuSE. And RH folks, why did you cripple KDE so I can't shut the machine down from KDE? Even your sales reps were amazed when I showed them my SuSE box with it's shutdown screen. What was your reasoning for this?
SuSE seems stable as all hell, and it's hardware detection is second to none. I'm suprised nobody else has something like suse's little hwscan program (or do they). I just pop in a USB device (like a cdrw or a floppy drive) and it's configured, and appears on my KDE desktop. It's automagical.
SuSE plays mp3s out of the box.
It seems like the playing field these days is being narrowed down to RedHat and SuSE. Here's hoping it doesn't get narrowed down any further.
I'm not sure, but I think by prerelease they mean *optional* prerelease. You don't need to use it if you don't want, I'm sure the older verison will be available.
From what I remember, they do this with a few other programs/libs.
But is this officially supported by RedHat? Meaning, do I (rather would my company) lose support for FS related issues if I use that option? If so, it's not ready for prime time, IOO.
I can't tell you how annoying it is to hear the crap dished out about NJ, yet to have the parkways filled up each weekend in the summer with people from NY/CT coming down to use the beaches here.
Mmmm. Xine. If only I didn't have to break the law to view my legally purchased!!! [I don't pirate software nor movies nor songs] DVDs.
Actually, on the off chance your DVD isn't encrypted, you don't have to break the law to watch it. More likely than not, you will be breaking the law.
I remember people bitching because IBM actually had the nerve to use LinDVD on their laptops and it supported everythign WinDVD does (macrovision on the SVideo out was the biggie). To the guys who bitched about that I say, lighten the hell up. Give IBM some credit for shipping a Linux based solution. Rome wasn't built in a day. Likewise, silly laws and restrictions regarding DVDs and encryption won't go away instantly.
FWIW, an IBM salesdroid I talked with a few months ago said they might ship linux on their laptops this year. We'll see. Nobody's getting my money if I have to send a portion to Redmond, too.
Last time IBM did this, people bitched because they shipped them with Caldera and LinDVD (yes, it exists). This time it'll probably be SuSE and LinDVD.
Hey, at least they got the distro right. Give them time, they'll find xine.:)
It's nice to see that with everyone coming out with smaller and lighter laptops, Dell had decided to go bigger and heavier. Hey, it worked for SUVs... Personally I wouldn't give my (okay, my company's) Thinkpad X23 up for that.
Seriously, does the new fangled WUXGA screen make that much of a difference? Is it that much heavier? Or have Dells always been this porky?
And if you buy one of these, from the low cost of $2299, do you at least get a Windows XP CD? Or are they still foisting that recovery partition crap on people? (Altho that really is Microsoft's fault)...
Likewise, I'm sure that me evalating any Linux kernel of your choosing could smash it into a million pieces through careless use of rm * -o , whack Solaris by repeatedly throwing the power while it's doing disk writes, or break any other *nix operating system you choose to name.
I dunno... I don't think he was talking about taking an axe to the system. I know I can crash XP by plugging in some combination of USB devices, which won't crash my linux box.
Not to mention XP's poor handling of multiple network devices when used in conjunction with a docking station. I had to deal with that headache for nearly 3 months.
>The major KDE supporters -- SuSE and Mandrake >-- are going out of business (at least in the US -- >SuSE might survive overseas).
Really? Lord knows Mandrake has had it's share of trouble, but I haven't heard anything about SuSE having any trouble. In fact, AFAIK, IBM supports them and RH equally, as well they should.
>If you're really crashing the kernel, it sure as hell >isn't GNOME's fault.
I know that GNOME used to do some funky stuff under XFree 3.x on my old system... back when GNOME was cool and KDE was lumbering along in it's 1.x incarnation. I had to use KDE to prevent video corruption, and when 2.x came out there was no looking back. KDE never did, and never has, exhibited the same video corruption that GNOME did.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously...
I've seen emgland and brittain.
It's Britain. The United Kingdom. The UK.
Learn to spell people!
You're not being fair here. The programs on the Revo did not handle actual MS Word or Excel files. They were converted into a special format for the Psion to handle.
This is very true. And that means the programs on the revo themselves never had to be updated. Only the conversion software. And there is conversion software you can run onboard the Revo, which is actually superior to the PsiWin stuff.
There's a freeware/shareware IR driver that acomplishes this very nicely. I do it all the time, actually. The *ONLY* platform that gives it fits is PocketPC. Go figure.
That's what my computer is for. My Revo+ is an emergency email/web machine when I'm travelling. Plain and simple.
Yes, but if they were just using his face, who's to say they wouldn't want to pay him less?
Or what if they created a virtual character, which is what I thought I said in the first place, that exists only as a CGI creation. Who gets paid?
It's like that horrible movie that dealt with a virtual actress that came out last year. Or something.
I was the first when I started my reply. Er.
If they slapped a digitized face on a CGI character, why would they need the actor at all? Eventually they could just generate faces. And the actors union wouldn't be very happy about that.
From the article:
Last month, Maguire's agents renegotiated a record £11 million deal for the sequel.
That's not $11 million dollars. It's considerably more. Come on guys, wake up when you're posting this stuff!
Yes, you're absolutely right and I apologize.
Opie doesn't seem to have a usable email client, at least, not quite yet. Their solution is to use the old Sharp/Qtopia client, which works, but it's *barely* better than nothing. It has some annoying issues with wrapping, and doesn't handle larger messages well (over 30K).
One of the things I loved about the Zaurus was the Java environment. However, it isn't enough to win me over when the basic apps are so lacking. In any event, I keep hoping that OZ/Opie get a serious head of steam and really start improving.
Actually, close but no.
OZ has issues running the Hancom apps. Which, honestly, aren't that good anyway.
I find that Hancom Word does some very odd things with Word docs that have tables, or bullets. Or both. Or maybe some combination of the two. The Revo's word processor doesn't.
I have a Zaurus, and while it's a great minicomputer, it's not a good PDA by any stretch.
After about 3 or 4 months of using the Zaurus, it went back on the shelf, and the old Psion Revo+ came out instead. The Revo/5mx just kick it all over the Zaurus (and PocketPC) when it comes to doing Actual PDA Stuff. The address book/agenda tool on the Revo is miles ahead of what you have on the Zaurus, and still better than what's on the PocketPC. And, if you want to kick it up a notch, the Word/Sheet programs on the Revo handle Word and Excel files about a hundred times better than Hancom Word/Sheet on the Zaurus. I just feel more productive with the Revo, and it seems that the software is better.
It's funny, but the Revo+ runs at about 1/6 the speed of the Zaurus, but Opera seems to render pages just as fast. It has half the memory, but it doesn't have any of the memory/space limitations I ran into on the Zaurus' internal memory. (Yeah, I kept the MP3s on a CF card).
I do hope that the OpenZaurus project continues, but it seems that they're not making any huge strides in the PIM areas. From what I understand, OZ's email client doesn't really work at all. Not confidence inspiring.
But I do miss the mp3 player.
Auto desktop configuration is awesome, and yes, I didn't talk much about it. It takes work to do.
Fixing KDE and including MP3 codecs takes virtually no work, and would move RH to being more "complete", IMO.
I assume your complaints about Yast2 over a slow connection have to do with the fact that it's a GUI application.
You do know you can run it from a terminal? It also has a ncurses based interface.
Yummy.
Hey...
Maybe the bits about mp3s and automagically detecting/configuring/displaying on desktop your usb hardware when you plug it in weren't enough? Dunno.
But I dont' know how you got the impression that the sales people were in awe or anything, one of THEM was the one who made a big deal that they had to go back to gdm to shutdown. Go figure.
Actually I wasn't trying to belittle Mandrake at all. I really do hope they pull thru their current troubles. And I should have qualified my statement...
But it does seem as if Mandrake is in trouble. And if they don't pull out of it, the choices will be down to 2 major players.
That any better?
PS - I did try mandrake once, back in the day. It crashed on install, and I never went there again. But I'm sure it's better now.
I feel compelled to post this, because I'm sure in a few hours there will be tons of RedHat fanboys slagging SuSE and going on about how RedHat is the greatest.
I use RedHat pretty extensively at work (Advanced Server and 8.0) and I am not at all impressed with it. I'm not sure what it is, but it doesn't feel as complete as SuSE. And RH folks, why did you cripple KDE so I can't shut the machine down from KDE? Even your sales reps were amazed when I showed them my SuSE box with it's shutdown screen. What was your reasoning for this?
SuSE seems stable as all hell, and it's hardware detection is second to none. I'm suprised nobody else has something like suse's little hwscan program (or do they). I just pop in a USB device (like a cdrw or a floppy drive) and it's configured, and appears on my KDE desktop. It's automagical.
SuSE plays mp3s out of the box.
It seems like the playing field these days is being narrowed down to RedHat and SuSE. Here's hoping it doesn't get narrowed down any further.
I'm not sure, but I think by prerelease they mean *optional* prerelease. You don't need to use it if you don't want, I'm sure the older verison will be available.
From what I remember, they do this with a few other programs/libs.
Yeah, I know....
But is this officially supported by RedHat? Meaning, do I (rather would my company) lose support for FS related issues if I use that option? If so, it's not ready for prime time, IOO.
If ES is based around Advanced Server, is it still based around Advanced Server 2.1?
Will it still have the same bugs as AS 2.1?
Are they finally going to throw a Java application server in there?
Will there be filesystems available other than ext2/3?
I totally agree....
I'm allergic to different types of molds and pollens. But, ya know what? Claritin takes care of that.
I know he claims no medication can help him, but... I dunno... somehow I think some dayquil and afrin would take care of him pretty well.
Maybe he just LIKES living off my tax dollars.
Amen!
I can't tell you how annoying it is to hear the crap dished out about NJ, yet to have the parkways filled up each weekend in the summer with people from NY/CT coming down to use the beaches here.
Actually, on the off chance your DVD isn't encrypted, you don't have to break the law to watch it. More likely than not, you will be breaking the law.
I remember people bitching because IBM actually had the nerve to use LinDVD on their laptops and it supported everythign WinDVD does (macrovision on the SVideo out was the biggie). To the guys who bitched about that I say, lighten the hell up. Give IBM some credit for shipping a Linux based solution. Rome wasn't built in a day. Likewise, silly laws and restrictions regarding DVDs and encryption won't go away instantly.
Last time IBM did this, people bitched because they shipped them with Caldera and LinDVD (yes, it exists). This time it'll probably be SuSE and LinDVD.
Hey, at least they got the distro right. Give them time, they'll find xine. :)
It's nice to see that with everyone coming out with smaller and lighter laptops, Dell had decided to go bigger and heavier. Hey, it worked for SUVs... Personally I wouldn't give my (okay, my company's) Thinkpad X23 up for that.
Seriously, does the new fangled WUXGA screen make that much of a difference? Is it that much heavier? Or have Dells always been this porky?
And if you buy one of these, from the low cost of $2299, do you at least get a Windows XP CD? Or are they still foisting that recovery partition crap on people? (Altho that really is Microsoft's fault)...
Xnap should, it's based on the opennap protocol, and written in java.
For that matter, there should be more than a few java based gnutella clients. Those should work too.
I dunno... I don't think he was talking about taking an axe to the system. I know I can crash XP by plugging in some combination of USB devices, which won't crash my linux box.
Not to mention XP's poor handling of multiple network devices when used in conjunction with a docking station. I had to deal with that headache for nearly 3 months.
>The major KDE supporters -- SuSE and Mandrake >-- are going out of business (at least in the US -- >SuSE might survive overseas).
Really? Lord knows Mandrake has had it's share of trouble, but I haven't heard anything about SuSE having any trouble. In fact, AFAIK, IBM supports them and RH equally, as well they should.
>If you're really crashing the kernel, it sure as hell >isn't GNOME's fault.
I know that GNOME used to do some funky stuff under XFree 3.x on my old system... back when GNOME was cool and KDE was lumbering along in it's 1.x incarnation. I had to use KDE to prevent video corruption, and when 2.x came out there was no looking back. KDE never did, and never has, exhibited the same video corruption that GNOME did.