Note that, in order to get the rebate, your drive has to actually have done the Click-of-death as they describe it. Also note that they're not handing out rebates/yet/ - You're just putting your name in the queue to get one - You have to return at/around October 31st to actually get it.
Make sure you keep notes on your filing - Fulfillment companies are famous for 'accidentally' dropping stacks of requests into the trash.
OK, if I grasp what you're saying, it's that any Internet Appliance maker that tries to produce a system on a nonstandard OS is doomed from the start.
You procede this by stating how NetPliance made all sorts of mistakes.
But their iOpeners ran on Pentium processors, using a preexsisting OS - QNX.
And the/. crew took them to town, and rode them practically into bankruptcy.
(Note: I own a hacked iOpener! @wheee!)
So, any developer who uses nonstandard hardware will be crippled.
Any developer who uses standard hardware at a profit won't be able to compete with the eMachines crowd.
Any developer who uses standard hardware, subsidized down to appliance level will be drug under by the modification crowd.
I/strongly/ suggest that anybody who's thinking of buying one of these get on the Yahoo! Groups topics about them, esp. the development one. There are a LOT of 'Gotchas' about it.
They're shipping units which crash when you try to change the batteries - It's apparently a hardware problem, and I haven't seen any sign that Franklin's going to do anything about it.
There's NO ROM in the unit - The OS is stored dynamically in RAM. The current OS is around 5mb, which really eats a hole in the $129 8mb device.
It's still in early beta. They're still hunting down major, total data-loss bugs in the OS, and many features that are promised (Real MP3 playing, Microsoft Reader) aren't even implemented yet.
The removable media support on the 16MB version only allows you to play their modified MP3's on it. No text/document storage
The 'Runs under Linux' comment above means that Franklin has unoffically released a binary-only conduit that lets you download the OS from franklin's site to the unit. No desktop software, no commitment to opening things up to the point where a third party could write one.
This thing is probably going to have content protection hanging out the wazoo. They can update the OS any time they feel like, each user/has/ to be individually registered(To get an OS for the unit - Barring extreme measures, you HAVE to download it - they don't even give you a copy on disk.), no IR, no support for using a USB cable to get two of them to talk to each other. It's the Dream PDA of the RIAA!
Yeah, it's cheap, and it's nice-looking hardware, but know what you're getting into. I'm personally going to wait a few months to see if the bugs cook out.
Before you buy one, take a look at one that's been left out in one of the stores - All the ones that I've seen are blown apart, have broken keys, snapped hinges.
If you think you might EVER drop your keyboard/bookbag, you might want to look at the GoType keyboards, which are larger, but MUCH sturdier.
If you want to see people get all wet on the typing chair about this fraud du jour, you need to tune in on PalmStation. They've got a User Survey, and even severalarticles. I'm sure it's a total coincedence that this flood of 'information' happened at the same time as the Natalie Portman/Hot grits crowd dropped by in force, right?
I've been using it for about three years now. It's worked fine for me, but I don't ask it to do much, and the system is low-load. (Answer phone with randomized message, take message, pass message off to LAME for MP3 compression and date-time stamp inserting into tag.)
I used to have problems with it picking up back when I was running RC5, but none since I stopped.
I keep meaning to make it more extensive, and eventually add in stuff like Home Automation links, but that's still in the Thinking-about-it stage.
Oh, and I'm using a Rockwell chipset modem, allegedly one of the worst for voice.
One minor problem - If the crippled disks are sold at such a price loss, what's to stop people from finding a way to use them as unencrypted storage? If people will practically drive NetPliance insane for a 80%(approx) price break, what will they do to make their 1000% cheaper disks work with regular players?
Oh, I forgot - The DMCA. [Grin!]
Here's to using personal greed to fight corporate greed!
Speaking as a person who spent most of last winter peddling through ice storms and snowdrifts to commute to work, I really don't think the elements are a big impediment. Get some decent winter gear and a pair of ski goggles.
The reason I haven't been riding much THIS year is because of the two-three foot high piles of iced snow on the roadsides. No place to go when one of those celphone-using, makeup applying 'drivers' dosen't bother to notice you.
And yes, I live in the Northren Midwest. We get lots of snow.
I saw something similar at Office Max last year, called a Thumbdrive - Their webpage says that it's Lose98-only, though they mentioned a Linux version a while back.
What's a simple way to keep one's PGP key on removable media?
CF is what I'm thinking of - I've got a TRGPro, and I'd like to keep my PGP key on it's CF card, to use on my desktop system with a SanDisk reader, but it should equally apply to this new toy.
I recently bought a Samsung Digimax35 MP3. Uses a CF card and propriatory interface to the camera. Aside from some odd naming and storage conventions (MP3 files in root, with MUSIC???.MP3, Pictures in/PIC recorded along with thumbnails? Why put thumbnails on a camera that has no preview window?, it seems to play well without the interface.:S YMMV.
You probably want to take a look at the Brass Cannon pages for information about a Solar recharging modification.
If you consider using the thin-film cells from Jade mountain, you can mount them on a standard 3Com/Palm flip lid, by using ring crimp-on connectors, positioned over the ears of the lid and the holes on your Pilot.
I'm sure that placing a stun-gun directly above the thing and firing it once or twice would probably do bad things to it as well. Hurt like hell, but not as bad as the ex-acto knife mentioned below...
>The recording industry and/or artists need to find a way to explain to people that through their actions,they are indeed stealing. Intellectual property has real value, and when it?s copied around with no compensation for the creator of that work, it?s value is decreased.
They're probably going to have a hard time doing that, at least with a straight face.
"See, when you take a song and deprive us and the artists of money, it's wrong. But when we use our distribution channels and expensive lawyers to take 95% of the money you pay for that song and use it to fund the system we use to catch new artists, that's right."
I realize that Joe Sixpack is a little dimmer than he used to be, but I can't see people falling for it.
Your PDA won't replicate the breathable air produced by the trees cut down to make 500,000 copies of this week's Harlequin Romance, either. And new trees planted won't replace the nutrients in the soil that were lost when those trees floated down the river.
No matter how much you like to indulge your Bibleophillic tendancies, there are other issues to consider than 'What I Want'. Important ones.
I agree that current reading technology isen't as enjoyable as it could be, but we've got to start somewhere.
I can't stand King, and I'm half tempted to pay my dollar just so this thing works.
>How about adding "hyperlinks" to the OS so that >I can insert a link to an address book record >into my diary, or to-do list, and vice versa. >Now *that* would be cool
You might want to take a look at Linker, which allows you to create hyperlinks to anything on your pilot that you can find with the SEARCH function. It's not perfect, but it's really neat.
VP_IDE: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 39 VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will http://www.linux-hacker.net/iopener/dmesg.txtprobe irqs later ide0: BM-DMA at 0xe000-0xe007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA hda: TOSHIBA MK2103MAV, ATA DISK drive hdb: SunDisk SDTB-128, ATA DISK drive ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14 hda: TOSHIBA MK2103MAV, 2067MB w/128kB Cache, CHS=525/128/63 hdb: SunDisk SDTB-128, 15MB w/1kB Cache, CHS=490/2/32
Also, if you take a look at the picture, you can see the connector above the chips. Top of the pic.
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Forms of nationwide public transportation:
Every time I start thinking the Tinfoil-hat-black-helicopter crowd is wrong, something like this happens.
You don't need your receipt, or box, or UPC. The date(Year?) of purchase and drive's serial number is sufficient.
Fill out this form online.
Note that, in order to get the rebate, your drive has to actually have done the Click-of-death as they describe it. Also note that they're not handing out rebates /yet/ - You're just putting your name in the queue to get one - You have to return at/around October 31st to actually get it.
Make sure you keep notes on your filing - Fulfillment companies are famous for 'accidentally' dropping stacks of requests into the trash.
What fits into 2mb of Palm Ram:
For a grand total of... 708.3k. Which leaves you 1339.7k for videogames and sleazy porn doc files from the ASSTR archives.
Please - feel free to speak at length on what you know and enrich us on those subjects, but you're way off base here.
I don't think that comparing the Agenda to the Pilot is very premature - Let's wait untill the shipping units are out before getting too gung ho?
OK, if I grasp what you're saying, it's that any Internet Appliance maker that tries to produce a system on a nonstandard OS is doomed from the start. /. crew took them to town, and rode them practically into bankruptcy.
You procede this by stating how NetPliance made all sorts of mistakes.
But their iOpeners ran on Pentium processors, using a preexsisting OS - QNX.
And the
(Note: I own a hacked iOpener! @wheee!)
So, any developer who uses nonstandard hardware will be crippled.
Any developer who uses standard hardware at a profit won't be able to compete with the eMachines crowd.
Any developer who uses standard hardware, subsidized down to appliance level will be drug under by the modification crowd.
I guess Net Appliances ARE dead.
I /strongly/ suggest that anybody who's thinking of buying one of these get on the Yahoo! Groups topics about them, esp. the development one. There are a LOT of 'Gotchas' about it.
Yeah, it's cheap, and it's nice-looking hardware, but know what you're getting into. I'm personally going to wait a few months to see if the bugs cook out.
Before you buy one, take a look at one that's been left out in one of the stores - All the ones that I've seen are blown apart, have broken keys, snapped hinges.
If you think you might EVER drop your keyboard/bookbag, you might want to look at the GoType keyboards, which are larger, but MUCH sturdier.
If you want to see people get all wet on the typing chair about this fraud du jour, you need to tune in on PalmStation. They've got a User Survey, and even several articles. I'm sure it's a total coincedence that this flood of 'information' happened at the same time as the Natalie Portman/Hot grits crowd dropped by in force, right?
You're kidding, right? The Phusion was out before Christmas. I recently saw them on clearance sale at a local megabox store for about $80.
If you can't find one, it's because you're looking in the wrong place. Try the toy department, not the PDA counter.
It seems to kind have flopped this christmas, so jump out and get one now if you want it.
Pictures from Amazon.com and VTech...
I've been using it for about three years now. It's worked fine for me, but I don't ask it to do much, and the system is low-load. (Answer phone with randomized message, take message, pass message off to LAME for MP3 compression and date-time stamp inserting into tag.)
I used to have problems with it picking up back when I was running RC5, but none since I stopped.
I keep meaning to make it more extensive, and eventually add in stuff like Home Automation links, but that's still in the Thinking-about-it stage.
Oh, and I'm using a Rockwell chipset modem, allegedly one of the worst for voice.
One minor problem - If the crippled disks are sold at such a price loss, what's to stop people from finding a way to use them as unencrypted storage? If people will practically drive NetPliance insane for a 80%(approx) price break, what will they do to make their 1000% cheaper disks work with regular players?
Oh, I forgot - The DMCA. [Grin!]
Here's to using personal greed to fight corporate greed!
Speaking as a person who spent most of last winter peddling through ice storms and snowdrifts to commute to work, I really don't think the elements are a big impediment. Get some decent winter gear and a pair of ski goggles.
The reason I haven't been riding much THIS year is because of the two-three foot high piles of iced snow on the roadsides. No place to go when one of those celphone-using, makeup applying 'drivers' dosen't bother to notice you.
And yes, I live in the Northren Midwest. We get lots of snow.
I saw something similar at Office Max last year, called a Thumbdrive - Their webpage says that it's Lose98-only, though they mentioned a Linux version a while back.
What's a simple way to keep one's PGP key on removable media?
CF is what I'm thinking of - I've got a TRGPro, and I'd like to keep my PGP key on it's CF card, to use on my desktop system with a SanDisk reader, but it should equally apply to this new toy.
Who buys a computer all at once?
I recently bought a Samsung Digimax35 MP3. Uses a CF card and propriatory interface to the camera. Aside from some odd naming and storage conventions (MP3 files in root, with MUSIC???.MP3, Pictures in /PIC recorded along with thumbnails? Why put thumbnails on a camera that has no preview window?, it seems to play well without the interface. :S YMMV.
Oh, and a quick look on Deja found Palmmate, which sells semi-translucent III cases, and matching flip-covers in six diffrent colors.
Gotcher back. :)
Try Palm Colors for solid-color and crystal cases for the Personal/Professional and III.
Or at least you can try them when they actually get around to shipping product. Or something. People have been waiting a while.
You probably want to take a look at the Brass Cannon pages for information about a Solar recharging modification.
If you consider using the thin-film cells from Jade mountain, you can mount them on a standard 3Com/Palm flip lid, by using ring crimp-on connectors, positioned over the ears of the lid and the holes on your Pilot.
I'm sure that placing a stun-gun directly above the thing and firing it once or twice would probably do bad things to it as well. Hurt like hell, but not as bad as the ex-acto knife mentioned below...
Have YOU metamoderated today?
They're probably going to have a hard time doing that, at least with a straight face.
"See, when you take a song and deprive us and the artists of money, it's wrong. But when we use our distribution channels and expensive lawyers to take 95% of the money you pay for that song and use it to fund the system we use to catch new artists, that's right."
I realize that Joe Sixpack is a little dimmer than he used to be, but I can't see people falling for it.
Your PDA won't replicate the breathable air produced by the trees cut down to make 500,000 copies of this week's Harlequin Romance, either. And new trees planted won't replace the nutrients in the soil that were lost when those trees floated down the river.
No matter how much you like to indulge your Bibleophillic tendancies, there are other issues to consider than 'What I Want'. Important ones.
I agree that current reading technology isen't as enjoyable as it could be, but we've got to start somewhere.
I can't stand King, and I'm half tempted to pay my dollar just so this thing works.
>I can insert a link to an address book record
>into my diary, or to-do list, and vice versa.
>Now *that* would be cool
You might want to take a look at Linker, which allows you to create hyperlinks to anything on your pilot that you can find with the SEARCH function. It's not perfect, but it's really neat.
I think they're both on the same controller.
From the website's DMESG output...
VP_IDE: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 39e irqs later
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will http://www.linux-hacker.net/iopener/dmesg.txtprob
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xe000-0xe007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
hda: TOSHIBA MK2103MAV, ATA DISK drive
hdb: SunDisk SDTB-128, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hda: TOSHIBA MK2103MAV, 2067MB w/128kB Cache, CHS=525/128/63
hdb: SunDisk SDTB-128, 15MB w/1kB Cache, CHS=490/2/32
Also, if you take a look at the picture, you can see the connector above the chips. Top of the pic.